The days at school were becoming increasingly comfortable. I had started to get used to this new routine—making friends, studying, and spending time with Aoi. Every morning, we walked to school together, passing by the busy streets filled with students and workers. I was beginning to enjoy this peace. It felt like I could live like a normal person, without the pressure or worries that once haunted me.
However, even though everything seemed to be going smoothly, there was something that kept bothering me. I often felt as though I was being watched, or more precisely, there was something unseen lurking behind this apparent tranquility. This world might be simpler than the one I knew, but there were still greater forces, somehow influencing me.
One afternoon, as I was heading home from school, I saw Aoi talking to an unfamiliar girl near the school gate. The girl was dressed in black, and her serious expression was different from most people I had encountered. Their eyes met in a gaze full of meaning, and I felt something strange in the air.
Aoi waved at me with a smile, but there was something in the girl's look that unsettled me. I walked closer, and the girl seemed to be waiting for my presence.
"Hi, Haruto," she said in a low voice. "I'm Mizuki Hoshino. I just transferred here."
Mizuki Hoshino? The name was unfamiliar, but there was something intriguing about the way she spoke, as if she knew more than what appeared on the surface. I tried to smile, although a small part of me felt an unexplainable tension.
"Aoi, who is she?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
Aoi, who didn't seem too surprised, just shrugged. "Oh, she just moved here from out of town. Mizuki is our classmate, Haruto."
Mizuki stared at me intensely, her eyes filled with curiosity. "You... you look different," she said, as though she was observing every detail about me. "There's something unusual about you, Haruto."
I felt the tension in the air grow. "Nothing strange," I answered, even though I knew there was something deeper going on.
After a few seconds of silence, Mizuki finally smiled faintly. "Maybe I'm just being dramatic. Anyway, I'm still new here. I hope we can be friends."
I smiled back, but the suspicion inside me couldn't be ignored. There was more to this than just a coincidence that this girl suddenly appeared in my life. It might have been just my intuition, but I felt there was a secret she was hiding.
That night, as I sat alone in my room, I tried to think more clearly. Memories of my past life—as Arlan Von Echeveria—began to resurface, like fragments of forgotten recollections. But I tried not to let myself get lost in those memories.
Haruto Kisaragi, an ordinary student, shouldn't be involved in anything strange. I just wanted to live in peace, without battles, without wars, without the powers weighing down on me.
Yet, that feeling... the sense that something was lurking behind this seemingly normal life of mine, was growing stronger. Was it just paranoia? Or was I really being watched by something greater than I had imagined?
My desire to live a normal life continued to struggle against the feeling that my destiny, as a famous warlord, would never truly disappear. There was something pulling me back to a world I had tried to forget.