The announcer let the applause run its course.
He stood at the center of the stage and watched it move through the crowd the way weather moves—unpredictable, total, filling every space available to it. He didn't rush it. He had learned long ago that trying to talk over a crowd at full volume was a losing proposition. You waited. You let them finish. And then, in the moment the noise began to crest and pull back, you stepped into the gap.
He stepped into it now.
"Ladies and gentlemen."
The crowd pulled inward.
"You have heard the names." He paused. "Now—you will see the path."
The screens changed.
All of them simultaneously—the academy crests disappeared, replaced by a single clean bracket display stretched across every screen in the arena, large enough to read from the upper tiers. Three separate brackets stacked and labeled. Class 3 at the top. Class 2 in the middle. Class 1 at the bottom.
The crowd leaned forward as one.
