📍[Underground Arcana Lab – Three Nights Before the Match]
Steam hissed.
A circle of white-robed scientists gathered around the stasis tank, where a boy floated—eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest like a statue.
Identical to Kaien Vale.
Except colder.
More precise.
And in his chest: a glowing core shard, engineered from fractured mana pulses.
A voice crackled through the speakers.
"Activate him."
The scientists hesitated. "He's… unstable. His thought-loop copies Kaien's last match—on repeat. He only knows how to win."
"Good. That's all he needs."
They opened the tank.
Unit 0 opened his eyes.
Silver. Empty.
He spoke only one word:
"Opponent."
📍[Back Above – Phantom XI's Hideout Court]
Kaien practiced in silence, repeating the same movement over and over.
Trap. Turn. Back-pass. Pivot. Again.
Lyra finally walked up. "You're not talking."
Kaien nodded. "That thing we fought in the Hollows? It wasn't natural. But it moved like me."
"You think they've—"
Kaien held up a hand.
"Yeah."
He stared at his own reflection in the cracked mirror on the court wall.
"They made a copy."
📍[Match Day – Location: Black Spiral Court]
This wasn't a student arena.
This was Council-sanctioned black field—used for "performance evaluation." No audience. Just surveillance drones and the chilling hum of reinforced glyph walls.
The message was clear:
This wasn't a match.
It was an execution.
Unit 0 stood at midfield.
Same face as Kaien. Same height. Same gait.
But where Kaien had subtle defiance in his posture, Unit 0 was perfectly still. Like a weapon waiting for input.
The referee—a floating drone—announced:
"One full match. Phantom XI vs Unit 0 and synthetic squad. No resets. No field exits."
Lyra clenched her jaw. "He's alone?"
"No," Eren said.
The moment the whistle blew—
Six synthetic players materialized behind Unit 0.
Clones.
Of them.
📍[Kickoff]
Kaien blinked.
"I… know that formation."
Eren nodded slowly. "They cloned our playbook. Our memory routes. They're learning mid-game."
Ash rushed forward—his synthetic clone mirrored every step.
Perfectly.
Nico tried to outpace his double—failed. Tackled clean.
Worse—Unit 0 moved without touching the ball.
His presence distorted their spacing.
Like he was pulling them out of formation just by being there.
Kaien watched, narrowed his eyes.
Then called out:
"Fallback zone. Formation Delta-Z."
The team adjusted.
But Unit 0 predicted it.
Intercepted mid-pass, launched it toward his own Ash clone—shot—
Goal. 1 – 0. Unit 0.
Nico was shaking.
"How—how do we beat someone who's… literally us but better?"
Kaien exhaled.
"He's not better. Just more efficient. He lacks flaws."
Lyra: "So how do we use our flaws to win?"
Kaien turned to Eren.
"Can you phase through the simulation field?"
Eren's eyes flickered. "Once. Maybe twice. But I'll corrupt the playback loop."
Kaien smiled. "That's exactly the point."
📍[Second Half Begins]
Eren glitched—right through his clone—and shattered its mana shell from inside.
Unit 0 paused.
Kaien watched carefully.
"That's it… He hesitates when input breaks expectations."
Next, Kaien drew his own clone to the sideline, but instead of crossing—he kicked the ball backwards.
Nico caught it.
Goal.
1 – 1.
The synthetic team adjusted.
Unit 0 started shouting commands.
Words Kaien recognized.
His own voice.
"Don't let him anchor the field," he barked.
Lyra froze. "He's… talking like you."
Kaien grit his teeth. "That is me. Before I died."
For a second, he hesitated.
And in that second—Unit 0 struck again.
2 – 1.
📍[Final Ten Minutes]
Kaien stood still.
Let everything else move around him.
Then whispered, "He copies everything I was. Not who I am now."
He turned to the team.
"We're going to play wrong. Make bad choices. Collapse structure. Pure chaos."
Nico blinked. "That's… insane."
"That's human."
The next play?
Ash deliberately missed his pass.
Eren tripped—on purpose—and kicked the ball upward into nothing.
Nico panicked and backheeled randomly.
Kaien sprinted wide instead of central.
And somehow…
It worked.
Unit 0 froze again. For just one tick.
Kaien crashed in, stole the ball from his clone—
Spun, tapped it—
Lyra curved it to Eren—
Eren glitched behind the goal line—
And toe-poked it mid-blink.
Goal. 2 – 2.
The system started to break.
Synthetic players began to jitter. The simulation field glitched.
Only Unit 0 remained stable.
He locked eyes with Kaien.
"Recalculating."
Kaien whispered, "Good luck with that."
📍[Final Play]
No tactics.
No formation.
Just instinct.
Kaien charged toward Unit 0 himself.
Head-on.
They mirrored each other.
Same speed.
Same angle.
Same decision.
But Kaien didn't shoot.
He stopped.
Unit 0 blinked.
Too late.
Kaien turned and passed behind him.
To Nico.
Unmarked.
Nico fired—
3 – 2. Phantom XI wins.
📍[Aftermath]
The simulation shattered.
Unit 0 fell to his knees.
The Council drones shut off.
No announcement. No scoreboard.
Just… silence.
Kaien walked up.
Looked down at his copy.
"You're not a ghost," Kaien said. "You're just an echo."
Unit 0 whispered back, "Then what are you?"
Kaien turned to his team.
"Alive."
📍[Elsewhere – Arcana Council Tower]
The woman in the blazer closed the file.
Her assistant asked, "What now?"
She sighed. "Kaien Vale just broke a simulation built to mirror himself."
The assistant frowned. "Then… who could stop him now?"
She closed the laptop.
"Maybe no one. But what if he breaks the league itself?"
📍[Old Locker Room – Night Before Departure]
Rain slammed against the academy roof.
Phantom XI gathered in silence, nursing wounds from the Unit 0 match. No cameras. No fanfare. Just the weight of something new:
Recognition.
But it didn't come as applause.
It came as a threat.
Kaien unrolled the silver-sealed scroll just delivered by a shadow courier.
> "Your team has been drafted into the Arcana Cup Blacklight Qualifiers. No negotiation. One loss — and you disappear. Refusal is considered forfeiture of life license and Arcana registry."
Nico: "...Life license?"
Ash: "That's not a tournament. That's a warning."
Kaien's eyes stayed on the seal.
It wasn't from the League.
It was from the Arcana Council itself.
---
📍[Next Morning – Skyrail to Veylor Province]
The world beyond Academy 47 was a different beast. Giant mana fields floated in the air. Teams trained in zero-gravity zones. Some ran with beasts. Others infused their cleats with living flame.
Lyra whispered, "This is where the real players train."
Eren: "And where the dead ones stay behind."
Their destination?
A floating island called Veylor's Rift.
A torn space where mana storms thrashed constantly. The field was built in the eye of it.
No audience.
Just the Council, masked judges, and eight elite teams picked from outlaw academies and private factions.
All of them killers.
All of them watching Phantom XI.
---
📍[Match Schedule – Round 1: Phantom XI vs The Bonebinders]
Lyra read their opponent's profile aloud:
> "Private syndicate team. Illegal mana-core users. Play with soul-forged bindings. Six disqualified for 'spectral attacks' in past seasons."
Nico nearly dropped his bottle. "Why do they even exist?!"
Kaien stood.
"We're not here to survive. We're here to rewrite what survival means."
Eren grinned. "Then let's break a few prophecies."
---
📍[Kickoff – Veylor's Rift Field 1]
The wind screamed.
Every few minutes, flashes of white lightning lit the pitch, revealing a stadium surrounded by hollow-faced statues of former players.
The Bonebinders stepped out.
Tall. Heavy-armored. Chains wrapped around their torsos, each one linked to floating bone-soul fragments hovering over their backs.
Referee drone activated.
> "No substitutions. Death-state disallowed. Play begins."
Kaien moved first.
But the field itself pulled back.
The Bonebinders controlled gravity through soul anchors.
They kicked the ball — and it floated instead of rolled.
Lyra adjusted fast. Activated her anti-grav glyph cleats and slid under the first anchor zone.
Pass to Ash.
Ash passed — intercepted midair by a floating skull that bit the ball.
Nico shouted, "They've animated the ball!!"
Kaien cursed. "They're binding the field itself. Control space, not just the play."
---
📍[Ten Minutes In – Still 0–0]
Eren broke through one wall of gravity, blinking past the bone tether lines, and shot—
The ball froze midair, snapped backward, and shattered.
Bonebinders captain laughed.
> "You play football. We play ritual."
Ash barked, "They're bending the game! Why is this allowed?!"
Kaien: "Because this isn't football. This is the Council's blood sport."
---
📍[Kaien's Counter]
Kaien kneeled.
Touched the grass.
It shimmered. Something older… deeper than the Bonebinders' spell chains.
> "If you can bind souls," he muttered, "I can unbind them."
He stood.
Spoke to Eren: "Glitch their tether signals. Force a desync."
To Lyra: "Set your cleats to pulse-disrupt mode."
To Nico: "Hold the last line. You'll get the final shot."
Nico: "W-what?!"
Kaien's eyes burned with strange clarity.
"I've played this match before. In another life."
---
The next play—
Eren vanished. The field flickered.
Bonebinders twisted their anchors toward him.
Too late.
Lyra burst through the gap, dragging four tethers into each other.
They snapped.
Kaien charged with the ball.
Bonebinders lunged—
He stopped.
Kicked it backward.
To Nico.
Who fired without thinking.
GOAL.
1 – 0. Phantom XI.
---
The field erupted in sparks.
Bonebinders surged forward.
Their captain now unchained. Spectral wings unfurled.
He charged Kaien himself.
But Kaien didn't move.
Let the attack come.
Let it almost connect—
Then dropped to his knees and channeled his foot into the very ground.
The old field glyphs cracked open.
Light burst upward.
The Bonebinders' soul links shattered.
Referee drone screeched:
> "Match voided. Phantom XI declared winner by soul collapse."
---
📍[Post-Match]
Kaien exhaled.
Behind him, Nico stood stunned.
Ash was shaking. "We just beat them. That was—insane."
Lyra wiped blood from her chin. "They'll send worse next round."
Kaien looked up.
At the Council box above.
Where a figure in gold sat watching.
"She's here," Kaien said softly.
"Who?" Nico asked.
Kaien narrowed his eyes.
> "The one who erased me last time."