The next afternoon, I walked Rosalie home again.
By then, walking together had already started to feel much more natural.
We talked about school, our teachers, our classmates, and whatever else happened to come up along the way.
Sometimes the conversation was about something completely unimportant, like how one of our classmates had nearly fallen asleep during class or how our teacher seemed to have an endless supply of homework.
Rosalie was quieter than I was, but she had started opening up little by little.
I learned that she hated bitter melon, loved mangoes with bagoong, and preferred walking home instead of taking a tricycle whenever the weather was good.
I remembered every little detail.
That was simply how my mind worked.
When we reached her house, Rosalie stopped beside the gate and turned toward me.
“Thank you for walking with me again.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
She smiled, then hesitated for a moment as if she was trying to decide whether she should say something.
“Can you walk with me again tomorrow?”
My heart skipped.
“Sure.”
Her smile became a little wider.
“Okay.
See you tomorrow, Rafael.”
“See you.”
She went through the gate, and I waited until she had reached the front door before turning around.
As I walked home, I caught myself smiling.
It was ridiculous.
I had spent years fighting in places where one mistake could mean death.
I had watched cities burn, seen soldiers die beside me, and stood in front of creatures large enough to crush buildings.
Yet somehow, walking a thirteen-year-old girl home made my heart race more than any battlefield ever had.
For the first time in decades, I wasn’t thinking about war, rifts, alien technology, or the end of humanity.
I was simply thinking about Rosalie and wondering what we would talk about tomorrow.
The feeling was strangely peaceful.
I had almost reached the main road when I noticed that the street was quieter than usual.
There were still people around, but not as many as I expected at that time of the afternoon.
The noise coming from the nearby houses had also faded, leaving only the occasional sound of a motorcycle passing somewhere in the distance.
I slowed down.
Something didn’t feel right.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw nobody immediately behind me.
I continued walking, but a few seconds later I heard footsteps.
I stopped.
The footsteps stopped too.
When I turned around, I saw one of Dante’s friends standing about twenty meters away.
He looked at me for a moment before casually looking toward the other side of the street, as though he had nothing to do with me.
I turned back around.
That was when I noticed another boy standing ahead.
He was leaning against a wall, but the moment our eyes met, he straightened.
I looked around more carefully.
There were more of them.
Four boys in total were scattered around the street, and another figure was approaching from behind me.
I recognized him immediately.
Dante.
So this was the plan.
They had deliberately waited until Rosalie and I separated before making their move.
In my first life, something like this would have terrified me.
I had been a shy fourteen-year-old who avoided confrontation whenever possible, and with my family’s financial situation, I had always tried my best not to attract trouble.
But I wasn’t that boy anymore.
I’d spent years surrounded by soldiers, monsters, artillery, and alien weapons.
I had fought on battlefields where hesitation meant death.
Five teenagers weren’t exactly the most frightening thing I’d ever encountered.
That didn’t mean I was going to underestimate them.
My body was still fourteen years old.
That mattered.
Dante walked toward me with three of his friends following behind him.
He was two years older than me, but because he had been held back in school, he was still around our campus.
He was also bigger than most boys our age, and his reputation made people think twice before crossing him.
He stopped a few steps away.
“Quintero.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Rosalie.”
“Yeah.”
His expression immediately hardened.
“You think that’s funny?”
“No.”
“Then stay away from her.”
I stared at him for a moment.
There was something almost amusing about the way he said it, as though Rosalie were something he owned and I had somehow taken from him.
“No.”
Dante’s eyebrows rose.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
The boys behind him exchanged glances.
One of them chuckled nervously, but Dante didn’t seem amused.
“You don’t understand who you’re talking to.”
“I know exactly who I’m talking to.”
That was probably the answer he didn’t want to hear.
Dante stepped closer and grabbed the front of my uniform.
“You think those new shoes and clothes make you somebody?”
I glanced down at the hand gripping my shirt before looking back at him.
“They don’t.”
“Then why don’t you listen when I’m telling you to stay away from her?”
“Because Rosalie isn’t yours.”
His expression changed immediately.
I knew I had hit a nerve.
“Say that again.”
“Rosalie isn’t yours.”
Dante shoved me.
I stumbled backward but managed to keep my balance.
He swung at me.
The instant his shoulder moved, something inside my mind changed.
His fist was coming toward my face, but the movement suddenly seemed slower than it should have been.
I could see the rotation of his shoulder, the movement of his elbow, the tightening of his fingers, and the shift of his weight onto his front foot.
My body reacted before I consciously decided what to do.
I moved my head to the side.
His fist passed just beside my cheek.
I stepped backward, staring at him.
For a moment, I didn’t understand what had just happened.
Then the sensation became familiar.
I had felt it before.
Years ago.
During the war.
My breathing became slower as my attention narrowed.
The sounds around me seemed to separate into individual pieces.
I could hear footsteps, breathing, fabric moving, and the distant sound of a motorcycle approaching from somewhere down the road.
I could see everything.
Not because time had actually slowed down, but because my brain was processing every movement with extraordinary speed.
I had learned to do this during the war.
When an enemy moved, I learned to read the movement before the attack was completed.
A shoulder turning, a foot shifting, a hand tightening around a weapon—those tiny details could tell me what was coming before the attack actually happened.
My Hyper-Eidetic Memory Syndrome had always allowed me to retain details others would overlook.
Years of combat had taught me how to use that ability instinctively.
I hadn’t needed it in decades.
Until now.
Dante attacked again.
I saw the punch coming and ducked beneath it.
Before he could recover, I stepped forward and drove my shoulder into his chest.
I wasn’t strong enough to knock him down, but I didn’t need to be.
His own momentum carried him backward, forcing him to take several unsteady steps.
One of his friends immediately rushed toward me.
I saw him coming from my right.
I moved left.
His hand grabbed nothing but air.
I caught his wrist as he passed, pulled him forward, and shoved him toward another boy behind him.
They collided and stumbled into each other.
I barely had time to recover before another attacker came at me.
I stepped backward, but his fist still caught my shoulder.
Pain shot down my arm.
I gritted my teeth.
This wasn’t like fighting while wearing military armor.
I had no reinforced suit, no weapon, and no physical strength built from years of military training.
My mind remembered being a veteran soldier, but my body was still that of a fourteen-year-old boy.
There were five of them.
I couldn’t win a prolonged fight.
I needed to get out.
I started moving backward, keeping the group in front of me as much as possible.
I noticed a narrow gap between two houses behind one of the boys.
It was too narrow for several people to move through at once.
That was my way out.
I waited until one of them stepped closer.
Then I kicked him in the shin.
He cursed and bent forward instinctively.
I immediately slipped past him and moved toward the gap.
Another boy grabbed the back of my uniform.
I twisted around, caught his arm, and pulled with the movement.
He lost his balance.
I shoved him aside and squeezed through the narrow passage.
“Get him!”
I heard Dante shouting behind me.
I ran.
My lungs started burning almost immediately.
I almost laughed at the irony.
During the war, I’d run across battlefields carrying equipment heavier than my entire current body should have been able to handle.
I’d spent years pushing myself far beyond what I thought was possible.
Now I was exhausted after sprinting a few dozen meters.
My brain might have remembered the war, but my body certainly hadn’t.
I heard footsteps getting closer.
I looked back.
Dante was catching up.
He was faster than me.
Much faster.
I turned forward again and realized I wasn’t going to outrun him.
So I stopped.
Dante nearly ran straight into me.
He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
His fist came toward my face again.
The world seemed to stretch.
I saw the movement before it fully developed.
His shoulder turned, his weight shifted, and his fist followed the path I had already expected.
I ducked underneath it and drove my elbow into his ribs.
Dante grunted and staggered sideways.
I tried to move away, but his hand caught the back of my shirt.
He yanked me backward.
I lost my balance.
Before I could recover, his fist slammed into my stomach.
The impact knocked the air out of me.
I dropped to one knee, coughing desperately as I tried to breathe.
The strange perception disappeared.
Everything returned to normal speed, and the pain became much more noticeable.
Dante stood over me.
“You should’ve listened.”
I tried to answer, but my lungs still weren’t cooperating.
He grabbed my collar and pulled me upward.
Then I heard an engine approaching.
A tricycle turned onto the road.
Its driver slowed when he saw several boys surrounding someone.
Dante glanced toward it.
That moment was enough.
I shoved his hand away and ran.
This time, none of them immediately followed.
I kept moving until I reached the main road, where there were more people and passing vehicles.
Only then did I stop.
I bent over with my hands on my knees and took several deep breaths.
My stomach hurt badly.
My shoulder was throbbing, and my cheek stung where Dante’s fist had nearly connected.
But I was fine.
More importantly, I had gotten away.
I straightened and looked back toward the street.
My hands were still trembling from the adrenaline.
I recognized the feeling.
It wasn’t fear.
It was the same rush I’d experienced countless times during the war when my life depended on reacting faster than the thing trying to kill me.
I looked at my hands.
They were small.
Too small.
For a moment, I felt strangely disconnected from myself.
My mind still remembered everything.
Every weapon I’d handled.
Every machine I’d built.
Every battlefield I’d survived.
Every soldier I’d lost.
Yet this body had none of the physical conditioning that had allowed me to survive those experiences.
That was something I needed to remember.
I had returned to the past with my knowledge intact, but I hadn’t brought my old body with me.
If I wanted to survive what was coming, I would have to rebuild myself from the beginning.
And apparently, that included learning how to deal with high-school bullies.
I let out a quiet breath and looked toward the road leading back to Rosalie’s house.
Dante had deliberately waited until she was gone before attacking me.
That told me this wasn’t simply about getting into a fight.
He wanted to intimidate me.
He wanted me to become afraid and stay away from Rosalie.
Maybe that would have worked on the Rafael who lived this life the first time.
But I wasn’t that person anymore.
I’d already spent one lifetime running away from the things I wanted because I was afraid I wasn’t good enough for them.
I had lost years because of that fear.
I had lost Rosalie.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
Still, I couldn’t afford to be careless.
Dante was older, bigger, and had several boys willing to follow him.
If he decided to escalate things, I couldn’t simply rely on my combat experience.
My body had limits, and five against one was still five against one.
I would have to be smarter.
As I started walking home, I couldn’t help but smile despite the pain in my stomach.
I had returned to high school hoping for a second chance at life.
Apparently, life had decided to test me early.
And somehow, I had a feeling this was only the beginning.