They called it training. Capture the flag, with judges and aura zones and enough theatrical danger to make a good story.
The field glazed under a sun that pretended to be polite. Six divisions lined the edges like predators with different teeth.
Division A glinted. B moved like a machine. C chuckled in a way that suggested sharp things. D and E looked bored. F shuffled in and tried to look competent.
Before the whistle, Ren came to my side and leaned too close for casual conversation, too close for the way everyone watched us now.
"Kairo," he murmured, mouth pressed nearly to my ear. "Someone informed me of a 'potential genocide.' But I was bound to a contract of forgetfulness, so now I can't recall the face of the informant!"
Saying this, he pushed his glasses up his nose and wringed his hands frantically.
It was a whisper. He wanted me to watch the perimeter, the southeast quadrant where the practice rigs sat. He wanted a favor he was not brave enough to name.
I nodded because saying no would have led to potential conversations. And as I predicted, he bowed with a shaky smile of gratitude, and left me alone.
I almost left it there. I almost walked into danger, but it would be a cold day in hell before I was caught unawares again. The system in me was a machine of awareness.
[Alert: Dangerous traps ahead. 25% death anticipated from impending clash]
[Core stability: 68%. Assistance cost acceptable.]
I almost made the rational choice to save my head alone, but then I thought of Ren's face, and the open, stupid hope in it that I could somehow protect them.
The whistle cut the air. Students surged forward like a storm. The field's obstacles thrummed with engineered hazard: rune-nets, snap-hurdles, concealed spikes. Whoever set the course wanted spectacle. Whoever tampered with it wanted bodies.
"System, implement bird's eye view."
[Bird's eye view, implemented]
Immediately I could see the entirety of the field, and made out where each division F member stood.
Kira was standing by the flags, but I could make out pairs of buried spikes where she stood, each spike possibly as long as her arm.
Jin was standing beside a net imbued with enough electricity to stop his heart on the spot, and Lara was preparing for a race. Judging by the obstacles cleverly concealed, it would be her last.
This was not a sports arena, it was a field for slaughter.
The cold cruelty of it was almost enough to stun me. Almost.
Two minutes in, the first trap snapped.
~~~
A net flung up from the grass like the mouth of a beast and It hit an E-division runner first; his skin blistered on impact, and his clothes erupted into a cloud of smoke, and just like that. He was gone.
Then the southeast of the field exploded with the force of ten thousand grenades.
Black vines erupted, fast, precise, mechanical in their cruelty, and wrapped around whoever they chose. They bit with teeth that hissed acid. The nearest of my division went down and the field immediately resembled a butcher's canvas, red blooming in the green.
I used the bird's view and checked on my division. They were terrified but unaffected, yet.
Good.
I did not know then who had set it. There was no clear fingerprint, only a field full of moving shadows and the bored eyes of some kids and the frantic breathing of others. Six divisions, six different motives.
[Anomaly signature: engineered rune-lattice. Correlation: external tampering likely. Source: unknown. Class attribution: inconclusive.]
In other words: no definite villain. Just blood and chaos.
Sick.
Jin screamed my name; he'd been caught by a vine that laced his ribs. He fell and spat red. I saw the little arc of his life in slow motion, the shock in his eyes, the useless reach for air, and I made a calculated move. Was he worth more alive, or dead?
I moved because they had moved first. Not because I loved them. Not because I forgave them. But because the system promised more power with each enemy I defeated, and an invisible foe was still a foe.
My hands erupted Ae that burned like hot metal, and descending into a flip, I flung it at Jin. The snares of the trap melted, the vines loosened. Jin slumped free, coughing red foam, but breathing.
The rapid progression of Ae I fired burned through my reserves. My chest frosted over from within and my vision swayed.
[Core spike detected. Side effects: nausea, delayed heartbeat.]
I ignored the warning and kept going. Lara was screaming now, her lower half trapped under a net's teeth. I tore at the ropes with my bare hands and felt something tear at my shoulder in return. Pain, hot and immediate, took a square area of focus away.
She was sobbing as I freed her, blood covering every inch of her skin as she flung herself to me and held on with a startling amount of strength.
The rage dormant inside me roared to life at the sight. Lian had held onto me just as tightly. Ignoring my limits, I poured my Ae into her as a form of life force. I was not seeing her though, I saw my dead friend.
The force of a glare seared the side of my head, bringing me from the edge. I was glad for it, until I located the source.
From the judges' tower I saw Luciene first. He did not appear shocked; he watched with the calm curiosity of someone vetting a specimen. His eyes saw fractures and drew them into plans.
Arin stood beside him, ice folded into bone; her smile was small and hungry as a blade. Kael drifted at the edge, hands in his pockets, expression as flat as his personality. He didn't help. He catalogued.
A division E student laid on the grounding, unmoving. The vine's acid had eaten through his arm. And the field had arranged itself around his body like a crime scene.
I was running on fumes, pushing Ae until my vision frothed and blurred. The shard inside me pulsed, hungry. Every time I fed it, it wanted more. Each save felt like a balance shift: life for now, chaos for later.
Finally I reached the center and slammed a suppression pocket into the soil. The sigils died in a spreading bruise. The vines shriveled and the nets went slack, as I destroyed the earth from within.
~~~
When I stood the world had the smell of burned iron. My hands were bands of dried blood. My limbs numbed, fingers prickling with frost.
Before I could move, a ball slammed into me. A boy with the strangest green hair and eyes I had ever seen.
He just held on like my touch meant safety as he cowered behind me. Shoving him away in complete disapproval, I twisted my mouth.
Spineless.
Students laid everywhere in different stages of hurt, but upon closer inspection I realized with a strange feeling in my gut that they were all lower divisions.
I glanced up at the teachers/judges, and the student council. They were calm, and there was something else: disappointment.
Luciene's voice carried over the din; it was soft and horribly calm "Contain the damages. An investigation will follow."
Arin's eyes found mine and she smiled the way knives smile. Kael looked away, bored, then curious, then gone.
The system whispered garbage metrics into my head.
[Core stability: 22% — critical reserve. Suggest immediate rest and integration.]
Meaning: I'd used too much. I'd paid the prize. I could feel the shard thrumming like an animal that had swallowed poison; it wanted to purge.
Ren's gratitude cracked into a laugh that sounded like someone who had almost drowned. "You saved us," he said, a sentence that would follow me like a curse and a promise.
I wanted to tell him I didn't do it for him. I wanted to tell him I only did it because their choice to stand with me made them useful. Instead I said nothing. I let them believe the fiction they needed.
I tasted blood and cold metal and the faint, bitter satisfaction of an obligation kept.
They had stood for me. I'd cut the field open to keep them breathing.
I closed my eyes and let the system quiet the world.
~~~
Limping away, I finally came to terms with what had happened. The school had tried to rid itself of its weakest link: E and F. I was the variable they did not see coming. But they were aware of me now. They would come for my blood next.