The Western Academy's team walked onto the arena floor like an army.
Not metaphorically. Their formation was military — two columns of three flanking a center position, each fighter precisely spaced, each movement synchronized. They'd been training together for years rather than weeks, and the difference was visible in the particular way their energies interlocked without conscious effort. No tuning period. No synchronization window. Just — cohesion. The kind that came from repetition rather than trust.
Kira Voss held the center. The gray-green eyes found mine across the arena floor with the immediate precision of two compatible frequencies locking onto each other. The Abyssal thread in her signature hummed — not aggressively, not warmly. Curiously. The way a note sought its harmonic.
