The first spring formed in Elias's hand before the gray world fully released him.
It was heavy, rough, and ugly. Not a clean weapon. Not a proper tool. A coiled length of dark metal that fought his grip as if it wanted to snap open and take his fingers with it.
Dot pressed both palms to the shard and shouted through the strain.
"Hold the picture steady, because I can pull from it if you stop thinking in circles."
"I am being attacked by a professional. My thoughts are entitled to circles."
Yui moved.
Elias saw him this time, not clearly, but early enough. He slapped the incoming wrist aside and felt the spring answer the motion. A second coil snapped into existence and wrapped around Yui's forearm.
Yui's eyes narrowed.
Elias heard the suit at his collar. "Reserve has dropped to forty-eight percent."
That dropped too fast.
He did not have time to care.
The field had become a puzzle for one breath. Elias saw where the suit pushed power, where Yui braced, and where the coils could make that confidence turn against him. He did not understand the math. He understood the direction.
Yui tried to rip the spring away. The coil tightened instead. Elias threw another one toward Yui's opposite wrist. It missed, hit the dirt, bounced, then snapped upward like it had found the current in the suit.
The second spring clamped on.
"Dot, keep them stable around his arms."
"That is not a small request," she snapped, but Elias kept his grip. "Put it on my debt list."
Yui powered up, green lines brightening across his suit as he authorized forty percent output.
The springs pulled harder.
Yui's wrists slammed toward each other. He planted his feet and resisted, suit humming loud enough for Elias to feel it in his teeth.
For the first time, the man looked irritated rather than bored.
"What is this technique supposed to be?"
Elias could see the answer because the gray vision had left a pattern behind his eyes. The coils were not strong on their own. They were responding to output, grabbing the electrical pressure in Yui's suit and turning it against his motion.
He almost tried to explain.
Then he remembered he was still in a fight.
Elias rushed in and drove his shoulder toward Yui's centerline. Bad form. Better timing. Yui shifted to counter, but the springs pulled his arms inward at the wrong instant.
Elias hit him, not hard enough to drop him but hard enough to make the contact real.
The third spring formed too late and struck the ground behind Yui. Elias tried to lift it anyway, but his hand only twitched. The ability was not a muscle he could flex yet. It was a door Dot had forced open with both shoulders, and the door was already trying to close.
The collar voice cut through the moment. "Reserve has dropped to twelve percent."
Elias's knees weakened.
The gray edges vanished. The springs broke apart into metallic dust before he could force them back into shape. Dot made a small sound and folded against his chest, her glow thinning.
Yui stepped free and lowered his hands.
Red marks circled his wrists where the coils had held.
Elias pressed one palm into the dirt and tried not to fall flat.
"That was better than getting punched for free."
Yui powered his suit down. "Your ability is inefficient, unstable, and dependent on stress."
Dot lifted her head. "You forgot creative and personally upsetting to your wrists."
Yui looked at her for a long second.
"It worked because my suit gave it something to bite. Against a low-output target, you may waste energy for nothing. Against a stronger target, you may exhaust yourself before the restraint matters."
Elias accepted the criticism because he could feel the truth in his shaking legs.
"I still learned something useful today."
"You learned that you are weak."
"I already knew that part, and the useful part is that weak is not fixed."
Yui's expression hardened.
"People say that at the start. They say it when bruises feel meaningful. Later, when their bodies stop recovering cleanly and the fear becomes routine, most people bargain with their old weakness."
Elias pushed himself upright.
"Then I will try to become annoying before that happens."
Dot floated up just enough to point at Yui.
"He is already very annoying, so the foundation is strong."
Yui moved one hand back toward his chest panel.
Elias lifted his guard, even though his arms felt empty.
A woman's voice cut through the stadium speakers.
"Enough now, preliminary testing is complete. Further combat risks the subject's condition and compromises tomorrow's course data."
Yui's hand stopped.
Elias let his shoulders drop because pride was not worth another reserve warning.
The speaker continued.
"Elias Kael will receive treatment and report for debrief, and First Lieutenant Rakamaki will stand down."