Yuna found her sitting alone.
The Academy had a garden, if "garden" was the right word for a space where plants grew in geometries that shouldn't be possible. Flowers with crystalline petals. Trees whose branches twisted through dimensions. Grass that shimmered between green and silver depending on the angle.
And in the center, on a stone bench: the silent girl.
She sat perfectly still. Eyes unfocused. Lips moving rapidly but soundlessly. Her hands trembled in her lap. Not Marcus's fear-tremor, but something else. Like she was trying to grab something invisible and it kept slipping through her fingers.
Yuna had been looking for a quiet place to think. Somewhere away from training, away from Thess's brutal lessons, away from the constant pressure of insufficient, insufficient, insufficient.
She almost turned around. Left the girl alone.
But something stopped her. Maybe the way the girl sat, isolated, separate, like she'd carved out this space because nowhere else felt safe. Yuna knew that posture. Had worn it herself plenty of times.
Alone because it's easier than risking connection.
Yuna walked forward. Slowly. Making noise so she wouldn't startle her.
The girl's head snapped up. Her eyes, pale gray, almost silver, locked onto Yuna with an intensity that made Yuna's breath catch.
She's seeing something. Not me. Through me? Past me?
"Sorry," Yuna said quietly. "I didn't mean to intrude. I can go."
The girl's hand shot out. Grabbed Yuna's wrist.
The touch was ice-cold. Not metaphorically. Actually cold. Like touching snow.
Yuna gasped. Tried to pull back.
Vision flooded her mind.
Yuna falling, wings broken, ground rushing up.
Marcus's fist connecting with her ribs, 50% strength, bones shattering.
Aria's wheelchair crushed beneath rubble.
A massive creature with five hundred screaming faces.
Blood everywhere.
The vision cut off.
Yuna stumbled backward, gasping. The girl released her wrist immediately. Looked horrified. Her lips moved frantically: Sorry sorry sorry I didn't mean I can't control it sorry.
"What was that?" Yuna's voice shook.
The girl's hands moved. Not sign language. Just desperate gestures: pointing at her eyes, then at Yuna, then making a motion like pages turning.
She sees things. Futures? Timelines?
"You see the future?" Yuna asked.
The girl nodded frantically. Then shook her head. Then made a frustrated noise, voiceless, just air, and grabbed a stick from the ground. Scratched words into the dirt:
NOT FUTURE. FUTURES. MANY. ALL AT ONCE.
Yuna stared at the words. "You see multiple futures? Like, different possibilities?"
Nod. Vigorous. The girl scratched more:
CANT TALK. CANT WRITE WELL. HANDS SHAKE. PORTAL BROKE SOMETHING.
"Your voice?"
The girl touched her throat. Nodded. Her lips moved again: It's still there. The voice. I can feel it. But it won't come out. Like a wall. Like trauma.
She stopped. Too frustrated to continue.
Yuna sat down on the bench. Carefully. Leaving space between them.
"Can you tell me your name? We've all just been calling you 'the silent girl' which feels..."
The girl's expression flickered. Hurt. But also resigned. Like she'd expected this.
She scratched in the dirt: NO NAME YET. FORGOT. OR LOST.
The stick broke. She stared at the pieces.
"It's okay," Yuna said gently. "We can make up a name. Temporary. Until you remember."
The girl looked at her. Those silver eyes assessing. Calculating.
Finally, she scratched: YOU CHOOSE.
"Me?"
Nod.
Yuna thought. What do you name someone who sees multiple timelines? Someone who phases through reality? Someone who's here but also elsewhere?
"Silence," Yuna said. "Would that be okay? Just temporary. Until you remember yours."
The girl stared at the word scratched in dirt. Her lips moved: Silence. The absence of voice. The presence of everything else.
She nodded. Slowly. Acceptance.
Then she scratched: THANK YOU.
They sat together in the garden. Not talking. Just existing. Two insufficient people in a quiet space.
After a while, Silence scratched another message: YOU WERE KIND. MOST ARENT. THEY SEE BROKEN. LEAVE.
"I'm broken too," Yuna said quietly. "We all are. That's why we're here."
YOURS IS DIFFERENT. YOU BREAK YOURSELF. ON PURPOSE.
The observation hit like a fist. Yuna looked away.
YESTERDAY. TRAINING. SIX HOURS. NO WATER. NO REST. THESS HAD TO STOP YOU.
"I was just..."
DYING. YOU WERE DYING. SLOWLY. MARCUS SAW. I SAW. EVERYONE SAW. EXCEPT YOU.
Silence's scratched words were blunt. Brutal. True.
Yuna's throat tightened. "I have to push harder. I'm already behind. Late arrival. Weakest Resonance. I can't afford to rest."
Silence grabbed her wrist again. Gently this time. No vision. Just touch.
Ice-cold fingers on Yuna's skin. Grounding. Real.
PUSHING HARDER DOESNT MAKE YOU SUFFICIENT. MAKES YOU DEAD.
She released Yuna's wrist. Scratched more:
I SEE FUTURES. YOURS INCLUDED. HALF OF THEM YOU DIE FROM EXHAUSTION BEFORE DAY 50. NOT ENEMY. YOURSELF.
The words hung in the air like accusations.
"I don't know how to stop," Yuna admitted. Voice small. "If I'm not pushing, I'm not improving."
118 DAYS MEANS NOTHING IF YOU DIE DAY 50.
"Then what do I do?"
Silence thought. Finally, she scratched: TRUST TEAM. LET THEM HELP. SURVIVING ALONE = DYING ALONE.
Before Yuna could respond, a new voice cut through the garden.
"Darling, is this a private tragedy or can anyone join?"
Lyric appeared through the crystal flowers like they'd been waiting for a dramatic entrance. Which, knowing Lyric, they probably had.
They wore training clothes technically, but somehow made them look like performance costume. Crimson bleeding to gold bleeding to violet, colors shifting with movement. Their hair caught the Academy's strange illumination and refracted it like a prism.
"We're just talking," Yuna said. "Well. I'm talking. Silence is writing."
"How democratic." Lyric dropped onto the bench between them. "I've been watching you two from the tower. Very touching. Very tragic. Very boring."
Yuna blinked. "Boring?"
"Sitting in gardens looking mournfully at nothing? Darling, that's first-year art student aesthetic." Lyric pulled out a small brush from nowhere, literally manifested from thin air, and pointed it at Yuna. "You need color in your life. You're all silver wings and determination. Very monochrome. Very insufficient."
The word hit different when Lyric said it. Not cruel. Just observational.
"I don't need color," Yuna said. "I need to survive."
"Boring and wrong." Lyric swirled the brush. Red paint appeared on the bristles. "Survival without beauty is just prolonged dying. Trust me. I've tried both."
They touched the brush to Yuna's training shirt.
Red spread across the fabric. Not staining. Changing. The black cloth shifted to crimson, then gold, then settled on silver-blue that matched Yuna's wings.
"There," Lyric said, satisfied. "Now you're interesting."
Yuna looked down at her transformed shirt. "Did you just paint my clothes?"
"I painted you, darling. Clothes are incidental." Lyric turned to Silence. "And you. All that silver-gray sadness. Let's fix it."
Silence shook her head frantically. Scrambled backward.
"I'm not going to hurt you." Lyric's voice softened. Just slightly. Just enough to be genuine. "I'm going to make you visible. Because right now, you're phasing through everything including your own existence."
Lyric's brush moved through the air. Colors bled into reality. Violet. Indigo. Deep blue. They settled around Silence like an aura. Not physically on her. Just present. Making her more there.
Silence looked down at herself. At the colors that now marked her space in reality. Her lips moved: I can see myself. In the colors. I'm here.
"Exactly." Lyric smiled. Sharp but genuine. "You're here. We're all here. Might as well make it beautiful while we're dying."
They sat together. Three insufficient people surrounded by impossible plants.
After a while, Yuna asked: "Why do you do that? The performance. The confidence. Is any of it real?"
Lyric's hand stopped mid-brush stroke.
"You want truth?" Their voice lost its theatrical edge. Became flat. Tired. "Fine. I was rejected from eight academies. Not because my Resonance was low. It fluctuates, 2.8 to 6.4 depending on mood. But because I'm this."
They gestured to themself.
"Gender-fluid. Visually chaotic. Mentally unstable. Quote: 'Your presence is disruptive to academy harmony.' Translation: you're too queer, too loud, too wrong for our nice neat system."
Yuna's chest tightened.
"So I performed," Lyric continued. "Made myself a joke before they could. Wore the 'attention-seeking artist' label proudly because if I'm going to be rejected, might as well be rejected for something I'm choosing."
They turned to Yuna. The performance mask cracking.
"The confidence? It's armor. The colors? They're a shield. The performance? It's the only way I know how to exist without disappearing." Their voice dropped. "Because if I stop performing, I have to face the fact that I'm here because Earth decided I was too insufficient to tolerate. And that hurts more than I can paint away."
Silence reached out. Touched Lyric's hand. Ice-cold fingers on warm skin.
No words. Just touch.
Lyric's mask shattered completely. They started crying. Not dramatic crying. Quiet crying. The kind that came from years of holding it in.
Yuna moved closer. Wrapped an arm around Lyric's shoulders.
"You're not too wrong. You're just you. And that's enough."
"Don't give me hope," Lyric said. Voice muffled. "Hope is the cruelest paint of all."
"Too bad. I'm giving it anyway. Because you just gave me color. Fair trade."
Silence squeezed Lyric's hand. Her lips moved: You're beautiful. All of you. Even the broken parts.
Lyric laughed. Wet. Broken. Real. "God, we're all disasters, aren't we?"
"Yes," Yuna agreed. "But we're disasters together."
That evening. Academy dining hall.
Seven summons sat together at one table. First time since arrival they'd all gathered outside of training.
Marcus at one end, carefully handling utensils with 1% strength. Aria at the other, tablet open, analyzing even while eating. Silence next to Yuna, occasionally scratching messages in a small notebook Thess had provided. Lyric performing dramatically even while exhausted. Chen Wei eating with military efficiency. David still clutching his book.
And Yuna. In the middle. Connecting.
"So," Aria said. "We have one hundred eighteen days left. Thess says tomorrow we start combat rotations. Full-intensity training."
"Meaning?" Chen Wei asked.
"Meaning the real training begins. Meaning some of us won't survive it." Aria's voice was clinical. "Statistically, groups this size lose one to two members in the first thirty days."
Silence's hand shot out. Grabbed Aria's wrist. Her lips moved urgently: Don't. Don't say that. Words have power. Futures shift.
"We've all survived this long," Yuna interrupted. "Portal. Reach. Baseline training. We're stronger than statistics."
Marcus looked up. "Yuna's right. We support each other. That changes odds."
Silence's notebook message, held up: FALLING TOGETHER > SURVIVING ALONE.
Lyric raised their glass. "To falling together, darlings. At least the company's interesting."
Even Aria smiled. Slightly.
David's quiet voice: "I'm scared. Every day. But I'm less scared when you're all here."
Chen Wei nodded. "Same. Military taught me individual strength. This teaches something else."
Marcus's hands steadied. "Team strength."
Yuna looked around the table. Seven insufficient people. Seven rejected. Seven broken.
But together.
"One hundred eighteen days," she said. "We make it through together. All of us. Deal?"
Seven voices responded. Some confident, some terrified, one silent but present.
"Deal."
Outside, the Academy's strange light pulsed like a heartbeat.
Inside, seven disasters became something more.
A team.
A family.
A chance.
[END CHAPTER 9]