4:00 AM at Tracen Academy was not a time for humans. It was a time for ghosts, janitors, and people who had made terrible life choices.
Kagura Seiran felt she fit into at least two of those categories.
"Lower!" Sato's voice cut through the pre-dawn mist like a whip. "Your center of gravity is floating! You're running like you're trying to avoid stepping on bugs!"
Seiran gritted her teeth, forcing her knees to bend deeper. She was doing lunges. Endless, repetitive, agonizing walking lunges across the dew-soaked turf.
"This is boring," Seiran mumbled, her thighs burning.
"It's supposed to be boring," Sato barked, checking his stopwatch. "Excitment leads to mistakes. Boring builds muscle memory. Keep your back straight!"
For three days, this had been her life. No running. No wind. Just lunges, squats, and strange hopping drills that made her look like a confused rabbit. Sato had forbidden her from running at full speed. "Your chassis can't handle the engine yet," he had said. "If you redline now, you'll blow a gasket."
Seiran didn't know what a gasket was, but she knew she hated lunges.
She finished the set and collapsed onto the grass, staring up at the dark sky. The silence she craved was there, but it was the wrong kind. It was the silence of exhaustion, not the silence of speed.
"Water," Sato ordered, tossing a bottle at her head.
She caught it with lazy reflexes and sat up. "When can I run?"
"When you stop landing on your heels," Sato said, scrolling through a tablet. "Your impact force is 1.5 times higher than the average. You're absorbing shock with your bones instead of your muscles. It's a miracle you haven't fractured a shin yet."
"I told you, I slip between the ground."
"Physics doesn't care about your poetry, Kagura. Gravity is a law, not a suggestion." Sato sighed, rubbing his eyes. He looked more tired than she felt. "Look, we're building a foundation. You want to silence the noise? You can't do that if you're in the infirmary."
Seiran drank the water. It tasted metallic.
"Someone's coming," she said, her ears twitching toward the stadium entrance.
Sato frowned. "At 4:30? Security doesn't open the main gate until 5:00."
"Loud," Seiran whispered. "Very loud."
A moment later, the heavy metal gates at the far end of the field rattled. Then, with a groan of rusted hinges, they were shoved open.
"ALRIGHT! THE KING OF THE JUNGLE IS HERE TO EAT THE MORNING!"
The shout echoed off the empty stands, shattering the peaceful atmosphere completely.
A girl stormed onto the track. She radiated an energy that was almost visible—a jagged, chaotic aura of pure aggression. She had wild hair, a flashy tracksuit with the zipper pulled halfway down, and a stride that looked like she was trying to kick the earth into submission.
Behind her, a frantic-looking trainer jogged to keep up. "Pocket! Wait! We haven't stretched!"
"Stretch while we run!" the girl roared, already breaking into a sprint.
Sato stiffened. "Jungle Pocket."
Seiran tilted her head. "That's the loud one?"
"She's the top prospect for Team Fujiki," Sato muttered, his face grim. "Raw power. A complete maniac. She won the chaotic Hopeful Stakes last year just by bullying her way through the pack."
Jungle Pocket tore around the bend, her speed impressive but violent. She wasn't "slipping" through the air like Seiran; she was punching a hole through it.
As she rounded the corner near them, Pocket spotted Sato and Seiran. She skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of turf, defying all safety protocols.
"OI!" Pocket pointed a finger at them. "Who's sneaking around my track before sunrise? This is my time! The Jungle Time!"
Seiran looked at Sato. "Is she always like this?"
"Usually," Sato sighed.
Pocket stomped over, her eyes wild and brimming with adrenaline. She looked Seiran up and down, unimpressed by the gym uniform and the messy hair.
"Hah? Who's the gloomy one?" Pocket sneered, putting her hands on her hips. "You look like you just woke up from a coma. You a manager? A water girl?"
Seiran stayed seated on the grass. "I'm Seiran."
"Seiran? Never heard of you!" Pocket laughed, a raucous sound. "I'm Jungle Pocket! The future King of the Twinkle Series! The one who's going to crush Tachyon and take the Triple Crown!"
At the mention of Tachyon, Seiran blinked.
"Tachyon is fast," Seiran said simply.
"Fast?!" Pocket's face turned red. "She's not just fast! She's... She's a cheat code! But I'm going to break her! I'm going to scream past her until her lab coat catches fire!"
Pocket leaned down, her face inches from Seiran's. "And what about you, Gloomy? You running in the Debut next week?"
Sato stepped in. "She's debuting, yes. But we're busy training right now, so if you don't mind—"
"Debut? With those legs?" Pocket scoffed, looking at Seiran's unrefined muscle tone. "She looks like she'll snap in a stiff breeze. Hey, Gloomy! Don't get in my way, alright? The weaklings get trampled in the back."
Seiran stood up.
She wasn't angry. She didn't feel the heat of competition that Pocket radiated. But the noise... Pocket was so loud. Her voice, her footsteps, her presence. It was scratching at Seiran's brain.
"You run loud," Seiran said softly.
Pocket blinked, taken aback. "Hah?"
"You hit the ground too hard," Seiran continued, dusting off her knees. "You scream, so you waste breath. You're fighting the air."
The silence that followed was heavy. Sato winced. Seiran, please don't provoke the wild animal.
Pocket's expression shifted from arrogance to genuine confusion, and then to a sharp, dangerous grin.
"Fighting the air?" Pocket stepped closer, towering over Seiran. "That's how you win, Gloomy. You fight everything. The ground, the wind, the other racers. You fight until they break."
She poked Seiran in the chest.
"If you're racing next week, I'll be watching. Don't disappoint me. I hate boring races."
Pocket spun around and took off again, screaming at her trainer to hurry up. "LET'S GO! 50 LAPS! WE'RE NOT SLEEPING UNTIL WE PUKE!"
Her laughter echoed across the field as she resumed her violent assault on the track.
Seiran watched her go. The noise lingered in her ears.
"She's annoying," Seiran decided.
"She's your rival," Sato corrected. "And she's right about one thing. She fights. That's her logic. She turns pain into fuel."
Sato looked at Seiran, his eyes serious.
"Pocket runs on anger. Tachyon runs on science. You... you don't have a weapon yet, Kagura. You just have a gift. And gifts get crushed by weapons."
He pointed to the starting line.
"Get up. No more lunges. I want to see your cornering again. We're going to fix that 'slip' of yours until it's not just poetry. We're going to make it a blade."
Seiran looked at the track. The sun was starting to crest over the stadium, painting the turf in gold. The ghost of her run with Tachyon felt distant. Now, the track felt like a battlefield.
"A blade," Seiran repeated.
"Sharp enough to cut the noise," Sato promised.
Seiran nodded. She tied her hair back tighter.
"Okay. Let's run."
For the first time since arriving at Tracen, she didn't just feel the rhythm. She felt a spark. Jungle Pocket's screaming had irritated her, yes. But it had also woken her up.
If I want silence, she thought, taking her stance, I have to be faster than the scream.