The CCT arena pulsed with raw energy, the stone pit scarred from endless clashes, blue Chronothite orbs buzzing like furious insects overhead.
The air reeked of sweat, blood, and ozone, the clocktower's relentless tick thumping through the walls like a giant heart.
No team had claimed three flags yet, the maze a labyrinth of slick stone walls, shifting tunnels, and pulsing shadows that seemed to swallow light.
Asher's team—Asher, Lira, Theo—huddled in a narrow alcove, the orb's blue glow casting eerie highlights on their faces.
Lira leaned against the cold stone, her silver eyes sharp despite the lingering migraine from her foresight, the flag clutched in her hand like a lifeline.
Theo sat, rubbing his temples, dizziness from his weak-point detection making the world tilt, his stomach churning.
Asher paced, scars itching under his game suit, fever lingering from his rewinds,
"I'm sorry, guys," Asher said, voice low, guilt twisting his gut. "My rewinds nearly got us caught. I'm a burden."
Lira shook her head, voice firm but kind. "You got us the first flag, Asher. I didn't think we'd grab one so fast. Rest—no one's made it out yet."
Theo nodded, steadying himself against the wall, dizziness easing slightly. "She's right. We've got time."
A cold voice sliced through the shadows. "Hand over the flag, or I hurt you."
Blake Farrow stepped into the orb's light, his sinister look fixed on them, eyes ruthless and untouched by the maze's grime. His suit was pristine, as if the chaos couldn't stick to him. Asher stood, scars burning under his skin. "Blake? You're with Rowan and Nico—what's this?"
Blake's smile was ice-cold. "Give me the flag, and I walk away."
Rowan's voice echoed from a side tunnel, panting as he burst into the alcove. "Blake, stop! They're our friends—find another flag!"
Blake's gaze didn't waver. "No friends in Ouroboros. Survival, one man only."
Rowan stepped closer, desperate. "You'll hurt them!"
Blake's eyes flicked to Rowan, flat and unyielding. "You're childish. They're not my friends."
Asher gripped the flag tighter, scars pulsing like fire. "If you want it, Earn it."
Blake's smile widened, dangerous. "You'll regret that."
The air thickened, ozone crackling as Blake's Warper power stirred.
The ground beneath Asher's feet rippled like water disturbed by a stone, pulling him forward, the stone bubbling and shifting with a low groan.
Lira's foresight flashed—five seconds ahead, Blake's hand flexing, reality twisting in ways that made her stomach drop.
"Asher, move!" she shouted, migraine stabbing her temples, vision dimming as the pain kicked in harder.
Asher rewound time five seconds, scars tearing like hot knives across his arm, the ripple reversing, the ground hardening with a sharp crack.
But Blake was ready, his power surging again, the stone bubbling like mud, dragging Asher closer, the maze's walls seeming to lean in, orbs buzzing louder.
Theo swayed, dizziness overwhelming, his head spinning as he scanned for a weak point, nausea rising like bile. "Blake's wrist—overexerting!" he gasped, nearly collapsing, the world tilting around him.
Lira tossed the flag to Theo, her voice urgent despite the blinding pain. "Run!" Theo caught it, stumbling as dizziness hit like a wave, and bolted down a side tunnel, the orbs flaring brighter, their hum deafening.
Blake snarled, his hand twitching as he manipulated the air, pulling Theo back with a whoosh, the atmosphere growing heavy, dust swirling.
Rowan froze time for a second, blood streaming from his nose, headache splitting his skull like a crack in stone.
"Stop!" he yelled, but Blake's warp resisted, reality flickering at the edges, and Rowan dropped to one knee, gasping, his vision blurring from the pain.
Nico, his hands aging with each fast-forward, rushed to Rowan's side. "Blake, enough!" he shouted, but Blake's eyes stayed locked on the flag, ruthless.
Blake's voice was calm, almost mocking. "You're worrying too much, Rowan. Your friends don't need your help." He stepped forward. "I don't need yours either. Stay behind, like your friends put you, and watch."
Rowan's face twisted in frustration. "You're going to regret this, Blake!"
Blake laughed, low and cold. "No, you will."
Asher seized the moment, rewound time ten seconds, scars splitting deeper, blood flowing freely, fever spiking like fire in his veins.
The ground reversed, Blake's warp undoing itself with a sucking sound, the air lightening.
But Asher's vision blurred, legs buckling from the strain, the maze spinning around him. Lira pulled him up, her half-blind gaze fierce.
"Go!" Theo, dizzy and staggering, tossed the flag back to Lira before collapsing, his head reeling like he'd been spun in circles.
The air reeked of copper and ozone. Asher spat blood onto the grass, his scars weeping fresh red down his arms. Three feet away, Blake stood perfectly still—unnaturally still, like a paused video glitch. The flag hung limp in his grip.
Lira's nose was bleeding. Again. Her future-sight had shown her twelve variations of this moment in the last ten seconds, and in all of them, Blake won. "He's not even—"she choked, "—he's not using his power yet—"
Theo collapsed to his knees, vomiting between gasps. His loop-detection spirals were shredding his sanity—every rewind, every aborted timeline stayed in his head like broken glass. "Chest... it's his... chest..."
Then Blake blinked.
And the world shattered.
Asher remembered the next three seconds before they happened
Blake's hand closing around their flagpole
Lira screaming as her eyes ruptured from seeing too much
Theo clawing at his own face as time feedback screeched through his skull—
—then snap.
They were back, 10 seconds back.
Blake hadn't moved yet.
Lira was whole again, but her hands shook. "He's making us relive it—"
Theo retched. "No—he's making us know we'll lose—"
Asher's scars burned hotter.
Blake tilted his head. "Scared yet?"
The pain was worse when you remembered it coming.
Asher knew the exact moment Blake would flex his fingers. Knew how Lira would collapse when her optic nerves fried. Knew theo would start seizing when time folded in on itself—
—snap
Back again, 5 seconds this time.
Lira was hyperventilating. "We can't—he's not doing anything, just—just letting us see"
Theo wiped bile from his lips. "He's not letting us change it."
Blake smiled. "You rewind, Asher. I remember. Guess which one's worse?"
Rowan's voice cut through from the sidelines, desperate: "For fuck's sake, yield—!"
This time, Asher saw the trap.
Blake wasn't just showing them the future—he was weighting it. Every rewind piled more dread into their muscles, more hesitation into their reflexes. By the time the real fight came, they'd be too broken to move.
Unless...
Asher met Lira's eyes. Let his scars split wider.
"Do it," she whispered.
Blake lunged—
—Asher rewound one last time—
—but kept moving through it.
Blake remembered every rewind.
But he didn't expect Asher to act during one.
While time reset, Asher—blood pouring from his scars—stepped forward. Not much. Just enough.
When reality snapped back...
Blake's grab missed.
Lira, knowing where he'd be, was already swinging the flagpole like a bat—
CRACK
—right into Blake's chest.
For the first time, Blake stumbled.
Theo didn't waste the opening. He bit Blake's wrist—savage and desperate—and as Blake recoiled, Asher ripped their flag back.
Silence.
Blake touched his sternum, fingers coming away red. "...Huh."
Not angry.
Interested.
Rowan exhaled shakily. "You absolute madmen—"
Lira grinned, wiping blood from her lips. "Told you we'd win."
Asher collapsed—but their flag was safe in his grip.
The moment Asher grinned through bloody teeth and rasped, "Told you we'd win,"
Rowan lost it.
He laughed—a sharp, breathless sound—
—and the world stopped.
Frozen.
Lira's triumphant smirk locked in place. Theo's exhausted panting suspended mid-breath. Blake's calculating gaze, still fixed on his bleeding chest, turned to unmoving stone. Even the dust hung motionless in the air.
Only Rowan could move.
Ten seconds.
He didn't waste them.
Lira's eyes—still bloodshot from future-sight—wide with victory. Unseeing.
Theo's hands trembling where they braced against his knees. Paralyzed.
Blake.Especially Blake.The bastard's lips were parted, mid-breath, his fingers curled like he'd been about to snap time itself again.
Rowan's chest ached.
"Sorry," he whispered, though they couldn't hear him. "You won't remember this. But you will make it out."
Then he moved.
First Second, He wrenches the enemy flag from Asher's limp grip.
Third Second, He pries their own flagfrom Lira's frozen fingers.
Fifth Second, He hesitates—just for a heartbeat—looking at Blake. What are you planning?
Seventh Second, He runs.
The air doesn't resist him. Sound doesn't exist. His own breath is the only thing reminding him time hasn't truly stopped.
Nine seconds.
He's quarter-way to the boundary line when he feels it—the creeping stutter in his pulse.
The warning.
Ten.
Lira's gasp is the first thing he hears.
"Wha—?!" Her hands fly up, empty. "Where's the—?"
Theo whirls, dizzy. "The flags—!"
Blake's head snaps toward the arena fronts—where Rowan runs, both flags with him.
Silence.
Then—
"Cheater," Blake says, almost admiring.
Rowan was so close to the finish line he could taste it—
—when time screamed.
Behind, Asher's scars ignited, burning crimson through his shirt like hellfire tattoos.
He recalls a memory:
A man's voice cuts-in his face hidden. A young Asher stood in his front looking devastated.
He held Asher's hands, reflecting on his scars,
"if you keep on letting your emotions get to you, these marks right here",tracing the scars, "these scars,will control you, and when they control you bad things will happen,like now"
"And do you want bad things to happen?" he asked.
Asher nodded his head,left to right "No" he replied, with tears dropping from his eyes
"come over here kiddo" the man said, embracing Asher and comforting him.
The memory faded out, slowly.
Asher's voice cut through the frozen air, raw and final:
"If don't stop him. we'll lose and I don't think my body can continue anymore. We've worked hard for this, It won't be snatched—"
His scars ignited, he turned to Theo who was beside him, with a cold voice,he said "Get the flags".
Theo nodded.
—SNAP!
the world snapped backward.
Asher vision was blurry as he collapsed to the floor
Lira catches him.
Headmaster Talus eyes open wide and is amused at what Asher just did.
The scene all blurs...the last thing Asher heard was a voiceover that called Asher,lira and Theo have made it out, being the first have earned their 1 year of no culling.
The whole arena erupts.