Yellow Jacket

Vaeliyan's breath came steady, his body remade as though the exhaustion of moments before had been no more than a lie. The System lingered in his vision, crisp lines and coldly precise numbers crawling across his mind like an endless ledger of power. He blinked once, trying to clear the haze, then froze as the display resolved fully.

Eighty-eight unspent stat points.

The number burned against his eyes, obscene in its sheer size, like something carved from madness. It was more than he had ever dreamed possible. More than he had carried into the fight with the Behemoth, when he had emptied himself dry and pulled strength from the bottom of his soul just to survive. More than he could imagine when he had thought himself scraping the limits of what a human frame could bear. This wasn't growth. It wasn't progress measured step by step. This was something else. A rupture. A tearing open of the rules he had thought bound him.

It wasn't even the first time he had seen it. This was the second confirmation, the proof beyond doubt that Imujin had not been speaking in riddles or exaggerations. The numbers did not grow linearly. They curved upward, climbing into the realm of the absurd. They were exponential, a tide that would only rise higher the further he walked this path. What had seemed ridiculous once was now undeniable, staring him down in neat System script.

He remembered Isol's words as clearly as if they had been carved into his skull: Five marks the average of an unchipped, natural-born human. That was the baseline, the ordinary. And yes, he had always stood above it. He had always been stronger, faster, harder than most even before the nanites etched its power into him. he had started higher than the rest. But what did that matter now? The difference between starting at one or six or ten was erased when the numbers soared into the thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. By the time someone reached the peak, the smallest gap at the start would be irrelevant, a difference so small it could not even be measured.

It made sense now. Why the titles sounded absurd and yet were spoken with reverence. Headmasters were called Continent Breakers, spoken of not as men but as natural disasters. He had thought it arrogance, propaganda wrapped around monsters. But now the System had laid eighty-eight points in his lap as casually as if they meant nothing, and he understood. If this was the foundation, then what did the peak look like? What kind of creature did it forge?

He remembered the stories of one High Imperator; a figure whispered about in the same breath as the end of cities: the World Breaker. He had dismissed the name as dramatics. A piece of Legion theater meant to awe. But with the cold math bleeding into his marrow, he saw the truth. Someone had walked so far into these numbers that the world itself bent beneath them. The name was not exaggeration. It was honesty. And worse, he knew the World Breaker was not the strongest. Somewhere above even that monster was another, carrying a power he could not yet comprehend.

Vaeliyan shut the window with a hard exhale, as if closing it might make the numbers less real. Steam rolled off his skin in curling ribbons, his chest rising and falling with deliberate steadiness. Eighty-eight points waited, coiled like a trap, begging to be spent. He could already feel the weight of them pressing down on the path ahead, reshaping what the future would demand of him. Through the bond, the cadets flinched. They did not know the numbers, did not see what he saw, but they felt the gulf, the yawning distance between their hollowed exhaustion and the overwhelming surge that had remade him. Awe tangled with dread, and beneath it all was the simple, sour truth: unfairness. They were spent. He was ascending.

Imujin had been right. The numbers did not climb like stairs. They erupted like avalanches, exploding outward until scale became meaningless. And Vaeliyan stood at the threshold of that explosion, staring into the abyss of what he might one day become, wondering what lay beyond even world-breaking power.

In that moment he made a promise to himself that he would find out. Vaeliyan's promise rippled through the bond, but not as a simple feeling. It was a tenet, an oath spoken by someone who did not yet understand the weight of what he had agreed to, a vow carved too deep to ever be taken back.

The meadow was still heavy with the echo of Vaeliyan's forging when Imujin turned his gaze on the rest of the cadets. His attention fixed on three who stood apart, shoulders squared as if bracing for what they knew was coming: Torman, Lessa, and Roan. They had no masters waiting to guide them, no one else to bear the weight of what came next. Imujin would do it himself.

Vaeliyan remained silent, his body still thrumming from his own ordeal. He watched as Imujin stepped toward the first, the air itself seeming to hush in anticipation. The Headmaster's hands dissolved into a storm of nanites once more, black and silver particles cascading down his arms like living smoke. It was the same swarm that had torn through Warren, the same that had dug into Vaeliyan's own marrow. When Imujin pressed them into Torman's chest, the bond flared like a struck chord. Vaeliyan staggered slightly as the resonance reached him. He did not feel the forging itself, only the faint echo bleeding through the rings, but it was enough. A wave of strain, of terror and determination, passed through him. His knees nearly gave way, and for a moment it felt as though he might collapse in sympathy. It was not his pain, yet it demanded acknowledgement.

Torman withstood it longer than Vaeliyan expected. His jaw locked, his body stiff as stone, until at last the forging ripped past his limits and he crashed to the ground. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, sweat pouring in rivulets, his uniform soaked through. Imujin drew his hands free, the nanites sluicing back into his flesh as if nothing had happened. His face betrayed no expression as he turned toward the next.

Lessa met his eyes with her chin raised high. Her prosthetic arms hung stiff at her sides, her shoulders trembling but her stance unbroken. Vaeliyan could feel the edge of her fear through the bond anyway, sharp and bright as broken glass. She tried to mask it, but the rings carried the truth. Imujin pressed his storm of nanites into her chest, and the bond surged like a floodgate bursting open. Vaeliyan reeled as her strength faltered, her control shattering beneath the weight of it. A hollow reflection of her agony tore through him, burning through nerves that weren't his own. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to endure, refusing to turn her struggle into his. This was hers to carry. He would not intrude, even in sympathy. When it ended, she dropped to her knees, her whole-body trembling, but she remained upright, her head bowed yet unbroken. There was fire still inside her, though it flickered low.

Roan was last. His face, pale and tense, twisted into something close to relief when Imujin turned to him. The waiting had been worse than the inevitable. He stepped forward, shoulders set, as if resigned to meet whatever the System and Imujin would carve into him. The nanites sank into his chest, and the bond erupted once more. Vaeliyan felt the hammer-blow of Roan's forging crash against him. His legs braced instinctively, the resonance so violent it nearly stole his breath. Roan shook beneath the strain, his teeth clamped hard to hold back cries that still broke through in guttural sounds. His body convulsed, muscles seizing until the forging finally released him, and he crumpled sideways into the dirt. His hands clawed at the ground for purchase before slackening, his face pale with exhaustion.

The meadow fell silent again, but the silence was heavier now, carrying a resonance that seemed to press into every breath. Three more cadets had been remade, their bodies branded by the same storm that had reshaped Warren and Vaeliyan. Vaeliyan drew in a slow breath, steadying himself, forcing the echoes of their suffering from his chest. He had not lived their agony, but the bond carried enough to make it inescapable. He understood what had been given and what had been taken from them.

They had endured. Whatever shapes their classes had taken, whatever scars now burned into their marrow, they had survived. And through the bond, faint but steady, came the truth: they would rise again. Weakened, hollowed, yet forged. And as Vaeliyan looked on, he understood that each of them had crossed a threshold tonight. None of them were cadets in the same way they had been before.

Imujin's voice carried none of its usual steel when he turned to Vaeliyan. It was low, deliberate, every syllable weighted like a man measuring words against the storm he knew was waiting just beyond the walls. The meadow's air seemed to lean in, heavy with expectation, as though even the silence knew what he was about to say would alter everything.

"I can't stall this any longer. Not after Michael. Not after tonight. The others need to know. They deserve the truth of what I've thrown them into, and of what you are."

Vaeliyan met his gaze without wavering, though beneath the iron calm his pulse thrummed through the bond. Behind him, the cadets hovered, tired, raw, their bodies bearing the marks of forging, yet bound in silent unity. They felt the press of inevitability just as sharply as he did. No one needed to say it aloud. The truth was approaching, and it would not be turned aside.

Imujin's breath hissed out through his nose, sharp as a blade cutting the air. "I'll let Isol explain it. He is clearer with these matters, sharper when it comes to truths that cut deep. I've already had him prepare the copies. I was planning this soon enough anyway, but the time has come sooner than I wanted. Once this is spoken aloud, there is no pulling it back. We will be standing before nine instructors who do not yet know. Nine who may decide the safest path is to end you, and me, and anyone else who defends you."

He paused, letting the weight of that sink in, his dark eyes sweeping across the cadets as if to measure their resolve. "Do not mistake the silence of their bonds for agreement. If this goes badly, they may strike without hesitation. Even Josephine, Isol, and I together might not hold them back if they decide blood is the answer. Alorna alone could have taken a wooden ring if she had pressed for it. That should tell you the scale of power that will be in that room. We are not walking into a council; we are walking into the heart of a volcano. So, we try words before it comes to blows. We try reason before ruin."

His hand flexed once, knuckles whitening, before he forced it still at his side. "I'll protect you. Isol will protect you. Josephine will too. But do not confuse loyalty with certainty. This could collapse into open war inside these walls, and if it does, even the bond might not save all of you."

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The meadow's silence thickened to the point of suffocation. The cadets stood straighter, shoulders squared, jaws tight, as though already bracing for testimony they knew they would be called to give. Imujin's gaze hardened, and when he spoke again there was no hesitation left in him.

"Change back to Warren. They need to see the truth as well as the weapon. They need to see the monster who learned to walk as a man, the one who laughs, bleeds, and stands among friends. If you remain only Vaeliyan, they will see nothing but the lie. When the time comes, you will need your friends to speak for you, to prove you are not the thing they fear. They will tell the others what you have already proven with every step: that you are a monster, yes, but not the kind the world has ever known before, and perhaps the only kind that can save it."

Josephine strode into the meadow with Isol's ear clamped in her left hand. Isol stumbled after her, clutching a stack of books tight against his chest. His face was a patchwork of fading bruises, and his boots tore lines through the grass as she hauled him along like a misbehaving child. The late light stretched long shadows over the meadow, turning the grass black at the edges.

"Please, my dear, let go," Isol muttered through clenched teeth. "You're ripping it off."

Josephine's eyes glittered. "We both know it would take more force than this to rip your ear off. You've been avoiding my mother long enough, and I've had it. She drives me mad when you're not there. At least when you are, she saves her pleasant nightmares for you and only thinks of me as a disappointment."

Warren blinked. "Wait. So, nobody likes your mother?"

Josephine's glare cut to him like a thrown knife. "My mother is none of your business, child. Bring her up again, and you'll regret it."

Warren nodded quickly. "Understood."

"Good." She released Isol with a final tug that made him stumble. The books nearly slipped from his arms. He muttered under his breath and rubbed his ear, but didn't dare speak louder. Josephine planted herself firmly in the grass. "Now. We're doing this."

Imujin waited in the center of the meadow, motionless as carved stone. The air around him seemed unnaturally still, the weight of what he carried settling over everyone like a drawn blade. His gaze cut across the cadets before landing on Warren. "Yes. It's time. They need to know. I helped the cadets kill Michael, and even if he was a rotten sub-instructor, he was still part of the Citadel. That will require explanation. More than that, they need to understand who and what Warren is."

The cadets shifted, glancing at one another. The bond hummed tight between them, tension bleeding into the air. No one doubted Michael deserved what he got, but admitting it openly would not be met gently.

Isol straightened his tunic and sighed. "So, I explain it, then?"

"You'll explain," Imujin said. "You're clearer at cutting to the bone than I am. Warren is an Aberrant, the kind of creature we fear more than the Princedoms or the Neumans. Aberrants kill because that is their nature. That is what we're about to admit: that the most feared monsters in the world stand here in the form of this boy. And not only that, he has been bound as a headmaster and accepted by the Wooden Ring. You may not grasp what that means, but I do. It's more than a title. It is recognition."

The bond rippled at his words, pride and unease tangling together. Shoulders tensed. No one spoke.

Isol grimaced. "Lisa won't like this. She actually cares for her family, unlike most from the Nine. She'll see Warren wearing Vaeliyan's face as desecration."

Imujin's gaze hardened. "She may. But Wirk is the one I worry about more. His husband was killed by the Red Widow."

The cadets froze. The name meant nothing to them, but the way Imujin said it made the air colder. Warren frowned. "Who's the Red Widow? What is that supposed to mean?" confusion running through the bond.

Josephine's mouth curled. "Of course they don't know. They weren't raised on those stories."

Imujin's voice lowered. "It's a long story, and Wirk may never share it. But keep me between the two of you when the truth comes out. He will not hear stand in the presence of an aberrant without fury at his side."

The silence stretched. Even the grass seemed to hold still. Warren felt curiosity gnawing at him, but he let it die unsaid.

Josephine broke the quiet. "And Theramoor. She'll be furious about Elian being bound to Warren. She'll call it betrayal."

Imujin allowed the faintest smile. "Yes. But when she realizes it was his choice, she'll give in. I have the holos to prove it. She won't be able to argue against Elian's will."

Isol shifted the books and groaned. "Is there anything else we should prepare?"

Varnai raised a hand, hesitant but steady. "What should we say? We weren't exactly prepared to be bonded to him."

Imujin's gaze swept slowly across all of them, heavy as iron. "Say the truth. That he is a monster unlike any you've ever seen before. And now that you are bonded, tell them why you stand here, side by side, instead of running."

The words hung over the meadow, weighty as a vow, and the cadets felt them settle on their shoulders like chains, and still, none of them stepped away.

The meadow still smelled of heat and iron. The cadets stood in a long arc behind Warren, shoulders squared, rings dull as iron to any casual eye. Imujin waited in the center, a dark axis around which the air seemed to steady. Isol paced a slow line with a stack of slim leather notebooks against his chest.

"They'll come soon," Imujin said without looking back. "Do not speak until Isol says so. Let the books do the talking."

Warren rolled his shoulders once, then stilled. His breath left no fog in the cooling air. He watched the field's edge as if expecting the grass itself to rise against him.

The first figure broke the treeline: Thera, cloak unfastened, eyes like a drawn bow. She didn't slow when she saw the cadets. "Elian." Her voice cut toward the boy without moving her gaze off Imujin.

Elian stepped forward and bowed, not deeply. "Theramoor"

Isol slid in smoothly, offering a notebook with both hands. "Please read. Hold questions until all have arrived."

Theramoor's mouth tightened. She took the book anyway and moved to the side, already flipping pages.

A minute later, Gwen arrived, boots silent, gaze not on Warren or the cadets but on Imujin, measuring, weighing. Isol handed her a notebook; she didn't glance at it at first, only at him, then at Josephine, then finally down to the pages as if deciding that the text would be more honest than the faces.

Deck and Lisa came together next, stride for stride. Deck's expression was a schoolboy's grin balanced on a knife; Lisa's was a closed fist. She took her notebook without a word. Deck took his with a shallow nod and a flick of the eyes at Warren that said, Who in the hells are you?

Alorna followed alone. Isol held out a notebook. She accepted it and, instead of opening it, pulled a thin charcoal from behind one ear and sketched something quick in the back cover before beginning to read.

Velrock entered the meadow in silence, contemplative and unhurried, taking the book Isol handed him and settling into quiet reading while he waited to be needed.

Then Lambert arrived, breathless, hair askew, the look of someone who had run not because she was late but because she wanted to be first and reality had denied her. She snatched the notebook from Isol with avid fingers and started devouring the pages with quick, hungry eyes.

Two more walked in from the far edge, Wirk with a slow, heavy gait, and Jim beside him, jaw working as if chewing a thought to pulp. Isol handed them each a notebook. Jim's fingers were scarred; his grip on the leather looked like he was bracing for recoil. Wirk's eyes never left Imujin as he took the book.

Isol raised his voice just enough to carry. "Please read. Do not speak until everyone has finished. This will be hard to explain if we do it out of order."

Theramoor's pages turned like a drumbeat. Gwen read without moving anything but her eyes. Lisa read too quickly, then slower, then with the rigid patience of someone refusing to be goaded by text. Deck's mouth quirked once, then flattened. Alorna paused long on a paragraph and sketched again in deliberate strokes on the back cover. Lambert's lips moved soundlessly as she reread a line three times, pupils dilated with fascination. Jim's shoulders eased only a fraction as he worked through it, the lines around his mouth setting into something like reluctant respect. Wirk did not look down often, but when he did, the muscles in his jaw stood out hard against his skin.

Warren kept still. He could read their faces well enough. Confusion giving way to calculation, to anger, to curiosity, to something like dread. He let them have it. They didn't know him. They shouldn't trust him yet.

Lisa was the first to finish. She closed the notebook with gloved fingers and held it out as if it were a dead thing. "Where is Vaeliyan." Not a question. A verdict waiting for a body.

Warren stepped forward half a pace. "That's a long story," he said, voice even. "It's why you're all here. You don't know me, but I know you. And you know my Veil." His gaze flicked across them. "I am Warren but I am also Vaeliyan"

Deck's brows rose, something like amusement slipping in despite himself. Jim exhaled through his nose, not quite a laugh. Theramoor's eyes narrowed, hard as glass. Gwen finally looked at Warren instead of Imujin and studied him the way she would a trap whose edges she had not yet found.

Isol took the notebooks back one by one as they finished. He did not look at the drawings Alorna had left, but the corner of his mouth twitched when he felt the thickness of the charcoal. He stacked the books against his ribs like small, patient knives.

Lambert couldn't hold it in. "This, this is impossible. Not mechanically, mind you, no, mechanically it's exquisite, but politically? Socially? It's like setting a bonfire under the Citadel's spine." She caught herself, glanced at Josephine, then at Imujin, and forced a breath into her chest. "Apologies. I'll wait." Her eyes, however, never left Warren. They gleamed with a clinician's hunger.

Jim's voice came next, slower. "From the Yellow," he said, not quite to Warren, not quite to the group. "From the same rot. Hunted an Aberrant to buy into Green. And now I'm standing here reading that I should stand beside one." His mouth pulled sideways. "Hells." It sounded almost like respect or the memory of it.

Lisa did not move. "You expect me to accept a monster wearing my kin's face." She didn't look at Warren when she said it; she looked at Imujin.

Thera snapped her book shut. "Elian made a choice." The words were for Imujin, but her stare hammered into Warren. "If your story is true, that choice was coerced by spectacle."

Gwen finally spoke, quiet and precise. "It doesn't matter how he chose. It matters what we are choosing now." Her eyes slid back to Imujin. "And what you are asking us to do."

Alorna turned her notebook around so only Deck saw. A stick figure stood at the center of a circle of smaller figures; above it, a crooked crown. Deck's grin returned for a heartbeat and then vanished.

Isol lifted a hand. "Questions now, if you must. Otherwise, Imujin..."

Wirk's voice cut across him, low and raw. "What is this." He held the notebook out, not to return it, but like a weapon he intended to smash into the dirt. "What nonsense are we playing at, Imujin?" His eyes went to Warren as if dragged by gravity. "You can't be telling me you stand between us and an Aberrant."

Silence pressed down, thick as wet wool. The cadets didn't move. They watched Imujin. So did everyone else.

Imujin answered without heat. "Not only am I standing between you and him," he said, voice carrying cleanly across the meadow, "I would bend the knee to him."

The words hit like a blade dropped point-first. Thera flinched. Gwen's mask cracked for a breath. Deck's fingers flexed. Lisa's face went pale, which was worse than rage. Lambert's breath hitched. Alorna's charcoal paused above a page.

Wirk's head tipped a fraction, as if to hear better, or as if something in his neck had just locked. The quiet sharpened until the world seemed made of edges. He looked at Imujin, then past him to Warren, and something old and broken moved under the skin of his face.

His boot shifted. Grass bent. He stepped forward.