Aria didn't give me time to wake up.
I opened my eyes already on my feet, knife in hand, breath shallow and uneven. The training hall felt different—heavier. Like the room itself had decided this was the day it stopped holding back.
Aria stood across from me, blade resting loosely at her side.
"This is it," she said. "No drills. No recovery breaks."
She raised her knife.
"You fight until you can't."
She moved.
No warning. No warm-up.
Her first strike slammed into my guard hard enough to jar my wrist. The second came from a different angle before I'd even finished absorbing the impact. Steel rang. Pain flared. My feet slid across the marble.
I barely stayed upright.
She didn't slow.
Each attack was deliberate—never the same twice. Cuts meant to herd me, thrusts meant to punish hesitation. She was testing everything at once.
I retreated, lungs burning, mind scrambling.
Then the pressure behind my eyes returned.
Patterns.
Her shoulder dipped before a thrust. Her weight shifted just a fraction before she committed. Tiny tells, repeated over and over.
I leaned into it.
Hard.
The world didn't slow—but it sharpened. Motion became intention. Attacks formed in my mind before they existed in space.
I parried earlier. Moved sooner. Took fewer hits.
"Good," Aria said, and immediately increased the pace.
She was faster now. Stronger. No restraint.
My arms screamed. My legs shook. A shallow cut opened on my thigh where I'd misjudged distance. Blood soaked into my pants, warm and alarming.
I almost faltered.
Didn't.
I activated Continuous Knife Slash—not as a charge, but as pressure. Tight arcs. Short steps. Controlled aggression.
She gave ground.
Only a little.
But it was enough.
She came in hard to punish it.
And that was the mistake.
I slipped inside her range, body screaming in protest, vision tunneling.
My blade flicked.
A shallow cut across her forearm.
Not deep.
Not dangerous.
But real.
Aria froze.
A thin line of blood welled up.
She looked down at it, then back at me.
And smiled.
"That's it," she said. "That's what it looks like."
Then she moved.
I didn't see the strike.
I felt it.
Her knee slammed into my ribs, driving the air out of me. Something cracked—maybe bone, maybe just certainty. I stumbled, vision exploding into white.
Her blade struck next.
Not a slash.
The flat of it smashed into my shoulder, deadening my arm instantly. My knife slipped from numb fingers and clattered across the marble.
I tried to move.
My leg buckled.
Pain flooded in all at once—sharp, deep, overwhelming. My body finally caught up to the damage.
I hit the floor hard and didn't get back up.
The hall was silent except for my ragged breathing.
Aria stood over me, blood still dripping from her arm.
She waited.
I tried to push myself up.
Nothing happened.
My body refused.
She exhaled slowly and knelt beside me.
"That's your limit," she said. Not disappointed. Not mocking.
Certain.
She reached into her inventory and produced a vial—larger than the ambrosia from before. The liquid inside was dark gold, thick, slow-moving, like molten honey.
"This," she said, holding it just out of reach, "is not something I give lightly."
I looked at it through blurred vision.
"What… is it?"
"A restoration draught," she replied. "It'll heal the damage you can't walk away from. Bones. Ligaments. Nerve trauma."
She met my eyes.
"But it won't erase the memory of the pain."
That felt fair.
She held it closer.
"You earned it," she said. "You pushed past fear. Past instinct. Past what your body was begging you to stop doing."
I laughed weakly. "Still lost."
She shook her head.
"No," she said. "You survived long enough to hurt me."
She pressed the vial into my shaking hand.
"That's not losing."
I drank.
Warmth surged through me—stronger than before, deeper. Pain dulled, then receded, leaving behind exhaustion so profound it felt like gravity had doubled.
I lay there, unable to move, staring at the endless ceiling.
Aria stood and turned away.
"Rest," she said. "When we leave this room…"
She glanced back, eyes sharp.
"You won't be the weakest thing in the fight anymore."
And then she let the silence take me.