The dream shattered into fragments with the sharp blare of the interface. A shrill beep tore through the thick fog of sleep, and I sat up in bed, still half-conscious, staring in confusion at the flashing red signs before my eyes.

This signal was more insistent and far more unpleasant than any I had heard before.

Cadet's life in danger!

Immediate response required!

My heart thumped loudly, and all traces of drowsiness vanished in an instant. My roommates were still fast asleep, dead to the world, while I scrambled to my feet and nearly fell headfirst in my grogginess.

What an actual fuck!

What should I do!

They could've at least run us through a training drill for this kind of thing!

Eventually, my sleepy brain made a decision — screw the suit. Just get into the shoes on and grab the gauntlets.

I jumped into my shoes, yanked open the locker with a sharp tug, snatched my gauntlets, shoved my hands into them while already sprinting into the corridor.

A few others had already responded, sprinting toward the red marker on the minimap, flashing their bare thighs and tidy whites. Kowalski and Lin Jiao were barefoot. The former was holding a mace, the latter — a twisted stick. Both skidded to a halt at the entrance to the showers, exchanging uncertain glances.

"Follow me!" I barked, shoved the door open and launched a volley of projections down the passage to prep a shield and suppress any possible threat inside. I aimed above potential head height, but my aim was pretty questionable.

Nothing.

The anteroom with the sinks was empty. We had to move deeper, toward the showers, where the water was still running. I fired another volley down the next passage and charged after it, flying in, refreshing the series — executing the technique mid-run and even turning.

My projections collided with the wall, breaking the sound of falling water with a sharp crack. At the corner, I spotted the first figure and activated my shield. A silvery cocoon enveloped me briefly, and then the scene clicked into focus.

Under the icy jets of the shower, on the floor, sat Marek, clad only in underwear, pale as death itself. He looked up at me with eyes full of hate, water streaming down his hair and shoulders, mingling with the red blood flowing from two gashes on his wrists. In his left hand, he clutched a sharp shard of glass and was sawing into his right wrist, trying to widen the wound.

The shard slipped from his hand when he saw me.

"Shit!" swore Kowalski, lunging at him. "Idiot!"

Marek tried to bat him away, but his arms weren't cooperating. Kowalski easily caught him by the wrist. Blood ran down his fingers.

"Stop it!" he ordered.

"Fuck you!" Marek spat. "Fuck you all! You did this! This is your fault!" he shouted, locking eyes with me.

Kowalski slapped him.

"You'll definitely get expelled for that!" he said.

"I've already been expelled!" Marek replied once his head stopped swaying from the blow. "Got the notification two hours ago."

I took the chance to switch off the water and nudge the glass shard away with the toe of my shoe.

Marek tried to strike Kowalski with his other hand, but he dropped the mace and caught that arm too. Then Marek lunged forward and headbutted him. He hit somewhere below the eye and knocked Kowalski onto his backside.

He still had plenty of strength left, which meant we still had plenty of time.

"Fucking hell!" cursed Kowalski, clutching his fresh shiner, while Lin Jiao swung his stick and struck Marek's right arm above the wrist. The stick wrapped around his forearm like a whip, tightened, and stiffened again.

Marek tried to pull free, I went for his free arm, and the furious Kowalski tried to punch him in the head — what followed was a messy scrum, a tangle of limbs and shoving, with no clear hits landed and no real progress made.

Luckily, the rest of the assistants had arrived in the shower by then — all of them armed. While the new trio tried to make sense of the scene, I managed to grab hold of Marek's arm.

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"Can you get the other one too?" I asked Lin Jiao, nodding to the wrist I was holding.

He gave a firm nod in reply.

Marek tried to headbutt again, but this time Kowalski was ready and fed him a fist under the eye. The three of us pinned the idiot down properly. Lin Jiao shifted his magical stick to the middle, and the other end coiled tightly around Marek's second forearm, cutting off the blood flow and locking him in with makeshift cuffs.

Lin Jiao and Kowalski backed away from the idiot, while that strange déjà vu hit me again. I grabbed the makeshift cuffs by the connecting piece and lifted them.

"We have to keep the wound above heart level," I explained to the others.

"This is your fault…" Marek murmured, exhausted. Blood loss was finally catching up to him.

"What the hell happened?" asked Sun Hao, just as the roar of jet engines filled the corridor.

There was a crash, a thud, a clang — and two unfamiliar cadets burst into the showers.

"The Order!" one of them bellowed, loud enough to make our ears ring.

"Yeah," I said once the ringing faded. "All in order — for now."

The loud cadet looked around and relaxed. As he scanned the room, I noticed the threes on his collar.

"What happened?" he asked me, since I was the one still holding Marek.

"Suicide attempt following expulsion," I answered, mostly for him to relay the words to the medics, who arrived moments later. And finally, Liang Shi showed up.

The entire block, maybe several, had clearly been woken up. Within twenty minutes, everyone knew what had happened. After Marek was taken away, Liang Shi gave a short command:

"Fifteen minutes. Wash up, change. Then — two floors down, room 336. Location's in the chat."

We dispersed without complaint. Those of us with blood on us grabbed towels and returned to the showers — this time without shouting, without blood, without fighting. For some reason, the water felt hot to me no matter how much I turned it down. Probably the stress. Or maybe it was because each of us was trying to wash off more than just dirt.

Twenty minutes later, we were seated around a square table in an admin room that looked more like a surfer's den. Except the 'surfboards' standing against the wall near the entrance had jet engines on their sides.

That roar we'd heard earlier in the corridor — it was them. The third-years had flown in. Now those same third-years were serving us tea and coffee.

Liang Shi watched us drink for a while. He studied each of us, but patience didn't seem to be his strong suit. Something in his posture spoke more of irritation than shock. As if nothing special had happened. Just another day. Just another cadet who couldn't take it. The sooner it was sorted, the sooner he could get to bed.

His voice was even, emotionless:

"Well? Impressions?"

The question felt so out of place that the silence held for nearly ten seconds. None of us spoke, so Liang Shi had to elaborate.

"This won't be the last one. The peak usually comes in about six months. Normally, we manage to run a few training sessions on how to respond in situations like this, hand out first-aid kits. But you handled it anyway — and that's commendable. You acted with precision. So I want it to stay that way. I want you to keep operating with such clarity that these idiots don't even consider suicide. That they never believe they have a chance of pulling it off within these walls."

Kowalski cracked his knuckles like he was trying to break something. He looked angry. At whom, it was hard to say.

Lin Jiao grimaced — that faint curl of disgust.

Sun Hao seemed oddly detached, his elbows resting on the table, an empty teacup in front of him while his gaze drifted somewhere along the ceiling.

Omar stayed silent. He was so still it seemed like he'd forgotten how to move. He sighed once, deeply, as though trying to exhale something heavy lodged deep inside. His eyes were red — whether from sudden stress or something else, I couldn't tell.

Dubois spun a teaspoon between his fingers. His eyes roamed from ceiling to cup to door — anywhere but toward us.

"I never once thought he was capable of something like this," Dubois confessed. "He was angry, proud, self-assured, cunning… But not weak. I'd have thought he'd drive someone else to the edge first."

"He would have," Kowalski said grimly.

"Pride often walks hand in hand with weakness," Hao muttered, as if quoting someone. "Especially when it's broken in public."

Wow. Look who's talking. The most humble among us.

I kept quiet. Sat there with a mug of coffee — black, bitter, strong. Exactly what I needed right now. I wasn't silent because I had nothing to say, but because I didn't want to lie.

Inside, I felt something strange — not guilt, not regret, but not triumph either. It was like something hadn't broken in Marek — but in this whole mess. As if a boundary had been crossed. A line we weren't meant to step over.

Part of me knew: we did what we had to do.

Another part asked whether it was worth the screams of someone who, by then, had clearly lost the will to live.

I remembered Marek's eyes when he said, "This is your fault…"

And part of me believed him.

Another part screamed that Marek was a bastard — he broke people, and got exactly what he deserved. The two parts tangled in perfect opposition, like a yin-yang diagram. Only yin and yang are meant to coexist in peace — not claw at each other, wearing me down.

Or maybe I got it wrong and balance doesn't mean peace at all? Maybe the concept's completely different.

I didn't share any of this with the others. No one would feel better hearing the chaos that churned inside my head. The only thing I had come to with clarity was —

"I wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?" asked Dubois.

"Wouldn't put the blame for my failure on someone else."

The storm of clashing thoughts quieted — as if I'd actually found an answer. A real one. One that brought them into balance… and peace.

Liang Shi smiled.

"You get it!" he said, waving his finger.

"I don't!" Omar burst out.

"He tried to frame Jake and got caught," Liang Shi explained, bringing up the awkward truth. "I'm not even sure he really meant to end his life. Might've just been one last attempt to manipulate the system. Psychologists will sort that out.

"Speaking of psychologists… If anyone needs one, message me. I'll arrange it anonymously. No one will know a thing. I'm pleased with this team and how you handled things. I'd hate to lose anyone over some stupid pride.

"What was it you said again?" he turned to Sun Hao. "'Pride walks hand in hand with weakness'? Don't be proud. Don't be stupid."

Liang Shi let those words sink in, then continued.

"So keep cultivating and keep working. Dubois, Sun, Omar — five bonus points each. Sullivan, Lin, Kowalski — ten. Excellent work!"

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