Morning came with pale light, filtering through the Veins in the stone like blood seen through thin skin.
The camp had settled into a quiet rhythm—machines humming low and steady, air warmed by the Veins' uneasy reawakening. The world felt awake, but cautious. As if it had learned something overnight and wasn't sure whether to share it yet.
Nebula was already moving when Arata stirred.
Her boots echoed softly across the corridor, the edge of her training sword glinting faintly in the lamplight. Each motion was clean, measured—the kind born of habit rather than thought. No flourish. No waste.
Arata watched for a while before speaking.
"Starting early?"
"I don't sleep much," she replied without turning. "And it's easier to think when my body remembers how to move."
He stood, rolling stiffness from his shoulders. "You were military before the Academy?"
"Still am," she said simply, flipping the blade once before settling back into stance. "And you used to be."
He smiled faintly. "Until they started calling me an experiment."
Her eyes flicked toward him—not with pity, but recognition.
"Then prove them wrong."
They moved into an open stretch of the chamber—smooth stone, pale light refracted through crystal veins. Tomas dozed against the wall, half-awake, fingers still curled around a sensor. Lyra stood nearby, datapad balanced against her arm, pretending not to watch too closely.
Farworth sat further back, apparently absorbed in his notes.
Apparently.
Nebula reached into her belt and tossed Arata a dull-edged blade.
"Mock duel," she said. "No resonance. No theatrics. Just movement."
Arata caught it by the hilt. The weight felt honest. Familiar.
"Fine by me," he said. "I'll try to keep up."
Her lips curved, just barely. "You won't."
"We don't know that yet..." Arata said as he warmed up.
...
The first strike came fast.
Nebula was inside his guard before his lungs finished filling. Steel rang as her blade snapped against his—a sharp, precise cut that kissed the edge of his parry and slid off with a hiss. The sound echoed down the tunnel, clean and unforgiving.
Arata barely caught it. His wrist jolted; the shock ran up his forearm.
He stepped back into stance, boots scraping stone.
"Too slow," she said, already moving again.
She didn't rush. She advanced—pressure constant, measured. Her footwork was tight, heel barely lifting, weight always forward. Each strike flowed into the next with no wasted motion, every cut placed where he would be, not where he was.
Arata blocked when he could, retreated when he had to. His guard rose too high; she slipped under it. He shifted right; she turned with him, blade tracking his centerline as if tethered.
"You're giving ground without meaning to," she said mid-exchange. "You fight like the floor's about to vanish."
He ducked a high sweep, felt the wind of it pass over his scalp.
"It usually does," he grunted.
Her blade snapped back toward his ribs—short, economical.
"You rely on reaction," she said. "Predict. Don't respond."
He caught the edge of that strike and twisted, barely deflecting it aside. His balance wavered.
"You sound like the instructors," he muttered.
"I killed three of them in practice."
That shut him up.
They reset, circling.
Nebula's breathing never changed. Arata's came faster now, controlled but strained. Sweat gathered along his spine. Every one of her movements felt lighter than it should have—less force, more intent.
From the edge of the chamber, Lyra lowered her datapad, eyes tracking the exchange. Tomas had stopped pretending to work entirely, his head tilted, following rhythm rather than form.
Farworth watched without expression.
But his fingers had stilled on the page.
Nebula shifted her grip, subtly. Changed angle.
"Listen," she said as she moved.
Arata frowned, blade rising. "Listen to what—"
Steel slid against steel.
Not a clash—an alignment.
"Everything."
She stepped in hard, driving him back, then broke the rhythm deliberately. A half-beat pause. Then the strike came from above—vertical, clean, decisive, aimed to end the exchange.
The hum in Resonance answered before thought could form.
Not sound.
Direction.
A pull beneath his ribs. A pressure in his blood, like gravity tilting sideways.
Step left. Exhale. Don't resist—let it pass.
Arata moved.
Not fast.
Correct.
Nebula's blade came down— and stopped.
A hair's breadth from his shoulder.
There was no impact. No contact.
The space between steel and flesh refused to resolve. The Strike that should have most certainly connected, missed Arata completely.
The crack that followed wasn't sound so much as absence, a pressure wave snapping outward like glass breaking without shards. Dust lifted in a perfect ring. The Veins beneath the stone flared once, red light threading outward beneath their feet.
Nebula staggered back a step, eyes wide.
"What did you just—"
Farworth was already moving.
He stepped closer, gaze fixed not on Arata, but on the floor.
"Again," he said calmly. "Nebula. Same strike."
She hesitated only a fraction, then reset. At the same angle. With the same intent.
She cut.
This time, Arata felt it coming before she moved.
Not vision like precognisence. But It was a certainity.
He shifted half a step earlier than he should have.
Nebula's blade missed entirely.
The stone where he had been cracked, thin fractures radiating outward, as if the ground itself had lagged behind.
Farworth inhaled slowly.
"Probability displacement," he murmured. Not a question.
Lyra stared at the glowing veins beneath the floor. "That wasn't resonance."
"No," Farworth said quietly. "It was outcome correction."
Nebula lowered her blade, studying Arata with something new in her expression coincidentally not fear.
Assessment.
"You didn't block," she said. "You weren't faster."
Arata looked down at his hands. They were steady—but his pulse thundered in his ears.
"I didn't do anything."
Farworth's eyes flicked briefly to Resonance, then back to Arata.
"That," he said, "is what worries me."
...
Before Arata could answer, the floor pulsed.
A single red vein ignited beneath their feet, threading outward through the stone like lightning trapped under glass.
Then another. And another.
The light spread in branching paths, racing away from them, sinking into the corridor walls as the hum deepened it was low, resonant but unmistakably awake.
Lyra shot to her feet. "The Vein's responding!"
Farworth was already moving, eyes locked on the pattern rather than the glow itself.
"No," he said calmly. "It's aligning,, merging into one."
Nebula stepped back into guard, blade half-raised, gaze flicking between Arata and the illuminated stone.
"It didn't react to my strike," she said. "It reacted to him."
The red veins brightened once more, then steadied—no longer flaring, but pulsing in time with Arata's heartbeat.
Farworth exhaled slowly.
"End the duel," he said. Not as an order, but as containment from further danger.
But it was already too late.
The hum climbed, no longer distant—inside the stone now. Light swelled beneath their boots, veins flaring brighter with every breath Arata took. The floor rippled like water brushed by wind, reality loosening its grip.
Arata felt it then.
Not power.
Agreement.
Each pulse in his veins answered the rhythm below—perfect, terrible synchrony, flesh and stone falling into step as if they had always been meant to.
Nebula let her sword fall.
"Arata," she said sharply, "stop breathing like that."
"I'm not—" He tried to step back.
The ground shifted with him, reflecting his movement a heartbeat too late, like a mirror learning how to walk.
Panic crept in. He forced a breath, this time Slower.
The hum spiked.
Then fell Silence. It was absolute.
The veins went dark all at once, the light collapsing inward without sound, without warning. The ripples stilled. The stone hardened beneath their feet as if nothing had ever moved.
Arata staggered, knees buckling.
The world had let go.
And whatever it had been about to say, it had chosen not to.
No one moved.
Arata stood at the center of the chamber, chest rising and falling, sweat beading at his brow. The air around him still felt charged, as though it hadn't yet decided whether to settle.
Nebula's blade lay at his feet. The dull edge was faintly warm—almost melted at the tip.
Lyra was the first to find her voice.
"That wasn't deflection," she said slowly. "The air itself—folded."
Farworth approached, unhurried, eyes never leaving Arata. He studied him the way one examined unstable machinery.
"You didn't block the strike," he said. "You displaced it."
Nebula's voice was quiet, disbelief threaded through it.
"That shouldn't be possible."
Arata shook his head. "I didn't mean to."
"That," Farworth replied softly, "is the problem."
They stood in the aftermath of the moment—air thick with residual charge, the ground humming faintly beneath their boots, like an echo that hadn't yet learned how to fade.
At last, Nebula bent and retrieved her sword. Her fingers trembled—just slightly—before she forced them still.
"Well," she said, tone carefully neutral, "that explains why they wanted you under supervision."
Arata let out a breath. "Guess I'm not very good at mock duels."
"You're terrible at them," she said without hesitation. Then, after a beat, "But I've seen worse ways to bend reality."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "Let's not test that theory."
Tomas finally exhaled, shoulders sagging. "Next time," he muttered, "we use wooden sticks."
Farworth didn't smile.
He had crouched near the floor, fingers brushing the faint, scorched pattern where the Veins had flared. The mark pulsed once beneath his touch—subtle, slow. Like a heartbeat under glass.
"The world saw him," Farworth murmured. "And it recognised its blood."
Later, when the tension had thinned and the others drifted back to their work, Nebula passed Arata as he cleaned the training blades.
"You hesitated before the strike," she said quietly. "That's what saved you."
He glanced up. "You think hesitation's a strength now?"
"In the right hands," she replied. "It's the line between madness and control."
She turned to leave, then paused just long enough to add,
"You did well."
He allowed himself a faint smile. "You almost killed me."
Her eyes met his they were calm, dark and sincere.
"That's how I show respect."
When she was gone, Arata set the cleaned blades aside.
He flexed his fingers. The tingling lingered. For a moment, faint lines of light traced beneath his skin—then faded.
Resonance hummed softly at his hip.
Flora's voice surfaced, not aloud, but certain.
You listened. Good.
Arata exhaled, staring at the dim veins etched into the stone.
For the first time, he understood.
The sword was not just a weapon. It was a memory.
And somewhere, deep within that memory...the world was listening back.