Valemont Academy – Romania, Year 2000
There were a lot of things Renji expected from his new school.
Gothic towers? Sure.A forest that allegedly "ate people"? Classic Eastern Europe.Students who spoke Latin for fun? Mildly threatening, but acceptable.
What he didn't expect… was a corpse before his second class.
Day One – 10:02 AM – Library Wing E
The bell had barely finished its third toll when Renji entered the East Wing Library. It smelled like old books, formaldehyde, and unresolved trauma. A librarian with three degrees in silence glared at him as he passed.
Then he saw it.
Feet.Pale. Bare. Slightly twitching.
Renji froze.
The body was wedged between two collapsed shelves. A teenage boy in a Valemont uniform, blood pooling beneath his neck like a failed art project. Eyes open. Mouth slightly agape, as if he died mid-whisper.
The whisper echoed in Renji's mind.
"Kurogane."
He took one step back.
And someone screamed.
Ten minutes later – Headmaster's Office
The headmaster of Valemont looked like he had been carved from marble and stress. Tall, grey-bearded, and too calm for someone who just lost a student.
"Mr. Kurogane," he said, folding his hands like a Bond villain, "you've made quite the impression."
"I found the body. That's not the same as making one."
"Semantics."
"I'm fifteen."
"And already excellent at it."
Renji blinked.
"Did you just compliment my ability to argue about a murder scene?"
The headmaster smiled. That was somehow worse.
—
Outside the office, Hana waited. Fourteen. Sharp. Already too serious. She hadn't even introduced herself yet, but she had notes on him.
"You ran from the library," she said without looking up from her notebook.
"There was a dead guy."
"Still. Suspicious."
Renji frowned. "You always take notes on people you meet next to fresh corpses?"
She finally looked up. "Only the interesting ones."
That Night – Dorm Room 317
Renji couldn't sleep.
Not because of the murder. Not even the fact that the school covered it up in under an hour.
It was what the dead boy had carved into the floor—fingernail deep, hidden under his body.
A symbol.
A sunflower.
And two words in blood:"Wake Him."
Flash forward – Present Day – TP Briefing Room
Renji touched the same symbol, now engraved on the relic case.
"Valemont," he whispered. "It always goes back there."
Hana looked up from a digital scan.
"Then we go."
Renji raised an eyebrow.
"We?"
She threw him a passport.
"It's either we… or you go in solo with three global kill orders on your name and one of the relics still whispering in Aramaic."
Renji opened the passport.
His new alias?
"Doctor Jonas Steele. Independent Antiquities Recovery Consultant."
"Indiana Jones knockoff," he muttered.
Hana smirked.
"Try not to punch any priests this time."
"No promises."
Back at Valemont – Undisclosed location
A dark room. Walls covered in old maps, tooth-sharpened quills, and yellowing photos.
A girl with white hair and a mask shaped like a feline smiled at the firelight.
Spectra.
She held the missing third relic in her hand and whispered:
"Kurogane's memory is cracking. The door is waking."
She turned to the shadows.
"Bring me the body from the archives. It's time he meets the one who never died."