The training ground went dead silent.Not the silence from before, the impressed kind, the kind that comes with wide eyes and held breath because something incredible just happened. This was different. This was the silence of people watching something they didn't fully understand and weren't sure how to react to yet.Every single unit member on those benches was staring at the center of the ground.Where Caius was on the floor.He wasn't knocked back. He wasn't sent flying. He had just, gone down. Like something inside him had simply switched off mid-movement, his legs folding underneath him, his body dropping to the packed earth with a heavy, final sound that carried all the way to the back row of the benches.The unit member who had been so sure, the one who had been leaning forward with his elbows on his knees saying the captain was going to win, that the sparring was decided, that the Crimson Burial Strike would close it out, that same unit member was now sitting with his mouth o

“He had already spent most of what he had keeping up with the pace of the fight before he ever used it. By the time he launched that final move, the tank was running on what was left at the bottom of it." She looked at Caius where he was sitting on the bench. "His body was trying to execute a high-output technique on almost nothing. And when the aura dropped below the minimum threshold the body needs to keep all systems running, the legs went first.”“Then the arms. He was fully conscious. Fully aware. His mind was still in the fight. But there was nothing left for his body to run on."The ground was very quiet.Then one of the unit members near the front raised their hand."If the captain had controlled how much aura he was using through the fight,spread it out more carefully, would he have won?"Mira looked at them.Then she laughed.It was short and warm and completely honest, the laugh of someone who finds a question genuinely funny without finding the person asking it foolish.

"Begin."The word had barely left Egries's mouth.The girl didn't wait. She didn't give Jabber a second to find his footing, didn't wait for him to settle into a stance, didn't do any of the things you normally do at the start of a sparring match when both people are supposed to be ready before anything happens.Her bow was already up.Her draw arm was already back.And her voice came out low and sharp and fast…“”"Flame Arc Technique— Piercing Sun."””The arrow left the string before the technique name had finished landing in the air. It came off the bow with a sound like something tearing, burning hot and bright orange, growing as it moved, not shrinking the way arrows are supposed to as they travel, but widening, pulling more flame into itself as it crossed the distance between them.Jabber's eyes went wide.He saw it coming. He had maybe half a second. Less.The arrow hit.The impact cracked across the training ground like a thunderclap, and the smoke came fast and full, thick or

‘"Yes."’Jabber looked at Beatrice for a moment longer. Then he let out a breath."Okay.”He said, he then closed his eyes.The training ground went quiet in a way that had nothing to do with anyone making a decision to be quiet. It just happened, like the air itself stopped moving and waited.Then Jabber's eyes opened.And they were purple.Not orange. Not the warm amber of a flame mage's eyes in a fight. Deep, flat purple,the colour of something old and patient and completely at home in whatever space it occupied. The posture of Jabber's body shifted too, not dramatically, not like a different person taking over a puppet. More subtle than that. The weight distribution changed. The shoulders settled differently. The head tilted just a fraction, and the way the eyes moved across the training ground was different, slower, more complete, the way something looks around a space when it has done this before and is not in a hurry.Loki looked at Beatrice .The trembling started at the ben

The arena went silent.Not the kind of silence that builds up slowly while people process something. The instant kind. The kind where one moment there was movement and sound and the next moment there was just,nothing. Like someone had reached over and turned the whole training ground off.The defence unit members were all on their feet.Not because they had stood up deliberately. Because their bodies had stood up without asking permission, the way bodies do when something happens that the brain hasn't finished understanding yet.The captain of the defence unit was flat on the ground.Passed out. Face down. Completely still. His arms were at his sides and his legs were straight and he looked less like a man who had been in a fight and more like a man who had simply decided, very suddenly, that the ground looked comfortable and he was going to lie on it.One of the defence unit members was staring at the spot where his captain was lying with an expression that had genuinely lost its fo