As I sat back on the stone bleachers with the girls jockeying for my attention, I quietly focused my mind and let my appraisal skill wash over them to see exactly who had just joined my circle.
The blonde-haired girl with the striking golden eyes who was staring up at me with rapt attention was Cindy Ella, her gaze fixed on my face as if trying to decipher the mystery behind my sudden burst of power.
Pressed tightly against my opposite side was Amelia Earhart, a girl with dark hair whose large chest was heavily brushing against my skin with every breath she took, anchoring herself to my arm with a shameless lack of personal space.
Flanking them both was Aisha Tyler, a sharp-featured girl with vibrant red hair and piercing green eyes who kept playing with the edge of her collar while tossing subtle glances at my hidden cloak.
I leaned into the attention, letting them cling to my ivory uniform and shield me from any stray sunlight while the rest of the first-years continued to clumsily clash in the sand below.
The sheer absurdity of the moment wasn't lost on me. A group of shallow academy girls, Cindy, Amelia, and Aisha, were practically throwing themselves at Zenni Roy, completely unaware that the boy they were clinging to was actually a battle-hardened hunter with a scorched shoulder and a mind set on a political assassination plot.
"You know, Zenni, Josan was always so loud, but he never had the spine to back it up. You... you didn't even flinch when he hit you. What else are you hiding under that big cloak of yours?"
Amelia purred, her voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial murmur as she pressed even closer against my arm
"He's hiding a genius mind, obviously, a first-year mastering blood spheres? The Principal is going to move you to the elite tracks by next week. You'll need proper partners to study with." Cindy added
Cindy chimed in from the step above us, leaning over my shoulder so her golden eyes met mine. Aisha nodded rapidly, her green eyes locked onto my face.
"We never really liked Josan anyway. He was getting so erratic lately. Always sneaking off to the Western District. But you're different. You have real power." Aisha said calmly
Down in the arena, two more first-years were clumsily trading low-tier fire magic, the crackle of sparks a distant backdrop to the whispers of the harem around me. I leaned back against the stone step, letting out a soft, dismissive hum that made the girls lean in even tighter.
"Josan was a waste of space, but if you girls want to stay by my side, you need to be useful. I don't keep dead weight around."
Amelia shifted, her eyes flashing with a mix of excitement and submission.
"Name it, Zenni. Whatever you need."
I smiled beneath the shadow of my hood, my one good eye scanning the gymnasium exit. The class assessment was winding down, and the heavy afternoon sun was finally starting to dip lower in the sky. My shoulder was still throbbing beneath the shapeshifted skin, but with these three popular girls entirely under my thumb, I now had the perfect social shield to move anywhere on campus without a single person questioning why the ghost was suddenly walking the halls.
Then Plasma muttered through my thoughts as a predator.
"Well, well, well, Eirene, disguising as a broke dealer and living a harem of a false's bodysuit."
"Shut up."
The roar of the crowd dissipated as Miss Karrie stepped back into the center of the sand, her glowing clipboard reflecting the final tally of the assessments.
"Attention, class, since the first-year sector currently only has eight active students, and given that the other matches resulted in double-draws and mutual yields from exhaustion, we have our final results. There are only two official winners today: Zenni Roy and Garret Pink."
I hadn't been paying a single shred of attention to the clumsy displays of magic happening in the ring. I had spent the last twenty minutes simply leaning back against the cold stone, letting Cindy twist a lock of her blonde hair between her fingers, while Amelia shifted closer, ensuring the soft weight of her big boobs remained firmly pressed against my arm. Aisha was whispering a shallow rumor about the upper-year students into my ear, her green eyes wide with simulated awe.
But the moment Miss Karrie uttered that surname, Pink, my mind snapped completely out of the hedonistic haze.
A heavy wave of realization washed over me. I remembered Gary, the twitchy, desperate alchemist I had encountered down in the damp, toxic depths of the meth lab. Before his life had been swallowed by the Guild's demands, Gary had frantically babbled about his pride and joy, a son who was attending the academy on a prestigious scholarship. He had bragged that the boy was an absolute prodigy in the rare and volatile art of Liquid Metal Creation.
I shifted my gaze away from the girls, my eyes scanning the arena floor until they landed on the only other student standing victoriously in the sand.
There he was. Garret Pink.
He stood alone, completely ignoring the rest of the class, casually wiping a sheen of silver, mercury-like residue from his fingertips. He possessed the same sharp, calculating eyes as his father, but without the hollow, haunted look of a sewer-dwelling addict. He was composed, disciplined, and undeniably powerful. To think that my own classmate, the top student of Room 1-B, was the very son Gary was cooking poison to protect.
Garret turned his head, his cold gaze cutting through the gymnasium until it locked onto me sitting on the bleachers. He didn't look at the harem of girls clinging to my uniform, he looked straight at my face, his eyes narrowing with a dangerous curiosity. He knew Zenni was supposed to be a low-life drug runner, yet here I was, matching his victory with a suicidal skill.
The girls noticed my sudden stiffness, Amelia shifting her weight against my arm to regain my attention, but my focus was entirely locked on the metal prodigy below. Gary's son was standing right in front of me, and he might just be the missing link I needed to understand how deep the Guild's roots ran into this academy.
"Zenni Roy, Garret Pink, step down to the arena floor for the final match,"
Miss Karrie's voice echoed through the massive gymnasium, signaling the end of my brief reprieve on the bleachers.
I gently disentangled myself from Cindy, Amelia, and Aisha, ignores their disappointed groans as I stepped back down onto the sand. The moment I crossed the threshold into the mana dome, Miss Karrie met me at the edge. Sensing the residual heat radiating from my shoulder, she raised her glowing hands, weaving a quick burst of cooling renewal magic that instantly closed the blistering sun-burns on my skin.
"Good luck, Zenni," she murmured softly,
Her eyes holding a trace of genuine concern. But before I could protest, she reached out and firmly unclasped my heavy captain's cloak, sliding it off my shoulders to ensure a fair, unhindered match.
"No gear to obstruct the view this time."
With my protective cloak gone, I was left standing in just my standard ivory uniform under the vaulted ceiling, fully exposed as I walked to the center of the ring to confront Garret.
Down in the subterranean gloom of the chemical lab, Gary's face had been completely hidden behind the thick, cracked lenses of a rubber protective mask. I had never actually seen the man who died to protect this boy. But looking at Garret now, seeing his dark black hair shot through with distinct streaks of pale blonde, a sudden, heavy pang of guilt twisted my stomach. It was the exact same hair I had seen peeking out from beneath that filthy alchemist's hood. His father was dead because of the very system we were standing in, and I was the one who had watched him fade away.
The atmosphere inside the dome grew suffocatingly tense as we faced each other. Garret casually rolled his shoulders, his fingers twitching as liquid quicksilver began to bead and ripple across his knuckles like living jewelry.
Before Miss Karrie could raise her whistle to her lips, Garret locked his dark eyes onto mine. His posture was rigid, carrying the classic, guarded arrogance of a prodigy who had grown up fighting for every scrap of respect, but the words that left his mouth caught me completely off guard.
"Hey, I know what the others say about you, Roy. But I saw how you handled Josan. If you're really trying to pull yourself out of the gutter and survive this place... then don't hold back on me. Show me what that blood mages' grit can actually do."
Garret said, his voice dropping into a low, distinctly edgy tone that tried desperately to hide a deeper vulnerability. Garret's gaze didn't waver as he reached into the inner pocket of his ivory uniform. With a smooth, practiced motion, he pulled out a pair of heavy, charcoal-grey gloves and slid them over his hands, pulling the cuffs tight.
I quietly focused my mind, letting my inspect skill scan the fabric. A wave of recognition hit me. They were high-grade, heat-resistant tactical gloves woven from a specialized magic fiber, the exact same high-density, element-repressing material that would eventually be used to line my own future trench coat.
It was a brilliant tactical choice. The moment his mana flared, the silver liquid metal began to bubble and seep directly from his skin, rapidly melting and shaping itself over his hands. The quicksilver glowed with a faint, iridescent sheen, radiating a scorching, distorted heat that would have instantly melted the flesh off a normal mage's bones. But behind the protective fiber of those gloves, Garret was completely immune to his own volatile element.
He raised his metallic, silver-clad fists, a thin trail of vapor rising from the liquid armor as it constantly shifted and rippled over his knuckles. He was ready.
Miss Karrie stepped back to the very edge of the shifting mana dome, raising her hand high into the air. The entire gymnasium went dead silent, the first-year students on the bleachers leaning forward in anticipation, while Cindy, Amelia, and Aisha watched from the front row with bated breath.
"Ready...Set..."
Garret lunged forward, the liquid metal on his right arm extending into a jagged, whip-like blade before his feet even left the sand.
"...GO!"