517 Years Ago — The Night the Stars Screamed
The world was quiet that night.
Villagers were sleeping. Flames crackled in street lanterns. The wind was gentle, guiding cherry blossoms across the stone roads. Nothing in the sky warned of disaster.
Then—
the stars trembled.
A hum rolled across the atmosphere, low and heavy, like the heartbeat of the planet itself. Dogs howled. Infants woke up crying. Leylines across the world twisted as if something ancient pulled them from below.
Deep in a small wooden house, a woman screamed through labor pains.
"Just a little more—!" the midwife urged.
The father, pale and shaking, held his wife's hand. "It's alright. It's alright. I'm here. I'm here."
But the world said otherwise.
The ground shook. Magic seals broke on distant castles. Ancient treasures inside vaults began glowing on their own. Dead Apostles and Divine Spirits stopped what they were doing, every one of them looking toward the same direction without understanding why.
A newborn cried.
And the planet answered.
BOOOOOOOOM.
The sky split open for a fraction of a second, revealing something beyond the firmament—an endless cosmic glow that should never be visible to humans. Even Gaia screamed, releasing a torrent of magical energy through every leystone on Earth, as if terrified.
The crying stopped. The woman gasped, holding the baby close. The shaking of the world slowed, then ended entirely—stopped not because the world calmed, but because it submitted.
The father stared down at his daughter. She had silver hair that shimmered like a nebula, and star-blue eyes watching the world with strange innocence.
"…If the stars react to her birth," he whispered, "then she must be a Starlight."
The mother, exhausted but smiling, brushed her daughter's cheek.
"No… she isn't only reacting to the stars."
She lifted the infant, voice soft but proud.
"She is the star."
Both parents spoke together:
"Michelle Starlight."
At the sound of her name, the cosmos itself seemed to settle—
as if acknowledging its newest master.
Present Day — Clock Tower, 5 Days After Raphael Arzenon Went Missing
The meeting chamber of the Twelve Lords was silent.
Not tense. Not hostile.
Silent — because every person present was trying not to show fear.
Ancient monsters of magecraft sat at the round table — men and women who could erase countries, rewrite memories, or warp humanity's fate. Yet not a single one dared speak.
Finally, Lord Bernarotte broke.
"…Do we have confirmation?"
No one answered immediately. It was the kind of question that changed history.
Waver Velvet—now Lord El-Melloi II—rubbed his forehead and exhaled.
"Yes. The signature is unmistakable."
A ripple of dread spread across the room.
"Then evacuations—" one Lord began.
"Evacuate?" another snapped. "Evacuate where? The atmosphere? The moon!? There is no place she cannot reach."
A woman with trembling hands whispered, "If Michelle Starlight truly intends to come here… then we no longer control the balance of the world. She does."
No one contradicted her.
Weapons were useless. Politics were useless. Even the Root would not interfere with her.
A younger Lord swallowed hard.
"What do we do if she's… angry?"
No answer came.
Because they all knew the truth:
If Michelle arrived in a bad mood, the Clock Tower—and possibly London—would cease to exist.
The lights flickered.
Not electrically — magically.
Across the city, the night sky brightened unnaturally. Every star shone with unnatural clarity, as if the universe pressed its face against Earth, watching.
A Lord stood up so fast his chair fell behind him.
"She's here."
A sense of crushing inevitability fell upon them.
Someone prayed.
Someone cursed.
Someone laughed in denial.
Because the strongest being born of humankind — the girl who could burn the world and the timelines beyond it — had arrived.
Elsewhere — At the Edge of London
A girl sat on a metal railing outside an ice-cream shop, legs swinging casually.
Silver hair.
Nebula-blue eyes.
A childish grin.
Her presence warped the air, but she didn't seem to notice — or care.
"Man, it's been forever since I came to this city." She bit into her ice cream, eyes sparkling. "I wonder if everyone still hates me. Probably~"
She laughed — too loud, too bright — as if daring the world to remember its trauma.
Then she looked toward the Clock Tower and smiled.
Not angry.
Not hostile.
Not malicious.
Just excited.
"Hey, London. Did you miss me?"
The stars flared in response.
The arrival of the strongest had begun.
Michelle's arrival at the Clock Tower that day felt less like someone entering a room and more like a new celestial body forcing itself into the sky. The great hall at the base of the tower, usually dim and solemn in its stone dignity, brightened in an instant as if the sun had slipped in through a crack in reality. A dozen conversations died halfway through sentences. Old Lords, battle-hardened Enforcers, heirs of ancient lines… all turned toward the slowly opening doors.
She walked in lightly, almost skipping, the heels of her shoes tapping a jaunty rhythm on the marble. A girl—at first glance. Pink hair fell in a soft, playful cascade to her shoulders, a few strands bouncing over an adorably round face flushed with the faintest hint of color. Her cheeks had the softness of a child's, and when she smiled, they dimpled in a way that made weaker hearts loosen without realizing it. Her eyes were an exquisite green, the exact color of new leaves after rain, but anyone who stared too long would feel their throat dry. One iris shone bright and vivid with mischief and life, while the other felt strangely hollow, like a window into a sky where no stars ever rose. The contrast made it impossible to look away and even more impossible to keep looking.
Her body drew a different sort of silence. She was absurdly short, barely five feet tall, her frame encased in a graceful hourglass outline that seemed sculpted rather than grown, even if her chest remained only of average size compared to the impossible beauties that stalked mage banquets. On any other woman, the proportions would have screamed seduction; on Michelle, they clashed with the overwhelming impression that she was a little girl playacting queen. But then the aura hit them.
Power rolled off her like a stellar wind.
It was not the familiar pressure of a Lord's prana, nor the cold suffocation of a Dead Apostle's killing intent. What radiated from Michelle Starlight was closer to the sensation of looking up and suddenly realizing the night sky was staring back. Cosmic energy leaked from her pores in lazy, sparkling threads, fairy-light motes that any mage could see with their Mystic Eyes or simple training. Those threads brushed across the room, indifferent and absolute, weighing and measuring every soul present. More than one magus flinched as their own circuits seemed to shrink in shame.
In that instant, every person in the hall understood a single truth: if all of them combined their power, it still would not be enough.
"Michelle Starlight…" someone whispered, barely audible.
She stopped before the central table and planted her hands on her hips, standing barely taller than the seated Lords, yet somehow towering over them. The corners of her lips curled into a smug, delighted grin, like a child who had sneaked into a room full of adults and found it exactly as boring as expected.
"Ah, everyone looks so gloomy," she said, voice lilting, teasing. "Relax a little. I came in a good mood today.
"Some of the younger magi actually felt their shoulders loosen. Her cheerfulness was infectious, drowning the oppressive atmosphere that had gripped the Clock Tower since the first reports of the vampire uprising. They felt it like a warm light in winter, an easy, harmless brightness.
The more experienced magi knew better.…This woman… The thought rose almost in unison from a dozen hearts. She looks like an innocent child, but her aura alone—my bones are screaming to run. It feels like I'm standing before death itself… What kind of monster—?
The weaker ones, apprentices and low-ranking researchers, felt their legs tremble, their magic circuits instinctively recoiling. To their senses, standing near her was like pressing one's hand against a star. It was beautiful. It was fatal.
Michelle watched their fear with amused eyes and only widened her grin.
"Well then," she said, clapping once, the sound snapping the room's mind back to order. "Before we dive into boring politics and tedious panic, I have something interesting to bring up.
"She let the pause stretch just long enough to irritate the pricklier Lords.
"Raphael Arzenon."
The name dropped into the Clock Tower like a stone into still water. Ripples shot through the hall. A few grimaces twisted. Some faces hardened into cold masks.
"Oh, you know him," Michelle continued sweetly, swaying a little on her feet. "Good. Saves me some breath. I met that boy not long ago. Fascinating specimen, really. To grow this far in only two weeks? That kind of growth rate is something this decaying institution hasn't seen in a long time."
"Fascinating?" one of the Lords spat, his voice like crushed gravel. "He is a criminal. A thief who stole a fragment of the Moon Cell Automaton. A boy with no discipline, no pedigree—"
"He is a disgrace to the Arzenon name."
Charles Arzenon's voice cut through the clamor like a blade. He had been silent until then, sitting in his place among the Lords, his expression carved from ice. Now he raised his head and met Michelle's gaze without flinching, though his fingers were clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed white.
"I will not tolerate anyone associating that boy with myself or the Arzenon family," Charles declared. "Raphael is a stain. A disgusting individual who spat on our contracts and traditions. The only appropriate fate for him is death."
Murmurs of agreement rumbled around the table. Michelle rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide her boredom.
"How dramatic, Charles. You always did love overreactions."
Before the argument could swell, the side door opened with a quiet click. The sound was small, yet the effect was instantaneous. Voices cut off mid-word. Breathing slowed.
An old man stepped into the room, hands resting lightly on a cane that he clearly did not need. His hair, once black, was now silvery, lit from within by an impossible sheen. His eyes, however, remained young—too young—brimming with layered amusement and a millennia's worth of memories. The air seemed to warp around him, not from raw power but from the weight of countless parallel worlds brushing against each other.
Zelretch had arrived.
The hall dipped into a hush so complete that one could hear the distant ticking of the great tower's clocks, layer upon layer of mechanism marking out the seconds that might, in a different worldline, have already witnessed their deaths.
"Sit," Zelretch said mildly, and no one dared to do anything else.
He shuffled toward his place, the harmless image of a weary grandfather, and then lifted his gaze to sweep the hall. Conversations that had been building died unspoken. Michelle tilted her head toward him, grin settling into something more focused, like a young predator noticing the presence of an older one.
"About Raphael Arzenon," Zelretch said, as if resuming a conversation he had started half an hour ago, "there is no need for such agitation. Assassins have already been dispatched. Certain organizations, including our dear Church, are very enthusiastic about acquiring his head."
A few Lords exhaled in relief. Others tensed, gauging implications.
"You may consider him a problem in the process of being solved," Zelretch continued. "For now, do not let a single boy distract you from what actually matters."
The words "vampire uprising" needed no repetition. The stain of it had already spread across the continent.
Michelle hummed, unconcerned, and flopped casually into a seat as if she owned the room.
"Old man," she said, crossing one leg over the other, her cosmic aura dimming to a simmer. "You worry too much. If it's just vampires, it's nothing I can't handle."
A few magi in the back bristled. One of them muttered under his breath, not nearly softly enough.
"That Michelle Starlight… What an arrogant brat."
Before anyone could shush him, Reines El-Melloi Archisorte stepped elegantly into the hall, her voice as cool as the steel of a guillotine.
"Idiots," she said flatly. "You speak too freely for people who survive under her shadow."
Several shoulders jerked. Reines's eyes swept the whisperers with bored contempt.
"Michelle Starlight is the strongest mage in the Clock Tower," she continued, each word crisp. "There is not a single equal to her in this building, and very few in the world. Learn to recognize the food chain if you wish to remain alive on it."
On the opposite side of the table, Waver Velvet—now Lord El-Melloi II—adjusted his glasses and nodded.
"She's not exaggerating," he said. "At eight, Michelle destroyed three nations by herself. Entire political maps had to be redrawn around the craters she left behind. That same year, she fought Zelretch as an equal for seven days and seven nights, until both withdrew without victory. She was eight then. You can draw your own conclusions about what she is now."
Eyes turned to Zelretch. The old vampire-wizard only smiled thinly and said nothing.
The magi who had been whispering earlier swallowed hard and nodded, faces pale, though the taste of resentment did not vanish. Michelle drank in their reluctant respect like the sweetest wine, smile glittering.
"See?" she chirped. "At least some of you remember how to do basic arithmetic: fear plus admiration equals survival."
Zelretch tapped his cane lightly on the floor.
"Now then, Michelle," he said. "Regarding the teams for the upcoming vampire incursion. Whom do you want at your side?"
She did not hesitate. Her grin sharpened.
"How about that Raphael Arzenon boy?" she said. "He sounds fun."
An uproar exploded immediately.
"A criminal?"
"Impossible—!"
"You can't be serious—"
Michelle didn't even look at them. Her voice cut through their protests like a blade of light.
"I said," she repeated, "I don't want to hear it."
Reines leaned forward, irritation flashing across her face. "He killed Noah."
The name hung in the air like a thrown dagger. Noah: Grand mage, Clock Tower pillar, the kind of existence people bent their lives around.
Michelle's expression did not so much as flicker. She lifted one slender hand, inspecting her nails with exaggerated disinterest.
"Fuck Noah," she said calmly.
The word cracked the hall like a whip.
"He was a weakling," she continued. "A coward who hid behind his protections and rigged every battlefield to his advantage. A man who raped countless mages here just to steal their power, using their bodies as fuel. And now you want me to respect his memory? You want me to mourn that kind of trash?" She gave a small, musical laugh. "No. I, Michelle Starlight, the brilliant star that I am, refuse to lower myself enough to pretend that he mattered."
The Lords who had been preparing to voice their outrage found the words strangled by the implications of what she had just said. Shame, anger, and quiet, ugly recognition churned beneath their formal robes.
"That said…" Michelle's grin returned, brighter and wilder, as if she had just spotted a new toy. "Raphael Arzenon. To kill a Grand Rank mage like Noah, with so little time and so few resources… at the very least, he has admirable audacity."
Across the table, Charles Arzenon stiffened.
"What?" he demanded, eyes wide. "You are saying Raphael is the one who killed Noah?"
The Fifth Lord, an old woman whose withered hands still radiated a terrifying density of thaumaturgical weight, nodded once.
"Confirmed."Charles's composure fractured, disbelief swirling with a strange flicker of something else—pride, or fear, or both.
"That's absurd," he said. "He could not possibly have mastered the Moon Cell fragment to that extent. The gap between him and a Grand Rank—"
"Reality does not care about your sense of scale," Michelle interrupted. "Regardless of how he did it, the fact remains: he did. That alone makes his strength more respectable than that of most of the fools in this room."
Her gaze swept lazily across the Lords. Some looked away. Others glared daggers. None spoke.
"That kind of talent," Michelle concluded, folding her hands behind her head, "is worth seeing up close."
Zelretch watched her for a long moment, then let out a soft chuckle.
"My student has spoken," he said. "For now, we will table the details of Raphael's involvement. The primary concern remains the vampire invasion. Prepare yourselves. The main threat is not a single boy, no matter how interesting."
The great clock above them tolled the hour. The meeting shifted gears, the air thick with strategies, numbers, and projected body counts. But Michelle's laughter lingered in the rafters, and more than one Lord silently prayed that Raphael Arzenon would never find his way into the same room as her.
In a quieter wing of the Clock Tower, sunlight filtered through old windows, cutting through the dust and paper-scent of the library annex. Akane Tohsaka sat at a table buried under books, quills, and notes, her chin propped on her hands. Her crimson eyes were half-lidded, focused on something far beyond the ink-stained pages before her.
In her mind, Raphael Arzenon leaned toward her in a corridor, his expression uncharacteristically gentle. The cold stone walls, the smell of old chalk, the faint hum of leylines underfoot—everything blurred except for his eyes. He was reaching out, fingers just about to brush her cheek. Their faces closed the distance, breath mingling—
"Oi."
A knuckle rapped the table beside her head.
Akane jolted back to reality, nearly knocking over an inkwell.
"Hey," Omega Heinriel said, standing across from her with arms folded over his chest. His white cloak, emblazoned with the Church's sigils, barely rustled. His expression remained impressively blank. "Stop drooling on your notes."
"I wasn't drooling," Akane snapped, cheeks suddenly burning. "And don't sneak up on me like that, you oversized sermon stand."
"You were staring into space and smiling like an idiot," Omega said. "Hard to miss."
She scowled, looking away. "Why should I have to be nice to a holy knight of the Church, of all things? Especially you."
His amber eyes did not waver.
"How ironic," he said levelly. "You're confident enough to bite at me and everyone else. The moment Raphael shows up, though, you turn mute and pink, like your personality got replaced by some shy schoolgirl cliché."
Akane's face flushed deeper, the words hitting a raw nerve. She slammed her hands on the table and stood up, ponytail swaying.
"That is completely different," she shot back. "My beloved is simply too great for you to understand, Omega. You left him when he needed you most. I won't ever do that to him."
Omega's jaw tightened. For a second, something like guilt flickered across his eyes before he strangled it.
…This hypocrite, he thought, exhaling through his nose. You say "won't leave" but all you ever do is watch him from the shadows.
Before he could say it out loud and ignite an argument that might burn down half the annex, footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Reines appeared at the doorway, hands in her pockets, expression somewhere between amused and bored.
"So this is where the idiot and the knight are hiding," she said. "Good. Saves me time."
Akane frowned. "What do you want, Reines?"
"News," Reines said simply. "About your precious Raphael Arzenon."
Akane's heart stopped.
"What… kind of news?" Omega asked, his usually steady voice carrying a sharp undertone.
Reines's smile widened, cruel and almost delighted.
"As of today, Raphael is officially listed as a wanted criminal by the Clock Tower," she said. "Bounties, kill orders, the whole package."
Omega's eyes went wide. "Already…?"
Akane's legs gave out. She grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white."No," she whispered. "No, no, no, not my love… please, no…"Her voice cracked, the words tumbling out like shattered glass. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes before she could steel herself. The carefully maintained front she carried in front of everyone else crumbled in the span of a heartbeat.
Reines watched her with cold, sharp interest, then shrugged.
"Honestly, Akane," she said, "maybe if you weren't such a hopelessly obsessed girl who could barely say two words to him, things would have gone differently. Maybe he would have loved you back. But you chose to stand there, silent and useless. You had all that time, and you threw it away."
"Shut up," Akane hissed, vision swimming. "Just shut up, Reines."
"Why should I?" Reines tilted her head, eyes glittering. "When you're such an easy target? I'd bet even I could seduce him, given the chance. Sleep with him better than you ever could. Men like him don't go for stuttering idiots who can't even hold his gaze."
The slap of Akane's reinforced fist against Reines's face echoed like a gunshot. Akane's arm had moved before she'd even thought, magic coiling through muscle and bone to harden her punch.
Reines staggered back a half-step, head snapping to the side. A thin red line of blood traced the corner of her lip. For a heartbeat, the air froze.
Then Reines straightened, rolling her jaw once. The blow had landed full-force, but her body, tempered by endless refinement and backed by her own formidable magecraft, had absorbed most of it.
"That," Reines said softly, "was a mistake."
She raised her hand. Runes flared into existence around her in a spiraling corona, glimmering symbols inscribed in light and force. The air grew heavy as high-level spirits answered her call, their presences flickering like overlapping elements—fire, water, wind, earth, lightning—each taking rough, humanoid shape at her sides.
"Go," Reines commanded.
The spirits launched forward, dozens of projectiles of raw elemental force screaming toward Akane.
Akane's circuits blazed to life. Time Magecraft surged through her veins, warping the world.
The world's color drained. The sounds died. Dust, mid-fall, froze in the air. The incoming spirits stalled in unnatural stillness, mouthless faces locked in silent rage.
Five seconds. That was all she could hold.
Akane inhaled sharply, feeling every tick of her heart like a thunderclap in the silence. She moved.
In that still world, she dashed behind Reines, each step a strain on her body as time itself resisted her intrusion. She slipped a jeweled ring onto her finger, one of her prepared catalysts, and pressed it against Reines's back. Gemstones flared, releasing compressed magical energy with vicious precision.
Time snapped back into motion.
Reines jerked as the jewelry magecraft detonated behind her, a slicing surge of force ripping at her protective spells and tearing through her outer defenses. Strands of her carefully arranged hair were shredded, scattering glittering fragments of prana through the air.
Reines's eyes widened in genuine surprise. Few ever caught her off guard.
Akane landed lightly, chest heaving, sweat beading on her forehead. Five seconds of time-stop burned through a terrifying amount of prana. Her knees trembled, but her glare remained steady.
Reines raised her hand again, fury flaring.
"So that's how it's going to be," she said. "Fine. Let's see how many pieces I can break you into—"
Her words cut off as a faint vibration pulsed at her wrist.
A communication charm, attuned to Waver, heated against her skin. Reines clicked her tongue and touched it, listening.
"Tch. Of course," she murmured, then exhaled sharply."Duty calls," she said, letting the spirits fade into motes of light. "Waver wants me in the meeting room. Apparently adults have to keep this place from falling apart while you children play out your melodramas."
She turned to leave, then paused in the doorway, glancing back over her shoulder. A maliciously sweet smile curled her lips.
"Oh, and Akane?" she said. "You like to play the innocent, pure girl. But let's not forget what you really are. A rape victim, used every week by powerful mages who treat you like a resource. How do you think your beloved Raphael will react if he ever finds out that little truth?"
The words hit like a sledgehammer. Akane's breath seized in her lungs. Images she'd buried under layers of denial and duty clawed their way back to the surface: hands pinning her, spells silencing her cries, the cold emptiness afterward when she had to return to class and pretend nothing had happened.
"Stop," she whispered, but the word barely made it out.
Reines's footsteps faded down the corridor.
Akane's legs buckled. She collapsed to her knees, hands clutching at her own arms as if she could physically hold herself together. Tears spilled down her cheeks, hot and relentless, cutting through years of hardened discipline. Every breath was a shallow, ragged rasp. The walls seemed to close in.
Omega stood frozen for a moment, expression flickering between fury and helplessness. He took a step forward, then another, and knelt beside her.
"Akane," he said quietly.
She didn't respond, eyes glazed, staring at nothing.
He hesitated, then placed a hand on her shoulder, firm but gentle.
"I'm here," he said simply.
His face was a mask of composure, but inside, confusion and anger warred. Anger at Reines. At the nameless mages who thought they could do that and still call themselves human. At himself, for leaving Raphael—and by extension, Akane—to this hell.
He didn't have the words to fix her. He doubted any existed.
So he stayed by her side as she shook and wept, silently guarding a wounded girl who still clung to the idea of a boy now hunted by the world.
Back in the meeting room, the atmosphere had turned increasingly tense as reports of vampire movements filtered in. Maps lined the walls, dotted with markers indicating massacres, disappearances, and corrupted leylines.
"What do you make of the scale, Michelle?" Zelretch asked, turning his gaze back to her. "This is not a minor flare. If left unchecked, it could rival the Dead Apostle Ancestors' old games."
Michelle stretched lazily, as if they were discussing the weather.
"What do I think?" she repeated, smile returning. "I think it's nothing I can't handle, old man."
Somewhere in the back, a magus couldn't help himself.
"Arrogant…" he muttered. "She talks like she's above everyone."
Reines, who had just slipped in and taken her seat, shot him a withering glare.
"Arrogant?" she said. "That's what you call someone who can rewrite national borders before she hits puberty? Michelle Starlight is the apex of the Clock Tower. There isn't a single magus here who can stand as her equal."
Waver nodded. "You people had better pray her arrogance doesn't turn against you."
Michelle swung her legs lightly, humming.
"But arrogant or not," Zelretch said, "you will not be facing this alone. Teams must be formed. The vampire incursion will not be a neat, single battlefield. It will be a sprawling mess."
"I already told you," Michelle replied. "I want Raphael."More protests tried to rise, but this time they died faster, smothered by the memory of her earlier declaration and the knowledge of what defiance might cost them.
"You are playing a dangerous game," Zelretch murmured, a hint of curiosity creeping into his eyes. "You gather interesting pieces, Michelle."
She flashed him a knowing smile.
"Life would be boring otherwise," she said. "And besides… I have a feeling that boy is going to be at the center of things, whether you like it or not."
Zelretch did not deny it.The great clock chimed again, scattering echoes through the stone. Outside the tower, the sky over London darkened, clouds gathering like a curtain drawn before a stage.
Somewhere out there, Raphael Arzenon was already running out of places to hide.
And the star called Michelle Starlight had begun to move toward him.
And so, with the descent of the girl who shook the heavens on the day she was born— with the Clock Tower trembling, the Lords silenced,
and the world itself acknowledging the return of a monster who should not exist—
the Academy Arc comes to a close.
The quiet days of rivalry, suspicion, and hidden blades are gone.
The era of preparation ends here.
From this moment forward, the story marches into a new age—
an age of collapsing eras, forbidden truths, and a world tipping into apocalypse.
This is the end of the beginning.
And the beginning of the end.