The afternoon sun sat low over campus when my phone buzzed with Aurora’s na.
hey milk boy. addison and i are free tonight. co to my place at 7. wear sothing nice. addison says if you wear that grey henley again she’ll burn it
I read the ssage crossing the quad, muscles protesting from Vale’s morning session and Tsukishima’s sparring drills. Salt and cut grass rode the breeze. Soone was getting destroyed by Garrett on the north field. Standard academy soundtrack. Standard afternoon.
Nothing standard about tonight.
Three weeks of Aurora’s subtext had built to this. Neon letters ten feet tall. Addison circling since Ventura. Aurora positioning us like chess pieces. The shopping trip. The lingerie store. Every convenient exit that left alone with her best friend. Midnight texts from Addison that ran too long and too personal for soone treating as her friend’s boyfriend.
Aurora wanted this. Addison wanted this. I wanted this because Addison Baxter was five foot eight of goth violence wrapped in leather and fishnet with a 36F chest that defied physics and an A-rank ability called Reaper’s Edge that would make an actual combat threat instead of a guy who shot golden basketballs and made people taste strawberries.
Three orgasms. That was the price. I’d collected from Naomi, Belle, and Aurora. Each ti the System delivered exactly what it promised. Copper-rank copy, any power the target possessed. Wave Motion gave ranged offense. Treasure Sense gave loot detection. Sensory Hijack gave psychological warfare. But none of those abilities could kill soone actively trying to kill . Not really. Not against anything above Silver rank.
Reaper’s Edge could.
Dual scythes that cut steel. Teleportation dashes. Wounds that wouldn’t heal. Mana restoration from kills. The ability existed for one purpose: turning living creatures into dead creatures with maximum violence and minimum wasted effort. Addison wielded those scythes like she was born holding them. I’d watched the simulation footage. She moved through enemies the way a blender moves through fruit, except the fruit scread and the blender was a goth girl listening to death tal while doing it.
Copper-rank version of that ability would shift from "useful support mber who got lucky with an alpha" to "soone you genuinely need to worry about in a fight."
My thumbs were typing a response when a hand on my shoulder nearly made fire Wave Motion into a decorative oak.
"Monroe."
Misato stood behind in black athletic gear, li green ponytail catching late afternoon light. Her face carried the expression she wore for everything: delivering bad news, delivering good news, eating lunch, threatening to make Jordan do push-ups. Misato had one face. That face said I am in charge and you will comply.
"Hey. What’s up?"
"Where are you going tonight?"
I pocketed my phone with casual speed that definitely wasn’t hiding anything. "Aurora invited over. Her and Addison want to hang out."
Misato’s jaw shifted. Small movent, barely visible, but I’d learned to recognize it as the Misato equivalent of throwing a chair through a window.
"That’s not a good idea."
"Why not?"
"Cassandra Davenport arrived on campus three hours ago. She’s staying in the VIP villa near Summit Houses. Blair’s sister. Diamond tier. Here specifically to investigate you and figure out why a lottery kid went from dead last to first place in three weeks."
I knew all this because Misato had told yesterday during her breakdown in my apartnt. But the way she delivered it now carried different weight. Less vulnerable. More commanding. The crying girl who pressed her face against my collarbone was gone, replaced by the squad captain who could create five autonomous clones and beat you with all six simultaneously.
"Right. Which is exactly why I should act normal."
"Normal for you is training, studying, and sleeping. Not going to a second-year’s apartnt for a social visit."
"Normal for is also dating Aurora. Cassandra can check the student social feeds. Aurora and I have been together for weeks. If I suddenly stop seeing her the sa day Cassandra shows up, that’s suspicious. That’s soone with sothing to hide."
Misato opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
She hated when I was right. You could see it happening behind her eyes, logic fighting instinct. Her instinct to control every variable and protect the squad. Li green hair caught sun and threw color across her cheekbone where yesterday’s handprint bruise had faded to faint yellow beneath carefully applied concealer.
"Fine," she said. The word ca out like spitting a nail. "Then I’m coming with you."
"What?"
"If you’re going to Aurora’s apartnt tonight, I’m coming along. As your squad captain. For security purposes."
"Security purposes."
"Cassandra could approach you on the walk over. Could try to intercept you between buildings. Could have soone watching Aurora’s floor. I should be there to intervene if anything goes sideways."
"You want to chaperone my date."
"I want to ensure my squad’s most valuable asset doesn’t get cornered by a Diamond-tier hunter while wandering across campus to see his girlfriend."
She said "girlfriend" the way most people said root canal.
Here was the thing.
Tonight wasn’t a hangout.
Not a movie night or study session or casual dinner between friends. Tonight was the night Aurora had been engineering for weeks. The night Addison went from intimidating best friend to sothing significantly more intimate.
The signs were all there. Ventura trip was Act One. Shopping trip was Act Two. Aurora’s texts about Addison asking questions, Addison’s request to feel my Euphoric Feedback, the way she watched at the lingerie store like a predator deciding whether prey was worth chasing.
All choreography building toward a specific conclusion involving , Addison, and probably Aurora in so configuration that would either be the greatest night of my life or the last night of my life depending on how well I perford.
Reaper’s Edge required three orgasms. Addison was experienced enough that getting there wouldn’t require supernatural assistance, but Euphoric Feedback and Sensory Hijack would make the process faster and more explosive.
I’d done the math at least fifteen tis since Aurora’s text. Walk in around seven. Socialize for an hour. Let the evening develop naturally because Aurora would orchestrate escalation. She always did.
Then Private Sanctum for forty-five minutes of privacy where I could make Addison feel things that would shatter her goth armor and leave her screaming my na while I drank from her and the System notification chid with each mouthful and Reaper’s Edge landed in my ability library at Copper rank.
That was the plan.
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