The Bully’s Reincarnation

Chapter 10: He who was Named Rafe

Rain fell on Arcadia that night.

A soft, cold drizzle that soaked the stone paths and smeared the stars above. It trickled along windowpanes, whispering like secrets too old to remember.

Kai sat alone at the edge of the training grounds, the grimoire hidden in his coat, heart thudding beneath soaked fabric.

“I was Rafe,” he murmured again, the words tasting strange in his mouth.

He didn’t feel like a Tyrant. He didn’t want to feel like one.

But the pieces were falling into place.He remembered the spell now…..Not all of it—but enough.

Rafe had been betrayed. Not just by enemies. By friend…by someone he trusted, someone close.

In his final moments, he hadn’t fought back. He hadn’t screamed. He had smiled.

Because he had already planned his return.

A reincarnation spell buried deep within his bones.

His mark—the Tyrant’s sigil—wasn’t a curse. It was a beacon. A promise.

He would return, and when he did, he would finish what he started.

Kai clenched his fists, raindrops slipping through his fingers like time

—-

Inside the administration tower, headmaster Voren leaned over a desk of dusty scrolls and old relics. His hands trembled slightly as he unrolled the parchment from the vault—a sealed record, marked with the Order’s crimson wax.

The seal of Rafe.

The Tyrant.

His second-in-command, Professor Halden, stood silently behind him.

“It’s confirmed, then,” Voren said, voice low.

Halden nodded. “The mark. The spell signature. The power fluctuation. It’s him.”

“Has he shown signs of instability?”

“Not yet. But it’s coming.”

Voren’s gaze hardened. “Then we act before he remembers everything.”

——-

Kai sat in the library again before dawn, the grimoire open to a new section—this one written in a spikier, more elegant hand.

A personal note. From himself. From Rafe.

If you’re reading this… then the world wasn’t ready.

You will be blamed. Feared. Hated.

But you were right, Rafe. You were always right.

Finish it.

He stared at the ink.

There was no remorse in those words. No hint of sorrow or redemption.

Just certainty, confidence and conviction….Kai slammed the book shut and stood, breath ragged.

He didn’t want to be Rafe.

Not the one in those memories.

Not the man who turned cities to ash and wore a crown of fear.

But there was something seductive about the certainty in those words.

Finish it.

—-

Lina found him later in the abandoned greenhouse. Ivy curled through the broken glass walls, and wildflowers bloomed where no gardener touched them.

She stepped carefully, quietly, as though he might shatter like glass if startled.

He didn’t turn when she entered.

“You haven’t been in class,” she said softly.

“I’ve been… remembering.”

She waited.

Then, with barely a breath: “You were him. Weren’t you?”

He didn’t answer right away. His shoulders tightened. Then—

“Yes.”

Her face didn’t twist in fear.

She didn’t step back.

She walked forward and sat beside him on the cracked marble bench.

“I had a brother,” she said. “He died during the siege. One of Rafe’s attacks. At least, that’s what I was told.”

Kai turned sharply, pain lancing through his chest. “I didn’t—”

“I know. You’re not him.”

He looked at her. “But I was.”

She didn’t look away. “But you aren’t.”

——

That night, a notice appeared on the announcement board.

The Trials of Intent that’s open to all first-year students.

Ten will be chosen and one will be elevated.

The rest… will fall.

It was a test.

A way to control the narrative. To expose him, or to break him.

Kai understood that instantly.

The school wasn’t going to wait for him to lose control.

They were going to provoke it.

He stood before the board, students whispering all around him, some keeping their distance like he carried a plague.

Others stared openly.

One of them was Cyrus.

Cyrus of Class A. Golden boy. Smiling perfection.

He stepped forward, hands in his coat pockets, and leaned in like they were old friends.

“You planning to enter?” Cyrus asked.

Kai didn’t answer.

“You should,” Cyrus said. “Be a shame to have all that power and not put it to use.”

Kai turned to face him. “And you? You entering?”

Cyrus’s smile widened. “Of course. Someone’s got to keep the monster in check.”

Then he walked away.

——

That night, Kai couldn’t sleep.

Not because of fear but because of purpose.

The Trials would be dangerous. But they would give him something else…..clarity and control.

He needed to know who he was now—not just who he used to be.

He returned to the mirror in the bathroom and stared hard at his reflection.

“I am Kai,” he said quietly. “I’m not him.”

But as the words faded, so did his certainty.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the grimoire again.

He flipped to the final pages.

There, in a hidden fold, was a diagram. A memory spell. A full restoration—sealed until he was ready.

His fingers hovered over it.

One touch…..And he’d know everything.

He pulled his hand back…..Not yet.

——

The next morning, the names were posted.

Kai’s name was first.

So was Cyrus’s.

Lina’s was there, too.

He stared at the list until the ink blurred.

Ten names. Ten trials.

This was more than a test.

This was the beginning.

The beginning of everything.