The celebration didn't last long.
By morning, a new notice replaced their challenge letter on the board:
> "Effective immediately, all unsanctioned teams operating without Arcana Board approval are hereby disbanded. Violators will face suspension, mana lock, or expulsion."
– Signed, Academy 47 Council
Someone had stamped PHANTOM XI in red ink. Crossed out.
Nico stared at it, shoulders tense. "They're shutting us down?"
Kaien didn't even flinch. He just pulled the paper off the board, folded it neatly, and walked away.
"Let them try."
---
📍[That Afternoon – Hallway Outside the Principal's Office]
Kaien sat, arms crossed, while a secretary glared at him like he was a war criminal.
Inside, voices argued.
> "He's not even mana-ranked!" "The footage went viral! Class 3 looked like fools!" "This school has rules. He defied all of them."
The door opened.
The principal stepped out—grey-bearded, robe like dust.
"Kaien Vale. Come in."
---
📍[Inside]
The room smelled of old scrolls and decaying mana parchment.
"You've disrupted the balance of this academy," the principal said, voice flat. "Class 3's sponsors are threatening to pull out."
Kaien stayed silent.
The man leaned forward. "This school is built on order. Your existence? Disruptive."
Kaien smiled faintly. "Then the order's built wrong."
"You'll disband your team."
"No."
"You'll be suspended."
"Do it."
A long pause.
The principal exhaled. "You really think you can climb the Arcana League without a license? Without a core?"
Kaien stood.
"I did it once. I'll do it again."
He walked out, leaving behind stunned silence.
---
📍[Courtyard – Later]
Lyra leaned on the fence as Kaien approached.
"They're going to freeze us out," she said. "No court access. No match approvals. We'll be ghosts."
Kaien nodded. "Then we move in shadows."
Nico arrived next, breathless. "There's someone who wants to talk to you. He saw the match."
Kaien raised a brow. "Who?"
"He's… weird."
"Where is he?"
Nico pointed.
A boy stood alone at the far edge of the courtyard. Pale cloak. No school uniform. Slender frame. Hair like faded snow.
And his eyes—pure silver. Like froststeel glass.
Kaien walked up to him.
"You wanted to talk?"
The boy didn't blink. "You play like someone who remembers the future."
Kaien narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The boy looked up. "My name's Eren. I'm not from this school. Not from this district."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want in."
Kaien studied him. "Why?"
Eren paused, then said softly: "Because I've seen the League. I've seen what's coming."
He looked at Kaien with those strange, ancient eyes.
> "The Arcana Cup is only the first storm. What's beneath it is worse. They buried you once, Vale. They'll do it again. Unless someone helps you break the game."
Kaien's eyes flashed.
This boy… wasn't just a player.
He was something else.
---
📍[Later – Training Hall]
Eren stood in the middle of the court. No ball. No aura.
Kaien handed him a battered ball.
"Let's see what you've got."
Eren didn't warm up. He didn't even run.
He just lifted one foot—lightly tapped the ball—
And it vanished.
A blink later, it slammed into the crossbar from behind. No spin. No mana trail.
Ash actually flinched.
Lyra's eyes widened. "That… wasn't teleportation."
Kaien stared at the fading afterglow on the net.
"…He's bending field frames. Shifting the ball between animation gaps. Like a glitch."
Eren lowered his foot. Calm.
"Do I pass?"
Kaien looked at his team.
They were speechless.
Kaien nodded.
"You're in."
---
📍[Meanwhile – Council Tower, Arcana League Subdivision]
The woman in the blazer watched the new footage, jaw tightening.
"Vale's recruited the Glitchborn?"
The man beside her swallowed hard. "We thought Eren was… unplayable."
"He isn't," she said coldly. "He's uncontainable."
She turned to her assistant.
"Contact the Shadow Academies. Release the Echo Draft."
Night fell fast over Academy 47.
But deep below the school grounds—beneath the legal courts and sealed mana chambers—another world stirred.
An old elevator behind the janitor's wing groaned to life. Kaien pressed his palm against a cracked rune pad. The ancient seal pulsed, flickered, and opened a hidden shaft.
They descended in silence.
Nico clenched the railing. "You sure this place exists?"
Kaien's voice was low. "Only teams erased from the system know it. I was sent here once. Before the Rebirth."
Lyra raised a brow. "And what kind of teams play down here?"
Kaien didn't answer.
But when the doors opened, the answer was written across the walls.
---
📍[The Arena Below – The Hollows]
Crowds packed the stone terraces. No uniforms. No referees. Just bare courts, flickering glyph lights, and blood-colored chalk.
No cheers. Only tension.
This was where forgotten players went.
Burned-out stars. Core-ruptured prodigies. Mana-flawed freaks.
And now—Phantom XI.
A man in a jagged coat stepped forward. His face was mostly metal. A rejected cyborg striker from League Year 7.
"New team, huh?" he asked. "You bring a name?"
Kaien nodded once.
"Phantom XI."
The man laughed. "Bold. You know the rule? First match is by draw. No setup. No complaints."
He waved to the screen.
Dozens of broken team names flickered—
Then stopped on:
> "Team No Name"
Ash stepped forward. "That's not a team."
"It is," the metal man said grimly. "They never spoke. Never registered. Never lost."
---
📍[Kickoff – The Hollows]
Phantom XI lined up.
Kaien gave no speech. Just looked at each of them.
Nico, trembling.
Lyra, calm.
Ash, eyes narrowed.
Eren… still unreadable.
Kaien said one word:
"Breathe."
The shadows moved.
Team No Name emerged from the other side. All cloaked. No faces. No noise.
But the moment the whistle screamed—
They vanished.
Literally.
Nico gasped. "Where—?!"
A blur struck from behind. Lyra barely blocked it.
Another zipped past Ash—he flinched too late, and the ball was gone.
They weren't fast.
They were phase-gliding.
Eren growled. "Temporal flickers… They're abusing fractured frame windows. Like me."
Kaien's jaw tightened. "Then counter them."
Eren stepped in.
Suddenly, he vanished mid-stride—then reappeared behind a flickering striker, slamming him with a shoulder.
The crowd gasped.
A glitch versus glitch.
The cloaked player reeled, then vanished again.
Kaien moved up.
This time, he joined the line.
Lyra fed him the ball.
A cloaked figure warped in front of him—Kaien didn't flinch. He tapped it behind him, spun, then launched it without looking—
Straight to Nico, who was now free on the edge.
"TAKE IT!"
Nico didn't hesitate. He charged and fired—
The ball sizzled.
Goal.
1 – 1.
---
They adjusted.
Ash marked their flicker mid.
Lyra set mana beacons to predict where the No Names would phase.
Kaien started using silent signals to bypass Eren's glitch-sense interference.
It was chaos.
But coordinated chaos.
By the final minutes, sweat soaked their backs. Lyra had a cut over her eye. Ash limped.
Still—tied. 2 – 2.
And Team No Name now moved in formation.
Final play.
Eren whispered, "One of them has a true name. He's not like the others."
Kaien locked eyes with the cloaked captain. They both nodded.
No words.
Just will.
---
The ball dropped.
Lyra kicked high.
Ash disrupted the mid again.
Kaien charged past the flickering zone.
And then—Eren warped once.
Twice.
Then froze.
"They're trying to trap me in delay-space!"
Kaien took the ball himself.
Faced two phantoms.
Dodged one.
Spun the other.
But the third—the true captain—appeared in front of him.
They moved the same.
Same foot feint.
Same pivot.
Same posture.
Kaien's heart raced.
> "...Me?"
But Kaien didn't blink.
He stopped.
Let the clone strike—
Then passed behind.
Blind.
To Nico.
Who fired—
And scored.
3 – 2. Phantom XI wins. Again.
---
The cloaked team stood still.
Then one by one, they bowed slightly.
The captain spoke one word before vanishing:
"Respect."
---
📍[Outside The Hollows – Later]
Nico collapsed. "We're still alive…"
Lyra smiled faintly. "Barely."
Eren looked shaken.
Ash, for once, said: "That team wasn't natural."
Kaien nodded.
"They were data fragments. Echoes. The Council's testing something."
He turned to the elevator shaft.
And whispered:
> "They're not sending students after us anymore."
---
📍[Meanwhile – Arcana Council Lab]
A figure with a glass mask reviewed match footage.
"These Phantom kids keep winning," he said.
Behind him, a massive tank held a floating body—unmoving, with cables in his spine.
"Prepare Unit 0," the masked man said. "If Vale wants to play against ghosts—let's show him the original one."