Night pressed close around the meadow, the grass rippling under the faintest wind. The bond hummed sharp with tension, cadets standing behind Warren like an iron arc. Wirk's single step forward had frozen the clearing, every instructor's weight falling toward the center. The air felt ready to break, as if the stars themselves were holding still to see what came next.

Alorna moved.

No one saw her leave her place in the line. One moment she was still, half-shadow, the next she was standing between Wirk and Warren, a slight, immovable figure, her presence as abrupt as a blade sliding into the space between heartbeats. She flipped her notebook open without a word, the sound sharp enough to break the silence.

The first thing she showed them wasn't from the pages she had just been given. It was older, drawn on the back before any of this had begun. A single figure stood surrounded by others, Warren, marked the instant she had seen him. Someone who did not belong. Someone who had never stood in this place before. She had seen him before she knew him. That truth landed like a pebble in a still pond, ripples spreading across the instructors' faces.

Then she turned the page.

Her stick figures told a story that bled into the air like a slow heartbeat. They showed Imujin, and the trust he gave so freely to those around him. All the instructors tethered to him by quiet lines, their platinum rings anchoring them like weights on a chain they all shared. The lines glowed steady, unbroken, but she had drawn something else, too. The strain hidden under his stillness, the tension in the way he bore their weight while they leaned on him. Even as he trusted them, he carried more of them than they carried of him. And then the tone shifted: those lines thinned as they reached him, and for the first time the weight seemed to press him down. His strength wasn't in their trust; it was in what he carried alone.

The next part struck like thunder.

She showed how even that burden had a core: the wooden ring on his hand. Everything else bent toward it. He trusted it more than any of them, more than himself. It was his axis, the center of his balance. The thing he leaned on when he could not lean on them. The figures made it clear, if that ring broke, Imujin would too.

And then the story changed.

The same trust he gave the wooden ring now tethered to Warren. Not faint, not hesitant, total. The line from Imujin's heart no longer pulled toward the instructors or the ring on his hand, but to the boy who stood at the center of the cadets. Warren's ring looked like iron, plain and dull, but in Alorna's figures it carried the same gravity as the wooden ring. To Imujin, it was not imitation. It was equal. The stick figures made that truth undeniable: Warren was not being weighed against the cadets, or the instructors, or the structure of the Citadel. He was being weighed against the thing that held Imujin together, and found worthy.

Murmurs rippled like wind across glass. Gwen's eyes sharpened to points. Lambert's hands flexed as if something inside her needed to reach forward and dissect the idea. Lisa's jaw tightened until her cheekbones trembled. Wirk's stare locked on the notebook, rigid as forged steel.

Alorna snapped the book shut and lowered it to her side. She didn't speak. She never did. But the weight of what she'd said pressed into the ground around her like an invisible pillar.

Wirk's voice broke the silence. "What is that ring? Who gave it to you? Why does Imujin trust it more than he trusts me?"

Imujin stepped forward, voice calm but taut. "I can explain..."

"No," Wirk cut in, sharp as broken stone. He dropped the notebook he'd been holding, its pages slapping into the grass like the sound of something being buried. "I don't want your explanation, Imujin. I need it to explain why an Aberrant has a wooden ring." His voice rose, roughened by something older than anger. "What did you do to convince him, creature? What did you promise him? Did you corrupt him? Is this mind control?"

The cadets bristled, the bond flaring like struck iron. Elian's jaw worked, but Warren lifted one hand slightly, silencing them with nothing but the weight of his will.

"There is no way," Wirk said, stepping closer, "that the Imujin I knew would ever let an Aberrant stand when it was weak, let alone protect it from me. I trusted you." He turned his fury on Warren. "And you, what are you? A flesh puppet piloted by a horror that will destroy us all? Did you use your foul influence on me? Is that why I…" His voice cracked, raw and unguarded, the sound of something breaking beneath the words. "Is that why I was so taken by you, Vaeliyan? I wanted to help. All I wanted to do was help. That explains it, doesn't it? That's why you didn't cry out in the Med-Vat. You were the only one who stayed composed through the entire process. Tell me why."

The grass shivered under his boots as he took another step forward, the ground bowing like it feared to bear him. His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "Tell me why I shouldn't end you right here and save us all from this madness. Choose your words carefully, beast. You will only get one chance."

The cadets' breathing synced unconsciously, a single sharp inhale that seemed to pull the night closer around them. Alorna stood like a wall, notebook lowered but unreadable, her dark eyes fixed on Wirk as though daring him to take another step. Imujin's hand hovered near his side, ready to call the storm if he had to. Josephine's gaze slid from Wirk to Warren, silent calculation in her stare, while Isol's grip tightened on the books against his chest until the leather creaked.

The meadow held its breath, waiting for Warren to answer.

Warren's voice cut through the stillness, low and deliberate, sharp enough to make the air itself feel brittle. "Words are cheap," he said, each syllable precise and deliberate. "I will show you."

He raised his hand.

The cadets stepped forward as one, boots whispering against the grass, forming a perfect arc behind him. Their breath misted faintly in the cold air, and the meadow seemed to lean inward as if it, too, were listening. Each motion was measured, quiet, rehearsed. The bond hummed like drawn wire, taut and vibrating with unspoken unity, pulling tight enough to make the air seem thin. Each cadet lifted their right hand, showing the dull iron bands that ringed their fingers. The air shimmered faintly, like heat over stone. Then the iron began to change.

The grey dulled surface quivered, then bled into silver. That silver rippled to a clean, liquid gleam, light racing along their hands in perfect synchrony. Fifteen rings brightened until they shone like cut stars, cold and clear. The meadow caught the light and threw it back in fractured gleams, the faint glow of grass painting the cadets' faces in ghostly light. The bond pulsed hard enough to make the air hum, and for a moment it felt like the earth itself tilted toward them.

And Warren's ring changed last.

The iron bled away to pale grain, smooth and flawless, becoming wood. Living wood. The grain curled faintly, impossibly, like it was breathing. A faint undertone of yellow glowed from deep within it, not bright but relentless, like something that would not go out, a sun buried in the dark. The same way Imujin's wooden ring glimmered with a bloody crimson, Warren's pulsed with yellow gold. The bond thrummed like struck glass, sharp and ringing, echoing through every cadet's ribs, until it felt like the air itself bowed toward him. The night went quiet, even the wind gone.

The instructors reacted all at once, sharp intakes of breath, startled half-steps back, faces cracking under disbelief. Everyone except Josephine, Alorna, and Isol. They did not flinch. Even Wirk froze, his fury faltering as his foot stilled mid-step, the ground dipping faintly under the weight he no longer pushed forward. The silence wasn't empty. It was braced, taut, like everything around them had drawn in a breath and dared not let it go.

Alorna crossed the space, expression unreadable, moving as though gravity had bent aside to let her through. Her boots didn't whisper; they cut. She stopped in front of Warren, studied the ring, then looked at him. Her eyes said everything her voice never did. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, firm and sure, like anchoring a thread. One squeeze. One soft pat to the top of his head. Then she let go, turned her back on the instructors, and stepped to Warren's side as though she had been there all along. The meadow shifted like a tide around her.

Velrock followed. He didn't say anything, didn't even glance at the others. He just walked, hands loose at his sides, and the grass bowed faintly under his boots as if the world itself recognized the choice he'd made. He stopped beside Warren like he had always belonged there, quiet and solid, calm as bedrock.

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Jim swore, loud enough to crack the stunned silence. "Shit. Fine." He strode over, hands on his hips, grinning like he hated himself for it. "Kid, I read that book Isol gave me. Holy fuck. And what I saw in the Nespói sim? Pure carnage. You're from the Yellow. You lived in the real shit and came out the other side. You're a monster, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Somehow you haven't gone feral, and I don't know what's stopping you from trying to turning this whole place into a crater, but I don't care. You're terrifying. If you were like the other Aberrants, we'd be standing on your grave or inside your stomach."

He paused, brow furrowing, then muttered mostly to himself, "Also no one's gone missing lately… not your fault anyway," and kept walking to stand beside Warren. His shadow stretched long across the grass like a banner.

"Shut up, Jim," Gwen said, smacking the back of his head as she passed him. The sound cracked like a whip as she crossed the invisible line. Her boots cut sharp prints in the grass.

Lisa blinked. "Gwen?"

"I'm not fighting gramps," Gwen said flatly, shoulders squared. "You know what he did for us. For me. I can't. Don't even ask me to." She didn't look at Wirk when she said it, but the words landed there anyway.

Wirk stayed silent, his stare locked on Warren like stone about to crack. His fists trembled just enough to be seen, knuckles bloodless, jaw rigid enough to shake.

Lambert drifted forward next, eyes shining with a bright, fevered light. "So, what's it like being an Aberrant?" she purred, voice dripping with hunger. "Can I have some of your blood? Please? It would help with so many projects."

Warren leaned back slightly. "Please don't. You are by far the scariest person I've ever met. And I've met Alorna."

Alorna nodded solemnly, and Lambert smiled like she'd been flattered by a scalpel. Her fingers twitched as if already holding a blade, the anticipation nearly tangible, her gaze raking him like an autopsy she hadn't been allowed to begin.

By the time the silence fell again, the lines had redrawn themselves. The meadow seemed to notice, the grass bowing gently as if adjusting to the new weight of the world. The night around them felt different now, slanted, the stars leaning closer.

Fifteen new platinum rings gleamed under the cold starlight. And one wooden ring glowed yellow, steady as a heartbeat, defiant as dawn.

Theramoor's arms were crossed so tight her knuckles blanched white, nails biting into the fabric of her sleeves until the threads strained. Her eyes stayed locked on Warren like he was a lit fuse someone had handed her little brother, a spark she could not allow to burn. The air between her and the cadets was electric, heavy, crackling with an edge that made every muscle in her shoulders rigid, ready to snap if anyone so much as breathed wrong. The other instructors had taken half a step back without realizing it, but Theramoor stood rooted, motionless, as if she alone could hold the world together if she just stayed perfectly still. She didn't move when Elian stepped forward, but her gaze flicked to him, sharp and desperate all at once, like she was hoping he would say something that made the world make sense again, or dreading he wouldn't.

"Thera," Elian said softly, voice threading the silence like a wire, "I know what you think. That he got to me. That he twisted me. That this isn't me anymore."

Her jaw set, voice flat and strained, teeth barely unclenching to let the words out. "You're my heir of House Sarn, Elian."

"I know." His voice didn't waver, though the bond behind him trembled faintly like a drumbeat held too long. "And that's why I need you to hear this. I would have chosen this for myself."

She blinked, barely. Her weight shifted just enough that the grass crunched under her boots, brittle in the cold.

Elian kept going, words picking up speed like something finally breaking loose inside him. "Because this man, this tiny little man..." Behind him, all the other cadets laughed, a quick ripple of tension breaking, though it sounded too sharp, almost nervous. Warren didn't. He only looked a little wounded. Elian didn't stop. "Thera… the gods are real. One of them chose him. He has actually met them. Do you understand what that means? That's not something you step aside from. They want him to try to become one of them. A fucking god. I don't even know what that really means, but I know they are not something you and I or anyone here can choose to ignore."

Theramoor's fingers twitched, curling halfway open, like she was resisting reaching for him, or for her lance. Her jaw worked, silent, like words were caught between her teeth.

"Warren has ideas no one has ever thought of," Elian said, louder now, and the bond behind him pulsed, the cadets' focus narrowing on his words as if pulled by a current. "Jim just said the Nespói sim was carnage... but you don't know what happened before that. None of us did. Warren had been watching us from the start. Every twitch, every mistake, every unspoken choice. He didn't miss a single thing. He planned everything we could do in ways we didn't know we could do ourselves. My Soul Skill, he understood it better than I did. He built a situation for it, one where I could do something I never thought possible. He showed me the edge of what I am."

He stepped closer, boots pressing the grass flat. His voice caught, but he pressed on. "I thought my Skill was only for control, for dominance. But he showed me there was utility in it. That control didn't have to be about ruling over others, it could be precision, structure, stability. When you look at your status screen, your abilities, it tells you what they do. It doesn't tell you that everything, even your Soul Skill, can be bent. Warren taught us that. He taught us how to break things we didn't even know existed. He taught us how to question the walls we thought were real, and to walk through when we found they were only shadows."

Theramoor's eyes darted between him and Warren, sharp and uncertain, caught between outrage and the faintest thread of doubt. Her lips parted like she wanted to speak, but no sound followed.

"We stole three years from the top cadets in the Citadel," Elian said. "Because he realized there was no rule saying we couldn't. Not that he broke a rule. There was no rule to break. He didn't just defy structure, he saw where structure ended and stepped past it. He doesn't understand what he did in the same way I do, but he understands me better than I understood myself. He understood all of us. He saw things in us before we saw them in ourselves. He lit something in us, something we didn't even know was there, and he made it burn."

He took another step forward, and his voice softened, steady and unshaking now, though his hands trembled faintly at his sides. "I am from House Sarn. You are from House Sarn. We serve the Legion. That loyalty is carved into us, carved into our bones, branded on our names. But for Warren, I would leave."

Theramoor's breath hitched, audible in the cold stillness. The tension around her cracked for just a second, like ice groaning on a frozen lake.

"For him," Elian said, and every word rang like iron striking stone, "for the chance to be part of whatever he is building... I would walk out of the Legion and follow him into the hells. And I would not regret it."

The bond thrummed in the silence that followed, and even the wind held still, as though the world itself was listening to see what she would do.

Theramoor walked across the grass with measured steps, her boots whispering against the earth. She stopped in front of Elian, eyes steady, her breath slow and deliberate as if locking her own heartbeat into place. She inclined her head, every movement deliberate.

"Lord Sarn," she said, voice clear and solemn, carrying across the still air. "If you believe him to be worthy of the House of Sarn, then I, as a member of House Sarn, will follow your lead. And if your lead is to follow his, then so be it."

A ripple passed through the instructors, subtle as a breeze. Deck let out a low whistle, but it died quickly as he stepped forward, the grass bending under his boots. He didn't look at Warren at first. He looked at Lisa, and there was nothing careless in his eyes now, only something quiet and deadly sincere.

"Lisa, my dear, my truest heart, my everything," he said, voice soft but carrying like velvet wrapped around steel. "I know you're pissed. That is the only reason I haven't stepped over the line. Because if it turned to battle, I would not dare be on the other side from you. I would die for your beliefs, even if they weren't my own. You know that."

Lisa's eyes narrowed, a flicker of heat flashing through them. Deck's voice gained weight with every word, like stones dropping into deep water.

"But I am asking you... look at the boy. Look at the definition of everything I stand for. He is living proof that cheaters always prosper. You know I don't ask you for much. And I know this is a big ask. But please, my love. Please. That kid broke every idea of what we thought was possible in less than a month. He came out of nowhere. He walked into the Citadel and made it his. He did it while every single person in this place wanted him to fail. And he smiled through it."

Lisa's fingers twitched at her side, a small crack in her perfect stillness. Deck's smile softened, almost fragile.

"You wanted Vaeliyan to be your apprentice when Imujin took him from everyone. And I know why. You saw the same thing in him that I did. But it was the smartest choice. Could you have actually been able to look at him every day knowing the truth? Because it is a fact that he would have bared that truth to you as he did with Imujin. He would have broken you open with it. And clearly Isol knew the truth. Clearly."

His voice gentled, almost pleading. "You have Sylen. She is your kin. And she is with him. Why don't we ask her what she thinks? Because if blood means more to you than the bond with Imujin... then she is still your blood. That hasn't changed. It never will."

Lisa's gaze flicked toward Sylen, sharp as a thrown knife.

"She is still your blood," Deck repeated quietly, like an oath.

Lisa nodded once, sharp. "Then speak."

Sylen stepped forward. Her expression didn't change, but her voice struck clean, cutting through the night like a blade.

"Lisa," she said. She pointed at Warren, hand steady as stone. "That's my cousin. That's the only real family I have. He is my family. You may not see it that way, but I feel it. I know it. He is my cousin. That means if we're blood, he is your blood too. It is as simple as that."

Her tone sharpened, hard enough to make several instructors shift their weight. "He deserves to be here. He deserves to live. He deserves your respect. Because if anything comes of this, he will be the pride of our House. Even when I have no pride in our House. Even when I have nothing but disdain for the rest of it. You know this."

Sylen's jaw tightened, her voice dropping to something almost dangerous. "Honestly, I can barely look at you right now. Because if you think of taking my real family, I will fight you. Do you get me? I don't care. I don't care if you kill me. He's worth fighting for."

She let her hand fall to her side like dropping a blade, and then she stepped back, her voice gone, her silence heavier than any threat. The air felt colder in her absence. No more words wasted on someone who couldn't see what was plainly in front of her.

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