Chapter 16: The Start of the First Arc of the First Game (6)
The mana-powered train ground to a weary halt within the gleaming gates of Eden's Royal Academy, its once-elegant frame now a battered relic—scorched panels curling like burnt paper, cracked glass weeping faint beads of residual energy, the air around it thick with the lingering bite of charred steel and the acrid aftertaste of unleashed mana. What had been a chariot of polished progress, gliding through the skies on threads of arcane light, now squatted like a wounded animal, steam hissing from vents in lazy sighs of defeat. The golden morning sun draped over it all, turning the scars to fleeting illusions of warmth, but the shadows clung stubborn, whispering of the violence that had etched them deep.
Students spilled from the cars one by one, a procession of the shaken and spared—faces pale as fresh linen, steps faltering on the platform's pristine marble, alive but marked by the brush with oblivion. Whispers wove among them like fragile vines: "Did you see the light?" "I thought we were done for..." Relief hung in the air, tentative as a first breath after drowning, mingling with the faint, metallic tang of blood and the clean ozone hum of fading spells.
Reinforcement knights stood in crisp formation along the platform's edge, their silver armor still aglow with the soft pulse of spent mana—plate and chain etched with the empire's unyielding eagle, shields braced like silent vows. Mages from the Imperial Magic Council moved among them, robes of deep indigo swirling as they murmured reports in voices hurried but hushed, hands tracing seals over the wounded: a glow of healing light knitting gashes, mending fractures with threads of woven ether.
"Casualties—none," one declared, voice steady as a ledger's close, though his eyes betrayed the miracle's weight.
"Several injuries, but all stable," another echoed, a faint tremor in her tone as she sealed a student's bandaged arm.
"The raiders escaped annihilation; presumed eradicated," the lead mage concluded, his words rippling through the gathering like a long-held breath released—sighs of gratitude swelling in its wake, students leaning on one another, tears carving clean paths through soot-streaked cheeks.
Amid the murmur and mend, Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar descended from the train's shadowed maw, a figure carved from quiet discord. His ashen-white hair bore streaks of grime like faded ink, his academy uniform half-charred at the hems—wool frayed and singed, the gold trim dulled to tarnish. His gloves, once pristine, clung stiff with dried blood—crimson flakes crumbling as he flexed his fingers, not a drop his own. Yet his face remained a blank canvas, untouched by the fray's fever: eyes black as untrodden night, reflecting neither triumph nor toll, only the vast, indifferent stillness of one who had long ago traded wonder for weariness.
Students who caught sight of him faltered mid-step, whispers blooming behind cupped hands like secrets too heavy to hold alone: "Isn't that... the Blackstar heir?" "Why does he look so... untouched?" "Was he out there—fighting like a demon?"
Lucian flowed past them all, steps even as a river's patient course, ignoring the ripples he stirred—the way eyes widened, then averted, as if gazing too long might draw him into focus. His boots left faint, dark imprints on the marble tiles, each one a silent testament to the morning's toll, fading slow under the sun's indifferent gaze.
"Lucian!"
The call pierced the hush, warm yet edged with fret—a voice he knew like the rhythm of his own pulse. He turned his head a fraction, gaze settling on Lucia as she hurried from the platform's throng, her pale blonde hair bound in a neat braid that swayed like a pendulum of concern, her uniform spotless as fresh dawn. But her face—ah, her face held the map of a sister's quiet storm: brows knit in worry, lips pressed thin against the urge to demand.
"Are you alright?" she asked, drawing close but halting short, her hand half-raised as if to touch his arm—then freezing at the sight of the blood flaking from his sleeve, dark and accusing. "You're... covered in it. Lucian, what happened out there?"
Before the words could settle, a sharper note cut the air from her shadow.
"Tch."
Damon loomed a pace behind, arms folded tight across his chest like a barrier of judgment, his dark blue hair untouched by the chaos, golden eyes narrowed to slits of cool appraisal. "You should've ridden with us in the limo, as expected," he said, voice low and edged with frost, the heir's poise a shield against unease. "Instead, you wander off like some stray, and now? Look at you—drenched in filth, drawing every eye to our name. More trouble, as always."
Lucia's head snapped toward him, eyes flashing like struck flint, her voice a whip tempered by blood. "This isn't the moment, Damon. Bite your tongue. Would it strangle you to ask if he's hurt first—to see past your own pride for once?"
Damon's jaw clenched, a muscle ticking like a clock's reluctant hand, but the retort died unspoken, his gaze flicking to Lucian with something perilously close to fracture—worry veiled in the armor of elder brother's disdain.
Lucian offered neither rebuttal nor glance, his silence a wall too high for words to scale. He stepped between them, a figure adrift in the tide of family currents, his passage leaving the air cooler in his wake.
Each footfall echoed soft on the marble, dark stains blooming faint behind him—footprints of a morning's ghosts, dissolving slow under the sun's patient watch.
In the distance, Headmaster Wilhelm Altaliere held court amid the instructors, a pillar of quiet command: his light blue hair catching the light like a halo of woven mist, emerald eyes calm yet piercing, the gaze of one who had weathered gales that felled oaks. He turned as Lucian neared, a subtle furrow etching his brow—recognition dawning like light through cloud.
"Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar," Wilhelm called, voice gentle as a scholar's query yet resonant with the academy's ancient authority, carrying over the murmurs like a stone skipped across still water. "You were aboard the train, yes?"
Lucian halted paces away, inclining his head in a bow as fluid as shadow's bend. "...Yes."
"I've heard the survivors' accounts," the headmaster pressed on, his tone even, probing without accusation, as if sifting lore from a half-read tome. "You shielded several students—among them the daughter of the Orientalia line."
Lucian lifted his gaze a breath, meeting those emerald depths with his own unyielding voids. "I only did what was necessary."
Wilhelm regarded him in the hush that followed, the boy's mana brushing his senses like a fog off ancient seas—unstable as storm-tossed waves, yet weighted with an antiquity that ill-suited a frame of seventeen summers. It hummed not with the bright promise of youth, but the deep, resonant toll of bells long silent.
Before the headmaster could weave further words, a cry threaded the air—urgent, laced with maternal tide.
"Lucian!"
Lissette Imelda Von Blackstar hastened from the platform's edge, her gown of soft lavender swirling like petals in breeze, eyes wide with the storm of relief and dread that only a mother's heart could brew. Draven EverBlack Von Blackstar shadowed her, his presence a low thunder—tall and unyielding, morning robes doing little to soften the duke's iron silhouette, authority etched in every line of his stance.
"Lucian," Draven intoned, voice cool as forged steel, arms crossing like barriers raised. "You could have perished out there. Do you ever pause to weigh your whims? Every reckless step you take soils our name further—"
"Draven," Lissette murmured, her hand alighting on his arm like a dove seeking perch—gentle, yet firm as the roots that held her steady. Her gaze never strayed from her son, drinking in the hollows beneath his eyes, the blood-flecked pallor of his skin. Something coiled tight in her chest, a mother's intuition unfurling like a warning banner: he wasn't the tempest-tongued boy of old tempests, the one who met barbs with barbs. No arrogance flared in his stance, no temper simmered beneath; only... absence, a quiet void that echoed like chambers long emptied.
"Lucian," she whispered, voice threading soft as a lullaby half-remembered, "are you... truly alright? Tell me you're whole."
He held her eyes a heartbeat—long enough for the emptiness to mirror back, a chasm where warmth should bloom: no spark of ire to chase her worry, no veil of grief to share the load, no flicker of affection to bridge the years. Just endless, quiet stillness, vast as the spaces between breaths.
Then he turned from them all, gaze drifting to the academy's yawning maw—the main courtyard beyond, where chairs and benches stood hastily arrayed like islands in a sea of marble, students gathering in uneven waves.
Lucia edged forward, hand outstretched as if to tether him. "Lucian, wait—"
But he flowed onward, a current unbound, weaving through the murmuring throng without ripple. Students parted instinctive before him—eyes widening at the bloodied specter in noble guise, whispers trailing like smoke in his wake: "He's terrifying..." "Did he truly clash with the raiders—alone?" "Those eyes... like they've seen the end of days."
Lucian claimed a quiet perch near the courtyard's heart, by the fountain where water sang oblivious in crystalline loops—settling onto a bench with posture composed yet adrift, as if the morning's maelstrom had been but a passing cloud. Sunlight slanted across his pale hair, snaring faint crimson streaks that lingered unwashed, turning them to threads of faded rust—a crown for the unmarked.
And then—footfalls approached from the courtyard's fringe, hesitant as deer scenting wolf.
"Lucian!"
He stirred not, gaze lost to the fountain's endless fall; he knew those cadences, the blend of earnest and awe.
Claire, Amelia, Johnathan—drawing near in a loose triad, uniforms bearing the raid's faint kisses: Claire's skirt frayed at the hem like a banner through gale, Amelia's sleeves charred to brittle edge, Johnathan's shoulder swathed in fresh linen, steps clipped by lingering ache.
Claire halted first, paces shy, hands twisting before her like vines seeking purchase. "Lucian... we just wanted to thank you again—for stepping in back there."
Silence met her, a wall too smooth for echoes.
Johnathan ventured next, voice roughened by the morning's toll, offering a nod that aimed for camaraderie but landed awkward. "You turned the tide—saved us clean. I... I owe you, man. Big time."
Still, the hush held, unbroken.
Amelia advanced then, ruby eyes alight with the steady glow of sincerity, her staff a subtle prop against the weight of wonder. "Sir Blackstar, you have my eternal gratitude," she said, words measured yet fervent, carrying the subtle lilt of desert winds. "Your hand spared lives beyond counting. If there's any debt I can repay, any favor—"
He rose then—not in answer, not in acknowledgment, but in quiet severance—brushing past them with the fluid grace of water over stone, eyes distant as a far-off shore, adrift in thoughts none could chart.
His footfalls echoed faint on the courtyard's expanse, carrying him toward the distant stairway that plunged deeper into the academy's labyrinth—marble steps flanked by blooming arches, promising halls of lore and shadow.
Behind, the trio stood rooted, exchanging glances laced with the unease of unanswered pleas—eyes wide, brows knit, the air between them humming with the unspoken: What did we miss?
Claire's lip caught between her teeth, soft and uncertain. "...Did we say something wrong? Push too hard?"
No reply came; the fountain's song swallowed the quiet, indifferent to the fractures left in wake.
Lucian pressed on, the wind sifting through the gardens' blooms—petals of white and lavender nodding in gentle accord, their sweet breath twining with the faint, iron whisper of smoke on the breeze. The academy sprawled around him, a kingdom of stone and spell: towers piercing the blue like quills dipped in eternity, bridges of light spanning chasms of air, the distant toll of bells calling the scattered to order.
'So even here,' he thought, voice a hollow murmur in the vastness of his mind, 'they weave into a knot... just like my second life.'
A shadow of a smirk ghosted his lips—not born of mirth's fleeting spark, but the dull gleam of one who recognized the pattern's weave all too well: bonds forming unbidden, threads pulling tight despite the shears of intent.
'Fate really doesn't know when to quit, does it?'
The academy's bell tolled then, deep and resonant—a bronze voice marking the term's solemn dawn, its chime rolling across the pristine marble halls like a vow renewed.
And as its echo lingered, Lucian stood beneath the morning light—once again ensnared in the game's unfolding yarn, yet utterly adrift from its pull.