The Academy didn't tell me to leave.
That was the first thing that confirmed the decision had already been made.
My access seal simply stopped responding.
No alarm.
No denial message.
Just silence where recognition used to be.
Barracks doors opened when I approached, but no one was inside. Patrol routes subtly shifted—not to block me, but to guide me. Every path of least resistance angled outward, away from the heart of the grounds.
The Academy wasn't expelling me.
It was removing itself from proximity.
I understood the logic immediately.
Whatever happened next, they didn't want it happening inside their walls.
So I walked.
No bag.
No announcement.
No farewell.
Staying would have turned everyone around me into leverage.
Leaving made me the leverage.
Lionhearth felt different beyond the Academy gates.
Not hostile.
Aware.
The city didn't react to me like a crowd reacts to danger. No screams. No scattering. Just micro-adjustments—subtle, practiced.
Conversations paused when I passed, then resumed half a second later like nothing had happened. Shopkeepers hesitated before serving me, eyes flicking to doorways before returning to their work. Carriages rerouted at intersections not to avoid me—but to maintain spacing.
This wasn't fear.
This was positioning.
The Academy had always filtered attention. Inside, problems were contained within doctrine and hierarchy.
Outside, power moved differently.
More quietly.
More patiently.
I could feel it in my spine.
Whatever had been deciding my fate was no longer theoretical.
The first test didn't announce itself as violence.
A scaffold collapsed two buildings ahead of me—no warning creak, no shouted alarm. I stepped back a heartbeat before it hit the street, wood smashing into stone where my head would have been.
A horse bolted across an intersection moments later, eyes wild, reins cut cleanly instead of torn. I caught the carriage wheel and spun it aside before it crushed a vendor stall.
Then an alley closed.
Not physically.
Socially.
A group stepped into place without looking like a group. One leaned against a wall. Another tied his boot. A third raised a hand casually like he was greeting someone else.
Blocked.
I stopped.
None of them drew weapons.
I felt it settle then—cold and precise.
This wasn't coincidence.
They weren't trying to kill me yet.
They were gauging reaction time.
Restraint.
Collateral tolerance.
Urban combat disguised as error.
I turned away from the alley.
They let me go.
The test continued.
The first real strike came in the market district.
Tight streets. Canvas awnings overhead. Civilians everywhere.
I felt them before I saw them.
Six, minimum.
No shared uniform. No insignia. But their spacing was disciplined—angles covered, exits denied subtly, like chess pieces pretending to be pedestrians.
Private enforcement. Contract blades. City "problem solvers."
Not knights.
That mattered.
A blade flashed.
I turned just in time to deflect it, steel ringing sharply enough to make heads turn. Someone shouted. Stalls overturned. The crowd recoiled instinctively, chaos rippling outward.
That was the moment it stopped being a test.
And became a fight.
They didn't rush me.
That was the first mistake.
They thought containment meant compression.
I moved first.
I stepped into the nearest attacker's range and slammed the flat of my blade into his wrist before his grip was set. Bone cracked. Weapon fell. I shoved him sideways into another, disrupting their spacing.
A spearhead whistled past my shoulder. A blade scraped my ribs hard enough to bruise but not cut.
I felt my aura stir—but I kept it close.
No floods.
No arcs.
Water formed in sharp, controlled bursts at my feet, slicking the stone just enough to ruin footing. White thunder snapped only where steel met steel, short and violent, like nerves firing under pressure.
This wasn't a duel.
It was damage control.
I used elbows. Knees. Pommel strikes to throats and clavicles. Every movement had to end someone's ability to act—even briefly.
One misstep meant being buried under weight.
They adapted fast.
Too fast.
One kept pressure on my blind side.
Another baited aura usage with feints.
A third pinned my movement with constant forward pressure, forcing me to spend energy just to hold space.
I took a hit across the back—something blunt, cracking breath from my lungs. Pain flared white-hot along my ribs.
Cracked. Maybe worse.
I stayed standing because falling meant dying.
My aura started to stutter.
Not failing—fragmenting.
Water flickered instead of flowing. Thunder snapped unevenly, reacting to stress rather than command. Each use cost more than it gave back.
Decision debt stacked fast.
Every second spent on one opponent let another line up a strike.
I felt my shoulder tear when I parried too late—muscle screaming as something pulled wrong.
Blood soaked into my sleeve.
And still they pressed.
This wasn't about killing me cleanly.
It was about grinding me down until mistakes accumulated.
Someone shouted to keep civilians back.
Someone else adjusted formation.
They were professionals.
I was one boy who refused to stop moving.
Fear flared—not for myself.
For the people watching.
A woman tripped near the edge of the market. A child screamed. Panic spread too wide, too fast.
My chest locked.
Will surged.
Unfocused.
The air thickened violently—pressure spiking outward like the moment before a storm breaks.
The attackers froze.
So did everyone else.
Faces went pale. People staggered under invisible weight.
I felt it immediately—felt how close I'd come to turning survival into massacre.
I clamped down.
Hard.
Crushing the Will back into myself hurt more than letting it out. My vision blurred. My lungs burned.
But the pressure eased.
Civilians ran.
The attackers hesitated.
That hesitation saved me.
I stopped trying to win directly.
I kicked a pipe free from a wall and shattered it with a downward cut. Water burst out, flooding the street ankle-deep in seconds.
I pivoted through it, using reflections to hide footwork, white thunder snapping at contact points where opponents slipped or overextended.
One went down hard, head hitting stone.
Another took a blade across the thigh and retreated limping.
I forced two into the same line of attack and let them collide—steel clashing uselessly as they adjusted too late.
My breath came shallow now.
Each movement was heavier.
But they were losing cohesion.
That was enough.
One of them hesitated.
Just for a second.
I saw it in the angle of his blade—uncertain, assessing.
They hadn't been told what I was.
Only that I was a problem.
That pause bought me a heartbeat.
I drove my knee into his sternum and sent him crashing into a stall, unconscious.
The group faltered.
Coordination cracked.
That was when the tide finally shifted.
But I was out of strength.
My legs trembled.
My grip slipped.
The spear struck from the side.
Clean. Brutal.
It took a man mid-lunge and slammed him into the street hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Green aura flared—sharp, cutting, precise.
Varein stepped in beside me like he'd always been there.
No dramatic entrance.
Just effectiveness.
"Don't stop moving," he said calmly, spear already spinning into another strike.
He covered my left without asking.
I covered his right out of instinct.
It felt right.
Two attackers tried to regroup.
Varein cut one down with a sweeping arc that shattered weapon and stance together. I took the other low, blade biting into calf before slamming the pommel into his jaw.
The rest broke.
Fast.
Two retreated dragging wounded. One vanished completely.
Suddenly it was over.
I sank to one knee before my legs gave out.
Varein caught my shoulder and kept me upright.
"Easy," he said. "Breathe."
The street was ruined.
Stalls overturned. Goods scattered. Blood on stone.
Guards were already on their way.
No one chased us.
That was the worst part.
We moved before questions could be asked.
Before stories could be shaped.
I leaned on Varein more than I wanted to admit.
My chest burned.
Everything hurt.
And yet—
The city kept moving.
No alarms. No lockdowns. No proclamations.
Lionhearth absorbed the violence like it always did.
Quietly.
As we disappeared into side streets, the truth settled in.
The Academy hadn't expelled me to punish me.
They'd removed their liability.
The Hidden Council hadn't tried to kill me.
They'd tried to measure me.
And now—
They would adjust.
This wasn't over.
It was beginning.
Varein glanced at me once as we walked.
"You still standing?" he asked.
Barely.
But yes.
I nodded.
Lionhearth stretched ahead of us—alive, indifferent, waiting.
I wasn't ready.
I didn't need to be.
Standing still was no longer an option.