Zora stood alone in the fighting pit, tapping the tip of his sword softly against the dry soil below. The rhythm helped him think. The beat of a blade on dirt was honest. One, two, pause. One, two, three.

He angled his head slightly, studying his surroundings once more.

The traditional fighting pit that was its own building in the middle of the campus was quite a large arena. Towering mushrooms were artificially planted around the pit to create an enclosed giant fungi forest, and the scent of spore rot mingled with sun-dried earth. The edges of the arena were ringed with hundreds of low, carved stands—empty now, of course. The preliminary matches weren't public yet. Only five arbiters sat behind a line of desks, shifting occasionally in their seats with voices low and indistinct.

Then the distant bells of the academy's midday hour rang loudly across the campus, and Zora yawned as he rolled his shoulders, simply trying to enjoy the sunlight on his shoulders.

He'd grown used to waiting for his kids to settle down for class, but this was needling his patience.

It'd been a week since the matchups for the preliminary matches were announced, and it was a long, dry, quietly infuriating week. Between lectures, he and Enki and Ifas had tried everything: searching behind supply sheds, pacing weapons maintenance wings, and sneaking through shuttered side halls to see if anything smelled a little off. But nothing. There were no hidden doors. No whispers in the walls. There wasn't a single thread leading to Vantari or the supposed hidden laboratory they'd been sent here to uncover.

Whatever secrets the Royal Ayapacha Military Academy held, they were deeply buried, and if the stones didn't speak, then the people certainly wouldn't. The students here were more loose-lipped than Zora expected out of prospective military officers, which meant nobody knew who Vantari was.

And that left one option.

Win the tournament, as the Salaqa Lord predicted we'd have to do from the very start.

What a pain.

So he'd reluctantly showed up this morning on a weekend to participate in his preliminary match, but he didn't expect to be counting sheep out of sheer boredom and irritation.

How long is she going to keep me waiting—

But, at long last, he finally heard a gust of displaced air sweeping across the pit, carrying with it a sharp change in pressure and a set of heavy yet gentle footsteps.

Someone landed on the other side of the fungi forest clearing in front of him.

"... Apologies for being late," said one of the Five Princesses of the academy, brushing her long and luscious hair over one shoulder with deliberate laziness as she rested her sawtooth blade across her shoulder. "I simply couldn't muster the motivation to fight in the preliminary rounds knowing it's a decided match, so it took me a while to get here."

Zora twitched a brow. He found the girl irritating already, but he didn't let it show—couldn't let it show, really. Ifas had switched his half face mask out for a full face mask, and there was an important reason why.

He was up against one of the Five Princesses: the top five students in the academy in any given year, beloved and revered by all.

"I am Alvay of the Salaqa Household, northwestern branch," he introduced himself dryly, still tapping the tip of his blade against the ground. "If I'd known you were going to be late, I would've brought a lute and a chair. Maybe some grapes as well."

She chuckled faintly. Arrogant tone. Capital accent. He filed that away.

"Cute," she said. He tilted his head toward the panel, then back toward hers as she stepped forward lightly, her boots crunching dried mushroom bits beneath her. "And I am Kalari Vanek, heiress of the Vanek Household, Capital Lineage. It's unfortunate that a no-name like you has been matched against me, but someone has to drop out in the preliminary round every year, so I'll finish this quickly. We can both have our lunches on time."

Zora sighed. "Sure."

Then the two of them looked far off to the side at the panel of arbiters.

One by one, every arbiter raised their hand—and then they all dropped their hand at once, signalling the start of the match.

Zora widened his stance a touch, the dry soil whispering beneath his boots, but Kalari was fast, if nothing else. He heard her slicing her palm with the sawtooth edge of her blade, sharp and practised, and a moment later, the air became charged with the thick scent of iron.

And when she flung a wave of blood at him from across the clearing, the blood rippled mid-air and transformed into pulsing ants.

"Hasten," he whispered.

Air swirled around his body and made him lighter, allowing him to leap backwards just in time as the swarm of ants exploded in his face. A sharp shockwave lit the arena in heat and crackling fire. Soil, spores, and flames shot skyward in a twisting plume, so he immediately threw himself behind the nearest mushroom tree, shoulders thudding softly against its pulpy bark.

He listened closely as the ash settled and Kalari walked calmly forward. No rush.

Her sword swung loosely in one hand. The other hand dripped blood that hit the soil in regular intervals, and each drop hatched legs, mandibles, click-click-click.

A tiny army of ants formed out of the blood she dripped onto the soil, trailing after her like a wave of shadows.

"I come from the Vanek Household, one of the Divine Empress' Four Families, and we are well known for our Advanced Exploding Ant Classes," she announced proudly, brightly, without respect for the battle. "My Art allows me to morph my blood into exploding ants that I can control and detonate at will. We are the household of demolition. Though there may be healers on standby around the arena, it would be best if you surrendered right now."

Exploding ants, huh? He thought, lifting his mask slightly so he could chew on a piece of mushroom bark. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad of a breakfast. It was sweet, chewy, and even a little citrusy for whatever reason. I've heard about them. They're suicidal ants that blow up for the good of the Swarm. They pose a lot of trouble against the southernmost frontlines, but it's easy enough to intercept them if you just shoot them before they can get close to you.

But then the second wave of explosions bloomed through the fungi forest like rolling thunder wrapped in fire. Zora ducked low beneath the blast line, cloak singed at the edge. The ground beneath him groaned with heat, and dry spores curled to ash as his boots slid behind another mushroom trunk.

"Hasten."

The world swelled in silence as his body lightened even further. He moved quickly, quietly, slipping past smoking roots and pulsing mushroom stalks. Flames erupted behind him, and the low boom of detonating ants cracked through the forest's veil.

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Kalari wasn't holding back anymore. She was losing her patience. He could hear it in her shallow, fast, just short of angry breaths. Each time she cut her forearm, he heard her blood whipping out in arcs, and then explosions would echo against the distant walls of the arena.

In all honesty, any normal fighter would've been deafened and defeated by now.

… What a favourable fight for me, though.

The arena was lovely. There was plenty of cover to hide behind, plenty of dead space to run, and to top it all off, the spectator stands were a fair distance from the clearing in the centre of the pit. Even if the arbiters were paying attention—which they weren't, with this being a 'decided match', after all—nobody would be able to hear him whispering spells under his breath, especially with his full face mask covering his mouth.

In that sense, this was a 'decided match'.

As Kalari continued whirling in frustrated half-circles, throwing bursts of explosions in all directions in an attempt to catch him, he smiled faintly behind his mask. He ducked behind another trunk, brushing charred bark with the back of his knuckle.

How do I 'beat' her, though?

He could run for days—he was quite confident in his stamina—but Kalari had a flashy, powerful Art, and he couldn't just cast a non-lethal 'strike' from afar. He was Alvay of the Salaqa Household, and to the arbiters and the spectators, he had the Advanced Army Ant Class that allowed him to summon army ants to heal himself.

How would a Noble-Blood of the Salaqa Household beat someone like Kalari?

How would Kita beat Kalari?

…

The answer was simple and boring.

He inhaled, gauged Kalari's position in the centre of the clearing from the soft scrape of her boots, and then he gripped his sawtooth blade tight in both hands as he charged at her back.

The moment Kalari heard him running at her, she whirled and whipped her bloody arm at her with full force. This wave of blood was thicker and larger than any wave she'd thrown thus far. Taking it head-on would be tantamount to suicide—for everyone except for someone of the Salaqa Household.

So he spoke "hasten" and "ward" at the exact same time. The 'haste' spell sped him like just a little bit more, while the 'ward' spell formed a swirling barrier of wind around him, allowing him to eat the brunt of the fiery explosion that detonated in his face. Then, he made sure to whisper a soft "fire" as well, lighting his own clothes on fire.

He burst through the veil of flame and ash half a second later—to Kalari's obvious surprise—and slammed the hilt of his sword into the top of her skull.

It was a clean crack.

Her breath caught for a split second before she dropped like a sack of mushrooms.

The sound of her body hitting the dirt was soft, and her summoned ants dissolved without command.

Then the clearing fell silent, though he was pretty sure heard all five arbiters blinking hard in the distance.

"... Ow."

Quickly, he fell to one knee and stabbed his blade into the earth beside him. He made sure to wince as loudly as he could, trying to swat and put out the flames across his clothes in a showy, half-panicked sort of way. The fire wasn't really hurting him—he'd cast it on himself, after all—but to the arbiters, it must've looked like desperation and genuine struggle.

Eventually, he managed to extinguish himself, and he made another big show of breathing hard while craning his ears at the arbiters.

They were all murmuring furiously now.

"Kalari lost?"

"I didn't even see what happened. Did she let herself get hit?"

"Did he charge… through the explosion?"

"He has the Army Ant Class, doesn't he? He must've healed himself through the explosion and caught Kalari off-guard."

"But just like that? Kalari? She's a decent swordswoman, even if she does focus more on her ranged capabilities. How could she…"

To all of them, he gave a single dry laugh before speaking in a hoarse voice.

"It's a battle tactic in the northwest, esteemed arbiters," he said. "We are Noble-Blood of the Salaqa Household. We bite down on the pain and keep on moving. How do you think I hurt myself so much that I have to wear a mask to hide my unrecoverable scars?"

Silence from the arbiter panel.

Then they started murmuring again—low and overlapping, like the muttering of monks who'd misplaced their scripture—and Zora stood motionless, cloak scorched at the edges, sword planted in the earth beside him. He tilted his head slightly toward the arbiters, letting them talk things out for a little longer.

Not the cleanest explanation, he mused, but it's plausible enough to pass through a panel that wasn't watching closely to begin with.

So when the mushroom speakers far outside the arena started talking, announcing the victor of this 'decided' preliminary match, there was an uproar of indignant voices, shouted objections, and disbelieving gasps everywhere. They had to be Kalari's supporters.

Zora, however, didn't pause to savor their protests.

He simply rolled his shoulder and gave a curt bow to the scowling arbiters before he started walking away, joints relaxed.

Kalari stirred behind him with a groan.

"... You've got a strong Art, Kalari Vanek, but against the Swarm, strength is nothing without the ferocity to slaughter your enemies," he said, calling over his shoulder. "In a real battle against a bug, don't hold back. Use your full force right from the very start. Maybe you would've caught me off-guard instantly if you'd done that."

Then he walked on, tapping the hilt of his sword softly against the ground with every other step.

One, two. Pause.

One, two, three.

The cafeteria that evening had a specific weight to it. It was a low, careful sort of atmosphere that clung to cutlery and softened conversations, and it wasn't silence. Just… lots and lots of pressure on all sides. Suspicion with chopsticks. Judgment on the edge of soup bowls. Laughter elsewhere halted mid-note when someone glanced toward the Salaqa table, and conversations dulled themselves when people passed by.

Zora counted at least thirty-four distinct whispers at any given time. Twenty of them were directed. Fourteen were trying to be subtle.

The five of them were being watched, but he was used to being stared at.

Zora took another slow bite of his food—cold citrus noodles from the Mori Masif Front again—while Enki beside him chewed on his noodles just as silently. Across the table, the girls were just as composed. Eria's chair gave the occasional wooden creak, and Kita's spoon touched her bowl at perfect intervals like a clock chiming a courtly tune.

They were a strange quartet to be sure, and with Ifas standing stiff like a statue behind Zora, they were pretty hard to ignore.

Just as Zora reached for his cup of tea, the mushroom chandelier above them in the centre of the hall pulsed gently. The entire cafeteria fell still.

"Attention, please," the voice announced through the chandelier. "Due to unforeseen results in today's preliminary rounds, certain matchups for future rounds have been revised to reflect updated combat performance. All students, please listen closely."

While Zora sipped his tea loudly, Kita looked up at him and gave him a small smile. "Naturally, the tournament must adapt to unpleasant surprises."

"Is that what we are?" Zora angled his head in her direction. "Unpleasant surprises?"

Kita folded her hands in her lap. "You and Cousin Eryn both defeated one of the Five Princesses in the preliminary rounds. Of course they are shifting the bracket." Then she gave both of them a proud, polite glance, dipping her head as she did. "You have brought glory to the Salaqa Household. I am immensely proud of the both of you."

Zora didn't say thank you. Neither did Enki. It was downright impossible for them to lose in the first round, perhaps even more so for the Worm Mage, who actually had the physical ability to just run and punch his way through the tournament without thinking about using his wormholes. Zora hadn't bothered watching his match in the afternoon today—because there really was no point watching a decided match—but it was likely that Enki won his match even more decisively than Zora won his.

So, all of them listened as the revised matchups were announced. 'Alvay' of Salaqa was now set to fight a series of higher-ranked duelists from the Caern Household, while 'Eryn' of Salaqa was also now matched with bloodline combatants from the Barqar Household—both part of the Empress' Four Families.

He expected nothing less.

But, to his surprise, there was still one more change in the future matchups.

"And finally," the voice in the chandelier continued, "participant Asif, servant of the Salaqa Household, having won his preliminary match, will now face advanced-tier opponents in accordance with his victory. That is all."

Once the announcement ended, all four of them slowly turned to look at Ifas, who was still standing behind them with perfect posture, hands neatly clasped behind his back like a model servant.

Zora narrowed his brows.

"What did you do?"

Ifas tilted his head, feigning innocence. "I won my preliminary match today."

"I know that, but how did you—"

Eria burst into a giggle. "You're all so strong!"

Kita offered a quiet, approving nod and returned to her meal with serene composure. "Then that means all four of us participating in the tournament are advancing to the second round. I expected nothing less from a servant of the Salaqa Household."

While Zora and Enki glowered at Ifas quietly for making this tournament more troublesome than it already was, Ifas laughed, scratching the back of his head in feign embarrassment.

"Oh, you flatter me, heiress," he said, rocking slightly on his heels. "How far do you think I can get in the tournament?"

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