(Present-day Tokyo—At Midnight)
The city was a neon bruise against the night sky, bleeding light onto wet pavement. He moved through the crowds like a ghost, a solitary figure in a black hoodie that swallowed his frame. Ten years had passed, but the ghost of London's rain still clung to him.
He stopped. Taped to a flickering lamppost was a fresh poster. The paper was stark white, the symbol at the top unmistakable: a stylized blazing sun.
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING
ANY INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITING SIGNS OF DARK OR FORBIDDEN MAGIC
REPORT TO THE ORDER OF THE NEW DAWN
REWARD: ¥5,000,000
His fists clenched inside his pockets, nails digging into his palms. The familiar, hot coil of anger tightened in his gut. The bandana he always wore, covering the left side of his face, felt suddenly suffocating.
Ten years. Ten years, and they still haunt me.
A pressure built behind his eyes, a familiar, painful throb. Not now. Not here. He tried to force it down, to bury the rising tide. But it was too late.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Warm, thick liquid trickled from under his bandana, soaking into the black cloth. It wasn't tears. He knew the metallic scent intimately. It was blood. Black as the shadows that lived inside him.
And then, the Voice. It was feminine, a silken whisper that coiled through the corridors of his mind, ancient and laced with a madness that felt like home.
"No matter how far you run, little shadow, they will always trace the smell of your blood."
He flinched, wiping the bloody tears away with a rough, jerky motion. "Shut up," he muttered under his breath, a low growl meant only for the Voice that had been his unwanted passenger for a decade.
"Such ingratitude. We are bound, you and I. My power is your curse. Your body is my vessel. We can make them all pay..."
"I said shut up!" He turned sharply, shouldering his way past a group of laughing teenagers and vanishing into the welcoming darkness of a nearby alleyway, leaving the neon and the poster behind.
***
(YAKUHAME TRAIN STATION—Morning Rush Hour)
The station was a torrent of humanity, a chaotic symphony of squeaking shoes, rustling newspapers, and low murmurs. Barry kept his head down, the large hood obscuring his features, his single visible sky-blue eye fixed on the cracked tiles ahead.
A salaryman, frantically checking his watch, slammed hard into his shoulder. "Hey! Watch where you're—" the man began, his voice sharp with irritation.
Barry looked up. Just a little. Just enough for the man to see the one piercing, impossibly blue eye glaring from the shadow of the hood.
The salaryman's words died in his throat. He stared, his anger replaced by a sudden, unnerving confusion. He took a half-step back. "...freak," he mumbled, the insult lacking any conviction, and melted back into the crowd.
Barry's grip tightened on his worn leather suitcase. Inside, everything he owned. Everything he was.
A calm, automated voice echoed through the station. "Next train arriving: Platform 4. Service for Tokohashi College of Sorcery for The Gifted."
This was it. The one place that might offer answers. Or the place that would finally become his cage. He boarded the train, the doors hissing shut behind him like a seal on a tomb.
***
(TOKOHASHI COLLEGE OF SORCERY—Main Gates)
The gates were not iron, but two immense, intertwined trees of petrified wood, their branches frozen in an eternal, silent scream. Magic hummed in the air here, a constant, low-level buzz he felt in his teeth. It was a far cry from the sterile hatred of the Order. This was wild, old, and dangerous.
He took a deep, steadying breath. What am I getting myself into?
A gatekeeper, a burly man with a face like a clenched fist and robes the colour of moss, stepped into his path. "Stand back! State your business. Where's your letter of admission? Name?"
Barry wordlessly handed over the crumpled letter. "Barry Crimsonwood," he said, his voice low.
The gatekeeper's eyes scanned the letter, then narrowed at Barry. "Look up. Let me see your face."
A cold dread trickled down Barry's spine. Reluctantly, he tilted his head up, letting the morning light catch his features, his one visible eye.
The gatekeeper's stern expression faltered. He didn't look scared. He looked... mesmerized. "Y-Your eye... it's... beautiful."
Barry blinked, thrown off balance. He was used to fear, to disgust. Not... that. He quickly looked down again, pulling his hood forward. "Thanks a lot for your time, Mister," he muttered, and hurried past before the man could say another word.
***
(THE GRAND HALL—Inauguration Ceremony)
The hall was a cathedral of magic. Vaulted ceilings disappeared into mist, and floating orbs of light drifted like lazy fireflies. The air thrummed with the energy of a hundred young sorcerers. And every single one of them seemed to be staring at the new guy in the hood who leaned against the back wall.
"Who's that?" a girl with twin silver braids whispered, not-so-subtly pointing.
Her friend, a girl with fiery red curls, giggled. "What's with the mysterious aura? Hiding a third eye under there? Pirate cosplay?" They both dissolved into laughter.
Barry's jaw tightened. He could feel their eyes, their whispers like insects crawling on his skin. He just had to get through this. Just get through it.
The two girls, emboldened by their own laughter, didn't move as he decided to find a new spot. "Out of the way," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that held no warmth.
They looked up, their laughter dying as their eyes met his. The intensity of his single blue eye locked onto them, and for a moment, they were frozen. A faint blush coloured their cheeks.
"Did you see that?" Silver-Braids breathed as he passed.
"His eye..." Red-Curls replied, her voice dreamy. "...it was like looking into heaven."
Across the hall, another pair of eyes watched. Belinda Frostvale stood with a quiet, regal grace that seemed to push the crowd back an inch. Her hair was no longer wheat-gold, but a platinum so pale it seemed to generate its own light. Her eyes, once warm, were now the colour of a frozen lake. She was the picture of frost-tinged perfection.
She tapped her friend, a lively girl with mischievous green eyes. "Chloe? Look."
Chloe followed her gaze. "Ooh, the mysterious hood guy. What about him? Not your usual type, ice queen."
Belinda frowned, a tiny, almost imperceptible crease forming on her flawless brow. "I feel... something. A flicker. Like a name on the tip of my tongue, or a face from a forgotten dream."
Chloe's smirk widened. "Awwwn! Love at first sight for the unattainable Belinda Frostvale? The school news scrolls will have a field day!"
A delicate blush, so faint it was almost imaginary, touched Belinda's cheeks. "Oh, come on, Chloe, we don't even know each other. It's not that."
"Could've fooled me," Chloe sang. "You never notice anyone."
"I'm serious. It's... a feeling. Like cold static." She shook her head, as if to clear it. "It's nothing."
Before Chloe could tease her further, the main doors swung open and Headmaster Gregory Frostvale strode to the podium. The hall fell silent instantly. He was a tall, severe man with a beard of ice-white and eyes that held the weight of centuries. His gaze swept the room, and it felt like a physical chill had descended.
"Welcome," his voice boomed, magically amplified, yet cold enough to freeze the words in the air. "Welcome to Tokohashi. You are here because you are the elite. The gifted. The future masters of the arcane arts."
He paused, his eyes seeming to linger for a fraction of a second on Barry, then on Belinda.
"But know this," he continued, his tone hardening. "Magic is not a toy. It is a weapon. A responsibility. And like any powerful tool, it has a... residue. A scent. Some magics are pure. Elemental. Ordered." He gestured vaguely to the air around him. "Others are chaotic. Unnatural. Forbidden. They are a corruption, a stain on the weave of reality itself."
Barry felt a cold knot form in his stomach. He could feel the Voice in his head stir, amused.
"He speaks of stains," it purred. "He should look in a mirror."
"Here," the Headmaster thundered, "we will teach you control. We will teach you power. But we will also teach you purity. We will root out weakness. We will excise corruption. No matter how deeply it tries to hide."
His words hung in the air, a not-so-subtle threat. The speech was over. The students began to chatter again, the tension broken.
Barry let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. The Headmaster's words were a clear warning, specifically for someone like him. This was a mistake. A huge mistake.
He needed air. He turned to leave, pushing through the crowd, his head down.
At that exact moment, Belinda, wanting to get away from Chloe's teasing, also turned to leave.
They collided.
It wasn't a hard impact. But it was enough.
Barry's suitcase fell from his hand, clattering on the floor. The latch sprang open.
Belinda stumbled back a step, a faint "Oh!" of surprise escaping her lips. It was the most emotion she'd shown all day.
And for one single, heart-stopping second, as he reached down to grab his suitcase, Barry's hood fell back, and the bandana on his face slipped—just a little—revealing not the terrifying demon of his childhood, but a glimpse of sharp jawline and the very edge of the black bandana that hid his secret.
Their eyes met.
Sky-blue into glacial ice.
Time froze.
In Barry's mind, a memory flashed. Wheat-gold hair. A laugh like sunshine. A pool of red on a yellow raincoat.
In Belinda's mind, a shard of ice pierced the perfect, frozen lake of her memory. A boy's face. A rainy alley. A name... B...? A wave of dizzying, inexplicable pain lanced through her shoulder, a ghost of a wound from a decade past. She gasped, her hand flying to her perfectly pristine shoulder.
They stared at each other, a silent, electric current passing between them, a connection forged in trauma and severed by magic, now flickering back to life.
The Voice in Barry's head erupted in a crescendo of triumphant, mad laughter.
"There she is, little shadow! The key! The lock! The reason for everything! NOW THE TRUE FUN BEGINS!"