The Administrative Hall roared the moment Orin stepped inside.
Voices crashed over each other—students arguing over training scores, instructors barking evaluation times, clerks snapping out names while quills scratched across parchment. It felt less like a hallway and more like the inside of a living thing, pulsing with ambition and nerves.
Kahn-Ra padded beside him, silent and unhurried. He didn't growl, didn't bare teeth, didn't posture. He simply existed—and that was enough to carve a circle of space around them.
A young novice cut across their path, arms full of scrolls. She brushed too close, sensed that presence, and froze mid-step. Her gaze dipped, met two calm golden eyes staring up at her.
She dropped every scroll she was holding.
"S-sorry!" she blurted, scrambling after rolling parchment.
Kahn-Ra didn't blink.
Orin winced. "We talked about looking less like you're hunting people."
I am not hunting them, Kahn-Ra's voice drifted through his mind. If I were, they would not still be walking.
"That's… not reassuring."
It was not meant to be.
Orin sighed and stepped up to the registration desk.
The clerk didn't glance up. "Name."
"Orin Slain."
"Division?"
"Unassigned initiate."
She flipped through a ledger, quill tapping. "Dorm 3B, West Wing. You'll share with two—no pets al—"
She finally looked up.
Her eyes hit Kahn-Ra.
Her quill stopped moving.
"…Oh."
"He's cleared," Orin said quickly. "Bonded companion. General Lox signed off."
Kahn-Ra's thought brushed him, dry as dust. You demote me every time we speak to officials.
"Do you want to sleep outside?" Orin muttered.
"What?" the clerk snapped.
"Nothing," Orin said louder.
She scribbled something onto the roster with a hand that was just a little too stiff. "Fine. 3B. West Wing. Just—keep it under control."
Orin nodded and moved away before she changed her mind.
Kahn-Ra followed, tail swaying lazily. Humans fear what they do not understand.
"They're afraid of getting mauled in a hallway," Orin whispered.
That, too.
They stepped out into one of the main corridors. Obsidian-dark stone lined the walls, carved with curling arcane patterns that caught and bent the lanternlight. Floating orbs drifted overhead like slow moons, Radiant cores inside each one brightening and dimming as clusters of students passed underneath.
Laughter bounced off stone. Boots clacked. Someone bragged loudly about almost knocking an instructor on their back. Someone else bragged louder that they had.
Conversation thinned as Orin walked by.
"He's the one Lox brought in.""Yeah, the kid from that evaluation.""Did you see the way he moved?""Forget him—look at that thing next to him.""That's not a beast pet.""Why hasn't anyone removed it?"
Kahn-Ra's ears twitched, almost pleased.
They listen to their instincts, he told Orin. For once.
"Can you not enjoy this?" Orin muttered.
I enjoy accuracy.
"Of course you do."
They reached the stairwell that led up into the West Wing. Two older boys stood at the landing, leaning against the door frame like they owned the hallway. One had mottled stone patches up both forearms—Blood Hunter, low to mid-tier. The other wore a ring of small metallic bands around his wrists that hovered and chimed faintly with each heartbeat.
The stone-armed boy stepped forward. "Wing's full."
Orin blinked. "My dorm is in here. 3B."
"Right," the metal-ring boy said, smirking. "But this hall's for actual prospects, not some first-week stray dragging a wild beast."
Kahn-Ra's head lifted a fraction.
His pupils narrowed.
The metal rings shivered like something invisible had brushed them.
Orin felt the pressure a split-second later. Not wind. Not magic. Just a weight in the air that made his lungs work a little harder.
"Kahn-Ra," he warned under his breath.
He is posturing, Kahn-Ra replied. Badly.
The stone-armed boy stepped closer and tapped Orin's chest with two fingers. Not hard. Just sharp. Dismissive.
"Do yourself a favor," he said. "Go back downstairs. Let the real hunters have this floor."
The pressure around Kahn-Ra thickened.
The metal rings clattered to the ground.
Both boys flinched, hands curling toward their chests like something heavy had pressed down from above. Their eyes went wide, pupils blown, as if their bodies realized something wrong was standing very, very close to them.
"What the—?" the ring boy breathed.
Kahn-Ra stared at him. No bared teeth. No sound.
Only that gaze.
He touches what is mine, Kahn-Ra said to Orin. Once is warning. Twice is invitation.
"No," Orin hissed, stepping slightly in front of him. "We are not doing this over a hallway."
He disrespected you.
"I've been disrespected before."
Not while under my watch.
Orin grabbed Kahn-Ra lightly at the scruff, enough contact to feel the tension in the muscle beneath fur. "Kahn-Ra. Let it go."
For a heartbeat, golden eyes stayed locked on the stone-armed boy.
Then the weight vanished.
Both older students staggered like someone had lifted a yoke off their shoulders. The metal bands jumped back into the air around the magnetic boy's wrists, orbit settling shakily.
"W-what is that thing?" he whispered.
"Your problem if you keep standing there," Orin said. His voice came out a little sharper than he intended. "I said I'm assigned here. I'm going through."
They didn't argue.
They moved.
Fast.
Orin blew out a breath and headed down the hall.
You should have let me press harder, Kahn-Ra told him. They would not try again.
"I don't need you starting a war over a door."
I do not start wars. I finish them.
"That's exactly what worries me."
The West Wing was quieter. Not softer—just… different. Less frantic rookie energy, more focused tension. Students here walked like they'd already seen real missions—like they knew what Monari looked like outside controlled arenas.
Orin felt their eyes on him as he passed. At Kahn-Ra more than himself.
"Is that the bond-beast from the yard?""Yeah. Lox let him keep it.""Why?""Maybe he's dangerous enough that they'd rather know where he is."
Kahn-Ra's tail flicked once, lazy and unimpressed.
They smell afraid of their own shadows.
"They're not wrong to be cautious," Orin said quietly.
They are not cautious, Kahn-Ra replied. They are noisy.
At last they reached door 3B.
Orin hesitated a breath.
This wasn't just a room. This was the place he'd sleep, think, maybe dream if his head ever gave him the space. The place he'd walk back to after every failure and every small win. The place where people who didn't know anything about the Fangs would share his air.
He put his hand on the handle.
"Here," he murmured.
He pushed the door open.
The dorm was bigger than most back at Drill City—three beds, three desks, a central space just wide enough for someone reckless to set up a sparring circle in. A single tall window looked out over a portion of the training yards, morning light sliding across the floor in angled bands.
Two boys were already inside.
One sat at the window, one knee up, forearm resting across it, gaze turned down toward the grounds. Dark hair, sharp eyes, posture relaxed but coiled—like he could stand and move in an instant if he had to.
Wake.
He turned at the sound of the door and grinned. "There you are. Thought you got lost in paperwork, Orin."
Some of the tension in Orin's shoulders bled off at the familiar voice. "The clerk almost passed out when she saw Kahn-Ra. That slowed things down."
"I have that effect," Kahn-Ra said.
The other boy knelt in the middle of the floor, surrounded by metal bits and wiring. He jerked upright so fast he almost toppled over when he saw the bobcat.
"What in three moons is that?" he blurted.
Kahn-Ra hopped lightly onto the nearest empty bed, tail curling around his paws like a king settling onto a lesser throne.
"Relax," Wake said easily. "That's Kahn-Ra. General Lox cleared him. He's with Orin."
"With Orin?" the boy repeated. "It's looking through my head."
"It does that," Wake said.
Orin closed the door behind him. "He won't hurt you."
The boy did not look convinced.
Kahn-Ra turned his gaze on him—not hostile, just measuring.
This one smells like metal dust and overthinking, he told Orin. Harmless. Possibly useful.
"Try not to say that out loud," Orin muttered.
Wake pushed off the windowsill and crossed the room. "Since the academy can't be bothered to do proper introductions—" he gestured between them "—Hiroshi Starke, meet Orin Slain. Orin, this disaster is Starke."
Starke blinked. "Rude but fair."
Wake went on. "We ran evaluation rotations together and Lox stuck us in the same training cluster. Apparently we're all a package now."
Orin nodded once. "Guess we survived long enough for that."
Starke's eyes widened. "You're the one who went toe-to-toe with that storm-finch nutcase, right? I saw the tail end from the stands."
Orin's jaw ticked. "I stayed standing."
"Barely," Wake said, but there was no mockery in it—only respect. "Which is the part that matters."
Kahn-Ra settled onto the mattress, finally looking…
If not content, then at least accepting.
These two will do, he told Orin. For now.
"High praise," Orin murmured.
"What?" Starke asked.
"Nothing," Orin said quickly.
Starke scooted back to his scattered tools, though his gaze kept flicking between Orin and Kahn-Ra like he couldn't decide which was more interesting. "So we're all West Wing now. That means they already expect us to not die horribly. No pressure."
Wake glanced at Orin's new dorm band on his wrist. "You get your schedule packet yet?"
"Just dorm assignment," Orin said. "I came here first."
Wake smacked his forehead lightly. "Right. They'll probably shove the rest at you before evening drills. Don't worry, I'll walk you through which classes are actually useful and which ones are slow death by lecture."
"There is no slow death," Kahn-Ra said. Only poor time management.
Starke stared at him. "Does it… does he do that all day?"
"Yes," Orin and Wake said at the same time.
Silence fell for a heartbeat.
Then, unexpectedly, Starke laughed. A quick, bright sound. "Okay. This is going to be fun."
Orin looked around the room one more time. The beds. The gear. The window. Wake's easy grin. Starke's nervous energy. Kahn-Ra pretending not to care about any of it while watching everything.
It didn't feel like home.
But it didn't feel like exile either.
Somewhere in between, for now.
Orin set his pack down by the empty bed Kahn-Ra had claimed and rolled his shoulders.
"Guess this is us," he said.
Wake nodded. "Yeah. This is us."
Starke pointed a screwdriver at them both. "Front-row seats to whatever trouble you two drag in."
Kahn-Ra's tail flicked once, satisfied.
Then let it begin, he thought, and Orin didn't disagree.