BALIK'S POV
It had been one year since he had started to train in tier 2, and it was not easy, not because of training, pain, or anything that is hard here, but because he had been starting to feel numb and stopped asking questions.
At first when I was told to kill an animal for the first time, I hesitated; the same goes for when I first beat a tier-one child, but as time went on, I stopped hesitating.
Now I don't feel guilt, remorse, or hesitation; I feel numb.
And lately the only thing that had been with me since I was a child had gone nearly silent.
When I was a child, I think everyone had something like that, so I started to ask what their voice said, but then I realized only I had it. I don't know what it is, but it always questions why, and I also thought why.
But now it was silent; it rarely spoke now. It always tells me to be free and kind. And I can't be, not at least now or here. I don't know about the future.
It is too soft and panics very easily for everything. When someone gets hurt, it tells me if I have power, I should help others, but what is help? I don't know.
And there are many things, but it talks very little, or like it's only his thought that triggers when he sees something to tell me not to do it. And I can't listen to him, not because he's wrong or I want to do it, but because I don't have a choice.
Just like that, he started talking even less. I feel like the emptiness in my heart has grown. I feel alone all of a sudden. There are Mira and Ishan, who live with me because you have to live with your mission unit, and even if you have better resources, you have to live in the tier of your lowest member, and they didn't even complain.
But I don't feel like they are with me. Mira is like a child waiting for me to break and enjoying me cracking, and Ishan is like a dog in the street waiting for orders and not caring who is passing.
Even if I look calm and sharp, I am starting to crack. Most don't notice, but Varun and Mira have noticed it. I'm starting to feel like someone has put a heavy stone on my head and is adding more weight every day.
I feel frustrated, angry, confused, and anxious every time. and more after training and speech. That the voice in my head called manipulation, and slowly I also started to notice how they control us—they break us and then give us support.
He sat up slowly. His tied black hair slid against the back of his neck. The strip of cloth at the base of the tail was frayed. He smoothed it once, like a small ritual. The motion had no meaning beyond order. It steadied him.
Then, like a whisper, someone called his name. "Balik"
It was the voice in his head; once it had been stronger, more like a hand at his shoulder that reassured him someone was generally with him, but now it is a memory of warmth. He closed his eyes, took a long breath, and left the bed before the torches were properly lit.
The courtyard held a low fog that the lamps could not yet burn away. Forst pinched at stones.
The organization—cold, precise, built not to teach but to forge—moved through the morning like a machine waking. The walls swallowed noise and returned only the sharp echo of practiced feet.
Two people sat on the far platforms. Mira and Ishan. If you look around, you could find more seating in a meditation position, absorbing mana and filling their mana.
Mira and Ishan had reached Tier-3 three years ago. They are seventeen now, and I am maybe 12. Their bodies pulsed like two dull moons under skin.
They looked like something the place had chosen and then polished. Mira's hair was tied; it lay heavy down her back.
Her eyes were sharp in the meditation light. Ishan's shoulders were broad. He breathed slowly and steadily. Both of them had been prodigies or near enough. They had been given days; the rest would not.
Balik watched them from the edge of the practice field. He felt nothing like envy. He felt the small clear need he had learned to name: strength is escape. Strength is currency. Strength is the only argument that mattered inside the organization.
Mira opened her eyes and met his gaze. She did not smile. She stepped off the platform and walked to him with the quiet surety of someone used to being watched rather than watching.
"You don't sleep," she said. Her voice was small. It still carried the way she catalogued people. "You are cracking more."
He could not tell if she meant pity. He could not tell if she meant hunger.
"It looks beautiful," she added. Her eyes show a hint of the madness she had, like seeing her favorite play. And that makes her dangerous.
He did not answer. He had learned answers were unnecessary.
Ishan nudged a piece of bread into his palm and said, without patience and without malice, "Eat."
The small domestic kindness landed like a stone against his ribs and made something twist in his chest. He held the bread and kept the motion of not eating as if not eating could keep him sharper.
But seeing them train like that, he remembered a question he had asked before: why I don't awaken. He was at Varun's office; he knew it was wrong, but even then he asked why he didn't awaken.
To answer him, Ishan said,
"Everyone is born with a seed in the heart," he said. "A vessel and a soul make it bloom mostly. Prodigies may force that bloom at twelve or thirteen. Most awaken at fourteen to late twenty as there talent, body, and soul. Some never do.
But there are two methods to accelerate awakening. Acceleration: gradual, risky, but survivable. Forced ignition: fast, deadly. Eighty to ninety percent fail under forced ignition—even those with good bodies."
But then Varun said he should have started to show the sign of awakening and should have awakened by now, but he didn't even now show any sign.
He said there are many reasons. The main ones are body and soul, but not having self-awareness and not accepting themself or their nature.
Like Mira, she didn't accept her nature at first, so she was a little late, and Ishan wanted to awaken late, so he was forced to stop awakening. To awaken with her, I wouldn't give permission to others, but he is talented and useful to...ahem...people and strong enough to have freedom.
But I don't know why you don't even show any sign of awakening. It may be anything, but I think you are hiding your true nature, your madness.
Madness is good, but you are empty. I don't know what it is that you are controlling so hard as to not even let anyone glimpse it. But it is good; any kind of madness is good. It is easier to control mad people than silent people.
Hearing it, Baliks swelled and nodded.
Then he said, "I will wait till you complete your Tier 2 training; if you awaken good, otherwise he will have to go." forced ignition"
Then Mira said, "So you are an empty vessel."
Only remembering it, his thin body tensed, and he felt goosebumps, and his empty golden-greyish-brown eyes showed wariness of what will happen in the future.
Then he went in the dorm because it is too early for tier 2 training. He lay on the bed and simply closed his eyes.