The air split.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
A jagged black fissure tore itself open in the middle of the cafeteria, hanging in mid-air like someone had cracked reality with a hammer.
Students screamed and fell back.
Tables flipped.
Plates shattered.
Aether was already moving, shoving panicking students behind him, hand going to his sword.
Rex grabbed my sleeve with a death grip.
"Kyle," he whispered, voice thin, "why is the air… broken?"
Good question.
Would love an answer.
[SPATIAL ANOMALY DETECTED]
[SOURCE: OUTSIDE FATE]
[THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]
A sound bled out from the fissure.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A glitch.
Like broken voices layered over each other, trying and failing to form a word.
To most people, it probably sounded like static.
To me, very clearly, it sounded like a single word:
"MISWRITTEN."
My blood turned to ice.
I glanced around.
Most students were just crying, screaming, or clutching their ears.
But two people were utterly still.
Aether Vale.
Seraphina Dawncrest, who had just stepped into the cafeteria doorway.
Both of them had turned sharply toward the fissure the moment that word echoed.
So they heard it too.
Great.
I wasn't alone in the insanity.
I was just the main course.
The fissure pulsed.
Something pushed against the inside, trying to get out.
"What is that?!" someone shouted.
"Is it a summoning?!"
"Is this part of the curriculum!?"
"If it is," Rex whispered, "I'm dropping out."
Instructors finally burst in from all sides, throwing up shimmering defensive barriers.
"ALL STUDENTS, EVACUATE TO THE COURTYARD!" one of them bellowed. "THIS IS A HIGH-CLASS SPIRITUAL ATTACK!"
Nobody had to be told twice.
They stampeded for the exits.
Aether stayed where he was.
Seraphina stayed where she was.
And somehow, despite having functioning legs, I stayed where I was.
Rex looked at the rushing students, then at me, then at the fissure.
"You know what?" he said. "I'm making a terrible decision," and he *didn't* let go of my sleeve.
[NOTICE: COMPANION REX CALDER – LOYALTY +1]
The fissure finally tore open.
Something stepped—no, leaked—out.
It had a shape like a body, but no consistency, a humanoid silhouette made of black static and swirling symbols, as if pages of text were being ripped apart and stitched back together inside its form.
Where its eyes should have been, empty lines of glitching script stared at me.
The pressure hit like a physical weight.
Students who hadn't made it out yet buckled to their knees.
One fainted outright.
The nearest instructor spat blood from the force and slammed his staff into the ground.
"Barrier!" he shouted.
A dome of light shimmered into existence around the students—thin, strained, cracking at the edges from the sheer wrongness pushing against it.
The entity's head turned.
Somehow, I knew.
It was looking for me.
[WARNING: PRIMARY TARGET – YOU]
[REASON: NARRATIVE DEVIATION]
"Oh, come on," I hissed. "I just tripped and confessed. That's not narrative terrorism."
The entity took a step.
The floor didn't crack.
It… reformatted, the stone tiles briefly turning into blank, white nothing before reality frantically filled them back in.
Everyone could see it now.
Students screamed.
Aether stepped forward, sword drawn, aura flaring.
"I don't know what you are," he said, voice steady, "but you won't take anyone here."
The entity ignored him.
It kept turning slowly, scanning—
Then locked on me.
The whole cafeteria went quiet.
Someone whispered:
"It's… looking at Blackthorn…"
"Of course it is," Rex muttered. "Of course."
[HOST IDENTIFIED]
[CORRECTION IN PROGRESS]
The entity raised an arm.
The air around me tightened, like strings being pulled, trying to drag me off the "page" of reality itself.
My vision blurred at the edges.
[YOU ARE BEING REMOVED FROM THE SCRIPT]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.3%]
That number was going in the wrong direction.
"System," I croaked. "Any bright ideas?"
[YES.]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: DISRUPT NARRATIVE COHERENCE.]
"What does that mean?"
[THESE ENTITIES RELY ON A CONSISTENT STORY TO ERASE YOU.]
[YOU MUST BREAK THE TONE SO HARD THEY LOSE THEIR GRIP.]
Rex glanced at me.
"You've got that 'I'm about to do something terrible' look again," he said.
I squeezed my eyes shut for half a second.
Think.
Everyone terrified. Monster emerging. Hero stepping up. Saint watching. World shaking.
Serious.
Dark.
Dramatic.
The perfect stage for a noble villain to show fear, or battle, or die.
So obviously—
I had to do something that did not belong here at all.
I took a deep breath that tasted like stupidity and shouted at the top of my lungs:
"EVERYONE, STAY CALM! THIS IS JUST MY CHILDHOOD PET!"
Silence.
Utter silence.
Even the entity paused.
The whole cafeteria turned to look at me with the same expression:
What?
Rex grabbed my shoulders.
"WHAT CHILDHOOD DID YOU HAVE!?"
The entity's head tilted.
The strings dragging at my existence flickered.
[COHERENCE DISTORTION: 7%]
[CONTINUE.]
Oh, we were already going to hell, might as well buy property.
I took a step toward the corruption glitch horror and waved as if greeting a long-lost dog.
"H-Hey there, uhh… Fluffy."
The entity twitched.
Somewhere, a noble girl actually choked on air.
"Fluffy?" someone whispered in horror.
I kept going, voice shaking but loud.
"Everyone, this is Fluffy. She likes long walks on collapsing realities, romantic nights staring through windows, and deleting people from the script when they don't call her back!"
"Kyle," Rex rasped, "you're actively losing your mind in 4K."
The entity's form shuddered.
Its head turned slightly, as if in… confusion.
[COHERENCE DISTORTION: 21%]
[OBSERVATION STABILITY DROPPING]
The pressure on my existence eased a fraction.
Aether stared at me like I was insane.
Which, to be fair, I was.
"You know this thing?" he demanded.
"Unfortunately yes," I said. "She's very clingy."
A ripple went through the mana in the air.
Even Seraphina's eyes narrowed, just a hair, a crack in her usual calm.
"…Clingy?" she murmured.
One of the instructors hissed at me, "Blackthorn! Do not provoke the entity!"
"I'm trying to emotionally confuse it," I whispered back. "It's a strategy."
"IT'S A BAD ONE!"
"IT'S WORKING!"
[COHERENCE DISTORTION: 35%]
The entity took another step toward me.
But its form looked less stable than before, lines inside it flickering, rearranging, stuttering.
I could feel it trying to grip my "place" in the story.
Every time the situation tried to become "serious final deletion scene with doomed villain"—
My words shoved it sideways into "awkward ex-girlfriend comedy arc".
It hated it.
I could tell.
Good.
I pointed dramatically at its glitch-face.
"FLUFFY! WE TALKED ABOUT THIS!" I yelled.
"I TOLD YOU, I'M EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE AND CURRENTLY PURSUING A COLD, TERRIFYING SAINTESS INSTEAD!"
Dead.
Silence.
The kind of silence that should be studied by philosophers.
Every head turned, very slowly, toward Seraphina.
She blinked once.
Her golden eyes met mine.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Rex leaned to the side and whispered,
"Bro. There were seven billion ways to die and you picked ALL OF THEM."
[CRINGE OUTPUT: EXTREME]
[EMOTIONAL DAMAGE TAKEN: 90% (RESISTED BY CRINGE ARMOR)]
The entity convulsed.
Its arm dropped.
The fissure behind it trembled.
[COHERENCE DISTORTION: 62%]
[OUTSIDE FATE ANCHOR: DESTABILIZING]
Its voice finally formed words again, layered and broken.
"—You—should—NOT—be comedic—"
"SAME," I shouted back.
Something snapped.
The entity whirled, its head twisting toward Aether, then toward Seraphina, then toward the fleeing students, like it was trying to latch onto someone else.
But I'd already infected the "scene" with so much tonal whiplash that nothing made sense anymore.
It could no longer find a clean narrative thread to erase.
[YOU HAVE TURNED A HIGH-LEVEL FATE EXECUTION SCENE INTO A ROMANTIC COMEDY ARGUMENT.]
[CONGRATULATIONS.]
"Don't congratulate me," I hissed.
At that moment, Aether moved.
He didn't understand what was happening.
He didn't need to.
He was a protagonist.
He just charged.
Sword aura flared, blue light exploding around his blade as he slashed at the entity.
The strike didn't cut flesh.
It cut script.
Lines of glitching text and fractured symbols flew out from the wound, dissolving into smoke.
The entity shrieked.
Not physically.
In every direction.
Inside my skull.
"ERROR—ERROR—ERROR—"
Seraphina followed up without a word.
A freezing circle of radiance bloomed beneath her feet.
She raised a hand—
And a spear of pure white ice manifested above her, wrapped in threads of holy light.
She thrust.
The spear nailed the entity through the chest, pinning it halfway back into the fissure.
It writhed, half in reality, half in that black tear.
The world trembled.
[OUTSIDE FATE MANIFESTATION: FORCED TERMINATION]
[THIS INSTANCE WILL BE REWRITTEN.]
Its head twisted toward me one last time.
"This—is—not—over," it choked.
"You—are—still—miswritten…"
Then it imploded.
Not with blood.
With silence.
Reality folded in on it and snapped shut.
The fissure sealed with a crack like shattering glass in reverse.
The pressure vanished.
The cafeteria sagged as if an invisible weight had been lifted from the building itself.
For a moment—
No one moved.
Then the screaming started again.
---
Instructors sprinted to check the students.
Several fainted.
Some cried.
Many just sat on the floor, shaking.
The barrier dissolved.
My legs finally gave out.
I slumped onto my chair.
Rex dropped beside me.
"We're alive," he said blankly.
"Yeah."
"Because you gaslit a cosmic error into thinking it was your ex."
"Yeah."
He stared straight ahead.
"I am never telling anyone the truth about that."
"Good."
[MAJOR ENCOUNTER SURVIVED]
[REWARD DISTRIBUTION…]
Strength +2
Agility +2
Endurance +3
Intelligence +1
Luck +3
Embarrassment Resistance +10
[NEW PASSIVE TITLE UNLOCKED:]
Tone Breaker (LVL 1) – Scenes involving you resist fixed narrative outcomes. Effect increases with humiliation.
CURRENT STATUS – KYLE VON BLACKTHORN
Strength: 29
Agility: 29
Endurance: 33
Intelligence: 19
Charm: 36
Luck: 25
Embarrassment Resistance: 53/100
Execution Countdown: 1 Year, 363 Days
Special Flags:
Marked as Miswritten
Watched by Outside Fate
Under Hero Suspicion
Under Saint Observation (Intensity: Rising)
"Great," I muttered. "I'm becoming physically stronger and socially unsalvageable."
---
"Kyle."
The voice was calm.
Too calm.
I looked up.
Aether stood in front of me.
His sword was sheathed again, but the aura around him hadn't faded.
Behind him, Lina watched me nervously from a distance.
To my other side—
Seraphina had moved closer as well, though she stood a few steps back, golden eyes fixed on my face.
Being on the receiving end of both protagonist and heroine stares was not good for my health.
Aether folded his arms.
"I have questions," he said.
"That makes two of us," I replied weakly.
He ignored that.
"That entity," he said. "It came straight for you. It called you 'miswritten.'"
I swallowed.
"I noticed."
"And you acted like you… had seen it before."
Rex coughed.
"No he didn't," he lied horribly.
Everyone ignored him.
Aether's eyes bored into mine.
"I don't know what you are," he said. "Villain, victim, or something else. But if that thing—or anything like it—comes back, and you are involved…"
His hand tightened around nothing, as if gripping his invisible sword.
"I won't let it touch anyone else. Even if that means cutting you down."
I nodded slowly.
"That's fair," I said. "I'd do the same."
He blinked, just once, at the straightforward answer.
Then stepped back.
"For now," he said, "I'll assume we are on the same side against those things."
"For now," I echoed.
He turned and walked away, Lina hurrying to follow.
Rex leaned over.
"On the bright side," he whispered, "if the world doesn't erase you, the Hero might."
"Thank you, Rex," I said. "Deeply reassuring."
Seraphina was still there.
She hadn't spoken.
Hadn't blinked much either.
She just looked.
At me.
Through me.
Into something I didn't know how to see.
Finally, she tilted her head.
"That thing," she said quietly. "It did not behave normally."
"You've seen it before?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Her eyes flickered.
"…In a way," she murmured.
Not reassuring at all.
"You twisted the scene," she continued. "Changed the feeling. Made it… ridiculous."
"I call it survival by self-sabotage," I said.
A tiny breath escaped her.
It might have almost been a laugh.
Almost.
"This world shouldn't allow such deviations," she said.
Then, more softly, almost to herself:
"And yet, every time you should break… you persist instead."
There was something like irritation there.
And fascination.
And something else I couldn't name.
"Kyle von Blackthorn," she said. "Whatever you are… you shouldn't exist this way."
I forced a tired grin.
"Story of my life."
She turned to leave.
Then paused.
Without looking back, she added:
"Don't let those things erase you."
My chest tightened unexpectedly.
"I'll… try," I said.
"You'd better," Rex muttered. "Or who else is going to introduce me to eldritch girlfriends?"
Seraphina walked away without a word.
But her shadow, under the cafeteria light—
Stretched a little too long.
And didn't perfectly match her movement.
---
Back in the half-destroyed dorm, after healers tended to the injured and the academy locked down for "investigation," I finally collapsed on my bed.
Rex sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
"So," he said, "do I get to ask what 'miswritten' means now?"
I covered my face with a pillow.
"Rex, if I explain it, you'll be dragged in deeper."
"I was in the room with the window demon and the air crack monster," he said flatly. "I'm already drowning, bro."
…Fair.
"System," I muttered in my head. "Give me something. Why me? Why 'miswritten'?"
For once, the system didn't respond with a joke.
[PARTIAL ACCESS GRANTED]
[EXPLANATION (FRAGMENT):]
In this world, every major existence is tied to a "line" of fate—
A story thread.
Kyle von Blackthorn's line was written as:
[Villain. Atrocity. Execution.]
When your soul entered, you did not replace this line.
You **overlapped it**.
Two incompatible scripts.
One body.
Therefore:miswritten.
I stared at the ceiling.
"So I'm… a typo," I said.
[CORRECTION: YOU ARE A VERY PERSISTENT TYPO.]
Rex glanced over.
"You okay?"
"No."
"…We'll figure it out," he said.
"We?" I repeated.
"You think I'm leaving now?" he snorted. "I want to see how far this typo thing goes."
[NOTICE: COMPANION REX CALDER – LOYALTY +2]
I closed my eyes.
My life was a disaster.
The world wanted me to die.
Fate wanted me deleted.
The Hero was suspicious.
The Saint was watching.
Entities beyond reality knew my name.
And the only reason I was still here—
Was because I kept humiliating myself.
I laughed weakly.
"System," I said. "What's the next big problem coming?"
[…]
[MAJOR ARC PREVIEW:]
UPCOMING EVENT – "HOLY ACADEMY ENTRANCE EXAM: FATE TRIAL"
YOU HAVE BEEN FORCIBLY REGISTERED.
SPECIAL CONDITION:
Watchers will be waiting inside.
I opened my eyes.
"Oh, good," I said hollowly. "An exam."
Rex groaned.
"I knew I should've dropped out."