Morning came to Balmount under a silver sky, light bleeding slowly across stone towers and rusted rooftops. But something felt wrong.
No laughter.
No scuffling feet.
No alley children.
They were gone.
The gutters were quiet. The doorways where they'd slept, empty. The usual trail of scavenged bread crusts, broken buttons, or ragged doll limbs, all vanished.
In the lower district, merchants opened their stalls slowly, eyes flicking down the alleys out of habit. But nothing stirred. No tiny hands reached for stolen fruit. No familiar curses or shouts rang out. Just silence.
And the memory.
Because they had seen it. All of them.
For weeks, the Knights had been rounding up the children. Quietly, at first, at night, in twos or threes. But then more boldly. Daylight sweeps. Whole alleys emptied.
Some children ran. Some fought. Some cried until they collapsed in exhausted silence, too tired to resist anymore.
People had watched from windows. From shop doors. From behind drawn curtains. Most said nothing.
Some muttered:
"It's for their safety."
"They'll be fed, won't they?"
"Maybe they're being sent to the orphan houses."
"The kingdom knows what it's doing…"
But no one really believed it. Not anymore.
Now, they were all gone.
And in their place, the Knights stood like statues, one every block, sometimes two. They didn't patrol. They didn't speak. They just watched.
Their armor was worn. Their expressions unreadable. Some looked hollow, as if the weight of what they'd done clung to them like damp cloaks. Others looked past the crowd without a flicker of guilt.
A little girl tugged on her mother's dress near the apothecary.
"Mama, where did the kids go?"
The woman didn't answer.
Just held her daughter close and walked faster.
The whispers began, soft as frost on a windowpane.
"They vanished."
"Taken."
"Dragged off. Like cattle."
"The Knights looked... wrong."
"Did you see that one by the market? Didn't move for hours."
"They say something changed last night. Something bad."
And though the bells of Balmount still rang, and the city still moved, everything was different.
Everyone knew it.
They just didn't dare say it aloud.
Outside Balmount, the sky veiled in soft silver clouds cast an eerie calm over the forest clearing, where silence reigned — a silence so profound that even birds seemed wary to sing.
Kibo stood alone in the center, his twin daggers held loosely at his sides, the blades gleaming like they craved blood. Across from him stood Sora, her stance relaxed, no tension in her shoulders, her arms at her side. She looked like someone who had already won.
Not far off, the dull thud of boots moved in steady rhythm — deliberate, heavy. Bram paced around the clearing's perimeter, stopping at each of the four marked points. At every stop, he dropped a small, metallic device with practiced precision, hands moving as if guided by routine more than thought.
He wasn't speaking. He didn't need to.
Once the last one was in place, he stepped back, eyes scanning the formation. The weight in his expression hadn't shifted, a deep furrow in his brow, the kind that only came from knowing how wrong things could go.
Then, only then, did he turn and walk toward Syl and Lily, who stood nearby in the shade of a half-bent tree.
Syl had her arms folded tightly, a flicker of nerves beneath her usual cool. Her eyes never left the clearing.
Lily stood pressed to her side, clearly unsettled. Her fingers curled in the fabric of Syl's coat as her gaze flicked back and forth — Kibo, then Sora, then back again.
At Syl's feet, Ben lay still, ears twitching once, not in fear, but alertness.
Bram stood beside them now, silent for a breath. Then he pulled the central activation device from his belt, thumb hovering over its etched button.
"These will hold them," he said at last, his voice low. "Once I activate them… there's no turning back."
He pressed the button.
From the four corners of the clearing, deep machines roared to life. The sound rumbled through the soil. With a sudden burst, crystalline energy erupted upward like rising towers, folding inward until a perfect cube shimmered into place around Kibo and Sora. The air inside thickened, humming with sealed mana, heavy, untouchable.
Kibo didn't flinch. Instead, he tightened his grip on the daggers. The faintest grin touched his lips.
Sora didn't move. Her eyes remained cold behind her glasses, unreadable. No change in posture. No indication of preparation.
Bram pocketed the device, jaw tightening. "Alright, listen," he said, louder now. "The barrier is up. You know the rules. No one leaves until one of you yields. And Kibo…" He hesitated. "If this goes too far, I will open it."
"What sort of rules is that man setting?"
Ignis's voice slipped into Kibo's thoughts, laced with contempt. "That man… he underestimates you. But I don't blame him. You are practically useless."
Kibo chuckled under his breath, lips curling. "Ah, Ignis... you always know how to flatter me."
"Brat," the voice growled, quieter now, "win this. And I'll reduce the number of times I insult you. Maybe… even respect you."
Kibo's eyes glinted. "Now that's a reward." He looked straight at Sora, voice steady. "Aunt Sora… please don't hold back. I'm stronger than I was."
Sora remained perfectly still. No emotion. Not even a flicker in her glasses.
Bram exhaled sharply. "Kibo… I know you want to prove something, but this isn't a game. Sora's not just another sparring partner. She's—"
"Oh, Uncle Bram," Sora interrupted softly, her lips barely moving. "You insult me." A smile ghosted across her face — thin, dry, sharp. "How cruel of you."
"Not cruel," Bram muttered, more to himself now. "Just... being honest."
Lily stepped forward, voice small. "Kibo, don't get hurt, okay?"
Syl added without looking away from the cube. "If you do, and you can't heal yourself, I won't heal you. So keep your limbs attached."
Kibo grinned. "Thanks for the motivation."
"Foolish boy," Ignis rasped, a knife dragged across steel. "Your Sadistic aunt is not here to test you. She's here to see if you deserve to push pass your limit."
"She'll break you to see if you can still stand. And if you can't…She'll bury what's left of you."
"This is her care. Expect pain. Expect humiliation. And earn every breath like it's your last…Don't disappoint her."
"Or me."
Kibo exhaled slowly. Then nodded.
Bram's fingers hovered over the control in his pocket again. His voice was firm now. "Once I say start… you fight."
Inside the shimmering cube, Kibo shifted his stance. His feet found solid ground. His daggers rose, blades angled to catch light.
Sora still hadn't moved. She just watched him.
Unblinking.
"START!"
Kibo moved.
A pulse of Mana Rush cracked under his feet, a sudden flash of light as his body blurred forward. Wind whipped behind him. Dust spun in spirals. He vanished from the starting point and reappeared behind Sora like a shadow skipping time.
One dagger flashed, a silver arc aimed directly for her spine.
She didn't turn.
"Back attacks?" Her voice was quiet. Flat.
The mana around her shifted — frigid, sharp, precise. Ice Mana flared, drawn from her core and channeled into her palm in a heartbeat.
A blade of translucent frost manifested in her hand, not grown but formed, like a sculptor carving a weapon from mana itself.
CLANG.
Her blade snapped backward without a glance. Steel and ice clashed, sparks and frost bursting from the point of contact.
But Kibo didn't pause. He'd seen her intent. Manatrack Vision painted her next move in flickers of soul-light. His second dagger swept for her neck, fast, committed.
Too slow.
Her wrist turned, and her blade spun in a parry that deflected the second dagger wide, its trajectory shunted by a shimmer of mana coating her ice.
She moved like a statue reanimating, smooth, unnatural, a dancer's precision wrapped in a killer's silence.
"Even with precognition, I can't fully read her… she's holding back. No… she's testing me."
Sora's eyes flicked once. Then her left foot shifted.
The mana beneath her cracked.
Frost flared around her in a sharp ring, snapping upward as a wave of needle-thin ice fragments tore from the ground in a controlled arc.
"An ice trap?! She preloaded this...!"
Kibo reacted instantly. He twisted mid-air, sliding low. His daggers slashed outward, striking the frozen barrage in rapid bursts — deflecting what he could, but several shards grazed him.
Thin red lines bloomed on his arms, his chest, his leg — sharp pain biting like winter teeth. He gritted his teeth, but his Self-Healing surged, mana weaving over the wounds even as he landed in a crouch.
"Good," he breathed. "So you're serious."
He dashed forward again, daggers alive in his grip, each move faster, sharper, more deliberate. He pivoted mid-step, feinted left, then spun under her next slash, one blade aiming for her ribs, the other angling to disarm her.
But Sora… smiled.
Not sweet. Not cruel.
Predatory.
She raised one hand mid-spin, not to cast, but to redirect her ice blade by hand using raw control. Her weapon bent mid-flight as if still half-liquid, frozen and reshaped in the same heartbeat.
His first dagger nicked her — just barely — cutting high across her cheek, beneath her glasses.
A single bead of blood welled and trickled down.
Sora stopped moving.
Her expression didn't shift. Then slowly, her smile widened.
"Hehehehe..."
Kibo locked eyes with her, panting, chest rising and falling. His own blood slicked his wrist. But his grin answered hers.
They stood across from each other in silence, the mana in the cube pressing down like gravity.
Two predators.
Testing the chain between them.
Outside the cube
Syl gasped, fingers digging into her own sleeves. "He cut her. He actually—!"
Lily whispered, voice shaking. "Please don't lose, Kibo…"
Bram said nothing.
He stared at Sora. His face unreadable.
"She's enjoying this," he muttered under his breath. "Too much. Sora…don't go overboard."
But even he knew.
It was already too late.
The fight had long since crossed the threshold of sparring. It was now a storm of lethal resolve.
Kibo weaved beneath a barrage of razor-edged ice shards, their gleam like shattered glass under the light of the cube. Each shard sliced the air where his head had just been. One embedded itself in the collar of his tunic, another grazed his thigh, burning with cold as it cut. He didn't slow. His body surged forward, a silver dagger arcing through the frigid mist.
Sora barely tilted her body aside. The dagger whistled past her chest, missing by a breath. But before its momentum had faded, Kibo was already closing the gap again, his every nerve alive with the pulse of Mana Surge. "Watch the soul, not the step." Manatrack Vision guided him, his second dagger flashing downward like a falling star toward her neck.
But Sora... shifted.
Mana didn't burst from her body in raw aura. Instead, it bled out through her control — refined, unnatural, perfect. A shimmering crest of magic coiled at her throat, and from it, a collar of reinforced ice manifested in a sharp snap, intercepting the dagger before it could bite. The blade shrieked against the barrier with a teeth-grinding screech of metal on mana-forged ice.
Then she vanished.
Kibo barely caught her movement, a blur of silver and frost. Sora launched herself back, sliding effortlessly across the frozen earth. Her boots cracked a new layer of frost beneath her with every step, trails of glimmering mana-laced mist rising in her wake.
Kibo straightened, breath ragged, a cut leaking down his temple. He grinned, wild and reckless.
"That got her attention".
"Finally."
"Brat," Ignis growled in his skull, "she's thinking of using the real thing now. Hurt her more. Force her to show it. Push the monster out."
Kibo barked a laugh, low and sharp. "What's wrong, Aunt Sora? Breathing harder than I expected. I thought you wanted to test me."
She tilted her head. A streak of blood trailed beneath her glasses from the earlier cut, a clean line across her cheekbone.
And then, slowly, her smile spread — elegant, cruel, beautiful in its stillness.
"Oh…"
Her eyes gleamed.
"Kibo," she said softly, her voice edged with ice, "Pretending was for your sake...Now, let's see how much of you is left."
Bram's hand twitched toward the device in his pocket.
"Sora, wait! Don't—"
He was too late.
The air in the cube didn't just chill, it screamed.
Everything dropped into silence… then shattered.
Mana burst outward from Sora, not as light or heat, but a compression of absence, a void of warmth so consuming it devoured breath itself. The very fabric of the cube shivered. Cold rolled off her in spirals of pale mana, tracing through the ground and up the barrier walls like veins of frozen lightning.
From her outstretched hand, pure mana ignited, her core element. It wasn't just ice.
It was frost-binding mana, an arcane subset that didn't create ice from her body, but pulled moisture from the very air, crystallizing it into living weapons.
And they bloomed.
Massive spirals of jagged frost erupted outward, piercing the stone beneath, the walls of the cube, even the mana around them. Trees near the cube hissed with frostbite, leaves crumbling before they touched the barrier. The clearing outside dimmed, light itself repelled by the oppressive aura leaking from within.
Kibo moved.
Too late.
His body locked mid-dash, his limbs freezing in a blink. Mana surged around him in response, but it was overwhelmed by Sora's.
A flash-frozen stasis seized his entire frame. He was trapped, suspended inside a crystalline pillar of translucent frost, his wild grin frozen on his face, breath caught halfway to escape. His mana trembled within the ice, still fighting, still alive.
Outside, the wave of cold hadn't gone unnoticed.
Lily staggered back, clutching her chest. "W-we can still feel it," she gasped, eyes wide. "Her mana's leaking out of the cube. Why can we feel it? How is it this cold?!"
"This isn't the Aunt Sora we fought last time," Syl whispered, her hand glowing faintly with Light-green mana, but she didn't move forward. "This is something else. This... this is her showing her real affinity."
Bram's jaw clenched. He didn't look away from the cube.
"She's not releasing mana."
"She's showing him his coffin."
"Girls," Bram said, voice hoarse but firm, "if things get worse… I'll need you both. Especially you, Syl. That seal might not hold."
"But isn't it already over?" Lily cried, pointing toward Kibo's frozen figure. "She already won! Kibo's… not even moving…"
Bram didn't answer at first. His brow furrowed.
Then, slowly, he whispered, "If she had won… she wouldn't be standing still."
The silence grew thick.
"She's waiting," he murmured. "Watching. Testing. If he breaks through this... then maybe..."
Syl's eyes widened.
"She wants to see if he can survive it," she finished.
Lily clutched Syl tighter.
And inside the cube, the frost creaked… a single crack running through the pillar that held Kibo, faint as breath.