"Ah!" Zaeryn stumbled backward, one hand flying instinctively to his face. His left eye began watering uncontrollably, the tears streaming down his cheek. The skin around his eye felt raw and hypersensitive, every nerve ending screaming. When he pulled his hand away to look, there was no blood but the area near his eye was angry red and already starting to swell.

"That's what happens," Leia said, her voice carrying a note of dark satisfaction, "when you play with fire."

Through his watering, compromised vision, Zaeryn could see her advancing again, flames now dancing around both fists like eager hounds straining at their leashes.

His vision was blurred. His face felt like someone had pressed a hot iron against it. His reserves were nearly empty.

But still, Zaeryn refused to quit. Not like this. Not when he'd proven he could hurt her, could surprise her, could fight on his own terms.

"Instructor!" Genevieve's voice rang out from the sidelines, sharp with genuine concern. "His face ...look at his face!"

"I'm watching," Zelda called back, her hand already raised, poised to call the match. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes were assessing, calculating whether this had crossed from training into something else.

But Zaeryn raised his other hand, the one not pressed to his burning face in a clear signal.

"Don't," he rasped, his voice rough. "Don't stop it."

Zelda hesitated, torn between her duty to protect her students and her respect for a warrior's choice.

Leia stopped advancing for the first time since she'd risen from the mat. She studied him with an expression that might have been respect. Or possibly pity. The two weren't mutually exclusive.

"You should quit while you can still see out of that eye, anomaly."

"Probably," Zaeryn agreed, blinking hard, trying desperately to clear his vision. He wasn't crying but the tears wouldn't stop, but he could make out shapes at least. Her outline. The crowd. The circle.

Then, despite everything, despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, despite the very real possibility he was about to lose this fight spectacularly he grinned. Savage. Wild. Unbroken.

"But where's the fun in that?"

Leia rolled her eyes, but something in her expression shifted. His unwillingness to give up was... well, it was impressive for anyone, but especially for a male cadet in a female-dominated academy. Most would have quit by now, would have called it a learning experience and lived to fight another day.

But she'd had enough. Enough games, enough back-and-forth, enough of this anomaly proving he belonged in conversations he shouldn't even be part of.

It was time to put him back in his place. Decisively. Finally.

"Let's end this," she said, her voice carrying across the silent chamber.

This time, she didn't charge. Didn't throw a single bolt. Didn't even raise her fists.

She simply raised both hands, palms facing downward toward the training mat.

Necrotic flames erupted from the floor itself not in a wave, not in a wall, but in a complete, shimmering circle around Zaeryn. It wasn't a solid barrier. It was a cage of flickering, siphoning dark fire, each tongue of flame reaching upward like the bars of a prison made of shadow and hunger.

The display was so controlled, so precise, that several people in the crowd actually gasped. This wasn't just power this was mastery.

"You should surrender," Leia's voice was cold and triumphant from outside the ring of flames. "You really don't want that fire touching you. Not after what it just did to your face."

As she spoke, the cage began to constrict. Slowly. Inexorably. The circle of flames shrinking inch by terrible inch, closing in on him from all sides with mechanical precision.

The air inside the circle grew unnaturally cold, not the cold of winter, but something worse. Something that pulled heat from the world. Zaeryn could feel the energy being drawn from his skin, that familiar, sickening chill sapping his strength just from proximity. The flames weren't even touching him yet, and already his muscles felt heavy, his Vitae flickering like a candle in a strong wind.

His reserves were almost gone. His face was on fire. His vision was compromised.

And the cage was closing in.

Ten seconds. Maybe less.

Zaeryn's mind raced. He could try to burst through with Kinetic Acceleration, but that necrotic fire would drain his Vitae the instant he made contact. He could form a shield, but she'd already proven she could shatter his constructs. He could attack the flames themselves, but what would that accomplish except exhausting his last reserves?

The flames crept closer, a silent, shrinking prison of necrotic cold.

Zaeryn could feel his own Vitae being pulled from him, sapped by the proximity of Leia's power. His face throbbed, his left eye watering so badly his vision was a blurry mess.

He was exhausted. His reserves, already low from the fight, were flickering like a dying candle.

'Think. Adapt.'

He brought his hands up, trying to form the golden bow. The light sputtered, weak and unstable. A shield? It would just dissolve, he knew it. Kinetic Acceleration? A burst of speed would only slam him directly into the siphoning flames. He was pinned.

'The cage was now only a few feet wide.' The cold was unbearable.

System! he thought, a spike of genuine panic cutting through his bravado. 'I'm out of tricks. What the hell do I do now?'

The familiar, cool text materialized in his vision, stark and clinical against the backdrop of dark fire.

[Analysis: Current abilities (vitae weaving, kinetic acceleration) Are Ineffective against target's containment technique. Host reserves critical.]

'Yeah, I got that part!' Zaeryn snapped internally. 'Give me a solution!'

[Recommendation: Utilize [Kinetic Repulsion (Rank F)]

Zaeryn froze. The flames were now just an arm's length away, the cold burning his skin.

'Kinetic Repulsion'? he thought, his mind racing. What the hell is Kinetic Repulsion?

As if summoned by his confusion, a new, unread log file flashed in his vision, marked with a timestamp from last night, right after he went to sleep at Ingrid's.

[new bonds detected. data logged post-synchronization...]

[bond synchronization complete: ingrid]

[Source: Sustained intimate contact (sex marathon)]

[Vitae tier: 2]

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