Music for chapter: Caribou - Home
The bell hit like a punch to the gut.
Deep, bone-rattling sound that made everyone shut up mid-conversation. The whole academy crammed into the main arena, this massive stone bowl with warding pillars that looked like they could hold up the sky, covered in runes that pulsed.
Aullie stood between Aki and Haru, all three of them suited up in their combat gear. Light armor, but the kind that'd keep you breathing if things go sideways. The whole place radiated with nervous energy, students packed in tight, all eyes locked on the floating tiles spinning in the air above center court.
Squad names tumbled over each other like dice in a cup.
Koizumi walked into the ring with a dull look on his face like usual. "Random order," he announced, voice carrying to every corner. "You screw this up, you're out of the main program. Questions?"
Nobody had questions. Nobody wanted to ask.
The tiles slowed. Clicked. Stopped.
Their names.
Aullie's stomach dropped through the floor, but he kept his face straight. Aki shot him a grin that was more seemed more feral than humorous. Haru cracked his knuckles like he'd been looking forward to this. The fourth member, Naoko, some girl they'd been stuck with when Sora got called away, looked like she might throw up.
"Shit," Aki muttered under her breath. "No pressure, right?"
"Psshh we'll be fineee," Aullie said, mostly trying to convince himself.
The arena changed around them like a bad fever dream.
Half desert, half swamp, with elemental traps scattered around like party favors from hell. The objective was simple enough, hit five control points without getting killed or bringing the whole place down on their heads. Easy enough.
"Right," Aullie said, scanning the nightmare landscape. "Aki, you're eyes in the sky. Haru, make us some solid ground to work with. Naoko, stick close and don't touch anything that glows."
He slipped into shadow, Shinku flowing beside him like liquid darkness. The desert side was shifting sand and jagged rocks, perfect for Void Steps if you didn't mind the occasional thirty-foot drop.
Aki launched herself into the air, flames kicking from her boots as she hopped between the ruined towers. "Marking traps," she called down, dropping her little sigil markers like breadcrumbs.
Haru stayed low, his earth threading through the swamp side, hardening into bridges and platforms. Wood seemed to be enjoying the violence.
Then…everything went to shit.
Aki got cocky and nearly face-planted into a flame geyser. Naoko froze up when she stepped on a trap and it turned out to be quick sand. Haru overcompensated, making his bridges too wide and lighting up every Aether sensor in a fifty-foot radius. Aullie blinked right into an unstable sand zone and spent ten seconds scrambling not to disappear into a sinkhole.
"Fuck," he gasped, hauling himself up. "Reset. Everyone breathe."
They regrouped on one of Haru's platforms, all four of them breathing hard.
"Okay," Aki said, wiping soot from her face. "Maybe we don't try to be heroes."
"Good call," Haru said dryly.
They moved again, but different this time. Aullie picked his spots carefully, using the void to guide rather than showboat, he made sure to stay close to Naoki and coach her so she can relax. Aki dialed back the flame show and went for precision strikes. Haru treated the terrain like an extension of himself, patient and deliberate.
It worked. They hit the control points one by one, steady and sure, until the final one clicked and the whole arena went still.
Silence. Nobody moved.
Koizumi stepped forward, face giving away exactly nothing.
"Well?" Aki asked.
"Better than I expected," he said, flat as old beer. "Worse than you're capable of."
"Is that... good?" Naoko whispered.
Koizumi almost smiled. Almost. "It means you passed by the skin of your teeth."
Aullie felt his knees go weak with relief, but he didn't let it show. They were through. For now.
"Next," Koizumi called to the crowd.
As they filed out, Aki elbowed him in the ribs. "Told you we had this."
"Yeah," Aullie said, watching the next squad take their positions. "Now we just have to do it again. And again. And…"
"Shut up," Haru said mildly. "We'll worry about that when we get there."
Fair enough.
***
In the Shinkyo wilds, Sora sat in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fog thick enough to choke on.
The glade felt wrong, too quiet, air heavy with rot and damp pine needles that squelched under her knees. Her escorts hung back at the tree line, three shapes barely visible through the mist. They were there to watch, not help. If she screwed this up, she'd be doing it alone.
The cedar in front of her looked like it had been murdered by lightning. Hollow, split down the middle, insides black as a grave.
Something moved in that darkness.
A ferret. Tiny thing, no bigger than her forearm. Should have been cute, but it really wasn't. The shadows around it writhed like a living creature itself, clinging like they hand a mind of their own, bending light in ways that made her eyes water.
It looked at her.
And she was falling.
Not physically, but worse. Into every moment she'd ever felt small and scared and useless. Seven years old, sobbing into her mother's lab coat while alarms screamed and people ran. Eleven, watching her parents' transport disappear into the sky for another expedition, leaving her behind again. Sixteen, frozen in place while demons tore through her classmates, blood soaking into everything.
Always watching. Never feeling strong enough to make a difference.
The darkness wrapped around her like a blanket made of needles, and she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't…
Wait.
She could move, she was just choosing not to.
Sora reached into that pit of terror and found something else. Aullie's stupid lopsided grin when he thought she wasn't looking. Aki setting her own hair on fire during practice and laughing about it. Haru's obsession with finding the perfect ramen shop. Bandit jumping on her with muddy paws and ruining her uniform. Brynn shoving food at them like it could solve everything.
The darkness didn't go away, it didn't have to.
She opened her eyes. The ferret was curled in her lap, warm and solid and somehow both there and not-there at the same time.
Kagehime, whispered a voice that might have been hers.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I get it."
***
Back at Kirin, Trial Two kicked them in the gut.
"Civilian rescue scenario," the instructor announced, gesturing to the fake village they'd built in Arena C. "Demon attack simulation. Standard rules apply."
Then he smiled. "Oh, and your powers are scrambled, technical difficulties. Sorry."
"What the hell does that mean?" Aki yelled.
They found out fast. Aullie's jewel connection was dead, no Shinku, no Queenie, just a basic sword and whatever he could remember from before he got good. Haru's spells from Wood were gone, only basic earth manipulation. Aki's flames worked fine, but her flight was grounded.
"This is bullshit," she muttered, trying and failing to lift off.
"This is the point," Aullie said grimly, watching the enemy squad take positions. "They want to see what we can do when everything goes wrong."
What they could do, apparently, was get their asses kicked.
The opposing team moved like they'd been training together for years, coordinated strikes that had them scrambling just to stay alive. Without their usual tricks, they fell back on muscle memory, stuff they'd learned as kids, sparring in Aullie's backyard with wooden swords until Haru puked from exhaustion.
Aullie focused on positioning, using walls and doorways to control where fights happened. Haru threw up stone barriers to protect the fake civilians, basic but solid. Aki fought dirty, setting traps with her flames and getting in close where her size was an advantage.
They won, but just barely.
"Functional under duress," one of the instructors noted on his clipboard.
Koizumi watched from the sidelines, face giving away nothing. But his eyes said it all: You passed, this time, but do better.
"Well," Aki said, slumping against a wall as the arena reset around them. "That sucked."
"Could've been worse," Haru pointed out.
"How?"
"We could've lost."
Aullie wiped blood from a split lip, thinking about Sora off in some forest somewhere, probably having a better time than they were.
"Next trial's tomorrow," he said. "We need to be better."
"We need Sora back," Aki corrected.
Yeah. That too.
Across the field, Ryota's team was putting on a clinic.
The spear fighter moved like water, flowing around attacks that should have tagged him easy. The sniper's shots bent in ways that made Aullie's brain hurt just watching. And the monk, silent as death, was throwing up barriers that looked like they were made of crystallized air.
They weren't just good. They were different. Almost felt wrong.
"That's not how we teach it here," one of the instructors muttered, clipboard forgotten in his hands.
Koizumi stood rigid, arms crossed, watching every move. His jaw was doing that thing it did when he was pissed but couldn't say anything about it yet.
"Something's off," Aki said quietly.
"Yeah," Aullie agreed. "Question is what."
Late afternoon, the main gates groaned open.
Sora walked through looking like she'd been wrestling with the forest and lost with hair all over the place, uniform covered in about six different kinds of dirt. Something small and dark sat on her shoulder, tail curled like a question mark.
Aullie saw her and everything else just... stopped.
He walked straight over without thinking, without planning what to say, and wrapped his arms around her.
"Miss me?" she asked, voice muffled against his shoulder.
"Maybe a little."
She laughed, and some knot in his chest finally loosened.
On her shoulder, the shadow-ferret, Kagehime, locked eyes with Queenie, who materialized just long enough to give the newcomer a once-over. Some kind of understanding passed between them before they both disappeared back into the shadows where they belonged.
"So," Sora said, pulling back to look at him. "How badly did you guys screw up while I was gone?"
"We passed," Haru said, coming up behind them. "Barely."
"That's my team. Always aiming high."
Aki snorted. "Says the girl who looks like she got in a fight with a tree and lost."
"The tree started it," Sora said solemnly. "And I won."
It felt good to have her back almost like they could breathe properly again.
***
That night, storm clouds rolled in heavy and mean, and they all gathered in the main hall with the rest of the remaining squads. The air felt electric, like something was about to break.
Koizumi stepped forward, and the room went dead quiet.
"Final Trial starts tomorrow morning," he said, voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "Squad versus squad combat. Live weapons, real consequences."
A map flared to life behind him, jungle terrain, hills and valleys, weather patterns that changed on a timer. It looked like a nightmare designed by someone with a serious grudge against teenagers.
"Your opponents," Koizumi continued, scanning the room until his eyes found theirs, "are Ryota's team."
Aullie felt his stomach drop. Beside him, Sora's hand found his, fingers cold but steady.
"Of course it is," Aki muttered.
Haru just rolled his neck, slow and deliberate.
Koizumi stepped back. "Dawn. Don't be late."
As the room started to empty, Ryota caught Aullie's eye across the crowd. No smirk this time. No theatrical confidence. Just cold, calculating assessment.
"You ready for this?" Sora asked quietly.
Aullie squeezed her hand. "With you guys? Yeah. I think so."
"Good," she said. "Because I didn't crawl through a haunted forest just to watch you lose to that asshole."
Despite everything, he smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it."
But as they filed out into the storm-dark night, he couldn't shake the feeling that tomorrow was going to harder than they realize.