Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

Victory.

For one shining moment, Azrael stood, unsteady but unbroken. He had done it—he had actually won.

Then the fire in his veins went out. The pain he had been holding back hit him all at once, and his legs gave way. He crashed to the ground, chest heaving, vision blurry.

But the fight wasn't over.

Orion and Seraphina were still clashing, lightning against crystal, sparks and shards flying with every hit. Orion's face twisted with anger—he was used to crushing enemies quickly, not being held back.

"Enough!" he roared, throwing a thunderbolt that smashed through her crystal wall. The shards scattered, and Seraphina jumped back to avoid the blast.

On the other side, the last second-year swordsman was pressing Selvara hard.

She fought with cold precision, but her movements were slower, her stance shaky. She was hurt, though she tried to hide it.

Isolde, done with her own opponent, stood watching the field, her sharp eyes calculating.

She saw who was struggling, who was standing, who was ready to break.

Her team was winning, but it was messy. Selvara was injured, and Seraphina was being pushed back by Orion's raw power.

The swordsman fighting Selvara saw an opening. He lunged, his blade aimed at her injured side.

But before his sword could land, a swirling gust of wind, sharp as a razor, slammed into his side, throwing him off balance. It was Isolde.

"It is rude to attack an injured woman, don't you think?" she said, her voice sweet, but her eyes cold.

The swordsman recovered. He now had to face Isolde, while Selvara was given a moment to breathe. The battle had become a chaotic series of duels.

Orion, seeing his teammate struggling against Isolde, finally lost his patience. "Swordsman, to me! We end this now!"

The swordsman disengaged from Isolde and rushed to his leader's side. It was now two against three powerful women.

Seraphina moved to stand beside Isolde, her face set with determination. Selvara, clutching her injured side, took a position on their other flank, her icy eyes burning with a cold rage.

"Two against three?" Orion said with a confident grin. "I still like my odds."

He and the swordsman charged together lightning and steel striking in unison.

Seraphina controlled the field raising walls and spikes of crystal to cut off their movements.

Isolde shifted the flow of battle with her wind turning attacks aside and forcing openings.

Selvara finished the job.

The swordsman fell first. A sudden gust of dust from Isolde blinded him, and Selvara's spear of ice struck clean. He vanished in a flash of white light.

Now, it was just Orion.

Alone. Surrounded.

He looked from Isolde's cunning smile to Seraphina's fiery glare, and finally to Selvara's cold, triumphant eyes. He was beaten.

With a final roar of defiance, he unleashed all his remaining Aether in a massive, uncontrolled burst of lightning that shot out in every direction.

Selvara simply raised a hand. A dome of solid, diamond-hard ice formed around her and the others, the lightning crashing against it in a harmless shower of sparks.

When the light faded, Orion was on one knee, panting, his Aether completely spent.

Selvara walked towards him, her steps slow and deliberate. She raised her sword.

"I yield," Orion grit out, the words tasting like poison. He crushed his own pendant. In a flash of white light, he was gone.

Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing. They had won.

"Well," Isolde said, clapping her hands together lightly, her uniform still somehow perfectly clean. "That was a rather brutish affair, but a victory nonetheless."

She smiled at the others. "Shall we see the fruits of our labor?"

She glanced at the system screen only she could see, her eyes flicking over the details with quiet satisfaction.

"Excellent," she chirped. "Our team score is now one hundred and twenty points. A very strong start." She began to read the individual contributions.

"Selvara, another two defeats, bringing your total to a magnificent fifty points. Seraphina, you also secured one, for a total of twenty. I managed one myself, putting me at twenty."

She paused, her gaze flicking around the clearing. "Zeyric and Liam were eliminated with ten points each. A shame, but they served their purpose."

Her eyes finally landed on the last name on the list. Her smile froze. Her perfect, practiced composure cracked, replaced by a look of genuine, unfiltered confusion.

"And Azrael…" she read, her voice a soft, disbelieving whisper. "Ten points."

Seraphina scoffed, walking over to her. "What? That must be a system error. There's no way. He was getting toyed with the entire time."

Selvara said nothing, but her icy eyes narrowed. She had been injured, yes, but she had still been aware. She had seen Lyra laughing at him.

She had seen him collapse. And yet… Lyra was gone. And he had been awarded the points. It didn't make sense.

"How?" Isolde murmured, speaking her thoughts aloud. Her brilliant mind raced, trying to understand the impossible. She had seen Lyra raise her hand for the final blow. She had seen Azrael on the ground, defeated. What had happened in those final seconds? "How did he defeat Lyra?"

They all turned toward the spot where Azrael had fallen.

It was empty.

Only a shallow dent in the dirt and his discarded practice sword remained.

"Where did he go?" Seraphina asked, her voice tight with suspicion.

Selvara's sharp eyes caught it first—a faint drag mark in the earth. Something, or someone, had been pulled away.

The trail led toward the silent trees at the clearing's edge.

They followed, their steps hushed. What they found froze them in place.

Azrael.

Not standing. Not celebrating. Crawling.

His fingers clawed at the dirt, nails split and bleeding, every drag forward a battle in itself. His breath rasped in broken gasps, his body trembling like it might give out before the next inch.

But his eyes never wavered. They clung to one thing—the gnarled trunk of the ancient oak looming just ahead.

At last, he reached it. His hand scraped against the bark, and with a groan ripped from somewhere deep in his chest, he forced himself upright, sagging against the wood as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.

He was a ruin of a man pale, uniform in tatters, skin slick with sweat and grime.

A dark bruise spread across the side of his head, ugly and swelling, a mark of how close he had come to falling for good.

This wasn't a victory born of strength. It was a victory wrung from pure, stubborn will—and it had cost him everything.

Isolde, Selvara, and Seraphina stood in silence, watching. None of them spoke. None of them moved.

They simply stared at the broken boy who had refused to stay down.