Kael sat on the edge of the examination table, slowly pulling a fresh gray provisional shirt over his head.
His ribs still ached with a dull, itchy heat, but they held.
Mori stood by the door, tapping furiously on her data slate.
“I have drafted the expulsion order.
Sebastian will be stripped of his B-rank privileges by noon.
Attempted murder of a fellow student carries a mandatory minimum sentence in the Authority’s penal battalions.
His family’s money won’t save him from the draft.”
“Delete it,” Kael said quietly.
Mori stopped tapping.
She looked up, her dark eyes flashing with genuine irritation.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.
Delete the report.
Let him walk.”
Mori crossed her arms.
“He locked you in a cage with a Grave-Stalker, Morgan.
If I hadn’t found the gatekeeper, you would be dead.
I don’t leave loose ends in my academy.”
“He’s not a loose end,” Kael countered, hopping off the table.
He winced, but stayed on his feet.
“He’s a loud, predictable idiot.
You drag him in front of a tribunal, his family doesn’t just get mad—they get quiet.
And quiet aristocratic families hire professionals.
Right now, Sebastian is a variable I can see coming.
If you punish him, you just paint a massive, flashing target on my back for people I can’t see.”
Mori stared at him.
She hated it, but the terrifyingly cold logic of his argument was flawless.
“Fine,” Mori snapped, slipping the slate into her coat.
“But the tournament starts tomorrow.
If he tries to kill you in the arena, I won’t intervene.
I’ll be busy.”
“Busy with what?”
“Family,” she said coldly, turning on her heel and walking out.
Ten minutes later, Mori stood at the edge of the Colosseum.
The roar of the maintenance crews echoed across the massive, sun-bleached arena as they tested the reinforced magical wards for tomorrow’s opening brackets.
Her frustration boiled.
He broke the rules of reality, but he played the politics of the Academy better than the nobles did.
Her little sister would find this hilarious.
If Miro knew there was an F-rank actively manipulating a B-rank noble to use him as a shield, she would probably applaud the sheer audacity of it.
Mori checked her slate.
Miro had missed the morning tournament briefing.
Again.
Following a hunch, Mori abandoned the arena preparations and headed straight for the restricted archives beneath the library.
The air grew colder the deeper she went, smelling of dust and decaying parchment.
“Miro,” Mori called out, stepping into the dimly lit vault.
“I know you’re down here.
Stop skipping assembly before Father—”
Mori froze.
At the end of the aisle, Miro was standing over a heavy stone reading pedestal.
She wasn’t holding a book.
She was holding a jagged, black metallic shard—an artifact from before the Cataclysm.
Thick, violet-black energy coiled around Miro’s arms, creeping up her neck like venomous veins.
The air in the room was so heavy it was hard to breathe.
The shadows themselves were violently twisting toward Miro, feeding into her.
“Miro, drop it!” Mori shouted, raw fear tearing through her perfect composure.
“That’s dark magic!
It’ll shred your nervous system!”
Miro snapped her head up.
Her eyes were entirely pitch black.
“They lied, Mori,” Miro whispered, her voice layered with an unnatural, echoing resonance.
“The Rank Authority.
The Cataclysm.
All of it.
I saw the memory in the shard.
We aren’t being protected.
We’re being farmed.”
“I don’t care what you think you saw!” Mori drew her sword, the steel singing in the quiet room.
“Put it down before it kills you, or I will put you down myself!”
Miro’s lips curled into a snarl.
“Always the perfect soldier.
Always blindly following Father’s rules!”
Miro lashed out.
She didn’t use a spell.
She just threw a wave of raw, kinetic darkness. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Mori brought her blade up to parry, channeling her B-rank mana to reinforce the steel.
But the dark magic didn’t clash with her sword; it completely bypassed it, wrapping around the blade and slamming directly into Mori’s chest.
The impact sounded like a cannon firing.
Mori was thrown backward through the air, crashing violently through a wooden bookshelf.
She hit the stone floor, gasping for air.
Blood immediately soaked the pristine white fabric of her uniform over her stomach.
The black energy vanished from the room.
Miro dropped the shard.
The pitch-black color drained from her eyes, replaced instantly by wide, absolute horror.
“Mori!” Miro screamed.
She rushed forward, dropping to her knees in the splintered wood, her hands hovering uselessly over her sister’s bleeding torso.
“No, no, no…
I didn’t mean to.
I didn’t—”
Mori coughed, tasting copper.
The pain was blinding, but the sheer, raw fury of an elder sister burned hotter than the wound.
She looked up at Miro’s terrified face, her eyes narrowing into venomous slits.
“Get out,” Mori snarled, her voice a wet, ragged rasp.
Miro flinched as if she had been slapped.
“I can’t leave you—”
“I said get out!” Mori barked, shoving her sister’s hands away with the last ounce of strength she had.
Miro stared at her for a fractured second.
Reluctance and guilt warred on her face, but the absolute rejection in Mori’s eyes cemented her decision.
She grabbed the black shard from the floor, turned, and sprinted into the shadows, vanishing entirely from the vault.
Ten minutes later, heavy boots echoed in the aisles.
Principal Richter, flanked by two elite A-rank academy guards, rushed into the archives.
He knelt beside his eldest daughter, his stern, imposing face pale as the guards immediately began applying healing salves to the massive laceration across her torso.
“Mori,” Richter demanded, his voice thick with authority and fury.
“Who did this?
Was it an intruder?
Tell me who attacked you.”
Mori looked up at her father.
She thought of the dark magic.
She assumed Miro had just run off to hide in her dorm room, terrified of the consequences.
She would deal with her sister herself.
She didn’t need their father bringing the executioners into this.
“It was a training accident,” Mori whispered, lying to her father’s face for the first time in her life.
“Just a mistake.”