In the fractured corridors of ACT Headquarter, the edges of perception bent. Aoikishi stood before a section of wall that seemed to fold in on itself, lines blurring like corrupted code.
"Zone 404," Aoikishi began, voice steady as a system override, "this is what happens when reality loses its syntax. Most bases have dead zones, glitch spaces. We have something... more interesting."
He traced a finger along the wall. Where his hand moved, the surface rippled—walls folding like origami, concepts restructuring. "This isn't just a loop," Aoikishi continued. "It's a conceptual trap. Dimensional markers reset.
Anyone who enters without precise clearance simply doesn't exit. The space rewrites itself around the intruder, creating infinite recursive pathways."
Yamiya tilted her head. "How infinite?"
"Infinite enough that we've lost three reconnaissance teams. Their last transmissions showed them walking through the same doorway, repeatedly, for what seemed like hours—though only seconds passed outside."
Kaosu scoffed. "Sounds like a waste of space."
A door at the far end of the corridor in zone 404 opened. A man named Raiyo Zarake stepped through, looking tired and mildly annoyed. He carried an ACT-issued coffee mug, barely glancing around, with 4 swords mounted on his back.
"Why is this hallway so long?" he muttered in boredom, more to himself than anyone else.
The entire room froze.
Yamiya's eyes went wide. Kaosu's jaw dropped. Even Aoikishi looked momentarily stunned.
Raiyo just kept walking, taking a slow sip of coffee, completely uninterested in the impossible feat he'd just accomplished.
Kaosu finally found his voice. "How did you get in there?"
Raiyo glanced over, looking slightly bored. "Door was open. If you don't want someone crossing the line… seal it better."
Yamiya blinked twice, still visibly trying to process what she'd just seen. "That's… not possible," she said under her breath.
"You think you're funny?" Kaosu said, stepping forward. "Because right now, all I see is some smug wannabe with no respect."
Raiyo didn't break stride. "Respect is earned." He took another sip. "You haven't earned mine."
Trying to control himself Kaosu said and assumed," Surely you don't know who I am. Raiyo responded sardonically," Of course I don't, why would I know some edgy kid that thinks he's cool."
Right before Kaosu responded Aoikishi spoke, calm as ever. "Stand down, Kaosu. If Zone 404 didn't keep him, we probably can't either. Consider that… an endorsement."
Kaosu's aura flickered, red veins crawling across the floor tiles. "Consider this your eviction notice."
Raiyo didn't stop. "You could try." He took another sip. "Your footsteps are loud."
Yamiya stepped forward, still staring. "Did you harmonize with the corridor? Or did you cut the loop?"
"I walked," Raiyo said.
Aoikishi checked his datapad. "Briefing in ten. Everyone reset."
Kaosu's hands were still clenched, chaos energy rippling around his edges. Raiyo just continued walking, seemingly unbothered by the tension.
Nyxus munched his biscuit. "Well, that was interesting."
Yamiya murmured, more to herself, "How did he just... walk through, only I can do that."
Aoikishi's only response was a slight smile. "Some doors," he said, "are more of a suggestion than a rule."
Raiyo disappeared down the corridor, coffee mug still in hand, leaving behind a room full of unresolved questions.
Kaosu stepped into the main hall with a rare expression of ease, already picturing himself in his usual chair — the one by the central display where he could see everyone coming and going.
Then he stopped dead.
Raiyo Zarake was sitting in it.
Not just sitting — reclined like he owned the place, one boot casually hooked over the chair's rung. His ACT-issued coffee mug sat comfortably on the table beside him, steam rising in lazy spirals.
Kaosu's shadow fell across the armrest.
Raiyo looked up, his expression unreadable. "Are you lost?"
Kaosu's tone went cold. "You're in my seat."
Raiyo glanced around as if double-checking. "I don't see your name on it."
Kaosu stepped in closer, chaos aura starting to coil in faint, red flickers. "Move before I make you."
"Then make me," Raiyo said, unblinking.
"Last warning," Kaosu said, aura ticking hotter.
"You recycle threats," Raiyo said. "Try a new one."
Yamiya eased open a small notebook with her thumb. "If you're going to break something," she said softly, "the courtyard is easier to clean. Blood stains grout."
"Yeah," Nyxus said around a slow bite of biscuit. "Outside's good. Less sweeping."
"Sighing," Aoikishi said, "fine we can postpone the meeting, no collateral in the base."
"And fewer witnesses," Yamiya said, making a neat note.
"Fine," Raiyo said.
"Fine," Kaosu said.
"I'm the referee," Nyxus said, settling on the steps. "If you die , you lose."
"Please keep it sub‑lethal," Yamiya said kindly, stylus poised. "Bruises are tidy. Punctures are not."
Asking curiously Kaosu said," What's your name? I always like to know the name of my victims.
Zarake responded,"The name's Raiyo Zarake. And if I'd swung at you, you'd be in two pieces before you finished talking."
Kaosu stepped forward, aura rising. "Big talk for a guy with toothpicks."
"And you fight with what?" Raiyo said. "A tantrum?"
Nyxus smirked and walked past both of them. "Oh, this is going to be fun."
"House rules," Aoikishi said, taking center. "No killing. No structural damage. First to force a yield. If you don't follow these rules I will end the fight."
"Blink and you'll miss the part where you lose," Kaosu said, rolling his shoulders as the red threads around him drew tight.
"I don't blink," Raiyo said. "I edit."
"Keep it controlled," Aoikishi said. "Show me you can stop when told."
Raiyo smirks and teases," Yeah Kaosu do what master says.
Trying to contain his anger kaousu muttered," I will kill you."
"Also," Nyxus said, raising a finger without looking away, "don't break the sky. I finally like this one."
Kaosu rolled his shoulders once. The red around him wasn't fire; it was thread—thin, hot lines winding down his arms, drawing the world toward his fists.
Raiyo set his coffee on the planter's edge and didn't look at it again. He stood as if the ground had drawn a line for him and he'd agreed to stand on it.
Aoikishi's coat settled. "Begin," he said.
Pressure snapped. Kaosu was there and then closer, first punch driving like a red nail through dry wood.
Raiyo didn't step back.
Instead space in front of him shortened, neat as a clean fold. Kaousu's strike carved an inch of air that had not existed before, causing him to miss by an inch.
Yamiya's stylus hovered. "That… looked wrong," she murmured.
Aoikishi's eyes narrowed, his voice steady but more intrigued than surprised. . "Boundary manipulation at his age… that's not just cutting space. That's the seed of a Conflux trait."
Nyxus, on the steps, lifted his biscuit like a flag. "Point to mystery," he said, very helpfully.
Kaosu's grin sharpened. "You think tricks make a fighter?"
Raiyo's eyelids didn't move. "You think speed makes a decision."
Kaosu adjusted without blinking. He dipped and drove for the ribs, all shoulder and hip.
Raiyo seemed to shift the world a fraction—the last inch under his heel blinked out. The shot scraped fabric and smashed the planter behind him.
"Minus one point if you hit the planter again," Nyxus said. "I'm sitting near it."
Aoikishi didn't look away. "The Micro‑cut," he said, calm. "He takes a piece of world out of play. You're punching where the world used to be."
Kaosu rolled his neck. "Then I punch through."
Kaosu drove a straight down the center. Raiyo dipped his shoulder a fraction. The straight tore past and blew a tile apart six paces behind.
"Keep it controlled," Aoikishi said. "Show me you can stop when told."
Kaosu's tone dropped. "Stop hiding behind cuts."
"I'm not hiding," Raiyo said, eyes level. "I'm choosing which version of you arrives."
Kaosu's arm fired—and the biceps flexed without delivering. The shoulder turned. The fist did not follow.
Aoikishi's voice stayed even. "He can cut the carrying of energy.," he said. "The energy to the brain to the hand. The order leaves. The force never arrives."
Kaosu shook his arm once and laughed without humor. "Cute."
Raiyo said nothing.
Kaosu stopped testing. He drove forward with a low kick and a hard knee—less signal chain, more body.
Raiyo cut a nerve from under Kaosu's plant foot; the kick slid an inch off line and hammered the bench instead. Wood split.
"Minus one for the bench," Nyxus said. "It was working very hard to stay upright."
A pebble rolled under Raiyo's heel at the exact moment he shifted. Causing him to twist his ankle. It was part of a weak chaotic effect from when Kaousus fist traced part of Raiyo's jaw.
"Stop hiding behind cuts," he said again, voice gone narrow.
"I told you," Raiyo said, steady as deep water. "I'm choosing which version of you arrives."
Kaosu's arm fired—and nothing happened. The biceps flexed without delivering. The shoulder turned. The fist did not follow.
Kaosu tried again. His leg wouldn't respond. His right side grew heavy, unresponsive.
Raiyo's boundary cuts had systematically severed the neural pathways, rendering Kaosu's limbs functionally dead weight.
Yamiya's stylus hovered. "Neurological decoupling," she murmured. "Clean severance."
Nyxus chewed his biscuit. "Points to precision," he said.
Raiyo sighed in disappointment,"Too easy, and here I thought you were a good fighter."
For a moment, it looked like the fight was over. Kaosu stood immobilized, one side completely unresponsive. Raiyo's blade remained steady, having executed each cut with surgical precision.
Then Kaosu started laughing.
It wasn't a defeated laugh. It was the kind of sound that made everyone in the courtyard pause—a low, building rumble that felt more like a calculation than emotion.
His body might be immobilized, but something else was moving..
"You think cutting signals stops chaos?" Kaosu said, still laughing. "Chaos doesn't need permission." Chaos is… constant, like… karma…
The air around him began to shift. Not violently. Not with fire or explosion. But with a slow, deliberate spreading of red—thin as thread, then thickening.
Aoikishi's eyes narrowed. "He's externalizing calamity," he said softly. "Autonomously."
A clone formed where no body stood—a heat shimmer of pure red transparency, shaped like a perfect negative of Kaosu existing in that liminal space between thought and manifestation. Then a second appeared, then a third.
Nyxus tilted his head. "He brought friends," he said. "They look lost."
Kaosu, still immobilized, grinned. "Calamity doesn't need a body," he said. "Just a will."
The sky above the courtyard took on a faint red tint. Leaves began to twitch the wrong way.
Raiyo's blade lifted a fraction. This was something new.
The clones moved like thoughts given razor edges—not bound by physics, but by pure mathematical possibility. Where they stepped, reality stuttered.
"They each have calamity multipliers," Kaosu said. Each clone carried a fragment of his grin.
The first materialized directly behind Raiyo—not by moving, but by simply deciding to be there. Its "hand" wasn't a hand so much as a potential for impact.
A tile cracked six paces away before the strike even landed.
Yamiya's stylus scratched once. "Probability vectors," she murmured. "Non-linear."
Raiyo's blade lifted—not to block, but to find the boundary between "potential strike" and "actual damage." He cut cleanly, precisely.
The clone's strike arrived anyway. Not full force, but enough to remind him something had happened.
Nyxus raised a finger. "that looked complicated."
Aoikishi's voice cut through. "He's not creating copies," he said. "He's distributing chaos as a computational language."
The second clone formed, its outline wavering like heat over stone. When it moved, the ground seemed to hesitate—a slight unleveling, nothing more.
Aoikishi's eyes narrowed. "Autonomous projection," he said softly. "But not fully manifested."
Kaosu, still physically immobilized, grinned. "Chaos doesn't need a perfect form."
The sky took on the faintest red tint. A leaf twisted, but didn't tear.
Raiyo's blade tracked the clones' movements. They weren't solid enough to directly block or strike—more like shadows with intent.
Then suddenly Raiyo's smirk faded into something colder. Without a word, he slid his second blade free, steel ringing through the fractured courtyard. Then — to everyone's shock — his hand moved again, drawing a third sword and spinning it effortlessly into his stance.
The ground shook, the thin cracks in the lunar stone splitting wider, radiating out like veins of lightning.
And then he reached over his shoulder.
The fourth sword came free with a sound like tearing fabric, as if the world itself resisted being cut. The instant it cleared its sheath, the air warped — the courtyard's horizon bending, skylines shattering into mirrored fragments.
Even Kaosu's calamity aura stuttered, forced back an inch as though refusing to touch what Raiyo had just unleashed.
The pressure was suffocating. Every sword he drew seemed to stack weight on reality, until it seemed impossible the ground beneath him could hold. Four blades gleamed in the fractured light, each humming with a presence sharp enough to cut thought itself.
Raiyo said, "You are starting to make me have to take you seriously"
Kaousu responded with a smirk," I was just about to say the same.
Anthropomorphic clones of chaos began to form, Kaosu's chaotic energy started radiating intense heat.
Nearby objects began to react—a forgotten sandwich on a nearby table started smoking, then burst into flames. A cup of coffee boiled over, steam erupting violently.
Nyxus, who had been casually munching on a biscuit, suddenly froze.
"Hey," he said, his voice rising. "That was my lunch."
The sandwich continued burning. A nearby apple spontaneously combusted.
"No," Nyxus said, standing up. "Absolutely not!"
He walked directly between Raiyo and Kaosu, completely interrupting the building tension and possible conclusion of the rivalry. His biscuit was still halfway to his mouth.
"You," he pointed at Kaosu, "are burning my food."
Aoikishi looked bemused.
Yamiya started to laugh
"I was in the middle of a fight," Kaosu said.
"I was in the middle of eating," Nyxus responded, completely deadpan. "That's more important."
He picked up the burning sandwich, looked at it mournfully, then dropped it on Kaosu.
"Ref calls end of match," Nyxus said. "Minus all points for ruining lunch."
Aoikishi sighed. "Nyxus—"
"No," Nyxus said. "Lunch is sacred."
For a moment, nothing happened. The sandwich sat on Kaosu's head, smoking slightly. Raiyo's blade was still half-raised. Yamiya's stylus hovered.
Aoikishi sighed. "Nyxus—"
Kaosu blinked once, no twice.
Then, very slowly, he reached up and pulled the burning sandwich off his head. Bits of charred bread clung to his hair. A dollop of mustard dripped down his cheek.
"Did," Kaosu said very quietly, "you just drop a sandwich on me?"
Nyxus took another bite of his biscuit. "Yep."
Kaosu's eye twitched. "DURING A fight?"
"Lunch," Nyxus said, "is sacred."
Before he could take a step, Aoikishi's hand lifted.
Space folded.
Not violently, not with drama, just a clean, precise cut between where Kaosu was standing and where he needed to be. One moment he was in the courtyard, sandwich bits still clinging to his hair, mid-rage—the next, he vanished into the recursive pathways of Zone 404.
Nyxus took another bite of his biscuit. "Huh," he said.
Raiyo lowered his blade, looking genuinely confused.
Yamiya stared at Aokishi with disbelief," Did you just… kill Kaousu?
Aokishi laughed," No, of course not, I have a tracking marker on all of you. Thanks to my control over space and time, I can always teleport to you or vice versa."
Aoikishi approached Raiyo as the courtyard settled.
"You've got potential," Aoikishi said, not asking. "Boundary control at this level isn't common.
ACT could refine those skills beyond your current limits."
Raiyo's blade hadn't fully sheathed. He glanced sideways, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Join your team? Just like that?"
"Not a request," Aoikishi said. "An observation. Your boundary cutting—it's raw. Unrefined. I could take you from surgical to systematic."
Raiyo considered this. Then, "How about we fight for it? If you win, I will join. I refuse to work under someone who isn't stronger than me."
Aoikishi didn't laugh, didn't even smile. His voice was completely flat.
"Trust me," he said, "you don't want to do that. The fight would be over before it started. Literally."
Nyxus looked up from his biscuit. "I can confirm," he said helpfully. "Aoikishi breaks things before they know they're broken."
Raiyo's eyes narrowed. "No offense to you but my mastery is far beyond your reach," he said. "I'll show you."
He leaped forward, blade lifting in what was clearly meant to be a signature attack—the kind of move that would demonstrate his boundary-cutting prowess, a clean strike that would slice through conventional understanding.
Aoikishi didn't move.
Not a muscle shifted. Not a coat fold changed.
Instead, something else happened.
Raiyo's motion simply... stopped, not blocked, not deflected, suspended. As if every physical law governing momentum had been carefully lifted away and placed neatly to the side.
Inertia had… vanished.
Raiyo hung in mid-air, blade half-raised, body caught between potential and action—a living statue of interrupted intent.
Nyxus tilted his head. "Huh," he said around his biscuit. "That's new."
Yamiya's stylus hovered. He completely erased inertia from Raiyo.
Raiyo stuttering for the first time in his life said," D-did you just… cut a concept… the concept of movement… Inertia…"
Aoikishi's voice was calm. "I told you," he said. "Over before it started."