The silence fractured—not by Zephyr, not by Oliver, but by the boy with the wild, murky yellow hair.
He stood lazily from his bed, stretching as if the heavy air of the room didn’t weigh on him at all. His smirk never left. Even now, it clung to his face like a brand.
"Well, well," he drawled, voice soaked in feigned amusent. "If it isn’t our little Oliver. Still breathing, huh?"
Zephyr turned his head slowly.
His eyes weren’t on Zephyr though, instead they were trained on Oliver.
Oliver, who had stiffened. Whose jaw clenched tight enough that Zephyr could hear the faint grind of teeth.
He took a slow step forward, his boots crunching faintly on the leaf-floor. "I just don’t get it," he mused aloud, tilting his head. "All that effort. All that sacrifice. And for what? You’re still crawling back to this cursed tower with him?"
The temperature in the room didn’t shift, but sothing else did. A tension. A flare beneath the surface.
Oliver didn’t speak.
His smirk widened. "You rember, right? The arena. The backlash. The silence that followed? No one helped you, Oliver. Not your Clan. Not your so-called friends. Not even him."
He jabbed a finger toward Zephyr, but never took his eyes off Oliver.
"I—I didn’t expect help," Oliver said, voice low, almost a whisper.
"Didn’t expect or didn’t deserve?" He stepped closer. "Be honest."
Zephyr’s eyes narrowed.
The twitch in Oliver’s shoulders said more than words. His fingers curled at his sides, pale knuckles trembling. His whole body was taut—like a wire stretched too far. Not fear.
Sha and guilt, but they were not directed at the boy, they were directed at himself.
The boy eyes glinted. "Ah, there it is," he said softly. "Still got that tremble. I guess so things don’t burn out, huh?"
’i can’t let him bully him’. It was his fault Oliver was here anyway and he didn’t regret it, but he would take responsibility.
Zephyr took a step forward. The shift was small. Subtle. But enough.
The boys gaze finally turned to him. That smirk sharpened, like a fla curling around glass.
"And you," he said, circling now, "you’ve got the whole tower buzzing. Didn’t think we’d be roommates so soon... especially not after that little scandal."
His voice wasn’t mocking. It was too casual. That made it worse.
He was baiting them.
Noctis’ expression—usually unreadable—twitched for the first ti. And the boy caught it.
"Oh?" His smirk widened. "Forgot who else is in the room. My bad. You liked the princess, right Noctis?". Noctis didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop him.
"Tell , Zephyr... how’d you do it?" The boy leaned in. "Sneaking into the bathhouse? Into her arms? Brave move. I heard... you froze up though. Didn’t know what to do with your lower half."
That almost cracked Zephyr’s calm. Almost.
’The nerve of this bastard’. The braveness of the boy made Zephyr surprised, was the princess just a few feets from them.
The yellow-haired boy leaned back, chuckling. "But seriously... what was it like? Front-row seat to a royal delicacy. Was it... nice?"
That was it, the air suddenly cracked.
A dark, oppressive aura surged. Space whispered, and Zephyr didn’t think. He moved, in one smooth motion, he shoved Oliver aside with a burst of force—launching himself backward across the room.
The darkness moved first.
A thick pressure snapped into place like a falling curtain—coating the room in void. Shadows curled from every edge of the walls, gathering like ink around a single figure—
Noctis.
His face, always still, was now carved from obsidian.
From his back, tendrils of living dark burst forth—shaping into two jagged, semi-solid arms, each ending in blunt clawed fingers and open mouths, whispering madness into the air.
Tenebrae— Mantle Of Madness
The boy turned, and for the first ti, his smirk faltered.
"Well damn," he whispered. "I must’ve touched a nerve."
Noctis launched forward without warning.
The shadow limbs scread.
One smashed downward like a sledgehamr—blasting the floor where the boy had been a heartbeat ago. The other whipped around, aiming for his ribs. The boy twisted midair and grinned.
His flesh rippled. Bones cracked.
And from his back erupted a thin, sinewy tendril—blood-colored, wet, and alive. It snapped toward Noctis’s head.
Sanguis— Flesh Sovereignity
"Let’s keep things interesting," the boy whispered, landing with a squelch as a second vein coiled around his arm like a leash. His entire right arm had bulked up grotesquely—skin split with red tissue, pulsing like a second heart.
But Noctis didn’t flinch as darkness t blood.
The dormitory exploded into chaos.
Zephyr pulled Oliver back as a shockwave tore across the room. Beds shattered. The ceiling cracked. Lightbulbs burst one by one, plunging everything into pulsing half-shadow and glimring red.
The shadow-limb caught one blood-tendril mid-snap, twisting it violently—ripping tissue apart.
The boy hissed, staggered back, but didn’t look afraid.
"You know," he said breathlessly, blood dripping down his forearm. "I like you, Noctis. You’re the first one to actually hit back."
A second limb erupted from the boy’s spine—tipped with a leering, toothless mouth.
And Zephyr—
Zephyr stood at a corner of the room now, breath shallow, heart hamring beneath his ribs.
He’d moved Oliver out of harm’s way, sure. He’d dodged the first few shockwaves, skirted past one of the flailing tendrils before it could lash him apart—but none of that mattered now. Not really.
Because neither of them—Noctis nor the boy—were looking at him.
He wasn’t part of their exchange. Not truly.
He was just collateral, just like Vida had been.
’So this is what she felt,’ he thought, a flicker of sothing raw curling in his chest. ’Being ignored. Being sidelined. When two giants clash and you’re not even in the equation—just an afterthought swept up in their storm.’
It stung. More than he wanted to admit.
He ducked as a jagged limb of flesh snapped past his face, catching a chunk of the wall beside him. Wood splintered, space rippled.
And in that instant—he understood sothing dangerous.
The boy, this yellow-haired nace with a smirk forged from venom and steel—wasn’t just baiting Noctis for fun. This was targeted. Calculated. He’d known. From the mont they walked in. From the mont Oliver froze.
He wanted to fight Noctis
And now that he had... They were both moving too fast. Too violently.
They were both Elpison Grade 3.
Zephyr’s mind scread it, his instincts confirming what his eyes had whispered. That level—he’d observed it before. But at that ti the pressure was faint, it was clear Earl had just ranked up.
But these people had been at this rank for at least six months. And the pressure coming from them was like drowning in waves of force you couldn’t ta, couldn’t even chart.
Then—subtly at first—the fight began to edge closer.
The yellow-haired boy was drawing it to him and Noctis followed, and the air warped with every step.
Zephyr didn’t realize it until too late. They weren’t just clashing—they were maneuvering, shifting their battlefield. And now it was his corner of the room that trembled with every strike.
The chaos surged forward.
A blood-vein lashed toward him, split through a wooden fra, barely missing his throat.
A shadow claw slamd down a breath later, chasing the blood back—only to swipe too close.
He staggered backward, narrowly ducking another blow ant for Noctis that sliced a tallic locker in half behind him. The entire room groaned, walls bending, light stuttering in and out.
The floor cracked beneath his foot.
’That one was aid at ’.
He realized it mid-motion, a mont too late. The yellow-haired boy’s eye flicked toward him.
’Directly at ’.
And then—
A fleshy tendril bloated with barbed tissue hurtled toward his head. Too fast. Too heavy.
He wouldn’t dodge it so he retaliated.
Limbo— Border Jail.
In an instant, space hardened. An invisible periter burst outward from Zephyr, forming a sphere of hardened space. Everything within range was expelled violently—beds, debris, the desk, shattered remains of glass.
Noctis and the yellow-haired boy both flinched—flashes of instinct guiding them away just in ti. But the intent had been clear.
Zephyr’s eyes flared as the shimring do of warped air cracked slightly, like ice catching too much weight. It held for a second—then vanished, leaving a silence that trembled.
The boy was crouched a few ters away now, blood dripping from his arm where part of the shockwave had grazed him. His grin returned—but this ti, slower. asured.
"Well well," he said softly, eyes gleaming. "Didn’t expect the mute decoration to bite back."
He rolled his neck with a lazy pop. "Guess we’re a trio now."
But Zephyr didn’t answer, his heart was still pounding. Not from fear—but from annoyance. They weren’t ignoring him anymore.
And... that didn’t feel like a victory. It was a sche the yellow haired boy had cooked.
They were now standing in a three way now. He had succeeded in involving Zephyr in their fight.
’The nerve of this bastard’.
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