2025-12-15 20:33:18Asta’s eyes snapped open.
His chest was rising and falling fast, like he had been running for hours. He sat up so quickly the thin mattress on the bunk bed creaked loud. The room was small and gray. Bare walls. A tiny window high up let in cold morning light. The air smelled of dust and old wood.
An old man sat on a wooden chair beside the bed, watching him with calm eyes.
“You okay, boy?”
The old man asked, his voice rough but not unkind.
Asta blinked, rubbed his face.
“Yeah… I think so.”
He looked around again, confusion written all over his face.
“Where the hell am I?”
The old man gave a small smile.
“No need to be scared. You’re in the Labourers’ Unit. Bottom floor of the academy. This is where flameless students work now.”
Asta’s heart dropped.
“Labourers’ Unit…? How did I get here?”
The old man stood up slowly, joints cracking.
“You ask too many questions.”
He said, turning toward the door.
“When we were rounding up the flameless ones after the ceremony, we found you passed out behind the academy. You were burning with fever. We carried you here and gave you some medicine.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“That's enough for you?”
Asta swallowed hard.
“Oh… yeah. Thank you, sir. And sorry for my manners.”
The old man nodded.
“It’s alright. Get up. Come register. From today, this is your new school.”
Asta climbed out of the bunk. His legs felt heavy, like they were made of stone.
As they walked down a dark, narrow hallway, the dragon’s huge red eye flashed in his mind again. Scales. Fire and Chains burning with flames.
His step faltered. His eyes went wide.
The old man noticed.
“You okay, boy?”
Asta shook his head fast, like trying to throw the picture out.
“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”
“Walk faster then.”
They reached a bigger room with long tables. A few older students sat there, wearing gray work clothes. When they saw Asta, whispers started.
“Isn’t that Asta Xavier?”
“The one with no flame?”
“Even the Fire Lord’s son ended up here…”
The old man slammed his hand on the table.
“QUIET! All of you!”
Everyone shut up fast.
He pushed a dirty register book toward Asta.
“Write your name. From now on you work with us. Clean floors. Carry coal. Fix things. That’s your life.”
Asta stared at the page. His hand shook as he wrote his name in black ink.
The old man watched him, his voice softer now.
“Don’t look so sad, boy. You’ll get used to it. Some even say they like it here.”
Asta forced a tiny smile. It died the second it appeared.
He finished and walked toward the exit.
The hallway to the outside was long and cold. His footsteps echoed.
Then,bump!
He walked straight into someone wearing a long brown cloak. The hood hid their faces.
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
A soft girl’s voice said.
She stepped around him quickly and disappeared down the hall.
Asta blinked.
“Wait… a girl? What is a girl doing down here?”
He shook his head and kept walking.
An hour later, he stood in front of the huge iron gates of Xavier Mansion
The golden lions looked the same, but everything felt wrong.
Two new guards in black armor blocked the entrance.
“Stop right there.”
One said, his voice hard.
“By order of the new Clan Head, Cassian Xavier,you are forbidden to step foot inside this compound.”
Asta froze.
“You’ve got to be kidding me… really?”
From the left side of the fence, near some trees, a familiar voice called softly.
“Young master Asta!”
Butler Grogerry stood there with a few maids and housekeepers. They were wearing normal clothes,no uniforms. Their eyes were red from crying. Some carried small bags, like they had been thrown out.
Asta ran over.
“Butler! What happened? Why are you all out here? Where are your uniforms?”
Grogery’s old face was full of pain.
“Young master… Master Cassian fired every one of us this morning. Anyone who was close to you… he said we had to leave. The mansion belongs to the strong now. Flameless have no place inside.”
Asta’s heart stopped.
“He… fired all of you? Because of me?”
The maids nodded, some crying quietly.
One whispered.
“He changed the locks. Threw our things in the street. Said the Xavier clan has no room for weakness or anyone who supports
weakness.”
Asta looked up at the mansion.
On the top balcony, Cassian stood watching, his arms folded and a cold smile on his face.
Asta stood there in the cold wind, his fists clenched and his eyes burning.
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Chapter 449
One clean cut, diagonal, across the binding that held the basket sealed and the flame solid material split along the cut line with a sharp crack that echoed through the trees."Jabber!"From below, almost before the word had finished leaving his mouth. "Already on it."The flame shield came up from the ground,wide, cupped, angled perfectly and the basket fell into it, not crashing, just settling, the broken seal falling away as Jabber brought it steady and slow and set it down beside him on the ground with the careful hands of someone carrying something that couldn't afford to be dropped.Asta dropped from the branch and landed beside him.They looked at each other for one second.Then Mira was there, already reaching for the broken seam of the basket, pulling the edges apart, the flame material dissolving at her hands as she worked it open.The basket opened.Fifteen children.Pressed together in the center of it, some sitting, some curled against each other, all of them in the cond
Chapter 448
Then the side of her mouth moved. Just slightly."I won't kill you." She said. "You're too useful to me." She looked at him for one more beat. "Don't do it again."Gull exhaled.The exhale was quiet and controlled and the relief in it was absolutely genuine.He stepped back to his position.Dero looked at the men still kneeling on the ground."Is there a bed somewhere in this place?" She said. Not specifically to anyone. "Somewhere I can rest and recover my strength."Two or three of the kneeling figures began to speak at the same time.She held up one hand.They stopped.She looked at the competing voices, then at the ceiling, then back down."You know what.”She said. "Never mind. I'll find it myself."She turned.And then she looked at Web.The look she gave him was different from anything else she had produced in the last hour. It was slower. And warmer. In a way that was not entirely comfortable."Web.” she said.Web looked at her."Would you mind accompanying me?" She s
Chapter 447
"I genuinely didn't think he would die from that." She looked around at all of them with something approaching mild surprise. "Anyone else? Don't be shy. Come on. You can say it out loud or you can mutter it to yourself,your choice. Either way I'll hear it."Complete silence.Not one person moved.Not one person appeared to even be breathing in a way that could be considered voluntary.Dero looked at them all for one more moment, then straightened up.……………………."She can hear human thought."Kyx said it quietly, from just behind Dero's right shoulder. Not alarmed, Kyx didn't really do alarmed. Just stating it, the way you state a fact that you want on record."Yes." Gull said immediately, from the left.Web turned and looked at Gull. "How?"Gull looked at Web with the specific expression of someone who has been asked to explain something technical to someone they are not sure will fully appreciate the explanation."She has a built-in flame technique." He said. "Passive. Always ac
Chapter 446:Hear Every Whisper
The men in black cloaks were still on their knees.Every single one of them, heads bowed, hands flat on the ground, not one of them willing to be the next person to look up. The silence in the space had that particular quality of a room where something bad just happened and everyone is very focused on not being the reason something bad happens again.Dero stood above them. Unhurried. Looking across the tops of their bowed heads the way someone looks across a field,with no urgency, just observation.Then, from the second row of kneeling figures, something started.A trembling.One man. His shoulders were moving, small and fast, the involuntary shake of someone whose body was doing something his brain was trying very hard to stop. His head was down but his lips were moving, the faintest murmur, barely sound at all.‘’’Oh God.’’’He wasn't saying it to anyone. He was saying it to himself, or to the ground, or to whatever part of his brain was still processing the last two minutes.‘’’It
Chapter 445
He said."From that point." Asta said.Jabber nodded. Then, after a beat… "He is significantly more annoying than I expected a best friend to be, just so you know.""He is the most annoying person I have met in my life.” Asta said pleasantly. "I say that with genuine affection.""Likewise." Jabber said."Truly.""Deeply."Wabash laughed, a real one, short and warm, that moved his whole face. He shook his head."It's good." He said. “What you two have. It's, it's a good thing."Neither of them said anything for a moment.Then Jabber looked at his cup."This tea is actually really good." He said."Glad you like it." Wabash said."What is it?""Old forest blend. The cook makes it before any mission night. He says it helps you sleep when your mind won't stop."Jabber took another slow sip."Smart cook." He said.……………………..Deep in the forest, behind a wall of flame camouflage so thick it swallowed all light and sound, the children were crying.Not all of them, some had gone past
Chapter 444
Asta took his and sat cross-legged across from the prince. Jabber sat beside him, wrapping both hands around his cup.A comfortable quiet settled over the three of them for a moment.Then Wabash looked at Asta."You were about to tell me.”He said.“Before Yuki called the stop. How did you find out."Asta looked at his cup. Then up."Right." He said. "Yeah."He took a short breath."It was my first day in the academy mine pit.” He said. "The underground labour section,first-year students, grey uniforms, pickaxes. Clank clank clank in the dark for hours." He looked at his hands briefly. "I had blisters within the first hour. Didn't stop. Just kept going."Wabash listened without interrupting."There were two older students." Asta said. "Crimson uniforms, proper rank. They had a girl pinned against the tunnel wall." He said it simply, no drama in it, just the shape of what happened. "I put my pickaxe down and walked over and told them to let her go.""Just like that?" Wabash
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