Echoes of the Forgotten

“Still chasing ghosts, old friend?”

Kael froze.

That voice. Too familiar. Too wrong. It hadn’t changed.

Just like the wound it ripped open.

“Gareth,” he spat.

The name tasted like rust and disbelief.

The figure before him wasn’t memory. He was real—taller, more rigid. His once-wild hair tied with surgical precision, posture sharpened into ceremony. The scar on his jaw—Kael had stitched it himself at Ralos—remained like a cruel receipt of their past.

But his eyes?

Lifeless.

And the robes—divine-threaded, rune-lined—pulsed like a machine simulating holiness. A parody of everything they once bled for.

“How the hell are you alive?” Kael asked, voice trembling—not from fear, but fury.

Gareth smiled faintly. “You thought I died there?”

“I saw the blade go through you. You collapsed in my arms.”

“No,” Gareth said softly. “You saw what they wanted.”

Detached. Rehearsed. Like recalling someone else’s death.

Kael’s fists tightened.

“I buried you. Mira did too.”

“She’s gone,” Gareth said. “So is Sera. All of them.”

A tilt of the head. “Still clinging to names like anchors?”

“Don’t.” Kael’s voice cracked like lightning on stone. “Don’t say their names like they meant nothing.”

Dust curled at their feet. Behind them, the monument still bore Kael’s erased likeness—kneeling, unnamed.

“Why?” Kael asked, raw. “Why join them?”

A pause.

“Because we lost.”

“We won,” Kael hissed. “You and I—we ended it.”

“You ended it,” Gareth said, cool as frost. “Too early. Before the arc could finish. You killed the last page before the book understood the story.”

Kael’s jaw clenched.

“So now you wear their robes? Quote doctrine? You?”

“I chose to understand. Balance has a price. Someone has to carry what others can’t.”

“And you think you’re a martyr?” Kael stepped forward. “You taught me to doubt the Saints. You knew. And now you bow like the rest?”

“I didn’t bow,” Gareth said. “I became the knife they needed.”

Kael’s rage sharpened into something cold.

“You coward.”

He dropped the words like a hammer.

“You saw what they were—how they rewrote people—and now you echo that same rot?”

“You think I’m weak?” Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not kneeling, Kael. I’m directing what you broke.”

“You’re not directing anything. You’re a footnote gilded in gold leaf.”

The runes around them flared, sensing fracture.

“You were supposed to fight with me,” Kael said. “Not kneel.”

“I remember,” Gareth said. “That’s why I joined.”

Kael reached into his coat. Pulled a bent, blood-crusted tag. Class 3-C. Held it a moment. Then dropped it between them.

It hit the stone with a dull, final clang.

“You think I broke the system?” Kael growled. “Good.”

He stepped forward.

“Because I haven’t even started.”

—

Gareth didn’t speak.

He moved.

Gold ripped through the air—light weaponized into a blade.

Kael barely raised an arm before the blow hit. It was like being struck by a cathedral. Divine force cracked his chest and hurled him across the sanctum like a broken verse. He slammed into the wall. Something snapped.

He dropped. Coughed. Blood.

But rose.

Because of course Gareth didn’t hesitate. Mercy was never on the table.

“You were my brother!” Kael shouted, hoarse.

He drew his dagger. Not holy. Not named. Just iron—etched in memory, warmed by his hand and hate.

Gareth answered with brilliance.

A sanctified strike cleaved the air. Kael ducked beneath the flare, slid across the stone, lunged low—but mid-air, sigils burst to life like divine snares, stopping him cold.

Glyphs spiraled around Gareth’s body. Runes turned like gears. Controlled. Absolute. A holy machine dressed as a man.

“You’re not Kael,” Gareth said. “Kael died with the war. What’s left is noise.”

Kael’s voice dropped to a snarl.

“Then end it.”

Gareth’s grip tightened.

He stepped to strike again—

—

“Enough.”

The word landed like judgment.

The sanctum froze.

Light dimmed. Dust stopped. Gareth’s blade halted mid-swing—not from choice, but command.

Twelve figures stepped from shadow, faceless and robed. Saints, or what passed for them. Their masks were carved in divine symmetry—weathered, featureless, cruel.

One lifted a hand.

Golden chains spiraled down, locking Gareth’s arms mid-motion. The glyphs around him blinked out.

His body obeyed without struggle.

No resistance.

Only submission.

Kael staggered to his feet, blade still gripped, blood on his fingers.

“You don’t even get to control your rage,” he spat. “They took that too.”

The Saints turned to him—twelve mouths that never spoke, twelve eyes that never blinked, yet somehow judged.

A voice emerged from the void between them—mechanical, cold:

“It is not yet time.”

Another stepped forward—its mask cracked, a divine fracture.

“This deviation remains… productive. Interference will be withheld.”

Kael’s heart slammed against his ribs.

“Productive?” he snarled. “You think this is productive?”

A third voice—flat, inhuman:

“You are the anomaly that stabilizes the narrative. A useful variable. A necessary inconsistency.”

And Kael understood.

This wasn’t mercy.

It was calculation.

They hadn’t stopped Gareth to save him.

They stopped him because Kael’s pain was still useful.

He wasn’t a man.

He was an experiment.

A narrative tool.

His voice came dry, bitter.

“You’re not gods.”

He raised his blade, hand trembling—not from fear, but from fury with nowhere to land.

“You’re editors with halos.”

None of them moved.

They didn’t need to.

Their silence weighed more than law.

Kael wasn’t defying fate.

He was feeding it.

One stepped forward—its mask marked with a mirrored eye.

“This is your final reprieve.”

A pause.

“Interfere again… and you will not be preserved.”

Kael laughed, once. Broken.

“No more cages?”

The voice didn’t flinch.

“No more second chances.”

“Only deletion.”

The moment stretched, drawn taut like a snapped string.

Then—

Light shattered.

Reality cracked.

And Kael was thrown—

—

—

Kael landed hard.

Not in the sanctum.

His dorm.

The breath tore from his lungs as he slammed into the floor like a memory being rejected.

He gasped.

Cold. Then stillness. Then the hum of quiet enchantments.

Desk. Bed. The rune-lit walls. The courtyard window—peaceful, perfect.

Untouched.

As if none of it had happened.

But it had.

His shoulder still ached.

The glyph beneath his shirt still pulsed.

And on the floor—

The dagger.

Its edge still blackened.

Still real.

The morning air tasted wrong.

Not ash. Not fresh.

Just… undecided.

Like the sky hadn’t chosen whether to fall.

Kael walked the academy paths under a new weight. Students drifted like always—laughing, gossiping, pretending. But something beneath the routine had tilted.

A fraction off.

Some stared at him.

Others looked through him.

But a few—

A few whispered names they weren’t supposed to know.

Gareth.

Saints.

Fire in the east wing.

The Order had made a mistake.

They tried to rewrite the scene.

But memory?

Memory clung like blood in old stone.

Every noticeboard bore the same parchment, pinned in gold-threaded wax:

Royal Celestia Academy

Annual Dueling Exhibition

Begins in Three Days

Mandatory Attendance

Public Demonstration

Ranking Reassessment

Let all students stand as equals before blade and audience.

Kael didn’t need subtext.

This wasn’t ceremony.

It was containment.

They were putting the glitch on stage.

Let the crowd see him. Measure him. Pretend control.

He stared at the parchment until the words blurred.

They weren’t trying to erase him anymore.

They were trying to perform him.

That evening, Kael sat beneath the shattered dome of the old greenhouse—his refuge.

The glass above had never been repaired. Jagged edges clung to rusted frames like frozen screams. Vines crept through, desperate to patch what gods had left broken.

He didn’t flinch when Lira sat beside him.

She didn’t speak right away.

Just passed him a small cloth bundle.

“A new cloak,” she murmured. “No ash. No blood.”

He didn’t smile.

But he took it.

“Thanks.”

The silence between them wasn’t awkward.

Just heavy.

She studied him for a long moment. “You’re in the noble bracket.”

He nodded.

Lira’s jaw tightened.

“You’re fighting Aegis Thorne.”

Of course he was.

“She doesn’t posture,” she said. “Doesn’t gloat. She wins by staying colder than the blade. She doesn’t duel opponents—she deletes them.”

Kael scuffed a crack in the marble with his boot.

“She’ll try.”

“She’s—”

“Perfect?” he cut in.

Lira paused. “Controlled.”

Kael looked up through the broken dome.

It was the first honest sky he’d seen all day.

“She can control all she wants,” he muttered.

“But control doesn’t survive contact with chaos.”

—

The dueling court shimmered like a stage waiting for its tragedy.

Runes glowed across marble lines—gold and violet, humming like a divine orchestra tuning up.

The crowd filled the arches. Silent. Watching.

Not excitement.

Surveillance.

Kael stepped into the ring without ceremony—no crest, no relic. Just a plain cloak stitched in quiet defiance, worn boots, and a blade that caught the light like it remembered the past.

Across from him stood Aegis Thorne.

She didn’t look like a duelist.

She looked like the final answer in a long equation.

Frost-blue uniform. Silver trim. House crest etched in perfect filigree. Her rapier rested against her shoulder—not cocky, not casual—just certain.

Eyes like morning ice studied Kael with unsettling stillness.

No smile.

No emotion.

Just… calculation.

The chime rang.

—

Aegis moved first.

Not fast.

Efficient.

Her strike came like clockwork—an elegant equation reduced to a single line. Minimal motion. Maximum precision.

Kael twisted. The blade kissed his shoulder—clean, sharp. Blood welled instantly.

She didn’t press.

She repositioned. Feet adjusting like a compass needle mapping his rhythm.

Kael smiled.

No joy in it.

She was built to fight within the rules.

But he didn’t come from textbooks.

He came from broken pages.

She came again—three strokes in rhythm. Feint. Sweep. Pivot.

Kael stepped inside, turned with her motion, and slammed the flat of his blade into her guard.

She slid back. Two paces.

No stumble.

But her brow furrowed—just a little.

Something hadn’t followed the script.

—

Now he pressed.

Unpredictable. Scrappy. His style wasn’t taught—it was survived.

No elegant parries. No formal stances.

He stepped into strikes. Broke tempo. Countered at odd angles. The way war teaches you.

Their blades clashed again.

This time, she blinked.

Not from fear.

From confusion.

That counter shouldn’t have worked.

But it did.

A shallow cut traced her sleeve. The crowd gasped.

Her stance shifted.

Lower. Defensive lines rewritten.

She’s adapting.

Kael circled, eyes on hers—not the blade.

Still cold.

But beneath it—curiosity.

—

She struck again.

Sharper now.

Less show, more study.

She wasn’t dueling him anymore.

She was trying to solve him.

Kael met her blade with jagged steps and broken rhythm—interceptions built from instinct, not design. He moved like a system glitch that refused to crash.

Steel rang against steel.

Mana shimmered across the court, throwing light and shadow like divine tension.

She was perfect form.

He was chaos that refused to collapse.

—

Then he slipped.

On purpose.

She lunged.

He rolled under, came up behind, slashed low.

Too slow.

His blade kissed her thigh.

Red bloomed on frost-blue.

The audience froze.

So did Aegis.

She touched the blood on her glove.

Then looked at him.

No fury.

No pride.

Just… interest.

“You’ve fought before,” she said. No accusation. Just fact.

Kael shrugged. “I’ve survived before.”

She didn’t smile.

But her stance changed again—looser, deadlier.

Like she wasn’t just fighting him anymore.

She was trying to understand him.

—

She lunged again—

—and the chime rang.

The duel was over.

A draw.

Not by points.

Not by injury.

By design.

The boundary runes dimmed. The murmurs began.

Kael lowered his blade. His shoulder throbbed. Blood dripped slow.

But he was still upright.

So was she.

Aegis glanced back at him before turning away.

She said nothing.

But in that silence—

There was no dismissal.

Only recognition.

—

High above, the Order watched.

They hadn’t intervened.

They didn’t need to.

Kael had given them what they wanted.

Not rebellion.

Something worse.

Unpredictability in front of an audience.

They couldn’t erase him.

Not yet.

Not while their perfect weapon walked away unsure who had won.