The whispers followed Barry Crimsonwood like a persistent shadow. In the cavernous dining hall, students hunched over steaming bowls of ramen would fall silent as he passed, only to erupt into hushed speculation the moment he found a solitary table in the far corner. He ignored them, the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled so far forward it rendered him a faceless specter amidst the vibrant chaos of Tokohashi Academy.
He wasn't just the new guy anymore. He was the guy who had humiliated Jax Bracken, heir to the Bracken Pyromancer dynasty, and made it look effortless. He was the one who wielded a magic no one had ever seen. The mystery was a shield, but also a target.
Barry ate methodically, his senses tuned to the room's rhythm. He heard the clatter of trays, the boisterous laughter from the fire-affinity tables, the gentle, melodic chatter from the water dorms. And he felt the heat of a specific, hate-filled glare burning a hole in the back of his hood.
Jax was holding court two tables over, his voice a low, angry rumble. "...sneak attack. Won't happen again. Freak won't know what hit him."
Barry took a slow sip of miso soup, his expression hidden behind the hood. Fear was a luxury he'd burned out of himself a long time ago, in a rain-soaked London alley. What remained was a cold, calculating readiness. Anticipation, even. A fight was a known variable. A problem with a simple, physical solution.
The Voice in his head purred in agreement. "The ember-boy seeks a lesson in ash. Shall we teach him?"
Quiet, Barry thought back, the command automatic. I handle this.
His "gravity magic" wasn't just a cover; it was a testament to a decade of brutal necessity. He couldn't control the blood-shadows, not truly. They were a tempest. So, he had learned to control the space the tempest occupied. He'd taught himself to manipulate the fundamental forces around him, using slivers of his innate power as a catalyst. It was a magic of pure, applied physics, and he was its sole architect. No one else could replicate it because no one else had a reason to build a cage for the monster inside them.
The end-of-lunch bell chimed, a deep, resonant gong that echoed through the hall. Students began to move, a river of bodies flowing toward the exits. Barry stood, shouldering his bag, and moved with the current.
He knew it was coming. He felt the shift in the crowd, the purposeful bump that was too hard to be accidental. Jax shoulder-checked him, sending a lesser man stumbling. Barry didn't budge an inch. He simply stopped and turned, finally pushing his hood back just enough to fix Jax with his single, piercing blue eye.
"Got a problem, Bracken?" Barry's voice was flat, devoid of any emotion that might give his opponent purchase.
Jax's face was a thundercloud. "You're the problem, scholarship rat. You think you can show me up and just walk away?"
"Showing you up didn't require any thought," Barry said, his tone bored. "You did all the work yourself."
A few students gasped. Others stopped to watch, forming a loose circle around them in the grand hallway. This was better than class.
Jax's hands clenched into fists, small flames licking between his knuckles. "You talk big for a guy who hides his face. What's under the bandana, huh? Something ugly?"
Barry didn't respond. He just watched, a predator assessing the twitches of his prey. The silence was more infuriating than any retort.
"Let's see how tough you are without your cheap tricks!" Jax roared. He didn't bother with a focused fireball this time. He unleashed a wide, roaring wave of fire, a conflagration meant to engulf Barry entirely.
The students nearby screamed and scrambled back.
Barry didn't move. He raised his left hand, palm outward. He didn't utter a word. The air in front of him warped. The oncoming wall of fire didn't hit a shield; it hit a event horizon. The flames were violently compressed, twisted, and collapsed in on themselves with a sound like a thunderclap sucked through a straw. They were snuffed out into nothingness, leaving only a wisp of smoke and the smell of ozone.
The display of silent, effortless control was more terrifying than any counter-attack.
Jax stared, his confidence cracking for a split second before being sealed over by pure, incandescent rage. With a wordless shout, he lunged, a knife of solidified flame appearing in his hand.
Barry sidestepped the clumsy lunge with an economy of motion that spoke of far more than academic training. As Jax stumbled past, Barry's hand shot out, not to punch, but to tap him on the shoulder.
"Graviola."
The spell wasn't intensified, just applied. It was a localized field of immense weight, focused solely on Jax's right shoulder and arm. There was no visible forcefield this time, only the effect.
CRACK.
The marble floor beneath Jax's feet fractured into a spiderweb of lines. His arm, holding the fire-knife, was wrenched downward as if an anvil had been tied to it. The knife dissolved into sparks. A grunt of pain and shock was forced from his lips as he was driven to one knee, his entire right side pinned by an invisible, impossible weight. He strained against it, muscles quivering, his face purpling with the effort and the humiliation.
"Looks familiar," Barry remarked, his voice still dangerously calm. He took a single step closer, looking down at the kneeling fire-user. "You seem to like this position. Maybe you're finally where you belong."
"YOU BASTARD!" Jax screamed, spittle flying from his lips. He tried to push up with his free left hand, to summon another fire, but the strain was too much.
"Mr. Crimsonwood! That is ENOUGH!"
The crowd parted instantly. Professor Vance strode through, his face like stone. Behind him, her expression a mask of icy disdain, was Belinda Frostvale. Her gaze flickered from the kneeling, enraged Jax to the completely unruffled Barry. A flicker of something—not admiration, but perhaps recognition—passed through her glacial eyes before it was extinguished.
Barry glanced at the professor, then back at Jax. He gave a almost imperceptible shrug and dropped his hand.
The weight vanished. Jax surged upward with a cry of relief and fury, stumbling forward before catching his balance. He whirled on Barry, but Vance was between them in an instant.
"Bracken! Control yourself or I will have you suspended! This is your final warning!" Vance's voice brooked no argument. He then turned his stern gaze to Barry. "And you. I warned you about domination. This is not a fighting pit. Report to the Headmaster's office. Now."
Barry met the professor's gaze without flinching. He didn't apologize. He didn't explain. He simply gave a curt nod, pulled his hood back up, and turned to leave. The crowd silently opened a path for him.
As he passed Belinda, he heard her voice, so quiet it was almost a thought carried on a frozen breeze. "A brutish solution for a brutish problem."
Barry didn't break stride. "It was an effective one," he replied, his voice low, and continued walking.
He left Jax fuming under the stern watch of Professor Vance, the whispers of the student body already rewriting the event into legend. He had won the fight, but he'd drawn the exact kind of attention he needed to avoid.
The walk to the Headmaster's office was through long, silent corridors lined with portraits of severe-looking past headmasters and trophies of legendary beasts. The air grew colder the closer he got. Finally, he stood before a pair of immense doors made of polished, glacial ice that somehow never melted. He could feel the power radiating from within, a cold, oppressive weight that sought to press down on his own chaotic energy.
He knocked twice, the sound swallowed by the thick ice.
"Enter." The voice from within was as cold and sharp as the door.
Barry pushed the door open and stepped into Headmaster Gregory Frostvale's office.
The room was a reflection of the man himself: severe, beautiful, and utterly frozen. Bookshelves of ice held ancient tomes. A desk of clear, solid ice sat in the center, and behind it sat the Headmaster. His fingers were steepled, and his frozen blue eyes, so much like his daughter's but infinitely colder, were fixed on Barry.
Barry didn't wait to be spoken to. "You wanted to see me, Headmaster?"
Frostvale's gaze was unnerving. It felt like it was peeling back the layers of his hood, his bandana, his skin, looking for the shadows beneath. "The incident with Mr. Bracken. It seems your... unique talents are as disruptive as they are rare."
"I was defending myself," Barry stated, his voice even. He felt the Voice in his head stir, wary and hostile in the presence of such potent, ordered power.
"Were you?" Frostvale said softly. "Or were you making a statement? Establishing a pecking order? Gravitational manipulation... a fascinating, theoretical branch of magic. To see it made manifest is... unprecedented."
He stood and walked around the desk, circling Barry like a hawk would circle prey. The cold intensified. "Who taught you?"
"No one," Barry said, telling the absolute truth for the first time. "I taught myself."
The Headmaster stopped his circling. A faint, chilling smile touched his lips. "A self-taught prodigy of a forgotten art. How very convenient." He leaned in slightly, and his voice dropped to a whisper that froze the air in Barry's lungs. "Let us be clear, Mr. Crimsonwood. I do not know what you are, or who sent you. But I am watching you. This academy stands as a bulwark against chaos. Against the corruption of forbidden arts. I will not allow a single anomaly to threaten that. One misstep. One hint of the... unnatural... and you will learn that there are far worse things than the gallows. Do you understand me?"
The threat was direct. He knew. Maybe not everything, but he suspected. This was the real test.
Barry met the Headmaster's gaze, his own blue eye unwavering. The tough guy persona wasn't an act; it was armor forged in trauma. He feared the Headmaster's power, but he would never show it.
"Perfectly," Barry said, his voice devoid of any tremor.
Headmaster Frostvale held his stare for a long, tense moment, the silence in the frozen office absolute. Finally, he gave a curt nod. "Dismissed."
Barry turned and walked out, the Headmaster's icy gaze on his back every step of the way. The door closed behind him with a soft, final click.
He stood in the empty corridor for a moment, leaning against the cold wall. He had survived the encounter, but the walls were closing in. Jax's hatred was a visible fire. The Headmaster's suspicion was a hidden ice dagger. And Belinda...
He pushed off the wall and started walking. He had a monster in his head, a target on his back, and now the most powerful man in the academy knew he was an anomaly.
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Barry's face, hidden by his bandana.
Let them come.