The training grounds lay in ruins—shattered dummies, scorch marks from alchemical explosions, and the faint, lingering scent of venom in the air.
Aman wiped the sweat from his forehead, his breathing finally steadying after hours of brutal poison resistance drills. His muscles ached, his veins still burning faintly from the toxins he'd forced his body to endure. But it was all worth it.
Across from him, Zephyr sat on a broken pillar, his silver hair damp with exertion, one hand scribbling notes into a small journal. His saber rested against his thigh, its blade still faintly glowing from the last spar.
Fighting while being poisoned is really exhausting...
Aman exhaled, then spoke.
"Hey. Can I ask you something?"
Zephyr's pen paused. He didn't look up, but his silence was permission enough.
Aman began explaining—about the assassin organization still hunting him, the whispers of a coming monster horde, the possibility of an attack on both the town and the academy. Then, he laid out his plan in precise detail, including the contingencies he'd arranged with Dono.
When he finished, he waited.
Zephyr didn't react immediately. His gaze remained fixed on some distant point, as if weighing more than just Aman's words. The wind stirred the pages of his journal, the only sound between them for a long moment.
Finally, he glanced up.
Aman blinked, then grinned. Coming from Zephyr, that was as close to high praise as it got.
"What about shortcomings?" he pressed. "Anything I missed?"
Zephyr's fingers tapped once against the spine of his journal. Then, quietly:
"You're assuming they'll follow predictable patterns." His eyes sharpened. "Monsters don't. Assassins don't. Neither do we."
Aman's grin widened. "Isn't that why I prepared backup plans? And asked your opinion?"
Zephyr shook his head, exhaling through his nose. "I know. Let's hear it, then."
"Good, then let me—" Aman started, but stopped when he saw Zephyr's slight shift in posture—the way his fingers tensed around his journal. He was about to cut him off.
"But before that..." Zephyr paused, his gaze flickering away for a fraction of a second. A rare hesitation. "...I need to tell you something."
Aman's smirk faded. He nodded, posture straightening. "Alright. I'm listening."
A beat of silence. The wind carried the distant sound of students laughing somewhere beyond the training grounds, blissfully unaware of the tension between the two.
Then, Zephyr spoke again, voice low.
"Actually... Luna and I are on the run."
A heavy silence settled between them.
Aman blinked. Then, slowly, his lips twitched. "...You guys eloped?"
"Or... did you kidnap her?"
Zephyr's eye twitched. His fingers curled into a fist, knuckles whitening—just barely stopping himself from punching Aman in the face.
He sure knew how to get on his nerves.
He was definitely learning this from Master.
Aman, seeing the murderous glint in Zephyr's eyes, chuckled and raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm gonna be serious."
Zephyr exhaled sharply, forcing his temper down. "I can't tell you the exact details," he said, voice clipped. "But we've been on the run for about five years now. An annoying and troublesome group has been chasing after us." His grip on his journal tightened. "And... I think they've already found us again."
Aman's grin faded as the air between them thickened.
"Could it be..." His slate gray eyes sharpened, calculating. "They are from the Black Star or other similar organizations?"
"No." Zephyr's voice was ice. "Worse."
Aman's frown deepened as Zephyr's words sank in. If even the Black Star—an organization ruthless enough to send waves of assassins after him—wasn't the worst threat they faced, then just how dangerous were these pursuers?
Five years on the run...
They'd been children when this started. The fact that they'd survived this long, even if they were under Virion's protection, was nothing short of a miracle.
Zephyr continued, his voice low but steady.
"The ones behind this monster attack—it's definitely them." His eyes burned with cold certainty. "They're the ones who are pulling the strings."
Aman's eyes widened again.
So there really was a third party intervening.
"The massive illusion incident during the ball," Zephyr continued, his tone grim, "was their work too. They're powerful Mystic Resonators. The most powerful I've ever seen." His jaw tightened. "They can rewrite a person's will with a whisper. Make you dance on their strings without ever realizing you're bound." A pause. "And once they have you... there's no escape."
Zephyr's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Even the fact that we are on the run... I fear that might also be one of their schemes."
Aman's throat tightened.
Such power wasn't merely frightening—it was predation perfected. To control minds and monsters alike, to weave schemes spanning years... Had even their desperate flight been really a part of some larger design?
The implications coiled around his ribs like frost. If these pursuers could rewrite wills and orchestrate events so completely, then nothing was safe. Not the academy's walls, not their own choices. How many around them were already puppets without knowing it?
Aman exhaled slowly, forcing his thoughts into order.
Fear wouldn't help them now.
"A-And..." Zephyr's hands trembled slightly as he continued again, the words pouring out like a dam breaking. "No matter where we ran—no matter how carefully we hid—they always found us."
His voice carried a strange mix of frustration and something almost like relief at finally sharing this burden. "But they never came for us directly. Instead, they'd... orchestrate things. Send monsters to attack whatever town we were in. Have bandits raid the villages that sheltered us. Even opened a Phantom Prison in the last academy we hid at."
His fingers dug into his journal's leather cover. "They're clearly toying with us!"
The raw emotion in Zephyr's voice made Aman stay silent. This was the first time he'd seen the usually composed swordsman so openly agitated.
"And... and Luna," Zephyr continued, his voice cracking slightly, "she blames herself for everything. Thinks it's all her fault."
Zephyr's voice broke like ice under too much weight. "She always secretly cries whenever she remembers what happened in the past...."
"I... I can only pretend not to notice."