Where the Past Bleeds

Virell Suna was already moving.

Her figure shimmered at the edge of Emric's vision—not teleporting, but flickering like a mirage. Her sync flare was faint, humming beneath the sensory horizon, but Emric felt it.

The shadows moved wrong.

Emric blinked, activating a layer in his HUD he hadn't noticed before—cognitive phase overlays. It painted faint trails across the space, highlighting anomalies.

There.

He rolled left, ducking just as a blade skimmed through where his head had been.

No time to think—he was already firing.

She shimmered into view just long enough for one shot to graze her side.

She vanished again.

But Emric was smiling.

Before he could even realize it, a pressure like static was in his skull.

She was already in his head.

Virell smiled, no weapon drawn, just circling slowly through the battlefield wreckage.

"You calculate faster now," she said. "But you were doing that even before your flare."

Her voice echoed wrong. It came from behind him, then beside, then back in front. He turned once, twice, and saw only her silhouette—until it blinked and multiplied.

Three versions of her shimmered across the warehouse ruins.

[Warning: Illusory Echo Triggered – High Complexity Masking Detected]

Emric fired once—center mass.

The bullet passed through.

He twisted sideways, pre-aiming, and fired again—through the knee of the second figure. It dispersed into static.

"Two illusions," he muttered. "Real one's nearby. Close."

She laughed softly. "You think too loud."

A blur moved above him—shadow turned solid. Virell dropped from an overhead girder, dagger in hand, and swung low. Emric rolled, barely deflecting with his forearm, pain radiating where his suit absorbed most of the impact.

Emric didn't even realize he was already smiling.

He dropped a reflective drone orb and launched a flare burst.

Light detonated outward in a white burst. All illusions collapsed. The real Virell winced, stepping back, but was already weaving a phase shift.

He saw her image flickered again..

He was already moving.

He didn't go for the kill shot. He launched a pulse mine at her feet.

It exploded with a sharp crackle of sound and static.

She escaped the blast radius— it was a shadow.

He was on the move again.

[Cognivore Analysis Subroutine Activated – Predictive Movement Matrix Online]

His wrist-pad chimed.

Lines lit across the battlefield, displaying estimated paths—momentum arcs, dodge patterns, phase cooldown intervals.

Emric's mind burned with input.

"Come on," Virell said, reappearing behind a pillar. "You're clever. Let's make this fun."

She darted forward—faster than before.

A blur.

Her blade shimmered mid-strike, vibrating with residual shadow-energy.

Emric blocked—just barely—reversing his grip and locking her arm under his. She twisted, but he adjusted leverage, flipping them both sideways into a roll. They broke apart in opposite directions.

"You're holding back," Emric said, breathless.

"No," she smiled, and her eyes gleamed faintly violet. "I just wanted to know if you'd impress me."

Then she struck for real.

Flickers. Shadows. Feints layered into feints.

She appeared from above, then from the side—blade slicing across his jacket. A shallow cut opened along his ribs. Emric twisted, slid across the fractured floor, and fired point-blank—

Only to find her image collapse again into mist.

[Surface Scan Breach Detected – Target Accessing Passive Thought Patterns]

He winced.

She was reading him. Not deep. But enough to guess what he might try.

"Thoughts are noisy things," she said, walking slowly across fallen debris. "Even smarter minds echo."

"And yours don't?" he said.

"Oh, mine scream," she replied. "But they're layered. Confuse the scream, hide the whisper."

He fired at her legs.

She dodged.

Good. That one was real.

He tapped the relay on his wristpad.

[Deploy: Phase Pulse Trap / Scatter Mine]

The trap launched to her left.

She saw it. She smirked.

Then she vanished again.

But Emric had been waiting.

He stood still—staring ahead—as if he hadn't noticed her move.

Then turned—half a second early—and threw his blade at seemingly nothing.

It hit air. Then stuck.

A hiss of breath. The shimmer dropped.

Virell reappeared, gripping the blade embedded in her shoulder.

She grinned, even as blood darkened the side of her cloak.

"You calculated my silence path."

"I'm a Cognivore," Emric said. "Welcome to my class."

She rushed forward, dagger raised.

He met her head-on.

Their weapons clashed—steel and shadow singing on contact. She spun, went low, aimed for a tendon. He backed up, kicked a rusted pipe into her leg, and ducked under the next swing.

She slammed him against a beam.

He reversed the position.

She vanished again—only to reappear behind him with the dagger nearly at his throat.

He ducked, grabbed her arm, twisted, disarmed.

But she used the momentum to knee him in the chest.

Both stumbled apart.

Breathing hard.

Silent.

Then—

Virell held up a hand. Not in surrender, but recognition.

"You win," she said softly.

"I didn't say it was over."

"No," she smiled, holding her bleeding shoulder. "But you learned faster than I did. That's rare."

She stepped back and tapped her wrist-pad.

[Combatant Eliminated – Voluntary Forfeit]

The arena blinked.

Simulation lockdown engaged.

-----

Observation Deck

Professor Halveth let out a low whistle. "That wasn't a battle. That was a duel."

Strategos Datch didn't move. He simply nodded. "Going against a seasoned combatant like that, moreover a girl that reads minds. Not bad, not bad at all."

Instructor Vorn muttered, "He baited her into a path that he predicted through three echoes. That's not strategy. That's orchestration."

-----

Arena Floor

Virell stood across from him as the simulation faded around them.

"I like you, Emric Vale," she said, as the debrief platform shimmered into view. "You're rare. You make chaos... efficient."

Then she turned and stepped onto the platform.

Gone.

Emric was stunned. Where girls usually this direct? Had he been wasting his life all this while?

He still hadn't summoned enough courage to confess to Karya.

"I think it time to finally confront this" he mused.

There is no point in postponing anymore, besides he was now an awakened and the gap between them didn't seems so large anymore.

"Wait! I am actually an awakened now!"

A beat of stunned silence followed his words, then it hit him like a delayed surge of lightning.

He laughed—sharp, breathless, a little wild."Ha—haha—Hah!" The sound bounced off the broken metal and ruined walls around him, cutting through the smoky air like relief.

A grin broke across his face, crooked and disbelieving. His chest heaved—not just from exhaustion, but from the rush of knowing. Of being.

"I did it," he whispered, then louder, "I actually did it!"

He staggered upright, fists clenched, eyes wide with a joy so raw it made his injuries fade for a moment. The blue glow of his wristpad still shimmered, casting gentle light across his blood-smeared sleeve.

"I wish my mom could see this right now," he said, eyes watering slightly despite himself.

"She'd lose it. Kara'd scream her head off. And Dad—"

He laughed again, softer this time.

"—Dad would just nod like he always knew."

He looked around the battlefield. Ash. Fire. Victory.

Then toward the sky, as if it could carry his words home.

"Guess I won't be just the 'unawakened genius' anymore."

Emric stood alone in the quiet, his body bruised, mind flaring, and his sync node glowing faintly at his wrist.

[PHASE ONE COMPLETE – SECTOR WINNER: EMRIC VALE]