Asvara's Dorm Room, Liberium International High School – 2:34 AM
The only sound that dared disturb the serenity of the night was the soft clack of a black bishop kissing a white square.
"Check," Asvara announced calmly, swirling a steaming mug of black tea with one hand while moving his piece with the other. "Also, I replaced your energy drink with cold miso soup. For research."
Riven blinked. "You what."
The immortal across the board didn't even look up. "It builds mental resilience. Spartan method."
"You're Spartan. I'm half-Japanese and running on three hours of sleep,"
Riven grumbled, staring at the now-suspiciously-clear can beside him.
"That's psychological warfare."
Asvara grinned, his hair—midnight black with streaks of silver—glowing faintly under the dim subspace-imbued lamp hovering overhead.
The room, spartan in theme but rich in odd tech, looked like the lovechild of a philosopher's cave and a NASA lab.
Holographic runes glimmered faintly behind rows of books, scrolls, and what appeared to be a napping AI curled up in the corner, reading a webtoon.
It was AIRA's projection. And yes, she was giggling.
"As fun as poisoning your roommate is," Riven muttered, "I assume this isn't about our twelfth chess match this week?"
Asvara finally looked up. His gaze, though tranquil, had that eerie timeless glint like an ocean that's seen too many ships sink.
"What do you make of the god Minerva mentioned?" he asked.
Riven scoffed. "Oh, that. The dramatic 'He Who Cursed You' reveal? Total soap opera energy."
"Exactly." Asvara set down his mug, eyes narrowing.
"I've explored every fragment of my Subspace Archive. Every memory from Sparta to digital Bandung. AIRA helped me run a triple pass filter through mythologies, Hellenic, Mesopotamian, obscure rainforest cults, even…" he sighed, "...internet creepypastas."
AIRA sat up, translucent robes shimmering.
"And may I add, Tumblr witch lore from 2012 is surprisingly detailed. But not relevant."
"No record," Asvara said. "Not even a false god. No pattern. No whispers."
"That's… off," Riven admitted, adjusting the scarf around his neck. "Minerva might lie, but she rarely says something she can't back up with at least one body."
"Which is why," Asvara said, eyes glowing faintly now, "I want you to look."
Riven raised a brow. "You mean—?"
"I want you to run the Sandstorm."
The room grew still.
Even AIRA stopped scrolling her 274th isekai manhwa of the day.
Riven sat back, thinking. "The last time I used that, I lost three months of subjective age."
"You were spying on Cleopatra's wedding night," Asvara deadpanned.
"Hey, valid historical curiosity."
"Was it, though?"
There was silence. Then a mutual shrug.
AIRA flicked a blue orb into Riven's hand.
"Anchor point calibrated. You'll only be accessing the non-linear streams. Observation only. Please don't mentally collapse."
"I'll try my best," Riven muttered. "No promises."
He stood.
The hourglass embedded in his chest began to glow.
Sand moved upward defying gravity, swirling faster and faster like a golden cyclone.
"CLOCKWORK : Sandstorm Timestream."
The room shivered.
Time peeled like pages in a forgotten book.
Images flickered, there is temples burning, stars collapsing, voices echoing through eons.
Asvara stood still, hands behind his back, eyes narrowed in concentration.
AIRA's glow stabilized the room's temporal shell.
And then—Nothing.
Nothing.
Only silence.
Riven staggered slightly as the sand fell still.
"…There's no name," he whispered. "No presence. No divine spark. Not even a trace. It's like the being Minerva mentioned doesn't just not exist—it never existed."
AIRA floated forward, her tone sharpened with certainty.
"Confirmed. The name she spoke is not registered in any timeline, myth, dimension, or collective dream field. It was purely fabricated."
Asvara exhaled slowly. "A false god."
"Which raises a problem," Riven added, taking a swig of water and blinking the afterimages away. "If she lied about that, what else was part of the script?"
Asvara moved his rook while Riven moving his Knight to take bishop.
And then Asvara move his queen.
Checkmate.
"…And why," he murmured, "did she want me to believe it?"
AIRA tilted her head. "Perhaps she wanted to test you."
"Perhaps." Asvara sat down again, brushing dust from his uniform pants.
"Or perhaps this is just another move on her board. A ploy to have me chase a ghost."
Riven groaned and flopped onto the couch. "Then what now, O Eternal Strategist?"
Asvara gazed at the chessboard.
Then at the Archive screen.
Then he smirked.
"…Now we make her and Isorropia regret ever challenging me to a game of gods."
He stood and glanced toward the glowing orb AIRA had summoned, a simulation of the battlefield from the last Gate.
"AIRA," he said calmly, "start prepping the next contingency. I don't trust ghosts with no names."
"Shall I label this operation 'Project: No-Name Loser'?" AIRA offered sweetly.
Asvara grinned. "You know me too well."
"AIRA, ready the door," Asvara said, sipping tea while casually throwing a Bishop off the chessboard. "We're going to Sparta."
Riven, who had barely recovered from time travel brain-freeze, blinked.
"You mean Sparta-sparta? Like leather skirts and screaming abs?"
"Technically himatia, not skirts," AIRA corrected from the corner, now manifesting as a floating orb wearing sunglasses for no reason.
"But yes. Screaming abs included."
Riven stared at Asvara. "And we're going back because…?"
"Because when people lie," Asvara said, standing with that immortal tactician grace, "the most efficient way to expose them is not to ask questions which we cannot do that after I slice her soul and say good night, sweet dreams"
"But we can revisit the place that maybe has the answer they're hiding."
He raised a hand, and the Archive wall peeled open like reality was a curtain.
Inside, holograms folded into each other, showing infinite corridors of memories.
Some still flickered with active data, others were sealed tight behind sigils and time locks.
Riven raised a brow. "You sure it's not because you missed your abs from 2,000 years ago?"
"They were a masterpiece of warfare," Asvara said proudly, pulling out the silver-highlighted hooded coat he wore during high-risk Subspace excursions.
"But no. We're going to find him. The emperor before Leonidas—the one who invited a god to a political meeting."
"Ah yes," Riven muttered. "Classic Ancient Greece: diplomacy via summoning divine forces who think mortals are chew toys."
[ENTERING SUBSPACE ARCHIVE: MEMORY DEEP DIVE – CLASSIFIED NODE: L-Ω13]
With a shimmering burst of temporal magic and Riven's hourglass glowing like a small sun, they both phased through the Archive Gate.
The world stretched, blurred, snapped and suddenly they stood atop a blood-stained cliff beneath a bronze sky, overlooking a Spartan military camp so intense it looked like testosterone itself had built it.
The wind howled through banners.
Soldiers sparred below in brutal formation.
And at the center of it all, commanding attention with the calm of someone who's told death to sit down and shut up was General Asvara, just seventeen… before eternally.
Riven narrowed his eyes. "Wow. You looked… the same."
Asvara smirked. "Eternal youth: nature's way of saying 'good luck explaining your skincare routine.'"
"Wait," Riven blinked, "who's that with you?"
They turned.
A younger Leonidas, before he became a king, stood beside past-Asvara.
The two were locked in intense conversation, surrounded by scrolls, maps, and several large roasted boars because, well, Sparta.
"Memory sync incoming," AIRA's voice echoed across the breeze.
"Stabilizing plausibility field. If either of you tries to high-five the past, I will eject you."
Asvara raised a brow. "Note taken."
[FLASHBACK INSIDE MEMORY]
"You can't be serious," Leonidas said, slamming a fist into the table.
"I'm always serious. Except on weekends," Past-Asvara replied dryly.
Leonidas growled. "You want us to flank through the gorge using civilians as camo?!"
"They're volunteers," Asvara clarified. "And merchants. And that one drunk guy who thinks he's a goat. Technically—"
"—We'll get slaughtered."
"We'll look like we'll get slaughtered," Asvara corrected, spinning a dagger in one hand. "That's the brilliance of it."
Leonidas groaned. "You're a child."
"I'm the reason we haven't been crushed by Persia yet."
"You're seventeen."
"And already three wars deep. Next insult?"
From above, Riven and Present-Asvara hovered like ghosts, watching it all unfold.
"Wow," Riven whispered. "You really were like that back then too."
"I was worse," Asvara admitted, grinning slightly.
Then everything shifted.
A drum sounded in the distance. The camp grew quiet.
And a shadow fell across the mountain pass as a tall figure in golden armor, adorned with foreign glyphs, stepped into view surrounded by trembling emissaries.
AIRA's voice came cold and sharp:
"Anomaly detected. That is the emperor who summoned… something."
They watched.
The emperor raised his hands toward the sky, invoking a name they couldn't hear because it intentionally muffled by temporal static.
The memory blurred as if the Archive itself wanted to forget.
"What's that distortion?" Riven asked.
"Temporal censorship," Asvara muttered. "I sealed some memories... even from myself. That name, it was too dangerous."
"And yet Minerva knew it."
"Exactly."
They saw Past-Asvara watching the ritual from the cliffs, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Then... A burst of dark light.
The ground shook.
Time fractured.
And the emperor screamed something into the void.
But again, no name.
Only the sensation of being watched.
AIRA flickered.
"I've traced the distortion," she said.
"It was planted. Post-factum. The god that supposedly cursed you wasn't present that day."
"Someone rewrote this memory?" Riven asked, stunned.
"No," Asvara said slowly, eyes sharp. "They inserted fiction into reality itself."
[RETURNING TO PRESENT – SUBSPACE EXIT]
The wind howled again. The battlefield faded.
The cliff dissolved into silver light.
Back in Asvara's dorm, the two re-materialized with a soft whump, Riven landing sideways on a beanbag like a falling loaf of bread.
"Ugh," Riven groaned. "I think my soul's jetlagged."
"I've seen worse," AIRA muttered.
"You once threw up in Napoleon's memory corridor."
"That was one time!"
Asvara sat cross-legged, silent for a moment.
"Someone," he said softly, "is trying to reshape the past to control my present."
Riven looked over. "So what do we do now?"
Asvara leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
"…We find the next thread. Because if a god never cursed me then the one pulling the strings isn't divine."
He turned to AIRA.
"Set the Archive to full unravel mode. I want every timeline tagged with false echoes."
AIRA nodded. "On it, Commander."
Riven grinned. "You gonna rename this operation?"
Asvara smiled.
"Yeah. Operation: Deus Ex Fraudus."
Liberium International High School, Class 2-A – The Next Morning
The classroom door slid open with an echo too dramatic for a Thursday morning.
"Asvara Regalia," Ms. Nurnia called out, holding a clipboard that looked two sizes too big for her. "Try to arrive on time. Again."
"I arrived exactly on time, Ms. Nurnia," Asvara said coolly, walking to his seat like a prince entering a battlefield.
"You were outside the door when the bell rang."
"And in ancient time, being exactly on the edge of death was called bravery."
"This is world history, not a TED Talk."
The class chuckled. Ms. Nurnia sighed.
"Just sit."
He did, sliding into the seat right beside Lyra Anandita, who today had switched her usual braided hairstyle to a neat ponytail.
Complete with cherry blossom clips that, unfortunately for Asvara, made her look 36% more enchanting than usual.
He knew the math. He'd done the math.
Asvara glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
Yù Lán Huā.
Her soul still carried the name, like perfume clinging to ancient parchment.
Lyra, who was doodling something suspiciously sword-like in her notebook, noticed him staring and turned.
"What?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"You blink in the same rhythm as your past life," Asvara replied without thinking.
She stared. "…I what?"
Asvara blinked. "Nothing. Metaphor."
"I see."
"You don't."
"I really don't."
Asvara nodded solemnly. "Tragic."
Ms. Nurnia began her lesson with the enthusiasm of someone explaining why yogurt is exciting.
"Today we'll learn about ancient Greek military strategy. Sparta, specifically. Anyone here familiar with the term phalanx?"
Asvara raised his hand instantly.
"Oh boy," Riven muttered from behind them.
"Yes, Asvara?"
"Phalanx was a formation involving tightly-packed rows of hoplites using overlapping shields and spears. I personally led one in 480 BCE—"
Ms. Nurnia squinted. "Excuse me?"
"—research," Asvara said smoothly. "Extensive… passionate research."
She gave him a long stare. "…Right."
Behind him, Riven snorted. Kenji leaned forward, whispering, "You seriously need to tone down the 'I was literally there' energy."
"I'm an immortal Spartan tactician. I breathe strategy and regret," Asvara whispered back. "This is my jam."
Meanwhile, Lyra was having a crisis.
Because next to her, Asvara radiated that dangerous combination of 'mysterious, annoying, and probably emotionally unavailable due to being a time-traveling philosopher king.'
And yet…
Every time he said something makes her heart twitched.
Her hands would tremble for a second.
Her chest ached, like a memory trying to claw its way out of her ribcage.
In her notebook, the doodle of a sword had now become a woman in armor.
Her own hand had drawn it.
She hadn't even noticed.
"Asvara," she whispered, mid-lecture.
He turned toward her with the precision of someone who had predicted she would whisper three seconds ago.
"Hmm?"
"Did we… really loves each other before?"
The entire room blurred for Asvara in that moment.
His eyes met hers.
Ancient recognition flickered beneath them.
He smiled softly. "You used to throw apples at my head when I quoted poetry during war councils."
"…That explains nothing."
"Yet explains everything."
Suddenly, Ms. Nurnia cleared her throat.
"Since Mr. Regalia is so familiar with Greek warfare, maybe he and Ms. Anandita can come forward and explain the phalanx formation using chairs."
Lyra blinked. "I—what?"
"Delightful idea," Asvara said, already dragging chairs like it was 480 BCE all over again.
Within seconds, a mini phalanx made of classroom chairs was assembled at the front.
"Lyra, imagine this," he said, positioning her beside him.
"You and I—side by side. Shields raised. Our breaths synchronized. Our enemies watching from afar, thinking: who let two beautiful demons become tacticians?"
Lyra squinted. "Why do I feel like this is both historical and a pick-up line?"
"It's a gift."
"And a curse."
"Accurate."
As the lesson ended and students shuffled out, Lyra stayed behind, packing her books slower than necessary.
Asvara waited too, pretending to read an old, worn-out webtoon volume titled
"I Reincarnated into My Ex's Cult"—because irony.
She turned to him.
"Hey," she said. "Tell me something real."
Asvara looked up, the usual sparkle dimmed for a moment.
"You've smiled the same way across lifetimes."
"That's not real, that's romantic."
"It's real and romantic."
"…Touché."
AIRA's voice chimed softly from Asvara's smartwatch.
"Heart rate elevated. Confession probability: 31%."
"Not helping," Asvara muttered.
"I wasn't trying to."
Lyra tilted her head. "Is that AIRA on your..."
"Yes its on my smartwatch. It's… judgmental."
She laughed, and for a second, the classroom felt like a café in ancient Chang'an, during one of the rare days when war hadn't stolen everything.
"Wanna walk to lunch together?" she asked.
"I thought you'd never ask."
Rooftop. Lunchtime. Chaos.
"Did you two finally flirt?" Riven asked while biting into a rice ball the size of his ego.
"No," Asvara said calmly.
"We engaged in historically accurate battlefield re-enactment with subtle undertones of tragic soul resonance."
"So... Flirting it is," Kenji translated, sipping green tea.
Lyra blushed but said nothing.
She stared out over the city skyline, something warm curling in her chest.
Somewhere inside her soul, Yù Lán Huā smiled.
And somewhere deep in Asvara's Archive, a memory finally stopped hurting.