(POV: Vynesaa)
Vynesaa stood still at the edge of the staging zone, arms crossed, her green cloak fluttering gently around her.
Across from her stood her teammates—Fianna, Sephina, Lyria, and Naomi—each checking their gear, adjusting straps, or tightening gloves.
"I need everyone to give everything you've got today," Vynesaa said quietly.
Sephina tilted her head. "You're more serious than usual."
Vynesaa glanced at her. "Because this isn't just another round."
She raised her wrist, flicked open her band's system node.
The latest notification hovered in soft golden script in front of them all:
---
[FINAL TEAM MATCH - PARTIAL LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL]
Winning 5 Teams Advance to A-Rank Evaluation Mission.
All other squads will be suspended from external field access.
Team Match: START IN 30 MINUTES.
---
Fianna folded her arms, her white hair tied back in a warrior's braid nodding her head.
Lyria smiled faintly, "finally sothing hard"
Naomi said nothing.
Vynesaa looked over them one last ti.
Then she turned.
"Let's get this done."
---
[Field: Sector 7 — Simulation Arena]
— Match Start —
The wide arena shimred into form around them.
High cliffs on one end, tangled forest on the other, with a stream splitting the map in half. Mana-forged trees arched into the simulated sky, branches glowing faintly from embedded runes. The arena was enchanted to simulate real danger—but not real death.
As they entered, ambient light pulsed once across the arena border. The opposing team flickered into view in the distance. Five students. Larger builds. They looked confident, armored in elental plating and beast sigils.
"They're brute-style," Fianna muttered. "Direct pushers."
Sephina smirked. "Good."
---
0:01 — Match Begins
A horn echoed—deep and low—and battle erupted.
Vynesaa moved first, not with noise, but like wind bending around stone.
She raised her hand—a pulse of green light burst from her fingertips. Vines twisted from the ground, snapping upward to form living shields in front of her team. Trees bent subtly at her command, creating a screen of natural camouflage.
Fianna's hands lit up in fla. elegant. A disk of fire shimred around her wrist before she launched it across the clearing—it exploded mid-air, creating a flash-burst that forced their opponents to duck.
Sephina stepped forward, heels sinking into the soft soil. Water danced along her palms, swirling into the shape of spears. She hurled one, curving it mid-flight with a snap of her fingers. It struck a barrier—one of the enemy's mages deflected it—but the pressure was building.
"Left flank—fast mover!" Lyria called out.
A blur of movent darted through the trees. One of the enemy speed types, leaping from branch to branch. Naomi moved imdiately—silent, perfect form—her dual tonfa out, intercepting the strike with a fluid parry that sent the attacker stumbling back.
"Hold them here," Vynesaa commanded. "They'll overextend."
She placed her palm to the ground. A breath passed.
Then—
Roots burst from the earth, snapping around enemy legs and arms like snakes.
One down.
[Sefau Eliminated]
The forest pulsed around them.
But Vynesaa could feel it—this match wasn't just training anymore.
Sothing was watching.
The wind snapped at her face as she sprinted.
Her blade—ford from a weave of branch and ironwood—still pulsed with mana, the runes along its length flickering in rhythm with her breath. Vynesaa leapt from root to stone, body low and balanced, eyes locked on the armored boy rushing toward her.
She angled her swing. A clean cut aid at his shoulder—
BOOM!
A sound like the sky collapsing punched through the arena.
It wasn't thunder.
It wasn't magic.
It was sothing raw—a physical explosion that shook the artificial forest to its foundations.
The trees around her convulsed.
The mana in her blade sputtered.
Her footing buckled as tremors surged beneath the ground.
Then—blackness.
The simulation matrix crashed in an instant. The arena's sky do flickered violently before collapsing into a flat gray grid, revealing the interior of the do's tal scaffolding above. Sparks spat from the corners. Ergency lights failed.
And then—nothing.
A still, absolute quiet.
Her instincts scread louder than any siren.
"Ergency collapse," Naomi said, already moving. "That wasn't part of the match."
"Sothing's gone wrong," Fianna muttered.
Sephina was already at the edge of the broken illusion, snapping her fingers to draw water up in defense.
Vynesaa didn't speak. She turned and ran—blade dissolving in a shimr of leaves as she sprinted toward the breach in the field.
They sprinted across the broken field, dodging fallen trees and glitching spell-barriers. Leaves fluttered like burnt paper around them.
They scaled the ridge that separated Sector 7 from Sector 6—where the blast had co from.
The wind reeked of smoke and blood.
The air was wrong.
Smoke curled from the eastern quadrant of the field—thick, chemical, the kind that didn't co from controlled simulation fires.
The students reached the opening just in ti to see the scene unfold.
There—at the epicenter of the blast—stood a man.
Tall.
Draped in a long, worn black cloak, stitched with faded runes that only a scholar of ancient warfare might recognize. His hood had fallen back, revealing sharp cheekbones, pale skin, and eyes like burned ash—no glow, no emotion. Just stillness.
He held soone in his left hand.
By the throat.
The limp figure dangled half a ter above the scorched stone.
White hair. Bruised face.wide and choking.
White hair?
Blood running from the boy's nose.
One arm limp.
Breathing faint.
Caspian!
From the center of the crater, the man in the black cloak shifted.
His boots barely scraped the stone as he rose upward, weightless.
One hand still clenched around Caspian's collar.
The boy's limbs dangled, weak and half-conscious. Blood slipped from his lip, tracing a curve down his jawline.
High above the shattered arena wall, the cloaked figure hovered. He said nothing.
Caspian's fingers twitched.
Not much. Barely enough to call it a protest. Maybe just a reflex.
The man glanced at him.
Then, without change in expression, he drew back his right hand.
Crack.
The punch landed flush across Caspian's face — a clean, practiced strike. No flare. No anger.
Just enough force to shut him down.
Caspian's body went slack.
The wind moved again.
The man ascended — a silent shape vanishing into the clouds above the academy ruins — taking Caspian with him.
Not a single soul moved fast enough to stop him.
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