The scene shifted.
Kazuki slowly raised his head from the desk, the worn wood cool against his skin. The soft glow of the moon poured in through the tall academy windows, washing the empty classroom in a pale, silver light.
The room was utterly silent.
Not a single soul remained.
The chatter, the confused glances, the early announcement — all of it was gone, like a dream fading with the dawn. But the strange thing was, Kazuki wasn't eight years old anymore.
He was eleven.
The Kazuki sitting alone in this classroom was the 11-year-old version of himself — the very one that the eight-year-old Kazuki had met in that surreal grassland years ago. That moment in the grassland… was it a dream? An illusion spun by the Chaos Spirit? Or a trick of his restless mind?
Even now, Kazuki wasn't sure.
Before that, he had met his newborn self. Then his five-year-old self, confused and naïve. All of them illusions… or perhaps not. But one truth remained in Kazuki's mind — the only beings in this world who could truly understand his feelings were different versions of himself.
The past knew what he had endured.
The future knew what he would become.
They were the only ones who could share the burden of his thoughts — his grief, his ambition, his cold calculations, and the loneliness that clung to him like a second skin.
Kazuki rose from his seat, the legs of the chair scraping softly against the stone floor. He walked slowly toward the tall window, gazing out over the academy grounds bathed in moonlight.
A strange calm settled over him.
He liked these encounters.Because for those fleeting moments, he wasn't surrounded by enemies, allies he couldn't trust, or people pretending to know him. He was alone with himself — versions of himself who truly understood how he felt, or how he would feel.
But deep down, Kazuki knew the truth.
It was all an illusion.A trick.A fragment of his restless, scarred mind.
Perhaps another torment from the Chaos Spirit.Perhaps the desperate mind of a boy forced to grow up far too soon.
But whether real or not, these encounters gave him strength.
He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
Three years had passed.The plans he made against North Ryehem when he was eight — dark, careful plans, ones that even emperors feared the whispers of — were about to be set in motion by this eleven-year-old Kazuki.
And that…was one of the reasons why he was here in the academy at night.
It wasn't a mistake.It wasn't an accident.
It was the beginning.
He looked down at his reflection in the glass. The moonlight traced the outline of his face — older, sharper, his once-soft features beginning to carry the weight of someone far beyond his years.
The boy who changed a kingdom at eight…was about to change the world at eleven.
And the war that began with whispers would soon roar like a storm.
A small, knowing smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
"It begins."
Kazuki turned away from the window, his footsteps echoing in the empty classroom as he made his way toward the door. The moon continued to shine down upon South Ryehem, unaware that its brightest prodigy and most dangerous mind was about to unleash a storm of his own making.
The night belonged to him.