Hasphien's POV
It had been days since my collapse in the hallway, and for the first time all week, the physical world felt steady.
Morning sunlight poured through the high homeroom windows in thick, golden ribbons—the kind of warm, lazy light that promised an entirely ordinary school day. I leaned back into my chair, closing my eyes and savoring the blessed, unfamiliar silence inside my head. There were no blinding migraines. No jagged, terrifying flashes of white light behind my eyelids. No cold, metallic whispers gnawing aggressively at the base of my skull. For one beautiful, boring hour, I was just another student dissolving into the mundane hum of the crowd.
Then, the heavy double doors of the gymnasium swung open, and the peaceful illusion was shattered completely.
"Alright, class! Line up on the baseline!" our head P.E. instructor barked, his booming voice echoing off the steel rafters like a judge's gavel. "Standard Physical Assessment. You all know the drill. State testing parameters apply today."
He stepped directly into the center of the polished floorboards, his hand slicing sharply through the air to draw a social line that felt a mile wide and a hundred years deep.
"Arkan-bearers to the right field. Non-bearers to the left."
Beside me, Yinoh let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, his shoulders slumping forward in mock, exaggerated agony. "Wish me luck, Hashy," he muttered, casting a wary glance over at the 'elite' side of the gym where the air was already thick with ambient tension.
I felt a rare, genuine spark of playfulness tug at the corner of my mouth. "You'll survive."
He puffed out his cheeks, threw me a smirk, and trudged over toward the right field.
As the two groups finished separating, the gym doors slammed open once more with a loud, metallic echo. A petite, unassuming woman hurried into the room, clutching a stack of digital clipboards tightly against her chest.
"Terribly sorry I'm late, Head Coach," she panted, her voice small and breathy as she hurriedly adjusted the thick frames of her glasses.
"Class, let's welcome your guest evaluator for the tactical season, Miss Jill," the head coach announced, his posture instantly straightening with an unusual level of deference. "She will be personally heading the Arkan-bearer assessment today. She has… a rather particular set of combat standards for those blessed with celestial gifts."
The very moment the word gifts left his mouth, the temperature in the room plummeted.
Without a single word of warning, a searing, blinding white light erupted from Miss Jill's petite frame. I instinctively shielded my eyes with my forearm as her silhouette began to violently warp and distort within the glare—stretching, expanding, and thickening until it loomed three times its original structural size.
When the blinding light finally died down, the timid, clumsy woman was completely gone. Standing in her place was a towering titan of a woman, an elite military veteran whose exposed arms were heavily scarred by a hundred border raids. She exuded a terrifying aura of raw, crushing mana.
She didn't look at us. She turned her back completely on the Threadless students as if we were nothing more than background furniture. Her razor-sharp gaze locked onto the right side of the gym, pinning the "elites" in place with terrifying intensity.
"To the right field, now!" she rumbled, her voice possessing a deep, tectonic frequency that literally vibrated the floorboards beneath my boots. "If the heavens gave you power, I am here to see if your fragile bodies are actually worthy of carrying it. Fall behind my pacing, and you'll wish you were Threadless. Move!"
On our side of the dividing line, the air stayed cold, quiet, and clinical. We weren't given grand displays of power; we were given the standardized, unyielding metrics of the ordinary. The tools of the Threadless: a digitized reaction-speed matrix, a climbing wall of polished glass, and a target firing range. There was no magic here. Just raw, biological mechanics.
I stepped up to the firing range and lifted the heavy training pistol, but the terrifying truth was... I wasn't the one holding it. Or at least, it didn't feel that way.
The moment the combat targets blinked into existence—erratic, high-speed strobes of crimson light dancing across the dark range—my right arm snapped to the side with the absolute, mechanical precision of a clockwork gear. My brain hadn't even processed the layout before my finger pulled the trigger.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-TAP!
Five shots. Five perfect, dead-center mass hits.
My heart began to pound a frantic rhythm against my ribs, not from physical exertion, but from a cold, rising terror. I hadn't even finished a single breath before the clip was completely empty. My muscles hadn't bunched. I hadn't aimed. My body had simply performed an equation.
"Maxence," the instructor muttered, his electronic stylus scratching frantically against his tablet as he stared at the readout. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. "That's... zero point four seconds. For the entire diagnostic set. Do it again."
I did. And then I did it again. And each time, my right hand felt like it was being guided through space by an invisible, incredibly cold magnet hidden beneath my skin.
Across the gym's dividing line, the atmosphere wasn't a test—it was an absolute massacre.
Miss Jill loomed over the Arkan-bearers like a living thunderstorm made of meat, bone, and crushing gravity. On their side, the air had turned into a violent vortex of fire, shattered earth, and whipping wind as the students desperately tried to channel their elements through the physical torture she was putting them through.
"Is that all your pathetic 'divine gift' gives you, Wallev?!" she roared, her booming voice easily drowning out the sharp cracks of the firing range.
Yinoh was mid-sprint, sweat completely soaking through his uniform shirt. He was desperately trying to navigate a training field of shifting, high-density gravity plates that cracked the floorboards beneath his feet. The ambient mana-drag in his zone was so thick it looked like shimmering waves of heat, actively resisting his wind magic, pinning his arms to his sides.
"My grandmother moves faster than that, boy, and she's been dead since the Third Border War!" Miss Jill jeered, stepping into his path and unleashing a shockwave of raw force that he had to hurriedly deflect with a panicked barrier of air. "Push through the mana-drag or get off my field!"
I moved on to the obstacle course, trying my absolute best to ignore her terrifying screams. The hurdles were impossibly high, the zig-zags sharp, and the final climb was a ninety-degree wall of frictionless glass. Usually, an un-Threaded student like me would be gasping for air by the second turn.
Today, my feet barely seemed to touch the linoleum.
I cleared the high hurdles in a blur of terrifyingly efficient motion that I couldn't quite claim as my own choice. When I reached the base of the climbing wall, gravity simply... softened. The phantom thrum beneath my sternum vibrated, and my fingers found microscopic ridges in the glass with automated ease, pulling my entire body weight upward as if I were made of nothing but feathers.
I reached the summit in record time and looked down over the edge.
Below me, the proud Arkan-bearers—the elite children of Upper Iris who usually looked down on us in the hallways—were collapsing in heaps, their faces pale, their elemental auras flickering out under the brutal weight of Miss Jill's special assessment.
"No shortcuts!" she barked, kicking a student's shield away with her armored boot. "If you cannot win with your physical body, you do not deserve the power of the soul! The Weave demands a proper vessel!"
After a brutal, unrelenting hour of testing for both the Threadless and the Arkan-bearers, the sharp blast of the whistles finally blew, echoing like a gunshot through the cavernous room.
The entire gymnasium went dead silent, save for the heavy, ragged, and agonizing breathing of the elites on the right side. Miss Jill stepped slowly into the dead center of the room, her towering silhouette still fierce and unbothered, her sharp eyes scanning the Arkan group with visible, burning disappointment. She snatched the master digital clipboard from the head coach's hands, her lip curling in a slight sneer.
"The physical scores are calculated," she announced, her voice a low, commanding rumble that demanded absolute attention. "Top of the Non-Arkan-bearers: Hasphien Maxence. Unprecedented kinetic response. Somehow."
She slowly turned her icy, piercing gaze toward the right field.
"And for the Arkan-bearers… Yinoh Wallev holds the top spot. By a narrow margin."
Yinoh let out a shaky, deeply relieved breath, wiping a streak of black soot and sweat from his forehead. He looked up across the dividing line toward me, flashing a weak, tired, but triumphant thumbs-up.
But Miss Jill wasn't remotely done. She tossed the digital clipboard back into the head coach's chest without a second glance at my friend.
"Don't you dare celebrate, Wallev," she spat, her voice cutting through the silence like a razor blade. "You were merely the best of an utterly pathetic lot. If this lazy, fragile group is the supposed 'future' of Upper Iris, then this city is already dead."
Miss Jill swept out of the gymnasium with the head coach hurrying in her wake, leaving a vacuum of stunned silence behind them.
As if on cue, the entire class collapsed. The proud Arkan-bearers hit the floor in a miserable heap of bruised limbs, burning lungs, and ragged breath, the sheer, crushing weight of the assessment finally breaking their spirits.
I stood still, looking down at my unblemished, perfectly still hands. My heart wasn't racing. My lungs weren't burning. I wasn't tired at all. It felt wrong—like I was a statue standing in a graveyard.
I walked toward Yinoh. He had pulled off his soaked P.E. shirt to wipe the grime from his face, his chest heaving with every breath. When I reached him, he turned his head, squinting through the exhaustion. Even now, he managed a weak, tired smile the moment he saw me.
"Yinoh," I said, my voice sounding flat, even to my own ears.
His smile faltered at my tone.
"Let's talk. Now."
I didn't wait for an answer. I turned and walked away, leaving him to scramble after me. Inside the locker room, the air was thick with the scent of sweat and the hum of industrial fans. The moment the door swung shut, I slammed it against the frame and spun on him.
"Were you boosting me out there?"
Yinoh blinked, looking hurt. "Hashy… no."
"Don't lie! I don't need pity tricks because I'm Threadless!"
"I'm not lying!" Yinoh's voice cracked, raw and jagged. He leaned back against the lockers, his chest still heaving as he met my eyes with a flicker of something that looked like genuine fear.
"I swear, Hashy... look at me." He gestured weakly to his trembling hands, his knuckles bruised from the drills. "I barely survived Miss Jill's assessment. You think I had the mana—the sanity—left to spare for a boost? I was fighting just to keep my own heart beating out there."
He wiped a smear of grit from his forehead, his jaw clenching with a defensive edge. "I don't know what's happening to you, but don't pin this on me. I'm empty, Hashy. I've got nothing left to give."
Logic told me he was right—his exhaustion was too real to be faked—but the suspicion in my gut refused to quiet down. If it wasn't him, then the world had truly tilted on its axis, and I was the only one who hadn't been told why.
I didn't stay to apologize. I couldn't. I stormed out, the locker room door swinging heavily behind me. My skin felt too tight, a claustrophobic heat prickling under the surface as if something inside me was trying to stretch through my very pores. I wasn't just fast; I was wrong, and the silence of the hallway felt like it was mocking the storm beginning to howl in my veins.
In the corridor, Ruvane was waiting, leaning against the wall with that trademark sneer.
"Well, well," he drawled. "So the pebble can hit. Did the heavens finally take pity on you?"
I tried to walk past, but he stepped into my path, his chest nearly brushing my shoulder. "Go on, Maxence," he sneered, the words dripping with a casual, practiced cruelty. "Hit every target you want. At the end of the day, you're still Threadless. You're still nothing compared to us... to me."
Something snapped.
It wasn't the red heat of anger; it was a surge of white-hot pressure that ignited behind my ribs and flooded down to my palms. I took two steps toward him, closing the distance before he could blink. I didn't mean to hurt him. I only meant to push him aside—a simple shove using the same strength I'd had my entire life.
But Ruvane didn't just stumble.
He flew.
It was as if a physical explosion had detonated between us. He was hoisted off his feet, his eyes widening in a split second of pure, unadulterated shock before he was launched backward. He slammed into the far wall with a sickening, hollow thud that spiderwebbed the masonry behind his shoulders.
Ruvane slumped to the floor, a raw groan tearing from his throat, but the sound was quickly swallowed by a vacuum of silence. The hallway had gone dead. I stood frozen, staring at my hands as they began to tremble. I looked around, and for the first time, I saw it—the entire class was watching. Their faces were a blurred mosaic of awe and visceral fear.
I didn't wait for them to find their voices. I turned and bolted.
I ran until my lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass, my feet moving with that same unnatural, effortless speed. I didn't stop until I reached the frosted glass of my father's lab. I hesitated, my hand hovering over the sensor. He was the only one who could give me an answer, but the weight of what I'd just done felt like a confession I wasn't ready to make.
The door hissed open, and a wall of sharp, angry voices hit me.
Through the inner glass partition, three silhouettes stood like jagged shadows against the sterile white light of the lab. One of them slammed a hand onto the metal table, the sound echoing like a gunshot.
"It was supposed to be released next week!" a voice snarled, his frustration vibrating through the glass. "How are we supposed to explain this delay to the President? The administration is expecting results, Thiago, not excuses!"
My father remained hunched over his desk, his head lowered as he feebly rearranged a stack of papers, trying to hide the tremor in his fingers. Then, his gaze shifted. He saw me standing in the doorway, and his bloodless face went even paler.
"Oh—Hasphien," Dad said, his voice strained to the point of breaking. He stood up too quickly, nearly knocking over his chair. "Say hello to Professor Declov, Professor Hugo, and Dra. Coxswain."
They didn't smile. Professor Declov gave me a look so cold it felt like a probe. "We'll continue this another time, Professor Thiago." They swept past me, leaving a trail of medicinal scent and dread.
"What was that?" I demanded.
"Academic politics," Dad sighed, though the lie sat heavy and hollow in the air.
"It didn't sound like politics." I kept my eyes fixed on the empty doorway where they had vanished, the scent of their clinical authority still lingering. I snapped my gaze back to my father. He had collapsed into his swivel chair, pinching the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to stave off a migraine.
"Dad… something is definitely wrong with me."
He looked up instantly, his posture snapping into a rigid, defensive straightness. I told him everything—the mechanical precision of the targets, the defiance of gravity on the wall, and the way Ruvane had shattered the masonry.
As I spoke, Dad's jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. Without a word, he crossed the room and slammed the override to seal the lab door. He reached into a hidden compartment beneath his desk, pulling out a tablet that pulsed with a low, blue light. His fingers blurred across the screen, swiping relentlessly through lines of data I wasn't supposed to see.
"Vitals are fine," he said, his voice dropping into that smooth, rehearsed tone he used for board meetings. "Extreme stress can cause the body to overcompensate. Adrenaline is a powerful—"
"Stop."
I lunged forward, catching his wrist and forcing the screen to stay still before he could swipe the truth away. My breath hitched in my throat.
[ Mana Intake: -45%/hr. ]
The numbers on the tablet didn't just blink; they throbbed in a violent, warning crimson. The data was a jagged mess of impossible variables. I didn't understand the technical jargon, but I understood the color of a catastrophe. Seeing that blood-red glow mirrored in the sudden, panicked mask of my father's face confirmed every suspicion I'd dragged into the room.
My breath hitched, a cold shiver racing down my spine. Dad jerked the screen away with a violent start, his thumb freezing over the glass for a heartbeat too long—the tell-tale sign of a man caught in a lie.
"Probably just a calibration error," he muttered, his voice thin and hollow. "The sensors in this sector have always been finicky."
He was lying. I felt the truth in the marrow of my bones. I felt like a storm was waking up inside me—a dark, artificial tempest that scared me more than being nothing ever had.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and demand the truth. But then I saw the deep, exhausted lines carved around his eyes and the way his hand shook as he reached for a stray paper. The weight of his secrets was already crushing him; I couldn't add mine to the pile. Not yet.
I swallowed my questions, the silence of the lab suddenly feeling heavy and sentient. As I stood there, the shadows at my feet seemed to shift—not moving with the light, but stretching, aware and waiting. I didn't know what I was becoming, but as the red numbers on the tablet continued their silent, rhythmic warning, I knew one thing for certain.
Ordinary was dead.