Elian pushed into Vaeliyan's room without knocking. His face was pale, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack. His whole body trembled with nervous energy as he stood there, breathing hard. His eyes darted around the room as though searching for a way out, and for a long moment he didn't speak. The silence was sharp and heavy until the words finally came spilling from his mouth in a rush, tumbling over each other.

He explained that his parents were at the Citadel. They had messaged him, saying they were here to conduct an investigation into a missing sub-instructor, and that they wanted to catch up with him and Theramoor. They wanted to see how he was doing, to hear if she had any information that could help their inquiry. His hands moved restlessly as he spoke, twisting together, pulling apart, fingers cracking one after another like brittle sticks. His voice was tight, nearly strangled, each word falling faster than the last as though speed could lessen their weight. He said he was panicking and didn't know how to handle it, that he had never once in his life been able to lie to his parents. Not once. Not ever. Their eyes had always stripped him bare.

And well, Michael was dead. The truth of it sat heavy in the air, like lead dropped into still water. They had been the ones to kill him. Michael had deserved it, every single one of them knew that, but justification didn't erase danger. Michael had tried to kill them and would have succeeded if he had gotten away with his plans. He had torture them beyond the tortures they had signed up for. He had pushed further, taken liberties, proven himself a sadist with authority. For that, he had been cut down. But Michael hadn't been some worthless sub-instructor alone in the dark. He was tied to a noble house, one with weight, and even if he was a spoiled nepo baby, he still carried rights in the eyes of power that none of them had ever been given. They had killed him and buried it in silence. They had done it because it needed to be done, not because it would be excused. That was the danger now pressing in from all sides, a danger Elian could not ignore.

"So yeah," Elian said, his voice sharp with panic, "we killed him, and that fucker needed to die. But I don't know how to explain that to them. They'll see through me. They always do. I've never been able to lie to them." His words trembled, but the desperation behind them was unmistakable.

Vaeliyan leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, eyes cool as steel. His voice was level, calm, cutting through Elian's panic like a knife. "You could sugarcoat it with all our accomplishments. Tell them Michael was jealous of our success. That he tried to undermine us because he resented the progress we made. He tried to kill us because he couldn't accept that we've already done what no other cadets have ever managed. We're on our way to becoming a once-in-a-lifetime squad, and he tried to steal that from us."

Elian shook his head, lips twisting into something between bitterness and despair. His pacing quickened as though the floor itself might give him strength. "I've thought about that. It won't work. They'll see it as you usurping what they think should be my position. They're always like that. They believe I deserve everything, even if someone else is better. They don't take it lightly. They've removed people they thought slighted me for things so minor it was absurd." His voice cracked into cruel mockery as he lifted his fingers into sharp air quotes. "Some people out shine their places, dear," he said, mimicking his mother's tone with venom. The words dripped into the silence, ugly and brittle, and his hands dropped, trembling.

"Well fuck, that is an issue," Vaeliyan muttered, eyes narrowing as the thought formed. He studied Elian closely, then said, "Have you thought about just pulling a runner?"

Elian blinked at him, confusion breaking through the panic for a moment. "What do you mean, a runner?"

"Did you reply to the message from your parents?" Vaeliyan asked, his tone even.

"Not yet," Elian admitted quickly, shaking his head. "I couldn't. I didn't even know what to say."

"Okay. Don't," Vaeliyan said flatly. His voice carried a certainty that forced Elian to pause. "I'm going to message Imujin and tell him what's happening. See if you can go meet High Imperator Kasala before the rest of us. If you don't respond, then as far as they know the message is still unread. They won't get a notification. If this was your house, we'd already be fucked, because your house is owned by the Legion and they watch everything going on inside their walls. But my house is off the grid completely, so unread stays unread. That buys us time. If you're in the Red already, we can spin it as a story that makes sense. And once you're down there you won't have to worry about saying anything to them for months. By then it will be too late, and we will be heading to the Shatterlight Trial. When we come back, we will graduate as full Legionnaires and High Imperators they won't be able to erase like the random cadets we are now."

Elian froze, staring at him, his breath catching. The panic hadn't gone, but something new slid in beneath it, hope, fragile and tentative. His mouth opened, then shut, and finally the words broke out. "That… that might actually work." His voice was softer now, as though afraid to believe it.

For a long moment he stood there speechless. The frantic energy that had carried him into the room bled out of him little by little. His shoulders, once rigid with fear, eased by inches. It wasn't relief, not yet, but it was the beginning of it, the first step away from the edge of panic and toward a plan that could hold. He swallowed hard, the sound rough, and managed a nod, as though committing himself to the path Vaeliyan had laid before him. The silence stretched, but this time it didn't feel crushing. It felt like the pause before movement, a fragile balance that might yet carry them forward.

Vaeliyan had ended up talking to Imujin, and for the most part it had worked. Imujin was sharp, calm under pressure, and quick to find cover stories that would hold under scrutiny. But Theramoor had not been so fortunate. She had been forced to spend far longer than she wanted with Elian's parents, unable to dodge the heads of her House as easily as their son. Elian had the luxury of being off-grid long enough that they couldn't track his exact movements, and the Red itself was a perfect excuse, the dead zone of communication shielded him from scrutiny. Theramoor leaned into that lie, claiming he had gone ahead for extra training with the High Imperator. The words had landed with the weight she needed. The Sarns, always obsessed with status and effort, had been impressed by the idea of their son putting in so much additional training that they didn't question it. They nodded, satisfied, and Theramoor allowed herself a silent breath of relief.

Still, every second in their company reminded her how dangerous this balancing act was. Theramoor loved her House, but she wasn't a fool. She knew better than to tell the truth about what had happened with Sub-Instructor Michael. In House Sarn, the truth was never spoken raw. Everything was clothed in strategy, phrased in layers of advantage. So, she gave them something else, a morsel to keep their teeth busy. She hinted that Michael had been tangled up in an incredibly valuable secret, one worth wringing every last drop of advantage from before it was discarded. She implied that Michael's House might be sitting on something rich and exploitable, and that she, their dutiful niece, might be able to help them bleed it dry, if, of course, they were willing to grant her a small finder's fee in return. It was all posturing, all smoke and negotiation, but in House Sarn, negotiation was everything. Even though she was technically their niece, older than Elian and more like an aunt in years, she was still a piece on the board. Family didn't exempt her. In the Sarn tradition, every interaction was a trade, every word a wager, and she had grown up knowing she would never escape that reality.

The instructors, meanwhile, had been held up for longer than expected. Elian's parents were thorough, and their shadow hung over the halls like a storm cloud. Only Dr. Wirk had managed to slip free, and that was less by cunning than by the simple fact that no one thought to stop him. Wirk wasn't someone the Sarns considered worth questioning. What secrets could the absent-minded vault keeper possibly hold? Even though he was an instructor at the Citadel, he was notorious for forgetting names, for drifting through conversations as if he barely noticed people were there. In their eyes, he was harmless, a distraction at best. They never realized that his very forgetfulness was the perfect camouflage.

With that unassuming cover, Wirk had taken charge of the remaining fifteen cadets. He gathered them quickly, his tone brisk, and led them into the Red before Elian's parents could redirect their attention. The cadets followed, nervous but eager, glancing back only once before the tunnels swallowed them. Wirk didn't waste words. He simply told them the plan: keep moving, reach Kasala, and put distance between themselves and the Green before anyone could catch on. Behind them, the Citadel's corridors still echoed with the presence of Elian's parents, their questions still unanswered, but the cadets had no intention of waiting around to be caught.

Imujin had told them it would be a day or two before he and the other instructors could catch up. In the meantime, the order was simple: push as far into the Red as they could before Elian's parents realized the cadets were gone. It was a gamble, but one worth taking. And so it seemed the expedition had begun earlier than anyone had expected. Not from fear, at least not the kind that showed on the surface, but from confidence, confidence in their ability to stay ahead, in their claim that this was part of the plan all along. At least, that was the story they told themselves and each other. It was easier to believe they had stepped forward boldly than to admit that in truth they had slipped away, ducking questions from two of the most powerful individuals in the Green. These were not just nobles. They were the heads of one of the Nine great Houses, the ones entrusted by the Legion itself to gather information, the ones who held the ears of generals and High Imperators alike.

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No one said it aloud, but they all understood the reality. They hadn't left early out of confidence. They had fled, and fled quickly, before the full weight of House Sarn could pin them in place. Yet as they pressed deeper into the Red, carried by Wirk's steady stride, that fear began to look and feel like determination. It was a lie they were willing to live with, at least for now. If they failed, they were all dead, every single one of them, including the very son they believed they were protecting.

When they finally reached the underground junction where Kasala waited, they found him already in motion. The space still bore the bones of the old metro: concrete walls streaked with water stains, rusted rails vanishing into darkness, and broken platforms littered with fragments of signage that once carried passengers safely from place to place. Shadows stretched long beneath the pale hum of jury-rigged lights strung across the ceiling, each flicker of illumination catching the glint of black steel as Kasala moved. He flowed through the ruin as though it were his personal stage, body tracing elegant arcs, every strike and redirection an effortless dance. The hooked black steel in his hands caught the jagged limbs of a Broken and turned them aside with casual mastery, as though the creature were a prop in his lesson. His movements were precise, deliberate, beautiful, nothing wasted, nothing hurried, every inch controlled.

The Broken was fast, unnaturally so, its limbs snapping in vicious arcs, each slash unpredictable and animalistic. Its weight shifted with erratic fury, claws gouging sparks from the concrete. But Kasala was not fighting so much as demonstrating, reshaping the chaos into rhythm. He made every dodge graceful, every deflection purposeful, as though his opponent existed only to highlight his instruction. He wielded hooked blades, but used them like a spear, turning his whole body into the strike. The dual motion of his arms kept the blades balanced, one hand mirroring the other, and though there was space between them, he never let the illusion break. To anyone watching, it was clear: every movement could have been mirrored by Elian's dual-ended spear. Kasala was showing how principles of balance, flow, and rotation transcended the weapon itself.

"I've seen your work," Kasala said, his voice calm, almost admiring, even as his body folded under a slash and his blade flicked the strike aside. "It is beautiful. Yesterday, when you demonstrated your style, again, masterful. But even in mastery, there are flaws. The smallest flaw can undo the strongest fighter. Watch closely."

He pivoted smoothly, his hooked black steel sliding along a Broken limb before he flicked it away with a snap of his wrist. His body spun through the space with elegance, the turn carrying him into a motion that mimicked the spiraling drill thrust of Elian's weapon. "See the angle? Don't meet force with force. Turn it. Always turn it. Balance your body, let momentum do the work." He tapped his blade against the creature's armored hide like a tutor correcting a student's grip. "Leverage is cleaner than power. If you can move their weight, you've already won."

Elian hovered nearby, transfixed, his dual-ended spear gripped tight in both hands. His eyes darted over every step, every adjustment, every flick of Kasala's wrists. The Broken screeched, claws hammering down in a frenzy, but Kasala only grew more fluid, his movements so elegant they seemed inevitable. He redirected each blow not with strain but with grace, and at every shift he revealed another kill point. A quick flick showed one. A turn of the wrist showed another. A twist of his body exposed yet another angle, each flowing from the last as though a deadly catalog of possibilities was being laid out for Elian's eyes alone.

"And here," Kasala murmured between motions, sliding under a slash and lifting one blade to redirect it harmlessly into the wall, "a mistake I saw in your stance yesterday. Beautiful form, but your shoulder drifts just a fraction when you pivot. That fraction is where an enemy will cut you. Hold it tighter. Keep your frame compact." He twirled, his blades crossing in front of him, then separating again, the motion echoing the drill twist Elian had been so proud of. "Strength without discipline is waste."

The Broken shrieked, lunging in fury, but Kasala only tilted his head as if disappointed in the lack of creativity. He redirected the claws away with a flourish, his body spinning low, one hooked blade carving the air in a sweep that would have gutted the creature if he had chosen. Instead, he simply demonstrated, leaving Elian to see the potential death without witnessing it. The lesson mattered more than the kill.

Then Kasala's head lifted. His eyes narrowed, the faintest curve of amusement shaping his mouth. His perception had stretched outward and caught the cadets as they drew close. "Ah. There they are."

In that instant, the performance ended. He slipped beneath the Broken's final desperate strike, his movement a blur of economy and power. The hooked blade snapped up, caught, and pulled. The black steel swept once, clean and decisive, and the Broken split apart, its body falling in two twitching halves. The remains struck the platform with a wet thud, jerking once before stillness claimed them.

Kasala straightened, rolling one shoulder as though the exertion had been no more than a morning stretch. He turned with a calm, elegant ease, his gaze finding the cadets who had just arrived. For him, the fight had been nothing more than a lecture, a graceful warm-up, a performance staged for Elian until his true audience appeared. He inclined his head slightly, as though inviting them into the lesson that had only just begun.

Kasala wiped the edge of his blade clean on the ruined hide of the Broken before letting the carcass fall aside with little more than a flick of his wrist. He regarded the cadets with calm, measured eyes, speaking as though nothing he had just done had cost him the slightest effort, as if butchering one of the swift aberrations was no more taxing than brushing dirt from his sleeve.

"So, yes, everyone," he began, voice steady and deliberate, carrying easily through the vast ribs of the underground metro. "We are here to learn to work together as a team. This is the fastest way I could bring you to that point. I am not going to call it power leveling, since that is a pastime for the richest fools in the Green. But in truth, that is what we will be doing here. Through constant exposure, through relentless fighting and instruction, you will grow stronger than you thought possible. Every Broken you face is another chance to sharpen your form, your instincts, your control. You will either rise or you will be broken yourselves, and neither I nor Imujin have any intention of letting the latter happen."

He paused, listening to the subtle tremor of echoes carried through the metal bones of the metro junction, then gestured down the darkened tunnel. "Every fight will matter. Perhaps not always life and death, as long as we avoid something catastrophic like a collapsing tunnel. But even then, most of us can hold long enough to survive. That is not the concern. The concern is how much you absorb. How quickly you learn. How willing you are to shape yourselves in the moments between fear and failure. Fear is not weakness here. Fear is the chisel that carves discipline into bone."

He shifted his stance, the hooked blades still loose at his side, movements elegant and unhurried. "You will be killing Broken, and you will be taught through demonstration. The more you fight alongside me, the more power you'll gain before your trial. The goal is to have you capped in time. Headmaster Imujin has decreed that you will all stop at forty. He does not want you to miss the Shatterlight Trial by advancing your classes too far, forcing a delay or a reset. He is right in that we do not have the time for another round. Still, forty is low. Lower than I would prefer for cadets entering their fourth-year trial. But it is not the lowest. First-years usually go in at thirty. You are already stronger than that as far as I have been told, and I expect you to prove it."

Kasala walked the line of cadets as he spoke, his blades catching the faint glow of the lumen-strips overhead. His words pressed on them like a weight. "You should know that true power starts after fifty. That is when the body begins to feel different. When every skill you have bends into something sharper, more dangerous, more alive. But forty is what you will have. It is not enough, but it will have to be. What you lack in level, you must make up for in precision, coordination, and ruthlessness. That is what this place will teach you."

He stopped, eyes sweeping over each cadet one by one. "I will correct your forms. The instructors will still run their classes, but we will hold them down here, in the dark where the air tastes of rust and old water, where the environment itself wants you dead. These tunnels will be more hostile than you expect, not because of what you see, but because of what waits just out of sight. You will grow used to the hum of danger, or you will collapse under it."

Lessa lifted her chin, defiance written plain across her face, and countered with a sharp smile. "Yeah, I don't think it's more dangerous than our classes. I don't think you've met us. They made a class called Hunt and Don't Die, where Alorna, Gwen, Jim, and Deck spent all day trying to kill us. Our entire goal is just not to die. You know how many times we've succeeded? Almost never. They break us again and again until the lesson takes fruit. Some of us fail harder than others. So, you think this place is a nightmare? My nightmares are filled with Alorna's forests, and every time I wake up, I'm grateful to still be breathing."

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. The cadets shifted uneasily, some exchanging glances, others staring fixedly at the floor. Even the steady drip of water in the distance seemed to fade beneath the weight of her words. Kasala let it hang there, the tension heavy as chainmail, before speaking again with quiet certainty. "Compared to that, this place may feel like a relief. Even Alorna's forest, when she is hunting you personally, is more dangerous than this junction and its tunnels. Keep that in mind. If you can survive her, you can survive this. And you will. Because failure is not an option, not for me, not for Imujin, and not for any of you."

He turned back toward the darkness of the metro, voice still carrying. "Now steel yourselves. The Broken are never far, and the next one we meet will not wait politely for me to finish a speech. From here on, every step is a lesson, and every lesson is written in blood. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will stop fearing this place and start owning it."

The tunnels swallowed his voice, and for a moment none of them dared speak. They all knew what came next: blood, struggle, and the relentless rhythm of survival. Whatever they had been in the Citadel, those days were over. The Red would remake them, or it would bury them.

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