The laughter died the way candle-flame does when a window opens—sudden, complete, leaving only the scent of wax and wonder.
Aprexion's voice slipped through the hush like a blade being sheathed.
"Final pair. Step up."
Henry moved first, barefoot on cool marble that remembered every warrior who had ever stood upon it. Electricity licked across his skin in lazy violet ribbons—soft, almost sleepy—until a single red spark blinked at the edge of his palm, smaller than a pinhead, brighter than a scream. It vanished before the eye could name it, yet the air tasted of copper afterwards.
Kainen tilted his head, owl-curious.
"Your affinity sings off-key today, Henry."
Behind the students, eyebrows rose like startled birds. Jack's Analysis Eyes flickered—almost catching something that refused to be caught—an intrusive thought wearing perfume of ozone.
Henry answered in a low tide of voice.
"Not off-key, sir. Simply… excited. And—"
his gaze dropped to the floor,
"—a little nervous."
Avia did not flicker; he spoke truth. But the red spark had left a memory of heat on his skin, like a secret kiss from a storm that had not yet arrived.
Kennedy stepped beside him, swagger softened into humility's silhouette. The bruises from yesterday's ricochet arrow still bloomed beneath his sleeve—purple reminders that bravado, too, can bruise.
Aprexion let the silence stretch until it hummed.
"You have swapped with still arrows, angry arrows, invisible arrows. Now try an arrow that is and is not at the same time."
A collective gulp travelled the hall like a shiver through wheat.
Kainen's grin curved—crescent moon of mischief.
"Sub-training, I call it. You'll find us. Swap only. No maps. No mercy."
A portal bloomed behind him—door-shaped, frameless, threshold hanging in mid-air like a promise wearing a mask. The teachers stepped through; the door blinked shut, leaving only the after-image of their absence.
The students stared at empty where authority had been.
Osei was the only one smiling—challenge tasted like breakfast to him.
Sonia's aura fractalled into impossible colours—curiosity spinning faster than thought.
"So… what do we do now?"
Kennedy snapped his fingers; code-strings flickered like fireflies.
"We swap until the world coughs up their coordinates. Crazy, but—I'm in."
Charles adjusted his glasses, rune-light pulsing behind the lenses.
"Is my projection room allowed? Long-distance swap feels like cheating with extra steps."
Yyvone sighed, threads of gold curling like worried ribbons.
"I don't think so. How are we gonna do this…?"
Ian drew his sword; the sound of steel was the sound of concept clearing its throat.
"Shall I sever the idea of location itself? I'm game."
Jack raised a hand, lightning humming around his fingers like tame bees.
"I can track their echoes—if someone gives me a starting node to swap into first."
Henry's eyes met his—silent lightning asking silent questions.
Jack continued, voice soft as library midnight:
"Pulse Reversal, Henry. Drink the sky's static, turn it into motion. Osei, shadow his stride—but listen for the lie between footsteps. Compression three—strong enough to cut distance, gentle enough to keep your soul inside your skin. Expose space, not selves. Ghouls love an echo that overstays—keep yours shorter than a sigh."
Nods floated like lanterns on a quiet lake.
Henry moved—
not ran,
not flew,
simply became velocity.
Violet trails braided behind him, each loop a love letter to momentum, each after-image a question mark asking why there's crimson hiding in the indigo.
Osei followed—
no trail, no sound,
just the hush of instinct learning its own name.
He listened to the world's heartbeat, counted the spaces between beats, and slipped through them like a secret through teeth.
Behind them, the others breathed their way across reality—
no violence,
just persuasion in the language of placement.
---
Sonia
She whispered to a vase two cities away—
her inner echo a two-heartbeat lullaby that crooned "come here, pretty ceramic, let's trade places for a moment."
Reginorth answered with the soft clink of libraries closing,
and she was there—
a green girl in a city of ink and parchment,
leaving only the scent of curiosity behind.
---
Charles
He knocked on a snowball in Icius—
his code polite, precise,
a gentleman asking to borrow the cold for a second.
The snowball curtsied,
and he arrived wrapped in frost and fractals,
glasses fogged with winter's perfume.
---
Ian
He bowed to a cloud in Thetra—
his sword a silent introduction,
the cloud blushed into thunder,
and he stepped inside its cotton cathedral—
a swordsman learning the grammar of sky.
---
Yyvone
She curled into the negative space above Ilus—
a city that exists only when unobserved.
She swapped with absence itself,
and for a heartbeat she was nowhere and everywhere,
threads humming the lullaby of almost.
---
Jack
He perched on a high pillar,
Analysis Eyes drinking the horizon like wine.
He watched violet and red braids dance across the sky,
and inside him a small voice—
soft as a library whisper—
asked why the red only appears when Henry is running from himself.
But he pocketed the question like a secret coin,
and kept scanning,
waiting for the arrow that is and isn't
to finally choose truth over tease.
Somewhere ahead,
the teachers wait—
not as destinations,
but as questions wearing human faces.
And the students keep moving—
not toward victory,
but toward understanding how to hold their own reflections
without breaking the glass.
The world keeps breathing.
We just follow the exhale—
one swap at a time.
The campfire did not crackle—it breathed.
A slow, metronome inhale of flame, then a sigh of smoke that curled like a question mark above the two old warriors.
The trees around them were invisible; the world had been reduced to a circle of heat, two pairs of eyes, and the space between words.
Aprexion poked the embers with a twig that never burned.
"Do you think they're ready? Really."
Kainen opened his mouth—only silence emerged, heavy as a boulder that had watched civilisations forget their own names.
His exhale trembled, carrying the dust of every student he had buried in memory's soil.
"Don't try to make me doubt."
Aprexion's gaze did not falter.
"Remember ours—stronger in truth, shattered by truth. Some bent until they broke, some flew until the sun melted their wings. These kids will meet the same storm."
Kainen stared into the fire.
"I've counted too many last breaths. But these—these are different."
The flames shifted, colours mutating like emotions learning to speak—
indigo for doubt, crimson for pride, silver for the grief neither man would name.
Aprexion's voice dropped to a whisper that could cut diamond.
"They don't know what beyond-limit tastes like. Temptation is just waking. You know this."
Kainen's knuckles whitened around an invisible hilt.
"Whatever comes, we stand between it and them. That is non-negotiable."
Aprexion sighed—sound of a blade returning to its scabbard after deciding not to kill.
"When authenticity learns to fly, wings are not immune to gravity… or gravity's malice."
Kainen's eyes reflected fire that hadn't been orange in minutes.
"Then we teach them to navigate the fall—so gravity becomes choice, not curse."
The fire bowed, colours folding into a single soft gold—a truce between conviction and fear.
Aprexion nodded, the movement slow as winter sunrise.
"I hope so, brother. I really hope so."
The campfire breathed once more—then settled, as if the universe itself had decided to wait and watch.
---
Back at the academy, space was a waltz of disappearing shapes.
Students breathed their way across impossible distances—
vase to library, snowball to glacier, cloud to sky-throne, absence to Ilus.
Each swap was a heartbeat—
expose → leap → land → close—
a rhythm they were learning to trust like their own pulse.
Inner realms flashed open for 1.6 seconds—
no more, no less—
just long enough to taste their own truth,
short enough to deny ghouls a doorway.
For now, the echoes were clean, the residues tidy.
The world held its breath—
and waited for the first student to forget how to exhale.