The night above Higashigumo Academy was torn asunder.
A shadow, dark as a nightmare, entered the campus through the south gate.
He wore no uniform-just the tattered remains of the old Combat Division's black cloak, its emblem still faintly visible: two intertwined fists wrapped in flame.
Kouga Kuon - former Combat Division captain, known as the World-End Hound, the man who had been declared dead in the Western War Campaign a year before.
He had returned.
"Is your captain, Yamiya Sou, here?"
Kuon's voice echoed down the main avenue in front of the Magic Division building, deep and heavy, like a growl but almost a whisper.
Compressed whirlwinds wrapped around his fists, cracking the ground beneath him as if a dormant volcano were stirring.
In the main hall of the Magic Division, Mido Karuma was the first to rise.
"You are... Kouga Kuon?"
"He should be dead," Hakuran said coldly, his eyes sharpened, "but this presence... there's no mistaking it."
"He is not 'alive and returning.' He's 'killing his way back.'"
Kuon stepped forward, each step making the ground crack and groan, his gaze sweeping over the guards of the Magic Division.
"Listen well, Magic Division - I am here to reclaim the funeral you owed me a year ago."
The air around him thickened, as if liquid mercury were collapsing inward.
[Inside Yamiya Sou's room, the sealed deck of playing cards stirred.
The Queen card materialized as a phantom in the air, trembling slightly like a warning.
"The one approaching... is the Hound of Infernal Flames, the harbinger of doom."
"Sou... awaken... hear my name... the Queen's Whisper has not yet ended."
Yamiya Sou opened his eyes, fire and turmoil flickering within them - turmoil he could no longer suppress.
[The Magic Division quickly mobilized.
Mido Karuma snapped his whip in readiness:
"You think we're the same as a year ago, Kuon! This is the Magic Division of a new era!"
"Good," Kuon exhaled, distorting the gravity around him as the air itself seemed to collapse.
"Then I'll tear apart your so-called 'New Era' - and see if your hearts are as fragile as they once were."
His first strike roared through the air!
Mido Karuma and Hakuran launched a coordinated attack to block it head-on, but Kuon's onslaught was like an unleashed beast.
Each layer of compressed air crashed down like a tidal wave of mountains.
"So this is... the true fighting style of the World End Hound?" Karuma gritted his teeth, struggling to withstand the impact.
[Yamiya Sou - Half Awakening] Just as the battlefield was about to be overrun- A lone figure leaped from above, playing cards whirling from his fingertips to form a barrier that blocked Kuon's strike.
"The one you're looking for... is me," Yamiya Sou said, his voice cold and tinged with an uncontrollable anger.
"Kouga Kuon, bearer of the Combat Division's past - I will take you on myself."
The phantom of the Queen's card appeared again, this time not whispering, but silent.
It was the sign of awakening.
[Meanwhile, elsewhere - in the dim light of the principal's office - the vice principal spoke over a secure line:
"Kuon has been deployed. The plan is moving to the next phase. The Magic Department must be broken."
In a hidden corridor behind the surveillance screens, Fonk stood watching coldly.
He turned a Rubik's Cube in his hand and muttered to himself:
"Looks like it's time... for a real counterattack."