They came in a line.
Not charging.
Not sneaking.
Just walking. Casual. Controlled.
Five silhouettes stood along the cracked ridge, outlined against the dim violet sky. Mana glowed faintly along their clothes and weapons like distant embers.
They weren't like the Wraiths.
That wrong, twisting pressure from earlier wasn't there.
This was a different kind of danger.
Human.
"They're not monsters," Rex muttered beside me. "Somehow that makes me feel worse."
Aether shifted his stance just enough to put himself between me and the ridge. Seraphina didn't move at all, but the frost beneath her boots thickened, spreading across the black stone in a thin layer. My sealed wound throbbed dully under the ice.
The five figures finally stopped a short distance away.
I could see them clearly now.
Academy combat cloaks. Reinforced gear. Real weapons that weren't brand new, but marked with wear and use. These weren't panicking first-years thrown into chaos.
They were here with a purpose.
The one in front stepped forward.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a round shield strapped across his back and a sword at his hip. His hair was cropped short, his eyes sharp but strangely relaxed—as if he'd already measured everything here and found it familiar.
His gaze swept across the battlefield.
Over the erased Wraith ash.
Over Aether and Seraphina.
Over Rex.
Then it settled on me.
It stayed there.
"Well," he said, his voice annoyingly calm. "Guess the rumors weren't exaggerated. The anomaly team really is here."
Anomaly team.
I didn't like how that sounded.
Aether's voice was chilly. "State your team and intent."
The boy tapped his shield with two fingers. "Team Iron Sigil. Independent ranking squad. Current position… probably ruined thanks to whatever you did to the environment over here." His mouth tilted slightly. "As for intent?"
He lifted a hand and pointed—not at Aether.
At me.
"We came for him."
Rex tensed beside me. "You picked the wrong discount villain, buddy."
The boy ignored him.
My throat felt dry. "…Me?"
He nodded.
"News travels fast in the trial," he said. "Something unnatural happens, somebody survives a Wraith encounter they shouldn't, and suddenly there's a new factor on the board." He tilted his head. "You, specifically."
Seraphina spoke for the first time.
"How did you find us?"
The boy's eyes flicked toward her, but there was no awe or fear in his expression. Just respect and calculation.
"The Wraiths leave residue when they die," he said. "Most of us can't sense it. The academy's examiners can. But a few support-types and specialists?" He shrugged. "Let's just say some teams came prepared with the right tools."
From the back, a slim girl in light robes lifted a small crystal between her fingers. It pulsed faintly with a soft, sickly glow.
"When that one detonated earlier," he nodded at the Wraith dust near Rex's earlier position, "our tracker caught the signature."
Seraphina's eyes narrowed. "You followed a Wraith's death."
"Of course we did," he replied. "Those things only appear where fate is… interesting."
His gaze slid back to me again.
"Which brings us back to him."
I swallowed.
"So you're… hunting me?"
He shook his head once. "Not you. What you picked up."
Every eye shifted to me.
Including mine.
My hand went unconsciously to the small pouch at my waist. There it was—the faint, unpleasant vibration. Like a second heartbeat that wasn't mine.
I hadn't even checked it after the battle.
Of course I hadn't.
Because I was stupid.
Rex sighed beside me. "…You looted the creepy glitch monster, didn't you?"
"I didn't mean to," I muttered.
The boy laughed quietly.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "What matters is that you're carrying a Wraith core fragment. Those don't just give mana. They give ranking priority. Trial influence. Access to deeper nodes." His smile thinned. "Enough to push a mid-tier team like mine into the top thirty."
There it was.
Not some edgy "kill the villain for fun."
Just ambition.
Greed.
Survival in another form.
Aether's jaw tightened. "You're willing to attack other students for points?"
"We're willing to fight other students for points," he corrected. "There's a difference." His gaze sharpened. "We didn't come here to kill you… unless you force that line to be crossed."
Silence stretched.
Above us, the cracked sky rumbled faintly, like it was listening.
Seraphina spoke softly, almost lazily.
"You expect us to hand it over peacefully."
The boy shrugged.
"That would be ideal."
Rex snorted. "And then what? You just trot off and promise not to tell anyone who had it first?"
The boy didn't even look offended.
"There are no secrets in the Fate Trial," he said. "Every unusual event gets copied and spread. A Wraith cluster spawning? A team surviving it intact? Someone carrying its core? The examiners are watching. The guild scouts are taking notes. The noble factions are whispering already."
His eyes slid back to me.
"Whether we take it or not, people like him don't get to stay invisible. We're just the first ones who got here."
That hit harder than I wanted it to.
He wasn't wrong.
Aether glanced back at me, his expression unreadable.
"This is your choice," he said quietly. "It started because of you."
Seraphina's gaze didn't leave Iron Sigil's leader.
Rex whispered harshly, "Kyle… just give it to them. We can find other ways to grow. You don't have to bleed for a shiny rock."
My fingers curled around the pouch.
If I gave it up, we'd avoid a fight we might not win.
Aether was strong.
Seraphina was terrifying.
Rex was… Rex.
But I was injured.
We were tired.
And they were organized.
They also knew we were here now. They'd seen our faces. Seen us fight. Seen me bleed.
Would they really just "walk away" after we handed it over?
Or would they simply assume we were easy to strip next time, too?
I thought of the Wraith's hand reaching for Rex.
The way it had cracked apart when it got too close to me.
The way Iron Sigil's leader kept looking at me like I was both opportunity and problem.
My mouth felt dry.
"I don't…" I started, then stopped.
What kind of existence did I want in this world?
The one where I bought safety by handing over everything valuable?
Or the one where I bled for every inch but at least the blood was mine?
My hand slowly left the pouch.
My voice, when it came out, sounded smaller than I wanted.
"No."
The boy's smile faded.
It didn't twist into rage.
It simply… thinned.
"Final answer?" he asked.
"Yes."
His expression went cold.
"Then by right of trial," he said calmly, "Team Iron Sigil challenges your team for dominance and possession of the Wraith fragment."
The air shuddered.
Not literally.
But something in the world acknowledged what he'd said.
This wasn't just a brawl now.
It was a recognized part of the exam.
He raised two fingers.
Behind him, his team shifted smoothly into position.
The archer stepped onto a broken stone outcrop, giving him a clear field of view.
The curse user lowered her staff, symbols already flickering around her hands.
The second frontliner—a lighter armored fighter with twin short blades—relaxed into a low, flowing stance, eyes focused on Aether.
The healer lingered in the back, hands already glowing faintly.
Iron Sigil's leader rolled his shoulders once and slid his shield off his back.
"Take it seriously," he said. "We are."
Aether's aura flared, blue light gathering along his sword.
"Seraphina," he said quietly, "watch the healer."
She nodded once.
Her eyes flashed gold, then cooled into unreadable ice.
"Rex," Aether continued.
Rex jerked up. "Y-Yeah?"
"Stay near Kyle. Don't overextend."
"Got it."
"What about me?" I asked weakly.
Aether didn't look back.
"You're the reason they're here," he said. "Try not to die."
Fair.
Very fair.
The leader of Iron Sigil lowered his shield slightly, as if giving us one last chance.
"You sure about this?" he asked.
I thought about it.
About every time I'd just survived because something else had bailed me out.
About collapsing. Panicking. Waiting for inevitable death.
Then about forcing my body to move against every instinct.
About choosing, for once, not to be carried.
"Yes," I said.
He sighed.
"Then don't complain about the result."
He dropped his hand.
The archer loosed his first arrow.
And the first human battle of my new life really began.
---
The arrow didn't whistle.
It screamed.
Ripping the air in a jagged line toward Aether, not me.
He twisted aside, sword flashing up to deflect the shot. The arrow glanced off his blade and detonated against a nearby shard of rock, exploding it into a hail of jagged stone.
The twin-blade fighter was already moving, closing the gap in a low sprint, using the falling debris as cover. His movements were sharp, economical—no wasted steps, no dramatic flair.
Aether met him halfway.
Their clash was fast.
Too fast for my eyes to fully follow.
Steel rang against steel in tight bursts of sound as they traded blows at close range. Aether's movements were smooth, flowing, while the other boy's style was all stabbing angles and sharp pivots.
The shield-bearer did not join them.
He angled slightly, adjusting his position like he was shepherding the battlefield, keeping Seraphina in sight, blocking direct paths toward their healer.
Smart.
Cold.
Seraphina raised a hand.
The air at the healer's feet frosted immediately, spreading outward in a creeping circle. The healer reacted just in time, light flaring beneath her boots as she broke the freeze with a burst of holy mana.
But it made her stay still.
And in a fight like this, sometimes that was everything.
Rex inhaled sharply beside me.
His hands glowed as fire gathered.
He wasn't at Aether's level.
He wasn't even really ready for this kind of confrontation.
But he still stepped forward.
Not behind Aether. Not behind Seraphina.
Just one step ahead of me.
He hurled a firebolt toward the archer.
It wasn't perfect.
It wasn't pretty.
But it forced the archer to leap from his elevated perch, his next arrow veering off aim.
That stray shot clipped my shoulder instead of my neck.
I bit down on a scream as pain lanced through me.
Warm blood soaked into the already torn edge of my clothes.
The world lurched for a heartbeat.
I stayed standing.
Barely.
The curse user finally made her move.
Dark chains of shadow erupted from the ground near Aether's feet, whipping around to bind his legs while he was mid-swing.
Seraphina snapped her fingers.
The shadows froze solid midair.
Aether tore free, blue aura shattering the brittle ice-covered bindings with a single surge.
The twin-blade fighter flashed in close while he was momentarily off-balance, one dagger slicing across Aether's ribs.
Aether grunted, but instead of retreating, he stepped in.
He let the hit land.
He paid for it with blood.
And traded it for a sword stroke that hammered into his opponent's shoulder so hard I heard bones crack from where I stood.
The other boy screamed and dropped one of his blades, stumbling back.
The shield-bearer reacted instantly, moving to cover him.
They were a real team.
Moving in practiced patterns.
No one standing alone.
No one neglected.
And us?
We were…
We were four people thrown together because fate wanted to laugh.
Aether, who carried a future that scared the monsters themselves.
Seraphina, who made the world colder just by existing.
Rex, who was trying to laugh on a battlefield his soul wasn't ready for.
And me.
The misprint.
The glitch.
The one they'd come for.
My fingers shook around the pouch at my hip.
The fragment pulsed faintly, like it was answering some rhythm the trial itself was beating.
For a moment, I wondered—
If I used it now… would it save us?
Or would it break something none of us could fix?
Seraphina's voice cut through the chaos.
"Kyle."
I looked up.
Her golden eyes were on mine. Even with spells flying and blades flashing, she made it feel like time had narrowed down to that single gaze.
"Do not draw on that fragment," she said.
…So she'd noticed.
"I don't even know how," I muttered.
"That is precisely why," she replied. "You are already attracting things that should not see you. Don't give them a louder beacon."
Another arrow whistled past her cheek.
Frost cracked where it hit the ground.
Rex stumbled from where he'd dodged a flying shard and nearly tripped over me.
"This is bad, this is bad, this is so, so bad," he breathed. "Any plans? Strategies? Divine interventions you forgot to mention?"
I swallowed.
My leg hurt.
My side hurt.
My shoulder hurt.
And somewhere behind all of that…
My pride hurt more.
I was the reason this battle existed.
I was also the one doing the least.
No more.
"Rex," I said.
"Huh?"
"Stick to suppressing their archer. Don't aim to kill. Just make him move."
He blinked.
"That actually sounds… like a strategy."
"Seraphina," I called loudly, shockingly not stuttering. "If you can lock their healer even for a few seconds, Aether can force a break."
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Her mana shifted.
The air changed.
Aether heard me too.
He didn't nod.
Didn't acknowledge it.
But his footwork began to shift.
He angled his opponent so that the shield-bearer was forced to divide his attention between protecting the healer…
And protecting the curse caster.
For the first time since the fight started, it felt like we weren't just reacting.
We were starting to play back.
And for a boy who was supposed to be miswritten, standing in the wrong script…
That felt like the first real line I'd managed to say on purpose.