The transition to the training grounds was more walk-of-shame than tactical march.
The group made their way across the outer courtyard of Asterblume Academy, passing through the rune-marked archways and the open fields lined with sparring wards and elemental suppression glyphs. The sun was dipping westward now, painting long shadows across the marble tiles.
The wind picked up just enough to flutter cloaks and tousle hair, setting the stage with that cinematic golden-hour glow.
Combat Field Delta-7—one of the quieter corners of the academy. A flat stone floor, wide enough for mock duels and sealed enough for no accidents to leak mana into the school vegetable garden again.
They arrived and began spacing out instinctively.
Blanche adjusted her cuffs, Ruka clutched her staff, Yuxin cracked her knuckles.
And Aria?
He was staring again.
At Vila.
Who stood on the far edge of the field, arms crossed neatly behind her back, hair flowing like starlight and an aura of silence so perfect it made the birds seem too loud.
"...She's radiant," Aria whispered.
"Don't start," Yuxin warned, not even looking at him.
Aria blinked. "Huh?"
"You're staring."
"Am I?"
"Yes. And you're breathing funny. Stop that."
Aria coughed and straightened his coat dramatically, composing himself like a gentleman just caught ogling a painting in a sacred temple.
"Apologies. The muse distracts even the best of us."
"You're not 'the best of us,' you're the idiot who got kicked by a dummy last week."
"A tactical dummy. It was part of the ritual."
Yuxin gave him a look so flat it could've crushed a planet.
Aria raised both hands.
"Alright, alright. We're here to work. No flirting. No poetry. No spontaneous proposals."
He paused.
"...For now."
"Aria."
"Fine."
He cleared his throat and finally turned to face the whole team, the usual lazy grin on his face replaced with something... a little sharper. A little clearer.
The half-joke tone in his voice faded just slightly as he looked at each of them.
"So. Let me break it down for you."
They quieted.
Even Vila tilted her head slightly, intrigued.
"You four aren't weak. You're not undertrained. You're not even unskilled."
He took a few steps across the arena, slow, casual, like he was teaching a class.
"What you are… is separate. Four players. Four styles. Four speeds. No harmony."
Blanche frowned slightly. Yuxin crossed her arms.
"That's not exactly news," Yuxin said.
"No, but here's the part you're missing," Aria replied, voice calm but cutting.
"Each of you thinks you're adjusting. That you're adapting. But you're not. You're reacting. You're reacting to enemies, to allies, to noise."
He spun once on his heel, then faced them again.
"Real teams don't react. They anticipate. They adapt together."
Blanche nodded slowly.
"And you're going to teach us that?"
"Not yet," Aria replied with a grin. "First, I have to see where you actually are."
He pointed to the center of the field.
"You're going to fight me. All of you. At once."
Ruka blinked.
"W-What?"
Blanche's brow creased.
"That's not fair."
Yuxin tilted her head.
"Wait. You're serious?"
"Deadly," Aria replied.
Then he smirked again.
"I want you to use everything you've learned. Everything you think works. Every combo, every tactic, every solo move. Don't hold back. Don't think about fighting as a team. Just fight. As you are."
He clapped his hands once.
"This is the raw baseline. The purest form of your dysfunction. I'll learn more from watching you screw up than I ever will from watching you pretend to be synchronized."
Vila nodded.
"That is... a logical methodology."
"You see?" Aria said brightly, pointing. "The goddess gets it."
Yuxin muttered.
"Stop calling her that."
"But it's accurate."
"So is 'dead meat' if you keep talking."
Ruka looked at Blanche with hesitant eyes.
"Are we really doing this?"
Blanche nodded, though her lips were tight.
"We agreed to this. If he's going to help us, he needs to see us at our worst."
Aria walked to the center of the field and turned slowly, arms spread like an entertainer on stage.
"Show me what chaos looks like. I'm ready."
The moment the signal dropped, everything exploded.
Yuxin was the first to move—always was. Her shadow burst outward like a living monster, tendrils whipping across the arena floor, slithering fast, slick, and hungry.
"Let's end this fast," she muttered under her breath, expression unreadable as ever.
She launched herself forward, shadow claws sweeping from below—sharp, jagged, timed to hit the ribs.
And yet… Aria wasn't there.
He didn't dodge. He wasn't there to begin with.
Yuxin's attack cut through thin air.
Before she could recalibrate, Blanche darted in from the left, her boots barely touching the ground. Her voice rang out—calm, formal, too composed for someone charging into a brawl.
"Engage. Glacielle, manifest—"
A freezing mist spiraled around her body. The spirit of Ice materialized behind her like a giant made of glaciers and silent judgment. Crystalline spikes erupted from the ground, creating a temporary cage to force Aria's movement.
But Ruka wasn't ready. Her barrier spell lagged—her hands trembling mid-cast. A glowing wall flickered into life two seconds too late, intercepting no one.
"S-sorry—!" she squeaked, clutching her plushie harder.
Vila, on the other hand, didn't say a word. She was already behind Aria. Or at least, she thought she was.
She moved like a ghost, total silence, feet barely brushing the tiles, daggers drawn in reverse grip. Her invisibility flickered around her as she aimed to disable his tendons with a clean strike—
—but her blade stopped half an inch before contact. Not by force. Not by barrier.
By instinct.
Aria had turned just enough to smile, calm and unbothered, as if he knew she was there the entire time.
Vila's dagger paused mid-air. Her amber eyes blinked once, flatly.
"You anticipated me?" she murmured, barely audible.
Aria's smile widened. He tilted his head.
"Nah. I just felt the breeze change. You're kinda predictable, in a pretty, murdery way."
Then chaos. Yuxin's shadows surged forward again—no coordination, no sync. Blanche leapt back, forming a second sigil midair and unleashing a beam of light from Luminara's halberd. The radiant arc should've forced Aria into a trap.
It didn't.
Because the moment Blanche fired, Yuxin also unleashed her shadow jaws—right in Blanche's path.
"Back off," Yuxin snapped, not even realizing Blanche had just lined her target.
Blanche's eyes narrowed. She canceled the sigil a millisecond too late and was still grazed by the shadow burst.
"Control your damn field," she hissed.
"Try moving faster," Yuxin shot back.
Vila vanished again, frustrated now, but her trajectory overlapped with Ruka, who'd just summoned her Bloodbath Shield.
"Left—no, wait, wait—!"
Too late. Vila collided into the edge of the barrier and had to twist her ankle to avoid shattering her knee. She rolled with it, gracefully, but it cost her momentum—and gave Aria exactly what he wanted.
He didn't even need to attack.
He just watched.
All four of them now stood in a loose circle, all breathing heavily, but not from damage. From pure miscoordination.
They had barely even scratched Aria's jacket.
"...You done?" Aria asked, voice light, amused, but not mocking. "I can go grab a snack real quick if y'all wanna argue this out."
Yuxin's jaw clenched. Shadows curled tighter around her legs, ready to lash again.
Blanche folded her arms. The ice around her faded slightly as Glacielle dematerialized with a cold breath.
"We're not aligned," she said flatly. "That's the problem."
"Oh really?" Yuxin fired back. "Took you that long to figure it out, Lady Perfect?"
Ruka shrunk back between them, aura flickering. Her voice barely a whisper.
"Can… can we just try again? Maybe if I shield—"
"No," Vila interrupted. Her tone was calm, even gentle—but her eyes were sharp. "We're not syncing because we don't understand each other's rhythm. Not because our skills are weak."
She glanced sideways at Aria, who was still just standing there, casually twirling a coin between his fingers.
"He's baiting us to destroy each other."
"Bingo," Aria grinned. "And you're doing a fantastic job, by the way. I haven't even used my Pacta yet."
Yuxin took a single step forward. Her shadow pulsed.
"Then maybe it's time you do."
Aria raised both hands.
"Nah. Not yet. Watching you all implode is way more fun."
And then—finally—he moved.
Yuxin didn't wait for a signal. She didn't need one.
Her body moved first—no hesitation, no calculation. Just instinct. The Erebus Tendrils exploded out of her shadow like a nest of demons let loose. Black limbs slashed through the air with a sharp, sickening whistle, tearing toward Aria's position with the kind of violence that didn't ask for permission.
She wasn't trying to prove anything anymore. She was just mad.
"If none of you are gonna do something, I will."
Her voice cut the air like a blade.
The others—Blanche, Ruka, Vila—didn't respond. They didn't move. They watched her go in alone.
Again.
Yuxin's tendrils whipped toward Aria, slamming into the ground with a thunderous impact, cracking the floor apart as if to say move or die. But Aria didn't move.
He shifted, barely. A flicker. A slip of his weight to the left.
That was all.
The shadow jaws missed by inches.
"Tch... slippery bastard," Yuxin hissed, pushing forward.
She followed with a teleport—Quick Step—vanishing from her position and reappearing behind him, shadows already spiraling into a new form—a claw like a guillotine, aimed at his spine.
But the moment she materialized, she felt it.
His Infernal Parry.
The moment her claw connected with his katana, it happened like a trap snapping shut.
Clang.
And then—boom.
Flames erupted from the point of contact. An infernal surge of heat and force blasted through Yuxin's arm, sending her flying back like a ragdoll launched from a catapult. She didn't scream—she wouldn't allow it—but the sound of her body colliding with the arena floor echoed loud enough to shut up anyone watching from the sidelines.
Smoke curled from her shoulder. Her armor was charred. Her shadow retracted, convulsing around her like it was in pain.
She tried to get up—but her legs buckled.
Ruka gasped, clutching her plushie tighter. Blanche took a step forward, but froze again. No one wanted to make it worse.
Except Vila.
Vila didn't blink.
She was already moving.
No wasted movement. No flashy entrance.
Just there—appearing out of the corner of the air like she'd always been standing behind Yuxin, one arm hooking under her ribs just before the girl hit the wall. Her grip was firm but careful, as if she already knew exactly how much force Yuxin could take without bruising her ribs further.
"Switch," Vila said simply.
Yuxin grunted, breath ragged. Her eyes darted up.
"What—"
But Vila was already gone.
A blur. A whisper. A snap of wind.
The elf had vanished in a blink, and Aria's expression shifted for the first time—just slightly. His eyes narrowed.
She came in from the side, so low her boots skimmed the dust, body angled like a dagger, twin blades already gleaming with the mark of M'durdath. Her invisibility shimmered off her skin like mist shedding off steel, revealing just enough of her that Aria had one second to react.
He raised his katana to parry—
But that was exactly what she wanted.
The blade went wide. Vila ducked under it, pivoted on her heel, and slashed upward—her dagger nicking the inside of his wrist.
Nothing fatal.
Just enough to tell him: I could've taken your hand.
Aria twisted away with a half-smirk, but his body moved defensively this time.
She didn't give him time to breathe.
"You staggered her with your counter," Vila said calmly, circling him. "I'm here to return the favor."
And then she did.
One clean step forward, one perfect pivot, and her second dagger came down diagonally with a speed that blurred—aimed straight at his dominant shoulder. Aria brought his blade up instinctively, catching the dagger, but not stopping it fully. Sparks burst between them.
"Your balance is off now," Vila said.
She ducked low again—Sylph's movement, wind-enhanced speed propelling her like a shot from a bow—and sliced toward his legs.
Aria backflipped to avoid the sweep—but this time he grunted.
Just a little.
Just enough.
He wasn't untouched anymore.
"Damn," he muttered, adjusting his stance. "You're scary when you're quiet."
Vila didn't answer. She stood between him and Yuxin now—her body loose, her blades dripping with wind energy, her golden eyes unreadable.
Behind her, Yuxin finally pulled herself up on one knee, coughing once but still glaring forward.
"You done watching?" she growled at the others.
Blanche's eyes narrowed.
Ruka blinked fast, her lips trembling.
Then—finally—Blanche stepped forward, summoning Terranova.
And Ruka?
She raised her plushie, lips parting for a chant.
The fight wasn't over.
But now—it was a team.