ty

by freesayan

ty

2. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 9

"Don't ever half-ass taking someone down. If you're gonna do it, do it right. On the field, off the field, whatever. Wherever it needs to get done, do it right.

'Cause if you don't, then that someone might just get back up again and feed you your own teeth..."

Dalek "the Gatebreaker" O'Rourke Post-Match Interview, c. 2435

"Dude..." Catcher muttered for perhaps the hundredth time, somehow still managing to sound more and more alarmed with each repetition of the word. "Dude... Duuuude..."

Rei didn't respond, watching from the opposite couch as the Saber— still in the combat suit each of them had yet to change out of—stared at the feed pulled up on his NOED. Beside him, Aria had been quiet for nearly a full minute, and Rei didn't have to look at her to know she, too, would be taking in the static profile image of Kamiya Hiroto with equal disbelief.

They were sitting in the "Black Room", the somberly-decorated professional locker room that had become a sort of unofficial gathering space for the three of them and Viv, and whose actual name they'd only finally learned earlier in the break. The space—one of six readying chambers kept for visiting pro fighters and teams during the SCTs Galens hosted on a yearly basis—was all red and black, with two longer, crimson couches taking up the center of the carpeted floor and a single short row of several lockers lined up behind each of them. Over their heads, lights

hanging with dark crystal cast a dim, calming glow throughout the chamber, supplemented by the steady bubbling of a massive fish tank that took up a quarter of the whole length of the back wall. Within, the water's glowing occupants drifted lazily about against a black background that highlighted their blueish colors, hues Rei suspected had no business being anywhere but the deepest parts of some distant ocean.

Still, despite the fascinating nature of his surroundings, it was only on his friends that his entire attention lay.

Covering the simpler circumstances of the contract language alone had been a hurdle in and of itself. While Rei knew Aria and Catcher each came from families at least as well off as Viv's, both of them still had some awareness of what reasonable terms were for sponsorships at various levels of SCT competitiveness. For that reason there had been a lot of spluttering at the monetary values promised in the forms of the stipend and expenses coverage, and even more at the language about housing, medical facility access, and most significantly the guaranteed training. It had taken a while for Rei to reel them back from the shock of the contract itself, in fact, but when he had he was glad that the two had been so alarmed at the terms.

Like with Viv, it made convincing them of his broader theory all the easier.

"Duuuuude..." Catcher said yet again, apparently unable to get out anything more eloquent in the moment even as he closed his frame to stare at Rei, obviously hard hit by the evidence.

"Yeah..." was all Rei could answer with.

For a long time the three of them sat in silence, one of Rei's knees bouncing nervously as he waited for it all to sink in, Catcher just gaping while Aria appeared to reread the Kamiya Corp CEO's bio so many times she seemed to want to commit it to memory.

Finally, at long last, the shock faded enough for voices to be found again.

"No wonder Viv went nuclear..." Catcher muttered. "I probably would have, too, if I'd known. And I'm not half as hot-headed..."

Rei nodded. "I'm sorry... I would have loved any other way to tell you guys this—especially after that match—but..." He let the statement fade, pretty sure the pair sitting with him would understand how important it was to him that they know.

"You're right to tell us."

Aria had finally closed out of her own frame, but unlike Catcher she seemed unable to look at Rei when he turned to her. He wasn't sure what exactly he should have expected, but he couldn't be all that surprised to find the girl's hands balled into fists on her lap, features composed in an expression so steely he wondered how long it would take for the metal lockers behind Catcher to collapse under her glare.

"How do they think they can do this?" Aria kept on, her voice almost mechanical as she obviously fought to keep it even. "If you're right—and I'm pretty sure you're right, Rei—how do they think they can do this?"

"You're assuming they care," Rei answered with a snort. "I don't think these are 'good' people, Aria. Setting aside this back alley bullshit, the one —and only—interaction I've had with my 'family' was when they handed me off to the hospital I was born in without so much as a last name. If you're expecting them to have any kind of moral compass, I'd say your bar is lightyears too high."

"Yeah..." Aria grumbled in response, fists only tightening at the words. "Yeah... Maybe."

"Hmm..."
Catcher's ponderous contemplation had Rei looking around at him.

"What?" he asked. "You disagree?"

Catcher snorted. "Hell no, man. Sorry, but I give it twenty—no, fifty- to-one odds that your family is total trash." He offered Rei a strained grin that only held for a couple of seconds before slipping back into sober. "Thing is... Is that enough of a reason not to take this?" He pointed at his temple, obviously indicating the contract he'd closed out of 10 minutes ago.

Rei furrowed his brow at his friend, trying to deduce if the Saber was joking.

Quickly, though, he realized that Catcher wasn't playing any kind of game, and a spark of disbelief flared in his gut.

Probably fortunately, Aria got the words out first.
"Catcher, you can't be serious."
But Catcher, incredibly, didn't back down.
"Dead serious." He looked between the two of them, leaning forward

intently to rest his elbows on his bare knees. "Rei, you know you're the only first-year more into the SCTs than me. Obviously you'd want someone who actually knows what they're doing to take a look at it, but nothing I read in those terms is... well... 'bad', for lack of a better term? Even the length is only for a single year—not even your entire time in school. Do you know how crazy that is?"

"That's the point, though, man." Rei's irritation had morphed into disbelief. "The whole point is that it's too good to be true. There's a reason it's written like that. Do you not get what I'm—?"

"Oh I definitely get it, dude." Catcher cut him off with a shake of his head. "I do. Or at least in and of as far as I can, not having grown up in your shoes. You've been through hell, man. It was obvious from the day you outdid our resident ace in our first Fortitude parameter test that you've been through hell." He gestured to Aria briefly without looking at her. "But...

while I haven't been around you half as long as Viv has, I am a hundred- and-ten percent convinced that you eat fire for breakfast." He pointed to his NOED again. "When you said there were conditions to the contract, I was expecting a clause regarding a life-long commitment or something. Like I said, you definitely want someone to look at this that's more qualified than a bunch of idiot teenagers with an unhealthy SCT obsession, but if you set aside that this seems like puppeteering by your family... Isn't this kind of a golden opportunity...?"

"Catcher," Aria hissed at the boy like he'd just sworn in polite company. "How can you say that?! How is Rei supposed to set that aside? Would you? Could you?"

Catcher let out a laugh. "Hell no!" he exclaimed as though this were the most ludicrous suggestion in the world. "I probably would have torn the contract up then and there before punching the Kamiya rep in the face." He frowned, suddenly. "Sidebar... I never got that phrase. 'Tear it up'. The hell does that even mean?"

"It's from when people used paper for legal documents," Rei answered automatically, taking in his friend as he turned over Catcher's words. "The stuff they made us take the written portion of our Assignment Exam on."

"Oh. Huh... Yeah. Guess that makes sense. Anyway, my point is: Sure, there's no way I could ignore the puppet strings. Even for an opportunity like this, I would probably rather get kicked in between the legs by the Lasher full-force than accept the contract."

"Then why would you suggest—?" Aria started indignantly, but Catcher cut her off firmly.

"Thing is... I'm not Rei."

He'd never looked away from Rei the entire time he'd spoken, but now Catcher took him in keenly, more seriously than he might have ever before.

Even when Rei had told the Saber about his S-Ranked Growth, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen the boy so intent.

He suspected, too, that he knew where his friend was going now. "Rei... you've slowed down since hitting the Cs, haven't you?"
Rei met Catcher's gaze steadily, turning over the expected question,

adding it to the maelstrom of confused considerations the boy's words had made of the thoughts he'd only just gotten under control.

After a long few seconds—in which Aria, too, turned to study Rei, obviously interested in his answer—he sighed and nodded slowly.

"Yeah..." he muttered. "A lot, actually."
"I'll bet you know why, too, right?"
Rei smirked. "I've got a theory or three..."
Catcher gave his own nod, but said nothing more, leaving Aria to

frown between the two of them.
Rei, for his part, didn't know whether to laugh or curse at his good

fortune of friends. Catcher hadn't just read his mind. He'd pieced together some of the floating, jumbled mess of his own doubts and hesitations. Abruptly Rei realized that maybe he hadn't had such a good handle on the emotions the morning's meeting had left him floundering in, and he unconsciously crossed his arms as he sat back on the couch to think.

Yeah... It was true that his growth had slowed down, and by a good bit. He'd expected it, of course, especially after seeing a similar pace change in the improvement of Shido's Rank after he'd cracked the Ds to finally catch up to the majority of the rest of the class. Even then, though, he'd continued to climb steadily, his meteoric ascent from the Fs and through the Es only guttering slightly in momentum.

The Cs, though, had been an entirely different matter. And he was pretty sure he knew why...

"The last time I saw a real jump in my specs was after my training day with Lennon," he thought out loud, not having noticed his gaze drifting to the carpet between their two couches as he contemplated it all. "Specifically after we actually fought. Most of that day was spent doing conditioning and targeted training, and while I got a few ticks up, it was nothing like what happened after we actually went head-to-head."

Beside him, he thought he saw Aria's frown deepen.

"Really? What about against Grant? During your last Intra-School match?"

Rei shook his head, not looking away from the floor as he answered. "Nope. I mean I definitely saw a jump—in Endurance aaand... Strength, I think?—but it wasn't the same. Before the Cs—and definitely before the Ds —any real match usually had my numbers ramping in leaps and bounds."

"Makes sense," Catcher agreed simply, though he said nothing more. He didn't have to.

"Because your opponents were stronger than you..."

Aria didn't seem to have made a realization, per se, but rather spoke like a suspicion she'd long held had been finally confirmed.

Rei nodded again. "Exactly. And it's more than that, too. Used to be I could get stronger off of most anything, not just fighting. I used to see improvements after parameter testing, conditioning runs, all that stuff." He snorted grimly. "Even when Selleck and the others jumped me. My Defense ranked up after that. Plus—" he finally looked around at Aria "—even fighting you stopped doing much for me a while ago. Despite the fact you were—are, really—way stronger."

Aria nodded. This she'd already been aware of, as had Catcher and Viv. It had been a curiosity voiced more than once throughout their training. While their group sessions—particularly counting the extra hours they had

long held before the Intra-Schools, much less the formation of the squad— had been invaluable, it hadn't provided Rei with the level of growth he might have expected had he been an outside observer. When he and Aria had first fought at Commencement, even that brief Duel had had his specs rocketing upward, some of them as many as 3 ranks. Ever since, though, their frequent sparring had proven increasingly less effective in improving his numbers, despite the discrepancy in their baseline power. Part of that, of course, had to be that the gap between them had closed substantially. It was mathematically consistent that he would see more of a jump when all his stats had been F-Ranked against Aria than he would when they were in the Ds and Cs. Another part, just as obviously, was that they'd never had a real all-out SCT fight since that first day on the grounds, with all their bouts taking part during practice and conditioning.

But still, given the sheer number of times they'd gone toe-to-toe— having practically been each other's exclusive training partner aside from mixing here and there with Viv and Catcher, and more recently with Cashe and Grant—Rei felt like he should have gotten more from his fights with Aria.

Which left him—unsurprisingly—with another suspicion that he'd probably been subconsciously harboring for much longer than he knew...

An image of a strange, neon white face, somehow smiling despite a total lack of distinguishing features, flashed across Rei's mind, and he didn't feel his crossed arms instinctively tighten over his chest.

"Variables," he muttered under his breath. "It needs variables..." "Huh?"
Rei jumped, finally looking up to find Catcher watching him with an

eyebrow raised, obviously not having heard him. Aria too, was turned to him, her head cocked curiously.

"Nothing," Rei said quickly, thinking fast. Even if he would have given the planet to tell them what was on his mind, there was one promise he had made—they had all made, he suspected—regarding the third portion of the CAD Assignment Exam that he was unwilling to break. "Just... Variety. Something tells me Shido needs variety. It's true across everyone I've gone up against more than once. Aria especially, but also you and Viv, Catcher." A thought struck him. "That had to be the deal with Grant, too. The guy's average specs were definitely higher than mine during our Intra-School match, but I didn't see the boost I might have expected."

"'Cause you'd already fought him?" Aria asked, a little confused now. "When?" Then her eyes went wide. "Oooooh... Right... During cross- training that one day..."

Catcher snorted, confirming her realization with a nod. "Yeah... That was before you started hanging out with us. Rei and Grant got paired, and apparently Grant went ballistic post-match. Huh..." He frowned slightly. "He and Viv might be better suited for each other than I thought, all things considered..."

Aria turned to glare at him, but Rei wasn't interested in getting side- tracked.

"The day Dent catapulted him into the sub-basement wall, yeah. After that match, Shido jumped so high it evolved for the second time since I'd been at school."

"Just like it did after the fight with me..." Aria only slowly looked away from Catcher, apparently unwilling to let the boy completely off the hook even as he held up both hands in apology across from them. "Yeah... You might be onto something there... Not that it's completely surprising. Variety is the whole reason we do cross-training and stuff. If we only ever trained with our Type-groups..."

"We'd be pretty trash, yeah..." Rei finished for her, his thoughts coming full circle as he got lost in momentary contemplation again. There was something there he hadn't seen before, something he hadn't let himself see...

What had Catcher called it? A "golden opportunity"?

Shit, Rei thought privately as a door he hadn't even realized had been barred shut broke open to release a flood of all-new implications and— horribly—possibilities.

Setting aside the obscene amount of credits the contract stipend would provide him with, Rei was suddenly reviewing the terms of the Kamiya contract in a different light. In a way, Catcher was dead on. It was an insane opportunity, and one any other User would have had to be completely mental to pass up, at least with the knowledge Rei had on hand. Even if he also ignored the clauses about expenses, housing, and medical facilities—he was a dorm student with minimal expenses, and would sell Shido before walking away from the care he received from Willem Mayd and Ameena Ashton—the training aspect of the contract wasn't something he could so easily disregard. If he was right about what Shido was in need of to keep climbing in strength, there were opportunities at Galens to pit himself against stronger opponents. Lennon had taken him on once already, after all, and Rei suspected he could have begged his way into sparring with Michael Bretz and some of the other sub-instructors now and then if he really needed to.

But Lennon had been compensated for his time by Valera Dent, Rei knew, and their supervising officers—who were also responsible for at least the other first-year blocks—couldn't exactly drop everything just to accommodate his itch to fight stronger opponents.

Which left Rei a problem...

"Shit," he muttered aloud this time, really seeing the hurdle—or hole, more accurately—shaping itself into being before him.

Between being just a few weeks short of surpassing Aria as the top- ranked first-year and there being no additional SCTs for their grade after they returned from Sectionals at the Kenneth Academy in Ganos, Rei suspected he was going to have very minimal opportunity to face off against anyone who would strain Shido's learning algorithms—or whatever it was the Device worked off of—for some time. That wasn't the end of the world, of course. He suspected that his Growth spec would still have him comparatively careening upward so long as he just put the effort in, but the idea of even a relative plateau after the ascent he had experienced since arriving at school was painful to contemplate.

And yet—as Catcher had rightfully pointed out, Rei acknowledged now—he now had what seemed like an ideal solution in the palm of his hand...

Still... just how much "fire" was Rei willing to eat, for the sake of getting stronger?

All of it.

The answer came without hesitation, but it still made him wince internally. A few hours ago it might have been an easy awareness to bear, but now things were different. Earlier that morning, the "hell" Catcher had referred to had largely consisted of nothing more than enormous effort, lots of time committed, and a willingness to fail again and again and again against someone like Lennon or Bretz.

Now, though... Now there was something else, and something not so easily swallowed.

And yet...

"Oh you gotta be kidding me," Rei groaned, finally uncrossing his arms to lean forward, resting his own elbows on his knees to put his face in his palms. "Catcher, you evil son of a bitch..."

Across from him, he heard the Saber chuckle. "I've been called worse."

"And you're gonna be, pretty soon," Aria got out sternly before Rei heard her shift on the couch to look at him. "Rei, think about this... Really think about this."

"I aaaamm," Rei groaned again, barely turning his head and opening his fingers to peer between them at her with one eye. "You can't tell me he's not right, Aria."

"I can't tell you he might not be right," she corrected quickly, looking a little alarmed and scooting closer to put a hand on his arm. "You don't know. You said it yourself: it's too good to be true. I'm not a lawyer, Rei. Neither is Catcher—"

"That you know of," Catcher said mysteriously, managing the first real grin from any of them in a while.

Aria, of course, ignored him. "Did you show the contract to my uncle? Or Maddie? What did they say?"

"I didn't," Rei admitted, sitting up again—and finding himself just a little pleased when Aria didn't lift her hand from his scarred arm. "They never saw it. Unless Jasper showed it to them, which I doubt. I shut the offer down before they had a chance to ask. I wasn't kidding. The meeting was done in like... literally twenty minutes."

"Because your gut told you this is a bad idea, Rei." Aria sounded like she was just short of pleading now, eyes almost scared as she took him in. "It sounds like you walked into the room and knew something was off before you even sat down. Am I right?"

"Yeah..." Rei agreed, grimacing as he recalled how his hackles had been up almost from the moment Maddison Kent had opened the door.

"Then don't ignore that," Aria hissed. "If you need stronger people to fight against, there's other ways. Galens would help, I know. I'll talk to my uncle. You can talk to Dent and Lennon. You know there's other ways."

Rei opened his mouth to argue her points—the same ones he'd already addressed in his head—when Catcher interrupted him.

"For what it's worth... I completely agree with Aria."

Together Rei and Aria turned to look at the Saber, who was watching them seriously again.

"I'm not saying you should jump on this, man," Catcher continued once he was sure he had their attention, face still set even as he leaned back to hang both bare arms across the top of his couch. "Not even a little. I would be a pretty shit friend if I was, especially since I think she's right." He dipped his head at Aria. "There are other ways to get what you need." He paused, considering for a moment. "I guess all I am saying is that maybe it's not worth dismissing out of hand. There's definitely other ways, but there's no faster way, at least not with what I can tell from that contract."

"Not from what any of us can tell!" Aria insisted, hand finally dropping from Rei's arm to rest on his knee instead as she turned on Catcher. "Catcher, this is a bad idea. I'm telling you. It's a bad idea."

"And I'm ninety-eight percent sure you're right," Catcher agreed without looking away from her. "I'm not kidding. I said I give it fifty-to-one odds Rei's family is hot garbage. But—" his yellow eyes did finally turn to Rei again "—I think it would be wrong of me not to at least point out that there might—just might—be something there worth considering, especially since finding out isn't all that hard."

At this, Rei and Aria both frowned at him.

"What do you mean?" Rei asked.

Catcher smirked. "Dude... You're sitting in a room with two people who both have family members tight with the SCT community. My mom is a former Systems champion, and Aria's brother is a current contender. A current S-Ranked contender." He watched Rei steadily. "Is there a risk in letting them look over this offer? Would you lose anything by letting them take a peek at it and telling you if it's legit?"

From beside Rei, Aria let out a little "Oh!" at this suggestion, and Rei had to admit himself equally surprised.

"Would they... Do you think they would do that?" he asked seriously, considering it. He'd double-check the language again later, but he was pretty sure he hadn't seen any kind of non-disclosure clause among the legalese of Kamiya's offer. On the contrary, he'd thought it strange such terms were missing when he'd read through it, given the extremes of the offer.

If anything... it was almost like Ueno Jasper had wanted him to talk about it, had wanted him to ask people.

And had wanted them to tell him what the offer really was...

"My mom would," Catcher said, and he suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, squirming slightly as he said it. "She... uh... She's kind of a fan. I'll bet she would be thrilled."

That stumped Rei. "A fan? Of who?"

Catcher rolled his eyes. "Of you, dumbass. She's always cheered for the underdog, so you're like her ultimate dream come true. Pretty sure she recorded more of your Intra-School matches than mine, actually..."

Rei blinked at this, the explanation taking a moment to register. Then it was his turn to "Ooooh...", feeling a little heat creep back into his cheeks, which had been cold the entire time the stone of Kamiya's contract had

weighed down on their conversation. In an attempt to hide his shared embarrassment from Catcher, he instead looked to Aria, who seemed to be contemplating Catcher's suggestions.

"It's... not a bad idea..." she admitted after a moment. "Kalus is at a big three-week event on Venus right now, so he probably doesn't have a lot of time, but if Catcher's mom could do it, or if you're willing to wait..."

"I would be," Rei said quickly. "I am. I don't want to ask the colonel or Dent. I don't want to put them in that spot. But two people who don't know me, who could look at the offer with fresh eyes? I would wait."

Again Aria nodded slowly, one finger ticking up and down on Rei's knee while she thought. As she did, Catcher's gaze drifted down to her hand, lingering on it for a second before lifting back up at Rei. Grinning again, the Saber repeated the process pointedly, and Rei could feel the flush intensifying in his face even as he considered telling his friend to preemptively shut up.

He didn't get the words out fast enough.

"On another note... Nice to see you two finally not tripping over each other in embarrassment whenever you brush shoulders or something..."

Rei glared at the Saber, trying to tell Catcher with his eyes that he would be spiking his lunch with every laxative he could get his hands on at the next opportunity. Beside him, on the other hand, he thought he caught a moment of confusion flash across Aria's face.

Then it clicked.

Aria's hand snapped away from his leg so fast Rei couldn't follow it with the naked eye, and she was suddenly sitting ramrod straight beside him. Across from them, Catcher's smile broadened, and he laughed even has he pushed himself to his feet.

"Yeeeeah, that's more like it. One of these days, though." He winked at the pair of them.

His amusement didn't last long.

"Seriously, though, Rei..." His voice was somber again. "You get that I'm not saying you should take this, right? I'm just saying it wouldn't be smart not to at least consider it. Even if your family is behind it. If there's just a shot in hell it's legit..." He trailed off, leaving his insistence to hang heavy between them.

It made it easy for Rei to swallow, then nod.

"I get it man. I know what you're saying. Like you said, it costs nothing to make sure."

"Yeah..." Catcher agreed quietly, looking like he himself was again weighing the implications of what Rei had revealed to them. "Yeah... Exactly." After a second of staring at nothing, he came to with a breath, the brightness Rei had long come to associate with the boy returning only a little forced. "Okay. Cool. Then if you're good with it, I'll send the contract to my mom tonight. Meanwhile, I'm gonna go figure out where the hell Grant dragged the girls off to. Pretty sure I could use my own punching bag right now, and his face seems like a pretty viable candidate."

Rei chuckled at that. "Sounds good." He started to stand, too. "We'll come with. Bugs me that we're missing out on team training, but we can make it up a bit if we—"

He stopped, because a hand had taken him even before he was halfway out of his chair.

Half-turning, he found Aria not looking at him, eyes on the glowing fish in the back wall of the locker room, her fingers steady around his wrist. "Yeeeeah... Maybe you should hang out here for a bit," Catcher said,

sounding like he was hiding another smile. "Catch up when you can."

And then, before Rei could answer one way or the other, the Saber was off whistling a too-cheerful tune as the doors of the room opened for him, the sound echoing clearly in the expanse of the hall outside until they shut once more at his back.

Easing himself down again slowly, Rei waited, Aria not letting go of his wrist even after he was sitting beside her once more.

When she didn't turn to him for a good 20 seconds, though, he finally spoke.

"Hey... You okay?"

In answer, Aria took a single, shaky breath, then slowly turned to look at him.

"That's my line, dummy..."

Rei felt a tightening in his gut he didn't like one bit. While Aria wasn't crying, exactly, her eyes were red, and her expression was one of barely controlled fury. Much like Viv, the suspicions he'd shared with her and Catcher had obviously hit her hard, and Rei wanted—not for the first time that day—to punch himself.

"I'm really sorry," he said quietly. "If I'd known it was going to be this heavy on you guys, I would have—"

"Rei, if you hadn't told me, it would be you I would be eventually looking to shish kabob with Hippolyta, rather than your shitty-ass parents."

Rei managed a tight smile at that. "Not sure you can use 'shish kabob' as a verb..."

"You can. As of today. I'm coining it."

"If you say so," he answered with a dry laugh, still taking her in carefully. "But you didn't answer me... You okay?"

Aria snorted, finally letting go of his wrist to wipe at her eyes. "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm with Catcher, though. I definitely get why Viv went ballistic

on Vademe's group. If I'd known what was going on beforehand, I probably would have done the same thing."

"That's not a scary image at all." Rei couldn't help but be amused at the thought. "You should consider your opponent's feelings before doing something like that, Aria. You coming barreling out of the dark with murder in your eyes? Blue Team would have all had to change into clean uniforms after the match."

Aria let out another, more genuine laugh at that, looking up at him as she finished drying her eyes. For a little while she just watched him, lips curled slightly as though unsure whether she wanted to frown or smile.

"I'm just tired of you having it rough, Rei," she said eventually. "I'm tired of you getting treated like crap because people are selfish asshats. It's bull. And I'm tired of it."

"Imagine how I feel then," he grumbled, still trying to lighten the mood. "Do you know how many times giant corporations have offered me a million credits in exchange for my soul? Organizing the invites alone is freaking exhausting."

"Rei, I'm serious. They shouldn't be able to do this. If your family is behind this crap, it's awful."

Rei shrugged. "And I say again that you give them too much credit if you don't think they're awful people, Aria."

Aria nodded at that, then sighed. "Yeah. Fine. You're right." After another moment or two she straightened up, a bit of her usual confidence coming back to her. "Still, if there's anything I can do, you know I'm here. I'll get the contract to Kalus, too, obviously, if you're okay with that."

Rei opened his mouth, about to automatically answer that he appreciated it, and that he would definitely let her know, when a thought struck him.

A thought he suspected Viv would be proud of him for.

"You know, there is something you could do for me, actually..." he said, grinning at her slowly.

"Oh?" Aria seemed a little surprised but not displeased as she brightened a bit more. "What?"

"I definitely owe you a date where we don't end up pinning a bunch of random dudes to a bathroom wall, don't I?"

The red came quick, Aria's cheeks and ears turning almost the same color as her freckles.

Still, for once, she didn't look away as she smiled. "Yeah. You definitely do."

CHAPTER 10

The remainder of the week passed without any great excitement or incident, as did the following one. Rei and the rest of the squad were allowed to resume team training the next day, with Dent and Sergeant Major Liam Gross—the first-year Duelist sub-instructor—working all 18 first-years hard enough to punish the group all over again and then some. Friday came and went, as did Saturday, and Rei and Aria actually got most of the day Sunday to spend in Easthold, having the opportunity to explore everything from the rest of the thrift stores to a sizable indoor petting zoo neither of them had known existed on the very top floor of one of the mall's towering structures. After that, it was Monday, with the last week of break highlighted only by an embarrassed announcement from Catcher.

His mother had gotten back to him about the contract.

Obviously mortified, the boy shared the message with Rei, Aria, and Viv over a breakfast they'd managed to sneak away from Grant and Cashe for. Taking it in, Rei had first only been able to take note of the astounding amount of emoticons and exclamation points, the sheer volume of graphics added to the few short paragraphs putting even Viv's famously animated communications to shame. It had made it borderline impossible to decipher the actual contents of the response, resulting in Catcher having to translate —with well-practiced exasperation—more than one section for them all. Rei was glad he did, though, because the news was surprising. When the now-retired captain of the ISCM had understood who the question was for, she'd not only combed through the contract herself, but redacted it and shown it to a few friends still active on the SCT circuits. Apparently, all had returned with a unanimous assessment:

Not only was the contract legitimate, it was a steal unlike any of them had ever seen for anyone under a consistent Systems-level competitor at the very least.

Rei—after asking Catcher to extend his thanks to his mom from him— had been unable to think of anything else for the rest of the day, so distracted by this confirmation that he blundered their training that afternoon, going down to Laquita Martin's paired blades in a Capture Point round to cost the squad one of the only two matches they lost the entire week.

Fortunately—or at least Rei thought so—as the days passed and the last weekend before school recommenced arrived, he had good reason to set further consideration of the Kamiya contract aside.

They would have one week of class—basically an excuse for institutes like Galens to get schedules in place and run any bi-annual or quarterly parameter testing they wanted—and then it was time for Sectionals...

Despite everything else, despite his growing strength and the squad's consistent top-level performance, Rei couldn't help but start to get nervous as Sunday arrived with the sound of flyers dropping every few minutes from the sky lanes above the school. Meals—held with all six of them together—were an atypically quiet affair, with even Catcher's boisterous nature tinged with an edge of uncertainty and Grant's somber presence even more heavy than usual. It took little convincing of anyone for them all to spend the afternoon in East Center, partially in order to eke out as much training as they could from the last day of the break, but mostly to avoid any more of the half-dozen variations of "Ready for Sectionals?!" that the growing number of returning students had cheerfully shot their way between breakfast and lunch. So prevalent was the buzz of excitement from the cadets who hadn't qualified that all six of them—even Grant—spent the

evening hanging out in 304 after the sun set just to get away from the greater school body. The other squads, too, seemed to be feeling the pressure, because Benaly himself left his room in a rare appearance to join them on the suite's two couches, venting about the eager hounding from his friends he'd been getting all day.

In this fashion the first Monday of the new semester arrived, with Rei, Aria, Viv, and Grant making an odd group after waving farewell to Catcher and Cashe, who weren't in their shared 1-A class block. Making the steady trek across campus under a crisp January morning sun, they headed for the Device Evolution Department for their first lecture of the new semester. Reaching the building, it took only a minute to climb the stairs up to the third floor and find their lesson hall abuzz with a familiar drone of conversation and noise from their classmates.

Abuzz, that is, until almost all discussion faded over the 5 or so seconds it took for people to notice they were there.

Rei wasn't surprised, looking around as the four of them reached and started up the steps that bisected the room's hundred-and-something amphitheater-style seats. From what he could tell, the other 1-A cadets had already largely been gathered around Kay—who'd arrived first—obviously having been excitedly asking her about the break and how she was feeling about Sectionals. What was more, even as Rei caught the poor Lancer's eye through the crowd—as well as her mouthed "Help!" that got a low chuckle out of him—he knew there was more than one reason why stares would be lingering, particularly from a few forms sitting separate from the majority of the rest of the group.

As Aria led the way, pressing across into one of the lower rows to pick a seat near the lecture podium at the front of the class, even he had to work not to look surprised as Grant followed them, tailing Viv at Rei's back to

claim a chair to her right, making their group a foursome that took up most of their claimed aisle.

"You don't have to sit with us if you don't want to..."

Rei's ears perked up even as he set his bag down beside his chair, and on his left he saw Aria partially freeze as she, too, heard Viv's sidelong whisper to the Mauler.

Grant scoffed under his breath. "You think I'd rather sit on my own?"

"No, I just... I meant you can sit with your friends, if you wanted to? I can see you at lunch..."

Grant gave another snort, reaching into his bag to pull out a stylus and pop it between his teeth to hold onto as he dragged out a large pad next. Setting it up at a propped angle on the desk before him, only then did he free his mouth up again, turning the pad on with a tap of the screen even as he answered.

"I want nothing to do with those guys, Viv. Barely ever did in the first place."

Glancing around briefly while he slid his own smaller pad from his bag, Rei thought Viv looked rather pleased as she pulled the cap of her uniform off her head to set it on the table, fidgeting with it as though just to distract from the smile she was clearly trying to suppress. Turning in his chair, then, he braved a look up the rows until he found a pair of angry blue eyes.

For once, though, Mateus Selleck's irritation wasn't directed at him, but rather at Grant's back. Meanwhile, on either side of the Saber, Tad Emble, Camilla Warren, and the legendarily gossipy Phalanx Leda Truant seemed uneasy, glancing between Selleck and Grant as though unsure of what to make of what was probably an unexpected situation.

Catching Warren's gaze briefly as she looked their way, Rei couldn't stop himself from smiling venomously up at the treacherous Brawler, and was about to offer her a sarcastic wave when his vision was suddenly blocked by a wide, familiar form.

"Before you say anything, Kay already made me swear not to ask you about Sectionals, so don't worry about that."

Looking up into the grinning face of the tall, bald boy leaning over the desk of the aisle above them, Rei had to answer with a laugh.

"Good on her." He offered up a fist to the cadet to bump in greeting. "If one more person asks me if I'm ready, I'm either gonna punch them or vomit on their boots."

"Gross," Viv muttered, though she, too, turned to give a little wave to the boy. "How was break, Sense?"

Bahnt "Sense" Senson—a wide-shouldered Brawler with a shaved head who had arguably been Rei's first friend at school after Viv and Catcher—made a face even as he lowered himself down to sit behind them. His cap and bag weren't with him, but Rei knew they would be over by where Kay had resumed fending off the throng that had apparently decided she would be a more likely source of information than Aria's group. Sense and the Sectional-qualifying Lancer were suitemates, and along with the Saber Leron Joy had developed a strong bond early on in the school year, forming an in-class trio much like Rei, Viv, and Aria had for the first semester. Joy—unlike Sense and Kay—wasn't a fan of Rei's for various reasons, but the other two were good-natured enough that it made tolerating the Saber's sour nature worth it most of the time.

"Urgh," Sense started to answer with a disgruntled sigh even as he gave his own wave of hello to Aria, who'd turned to mouth "Hey" at him after setting up her pad. "Honestly... not great. My mom was chill, and

really pleased with my progress over the first semester, but I think my dad was a little disappointed I didn't qualify for the SCTs, or at least get invited to a squad."

"Yeah... That's a bummer, man," Rei agreed sympathetically. "I was a little surprised, not gonna lie... You're easily one of the best Brawlers in the class."

He meant it, too. In fact, aside from himself and Jack Benaly, Rei would have placed Sense as the third strongest Brawler—or at least "User with Brawler capabilities"—among the first-years, though probably tied with Emily Gisham, the other of their 1-A training group overseen by Michael Bretz. Sense was quick for his size, and his "Scarabus" packed a heavy punch, but he was also smart, on and off the field.

"It's just bad luck." Aria seemed to be in agreement as she nodded at Sense. "It's just the direction the others decided to take their squads. If Vademe had wanted a Brawler on his team, I'll bet you would have been a top pick."

Sense perked up at this. "You think so?"

"Definitely." She leaned back in her chair a little and dropped her voice. "You were my next pick, if Rei said no."

The Brawler's eyes went wide at that, mouth going a little slack. "Nuh-uh," he got out after a second. "You're kidding."
Before Aria could affirm, though, she was interrupted.
"Your Intra-School record was tied with Gisham's, and you've got

more speed than she does. Even if she's a heavier hitter, Laurent already had our offensive ability covered by me and Viv, and Benaly had already signed on with Martin. Statistically, you're better balanced than Gisham and would have been the best choice."

As one, Rei, Aria, Viv, and Sense all looked around at Grant slowly. The Mauler was fiddling with his pad, not having turned from the screen as he'd spoken, but when no one said anything for several seconds he finally glanced up.

Blinking at the sight of all four of them staring at him, his brow furrowed.

"What? I pay attention."

"Yeah... Apparently," Sense was the first to answer, sounding completely flabbergasted by Grant's words. "Uh... Thanks, man. That actually makes me feel better."

Grant nodded curtly, then returned to messing with his setup without another word. After he'd looked away, Sense turned to Rei with eyes so wide they might have popped out of his head, expression clearly asking "What the hell was that?"

Rei, though, could only shrug and hope his raised eyebrows answered with a satisfactory, "No idea." In truth, it wasn't unknown for Grant to have praised other cadets—Rei had witnessed it before himself—but it was rare, and the Mauler was still largely more widely known for his moody temperament and the bad blood he'd been largely responsible for stirring up in the first semester. Then again, that—along with the fact that Grant was still undisputedly the third strongest first-year at Galens after Aria and Rei —probably made his approval much more ironclad.

Sure enough, Sense seemed rather less disgruntled with himself as he let out a "Huh..." and sat back in his borrowed chair, looking like he was contemplating a whole new reality.

Then he seemed to come back to himself.

"Like Rei was gonna tell you 'no', though." He let out a dry laugh, looking around at Aria again before his grin grew a little more genuine.

"What choice did he have? No one else would willingly drag his scrawny ass to Sectionals, let's be real."

"You know, that's a really good point," Aria played right along with the Brawler, turning to look at Rei with a frown. "Come to think of it, I definitely should have negotiated a little harder..."

"Hold up!" Rei exclaimed, looking from Aria to Sense in alarm. "When did this suddenly become 'pick on Rei' day?"

"It's always 'pick on Rei' day, dummy," Viv whispered from behind him, and he looked over his shoulder to find the girl grinning wickedly from her chair. "At least until you're tall enough to not need a booster seat in class."

"Oh you little—!" Rei started, whirling to face his best friend in full, but before he could get another word out, a stern, clear voice cut across their banter.

"Alright, everyone, that's enough. To your seats, if you please."

At once Aria, Rei, Viv, and Grant all straightened in their chairs automatically, while Sense let out a quiet curse from behind them as he got up to join the scattering others seeking their chosen desks. Ordinarily none of them would have been brave enough to be so lax while waiting for an instructor, but Lieutenant Major John Markus was as well known for his lack of interest in decorum as he was for being the—often long-winded— head of the Device Evolution Department. Tall, thin, and yellow-haired, in full black-and-golds the officer came ambling into the room while eyeing the class sidelong, but everyone was quick enough to find their places before he reached the lecture podium on the far side of the hall, so he made no further comment as he came to stand before them. With a tap the lectern whirred to life, the flat part of the mechanism rising quickly from its stand to hover up before the man, anti-grav technology allowing him to sweep his

hand across the lift desk's surface. Without preamble, the smart-glass wall behind the lieutenant came alive, and Rei had to suppress a groan—while several others failed to, including Viv beside him—as the title "Quantified Metrics of Average Device Progression" spelled itself out before them all.

There were certainly parts of class Rei had missed, but he got a feeling this particular course was not going to be a pleasant reminder of any of them.

2 hours—and several barely-avoided naps by all four of them later— Rei, Aria, Viv, and Grant exited the Device Evolution building and made for the Tactical Studies Department. It was warmer than it had been that morning, and they were joined by Sense, Kay, and a reluctant Leron Joy now as they made the trek across the grounds, all of them other than Grant and Joy chatting animatedly about the break while they walked. Fortunately for everyone, their second class—an active review of multi-team combat positions on complex fields—was much more interesting than Markus' stat- dense lecture, particularly when Captain Sarah Takeshi spent the second half of class making each of them assess various mid-match group positions across a variety of Wargame maps. By the time they were released for lunch, Rei was feeling much more in the swing of things again, and it was with a bit of returning excitement for the Galens curriculum that he shot Catcher and Cashe a message that they were all headed to eat before afternoon combat training. Reaching the mess hall, they said goodbye to Sense, Kay, and Joy—the former two having voiced a desire to find Vademe's group—and got in line for food.

"That was a bitch," Catcher groaned as the six of them sat down some 5 minutes after they all found each other, dropping his roasted chicken and asparagus to the table unenthusiastically. "Only a morning down, and I'm pretty sure we have, like, three hours of review to do for Combat Theory."

"Really?" Aria asked, sounding surprised. "Samsus is dropping work on us already? Markus and Takeshi didn't give us anything."

As they had all through the break, the six of them had claimed their favorite table in the south quarter of the hall. Built inside a great arboretum whose domed walls and ceiling had been constructed from thousands of rectangular panes of thick, clear glass, each quarter of the building used some sort of unseen zoning tech Rei had yet to completely figure out to host its own unique flora and climate. Whereas the east quadrant—most commonly frequented by first-years—had been designed after the tropics, with bright colors, palm trees, and a healthy warmth to the temperature, the south section of the structure held a deeper, calmer air. Pines and other evergreens rose above their heads from beds of moss and stone in the wide beds that separated the floor into winding sections, and what little artificial accents had been added were largely deep green or blue, helping to give the area a serene sort of aura. The climate, too, was cooler, and this despite the fact that their six-person table—secluded in a nook the second-years who made up a majority of the quarter's occupants tended to ignore—sat not 3 feet from the rounded wall that let in the late morning sun.

It made for a pleasantly quiet spot on any day, but in particular when Rei had felt some hundred different stares trading off boring into his back as he'd stood in the lunch line with the others.

"Voss didn't give us any homework either, but I guess that's not surprising." Cashe was frowning at Catcher from the opposite corner of the table. "Didn't enjoy the protocol review, but I guess the school staff think three weeks away from campus is enough time for first-year cadets to forget how to salute properly."

"Oh we have protocol review?" Viv groaned from beside the Lancer and opposite Rei, forkful of mashed potatoes pausing halfway to her mouth.

"Please tell me it wasn't four hours or whatever it was last semester..." Cashe, though, could only grimace apologetically in response, earning

another groan.
"At least this afternoon is going to be interesting," Rei cut in, trying to

cheer everyone up as he took his fork and knife to his own roasted chicken, having loaded his plate almost as high as Grant had on Viv's other side. Between training and Shido's ongoing effect on his body, there were days he was convinced he could have eaten his weight in food and asked for seconds. "Gotta be parameter testing, right?"

"Maybe?" Aria answered uncertainly from his left, not yet having touched her salmon and salad. "I imagine they'll want to get it done before we head out Sunday, but that does leave them the whole week."

"Nah, it's today," Catcher chimed in again. "A friend of mine from 1-E messaged me about it, since they have combat training in the morning. Makes sense. It was right out the gate the first Mondays of the last two quarters. I'll bet Dent and the others want to make a point to anyone who didn't keep up on conditioning over break."

"Won't be too many of those, though, will there?" Cashe asked with a frown. "You'd have to be pretty ballsy to take three weeks off of training, especially after the Intra-School results."

"No. There won't be. People will be jealous. Especially with how many of the Sectional qualifiers weren't a part of the summer training program."

Once again there was a pause, and Rei, Aria, Viv, Catcher, and Cashe all turned to look at Grant in surprise. Rei wasn't sure if it was well-hidden nerves, subtle excitement at the return to school or the upcoming SCTs, or the fact that the massive boy was just finally starting to feel a little more comfortable around them all, but his active participation in their

conversation not once but twice in a single morning was practically unheard of. The Mauler had never been quiet, per se—he could be direct enough when it came to combat strategizing in particular, for example—but he'd simply never bothered to try and take part in this lighter small talk that the other five of them always indulged in. It had admittedly been awkward for the first week of break or so, but they'd gotten used to it eventually, settling into a quiet understanding that Grant was likely never going to be much more than a silent, hulking presence in their midst.

Rei, seeing what he suspected would be a rare opportunity, decided to try and capitalize on the chance.

"You think that'll have that much of an effect?" he asked Grant diplomatically as the Mauler popped half of the rather-large potato he'd just sliced in two into his mouth. "Were there enough outside the summer group to light that kind of fire?"

It felt odd, asking the question, because he happened to agree wholeheartedly with Grant. Rei had witnessed a renewed energy from the first-years from the very start of the Intra-Schools, and was pretty sure it had carried all the way through the remainder of the second semester, even after the tournament had wrapped. Still, it felt like a good way to offer back his own olive branch, so he was careful to keep his tone curious as he asked.

Unfortunately, the flat expression Grant treated him with even as he chewed through his mouthful of potato told him the boy had seen right through his attempt.

Then again... That only made Rei feel sure it had been the right move when he swallowed and answered anyway.

"Definitely." His response was terse but civil as he started to cut into the hefty slab of seared flank steak that took up the center of his plate, eyes

obviously deliberately set on the task. "Me, von Leef, Khatri, and Ranjha all didn't get through. Khatri didn't even get invited to a squad. Plus, some of the others are only going as individual qualifiers."

"Not everyone plays nice with others," Viv agreed, seeming particularly eager to keep the conversation going now that Grant was actually involved. "Don't know how the hell Jiang convinced Vademe to invite her onto his team, for example."

"Do we not like Jiang?" Cashe asked, looking curiously between them all.

"We don't."

Aria and Catcher answered together, as Rei would have had he not taken the opportunity to dig in himself. Catcher chuckled under his breath at their echoed timing, but indicated that Aria could explain by biting into his chicken.

"She's... not very nice, in our experience." Aria was apparently feeling polite. "Especially when it comes to Rei."

Viv, less patient as always, elucidated more poignantly.
"She's a bitch."
Rei and Catcher both snorted while Aria shot Viv a "That's not very

nice" look, which was only answered with a shrug.
"What? It's true. She tries to blame everyone else when something

doesn't go her way, she doesn't take feedback well, and she's pretty obviously pissed that Rei can beat her with his eyes closed now. Am I wrong?"

Aria opened her mouth to argue, but paused, seeming to contemplate Viv's points.

Finally, she appeared to give up with a shallow sigh, turning to Cashe again.

"She's a bitch."

"Noted," the Lancer answered with a smirk, though her eyes went from Aria to Rei apologetically. "Not that I'm one to be able to judge..."

Rei waved the look away with his fork as he swallowed. "You had damn good reason for being nasty. You were just wrong. It's different. I'll bet you anything Jiang would have fallen in with Selleck and the others if she was in our class block. She's just got that kind of temperam—ow!"

A boot to his shin had Rei wincing, and he looked at Viv to find her giving him a wide-eyed, warning stare. Realizing his mistake, Rei only glanced at Grant briefly, finding something like a grimace barely held back behind the Mauler's tight lips.

"It doesn't matter." Rei corrected course quickly, giving Viv a quick "Sorry!" look. "She probably got picked for a good reason I'm sure."

"Maybe they're dating?" Catcher asked curiously.

"Vademe and Jiang?" Aria looked around Rei at the Saber. "Don't think so. Pretty sure he's been going out with Dorne since second quarter, hasn't he?"

"He has?" Cashe sounded pleasantly surprised. "Oh that's good! I like Sam! He's in my class block and really nice!"

After that the conversation devolved quickly into the standard fare of gossip and chatter that Rei thought was a healthy thing to still be able to have so soon before Sectionals. In what seemed to be a group effort, everyone—with the exception of Catcher, who was obviously still holding out—even made more than one attempt to involve Grant in the banter, pulling the Mauler out of a threatening sullenness Rei had foolishly almost brought on. They even got something of a smirk out of him—Viv's work, obviously—when they started talking about some of their individual accomplishments from the week before, and by the time they had to split

again for afternoon training Rei was feeling almost optimistic about the future of their little squad, both on and off the field.

The walk to the Arena was a pleasant one, Rei and Aria close together and talking about going back into the city to check out some of the other attractions while Viv and Grant held their own subdued conversation a few paces back. Despite the sun it was definitely still winter, and the morning chill had returned in force while they'd been eating, making Rei glad for the longer hair he'd let grow out despite the girls' shared protests that he should cut it. He'd had mixed feelings about donning the uniform again that morning, and especially hadn't missed not being able to pull a hood or hat over his ears as he'd been allowed to do over break, but fortunately the mess wasn't too far from the center of campus. Before long, they—along with a scattering of other 1-A students and upperclassmen—were ascending the stairs into the Arena, the air growing warmer the moment the four of them crested the top of the entrance stairs to spill out onto the walkway that rose 10 feet above the main floor below them. From there it was barely a few minutes to the underwork elevators and a descent to SB2—the second of several sub-basements that extended probably several hundred yards beneath the building. One last familiar walk to the shared locker rooms, and 10 minutes later the four of them were out of their regulars and in their usual red-on-grey combat suits, barefooted as they took the corner out of the wide hallway onto the main floor of the massive training chamber.

As with each of the other sub-basements—at least to the best of Rei's knowledge—SB2 was centered around an entire full-length Wargames floor. Other than wide openings in the east and west portions, the colossal space was entirely surrounded by flat white walls that extended all the way to the arched ceiling that peaked some 100-plus feet over their heads. Beneath them, on the other hand, the black steel of the projection plating

was almost identical to that of the official field of the Arena proper, except for one significant difference. Whereas the standard makeup of such a combat area would have consisted of the 150-by-70-yard Wargames zone that hosted two circular 70-yard Team Battle areas and a further two 30- yard Dueling circles, SB2's Wargame zone had forgone these typical divisions. In their stead, the training space hosted a full six Dueling circles, presenting as two parallel lines of 3 butting right up to the 5-yard buffer zone that looped the entirety of the chamber. Stepping onto the plating, Rei was filled with an abrupt sense of anticipation that was—while not more intense—different than what he'd experienced whenever he and the others had prepped for squad-format training over the break. Maybe it was the return to form, the return to familiar ground and the drone of conversation from the 1-A classmates that echoed through the chamber, no longer diminishing at their appearance now that the other cadets had gotten their fill after the morning classes.

More likely, though, it was the impressive sight—one he hadn't seen since the very start of the previous term—of Valera Dent standing at ease in her full regalia over the heads of the gathered students, formally flanked by six men and women in red-on-white combat suits to wing her on either side.

"That woman does know how to make a statement," Viv mumbled after a low whistle. "Dammit she is hot..."

"Keep it in your pants, Viv," Rei sniggered over his shoulder, earning himself a concurring grunt from Grant as he did.

Dent and her sub-instructors—their collective eyes following every arriving student in turn when each entered the chamber—had picked Field 3 to present themselves, as was the chief combat instructor's habit. Despite having seen and spoken to all of the staff frequently over the course of the break, the sight of the seven of them all in one place was definitely

imposing, especially since the field had been lifted 2 feet above the ground so everyone could take them in. As the four of them came to stand in a gap within the milling students, Rei caught Michael Bretz's eyes for a moment, raising an eyebrow at the second lieutenant in question.

The man offered him nothing more than the slightest lift in the corner of his mouth, which Rei thought might have been amusement.

"Weirdos, all of them," he muttered with a low laugh, turning from the silent instructors to wait for the rest of the class.

It didn't take long.

"First-years! Welcome back to the Galens Institute! I trust everyone had a pleasant break?"

Valera Dent's clear voice rang throughout the sub-basement after the last of the 1-A stragglers—the Saber Joshua Kallum—had hurriedly reached their gathered number a couple minutes later. At the question, there was a unanimous chorus of "Yes, ma'am!" from the class, everyone turning immediately to face Field 3 as the woman drew their attention.

"Excellent! That's good to hear. As I've insisted before—both in class and privately to some of the more zealous among you—" Rei might have imagined the woman's brown eyes flicking to him over the line of her prosthetic in that moment "—proper rest is essential to the wellbeing of a User. Your Devices might provide you with a tremendous boost to stamina and recovery, but no matter how strong you get or how highly ranked your CADs might ever be, solely depending on them to keep you on your feet is a mistake you do not want to make. Trust me. I have been there."

There was a scattering of suppressed laughter as Dent gave them a grimace that assured them she had indeed definitely "been there", and it had not been a pleasant experience.

"That being said, I hope the majority of you who did not have the opportunity to grace us with your presence over break this year did more than sit on your asses for the last three weeks. I can assure you your twenty- one classmates who will be attending Sectionals with me next week have been doing anything but."

Rei felt some of his nerves come back at these words, returning alongside the silence that immediately took hold of 1-A once again, far more deliberate this time.

Dent obviously noticed, because she nodded. "Yes. I see it. I see you. I see those of you who I know have toiled with me over the last three weeks to prepare for the coming fight, but I see also those of you who missed your opportunity. It bothers you, doesn't it? Good. It should. Use that. Use that as fuel. Use that as fire. If you haven't already, make today the day you start to push yourself to new heights, start to push yourself to new limits." She paused to scan the class with an intensity that seemed meant to drill the fervor of her words into every soul before her. Rei could only imagine that most of the gazes she met were likely set and resolute, just as he knew his would have been in the reverse situation.

Sure enough the Bishop finally smiled, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

"Wonderful. Then speaking of limits..." Half turning, Dent indicated the sub-instructors still standing at-ease behind her. "As I imagine most of you suspect, along with my welcome back to school comes the announcement that it is time for your third parameter test! No fanfare today. Your Type-instructors are eager to get you onto your fields and see how far you've come in the last thirteen weeks. As usual, I will be observing your attempts, and I want to see personal records from everyone in every category before the day is done. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" came the unanimous call again, the energy of the woman's brief address audible in the voices of the first-years.

Another smile of approval from the captain, then a quick order without looking away from her charges.

"Instructors, the floor is yours!"

On cue, the six men and women behind the Bishop began to shout at the top of their lungs.

"Maulers, Field 6!"
"Sabers on 3!"
"Phalanxes! Meet at 5!"
As the others, including Michael Bretz, put out the call, Rei turned to

Aria, Viv, and Grant.
"Catch you guys later," he said with a quick two-finger salute. "Kick

some ass."
"Hell yeah," Viv agreed with a grin, already backstepping towards

where Liam Gross was moving to gather his Duelists on Field 4. "Also, how about you try not to make all of us look bad this time, hmm?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Rei answered with a chuckle as Grant offered nothing more than a silent nod before turning away. Suspecting Aria wasn't about to leave as quickly, he looked around at her, unsurprised to find the girl watching him with something between suspicion and worry.

"I'll be fine," he assured her. "Promise."

She rolled her eyes, obviously unconvinced. "Rei, I've never met someone as prone to pushing themselves over a cliff as you, so don't make me promises you can't keep." Meeting his gaze again, though, she stared at him pointedly. "I'm getting used to it, though. How about we compromise and settle on 'don't go till you're bleeding from the ears again'. Deal?"

"Deal," Rei echoed, holding out a hand for a mock handshake. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Aria didn't miss a beat, accepting the offered hand and squeezing it with juuuust enough added Strength to make Rei wince. "Better hold to that swear. 'Cause if you make me worry again I might just kill you myself, jerk."

Rei laughed, fingers lingering in Aria's for a second after she'd relaxed. She, too, didn't go anywhere, and for a moment Rei experienced a strange sort of contentment as the two of them stood still, the only ones not moving in the bustle of students making for their fields.

Unfortunately for them, they lingered just a fraction of a second too long.

"Ward!" Michael Bretz's ringing shout was as clear as a bell, rising from Field 1 for all to hear even over the sounds of chatter and bare feet on steel. "Kiss your girlfriend goodbye and get over here before I make you do push-ups until the shape of your face is permanently worn into this floor!"

CHAPTER 11

The red "0" flashed. The starting circle vanished.

Rei took off with a crack as the white surface of the simulated flooring beneath Shido's steel toes crunched under the pressure of 13 weeks of newfound Strength and Speed.

All other sound from around the sub-basement faded to nothing as Rei ripped forward, Cognition setting his neuroline to whirring in his head even before the numbers had started counting down. Bolting northward, his eyes barely moved now as he struck left and right, high and low, every inch of his Brawler Mode applied to the task at hand. Claws, knees, elbows, shins. Even his head came into play in one flip as he left the ground to run up the sheer wall of one of the many octagonal white pillars that formed the Neutral Zone's only obstacles. He was a whirlwind of destruction, every punch and thrust and hit calculated now in a way he'd never managed to map out before. His movements were deliberate, almost mathematical, from the slightest shift in momentum to the skyward leap from the rising staircase of pillars that looped half of the field. The only thing Rei didn't count was the time, pacing himself deliberately, pushing himself here only to apply the brakes there, applying both focus and speed to the task at hand.

It paid off as Bretz's shout reached him through the thrum of thought and the passing wind just as Rei dropped out of a kickflip off yet another rising wall that had brought him nearly 20 feet into the air.

"Time!"

Rei landed with a light thump, both legs and one hand accepting the impact of a drop any regular body would have crumpled under, the other arm extended out to balance himself. Breathing hard, he brought his head

up to look skyward, finding the second lieutenant obviously struggling to hold back his delight.

"47 disks this time, Ward! Way to finish clean!"

Though his mouth was hidden, Rei was sure the officer would be able to see the grin in his eyes as he forwent answering aloud in favor of getting to his feet and throwing the man two thumbs up. It wasn't that he didn't have the breath for it, for once. If anything, his new C-Ranked Endurance was already largely bringing his lungs back online.

He just didn't trust himself to keep the glee out of his voice if he'd tried to squeak out a "Yes, sir!" or the like.

47! 47! Setting aside the fact that his second and third attempts had each gained him an additional 3 disks—the black, circular targets that had disappeared from the Speed & Agility testing field the moment his 15 seconds had been up—47 was pushing on twice his total score of 26 after the previous quarter's testing! What was more, Sense had only achieved 45 disks, officially marking Rei as the fastest User among the 1-A Brawler group according to standardized measurement. Feeling a little apprehensive about this fact, actually, Rei turned at a word of dismissal from the sub- instructor and started for the edge of the field where the others were waiting in their scattered circle, seeking out his friend's eye even as he muttered "Recall" to shed Shido's armor and claws in a whirl of metal and blue light. He'd had a rather poor experience the last time he'd hit a major milestone in class. Surpassing Tad Emble had earned him the beatdown of his life— and Rei knew beatdowns—even landing him in the campus hospital for most of a day before his Device could do enough to get him back on his feet again. Therefore, as he found Sense—seated between Rei's empty red circle and the one from which Emily Gisham was watching him approach with mouth hanging open—he braced himself for the worst.

In the end, he needn't have worried.

"Rei," Sense hissed under his breath, gaping at Rei as he sat down. "My man. That was so freaking cool!"

Ordinarily they weren't allowed to speak between testing runs, but Bretz was occupied calling Warren up for her third and final attempt, so Rei granted the boy a sidelong laugh. "Thanks, dude. I think Shido's calculations actually ripped part of your go, so I feel kinda bad..."

"Don't," Sense insisted with a snort, throwing a thumb back at Gisham. "Emily and I were just saying we wish we'd recorded that so we could try copying the last half of it. That wall run and flip... That was awesome!"

"Thanks," Rei said again as Gisham—a short girl with cropped, reddish hair who he'd always been friendly with—leaned forward to listen around the boy. "Shido replotted after your second attempt, I think, but that last part was tricky, yeah. The clawed toes helped a lot."

"I'll bet." Sense glanced down at Rei's bare feet with a note of envy as Warren started a run at last, taking off in a blaze of orange light to—he suspected—make a desperate attempt at outdoing him. "I know you've heard it a hundred times before man, but that Device is something else."

"Scary," Gisham added in a hiss before stiffening as Bretz at last turned to frown down at them from atop his observation platform.

Rei raised a hand in apology, and after another second's worth of warning glare the sub-instructor turned back to watch Warren again.

Yes... Rei had heard Shido called "scary", and for good reason. Covering his arms, legs, and a good portion of his face, his CAD had demonstrated not only a terrifying potential for statistical improvement, but physical change as well. Even Aria didn't have a partial helm yet, and some digging through the recordings of the Sol System Intra-Schools—widely considered to host the strongest military schools in the ISC—had confirmed

she wasn't the only top-level first-year lacking in such a way. No other cadet his age, not in the entirety of the Instersystem Collective—had a CAD that had developed as far along physically as Shido, and that was despite a handful of students recruited to Earth's own academies who were now C7 and C8...

His Device's Growth spec wasn't just accelerating Rei's specification improvement. It had also additionally improved his evolution pacing, with a rough calculation indicating he was likely to achieve twice as many alterations to Shido's manifestations than the average User in his lifetime. And that didn't even count the transitions Type Shift added to the mix...

"Scary" was a very polite way of describing the CAD, if Rei was being honest with himself...

"Time!" Bretz called out, shaking Rei from his musings to drag his attention to the field again. "Total disks: 41. Decent showing, Warren. Off you go."

Warren's dark cheeks looked flushed as she pushed herself up from where she'd fallen to all fours the moment the attempt had wrapped. Turning on her heel and not looking at Rei—or anyone, for that matter— she recalled her CAD as she stomped off the already-fading field, leaving him to watch her take a seat as he did his best to suppress the gloating warmth of victory bubbling in his gut. 41 wasn't bad by any means. It wasn't a far cry from Sense's 45 and Gisham's 44, but it was obvious Warren was kicking herself for placing behind them all. It could have been worse, of course, and as the girl brought her knees up to hug to her chest in a dejected sort of way, Rei's eyes slipped by her to Tad Emble, who looked almost grey, as he had from the moment he'd finished his third attempt. 41 wasn't bad, sure...

But a final score of 37 would have had Rei feeling sickly, too.

"You know the drill, cadets!" Bretz shouted the moment the platform had brought him down to the projection plating again, vanishing into the black steel before them. "Five minutes of rest and recuperation, then it's time for Offense & Endurance. Any questions?" As usual, the second lieutenant didn't wait for anyone to voice any concerns. "No? Good. Break!"

Rei shoved himself up, and was soon deep in a three-way conversation with Sense and Gisham about their runs, trading feedback and recommendations as to what each of them thought the others could have done better from an observer's perspective. Meanwhile, Warren and Emble stayed seated where they were, not even bothering to interact with each other, much less Rei and the others. He might have felt bad, actually, if it weren't for the memory of Mateus Selleck's boot all but breaking his nose.

As it was, all he could do was stop himself from smirking, which undoubtedly would have earned him questioning looks from Sense and Gisham both.

Finally at a point where his body recovered nearly as quickly as the Brawlers', it wasn't more than a minute or so before Rei was feeling a hundred percent again, his lungs and limbs prepped and ready for the second test. With this rapid recovery came excitement, too, because this next exam was going to offer an opportunity he'd never had before, and Sense turning to him in a lull in the conversation as their break neared an end indicated Rei wasn't the only one thinking about it.

"You gonna shift for Offense & Endurance?"

The question was stated casually, as normally as one could expect, but the tension in Sense's features and the slight—but immediate—tautening of Gisham's shoulders beside him told Rei this was a query they both had been waiting eagerly to get an answer to. And of course they were. Shido's Saber

Mode was slower than its Brawler form, so calling on it would have put him at a disadvantage during the Speed & Agility test, but such wasn't the case for the second exam.

A fact Rei had spent more than one distracted moment mulling over since he'd realized the edge Type Shift might offer...

"'Shift'," he repeated Sense's offhand abbreviation of his Ability with a laugh. "I like that. Might have to adopt it. It's a pain to call it 'Type Shift' every time."

Sense and Gisham offered him only mirrored, tight smiles, obviously not about to let him distract them from the answer they were looking for.

Rei sighed internally, giving in. "Honestly... probably? I've got a plan, but I want to test it out in the first two attempts if I can."

Gisham chuckled, sounding somewhere between genuinely amused and exasperated. "Bretz is gonna love that. You know how much he enjoys it when you twist the testing rules in your favor."

Rei chuckled at the sarcasm. "Given the two of you took a page out of my book during the last parameter tests, I'd say I'm doing something right." The girl grinned, the tension leaving her and Sense both now that it was clear Rei wasn't about to stonewall them despite the subject matter. "That's different. We're just following the science. You get to be the guinea

pig, and when you don't get yelled at—"
"Or die," Sense added with a smirk.
"—we just apply what we learn," Gisham finished, nodding sagely.

"Mind you the Defense test is a little different. We can copy you easily enough there, but I don't think anyone else is about to spontaneously learn to pull a whole new CAD Type out of their ass overnight, so I think you get to run this maze all on your own."

"Am I a guinea pig, or a mouse?" Rei asked, amused.

"Yes," Sense and Gisham both answered at once, earning themselves a heavy rolling of the eyes.

"I seriously need better friends," Rei pretended to mutter to himself, just loud enough for the two of them to hear. They laughed, but before either of them could press him any further on his scheme for the exam, Bretz's voice had them looking towards the field again.

"Alright, cadets! It's been three months since your last Offense & Endurance exam, so we're going to do a thorough review before we get started." The A-Ranked Brawler threw a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the center of the Dueling zone where a red circle was bright against the plain white of the rest of the 30-yard floor. "You stand there. Bad guys pop up to the north and south of you. Bad guys need to be FDAed. Bad guys get stronger every two you beat. The more bad guys you beat and the faster you beat them, the better you make me look. Clear? Great! Glad we had this talk!" Bretz looked to Rei, Sense, and Gisham, still standing together several yards from where Warren and Emble had finally gotten to their feet. "Gisham! You're up!" A light flared briefly in the second lieutenant's eyes as he pulled something up in his frame. "Your score to beat is... first B0 in 4:28.83, it looks like. Ready?"

"Yes, sir!" the girl announced loud and clear, unsurprisingly eager as she stepped forward. Gisham's score—which had involved ripping through sixteen training projections to reach the first B-ranked opponent—had been the highest in the group last quarter, and one of the highest in the class block, only coming in behind Aria, Grant, Viv, and Kay, despite lower- ranked Brawlers being at something of a disadvantage in this particular test. Though Rei thought he had a good chance of surpassing her this time around, Gisham still approached the middle of the sparring area excitedly, looking like she had something to prove.

"Cadet. Call."

Bretz's command had Gisham's CAD, Feron, flashing into being not long after she'd taken her position in the middle of the zone. Blue vysetrium—several shades darker than Shido's—glimmered along red and green steel. The Device covered her lower legs from hips to toes and encased her forearms in narrow plating that was a little lighter than most C- ranked Brawlers might have been expected to sport. Feron made up for it, though, in the matching long, singular blades that extended from just above her wrists over articulated gauntlets, reaching some 8 inches beyond the length of her middle finger. As a result, what Gisham lacked in Defense was compensated for in an excellent reach for her Type, along with what had to be a heavy Offense spec, not to mention the added bonus of free use of her hands that some Brawlers—like Sense—didn't have.

It all made for a pretty badass sight as the girl took a ready pose designed for her manifestation, left hand up defensively between her and the red number 5 that had just appeared before her face, right drawn back at her side, ready to plunge forward at a moment's notice.

Then the number hit 0, and Gisham had the chance to turn all that coiled readiness into pure, ripping destruction.

North of her starting position, a smaller red circle had appeared as the countdown ticked away, and by the time the Brawler left her ring the form of a woman had pixelated into being, completely monotone grey other than the plain black "F0" Rei knew would be marked on the projection's back. Despite having her arms up at the ready as Gisham hurtled towards her— the opponents in the Offense & Endurance test only ever dodged and defended, rather than taking any offensive action—the "woman" had no more physical ability than an average non-User, and was therefore all-but- helpless as Feron tore through her feeble guard to pierce her chest.

All within probably 2 seconds.

Gisham didn't pause, of course. Ripping her Device free of the falling form, she whirled and bolted across the field again where a second figure— this time that of a man—appeared to the south. Another F0, it took no more time for the girl to bring him down, and she was turning again, this time facing off with the first F5 of the day.

Back and forth like this Gisham sprinted, tearing through the Fs, the Es, then the Ds. There she slowed down a bit as the projections gained speed and some real defensive aptitude, but it was only when she reached the first C0 woman that any kind of real fight was actually had. The Brawler's opponent was definitely quicker now, and it took some chasing and footwork before Gisham finally hooked an ankle to bring the woman down, felling her cleanly with a slash from Feron's blade across her neck. The C0 man was next, then the C5 with even more noticeable difficulty, then at last...

"Time!" Bretz yelled, his NOED flashing again from where he was standing at the edge of the field. The B0 woman that the girl had been hounding glitched and vanished, leaving Gisham staggering and breathing like the bellows. "First B0 reached in 3:57.90! Strong improvement, Gisham! Nice job!"

"R-Really?" Gisham barely managed to get out, so obviously disappointed in herself that she appeared to forget decorum for a second as she spoke through gasps. "But I... didn't even break my... record..."

Bretz frowned at her. "The hell are you talking about, cadet? You cut more than 30 seconds off your previous time. You might not have taken on a stronger opponent, but you got there a whole half-minute faster. That's more than a little improvement in my book." Before Gisham could respond,

however, he crossed his arms and jerked his head over his shoulder. "Now clear the field. Emble! You're up!"

Gisham—looking marginally more pleased with her performance after this exchange—remembered to salute this time before recalling and trading places with Emble, who Rei made a point to ignore even as the boy took his middle position. Instead, he joined Sense in giving Gisham a grin and a thumbs up, which he hoped would further tell her she'd done better than she thought. Still, he totally got the disappointment. The easiest measure of improvement in the Offense & Endurance test was what rank of opponent you managed to get to, but cutting more than 30 seconds off of reaching the B0 fighters was definitely an achievement, just like Bretz said.

And solidified Rei's plan in his head.

Emble wrapped his first attempt with a much better showing than he'd given in Speed & Agility, making it to the second C5—up from the second C0 the previous quarter—in a respectable time, which was almost commendable given he had sandbagged the last parameter testing in an effort to outdo Rei. After that, Warren went, making a similar improvement by reaching the first B0, though much slower than Gisham had.

And then Bretz turned his eyes on Rei.
"Ward! Let's go!"
Rei was up and jogging towards the center of the field at once, not

bothering to look at Camilla Warren as they crossed paths, focusing instead on the task at hand. Like Emble he had eased up on the gas during the October testing, saving everything for his third attempt. Shido, though, had over 3 months of growth since then, including a big leap in its Endurance spec, and if he wanted to properly try out his plan, he wasn't going to have the luxury of taking things slow.

This is gonna suuuuuck, Rei thought privately, suddenly getting flashbacks of running hills with Viv and the rest of the combat team back at Grandcrest Prep when they'd been in high school.

Man, he'd hated those days.
"Cadet! Call!"
Bretz's expected shout came, and Rei settled into his standard pose,

bringing both hands up, loose and open, in front of his face as his knees bent slightly in preparation. "Call," he muttered, focusing on the subtle pressure of Shido's steel around his wrists, not even blinking when the CAD whirled into place. After the familiar embrace of the metal and vysetrium over the Device's white underlayer pressed across his arms, legs, and face, Rei watched the red number 5 blink into being, ticking to 4 even as he readied himself.

When it hit 0, he was gone, one singular goal in mind.

The F0s fell in a flash, as did the F5s and all four of the Es. The D0s were next, and Rei was thrilled to find himself not even winded as he ripped through the pair of them, only suffering one blocked hit from the woman and a deflected kick from the man before the Arena announced "Fatal Damaged Accrued" for each of them respectively. From there, the D5s took a bit more work, and the C0s started to put up an actual fight, requiring Rei to push himself in order to take them down in a reasonable time limit.

So focused was he on the intent of this run, in fact, that he barely registered when the C5s fell and the B0 woman appeared, marking the first time he'd ever managed that particular achievement.

Then again his distraction might also have had something to do with the wicked burn in his arms and legs that had finally manifested when the Cs started putting up a decent resistance.

"Time!" Bretz shouted 30 seconds later, and the B0 flickered out of being even as Rei threw an exhausted haymaker at her temple, leaving him staggering. "First B0 reached in 3:47.76, Ward! Excellent jump from last quarter! Glad to see you putting in the effort off the bat!"

Rei, catching his balance unsteadily, bent over himself to suck in air through his mask—the CAD helping to prioritize his oxygen intake—as he put one hand on a knee and threw a weak salute at the sub-instructor with the other. He allowed himself a couple of seconds like that, only barely hearing Bretz call for Sense, before he forced himself to stand straight and recall Shido to make an unsteady line towards his ring beyond the edge of the circle.

"Nice," Sense whispered sidelong as they passed, giving Rei a subtle fist bump.

Rei grinned.

Yeah. It was nice. And it was exactly what he'd been going for. He'd known if he went all out he would be able to shatter his personal best just on the basis of his vastly improved specs. He was pleased that he'd broken through to the B0s like Gisham and Warren, but the massive chopping down of his time—nearly a full 3 minutes faster than the roughly 6 minutes 45 seconds it had taken him to get to the C5s last quarter—was what he'd really been going for. He'd sandbagged that attempt hard, of course, so the jump wasn't actually as impressive as it might have been on paper, but he had a sense of it, now.

He had a sense of the limits his Brawler Mode could take him to. "Dude. Could you try not to make us look bad in at least one test?" Gisham was smirking at him in a dejected sort of way as he half knelt,

half fell into his circle, and he let out a croak of a laugh in answer.

"I barely beat you," he answered back, pleased once again to discover his chest no longer ached as it might once have so soon after such an arduous attempt.

Gisham snorted as though to say "Uh huh," then turned to watch Sense's first attempt get started. Rei imitated her, not sure if he was more pleased with the success of his first run, or at the realization the afternoon had brought that he should have put more faith in the character of his friends. It was nice not to be looked down on, anymore, but equally as pleasant was the understanding that his steady rise over the heads of the majority of the other first-years in the last 6 months hadn't left him a complete pariah...

Sense ripped through his run in short order, reaching the first B0 in just over 4 minutes, managing the opposite success from Gisham of pulling a slower time than last quarter but reaching a higher-ranked opponent. After him, it started over again, with Bretz calling Gisham up for her second attempt, where she just managed to set a second PR by another couple of seconds, returning to her circle again sweaty but genuinely pleased now. Emble went, then Warren again—neither of them making any significant improvements to their scores—then Rei found himself once more taking a position in the center of the field.

This time, though, he struck a different pose, right arm back—just like Claire de Soto and Catcher had taught him—left hand outstretched with fingers splayed as though ready to accept the rush of an oncoming attacker.

Even over the sound and flurry of activity that was the other Type- groups taking part in their own testing all around them, he didn't miss Bretz's brow furrow slightly, nor Sense and Gisham perk up in anticipation from their circles.

"Cadet. Call."

"Call," Rei echoed, but even as Shido's CAD bands dissolved from around his wrists, he kept going. "Type Shift. Saber Mode."

It was lucky that, contrary to the majority of other Abilities like Repulsion, Type Shift wasn't dependent on a buildup of the electromagnetic energy that naturally accumulated over the course of a fight. It was more like Break Step or Third Eye in this way, with the best current understanding being that it drew instead on the Stryon particles within a Device's vysetrium. Whatever the reason, it allowed Rei to trigger the Ability as soon as—or even before, as was the case now—combat was initiated. As Shido came into being, the whirl of metal and light settled a little differently over Rei's body, the Device feeling a bit heavier, denser around his limbs. His standard Brawler Mode blades hadn't finished manifesting before the CAD's form was commanded to adjust mid-call, the still-unfamiliar weight of the vysetrium-lined sword settling into the palm of Rei's right hand, the fingers of his left tipped with glowing blue claws as the Device finished its summoning.

In the end, as the "5" appeared once more, Rei was left standing at the ready, looking the part of a Saber in true, Shido's armor thicker around him and his reach and offensive capabilities suddenly magnitudes improved.

Of course, that all came at a cost.
0.
Although Rei knew he was still moving at a blistering pace to any

onlooker, he felt sluggish as he surged out of the starting circle, the drop in his Speed and Cognition specs always the first thing he noticed when he switched out of Brawler Mode. Initially this had been a source of alarm for him when he'd first developed Ability, but he'd quickly learned its advantages heavily outweighed its cost, at least in the right circumstances.

Circumstances—just for example—like a test designed to measure one's total offensive capabilities.

Despite his drop in agility, the Fs fell in short order, as did the four Es and the D0s. The D5s proved no real challenge either, but Rei—who hadn't had nearly enough hours using the sword and claws to really be used to them—had to work a little harder to apply his new weapon correctly to compensate for his most-prized Brawler specs. Pretty soon, though, he'd figured out he still had the Speed needed to grab hold of the D5s with his left hand to hold them in place as his blade did its work, and so he moved into the Cs feeling even better than he had in the first round.

The C0 woman took a little, as did the man, but they fell eventually. The C5s were even more difficult, their Speed actually surpassing Rei's now, but he still cut them both down within 20 seconds or so of his allotted 30. He was feeling the fatigue finally, but the ache wasn't in his limbs like it had been, his improved Strength assisting his added Endurance to keep him going. The first B0 appeared, and Rei put everything he had into challenging the woman, focusing with every fiber of his being on the lessons de Soto and Catcher had imparted. Step. Strike. Grab. Miss. Thrust. Twist. Strike. Strike. The projection, of course—bearing B0-level specs across the board—was stunningly quick, and despite the immense pressure Rei applied on her it was all nearly to no avail.

Nearly.

There.

Rei saw the opportunity, the chance in the pattern, an echo of his previous test. As the cutting sweeps of his blade drove the woman back there was always a moment where one leg was left extended just ahead of her body while she backpedaled, and as the seconds ticked threateningly by, Rei forced himself to wait, forced himself to be patient.

Then he struck.

Had he been in his Brawler mode, his reach would have failed him by a foot or more, but even with his reduced Speed there was no such weakness for a Saber. The top 4 inches of his long, single-edged sword trailed blue light to catch the woman clean in the side of the knee as she continued to retreat away from his onslaught, bringing her to the ground in a crumpled heap. To the credit of the combat program the B0 still managed to put up a hell of a fight from there, applying the projection's Defense and Cognition to the max by redirecting the rain of blows Rei brought down on her head, but he managed to get a surprise kick through her blocking at last, the crook of his ankle catching her a tremendous blow under the chin in what had to have been the last few seconds he had.

"Fatal Damage Accrued."

As the Arena announced Rei's victory—and he thought he heard a hearty whoop of excitement from Sense on the sidelines—Rei whirled and bolted across the field. He was definitely winded now, and didn't want to know how much more time it had taken him to get to the end of the first B0, but it didn't matter. He'd done it. He'd cracked through, just like he'd hoped. Even if the growing exhaustion that had his arms shaking as he clashed with the B0 man let him down, he'd confirmed his theory.

Now—as Gisham had put it—he just had to "follow the science".

"Time!" came Bretz's shout 30 seconds later, announcing the end of the attempt. "Second B0 reached in 5:03.23! That's how we get it done, Ward, even if it was with an inferior Type."

Rei, despite his utter exhaustion, let out a bark of a laugh even as he nearly stumbled to his knees. Again he granted himself a few seconds like

that, sucking in air through the half-mask, and as expected his recovery was even more speedy given his higher Endurance. Recalling Shido, he looked up to find Sense already most of the way to the middle of the field, and he hurried off as best he could after yet another quick salute to the second lieutenant.

By the time he crossed the silver perimeter, he was already doing the math in his head.

Second B0. That was great. That was what he'd been hoping for, given how thoroughly the first B0 had shrugged off his assault in Brawler Mode. Had he had 100 more hours of practice with his Saber form, actually, Rei was pretty sure he would have been able to get through to the B5s, but experience had failed him. Still, on the whole the entire experiment was an absolute success.

After all, his weaknesses had shown themselves exactly as expected...

Accepting an excited "Nice job!" from Gisham with a tired grin, Rei dropped to sit with arms extended behind him, tilting his head back to take in the sub-basement ceiling high above as he continued on working to catch his breath, still running the numbers. Just over 5 minutes. Assuming he'd taken basically all 30 seconds he had to down the B0 woman, he'd reached the point where he'd wrapped his first attempt in roughly 4 minutes, probably about 45 seconds slower in Saber Mode. That was actually better than he'd expected—given his Speed and Cognition went from his top specs to his bottom when he switched from Brawler—but it was still an impressive drop in agility. Aside from the reach of his blade, his Endurance had clearly been the deciding factor in the success of that second run, because there was no way in hell he would have been able to push himself that much longer if he hadn't—to steal Sense's abbreviation—"shifted".

Now, though... Could he do better?

Rei—his breathing finally settling and his arms starting to shake less— couldn't help but get excited as he started to plot.

Sense made a truly impressive showing of his second attempt, cutting almost 10 seconds from his first run to join Rei and Gisham in the sub-4 minute mark for the first B0. After that, there was no fanfare as Bretz initiated the third and final round of the Offense & Endurance exam, and Gisham started them off by shaving another 2 seconds from her already- impressive score to top out at 3:53.00 exactly. After her, Emble failed to improve on his second run while Warren barely scraped under her score, and then Rei was once more on his feet, his heart rate half again what it should have been while he made for the starting point, going over the simple plan in his head one last time.

This time, when Bretz told him to call, he let Shido take the standard Brawler it always started as.

Then the count hit 0 again, and Rei was off with all the Speed he could muster one last time.

Fs, Es, Ds. All of them fell with a precision he would have been proud of had he not been wholly focused on the test. One after another Shido cleaved through them, Brawler claws working perfectly well to tear through the meager defenses of those lesser ranks. The Cs came next, and Rei held to the path, bulling into each until they fell to punches and cutting slashes. At last, when the C0 man toppled to an axe kick between the eyes, Rei spun and bolted with everything he had at the first C5.

But when he was 5 yards from the woman, he leapt, launching himself in an arcing blur some 10 feet into the air.

As Rei flew, he ground out the words through clenched teeth. "Type Shift! Saber Mode!"