"Lys... Lys... LYS!"
"Who is calling my name?"
She stood still, turning the word over in her mind the way you turn a coin when you're not sure which side is real.
"That name... that identity...
Is that actually me?"
It was winter.
The white mist of her own breath drifted upward and dissolved, and for some reason that was the only thing keeping her calm. Her hands were cracked and calloused, her clothes nothing more than rags stitched together from other ruined things. Her eyes were hollow — the kind of hollow that comes not from one bad night but from a long, quiet accumulation of them.
She touched her own face.
Strange. All of it strange.
Nearby, a contaminated lake sat still and grey. She approached it without meaning to — drawn by some instinct she couldn't name — and looked down at her reflection.
Her eyes went wide.
"Who... The sound that came out of her wasn't quite a word. WHO ARE YOU?!"
Hours passed before she found her feet again.
She walked without a destination, moving through the narrow streets of the slum the way water moves through cracks — not by choice, just by pressure. The people around her parted. Not out of respect.
Out of something else.
Their eyes moved to her hair first. Then away. Nobody spoke to her. Nobody stopped.
Blonde hair. The thought surfaced, detached and clinical. In a place like this, blonde hair means noble. And nobles don't belong here.
She was about to keep walking when she heard it.
"...help... someone please..."
The sound was small. Almost swallowed by the general noise of the streets.
She turned.
Two children — a girl sitting against a crumbling wall, clutching her side, and a boy crouched beside her, voice low and urgent, trying to get her to stand. The girl's expression was tight with pain she was trying not to show.
Lys moved before she decided to.
"Let me... help."
Her voice came out strange. Thin. Like something she hadn't used in a long time.
The girl looked up at her — wary, but not refusing. The boy said nothing. His face was unreadable.
"Your wound looks serious." Lys knelt down slowly. "I can... I can treat it."
She pressed her hands carefully over the injury. The girl flinched. Held still. Allowed it.
The whisper of an incantation rose to the surface of Lys's mind without effort — like a reflex, like breathing — and she let it out in a murmur, the words low and steady.
Then—
A flash.
White. Fast. Gone in an instant.
When the light faded, the wound was closed.
"Th-thank you!" The girl's face broke open with relief, the pain already gone from her eyes.
Lys exhaled.
Then the boy grabbed his sister's arm and yanked her backward.
"GET AWAY FROM US!"
Lys didn't move.
"I don't remember asking for help from some pathetic noble." His voice was sharp and certain, the way a child's voice gets when they've learned to be certain early. He pulled his sister close and turned away without another word.
They were gone.
Lys remained where she was, kneeling on the cracked stone.
Why. The word came once, then again, and again, and again — why, why, why, why, why—
Is it my hair? My height? My face? Does any of that matter after I just—
No.
It wasn't disgust. It wasn't contempt.
It was fear.
She was still trying to understand that when two figures in dark hoods rounded the corner and stopped a few feet away.
"Sir — the light came from this direction." One of them spoke to the other, then turned to her. His voice shifted, careful now. "Was that you? That flash — it was fast. Powerful." A pause. "Was it you?"
Lys pulled her knees to her chest.
"Y-yes... that was... me..."
The two figures looked at each other.
Then, without a word, they both dropped to one knee. Their heads bowed. Their hands opened, palms up — a posture Lys had never seen directed at her before.
"You will come with us." The voice was quiet. Certain. "You'll leave this place. You'll have a new life."
A beat.
"...Saint."
The world went dark.
Ow—
"Are you alright?"
Lys blinked.
Giyo was watching her with the careful attention of someone who had just seen something they didn't have an explanation for yet.
"I'm fine." She pressed two fingers to her temple. "Just... a headache."
She was back.
The cafeteria. Midday. Nearly empty — just the two of them at the far end of a long table, the sounds of the rest of the school muffled by distance.
She blinked again, slower this time.
Whose memories were those?
"It's been a few weeks since you started here." Giyo leaned back slightly, easy and unhurried. "Are you settling in?"
"...Yes." She looked down at her hands, then back up. "Your group is strange, I'll say that. The girls are always near you, Kirio seems permanently irritated, and Petra — I've barely heard her voice since I arrived."
Giyo laughed quietly. "Fair."
"But don't misunderstand — I'm not saying you lead them."
"I don't."
"You do." She said it simply, without cruelty. "They follow what you say. What you decide. It's not something you chose — it's just what you are." A pause. "It makes sense that you're the Champion."
Giyo opened his mouth, then closed it.
DING... DING...
The bell broke the moment cleanly. Chairs scraped. Footsteps filled the corridors. The cafeteria woke up all at once.
They stood to go, and Giyo fell into step beside her.
"Lys."
"Hm?"
"You never answered my question." He glanced sideways at her, a little sheepish. "I figured that was why you went quiet back there. I was explaining things, and you completely zoned out." He exhaled. "So — I'll say it again. My arm isn't responding. Hiro and Professor Paola think they've found someone who can help, but they're based in the noble district." He paused. "I'm officially inviting you to come with us."
Lys stopped walking.
"...Me?"
"You've been around the group. It'd be strange not to include you."
Something shifted in her expression — quick, quiet, there and gone.
Something that looked a lot like the opposite of being left behind.
When they reached the classroom, the others were already waiting — and so was someone else.
Paola stood at the front, arms folded, radiating the specific energy of someone who has been waiting slightly longer than they wanted to.
"You took your time." She didn't wait for a response. "You're leaving now."
"Now?!" Giyo blinked. "Right now?!"
"The King is already asking questions about students missing class in the noble district. We don't have time to be careful about timing."
Before anyone could process that, a familiar figure rounded the corner at the end of the hall.
Giyo moved toward him before the others recognized who it was.
"Neru." There was something warm in his voice — the easy recognition of someone you don't have to explain yourself to. "What are you doing here? And where's—"
"Frey?" Neru grinned. "Safe in the palace. I got assigned to guide you all to the noble district." He glanced at the group, then back at Giyo. "Honestly, I've never been there myself — but I know how to handle the beasts pulling the carriage, so that counts for something."
"Beasts?"
Paola stepped forward, clearly delighted to have a teaching moment.
"The creatures we're referring to," she said, clasping her hands together, "are called Drakars. Part dragon, part wolf — used for heavy transport and long-distance travel. Exceptional animals. Very reliable." She paused, then added, with the tone of someone sharing a personal accomplishment: "I arranged them myself."
The group stared at her.
Someone stifled a laugh. Then someone else. Then Paola herself broke slightly, which made it worse.
They were still smiling when they climbed into the carriage.
The city moved past the windows in layers.
First the crowded streets they knew — loud, colourful, the kind of busy that feels lived-in. Then the commercial quarter, where the noise changed pitch. Then the front of the Guild, familiar enough that a few of them leaned to look. Then, gradually, something else.
The streets narrowed. Then widened again — but differently. The cobblestones became smooth black tile. The buildings grew taller and further apart. Small planters lined the walkways, carefully maintained, flowers in colours that had no business being that precise.
Silence settled over the carriage.
"...Is this real?" Kirio's voice was flat with the effort of not sounding impressed. "This is the difference between us and the nobles?"
"First time seeing it." Giyo watched a row of trimmed hedges pass by. "It's a lot."
Neru twisted around from the driver's seat, glowing. "Told you. Class is a whole education."
"You said you'd never been here either."
"Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it."
Lys sat quietly, watching the streets go by.
Why is he like this? The question drifted through her mind without warning, unprompted, directed at the boy across from her. Why does everything feel... easier when he's there?
She felt warmth rise to her face and looked away immediately.
"Hey." Pan's voice arrived low, close to her ear. "Don't go getting flustered over him. I'm watching you."
"Same." Asuna's tone was pleasant in the way that meant it wasn't.
Lys laughed — genuinely, unexpectedly, a short bright sound that surprised even her.
"You're both very loyal," she said. "At least someone's paying attention to who's around him."
The words landed with more weight than she intended.
Neither Pan nor Asuna responded.
But neither of them looked away.
The carriage slowed as the streets emptied further.
The tower Paola had described was visible now — tall, narrow, rising above the rooftops with the quiet authority of something that had been there long before the surrounding buildings.
Neru guided the Drakars forward, and for a moment everything was still.
Then—
THOOM.
The Drakars lurched. The carriage rocked. The animals refused to move another step, ears flat, something in their behaviour that wasn't stubbornness — it was instinct.
Neru was already on his feet, sword drawn, eyes scanning.
THOOM. THOOM.
Closer.
BOOM.
Something hit the ground ahead of them hard enough to crack the stone.
The dust settled slowly.
A woman stood in the crater.
She wore a Hanfu — traditional, layered, immaculate despite the landing. Her horns curved back from her temples, smaller than you'd expect but sharp. Behind her, a long scaled tail moved with unconscious balance. Her expression, as the dust cleared and she found a sword pointed at her face, was one of profound inconvenience.
"...Honestly." She brushed a hand through her hair. "You humans could stand to be a little more passive."
"Who are you?" Neru's voice was controlled. "State your purpose."
"Mm." She tilted her head. "Another one. I'm running out of patience for this."
CRASH.
Something else landed behind her — less graceful, significantly louder. A man hauled himself upright, gripping a massive axe, chest heaving, fury radiating off him in waves.
"YOU—" Red's voice shook with the effort of not being a scream. "You threw me into the sky and acted like nothing was going to happen! The only reason I'm alive is because I managed to cushion my own landing!"
The woman spared him a brief glance. "You're alive, aren't you?"
"THAT IS NOT THE POINT—"
The situation had become difficult to categorize.
Two captains present. One unknown variable. Nobody sure whether this was a threat or a misunderstanding.
Then the woman's eyes moved past all of them.
They found the arm.
The black arm. Dark veins visible through almost-translucent skin. Still. Unmoving.
Everything in her expression changed.
The irritation drained out of it instantly, replaced by something older and more complicated — the look of someone who has just recognized something they were not prepared to see.
"...That arm."
She didn't finish the sentence.
She moved.
She was faster than anything in that street had any right to be — faster than Red's reaction, faster than Neru's, faster than the space between one heartbeat and the next. She was already in front of Giyo before anyone had processed that she'd left the ground.
Giyo's hands came up on instinct.
Something answered.
The whips erupted from his palm — not a strike, not a weapon, but a reflex his body understood before his mind did. They coiled outward in rapid overlapping layers, weaving together, thickening into a dense curved wall of shadow.
Her claws hit it.
CRACK.
The sound was wrong — not the impact of flesh on flesh, but something harder, like ceramic under pressure. Her claws fractured against the surface, and the pain that crossed her face was immediate and genuine.
"AHHH—" She recoiled, clutching her hand. "What is that ugly thing!"
Then — before anyone could move — a streak of white light crossed the space between them.
It caught the edge of her face.
Just the edge. But it was enough.
She threw herself backward, landed in a crouch, and reached up slowly.
Her hair had come loose on one side.
And one of her horns — the smaller one, the left — fell and hit the cobblestones with a sound like a ceramic bowl breaking.
The street went silent.
Her face was still. Empty. The kind of empty that comes after something has been taken that cannot be given back.
Then she dropped to one knee.
Her head bowed.
"...Master."
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Giyo stared at the top of her head.
"...Master?" His voice came out at approximately half its usual volume. "What — BUT WHAT—"
"You are my master now." She looked up at him, expression entirely sincere. "That's simply how it works." She glanced around at the others, registering their blank faces. "...You don't know who I am, do you."
A collective silence confirmed it.
She exhaled — long, put-upon, the sigh of someone who has had to explain themselves too many times today.
"My name is Milica. I'm a Dragonoid — from the Dragon Kingdom." She stood, composing herself with the practiced ease of someone who has maintained dignity through worse. "In our culture, when a Dragonoid loses a horn, it means the one who bested them is stronger. And when someone is stronger, you serve them. That is the law."
"So I..." Giyo pointed at himself. "I'm your—"
"Master. Yes."
Hu hu hu.
The laugh was strange. Short, rhythmic, not quite matching any conventional expression of amusement.
"Don't worry," she added pleasantly. "I won't attack any of you again. At least — not until my primary business is resolved."
Red stared at her. "That's... not the reassurance you think it is."
"Get in the carriage," Neru said, in the tone of a man choosing his battles. "Both of you. We have a destination."
The journey resumed.
Red and Milica joined the carriage, and in the time it took to reach the tower's street, she explained everything — her departure from the Dragon Kingdom, the encounter with Red that ended with both of them falling from a considerable height, and the reason she had come to this kingdom in the first place.
"Your father," Red said slowly, once she finished. "King Drago. He actually threatened to destroy everything just to find a worthy opponent?"
"He's done it before." Milica said this without irony.
"And you know his title." She glanced around the carriage. "The Challenger of the Skies — that name was given to him in a previous era. It surprised me that you recognized it."
"Anyone who's heard of serious combat history recognizes it," Neru said.
"Then perhaps you'll understand why his mood has become... urgent." She folded her hands in her lap. "He fought countless opponents in his years. None of them lasted. He grows restless."
"Has anyone ever actually beaten him?" Giyo asked.
Milica paused.
"Once." The word carried weight she hadn't used for anything else. "Seven hundred years ago, my father ran with a pirate crew. They were called the Imperial Skull." She straightened slightly, and something in her voice shifted — the particular pride of someone recounting a story they've carried for a long time. "Their captain was unlike anyone my father had encountered. Dark red hair, braided back. A black-bladed sabre at his hip. A mark over his right eye. Eastern-style clothing — the kind that moves with you rather than against you."
She paused.
"My father said this man defeated him with a single strike."
Red's jaw tightened. "Someone beat Drago in one hit?"
"Impossible," Neru said — then stopped himself.
"His name," Milica continued, "was Rex Dex. Captain of the Imperial Skull."
The carriage went quiet.
Not the casual quiet of people thinking. The specific quiet of people whose minds have just encountered something too large to immediately process.
Then, all at once—
"...WHAT."