CHAPTER 6 — The Ones Who Left Him Behind
The first time Balik saw the ground move, it wasn't from an earthquake.
It was from Mira.
They stood in the center of the training yard, air thick with sweat and cold iron. The sky above was a dull gray, the kind that never decided whether it was day or night. Tier 1 kids lined the outer ring, Tier 2 closer in, Tier 3 watching from the shadows with hooded eyes.
Balik stood among the Tier 1s—smaller, thinner, but straighter than most. His black hair stuck to his forehead in damp strands. His mud-brown eyes, with those strange, faint gold flecks, were locked on the three people at the center:
Varun.Mira.Ishan.
Mira's brown eyes were unreadable, her hair tied into a tight braid that fell down her back. Ishan stood beside her with his usual slouched posture, red-brown hair messy as always, amber-gold eyes half-lidded like this was just another drill.
But there was something different today.
Everyone felt it.
Varun stood in front of them, his dark coat catching the weak light, scar pulling at his cheek when he spoke.
"Fourteen," he said quietly. "The age your core either wakes… or we stop wasting food on you."
A ripple went through the trainees.
Balik's fingers curled against his thighs, but his face stayed calm.
He'd heard about awakenings. He'd seen Tier 3s with strange, heavy aura pass through the yard like ghosts carved from power. But he'd never seen how it happened.
Now Mira and Ishan were the ones in the center.
"Begin," Varun said.
Two instructors stepped forward and pressed their palms flat against Mira's and Ishan's chests. Not gently. Not with care. Like they were checking a piece of metal for cracks.
"Breathe," one of them ordered.
Mira inhaled slowly, chest rising. Ishan sucked in a breath, jaw clenched.
Balik watched their faces.
At first, nothing happened.
Then Mira's eyes shifted.
The brown deepened, dark soil after rain, and then a faint, molten amber ring formed around her pupils. The air around her feet shivered. The ground vibrated, just a whisper, stones humming like something in the earth had woken up and rolled over.
Her fingers twitched once. Her jaw tightened. For a split second, her composed posture faltered, muscles straining against something invisible inside her.
Cracks formed in the dirt beneath her bare feet—tiny lines spiderwebbing outward.
Balik felt it, even from where he stood. A pressure, low and heavy, like standing too close to a cliff edge.
Mira exhaled.
The tiny quake stopped. The cracks remained.
Her eyes… were not the same.
Same color, yes—earth-brown. But behind the brown was a faint glow, a depth. Like the ground itself was watching back.
Ishan's awakening wasn't quiet.
His breath hitched, then came out in a harsh, ragged exhale. His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
His amber eyes widened, pupils sharpening. A faint red-gold light flickered in them. Heat rolled off his skin, subtle at first, like the air around him had remembered summer.
Then the warmth became undeniable. The kids closest to him shifted, frowning.
"Why is it hot?" a boy whispered.
Ishan's chest rose and fell fast. His shoulders flexed. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to scream—but he didn't. He gritted his teeth, body shaking, feet planted hard.
A faint red shimmer danced across his arms, disappearing as quickly as it came.
He let out a long breath.
The heat settled.
His eyes—amber before—now seemed brighter. Deeper. Like there was a small flame burning behind them, waiting.
Varun stepped closer, studying them both. His amber-brown eyes, dull compared to theirs now, reflected their new power.
"Earth," he said, glancing at Mira. "Stable, heavy, patient. Good."
His gaze slid to Ishan. "Fire. Predictable, if you learn not to burn yourself first."
Ishan smirked weakly. "Can't promise anything."
Varun didn't smile.
Around them, the whispers started.
"Tier 3 now—""They awakened—""Second stage if they survive long enough—"
Balik didn't move.
He stared.
Mira turned her head slightly, meeting his gaze across the yard.
Her eyes, with that new glow under the brown, felt heavier now. Less human.
She didn't smile.
She just looked at him like she always did—studying, weighing—but something in that look had changed.
As if now, she wasn't just thinking about breaking people.
She was thinking about what she could bury.
When the crowd finally dispersed, Balik found himself sitting on the edge of his bunk, hands resting on his knees. The dormitory was quieter than usual. Some kids whispered about awakenings. Some pretended not to care.
He didn't know what to feel.
Jealousy?
Fear?
Admiration?
All of it blurred together into a tight knot in his stomach.
"Oi. Little ghost."
Ishan dropped down onto the bed opposite his, legs spread, elbows on his knees. His hair looked like it had tried to catch fire from the inside, slightly wilder than before. His skin still held a faint warmth, like the heat hadn't fully gone away.
He grinned, of course.
"Did I look cool?"
Balik stared at him. "You looked like you were being cooked."
Ishan barked a laugh. "So cool, then."
He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. "Feels weird. Like… there's a furnace in my chest. Not burning me yet, but waiting."
He lifted his hand, palm up, and concentrated. For a brief second, the air above his skin wavered, a thin shimmer like heat over stone.
Nothing more.
"Not enough to start a fire," he muttered. "Yet."
"Yet," Mira's voice echoed from the doorway.
She walked in, posture as straight as ever. Her braid swung behind her, neat, tight. Her bare feet made no sound on the floor.
Balik watched the way she moved. Same as before. But her presence was heavier. Solid. When she stopped beside his bed, he could almost feel the floor beneath him remembering someone was standing on it.
She looked down at him.
Her eyes were still brown.
But now they seemed… deeper. Like if he stared long enough, he'd see layers—soil, stone, something ancient.
"Congratulations," he said quietly.
"You look at me like I've changed into something else," she replied.
"You have," Balik said.
She considered that, then nodded. "Yes."
Ishan leaned back on his palms. "We're Tier 3 now," he said, almost lazily. "Assassination candidates. Big jobs. Big risks. Big deaths if we fail."
He didn't sound worried.
Balik looked between them.
"What… is a core?" he asked finally. No one had really explained it to him before. Just their favorite words: awaken, ascend, die.
Ishan whistled. "You got this one," he told Mira. "You're the one who actually listens when old people talk."
Mira ignored him.
She lowered herself to sit on the floor in front of Balik's bed, legs crossed, back straight, hands resting lightly on her knees. Somehow, even sitting, she managed to look like she was carved out of something harder than flesh.
"Everyone is born with a seed," she began. "Most never grow it. They live and die without knowing it was there. But people like us… our seed can turn into a core."
"Like a… stone?" Balik asked.
"A stone that eats and breathes," Mira said. "It sits near your heart. At first, it's sleeping. Awakening is when you force it to open its eyes."
"Not gently," Ishan added. "They crush you with training, pain, fear. If you survive and your soul is strong, the core responds."
Mira tapped lightly at her chest with two fingers.
"Stage one is when the core forms," she said. "You feel energy move inside you for the first time. Stage two is when that energy obeys you better. Stage three, they say, is when you can act without thinking—your core reacts like a muscle."
"And… element?" Balik asked.
"Affinity," Mira corrected. "Everyone has one. Fire, earth, water, wind, shadow, light, more. Some rare fools get two."
Her eyes narrowed slightly on him when she said that.
"Fire burns, rages, consumes," she said, nodding at Ishan. "Earth waits, endures, crushes." She tapped her own chest again. "Core + affinity = mana. Mana feeds everything. Without it… you're just meat."
Ishan shrugged. "Fun meat."
Balik clenched his hands.
"Why didn't I awaken?" he asked.
"Because you're eight," Ishan snorted. "We awakened at fourteen. You've got time."
Mira tilted her head.
"Not just that," she said softly. Her eyes slid over his face, his posture, his stillness. "Your mana is… strange."
"How?" he asked.
She reached out without warning and pressed two fingers against the side of his neck, where a pulse beat faintly.
Nothing flared. No heat. No tremor.
"Almost nothing," she murmured. "No glow. No warmth. It's… empty. Like a room without light."
She drew her hand back.
"Emptiness is dangerous," she said. "People with too much power get noticed. People with no presence get underestimated."
Her gaze held his.
"I think you're one of those."
Ishan blinked. "So, like, his 'power' is being pathetic?"
Mira didn't bother looking at him. "His power," she said, "is that people won't see him coming."
Balik said nothing.
Inside, something shifted.
Shadow.That was what it felt like. Not the warm, angry, loud power of fire. Not the heavy, solid strength of earth. Just emptiness. Quiet. Space where things could hide.
Tejas's voice whispered faintly inside him.
Do you really want that? To be someone no one sees?
Balik didn't answer.
Two years blurred into bruises and blood and bone-deep exhaustion.
Balik grew taller.
Not by much. But enough that his limbs didn't look like sticks anymore. Ropes of lean muscle lay under his skin, built from endless running, climbing, hanging, crawling. His shoulders straightened. His posture, once fragile, settled into something alert and coiled.
His hair stayed black and always a little messy. His eyes—muddy brown with those odd gold flecks—grew colder around the edges. Quieter.
He became very good at not being seen.
While Tier 1 kids stumbled and coughed and cried, he learned to fade into corners. To slip between bodies. To step where floorboards didn't creak. To move in the shadow of others' noise.
Instructors stopped calling his name to punish him.
They stopped calling his name at all.
He completed every Tier 1 requirement.
Killed an animal monthly, without flinching. The first time, his hand had trembled afterward. The fourth time, he washed the blood off his fingers and only felt tired.
Watched Tier 2 beat the weak weekly. He learned to stay just far enough away to not be picked, just close enough to watch.
He heard more rumors about Tier 3 assassinations. Some came back. Some didn't.
Mira and Ishan changed, too.
At sixteen, they moved like weapons that had been sharpened too often.
Ishan's body filled out, muscles carved onto his arms and shoulders. His messy hair fell in his eyes constantly. His amber-gold eyes seemed to glow even in low light. Sometimes, when training got intense, heat shimmered faintly around him. He could scorch a training dummy's surface with his bare palm if Varun allowed it.
Mira… solidified.
Her presence was heavier now. When she stepped onto the yard, people unconsciously adjusted their footing. Her earth-brown eyes held that soft internal glow all the time, like buried embers in soil. The ground seemed to remember her steps. She no longer needed to raise her voice; when she spoke, people listened.
They were Tier 3, second stage.
Balik remained Tier 1.
Not because he was weak.
Because the organization had other plans.
The day everything shifted, the air in the courtyard felt wrong.
Too still.
Too expectant.
Tier 1 and Tier 2 trainees were lined up. Tier 3, including Mira and Ishan, stood farther back with folded arms, watching. Varun stood in front of them all, coat perfect, scar catching the late afternoon light.
Beside him stood someone Balik had never seen before.
Tall. Black cloak. Mask covering half their face, leaving only sharp eyes exposed. A small symbol, crimson and simple, was stitched at the collar—a circle with three lines radiating inward.
Even the instructors stood straighter.
Outer Circle.
Balik knew the term in the same way he knew "storm" or "disease." It belonged to things that shaped lives from far away.
Varun's voice cut through the silence.
"Some of you have lived longer than you should," he said. "Some of you have not lived long enough for what I have planned. Today, we decide who moves and who stops."
His eyes landed on Balik.
Held.
"Balik," he said. "Step forward."
Every head turned as the small, dark-haired boy moved from the Tier 1 line.
His feet were silent. His back was straight. His face was unreadable.
He stopped in front of Varun.
The masked figure's eyes slid over him slowly. Assessing. Weighing.
"This one?" the stranger asked quietly. "He has not awakened."
"No," Varun replied. "But mana isn't the only measure of usefulness."
The stranger hummed.
Suddenly, a gloved hand reached toward Balik.
Instinct flared. Every part of him screamed to move, to dodge, to vanish.
He stayed still.
The fingers pressed briefly against his forehead.
Nothing happened.
No heat. No surge. No pain.
The stranger's eyes widened—not in disappointment.
In interest.
"There's almost nothing," they murmured. "Like staring into a dark well."
"Exactly," Varun said. "Even those with mana sense can't feel him unless they look directly. And most people don't look at children."
The stranger's gaze sharpened.
"A ghost," they said.
"Shadow," Varun corrected softly.
Balik felt cold spread through his chest at the word.
Shadow.
The stranger lowered their hand.
"Fine," they said. "Use him. If he survives, we'll talk."
They stepped back, folding their arms.
Varun faced the gathered trainees.
"Balik has completed all Tier 1 requirements," he said. "He should have been moved already. But I held him back for a reason."
Murmurs in the rows.
"He doesn't awaken," someone whispered.
"He's too small—"
"He's useless—"
Varun raised a hand. Silence.
"Tier 2 is not just strength," he said. "It is control. Of body, of mind, of others. Today, Balik will take his first step into that path."
His eyes bore into Balik's.
"You will do a mission," he said. "With Mira and Ishan."
Balik's pulse skipped.
He had never been sent outside with them before. Not like this. Tier 1s rarely worked directly with Tier 3. That gap was where most people died.
"It is not optional," Varun added calmly. "Refuse, and I consider your training a failure."
A failure didn't mean extra laps.
Balik knew that.
"Yes," he said simply.
Varun nodded once.
"Mira. Ishan."
They stepped forward, flanking Balik like two sides of the same blade.
Mira on his left—straight-backed, braid lying flat down her spine, brown eyes steady. Ishan on his right—loose shoulders, easy posture, golden eyes flicking between Varun and Balik.
Varun's voice dropped slightly, addressing them as a unit.
"This is not a kill-mission," he said. "Not yet. The Outer Circle requires information. You will get it."
He unrolled a small map on a nearby crate.
Balik leaned forward.
The map showed a part of the city he'd never seen. Dock lines. Warehouse rows. Narrow alleys.
"Here," Varun tapped a rectangle near the river. "A shipment. Smuggled goods—beast parts, mana crystals, refined metal. Belongs to a rival group too arrogant to know their place."
He looked directly at Balik.
"You will enter this building," he said. "You will count crates. Watch guards. Map exits. Mark where the most important boxes are stacked—color, markings, placement. You will return without being seen."
Balik nodded once.
"Mira and Ishan will not do the work for you," Varun continued. "They are there to keep you alive long enough to be useful. They will observe. They will not interfere unless absolutely necessary."
He looked past Balik to them.
"If he fails, you will report exactly how and why."
Ishan frowned. "And if he dies?"
Varun's expression didn't shift. "Then he wasn't worth Tier 2."
Silence.
Balik's jaw tightened.
Tejas's voice inside him whispered, This is insane.
Balik's answer was silent, but clear.
Survive first. Argue later.
Varun rolled up the map and handed it directly to Balik.
"Memorize it," he said. "You have one hour. After that, we burn it."
Balik took the paper. It felt heavier than it should.
Varun turned away, dismissing them.
The masked stranger's gaze lingered on Balik a moment longer, then followed.
They sat in a quiet corner of the yard—Balik, Mira, and Ishan—map spread out on the stone between them.
The others trained in the distance, the clang of weapons and shouts washing over them in waves.
Ishan leaned on his elbows, eyes scanning the lines. His shoulders were broad now, arms roped with muscle. Even relaxed, he radiated a very human kind of danger.
"Easy," he said. "Two guards at the door, one at the back entrance, probably two or three inside. You slip in, we watch your back. Job done."
Mira gave him a side glance. "Or there are double the guards, hidden watchers, traps, and dogs."
"If there's dogs," Ishan said, "you're doing the killing. I don't like biting."
Mira looked at Balik instead.
"You understand why they chose you?" she asked.
Balik traced a route on the map with one finger.
"Because I'm small enough to fit through gaps," he said.
"That's one reason," Ishan said. "Not the real one."
Balik looked up.
Ishan tapped his own chest. "We awakened," he said. "Stage two now. Our mana leaks even when we're careful. Anyone with training can sense us within a few paces if they're paying attention."
He pointed at Balik's chest.
"You?" He smirked. "You're a blank space."
Mira nodded slowly. "I can feel almost everyone now," she said. "Their cores. Their temperature. Their heaviness. But you're like a hole. When you move, my senses slide around you."
Her gaze sharpened.
"That makes you perfect for this," she said. "You can slip right past people whose job it is to notice threats… because you don't feel like one."
"We…" Ishan shrugged. "We shine. You don't."
"Thank you," Balik said dryly.
Ishan laughed. "It's a compliment here."
Mira tilted her head. "We carry weight," she said quietly. "You don't. But one day, that emptiness will fill with something. When it does…"
She didn't finish the thought.
Balik felt the shadow inside him stir.
Not warm. Not heavy.
Just… there.
You don't belong here, Tejas whispered, thin but insistent.
"I belong where I can live," Balik muttered under his breath.
Ishan heard him.
"That's the right answer," Ishan said. "Listen, little ghost."
He leaned forward, eyes serious now under the lazy mask.
"This is your Tier 2 door," he said. "You pass this mission, Varun has no excuse to keep you at Tier 1. You fail…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
"These people," Ishan continued, gesturing around them with a vague sweep of his hand, "only care about two things: can you obey, and can you be useful. You're already more useful than any Tier 1. They just don't trust your mind yet."
Mira's brown eyes met Balik's. "You still ask 'why' sometimes," she said. "They don't like that."
He didn't deny it.
"Stop asking 'why' for one night," she said. "Ask 'how.' How to move. How to watch. How to survive. Save the 'why' for when you're strong enough that it matters."
Her tone wasn't unkind.
That made it worse.
Balik looked down at the map again.
Lines, boxes, paths.
He memorized them.
Every corner. Every angle. Every mark.
An hour later, he handed the map back to Varun without a word.
Varun didn't check his memory. He nodded to an instructor.
The map went into the fire.
Flames ate the paper, curling the edges, turning routes and marks into ash.
"Tomorrow night," Varun said. "You move."
Balik only bowed his head slightly.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
He lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. Shadows from the window bars cut across his face. The room was filled with the sound of breathing—soft, harsh, steady, restless.
Mira lay on her side a few beds away, back to the room, braid a dark line against the thin blanket. Ishan was sprawled on his back, mouth slightly open, snoring faintly.
Balik closed his eyes.
Images spun.
Warehouses. Guards. Crates. The masked stranger's touch. Varun's cold gaze. Mira's glowing earth-brown eyes. Ishan's ember-bright ones.
Tejas whispered from somewhere deep:
You don't have to become what they want.
Balik's chest ached.
He answered only in thought.
I have to live long enough to choose.
In the darkness, alone with his doubts, the reality settled like a weight in his bones:
At eleven years old, he was about to step into his first real mission.
Not to kill.Not yet.
To prove he could be the weapon they were shaping.
And whether he wanted it or not—
the world would only see his shadow.