Chapter 1: Time Paradox

The world did end with a bang yet no one was there to bear witness. Before that was The Great Silence when the remaining dimension in existence that sustained the Universe had been time. Before that was the last breath of a man who walked through a battlefield dyed brown and black from dried blood. Before that was a raging war between the Union of The Arcana and a single man who held the world in the palms of his hands. And before all of that, the soldiers of the world were fighting absolutely nothing.

Millenniums before that, a prophecy had promised the resolution between the rivaling Arcana about when the truth would come to light and friends and enemies alike line up to war against a common enemy. A means of unity. That was what it promised.

It promised no victory though.

For the truth remains embedded in the soils of the Earth and history was never revealed to those who needed it the most. When the want to fulfill one's responsibilities outshines the need to protect what's right overcame the people's hearts, it no longer mattered to them for who were they fighting for, or for what.

Because a means of unity had nothing to do with what was right.

Now teetering across the knee-deep bloodshed, the enemy of the world had dropped his weapon and looked at the sky painted red from the sunset. The end of time. How ironic it was that a human was living among the disfigured corpses of angels, demons, nobles, and insidians alike. A fragile human among empowered individuals with godly weapons and ground-breaking powers. A simple human with nothing but a self-built weapon, wearing self-made clothes and self-taught skills. Standing among broken swords, snapped bowstrings, and dull, dull Meira stones. This was no victory. This was defeat, a shameful defeat.

For the enemy was alive and breathing.

A burst of bubbly laughter escaped his lips before slowly, gradually turning manic, crazed, out of breath, and with a tinge of despair.

His fists trembled no matter how hard he clenched.

His knees shook no matter how hard kept upright.

Until he dropped to the ground, swiping a broken blade from a broken sword by his side, owner bedamned, and with a swift swing, sliced his own throat.

When not even birds had flown across the skies, and the stars started to appear at the East side of the Adorar, the world echoed the gurgling noise of a human twitching helplessly on the ground over the pool of his blood. It wasn't pretty, nor was it in dignity. It was shameful, disgraceful, and disgustingly pathetic, but that was what the world had witnessed, this sound, until the last breath was drawn and exhaled through his lips. Until the Great Silence started.

Until the pillars of the Universe crumbled down, and the end of the world had finally, finally come.

" Hail the Arcana and the Pillars of the world,

Shatter may they be when truth remains buried.

Before time would stop and all souls were lost,

Following the mirage over the empty void,

Would emerge a victor to unite

A city held by those pillars

Hail are the victors of the world

Hail are the Keepers of the Universe. "

- Gabriel's Prophecy -

In Ash's defense, he deserved to raise all the middle fingers on his person toward the sky and say "Fuck you."

For a multitude of reasons that he could and would list out, Ash wanted nothing to do with whatever bonus project the world had in store for him to work out. First of all firsts, time travel, rebirth, going back in time, reliving the past or whatever you wish to call it, breaks every law in the world and by doing so, he was treading on a fine line between complete destruction and the present reality. Ash was no physicist but he sure does acknowledge that the fundamental principalities of the universe, also known as space, time, matter, and energy, could not be played with.

That does not stop whatever is out there from.... from doing this!

"So. You skipped class this morning."

By rights, 28-year-old men don't go to classes.

Turning his gaze to the unwanted company before him, Ash gave Shira the sweetest smile he could muster. The woman returned it. Alas, Ash was no fool. The ferocity of a woman's curiosity or thirst for gossip is a force to be reckoned with. There was no mistaking the warning glint in her eyes that blocked all his attempts of escaping. And yup, yup Ash was already sitting back down from his very subtle inch towards the door.

"It would seem so." He replied casually.

"Mn." Shira leaned back against her seat, arms crossed with a knowing, knowing smirk across her face. "Am I sensing some tea? Or is it you wish to experience first-hand my agent skills?"

"Would it be fine for me to decline both?"

"Unfortunately," she chirped, "that is not an option. I don't care if I have to kick your arses. My questions need answering."

In silent retaliation, Ash too leaned back against his seat and folded his arms across his chest. With an internal grumble, he spoke. "What do you want to know."

"Well, I don't know. Maybe start with why you weren't at school today? Or why you're looking at the sky like you want it burn or something?"

Ah. That.

Well, she wasn't wrong. The Ash of 10 years ago was a gentle humanoid being who mumbled apologies when someone tripped over his foot. Loathe it was for him to grumble at the weather or openly insult anyone, including their Biology teacher who never taught anything throughout the semester. But that was him from 10 years ago. Now, mentally, Ash was 28, and 10 years were quite enough to change a person. He couldn't remember a day in his life at that time when he hadn't cursed someone at least twice a day, and the weather once every two days.

Again, in his defense, he had every right to do so.

"Haven't you heard from the news this morning?" Ash began cooking up a pot of lies. "It said that there's going to be snow. A bad one. I just assumed class got canceled." The 'don't they always do that' didn't need to come out of his mouth for him to get his point across. Because yeah, Shira knew as well as he does that Chiren High does indeed cancel classes when the weather goes bad.

This was a lie that not even Shira, with all her godly agent skills, could deny. You learn the trick, growing up with someone as observant as she was. And Ash was pretty much used to lying to save his life. Who knew fear and adrenaline could train a person to weave words like he was a fucking lawyer. Shira never watched the news and cared the eff not about Weather Forecast. If she sees a storm, she stays at home. If she sees a shining sun, she would go out. Hence, the inappropriate amount of times of being stranded in the rain in the middle of nowhere.

Besides, Cheshire was a city where natural disasters came from the sky like the gods wanted to slowly turn the place into a tomb. Rain, snow, thunderstorm, you name it. Last year they probably had a hailstorm that destroyed almost every window at Chiren High, and yet somehow the people had survived and were surviving happily.

Ash silently snorted.

"There were only five of us in class this morning." Okay, what? "The teachers as well. I thought it was a plan you thought up with the rest of the class." Shira's voice had a tinge of upset in it, eyes cast down on her untouched drink. But Ash was more focused on the specific number of kids that actually attended class. Sure, kids like to skip on Fridays, and the semester was ending, and the winter break was nearing, but it never got so bad as only five people left. He was sure of it. Hell, even if he hadn't stepped in class for a decade, he still remembered, he had clung tightly to the memory like it was his lifeline, not because he wanted to, but because he needed it. Needed it to keep him sane, being away from his home.

And hearing something so very wrong from what used to be — now still currently—Ash felt only dread. Unless all 23 students were brought back in time like he was, there was absolutely no reason for all of them to be absent.

"What happened to the rest?" He decided to ask.

"God knows what they were thinking, but hell, I'm assuming they found out."

Okay, that was suspicious.

"Found out?"

Shira glanced left and right, and when she deemed that wasn't enough, she looked behind him, and behind herself before leaning in close. With a frustrated whisper, she hissed, "About the envoy."

What fucking envoy?

Okay, maybe he said that out loud because the look Shira sent him was that of disbelief. "Asher Nova Skye, what the hell have you been doing these days?!"

Feeling unjustified, Ash couldn't help but frown. By human logic, even if a person was a gossiping type of person, there was no need to keep track of everything 24/7, especially if someone was speculated to having certain problems they prefer not to talk about, which, in this case, was simply himself. "Unlike you, I am no secret agent who scoured through national secrets and got away with it."

That was an exaggeration. Shira had not, and could not scour the said national secrets and get away with it, at least not unscathed. But the point was across. He wasn't the type to eavesdrop on everyone, had not been and never will be. People's lives hardly interest him lest he suffers from more problems than his already own ones. Why the fuck does he have to know about politics of all things?

Besides, he never even got to vote. At all.

"I'm going to pretend that's true." Still, Shira huffed. "But seriously, Ash? Please tell me you have an actual logical reason for not knowing about the envoy?"

Ash remained blank-faced.

Shira groaned hard. "A party of angels are coming tonight."

"Coming where?"

"Here."

Ash nodded and stayed silent. When Shira continued to stare at him as if waiting for a reaction that suspiciously sent off a type of impression that there was something he wasn't realizing, Ash bit the inside of his cheek. "Here ... as in the Metal Nations, right?"

Another deadpan stare.

"....Right?"

The silence answered him enough.

Abruptly, Ash got up from his seat, creating a dramatic screeching sound from where the legs of his stool scratched the floor. Shira was startled from her stare as he left his drink on the table, making his way over to the door. Forget whatever fear he had towards Shira's ferocity, forget the terrifyingly strange fact of the angels coming over, forget the weather and the snow and everything else, Ash didn't turn back. Not even when Shira had readily left her untouched drink in a frantic chase. Not even when the honks of cars filled his ears as he carelessly crossed the road. Not when his breath rattled against his chest, air refusing to be drawn in or out.

His fists trembled, his knees went weak.

Pupils blown wide and lips shaking in tremor, Ash thought back about the group of angels that first came to the Metal Nations in centuries. He thought back about the pesky God who draped himself on every surface like a second skin. Thought back on the sea of fire that swallowed the Metal Nations until there was nothing else but ash, ash, and ash.

He couldn't breathe.

It was all happening again.

The angels were coming. And if so, the demons would come as well. Then the nobles, and the insidians. And humanity would cease to exist, until he was the last remaining being in his Arcanum, with the whole world standing against him in an attempt to purify the world of evil. The so-called evil was the defenseless, helpless, unknowing, and fragile humanity. All because of some god-bedamned prophecy.

No, no, no, no, he didn't want to die again. He didn't want to kill himself again. He didn't want to, he hated it, hated that he had died years before his actual death. Hated how his soul was as good as gone a decade before it all happened. Hated that even until now, he was powerless to even stop this from happening again.

No, he didn't want to turn back time just to see it all crumbling down all over again.

But the envoy was coming.

Ash felt like drowning.

"Ash, wait!" Shira's voice got closer, until he felt a force yanking his arm back, stopping him in his track. Briefly, Ash realized he had long since covered quite a distance from the café they met up at, before turning his attention, albeit a little blurry, towards the girl panting behind him. The drink Shira had ordered was still in her hands, yet a sip had yet to be taken. Instead, the girl had drips of sweat rolling down the sides of her face, and Asher, Asher felt awful.

"I'm....I, sorry." Ash clenched his fists, turning around so that he was fully facing the girl. Swallowing, he tried to look for excuses, tried to forget the exact date he last saw Shira in person in his last life, tried to focus on things other than the images of the city he was currently standing on reduced to a battlefield with no signs of life. He tried, and failed. Whatever word on the tip of his tongue was swallowed back at the sight of Shira's concerned eyes drilling into his own.

"What is wrong with you today?!" Shira finally yelled. "So the envoy is coming over to Cheshire, what of it?"

Of course, to any other human, to Shira most of all, the arrival of the angels to the Metal Nations would be an event forever recorded in history. The human lands, in general, was called only the Metal Nations by the people who lived on the Other Side, also known as the rest of the Arcana. Humans were weak. Humans needed to be protected by the angels and demons and nobles from the insidians who wanted to tear apart everything in their path. That was the reason why there existed a different plane of reality where humans were kept, or so they were called. To the world, humans were the children, the weak ones, the less smart ones, hence they must be placed far away from everything that could endanger them. That was the Metal Nations, a name gifted to them by the Noblesse Obligue who was said to look after them in ways more than one.

No human really saw it that way, but there would always, always be those who admire those beings with power, with wings, with weapons only they could wield.

Shira was one of them.

Ash was merely someone who hated them, for he had every right to be.

A dawning horror sunk into his thoughts as he realized once again who exactly was in front of him. Shira, his best friend. Shira, who had the curiosity to rival a cat, and perseverance of a scientist to match it up.

"Don't tell me you're going to see them...."

"Well, I was planning to, but—"

"Shira, Shira, Shira," Nova scratched his head roughly, as if he could brush away the incoming migraine he knew would inevitably come. With a deep shaky inhale, he clasped the girl's shoulders tight. "This is as far as this conversation goes. I need you to listen to me just this once, as your friend."

"What are you—"

"No, just listen! Tonight, stay in your house. Like, legit. Stay there, do not come out, do not think about them, do not step out of your porch, or look at the sky. Keep your curtains closed, and block any source of light. Do you hear me? Shira, I'm serious, are you listening?!"

"Gosh, what is with you?!" Shira struggled out of his grip, which Ash reluctantly loosened seconds after realizing how tightly he had clenched. With every struggle, Ash tensed, stepping only further away from her, as if afraid of causing any more harm, only for Shira to inch closer with a look of concern washing over the previous grimace.

"Hey, what's wrong? I only wanted to see them a little bit, come on. You know I've wanted to see them since forever! You make it sound like such a bad thing. What's so wrong with seeing angels? Angels, Ash! Not even a demon!"

Yes, it was much easier to assume that angels were far better than demon, wasn't it? A pity that Ash had thought the same too. A pity that they had both been wrong, and that it didn't matter if they were a saint, an angel, a demon or even a fucking noble, they were all the same in the end, if only their approach to violence being different.

"You don't know what you're talking about..."

"No, you don't know what you're talking about!" Shira let out a groan of frustration. "Seriously, what could possibly go wrong?"

"You think too highly of the angels, Shira." Ash gritted his teeth so hard he could hear them scraping each other. His gaze was fixed on the concrete ground, at the tips of his shoes, at the soil he had not stepped on since forever. "Fairytales they were, the lot of them. They may not seem like it, but they're more human than the creature they make themselves out to be. They're flawed, they're selfish, they're arrogant and greedy, and hateful and....and...."

And they were so, so very heartless.

There was so much blood on the ground, so much noise, too loud, too loud, too bright, too hot, the world was burning, and it was too! Damn! Loud!

"You sound as if you know them." Shira had looked resigned then. Why? "I know you're not someone who makes things up, Ash. Come on, please, you're freaking me out. What's going on?"

When she moved to touch him, Ash almost slapped her away. Almost did, but the signs were there. The flinch was there. The startle in his figure was there. The fear, the anxiety, the sick horror in his eyes were all there. And Shira had witnessed it all.

"You're shaking..." A hesitant hand was raised towards him but stopped before it touched him on the arm. There was no more denying the concern in her eyes and in her voice. Ash found himself stepping back.

"Hey, hey, are you okay? What's wrong, what's—, ugh, alright so I won't come out tonight, so will you please just. Hey, Ash, are you listening? There's a bench over there, let's go sit down, okay? Ash?"

"I..." Ash choked out, before bolting away, leaving the girl behind with a pained look on her face, holding an untouched drink in one hand, with the other raised as if to offer a gentle pat, but hadn't been able to.

Cheshire was loud that day, as any other day was throughout the year, as cold as it could be. That day, the snow rained them down, covering the dark grounds with a blanket of white. That day, the people of the city went by their lives as they did the day before and many days to come, save only for the one boy who had ran all the way to his apartment, pushing past strangers and ignoring loud exclamations of 'watch it!' and 'look where you're going!'

When he did reach his apartment, he slammed the door shut so hard that it rattled in its frame. The keys were thrown somewhere . Hasty steps made for his bedroom where he leapt into his bed he thought he'd never seen again in his life, punched the hell out of his pillow, and screamed until his throat had started to hurt so bad he had to stop.

He curse, he yelled, he cried.

He mourned the end he had survived.