By the time the sun began sinking toward the western hills, only a handful of candidates remained. The calm, precise girl from that morning was among them, along with Stephan and three others whose names he hadn't caught over the roar of his own pulse in his ears.
The final trial needed no lengthy introduction. A combat ring had been marked out in packed dirt at the center of the east yard, and the tall proctor stood at its edge, flanked by two other instructors Xavier didn't recognize and, off to the side, quiet and unassuming among the observing staff, the old man from the airship.
Xavier and Bruce had abandoned their respective miseries the moment word spread that the final trial was starting, arriving just in time to claim a spot at the ring's edge.
"Trial of the Blade," the proctor announced. "Each candidate faces an instructor in single combat. We are not testing whether you can win. We are testing what you do when you can't."
Stephan was called third.
His opponent was a broad-shouldered woman with twin short blades and the unbothered calm of someone who had run this exact demonstration more times than she could count. She didn't so much fight Stephan as patiently dismantle every reckless opening he offered her, and within the first exchange she'd already scored two clean touches against his exposed ribs.
"Armor," she noted mildly, between strikes, "exists for a reason."
"I've heard!" Stephan grinned through gritted teeth, and swung Ember in a wide arc, squeezing the lever.
The flame roared to life — and immediately caught wrong, licking backward along the blade's spine instead of forward, singeing his own sleeve before he could yank his arm away. A ripple of alarmed muttering ran through the watching crowd. Bruce, at the ring's edge, went rigid.
"Bad seal," he muttered, half to himself, already diagnosing the malfunction. "The housing must have shifted during the obstacle course-"
Stephan didn't have time to diagnose anything. He simply dropped Ember, rolled clear of the flame, and kept moving, empty-handed, straight at his opponent.
The instructor blinked, clearly not expecting that.
He tackled her at the waist — an utterly unrefined, technique-free maneuver that had no business working against a trained combat instructor — and the sheer, committed stupidity of it caught her half a second off guard. It was enough. Barely. He pinned her arm before she could bring her second blade around, and the proctor's hand shot up.
"Halt! Point to the candidate!"
The crowd's murmur turned into something closer to a roar. Stephan sat back on his heels, breathing hard, grinning at his own smoking, discarded sword like it had personally betrayed him.
"...We're going to talk about the flamethrower later," Bruce said.
"Worked out, though!"
"Barely."
***
The deliberation, when it came, took place just out of easy earshot. A small cluster of instructors conferred near the hall's entrance while the remaining candidates waited, tense and exhausted, for the day's verdicts.
Xavier couldn't hear most of it, but he caught fragments carried on the evening breeze. The severe instructor's voice, flat and clinical: "...abysmal marks on the written trial. Concerning gaps in tactical thinking..." The proctor's booming voice, more measured now: "...undeniable instinct, though, and the body trial was among the fastest we've clocked this season..." And then, quieter, cutting through the debate with an ease that suggested he didn't often need to raise his voice to be heard, the old man.
Xavier couldn't make out the words. But he watched the instructors' postures shift, watched the severe one's frown ease into something closer to resignation, and felt something in his own chest loosen slightly before he even knew the verdict.
The proctor stepped back out to address the candidates.
"Results will be posted formally in one week's time, per tradition." He paused, eyes finding Stephan specifically. "But I see no reason to make you sweat over it unnecessarily. Gojo. You're in. Conditionally. Someone is going to be keeping a very close eye on your tactical coursework."
Stephan's whoop of victory echoed across the yard for the second time that day.
He nearly tackled Xavier and Bruce both in celebration, only to be waved off with matching winces once he got close enough for them to properly see the burn along his forearm and the bruising already blooming across his ribs.
"You're going straight to whoever passes for a healer here," Bruce said, already steering him by the shoulder. "Conditionally accepted or not, you look like you lost a fight with a campfire."
"I won the fight, though."
"You set yourself on fire and then tackled a woman with two swords. I'm not sure 'won' is doing enough work in that sentence."
"Details."
***
That evening, as the three of them sat nursing bruises, exhaustion, and a well-earned dinner at the visitor's lodge, Elrick dropped by uninvited, apple in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself for someone who'd spent the day supervising manual labor.
"Congratulations are in order, I hear." He dropped into a seat across from them without waiting for an invitation. "Conditionally accepted. How dramatic."
"You could've come watch," Stephan said.
"I did watch. From very far away, where the smoke couldn't reach me." Elrick smirked, then, more thoughtfully, added: "You three are turning out to be more interesting than I expected, honestly. Which reminds me... I've got three little tasks in mind. Things I've been meaning to get done, and haven't found the right people for. I think you might do."
"Define 'tasks,'" Xavier said warily, still nursing four hundred and some push-ups' worth of resentment.
"In time. I'm not giving away the fun part yet." Elrick waved a hand dismissively, already standing to leave. "For now, I'm heading back to Aqua Province before long. There's a festival at Regarden, my old academy, every year. Big to-do. Alumni, exhibitions, more insufferable prodigies per square foot than anywhere else in the kingdom." He glanced back at them, something calculating and amused behind his eyes. "I might consider bringing you three along, if you help me out with the aforementioned tasks. No promises."
He left before any of them could respond, whistling something jaunty on his way out.
Xavier stared after him. "...Is that a good thing?"
"With him?" Bruce sighed, rubbing his temples. "No idea. But I don't think we have a choice but to find out."