The Bully’s Reincarnation

Chapter 9: Flash of the Past

The nightmare came again.

Burning skies. Screaming winds. Fields scorched black. Smoke rising in thick, twisting plumes that curled like claws into the heavens. Blood sprayed across broken ground like crimson rain.

In the dream, Kai stood at the center of it all—laughing.

A monstrous sound.

Not his laugh nor his voice.But it came from his throat.

He looked down at his hands. They dripped red. His fingers clenched, and magic crackled at his fingertips—too dark, too old. Something that didn’t belong in this world anymore.

Bodies surrounded him. Friends? Foes? He couldn’t tell.

A child with pale blue eyes tried to crawl away.

He raised his hand again.

The dream shattered.

Kai sat in bed, gasping and sweat slicking his back and chest. His heart thundered in his ears. The dorm room was still dark, moonlight spilling across the cold stone floor.

He touched his face and his arms, then his ribs…..they felt real and alive

But the scent of blood still crawled in his nose.

He stumbled out of bed, crossed the room, and locked himself in the bathroom.

The mirror didn’t lie.

There he was—messy hair, bruised eyes, ribs still bandaged. But as he stared, the lines blurred. The face in the mirror wasn’t his.

It was older…harsher…..Cruel

The Tyrant.

He blinked, and the image was gone.

“What am I?” he whispered.

He clutched the edge of the sink until his knuckles turned white.

The next morning, Class E was quiet. Too quiet.

The other students glanced his way and quickly looked down again. Not out of pity—but caution.

No one sat next to him.

Not even Lina……She was absent.

The professor droned about elemental convergence, but Kai couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t think. Not with the echo of that laugh still crawling through his skull.

At lunch, he wandered the empty garden path behind the western tower—far from the eyes and whispers.

There, he found her.

Lina sat cross-legged on a stone bench beneath the ivy arch, her lunch untouched in her lap. Her eyes were rimmed red, though she tried to hide it when she saw him.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

She nodded.

But didn’t speak.

He stepped closer. “You weren’t in class.”

“I needed air.”

They stood in silence for a while, the garden rustling around them like the world trying to breathe.

Finally, she said, “They sent a letter.”

Kai blinked. “Who?”

“My parents. Or—who I thought were my parents.” Her voice shook, then steadied. “I’m adopted. I knew that. But I didn’t know… that I was part of them.”

He frowned. “Them?”

“The Order of Balance,” she whispered. “The same group that hunted the Tyrant.”

The blood in his veins felt like it turned to ice.

Lina looked down. “They told me to stay away from you. That I’m in danger.”

“Are you?” he asked. Voice barely a breath.

She looked up at him then….really looked.

“No.”

——

Later that day, Kai found himself drawn once again to the library’s restricted wing.

The ward hadn’t been reset.

Either no one had noticed the book was gone—or no one wanted to admit it.

He found an isolated desk beneath a broken skylight. The sunlight streamed in strips across the old wood, and dust danced in the golden rays.

Kai opened the grimoire again. This time, the page with the glowing glyph from the night before unfolded on its own.

Lines rearranged. Words sharpened.

And suddenly, he could read it.

Memory Reclamation Protocol, Level VII.

For hosts whose rebirth splintered identity. Activate with blood and intent.

Kai hesitated.

Then he pressed the pad of his thumb to the corner of the glyph. The skin split, just a bit. One drop of blood hit the page.

A pulse of magic hit his chest like a hammer.

——-

Flashes.

Not dreams…..Not now…..Real.

He saw a boy in red robes standing before a throne made of twisted bone and steel.

He saw that same boy smiling as cities burned behind him.

He saw himself—Rafe—locking a girl in chains and whispering promises of revenge.

He saw betrayal. A dozen blades. Blood in his mouth.

And then…

A spell.

A final incantation. Too powerful. Forbidden.

Reincarnation.

He had chosen this.

He had planned to return.

His eyes snapped open.

“I was Rafe,” he whispered.

“I chose to come back.”

——-

That night, he wandered the dorm halls like a ghost, his thoughts a hurricane.

He didn’t remember everything.

But now he knew enough to be afraid of himself.

Not because he might become the Tyrant again.

But because… he understood him.

And somewhere, deep inside, a voice whispered: You weren’t wrong, Rafe. You were just ahead of your time.

He shook his head. “No.”

He wasn’t going to be that monster.

He wasn’t and he wouldn’t.

But even as he said it, his fingers tingled with power.

And behind his eyes… the world still burned.