A season that soothes the mind with its comforting silence — orange leaves drifting from the trees, piling into soft mounds along the path, the temperature sitting at that perfect midpoint where winter's cold finally loosens its grip and the first hints of warmth begin to breathe through. The sun hid behind clouds. The wind moved gently through the parks. The streets were empty that morning.
Standing before a large tree, the boy with his bandaged arm reached out and touched the bark with quiet joy. His free hand moved slowly, almost reverently, tracing the grooves as though greeting an old friend.
"I wonder when I'll get the chance to feel that love again," he murmured. "The love I used to have for all of you..."
He tilted his head upward. An orange leaf let go of its branch and tumbled past his face.
"Flowers, plants, animals... a strange thing for a child to care about, maybe." A small smile. "But it was beautiful." He watched the leaf land at his feet before speaking again, softer this time. "Please don't die on me... not while I can still watch you bloom."
A yawn broke the silence.
Hiro was making his way over, hands tucked behind his back, looking entirely unbothered by the early hour.
"Seems like you really love this stuff."
"It reminds me of when my father used to take me to his meetings." Giyo's eyes stayed on the petals scattered around the roots. "That place was incredible... towers flying the banners of a great empire. Flowers so beautiful they made me want to watch them grow forever." His smile faded slowly, quietly, the way a candle dims before going out. "I'm glad nature has its cycle."
He was quiet for a moment.
"But now it's time to move forward."
Hiro studied the boy's face for a beat before speaking.
"I'm impressed you recovered so fast. That arm of yours was completely corroded from those whip strikes."
He gave Giyo's shoulder a light pat — nothing much, just enough — and started walking ahead.
"Come on. You'll be late for class."
The two of them left the clearing behind, footsteps settling into an easy rhythm as they made their way toward H.I.R.O. Academy.
"So how's everyone doing?" Giyo fell into step beside him. "I must've gone soft during recovery. Ha."
Hiro let the silence stretch for just a moment before answering — the kind of pause that meant he was choosing his words.
"Asuna's been pushing herself even harder. She's become the strongest in your class." A quiet note of pride beneath the matter-of-fact tone. "Pan is still trying to master that strange mark she discovered during the tournament. Kirio and Petra have been spending a lot of time together lately — looks like they're both working hard to keep up with the others."
Giyo smiled. It was good to hear.
"But don't let it go to your head," Hiro added. "None of them know you were under my supervision and Professor Paola's during this time."
The smile didn't exactly disappear — it just settled into something more thoughtful.
"That corrupted arm of yours," Hiro continued, eyes forward, "is a genuine danger. And a mystery."
A beat.
"Does the King know about this?"
"He assumes it's just your magic deficiency." Hiro's hand drifted to his chin. "Since your body naturally has no magic, those whip strikes could be some form of your inner power manifesting." His voice shifted — slower now, more careful. "Of course, only we know about the demon inside you. So assuming you're being corrupted..."
He stopped. Not his feet — his words.
Giyo glanced at him sideways.
"I'm being Demonified, aren't I?"
It came out calm. Direct. The kind of calm that takes effort to maintain.
Hiro didn't answer immediately. The path curved ahead of them, dappled with leaf-shadow.
"...Well." He exhaled through his nose. "It's reasonable to assume so. You are being Demonified."
Neither of them spoke for a moment after that.
During the tournament, the clash had been too powerful — the kind that doesn't leave clean wounds. Bones fractured. Muscles tore. Skin split open in countless places. The only option had been a long, careful course of healing magic. Law had regained full mobility, his arm mending faster than anyone expected.
Giyo's arm had not.
It hung at his side — completely black, dark veins pressing against skin that had gone almost translucent. The bones had healed. The muscles had knit back together. But the arm simply wouldn't move, no matter how hard he focused. No matter how many times he tried.
"Hiro." Giyo's voice was steady. "That's not going to stop me."
The old man glanced at him.
"Just knowing I could stand against someone stronger than me..." Giyo looked down at the arm, then back up. "I can keep fighting even with one arm."
Hiro was quiet for another moment.
Then he reached over and ruffled the boy's hair — a little roughly, the way you do when words aren't quite right for the occasion.
"Don't push it... kid."
When they arrived at school, something had clearly shifted.
Students who would have waved casually before now bowed. Others stepped aside with a kind of shy, wide-eyed deference. A few simply stopped and stared. The Champion had returned, and apparently the word had spread overnight — along with considerable embellishment.
It lasted all the way to the front entrance, where a cluster of upperclasswomen had gathered and were now descending on Giyo with enthusiasm that suggested they had rehearsed.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
Everyone within a ten-meter radius flinched.
Hiro stood very still, expression flat, the temperature around him dropping approximately five degrees.
"These children," he said, very quietly, "think they can skip class. Right in front of me."
The cluster evaporated.
Giyo watched them go. "Well... after the tournament I ended up in the spotlight." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll be honest — it's really hard to get used to this much attention."
"I think," Hiro said, pointing ahead without looking at him, "you're drawing a bit too much attention."
Giyo followed the gesture.
Asuna and Pan were waiting directly in front of the classroom door, arms crossed, expressions matching.
"Seriously, little bro?!" Pan's voice carried halfway down the hall. "Charming the girls now?!"
"You must be getting soft." Asuna cracked her knuckles. The sound was deliberate. Pointed. "Maybe I should teach you some manners."
"N-no!" Giyo's hands shot up instantly. "That won't be necessary — heh—"
"Get inside," Paola's voice cut through from somewhere beyond the door. "All of you."
And just like that, it was another ordinary day in Giyo's life. Silly questions. Serious answers. The particular warmth of being somewhere familiar, surrounded by people who didn't treat him like a statue. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until now.
Hours later—
DING... DING...
The bell rang. Break time.
The group filed out together, and somewhere between the classroom door and the hallway, the atmosphere had shifted again — easier, closer, the way things get between people who've been through something together.
Then a voice cracked through the hall like a whip.
"HEY! GET OUT OF MY WAY!"
Everyone turned.
At the far end of the corridor, a girl stood with her chin raised and one hand planted on her hip, watching a boy scramble away from her with the expression of someone who found his panic completely reasonable.
"Who do you think you are, bumping into me?!" she called after him. "MOVE!"
She turned to continue walking — and walked directly into someone else.
"AGAIN?! And just who are y—"
She looked up.
The words died.
Her eyes went wide, then wider. For a moment she just stared at Giyo, taking in every detail with the intensity of someone confirming something they couldn't quite believe.
"W-wait," she breathed. "Is that you...?"
A beat.
"CHAMPION!"
She stepped closer — significantly closer than the situation called for — tilting her head as she studied him from every angle. Giyo went very still.
"Honestly, I didn't expect you to be so tall. You must be the biggest one in the class!"
"Actually..." Giyo shifted his weight. "I'm the shortest."
He pointed back at his group. The comparison was immediate and not in his favor.
"But — who are you? I've never seen you around here."
The girl straightened. Her entire posture changed in the span of a breath — spine lengthening, chin lifting, hands folding over her chest with the practiced ease of someone who had done this particular move many times.
"I take it you're unfamiliar with the Saints."
She let the word land.
"My name is Lys. I'm a Saint of the Church — sent by the Pope himself to study alongside all of you at this academy."
Nobody said anything.
Pan opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"...Saint."
"Yes."
"Sent by the Pope."
"Yes."
"To this school."
Lys exhaled through her nose, patient as a tutor explaining arithmetic. "Yes."
"That's..." Pan turned to the group. "That's unheard of."
"It's quite rare, yes — a personal directive." Lys flipped her hair to one side, visibly pleased with the reaction. "He said I should deepen my magical knowledge and develop into a First-Class Mage." The satisfaction in her expression held for exactly two more seconds. Then something shifted — her shoulders dropped, her gaze went sideways, and a faint flush crept up her cheeks. "But... on the way here... I got completely lost. By the time I arrived, everyone was already on break."
Asuna and Pan exchanged a look.
Then, without a word, they both crouched down to her eye level.
"Which class are you in, Lys?" Asuna asked, her voice noticeably gentler. "You must have serious ability if the Pope called you a Saint."
"First Year, Class A." Lys tilted her head. "Do you know where that is?"
Silence.
The kind of silence that means everyone heard the same thing and is waiting for someone else to react first.
Pan straightened slowly.
"...You're in our class."
"Oh!" Lys turned immediately to Giyo, eyes bright. "Being in the same class as the Champion will be an honor!" She stepped forward.
Pan and Asuna stepped forward faster.
"Hold on." Pan positioned herself squarely between them. "You just got here and you're already trying to hang off him?!"
"Exactly." Asuna's jaw was tight. "If you think you're going to—"
"Girls. Girls." Giyo appeared at the edge of the situation with both hands raised, wearing the expression of a person who had no plan.
"Setting that aside—" Kirio's voice cut through cleanly as he stepped into the gap, arms folded, eyes on Lys. "Don't you think it's strange? Neither the teacher nor my father mentioned any of this. If you're from the Church, that should've been announced at the start of class."
Lys didn't miss a beat.
"The Pope personally spoke with Director Hiro about me. The Director chose to treat me as an ordinary student — since it's important that my connection to the Church stays quiet."
Kirio stared at her.
"THEN WHY DID YOU JUST TELL ALL OF US—"
"I forgot." Lys looked up at him, expression collapsing into something soft and sheepish and utterly impossible to be angry at. "Hehe."[/i]
Kirio opened his mouth. Closed it.
DING... DING...
The bell saved everyone.
Paola was waiting for them — not at their usual classroom door, but further down the hall. She waved them forward with a single gesture, offering no explanation, and somehow that was enough. The group followed, speculation buzzing quietly beneath the surface.
The destination answered itself before anyone could ask.
The training hall.
The same room. The same worn markings on the floor. The same weight to the air that always meant something was about to be decided.
Everyone filtered in around the edge of the combat area, the collective energy shifting from curious to alert. Paola walked to the center, turned to face them, and clapped once.
"I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce a new addition to our class this year." She gestured toward Lys. "Please — come forward."
Lys stepped out of the crowd.
She was, objectively, the smallest person in the room by a noticeable margin. Her hair curled in loose spirals around her face. Her dress was elegant — the kind of thing you'd wear to impress someone, which made her presence in a combat hall feel slightly surreal.
She tossed her hair to one side, surveyed the room with calm authority, and spoke.
"Pleasure. My name is Lys." A pause, as though deciding whether anything else needed to be said. Apparently it did. "Despite my delicate appearance and sweet voice, I am far stronger than any of you might assume." Another pause. "And yes. That includes every single one of you."
The snickering started slowly, then spread like a wave.
Paola's smile was the kind that meant she was choosing her next words carefully. "Well... if you all think you can handle her — why don't we open with a training match? I'd like to pick one of you to face Lys."
"Me."
The word landed flat and deliberate.
Kirio was already walking forward before anyone looked up, hands in pockets, jaw set, carrying the particular stillness of someone who has been quiet for a while and is done being quiet.
"Since the moment you got here," he said, stopping in front of Lys, "I haven't been able to overlook how irritating you are." His voice was controlled. Measured. Which somehow made it worse. "Throwing yourself at the Champion. Acting like you're the best in the room." He pointed at her — slow, deliberate. "You are nothing but a fraud to me."
Lys looked up at him.
She tossed her hair.
They took their positions.
Lys stood on the left side of the marked area, watching Kirio with the relaxed focus of someone who had already decided how this would end. Kirio stood on the right, fists raised, shoulders low, the slight forward lean of someone who moves fast.
Paola's hand dropped.
Kirio launched.
He was faster than he'd been before the tournament — noticeably, meaningfully faster. The gap closed in less than a second. His punch came from the left, tight and clean, aimed straight at her—
CRASH.
The sound didn't belong to a human body hitting something.
A blur — barely visible, there and gone — tore across the arena. The wall on the far side buckled. Dust fell from the impact crater like snow.
Lys stood exactly where she had been standing, fist extended at the empty space in front of her. She lowered it slowly. Glanced down at her dress. Brushed a nonexistent speck from the fabric.
"If there's one thing I can't stand," she said, "it's pathetic people."
The room was completely silent.
"Never dare touch me." She smoothed the front of her dress with both hands. "Or my dress."
Nobody laughed this time.
Kirio was against the wall, embedded in the crater, chest heaving. Asuna and Pan's expressions had gone hard. Petra was already moving — crossing the arena in quick strides, reaching him before anyone else had processed what happened.
"Kirio—" Her voice was tight, controlled. "Kirio, can you hear me?"
"S..." His voice came out wrong. "...sua maldita..."
Still conscious. Couldn't move.
"Hmph." Lys crossed her arms. "Just patch him up already."
Giyo was quiet for a moment. Then he stepped forward.
"Did you really have to go that hard?" He kept his voice even, but there was something behind it. "You sent him into a wall, Lys."
"He came at me," she said simply. "He wasn't going easy. So neither did I."
Giyo didn't answer out loud.
But he'd seen it. One split second before the blur — when Kirio's fist was already moving and Lys hadn't flinched, hadn't stepped back, hadn't done anything visible at all — a flash of light. There and gone. Faster than the punch, faster than the reaction.
What was that? he thought. What are her real abilities?
Months Earlier — At the Highest Level of the Hierarchy...
The chamber was built for decisions, not discussions.
Vaulted ceilings swallowed sound. The long table reflected the faces of the people seated at it, all of them powerful, most of them frightened — though none would have admitted it.
"IS THIS SERIOUS?!"
One voice broke first, then another.
"WE CANNOT ALLOW A DEMONIFIED INDIVIDUAL WALKING AROUND FREELY!"
"I can't believe a mere boy managed to get Demonified—"
"The real question is how he's still conscious—"
"What kind of precedent does this set—"
At the head of the table, a figure rose.
The room went quiet so quickly it was almost physical.
Their robes were magnificent — layered, precise, the kind of garment that communicates authority in every fold. The veil over their face bore the mark that everyone in the room recognized and none of them took lightly: the cross of the governmental seal, known throughout the world as the Divine Paladin Trinity.
"Silence."
One word. That was all it took.
"I will give my ruling now." The leader's voice filled the chamber with the kind of ease that made it clear they had never needed to raise it. "Given the gravity of what our world now faces, we must act immediately. The Demonified boy. The blood-soaked Demon. The supposed Doppelganger." A pause — not for effect, but for weight. "All of it must be eradicated. At once."
From the far end of the table, a sound.
Small. Rhythmic. Completely out of place.
Someone was eating an apple.
The crunching continued through the silence, drawing eyes like a splinter draws fingers. Then, unhurried, a voice came from that direction.
"There's no need to worry, Your Majesty."
He stood out. He was the kind of person who always did — black hair shot through with gleaming green streaks, eyes dark and sharp as chipped flint. On the back of his hands, clearly visible, a skull mark that didn't look decorative.
"The Doppelganger is already under my orders."
The leader's gaze moved to him. Slowly.
"Your orders." Not a question. A recalibration. "So you and the Gods have been—"
"The Doppelganger's purpose is to handle exactly these kinds of problems," he continued, setting the apple down with a quiet precision. "I was chosen among the Gods to create it and send it into the mortal world. Consider this matter managed."
A long silence.
"Hades." The leader's voice had not changed in volume. Somehow that made it worse. "I was under the impression that the Gods had agreed — that I was to be the sole ruler of this world."
Hades tilted his head, something almost like patience in his expression.
"The Gods are deeply unsettled by what has been unfolding. There is strong suspicion that some Demons survived the war that defined our races." He let that sit. "They are taking precautions."
The ruler of the world could not do much in that moment except remain still.
She settled back into her throne, spine straight, hands folded.
On the outside, composed.
But the question she couldn't dismiss, the one that had embedded itself somewhere behind her sternum and refused to leave—
What, exactly, was this Doppelganger?
In the Present Day — Somewhere Within the Great Forest...
"I cannot believe," said the figure threading between the trees at considerable speed, "that I accepted this mission."
She ducked under a branch without slowing. A curtain of leaves parted and closed behind her like water.
"I really need to start saying no to certain requests. Especially when they come from the King."
The memory surfaced without being invited.
— A few days earlier —
"There have been reports of mass disappearances in the surrounding regions." Arthur's tone had been unhurried, the way it always was when the news was bad. "Witnesses describe a wolf — taken by shadow, they say. Something that can change its shape at will."
He had let that image settle before continuing.
"Your mission: locate it, capture it, and determine who — or what — is responsible."
Vamp had given the only appropriate response.
"Understood, my King."
— End —
She landed on a root, pushed off, kept moving.
The trail ahead narrowed and then ended — a wooden signpost planted at the tree line, partially overgrown but still legible. The message was simple:
WARNING — DANGEROUS CREATURES IN THIS AREA.
Vamp stopped.
Not because of the sign.
Her eyes dropped to the ground. Then to the trunks on either side of her. Then upward, where the canopy shifted uneasily — birds disturbed from their perches, moving in tight, anxious circles.
Claw marks. Deep ones, dragged down the bark in long parallel lines. On the leaves underfoot, dark stains — not rain, not sap.
Blood.
She lowered her gaze again.
Pawprints. Large. Recent.
"...Tracks." Her voice was quiet, thinking aloud. "Could actually be a beast."
From somewhere ahead — and then suddenly closer — a low sound built in the dark between the trees.
A growl.
Then another. And another.
Eyes opened in the shadows. Not one pair. Many.
The wolves stepped forward into the dim light, and Vamp's hand moved without hurry to the weapon across her back.
"Wolves." She studied them. "The King did mention... are you Demonified? If you are, I'm willing to hear you out."
One wolf separated from the pack. The largest one. It moved with the slow, deliberate confidence of something that had learned it didn't need to rush.
"I am..." The voice came from it, low and wrong in a way that human voices never were. "...hungry."
Vamp's fingers closed around her weapon.
"Hungry for what, exactly?"
"Flesh." A pause that felt almost thoughtful. "Life. I want... more."
Before she could respond, the rest of the pack dissolved.
Not scattered — dissolved. The shapes came apart into a dark, viscous substance that flowed across the ground and converged on the lead wolf, absorbing into it, layer by layer. The wolf swelled. The proportions shifted — larger, denser, the jaw elongating, the teeth pressing out past the lips in jagged rows.
Vamp drew her weapon.
It was not what most people expected when they heard the word weapon. No blade. No edge. Just iron — long and slender, tapering to a fine point, with a single small hole bored through the end of the handle.
A needle. Enormous, perfectly weighted, and clearly designed to do significant damage.
The wolf moved.
It was fast. The swing of one massive claw leveled three trees in its arc, bark exploding outward, the impact carving a trench in the earth.
Vamp was already gone — up, pushing off the momentum of her jump, clearing the canopy in a single bound. For just a moment she hung above the forest, the wolf below her, the grey sky above.
She came back down.
The needle drove through. She was gone again before the wound could close — up, down, left, right, a rhythm she was finding as she moved, each arc of the blade leaving a long, clean cut across the creature's flank.
She landed in a low crouch, breathing steady.
Not one drop of blood.
The wounds were there. Visible. And the creature stood as though it hadn't noticed.
"You don't die?" Her voice carried more surprise than she intended.
"Stop..." The creature's voice had changed. Something in it that hadn't been there before. "...pain... help..."
Vamp's grip tightened.
"HELP! IT HURTS!"
She took a step back.
The voice hadn't come from the wolf.
It had come from inside her head.
"PLEASE MAKE IT STOP—"
She pressed her free hand to her temple. Multiple voices now, overlapping, all of them wrong, all of them afraid.
The wolf watched her. Something almost like satisfaction moved through its expression.
"So you can hear them too."
Vamp didn't answer.
"The screams that ask for help. The ones that beg me to stop." Its voice was almost conversational now. "Those are the people I've devoured. I absorbed their shadows. Their voices came with them."
"You absorbed their—"
"When I arrived in this place, I knew nothing." The creature's tone shifted — not angry, not sad. Simply stating. "No family. No creator. No history. Only a single thing I was certain of." The massive head lowered slightly, eyes catching the light. "A mission. Kill the Champion."
The words hit differently than a blow.
"...The Champion." Vamp kept her voice level. Is it talking about the boy? "What reason could you possibly have to—"
The wolf came apart.
The dark mass collapsed inward on itself, condensing, folding, pulling tighter and tighter until what remained was a sphere — roughly the size of a human torso, dark as ink, pulsing with something that was almost like breath.
It hovered.
"This is what I am." The voice surrounded her now rather than coming from one direction. "My true form. I seek a body to grow into, to become something more. My own goal — not given to me, chosen by me — is to kill every mortal that exists." A low resonance passed through the air. "When I devoured those humans, I gained language. Thought. Emotion. And with them... the ability to decide." The sphere pulsed once, hard. "After I kill the Champion, I will destroy everything within reach."
It shot upward.
Through the canopy. Into the sky. Gone — a dark smear that faded and vanished like a shadow that had lost its object.
Vamp stood in the sudden quiet of the forest.
Around her: claw marks. Blood on leaves. Three trees that no longer stood.
She looked at the empty sky for a long moment.
Then she turned, sheathed her needle, and broke into a run.
"I need to report this to the King." Her voice was harder than it had been.
"Immediately."