— Kori's POV —
If you're waiting for a speech, you'll be disappointed. I don't do speeches. I do drills. And coffee. In that order.
Two things first. One - the Rust Room is pretty honest. It tells you what you are (and how bad you are). Raizen and Hikari listened, and from my years of experience as a teacher, that's rarer than you think.
Yes, Mina, you can stop nodding like I just invented honesty.
Two - the world above won't clap for you. If applause costed money, the Underworks would be a palace.
Oh, you want to know what I think of them?
ALL OF THEM!? Alright, alright. Fine.
Well… Raizen is what happens when stubbornness happily marries patience. He still tries to win by trying harder than everyone else, but now his movements say what they need to say and nothing else. He blocks because he intends to, not because instinct screams at him. From a wet potato, I'd say he got pretty far. He'll probably tell you he's not ready. He's lying, but it's a useful lie - keeps him from getting cocky. If he gets cocky, I make him hold a plank until... I don't know, until I get bored.
Hikari makes me careful. Not worried - careful. There's a line in her that moves too straight, too precise. The first time I saw it, I thought coincidence. The second time, I thought talent. Third, I thought maybe her pure instinct – But by the fourth, I knew it wasn't either. She was taught to move like a human weapon before she ever held one. The Rust Room tried to trip her into proving she was flawed. Nothing worked.
That blue crescent she made? That shouldn't be possible. Not at twelve percent. Not without training. Not without understanding what Eon even is.
But she did it anyway.
And she didn't even look surprised.
But she's also kind. Blink, and you might miss it.
Keahi and Arashi will be at the exam too. They've earned it. Both are dangerous in ways the Academy will either refine or break. I'm betting on refine, but sadly, I've been wrong before.
The entrance exam is here. When it comes, it won't be gentle.
And I won't be in the hall when they walk through those doors. I've already said what I needed to say.
I think they're ready.
(Or they're not.)
Either way, the Academy doesn't care.
✦ ✦ ✦
Alright. Now that they're gone...
Wait, you're still here?
Fine. Then you get the truth.
The Rust Room barely taught them control. It gave them a foundation. Twelve percent Luminite amplification, clean form, proper breathing, footwork that doesn't get them killed in the first thirty seconds.
That's what Takeshi asked from me. We didn't even go on a quarter of the rigs the Rust Room has to offer – that would take years to master. But they don't need to throw knives. They don't need to know how to hide bodies or marks. I didn't train them to kill, I trained them to confidently hold a weapon in their hands.
But that's just the base.
The Academy teaches something else entirely.
Eon.
The only thing that's ever stood between humanity and the Nyxes. Power made from light itself - the same light that burns them, cuts them, erases them.
It's beautiful. Magnificent, even.
Yet it's also a curse.
Every battlefield that ever glowed with Eon ended the same way - silence, smoke, glowing ashes, and broken weapons that still hummed with power afterward.
I've seen what it can do. My time in the Phalanx showed me - wounds healed in seconds. Limbs reattached. Mountains shattered with a single strike. Dozen-meter thick walls that had stood for centuries reduced to dust. Seas frozen mid-wave (that might have been me… heh…)
But the people wielding it? They smiled through the smoke. Because winning is easier than surviving, and Eon makes winning feel inevitable.
…Until it doesn't.
You've heard about Vanguard Division One.
Best of the Vanguards, in my opinion. Forty-year veterans with Luminite weapons this century had never seen before. Eon masters who could manifest constructs the size of entire buildings.
All gone. Three weeks ago. Fortitude eight mission.
No bodies. No traces. Just Nyxes and silence.
The official report said "mission failure."
I've read enough reports to know what that means.
It means something out there is stronger than we thought. Something that ate the strongest fighters we had and didn't even leave bones behind.
Raizen wants to fight Nyxes. They all do. But here's what they don't understand yet. Luminite doesn't just amplify your strength. It amplifies everything. Your rage. Your fear. Your worst instincts. Feed it anger and it makes you unstoppable. Feed it too much and it makes you something else entirely.
The Academy will teach them to channel it. To shape it and control it safely. To turn themselves into weapons sharp enough to cut through nightmares.
But Eon has a cost.
It always does.
I've seen good fighters become monsters because they couldn't stop. I've seen people burn themselves hollow chasing more control, more light, more power.
The kids think the Academy is a school. A place to get stronger, learn techniques, become "heroes".
It's not.
The Lotus Academy is a sieve. It shakes you until only the part that can survive remains. Everything else? Gets left behind. Your softness. Your hesitation. Sometimes even your humanity.
The ones who make it through come back different. Eyes that don't quite look the same. Smiles that don't reach all the way.
But they're strong.
Strong enough to stand against the dark.
Strong enough to use Eon without being devoured by it.
…Most of the time.
✦ ✦ ✦
Velarion taught me what happens when Eon isn't enough.
Everyone speaks of it like a story that happened to someone else. It didn't. It happened to all of us.
A rich, big city. Gardens on every level. Dinner on elevated terraces.
Then the Anathemas stepped out of the shadows.
The Higher-ups say there are twelve of them. I've never seen all twelve at once, and I pray I never do.
What I have seen is enough.
We lost three of seven Phalanx members in those weeks.
And then… The strongest of us, the leader, went to face something we didn't even understand. We called it the Nyx Queen because we needed a name to hold our fear.
I didn't see that fight. No one did.
The last time I saw our leader, his back was straight and he didn't say goodbye.
That was the last time anyone saw either of them.
✦ ✦ ✦
The city feels different tonight.
Something in the air. A strange weight that wasn't there yesterday. My chasmis keeps twitching upward, as if something interesting is happening on the surface.
And the exam...
It feels different too.
I've trained students for years. Seen them take the Academy exam.
But this year?
This year the Academy changed the exam format. No warning. No explanation.
The instructors I know won't talk about it. The ones who will, just say: "It's necessary."
Necessary for what?
Division One is gone. The strongest fighters we had - erased.
And now the Academy is changing how it tests new recruits.
Either they're desperate for replacements...
Or they know something's coming.
Something worse than what took Division One.
Something that requires a different kind of fighter.
Raizen. Hikari. Keahi. Arashi.
They're walking into that.
I've taught them everything I can. Given them the foundation. Shown them how to stand, how to move, how to survive.
But Eon is a different beast.
And the Academy doesn't teach survival. It teaches domination.
The question isn't whether they're ready.
The question is whether ready even matters anymore.
Because out there in the dark, past the walls, past the safe zones, past everywhere the light reaches...
The Nyxes are changing too. Getting smarter. Stronger. More coordinated.
Division One wasn't just killed.
They were hunted.
And whatever hunted them is still out there. Waiting.
The exam begins at dawn.
And I can't shake the feeling that this time...
This time, not everyone's coming back.