March 17th, 2012 — 10:00 AM
The Capital — West Promenade & Canal District
Perspective: Kaiser Everhart
The morning air smelled of river moss, chimney charcoal, and fried dough.
I slipped out through the academy's western side gate at 9:45 AM, telling Elfie only that I had urgent, confidential business in the capital.
That was a technical lie. My urgent business was walking through the streets with my hands in my pockets, finding opportunities for free tap water, and doing absolutely nothing for the next 5 hours.
After the island test, being amazed by Nadia, and yesterday's 6-turn tribunal where Lucia's dreams were crushed, my brain needs some PEACE. I just wanted 1 day where nobody asked me to do anything.
I did wonder, briefly, if Elfie was currently tearing the dorms apart looking for me.
Before leaving, I had strategically placed a plate of 6 warm honey-apple buns on her desk with a note ordering her to go shopping with Leena. She was adorable when she pouted, but she had a terrifying habit of opening spatial portals whenever she couldn't find me for more than 40 minutes. If she inhaled those buns before noon, she'd probably just start crying and knocking on every door in the capital until she found me.
She'll survive for 1 morning. Or rather, hopefully the capital's municipal masonry would survive until evening.
I walked along the wide stone promenade flanking the central canal.
The capital was remarkably loud today. Word had already spread that the annual Spring Solstice Festival was only 2 weeks away, which meant every merchant, vagrant, and traveling circus within a 300-mile radius was currently cramming through the outer gates.
A massive contingent of registered adventurers from Celestine had arrived overnight. I watched them filter through the plaza like a parade of colorful walking hazards: heavy tanks encased in so much dented iron they had to crab-walk sideways to fit through bakery doors; sharp-eyed scouts in oiled leather testing bowstrings in alleys smelling of garlic; thieves wearing 6 different leather belts with no visible pants support; and robed mages carrying 7-foot cedar staves, looking very mystical right up until they used those staves to poke snoozing stray cats off the warm paving stones.
Across the cobblestone square, a gray-haired uncle in a patched wool coat sat on the dry marble rim of an ancient fountain, scattering barley to a flock of plump pigeons.
Those pigeons were the real masters of the capital's economy. Fat, arrogant freeloaders who looked at commoners with open disdain, running a daily protection racket for stale breadcrumbs while 2 street dogs trotted past their feet, too lazy in the morning sun to even bark.
People were just living. Arguing over copper exchange rates, haggling over vegetable prices, sweeping dust into the gutter.
It was glorious. And it was completely insane compared to the academy.
My original plan for The Asura Academy had been far too simple.
When I 1st enrolled, I mapped it out like a standard 3-tier food chain: Class A at the summit acting like golden demigods who rehearsed dramatic monologues in front of mirrors; Class B in the middle operating like ruthless corporate ladder-climbers whose idea of friendship was viewing others as 'tools'; and Class C at the bottom, an open-air asylum of debt-ridden delinquents and emotional psychos.
The 1st exam in the dungeon, the 2nd exam on the volcanic island, and yesterday's tribunal had exposed the messy truth: inside each of those 3 classes, hidden players were playing a completely separate game.
Lucas wasn't just an arrogant genius; his choices during our duel contained deliberate contradictions, like an actor hitting marks he didn't agree with. Victor Sterling didn't guess our island formations through divine inspiration—somebody fed him encrypted troop deployments from an active noble terminal. And then there was the anonymous ghost who had intercepted Lucia's messages, handed them to Kayla on a silver platter, and utilized my own custom emoji backdoor to pull it off.
There was a shadow game running beneath the exams.
Before the 3rd monthly exam rolled around, I didn't need to invent some flashy mastermind plan to crush everyone.
I needed to buy popcorn, sit in the rafters, and figure out who was pulling the strings. Who was deliberately suppressing their scores?Who was moving encrypted information between classes?Who was whispering in the leaders' ears?
My fingers brushed my left cheek.
A faint, tender throb lingered along the bone. Lucia had put her whole soul into that right punch before the proctors tackled her into the tiles. Elfie had spent nearly 20 minutes last night weeping into my sweater, channeling celestial healing light until 95% of the swelling dissolved into a pale, faint red mark. Unless somebody stood less than 2 feet away and stared intently at my jaw, they wouldn't even notice.
Still, it was a healthy reminder. In a room full of trapped animals, even the smallest rat will try to take an eye out before it gets thrown down the chute.
*
I turned off the main street and stepped into the quiet shade of the municipal park.
Weeping willows trailed long, pale green frills into the slow-moving canal. The water drifted past with a lazy gurgle, pushing soggy leaves against the timber sluice gates.
Sitting alone on a carved stone bench near the canal steps was Sophia.
She wasn't in her academy uniform. She had on a plain navy wool coat that looked 2 sizes too large, her boots pulled tight against the bench legs and her knees tucked into her chest. Her dark hair was bunched into an uneven knot, and her face was flushed and blotchy.
She looked entirely deflated. Stripped of the icy, aristocratic sneer she usually wore to class like armor, she looked like what she actually was: a miserable 14-year-old girl who had just watched her best friend get erased from her life.
I stopped 10 paces back on the gravel path, fully intending to turn around. I had zero desire to step on that landmine on my day off.
Sophia looked up.
Our eyes locked. The raw misery on her face instantly calcified into brittle, defensive venom. She scrambled to her feet so fast her coat hem snagged on the stone bench.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped, her voice cracked and scratchy. "Did you follow me?"
"I'm taking a walk," I said evenly. "Last time I checked this part was empire property, commoners are allowed to breathe the park air on Saturdays."
Sophia took 3 jerky steps toward me, her hands balled into tight fists inside her pockets. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? Did you come here to rub it in my face? To see if the stupid girl who stood up for a traitor is crying?"
"No," I said. "I was actually looking for a spot where nobody was shouting."
"Stop lying!" Her voice hitched sharply, startling a pair of mallards near the reeds. Sophia caught herself, biting her lower lip until it turned pale. "You set her up. You and Kayla. You orchestrate everything from behind that pathetic, sleepy act, and you baited Lucia until she snapped!"
I looked at her, deadpan. "Sophia, she literally sold our island attack routes to Victor Sterling for money and... you know. What did you want us to do, give her a student council badge?"
"She was terrified!" Sophia's voice shook, fresh tears spilling over her lower lashes despite her furious blinking. "Class B promised her family a merchant exemption in the Western March! Her father is drowning in loan debt, Kaiser! The bailiffs were going to seize their house by midsummer! She made a stupid, desperate mistake because she had no way out, and instead of giving her a chance... you all just threw her to expulsion."
She stopped 2 feet in front of me, glaring up into my eyes.
"When I was standing there... when I was begging anyone in that room to raise their hand... you didn't even react. You didn't yell. You didn't even look angry. You just stood there."
She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing with a jagged breath.
"Do you know what makes me sickest, Kaiser? You were right. I looked around that room and realized I was the only idiot standing. I was the only person who cared that she was a human being."
The canal breeze stirred the willow branches between us, carrying the smell of wet moss.
I kept my hands buried in my jacket pockets. "You were still right to stand."
Sophia froze, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes blinked rapidly, as if waiting for the sarcasm to land. "What?"
"Lucia committed treason against the class," I said, keeping my voice quiet and conversational. "The moment she signed her name on Victor's cipher, she betrayed us. But you were her friend. You loved her enough to stand beside her when 23 other people stared at their shoes. That wasn't smart, but it was right."
Sophia stared at me, her chest heaving beneath the heavy navy coat. She looked completely disarmed, struggling to reconcile my flat words with the monster she had built in her head.
Her chin trembled. "Would you have stood for her?"
"Not even once," I answered without 1 heartbeat of hesitation.
The fragile softening on her face instantly shattered. A fresh wave of furious, humiliated color washed across her cheeks.
"Of course you wouldn't," she choked out, wiping her face with a furious sweep of her sleeve. "Because you don't have a heart. You don't care about anyone! I don't care how brilliant Elfina secretly thinks you are. I don't care what Scarlet or Kayla sees in you. You're cold, you're arrogant, and you're disgusting. I will never like someone like you, Kaiser. Never!"
"That's probably a very healthy survival instinct. You should never put yourself through such torture to get to know me," I said mildly.
"Shut up!" she sobbed, lowering her head as she stormed past me on the gravel path, her boots kicking up dust. "Just stay away from me!"
Her hurried footsteps faded out toward the street, swallowed by the morning bustle.
I stood by the water for a minute, taking a slow, deep breath of the cold river air.
I didn't lose any sleep over cutting Lucia out. If I had to do it again to ensure Elfie stayed safe, I'd do it twice as fast with sharper scissors. But watching Sophia run away with tears streaming down her nose was a reminder of the academy's fundamental rule: even when your math is 100% flawless, somebody always gets ground into sawdust.
*
I drifted back toward the western market bridge, following the sweet, greasy aroma of roasting spices.
The festival market was in full swing now. Striped canvas stalls lined both sides of the canal road, selling brass tea strainers, wooden toys, spun honey, and fried meat.
Standing near a wooden cart piled high with used books, I spotted a pair of blonde twin braids that I could recognize from 50 yards away.
Scarlet Hearst was standing on her tiptoes, completely lost in a cardboard box labeled Pre-Owned Historical & Romantic Epics — 2 Coppers Each. She had on a thick, cream-colored knitted sweater that swallowed her hands, a green plaid skirt, and an enormous wool scarf wound 3 times around her neck. Tucked snugly under her left arm was a battered, 500-page paperback with a cracked spine; in her right hand, she clutched a steaming paper cup with a brown sleeve.
Her long, pointed elf ears were twitching like frantic antenna needles with every sentence she scanned.
I walked up behind her on silent boots, leaning over her shoulder to inspect the gilded title.
"Chapter 14?" I murmured directly into the air beside her left braid. "Is that the chapter where Lord Reginald promises to conquer the Northern Marches with 1 white rose, but stops once he sees the heroine?' "
Scarlet launched nearly 4 inches straight into the air.
"EEEEP!"
Her green eyes blew wide open like polished emeralds. Her elf ears shot straight up, rigid as spearheads, while her face detonated into a furious, incandescent crimson. In a blind panic, she shoved the book behind her back, pressing it so hard against her sweater I heard the cover crease.
"K-K-Kaiser?!" she squeaked, her voice jumping 2 octaves. "H-How long have you—I wasn't—this isn't trashy fiction! It's a serious academic retrospective on 14th-century courtly chivalry!"
"Right. Very academic," I nodded solemnly. "The author spent 4 pages describing the male lead's abs glistening in the moonlight while he brooded about his tragic childhood. I read that exact book many years ago."
Scarlet looked like she wanted the cobblestones to liquefy and swallow her into the sewers. Her ears drooped down until the tips pointed at her boots. "You... you actually read it?"
"The ending is tragic," I deadpanned. "He dies of a sinus infection in chapter 28 because he refused to wear a scarf in the rain."
"Don't ruin it!" she gasped, instinctively swatting my arm before she realized what she had done. Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes watering with mortification as she bowed at a 90-degree angle. "I-I'm sorry! I struck a classmate! I'm so sorry!"
I chuckled, waving a hand. "It's okay, Scarlet. What's in the cup? It smells really good."
Her mortification vanished instantly, replaced by that pure, radiant enthusiasm.
"It's double-thick dark chocolate with hazelnut cream!" she beamed, holding the cup up with both hands like a holy relic. "The vendor over there melts actual cocoa bricks into steamed milk! It's so rich you can barely drink it through the straw. Do you... do you want some?"
"I'm pretty sure drinking THAT early in the morning may make you fat," I observed.
"That's none of your business!" she protested, taking a tiny, ecstatic sip that left a distinct brown chocolate mustache on her upper lip.
Before she could hunt for a napkin, she noticed the butcher stall right behind her. Resting on a sheet of greaseproof parchment were 2 thick wooden skewers of grilled, paprika-crusted chicken belly, sizzling gently in the cool air.
She snatched 1 of the skewers and thrust it aggressively toward my chest. "Here. Eat."
I leaned back, holding up my palms. "Scarlet, no. That's your lunch."
"You haven't eaten breakfast! Probably!" She stepped closer, deploying that devastating half-elf puppy face. Her green eyes shimmered with innocence, her ears flattening back in sorrow.
"I bought 2 because the merchant had a discount. If you don't eat it, it'll get greasy and cold, and cold chicken fat is an insult to the pig! You're always skipping meals to buy bread for street kids. Just 1 bite. Please?"
She literally pushed the skewer against my lips, blowing softly on the crust to cool the spice.
I stared at her for 2 seconds. The chicken smelled smoky, salty, and utterly irresistible.
I sighed, defeated. "Just half."
I took a bite. The chicken crackled on the outside, burst with savory juice on the inside, and carried a sharp kick of crushed garlic and chili oil. It was, without exaggeration, the single greatest piece of meat I had eaten in 4 days.
"Good, right?" Scarlet cheered, her ears fluttering upright with triumphant delight.
Then her gaze flicked to my left jaw.
Standing less than a foot away, the midday sunlight hit the pale red mark where Lucia's knuckle had connected yesterday.
Scarlet's smile evaporated. Her green eyes filled with sudden, tender distress. "Kaiser... your cheek."
"It's nothing. A bug bite."
"Bug bites don't look that big," she whispered softly. "I saw Lucia swing at you yesterday. You stood there and let her hit you!"
Before I could change the subject, Scarlet's slender fingers rose toward my face. A soft, icy mist of pale blue water-mana began condensing at her fingertips, reaching out to numb the bruised tissue.
I gently caught her wrist, holding her hand an inch from my cheek.
"Don't waste it," I said quietly. "Elfie already poured half her mana pool into this last night. The swelling is completely gone. Don't waste your mana over a scratch."
Scarlet looked down at my hand encircling her wrist. Her pulse was ticking like a tiny clock against my palm, but she made zero effort to pull away.
"You always do that," she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the festival chatter. "You take care of everyone else, and then you treat yourself like an afterthought."
"I treat myself amazing, Scarlet. I don't need emotional pampering, I just need tap-water and occasionally grilled chicken." I let go of her wrist, took the remaining half of the skewer from her paper wrapper, and tossed the empty wooden stick into a refuse bin. "Walk with me before the merchant thinks we're loitering."
We walked along the stone canal wall, the spring sun warming our shoulders.
For 10 minutes, the conversation stayed light. We laughed about gossip, and how Instructor Aisha had threatened to tie Axel to a training dummy if he didn't stop beatboxing during morning roll call.
As the market thinned out into the residential sector, Scarlet grew contemplative. She kicked a loose pebble along the curb, watching it bounce into the weeds.
"Kaiser?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you something stupid?"
"You're carrying a book where its adult dark romance. The ceiling for stupid is already very high."
Scarlet flushed, but kept her eyes on her boots. "What's your dream? Like... after Asura Academy. When we don't have to fight for points anymore."
"A small house under an old bridge. Free pure water from an aqueduct pipe, a secondhand writing desk, 3 hot meals a day, and a library within walking distance where nobody tries to challenge me to an elemental duel or assassinate my roommate."
Scarlet let out a breathless, silvery giggle. "That is the most un-ambitious dream I have ever heard in my entire life."
"Peace is the rarest luxury in this empire, Scarlet. Rich idiots fight wars so their kids can have the privilege of being bored. I'm just cutting out the middleman." I glanced at her. "What about you?"
Her laughter faded. She stopped near the stone balustrade, looking past the canal toward the soaring white spires of the Royal Citadel.
"Sometimes..." she began, her fingers tightening around her paper cup, "I wonder what it would feel like to be Queen."
She paused, biting her lip in acute embarrassment, waiting for me to scoff.
"I know it's a joke," she rushed to add, her voice small and unsteady. "I'm a Class C half-elf. In the elvian kingdom, the full-blooded elders wouldn't even let my mother enter the prayer circles because she was an half-elf. They called our blood disgusting. They called me a mistake. Even at the academy, people look at my shorter ears and assume I'm inferior. An Elvian Queen has to be a pure-blood sovereign with ancestral bloodlines and immaculate lineage. It's just... a ridiculous childhood fantasy."
I stopped beside her, leaning my elbows against the stone ledge.
"You could," I said.
Scarlet went rigid. She turned her head, her green eyes wide and bewildered. "What?"
"You could be Queen," I repeated, completely deadpan.
"Kaiser, please don't mock me—"
"I don't mock hardwork, Scarlet." I looked her dead in the eyes. "In the 1st exam, you couldn't freeze a puddle without passing out from mana exhaustion. So what did you do? You went to the lake every single night for 3 weeks until you ran out of mana, and then did your best to support the class. You work harder after failing than the aristocrats in Class A work after winning."
Scarlet's lips parted. Her breath caught in her chest, her emerald eyes shimmering with something dangerously close to awe.
"Besides," I added with a faint grin, "you just fed me a top-tier chicken skewer. I always settle my debts. If you actually want the Elvian throne, maybe 1 day I'll help you get rid of the competition 1 by 1 until the council has no choice but to coronate you out of sheer lack of alternatives."
A brilliant, radiant crimson exploded across Scarlet's cheeks, rushing straight to the tips of her ears. Her elf ears fluttered wildly, trembling with pure, unadulterated happiness.
"You... you would really do that?" she whispered, a daring, breathless smile tugging at her mouth. "And... how would you treat me if I actually became Queen?"
Maybe I should demonstrate it.
I took a step back and dropped smoothly onto 1 knee right in the middle of the stone walkway.
I reached out, took her small, right hand in mine, brought her knuckles up to my face, and lightly brushed my lips against the back of her fingers.
"Whatever my Queen commands." I said in a deep, loyal cadence.
Scarlet's entire nervous system suffered a catastrophic short-circuit.
Her face didn't just turn red—it turned incandescent. Actual heat seemed to radiate from her woolen collar. Her eyes widened into glowing saucers, her knees turning to wet paper as she staggered back a half-step. She pulled her hand to her chest like she had touched fire, her jaw opening and closing in complete, soundless paralysis.
Across the road, an old fruit vendor stopped mid-peel, staring at us in utter confusion.
"I—you—K-Kaiser—the—the street—people are—" she squeaked, her voice vibrating at a frequency only dogs could hear as she jammed her romance novel against her chest like an enchanted breastplate.
I stood up calmly, dusting off the knee of my trousers with a relaxed smirk. "Finish your chocolate, Scarlet. It's getting lukewarm."
She couldn't speak. She just nodded with frantic, mechanical jerks of her head, her twin braids whipping around her cheeks as she backed down the canal path, tripped over her own boots twice, and then sprinted toward the bookstore quarter like a startled gazelle.
I watched her vanish around the corner, shaking my head with a quiet chuckle.
At least 1 person in Class C was having a genuinely good weekend.
*
I checked the position of the sun. It was just past 1:15 PM.
Leaving the canal behind, I made my way into the upper commercial quarter behind the Grand Market. I slipped down an arched brick alleyway, eventually ducking through the secluded garden gate of a 3-story boutique tea house.
A narrow wrought-iron spiral staircase curved up the red-brick facade, leading to an open rooftop terrace draped in trailing ivy and potted dwarf cypress.
I climbed the metal steps without making a sound.
Sitting at the furthest wrought-iron table beneath an amber canvas awning was a slender figure wrapped in an oversized dark-brown travel cloak. The cowl was pulled low over her brow, concealing her radiant golden hair beneath an illusion charm that made it look flat and dark.
Princess Rose Valentine. Or, as the street knew her in this disguise: Priscilla.
The moment my boots touched the wooden decking, Rose went rigid. Those piercing, unmistakable blue eyes locked onto mine from the shadows of her hood.
She didn't bother with greetings. She stood up so abruptly her porcelain teacup clattered in its saucer, crossing the terrace in 4 long, furious strides.
"You almost got expelled!" she hissed, her voice a sharp, suffocated rasp.
Before I could open my mouth, her gloved hands grabbed the lapels of my canvas jacket, pulling me forward. She checked my collar, my shoulders, and my ribs with the frantic, overbearing ferocity of an older sister who had just caught her little brother playing in traffic.
"Good afternoon to you too, Rose," I murmured dryly.
"Do not 'Rose' me!" Her grip tightened, her polished royal composure completely incinerated. "Do you have any concept of what the intelligence reports from Class C looked like?! A 6-turn tribunal! A class-wide vote for execution! You targetted so much!"
"Uhhh it was a close fight."
"You allowed them to put your name on the vote several times!" she snarled, her eyes blazing with a mixture of terror and unbridled fury. "You sat there like an idiot and let that pathetic traitor drag you into the mud while you played the martyr! Why didn't you tell me beforehand! I could have spoken to them! I could have helped—"
She stopped dead.
Her gaze snagged on my left jawline.
At this distance, the faint, pale red shadow from Lucia's punch was impossible to miss.
The anger in Rose's posture vanished, replaced instantly by something so cold and predatory that the hair on my arms stood on end. The ambient air on the rooftop seemed to drop by 10 degrees.
"Who hit you?" she asked. Her voice wasn't loud. It was a flat, lethal whisper that belonged in an imperial execution chamber.
"It's just a mark—"
"Who. Hit. You?" Her slender fingers rose, hovering millimeters over the skin, trembling with pure, incandescent violence. "Was it the traitor? Was it Lucia?"
"She's already expelled, Rose."
"I don't care," Rose whispered, her jaw tightening with venom. "What is her family's house name? I will have the Imperial Ministry strip them of all their titles and riches by nightfall. I will revoke their trade charters. I will have their ancestral estate—"
"Rosie, stop," I said, keeping my tone firm.
She flinched at the nickname, the murderous glaze in her eyes faltering for an instant.
I reached up, took her wrists, and peeled her grip off my jacket. "Lucia gambled her entire life on a pathetic bribe and lost everything. Her family is already ruined, and she's currently sitting in the back of a common carriage leaving the province in tears. If the Crown Princess starts using imperial decrees to obliterate an already-expelled commoner noble, people are going to ask why you care so much about a Class C deadweight."
Rose bit her lip, her chest rising and falling beneath the heavy travel cloak. "I care because you are my brother! You are my only brother, Kaiser! You bleed in secret, you starve in secret, and then you expect me to sit in Class A and smile like a stranger while people take swings at your face?!"
Her voice cracked on the final word, a rare, raw fracture in her imperial armor.
A familiar ache tightened in my chest. I looked at her—this terrifying, brilliant girl who carried the weight of the entire empire on her shoulders, who was my twin, and the only 1 who truly knew me—and let out a quiet sigh.
"I'm not starving," I offered, trying to drag the gravity back to earth. "Scarlet just fed me half a spiced chicken skewer."
Rose's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "A skewer? From a street cart?"
Wrong move.
"You have been eating street garbage again," she declared, her tone pivoting violently from homicidal rage to tyrannical maternal dictatorship. She seized my sleeve in an iron grip and dragged me toward the terrace cafe counter. "Sit. Right there. Do not twitch."
I dropped into a plush wicker chair, watching in mild alarm as Rose slammed 4 solid gold coins onto the polished marble counter before the flustered barista could even finish bowing.
"2 slices of the candied cloudberry tart," Rose commanded with terrifying imperial authority. "The honey-glazed brioche, the roasted hazelnut mousse, and a pot of 1st-harvest Elvian white tea. Double cream. Do not make me wait."
"Rose," I hissed through my teeth as she marched back to the table carrying the loaded silver tray, "4 gold?! 4?! Do you comprehend the purchasing power of 4 gold coins?! That is 80,000 pounds of russet potatoes! That is 120,000 loaves of crusty rye! I could start a business under a bridge with that kind of wealth!"
Rose set the tray down with a crisp, aristocratic clatter. She picked up a delicate silver pastry fork, carved off a massive chunk of cloudberry tart glistening with real gold leaf, and shoved it directly toward my nose.
"Eat," she commanded, a triumphant, imperious smirk curving her lips.
"This is threating—"
"It is royal order, brother. Open your mouth before I use my powers to force-feed you for acting so rebellious."
I glared at her for 3 stubborn seconds before giving up, opening my mouth, and taking the bite.
The tart was offensively, ridiculously sublime. The cream was lighter than a cloud, the berries were sharp and sweet, and the butter crust melted on my tongue like spun sugar. A deep, involuntary groan of defeat escaped my throat.
Rose watched me chew, her smug superiority melting into a soft, glowing warmth. She rested her chin in her palm, her blue eyes shimmering with pure, affectionate peace.
"You look much better when you aren't trying to win," she murmured.
"I'm happy because this food costs more than my entire yearly allowance," I mumbled around another bite of warm brioche.
"Then eat every single crumb," she smiled, pouring the fragrant white tea into my cup with practiced grace. "And promise me something, brother."
I paused, looking at her over the rim of the porcelain.
"Next time," Rose said, her voice dropping into quiet, unbreakable seriousness, "if someone tries to hurt you, tell me. You don't have to win alone everytime. You have a sister."
The amber afternoon sun slanted across the rooftop, painting the ivy and bricks in warm gold.
I looked at the girl sitting across from me, feeling that cold, solitary knot in my chest loosen just a fraction.
"I know," I said softly. "I won't forget."
We finished the pastries in easy, companionable silence, watching the long shadows stretch across the capital's spires.
As Rose pulled her hood low to begin her careful journey back to Class A's quarters, I stood by the terrace balustrade, feeling the cool evening breeze roll in from the river.
Phase 1 of my peaceful day off was officially over.
Now, as the sky bruised into deep twilight, it was time for my night job.
And unfortunately, that job involved bottles.
*
Night fell over the capital like a damp wool blanket.
Leaving the bright streets behind, I headed down the broken stone stairs that led into the Sunken Wharf. This was the belly of the city—a maze of crooked wooden shacks, rusted tin roofs, and muddy alleys tucked beneath the giant arches of the imperial aqueduct.
The slums.
The smell of dirty river water, old grease, and wet smoke hung thick in the cold fog.
The moment my shoes hit the mud of the central courtyard, the whole alley went dead quiet.
Shadows huddled under wet rags and moldy awnings went stiff. Heads turned. Eyes went wide in the yellow flicker of kerosene lanterns.
"It's him," someone whispered.
A skinny man with half a beard scrambled up from the dirt, knocking over an empty crate. "He's back..." he gasped, his voice shaking like he was witnessing a miracle. "The Savior has returned!"
"Lord Kaiser!" a woman cried out, throwing her hands up into the drizzle. "He has descended back to us! Back to the commoners of the mud!"
A circle of 20 broke, starving slum dwellers stood at complete attention, staring at my 12-year-old self like an angel had dropped down to pull them out of the dirt.
I raised 1 hand, calm and merciful.
"Do not despair, my people," I said, letting my voice carry through the mist. "Gather round. Tonight, we feast."
A collective gasp of holy awe swept through the courtyard. People clutched their chests. A grown man wiped tears from his dirty cheeks with both hands.
What followed was the most ridiculous, deadpan survival cooking the Asura Empire had ever seen.
I reached into my canvas bag and set out my kitchen: 1 empty soda can, a pair of rusty wire snips, and a 2-inch candle.
I set the candle on an upturned wooden crate, struck flint, and lit the wick. With the snips, I propped a 4-inch square of scrap sheet metal over the tiny flame. I tipped my oil tin, letting exactly 3 drops hit the warm iron with a faint, heroic sizzle.
Then came the miracle: 1 single chicken egg.
I cracked it onto the hot tin.
The whole alley held its breath. 20 grown adults leaned in, eyes shining, watching 1 candle stubbornly cook 1 egg white. Nobody coughed. Nobody dared breathe.
As the tiny edge of the egg began to bubble over the candle, I looked up at the circle of shivering, hollow-cheeked people with calm, serene grace.
"Remember, my people," I said, voice ringing through the cold mist. "We must always be grateful to God for everything we have received. For every drop of water, every scrap of warmth, and every gutter that keeps us safe."
The crowd clasped their hands, murmuring in devout agreement.
I tapped the wooden crate with the wire snips, keeping a slow, rhythmic beat. Then, as the egg white sizzled, I began to sing:
"♪ God, thank You for the sunshine... thank You for the rain... ♪"
The alley went still. The residents blinked through their tears, captivated.
"♪ Thank You for the joy... thank You for the pain... ♪"
I lifted the razor blade, easing the edges of the egg off the scrap tin.
"♪ Beautiful day... yeahhh, it's a beautiful day... ♪"
1 old man began to clap his calloused hands in time with my wire snips. A woman in a torn shawl swayed gently, humming along.
"Sing with me!" I called out, gesturing with my 1-pronged fork.
I raised my voice, letting it echo off the ancient stone aqueduct:
"♪ We might be homeless, but we have a big heart! ♪"
"♪ TODAY WE'RE GONNA FEAST! ♪" the crowd roared back, clapping wildly.
"♪ Aye, aye, aye, aye! ♪" I sang.
"♪ AYE, AYE, AYE, AYE! ♪" 20 homeless slum-dwellers belted out at the top of their lungs, cheering, clapping, and stomping their boots in the mud. "♪ WE'RE GONNA FEAST! ♪"
A stray dog barked in rhythm. 2 men were openly weeping as they clapped, caught in the holy, joyous spirit of candle-cooked protein.
With the crowd cheering and clapping around the altar, I pulled out an old razor blade, cutting the fried egg into 4 clean little pieces with steady hands.
I laid them onto cabbage leaves and held them out like sacred gifts.
"Take and eat," I said solemnly. "Let this give you strength. Savor every bite."
4 old men took the leaves with shaking hands, crying softly as the food touched their tongues.
"Bless you, Lord Kaiser..." 1 of them wept. "It tastes like heaven..."
Next came the hot water. I cut the top off another soda can, filled it with clean water from my flask, and set it directly over the candle. Faint steam rose after 4 minutes. The crowd gasped in wonder. Seeing the divine path, 6 other men immediately pulled dented soda cans from their rags, filled them with ditch water, and set them over their own candles, copying my every move like disciples following a prophet.
I pulled out my prized dining fork—a brass fork with only the middle prong left—and stirred a spoonful of dried chicory grounds into the hot water.
Then I reached into my bag and pulled out 3 small, bright red tomatoes.
A collective gasp went up. Fresh fruit in the Sunken Wharf was like seeing gold fall from the sky.
I held up the razor blade, shaved 1 paper-thin slice from each tomato, and set the slices down. Then came the secret: I dabbed a bit of starch paste along the cuts, pressed the tomato halves back together, and lowered them into a jar of salted water.
"Do not waste what can be saved," I told them deadpan. "In the water, it heals. Tomorrow, it feeds us again."
They stared at the jar like it held the secret to eternal life.
Then came the bread. Where did I get the bread?
A flutter of gray wings rustled in the fog above.
A fat pigeon dropped down from the aqueduct arch, landed square on my shoulder, and dropped a 3-inch chunk of sourdough crust right into my hand.
2 more pigeons swooped down, literally throwing pieces of rye bread into my lap.
The pigeons from this morning's promenade were paying their street taxes directly to bro.
Before the crowd could even blink, a line of sewer rats scurried out of a drainage pipe. Walking with the dignity of royal butlers, they laid discarded slices of ripe papaya, bruised bananas, and wild fruit rinds at my feet, bowed their whiskers, and melted back into the dark.
A stray monkey swinging from an old laundry line leaned down and handed me a clean yellow banana.
I peeled it with calm dignity. "Even the beasts know who feeds this ditch."
A ragged little boy wearing an oversized flour sack walked up, tugging my sleeve with big, watery eyes.
"Lord Kaiser..." the boy sniffed, "why don't we cook with fire or electricity?"
I leaned down, placing a solemn hand on his messy hair. "We save fire for the cold, and electricity for a brighter idea."
The boy burst into tears, burying his face in his hands. "If I weren't an orphan, I would adopt you right now!"
The economic reality of my life was getting completely out of hand:
Bro was so broke he couldn't even afford free samples.
Pigeons threw bread at bro. Ducks swam up the ditch to toss crusts at bro.
The slum landlord came by every week to pay my rent, terrified that if I left, the neighborhood property value would drop into the negatives.
Local charities kept trying to set up donation booths for bro.
Even a line of worker ants marched across the crate, carrying grains of brown sugar and salt to drop on my cabbage leaf out of sheer pity.
The local mosquitoes were so depressed by my diet they landed on my arm, looked at my pale skin, and tried to give me their blood.
Bro had so much debt that the debt had its own debt. Bro was surviving purely on hope and photosynthesis. Somewhere in the golden towers uptown, billionaires sat around warm fireplaces telling ghost stories about my wealth.
Bro was so poor he couldn't even pay attention.
For the hot soup, I heated canal water inside a puddle hole using an old charcoal clothes iron.
For dessert, I took a sheet of brown paper, wrote the word LAYS across the front with a pencil, stuffed fried potato peelings inside, and folded the top. I ripped the seam open with a loud crinkle, giving everyone the royal luxury of smelling the air from a freshly opened chip bag.
I looked at the people around the crate. "Did everyone eat?"
Tears poured down their faces. They held their warm cans to their chests like holy relics. "It was a banquet, Lord Kaiser... an absolute miracle..."
I nodded, stepping back into business mode. "Good. Where are the bottles?"
The bearded man wiped his nose and pointed toward the aqueduct culvert. "By the iron gate, Lord Kaiser. 4 bags, sorted and cleaned."
I walked over to the shadows beneath the stone arch. Collecting bottles was my real side hustle. I had the slum network gather discarded glass from tavern alleys across the upper city, sorted it, and traded it to alchemists for copper.
I was basically picking through the scraps of the poor because, on paper, I was poorer than all of them put together.
I hoisted the 1st sack onto my shoulder. Glass clinked softly inside the rough burlap.
Sitting alone in the corner of the dark culvert, resting on an old wooden crate, was a man.
He hadn't joined the crowd. He was wrapped in a heavy, weathered dark coat, his face completely buried beneath a deep cowl.
Resting on his knee was a chicken-and-cabbage sandwich that I had wrapped in paper and left on the crate an hour ago.
The stranger lifted the sandwich, took 1 slow bite, and stopped.
He froze mid-chew.
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the bread, staring down at it with pure, heartbroken betrayal.
"I remember this tasting a lot better, Kaiser."
The heavy sack of glass bottles slipped off my shoulder, hitting the mud with a dull clatter.
I didn't move. My eyes locked onto him.
The way he held the sandwich with his index finger flat along the crust to keep the cabbage from falling out. The way he turned the bread after the 1st bite to check the inside. The lazy way his left hand rested against his hip, ready to move in a heartbeat. The completely flat, dry voice that delivered disrespect without a trace of emotion.
The stranger reached up with scarred, gloved fingers and pulled back his cowl.
I stared.
He was noticeably taller—easily 6 feet—with broad, heavy shoulders under that dark duster coat. A faint, jagged pale scar cut across the left side of his collarbone, half-hidden beneath a high dark collar. But the messy black hair, the pale skin, and those calm, sharp light-blue eyes were identical to mine.
It was like looking into a mirror that had aged 14 years.
"What the hell?" I muttered.
The older version of me chewed that mouthful of dry chicken with visible pain, finally choking it down with a wince.
"Sit down," he said, pointing toward an empty wooden crate across from him. "My back hurts from jumping through time, and you're making me crane my neck."
I stayed right where I was, my fingers resting lightly against the copper wire coil at my belt.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"26," he replied smoothly.
"Future me?"
"Unfortunately."
There was no magic shimmer on him, no fake illusion. The air around him just felt strangely heavy, like gravity was pressing down harder wherever he sat.
I stepped forward and sat on the crate.
"Are you still broke?" I asked 1st.
Future Kaiser let out a short, hollow laugh. "Worse than you. I don't have a single penny to my name."
My jaw dropped in horror. "What?! How?!"
"Because my wives are filthy rich," he answered, completely unbothered.
I blinked, trying to process the sentence. "Wives? Plural? Don't tell me you live off your wives' money?!"
He looked at me like I was an idiot. "Of course I do. You'd do the exact same thing if someone rich paid for your meals."
I paused, thought about the boiled cabbage and stolen bread, and nodded solemnly. "Yeah. Obviously."
Then my brain caught up with the situation.
"Wait," I said, narrowing my eyes. "This makes no sense. You being here is a disaster. If you sit here talking to me, you're changing the choices that made you. That ruins your future. It's an impossible loop."
Future Kaiser leaned his head back against the cold brick wall, tossing the dry sandwich onto the paper.
"Relax, kid," he sighed, tapping his temple. "Time doesn't break that easily. In my memory of tonight, I was supposed to sit on this crate and listen to an old drunk named Barnaby ramble about scrap copper for 20 minutes. But 2 hours ago, I found Barnaby outside the tavern, gave him 3 copper coins, and told him to go drink himself to sleep down the street. I took his seat. Whatever dumb conversation you were supposed to have with Barnaby, you would have forgotten by tomorrow morning anyway. The world keeps moving the exact same way."
I frowned. "I'm not going to forget talking to my 26-year-old self."
"Which is why you take this," he said.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, round, chalk-white tablet. It looked identical to a cheap Napa pill. He flicked it across the crate, sliding it right to my fingers.
"Melt it under your tongue before you go to sleep tonight," he said plainly. "It wipes out the last 5 hours of memory like they never happened. When I was 12, I always had a 5-hour blank spot on this night between sundown and midnight. I'm not changing the past, kid. I'm just making sure the hole is there."
I picked up the little white pill. The logic held up.
Future Kaiser picked up the sandwich again, tried another bite, and instantly gagged. He turned his head and spat a piece of gray chicken skin into the muddy gutter.
"God, this is awful," he wheezed, wiping his mouth with his glove. "What did you season this with, ants and pigeon crums?"
"It's chicken and cabbage!" I snapped. "People in this alley would kill for that!"
"My wives cook way better than this trash," he muttered, tossing the rest of the sandwich into the bottle sack.
That word caught in my ear again.
"Hold on," I said, pointing straight at his chest. "You said 'wives.' Again. No way. I would never marry more than 1 girl. That's cheating on them! That's messed up!"
Future Kaiser looked at me with pure, exhausted pity.
"You think I wanted that?" he scoffed. "You think I woke up 1 day and said, 'Let me marry multiple terrifying women who can each blow this planet'? I didn't want it either. But they wanted me so bad they would have started a war if I didn't pick them."
My mouth fell open. "What?! I'm supposed to be smarter than that! Why didn't you just run away?!"
"Run away?" He laughed, dry and bitter. "They're monsters, kid. 1 of them tracks people across empty space, another commands entire armies, and the 3rd can hear my heartbeat from spaces away. You couldn't escape them even if you tried."
I dropped my face into my hands, groaning in pure misery. "My life is cooked. I'm completely done for."
"It gets worse," Future Kaiser said casually. "There are 3 official wives. Technically 5."
I jerked my head up. "What does 'technically 5' mean?!"
"We don't count 2."
"WHY WOULD WE NOT COUNT 2 WIVES?!" I yelled, making a stray cat jump. "Are they part-time?! Are they on vacation?!"
He just shrugged. He didn't explain a single thing.
Then the joke died.
It didn't fade out slowly. It vanished all at once.
The damp alleyway suddenly turned cold and suffocating. The tired smirk fell off his face, replaced by an expression so heavy and hollow that the breath caught in my throat.
Those light-blue eyes looked down at me—not like he was looking at his younger self, but like he was staring at someone already marked for the grave.
"Listen to me, Kaiser," he said, his voice dropping into a flat, quiet whisper that sent a chill straight down my spine. "There's only hell waiting for you ahead. You won't be happy. You're going to lose everyone. Everyone you've ever cared about."
A cold knot tightened behind my ribs.
I narrowed my eyes, sitting up straight. "What happens?"
Future Kaiser leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. Every name came out like a stone dropped into deep water:
"You're going to lose Avera. Levi. Axel. Rose. Cartethyia."
Those names.. some I recognized some I didn't. I kept my face blank, but my fingers dug into the rough wood beneath me.
"Then you're going to lose your best friend Lucas," he went on, staring right into my eyes. "And Celia."
"...Who is Celia?" I asked quietly.
Future Kaiser didn't answer. He just shook his head, the darkness in his face getting deeper and darker.
"And in the end..." his voice caught, rough and unsteady, "you're going to lose Elfie. She's going to be hanged in front of the capital gates. And you'll be standing in the crowd, completely useless, watching her die while you do nothing. That's the ending the world decided for her."
The alleyway went dead quiet. Even the water dripping from the stones sounded like it stopped.
Future Kaiser leaned in close, his face inches from mine, his words sharp and merciless:
"Look at yourself, Kaiser. You have no talent. You have no magic. You have zero potential. You're just a nobody pretending to be a genius. You can't save her. You're the worst person she could ever have beside her. Pack your bag tonight and leave tomorrow morning. Leave Class C. Leave the academy. Save your own life and run. That's the only future where you survive."
He waited.
I sat there in the dark, staring back at the face I was supposed to grow into.
I heard every word. I watched his fingers, the twitch in his jaw, the slight crack in his voice.
Then I let out a slow, steady breath.
"I agree with almost everything you just said," I said calmly.
Future Kaiser raised an eyebrow.
"I agree I don't have talent," I told him, looking him right in the eyes. "I agree I don't have magic. I agree I'm a stray digging for scraps in the dirt. But I will never turn my back on the people I care about. Not today, not tomorrow, and not in 14 years. And more than that... you're lying."
He went still.
"The Kaiser I'm going to become," I said, voice cold and steady, "doesn't quit early... ever. You came all the way back through time just to tell me to run like a coward? If running actually fixed anything, you wouldn't be sitting in the mud eating my terrible food. You'd be living the good life somewhere far away. You're lying to me."
For 5 long seconds, neither of us said a word.
Then, slowly, the hard look on his face broke.
A quiet, exhausted chuckle slipped past his lips. He shook his head, running a hand through his dark hair.
"Fair enough," he murmured. "There were some lies in there."
"Tell me 1 truth, then," I said.
"Ask."
I leaned forward, completely serious: "Tell me honestly... I don't actually have 3 wives, right? That was 1 of the lies."
Future Kaiser stared at me with pure, deadpan honesty. "No. That part is 100% true."
I slapped both hands over my face, groaning into my palms with all my might.
"NO!" I groaned. "My life is completely ruined! How could I do this to myself?! Why would I ever do that?!"
Future Kaiser grinned—that same irritating smirk I gave people when I knew something they didn't. "Told you. You're not getting away from them."
I dropped my hands, glaring at him. "Fine. What are their names?"
"You're going to forget in an hour anyway," he said, leaning back. "Their names are Avera, Celia, and Elfie."
I stopped.
My breath caught. My eyes went wide.
"...Wait," I whispered, my voice shaking for the 1st time all night. "I... I get married to Elfie?!"
Future Kaiser looked at me softly, a quiet, gentle warmth touching his blue eyes. "Yeah. Happy ending, right?"
A huge grin broke across my face. I pumped my fist under the crate. "Yo, my bad, OG! You might actually be a genius after all! I take back everything I said! But wait... if you married Elfie, why didn't you just marry her alone?!"
His smile faded a little, replaced by that distant, quiet shadow. "Nah, man. You don't know the future I know."
He tapped the little white pill on the wood. "Take the pill before you sleep, kid. Don't make me come back here twice."
Before I could answer, running footsteps splashed through the mud at the end of the alleyway.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
A breathless, high, frantic voice cried out against the brick:
"KAI—?!"
Future Kaiser froze.
His hand stopped on his knee. His breath died in his throat.
Slowly, with an intensity that felt like a prayer, he turned his head toward the mouth of the alley.
*
The wet mud at the mouth of the alleyway splashed violently.
A small, breathless figure burst around the brick corner, stumbling into the dim lantern light. Her pink hair was plastered to her forehead with rain, her oversized wool cardigan soaked through at the cuffs, and her huge violet eyes were brimming with genuine, terrified tears.
"KAI!"
Elfie threw herself forward, slamming directly into my chest with enough momentum to knock the wind out of my lungs. Her small arms wrapped around my neck, burying her face into the damp collar of my jacket.
"You jerk!" she sobbed, her voice trembling and breathless against my throat. "You said you were busy! You didn't say you were sneaking off to the bad part of the city all day! I waited for you at home! It got dark, and the streetlights turned on, and you weren't there, and—and I couldn't find you anywhere!"
I stood there in the muddy alley, blinking down at the shaking ball of pink cotton clinging to my ribs.
I raised both hands and gently patted her back with calm, steady strokes.
"I didn't disappear, Elfie," I told her soothingly. "I was working."
"Working on what?!" she cried, pulling back just far enough to glare at me with red, watery eyes and puffed cheeks. "You have mud around your clothes and you smell like the gutter! You're not supposed to leave my side like that! Don't you ever do that again!"
I can't really tell her I was looting the homeless...
"All right," I said, wiping a streak of rain and tears from her cheek with the corner of my sleeve. "I won't."
Elfie sniffled loudly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She took a step back, her lower lip trembling, before her gaze finally drifted past my shoulder toward the overturned crates by the aqueduct wall.
She stopped.
Her sniffles cut off completely.
Sitting in the deep shadows, watching her with unblinking, reverent intensity, was the tall hooded man.
Elfie tilted her head, her violet eyes widening in pure, childish recognition.
"Wait..." she whispered. "...It's you, mister!"
I froze.
My eyes snapped from Elfie to Future Kaiser, and then back to Elfie.
She knows him?! Me?! Future?!
"Elfie," I asked slowly, my voice dropping into deadpan suspicion, "what do you mean, 'it's you'?"
Elfie pointed a finger straight at the tall man. "I know him! Remember back when I got lost, Kai? Really far away from the orphanage, before you found me in the woods? He was the person who held my hand and carried me all the way back to the road before you arrived!"
The breath completely locked in my chest.
Back when we were children, Elfie had vanished from the orphanage grounds during a sudden cult raid. I had spent 3 sleepless days tracking the blood trail, eventually finding her sitting safely on a wooden fence post near the highway while half the cult's members lay slaughtered in a ditch 4 miles away.
The imperial guards had claimed an unknown wandering mercenary had cleared the woods.
I turned my head toward the older Kaiser.
Adult Kaiser didn't look away. A faint, unreadable smirk touched the corner of his lips.
Some of my own past was already altered by him.
He hadn't just time-traveled tonight. He had intervened years ago, protecting her in moments where my 8-year-old self simply hadn't possessed the power, the reach, or the time to reach her before blood was spilled.
He altered some of the past that would've involved me doing the same... But why?
Adult Kaiser leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his light-blue eyes softening into a warm, effortless charm.
"Still puffing your cheeks out when you get mad?" Adult Kaiser asked, his voice full of quiet amusement.
Elfie crossed her small arms with an indignant huff. "Because Kai ran off! He left me waiting at the academy all day!"
Adult Kaiser laughed—a genuine, relaxed sound that felt strange coming from my own face. "Yeah. He's an idiot. But he's your idiot. Don't worry, he's not going anywhere."
Elfie blinked, her gaze traveling down his weathered dark coat and the muddy crates around him. "Are you a vagabond now, mister? Did you lose all your money?"
Adult Kaiser grinned, leaning back against the brick wall. "A vagabond? Ouch. That hurts my pride. I'm actually a happily married man."
I choked on my own spit. Please stop bringing that up.
Elfie tilted her head, violet eyes wide with curious innocence. "Who's your wife?"
Adult Kaiser tapped his chin with a gloved finger, winking at her playfully. "That's a secret for when you grow up."
"Aww," Elfie pouted, though her curiosity was instantly forgotten when he reached into the inner fold of his dark duster coat.
He pulled out a small, foil-wrapped bar of dark chocolate.
Elfie's eyes went wide as saucers. "Chocolate?!"
"Imported special chocolate," Adult Kaiser murmured, pressing the sweet bar into her small hands. "Eat it before Kaiser tries to lecture you on budget management."
Elfie clutched the chocolate against her chest like a bag of diamonds, beaming up at him with pure, radiant joy. She tore open the corner with her teeth, took a small nibble, and let out a delighted squeak.
"Arigato!" she chirped happily.
I blinked, staring at her in complete bewilderment. "What language is that?"
Elfie puffed her chest out with immense pride. "He taught me back then! It means thank you!"
I glared sideways at my older self.
No way this guy knows more languages than me. Absolutely not. He probably made that word up to look cool.
Adult Kaiser chuckled softly. He reached out and ruffled her hair 1 more time, his tone carrying an affectionate warmth that caught in his throat:
"Always keep smiling, Sahiba."
Elfie's entire face turned the color of a ripe strawberry. Her ears turned red. Her jaw moved, but only squeaky, flustered air came out.
I stepped up beside her, placing my own hand squarely on top of her head alongside his. With both of us patting her pink hair at the same time, Elfie looked like a kettle on the verge of whistling steam.
Adult Kaiser shifted his gaze to me, the teasing warmth fading into absolute, deadpan seriousness.
"Take care of her, Kaiser."
I let out a quiet, resigned sigh, smoothing down Elfie's messy bangs.
"Yes, yes," I muttered. "I'll take care of the princess."
Elfie gasped softly. Her pink eyes darted between the 2 of us, her cheeks practically glowing with heat. Being called princess was something she adored openly, but having it declared out loud in front of a strange, handsome older man sent her into a bashful frenzy.
"Elfie," I said, gently nudging her shoulder toward the mouth of the alleyway, "go wait by the archway for 1 minute. I have to settle 1 last thing with this weird guy."
Elfie nibbled a corner of the chocolate, nodded obediently, and began walking toward the cobblestone street, glancing back over her shoulder every few steps.
Once she was out of earshot, the air between the 2 of us tightened.
Adult Kaiser stood up from the crate. He was tall—easily 6 feet—and the heavy duster coat fell around his boots like a shroud of ink.
"Don't assume knowing the answer means you can force the outcome," Adult Kaiser said, his voice flat and unyielding. "The future is nobody's to write."
I looked up at him, my expression cold and steady.
"And don't assume failing once means it's impossible," I answered without a shred of hesitation. "You came all the way back here just so you had the time to improve."
Adult Kaiser stared at me for 3 long seconds.
Then a sharp, genuine smile broke across his face.
"Smart kid."
He tapped the small white tablet resting on the wooden crate with his index finger. "Erase your memories of tonight. Don't make me clean up your paradoxes."
I gave him a dry, dismissive wave. "Yeah, yeah. Go back to your wives."
I turned on my heel and walked toward the entrance of the alleyway.
Elfie was waiting under the lamppost, swinging her arms with happy, bubbly steps. The moment I reached her, she reached out and interlocked her small, warm fingers tightly with mine.
"Let's go back now, Kai!" she smiled, holding up the remaining half of her chocolate. "I saved a bite for you!"
"Good," I said, letting her pull me down the street. "Because I'm starving."
As we walked beneath the warm streetlights of the promenade, my mind turned over the pieces of the puzzle:
Future me is definitely weird.
I had already expected myself to unlock time travel sooner or later. I drafted 4 theoretical temporal equations back when I was 1 year old at the decaying foundation, so spatial-temporal displacement was always a mathematically predicted outcome.
But the real question is: who were the enemies that forced me to jump?
There is no rational reason for my older self to be roaming the past unless he needed time, resources, and combat experience to overturn a catastrophe he couldn't solve in his own era.
I paused, glancing back over my shoulder toward the dark mouth of the Sunken Wharf alley.
The culvert was empty.
The wooden crate was bare.
Adult Kaiser had already vanished into thin air.
Oh shit I missed my BOTTLES! MY MONEY!
----------------
Perspective: Omniscient
In the shadowed silence of a forgotten courtyard 3 districts away, Adult Kaiser stood alone beneath a canopy of dead ivy.
Between his leather-gloved fingers, he held a single, delicate strand of bright pink hair.
A faint, heartbreaking smile touched his lips—a smile carrying 14 years of grief, regret, and quiet, stubborn love.
Just what I came for.
He opened his hand.
The single pink strand caught the cool midnight breeze, floating upward for 1 brief heartbeat before a microscopic shimmer of magic dissolved it into pure cosmic dust.
Then the air behind him died.
It didn't merely grow cold. It ceased to move entirely.
The ambient moisture in the fog locked in place. The atmospheric pressure within a 30-foot radius plummeted, creating a dead-zone where even sound refused to travel.
Standing at the entrance of the courtyard, framed by the cracked stone pillars, was an 18-year-old girl with cascading hair and eyes that carried the cold, omniscient weight of a wandering sovereign.
Nadia Solari.
Rank 3 Beyonder.
The World-Eater.
Her gaze locked onto Adult Kaiser's back with razor-sharp intensity.
"The time dilation across the capital centers on you," Nadia said, her voice smooth and cold as polished glass. "Your physical presence is here, but your mana feels like it was dragged across centuries. Who are you?"
Adult Kaiser didn't turn around immediately. He slowly raised 1 hand in a lazy, completely disrespectful gesture of surrender.
"Yeah, yeah," he drawled flatly. "You caught me. Can I leave now?"
"No," Nadia answered. "Anyone who can bend time can tear the world apart before anyone realizes a mistake was made."
Adult Kaiser chuckled quietly, turning his head slightly. "You're being dramatic, Nadia. I just dropped by to share some chocolate."
Nadia's eyes narrowed.
He knows my name.
She stepped forward, the damp cobblestones beneath her boots hardening as the mineral bonds aligned to her silent command.
"You're not on any imperial registry," Nadia said, her voice dropping into quiet authority. "Your magic bends the rules of the world without leaving a trace of incantation. That makes you an immediate threat to the empire."
Adult Kaiser glanced over his shoulder, his light-blue eyes reflecting the dim moonlight. "I don't have business with the empire. And you really don't want to start a fight with me tonight."
"I don't start fights," Nadia replied calmly. "I end them."
Her thoughts moved with the terrifying speed and precision of a living sovereign:
An entity capable of walking through time is an existential anomaly. Every moment he stands here, the causal fabric of this city strains under his presence. Words are pointless. Threat to this continent must be immediate.
She gave him zero seconds to negotiate.
Nadia was not a duelist who wasted time on dramatic speeches. When containment was necessary, she acted with absolute, lethal finality.
Her right arm rose.
A medium-tier offensive art manifested from her fingertips—not fire, not wind, but the terrifying summit of her Fifteenfold Sovereignty:
Macro-Elemental Dissolution.
The air in the courtyard didn't ignite—it disintegrated.
A violent, blinding spiral of white-hot light and unraveling elemental arcs erupted across the stones, ripping through the mist like a vortex of burning celestial wire. Matter caught within the spiral lost its structural cohesion entirely, collapsing into nothingness as the attack swept straight toward Adult Kaiser's heart.
Adult Kaiser watched it approach without taking a step back.
"...Still using that old trick, huh?" he muttered.
He raised an index finger.
Space folded like paper.
A massive, blazing circular ring of compressed sparks and roaring celestial light ignited in mid-air, blooming not in front of him, but directly around Nadia Solari.
Nadia's eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter.
Before her dissolution beam could travel 3 more inches, the spatial fabric inverted.
The courtyard, the capital, and the entire continent vanished.
*
Silence.
Then came the deafening, 1,200-mile-per-hour roar of an alien storm.
Nadia emerged into an endless, suffocating abyss of pure cobalt blue.
There was no stone. There was no dirt. There was no ground.
Below her boots stretched millions of miles of swirling, violent methane clouds, falling endlessly into pitch-black atmospheric depths where pressure reached hundreds of thousands of atmospheres. Above her, the distant Sun was nothing more than a faint, pathetic white pinprick lost among bands of glowing cyan planetary rings and cosmic dust.
The temperature was -220 degrees Celsius.
There was zero breathable oxygen.
Gravity seized her body, and she began plummeting at terminal velocity through the freezing hydrogen-helium hurricane.
For an ordinary arch-mage, death would have arrived in 0.2 seconds.
For Nadia Solari, it bought Adult Kaiser exactly 1 second of surprise.
Her 15-fold elemental Sovereignty flared instinctively. In less than 1 heartbeat, she asserted elemental authority over the violent physics around her:
First, I stop my body from losing heat. I lock my skin at the same temperature using fire elemental magic. Next, I control the air pressure around me. I form a barrier so Neptune's pressure can't crush me.
I need air to breathe. I pull apart the gases around me and turn them into oxygen, creating a small pocket of breathable air.
Now the wind. I push back against the violent air rushing downward, canceling its force until I stop falling and hover in place.
She looked around, her sharp eyes scanning the terrifying grandeur of the ice giant.
For the 1st time in her entire life, Nadia Solari was genuinely stunned:
I am standing upon Neptune.
The ice giant at the edge of the solar system. 4 billion kilometers from Earth.
There is no ground. There is no mantle. Only endless layers of liquid gas.
And the stranger... we entered without being crushed by the planet's orbital speed. He remapped our inertial frame completely.
He managed to control the entire planet and keep me alive?.
A soft, weary sigh drifted through the howling winds beside her.
"Man," a voice complained, "this weather is deeply uncomfortable."
A few yards away, a glowing circular portal of crackling golden sparks burned against the cobalt sky.
Adult Kaiser casually stepped out of the ring of fire, his dark coat whipping in the supersonic gale. The thin, freezing methane air caught in his throat, and he choked slightly, coughing twice into his sleeve before looking up.
"We are on Neptune now, Nadia," he said, his voice cutting clearly through the storm.
Nadia stared at him, her elemental barrier holding firm against the frozen gale. "Why bring me here?"
"There would be too many time paradoxes if we fought in the capital," Adult Kaiser replied, rubbing the back of his neck with a gloved hand. "And honestly, I don't want excessive attention."
He coughed again from the lack of oxygen, grimacing at the swirling frost. "Give me a few second. Even I'm suffocating in this garbage."
What happened next broke every known law of magic.
Adult Kaiser didn't chant. He didn't gesture with an arcane focus.
He simply opened thousands of microscopic mana signatures across the empty space of Neptune.
He drew upon Neptune's own physical chemistry, using microscopic spatial gateways to balance the external pressure, adjust the localized gravity to 1.1 times Earth's standard, and synthesize a dense, self-sustaining nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.
1 aperture drew rich, fertile soil. Another drew clean water. Another drew compressed terrestrial air, while another funneled the gentle thermal warmth of an afternoon sun.
Rock and soil condensed out of thin air beneath their boots, locking into a suspended platform 100 feet across.
Vibrant, emerald-green grass rapidly sprouted across the soil, swaying under a calm, 22-degree breeze.
Within a minute, a pristine, quiet green meadow was floating suspended in the center of the universe—surrounded on all sides by the roaring, cobalt-blue methane hurricanes, glowing cyan rings, and spiraling cosmic nebulae of Neptune.
Nadia slowly lowered her feet, feeling the soft, undeniable resistance of living soil beneath her heels.
She knelt down. Her fingers brushed against the damp, living blades of grass.
It was real.
Her mind calculated the scale of what had just occurred, and felt a genuine chill settled into her soul:
He altered the atmosphere of an entire planetary layer with silent incantations.
He didn't just make sure we can stand upon Neptune—he reshaped its atmosphere to mimic Earth so neither of us would die.
I was already at his mercy from the moment the portal opened...
He isn't an arch-mage. This is a sorcerer that surpasses even Ace.
Nadia stood up, her eyes narrowing with lethal intensity. "How is this possible? Are you a Beyonder?"
Adult Kaiser chuckled—a dry, quiet sound that echoed across the impossible meadow.
"Nah," he replied smoothly. "I might be something beyond that even. Beyond the Beyonders."
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, looking at her with a calm, lazy tilt of his head. "Now, what do you need?"
Nadia didn't flinch. Her mana flared in absolute, unbreakable concentration. "I need to know who you are. And what you plan to do to the timeline."
"You're overestimating me," Adult Kaiser said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "I'm just an average guy warping through time."
Nadia's gaze hardened into diamond. "Yeah. Sure you are."
She knew in her bones that survival was no longer an option. If she wanted to return home, she would have to go all out—and eventually establish a magical communication bridge across 4 billion kilometers of empty void to open a portal back to Earth.
"Your name," Nadia demanded, her Fifteen Thrones awakening around her hands in a blinding, incandescent corona of elemental sovereignty.
"Tell me your name."
Adult Kaiser reached onto the air and summoned a bottle of water to drink.
The artificial sunlight washed over his untidy black hair, his sharp jawline, and those calm, piercing light-blue eyes.
"Oh, me?" he smiled, his expression cold, ancient, and untouchable against the roaring cosmic void. "My name is Kaiser Everhart. The end of all stories."
Nadia's breath hitched.
The air froze.
4 billion kilometers from the capital, on an impossible island of green grass suspended inside the heart of an ice giant, the sovereign of elements faced the sovereign of the future.