Mystic slowly regained consciousness, his breathing uneven as the darkness surrounding his mind began to fade, but something felt wrong, the room around him was familiar, yet the moment itself belonged to the day before his third death.
His eyes opened wider as fragments of memory returned, the conversation he had been having with Luna and his mother replaying inside his mind, except this time, he was not remembering it after it happened, he was reliving it.
He remained still for a moment, listening, knowing exactly what was about to happen, and then Luna's voice cut through the room.
"Did you really call him that after you abandoned him for a few years to do your whore like hooker job," Luna asked, walking closer with a cold expression, her eyes locked onto Star as she stepped between her and Mystic, refusing to let the woman intimidate her.
His mother's expression immediately tightened, her hands curling at her sides as the accusation struck something deep inside her, and Mystic watched from where he stood, recognising the tension in the room before either woman moved.
"Who the fuck do you think you are talking to me like that, you don't know what's it's like to lose everything you cared about," Star shouted, her voice suddenly filling the room as her face twisted with anger.
She took a step toward Luna, her breathing becoming heavier, her eyes burning with fury, but then her gaze shifted toward Mystic, and the rage seemed to collapse in an instant, leaving behind a strange, almost unfamiliar calm.
Luna's expression changed as she watched the transformation happen directly in front of her, her eyebrows lifting as Star's posture loosened and the anger disappeared from her face.
"Wow, what's with the attitude change, it's like she is a whole different person when you're not talking, Mystic," Luna muttered, turning her head toward him, while Mystic remained silent, his eyes moving between the two women as he tried to understand something he already knew was coming.
The smile disappeared from Star's face, leaving her completely still for several seconds, her eyes staring forward without blinking.
Then, without warning, she laughed once, quietly, almost gently, but the sound carried none of the warmth that had been there before.
Her eyes had become cold as ice, her expression distant, and the change was so complete that even Luna seemed unable to decide whether she was looking at the same woman.
"Well, that's simple because Mystic is all I have left in this accursed world, no job, no home, no life except Mystic," Star explained, her voice suddenly calm, almost soft compared with the shouting that had come moments earlier.
Her gaze settled on her son, lingering on him with an intensity that made the room feel smaller, while Mystic's shoulders stiffened, the words sinking deeper than he wanted them to.
Mystic suddenly grunted, his hand moving toward his side as a sharp pain tore through him without warning, and both women immediately noticed.
His knees weakened for a moment, his breathing catching as the pain spread upward through his body, while Luna's expression changed from suspicion to concern almost instantly.
The conversation that had filled the room seconds earlier disappeared, replaced by the sound of Mystic struggling to remain standing.
Before Mystic could even recover, another wave of pain struck him, stronger than the first, forcing his body to bend slightly as his fingers dug into his side.
Luna rushed toward him without hesitation, abandoning the argument completely, while Star remained frozen for a moment, watching her son receive attention from someone else, her expression tightening as something possessive flickered behind her eyes.
"Mystic, hey, are you feeling okay, you're acting the same as you did when you lost your spleen," Luna asked, rushing to his side and grabbing his arm to steady him.
Her eyes searched his face, her concern obvious as Mystic struggled to breathe normally, but Star's attention immediately focused on Luna's hand around her son's arm, her expression becoming noticeably more guarded, jealousy flickering across her face despite the fact that Luna was only trying to help him.
Mystic barely had time to answer before something inside his face shifted, a sudden pressure building behind his left eye, so intense that his entire body locked up. His hand flew toward his face, but the pain peaked before he could touch it, and then his left eye violently ruptured.
Blood burst across the side of his face in an instant, spraying onto his cheek and clothing as the eye itself was destroyed from within, the sudden explosion forcing Mystic backward with a strangled gasp.
Luna and Star froze, their eyes widening at the sight before them.
"Holy shit, call someone or I will, his eye just exploded, DO SOMETHING," his mother shouted, rushing toward her son as her previous anger vanished completely.
Her hands reached toward him, but she stopped just short of touching his face, staring at the blood running down Mystic's cheek and the ruined remains of his left eye, her expression twisting between horror and panic.
Mystic staggered backward, one hand clamped over the left side of his face as blood continued slipping between his fingers, his breathing coming in short, painful bursts.
The pain was far worse than he had expected, far beyond what he had imagined when he understood that the loop had taken something from him, and his remaining eye squeezed shut as another wave of agony passed through his skull.
"No need, no need to call someone, I got this handled, I have planned for a situation like this to happen," he muttered, forcing his breathing under control while both Luna and Star stared at him in disbelief.
His voice was strained, but his movements became deliberate, almost practiced, as though the destruction of his eye was an inconvenience he had already prepared to overcome.
Mystic turned away from them and began walking toward the desk in the middle of the room, leaving small drops of blood behind him as he moved.
The desk was covered with his kinetic weapons and various pieces of technology, but his remaining eye searched through them until he found what he needed, a mechanical object shaped almost exactly like an eye.
He picked it up carefully, his bloody fingers tightening around it as Luna remained completely frozen behind him.
He placed the mechanical eye against the ruined socket, his jaw tightening as he began the procedure on himself. The pain returned immediately, shooting through his face and into his skull as the nanotechnology began connecting itself to the damaged tissue.
Mystic's body trembled, his fingers shaking while he forced himself to continue, refusing to stop despite the agony spreading through him.
"What do you mean you planned it, explain this at once, son," Star muttered, remaining several steps away as she watched the mechanical eye disappear deeper into the ruined socket.
Her voice had lost its earlier anger, replaced by uncertainty, but her eyes remained fixed on Mystic, following every movement as the technology began changing.
The mechanical eye slowly transformed, the hard artificial structure breaking apart as nanotechnology spread through it, reshaping its internal components until the replica became something almost indistinguishable from a living human eye.
Blood and damaged tissue shifted around it, the artificial structure connecting with Mystic's nervous system, and within moments, the new eye blinked for the first time.
"I know something mysterious would happen to me, so I made this, a replica eye that works like a real eye, and I can even see out of it, but the bad thing is that if it gets damaged then I got no way to repair it," Mystic explained, opening his new eye and immediately looking toward the desk.
The system responded to his gaze, activating without him touching anything, and lines of information appeared before him as the replacement eye processed everything it saw.
The system displayed the results, showing a one hundred percent match between Mystic's biological vision and the replacement, while another reading confirmed that the nanotechnology had become semi-organic, preventing the eye from suffering the same catastrophic failure again.
Mystic stared at the information, blinking several times, testing the movement, the focus, and the clarity, until his new eye responded exactly as his old one had.
"Since when can you make tech like this," Luna muttered, finally moving after standing frozen for several minutes, her eyes fixed on Mystic's new eye.
She stepped closer, but stopped when Mystic turned toward her, then toward Star, his gaze moving between them before he took a small step backward.
"I could always make tech, I just never had time to use it until today, now step back, this will hurt a little," Mystic explained, raising his head slightly as the system began preparing the final stage of the transplant.
Luna immediately stopped, while Star remained still, both of them watching as energy began gathering around the new eye.
Lightning suddenly erupted from Mystic's left eye, bright enough to illuminate the room as electrical energy surged through his face and into the surrounding equipment.
His body jerked violently, his hands tightening into fists as the system processed the transplant, while sparks raced across the artificial tissue and disappeared beneath his skin.
The procedure continued for several moments, the electricity gradually weakening until the final flash vanished.
The system displayed the completed result, confirming that the eye had been transplanted safely, and Mystic blinked slowly, his new eye focusing on everything around him with the same clarity as his original one.
He turned his head from Luna to Star, testing the movement of the eye once more, before a ringing sound suddenly interrupted the room.
Mystic's phone vibrated, Harold's name appearing on the screen, and he immediately answered, listening without saying anything as he explained what was happening.
His expression hardened, the momentary exhaustion disappearing as he understood what he needed to do, and within seconds, Mystic was already moving toward the door, grabbing what he needed before rushing outside.
He ran through the city toward the main school, his footsteps pounding against the ground as the events of his third loop finally began moving toward the confrontation he had been preparing for.
His replacement eye remained perfectly functional, his kinetic technology secured, and his remaining memories racing through his mind as the school grew closer, the beginning of another fight waiting for him.
"My first fight will officially begin."