The air inside the dojo felt heavier than usual for Kaitri.
Maybe it was the smell of sweat and steel, or maybe it was the weight of eyes from the crowd of students, waiting for someone to make a mistake. He stood among the first years, quietly staring at the racks of practice weapons lined along the wall.
Every piece shimmered faintly under the morning light. The blades, poles, nunchucks, spears and a few more all humming with soft red runes etched into the metal. The runes pulsed like veins, a reminder that they were bound by safety anchors. Fatal strikes would light blue and halt the impact before it makes an actual impact.
Obi's voice carried across the floor, low and firm. "Pick your weapons. Remember to choose very carefully if this is your first time wielding a weapon."
Kaitri's eyes swept over the rack. His hand stopped over a pair of short silver Tanto blades. They were simple, clean, and light, with a faint groove near the edge for rune-threading. His reflection wavered on the polished surface.
He picked them up slowly.
As the cool metal brushed his palm, a memory resurfaced from when he was a child, laughing in an empty training hall, spinning wooden sticks, and pretending to be his father. Dual swords always made more sense to him. Two arms, two blades. The rhythm felt natural. A weapon should be an extension of the body, at least that was how he felt.
He had practiced from watching videos on the Res-net but nothing beats actual combat like he had in the dream sequence. The memory surfaced again.
Kaitri had judged that he might have been a gifted like his sister, Lira, who had been diagnosed with having a little Resonance when she was a baby. He remembered how her eyes changed colour for no reason every time and how he had gotten used to it.
It was the reason his Aunt had never denied Lira her path of Resonance because it had already been chosen for her by the spirit who had picked her for future Resonance when she's ready. The Gifted just had no choice but to become Resonants even though the spirit waits until a condition is fulfilled.
That was the theory, anyway. There were only a few hundred Gifted in the world — not enough to make a valid study on.
Obi's list echoed through the room, one pairing after another. "Voss, Keele… Zeren Veylan, you're up next..."
"…Good form. Next, Kaitri Anam and Davil Grey."
A wave of murmurs rippled through the room. Some curious, some amused.
"Another Annex kid?"
"That Anam?"
"His parents were top-tier Diaphanous. Let's see if he can even swing."
Kaitri ignored them. Davil stepped forward with a grin that tried too hard to look casual. He was shorter, leaner, but his confidence filled the space between them. His weapon choice was a pair of nunchucks with curved blades attached to the ends. It was unorthodox, rare, and ironically, might not be the most flexible to face a series of Dark-souled creatures.
Davil twirled the weapon once, the air hissing as it spun. "Didn't expect the great Annex heir to use knives against a boy with chuckies. Thought you people liked showing off."
Kaitri's expression didn't shift. "If you're proud of beating me, your bar must be low. I've technically never been in an actual battle." Then he smirked, "And you mistake Annex for Chromareign."
A few students snorted. Aris smirked while others leaned closer.
Obi stepped forward, hands behind her back. "Begin."
The sound of her command sliced the tension clean.
Davil was already moving. His weapon blurred, the nunchucks spinning and whipping through the air. They revealed a bladed edge, dangerous in the hands of a novice but Kaitri judged that Davil was no novice.
Kaitri raised both short swords, blocking the first swing with crossed steel. He had calculated the angle of impact so he knew where the attack will come from. Still, the impact vibrated through his arms.
The next strike came from below—he twisted aside, barely avoiding the sweeping arc that could've cut open his side. The rune along the blade flashed blue where it grazed his uniform.
Kaitri exhaled sharply. "He's fast. If I lose track of his hands for a second, I lose."
He backstepped, calculating. The chain length, the reach, the rhythm. He kept reminding himself that Davil's weapon wasn't just for show. He'd mastered the tempo, attacking in bursts, and pulling back before Kaitri could counter.
Each movement was a blur.
Swing, twist, recoil, lash.
Each missed hit hummed a blue whisper of death.
Still, Kaitri had goals. To survive, to get strong enough to protect the people he cared about. Still, how would he do that when he didn't like being the centre of attention? How would he do that when everything he had was handed to him before and after his parents died?
He knew he had to be competent, to control the narrative. To control battles, just like in the sequence. He had more than a first-row experience to what being a high ranked Resonant was, so he should have had some experience in his bones. Right? Right??
Wrong.
He had the framework laid out and the practical experience, but performing those moves in this Terran body was realistically impossible. There was no drive in his soul, that very thing the warrior, Archedes had, he lacked.
Even if he was facing a Terran like himself, he imagined it was a Dark-souled creature trying to reap his life. And so, he fought accordingly.
"Mr Anam," Obi's voice cut through the noise like a blade, "I assume those theatrics are not something you learnt from your time in the Annex household. If so, you had a terrible teacher."
He didn't have time to process it. The nunchucks struck his guard, slipped through, and slammed across his face. The world spun and the floor met him hard.
Pain bloomed along his jaw.
The class gasped. Some winced. It was a bad fall but the condition to win was to strike the enemy with the weapon which Davil hadn't fulfilled yet.
Varik, from the back, yelled, "Get up, Kai!"
Kaitri wiped the blood from his lip, stood, and brought his blades up again. His vision cleared, and in that ringing haze, he noticed something. The pattern. Davil's strikes repeated in cycles, a rhythm disguised by speed.
"Almost at every third strike," Kaitri whispered to himself, "he overextends. His hip twists too early."
Davil lunged again, grinning confidently. Kaitri waited and watched closely. His eyes tracked the chain, the bend of the wrist, the small stutter before each lunge. He remembered how fast his brain was calculating in the dream sequence and tried to at least, mirror that level of processing speed.
Now.
He stepped sideways, parried the first strike, hard, with a twist of his right Tanto, and used the left to hook the chain mid-spin. Davil's balance faltered. Kaitri pivoted sharply, using that momentum to drive a precise kick to the side of Davil's knee.
A sharp snap echoed.
Davil stumbled back with a snarl. The class gasped again. Varik jumped to his feet, shouting, "Yeah!"
Kaitri followed through, both blades raised, diving toward Davil's neck, waiting for the rune flare, the damned glow that marked a simulated kill.
But it never came.
Instead, a sudden blue flash burst from below. Davil's weapon twisted midair, the chain fusing, blades locking into a spear that extended upward toward Kaitri's chest.
His eyes widened, 'No, I wasn't fast enough,' he thought.
The rune on Davil's weapon glowed bright blue. The match was over.
The silence was heavy.
Then, somewhere in the back, someone scoffed. A short, mocking sound. Kaitri didn't bother looking.
Obi stepped forward with an unreadable expression written across her face. "Winner, Davil Grey."
Davil grinned and lowered his weapon, panting. He extended a hand toward Kaitri. "You're good. Almost had me."
Kaitri gave a faint nod, ignoring the sting of pride. "Almost."
'I'd have been killed if this was a real battle. I'm still not strong enough.' But that was fine, he had time. That was the whole point of coming to Eryndor, wasn't it?
As they stepped back, Obi's gaze lingered on him longer than necessary. Her brow furrowed, then eased.
'He learns fast if that's his first duel, she thought. Fast enough that I could test him later instead of letting him waste. He's Jenny's son after all.'
A small, knowing smile tugged at her lips.
"Anam," she said, "See me after the class."
Kaitri blinked, unsure. "Yes, Professor."
When the next pairs finished, Obi addressed the group again. Her voice carried with the authority of someone who had seen far too much war. "Today's exercise was not about victory. It was about potential. I've seen those who fight to win and those who fight to survive. By sundown, your wristbands will update with your evaluation."
Murmurs followed, some excited, others angry.
"If you disagree," she continued, tone sharp, "prove me wrong. Some of you have been trained since birth. You'll have the option to transfer to advanced theory or rune mechanics. The rest of you… will stay here. You'll stay until you learn what it means to fight."
Silence followed. They knew Eryndor was called a school on the surface but was really just like the military. No one was going to focus on teaching you from scratch and the Guardians will just pick out the chaff and experiment on them.
"Dismissed."
Students filed out slowly, whispering. Varik jogged to Kai's side. "Hey, what'd she want from you? You looked like she was gonna throw you out the window."
Kaitri wiped his face with his sleeve. "She said I should wait after class."
Varik's eyes went wide. "You're kidding. Extra lessons? Damn. Can you—uh—put in a good word for me?"
Kaitri gave him an awkward half-smile. "I'd rather survive first."
Varik groaned. "You're freaking impossible."
Kaitri stayed behind as the dojo emptied, the echoes of wooden steps fading down the corridor. When he finally looked up, Obi was standing by the racks again, arms crossed.
"You learn quickly," she said, her voice softer now. "Your stance is wrong, your footing too light, but your eyes see what most miss."
Kaitri frowned slightly. "You mean the patterns?"
"I mean the way you look at them," Obi replied. "Your mother used to look the same way."
That stopped him cold. "You… knew her?"
Obi's smile was faint, distant. "We fought side by side, long ago. When House Harsk still held the forge-world Karn."
"Karn?" he echoed. "You were from there?"
She nodded. "A world of fire and iron. Chaos and craft. The Harsk never ruled with crowns like Chromareign or Annex. They built weapons and forged men who could wield them."
She walked closer, resting a hand on a practice blade. "You've heard of the Houses, haven't you?"
"Only the big ones," he admitted. "Annex, Chromareign, Draevos… Nyxveil? That's about it."
Obi chuckled quietly at the mention of Nyxveil. "Each of the ten top Houses rules a world. No two share one. Annex holds Halycon. Nyxveil is rumour but don't think of it as a house. They are rumoured to be on Planet Noctis though. I have never been there myself. Chromareign, Planet Solari. Alabaster, Verdance. Loren, Pyrrhos. Varn, Mercul. Meridian, Aureus. Voss, Libras. Harsk, Karn… what's left of it. Draevos, Halycon. The rest orbit around their power."
Kaitri tilted his head. "Then what's the Guardian Order?"
"The Order binds them all under one banner, but Houses are kingdoms in disguise." She glanced toward the high window. "Your mother… she wasn't just from Harsk's upper ranks. She came from its underground. She knew strength, Kai, the kind that doesn't come from legacy. That's why she terrified people. Even when she was adopted by Annex, she was a warrior amongst warriors."
He opened his mouth to ask more, but Obi caught herself, turning away. "It's late. Ask me again after I've taught you to fight properly."
He blinked. "You'll… train me?"
"I'll do a favour… for an old friend." She smiled faintly. "Come to the extra session tomorrow. Let's see if the son of Jenny Anam can learn faster than she did."
Kaitri stared as she walked off, the sound of her boots echoing down the corridor. When she was gone, the air felt lighter.
Outside, the sky had already darkened. Varik was waiting by the door, grinning like he'd been holding it in.
"Well?" he asked.
"She said she'll train me," Kai replied.
Varik groaned, shaking his head. "Lucky bastard."
Kai chuckled under his breath. "I don't know about lucky. She seemed like she was holding back a shit the whole day just to not kill us. Diaphanous don't belong with Terrans."
"True that. She could shit on m…"
"Don't. Speak. Another. Word," Kai said with a look of horror on his face.
He removed his hand from Varik's lips and sighed while Varik gave him the most innocent smile he could manage.
Kaitri looked down at his wristband. The screen was blank, for now. Still, something told him it wouldn't stay that way for long.
He glanced back toward the dojo one last time. The faint shimmer of runes danced along the walls as the lights dimmed.
He wasn't sure if he should be excited… or afraid.