The Colosseum's facilities were located in a quiet corridor away from the main arena, a narrow hallway of stone and shadow lit by flickering magical sconces. Sekke crept along the wall, his bronze grimoire open in his trembling hands, his heart pounding with a mixture of fear and fury. He wasn't going to kill the commoner—that would be too risky. But a well-placed spell, a little "accident" in the dark... that would teach the magicless freak his place.
Asta had just disappeared into the bathroom, his voice still audible through the door as he hummed a tuneless victory song. Sekke raised his grimoire, a spell forming on his lips—
"Looking for something?"
The voice came from directly behind him. Sekke spun, his spell fizzling, and found himself staring at Yuno. The dark-haired boy was leaning against the corridor wall with his arms crossed, his amber eyes cold and flat, his four-leaf grimoire floating ominously at his shoulder. The wind around him stirred, just slightly, just enough to make the torches flicker.
"I... I was just..." Sekke stammered, backing away. "I wasn't doing anything! I was just passing through! The bathroom—I needed the bathroom!"
"There are other bathrooms."
"I didn't see them!"
"You saw them. You just didn't want to use them." Yuno pushed off the wall, and his presence seemed to fill the corridor despite his lean frame. "Let me make something clear, Sekke Bronzazza. If you ever try to hurt Asta—if you ever even think about hurting Asta—I will find you. And I won't need a grimoire to make you regret it. Do you understand?"
Sekke swallowed hard. His bronze grimoire trembled in his grip. "I... I understand. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't—"
"Leave."
Sekke ran. His footsteps echoed down the corridor and faded into silence. Yuno watched him go, his expression unchanged, and then returned to his position against the wall. A few moments later, Asta emerged from the bathroom, still humming.
"Yuno? What are you doing here?"
"Waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For you to finish being disgusting so we can walk back together."
Asta grinned. "You're such a softie, Yuno. You act all cold and mysterious, but deep down you're just a big—"
"Finish that sentence and I'll tell Sister Mary about the goat incident."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
They walked back toward the main hall together, their footsteps falling into the easy rhythm of lifelong rivals who were also, in every way that mattered, brothers. At the entrance to the corridor, they stopped.
"Hey, Yuno."
"What?"
"We made it. We're both Magic Knights."
"We are."
"This is just the beginning, you know. I'm going to get stronger. Stronger than you. Stronger than everyone. And then I'm going to be the Wizard King."
Yuno's lips twitched—the closest thing to a smile he ever allowed himself. "You can try."
They raised their fists and bumped them together, a gesture they'd been doing since they were children. A promise. A challenge. A bond that no squad assignment could break.
From the shadows at the far end of the corridor, I watched them. The mask was in place—the protective older brother, satisfied that his charges were safe. But beneath the mask, the void was silent and cold. I had what I wanted. I was in the Black Bulls. I was close to Yami. The path to ki sensing, to Mana Zone, to everything I needed to transcend my current limits, was finally open.
I turned and disappeared into the darkness, leaving the two rivals to their moment.
----
The valley outside the capital was quiet in the early morning light, its grass still wet with dew, its silence broken only by the distant song of birds and the sound of Sekke Bronzazza's bitter muttering.
"Pathetic commoners. Bastard four-leaf grimoire. Bastard giant with his stupid wheel. They think they're better than me? Me? Sekke Bronzazza, heir to House Bronzazza, master of Bronze Creation Magic? I should have been selected. I should have been the star of the exam. But no—those peasants had to ruin everything. Asta and Yuno and that grey-eyed freak. I'll show them. I'll show all of them. Next year, I'll come back stronger, and I'll—"
A shadow fell across him.
Sekke looked up. And up. And up. The figure standing over him blocked out the morning sun, a silhouette of impossible proportions, its long black hair stirring in the breeze like the mane of a predatory beast. The wheel behind its head rotated in a slow, golden cycle, casting eight spokes of shadow across the grass.
Hasegawa Ouga looked down at Sekke Bronzazza with grey eyes that held no warmth at all.
"You," Sekke whispered, and his voice cracked on the word. "What do you want? Did Yuno send you? Did Asta? I didn't do anything! I was just—I was just leaving! I wasn't going to—"
"Be quiet."
The words were calm. Empty. The voice of someone who had long ago forgotten what mercy felt like. Sekke's mouth snapped shut.
I studied him for a long moment, letting the silence stretch. Sekke Bronzazza. In the original timeline, this man would join the Green Mantises—Captain Jack's squad of commoners and rejects. He would survive. He would grow, in his own mediocre way. And he would, if my fragmented memories were correct, play a small but significant role in the events to come. Not as a hero. Not as a villain. But as a catalyst. A piece on the board that could, under the right circumstances, tip the balance.
He had also tried to attack Asta from behind in a bathroom corridor, and he had spent the entire exam mocking commoners and stirring resentment among the failed noble candidates. Given time and opportunity, he would continue to do so. He would gather like-minded nobles around him. He would whisper poison into their ears about the injustice of commoners rising above their station. He would, in his own petty way, contribute to the discrimination that plagued this kingdom.
The logical course of action was to kill him.
I could do it. The Sword of Severance was humming in my right arm, ready to manifest. One slash, and Sekke Bronzazza's soul would be severed from his body. No evidence. No witnesses. No consequences. The valley was empty, and no one knew he was here.
But.
Killing him would attract attention. A noble candidate who had publicly feuded with Asta, found dead the day after the exam—there would be an investigation. Questions would be asked. Suspicion would fall on the commoner candidates who had reason to resent him. It would complicate my position in the Black Bulls. It would draw scrutiny I couldn't afford.
And more importantly—he was useful. In the original timeline, Sekke joined the Green Mantises and became part of the Magic Knights' infrastructure. He was a known quantity, a predictable variable. Killing him would create a gap in the timeline that I couldn't fully predict. Leaving him alive maintained the status quo and kept my future knowledge viable.
I made my decision.
The killing intent that had been building in the air around me—a cold, suffocating pressure that had pinned Sekke to the grass like a butterfly to a board—receded. Sekke gasped, his lungs suddenly able to expand again, and scrambled backward on his hands and knees. His bronze grimoire had fallen from his grip and lay in the grass, its pages fluttering in the morning breeze.
"I... I..." Sekke's voice was barely a whisper. His face was white as chalk, his eyes wide with a terror he had never experienced before. And as he scrambled backward, I noticed the dark stain spreading across the front of his trousers. The smell reached me a moment later.
I wrinkled my nose.
"You pissed yourself."
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Please don't kill me! Please!"
I crouched down, bringing my face closer to his. The wheel behind my head cast golden light across his terrified features, and what he saw in my grey eyes made him whimper.
"Listen carefully, Sekke Bronzazza. I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to remember it for the rest of your life. If you ever harm Asta or Yuno—if you ever try to attack them, sabotage them, or whisper poison about them to anyone—I will find you. I will find you, and I will do things to you that make what happened in the arena look like a pleasant dream. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes. Yes! I understand! I swear! I'll never go near them again! I'll never say anything about them! I'll—"
"Good." I straightened, stepping away from him. "This is your only warning."
I turned and walked away, my bare feet silent on the dew-wet grass. Behind me, Sekke Bronzazza remained on the ground, trembling and crying and reeking of urine, a broken man who had just learned what it meant to be prey.
---
The Black Bulls' transport was a spatial portal, a shimmering tear in reality opened by a man named Finral Roulacase. He was a tall, nervous-looking fellow with brown hair and a perpetually worried expression, and his spatial magic was powerful enough to bridge the distance between the capital and the squad's headquarters in a single step.
"Please hurry," Finral was saying, his voice strained. "Maintaining a portal this size is really draining, and I've already been doing it all morning, and the captain said he needed to use the bathroom, and if we don't get back soon he's going to be really angry, and—"
"Shut up, Finral." Yami took a long drag of his cigarette, utterly unsympathetic. "You'll survive and surpass you limits! Where's the giant?"
"I don't know where Ouga is," Asta said, bouncing on his heels. "He disappeared after the ceremony! But he said he was joining the Black Bulls, so he has to be here, right? He wouldn't just not show up!"
"Here."
I stepped out of the treeline at the edge of the clearing, my arrival as silent as always. Finral yelped and nearly lost control of the portal. Asta waved enthusiastically. And Yami, who had been scanning the treeline with his ki sensing, nodded with the satisfied expression of a man who had expected exactly this.
"Took you long enough," Yami said. "Let's go. I've got to take a dump."
"Captain, that's too much information!" Finral wailed.
"Just maintain the portal."
We stepped through.
The sensation of spatial transport was strange—a moment of weightlessness, a blur of colors that didn't exist in the normal spectrum, and then solid ground beneath my feet again. I emerged from the portal into a landscape that could only be described as... chaotic.
The Black Bulls' headquarters was a castle. Technically. It was also a ruin, a ramshackle collection of mismatched towers and crumbling walls that looked like it had been assembled by someone who had only heard about architecture from a drunk storyteller. Vines crawled up the stonework. Windows were cracked or missing entirely. The front gate was hanging from a single hinge. And somewhere inside, something was making a noise that sounded like a cross between a scream and a laugh.
"WELCOME HOME, CAPTAIN!"
Three figures burst through the front door—a pink haired woman with an impressive bust and a bottle of wine in each hand, a young man with an unsettling grin and electricity crackling around his fingers, and a small girl who appeared to be carrying a plate of half-eaten food. They skidded to a halt when they saw Asta and me.
"Oh! New members!" the pink haired woman exclaimed. "Two of them! A little one and a... a really big one. Like, really big. Is he even human?"
"That's what I've been asking!" Asta said.
"I'm Vanessa," she said, raising one of her wine bottles in salute. "I handle the squad's... morale. Mostly through alcohol. This is Luck." She gestured at the grinning young man. "He likes fighting. A lot. Try not to let him challenge you unless you're ready for a really intense experience."
"I want to fight the big one," Luck said immediately, his grin widening. "He looks strong. Really strong. Can I fight him, Captain? Can I?"
"Later," Yami said. "This is Asta and Ouga. They're the new recruits. Don't break them on the first day."
"I make no promises!"
A figure emerged from the shadows of the doorway—a young man with dark hair and a haunted expression, his voice barely above a mumble. "...new members... should introduce myself... I'm Gordon Agrippa... pleased to meet you... hope we can be friends..."
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Asta shouted. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
"...friends... I said friends..."
"STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
"He does that," Vanessa said, taking a long swig of wine. "You get used to it. Or you don't. Either way, he's harmless. Mostly."
Yami pushed past the assembled squad members and walked toward the castle's main entrance. He stopped at the threshold, turned, and spread his arms wide. The crumbling castle loomed behind him, silhouetted against the morning sky like a monument to bad decisions.
"Welcome to the Black Bulls' base," he said, and his grin was wide and sharp and full of something that might have been pride. "It's not much to look at, but it's home. You'll train here. You'll fight here. You'll probably break things here—everyone does. But if you work hard, if you survive, if you prove you've got what it takes..." He took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled smoke through his nose. "Then you'll be real Magic Knights. The kind who change things. The kind who matter. Welcome to the squad, newbies."
Asta's eyes were shining. "This is... this is AMAZING! A real Magic Knight base! It's like a castle! A real castle! We're going to live in a castle! Yuno's probably in some boring normal building, but we get a CASTLE!"
"It's a ruin," I observed quietly.
"A COOL ruin! The coolest ruin! I love it already!"
I looked at the crumbling towers, the broken windows, the general air of barely-contained chaos that emanated from every stone. It was, objectively, a disaster. But it was also the headquarters of the man who could teach me ki sensing. The man who could show me Mana Zone. The man who, if I played my cards correctly, would turn me from a weapon into something far more dangerous.
Hasegawa Ouga, walked through the broken gates of the Black Bulls' base and into the next chapter of his existence.
The mask smiled. "It's good to be here."
Vanessa raised her wine bottle. "I like this one already. He's got taste."
"Can I fight him now?" Luck asked.
"Later, Luck."
"...friends..." Gordon whispered.
And somewhere in the castle, something exploded. Nobody seemed concerned.
Welcome to the Black Bulls.
(Author note:I dont need to ask do i?)