[Next Day]
The morning sun filtered through the glass windows of the hospital, casting warm, golden light across the sterile white walls that had grown all too familiar. Nurses moved in quiet rhythm, carts wheeling past, murmured conversations filling the otherwise hushed corridors.
Damien stood outside Room 307, a paper cup of vending machine coffee in one hand, the other shoved deep into his hoodie pocket. He hadn't slept. Not really. Just dozed on and off in the hospital's waiting area, boots kicked up on a chair, jacket zipped to the throat.
He told himself he was just making sure she was okay.
He told himself it didn't mean anything.
But as he stood there, staring at the door, debating whether to knock or not—he realized he was hesitating.
That wasn't like him.
And he hated that it was starting to feel like a pattern.
With a deep breath, Damien pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Elena was awake.
She looked better than the night before—less pale, more grounded—but the bruises still marked her skin like someone had tried to erase her and hadn't finished the job. Her hair was tied up messily, eyes distant until they found him.
Then she smiled.
It wasn't wide. It wasn't radiant.
But it was real.
"You came back," she said, voice scratchy from sleep and medication.
Damien set the coffee down on the side table and nodded. "Told you I would."
She looked at the cup and raised an eyebrow. "Is that for me?"
He shrugged. "No. Hospital coffee tastes like someone boiled dirt and filtered it through disappointment."
A quiet laugh escaped her lips. It was faint, but it was the first real sound of warmth he'd heard from her.
"I could use a little disappointment," she said wryly. "Anything to distract me."
Damien pulled the chair closer and sat. "How's the pain?"
"Manageable." Her eyes flicked away for a second. "They've got me on enough stuff to keep a horse asleep."
A silence followed. Not awkward—just heavy.
Then—
"I had a nightmare," she said, voice low.
Damien didn't respond right away.
"Ace?" he finally asked.
Elena nodded. "And his friends. They were laughing. I couldn't move. Just… lying there, and they were still coming."
He clenched his fists, jaw tightening.
"I know it's not real," she added quickly. "But it still felt like it."
He didn't say I'm sorry. It wouldn't mean anything. Not from someone like him.
Instead, he asked, "You want me to stay?"
She looked at him, surprised. "What?"
"While you sleep. Next time. I'll sit right here."
Her lips parted, like she wanted to say something—maybe yes, maybe why, maybe you don't have to.
But in the end, she just nodded. Slowly. Gratefully.
"Okay."
Damien leaned back in the chair, arms folded, watching the faint sunlight play across the blankets.
"I'm going to find them," he said, almost casually.
Elena blinked. "Who?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Her face shifted—uncertainty, fear, maybe even guilt. "Damien… I don't want you to get in trouble."
He gave a dry laugh. "Too late for that."
She swallowed. "Promise me something."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Don't disappear after," she said. "Even if… even if it gets ugly. Just don't disappear."
The request sat between them like a loaded gun.
Damien stared at her, a dozen conflicting thoughts burning in his mind—memories of blood, of fists, of people walking away because they couldn't handle what he really was.
And she was asking him not to.
"…I'll try," he said.
It was the best he could offer.
But to Elena, it was enough.
Outside the hospital, on the far side of the street, a figure leaned against a lamppost. Sunglasses. Hood up. Hands in the pockets of a long black coat.
Watching.
Waiting.
A soft chirp from a comm-piece in his ear.
"Target confirmed. He's visiting the girl again."
A pause.
Then a voice responded.
"Don't engage. Not yet."
"Orders?"
"Let him get comfortable. Then send the message."
The figure smirked.
"Yes, sir."
And just like that, the watcher vanished into the morning crowd.
Trouble was coming.
But Damien?
He'd faced worse.
And this time… he had something to lose.
Something worth fighting for.
Something worth protecting.
And heaven help anyone who tried to take it from him.
***
And just like that, a week passed.
The hospital walls that once felt cold and sterile had grown familiar—almost like a second home neither of them had asked for. Elena's color had returned. The bruises began to fade. Her voice grew stronger. So did the way she looked at Damien.
Not with pity. Not with gratitude.
But with a quiet steadiness, like he was someone she'd decided not to let go of.
Damien kept coming back.
Every day.
Sometimes he brought coffee. Sometimes a dumb joke. Other times, he just sat there while she slept, a silent sentinel in a world that had tried to break her.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the need to run.
But that peace?
It never lasts long.
Not for people like him.
Not when the world had a funny way of reminding you that kindness always comes with a price.
(Saturday night. One week since the hospital)
Damien stood alone under the flickering streetlight outside Elena's apartment. She'd been discharged that morning, and her father—after a long, silent stare-down—had finally relented to let Damien escort her home.
Now she was safe inside.
But Damien had felt it.
That itch. The one in the back of his skull.
Someone was watching him.
And when he heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing down the alley behind him—he knew.
They weren't here to talk.
He turned.
Three figures emerged from the darkness. All of them wearing nondescript black, faces partially hidden beneath caps and shadows.
No emblems. No names. Just intent.
"No-Kill Shura~ quite a fancy name for a brat," the tallest one sneered, stepping forward with a cocky swagger that didn't quite match the cold glint in his eyes. "Thought you were just a ghost story, man. Turns out you're real flesh and blood after all."
Damien didn't flinch. His hands stayed at his sides, loose, relaxed. Calm before the storm.
He'd been called worse than that.
And he'd made ghosts of men who said it.
"You got five seconds," Damien said quietly, his voice like gravel under boot. "To walk away. All of you."
Another one laughed—short, sharp, nervous. "Big talk, Shura. We're not school kids. We're professionals."
"Right," Damien muttered, cracking his knuckles. "Professionals who hide in alleys and outnumber their targets. Real classy."
The third one—a shorter guy with a scar that ran from lip to jaw—clicked his tongue. "You think you're untouchable just because of what you did in the ring? Just because you left a trail of bones behind you when you were thirteen?"
Damien's eyes narrowed.
So they did know.
The underground fights. The orphanage. The streets. Everything he buried.
He hated how easily the past found him.
"Who sent you?" Damien asked, already knowing the answer.
The scarred man grinned. "Doesn't matter. They just want a message delivered."
"And if I don't feel like reading?"
The tall one pulled something from his jacket—a baton. Not standard police issue. Modified. Reinforced.
"Then we write it on your ribs."
Silence followed.
Heavy. Tense. Electric.
Then—
Damien sighed.
"You really should've brought more."
And then he moved.
He blurred.
The baton swung through empty air.
Damien ducked low, slammed his elbow into the scarred man's gut, spun, and brought a brutal roundhouse into the tall guy's knee. A sharp crack echoed through the alley.
The third man rushed in, trying to grab Damien in a chokehold.
He lasted two seconds.
Damien grabbed his wrist, twisted—pop—and drove his knee into the man's chin. Blood sprayed as he crumpled.
The scarred guy was still wheezing when Damien grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the brick wall.
"Tell your boss," Damien growled, his eyes burning cold, "that if they want to send a message, they better write their will first."
The man spat blood, dazed. "Y-you don't know who you're messing with…"
Damien leaned in.
"I do."
And that's the problem.
He let the man drop.
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance—probably unrelated. But Damien knew better than to linger.
He turned, wiping blood from his knuckles with the inside of his hoodie sleeve, and walked away without another word.
But as he disappeared into the night, his mind wasn't on the fight.
It was on her.
He didn't care if they came after him.
But if they came for Elena again?
He'd burn their whole damn world down.
...
It was a crisp Monday morning when Elena walked through the school gates again.
Students stared. Whispered. Some smiled in recognition, others looked away awkwardly. But no one said anything outright. The rumour mill had spun wild stories in her absence, and while the truth had only reached a few, the bruises—now fully gone—had left behind a silence louder than words.
Damien walked a step behind her, not out of distance, but protection. Like a shadow, you couldn't shake. Not that Elena minded.
She didn't say anything at first.
Didn't need to.
He was there. That was enough.
Inside the school, the energy shifted. Conversations paused as they passed. Eyes flicked their way, unsure if they should say "glad you're back" or "don't mess with him."
Ace Matthews hadn't been seen in over a month.
Officially? "Family emergency."
But just as they entered the classroom, there he was.
Sitting with his legs stretched out like he owned the place.
Ace Matthews.
No longer the polished golden boy everyone once worshipped—but not broken either. No bruises. No cast. No visible scars. Just the same smirk that once melted hearts and now sent chills down spines.
His presence felt wrong.
Like a wolf in Sunday clothes.
Elena froze mid-step.
Damien didn't.
He didn't need to raise his voice. His gaze alone turned the air electric.
Ace looked up.
Met Damien's eyes.
Smiled.
"Hey, Elena," Ace said, voice smooth and casual, like the past month hadn't happened. "Glad to see you're walking again."
Elena's breath caught. Her fingers curled into fists, but she didn't say a word.
Damien stepped forward, placing himself between her and Ace without even glancing back.
No words.
Just the silent wall of don't.
Ace stood.
Slowly.
Leisurely.
A few students near him subtly shifted away, like animals sensing a predator too confident for his own good.
"I was hoping you'd show up," Ace said, adjusting the cuff of his shirt. "We've got unfinished business, don't we?"
"I finished it a month ago," Damien said. His voice was low, steady. A warning wrapped in steel.
Ace's grin widened. "Yeah? Doesn't feel finished."
Behind them, the room had gone completely still. No one moved. No one dared speak.
Then the teacher walked in, breaking the tension like a hammer to glass.
"Everyone take your seats," she said, breezing past without noticing—or maybe just pretending not to notice—the storm brewing between two boys too dangerous to be treated like normal students.
Ace sat down.
So did Damien.
But—
HUM~
A glowy circle started to form all over the room with a purple hue embedded with ancient runes neither Latin nor any known script.
The temperature dropped.
The fluorescent lights flickered once… twice… then died completely, leaving only the pulsating glow of the magical sigils beneath their feet and across the walls.
Screams erupted.
Chairs scraped, bags fell, someone cursed.
"What the hell is this?!" a student shouted from the back.
"Is this a prank?!" another cried.
But the moment Elena's eyes widened in horror—and Damien's instincts screamed move—they knew this wasn't a prank.
A voice thundered in their heads.
"Chosen Ones, summoned by fate… answer the call of Aetherion."
The air became heavy, pressure crashing down on everyone in the room like the weight of an ocean.
And then—
FLASH.
The classroom exploded in light.
Not fire. Not sound.
Just pure, overwhelming light.
It swallowed the desks, the walls, the floor beneath their feet, and the sky above the ceiling. Everything melted into nothingness, like the world itself had been torn open—
—and then, silence.
...
[Moments Later – Somewhere Else]
The ground was grass.
The air was crisp.
The sky above wasn't the dull ceiling of a classroom—it was endless, vibrant blue, dotted with floating islands and two suns hanging high, casting golden rays across rolling hills and glittering forests.
Birds—not like anything from Earth—flew in flocks of neon feathers and trailing starlight.
The entire class had been transported.
Dropped into a field of glowing flowers and alien skies.
And in front of them, a massive stone staircase rose from the earth, leading up to a marble dais where five figures stood in ceremonial robes. Cloaked, masked, holding staffs that hummed with power.
One stepped forward, robes embroidered with gold and silver runes that shimmered with energy.
A woman's voice, calm and commanding, echoed across the open air.
"Children of Earth," she said. "You stand now in the realm of Aetherion. Chosen by the Crystal of Judgment, summoned to be the Heroes of Realms."
The students began to stir, some gasping, others still dazed.
Elena clung to Damien's arm, eyes wide in disbelief.
He didn't say anything.
But his eyes scanned their surroundings, his body already in protective mode, ready to act.
The robed woman continued, "A great war brews—darkness seeks to devour this world. And you… you have been called by fate itself."
A boy near the back, trembling, shouted, "This has to be a dream! I-I wanna go home!"
Another student fell to their knees, sobbing.
"Calm yourselves," another robed figure spoke, this one male, deeper-voiced. "Your powers are dormant. But with time, you will awaken. The Crystal never chooses wrongly."
Then—a pulse.
Each student felt it.
A warmth in their chest.
Symbols began glowing on their skin—forearms, chests, backs. Each mark unique. Each filled with energy that surged through their veins like liquid fire.
It was undeniable now.
They weren't dreaming.
They had been summoned.
Elena gasped, staring at her left wrist where a delicate silver symbol—like a blooming star—shimmered against her skin.
Damien glanced down at his palm.
A black crown.