Kaien sat alone on the rooftop of the Phantom dormitory. The city lights of Vireos flickered below like stars fallen from the sky.
He had slept maybe two hours since the final. Not because of adrenaline. Not even because of the celebration.
Because of him.
Vayne.
The boy with no light in his eyes.
The one who whispered, "The Arcana Cup wasn't made for players like you. It was made to destroy them."
And then he vanished like a glitch in the world.
Kaien had checked every match record, every team sheet, even blacklisted profiles from the Arcana Council's archives. No one named Vayne.
No club. No academy. No house.
Nothing.
Just… a shadow.
---
Downstairs, in Phantom's Hall
Ash was back on the weights, pushing plates like a man trying to outlift a nightmare. Nico sat on a bench behind him, arms crossed, clearly worried.
"You ever seen Kaien like this?" Nico asked.
"Nope," Ash grunted. "And that scares me."
Lyra walked in, holding a scroll. Unlike the rest, she had started researching the moment Kaien mentioned the strange golden runes after the final match.
"This isn't over," she said, unrolling the scroll across the table. "This was never about just winning the Arcana Cup."
Ash raised a brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She pointed. On the scroll was an ancient game diagram, not from any official rulebook. The field looked warped—asymmetrical, like half of it was bending into itself. The goalposts were floating, and the ball had three orbiting rings.
"This is from the early Centuries," Lyra said. "Before the Founding War. Before the Cup was standardized."
Nico leaned forward. "You're saying we're not the first Arcana champions?"
Lyra's voice dropped.
"I'm saying... the Cup used to be something else. Something dangerous."
---
Later That Night
Kaien returned to his room and found a card on his desk.
Black. Hexagonal. No logo. Just one word embossed in shimmering silver:
"Replay."
He turned it over.
A location was written in code—coordinates that didn't exist on the regular map. But Kaien knew it. Everyone in Vireos did.
The Hollow Grounds.
A forgotten pitch buried under the ruins of the Old Tower, closed after the first Arcana malfunction incident.
He felt something inside him twitch. Like his body knew before his brain did—
This was a summons.
Not to another match.
To a trial.
---
The Hollow Grounds
At midnight, Kaien stepped onto the cracked, half-sunken pitch. Rusted goalposts leaned inward. The air shimmered unnaturally, like heatwaves—but it was cold.
And then he saw them.
Six figures.
Wearing no team colors. No numbers. Just blank black kits with silver markings stitched into the fabric—ancient Arcana glyphs.
One stepped forward.
It was Vayne.
"Welcome," he said. "To the Replay League. Where memory becomes match. And fate… is decided with your feet."
Kaien clenched his fists. "What is this place?"
Vayne smiled faintly. "This is the true Arcana Cup. The one they buried."
Another figure stepped up. A girl with glowing red eyes and cybernetic arms.
"We're Breakers," she said. "Outlaws of the system. Each of us played a match so powerful, the world itself rejected us."
A third—a tall, quiet figure wrapped in wind—spoke next.
"And now, you've joined us."
Kaien blinked. "I didn't agree to anything."
Vayne stepped forward, holding up the black card.
"You accepted the Replay when you chose to play beyond the rules. When you bent space to land that final goal. When you summoned a forgotten glyph from the heart of the field."
"You think that was a miracle?" he added. "No. That was a key."
Behind them, the pitch began to shift—tiles rearranging, field lines redrawing themselves into a new formation Kaien had never seen.
And then—
A ball appeared.
Not round.
Hexagonal. Glowing. Pulsating.
The girl with red eyes stepped forward.
"Let's play," she said. "One goal. One truth. If you win, you leave. If you lose… you stay here forever."
Kaien didn't hesitate.
He took his stance.
And the whistle blew—without a referee, without wind, without sound.
Just fate.
The Hollow Grounds were no longer ruins.
They had reformed themselves—as if memory itself stitched them back together.
The stands were empty, yet echoes of a crowd vibrated through the cold air. The pitch glowed with hexagonal gridlines, shifting and pulsing like it was alive. The goals floated ten feet above the ground, spinning slowly.
Across from Kaien stood the girl with red eyes.
No name. No introduction.
Just her aura—sharp, wired, tense like a spring held too long.
Her cybernetic arms shimmered with runes.
Vayne's voice boomed from the sideline—not through a mic, but straight into Kaien's head.
> "This match is called Phantom Field.
A one-on-one. No team. No substitutions.
Score once—and the memory ends."
The ball hovered in midair.
Then it pulsed—once—and dropped.
Kaien moved.
---
The Opening Dash
She was fast.
Not quick. Not agile.
Fast, like a thought with cleats.
Kaien barely saw the motion—just a blur—and she was already on the ball, sending it forward with a magnetic pulse from her palm. The rings around it responded to her, warping the path mid-air.
But Kaien adapted.
He spun low, grounded his core, and slid into a clean intercept.
He didn't need to outpace her. Just read her rhythm.
He kicked the ball toward the floating goal—then everything shifted.
---
Memory Warp: Fragment 1
He wasn't on the field anymore.
He was twelve.
Standing in the rain, holding his first pair of boots. His father's voice echoed.
> "If you can't play when no one watches, you don't deserve the crowd."
Kaien blinked.
What the hell was that?
The girl was already on him again, her arms glowing red-hot. She struck low, sweeping his legs—but Kaien caught himself mid-fall, rolled, and popped back up with the ball still close.
The moment he stood, the world rippled again.
---
Memory Warp: Fragment 2
Another flash—this time hers.
A burning lab.
Screaming.
Her eyes wide as flames devoured the room. Two figures in lab coats, pounding on a sealed door.
"Yui, RUN!"
Then blackness.
---
Back on the field, Kaien gasped, nearly collapsing.
> We're seeing each other's memories?
The girl—Yui—didn't stop. She didn't flinch.
She charged again, her limbs moving like serpents of steel and fire.
Kaien dodged the first strike, pivoted around the second—and countered with a heel flick that launched the ball toward the goal.
It flew—
And warped.
The rings spun in reverse, dragging the ball backward mid-flight.
Kaien realized too late.
This wasn't physics. This was memory logic.
The ball moved based on emotion—grief, pain, loss.
He looked across the field.
Yui had tears in her red eyes. Not sadness.
Rage.
---
Final Clash
Yui leapt into the air, pulling both arms back. Her cybernetics expanded—blades of raw light arcing from her palms.
"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT!" she screamed.
Kaien planted both feet.
He wasn't trying to dodge.
He absorbed her tackle with his whole body—and whispered:
> "I saw it. And I'm not turning away."
The world paused.
Her blades stopped a breath from his neck.
For the first time, she hesitated.
Kaien took the chance.
He spun, scooped the ball up with the inside of his foot, and launched it with everything he had.
It flew.
This time, the rings around it glowed blue.
Empathy.
The ball arced.
The goal shimmered.
It scored.
---
Silence
The field froze.
The colors faded. The sounds died.
Only the two of them remained, standing in the dim afterglow.
Yui lowered her hands.
"…Why didn't you crush me?" she asked quietly.
Kaien wiped sweat from his brow. "Because that's not how I play."
She stared at him for a long second, then turned away.
"You win. But this is just the first gate."
She dropped something at his feet. A glowing fragment of hexagonal glass.
> "Break it when you're ready to remember."
Then she vanished.
---
Back in the Phantom Dorms
Kaien returned just before dawn.
Lyra looked up from her notes. "Where were you?"
Kaien placed the shard on the table.
"Playing a match that shouldn't exist."
Ash cracked his knuckles. "Then I guess it's our turn soon."
Nico raised a brow. "We going after these Breakers?"
Kaien nodded slowly.
"They're not villains. They're… remnants."
And then softly, as the sun broke over the skyline:
"The Cup is a lie. And we've only seen the surface."