📍[Veylor's Rift – Briefing Room, 48 Hours Later]
Kaien stood alone, staring at the wall-length digital bracket.
Their next opponent: Mnemosyne Academy.
A forbidden team.
One no one remembered facing — only that they'd lost.
Ash read the records aloud:
> "All matches end in forfeits. Opposing teams either vanish or suffer 'discontinuity trauma.' Their striker... no recorded face. Just a codename: Echo Nine."
Lyra: "Sounds like memory manipulation."
Eren, arms folded, whispered, "I've heard of them. Rumors say they can make you forget you're even playing."
Nico paled. "What if we… forget the ball exists?"
Kaien stepped forward.
"If they play with memory—then they know who I used to be."
---
📍[Pre-Match: Ghosts in the Tunnel]
In the underground corridor before the match, a single player from Mnemosyne waited.
Slim. Pale blue hair, eyes like dim stars. Not aggressive — just... distant.
He turned.
Stared straight at Kaien.
Then smiled.
> "You're still here."
Kaien's heart stopped. "...You know me?"
The player stepped close.
"Before you died, you beat us. In the Final Arcana Cup. But that version of you was... reckless. And brilliant."
Kaien narrowed his eyes.
> "You're Echo Nine."
The boy touched Kaien's chest lightly.
"No. I'm your leftover memory of him."
---
📍[Kickoff – Mnemosyne vs Phantom XI]
Referee drone announced:
> "All mental stabilizers disabled. Mana fog permitted. Begin."
The second the whistle blew—
Everything shifted.
Time bent sideways. The field warped into a dream-like haze.
Kaien turned—Eren was already dribbling.
But Kaien didn't remember passing to him.
Then—
The score read 0–1.
They had already conceded.
Nico screamed, "What the hell's happening?!"
Ash: "We didn't even—!"
Kaien grit his teeth. "They're erasing moments. Mid-match. Looping until we slip."
---
📍[10 Minutes Later – Unknown Time Point]
Kaien stood midfield.
Again.
For the third time?
Lyra ran beside him. "We've lost track of sequence. My legs remember more than I do."
Kaien looked up at the cloudy sky.
Then closed his eyes.
> "Memory isn't about what happened. It's about what you're willing to hold on to."
He slammed a hand to his own chest.
The mana-core inside flared.
His memories — from both lives — flooded back.
His own voice whispered in his mind:
> Play like it's the last time. Always.
---
He opened his eyes.
Clear again.
Saw the glitch in the left wing where Mnemosyne repeated the same looping pass.
"Lyra," he called. "They're caught in their own loop too."
Eren blinked beside him. "So we can hijack it?"
Kaien nodded. "We let them loop. But we move one step sideways."
Ash grinned. "You're a monster."
Kaien smirked. "No. Just a memory they forgot to delete."
---
📍[Final Play – Hijack the Loop]
Mnemosyne reset.
Same setup.
Their Echo Nine player ran a curved arc from left to center. Always.
Kaien cut that line in advance.
Let the ball drift—
Then backheeled it behind his own leg, out of the script.
Eren glitched to it.
Passed to Lyra—
Who rocketed it forward—
Nico volleyed without even seeing the goal—
GOAL.
1 – 1.
The loop collapsed.
---
Echo Nine stood stunned.
"You remembered."
Kaien stepped forward.
> "I remember everything. Even the part where I died."
Echo Nine touched his forehead.
Then smiled.
> "Then maybe... you can finally finish what you started."
The Mnemosyne team knelt.
Referee drone glitched.
> "Victory: Phantom XI. Round Cleared."
---
📍[Later That Night – Kaien's Private Room]
Kaien stood at his window.
The sky over Veylor Rift looked like cracked glass.
Ash entered.
"You okay?"
Kaien nodded slowly.
> "They're not just testing us. They're sending pieces of my old life at me."
Ash: "And what happens when you run out of memory?"
Kaien turned.
Face calm.
Eyes burning.
> "Then I make new ones."
📍[Veylor Rift – Phantom XI Dorm Lounge, 2 Days Later]
Eren threw his cleats across the room.
Nico was half-asleep with cold packs on both legs. Ash scrolled through match footage that kept glitching every third replay.
Kaien was silent, eyes locked on the tournament tree.
Lyra: "Next team's called Chorale. They're... not normal."
Eren: "Nothing here is."
Lyra showed the profile.
> "Siblings. All eleven. Born within the same hour, same arcane cycle. They were raised under a hive-mind training program known as the Synapse Chain."
Ash: "Which means?"
Kaien: "They move, think, pass, defend… like one body."
Nico blinked. "Isn't that a glitch tactic?"
Kaien: "No. It's worse. It's perfection."
---
📍[Training Grounds – Same Day]
Kaien designed a new drill.
He called it Disrupt and Fracture.
"Chorale will predict everything," he told them. "So we stop predicting. We move like sparks — chaotic, fast, impossible to link."
Ash grinned. "You want us to play… like them used to?"
Kaien nodded. "Exactly. Like my old team."
They trained for hours.
Then darkness fell — and the storm siren sounded.
The field was ready.
---
📍[Arcana Field 5 – Match Start: Phantom XI vs Chorale]
The field looked like a giant harmonic prism — every step echoed with sound.
The siblings entered in perfect synchrony.
No numbers. No names. Just identical black kits and mirrored gazes.
Referee drone:
> "Mental sync-dampeners: disabled. Multi-conscious play: permitted."
> "Match begins."
Kickoff.
The ball moved like a whisper.
Eren tried to press — the siblings passed around him with zero delay.
One-two, three-four, five-six-seven—
Goal.
0 – 1. Chorale.
Kaien didn't blink.
"They don't just pass. They anticipate our reactions before we know them."
Lyra: "Then how do we win?"
Kaien's eyes sharpened.
> "We break the link."
---
📍[Midgame – The Pulse Strategy]
Kaien switched their formation to Asymmetric Pulse.
A strategy from his past life.
Players moved in non-repeating patterns — like jazz instead of a march.
Ash bounced a long pass without looking.
Lyra caught it mid-twist.
Nico made a fake shot, then dragged the keeper wide.
Kaien charged in — goal.
1 – 1.
For a moment, Chorale stumbled.
One sibling blinked.
Their sync stuttered.
Kaien whispered, "That's the first crack."
---
📍[Final 10 Minutes – Collapse or Unity]
But Chorale adapted.
Their entire team shifted formation without speaking.
Suddenly, they played like water — smooth, overwhelming.
Two more goals.
1 – 3. Phantom XI trailing.
Eren screamed, "We can't win this, they're just—better!"
Kaien: "They're not. They're just... louder in their minds."
Ash: "What does that even mean?!"
Kaien gritted his teeth.
> "Every one of them is being swallowed by the collective. No identity left. That's not unity. That's loss."
---
He ran.
Straight into the middle of the swarm.
Let them close around him.
And then he whispered something under his breath.
> "I remember your name."
The nearest sibling stopped. Froze.
Kaien whispered again. "Leira."
The girl's eye twitched.
> "How do you—"
Kaien kicked the ball through her legs.
Ash caught it.
Backheel to Eren.
Long shot.
GOAL.
2 – 3.
---
Now Chorale cracked for real.
Voices overlapped in confusion.
Desync.
Kaien had found it — their flaw wasn't tactical.
It was existential.
They had no self.
And Kaien reminded one of them who she used to be.
Final minute.
Kaien looked at Nico. "This is yours."
Ash passed. Lyra faked. Nico shot.
GOAL.
3 – 3.
Final whistle blew.
Tiebreaker: Arcana Duel Play.
Kaien vs Chorale's heart.
---
📍[Duel Mode – 1v1: Kaien vs Sibling Zero]
The Chorale captain — Sibling Zero — stepped forward.
A white field surrounded them.
One minute. No passes. One-on-one.
Kaien whispered, "You remember her, don't you?"
Sibling Zero said nothing.
Then… nodded once.
Kaien smiled sadly.
> "Then let her go."
The whistle blew.
Kaien moved like a storm.
Every fake, every twitch, every shift — came from pure memory.
Not instinct.
Not reaction.
But soul.
The Chorale captain faltered.
Kaien slipped left.
Shot.
Goal.
---
📍[Post-Match]
Referee drone: "Victory: Phantom XI."
The siblings stood silent.
One of them — Leira — stepped forward.
"Thank you," she said.
Kaien nodded. "Remember yourselves."
As they walked off the field, Ash turned to Kaien.
"Where'd you learn that name?"
Kaien: "…She was my teammate once. In the life where I died."
Ash stared.
Eren whispered, "You keep unlocking more of yourself."
Kaien stared into the distance.
> "I think the final boss of this tournament… is me."