Dawn broke like a jagged piece of glass. 005 rose, his body aching, his mind heavy with the weight of the previous day's rebellion. He marched toward the Commander's cabin, every step a calculation of risk. He braced himself and entered. The Commander sat in the shadows, waiting. "Sit," he commanded, pointing to a corner. "You've got talent, kid. I see a future in you, and I'm going to make sure you grow into it." He took a slow, deep breath. "From today, the curriculum changes. I'm going to teach you something... special." He led Five into a hidden basement, a stark contrast to the frozen world above. It was a high-end laboratory of violence, furnished with equipment that looked more like torture devices than training tools. "I'm passing my technique to you," the Commander said. With a casual flick of a blade, he slit his own palm. The blood didn't drip; it obeyed. It rose from his skin, swirling in the air like a living nebula before hardening into a perfect cube, then a sphere, and finally a jagged, crimson dagger. "Your days on these grounds are numbered. Soon, the survivors will be flown back to Base. You will master this, or I will beat it into your corpse." The months that followed were a blur of red and white. Five balanced the brutal physical regime with the agonizing mental strain of Hemomancy. By the second month, he could pull basic shapes from his own veins. Then, the Commander introduced a new variable. She had sharp aqua eyes and hazel hair that mirrored his own, her face a constellation of freckles. Her tag read 001. "Iron sharpens iron," the Commander growled. "You will sharpen each other. Battle. Learn their weakness, or make it your own." They stood in the basement, the air thick with the scent of copper. "Begin!" They cut their palms in unison. Five lashed out, his blood wiggling into liquid daggers that he hurled at her. One didn't dodge; she backtracked, weaving a thin web of her own blood that disintegrated his daggers into a pool on the floor. This will be difficult, Five realized. He focused on the pool at her feet, forcing it to erupt into spikes. She sensed the shift, leaping away, but her concentration wavered. Five seized the opening, his fist connecting with her jaw, pinning her down. He thought he had won until One's legs locked around his chest. She launched him into the air with supernatural strength. As he soared, she gathered every drop of blood she could muster, forming a massive, heavy hammer. She was pale, trembling from blood loss, but she swung. The hammer slammed Five into the ground. One stood over him, a smirk forming as she began to reabsorb her blood. But Five wasn't done. He raised a trembling hand. One suddenly coughed a violent, spraying arc of crimson. She had accidentally absorbed his blood. Five didn't hesitate. Inside her own veins, he commanded his blood to spike. She collapsed, screaming, as the internal shards tore at her. Five coughed his own lungs dry and fell beside her. They were given a single day to heal. In the years that followed, they became a binary star training, bleeding, and growing together. A silent, dark bond formed in the space between their scars. Three years passed in a heartbeat. The hundreds had been pruned down to a steady sixty-two. The final day arrived. The Commander stood before them, a map in his hand. "The final test. Coordinates are marked. Only fifty of you will survive. The rest will be abandoned to the permafrost. The extraction bird stays grounded for five minutes. If you aren't on it, you're dead." The silence shattered as sixty-two ghosts vanished into the woods. Five and One exchanged a single, sharp nod before taking different paths. Five moved through the forest like a shadow, gathering sticks and lacing them with the toxic secretions of frozen toads. He felt the rustle of leaves behind him. Followers. He pricked his finger against a tree trunk, leaving a trace of blood a sensor. The moment the pursuers entered his 180-degree radius, his blood screamed a warning. Three cadets pounced. Five used his sticks as catalysts, coating them in his blood to form lances that pierced the first attacker's heart. He spun, slashing the second across the chest. He didn't just cut; he let his blood seep into the wound, finding the man's heart and expanding it until it burst like an overripe fruit. A stone caught Five's hand, knocking his weapons away. The remaining three closed in. They locked his arms, a rain of blows falling on his gut. One attacker had sharpened stones between his knuckles, tearing Five's flesh to the bone. Then, it happened again. The world slowed to a crawl. The punch was a sluggish, pathetic movement. Five used his captors as a pivot, thumping the lead attacker in the chest. He manipulated the blood on his own skin, sliding it into their noses and mouths. Bam. He expanded the liquid inside them. Their hearts exploded in rhythmic thuds. Only one was left the one who had caused the most pain. Five grabbed him by the jaw, his own blood dripping into the man's mouth. He didn't just kill him; he snapped his limbs with tendrils of blood, forming a crimson cocoon that pierced the man from all sides. Five stared at the bodies. He felt no remorse. No heat. His humanity hadn't just been stripped; it had been frozen solid. He scavenged their bags for fruit and kept moving, but the forest wasn't done with him. A pack of wolves trailed him, but they were the least of his worries. A roar, deafening and ancient, shook the trees. A Saber-Cat icy blue fur, a mix of spots and stripes, and eyes like dying stars pounced. Five barely rolled clear of its massive claws. He was exhausted, his blood supply low. He looked into the beast's yellow eyes, and for a moment, Five's eyes flashed purple. Time stretched thin. He grabbed three venom-laced darts, aiming for the only vulnerability he could see. He bolted, leading the enraged beast through the markers he had left on the trees. He leaped over a fallen log and slid down a steep hill just as the beast jumped. Thud. The cat hit the trap he'd scouted earlier a jagged ravine of stakes and ice. The venom from his darts, delivered through the eye, did the rest. The distant buzz of chopper blades reached his ears. Time was up. He sprinted, his legs screaming, reaching the extraction point just as the bird began to lift. He leaped, his fingers clawing at the air, falling short Until a firm, blood-stained hand grabbed his arm. It was One. She hauled him onto the deck of the chopper. As the frozen hell of the training grounds shrank below them, 005 looked at the horizon. The boy was gone. The weapon was ready.
