Smith continued the survey.
The fourth ball had shown him Tony—alive, resourceful, operating in a Tennessee warehouse with a broken suit and a ten-year-old collaborator, which was arguably the most Tony Stark thing he'd witnessed in three years of knowing the man. He'd filed the location, confirmed the Dragon Ball was secure in Tony's possession, and moved on.
Tony's situation didn't require intervention. The Paragons and Ten Rings teams would reach Rose Hill by morning at the latest, and the only serious threats Tony had faced—the AIM operatives—were already behind him. If anything, the forced improvisation was good for Tony in ways that armor and JARVIS couldn't be. Smith had thought so when the villa went into the ocean, and nothing he'd seen since changed that assessment.
He also noted the boy. Harley—quick instincts, natural mechanical aptitude, the specific fearlessness of a kid who'd spent enough time without a reliable adult in the house to stop waiting for permission before solving problems. Smith thought briefly of Riri Williams and the path she'd eventually walk, then thought about what it would look like if Tony invested in this one instead. The optics were simpler. The potential was comparable.
He let it go and reached for the fifth ball.
Kamar-Taj, Nepal
The Ancient One's study faced east, which meant the winter light came in at a low angle in the mornings and left the room in clean shadow by early afternoon. She preferred working in that shadow. The Time Stone hung at her sternum, heavy in the way objects of genuine consequence were always heavy—not from mass but from accumulated meaning.
She turned the five-star Dragon Ball over in her palm.
Cycle 3 had given it to Mordo, and Mordo had made his own choices with it. This cycle had brought it to her directly, which she chose to interpret not as accident but as instruction. The question was what to do with it. She was not going to compete personally—she'd made that determination before the first cycle ended, and nothing had changed it. The tournament was for those with wishes. Her wishes were more structural than personal, and structural wishes required structural solutions.
She thought about her students.
Mordo had been a failure in the specific sense that mattered: not combat ability, not magical aptitude, but the capacity to encounter a world larger than his framework and update accordingly. He'd encountered Smith Doyle and experienced it as a violation rather than an expansion. That was unfixable, or at least not fixable by the Ancient One, and certainly not through another Dragon Ball.
But there was another student.
She sent for him.
Kaecilius arrived at her study with the combination of respect and apprehension that her students usually managed when she summoned them without explanation. He was a careful practitioner—not the most gifted she'd trained, but steady, and genuinely motivated in the way that careful practitioners usually were. His motivation was his wife. She'd died three years ago, and he'd been walking the edge of a bad decision ever since—drawn toward texts he shouldn't be reading, asking questions about disciplines that Kamar-Taj didn't officially teach. He hadn't acted yet. But he would, eventually, if nothing changed.
"Are you still trying to find a way to bring her back?" she asked.
He looked at her for a moment before answering. She appreciated that he didn't reflexively deny it. "Yes," he said. "I know it's not—with what I have, I know I can't do it. But yes."
She studied him. The disappointment in his face was real and practiced—the kind of expression that came from telling yourself the same hard truth so many times you'd stopped flinching at it. That was almost worse than denial.
"I have an opportunity," she said. "Not a guarantee. An opportunity."
He went very still.
She held out her palm and let the Dragon Ball appear. The five-star marking rotated slowly inside it, amber light catching the room's shadows.
"There are seven of these," she said. "Together, they allow their champion a wish. Any wish. Including resurrection."
He started to drop to his knees and she stopped him with a look.
"You can express gratitude while sitting upright. Come here."
He sat across from her, eyes fixed on the ball. She continued.
"The Dragon Balls have a guardian. His name is Smith Doyle, and the reason you haven't heard of this through the tournament's previous cycles is that most of what happened was managed quietly. The first champion used his wish to resurrect someone he loved. The another champion did the same." She paused. "You would be entering a field that includes enhanced individuals, trained fighters, and powers I can describe but you'll need to see to fully understand. This is not something I'm sending you into lightly."
Kaecilius absorbed this with the focused attention she'd always respected in him. He wasn't calculating the odds yet—he was listening, which was the right instinct.
"Smith Doyle reviews the wishes," she continued. "What he approves must be positive in intent and genuine in application. Resurrection of a loved one has passed his review twice. Yours would be no different in kind." She met his eyes. "But I want you to understand something before I give you this. It's not my power granting you a wish. It's his. The guardian's. He releases the Dragon Balls to give living beings a path forward. That is an act of considerable generosity on the part of someone who could simply keep them secured and answer to no one."
She watched him take that in.
"Thank him," she said. "When you have occasion to. Genuinely, not as a formality."
Kaecilius nodded, and there was nothing performative about it.
She let the ball settle into his hands.
"Keep it safe until the tournament messenger arrives with your ticket. Don't lose it through carelessness or overconfidence. The messenger will come when all seven are confirmed held." She stood. "Go to the library after this and review your combat techniques. Start with what you're weakest in, not what you're most comfortable with. The field will have people who've been training for this specifically."
He rose, clutching the ball to his chest with both hands, and bowed deeply—then caught himself and straightened, remembering.
He thanked her. He thanked Smith Doyle, whom he'd never met, with the genuine warmth of someone whose entire future had just shifted. Then he left, his footsteps quick and certain down the corridor, already planning.
The Ancient One stood in the empty study and considered, not for the first time, the particular shape of what she was building. A student going astray, redirected. A guardian who didn't know she watched him, given another reason to be generous. A wish that would bring one more person back from somewhere they shouldn't have had to go.
What Kaecilius was thinking—that with her abilities she'd certainly win the championship herself and spend the wish on something vast and appropriate to her station—was, she reflected, one of those endearing misconceptions she would let him keep until reality corrected it gently.
She had absolutely no intention of competing. She was trying to retire. She had been trying to retire for some time. Every additional century of service was, in her private assessment, someone else's responsibility that had been poorly delegated.
She sat back down at her desk and returned to work.
Assassin Brotherhood Headquarters, New York
Smith withdrew from the connection and sat with it for a moment.
The Ancient One had collected a Dragon Ball again. Two cycles running. He wasn't sure whether to find that impressive or slightly concerning—the mathematical probability was not trivial—but she hadn't competed personally in the previous one, and based on what he'd just witnessed, she wasn't planning to participate now. She was fielding a proxy. A Kamar-Taj sorcerer with a clean wish and what sounded like genuine character.
He noted Kaecilius in his mental accounting of the field.
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