Chapter 156: Chapter 156: Academy’s Entrance Phase Three [2]
I didn’t react when she stopped in front of me.
My face stayed level.
Pulse steady enough that the bracelet had no reason to flicker.
The hard weight in my chest from Laila’s public discard was still there, but it had settled into something usable, attention without performance.
Beside me, Rei cracked her knuckles once, slow and deliberate, the sound small in the space between teams.
"Finally," she murmured, almost cheerful.
"A proper spar."
Gianna’s hand closed on Rei’s elbow and drew her half a step back, not out of the conversation, just out of the first-impulse lane.
"Not here," Gianna said under her breath.
"Not yet."
Rei’s mouth flattened, but she let herself be held.
Her eyes never left Giselle.
Giselle’s unit had trailed her at a polite distance until a second figure peeled forward and took position at her shoulder.
Tall, Shen’s height, maybe a fraction over, white hair cut shorter, darker eyes, posture that read less like a partner and more like a bodyguard who had decided the best place to stand was inside the blast radius.
He didn’t speak.
The way he tracked my hands and Rei’s shoulders said enough.
Giselle’s red eyes dragged over me once, head to boots, inventory without hurry.
Then she turned her face toward Gianna as if I had already been filed.
"You met Uncle Draven before?"
The word landed strangely.
Uncle.
Pet name or house language, either way it put Draven in a frame the broadcasts never used.
"No," Gianna said.
"Never."
"Then how do you know?"
Gianna’s voice stayed even, but the edge under it was familiar.
"Know what? That he’s been fucking literally every woman the cameras can catch and still gets sold as inevitable whenever he’s on the feeds?"
The tall support behind Giselle shifted his weight a fraction.
A warning written in balance.
Giselle didn’t look at him. Her attention stayed on Gianna.
"You don’t know him, Everheart."
The name was clean, almost polite.
"Pretending to understand something you don’t is a good way to die quickly. Your mother would have known that very well, ever since her last raid."
The air between them tightened.
"She had been absent for over two years. Many warned her to not take the risk. Unfortunately... some people never listen."
Gianna’s composure didn’t shatter the way Rei’s would have.
It went hard instead.
Her hands fisted at her sides, knuckles pale, telekinetic markers staying down by force of will alone.
The dig at Jenna was not random. It was aimed.
"I’m afraid her daughter would follow the same fate."
I spoke before the next sentence could become a problem the boxes would love.
"Jenna’s doing great," I said.
"Thanks for the concern. She’ll be ready to raid again whenever the board stops inventing reasons to keep her on paper."
Giselle’s gaze shifted to me at last.
"You," she said.
"You failed."
"Yes."
"Useless."
The word was flat.
I almost smiled.
"If you think lazy replies like that are going to make me read you as a cold badass, you’re mistaken."
I kept my voice low enough that only the immediate circle would catch every syllable, high enough that her support would not miss it.
"And to clarify—I didn’t fail the test. I failed Laila’s standard. That standard got less impressive the moment I saw her smile when you pulled your little biscuit trick."
Giselle didn’t blink.
The absence of the reflex was more unsettling than any glare.
I stepped closer by half a pace.
Not into her space enough to justify a reaction.
Close enough that the height difference and the hard-track flag on the board above us sat in the same frame.
"You think I didn’t move to take it then because I was afraid?"
Silence.
"I didn’t take it," I said, "because beating you in a test before an actual exam would have been boring."
Rei’s breath caught on something like a laugh she refused to release.
Gianna’s fist had not loosened, but her eyes had moved from Giselle’s face to mine, reading the line for the risk inside it.
I looked past Giselle to the white-haired support.
"Is this yours?" I asked.
"Looks big enough. Play with him while you still can. If our paths cross inside, I will render him useless. Then my answer on that panel might start making sense to you."
The support’s dark eyes narrowed.
His weight settled into his heels.
Above us, the central board chimed and refreshed.
[Team 222 — ACTIVE]
[Portal threshold: Open]
[Entry window: 90 seconds]
A floor instructor’s voice cut across the nearest lanes.
"Two-two-two. Threshold three. Move."
Giselle’s gaze flicked to the number, then back to me.
I held it.
"Anyway," I said.
"See you inside. I hope."
A pause.
"You almost got me with the chain. But I have so many tricks you can’t replicate everything."
For the first time since she had walked over, something like interest moved behind the red.
"We’ll test that," she said.
She turned without another word.
The tall support waited until she had taken two steps before he followed, still tracking Rei from the corner of his eye until the angle broke.
Gianna exhaled through her nose.
"You didn’t have to engage the raid line."
"She put Jenna on the table first."
"I know."
Gianna’s jaw worked once.
"I was handling it."
"You did well."
Rei rolled her shoulders, the almost-spar energy bleeding off into something sharper and more pleased.
"I liked the useless part. And the boring part. And the part where you told her pet mountain he’s on a clock."
"Doctrine holds," I said.
"Sever. Don’t collect. If we see them on the grid, we cut tethers and keep moving."
"And if her big support puts a hand on you?" Rei asked.
"Then you open a budget," Gianna said, before I could, surprising both of us with how flat the agreement came out.
Rei’s smile showed teeth.
"Look at that. Everheart learning blood arithmetic."
"Don’t get comfortable."
"Too late."
A second chime.
The portal threshold assigned to 222 brightened from idle cold to active white-blue.
The stadium tiers had gone louder: bets, commentary, the low roar of people who had come to watch handsome guys.
Shen, still visible on the mid-tier, had stopped waving.
Even he could read a hard-track flag when the board painted it next to a number.
I checked the bracelet out of habit.
Gianna adjusted the strap of her kit.
"Radius integrity first. If the plus sign works, we assume hooks from more than one direction."
"Copy."
Rei flexed her fingers, a pink line already healed from some earlier cut she had not bothered to hide.
"If I see a red chain that isn’t yours, I’m taking the hand that made it."
"I heard you."
We stepped inside.