The summons which he had been expecting after last night incident came at dawn. It was inevitable after what happened.
Kaz Ren awoke to the sound of his door hissing open, the academy's automated systems overriding the lock. A drone hovered in the doorway, its single red eye scanning him before projecting a holographic message onto the wall:
**DIRECTOR'S OFFICE. IMMEDIATELY.**
No explanation. No room for refusal.
He dressed slowly, methodically. The bruises from last night's fight had already darkened along his ribs, but the pain was distant, irrelevant. Flexing his fingers revealed no broken bones, no lasting damage. His attackers hadn't been so lucky.
The walk to the directors office was eerily silent. The usual morning crowds of students were absent, the halls empty save for the occasional security drone drifting past. The air smelled of antiseptic and something faintly metallic—blood, or perhaps the acrid tang of overworked enhancements.
---
The Director's door stood open when Kaz arrived.
Shirogane sat behind his desk, fingers steepled, his expression unreadable. The wall behind him displayed a live feed of the medical wing—rows of students suspended in regeneration pods, their bodies half-consumed by their own mutations.
"You cost me five viable candidates last night," Shirogane said, his voice smooth as polished steel.
Kaz didn't flinch. "They shouldn't have broken into my room."
The Director's lips twitched—not quite a smile. He tapped a key, and the screen shifted to footage of the fight. Kaz watched himself move with clinical precision—every dodge, every counter, every brutal takedown.
"You fight like someone who's been killing since before he could walk."
Silence stretched between them.
The Director leaned forward. "What do you know about the First Trial?"
A trick question. Everyone knew about the Trial—the academy's infamous rite of passage, the first real test of a candidate's ability to control their enhancements under extreme stress. Most students didn't survive it.
Kaz met Shirogane's gaze. "It's not a test. It's a culling."
Shirogane's smile widened. "Good. Then you understand what's coming." He slid a single file across the desk. "You've been moved up. Seeing as you're capable of defending yourself against trained candidates.
Your Trial begins tonight."
Kaz didn't need to open the folder. He could already feel the weight of it—the inevitability.
Shirogane stood, his shadow stretching long across the room. "Prove me right, Kaz Ren. Or die like the rest and I'll know that my hunch was wrong for the first time."
---
The lecture hall hummed with tension as Kaz took his seat. Professor Hiraku's augmented vocal cords emitted a frequency that made the students' teeth ache.
"Today's lesson is symbiotic rejection."
A containment unit hissed open, revealing a pulsating kaiju organ—a heart, or something close to it, veined with bioluminescent blue tendrils. It twitched as if still alive.
"Stage Three candidates, approach."
Three students rose, their enhancements flaring in response.
Hiraku handed them scalpels. "Extract a sample without triggering defensive mutation."
The first student made an incision—too deep. The organ *reacted*, lashing out with whip-like tendrils that embedded in the boy's forearm. His scream cut off as his flesh began crystallizing, the blue veins spreading up to his elbow before Hiraku severed the connection with a plasma torch.
"Failure," the professor noted dispassionately. "Next."
Kaz's gaze drifted to the observation deck. Aoi sat there, watching—not the lesson, but him. Her fingers tapped a silent rhythm against her thigh, counting down to something.
---
The day went on and time flew by very quickly, now it was time for lunch.
The dining hall's noise dropped by half when Kaz entered.
He ignored the stares and took his tray to the far corner—his usual spot. But today, the Unmarked first-years had left a three-seat buffer around the table. Only one person dared break the barrier.
Renji Matsumoto flickered into existence across from Kaz, his form stabilizing just long enough to pluck a protein cube from the other boy's tray before dissolving into static again. He reappeared upside-down on the ceiling, legs crossed at the knees like a lounging cat, grinning as he licked the stolen morsel with exaggerated relish.
"Shirogane's little defect," Renji sang, his voice layered with unnatural harmonics that made the surrounding tableware vibrate. The protein cube slipped from his fingers—only to freeze midair as he phase-shifted again, catching it between his teeth like a performing seal before flipping right-side-up into the empty seat beside Kaz.
Kaz didn't look up from his meal. "You here to scout for Ryota?"
Renji gasped dramatically, clutching his chest as if wounded. His pupils dilated to black voids for a split second before snapping back to normal. "Me? A spy?" He dissolved into mist as a surveillance drone passed overhead, reforming with his legs draped over Kaz's shoulders like a living scarf. "I'm wounded, Kazzy. I just wanted to see if the academy's only Unmarked candidate would finally—" He vanished again, reappearing seated properly, elbows on the table, chin in hands. "—give me a reason to care about this place again."
His grin showed too many teeth—rows of them flickering in and out of existence like a glitching hologram.
Renji pressed his face uncomfortably close to Kaz's, his breath smelling of burnt sugar and ozone. "You do know what happens in the Trial, right?" His form destabilized, limbs stretching like taffy as his whisper dropped to a frequency that made Kaz's molars ache.
"Last year, a guy melted because his enhancements thought his bones were optional." He snapped back to solidity, spinning a fork between fingers that briefly multiplied into six before resolving back to five. "But you—" The fork embedded itself in the table between Kaz's knuckles, vibrating. "—you're boring. No upgrades, no sparkles." He pouted, lower lip quivering in exaggerated disappointment. "How will you entertain me?"
Kaz finally looked up, meeting Renji's flickering gaze. "Watch and find out."
"Oh, I always do."
Across the room, Ryota's laughter boomed over the clatter of trays. Mira sat at his side, her face still bandaged from their sparring match. When she caught Kaz looking, her remaining eye burned with hatred.
Renji followed his gaze. "She's got a bet going. Says you won't last five minutes."
Kaz pushed his tray away. "Tell her to double the stakes."
Renji's laughter echoed in his skull, that unnatural, multi-layered sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once as he vanished.
Kaz kept his expression blank, his fingers loose around his fork—careful not to tense, not to react. But beneath his ribs, something cold slithered through his veins.
He shouldn't be able to do that.
The thought lodged in Kaz's throat like a shard of glass. Renji treated the academy like a game, his power level was over the top and he was just a year 2, his attention span fleeting. If he ever truly focused—
Kaz exhaled slowly, forcing his pulse to steady.
Just as the drones had moved out of the dining area, Kaz could already feel it, the death stares behind him and the intense breathing of enhanced candidacies behind him. One thing was certain, they were not there for a friendly chat and recalling Denji's words, he knew why they were here.
---
The rooftop access door was jammed open with a broken syringe—someone's idea of an invitation.
Aoi stood at the edge, the wind pulling at her uniform sleeves.
Kaz's knuckles throbbed as he walked onto the rooftop. His left eye had begun to swell, a deep bruise coloring his forearm. He flexed his fingers - nothing broken.
Aoi Shirogane leaned against the wall. "You look terrible."
Kaz wiped blood from his split lip. "And you look like you've been waiting."
"For you? Hardly." Her eyes scanned his injuries. "You actually didn't die. That's new for an unmarked"
He smirked. "Guess I'm built different."
Aoi stepped closer, fingers hovering near his bruised jaw. "You could have walked away."
"And miss the fun?"
She studied him. "You're impossible."
"I remember you from back then," Kaz said suddenly. "It was you. Now I'm sure of it."
She stilled. "Back when?"
He looked away. "Never mind."
Aoi tossed him a med-patch. "Put that on before you bleed out."
Kaz pressed the patch to his lip. "And if I don't survive the Trial?"
Aoi glanced back. "Then you were never worth the risk."
She held out a slim metal case. "From my father's private research. It'll suppress foreign mutations for exactly seventeen minutes. Think of it as *special treatment*"
Kaz didn't take it. "Why?"
"Because tonight isn't your real test," Aoi said. She then pressed the case into his hand.
---
It was a minute past lights out and somewhere within the school building, The elevator dropped faster than should have been possible, the numbers counting down into negative levels.
Kaz stood between two armed guards, their visors reflecting his impassive face. One of them breathed too fast—nervous. New.
"First time escorting a Trial candidate?" Kaz asked.
The guard's grip tightened on his pulse rifle. "Shut up, defect."
The elevator shuddered to a halt. The doors opened onto darkness.
Somewhere in that blackness, twenty-nine enhanced students waited, their mutations primed for violence.
Kaz stepped forward but the guards didn't follow and the speakers crackled to life.
**"First Trial protocol initiated. Primary objective: survive. Secondary objective: kill."**
The lights came on and it was time for the slaughter.
---