Late afternoon light pooled behind the main hall, settling into the stone courtyard like something arranged on purpose. The arcade sliced the sun into long, even bars. Every crack in the pavement showed. Every edge was sharp. The air felt scrubbed clean, almost unkind in its clarity.
Students drifted down the steps in the distance, their laughter stretching thin before snapping apart.
Solan stood alone at the center.
His left hand hung loosely at his side. The ring at his pinky rested cool against the bone. He liked that sensation. It felt small. Contained.
The Black Blade formed in front of him. It appeared the way a structure might reassemble itself once you finally noticed it had always been there. Dark, spine-like, absorbing the sunlight instead of reflecting it.
He didn’t grip it. He let go.
The sword hovered inches from his palm. Not lightly. Not freely. It held itself there as if something unseen strained to keep it from dropping. The air around it tightened, faintly warped.
He slowed his breathing.
Guidance, not muscle. That was the theory. The blade was an extension. The problem was that once it left his hand, it stopped feeling like one.
“Forward,” he thought.
The blade moved. For a moment it held the line. Then it drifted. Not violently—just enough. It scraped past the air and struck the stone column with a dull metallic knock.
It rebounded crookedly. He caught it without looking annoyed. The cold traveled into his fingers.
Again.
He pushed it farther this time, testing distance. The blade began a shallow arc around him. It nearly completed the turn before the motion faltered. A subtle tremor. Then it dropped.
Metal drove halfway into the courtyard stone.
He stared at it. Too slow. Too obvious.
In a real fight, that pause would have been enough.
He pulled it free. A shallow fracture marked the stone. The sunlight had shifted slightly. He felt no fatigue. That made it worse.
The sword could move. His body could move.
The connection lagged.
He closed his eyes and simplified.
Straight out. Straight back. Nothing decorative. Nothing ambitious.
The blade shot forward. The air parted faintly around it, but the drag remained—an invisible resistance, as though something refused to let it belong entirely to his will.
Halfway through its return, it wavered.
He opened his eyes and halted it midair. The blade trembled, overcorrected, then settled into an uneasy hold. No sweat. No strain. Just that same dissonance, like a gear catching where it should have turned cleanly.
He drew it back into his arm. Metal folded along his left forearm and went quiet, sinking into familiarity.
This time he gripped it.
He stepped in and brought the blade down. Just a cut.
The strike passed through air with weight but without sharpness, like slicing through water. The tip grazed stone, leaving a pale scar.
Too slow. Not the blade. Him.
He adjusted and struck again, harder this time. His shoulder warmed, muscle engaging cleanly. The motion itself wasn’t clumsy. But the blade carried hesitation, as if waiting for permission he hadn’t quite given.
It had grown from his arm. It still refused to become part of him.
He stopped. His breathing remained steady. No exhaustion to blame. That irritation flickered again—quiet, controlled, persistent.
He looked at the dark metal in his hand as if it were a guest staying too long.
Something between them remained misaligned.
“You’ll be out of here before that thing decides you’re serious.”
The voice drifted in from the arcade, amused.
Solan let the blade sink back along his arm. Metal settled against skin like a shadow reclaiming its place.
“Let me introduce you to someone.”
Matt stepped aside.
“Rank eighty-three.”
He said it casually, like he was presenting a gadget he’d recently picked up. “A friend. Figured he could show you what the Scratchlist actually looks like. Don’t waste it.”
The boy who stepped forward was thick-set and broad across the shoulders, built like something poured rather than grown. He gave Solan a small nod.
“Just go at me,” he said. “I won’t hit back.”
No smirk. Just instruction.
Solan didn’t move. That was it?
Matt leaned against a column. “Pure defense type,” he said. “Use your Kamuy. Trust him.”
Solan looked at the way the boy stood—solid, relaxed, almost bored.
Right. Who straps on a vest and stands there waiting for the bullet to hit?
The 83 seemed to catch the hesitation. “My Kamuy reinforces density,” he said calmly. “Skin, muscle. Impact dispersal. You’re not going to hurt me.”
A small pause.
“That’s the point.”
Solan held his gaze for another second. Then he nodded.
The ring slid onto his left pinky. The Black Blade drew itself into the air again, dark and lightless, as if pulled from a seam no one else could see.
He stepped in and swung.
The strike landed against Rank 83’s shoulder with a muted knock—metal against something dense and sealed. No penetration. No recoil. Just impact and stillness.
The other boy didn’t shift his feet. In the sun, faint patterns surfaced across his skin—tight, interlocking lines like fabric stretched to its limit.
“Again,” he said.
Solan struck a second time, harder.
The blade moved on line, but every correction telegraphed itself a beat too early. Another dull impact. No mark left behind. The sword felt heavy in his hand, hesitant, as if asking for confirmation before committing to force.
“Don’t worry about it,” Matt called lazily. “Herman’s different.”
Solan felt his shoulder tighten.
If this was what “real” felt like, he was behind.
He studied the defense in front of him—the seamless surface, the lack of openings. The blade’s sluggishness wasn’t its fault.
It was his.
A flicker of irritation rose. Not anger. Just annoyance at the drag, the way every swing felt like cutting through something thicker than air.
“Try your fists,” Rank 83 suggested, almost kindly. “You should know the gap.”
Solan didn’t argue.
The blade dissolved along his forearm, metal folding back into shadow. His palm retained a faint chill.
He stepped forward.
When he lifted his fist, he didn’t consciously adjust anything. He didn’t brace or wind up. He simply didn’t retreat.
Something in his body aligned—not violently, not dramatically. Just a clean opening.
The air seemed to tighten for a second. He wasn’t straining. He wasn’t desperate. If anything, he felt space left over. Room he hadn’t used.
His fist connected with the center of the other boy’s chest.
No flash. No crack.
The defensive pattern flickered once, like a surface disturbed from underneath. It didn’t shatter.
It shifted.
Rank 83’s heels left the ground first.
His balance broke backward. Two uneven steps. Then he went down, his back striking the warm stone with a blunt, solid sound.
The courtyard paused.
A few students stopped walking. Someone turned.
The light did not change.
Solan looked at his own hand. No sting. No tremor. Not even reddened knuckles.
He was certain of one thing. He hadn’t used everything. He hadn’t even come close.
And yet the boy built like poured concrete was on the ground.
“Yo—is that eighty-three?”
A voice carried from the steps.
Someone had already lifted a phone. The screen caught the light at an angle; the recording dot was nearly invisible in the sun, but it was there.
Rank 83 remained seated for a moment, drawing in a breath. His gaze shifted from Solan to the phone, then to Matt. Something in his expression closed.
Not anger. Not exactly. Something tighter. As if what had been arranged as a quiet drill had just acquired an audience.
“You could’ve mentioned it was live,” he said quietly.
Matt blinked. “What?”
“Don’t.” Rank 83 pushed himself to his feet. He brushed at his shirt, once, twice—harder than necessary. “You wanted a demo. You picked well.” A small pause. “I lost.”
“I didn’t—” Matt started.
But the other boy was already turning away. He walked straight through the banded sunlight without looking back, the courtyard swallowing the space he left behind.
“Hey— it wasn’t like that—” Matt called after him.
The sound bounced once against the stone and died.
“…Come on,” Matt added, voice dropping, scrambling to recover something. “You still want that Creamery Monarch? I’ll upgrade it. Extra scoop. Two, even—”
No response.
Solan hadn’t moved.
The light stretched longer across the ground, drawing his shadow thin and tall. He looked down at his hand.
No redness. No sting.
Yet the boy built like reinforced concrete had left on his back.
Something had shifted inside him during that step forward. Not an explosion. Not a surge. More like a door unlatched. He didn’t have a name for it.
Footsteps returned at a jog.
Matt came back slightly out of breath. Solan braced for irritation—he had just humiliated one of Matt’s friends, whether he meant to or not.
“What was that?” Matt asked.
Solan studied his own half-curled fingers. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just—”
“You just realized you punch better than you swing?”
Solan didn’t answer. He looked up. Matt was smiling.
Bright. Too bright.
The kind of smile someone wears when they’ve just seen a pattern before anyone else does.
“What?” Solan asked.
Matt stepped closer and clapped a hand against his shoulder hard enough to jolt him.
“Man,” he said, grinning wide, “we’re about to move up.”