Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

The three girls stared at the broken boy. He was on his hands and knees in the dirt, crawling toward an old oak tree like a wounded animal.

The sight was just… weird. He had won. He had taken out Lyra, one of the strongest students in the test. But he looked like he had lost everything.

Isolde's perfect, smiling mask had vanished. Her ice-blue eyes were narrowed, her mind racing a mile a minute.

She was a master of plans, a puppeteer who saw everyone as a piece in her grand game. But this piece, this broken, pathetic-looking boy, had just moved on his own and done something impossible.

It was a problem she could not solve. A variable she hadn't accounted for.

'How did he do it?' she whispered to herself, her voice a low, frustrated hiss. 'He has no affinity. His stats are garbage.

Lyra should have turned him to ash in seconds. Was it a hidden artifact? A secret skill? Or just… dumb luck?'

The uncertainty of it all was infuriating.

Seraphina was just as confused, but for a different reason. She saw Azrael, the arrogant jerk who had made her life hell.

But she also saw this weak boy who had just used some kind of clever, suicidal trick to win. The two images didn't fit together in her head.

"It must have been luck," she said out loud, mostly to convince herself. But her voice didn't sound sure at all. A lucky trick wouldn't explain the look of absolute, desperate will she had seen in his eyes.

Selvara was different. She wasn't looking at the "how." She was looking at the "why." She saw something else in the pathetic sight of him crawling through the dirt.

She saw a fire. A desperate, cornered, all-or-nothing will to fight even when all hope was lost.

It was a fire she understood all too well.

BWOOOOOMP!

A loud, deep horn sound echoed through the entire forest, a sound that vibrated in their bones. A few moments later, a wave of heat washed over them from far away. They could smell the faint scent of smoke on the wind.

The faculty had started the fires. The forest was shrinking. They had to move.

"We're wasting time," Isolde said. Her voice was sharp and clear, the confusion gone, replaced by the cold command of a leader. "Seraphina, heal him. Just enough so he can walk. We can't carry him."

Seraphina scoffed, her amber eyes flashing with anger. "Don't order me around, Princess. Besides, I'm not a healer. My magic is for fighting, not for fixing people. Especially not him."

Isolde stared at her for a long, silent moment, then let out a small, quiet sigh.

"Useless."

She reached into a small pouch on her belt and pulled out a simple, red potion. She walked over to Azrael, who was still trying to pull himself up by the tree, and pushed the bottle into his hand.

"Drink," she commanded. "It's a low-grade potion, but it will be enough. I won't have an asset i mean teammate die on me."

Azrael didn't say a word. He just uncorked the bottle and drank the potion down. It tasted like bitter cherries and regret.

A weak warmth spread through his body, dulling the sharp, screaming edges of his pain. It was just enough to keep him from passing out.

With the help of the tree, he slowly, painfully, got to his feet, his body trembling with the effort.

"Let's go," Isolde said, already turning away. "We need to find a defensible position before the next fire starts."

They moved through the dark woods, a broken and silent team. Isolde walked in front, her sharp eyes scanning for any sign of danger. Seraphina walked in the back, her gaze fixed on Azrael's back.

She watched his every pained, shuffling step, trying to understand the boy who had changed so much in such a short time.

Azrael walked in the middle, his steps slow and heavy. Every breath was a painful reminder of his broken ribs.

After a few minutes of silent walking, he noticed that Selvara had slowed her pace. She was now walking right beside him.

They were a little ways behind Isolde, and a little ahead of Seraphina. In the thick, silent woods, it was almost like they were alone.

"That was a stupid way to win," Selvara said. Her voice was low, for his ears only.

Azrael looked at her. Her ice-blue eyes were serious, without any of their usual mockery.

"A stupid win is still a win," he answered, his voice rough and hoarse.

"You call that survival?" she shot back, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. "It looked more like you were trying to get yourself killed. What are you so desperate for, Azrael? Why shatter yourself into pieces for some stupid tournament?"

He knew this was the real question. It wasn't about points. It was about the look in his eyes she had seen.

He thought about her story, about the strings he knew were attached to her. He saw a fellow prisoner.

He made a choice. He decided to give her a piece of the truth she might understand.

"Everyone has a script, don't they?" he said, his voice a quiet whisper that was almost lost in the rustling of the leaves. "A part they're supposed to play. My script was for the arrogant fool. The villain who makes a lot of noise and then dies. The joke."

He looked at her, and for the first time, he let her see the soul-deep exhaustion in his eyes, a pain that had nothing to do with his broken bones. "I'd rather be the broken author of my own story, than the perfect star of someone else's."

Selvara froze for a single step. Her cold, beautiful face didn't change, but he saw a flash of something deep in her eyes.

Shock. And then, a terrifying recognition.

He had hit the mark. He had just spoken the secret, forbidden words she had kept locked in her own heart her entire life.

She looked at this broken, pathetic boy, and for the first time, she saw a mirror.

"Some of us don't get a choice," she whispered back, her voice so quiet it was almost a thought. "The stage is the whole world, and the strings are attached before we're even born. Rattling the cage only makes the bars colder. Sometimes, the only way to survive is to dance when they tell you to dance."

"But is it really survival," he asked, his voice just as quiet, "if the one who's dancing isn't even you?"

She started walking again, her pace quickening. She didn't say anything for a long, long time.

The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the forest floor. When she finally spoke, her voice was back to its normal, cold tone.

"Don't die before this test is over," she said, not looking at him. "It would be boring."

She then walked faster, leaving him behind and rejoining Isolde at the front of the group. The conversation was over.

But a secret, and a terrible, fragile understanding had been shared between them.

From the back of the group, Seraphina watched them talk. She couldn't hear their words, but she saw the intense look on their faces.

It was a serious, quiet conversation. The Ice Witch and the boy she hated were sharing secrets.

Her confusion grew into a deep, frustrating feeling that settled in her stomach. The world was supposed to be simple.

There were good guys and bad guys. Strong people and weak people. But nothing made sense anymore.

The lines were all becoming blurry. And Azrael Ashveil was standing right in the middle of it all, a living, breathing contradiction that was tearing her simple world apart.