In the vast auditorium, a low-grade pandemonium had taken root. The solemn hush from the memorial presentations was a distant memory, replaced by the electric, nervous buzz of over a hundred thousand teenagers whose futures hung in the balance. Teachers and proctors weaved through the aisles, voices strained as they tried to impose order, their commands mostly swallowed by the din.
Cho watched the scene from his seat, a bubble of detached annoyance around him. "Some people genuinely don't possess an internal volume control, do they?"
The boy next to him—the enthusiastic one from the presentation—chuckled. "Nah, they're just pumped. This is the biggest day of our lives, statistically speaking."
"I guess," Cho conceded, leaning back with a sigh that carried the weight of the hours already spent waiting. He turned to his companion. "Oh, right. We've been bonding over dead heroes and existential dread, but I don't think we've done the formalities. I'm Cho. Cho Shinohara. Rouge District."
The boy's eyes widened slightly—a familiar reaction at the mention of the Rouge—but it was quickly covered by an easy grin. "Claude. Claude Jacob Hawthorne. Safed District." He offered a hand.
Cho shook it, a mischievous glint entering his eyes. "Ah. A Safed noble. I should have known from the… optimistic worldview and the lack of visible knife scars. My apologies for the informal discourse, your lordship."
Claude's face flushed a brilliant red. "Wha—no! It's not like that! We're just… financially stable. Comfortable. Not noble."
"Of course, of course," Cho nodded solemnly, pressing a hand to his heart. "My mistake, Lord Richington of Comfortable Manor. Tell me, does the air smell different up there on your stable financial plateau? Less like stale desperation and street food?"
Claude sputtered, launching into increasingly flustered denials that only fueled Cho's teasing. Finally, in a mock-defeated tone, Claude shot back, "Well, isn't your district famous for producing, like, half the country's underground assassins or something?"
The playful air around Cho vanished. He turned to Claude, his expression flattening into something unreadable and cold. "I'm afraid this conversation is concluded," he stated, his voice low. He made a sharp, slashing motion across his own throat. "After the ceremony, watch your back. Sleep with one eye open. We don't take kindly to outsiders talking sideways about the turf."
Claude's face drained of color. "I—I didn't mean—I'm so sorry, I was just—"
He was cut off by the sound of Cho's laughter—a real, unexpected burst of it that made Cho double over, clutching his stomach. He finally straightened, wiping a tear from his eye under the bewildered and slightly irritated stares of students around them.
"Oh, your face!" Cho wheezed. "Relax, Hawthorne. Your neck is safe. If anyone knows the exact knife crime statistics in the Rouge, it's the people who live there. We have a… vested interest."
Claude stared, dumbfounded, the adrenaline of fear receding into confusion. "Why would you joke about that? It's not… funny."
Cho's smile remained, but it didn't quite reach his eyes now. It was a shield. "It's either joke about it or scream about it. Joking wastes less energy. And who would we scream to? The cops?" He snorted. "We barely have any heroes in the Rouge, let alone beat cops who care. The system's a ghost town where I'm from. It's why…" He trailed off, the sentence unfinished. It's why we need to make our own. He shook his head. "Never mind. So, Claude from Safed. What's a 'financially stable' kid want with being a hero? Shouldn't you be prepping for a cushy corporate strategist role?"
The conversation shifted, flowing easier as Claude talked about his family's expectations versus his own dreams. Cho listened, interjecting with sarcastic commentary that made Claude laugh despite himself. They were an odd pair: the polished, earnest golden retriever and the sharp-edged, cynical stray.
Their distraction was so complete they barely noticed the steady stream of groups being called and led away. The colossal screen at the front cycled through ID blocks. The morning bled into afternoon, the artificial light in the auditorium never changing. They talked through it all—about useless teachers, annoying public figures, the absurdity of Titanium's fan club.
Finally, as the day wore into evening and the crowd thinned, a voice crackled over the speaker for their section.
"Candidate blocks CH-7700 through CH-7999. Final group. Proceed to Access Corridor Seven."
Cho and Claude looked at each other. The last group. The stragglers. The afterthought.
"How lucky we both ended up in the last batch," Claude said as they stood, joining the river of tired, anxious students funneling out of the auditorium.
Cho nudged him with an elbow. "Oh? Couldn't bear to be parted from me? I'm touched, truly."
Claude's face did its familiar, satisfying flush. "N-no! I just meant—it's statistically interesting that—ugh, forget it!"
The walk was long. They left the public spaces of the Hall, descending through increasingly sterile, metallic passageways. The air grew cooler, smelling of ozone and antiseptic. The excited chatter of their group died down, replaced by the nervous shuffle of feet and occasional whispers. The reality of what was coming was a physical presence now, cold and heavy.
They stopped before a massive, featureless metal door. A proctor—a woman with the tired eyes of someone who had been herding teenagers for twelve hours—turned to face them.
"This is my stop. The Illusionary Reality Chamber is beyond this door. Remember the conduct guidelines. Do not touch any equipment besides your designated pod. The simulation will initiate automatically once all participants are in position. Good luck." Her tone was utterly flat. She stepped aside, and the door slid open with a hydraulic sigh.
The room they entered was a stark, circular chamber, all brushed steel and soft, indirect lighting. In the center, on a pedestal of black stone, floated a pulsing, crystalline orb about the size of a human head. It emitted a low, sub-audible hum that vibrated in Cho's teeth.
But the most striking features were the pods. Dozens of them, sleek and coffin-like, were arranged in concentric circles around the crystal, their lids open, revealing padded interiors lined with silvery neural sensors.
"Looks like something out of a bad sci-fi sim," Claude muttered, his earlier bravado gone.
Before anyone could panic, light erupted from the central crystal. A holographic figure resolved in the air above it: Blanche. Her image was smaller, more intimate than the auditorium version, but her energy was undimmed.
"Hello, my little munchkins! The last, but never the least!" she chirped, her hands on her hips. "Welcome to the Illusionary Reality core. This beautiful, glowy boy here," she gestured to the crystal, "is one of humanity's greatest magical-tech hybrids. It's going to project a lovely, lifelike Gate scenario directly into your pretty little brains. Think of it as the world's most immersive, most stressful movie… where you're the star!"
She leaned in conspiratorially. "Now, a teensy warning. The neural feedback is… intense. Your brain, convinced it's in mortal peril, might make you feel things. Pain, terror, the works. But it's all illusory! No physical harm will come to you. Probably." She winked, a flash of unsettling playfulness. "Kidding! Mostly! You'll be fine."
The hologram gave a double thumbs-up. "Just lie back in your assigned pod. The sensors will do the rest. And remember… your mind is the key. Let it react. Don't fight it. See you on the other side, stars!"
Her image winked out.
A soft chime sounded, and numbers glowed above each pod. Cho found his: CH-7781. Claude's, CH-7743, was right next to him. They looked at each other as they approached their respective pods.
The interior was softer than it looked. He lay back, the padding conforming to his shape. Silvery filaments extended from the headrest, connecting to temporary nodes at his temples and the base of his neck with a cool, gelatinous touch. The lid began to close silently overhead, leaving a view of the glowing crystal in the center of the ceiling.
"Hey, Cho?" Claude's voice came from the pod beside him, tight with nerves.
"Yeah?"
"Good luck."
Cho took a deep breath, the last one that felt entirely his own. He could feel a strange energy beginning to thrum from the crystal, a pressure building behind his eyes. The world started to waver, the metallic edges of the pod bleeding into soft focus.
He turned his head slightly towards Claude's pod, a final, reckless grin on his lips. "Born ready…"
A wave of vertigo, profound and nauseating, hit him. The hum of the crystal became a roar. The light consumed everything—the pod, the chamber, Claude, his own body. His consciousness was yanked forward, then down, into a swirling vortex of sensation and false memory.
The last thing he felt wasn't fear, but a fierce, defiant promise, hurled into the void.
For you.
Then, nothing.