I was heading back from my morning routine when Krisha caught up with me, waving as she closed the distance.
"I've noticed you every morning," she said, a little shyer than her usual composure. "Push-ups, jogging before dawn. Why do you push yourself like that?"
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly aware of how sweaty I probably looked. "Used to be sickly, back where I'm from. Been working to change that ever since."
"I was actually thinking of joining you," she said, fidgeting slightly. "If that's alright. I could use it myself. Though if you'd rather train alone, that's fine too—"
"I don't mind at all," I said, and meant it. "Could be more fun with company, honestly."
Her whole expression brightened. "Good. In that case — let me treat you to breakfast. You look half-starved after all that."
I placed a hand on my stomach, which had indeed started complaining. "You really don't have to—"
"It's the least I can do." She hesitated, then added, quieter, "Can I ask you something, Kazu?"
"Sure."
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
I blinked, caught off guard. "Not — no. Haven't really thought about it. Between the trial and everything else, feels a bit early to worry about that, doesn't it?"
Her cheeks went red instantly. "Right. Of course. We're still young." She recovered quickly, and we fell into easier conversation about classes and the coming exams as we walked toward the cafeteria.
The room was loud with noble students when we entered, and more than a few heads turned as we crossed toward a table. Krisha slipped her arm through mine, casual enough on the surface, though I noticed it did its job — a couple of the whispers around us shifted tone entirely.
"Where should we sit?" I asked, keeping my voice light.
"Somewhere quieter," she said, steering us toward a corner table.
Once the food arrived — more of it than either of us really needed — she relaxed properly for the first time all morning. "I've heard a lot about you from the others. Thought I'd rather find out for myself."
"Oh? What have you heard?"
"That you're relentless. That you did something impossible with Air yesterday." She smiled. "I'd rather know the actual person, though."
We talked through the rest of the meal — favorite affinities, half-formed plans for after the trial, small things that had nothing to do with rankings or scholarships at all. By the time we stood to leave, something in me had shifted a little toward calling her a friend rather than simply a rival.
"That was nice," she said at the dormitory entrance. "See you tomorrow morning?"
"Definitely."
It was just past noon when the ground beneath the academy shuddered hard enough to throw both of us off balance.
A wave of murderous intent followed a half-second later, thick enough that it stole the breath clean out of my chest. The calm of the afternoon shattered into chaos — students pouring out of their dorms, professors sprinting past with expressions I hadn't seen on any of them before.
I followed every eye skyward and found the source of it: a woman hovering high above the ruined administrative wing, dark and utterly still against the churning clouds behind her.
"Mizawa," Marlowe said, pale but steady. "The Demon Lord's right hand."
"That's her?" Garlock's voice had gone hard. "The girl taken from a family here in Druzka, decades back. So the old stories were true after all."
"She's no ordinary demon," Marlowe said. "If she's truly Rostiel's right hand now, she's unlike anything we've faced."
"Do we have a chance?" Garlock asked.
"She carries all six affinities. Combined, we might."
I reached them with Krisha close at my side, dread and resolve fighting for space in my chest. "Professors — who is she?"
"Mizawa," Marlowe said. "Rostiel's right hand. All six affinities, mastered."
"Six? You said that would kill a normal person."
"As his right hand, she was granted something that lets her wield all six without burning through her own life force." His hand found my shoulder, brief and steadying. "Stay back, Kazu. Watch. We'll handle this."
"Protect the others," Garlock added, already turning toward the sky.
They advanced together, and Mizawa's voice cut down through the wind, mocking. "The strongest this school has to offer?"
"Perhaps," Garlock said, dry as dust.
"Why tell you," Marlowe added, entirely unbothered.
"If you're only here to entertain yourselves, leave," she said, drifting lower, cloak billowing. "Your combined presence means little to me."
"Flies belong in the trash," Garlock said, "not a school."
Her eyes flared, and she answered with force — a wave of Primal Demons torn from Dark affinity, a towering Cerberus summoned from Fire, three heads snapping and roaring as it charged.
The professors met it without missing a step. Garlock froze the Cerberus solid inside a barrier of ice and driven earth-shards, the beast pinned and bleeding within the crystal. Marlowe wove a scroll of Light magic and sealed the Primal Demons inside it entirely, the incantation rolling off him with practiced ease.
"Out of minions already?" Marlowe asked, a thin smile on his lips.
"Best crawl back to whoever sent you," Garlock added, stroking his beard, "before this gets embarrassing."
Fury sparked in Mizawa's eyes. "You dare mock me? I'll erase every trace of your existence from this continent. Rostiel will face no obstacle once I'm through."
She raised both arms, and all six affinities gathered into a single, immense weight of force, the ground trembling under the pressure of it.
Garlock answered first, a blast of solar flame aimed to break her concentration before she could finish. Marlowe followed, chanting a sealing incantation meant to trap her the same way he had her summons.
It failed — the spell simply dissolved against her aura, gone before it could take hold.
"Did you truly think that would contain me?" Mizawa laughed, cold and delighted. "I am the Demon Lord's right hand."
Marlowe's confidence cracked for the first time. Whatever he'd expected, this wasn't it.
Garlock's expression sharpened. "We're going to need more than that." He began channeling Earth and Fire together, readying something heavier.
Mizawa didn't wait. A blast of pure six-element force tore toward them, cracking the ground on its way, and Marlowe barely got a Light barrier up in time to deflect the worst of it, the shockwave still staggering him badly.
From the crowd of onlookers, I clenched my fists. If they can't stop her, what happens to everyone else here?
Garlock caught sight of me and shook his head sharply. "Not your fight, Kazu. We can handle this."
Mizawa's voice rose over the chaos. "Fools, all of you, if you think you can resist me. I already reduced Soradia's capital to nothing. This academy will fare no better."
Marlowe's eyes went wide. "You — you destroyed Soradia?"
Beside me, Krisha went white as bone. "My family's estates were there—"
"Not a soul left standing," Mizawa said, savoring it. "The slums at the edge of the city were spared, if you can call it that. This place won't be so lucky."
Krisha's eyes filled with tears, panic tightening every line of her.
"Druzka's turn now," Mizawa said, and lifted one hand almost lazily. A senior professor rose off the ground, suspended by nothing at all, and a moment later his skull caved inward under pressure only she could see.
The scream that came before it cut off all at once.
Whatever restraint Marlowe and Garlock had been holding onto disappeared entirely.
"ENOUGH," Marlowe roared, his Light affinity flaring to something blinding, and Garlock answered with a tornado of fire aimed dead at her with brutal precision.
She dodged most of it, though the edge of Garlock's flame caught her cloak and singed it black. She answered with a wave of dark energy that sent both professors diving clear.
I felt something surge in my own chest, watching it — instinct screaming at me to move, uncertainty holding me back a moment longer.
Mizawa rose higher, wrapped in a swirling dark vortex, and began a weather spell that darkened the whole sky at once. Shards of black ice started falling across the courtyard, and before either professor could react, her telekinesis pinned them both in place, helpless against what was coming.
That was the moment I stopped hesitating.
"I'm not just standing here," I said, and moved.
Blink. I reappeared behind her before she'd registered the motion, driving a concentrated blast of Fire Pierce straight into her back.
She snarled, deflecting it at the last possible second — but the effort was enough. Both professors broke free of her hold.
"Good timing, kid!" Garlock called, already regrouping with Marlowe for whatever came next.
Mizawa, cornered now, gathered herself for one final, desperate surge, and the air between the three of us and her crackled with a tension that felt like it could tear the sky itself open.