Night wrapped Vanhart Estate in muted folds of winter.
The corridors had long since gone quiet, but a faint glow bled through the small window slit in Kel's room, where moonlight touched the frost lining the edges of the glass. He sat beside his desk, the room dim, lit only by a solitary candle whose flame trembled like a secret trying to escape. The outside world lay still. Inside his mind—there was motion.
A soft ripple crossed his consciousness.
A quiet voice, flowing like mist over still water, reached him.
"Kel…"
He paused in writing his notes on aura refinement. His quill halted, ink forming a final dot before silence.
He did not answer.
The presence grew clearer.
"…What does it mean, what you said in thought—
'Status window'?
'Game'?
'Route'?
What are those things you keep repeating when you think too deeply?"
Kel remained motionless.
His breath did not change. His fingers neither tightened nor paused.
Only, in the depth of his eyes, a faint shift—like snow settling beneath an unseen weight.
He closed the notebook slowly.
He leaned back in his chair.
Then he exhaled.
"You listened more than you spoke."
Seiren's voice was calm. "You think in patterns not of this world. You observe cause and consequence as if watching a story. Why?"
The candle flickered.
Kel looked toward the frost-rimmed window.
The moon hung like a witness.
He waited a moment before responding.
He did not lie.
He did not tell the truth.
He spoke the space in between.
"I am not… from here."
The words slipped into the silence, flat and unembellished.
But even without a rise in tone, they felt heavy—like something that should not be spoken so simply.
Seiren remained quiet for a moment.
Then:
"Explain."
Kel lifted his gaze to the ceiling of his room. Shadows stretched from candlelight, long and angular across the stone wall.
"I…"
He paused.
Not because he needed to think.
Because he needed to choose.
"—was not born as Kel von Rosenfeld."
Her presence sharpened. Listening.
"I lived somewhere else. A different world. With different laws, different skies. I died there… and woke here."
He kept his voice flat.
Emotionless.
As if reciting a stranger's tragedy.
"It was when I turned twelve," he added, eyes unfocused, "that the memories of before returned. Not all at once. But over days, then weeks. I only… understood slowly."
"Understood what?" Seiren asked.
Kel's eyes lowered.
"That I know things about this world that I should not know."
His jaw tightened for a brief moment.
"That is all."
Silence.
A long one.
As if even telepathic connection could hesitate.
Finally:
"…You say it as if it were ordinary."
"It is to me," he replied simply.
"Do you claim to be a god?"
"No." His answer came without delay.
"A lost soul? A fallen spirit?"
"No."
"…Then what?"
Kel tapped his finger slowly against the wooden desk. The sound echoed softly.
"An anomaly."
He looked back at the window.
"At least that is how I define it for myself."
Seiren's mind brushed his again.
Colder.
Sharper.
"You said things earlier, in your thoughts. About changing 'canon.' About 'routes.' About how this world has a spine."
Kel said nothing.
"Does that mean," she pressed softly, "that you know the future?"
His eyes slightly narrowed.
A pause.
Then:
"Yes. And no."
She waited.
Kel pressed his fingertips together.
"I know possibilities," he admitted. "Paths. Choices that lead to certain endings. But… this world is alive. It breathes and shifts. I am not omniscient."
His voice lowered.
"But I carry the knowledge of one version of it. A version where everything was already written."
A trace of the candle flame reflected in his eyes.
He leaned forward.
"And in that version," he said quietly, "I—Kel—died before any of this could happen."
Seiren's presence stilled.
No words came.
Kel continued.
"My existence here is already an anomaly. My survival alters everything. From training under the breath technique, to the banquet duel, to reaching Scarder Lake before the second winter... even your contract."
He looked at his palm.
"Even curing Lysenne."
"I don't know if this world is following that path still," he whispered. "Or if I have already broken it beyond recognition."
There was no pride in his tone.
Only exhaustion.
Silence again.
Then her voice returned—not cold, nor calm this time.
Something softer.
More human.
"…Is that why you walk as if chased?"
He blinked.
"Why you never rest? Why even joy looks like something you study from afar?"
Kel did not reply.
A long quiet.
Then:
"You fear that if you slow down… someone will die because of it."
"…Yes."
"Because that is what happened before."
Kel did not confirm.
He didn't need to.
Partial Truth. Never Full.
Seiren's voice shifted again, calm once more.
"You share much for one so guarded. Yet you speak as if choosing every fragment."
"I am."
"Why conceal the rest?"
Kel closed his notebook and stood, slowly.
Candle flame wavered as his shadow lengthened against the wall.
He looked out the window.
"Because some knowledge," he said softly, "kills. Just by existing."
Seiren's presence faded slightly, like ripples calming.
"…Will you ever tell me the full truth?"
Kel considered his answer longer than any previous one.
His aura whispered along his limbs, steady and disciplined.
He finally replied:
"If I ever say everything…"
He exhaled.
"Then it will be because either I trust you beyond every risk—"
He lifted his hand toward the window.
White moonlight caught on his fingers.
"—or because there will be nothing left to lose."
Seiren did not speak again.
Her presence sank back into stillness.
But not into silence.
Something lingered.
Curiosity.
Concern.
And a faint acceptance—of the enormity Kel carried.
Kel turned from the window.
Extinguished the candle with a controlled gesture.
Darkness embraced the room, but his eyes remained faintly lit by moonlight.
He walked toward his bed.
Stopped halfway.
Looked at his hand.
Very softly, he whispered to no one:
"I'm sorry I cannot tell you more."
He lay down.
Not to sleep.
To rest.
There was a difference.
Outside, winter wind pressed gentle fingertips against the windowpane.
As if the world listened.
Held its breath.
Waiting for what the anomaly would do next.