As the auditorium emptied out, I stayed on stage a second longer, just long enough to make sure every eye got one last look at me. I lifted my hand and gave the top ten a slow, dramatic wave.

"Try to keep up," I said, smiling like I was doing them a favor.

Then I turned and left, cape swaying behind me.

The walk back to the Aetherium, the towering black spire that served as the academy's core, felt longer than usual. Maybe it was the silence after all that noise. Or maybe it was the fact that, for the first time since I'd arrived, my head finally had room to think.

Tomorrow… my school life officially starts.

It still sounds strange in my head. School life.

Back in my first life, I didn't have something like that. No uniforms. No friends. No promises about the future. Just cold concrete, half-eaten scraps, and the faint smell of rain clinging to my skin.

I was ten when my parents left me. Said they'd be back. They weren't. I stopped waiting after a week, stopped believing after a month. And after a year, I stopped caring.

I learned to survive to fight, to steal, to make something out of nothing. The streets don't give kindness; they just teach you how to take what you can and smile like you mean to.

So yeah, sitting in a fancy tower with a cape and a title? That's… new.

The Aetherium's gates shimmered faintly as I passed through, blue-white mana rippling around me. The corridor stretched endlessly, quiet except for the echo of my own footsteps.

My thoughts drifted, first toward the mundane, then somewhere darker.

Three years.

That's how long the treaty was supposed to last. A fragile little document that promised peace between races too scarred to even remember what peace looked like. Everyone believed in it, or at least, they wanted to.

Kings, scholars, even the academy higher-ups all paraded around, smiling and shaking hands, pretending like words on paper could undo centuries of blood.

Three years of safety. Three years to train the next generation. Three years before the "inevitable" started again.

I scoffed under my breath. "Minimum war, huh?"

Yeah, no. I knew better.

That treaty didn't mean peace; it just meant preparation. Armies were rebuilding. Weapons were evolving. And monsters... the ones we thought we'd wiped out, they were adapting faster than anyone could imagine. The first cracks were already there, just small enough for the blind to ignore.

I rubbed the back of my neck.

Even though I'd already fucked up the future by existing, by taking someone else's place, by standing where I shouldn't the ending hadn't changed. The timeline was bending, but the storm was still coming.

And when it did, the first to burn would be us, the bright-eyed, hopeful idiots sitting in these halls, calling ourselves students.

I sighed, staring down the long stretch of glowing white marble that led to my room.

"Three years," I muttered. "That's all the time we get before hell rings the doorbell."

My reflection shimmered faintly against the floor, the black of my uniform, the silver of the academy's crest, the faint smirk that didn't quite reach my eyes.

Peace was just a polite pause.

And I was living proof that destiny didn't stay quiet for long.

I started walking again, slower this time, each step echoing like a countdown.

My room wasn't far now.

Neither was the end of peace.

The elevator hummed softly as it ascended through the heart of the Aetherium, its faint mana-lights flickering against the mirrored walls. The rhythmic whir of arcane gears was the only sound accompanying me as I leaned against the rail, staring at my reflection.

For a moment, I caught my own eyes in the glass — bright, sharp, alive in a way that still felt strange. There had been a time when waking up inside this tower would've been impossible. When I didn't have mana, didn't have power, didn't have a future.

The elevator chimed, smooth and polite, as if unaware of the thoughts grinding through my head. The doors slid open, and the familiar scent of clean air and metal met me.

The 21st floor was quiet. Too quiet. My footsteps echoed through the long corridor slow, steady, almost reverent.

This floor wasn't meant for first-years. It wasn't meant for students at all. It was for Belle and Belle alone. In other words, not me. Yet here I was.

My hand brushed along the cold, smooth wall as I walked. mana pulsed faintly beneath it, the heartbeat of the tower itself. For a moment, I let my thoughts drift.

Peace. What a joke. The treaty was just a pause between battles, a breath before the next scream. And the ones sitting below me now, those first-year students cheering and competing and dreaming of glory… they had no idea what was waiting for them.

War wasn't coming.It was already here, it just hadn't knocked on the door yet.

The elevator doors behind me slid shut, pulling me out of my thoughts. I took a breath, exhaled, and started down the hall again.

The corridor turned left, leading into a small side hall where a single door stood, sleek black metal with faint silver filigree. The apartment Belle had "commandeered" after deciding the staff quarters were boring. I could already feel faint traces of her scent leaking through the cracks warm, chaotic, and just a bit terrifying.

I keyed in the access rune, and the door slid open with a soft hiss.

Warm light spilled out, carrying the smell of roasted coffee beans and ozone. And there she was.

Belle. My eccentric, unpredictable, occasionally terrifying instructor and the closest thing this world had to a force of chaos incarnate.

She was walking in circles around the dining table, one hand patting every surface in reach, the other clutching something. Her long black hair flowed past her shoulders, and her blindfold rested firmly in place.

I leaned against the doorframe, silently watching the spectacle unfold.

She crouched, stood, spun halfway around, bumped into a chair, and muttered something that I was pretty sure wasn't in any human language.

The sight hit me with déjà vu so hard I almost laughed.

"Belle," I said finally, unable to hold it in.

She froze mid-step, turning her head slightly in my direction.

I lifted a hand and pointed lazily. "The remote's in your hand."

A long pause followed. She slowly lifted her hand, staring at the black remote clutched between her fingers like it had materialized out of thin air.

There was a second of pure, silent disbelief. Then her shoulders drooped.

"…You saw that, didn't you," she muttered.

"Oh yeah," I said, grinning. "Front-row seat."

She groaned softly, standing upright and pushing her hair back with one hand. "You could've said something earlier, you know."

"Where's the fun in that?" I smirked, stepping inside and letting the door slide shut behind me.

For a second, the room felt oddly peaceful, like a fleeting moment between storms.

I took in the sight of her still half-asleep, wearing her loose black shirt and shorts, blindfold perfectly in place, standing there like nothing could faze her.

And yet, somehow, this woman was the same person who could dismantle armies with a wave of her hand.

I sighed softly, a small smile tugging at my lips.

"Cute," I muttered under my breath, barely audible.

Her head tilted slightly, like she'd heard that, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of reacting. Instead, I slipped past her, heading toward my room.

Tomorrow would be the start of classes, the start of a school life I never got to have in my first life.

And knowing me, it was probably going to be just as chaotic as everything else.

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