The silence in "Tenran" was familiar, saturated only with the whisper of ancient Scars and the measured rhythm of study. But in that moment, it was torn apart not by sound, but by its complete absence. The air froze, as if reality itself had taken a deep breath before a scream.
Akira, who was in the courtyard, felt it first—not as a threat, but as a sudden, deafening void. He raised his head. The sky, clear a second ago, was now flooded with a thick, sickly crimson. And against this backdrop, like monstrous soap bubbles inflated by a titan's breath, ten giant spheres appeared. They pulsated, distorting everything around them: the landscape beyond the academy walls shifted like a mirage, colors shifted into spectrums unbearable to the eye.
But the most terrible thing happened the next moment. All Kokuro—the very energy that was the foundation of their world—outside the academy went out. As if someone had turned off the light. Connections to external sensors, defensive barriers on the approaches—everything was severed.
Chaos reigned in the Council Hall. The patriarchs jumped to their feet, their voices, usually full of grandeur, now breaking into shrill cries.
"What is this?! Magoro's attack?!"
"No! The sensors don't see his energy signature! It's something else!"
"We are blind! We're trapped!"
And then the door opened with a soft click. Reiden Kagetori walked in. He didn't look alarmed. A light, interested smile played on his face, and his golden eyes burned with the excitement of a hunter who had scented worthy prey.
"Interesting," he said, looking out the window at the crimson sky. "Very interesting. Such scale... and such a familiar, ancient aftertaste."
Akira, standing by the wall, quietly remarked:
"Kagetori-sensei... you're only twenty-four. You couldn't have 'tasted' ancient forces."
Reiden threw him a quick, scorching look, in which something elusive flickered—not anger, but rather a warning not to dig deeper.
"Some wines are aged not in barrels, boy, but in the very fabric of existence," he retorted and stared out the window again, completely ignoring the panicking Council.
Akira, however, felt something else. He didn't see energy. He saw the hole itself. A giant, insatiable vortex that didn't emit, but sucked in. Sucked in reality, order, the very possibility of Kokuro's existence. He felt physically ill.
At that moment, an deafening pop—the sound of reality's flesh tearing—rang out in the main square. Everyone poured out of the Hall. Lying on the stones, bleeding, was a man in the torn uniform of a "Tenran" scout. His eyes were filled with madness.
"Legends..." he rasped, grabbing the edge of Director Fujibayashi's robe. "They... have returned... The Game... Everyone... got pulled in..."
His hand unclenched, and he went still. In the ensuing silence, his words hung in the crimson air like a sentence.
"The Game..." Kagetori drawled, and his smile grew wider, almost predatory. "So that's it. Someone's throwing a party without asking my permission. That's bad manners."
He turned to the Council.
"Well, I accept the invitation. I'm joining the Game."
"HOW?!" roared the patriarch of the Morohashi clan. "This is an unknown threat! Our duty is to protect the academy, not rush into adventures!"
"You can't just leave!" his colleague from the Himeji clan supported him.
Kagetori measured them with a gaze full of icy contempt.
"Will you try to stop me?" his voice was quiet, but each syllable bounced off the walls like a bullet. "Sit here, in your gilded cage, and tremble. I'll go find out who dared disturb my peace so brazenly."
He was about to turn away when the Morohashi patriarch, turning purple, shouted:
"Fine! But if you want to play hero, start with a real problem! While you're here, we have our own domestic glitch!" He pointed a finger at Akira. "This... Mushiro. Kiriyama Akira. He is an anomaly. A violator of all Kokuro laws. His existence undermines the very foundations of our society! We demanded his isolation, but now... now, in a crisis, we issue a new ruling. He must be eliminated. As a security threat."
Everyone froze. The Council's gazes turned on Akira with hatred and fear. Akira stood motionless, his face expressionless, but inside everything clenched into an icy ball.
Reiden slowly shifted his gaze from the patriarch to Akira, then back.
"No," he said simply and categorically.
"What?!" the patriarch didn't understand.
"You heard me," Kagetori turned to the exit, leaving behind a tomb-like silence. "He's mine. His fate, his power, his life... and his death, if it ever comes—concerns only me. Your ruling is nothing. Your fear is pathetic."
And without deigning them another word or glance, he walked out of the Hall, leaving the Council in a state of shock and humiliation, and Akira—with a new, incredible burden on his shoulders and a strange, aching feeling in his chest.