You could tell it was Day 9 by the way the air hurt. Erik didn't even bother with a morning greeting. Just: "Yesterday was mercy. Today? Reality." The kind of voice that dared you to argue.
They were all wiped. But Takeshi was in another dimension of exhaustion. Running like he could outrun fear. Training like breaking his body would squash the memory of that card, that voice.
Contact me when you're fifteen.
If I'm too tired to think, I won't feel that hunter breathing down my neck.
Erik had them doing shuttle runs until legs burned, then drilled passing at double speed. It was the usual hell, only meaner. And Takeshi was making mistakes, a touch too heavy, a pass behind Elsa instead of ahead, drifting when he used to lead.
Erik noticed. "Takeshi! Focus up!"
Elsa winced every time he stumbled. Oliver threw worried looks. Marcus actually stopped and asked, "Yo, you good?"
"Fine." Takeshi snapped before grabbing the ball again. "Just tired."
No one believed him, not even himself. Isabella's voice was a low murmur at water break. "You've been weird since yesterday."
He ignored it. He had bigger things to worry about. Like the next drill.
Erik set up his favorite pressure-cooker, 2v4 keep-away, where possession for two minutes saved you from punishment laps.
Takeshi and Oliver against Marcus, Kwame, Isabella... and Elsa. Four chasing wolves. No room to breathe.
Perfect.
The drill started. It was instantly ugly.
Oliver, decent under pressure, lasted a pass before Kwame cut off his angle. The ball forced to Takeshi. Trapped, three defenders closing. Elsa holding off just a step, eyes searching his face.
He spun right, Marcus was already there. Left, Isabella's foot flicking in. No space. Oliver out of options. The touch closed. Panic climbed up Takeshi's throat.
Not again. Not helpless.
FLASH, a sense memory. The man in the shop. His breath on the back of Takeshi's neck.
You're just eight, so I can't have you. Yet.
NO.
And just like that, the world... changed.
Marcus's leg came down in syrup slo-mo. Isabella's hands drifted toward the ball, finger by finger, a glacier. Kwame's torso, usually so efficient in a tackle, twisted through honey.
Time wasn't stopped. Just... slower. Everything but Takeshi.
He felt every heartbeat as a drum.
A thousand outcomes played out, branching in front of him in staggered frames. He could see the open pocket between Marcus's feet. Elsa's weight shifted left, her weak side, anticipating an escape pass.
His own body moved normal speed in this molasses world. He rolled the ball through Marcus's legs, arched his back from Isabella's grab, tapped a toe beyond Kwame's reach.
Time snapped.
Wolves, left eating air.
Takeshi was standing, ball at his feet, empty space around him. Four defenders staring like someone had swapped him for a doppelgänger.
Oliver's jaw could fit a soccer ball.
For a split second, the world was silent.
Then Erik barked a laugh from halfway across the field. "What... the fuck was that?"
Kids turned. Even Pieter, their guardian, watched wide-eyed from the shade. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.
The system window exploded before Takeshi's eyes:
[SYSTEM ALERT]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TIME RELAY: AWAKENING
Current Unlock: 1%
Ability: Time Dilation (2–3 seconds)
Effect: Perception of time slows while user maintains normal speed
Cooldown: UNKNOWN
Energy Cost: UNKNOWN
Full Unlock Progress: 1/100
WARNING: Ability unstable
Further unlock conditions: HIDDEN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He stood there, hands trembling. Heart like a trapped bird.
It unlocked. But why? Why now? And no one else can see this. This is mine alone to carry.
Behind him, the world scrambled to catch up.
Marcus: "Dude. DUDE. What was that?!"
Kwame: "I've never seen anyone move that fast, did you see...? No way."
Isabella: "That's not normal. What did you do?!"
Elsa was silent, her eyes saying a hundred things, none of them amazement. Worry. Deep, bone-deep worry.
Erik walked over, focused like a hawk. "Takeshi. What did you just do?"
Takeshi forced a wobbling laugh. "I... I don't know. Instinct. Kinda lucky, I guess."
Erik's stare felt like an x-ray. "No. That wasn't luck. That was something else. Again. Do it again."
Takeshi swallowed. Can't. Don't know how. System's not giving me answers.
But he couldn't say that. So he just stood there, not looking anyone in the eye.
Elsa couldn't take her eyes off him all practice. That move... it was insane. But it wasn't the skill that scared her.
It was how shaken Takeshi looked afterwards. Shaken, not triumphant. Like he'd touched fire and burned his soul.
Ever since Efteling, he'd been off. When she'd found him in the gift shop, face pale, he'd played the moment off. But he hadn't been right since. Now this?
At lunch, Elsa sat with Oliver, picking at her food.
"He's different," she muttered.
Oliver looked at her, then to where Takeshi should be... absent. "He's been weird since yesterday. Something happened at Efteling, I just know it."
She pushed her peas around on her plate. "He won't talk to me. He won't talk to you either, will he?"
Oliver shook his head, serious now. "Whatever's up, it's ugly."
Elsa stood up, determination in her eyes. "I have to find out."
"Want backup?"
Elsa shook her head. "No. He might talk if it's just me."
Elsa tracked Takeshi after lunch through the hallway, his anxious walk making it easy even without stealth.
Instead of his room, he slipped out the back, heading to the courtyard behind the dorms... a spot where soccer balls went to die and few kids ever bothered. Elsa stayed back, watching.
He sat on a rusty bench, pulled something from his pocket, a card, small and expensive-looking. His hands shook as he stared down at it. Not crying exactly. But not okay either.
Elsa's heart tumbled. What is that? Why does it scare him so much?
She couldn't stay hidden anymore. "Takeshi?"
He jumped so hard he almost dropped the card. Scrambled to hide it but she'd already seen.
"Elsa! I didn't... How long…"
She walked toward him, slow, like approaching a stray cat. "What's that?"
He tried. "Nothing."
Tried again, quieter "Just...nothing."
She sat beside him. "You looked terrified, Takeshi. That's not nothing. You've been like this since the park."
Long pause. Breezes, birds, somewhere a distant bell.
"A man in the shop. He... gave me this." He showed her the card.
Elsa took it, studied the front. The crest was clear. A big club. Not Ajax. No, bigger. Her eyes widened. "This is… this is huge."
"He wanted me to play for him. Said I was too young now. Told me to call him when I turn 15."
"That's seven years away," Elsa whispered.
"Yeah, but he's watching. Now." His voice cracked slightly.
Elsa's face hardened, kid-fierce. "Did you tell Erik?"
Takeshi shook his head. "I don't know who to trust anymore."
"Did you tell Oliver?"
He looked away. "No. Didn't want to worry anyone."
She took his hand, didn't even realize she'd done it. "You're not alone in this."
He blinked at her, her palm cool in his. The adult in his head tried to pull away... too risky, too close, but the eight-year-old just held on, feeling less like prey for a second.
But I am alone with the system. With TIME RELAY. With powers I can't explain. That secret I have to carry myself.
"Thank you. For… caring."
Elsa flushed, but didn't let go. "That's what partners do."
They sat like that, the card now their shared secret, but so much else still hidden in the silence.
Up above, Erik watched from his window, eyes narrowed. He saw the card, the exchange, the way Takeshi gripped Elsa's hand like a lifeline.
His phone buzzed. "Yes?" A murmur from the other end.
"I'm aware. I'm handling it."
He hung up, kept watching. "So they've made contact already," he muttered. His shadow receded from the glass.
Further off, hidden by hedges and concrete, the mysterious scout from the shop sat with binoculars. Snapped photos of the pair. Jotted in a battered field notebook.
Subject displays unusual ability today. Close bond with Norwegian girl. Erik aware, not intervening. Contact established, card delivered.
He smiled, a little too wolfish, and faded into the background.
Elsa was first to break the silence. "That move you did today. In training. How did you do that?"
Takeshi's mind raced. Can't tell her about TIME RELAY. Can't tell her about the system. That's mine alone.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "It just... happened. Like everything slowed down and I could see all the openings. Maybe adrenaline? Fear?"
"It was incredible," Elsa said softly. "Like you could see the future or something."
If only you knew how close to the truth that is.
"Just got lucky, I guess."
She studied his face, knowing there was more he wasn't saying. But she didn't push. "Whatever it was, it scared you."
"Yeah." That much he could admit. "It did."
They started back toward the dorms, together. As dusk pooled across the grass, Elsa paused, turned back. "Takeshi? Whatever's happening to you... you don't have to face it alone. At least, not the parts you can share."
She'd noticed. Of course she had. That he was holding something back.
"I know," he said quietly. "Thank you."
He watched her go, the card pressed hard against his palm, the system window flickering in his vision, invisible to everyone but him.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
The skill awakens when the user faces true danger.
Question: What danger did you face today?
Answer: Unknown even to you.
TIME RELAY unlocks in response to threats you don't yet understand.
Stay vigilant.
He peered up at the dorm windows. Erik's shadow, there? Gone? The hairs on his neck stood up.
Elsa knows about the card. About the man. That's something.
But TIME RELAY? The system? The fact that I died once before and came back?
Those secrets stay mine. Those burdens I carry alone.
The skill had awakened. One percent of its full power. But why now? And what danger was coming that required him to bend time itself?
As he walked back inside, the weight of his secrets pressed down harder than ever. Some things you could share. Some things you had to carry alone.
And right now, Takeshi was carrying more than any eight-year-old should.
TO BE CONTINUED...