The sun had long since dipped below the treetops, leaving the academy’s outer training field bathed in twilight. Crickets murmured sowhere in the grass. The world was soft and distant—except for the sharp sound of fists eting air.
Towan moved alone.
No audience. No announcer. No mask.
Just bare hands slicing through the air in a blur of rembered motions.
He replayed it again—
The Queen’s impossible dodge.
The elbow.
The way his own body had crumpled like paper.
He snarled softly and stepped back into stance. Again.
This ti he landed a hit. In his mind, at least.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
He froze, mid-kick.
Rellie stood near the edge of the field, arms behind her back. Her tone wasn’t critical—just... observant.
“I know,” Towan said, dropping the pose with a sigh. “She’s faster in real life. I keep underestimating that.”
Rellie stepped closer, the faintest smile on her lips.
“I didn’t an your form. I ant fighting a mory. You’ll always lose.”
Towan smirked despite himself.
“Damn. That’s almost profound.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Beat.
“Actually... I was looking for you.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Everything alright?”
Rellie hesitated. For once, she didn’t seem like the all-seeing calm of the group. She looked... unsure.
From behind her cloak, she pulled out the dagger Sera had given her. The polished hilt caught the dying light.
“I don’t really know how to use this,” she said, quietly. “And I want to. Not for fights. Just... for control.”
Towan blinked.
“You want to teach you?”
“Yeah. You’re the best fighter I know.”
He laughed.
“That’s flattering. But I don’t use weapons, Rellie. Not even a spoon if I can help it.”
She tilted her head.
“Then how do you win?”
“Essentia. My fists. And reckless optimism.” He grinned. “In that order.”
A pause.
“But if you’re serious...” He glanced toward the academy dorms. “You’ve got better options.”
“Like who?”
“Three co to mind.” He raised a finger.
“Sera gave you that dagger. She must’ve thought it’d suit you. She doesn’t do things by accident.”
“She’s... complicated.” Rellie comnted at her ntion
“Aren’t we all?” Towan added with a shrug. “Second option—Sylra. She might look like she’s always judging you—because, well, she is—but she knows her way around weaponry. She’s surgical. Dangerous in a precise, terrifying way.”
Rellie stayed quiet, processing.
“And third...” He gave her a look. “The Queen.”
That drew her full attention.
“She never uses her daggers.”
“Exactly. Which ans she doesn’t need them. And that makes her the scariest one of the bunch.”
“You’re saying she could teach by... not teaching?”
Towan chuckled.
“I’m saying... if you’re bold enough to approach her, she might answer in the way only monsters do.”
Stolen story; please report.
She stared down at the dagger, the obsidian blade catching no light—just like the Queen’s mask.
“She never draws them,” Rellie murmured. “So people say they’re just decorations.”
“Or warnings,” Towan said. “Sotis wearing a blade you never use is the loudest threat of all.”
He stepped back into a casual stance, arms hanging loosely.
“Up to you. But I’d pick soone soon. Daggers don’t sit quietly forever.”
Rellie nodded slowly, slipping the dagger back into her cloak.
“Thanks.”
She turned to leave.
“Hey,” Towan called after her. “One last thing.”
She glanced back.
“You don’t need a dagger to be dangerous. You already are.”
Sothing unreadable passed through her crimson eyes.
Then she turned and walked away—dagger at her side, steps silent in the dusk.
The next day.
Rellie stood outside the third-class dormitory lounge, arms crossed loosely, gaze fixed through the tall window.
Inside, Sera Vellmont was... glowing.
Her voice wove through the chatter like sunlit wind—light, warm, disarming. She sat at the head of a table, surrounded by classmates hunched over books and parchnt. A project of so kind. Battle formation plans, judging by the diagrams. Rellie could sense it before she saw it.
Sera leaned closer to one of the struggling students, gently taking their pencil and adjusting their sketch. Her smile never faltered. Her posture never tensed. Her intent—calm, nurturing, filled with the comfortable confidence of soone who belonged.
It was... perfect.
Too perfect.
Rellie felt the emotions ripple off the group like background music: trust, amusent, quiet admiration. There were no sharp notes, no guarded fear, no buried violence—none of the dissonance that clung to most people.
But Sera?
Sera was a blank canvas. So perfectly blended, so deeply composed, it almost hurt to look at.
She’s hiding. Even her intent lies to people.
Rellie’s hand drifted toward her cloak, brushing against the dagger's hilt. She held it there for a mont, feeling the polished tal pulse with the last trace of Sera’s gift. Not threatening. Not violent.
Just... expectant.
Rellie turned and walked away.
Later that afternoon. Training courtyard.
Sylra moved like a blade carved into human form. Her staff spun so fast it shimred. Every strike, every pivot, felt like it belonged to the earth itself—solid, deliberate, whole.
Rellie stayed at a distance, watching. She didn’t just observe Sylra’s form. She watched her Essentia radiate in clean lines. Purposeful. Ordered.
When Sylra finally noticed her, she stopped mid-spin and rested the staff against her shoulder.
“You need sothing?”
Rellie pulled the dagger from her cloak and stepped forward.
“I want to learn. How to use this.”
Sylra’s gaze fell to the blade. The shift in her intent was imdiate—subtle, but undeniable. A flicker of caution. Distance. Not fear, but... hesitation.
“A dagger?”
“Yeah.”
Sylra leaned the staff down beside her.
“Not my style,” she admitted. “I specialize in structured forms—swords, hamrs, polearms. Even shields. Anything that builds a rhythm.”
She glanced at the dagger again, and the silence between them grew taut.
“Daggers are tools for assassins,” she added after a pause. “For people who don’t plan on fighting fair.”
Rellie tilted her head.
“And you don’t approve of that?”
Sylra didn’t flinch.
“I don’t trust it.”
Rellie felt it in her bones—the rigid intent behind those words. Steel walls. Unshakable principles.
This was not soone who bent. This was soone who stood unmoved in every storm.
“There’s no elegance in a dagger,” Sylra continued. “No clash. It’s not about the fight—it’s about the kill. That doesn’t suit . I won’t pretend to teach sothing I don’t believe in.”
Rellie nodded slowly, slipping the dagger back into her cloak.
“Thank you anyway.”
As she turned to leave, Sylra offered one last piece.
“Try soone who thinks like a predator.”
She didn’t say it outright.
But both of them knew who she ant.
“So…” Len talked with Rellie in the cafeteria.
“You want to ask the Queen to teach you how to fight with daggers?” she asked, voice low.
“Yeah. Can you co with ?” Rellie replied, her fingers nervously twisting the edge of her sleeve.
Len blinked.
Was this really Rellie—the girl who could read fear like a book, who always seed half a step outside of emotion? She looked... small. Not afraid exactly, but uncertain. Human.
Len smiled and nudged her gently with her shoulder.
“Of course, Rellie.”
“I’ll go too!”
Alira dropped into the seat across from them with the grace of a collapsing bookshelf, tray stacked with enough food to knock soone out cold.
“I’ve been watching the Queen these days, ever since she beat Towan up. No one’s put up such a fight yet. I fear she’ll leave out of boredom.”
“She won’t,” Rellie said quietly, almost to herself.
Len raised an eyebrow.
Rellie didn’t elaborate.
Instead, she stared down at her untouched cup of tea, feeling the ripple of intent roll across the cafeteria like steam. Everyone here had a texture—nervous excitent before exams, tired relief after sparring.
The Queen’s presence, though...
It was like touching a storm in a glass box. Quiet. But waiting.
And Rellie wanted to reach into it.
The stable door groaned like a tired old man as the trio slipped through. Len wrinkled her nose at the familiar cocktail of hay, sweat, and ozone that clung to the underground arena—a scent that had beco as routine as breakfast after weeks of secret spectating.
Alira tugged her oversized hood lower. "We're, like, stupid early," she whispered, nearly tripping over a pitchfork.
"Exactly the point," Rellie muttered, already weaving through the maze of feed sacks with the confidence of soone who'd morized every splinter in this place. Her crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dark. "If we catch her pre-fight, maybe we finally get answers."
Len side-eyed Alira while stepping over a suspicious wet patch. "You're positive she'll show?"
Alira held up three fingers in a scout's pledge. "Duh. Queen always cos for the final match. It's her thing—like a dramatic mic drop but with more broken bones."
Except.
That night, the mic never dropped.
No swirling black mask materialized from the shadows. No crimson-eyed devastation graced the arena. Just a bunch of increasingly confused fighters and a comntator scrambling to fill airti.
Night Two:
Alira's theory: "Maybe she's sick? Like, ultra-powerful beings still get colds, right?"
Night Three:
Rellie's boots tapped an impatient rhythm as the substitute headliner—so third-year with delusions of grandeur—got steamrolled in thirty seconds flat. "This is bullshit."
By week's end, the rumor mill had spun wild:
"Heard Professor Khalvar caught her mid-backflip and made her scrub pots for a month!"
"Nah, so noble paid her off after she humiliated his son!"
"Bet she just got bored. Winning's gotta be lonely when you're that stupidly OP." is the theory must students agreed on
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