The Magician vanished just as Hask's grip tightened again.
"I asked you a question, Zero," Hask growled. "What's wrong with you?"
The burning in my pocket subsided to a comfortable warmth. My vision cleared completely. But something remained. A certainty. A spark.
Not power. Not yet.
Will.
"Nothing's wrong with me," I said, meeting his eyes. "Everything's finally right."
I twisted hard, breaking his grip on my arm. Instead of scrambling away, I drove forward, slamming my shoulder into his chest. The impact was like hitting a brick wall, but I'd committed to it. The sudden aggression caught him off guard. He took half a step back.
Not much. But the first time he'd yielded ground.
I pressed the advantage, throwing a combination—left jab, right cross, left hook. None landed cleanly, but they forced him to block. To respond to me rather than dictate the action.
"There it is," Hask said, a note of approval in his voice.
His counter was brutal. A strike to my ribs that sent pain lancing through my side. But I didn't back up. I stepped in closer, absorbing a second blow to land one of my own to his kidney.
It connected. Solid. He grunted.
"Good," he said. "Again."
I attacked relentlessly. Not with skill. Not with power. With pure, stubborn will. Every hit I took, I answered with two of my own. Most were blocked. Some connected. None did real damage to a man who fought A-rank creatures for breakfast.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was that I stopped waiting to be saved. Stopped reacting to the script.
Started writing my own.
After what felt like hours but was probably two minutes, Hask stepped back and raised his hand.
"Enough."
I stayed in my stance, blood dripping from a split lip, chest heaving.
"Class," Hask said, addressing the watching students without taking his eyes off me, "what did you just see?"
Silence. No one wanted to answer.
"You saw someone with no Anima, no stat transfer, and no special abilities push through pain to make a choice." Hask circled me slowly. "That's what separates runners who come back from runners who don't. Not power. Choice."
He stopped directly in front of me. "Sterling hit his limit five minutes ago. Then he found another gear. In the gates, that's the difference between life and death."
I straightened, wiping blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.
"You're still terrible," Hask said conversationally. "But less terrible than I expected."
Coming from him, that was practically a love letter.
"Pair up with Iglesias for the rest of class," Hask said, nodding toward Rafi. "Try not to break each other."
As Hask walked away to check on other students, Rafi bounded over, amber eyes wide.
"Dude! That was insane! I thought he was gonna kill you, then you went all berserker mode!" Rafi's hands waved excitedly. "What happened? One second you were getting demolished, then you got this weird look on your face and started fighting completely different."
"I just realized something," I said, the box in my pocket now a comforting warmth against my ribs.
"What?"
I glanced around the training hall. At the students with their Anima, their ranks, their established place in the system.
"That I've been playing their game," I said. "Time to play mine."
Rafi nodded like I'd said something profound. "Deep, man. Super deep."
The girl with short black hair and the dark bow—Thessa—walked past, giving me an appraising look that was marginally less dismissive than earlier.
"Less useless than anticipated," she said coolly. "Let's see if it lasts."
Her Anima, a blue-white wyvern with blade-like wings, hovered behind her, amber eyes studying me with the same calculating intensity as its contractor.
"That's high praise from her," Rafi whispered after she passed. "She told me I was a walking fire hazard when we paired up."
"Are you?"
"Totally." Rafi grinned. "My Anima is a Fire Salamander. Brasa. She's got an attitude problem and we keep setting things on fire, but we're working on it."
As if summoned by her name, a red-orange salamander the size of a large dog materialized beside Rafi, black markings shifting across her skin like living shadows. She looked at me, tilted her head, then made a sound like crackling flames.
"She says you smell weird," Rafi translated. "Like... old."
I thought of the Magician, the fog, the burning card in my pocket.
"Weird how?"
Rafi shrugged. "Dunno. She's not great with descriptions. Just 'old' and 'different.'"
The salamander snorted a tiny puff of flame, then nudged Rafi's leg.
"Right! Training!" Rafi bounced on his toes. "Ready to get your ass kicked by someone your own age?"
I smiled, feeling the split in my lip reopen. "Less talking, more fighting."
We squared off. The box against my ribs hummed with warmth, like silent approval.
The Magician was gone. The fog had disappeared. Time moved normally.
But something had changed.
For the first time since my awakening ceremony, I didn't feel like I was waiting for the world to tell me what happened next. I was making it happen.
Write something interesting, huh?
I launched myself at Rafi, who yelped in surprise at my sudden aggression.
Let's start with this chapter.
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A/N: Thanks for reading this chapter! Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Comment for a cookie!