"Some things grow twisted from the start."
The mirrored glass courtyard was being cleaned up, but a group of background trainees lingered nearby, laughing and trading light jabs. Among them stood Leth Koro, barefoot, scratching his head and smiling wide.
"That was wild, huh? That glass just stopped. You think the instructor's gonna let me walk it next?"
"Leth, shut up," one girl barked, rolling her eyes. "You're smiling like an idiot again. Don't you get tired?"
He just grinned. "You look pretty when you're annoyed. That's my fuel."
That earned a slap across the back of his head. He chuckled.
Behind them, a wheezing grunt echoed.
A few turned. Dravien Greel stood there—eyes wide, arms slightly trembling. He stepped into the group uninvited, hunched like a malformed wolf.
"You think you're funny…" he rasped. "Smiling all the time like the sun shines for you. I hate your teeth. I hate that face."
Leth blinked. "Dravien… we good?"
Without warning—Dravien's elbow shot out.
A spike of black crust burst from his skin like crystalized bone, catching Leth's rib.
Leth crumpled sideways, still smiling. But his eyes—briefly—were fogged with pain.
"STOP!" an instructor's voice rang.
But it was too late.
Dravien's skin pulsed. Iridescent vein-bulges spread beneath his flesh, as if his very body was rejecting pain and turning it into armor.
His skin cracked and sealed.
His bones bulged slightly. Fingers bent into claw-like curves.
"Vein Ascendancy Type…" the instructor whispered, stunned, "…Reactive Scar-Tissue Amplification. Rare. Usually kills the host by age fifteen."
Dravien turned slowly. His lips licked themselves, tongue twitching unnaturally.
Then his eyes fell on someone in the shadows—Nocth, who had been watching silently.
Dravien grinned now—a hideous, twisted grin.
"You're the one who doesn't leak presence. I felt it. When you stepped, everything went mute. That's what I want to break…"
He crouched slightly, every tendon bulging with tension.
"I challenge you, quiet boy. Let's see if silence can scream."
A gust of strange heat pulsed in the air.