Chapter 56: Unleashed Sparks
Morning turned the arena’s metal ribs into pale gold. The floor still wore the scuffs and scars from last time, channels and copper grates catching the light like quiet streams. The eight of them stood in a line that didn’t while the vents exhaled cool air and the high panels hummed. Eon permission had been stamped green two hours ago. Today was the first day they were allowed to open the throttle.
Kori’s voice carried from the sideline. "Three days since your first life signs. Two days until the 4 on 4. Show me control. Show me creativity. No broken classmates please"
"Define broken" Arashi said, checking the action on one luminite pistol.
"Arashi" Kori said.
He clicked the safety and smiled. "Unbroken. Got it."
Hikari, already tracing little blue stitches in the air with her spear, glanced down the line. "Who first?"
"I’ll go" Raizen said, and he stepped onto the center. He rolled his shoulders, listened to his breath settle where Kori kept telling him it had to live - low, steady - and set his heels just right. The twins waited on his waist like ideas begging to be used.
"Remember to stop before the wall" Keahi called.
"That’s the plan" Raizen assured her.
Then he moved.
The dash took him in a golden snap, lines breaking off his calves and wrists like peeled light. He crossed half the ring and cut a tight stop, skidding a palm across the floor. Clean, crisp. He heard Hikari’s quiet "Nice."
He went again. More power. The second dash ran hotter, brighter - and then that greedy part of him that wanted victory now nudged the dial. The world tilted. He overthrew the stop, pitched forward, and absolutely hurled himself into a roll that carried him three meters and kissed the edge panel with his shoulder.
The echo made Arashi clap. "Ten out of ten form. Sticking the landing is optional."
Raizen sprawled on his back grinning at the rafters. "I planned that."
Feris planted her mace like a flag and smirked. "Then plan yourself up!"
He sat, shook out his arms, then got to his feet. "New trick" he said, and spread his hands a little. The Eon around him answered - a taste of metal on the tongue, that buzz under the skin - and he snapped a short cut with the right blade. A small shockwave flicked from the edge, bright as a knuckle of lightning, popping a practice target across the ring. He pivoted left, matched it, and two tiny bolts marked the dummy’s chest and shoulder.
Esen leaned forward. "Those are new."
"Tiny" Raizen said. "Like baby thunder. But just for now."
"Baby thunder still makes glass nervous" Arashi said.
"Control" Kori reminded, but her mouth twitched.
Raizen offered Hikari the center stage with a small bow. "Beat that."
She stepped past him without looking, spear balanced one-handed. The blue circles she drew with its tip unfolded like clockwork - clean geometry hung in the air, humming faintly. She touched the smallest with the other, dull tip and an explosive orb unfurled within its boundary, a contained sun the color of deep water. With a flick, she sent it flying, then struck a tower of stacked stone, and puffed into a lapis explosion that rocked everyone back on their heels.
Keahi breathed out a low whistle. "Show off."
She ignored him, sliding the butt of the spear on the floor. Two more circles spun out, overlapping. She threaded a line through both, pointed, and a focused ray lanced the far target. The beam thinned and brightened as the circles tightened, stitching the dummy into two neat halves.
Lynea watched, unreadable, fragments spinning at her shoulder like patient moons. "Your math is pretty."
"It’s just circles" Hikari said, but the corner of her mouth couldn’t hide its satisfaction.
"Just circles that quite literally vaporize things" Arashi said. "Educational."
"Your turn, flamethrower!" Esen nudged Keahi.
Keahi stepped in, Eon already warming her arms, the air around her hands raising tiny heat ripples. She cut an oblique slash and flame arced forward in a curve, then another, then a forward press that sent a sheet surging across the floor. Then rolled her wrist and the sheet split into three, twisting like blades that clapped against the reinforced barrier and splashed harmlessly.
"Still too flashy" Arashi said. "I’d prefer a more understated apocalypse."
Keahi grinned. "Understated this." She pivoted, touched her blade, and drew the flame into her palm, then exhaled into a long, clean wave that ran low and fast. It licked the base of a target and climbed, wrapping it in an orange jacket without exploding. She closed her hand and the fire vanished, a neat circle of scorch left behind.
Kori nodded. "Containment is progress."
Ichiro cracked his knuckles. "Our turn." he told Esen, and stepped onto the center with that grounded, careful walk that said he was actually using his brain to think ahead a bit. He lifted both hands and the floor answered. Stone plates shivered, then rose, forming a thick wall between him and the far side. With small motions he shaped ramps and ribs, a short stair, a huge crescent ridge that ran like a frozen wave.
Esen jogged up the ramp as it formed, trusting the rhythm, and vaulted the crest. He snapped his arms from his core and a tight shockwave punched the target on the left. He pivoted midair, landed on a rib Ichiro raised just in time, and threw a second shockwave. Both invisible fists converged on a central dummy and clapped with a startling crack. The dummy jumped, spun, and collapsed.
"Oh that’s rude" Feris said, delighted.
"It’s elegant" Arashi and Ichiro said at the same time.
"Rude elegance" Esen said, and they shared a grin.
Ichiro slid his palms down and the wall sank. He set his heel, gathered the grit under his boot, and sent a fan of palm-sized stones into the air. They hung for a breath, then he pointed, and the pieces shot like trained birds, curved, and hammered a triangle into a practice shield.
Arashi made impressed eyebrows. "No fair. When I throw pebbles they just fall."
"Your pebbles explode" Hikari said.
"Same thing" Arashi said.
A few moments later, Lynea moved without asking, fragments deploying from her on faint threads of magenta light. Three settled in a triangle in front of her and the space between them fuzzed, then went hard, a small, almost invisible plane that sent Keahi’s flicked cinder skittering away. She shifted her wrist and the plane moved like a patient hand. Another pair of fragments drifted, humming. She tied them with a line so thin it was almost nothing. She looked at Hikari.
"Beam, low" Lynea said.
Hikari hesitated. Kori gave a small nod.
Hikari stroked a small circle, made a soft beam, and sent it along the floor like a blue ruler. Lynea’s tied fragments drifted across its path and the thread touched the ray. The beam parted like silk meeting a razor.
The room was quiet a breath too long.
"That... cuts light" Esen said.
Lynea untied the fragments and the line dissolved. "Not exactly, but it cuts what I tell it."
"Remind me not to be what you tell it" Arashi said, though his eyes were bright.
Feris bounced once on the balls of her feet, impatient. "Me now." She lifted the mace and Eon ran from her elbow to the weapon’s head, swelling it into a shadowy twin. She swung slow to show shape, the projected head keeping perfect distance, then snapped a strike. The phantom smashed a boulder without the real head touching stone, shock and dust rolling out in an honest wave.
Kori squinted at the cracks lacing the floor. "Precision, Feris."
Feris winced. "That was on purpose!" She drew the projection in, then extended it thick, like a sledgehammer on a pole, and threaded it through a rusted hoop without grazing the ring. She pulled it back, pleased. "See? Gentle."
"Gentle enough" Kori said.
Arashi sauntered to the line with a little theater. "Time for science."
"Don’t bully physics" Ichiro said.
"That implies physics can be bullied" Arashi said, and lifted his pistols. He fired two clean shots. Midflight they split, each bullet becoming three slender sparks that curved like swallows, banking around the barrier Kori had stepped behind. The sparks met the target from three sides and rang the metal plate like a bell.
Raizen blinked. "They turned."
"Guided missiles can do it" Arashi said. "Why not bullets if the math is fast and the Eon is cooperative?" He holstered, then drew and fired a single round without looking. It went wide on purpose, slid along a circle Hikari tossed into the air, then bent back and hit dead center. Arashi bowed to her circle. "Teamwork."
Hikari hid a laugh behind the spear.
Kori clapped once. "Good. Again, in pairs. Show me movement with purpose."