Kairo stared at the closed door of the workshop, the glass of water frozen halfway to his lips. A rational mind—the kind of mind he'd had to develop just to survive the harsh, unyielding mechanics of King Ariston's realm—told him to move. Shouldn't I stop him? He's tinkering with a reality-bending machine with standard garage tools.
He took another slow, deliberate sip. The cool water hit his throat, and a dark, familiar thrill bloomed in his chest. He had spent months dancing on the edge of a blade, trading his blood for seconds of survival.
I love to gamble with my life, he thought, a cynical, sharp smile cutting across his childish face. So be it. Let's see how the dice roll.
To distract his racing mind, he leaned back, letting his thoughts drift through the historical anomalies of this era. If it really was 2006... Is Michael Jackson still alive right now? He blinked, calculating the timeline. I could literally go find a younger version of him.
"It's ready, Kairo!"
The sudden shout from the workshop made Kairo jolt in his chair. The door swung open, and his father stepped back into the kitchen, wiping grease off his hands with a rag. He held out the device, looking entirely too proud of himself.
Kairo stood up slowly, his eyes locked on the metallic casing. "What... what if it doesn't work?"
His father grinned, throwing a playful wink. "Just beat it. Just beat it."
The sheer coincidence of the phrase hit Kairo's absurd train of thought perfectly. He couldn't help the small, high-pitched chuckle that escaped him. "Beeaaaat it, eh? Beeaaaat it, eh?"
"I am going to beat you, Kairo, if you keep making your little gadgets out of my expensive kitchen sets!" his mother called out from the kitchen, her voice sharp but fond as she scrubbed a pot.
Kairo winced automatically, dropping into a submissive, childish posture. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Mom."
His mother sighed, walking out to lean against the doorframe. "You use scraps, Kairo, but you know we are financially unstable right now. You're a genius, right? You learn quickly. Just make sure you keep building these technological things, and when the time comes, you'll have to share them with your upcoming brother or sister."
"Okay, Mother," Kairo replied, his voice soft. The mention of his missing siblings still sent a cold shiver down his spine, but he masked it instantly.
He stepped forward, taking the device from his father's outstretched hand. "Thank you, Dad, for fixing my time machine."
To keep up appearances, Kairo immediately burst into a run, making buzzing engine noises and waving the device in the air like a normal six-year-old playing with a plastic toy. He sprinted out the back door and into the yard.
Behind him, his mother watched him go, a sudden look of worry crossing her face. "Ugh, look at our boy. Don't you think we should treat him more like a normal kid, instead of always calling him a genius? Telling him that all the time will just make him arrogant."
His father put an arm around her shoulder, nodding slowly. "Well, let's just make sure we teach our kids good lessons. Keep them humble."
"Amen," they said in unison, turning back to their morning chores.
Act V: The Automated Flight
Kairo didn't stop running until he reached his sanctuary—a makeshift hideout constructed from discarded cardboard boxes tucked away at the edge of the property. He crawled inside the cramped, shadowy space, breathing heavily, and immediately turned his analytical gaze to the device.
He froze.
His father hadn't just tightened the casing. He had completely altered the user interface. The old, clunky remote buttons Kairo had been fumbling with were gone. In their place, his father had neatly wired two distinct, tactile inputs: a Fast Forward button and a Backward button.
My dad is pretty smart, Kairo realized, a chill running through him. He knew exactly what this was. Or maybe... this timeline's version of him is just an apex tinkerer.
Either way, the modifications were done. Kairo stared at the forward button, his thumb hovering over the plastic. He began running the temporal mathematics through his head. I don't want to go to the past. If I press backward, I could end up in a void before I was even conceived. What happens to my physical form? Does my age regress until I vanish?
He didn't have enough data. The variables were entirely unknown, and messing with time without a baseline understanding was academic suicide.
But I am just so damn curious, he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. One touch, one hurt... ah, screw it.
He slammed his thumb onto the Fast Forward button.
The world didn't just flash—it tore.
Instantly, Kairo lost all autonomy. His muscles locked, his jaw clamped shut, and his body began to operate entirely on autopilot, as if some invisible, cosmic puppeteer had seized his nervous system. He couldn't even blink.
The cardboard walls of his hideout blurred into a strobing smear of light and shadow. The only things his eyes could track were the rapid, violent flipping of pages on a conceptual calendar in his mind's eye.
2006. The numbers dissolved. 2007. The sun and moon flashed across the sky like a broken strobe light. 2008. 2009. 10. 2011.
The crushing, hyper-accelerated momentum finally began to bleed off. The violent shaking of his vision slowed down, grinding to a halt as the temporal anchor dropped.
2012.
The autonomy snapped back into his limbs, and Kairo fell forward onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, his chest heaving as the temporal displacement sickness washed over him. He gripped the dirt, his eyes wide with a sudden, localized panic as a specific piece of old-world lore surfaced in his memory.
Wait... Kairo thought, his mind racing through the cultural myths of his childhood. Is the earth really supposed to end in 2012? No way. No damn way. I haven't even married anyone yet! I want to have a wife!
Act VI: The Paradox of Strength
Kairo massaged his temples, trying to force his racing mind to process the temporal transition. 2012... right. The doomsday myth. It's just a cultural delusion from the old world. Forget about it.
But the physical reality of his situation shifted before he could analyze the mechanics any further. The cardboard walls of his hideout vanished, replaced instantly by the suffocatingly familiar sight of his family's cramped living room.
Standing over him was his father. The man wasn't smiling. He held a report card in his hand, his eyes burning with a quiet, furious intensity.
"Kairo," his father said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "How did you get marks this low?"
Kairo's survival instincts, honed by months of navigating treacherous royal courts, kicked in automatically. He bowed his head, making his expression look appropriately remorseful. "I'm sorry, Dad. I guess... I was just overconfident."
Somehow, I managed to blend in, Kairo thought, a bitter sense of familiarity washing over him. I always used to say exactly that whenever I messed up back then.
His father's expression shifted. The anger morphed into a slow, unnatural smile.
A jolt of cold shock went through Kairo's chest. Is he going to beat me for being arrogant? God, I hated this part of my childhood. He braced his muscles, preparing for the impact. Even if he breaks my bones, I won't cry. I've survived worse torture than a domestic beating. Then, a terrifying realization struck him. Wait... I don't have mana here. I don't have my superhuman reserves or soul-hardening techniques. Right now, I'm just a normal, fragile twelve-year-old child.
His father stepped closer, placing a heavy, calloused hand on Kairo's shoulder. He leaned in, his smile turning distinctly menacing. The psychological pressure was suffocating.
Without a word, his father's gaze flicked to the metallic time machine resting on the table. He snatched it up with a swift, greedy motion. "You will stay in your room and study until you have memorized every single line of your syllabus. I'm confiscating this."
He turned on his heel and left the room, locking the door from the outside.
Kairo stood frozen, his mind spinning into absolute chaos. Wait, what is even happening? Who am I in this timeline? A prince? An academic genius? An average joe? Just who am I? The inconsistency of reality was tearing at his sanity. Unable to vent his frustration, he whipped his fist forward, punching the bedroom wall.
CRACK.
Kairo reeled back, his eyes widening in disbelief as he stared at the splintered plaster. Wait a second... do I still have my physical parameters because of that contract?
He checked the window. It was 5:00 PM. The ambient light was fading into dusk.
"Let it be," he muttered, shaking out his knuckles. "I need to get out of this house and clear my head."
He wasn't worried about the device. His father had always kept his things locked away as if they were ancient treasures; the time machine would be physically secure for now. Slipping out of the locked room was laughably simple. He utilized the stealth and infiltration forms taught to him by Kai—techniques he had mastered during the bloody massacre of the arrogant factions.
Once outside, his eyes locked onto a group of kids loitering near the alleyway. They were local bullies, either his age or slightly older, strutting around as if they owned the concrete.
Look at these kids, thinking they're the bosses of the world, Kairo thought, a dark smirk tugging at his lips. I don't have magic abilities or my prime physical strength, but I'm supposedly a genius here. Let's test my current baseline power level.
The leader of the group noticed him approach and sneered. "Hey, look, it's Kairo. You failed the district test, didn't you? You're no genius at all. You're just a weak little freak."
"Well, I don't really know what you're talking about," Kairo said softly, his stance shifting into a flawless combat ready frame.
Before the bully could even register the movement, Kairo closed the distance. Holding back ninety percent of his internal momentum to keep from shattering the boy's ribs, he drove a precise, compact liver punch straight into the kid's flank.
"But now you know I'm not weak," Kairo whispered.
The surrounding kids gasped, their eyes filled with absolute terror at the sheer, invisible speed of the strike. They didn't even try to fight; they turned and scattered like rats. The leader dropped to his knees, clutching his side, coughing up a dark, thick fluid.
Kairo stood over him, his analytical mind completely unbothered. He sniffed the air, then looked down at the boy with utter disdain. "I don't have my old sensory magic, but I can still tell when a blow is being faked. Who exactly are you?"
The boy froze, his theatrical coughing stopping instantly. He looked up at Kairo with wide, horrified eyes. "Wait... how did you know it was fake blood?"
"Kairo!"
A heavy hand swung toward Kairo's face from his blind spot. Out of pure, war-torn instinct, Kairo's head bobbed backward, the palm missing his nose by a millimeter. He snapped into a counter-strike posture before realizing the attacker was his father.
Kairo froze, dropping his hands. "Sorry, Dad. It wasn't me. He's faking it. If I had actually struck his liver with that velocity, he wouldn't be coughing quietly—he'd be screaming in neurogenic shock."
Hearing this, the fake bully immediately burst into real tears of frustration, scrambling to his feet and running away down the street, howling for his parents.
Kairo exhaled, turning back to his father. "Great. Problem solved."
But his father wasn't angry about the fight. His face was entirely pale, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate terror Kairo had never seen on him before. He grabbed Kairo by the jacket. "Kairo... we are in massive trouble."
Kairo frowned, his analytical mind instantly resetting to threat-assessment mode. "Wait, what? Why, Father?"
"Your six-year-old younger brother..." his father stammered, his voice shaking violently. "Take care of him, Kairo. You need to run away from here right now. We... we messed with the government itself."
The government?
Before Kairo could even formulate the question, a violent, blinding flash of white light erupted from the direction of their house, tearing through the evening sky like a collapsing star. The shockwave hit him, dissolving the street, his father, and the year 2012 into absolute nothingness.
Act VII: The Reality of Ash
Kairo gasped, his eyes flying open as his lungs expanded, drawing in air that tasted sharply of ozone, rotting vegetation, and ancient magic.
The concrete was gone. The cheap chips, the bakery, the fragile plaster walls—all gone.
"Kairo! Get up! We don't have time to sleep!"
A heavy hand gripped his shoulder, shaking him violently. Kairo blinked away the temporal vertigo, his vision clearing to reveal the rugged, battle-worn face of Leonhart looking down at him with intense urgency.
Kairo looked around. Massive, twisted trees shot up into a choked, purple sky, their bark weeping dark sap. The air hummed with a oppressive, kill-or-be-killed mana density that made his skin crawl.
The nostalgia trip was over. The time machine was gone. He was back in the fantasy world, standing in the absolute center of the most lethal territory on the continent: The Forbidden Forest.
He was back in the meat grinder. And the monsters were already circling.