In Oboros’s headquarters, the room prepared for the boy was bare by design. There was only one narrow bed and one steel table. It was meant to be empty.

Yet… it was not.

Cold filled the space like a living thing. Every surface was locked beneath a skin of frost, preserving the room in time. The atmosphere was so cold the air actually felt thick, resistant to movement and hostile to breath.

Frost sat by the window, and the glass before him was opaque with ice, layered so thickly that no world beyond it could be seen. 

Still, the boy stared outward anyway. 

He was clothed minimally in a sleeveless, collarless white top and matching white shorts. There was nothing else, not even shoes.

Then… crrrrk…

A crack broke the silence as the door was forced open. Ice fractured along its edges, splintering outward. Whoever stood beyond the door had to shove with effort, their breath fogging through the narrow gap before the door finally yielded. 

Shivering, a man stepped in, then froze.

The room had been logged as empty, yet what he saw before him was a space claimed and rewritten. 

His breath stuttered. “F-Frost… right?”

His voice came out softer than intended, stripped of authority.

Frost turned his head slightly. His icy blue eyes met the man’s. For a brief moment, the man felt like his heart might just stop. 

This is… a child?

The man swallowed hard, forcing his body to obey him. 

“You… you have orders,” he said. “This is your first mission. Someone will accompany you.”

Frost gave no response.

He simply stood.

And the moment his bare feet touched the floor, the temperature dropped further. Ice spread outward in lethal patterns. 

The man’s breath caught, and he backed away instinctively to make space. His chest was burning, lungs struggling to draw air that no longer behaved like air. His vision started to blur from the cold that robbed sensation itself.

But the most terrifying of all, he noticed…

Frost had not strained. He didn’t even look like he had tried. The cold was just following him like a shadow. 

The boy exited the room, leaving behind a deep silence.

Only then did the man release a shaky breath.

“A natural disaster… walking on two feet,” he muttered.

The man walked out of the room, following several paces behind the small figure, no closer than he dared.

The corridor was gradually scarred in shades of blue and white.

Ahead, waiting, stood another boy.

He did not look like he belonged to Oboros.

His silver hair caught the dim lights and reflected them softly. His silver eyes watched the incomers with calm interest. Two silver blades were sheathed behind his back—one long, one short—shaped like the hands of a clock. 

The boy wore a short-sleeved silver satin shirt and matching shorts, the fabric pristine and elegant. Even his shoes gleamed.

In a way, he felt out of place here, a misfit among shadows.

The two came to a halt before him, and the silver boy’s gaze settled on Frost.

“Is this him?” he asked the man.

The man swallowed. “Y-Yes. This is Frost. Five years old.” 

He hesitated, then gestured. “Frost… this is Greyson. Seven.”

Greyson did not flinch despite the cold. Instead, he studied Frost.

Ethereal, yes. But physically? The little boy was fragile at best, delicate in a way that made his power feel almost paradoxical.

Greyson tilted his head slightly. “You wear too thin.”

Frost looked at him, icy blue meeting silver. He offered no words or reaction. 

Behind Frost, the man suddenly sneezed, the sound echoing far louder than it should have. 

“S-Sorry,” he muttered, then cleared his throat. “We have a mission.”

Greyson raised a hand casually. “Let’s go.”

He then turned and moved without hesitation.

Frost followed.

The man trailed behind them.

He had escorted many Espers before, dangerous and even volatile ones. But walking behind these two children made him feel so small. 

As they walked, Greyson glanced back briefly at the younger boy. 

“Your cold won’t do us any good on covert work.”

Frost did not respond.

But then… the frozen walls started to crack, the freeze coming to an instant halt. 

Heat crawled back into the corridor, and the ambient temperature started rising steadily, painfully slow but undeniable. The frozen floor softened, water pooling, and color began to smear the dull white.

The man gasped, lungs finally filling with air that behaved like air again.

“How did you…” he whispered, disbelief shaking his voice. “So easily?”

Greyson looked past Frost, eyes locking onto the man with a sharpness that bordered on cruel. 

“Keep your words to yourself.”

The man swallowed, and the corridor fell silent again.

In the land plagued by poverty, the corrupt noble’s castle rose from the cliffs. The stone walls were thick, and the courtyard was crowded with armed men who believed numbers could buy permanence. 

Then… Frost arrived, a light footstep touching the stone. And the temperature collapsed before the guards even realized something was wrong.

Their armor creaked as ice slowly crept along the seams. 

“Why is it so cold?”

“What’s happening?”

Panic spread in confused murmurs.

Greyson had already vanished. One moment, he stood beside Frost. Then, in the blink of an eye, he reappeared behind the first guard, his clockhand blade flashing once. 

A clean cut. 

“W-Wha—?”

The man fell without understanding he had been struck. 

Greyson flowed forward, momentum unbroken. His movements were efficient, blade arcs measured down to the second. 

One blur, one strike. 

Bodies dropped silently, blood given little time to spill before the cold stole it away.

Frost, on the other hand, barely moved. He raised a finger, and heat bled from the guards’ bodies as if siphoned by an unseen force. 

“I—I can’t feel my hands…” 

One by one, the guards became statues, brittle and still. 

The noble stood at the far end of the hall, shaking violently, as he witnessed the scene. His breath hitched as Frost’s empty gaze settled on him. 

A soft mist escaped the noble’s lips, and then he turned a shade of icy blue.

The man overseeing the mission shouted, panic shredding his composure. 

“Stop—! Frost, stop! We need him alive! Oboros needs him alive!”

Frost did not react.

The noble’s body had already locked completely, eyes wide, expression trapped in frozen terror. 

There was only silence after that.

Fear washed over the overseeing agent. He was unsure of how to report this.

Then—

Greyson approached the frozen noble. He did not speak or scold, merely placing one hand against the man’s chest. Silver light shimmered faintly as his Resonance engaged.

Time recoiled, and the frost started to retreat. 

Breath rushed back into the noble’s lungs. Color followed shortly after, repainting the skin. 

The noble gasped, confused and alive. He started shouting incoherently, demanding release.

“I WILL have you all...”

Greyson drew his clockhand blade with one hand. 

One swing. 

“AAAAAGH!” 

The blade struck, cutting tendons and severing movement.

The noble collapsed, pain anchoring him firmly in the present.

The agent stood frozen in place, staring at the two boys before him. 

One could erase life with a gesture. 

Another could undo it and decide differently.

Back at headquarters, the report was brief and unusually honest.

Frost’s Resonance was absolute. Once unleashed, it did not distinguish between target and terrain.

Greyson could counter it but not completely, just enough.

The Grandmaster read the report in silence. Then, he paired them permanently.

The pattern held.

Every mission left the world white and still, and within that silence moved the ticking fangs of a clock.

They rarely spoke.

Yet, each knew how the other would move and when the killing blow would fall. 

No commands were needed. 

It was a mechanism that, once set in motion, did not stop.