The next day, he took his bus with Elie as he did every school day.
"Marc?"
Elie had been talking to him for quite a while, but Marc, who was out of it, wasn't listening.
When he heard her, he flinched slightly.
"Oh sorry, I was just thinking."
Elie had asked directly right away, as if that had been the only question on her mind ever since she woke up.
Her eyebrows were furrowed, but her face looked worried and frustrated.
"You've got that déjà vu feeling too, don't you?"
But Marc hadn't even noticed, and he replied calmly, his eyes still fixed on a distant point ahead of him.
"Yes, but I also feel like I know why."
"We should ask Nath."
Arriving at the school, they discovered the powerful aura she gave off. Marc said nothing, convinced that he was used to it. Yet he was just as convinced of the opposite.
Nathanaël came to meet them.
"How ironic?"
Nathanaël's eyes looked tired. But not because of fatigue, because of something that would wear him out.
"There's no need, Nath. We know."
His face came back to life.
He wasn't the only one in this situation....
The day passed quickly...
They already knew the answers to all the questions...
Neither Manon nor Chris deigned to show their faces...
They knew where Chris was...
"I guess we have to go see him."
"Yes. But we already know how this is going to end, don't we? Again."
The three stared at the ground, blank of expression.
Jin didn't understand what was happening.
The feeling of having already done this day and not just once was bothering them immensely.
"Let's try to get home."
"But I have a feeling I know how this is going to go."
Marc looked at his friends. Elie looked tired and Nathanaël was losing his reassuring light. The three of them had noticed that the day was repeating itself without actually starting. They had never really lived the day, but had the impression of having done it all before. In a dream, in another life, in another reality? This impression of déjà-vu...over and over again...gnawed at their brains.
But Marc, more than the others, felt that he knew who was behind it all.
In a moment of reflection, he looked up at the sky, and that was when he saw it.
In a moment of reflection, he raised his head toward the sky, and that was when he saw it.
An aura hovered in the air like a gentle breeze caressing everything around it.
It was the first time he had seen her. A peculiar, deep orange aura that seemed to gently watch over them.
Or rather, watch them.
Because Marc recognized that aura... He had seen it somewhere before... Like that day... It wasn't the first time he'd seen it. And for a reason he didn't yet understand, he knew full well that it didn't belong to an ally...
He knew who it belonged to.
"You?!"
Elie couldn't understand what Marc meant. She looked around to see who Marc was talking to.
"What is it, Marc?"
"It was you!"
Marc looked around too.
It was the only one there. The aura had invaded everything he saw. The students, the teachers, the buildings, the animals, the area...everything was imbued with this aura. An orange aura that seemed to have eaten everything.
"Show yourself!"
Marc's shout had startled everyone in the vicinity. A girl had dropped her helmet not far away.Marc heard the noise immediately and looked at her. The girl, who looked normal at first, flashed a devilish smile after a few seconds. But it disappeared as soon as Marc saw it. He then looked at a boy who was staring at him strangely from behind Elie. The boy's facial expression was soon replaced by a devilish one of his own.
Suddenly, he heard laughter from the sky and when he looked up and saw a bird whose song was a delight to the ears. But the song soon turned to laughter, and the sky in which it was flying also turned orange.
And to top it all off, a voice rang out in that haunted setting.
"How long, Marc...?"
The words came from all directions.
"How long..."
Marc was sweating profusely. Everything around him had become so strange that he wondered if he hadn't suddenly slipped into a dream—or even straight into the other world.
He could no longer concentrate on a single thing—everything was glitching before his eyes.
And suddenly, he focused on one of the beads of sweat that seemed to be falling normally, trickling down his forehead.
Marc's heart suddenly began to beat faster because, for some reason he didn't know, he knew what that drop was going to do.
All of this was happening in slow motion in Marc's mind...
The drop tried to fall like any object obeying gravity.
Then, it simply touched the ground before immediately turning around, returning as if by magic to his forehead and disappearing as if it had never been there.
"How long have you been going around in circles?"
Marc hadn't realized it, but he was indeed spinning in circles, trying to figure out where the voice he was hearing could have come from.
"How long has this loop been plaguing you?"
"Show yourself!"
Marc's cries now echoed in the void. Everyone looked at him as if he'd gone mad. But in the middle of the crowd, an aura gradually formed in human form.
Elie and Nathanaël turned around at the same time and saw their attacker.
"What the..."
"How?"
The orange aura smiled. Jin couldn't see it but sensed something was wrong and looked desperately in the direction everyone else was looking.
Then, the voice rang out:
"Well, well. What a wonderful welcome. It's not the first time we've seen each other, though."
Marc continued to sweat as memories came back to him.
"This isn't even the first time we've fought."
Marc was now reliving all the times he'd faced this monster.
Every time he fought, he sweated, and every drop of sweat that left his forehead came back to him.
Elie, too, saw every fight go to her head. Every fight she lost and every fight she ended up on the ground, blood pouring down her sides.
Nathanaël also relived the battles. With each fight, a sword pierced his heart, and with each fight he died on his knees on the ground, his light gradually fading.
The three of them looked at the man who had done all this to them and Marc...
finally realized...
"4 million 602 thousand 037 times."
The drops of sweat continued to fall...
"Is it coming back to you now?"
...and kept coming back to his face.
"That's how many times you and I have played."
The voice began to shout as if ready to laugh.
"And every time, you make the same face."
The voice definitely started laughing. The sadistic laughter even went through Jin's body, which began to tremble.
Marc wiped his brow and took a deep breath. For him, the time had come to stop all this.
"Bring it on."
"You may say that, but is it really necessary?"
Marc was still reliving all those fights against him. The man in front of him had only played with him every time they'd fought.
"You shouldn't be so cocky now and show your true face."
The aura didn't seem at all surprised.
"You're right..."
The flow of aura around him dispersed in a magnificent vortex, revealing this otherworldly being.
His clothes were august. The colors blended perfectly and there was nothing to show that he was weak. Accompanying this, a magnificent infinity symbol was embedded in his chest.
When he opened his eyes, a powerful wave struck Marc as if he were mocking him. His magnificent eyes were filled with vivid colors that could have made any woman fall over. The universe seemed to spin in circles in his eyes, in which was also the symbol of infinity.
"...and for the umpteenth time, I'll make you a dead man."
Thus, his aura changed along with her transformation. It was no longer orange but, on the contrary, the same color as her clothes and her symbols—a blend of white, blue, and purple that harmonized perfectly.
Marc had never seen anything like it—and that was only natural, since this was a being from another world. And although he would have liked to believe he had a chance of winning this time, the aura emanating from the entity was on an entirely different scale from anything he had ever seen in this world.
All hesitated to move forward, as the being conjured up a stick Marc knew well without even having seen it.
"Arondoa"
Marc saw in his memories that there was nothing normal about this stick. Capable of twisting and transforming, it was the strangest weapon he'd ever seen. But the worst thing about this weapon was that as soon as he touched it, the being could decide whether or not you went back in time.
This being by the name of...
"Goagi"
The entity smiled gracefully upon hearing its name...
Goagi moved slowly forward, just as the man in black was doing in front of Marc.
Marc watched this being move forward, remembering the nightmare the man with the look of a fallen angel had caused him. His footsteps, his aura, his cry, everything about this being had managed to get under his skin until it had left its mark on his mind.
But he wasn't the same, and the person in front of him wasn't the same either.
He could do it.
"Are you going to run at me again?"
Marc felt his body stiffen.
If he had already done a lot of fighting against him, Goagi had done the same and already knew all his moves.
Nevertheless, Marc smiled and answered calmly.
"Yes."
He charged at him at a speed the human being could probably not see. Goagi also quickly waved his stick to make a vertical strike. Marc dodged the blow and tried to land one on him, but the entity dodged back.
Marc was now in a position of weakness. The stick hit him full force, while Goagi grinned. Marc found himself back in his starting position as if he hadn't moved.
"Shit"
Just as he decided to start again, he saw Elie who had jumped on Goagi with a sword in her hand. It was the sword Nathanael had given them.
"Let's have fun again, my dear Elie."
The two weapons clashed and there was a powerful wave from the impact. Elie hadn't turned back because Goagi had decided to have some fun.
Elie's blows, all as fast as a sound wave, were countered one by one. The waves of air created by them left heavy marks on the surrounding buildings.
Seeing that she didn't have the advantage, Nathanaël crept up behind Goagi to try to stab him. But before he noticed it, he was pulled back to his place.
"I saw you."
Elie was landing more and more blows, becoming faster and faster, leaving Goagi less and less time to react.
"Tch"
Some of the blows began to leave gashes.
Elie stepped back to gain momentum and strike him in the legs. But Goagi jumped at the last moment and drove the stick into Elie's back.
"Elie!"
Marc, who had witnessed the scene from afar, thought she had been stabbed. But she held her sword firmly behind her back to protect herself from the stick.
She glared at Goagi.
"Get out of the way."
Elie sent him tumbling several meters away, but he remained perfectly balanced.
"AH, I'll never get tired of that. Right, Marc?"
Marc had appeared behind his back. He raised his foot high to deliver a side kick, but he went back a second in time.
Goagi threw his stick at him, which Marc was able to dodge by stooping low enough. Unfortunately, when he raised his head, he was hit by a violent roundhouse kick.
"That's how Taekwondo is, kid."
But to his surprise, Marc hit him in the face with a back kick, thanks to the speed he'd picked up from Goagi's kick.
"You can't teach me anything."
Goagi smiled. A little blood was coming out of his nose.
"That's it."
Nathanaël appeared to his left and before he could react was struck by his sword. He went through the wall of the building to their left. All the students, panic-stricken, began to flee the school.
"Well done, Nath."
"Thank you. I just followed the movement but I don't feel like I cut it."
"No, this monster is stronger than that."
At the bottom of the pit into which the entity had just been thrown, a smile and the symbol of an infinity loop appeared, glowing brightly. And in less than a second, he was back where he'd been before as if nothing had happened.
"Watch out..."
Marc didn't have time to finish his sentence before he was hit by a side kick this time. He waltzed through the wall of the building on his right.
"Marc!"
Nathanaël didn't have time either. A front kick raised his head and a drop kick lowered it. Goagi finished with a 360 kick to send him crashing to the second floor of the school.
"I know taekwondo a lot better than you do."
Elie returned to the charge.
"Round 2."
But this situation was different. Goagi had the upper hand. The blows began to pile up on Elie's body, and she found it harder and harder to stand. Still, in a last moment of hope, she managed to dodge one of his blows and tried to cut off his head. Goagi saw the sword closing in on his throat, but Elie came back in time a thousandth of a second early and took a heavy blow to the stomach.
She collapsed to the ground, dropping her sword. Goagi grabbed her by the hair and lifted her off the ground.
"You're clearly not strong enough yet."
But Elie didn't give up. She managed to knock him back with a kick to the stomach. Although he hadn't taken much damage, he had retreated a good two meters. Elie picked up her sword and lunged at him, but Goagi pulled her back in time while throwing hir stick at her face.
She received it right in the face.
Goagi found himself beside her again and hit her on the head. Elie collapsed, knocked out.
But he didn't have time to celebrate his little victory as Marc had already pounced on him. He narrowly dodged his foot, then his fist once, then a second time...
In the end, Marc realized he was repeating the same action every time.
Goagi chuckled.
"You always realize it too late."
Marc received a magnificent knee strike that sent him tumbling to the ground. Goagi smiled again.
"You're too weak, Marc."
Nathanaël threw his sword at the otherworldly being from the top of the second floor, but as if he had eyes in the back of his head, the entity dodged it.
He then jumped on Goagi.
"Don't forget me."
Marc got to his feet too.
Together, they managed to put the entity on the defensive.
Nathanaël filled in the gaps that Marc had left, while the staff circled around them without touching them.
Marc launched a series of counterattacks while his friend parried the attacks.
For a time, no time-rewind technique could be used, until finally, Marc managed to land his first right punch on Goagi.
Marc thought it hurt, but Goagi smiled.
But despite the barrage of blows he rained down on it, the entity never stopped smiling. Blow after blow, it wouldn't fall. On the contrary, its smile only grew wider and wider, to the point where Nathanaël's blows became less and less powerful as he feared something terrible was about to happen.
And what was bound to happen eventually did. Just as Nathanaël's blows were becoming less and less frequent, the infinity-marked eyes shone even brighter. At one point, his torso and eyes alone lit up the space in which they stood.
Marc and Nathanaël took a step back.
Goagi lit up through his symbols and, in a fraction of a second, Nathanaël, Marc and Elie were back where they'd started. The place they'd been before the fight began.
It was then that Marc realized the terrifying power of the entity. His body frozen in shock, he realized that all his choices, his decisions, his blows, and his wounds had been nullified by the mere will of the being standing before him.
And this, after more than four million times...
"Why do you look surprised, you knew it, didn't you?"
Goagi had no wounds left on his body.
This was the power of one of these otherworldly beings. A power beyond Marc's reach.
"You're not coming. In that case, I'm coming."
Goagi split the air to find himself in front of three friends, but this time the first to react was, against all expectations, Jin.
Just before its hands could reach them, the entity took a hard knee to the face.
"Jin? "
"How?"
Jin smiled:
"I see him."