Agony exploded in Sagiri's skull. His knees buckled so violently that his tray clattered across the polished floor. He slammed onto the ground with a strangled gasp. His knees met the cold, hard floor, but he didn't feel it. The pain was not in his body, but a searing headache had hit him deep in his skull, making him fall forward.
It was the archive again, and it was tearing through his skull. It was the same as what had happened after the fight when Captain Salka and his men had been in a fight. This time, he had not been triggered by the sight of blood, however. He could feel it now, a faint internal hum, like a current running along the edges of his bones. When he had passed out in the Second Year Library, exhaustion had knocked him out cold, yet the moment he woke up, he could feel it, the subtle recoil of power as though the Archive inside him had been momentarily refilled.
He didn't understand the entirety of what had happened then. He thought the warmth he felt before was just from the sleep recharging his strength. But now it seemed like something more had happened. The archive had done something else while he was out cold. Sagiri clawed at the floor, breath ripping in and out in short, broken bursts. White-hot electric pulses shot behind his eyes, down his spine, and into his teeth. It felt as if someone had cracked his skull open and poured fire directly into his brain. It took all he had not to let himself surrender to the markings that were slithering under his skin.
He screamed.
Not a dignified sound, a raw, involuntary, humiliating cry of agony. Gasps echoed around him. Benches screeched as students leapt to their feet. They had always been trained to be alert, and a student suddenly falling to the ground and crying in pain put everyone on edge. While he rolled and crawled within the alley between tables, his face came face-to-face with big boots, which he crushed violently headfirst.
The figure he crashed into was still seated, still devouring his mountain that doubled everyone's. Sagiri had just happened to fall by his table, disturbing his meal, forcing him to finally abandon his meal and stand up. He was now standing tall, towering and immovable, staring down at the writhing boy. Sagiri still remembered the feelings he perceived from the person in front of him. He had been on his knees by his boots in the morning assembly, and all he could perceive from him was confidence, pride, and strength, and also disappointment.
The feeling of disappointment was even bigger now. King Bami, is what they called him, he was the king of not only Galka War Academy but also the Northern Tribes. His father is the Grand Zorath of the north, and he wanted to take after him fair and square by proving himself worthy. Kaka Asakana Bami of the Bami tribe. Also, the school's strongest cadet. The other survivor of the suffocation chamber test, and the absolute last person Sagiri wanted to collapse in front of. He might have fallen into the bottom of the food chain since he left Wuzi, but he was not planning to stay at the bottom for long. He was prideful and had gotten used to being different and knowing more than everyone, so that he had gotten used to it. Some part of him wanted that back.
The room went silent, watching their king on the spot with the new boy again. He had not been pleased to learn that someone else had conquered the suffocation chamber. He had been eager to meet the protegee who had stood on the same light as him. Yet he had been utterly disappointed when he had met him. He couldn't stand anymore to be compared to such a person, whom the two times they met was on his knees. It angered him to know that such weakness could share the light with him.
Then Kaka's body suddenly jolted. His back arched slightly, muscles tightening as though he'd been struck by an invisible whip. He took a step back and stared at the groaning boy wearily, not understanding the slight jolt of currency he had just felt. Students shouted. Chairs overturned, thinking it was a fight. But, because no one had seen what truly happened, they stood in confusion when they saw the new boy groaning.
The Archive, in its wild, uncontrolled state, earlier, while he was passed out, had reached out, reacting to Sagiri's proximity, his collapse, his overload of force-fed knowledge. When Sagiri had fallen asleep on the book, when exhaustion had shut down his body, The Archive had kept going. It had absorbed the entire theory textbook on Terrain Advantage in one ravenous sweep. And now it was detonating inside him, overflowing, rejecting its own speed, its own hunger. It might have part of its locked ability that had broken through once again. The barrier in his archive caused him pain whenever the barrier was pushed.
"Stay back…"He tried to gasp out a warning
But the sentence broke apart as another wave of pain folded him onto his head, much worse than the last. Instructors burst through the hall doors in a hurry after hearing the commotion. The fourth-year students would still be considered deadly weapons, and if allowed to go out of control, they could topple a small city by themselves if left to their own devices. Instructors were not only there to teach but to keep them in check. Four Junior combat instructors were the first to reach them, sliding across the floor in trained, efficient motions.
"What happened?!" the first asked.
"Who attacked him?" the third asked.
"Which cadet is responsible for this?!" The first repeated himself.
Hands seized Sagiri's shoulders. Rough. Urgent. He tried to shake his head, but he was in too much pain and couldn't form words. His body was locked in a violent tremor, every nerve firing at once. An instructor barked to Kaka, who was the closest and who was the only one in a defensive position, after a weird sensation he experienced
"Cadet Kaka! You are under disciplinary action for assault during meal protocol!" Sagiri's eyes widened.
Sagiri tried to shout No! tried to explain, tried to say it wasn't him, but just trying to open his mouth made him feel like he could shatter into a thousand pieces. It wasn't anyone, it was the Archive. Kaka's face contorted into anger, confusion, and fury at the accusation. How could anyone ever think the boy was even worthy of his attention? Insinuating that he could lower himself to beat a boy weaker than him was the biggest insult he had ever endured. Hands were already hauling Sagiri upward to help him stand when the next command rang through the hall.
"Kaka Asakana to the suspended chamber for twenty-four hours."
The dining wing went still. Kaka froze mid-breath, shoulders rising and falling with the sharp, residual pain coursing through him. His eyes snapped open wide, burning, furious. He jerked out of a junior instructor's grip with a violent twist of his wrists.
"No." His voice cut through the hall like a blade.
The instructor tried to hold him again with the help of another, but King Bami shoved them back as if they warranted a whole rank ahead of him. He was a beast in strength.
"I said no."
There was a collective intake of breath. No student ever refused an order from an instructor, not openly.
"Kaka," barked another junior Instructor, stepping forward, "Are you trying to disobey?"
"I didn't touch him," Kaka growled. His stance widened, instinctive, protective, the way fighters anchored themselves before a clash. Before the instructors could respond, another figure moved behind Bami, a head shorter, but now he looked dead serious, not like the playful boy he had met in the morning, his athletic shoulders broad and rigid. Kiuga.
King Bami's closest friend and the only boy whose strength was rumored to rival him even if they stood far apart in size. Kiuga stepped in without a word, planting himself directly behind Kaka, forming a two-man team. Several students gasped. The tension spiked up a notch, and even being held up by the fourth instructor and being in excruciating pain, Sagiri could feel the dangerous calmness the two boys exuded. They were willing to fight even an instructor to prove their innocence. And Kiuga was willing to support his friend through thick and thin, what loyalty. He wished he could have a friend who understood him, who he could share his secrets with.
"Stand down," The same junior instructor said again. He seemed to be the brave one of the three "Now." However, Kaka didn't move.
"He didn't do it," Kiuga said with a deep voice different from the one he had used to tease King Bami in the morning assembly.
"King Bami…" the instructor called him by his nickname, but it was too late to take it back
"I'm not going to the suspended chamber for a lie," Kaka said coolly, his voice cold, and a storm brewed behind his pupils. The three instructors shifted into defensive stances. Two more moved in on Kaka's flanks.
Every boy in the dining hall fell silent, but some brimmed with excitement, wanting to see who could win between Kaka, Kiuga, and the junior instructors. Instructors didn't fear students on the regular. Except perhaps the two standing before them, especially the beast of a boy, Kaka.
The air vibrated with the tension of a war. One wrong twitch and the entire hall would explode. Sagiri slumped to the floor as another wave of agony tore through his skull, and he gasped uselessly. The instructors were prepared to subdue Bami and Kiuga by force. Kiuga curled and skulked low, getting into a frog pose, and Kaka just stood still as if waiting for someone to make a move so he could have an excuse to break them in half. The tension had swollen to suffocating levels, and electricity cackled. Suddenly, when it got too much to bear, adding to Sagiri's suffering, the doors thundered open, and a presence stepped in.
The hall straightened immediately in response.