Raka was still holding his breath.
Which was fair, considering he'd just watched his best friend turn into an ancient war entity who melted a nightmare creature using spells that sounded like demonic Wi-Fi passwords.
"V-Vicki?" he stammered.
Avici—still very much in the driver's seat—turned Vicki's body toward him, tilting his head slightly, eyes still glowing like dying embers.
"Temporarily unavailable," he repeated, voice dipped in echo and authority.
Raka made a noise halfway between a laugh and a scream.
Nayla, to her credit, had recovered faster. She straightened her blazer, took a deep breath, and stared straight at him.
"What are you?" she asked. Not in fear. Not in awe. In pure, scientific aggression.
Avici stepped forward slowly, the crimson symbols on his arms still glowing faintly beneath Vicki's skin.
"Avici Narak. Keeper of Oaths. Bound Flame. Guardian to the Vessel you call Vicki Arana."
"Bound Flame?"
"A spiritual mantle. I was forged in battle, bound by covenant, and sealed within the bloodline of Arana. We are two souls. One body."
Nayla narrowed her eyes. "And you just... hijack him?"
"Only when summoned. Or when survival demands it."
"Cool," Raka muttered. "So you're like a ghost roommate who sometimes takes the wheel?"
"Incorrect. I am the weapon buried in the floorboard of a peaceful house. I am only unsheathed when war walks in."
Raka blinked. "That's the most terrifying poetry I've ever heard."
Nayla crossed her arms. "What the hell was that thing we fought?"
Avici turned, gesturing toward the slowly fading dust where the Hollow had unraveled.
"That creature was a Mindless Hollow, an unbeing formed from fractured remembrance. When too many names vanish without mourning, when memory erodes unnaturally—things like it manifest."
"So it's a... memory ghost?" Raka asked.
"No. A consequence. The Distortion Realm bleeds such things when thresholds are crossed."
Nayla's eyes narrowed further. "You keep saying that. Distortion Realm. What exactly is it?"
Avici stepped forward, and the environment responded. The red sky above them pulsed faintly. The walls of the twisted mirror-school around them groaned like dying steel.
"This space—this mirror of your world—is a Breach-Dimension, carved by Narakasura's will."
The name hit the air like a whipcrack. Raka shivered. Nayla flinched.
"It is not a separate place. It is your world—reflected, corrupted, thinned. The fabric of reality weakened in places where curses root too deeply and memory cannot hold. Narakasura does not break the world. He erodes it. Slowly. Elegantly."
Nayla's pen hovered above her tablet screen. "And this realm... how many of these exist?"
"Countless. But only a few are tethered to your school. This one is embryonic. A seed. It grows when fed."
"Fed by what?"
"Forgetting."
The silence that followed was painful.
"You're saying... every time someone in Class XI-C disappears, this realm gets stronger?" Raka asked.
Avici nodded.
"Each erased name weakens the veil. Each vanished memory enriches the distortion. And when the thirteenth is lost..."
"What happens?" Nayla pressed.
"The barrier fails. The vessel breaks. And Narakasura walks through."
The walls around them began to shimmer. Not visually—but in pressure. In weight.
The realm didn't like being explained.
Cracks of black light slithered across the floor, crawling up the walls like living vines.
"We need to go," Avici said. "Now."
He extended a hand. The air around his palm folded, and with a flick of two fingers, a swirling glyph ignited midair—a return sigil.
"Stay close to me. Do not think about your home. Do not focus on anything real. Anchor your minds to me."
"No pressure," Raka muttered, already grabbing Nayla's wrist.
The sigil expanded, forming a circle beneath their feet, symbols glowing brighter with each breath. A low chant began to hum from Vicki's mouth—Avici's voice weaving syllables in a language that hurt to hear.
The sky groaned. The walls screamed.
And then—
Flash.
They landed back in the corridor.
Naraya Dharma. Same hallway. Same cracked floor.
But now... the sigil was gone.
And Raka immediately vomited into a trash can.
"I am never eating lunch again," he gagged.
Nayla stumbled, caught herself against the wall. "That... that wasn't teleportation. That was dimensional rewiring."
"Correct," Avici said calmly. "It is inefficient, but effective."
The hallway was empty. Too empty.
And then—behind them—a door creaked.
Not a normal creak.
Something was coming through.
And this time...
It wasn't alone.
The sound was thick.
Not loud. Not shrill.
Thick.
It scraped through the air like nails across wet stone, a warbling echo that bent time between syllables. And it wasn't coming from one direction. It was everywhere—inside the lights, the floor, the air in our lungs.
Raka stepped back automatically, already reaching for the closest fire extinguisher like it would do anything.
"Okay. Not to panic or anything," he whispered, voice squeaky, "but are we being haunted by a whale in reverse?"
The door in front of us—the one that had creaked—slowly opened. But nothing stood in the frame.
Until it did.
First, a silhouette.
Then a second.
Then more.
Figures. Distorted. Shadow-wrapped. Moving like corrupted marionettes, joints disjointed, every step twitching with delay.
"These aren't just more Hollows," Avici murmured from within. "These are Reflective Echoes."
"In human language, Gandalf." Nayla asked.
"They are shaped by your memories. Fragments of erased souls. Each one is a sliver of someone you forgot."
In his mind realm, Vicki swallowed. His heartbeat thudded like it was trapped in his throat.
"Then why do I feel like they rememberus?"
One of the Echoes raised its head.
A flicker of a face. Half-formed.
And he knew it.
Naila.
The girl who disappeared. Gone without a sound. Now twisted into a silent fragment of herself.
"Oh no," Nayla breathed.
The Echo of Naila lunged.
Avici—still piloting this body—didn't hesitate. He pivoted, sliding one foot back, raising an open palm etched with pulsing crimson runes.
"I warned you," he whispered.
His voice wasn't a shout. It didn't need to be.
Power answered quietly.
A wall of shifting sigils burst from the air, slamming into the Echo mid-charge. Her form broke apart—fragmenting into memory dust before reforming, shrieking in distorted tones.
But more came.
Dozens.
Pouring out from the cracks in reality like regret.
Raka scrambled back, half-dragging himself behind a toppled cabinet.
"They're everywhere!" he shouted. "We can't hold this!"
"You can't," Avici said flatly. "But I can."
He took a step forward.
The Echoes responded, circling him. Some moved with animal twitchiness, others like ghosts caught in static. All were hungry for remembrance.
"I feel you now," Avici murmured, scanning the swarm. "The hand behind the veil…"
One of the Echoes halted mid-motion.
A flicker passed through it. A pulse.
A name.
"Arvanu."
The sound cut through the realm like a ritual knife.
The creatures screamed—not in pain, but in recognition.
"Who is that?" Nayla hissed, back pressed to the wall beside Raka.
"The one who shattered the first seal," Avici answered. "The traitor of blood. The one who should not remember."
He clenched a fist.
"And yet…"
The air thickened.
Time stretched.
And Avici began to chant.
"En'tar savahn. Kelor Vathi. Thir'ava... koro'nat."
The hallway warped around his words. The sigils pulsed brighter, creating rings of burning language midair.
But something resisted.
A crack. A backlash. His foot staggered half a step.
"The distortion layer... it's pressing back."
"What does that mean?!" Raka shouted.
"It means someone is feeding it—amplifying the curse as I speak."
The Echoes screeched. Three of them merged—forming a taller, deformed thing. Eyes in the wrong places. Limbs flickering. The remnant of a full classroom forgotten too long.
Avici pulled his hand across the air, tracing a vertical line.
"Ravak durnah."
The line ignited, splitting the creature like a sword of burning ink.
It fell.
But more still rose.
Even as he cut them down—memory by memory—he felt it: The timer. The pull of the body's limit.
"This vessel cannot contain me much longer," he muttered. "I already near one hour. Less, now."
Nayla turned to him, blood on her cheek, panting. "Then make it count."
He nodded once.
"Fall behind, and you will be forgotten."
With a flash of his left hand, he carved a fresh barrier sigil beneath them.
It pulsed. Safe zone—for sixty seconds, no more.
"Regroup," Avici said. "Now."
Raka collapsed onto the floor, coughing. "I hate this school."
"School hates you too," Nayla replied between gasps. "It's mutual."
Inside the barrier, the Echoes stopped. Twitching. Watching. Waiting.
"Why aren't they attacking?" Raka asked.
"They're learning," Avici said darkly. "Adapting."
"Like AI ghosts?"
"No. Like echoes of a mind that once ruled empires."
He didn't elaborate.
Because he couldn't.
Time was running out.
The sigils around his arms flickered.
The crimson fire dimmed.
He could feel Vicki clawing back—not out of resistance, but because the hour was closing.
"When I leave," he said, looking straight at Nayla, "do not let him fight again today. If he tries, stop him. The cooldown is absolute."*
Nayla blinked. "How long?"
"Twenty-four hours."
Raka groaned. "Cool. So we get one god-mode burst per day?"
"Use it wisely."
A ripple passed through the hallway.
Not an enemy.
A signal.
Avici turned his head slightly—like someone had whispered across dimensions.
Then he spoke without being asked.
"Something... no, someone... just marked Vicki's presence."
"Another enemy?"
"No," Avici said. "Something older."
The sigils collapsed around them.
His body wavered.
One hand trembled—briefly. Enough for Nayla to notice.
"You okay?"
"He's coming back."
"Wait—already?!"
"One hour means one hour."
Avici's final words echoed inside their heads as the glow vanished from his skin.
His posture slumped.
Eyes dimmed.
And then—
"...ow."
Vicki collapsed forward, coughing blood.
"Did someone get the number of that metaphysical train that hit me?"
Nayla caught him.
Raka sat up slowly.
The hallway was still.
The Echoes had vanished.
But the air still remembered the fight.
"You were gone," Nayla whispered.
"I felt it," Vicki croaked. "Like falling into someone else's war."
"You looked good doing it," Raka offered.
"Great. Can't wait for the brain trauma bill."
From the far end of the hall, a shadow twitched.
No form.
Just a signal.
A reminder.
The distortion wasn't done.
Not yet.