🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
The final day of Aether Clash… and you could feel it.
The air was electric—tense, heavy, charged with expectations. Students swarmed the corridors, the cafeteria screens flickered with live broadcasts, and even outside the walls of MaGiA Division IX, people around the world were tuning in. This wasn't just a school event anymore. This was aether-televised—a spectacle.
Unlike the elimination rounds where the goal was clear—show what you could do without aether or survive with limitations—this day was different.
This was a war with boundaries.
You were allowed to use Aether now, but the golden rule still applied: No lethal damage. No permanent injuries. The goal wasn't to defeat—it was to make your opponent submit. That's where true skill shows—not in destruction, but control.
I scrolled through the matchup listings on my Aether Watch, ads for the clash popping like fireworks. My teammates were probably already gearing up, but I needed time—space to breathe.
I sat quietly in the library, running through the strategy again in my head. Then I heard the whispers.
"Team Rat's going to take it."
"No doubt, they've got Minato and Lee."
"Team Dragon? Nah, too chaotic."
I couldn't argue. If you looked at our team on paper, we were a disaster waiting to happen. Two ego-driven hotheads, two timid souls, and one lazy tactician. I smirked to myself. Who put this circus together anyway?
Then Claire's message flashed in my mind—one she sent last night, blunt as ever:
Team Snake Representatives:
Round 1 – Claire Everhart
Round 2 – Haru Fenris
Round 3 – Ayaka Fujimori
Team Rat Representatives:
Round 1 – Claire Everhart
Round 2 – Solomon Salamander
Round 3 – Ryuji Archivus
To be honest… the lineup felt like a coin toss. Claire volunteered to fight two teams—of course she would. She always wanted to prove herself. Sol, naturally, would never back down from a fight. And me?
I guess I was the surprise card. The wild one.
I made my way to the locker room and—called it.
Claire had Sol by the collar.
Her voice was sharp, biting. "Try to mandate me again, and I swear, prodigy or not, I'll make sure there's one less prodigy standing after this."
Sol's eyes were burning, fists clenched. Haru was doing his best to pull him back, and Ms. Fujimori had stepped between them, glancing at me with a worried look. "Ryuji—help, they're at it again."
I stepped in. "Guys. Enough."
My voice wasn't loud. But for a moment, they stopped.
Sol broke the silence. "You think one loss makes you in charge, Taxi?!"
Claire snapped back, "We wouldn't have lost if your friend wasn't weak!"
Haru dropped his head, visibly stung. "Sorry…"
Sol broke free of Haru's grip and shouted, kicking a metal trash bin across the room. Flames sparked from his foot as the bin hit the ceiling. He stormed out toward the arena.
I sighed.
I knew the tension. I knew what this fight meant to each of them. Still, I hated how it brought us here.
Ms. Fujimori glanced at me and offered a soft apology.
I gave her a small nod. That's all I could offer right now.
"Don't worry… we'll do better. We'll win the next one." as i said to Ms. Fujimori
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
I reviewed their earlier fights—Team Snake, I mean—on the wide screen in the library, breaking it down like a tactician.
Team Snake vs Team Dragon.
Round 1 — Claire Everhart vs Kenji Ryou, codename: Mothman.
The moment I saw the matchup, I already knew Claire had the edge. Aether wasn't restricted anymore, and with her Angelic Armor and phantasms at full display, this was her battlefield.
Kenji used threads like a spider—fast, elegant, tricky. He weaved the whole arena into his own trap. But Claire? She didn't flinch.
She summoned one phantasm to snipe him with spear projectiles from afar. Then summoned another, a melee fighter closing the distance. Claire herself transformed, gliding between them like some vengeful Valkyrie.
It became 3-on-1. A pincer assault.
Kenji tried to entangle them—failed. Tried to hide—failed again.
He had nowhere to run, no space to move, and no cover to breathe.
He lost. It wasn't even close.
My guess? That's Claire's limit. Two phantasms and herself in angelic form. But still… She made it look effortless.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
Round 2 — Haru Fenris vs Daisuke Tan, alias: Spiderman.
Now this one… this one was hard to watch.
At the start, Haru had the advantage. Strength, speed, aggression—it was his fight in the first five minutes. But Daisuke…
Daisuke was playing the long game.
He flooded the arena with sticky threads, turning every corner into a trap. Every movement Haru made got slower, heavier, more restricted.
The predator slowly became the prey.
Haru swung, thrashed, roared.
But eventually, he was stuck—webbed into exhaustion.
He didn't fall because he wasn't strong enough.
He fell because the fight took too long.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
Round 3: Ayaka Fujimori vs Tasha Kin — Thai — Snake Fang Strike (Whip)
Fujimori stepped onto the field with her usual quiet composure, but I could tell—something was weighing her down. Her stance was tight, her hands curled into fists, not in confidence… but in restraint.
Tasha on the other hand? Calm. Fluid. That whip of hers moved like a serpent tasting the air. Snake Fang Strike—yeah, the name made sense.
The match started.
Tasha took the initiative, dancing at long range, controlling space with every crack of that whip. The moment Fujimori tried to close in—snap—she'd get pushed back.
But the real issue?
She never activated her Aether.
Blossom Bloom. A technique she developed herself. A series of controlled detonations using flower-petal-shaped metal shrapnel—each bloom more precise than the last. Deadly, elegant, and beautiful. But dangerous.
She never used it.
I understood why.
She was afraid.
Afraid of hurting someone. Afraid of losing control.
She wanted to win… but not at the cost of someone else getting injured.
And in that hesitation, she lost.
Tasha didn't overpower her.
She simply outlasted her.
Each strike of the whip was a reminder: If you hold back, the world won't.
I watched from the sidelines, my heart sinking. Maybe if she had fought Zayed back then, maybe she would've learned how to act without fear.
But that's just wishful thinking.
It's done now.
She walked off the arena with her head low.Her loss was our loss.
Mine included.🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
With that crushing loss to Team Snake, our margin for error had vanished. We needed a win—desperately.
But how do you take down Team Rat? One of the favored teams in the entire Aether Clash.
Round 1: Claire Everhart vs. Minato Kurogane.
The announcer's voice boomed across the coliseum, cutting through the roar of the crowd like a blade.
The air was heavy—so heavy you could taste the tension.
I stood beside Sol and Claire just inside the tunnel, the arena lights bleeding in around us. None of us spoke. We didn't need to.
Claire tightened her gloves.
Minato's name wasn't just intimidating. It came with a legacy.
"CLAIRE EVERHART VS. MINATO KUROGANE!"
The announcer's voice surged with electric energy.
"ARE YOU BOTH READY?"
The stadium dimmed. A single spotlight dropped on the stage.
"AETHER CLASH—ROUND ONE! LET'S GO!"
The announcer's voice echoed like thunder, but it couldn't drown out the quiet fury on Sol's face.
I glanced at him, and the truth hit me.
He wanted this fight.
Of course he did.
It's Minato.
Sol wasn't pissed because Claire insisted on going first.
He was pissed because Minato Kurogane—the prodigy forged from nothing—was standing out there, and he wasn't the one facing him.
Everyone wanted to test Minato. Not out of envy—but respect. He wasn't a descendant of the Nine. He wasn't born with a legacy. His parents? Nobody knew them. But when the world was burning, he became their hope. If there's such a thing as a straight-up good guy in this calamity-wrecked world, it's him.
If they needed a hero?
I'd vote for Minato, too.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
The battlefield stood silent.
Claire's twin phantasms—sword and shield on one side, spear on the other—hovered at her flanks. Her golden armor shimmered under the artificial arena light, her stance sharp and poised.
Minato reached into the inner pocket of his uniform and pulled out a small crimson veil. With calm precision, he tossed it to the ground. It unfurled midair.
A dense mist of blood droplets shimmered briefly—then began to coil. Chains.
Hundreds of them. Gleaming, metallic, alive.
Blood Conversion.
By absorbing aether into preserved blood, Minato could mold it into chains—shifting, spiraling, even thinking chains. They say a single drop of his stored blood could form a hundred meters of linked metal. Now imagine a whole veil.
It hovered mid-air, a glistening storm of chain links forming into a monstrous sphere. It pulsed like a beating heart.
Then Claire moved.
No hesitation.
Her sword-and-shield phantasm dashed, flanking wide. The spear phantasm launched forward, its weapon glowing as it began its barrage.
The spears rained down.
Minato didn't flinch. Not even a blink.
He moved like a conductor at the center of a symphony—fingers twitching, foot curling into the ground.
Then—
BLAG!
A chain molded mid-air, forming a colossal fist, crashing down on the sword-and-shield phantasm. It raised its shield in time, barely withstanding the impact—but the ground beneath cracked.
The remaining chains recoiled, hugging Minato's right arm, slithering around it like a loyal pet.
The spear barrage hit next.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Explosions lit up the battlefield—smoke, light, heat—
And yet…
Not even a scratch.
Minato's chains had formed a wall. No, a fortress. A towering shield, pulsing like a living thing.
Then, his voice—quiet, but commanding.
"My turn."
He darted forward.
Fast.
The sword-and-shield phantasm reacted, but it was too late.
Chains lunged, wrapping around it like a serpent, crushing it mid-motion. The shield bent. The sword trembled.
Minato advanced—chains coiling into a gauntlet around his left arm.
Claire, seeing the charge, activated her armor.
Her golden phantasm flickered—
But she hesitated.
She blocked.
Not countered—blocked.
Minato's gauntlet struck her shield—
BOOOM!
The shockwave blasted her backward, skidding across the battlefield.
Claire landed hard, sparks scraping off her boots. The spear phantasm tried to react—
But Minato was already above it, a lance of chain in hand, twisting like a drill.
SHHRRRRRK!
A metallic screech echoed as the lance pierced through.
The phantasm—disintegrated.
Then the sword and shield—gone.
Three phantasms reduced to dust.
Minato stood calm, chains forming a halo behind him.
Claire surged up with a burst of aether, still refusing to back down. She dashed forward, blade raised for a downward slash.
But Minato?
He sidestepped.
Just a whisper of movement.
Then—
BLAM!
An uppercut. Direct to her jaw. Her head snapped back—thank the heavens she had armor.
She staggered, tried to counter—
DUCK. HOOK.
A clean right side-punch connected. Her feet left the ground.
BOOM.
She hit the ground like a crater impact.
Her headgear cracked—still intact, but barely.
Chains wrapped Minato's leg.
He wasn't done.
He walked to her downed form, picked up a nearby training blade—the one dropped by her fallen phantasm.
Raised it.
Stabbed—
Right into the helmet's center.
Ping.
Aether drained.
AETHER CRITICAL.
The arena roared.
"WINNER: MINATO KUROGANE—TEAM RAT!"
The silence shattered.
Cheers, claps, screams—everything thundered across the stands.
And me?
I just stood there, watching Minato walk back to his team.
Chains floated behind him, calmly orbiting like guardian spirits.
I didn't miss the way Sol clenched his fist.
Didn't miss how Claire, still on the ground, finally removed her cracked helmet and looked up—not in defeat… but in quiet rage.
She lost.
And Minato?
He hadn't even gotten serious.
I proceeded to the arena and carried Claire, her weight surprisingly light—almost like her pride had drained all strength from her body.
Her face was devastated. Not from pain, but from something far deeper. A kind of silent collapse. One that doesn't scream, but settles in the eyes—the kind of loss that shakes your belief in who you thought you were.
As we walked past Sol, I looked at him—just a glance—and whispered a single word, laced in a quiet bloodlust:
"Stop."
He felt it. I know he did. His flame stilled. He said nothing. No mocking grin. No sarcastic quip. He just passed by us and entered the arena.
Claire, barely audible, whispered, "I lost."
"Yeah," I replied softly. No sugarcoating it.
She paused. Her voice trembled. "Was that gap... really that big?"
I wanted to lie. But instead, I played the fight back in my head—the calculated restraint Minato displayed, the way he held back on every hit. Every movement wasn't just reaction; it was orchestration. From the punch that crushed her shield, to the uppercut that felt like a slow-moving meteor—Minato wasn't just fighting. He was teaching. A lesson Claire was forced to receive.
And with the phantasms?
He didn't hold back there. He tore them down.
So I nodded. "Yeah… big. But it's not unreachable. You'll just have to learn how to let your ego down… and your Aether up."
She looked at me, searching for something. I don't know what—answers, excuses, validation.
I just kept going.
"Expectations can weigh you down, Claire. You're chasing the brightest star by always trying to be first. But you forgot something."
I looked forward toward the arena, where Sol was taking position.
"Being first doesn't mean you'll be the one who gets it. Sometimes… it's the one who prepares the most that ends up holding it in the end."
Claire didn't speak. She didn't need to.
I walked out of the arena toward the bench seats, heart still pounding. Watching Sol prepare for his match.
And I thought to myself:
I'm no guiding star. No preacher of values. But after saying all that, my legs won't stop shaking. My voice felt like it echoed inside me more than it did for her.
And yet, somehow… I think it mattered. Even if just a little.