Kruger

Six Months LaterSuela Training Dome – Midnight Cycle

The rain never stopped in Suela.

It whispered endlessly across the dome's armored ceiling, drumming like static over the distant roar of wind. Outside, the wilds of the frozen world howled, but inside the dome—there was only motion.

And Kaiell.

He stood alone in the center of the chamber, shirt soaked to his skin, hair plastered to his forehead, Nightfell raised in both hands.

His breath was steady. His stance—flawless.

Then he moved.

Not with hesitation, not with force, but with rhythm. Like poetry honed on blood and silence. Each strike of Nightfell carved through the air in seamless arcs, trailing ghost-flashes of pressure behind it. Step, turn, cut. His body was a storm now, his blade the eye of it.

His Viora pulsed inside him like a second heart.

He could feel it constantly. Not just during battle—but in breath. In thought. It was no longer a resource he tapped into. It was a part of him. A coiled storm woven into flesh.

He swept Nightfell forward. The blade responded not with sound, but with weight—pressure condensed into every motion, every angle. The interface shimmered briefly in his peripheral vision, analyzing muscle strain, motion tracking, energy use.

He didn't need to look.

He felt it now. Every tendon, every cell.

He stopped.

The dome lights dimmed at his command.

The water across the floor trembled faintly. Then lifted—tiny threads rising around him like silvered wire.

With a single breath, he clenched his fingers.

The threads condensed. Spikes. Needles. A ring of high-pressure water sharpened into glass-hard darts floated around his shoulders in perfect formation.

Then—release.

They fired outward in a silent spiral, each piercing the reinforced target dummies surrounding the dome with surgical accuracy. Not one missed.

Kaiell exhaled.

The water fell. The dome was quiet again.

Six months ago, he hadn't even understood what Viora was.

Now, it moved with him. Through him. He no longer strained to call it forth. He could shape it. Anchor it. Let it bleed into Nightfell itself and extend the blade's edge with transmuted mass—liquid pressure turned to steel.

He sheathed the blade on his back.

The old stiffness was gone. His body had adapted. Strengthened. His scars had faded. Even his stance was different now—balanced not like a soldier, but like a blade waiting to be drawn.

He turned toward the exit, shadows dancing across his soaked boots.

Lunge stood in the doorway.

Arms folded. That same unimpressed stare.

"You're finally catching up," he said flatly.

Kaiell approached, passing him without a word.

Lunge fell into step beside him. "Your water control's precise. Good compression. Blade technique's clean. You still overextend on lateral pivots."

Kaiell glanced at him. "Only when I'm testing wind resistance."

Lunge snorted. "Humble too. A rare disease."

They walked together in silence toward the lower stairwell, boots clinking against metal as they descended from the dome.

Then Lunge spoke again—quieter.

"You're ready."

Kaiell stopped.

"Sector Twelve?"

Lunge nodded.

"It won't be like the frontlines," he said. "It won't be like Rust-12. It's not war. It's experimentation. Survival. Mutation."

Kaiell said nothing.

Lunge continued, voice lower.

"You're not being sent because you're the best. You're being sent because something inside you keeps evolving under pressure. Something the rest of us can't fully see."

He met Kaiell's gaze.

"Try not to lose that. Even if it means losing everything else."

Then he turned and walked away, the stairwell lights casting his shadow long across the corridor.

Kaiell stood alone.

His breath curled in the cold. The weight of what was coming pressed inward—but it didn't feel like fear anymore.

It felt like the beginning.