The air between the two boys grew heavy, the very atoms of the atmosphere seemingly slowing down as Lloyd began to walk forward. His voice was a soft, deadly purr.
"I should let you know," Lloyd muttered, "my current stats are at 999. That is as close as one can get to B-Rank. Most would already consider me one, but that shouldn't be your concern. After all, you'll be dead before you even realize the difference."
As Leon braced for an impact, the world suddenly snapped into a grayscale stasis. Time froze. Lloyd continued his stroll with a smirk, weaving through the static air until he stood directly in front of the paralyzed Leon. He reached out and placed a hand on Leon's shoulder, leaning in to whisper into his unhearing ear.
"I can see the exact point in time when a person dies just by touching them," Lloyd bragged. "I have checked mine, and I am certain I survive this encounter. Now, let's check yours."
Lloyd reached into the stream of Leon's future, searching for the end of the boy's life. But as his consciousness traveled down the timeline, he didn't find a death. He found an empty void. It was a dark, endless abyss where even light ceased to exist.
As Lloyd struggled to comprehend the nothingness, he felt a gaze from behind him—one so intense he dared not turn around. In the presence of that stare, Lloyd felt like a single drop of water falling into a galaxy-sized volcano. His existence felt as irrelevant as a speck of dust in a hurricane.
Terrified, Lloyd jolted back, breaking the contact. He scrambled away, chest heaving. Leon remained frozen in time, blissfully unaware of Lloyd's act.
"What... what are you?" Lloyd stammered to the frozen air. "Are you even human? I need to end this. Now."
Lloyd steeled his nerves. "If I age him to his max... he has to die. No matter what he is, time claims everything."
He stretched his hands forward, his eyes bloodshot with desperation. "I will age him a hundred years... no, a hundred and fifty. He'll be nothing but dust." He twisted his hand to the right, forcing the flow of time to accelerate around Leon's body.
To his horror, the boy didn't wither. After a simulated 150 years, the Leon standing before him had grown into a man in his mid-twenties. His silver hair reached his waist, glowing with a faint, ethereal light, and his body was honed into a pinnacle of physical perfection.
"Why isn't he dead?" Lloyd screamed. "Fine. A million years! I'll age him a million years until there is nothing left but bone!"
He pushed his power to the absolute limit. A million years of temporal energy washed over Leon, yet nothing changed. The older version of Leon stood there, unchanged by the eons. Worse, Lloyd realized that the older Leon's eyes were now moving—following him. He was being watched from a million years in the future.
In a panic, Lloyd reversed the aging, snapping Leon back to his ten-year-old self. "He's a monster..." Lloyd whispered, turning to flee.
He stopped mid-step. A dark thought took root. "What if... what if I kill him now? Before he reaches that height? He's just a boy today. A blade will still work."
Leaving time frozen, Lloyd sprinted to the school's weaponry shed, grabbed a cold steel sword, and raced back. With a cry of suppressed rage, he drove the blade deep into Leon's heart and twisted the metal.
He wasn't done. He drew the sword out and swung it at Leon's neck. He timed it perfectly: just as the blade was halfway through the flesh, Lloyd released his grip on time. He wanted Leon to feel the exact moment his life ended.
Time snapped back to color.
Leon didn't see Lloyd move. He was ready to defend, but in the blink of an eye, he felt the searing cold of steel in his throat. His vision tilted. As his head began to slide from his shoulders, only one final, hollow thought crossed his mind:
He is indeed better.
Leon's body hit the ground with a dull thud. Lloyd stood over the remains, a manic smile spreading across his face as he wiped a spray of blood from his cheek.
"I won," he muttered to the silent hostel gate. "I finally won."
The silence of the dead was broken by the sound of Lloyd's jagged breathing. He looked at the severed remains of the boy he hated and felt a surge of adrenaline.
"Oops... I need to get out of here before anyone sees me," Lloyd muttered. He gripped the fabric of reality, freezing time once more to ensure his escape was invisible.
But as he turned to take his first step, a primal, chilling dread washed over him. His instincts screamed that something was wrong—horribly wrong. He was too petrified to move, but the shadow he cast on the ground began to vanish as a light erupted from behind him, so bright it eclipsed the moon.
Lloyd forced his head around. His heart nearly stopped.
There stood Leon. His silver hair and golden eyes were no longer just glowing; they were radiating a cosmic aura that felt like the birth of a nebula. His heart had completely healed, his head was seamlessly back upon his shoulders, and his skin hummed with a divine frequency.
"What's happening?" Lloyd screamed, his voice cracking in disbelief. "You're supposed to be dead! I killed you! I saw it!"
In the blink of an eye—a movement that defied the physics of frozen time—Leon was standing inches from Lloyd's face.
Time is frozen... and he can move! Lloyd's mind shattered. Before he could even process the thought, Leon placed a single hand on Lloyd's chest. The impact was silent but absolute. Lloyd was sent flying for miles, a streak of light across the school grounds, until he crashed into a massive tree at the forest's edge.
Every bone in the Prince's body shattered. Blood leaked from his pores as time finally resumed; Lloyd was too weak, too broken to maintain his hold on the temporal flow. Leon took one more step and instantly appeared over the mangled Prince.
Lloyd looked up, his vision fading. He had seen his future—he was certain he survived this—but the reality before him was a hole in fate itself. A massive earthen spike erupted from the ground, piercing Lloyd's chest and pinning him to the tree.
The Prince's eyes went dull. He had given up the ghost.
The cosmic glow faded, and Leon's consciousness snapped back into his ten-year-old body. He looked at the carnage, at the dead Prince, and the realization hit him like a physical blow.
"Yudris!" he screamed, tears blurring his vision. "Please help! I think... I think I killed the Prince! My life is ruined! My father, my sister... they'll all be destroyed. Please do something!"
Yudris appeared instantly, her face a mask of serene indifference. "Young Lord, how may I be of help to you?" she asked with a slight bow.
"He's dead! Can you bring him back?"
"He is dead, but I can resurrect him," Yudris replied calmly. "However, his memories of your power will remain intact. What do you intend to do about that?"
Leon panicked. "Is there a better way? A way out of this mess?"
"I would advise wiping his memory," Yudris suggested. "But if I may add, it would be wise to wipe the entire day and replace it with a less intimidating experience. That way, he will no longer feel the need to hunt you."
"Great idea," Leon said, his voice trembling. "Do it. Please."
Yudris walked to the mangled corpse of the Prince. With a graceful wave of her hand, the world seemed to ripple. Lloyd's bones knitted together with sickening cracks; his skin sealed, the blood vanished, and breath returned to his lungs. He remained unconscious as Yudris lifted him and vanished, teleporting him directly into his own bed within the royal dorms.
Later that night, Lloyd sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. His head felt heavy, his memories fuzzy, like a dream he couldn't quite catch.
"Oh yeah," Lloyd muttered to himself, yawning. "Today Leon got promoted to B-Rank... and the administration is checking my stats tomorrow. What was my number again?"
He pulled up his status screen. To his absolute delight, the numbers shimmered: 1,212.
"I'm already B-Rank," Lloyd laughed, a smug grin returning to his face. "Leon just got there, but I'm still far ahead. I'm still the best."
He fell back into his pillows and drifted into a peaceful sleep, entirely unaware that he had been decapitated, resurrected, and rewritten by the boy he still considered his inferior.