Hikari Abbot:
I let out a sigh. More like a chortle, the kind that slips out when your mind's somewhere else and your body hasn't caught on yet.
My father was dead. Had been for years.
And still, for no reason I could name, I'd found myself replaying that old memory—like that one lyric to a song stuck in my head. Not because I missed him, though I did, but because of the words he'd left me with… and the way I'd acted that day. The way it stuck to me like a stain.
That was the last time I saw him.
He told me to be strong, mentally. In that moment, I learned not to think the way I had during that conversation. Not to be so selfish, not so irrational.
Those two—especially together—were traps. Like water and raw dirt; together they made a mess.
And yet, here I was, thinking about it now. Why?
We were lined up on the training floor, doing what we always did before drills: waiting.
Just standing there in our rows—white uniforms stitched with red: Sector 3. Stamped like packages. Marked like inventory.
The lesson I'd built from my father's words and my own comprehension was simple: no one person was actively trying to drown me. Everyone's life was just as loud, just as complex as mine.
They acted to keep their own heads above water, and if that meant using me as a float, that was its own problem to solve—tactically, not personally.
Even on the rare times I'd been wrong, that mindset still protected me from pride, from ego, from the kind of outburst that escalated a one-sided problem into anything more.
My eyes followed the black stone walls while I waited for the signal to start. The torchlight coughed and bent in its sconces, but the walls swallowed it whole.
Now wasn't the time to wander like this. Especially not over lessons I already knew by heart.
The instructors drifted to the center. Helmets dull red, movements deliberate, saying nothing. They rarely spoke. The moment their eyes finally met ours, the message made it through.
Begin.
A slightly larger kynenn, Kaen, stood across from me—long arms, eyes not quite tethered to the present, just as I'd been moments before. He jolted when the room started, rushing wide at me and telegraphing each punch with that roll of his shoulder. You could see it from the next room.
I pivoted. His fist cut through the space where my jaw had been a heartbeat ago. I could've punished him for it. Dropped him flat. Could've let him choke on the dirt over and over—until the lesson set in.
But it wouldn't.
He came again. I stepped off-line, let the right sail past, and set a palm between his shoulder blades. I didn't so much strike as nudge him.
He stumbled, spun, and threw another punch on instinct. I caught it against my forearm; the shock snapped my teeth together.
He had little time before the next person he faced wouldn't correct him.
They'd use these opportunities to solidify themselves.
I flicked a glance at our nearest red helmet. He made no attempt to meet my gaze. Uninterested—paying our spar no attention.
As expected.
I clipped Kaen with a jab to the chest. I was much faster than him, so I had time to step in and kick low behind him.
He had no option but to swallow gravel.
He huffed in frustration. Then stood. If nothing else, the boy was gravely impatient.
Uppercut—almost. I leaned, hardly allowing it to miss. I felt the heat of it brush my jaw, then stepped in to grapple his neck and elbow.
"Kaen," I said under the noise, forearm on his shoulder, guiding his arms away from any other strikes. "This isn't a street fight. Center your weight. Stop lunging at me. And you're warning me of every punch with your shoulder."
He gave me the kind of nod that wasn't confirmation. More like a head-shrug. He shoved forward anyway, crowding my space. His face said he understood I was helping; his body said he didn't know why he should care.
We dragged our boots. Breath got heavier. He charged—wild as before. I moved to parry and—
A real hook slipped around my guard and popped against the side of my head, sharp enough to ring the world for half a second. I straightened slow. He stepped in again, tight now, focused, like the pain had unlocked the hinge on his brain.
The next punch thudded into my guard. It stung. I grinned despite myself.
Much better.
Winning meant nothing when there wasn't even a score. Less if my winning meant everyone else had to lose.
I knew how idealistic that was. But the thought persisted.
The instructor on my side seemed to have been watching, side-eyeing us—or something close by. I didn't care. He rang a small bell and everyone disengaged. I lowered my stance.
"Keep that up," I muttered. "You might live."
He nodded once, barely, sweat blinking off his chin and finding the dirt.
We finished where the instructors' patience ran out. After a bit of cooling down—stretching, walking, rubbing out sore spots—bodies began sluicing toward exits.
I noticed a couple boys laid out and not moving. It would be wrong of me to check on them. That was the Foundation's genius: it taught you to watch your own footing more than the people you stepped on.
Next, as always, was our meal. Soup waited closer to our barracks. Colorless, nutritiously engineered, and easier to stomach when you were empty. I started toward the corridor, heat pooling slow in my shoulders—old training more than today's.
"You think you can afford days like this?"
Just as routine as everything else. The opinion and forced conversation that was to come. Though this time he sounded less bragging and more upset.
"Following me," I said, "or just desperate to talk?"
"Not as desperate as your charity case," Takairo said, falling into step—uniform too clean, eyes too awake to have done anything worth sweating over. "What'd you get out of that?"
"A decent fight."
We both stopped a few paces later. He squared to me, words filed to a blade.
"You didn't fight today. You babysat."
I held his gaze. Under the steel, there was a smaller metal—resentment that hadn't learned to pretend it was something else.
"Call it whatever helps you sleep."
"You think you're far enough ahead to slow down?" he said. "That it won't matter when you fall behind?"
I guess him being jealous wasn't that surprising. Maybe jealousy was the wrong word; maybe he just felt looked down on.
"Worried I'll get rusty?" I asked, picturing the way he probably saw us—rivals in some over-scripted drama only he thought we were starring in.
Something passed through his face—memory or simple realization, I couldn't tell. But the tension loosened. He scoffed and turned away.
"Not particularly. I probably should thank you."
"For?"
"For making my life easier." He picked up speed, shoulders set, voice lighter without losing its edge. "There's no way you forgot."
He didn't look back when he said it: "Only one of us can survive."
The torches guttered. Shadows crawled. He disappeared into the curve.
And just like everything else, that type of thought process failed to surprise me. It was exactly how they wanted him to think. And not wrong, from where he stood.
I shrugged the provocation off. But the reminder had a way of tiring my patience out.
I took my usual route toward the barracks. The door groaned like the past on bad hinges. No one stirred. Conversations lived in the corners, thin laughter worn down to threads. Some didn't talk at all; they lay with eyes open.
My cot waited with a bowl on it—the Foundation's idea of nutrients. The wood complained under me and then settled. I ate. I didn't lie down.
Sleep had stopped being a refuge when the Foundation still took more kynenn than it needed and ambition had the smell of blood. Back then, you could wake to someone else choking. Not anymore, but the conditioning still held its weight.
"I bet the Inner Circle doesn't sleep like this," someone said down the row. A chuckle answered, hollow as a bottle.
My mouth tugged up, almost a snarl.
The Inner Circle. Clean air, white doors, and my mother not saying a word when they came. What a reminiscent day it was becoming.
I found myself reflecting on that day. I'd waited for anything from her—a hand, a question, a no—hell, even a tear would've made it seem like she was less okay with it. There was that selfish irrationality again, I guess.
Silence was its own doctrine. The clerk's hand had been gentle. "Come with us." And I had done just that.
I pressed a thumb into my palm until the dull ache woke my arm.
I noticed my leg beginning to tremble a bit. I stood. No point dwelling. Things turned for the worse; life continued still.
Running my finger along the curve of the wall, past bunks, to the crack in the stone near the baseboard.
Among the shithole I lived in—the place that was little more than a concentration camp—I was thankful to know that I alone wasn't trapped here like everyone else.
I pushed lightly, crawled out the hole, and cool air slid over my skin like a reminder.
I slipped through completely and replaced the stone.
"You really think you're something special, don't you?"
Startled by the voice—and the smell of a cigar—I didn't really know how to react to the current moment.
I was caught.
Not that there was much for them to take from me in the first place.
The helmet was already in the dark. Red visor dim as a coal. Arms folded. Did he expect to see me?
I didn't answer. I let my breathing go shallow, then normal—no point making any excuse to a man who literally watched me sneak out.
"What do you think this is?" he asked. "Are you above all of this? Some kind of trailblazer?"
I didn't have a response. But I'm sure my blank expression was even more irritating.
"Tell me, are you trying to coordinate a coup? Or are you just an idiot? You think that boy you were coaching—or any of the ones you've coached—anyone would even hesitate to open your throat if directed to?"
His words came smooth. Rehearsed. Not at me—through me. Like I was the wall he needed his speech to bounce off. Well, maybe this was specifically for me. He was waiting outside my cell, after all. I let him vent.
"Do you think he'd spare you," he said, taking half a step forward, visor catching the torchlight, "because you trained him?"
"Is it not my right to dream?" The words were out before I could stop them. It sounded both like my father and not like him at all.
A short, ugly laugh came from behind his helmet.
"No—why should you be?" he said, almost incredulous. "Dreaming is for people who survive long enough to do it. What have you earned? You lost your rights after accepting that demon into your body. And then you want to avoid responsibility to your country? The noble thing—the route to getting your 'rights'—would've been to hone those demon powers and use them for our military might." His tone sharpened. "You're a coward. Trying to cheat that mercy with little alliances."
Something stirred behind my sternum. Not heat—yet. Just a shift. A tension, quiet and deep.
I understood he was mad—at whatever it was. But I just wasn't in the mood. The only way to end this fast would be with fear, since he was so obviously expressing his fear as disrespect.
I stepped forward once. Then again.
Closed the space between us like a door quietly shutting.
"You watch me every day," I said. My voice was low now, almost a whisper. "You know what I'm capable of."
I didn't blink or raise my voice.
"And yet you invent stories. A version of me that's easier to hate—one that fits the lesson you want to give. Did I do something to offend you?"
The instructor stiffened. I saw his cheeks lift; he likely opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him there.
I leaned in—barely. Just enough for my voice to thread the air like a needle.
"I could kill you," I whispered. "Before your heart even realized it should stop beating. And you know it."
The visor didn't move. But something beneath it did.
I stepped back—smooth, controlled. The tension fell from my shoulders like breath.
My gaze turned cold. I was done. I'd hoped that would scare him enough to get him off my back.
It had the opposite effect.
"But you won't," the instructor spat, a little too fast. "You know the price of words like that."
His hand shifted, drifting toward the device strapped to his chest.
The tension flared again—hot, abrupt, and fast.
I didn't flinch, but the heat built in my chest—rising. I wasn't particularly upset. Not yet, anyway.
The instructor's voice dropped.
"I could end you for that. Or one of your new minions. That wouldn't be hard."
The blood near my shoulder almost evaporated from the heat.
This was getting annoying.
And I couldn't let him feel comfortable making threats like that. A power trip like this would mess my whole situation up.
It wasn't just me being targeted now.
Flames kissed the tips of my fingers.
His body locked. His voice thinned with disbelief.
"You dare activate without permission?" He stepped back slightly. "And threaten me?"
He was loud enough now that a real patrol could round the corner and make this stupid. I kept my hands where his visor could see them.
He was calling my bluff. I got emotional and made a mistake.
His thumb twitched toward the device—
"He's sorry!"
Elara's voice cut in hard enough to stitch the moment shut. She stepped out from behind the service bend, face steady, eyes too wide to sell the calm but trying anyway.
"I don't know what happened," she said clearly, "but he's sorry. It won't happen again."
Her timing was impeccable. I knew she would follow me; I actually looked forward to it. This was yet another part of my daily routine.
The instructor's helmet turned. He took in the geometry: me, flame, the crack in the wall, Elara—another witness in a space he wasn't supposed to be. If he hit the panic, he'd be explaining why his boots were where they shouldn't be, why he even escalated a minor infraction instead of escorting a kynenn out of a restricted area. We were only in the yard. It wasn't as if we were on pace to leave the perimeter.
Not in any way he could prove.
If he hit the log and left, I'd have a line on my file I could bury with clean weeks. And, as I said, what could they really take? I didn't have any privileges as is.
He backed off, anger sitting wrong on his posture. "He better be. Now get back to your barracks. You know it's past curfew," he said—which was as close to a retreat as a helmet could afford.
I starved the flame, felt the skin cool and prickle, and held his visor until he moved. He did. He took the corner and was gone