There is a door appearing beside them before Lena can fully process what it is she feels at Arcana's arrival—and his words. She simply looks from the new door to the headmaster, looking him up and down.

He's certainly grown into the very image Caelus has nicknamed him after. The headmaster isn't old, that's for sure; Lena can never quite tell or guess at Arcana's age, because while he appears to be a middle aged man, it's as if under different light and circumstances, the age creeps in in various different forms such as the crinkle in his eyes. On other occasions, his upbeat and dismissal personality only makes her think that he has years ahead of him, even if the depth of his eyes sometimes seem as if they've lived more than a single lifetime.

It may not even be far from the truth, given that he's a reality manipulator, a gift quite like Lena's own that she never quite questioned before. Perhaps she should have. Both of them have a power that can change the fates of this world to an extent, and seems never thought to ask about how it works for Arcana, or if there are ever consequences of reshaping reality. In a way, she's probably still afraid of the truth, or more likely, the depth of what she can potentially do.

Caelus makes to stride into the room even before Arcana does, and the latter comments about how his student's boldness hasn't quite changed, that he's as rude as ever. He then beckons for both Lena and Roen to cross the threshold to his office.

As Lena does, she is hit by a sudden realization that she's only been here twice on two separate occasions, both times when the course of her life is changing: the first time when she was initially recruited by Arcana on her first day, thinking she'd just had an ordinary life and was enrolled in Arcane Academy through sheer luck; and the second when she'd confronted him about the truth of her real abilities and the fake memories he'd implanted on her after a certain situation triggered something strange to make her remember. This time, she'll be entering with most of her memories intact, and while it all came back through that illegal invention by the Shadow Syndicate, Lena is still unsure what to believe, and is afraid she might lose her mind at any given time.

But she knows one thing for sure, and that is that Arcana is one of the players in this game, and he is equally as responsible as Lena in bringing about the birth of their world and the current timeline.

She remembers now; it was her who'd convinced him to build a school for those with supernatural abilities, to create a society where they are revered instead of hunted.

There is an air of familiarity that hangs over Arcana's office, even if this is the first of the timelines that he has ever held such a high position of power in what's left of the entire world. But as soon as Lena steps in, a brief flash of an image from another time reminds her that they have never stopped scheming for a better world out there.

Roen seems to hesitate near the door even as the entryway seals itself shut, all while Caelus makes for a wheeled chair in the corner and contentedly settles himself in.

"Should I even be in here?" he asks, uncertain and looking from a relaxed Caelus, to Lena beside him and then finally at the headmaster, as if seeking for an affirmation. "Feels like I'm intruding on something—"

"Stay," Lena requests, just as Caelus tells him, "You're the one who wanted to be in on everything."

A slow smile settles across Roen's features. "Neesha's totally missing out."

At the mention of Neesha's name, Lena stills, remembering her connection with the Shadow Syndicate, and that thought itself is enough to rile something up within her. It's as if her body has turned on a sort of defense mechanism—it is after all, the Shadow Syndicate who'd antagonized her and eventually forced her into this predicament where her abilities are spiraling out of control. She glances only furtively to Caelus, who is the most likely out of everyone in the room who might one day have a face off against Neesha's sister. It's no business of hers and this is her friend's own story to tell, but it still concerns her. With a target on Caelus' back, it's extremely difficult to be at ease when they are capable of pulling off such extreme measures.

Even when Lena is as subtle as she can get, the moment she returns her attention to Arcana, she can feel the gaze from Caelus at the corner of her eye. It's as if he senses her unease—and she wonders to what extent does his ability work; first the thing about blood, and now probably her unsteady breathing since Neesha was mentioned. Does she really need to be that cautious around him, constantly aware of her own breathing or little gestures?

And then suddenly, the world is a blur, and she loses her balance. A splitting headache takes her by force as she struggles to stop the pain, her hands going to her head. It's almost as if she can hear voices.

Something breaks her fall. Someone catches her, then begins guiding her slowly to the ground before she hits her head.

The cracking of glass brings her back to attention, and she immediately tries to get up, only to be held back by Caelus, who has, it seems, appeared at her side in an instant. The hand he has over the small of her back is steady, and she comes to the conclusion that he helped break her fall.

Arcana strides to his floor to ceiling glass window that overlooks the Arcane Academy courtyard, frowning at the damage.

It is Roen who breaks the silence. "Yeah, uh, you kinda missed that when you were gone," he informs Arcana.

"How else has the drug been affecting you?" the headmaster asks, still studying the fissure on his wall. At the very least, it didn't crack and rain glass all over them like the last time this happened in the Aveyards' residence.

"I've gotten back all my memories" is Lena's near silent reply.

This seems to still Arcana, and he withdraws his hand from just nearly touching the cracked glass, turning slowly to face her. That's when Caelus decides to pull away, and Lena selfishly wishes he'd stayed where he was beside her.

"Is that a bad thing?" Roen, bless him, asks.

He's probably the most clueless of them all regarding Lena's situation, but she is also aware that Caelus only suspects the depth of what she can do, but has never thoroughly questioned her or asked. Whatever had happened with her abilities and even before the drug, he'd chosen to stay by her. Neither of them know that she's been playing with their fates, dooming them in every other universe. She wonders if she can leave this one as easily as she did the others, and curiously considers what other alternative futures they may have if she just tweaked the timeline a little.

"Whatever you're thinking, it's a bad idea," Arcana comments, as if he can read her mind.

"Why? Students are being sent to Andromeda while you were gone—"

"And I have come back to stop exactly that," Arcana cuts her off, his tone sharp. "Or at least, I've delayed it as much as I can for now."

"Celeste is still within Arcane Academy," Caelus notes casually, and Lena forces herself to stand, trying to look past the windows to the courtyard to see if anything is going on down there where they'd left the students who were meant to go. "What did you change this time?"

Lena acknowledges his phrasing directed to Arcana, knowing immediately that he must have taken advantage of his abilities.

"Just the fact that there is yet another explosion in Andromeda, with a strange reading on demon activity detected from the research centre situated on its border," Arcana explains. "That gave alarm and this instability might indicate danger they haven't foreseen after the periodic quiet; even the authorities wouldn't sacrifice their safety like that. They can always still send the students—as expendable as you all are to the bureau—but I leveraged on the fact that they were planning to send in their own men.

"The new schedule of classes will still commence," Arcana continues, gazing beyond the window. "I can only alter so much without a big consequence."

"Eventually we are still going to have the same outcome," Lena concludes. "Then why don't I—"

"Use your abilities?" Arcana finishes for her. "Do you not realize that your abilities are much more powerful—and thereby dangerous—than mine? I change certain realities, but certain futures are set in stone; there are some outcomes even I can't reach. But you can. You create, but you equivalently destroy. There is no controlling what you may bring forth, there is no predicting or plotting the perfect outcome."

Stunned, Lena takes a few moments to absorb this. Arcana has never fully given her any guidance or straight up answers before, but now he's delivering an entire speech about what's right and how she's absolutely forbidden to use her abilities in certain ways—ironic, now that she has total control. Before, she'd been struggling to the point she questions her own enrollment in Arcane Academy, being only able to see visions that don't even tell her anything. In a world where abilities mean and determine everything, she's as good as a regular civilian. But then she'd been able to use tactics and trickery to compensate for her lack of raw strength or ability output. Slowly, she'd even begin scraping just the surface of the enormous potential she can do, realizing she can travel back in time for short periods of time to change the outcome of battles.

Perhaps it's a good thing that she's somehow hit by the drug developed by the Shadow Syndicate. If anything, it boosted her abilities for a short period of time, but permanently brought back her memories of the regression. Yes, she'd suffered, and the consequences are not just taking a physical toll on her body. What's happening around them is a causality of what happened, from Caelus being the original target to Lena taking the hit. It all went spiraling from there: her abilities being out of control; the authorities trying to take over as Arcana struck a bargain; the demonic activities; everything the bureau has decided from the death sentence of inmates to the making of student soldiers.

But the instability of her abilities right now is almost worth it. She's powerful, and she has the potential to change every outcome that she doesn't like. Everything is under her command, and the glass medium of hers, once useless, is all hers for the bidding. Now, more than ever, she feels omniscient. She can do everything. Rewrite history, shape the future.

"That's exactly why the returned memories will help," Lena reasons, then stops herself from saying something selfish that she'll come to regret.

Arcana might not seeing the benefit of all that's transpired, but he is never doing anything unless it's for their benefit. He truly cares for his students.

"Thank you for keeping me safe all this time, even going to the trouble of nearly getting yourself exiled entirely out of the City of Leatia by bargaining for my life," she eventually says, with renewed determination. She means every word. "And as for whatever the reason you'd planted false things in my head... it doesn't even matter now. I've got them back, and I'm ready to do whatever it takes to change things for the better. For us."

"And how many times have you? Regressed, that is?" Arcana merely asks.

The question takes her by surprise; he doesn't even comment on her resolution. If anything, he all but looks resigned.

"Three hundred and seventeen. But why does it—"

"Exactly. There, that." He points his finger, and upon closer scrutiny, Lena finds it rather shriveled and shaking. It's almost as if everything about Arcana is an illusion... or a reality that he is putting up, one that he wants other people to see. As this comprehension settles, she figures then that she will never really uncover who this man truly is behind all the strings he pulls—no one will. "Right there. One day you'll grow insane with the weight of it all, if you haven't already. The memories that are now yours are instances, don't you realize? Ones you were supposed to forget, because they exist and thrive only under certain conditions—in this case, dimensions—because they are fundamentally left in those particular branches in the multiverse for a timeline to happen.

"With you remembering and recalling every single one of them, that is equivalent to taking away the rights of the other three hundred—and what, you say?—instances of us from existing entirely," Arcana continues, with Lena barely taking this all in. They're talking about the universe, and the fundamentals of existing, including the theory of multiverse. Even Lena must not be that omniscient. This is beyond the control of her abilities, he must realize. But why is he speaking as if she is the ruination of this universe, or at least the hand that might bring about their downfall should she not be careful? "In other words, our reality right now is crumbling as we speak as the previous regressions are all coming together. And if you dare mess with time any further if you can possibly bear, then there will be no world left to be saved."

Lena looks helplessly to Caelus for help, but even a genius like him seems to be trying to absorb this new detail; Roen is completely frozen, not a single clever remark coming from his mouth.

Arcana walks up to her and places a gentle hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look up at his weary features. This close, it's almost as if his appearance is glitching—some parts not at all bleeding quite correctly with their environment. "I know this is hard for you to absorb. When you've got all the power in the world to change fates and rewrite history, you get overconfident but sometimes end up destroying the most fundamental of things. Always remember that."

There's a growing voice inside her head that is refusing to listen. Instead, it chants the opposite, urging her to use her abilities to its full potential.

Lena realizes with a dread that it's that same eerie voice that speaks every time she loses herself, and she has to question suddenly if she really has full grasp over her abilities even with the memories back.

It coaxes her even now, asking her to use the glass of the room. It will be summoned at will, easily at her command. It will be so easy.

"Complicated," comments Caelus in a short breath as he leans back in his chair.

Hearing his voice is enough to draw Lena back and snap out of the trance. Her heart beat quickens, and she finds that Arcana is looking at her weird, as if he knows she was just about to lose control—and was just about to forcefully fight her way out of this and make use of her abilities in some way.

"Life is suddenly easy with our regular abilities," Roen agrees, coming to stand nearer to them. "Are we done? Because I can't quite handle another long winded explanation of the stars and the cosmos."

"That's not what this is," Caelus points out. "Have you not understood anything Arcana said? Why are you even here?"

"Well, did you understand anything out of it?" Roen counters defensively.

As the two boys bicker at the side of the room, Lena asks Arcana, "Why'd do it? Implant false memories into my head?"

Arcana has turned, refusing to look at her as he seems to recall a distant memory. Lena had been the one to suggest building an academy offhandedly in one of the desperate past timelines, and yet Arcana had took it to heart. Every time since they both had made acquaintance, she'd had to sought this man out every universe, then convince him that she can build a perfect world. Together, they'd changed so many things, even made real some ideals. But they'd been running low on ideas for a safe heaven for ability users, and with Lena's gradually declining memory each leap is costing her, their luck eventually ran out.

Which is why she'd begged Arcana to come get her once she eventually lost them all.

But for him to weave a fake life for her, that's something she hadn't asked him to do.

"Because I wanted to give you a chance to have a normal life for once. You certainly deserve as much," he responds slowly. "You know. Live in the moment, grow into this world without the weight of world depending on you. Use your abilities in a different way by being in the present and perhaps fight to become a Catalyst as we maintain our status quo in this universe. Fall in love, maybe. Not that any of that matters now."

Lena feels a burn in her eyes as she manages, "It was a wonderful dream. And I thank you for trying."

"But now that you've remembered, we're back to square one, and probably somewhere worse still now that our realities will come clashing in on each other. But knowing you, you will do everything in your power to fight for us and this world, even if there is the tiniest of possibilities that we can even fix anything."

"Saying it's all doomed before trying makes it more impossible than it probably is," she replies. Her fingers curl into a fist, and she digs her nails into her palm to remind herself that she's rooted in this reality, and that she is of able mind. "But I can promise you one thing. I don't know the extent of the consequences of everything we've worked hard for is yet, but I will only use the full potential of my abilities when it is absolutely necessary, and when it comes down to it. I'm sure I can tell when it happens, as there always will be a time—unless, of course, everything will somehow turn out all right and we needn't interfere at all."

She has every intention to utilize the other functions of her ability, just not the one that will destroy their world once she recreates a new one. With all the information that Arcana has shared, the drug must have affected her permanently—and perhaps their world, too, seeing that this reality is a result of her own abilities. She had been the hand that created this world after all, and there is no telling what other external factors may be contributing to this ongoing turmoil since the Shadow Syndicate's attack on her.

In other words, maybe the things happening around them—such as the increased demon threat level—are part of the results of her abilities taking a hit from the drug. If she is feeling the effects, the world soon will. What other things are a result of everything that's transpired?

"... only if the authorities decide to go with it, under whatever circumstances that will eventually occur. Which may likely be the case after all, unless anything significant happens in our favor, though I doubt that," Arcana is saying.

Lena returns to herself; Roen seems to be asking about the eventuality of how they will have to retake Sector Andromeda. Them, and not the authorities, because the students are as good as weapons and expendable resource for the authorities to freely govern.

"Andromeda is nothing like what I've seen behind the borders," Arcana finishes. "You kids will survive."

"And what exactly is beyond the walls?" Only Caelus dares to ask as he looks to be absently rubbing the skin underneath his collarbone; he probably isn't even fazed.

"Nothing that I hope you will ever need to see," Arcana replies, frowning when a message comes through at his desk. There's a grim expression on his face upon reading the message now displayed over a screen in the air. "What did I say about this universe collapsing in on itself?"

"What's happened?" Lena asks. Already she feels overwhelmed by the dump of information from Arcana; she isn't sure if she can handle anymore.

"The rift that's dormant over Sector Delphinus? It's now coming alive. Looks like you get to stall your expedition on Andromeda after all and even without my help—but at what cost?"