Heroes come in many forms.
Some are loud and burning, charging forward with conviction alone. Some are gentle, gathering people together and standing as symbols rather than blades. Others are strategists, heroes who never take the spotlight yet move the world from the shadows.
Then there are lonely heroes.
Finster belonged to that last kind.
He was a hero who stood alone not because he wanted to, yet because he lacked the backing to stand with others. He had friends, yes, yet each of them carried their own circumstances, their own burdens, their own limits. They could not always be there for him.
There were families like the Blume household. There were allies like Azalea and Marigold, but even with them combined, they were not enough to face the entire world.
What Finster needed were strong comrades in arms.
And comrades were not gained through rank or lineage. They were earned through trust.
Trust could be built over time.
Through shared moments.
Through debts owed and favors returned.
Through familiarity and habit.
Yet what truly stabilized trust was something else entirely.
A feat.
A single moment acknowledged by everyone present. A strong enough feat that will anchor belief to follow.
And this test is the perfect stage for that.
The barrier surrounding us was not the work of one instructor. It was the collective effort of nearly fifty weaver instructors, each at least bishop-ranked. The early layers were solvable and designed to be broken.
The final layer was different.
That one belonged to her sadistic highness herself. Éclair.
She had made it unreasonably sturdy. Impossible to solve through color logic alone.
She wanted to see someone special. Someone who could shake the world. Someone worth playing with.
That was the real test, and the process is still in progress.
Groups stepped outside Solaris's cooling range. Some lasted seconds. Others barely managed a breath before retreating. Each broken layer pushed the temperature higher. Each return to the ice felt shorter, weaker.
Solaris clenched her teeth. "I can't keep this up alone."
Azalea turned sharply. "Any blue-cored weavers, step forward. Anyone who can assist Solaris in generating ice."
But nobody volunteered. Technically, I was a blue-cored weaver as well, yet I could not generate ice.
Azalea nodded and turned to Solaris. "How long can you maintain this."
"Five minutes," Solaris replied, breath unsteady. "At this heat. Less if another layer breaks."
Tasora shifted beside me. I already knew what she intended.
"No," I said, gripping her wrist and forcing her back down. "This is not the way."
She glared at me. "I can end this."
"Yes," I replied evenly. "You can break it, but that will nullify the test itself."
I already knew the outcome.
In the original scenario, Tasora ignored Azalea. She shattered the barrier layer by layer until she reached Eclair's. The sudden collapse spiked the heat beyond control. There was no time to adjust.
Only Eclair, Finster, Maku, Waffel, and Kenth realized the truth. Too late.
They fainted.
Tasora collapsed with them.
After that, she became hated. Isolated. Detached from Finster's group.
I refused to let that happen again.
Finster needed her trust. And to earn that, she needed to see Finster accomplish the impossible.
Layer by layer, they continued.
Until only one remained.
Eclair's barrier.
They stepped beyond Solaris's cooling zone.
Everyone felt the heat.
That method no longer worked.
Polaris's ice dulled. Frost melted midair. Nagi collapsed first. Azalea followed soon after, heat and exhaustion claiming her body.
My vision blurred, but I could feel the fragmented authority of the growth factor Verde gave me allowed me to endure slightly longer.
Solaris's ice finally shattered.
The heat hit us in full.
Screams filled the room.
One by one, bodies dropped.
Waffel. Maku. Kenth. Others followed.
Only three remained standing.
Tasora. Finster. And me.
My knees trembled. Darkness crept in.
Before I lost consciousness, I moved.
Tasora was already attacking the final barrier. Her breath came ragged. Her face twisted in frustration as sparks bounced uselessly from its surface.
I placed a hand on her back.
"It's fine," I said softly. "We will win this."
"How," she screamed, voice cracking.
"Do you have something sharp?" I asked.
She stared at me. "What good will that do?"
"Quick!"
She hesitated, then took a small army knife from her storage.
"Good," I said. "You might question what I am about to do. Trust me."
I pointed at Finster.
"And most importantly, trust that kid."
He was sobbing uncontrollably, shaking others in desperation. His coat still hung on his shoulders. That meant he had fully adjusted. His strongest cheat was already active.
His Unique Bloodline Skill. Sampling.
Yet I needed something else.
I needed to tear open the locks buried deep inside his mind. At this moment, his instincts had already taken control. Without realizing it, he was activating sampling, letting his unconscious processes shield him from the heat and pressure around us. That reflex was keeping him safe, yet it was also holding him back.
What I required was not a defensive response born from habit or survival. I needed his conscious will, but to draw that out, I had to reach for something far deeper. I had to awaken the trauma he had buried.
I tore cloth from my uniform and stuffed it into my mouth. I tied off my arm to restrict blood flow.
I laughed quietly at my own madness.
Then I cut.
Pain exploded.
I screamed behind the cloth as I carved a chunk of flesh from my hand. The stench of burned meat filled the air.
Tasora screamed and lunged toward me. I swung the knife toward her, stopping her cold.
When it was done, I dropped the blade and walked toward Finster.
He froze when he saw my arm.
Blood.
Burned flesh.
Then he screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH NO!!!."
His legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, crawling backward, screaming and sobbing as if reality itself had betrayed him.
I spat the cloth from my mouth.
Tasora stood frozen, unable to speak.
I kept walking.
Finster backed against the barrier, shaking violently.
I dropped down in front of him and forced my shaking body to keep moving.
Finster's eyes were unfocused, darting wildly as memories surged through him, memories he had buried deep and sealed away. His breathing came in broken gasps, his fingers clawing at the floor as if he were trying to escape something only he could see.
I pressed the bloodied chunk of flesh to his lips.
"Eat," I said quietly, firmly, leaving no room for refusal.
He spasmed as soon as it touched his tongue. His whole body arched, convulsing as his mind fractured open. His pupils dilated, rolling back as images crashed into him one after another.
Dark corridors.
Dark walls.
Shackles too small for growing wrists.
I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me.
Then I covered his eyes with my blood-soaked hand.
"It's okay," I whispered, my voice trembling yet steady. "This always heals."
My blood seeped between my fingers, warm despite the heat.
"I won't let you die. I promise. I won't let you die."
His body shook harder.
"Mom and Dad will be fine," I continued, each word deliberate, threading itself into his shattered thoughts. "We'll get out. We'll escape this place."
His lips trembled.
As if traced, his mouth moved, barely forming sound.
"We'll… get… out…"
His breathing hitched violently.
"And escape," he whispered.
Then his voice snapped.
"ESCAPE THIS PLACE!!!!!"
The room screamed with pressure.
Light erupted from his body. A dense, suffocating glow that bent the air itself. His hair lifted, strands bleaching from olive to pure white as if color itself was burned away.
The force hurled me backward.
I slammed into the floor, vision swimming, ears ringing. Tasora stood frozen in the distance, her mouth open, eyes wide, unable to process what she was witnessing.
I could feel my consciousness slipping, yet I forced my eyes to stay open, engraving the scene into my mind.
This was the character.
The one I felt more connected to than my friends. Than my family. Than myself at times.
"We will escape this place," Finster roared.
He launched forward, flinging himself.
His fist collided with the school wall.
The barried braced.
Then something impossible happened.
The impact did not simply strike the barrier. The force began accumulating, syncing, layering itself into the same density and resistance as the wall itself. Power equalized for a fraction of a second.
Then surpassed.
The barrier screamed.
A deafening crash tore through the room as the wall shattered outward, fragments dissolving into light.
I felt nothing as darkness swallowed me.
The last thing I heard was Finster collapsing.
His arm had burst open, flesh torn, bone exposed, blood dripping freely onto the floor, mirroring my own wound.
He looked at me through fading white light and smiled weakly.
"We'll get out of here," he whispered. "Together… sis…"
His hair dimmed, white fading back into olive streaked with green highlights.
Then his body fell forward.
And everything went black.