In a spacious bedroom, a man slept peacefully on his bed. His dark hairs were ruffled against his scalp and his cheeks were marred with light scratches from what looked like healing injuries. The windows of the room were open, allowing faint moonlight to caress his features. Suddenly, a deep frown appeared on the boy’s face. His eyeballs rolled under his closed eyes, as if seeing somthing, as if searching something in the dark. Out of the blue, his eyes snapped open as his hands moved to clutch his scalp. The boy was having a migrane, and it was eating him from inside. He let out a groan as his body curled up as a respite against the pain. "Goddammit...you are still there Henry?" Karl asked as he felt himself on the edge of fainting if he let go. But he dared not because moments ago, when he had been sleeping, he had heard a voice. Right from the void of his consciousness. "I have finally gained control." And then his eyes had snapped open. The next moment, he was already in the clutches of this increasing migrane. "And what do you mean that you have control over me? Speaking in my mind doesn’t count as having control." "Look in the mirror, kid." Henry spoke in his mind. Frowning, Karl climbed down his bed. On his way to the mirror, he touched his face and flexed his muscles to see if he actually had the full control over his body. Fortunately, that was in fact the case. He came in front ot the mirror. The broody expression on his face was reflected in it and his hands were at his sides. Confused, Karl asked. "But what’s wrong with me? As I said, if you are talking about the fact that you can now speak through my mind, that d--- huh?" His speech halted midway as he saw something that made his eyes bulge with horror. Not both of his eyes. Only... one of them bulged. The other one....it was glinting with malice. Half of his lips had curved up into a sly smirk and simultaneously the right side of the body had gone numb to Karl’s control. "Isn’t it obvious? I simply got back control over my own body....well not entirely, but half of it is now mine." The left side of the body, the one that Karl still had control over looked shocked and haunted, as if he had seen a monster from his childhood fables. "You got quite a look there,Karl. It’s a pity though that I need to see those expressions on my own body." "Why did you help me though if you are so hell bent on taking over your body?" Karl asked as the left eye of the body glanced downwards at the left hand, the part under Karl’s control. The reflection in the mirror now looked extremely surreal. One side --scared, shocked and trembling. The other-- dominant, calculating and confident. The contrast was quite eye catching. "Helping you? What a delightful nonsense and a world of delusion you are in....the world doesn’t revolve around you, Karl. Hell...it probably doesn’t give a shit about your presence. Same goes for me obviously. And I didn’t help you. I just protected my own body. If this body dies, we both don’t know what’s going to happen with you...maybe you shall jump onto another body or you might actually be dying. But what I know for certain is the fact that once this body dies, I die with it as well. No way would I let this body receive a second fatal strike." Then in a condescending tome, Henry spat. "You are weak, just another pathetic loser...Why do you even bother to live a life that was never meant for you, a life that you have stolen from me? But worry not, they don’t call me a prodigy without a reason. I shall have my body back and when I do, I shall break you to the very core and return you to the dust from wherein you have appeared from." Karl simply stood silent, his eye downcast to the floor as his thoughts had suddenly turned empty. Then a spot whisper came out from his half of the lips... "One month right? That’s the very time I got today from the result of the tie between me and Reinhard." For a moment doubt flickered in Henry’s eye. But then as if realising something he said, "You still didn’t win even after I practically trashed Reinhard? Just how bad were you performing in your other tests?" Karl’s expression had turned ugly at this point. He said, "You didn’t do shit, Henry. All you did was trash him. Neither did you defeat him nor kill him even when you had the best chance all that time. But what did you do? You just roamed in the darkness and only attacked after that guy went mad." "That’s a tactic, Karl which must not be mixed with dumbness. Though what was the result?" "No thanks to you, due to my advantage in the written test I was able to tie with Reinhard.The result was something... unexpected. Principal Cormac had now divided the entire academy administration into two groups-- one to be handled by me and the other by Reinhard. In other words, both of us are the vice-principals...only for a month. The one who performs better in this time frame gets the sole chair of vice-principal. The other one is simply eliminated." Henry’s eyebrow rose up in visible surprise. But then the smirk returned back as he said, "Isn’t that good for you? I mean now that I have returned back, you are not going to lose it at any cost. The perfect deal." At those words, the reflection in the mirror changed. The left side-- the part that was under Karl suddenly smiled. It was an obnoxious smile, not much different from what Henry had on the other half of the face. Karl’s eyes lit with a glint and he said, "You know...I thought of you as a great person. The top of the cream of this kingdom...which you still are. But personality wise? And that grin on your face? I despise it." Saying that Karl’s smile increased in length as he added, "Say....why don’t we remove it?" Suddenly, a bracelet appeared in Karl’s hand. And with a swift motion, he threw it in the air and banged his wrist straight within its clasp. "What!! H-hey the hell you are thinking?!" But Karl just smiled as Henry’s control over his body dimmed. He had finally used the bracelet of Isolde. As the last of Henry’s presence vanished, Karl spoke. "Goodbye, Henry Mordant. It was a pleasure to learn from the best of the evils." The reflection changed as now two pair of glinting eyes looked back at it and an obnoxious smile draped the lips. Karl then raised his hands on both sides of the mirror. His eyes suddenly glowed with a maddening gaze, as if it had seen something a human shouldn’t see, as if it had heard something so divine that all the illusions covering the reality had now been removed from his eyes. Karl pressed on the mirror. And the next moment, thousands of glass shards flew in the air. And in each one of them, only one reflection showed. Each of them with a fiery expression planted on it. Not of a two-faced deity. Not of Henry Mordant. But of... Dıscover more novels at 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⁂𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⁂𝕟𝕖𝕥 "It’s me.... it’s only ME!! No other person takes my place, nobody looks done on me anymore. Curse them all, fuck them all, kill them, slash them, end them...But I refuse to be played like a puppet in a plot I never wanted to take part in." [Assassin class has been unlocked.] End of Volume 1: Life as a Transmigrator