[Timeline: Year 2041 – The Winter Solstice]

[Location: Class F Classroom – The Imperial Academy]

The cold was gone.

Damien woke up with a gasp, his lungs seizing as if he had just surfaced from deep water.

His body tensed, instinctively expecting the freezing draft of his apartment window, the one that never quite closed properly.

He expected the smell of stale instant noodles, the hum of a dying refrigerator, and the crushing weight of absolute silence.

Instead, got something much different.

CRASH.

"I said simmer, you pyromaniac! Simmer! Not incinerate!"

"I'm trying! This soup has a high boiling point!"

"If you burn the oxtail stew, I'll feed you to the Wyverns!"

Damien blinked, his vision blurry.

The smell hitting his nose wasn't dust like before.

Instead, it was rich, savory, and overwhelmingly complex.

Instead it was rich, savory, and complex. Roasted garlic. Spiced wine. Seared venison. And a hint of... sulfur?

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, the leather of his chair creaking.

He wasn't at a scratched, wobbly table in a grey apartment in Block 404.

Instead he was sitting at his mahogany desk in the Class F homeroom.

But the room had changed.

The desks had been pushed together to form a massive banquet table.

The blackboard, usually covered in formulas on how to kill monsters, was now draped in red and gold garlands.

Floating candles bobbed near the ceiling, casting a warm, flickering glow.

BAM!

"Hah! Weak!"

To his left, Leona slammed a fist onto the table, shaking the entire room.

She wasn't wearing her armor.

She wore a festive (and slightly too tight) wool sweater.

Not only that, but she was currently locked in an arm-wrestling match with Alaric.

Alaric's on the other hand had a face that was beet red. The veins in his neck were popping.

A low, mechanical thump-thump-thump emanated from his chest as the Titan's Capacitor roared to life, feeding kinetic force into his arm.

"Cheater!" Leona laughed, her golden eyes sparkling with mirth.

"Using an artifact against a lady? Where is your chivalry, Ironheart?"

"You're... not... a lady!" Alaric gritted out through clenched teeth, the table groaning and splintering under their combined pressure. "You're a... monster!"

"Correction," Leona grinned, her biceps flexing as she slammed his hand down with a thunderous crack that split the wood of the desk.

"I'm your Teacher. Next!"

Isabelle marched past them, carrying a massive tureen of soup.

Her demon horns were polished, and she wore a pristine apron over her maid uniform.

She slapped the back of Lukas's head with a wooden spoon as she passed.

"Stop staring and set the plates, Fire Boy," Isabelle commanded.

"Yes, ma'am," Lukas mumbled, rubbing his head. He was terrified of her.

Up in the rafters, Lyra sat on a support beam, swinging her legs.

She was tossing grapes into her mouth with sniper-like precision, watching the chaos below with a rare, relaxed smile.

And by the window, Elena was using her wind magic to meticulously arrange a wreath of holly.

Every time a leaf drooped, she would flick her finger, and a tiny gust of wind would fix it.

"A little to the left," Elena whispered to herself, obsessed with perfection.

"Symmetry is divine."

Damien sat there, stunned.

The transition was too jarring.

One moment, he was Lin Ye, the invisible man in a cold box.

The next, he was Damien Voss, the center of a chaotic, vibrant hurricane.

His heart raced. The sensory overload made him dizzy.

He felt a phantom ache in his chest, the ghost of a loneliness that had spanned a lifetime.

'Is this... real?' Damien thought, gripping the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white.

'Or did I freeze to death in that apartment? Is this the hallucination before the end? A dying dream of what I wanted?'

He pressed his hand against the wood. It was solid. He could feel the grain. He could smell the burning wax of the candles.

"Young Master?"

A soft voice broke through the noise.

Isabelle was standing next to his desk.

She wasn't shouting at Lukas anymore. Her expression was soft, filled with a concern that pierced through his confusion.

"You were shivering in your sleep," Isabelle said quietly, placing a hand near his arm but not touching him, respecting his space.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Damien looked at her.

He looked at Leona, who was now challenging a terrified Lukas to arm-wrestle, promising to go easy on him.

He looked at Alaric, nursing his wrist but laughing as he explained to Elena how the Titan's Capacitor worked.

He looked at Lyra, who caught his gaze and offered him a silent thumbs-up from the ceiling.

He touched his face.

He wasn't wearing the silver mask of Mozart.

He wasn't wearing the porcelain mask of Zero.

He was just Damien.

He looked at his hands. They weren't cold. They were warm.

"No," Damien whispered, his voice hoarse, thick with emotion he tried to swallow.

"No nightmare. Just... a memory of a very cold place."

Isabelle smiled. It wasn't the subservient smile of a maid bound by duty; it was the warm, knowing smile of family.

She reached into her spatial storage and pulled out a heavy, fur-lined coat, black with gold stitching. She draped it over his shoulders.

The weight of it settled on him. It was warm. Grounding.

"Well, you're awake now," Isabelle said, patting his shoulder.

And the soup is ready. If we don't eat soon, Leona might break another students arm."

Damien pulled the coat tighter.

He looked around the room again.

This wasn't a hallucination. This was his work. This was his masterpiece.

He had plotted, schemed, lied, and killed to bring these people here.

He had dragged them out of their tragic storylines, defied the fate written by the original author, and forced them into this room, just so they could eat dinner together.

He looked at the empty seat at the head of the banquet table.

They hadn't started without him. They were waiting for him.

He unknowingly had changed all their fates, but in doing so, he had changed his own.

The feeling of invisibility, the feeling of being an NPC looking through a frosted window at someone else's happiness... it shattered.

He stood up. The chair scraped against the floor, a sound that proved he existed.

"Right," Damien said, the fog in his mind clearing, replaced by a warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Let's eat!"

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