Iris looked around, slowly piecing together what had happened on this particular day.
Twenty years had passed since she had last experienced any of this, and compared to everything that came afterward, remembering the details of an ordinary morning from when she was sixteen wasn’t exactly easy.
Her gaze eventually fell on the bloodied classmate lying at her feet.
“Why did I beat this guy up again?” she muttered to herself.
“Damn witch! You can’t do this to me! My dad’s the mayor of this to—”
Iris kicked him in the stomach before he could finish.
“That’s right. Now I remember.” She stared down at him with immediate annoyance.
“This brat kept hitting on me even after I told him no, then tried to bribe me because apparently someone as poor as me should’ve been grateful for the money. Bastard.” Iris pulled a few tissues from her pocket and began wiping the blood from her knuckles.
Apparently, even back then, she had made a habit of carrying them around.
Sixteen-year-old Iris getting into fights wasn’t exactly uncommon.
“Let’s see…” Iris glanced around the empty hallway, searching through memories she hadn’t thought about in years.
“After this, I tried to escape before anyone found me, and then I got caught by… him—”
“Blessed morning! I see you’ve gotten yourself into trouble once again, Iris.”
Iris froze the moment she heard that horribly cheerful voice.
A man approached the bloody scene with all the warmth of someone arriving for a pleasant morning conversation.
His messy orange hair looked every bit as unkempt as Iris remembered, while his visible eye was an almost glowing shade of pink, strangely alluring despite the man it belonged to.
A medical eyepatch covered his left eye, faint burn scars peeking from beneath its edges, while a small mole beneath his lip became especially noticeable whenever his smile widened—which was often.
Black priestly robes covered the rest of him, neat enough to make his appearance seem respectable at a glance.
Reverend Michello.
Even twenty years later, Iris still had absolutely no idea why such a vile man had ever decided to settle in a quiet little town like Applecrest.
By every biological definition, Michello was human.
Morally, Iris had always considered that classification questionable.
“That… bitch…” the boy groaned from the floor.
“She beat me up, Reverend Michello.”
Iris sighed.
She remembered this part too.
Michello was supposed to lecture her, just as he had the first time around, back when she still believed he was merely an irritating priest with a strange personality instead of one of the most dangerous human beings she would ever meet.
“I’ll handle Iris. You should head to the nurse’s office,” Michello said sweetly, offering the boy a reassuring smile.
“And do me a favor. Don’t tell your father about this. The mayor already has enough on his plate.”
His pink eye seemed to glow ever so slightly.
The boy’s angry expression immediately softened.
“Okay.”
Without another complaint, he climbed to his feet and walked away.
Iris watched him leave before slowly turning her attention back toward Michello.
Something was wrong.
That hadn’t happened the first time.
Michello had already possessed his mind-control relic back then, Iris was almost certain of it, but he had never used it so openly.
Certainly not with another witness standing right in front of him.
The Michello she remembered had always been careful about exposing anything supernatural before the Applecrest Massacre.
He shouldn’t have had any reason to behave differently now.
Yet the priest simply smiled as though nothing unusual had happened.
“Iris, do you know what a Möbius strip is?” he asked casually.
His smile widened before she could answer.
“Actually, I doubt it. You did have a terrible habit of skipping class.”
Iris narrowed her eyes.
Is he seriously trying to make conversation?
Being around Michello had always made her uncomfortable, even before she knew what he truly was.
Back then, she had assumed it was simply because there was something deeply unsettling about a priest who smiled regardless of what was happening around him.
Now, however, every second spent standing beside him made her skin crawl.
Hey, it’s me again.
I’m not sure if you’re still listening, but I should probably explain why this man makes me so uncomfortable.
Iris kept her eyes fixed on Michello as she continued speaking to that imaginary listener in the back of her mind.
It’s pretty simple.
Out of every human being alive, he might genuinely be the most vile.
For the past eight years and for the next twenty, he sits at the very top of the government’s priority kill list.
The Priest of Half-Insani—
Michello’s hand suddenly closed around her throat.
Iris let out a strangled gasp as he lifted her slightly from the ground.
Her hands immediately wrapped around his wrist, but the sudden attack had caught her completely off guard.
A shiver ran down her spine—not because of his strength, but because his expression hadn’t changed at all.
He was still smiling.
Then Iris remembered something far worse.
His ability.
The reason Reverend Michello was feared even among the strongest people in the supernatural world.
“A Möbius strip is a continuous surface with only one side and one edge. You make one by taking a strip, giving it a single half-twist, and joining the ends together.” Michello spoke as calmly as though he were teaching a child during Sunday school, even as his fingers tightened around Iris’s throat.
His glowing pink eye studied her with open fascination.
“Wonderful little thing, isn’t it? Something can keep moving forward and eventually arrive exactly where it began without ever turning around.”
Iris’s struggles weakened.
Michello leaned closer.
“Because for some reason, Iris, your fate suddenly looks exactly like one.”
Her eyes widened.
The smile slowly disappeared from Michello’s face.
“It didn’t look like that yesterday.”
Iris felt her stomach drop.
“St-stop, you… crazed cultist…” she choked out.
There was no mistaking it now.
Michello had already noticed something was wrong with her.
His Curse allowed him to perceive the lines of destiny itself—the countless paths connecting people, choices, events, and possible outcomes.
But seeing fate wasn’t what had made Michello infamous.
It was the fact that he could interfere with it.
And somehow, only minutes after Iris returned twenty years into the past, he had already noticed that her fate no longer followed the path it was supposed to.
Michello stared into her eyes for another moment before his pleasant smile suddenly returned.
“Cleaning up your body shouldn’t take too much effort.”
Iris’s blood ran cold.
“Wait—”
A sharp crack echoed through the hallway.
Her vision went black.
Then her eyes opened.
Iris blinked several times, completely disoriented.
For a moment, she simply stood there, unable to understand why she was still conscious.
Then she looked down.
She wore a yellow dress covered in small butterfly patterns.
Blood stained the fabric, splattered across her arms and smeared over her knuckles.
Her breathing slowly grew uneven as she stared at her hands.
A groan came from beside her.
Iris slowly turned her head.
A boy sat on the ground nearby, clutching his face with both hands as blood poured from his broken nose.
The exact same boy.
In the exact same place.
Iris stared at him in complete silence.
“No fucking way.”