The battlefield still burned. Shadows writhed, chains rattled, and Sloth's monstrous form loomed in the haze, an endless wound in reality itself.

Shigeo's voice broke the tension. Calm. Flat. Certain.

"The plan… Khael."

Khael turned, golden eyes steady, storm-fire still clinging to his scales.

"Yes. The plan. Shigeo… you know what to do."

Shigeo sighed, his shoulders rising lazily as if the burden of the world were nothing but an annoyance.

"What a complicated world."

He raised both hands, palms facing one another as if cradling an invisible sphere. Lightning crawled across his skin, not wild, not uncontrolled but deliberate. Every spark drew a line, every arc a branching path.

And in that moment, the air thickened. The veterans and rookies alike felt it, the weight of calculation.

Thousand Way.

Not a supermove. Not raw strength. A predictive web spun from the mind of a genius, his IQ burning brighter than the storm he wielded. A thousand possibilities simulated in a split second, all collapsing into the one path that mattered.

Shigeo's hands trembled slightly, his face unreadable. Sparks bled from his fingertips, weaving a net of choices around Sloth.

And then reinforcements crashed into the fray.

A booming voice cut through the clash.

"Outta my way, losers!"

Andromeda Ban stomped forward, arrogance flaring as always, his beast-familiar Junjun snarling at his side. His laughter was harsh, but his presence was solid, his aura blazing like a predator's.

Matthew Lomwel was beside him, ribbons of ethereal wind spiraling around his arms, his Echo Spirit Harmonae manifesting briefly as two ribbon-bound figures swirling in tune with his breath. His eyes were calmer, more focused, a sharp contrast to Ban's loud bravado.

"Khael," Kaen said as he joined him, flames licking across his fists, his eyes sharp with conviction. "So that's Sloth… huh?"

Rael Eluron clicked his tongue, swords drawn, his face pale but unshaken.

"Tsk… what a monster."

Lira moved swiftly to the veterans, her gentle aura wrapping around them like a balm. She knelt beside Kurozawa, light blooming from her palms.

"I'll heal you, Sensei."

Kurozawa exhaled, relief flickering in his stern eyes as wounds began to close. Beside him, the Eclipse Vanguards Raiden and Zeke stood tall despite their bloodied forms, their eyes locked on Sloth with fury that hadn't dimmed.

The battlefield shifted.

The rookies had returned. The wounded had risen. The veterans stood ready.

And above it all, Shigeo's lightning web continued to expand, thousands of paths whirling around Sloth like threads of fate themselves.

The plan had begun.

Sloth watched them with those slow, endless eyes, tilting their head like a predator amused by a new toy. Shadows pooled at their feet and crept up the columns; the hall breathed black around them.

"You… you have such an interesting body," Sloth said, voice soft as a lullaby and sharp as a blade. "A mere human—no. Perhaps not. For you have a voidborn inside your flesh. And it is stronger than I have ever seen."

The words landed like stones.

Kaen's jaw snapped tight. Fire hunched in his fists not the careless flare of youth, but a controlled, coiling heat. "Tsk. I hate it when someone says I'm a voidborn."

Rael's eyes went ice-cold, lightning humming along the edges of his patience. He smiled, but it was all teeth and threat. "I will kill you, voidborn."

Kaen's reply was a bark, half-anger, half-warning. "Shut up!"

Khael, who had been leaning on a fractured pillar with his wings still half-limp from the earlier fight, let out a slow, tired sigh. The dragon-heat in his veins reminded him how close every breath had been to a jagged edge. He staggered forward a pace, one hand pressed to his rib where old scales still cracked. "I'm fine," he said out loud, but the word sounded small in the ruined hall.

Ceyla didn't accept the answer. She stepped to his side so quickly it was almost instinct storm chains flickering lazily as she reached. Her voice was soft in the rude calm after conflict, but it held steel. "Khael, are you okay?"

His eyes met hers: a flint-spark, a promise, exhaustion wearing like armor. "I will be. Don't worry."

For a breath the three of them Kaen, Khael, Rael stood clustered like a fragile barricade against Sloth's patience. Around them the other students waited, breath ragged, Shinrei simmering at the edge of breaking. The silence felt like a held blade.

Then Shigeo moved.

He didn't shout. He didn't flare with dramatic lightning. He simply set both palms out in front of him, the same small, uncanny gesture he'd made before. The air around him popped faintly, a thousand tiny arcs arranging themselves into a pattern only a mind like his could read.

"Thousand Way," he said, the words flat, as if noting the weather. "Watch the threads."

Kaen's fire coiled; Rael's Seraphis whined, a raw note of readiness. Khael's wings shifted, a small gust that smelled of ozone and old rain. Even Ceyla's storm quieted into listening.

Sloth's lips curled. "Predictive webs…" they murmured. "So the child calculates fate. Cute." But there was no cruelty in the voice only a hungry curiosity, as if Sloth wanted to see which of them would break first.

Kaen clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened. Behind his anger there was iron control: he kept the seal on the dark thing inside him like a wound pressed closed with both hands. (Do not let it out. Not now. Not for them.) The thought was not spoken; it was a command that trembled at the edge of his teeth.

Rael's eyes flicked to Kaen and then to Khael. (Hold him steady. If you lose control—) The rest of the sentence died unsaid; he didn't need to finish. The cost of misstep hung between them like smoke.

Khael found himself answering not with force but with a quiet that had the weight of a vow. "We hold the line," he said, and the words were not for Sloth. They were for the small, human hands around him, kids who still thought the worst of their world could be fixed with courage and a plan.

Sloth flexed, like a beast stretching after a nap. A tendril of black Shinrei crept forward toward Kaen testing, tasting then fizzled as Shigeo's lattice blinked and redirected it into empty stone.

"Very well," Sloth said. "Show me then, how long does human resolve truly burn?"

The answer came not as one voice but as a chorus. Soldiers, rookies, veterans—breaths exhaled as one. Feet found purchase. Shields formed. Echo Arts calibrated. A thousand small decisions snapped into place under Shigeo's web.

"On my mark," Shigeo murmured, eyes like knives scanning outcomes. "Khael, draw their center. Kaen, hold the flank tight—don't unleash. Rael, cut their tether when I give you the opening. Everyone else—move the threads I point out."

Each instruction was a blade: simple, precise, impossible to argue with.

"Understood," Khael said, wind and dragon-light coiling in his chest.

"I'm not letting him touch you," Kaen said, not to Shigeo to Khael and the possessive edge in the words made something like warmth flare under the cold.

"Then let us end this," Rael said, Seraphis's light sharpening as if it could split the world.

They did not rush. They did not charge blind. Under Shigeo's Thousand Way, the hall became a clockwork of small inevitabilities. Threads of lightning marked where Sloth would move. Tiny gusts and echoes pushed their steps to the exact place, at the exact fraction of a second, where pain could be minimized and strike would land with maximum effect.

Sloth watched, amused and ancient, and then relaxed into the slow pleasure of a thing that had watched empires collapse like slow-burning candles. "Come then," they whispered. "Prove the difference between a breath and an ocean."

Khael's wings unfurled, Kae n's fire smoldered with restraint, Rael's blade hummed with law. The rookies behind them tightened their grips. A thousand threads of possibility condensed to one thin, bright line.

"Now," Shigeo said, and the war of light and shadow began again, this time with purpose.

The air trembled as the veterans moved, their presence pressing down like storms descending onto the battlefield.

Raiden's eyes narrowed as he followed Shigeo's threads, his body sparking with restrained lightning. His lips quirked into a half-smile, but his thoughts cut deep. (Shigeo… you really are a genius. If you live long enough, you'll be more than a Vanguard. You'll be the next candidate to stand beside the Keiryuu… or even ascend as a Lunar Sage.)

Zeke was less quiet. His veins burned with fury, magma licking at his arms and chest like molten armor. His voice cracked the chamber like thunder.

"ECLIPSE ART: MAGMA ERUPTION!!"

The ground split, rivers of liquid fire exploding upward, flooding toward Sloth in a tidal surge of glowing red. The rookies shielded their eyes from the blinding heat, but Shigeo's web pulled them all into the precise safe zones, their steps guided by sparks.

Sensei Kurozawa, kneeling, blood still damp across his robes, gripped his sword tight as his gaze flicked between the chaos and the faces of the children standing shoulder to shoulder with legends. His breath came sharp, but his thoughts steadied into a rare, quiet peace.

(The future… is bright. Even in this hell… I can see it. These children… they'll surpass us all.)

Sloth raised their head slightly, shadowed eyes glinting. The flames licked across their ragged sleeve, chains of black Shinrei coiling and dissolving magma as if tasting it. Their voice slipped out, slow, heavy.

"…Veterans. Children. Threads of resolve, woven together… Can such light… burn me?"

The hall shook under the clash: magma surging, thunder splitting, storm-fire roaring, dragon-wings unfurling. Every style, every will, every future converged on one point.

To be continue

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