10:23 JST – Daelic Crucible, Medbay Ward 2C
Diagnostics flickered low, casting blue light across white partitions. It smelled of lavender gauze and something faintly metallic.
Sekhmet sat on the edge of a cot, legs swinging slightly. She had a bandage wrapped around her wrist, not because she needed it, but because the medic insisted.
Her scarf was still looped around her neck, rumpled and slightly dirtied. She'd refused to take it off.
Her coat was slung over the chair nearby, The small Flux reader clipped to her wrist blinked a healthy green.
The results looked like she'd just come back from a run. A pleasant one.
She was humming.
Not loudly. Just enough that the tune danced softly through the air.
A nurse froze for a little, entranced by her humming. A drone bumped into her, breaking the trance. She handed some papers over and muttered something about "no symptoms, no neural trauma," then left with a bewildered shake of the head.
Tokuda pushed through the privacy curtain a second later. His hair was slick with sweat.
Sekhmet smiled, bright as ever. "There he is. My radiant partner in simulated war crimes."
Tokuda stared at her for a beat.
Then, "…After we got the Beacon, I gave the cadet to a medical team and came back for you. But you weren't there."
Sekhmet tilted her head. "Kazuya came in to deal with a situation. By the way, that cadet that came up to us? She was a Spiral."
Tokuda sat down hard on the chair across from her. "H-huh?? A-a Spiral!"
"I noticed," Sekhmet said lightly, folding her hands in her lap. "The teeth gave it away. And the murderous instinct."
His eyes grew a little wider. "Y-you almost died?!"
She ignored his question and smiled. "How did Kabastis react when you found her?"
Tokuda rubbed the back of his neck, eyes dropping. "…Honestly? She and Sana were still arguing. They didn't even notice me at first. Not until they captured the Beacon. Then they finally looked around—and saw me hauling that cadet."
Sekhmet's smile widened. "So the shiny box mattered more than bleeding classmates."
"Kabastis said the mission came first," Tokuda muttered. "Sana called me an idiot for taking care of them. Neither of them offered to help. After I handed the cadet off, I heard one of the medics shouting at her for leaving an injured junior behind. Didn't faze her. She just kept walking."
Sekhmet tilted her head, scarf shifting as she leaned forward. "That sounds like her. I wonder if she's training us to be a soldier or a grave-digger."
Tokuda swallowed.
Her humming picked up again. Some lights flicked as she hummed. "Mm. A real Spiral slipped in. Imagine that. Maybe the Crucible's simulations aren't so airtight."
Tokuda leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Then why are they hiding it? The instructors, the observers—Kazuya! He was there, and he didn't say a word."
Sekhmet's eyes flicked up, bright and distant. "Maybe they didn't notice it. It did look human."
Tokuda's stomach knotted. "…That's not something to joke about."
Sekhmet stopped humming, tilted her head, and smiled again. "Who said I was joking?"
The privacy curtain rustled as a tall figure stepped through. Kazuya's coat was immaculate, his expression calm, unreadable.
"Easy, the mediward isn't soundproof. You'll start rumors if you keep your voices that high."
Tokuda jolted to his feet. "Y-you—! You were there! You saw it, didn't you?"
Kazuya raised a hand in a quieting gesture. "What I saw," he replied smoothly, "was two cadets completing their objective under difficult conditions. The rest…" His gaze slid to Sekhmet, "…is classified."
Sekhmet swung her legs, humming again as if the interruption amused her. "Classified. That's a convenient word."
"Necessary," Kazuya corrected. "What you encountered was… irregular. But nothing you need to concern yourselves with."
"And Kabastis?" Sekhmet asked.
Kazuya sighed. "She's somewhere. I think she's talking to the Commander. …Probably arguing about how she conducted herself during the test."
Sekhmet let the silence linger a moment. Then, with a half-smile, "Well, if she gets reprimanded, we'll write her an apology bouquet. Something passive-aggressive. With thorns."
Tokuda stared at her. "How are you like this?"
Sekhmet looked at her, calm and bright. "Because if I wasn't, I'd be something else."
A quiet buzz passed between them. Then she stretched her arms back and yawned, deliberately casual. "Besides. I'm pretty sure we passed-ish. No one's screamed at us directly yet."
Kazuya tilted his head and narrowed his eyes slightly, a sharp glare that lingered just long enough to let her know he could've.
The door hissed open.
Mitsuki stormed in first, his coat half unzipped, frustration carved deep in his face. "You fought it?" he snapped. "Are you insane—"
Kabastis followed close behind. Sekhmet scanned her slightly disheveled clothing.
Ah, she definitely did NOT win that argument.
Kazuya pushed himself up to face Mitsuki. "She didn't stall it."
Mitsuki stopped mid-step, turning to him. "Wait, then how—"
"She stared it down, until it lunged at her. I had to step in to kill it." Kazuya replied.
Tokuda's eyes widened as he took an involuntary step back. "I-it wasn't part of the sim?"
"No," Kazuya said, glaring at Sekhmet now. "It wasn't."
Kabastis' jaw tightened, lips pressed into a thin line. She said nothing, but her eyes said enough.
Sekhmet raised a hand, twirling a lollipop between her fingers . "For the record, I wasn't planning to fight it."
"You didn't run," Kazuya snapped.
Sekhmet's smile didn't fade, but the brightness behind it cooled. "Why would I run? Something told me she wasn't human."
Tokuda's pulse hammered in his ears. He'd seen first hand how capable she was, but seeing Kazuya glare at her… that was something else.
"Still not your call," Kazuya shot back, stepping closer. "You had time to call for support. You could've run. What you couldn't do was freeze."
Sekhmet tapped the lollipop against her palm. "I didn't freeze."
A silence followed.
Then Sekhmet tilted her head toward Kazuya. "You wondered what my real instinct was, remember?"
Kazuya glanced away, jaw tightening.
"Does what I did make me reckless, or Crucible material?"
He exhaled, finally lowering his gaze. "I can't say anything because you saved two more lives. You get one pass, Isshin-Namikaze."
Sekhmet smiled again, eyes half-lidded. "Then lucky me."
Before he could walk away, her foot hooked lightly against his shoulder, playful with a smile. "You didn't have to cut it down that cleanly, you know."
For half a second, his jaw tightened and his body shifted—as if to move—but then he forced himself still.
"I saw you hesitate." Sekhmet continued as the lollipop swiveled to the other side.
Kazuya's hand came up, caught her ankle and set it firmly back down on the cot. "Don't test me, Isshin-Namikaze. I don't hesitate."
-POP-
Sekhmet was trailing the ceiling lights. "Right," she murmured. "Neither do Spirals."
Kazuya froze for a fraction of a second.
Silence.
Mitsuki's expression faltered, his brow creased, just slightly.
Tokuda's fingers tensed around his chair. He couldn't tell if they were joking or seconds from drawing blood
Mitsuki's eyes sharpened. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Sekhmet popped the lollipop back in her mouth and smiled again.
"I'm saying," she said finally, voice light but steady, "you shouldn't assume we all freeze the same."
Kabastis stepped forward. "You think you're being clever."
Sekhmet tilted her head. "Clever? I wasn't trying to be."
Kabastis' eyes narrowed. "Then what were you trying to be?"
Sekhmet smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Alive."
Kabastis didn't look away. "Imagine if Kazuya didn't come to save you, what would've happened?"
Sekhmet's toe touched the nose of Kabastis — causing her to flinch instinctively. "Then we'd be having a different conversation."
The medbay door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, and a figure draped in a dark coat stepped through.
"Cadets."
Four cadets stiffened. Except for Sekhmet, whose cheerful air brightened slightly.
"Commander Hoshino. What brings you here ma'am?" Kabastis asked.
Hoshino's gaze swept the room. She then nodded to the med-tech at the side panel. "Report."
"Isshin-Namikaze's vitals are stable ma'am. No problems have been detected." the medic confirmed.
"Good."
Hoshino returned her attention to the Cadets. "All of you are needed in the Student Council room."
"Yes, ma'am," Kabastis replied instantly, already moving. As they gathered, the Commander's eyes lingered briefly on Sekhmet.
"There are questions that need answering. The Crucible doesn't let breaches go unexamined." She turned without waiting for a reply.
Sekhmet hopped off the cot, humming again under her breath. "Oh, we have a Student Council?" she murmured. "Sounds fun."
Tokuda sulked right in the chair. "I miss when I was home cooking food."
Mitsuki put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't say that out loud."
Sekhmet's hum trailed softly behind them, as if she hadn't heard a word.
10:41 JST – Daelic Crucible, Student Council Room
The Student Coucil room was colder than the rest of the facility. Minimalist walls, faint lights above, and a single long table.
Sekhmet sat with her hands folded. Tokuda was next to her, still fidgeting.
Kabastis stood behind them, arms crossed but uncharacteristically silent. Kazuya stood on her left, lips pressed into a flat line. Mitsuki stood to her right, trying to process what happened in the testing arena.
The door opened.
A quiet figure stepped through. Her expression was calm and strangely unreadable.
The figure didn't need to introduce herself.
Sekhmet's smile froze, just slightly. "Oh," she said softly. "It's you, Nishiyama…"
"Nishiyama?" Tokuda breathed.
The council president nodded once, moving toward the head of the table.
"It's been a long morning for you five," Nishiyama said. She gestured to the open chairs. "Sit."
The others took their seats—except for one.
Nishiyama's gaze sharpened. "Miki, what the fuck are you doing over there?"
That snapped him out of his trance. He blinked, looked up, and realized she was sitting at the opposite end. "Ichi?"
Then it hit him. "Oh… right. I'm the Vice President." He shuffled to the proper seat, and tried to look like that had been his plan all along.
Nishiyama waited until Miki sat. The humor drained from the air in a heartbeat.
"Good. Now that the Vice President remembers where he belongs—" she began, folding her hands on the table. "We'll begin."
The room fell silent except for the faint hum of the overhead vents.
"You encountered an anomaly inside the simulation," Nishiyama said evenly. "A hostile entity that wasn't part of the exercise, correct?"
Kazuya nodded once.
She tapped something on the table. A hologram showed the sims spiral data. One red line cut directly across their route through Floor Three.
"That," she said, "was not a training dummy. This was a real Spiral, disguised, embedded, and somehow synchronized with Crucible staging code."
Tokuda stared. "That means—"
"It broke into the Crucible itself," Nishiyama continued. "It wasn't meant to be there. That is not my focus as of right now." She turned to Sekhmet. "Cadet Isshin-Namikaze. You had engaged the Spiral, correct?"
Sekhmet leaned back, unbothered. "Engaged is a strong word. I'd say we… made eye contact."
Kabastis' jaw tightened. Tokuda glanced between them, caught somewhere between admiration and panic.
Nishiyama didn't blink. "You expect me to accept that you engaged a Spiral just because you wanted to stare at it?" She leaned forward slightly. "That looked like recklessness to me, not luck."
Sekhmet smiled thinly. "Luck's part of the syllabus, isn't it?"
Something in Nishiyama's stare darkened, enough that even Kazuya's shoulders stiffened.
"Luck," Nishiyama said, voice cooling, "is what keeps corpses warm for five minutes longer."
The air went still. Even the vents seemed quieter.
Then Sekhmet raised both hands, palms out in mock surrender.
"Whoa," she said lightly. "Didn't expect the council president to get poetic. What a surprise."
A flicker passed through Nishiyama's eyes — irritation, or maybe calculation.
Tokuda looked like he wanted to sink into his chair.
Mitsuki just muttered under his breath, "Please stop talking."
Sekhmet only smiled wider, eyes glinting in the cold light.
Nishiyama's gaze lingered on Sekhmet just long enough to make the silence hurt, then slid sideways.
"Kazuya," she said.
He straightened in his chair. "Madam President."
"You were the highest-ranking personnel on-site," Nishiyama continued. "Describe what you saw."
Kazuya's tone was measured. "The Spiral didn't show any characteristics until it reached Cadet Isshin-Namikaze. She singled herself out, letting 'Bribe' and an injured cadet escape. She was also able to provoke the Spiral into showing its traits. I intervened and neutralized the threat."
"Was her engagement decisive?" Nishiyama asked.
Kazuya hesitated for a fraction of a second. "It was… instinctive. Uninstructed. But it drew the Spiral's focus away from the others."
"Meaning," Nishiyama said, "if she hadn't done that, the possibility of cadets being killed would have been high."
Kabastis stiffened; Tokuda looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.
Nishiyama's gaze returned to Sekhmet. "So tell me, Isshin-Namikaze — was it instinct, or calculation?"
Before Sekhmet could answer, Kabastis stepped forward, arms crossed. "Call it instinct all you want," she said sharply. "But if that had been the real battlefield, that wrong move could've gotten the entire squad wiped out."
Sekhmet tilted her head, a faint smirk tugging at her lips. "I'm aware of the risks, Senior Kabastis."
Kabastis took a step closer, leaning down slightly as if to punctuate her words. "Aware? Don't insult me with half-measures. You think improvising like that is clever, but it's stupid. You almost cost lives, and don't think I wouldn't have thrown you under the Spiral myself if it weren't for Kazuya."
Tokuda flinched. Mitsuki's jaw tightened. Even Nishiyama's unreadable gaze lingered on Kabastis for a heartbeat longer than usual.
Sekhmet tilted her head, unruffled. "Lucky for me, apparently, some people have a heart."
"Enough."
Nishiyama's voice cut through the tension. "Isshin-Namikaze, answer the question. Instinct or calculation?"
Sekhmet's eyes flicked between Kabastis' fiery glare and Nishiyama's piercing calm. "A bit of both," she said finally, her tone light but precise.
Kabastis' jaw tightened, her arms folded more rigidly across her chest. "Don't make it sound like a game," she snapped.
Sekhmet's half-smile didn't fade. "Not a game. Just… practiced instinct."
Nishiyama inclined her head slightly. "Noted. But remember, practice doesn't excuse recklessness. One misstep in the field, and you won't get a pass."
"She should've run, Madam President." Kabastis said flatly. "She doesn't get to act clever when she doesn't have a Drive. You run. Or you die."
Sekhmet shrugged lightly, lacing her fingers behind her head. "Then I guess it's a good thing I'm bad at following rules."
Tokuda gave a short, surprised snort of laughter. Kazuya exhaled sharply. Not quite a sigh. More like relief disguised as annoyance.
Before Kabastis could retort, Nishiyama raised her hand. "I'll say this once, she made the right call." She got up and turned for the exit.
The door hissed closed behind her.
Silence again.
Then, after a beat:
"…So," Sekhmet said brightly, "does this mean I don't get detention?"
Mitsuki groaned, head in his hands. "Gods help me, you're worse than I thought."
Tokuda finally cracked a small, real smile. "She's growing on me."
12:52 JST – Daelic Crucible, Inner Hall
The hall was wide and cold, its floor polished to a dull shine. Pale morning light filtered through tall inset windows.
Tokuda's hands were in his pockets, his shoulders tight.
Kazuya walked a half-step behind, hands behind his head.
Kabastis said nothing.
Sekhmet was the only one smiling. She walked a little ahead, her scarf bouncing slightly with each step. She turned mid-stride, hands folded behind her head. "Well, that was exciting," she said cheerfully.
No one answered.
"C'mon. We survived the Student Council! That should earn us a good lunch at least."
Mitsuki raised his hand. "You know I'm still here right?"
Sekhmet's hands pulled up her scarf in faux surprise. "Oh my! Mr. Vice President, I didn't see you there."
Tokuda's voice was low. "You were smiling when we left."
Sekhmet blinked. "I'm smiling now too."
Kazuya sighed. "You know that's not normal."
Sekhmet stopped walking and tilted her head. "Would you rather I be shaking in a closet somewhere?"
She turned slightly, the smile still there but softer now. "Some of us cope by laughing. Some of us cope by staring at a wall."
Tokuda looked away.
Mitsuki slowed his pace. "Something's been bugging me," he said. "How did you know something was off with her?"
Sekhmet met his gaze. "Her voice was wrong," she said quietly. "And her breathing cadence… it didn't sound human."
Kabastis scoffed. "You expect us to believe that? You 'heard' her breathing wrong?"
Sekhmet turned her head slightly, smile returning. "You didn't notice it in the recording?"
Kabastis crossed her arms. "What I noticed is you and Tokuda acted on a hunch and nearly got everyone killed."
"Yet here we are," Sekhmet said lightly.
Kazuya let out a quiet exhale that was almost a laugh. "You two still going?" he muttered. "Gods, it's too early for this."
Kabastis frowned. "You can't just ignore this—"
"Sure I can," he said, hands sliding into his pockets as he kept walking. "She's alive. You're alive. That's more than most cadets manage."
Kabastis' mouth opened, but no words came.
Sekhmet's grin flickered, softer this time. "See? Even he agrees with me."
Kazuya waved a hand lazily without turning around. "Don't push it.
They continued down the corridor. "So… Drives," Tokuda said, voice low but not quite joking. "Still think we're getting them next week?"
Kazuya exhaled through his nose. "After that Spiral? I'd be surprised if they let you two touch a training knife."
"They will," Sekhmet said lightly. All eyes turned toward her.
"You think so?" Mitsuki's tone was edged, but not hostile.
Sekhmet gave a small smile. "They'll have to, with the discovery of a Spiral breach."
Kazuya nodded slightly. "Hm, you might be right. Sana, Tokuda and you were supposed to test formation cohesion with Kabastis. If we subtract Kabastis since she's the captain and Sana's Spartan ideology, Tokuda and you would be the first picks for a Drive."
"I agree. Madam President might ask to fast-track evaluations," Mitsuki said. "Nishiyama won't say it, but the Crucible has to answer for what happened."
The silence after that wasn't hollow, it was stretched.
"Well," Sekhmet said after a beat, voice warm and breezy. "Maybe that just makes our fireteam the right kind of problem."
Mitsuki blinked. Tokuda gave a weak chuckle.
Kabastis didn't smile. "This is why I don't like greenhorns like you."
Kazuya muttered, "Isshin-Namikaze, you're too calm."
"It's either that," Sekhmet replied, "or panic. And I hate being unflattering."
The elevator doors ahead opened with a soft tone.
Sekhmet turned slightly, looking back down the hall toward the Student Council room.
"They'll give us Drives," she said again. "And when they do, we'll be ready." The elevator closed behind her, the reflection of the Sun fading in the glass like a departing ember.