Avin stood there, watching different types of people flow toward the four huge gates to check their teams. The coliseum felt like a living beast — a rolling mass of cloth and armor and shouted names — and he was a small, confused rock in its belly. He had no idea which gate to go to. He didn't even know where to begin.

Something crashed into him and wrapped around his shoulders. The sudden contact made his heart leap, but he relaxed when he recognized the familiar weight and voice.

"What are you standing here for?" Sylas asked. He'd slung an arm over Avin like it was nothing; his black hair fell to his eyebrows, and a thin, light-blue ring circled his irises — a detail Avin had never noticed before because his head had been full of the next test he needed to pass.

Avin blinked. He felt someone missing — someone who was usually with Sylas. "Where is she?" he asked, still hunched a little as Sylas leaned his weight into him.

Sylas looked at Avin, puzzled for a beat, then caught on. "Oh — Eira?" he said. Avin nodded.

"She's with her friends," Sylas answered.

"Friends?" Avin's eyebrows rose. He'd imagined Sylas and Eira as a pair, an inseparable duo; the idea of other people in her circle was new.

Sylas looked genuinely confused. "Yes… friends."

"Hm," Avin said. "I didn't think she had any other friends but you."

Sylas gave a short chuckle. "Yeah, me neither." For a moment he was nonchalant again, then something in his posture shifted. The grin faded into something a bit more serious than the boy usually wore.

"Also," Sylas added, softer, "she's not my friend."

Avin blinked. "Huh? But you two are always together—"

"We're cousins," Sylas cut in, casual as if stating the weather. "Her mother is my mother's sister."

"Oh." Avin nodded and turned his gaze back to the crowd. "That makes sense."

They lapsed into silence. Around them the coliseum buzzed with chatter and the scrape of hundreds of feet; conversations overlapped, names were called, lists were scanned. Avin tried to let the noise pass through him and proceeded to pretend he wasn't paying attention to the voices that seemed to tag him like flies.

"You're not like what I've heard about you…" Sylas said after a while, almost as an afterthought. At first Avin didn't register it — the comment slipped past his attention. Then his mind caught up.

"What?" Avin asked, looking at Sylas. "You've heard stuff about me?"

Sylas looked back, puzzled, and then shrugged. "Yes — everyone has. The 'failure of the great Chrono family,' the defenders of our northern borders," he said, jovial but with an edge of truth. "You've got a reputation."

Avin stared at the ground. The originals' rumors and the old Avin's defeats lurked in his memory like unwelcome ghosts; Clive carried those memories now, and each one scraped at him. He could feel the old shame fold into his chest: the idea that he was weak, laughable, a family embarrassment. The book he had found earlier made more sense now — a record of a man who kept pushing despite the world's contempt.

"They said you were so weak that the common guards of your family could defeat you with just one finger," Sylas continued, too easily amused.

Avin's jaw tightened. He had heard this before in flashes of the life he'd inherited: whispers, sneers, old family scorn. It hurt in a way that the raw physical trials never had. He had fought beasts, abandoned kin, and crawled back from worse, but public mockery carved its own kind of wound.

"That you were the weakest family member in Chrono history," Sylas said. "And that one day your younger sister beat you with no effort."

Avin's eyes narrowed. "Okay. I think I get it."

Sylas grinned, not unkindly. "I heard that one day you got beaten by an ant." He laughed at his own joke.

"Sylas, I said it's okay," Avin cut in, though the tiredness of always defending himself tightened his voice. But Sylas pressed on, careless.

"I even heard your family deity didn't acknowledge you," Sylas added, and at that Avin had enough. He wrenched himself out of Sylas's embrace so suddenly he nearly toppled them both; Sylas steadied, surprised.

"What?" Sylas said.

"I said that is enough," Avin said, breath short.

Sylas stepped back, offering a small, conciliatory smile and dropped his arm back over Avin's shoulder with casual ease. "But I don't believe all of it. I think you're cool."

Avin made no reply. He allowed himself a small, humorless breath and let Sylas pull him toward the nearest gate. Why lie — he wanted to see who he'd be stuck with; he wanted to know if this place might offer an ally, an edge, anything beyond quiet humiliation.

The two dove into the press of people. The crowd pushed like a living tide: arms flailed, elbows met ribs, someone fell and lay motionless, defeated, and dozens stepped over them without glancing back. Avin felt the press of flesh and heat and smelled sweat and the tang of metal. They fought their way to the gate where a huge sheet — a roster thick with names — hung and flapped.

Avin scanned row after row, eyes numbed by the density of ink. No name. Not his. He had to go check the other gates.

Sylas searched too, unblinking until he finally sighed and looked up. "I guess we have to go to the others," he said.

They turned, swallowing at the sight of the crowd swelling behind them — they would have to fight through it again. Avin let out a small, bitter laugh and muttered, "This is why the internet is important."

Sylas cocked an eyebrow. "What? Internet?"

"Ah—never mind," Avin said, and they pushed onward.

They shoved and ducked and squeezed through people, hopping over legs and slipping under outstretched arms. Each gate required the same patience and brute force. At the third roster Avin scanned with increasing impatience. Still nothing. He sighed, the motion loud in his ears.

"Wait," Sylas said suddenly, pointing at a name. Avin followed his finger and felt the world tilt for a second.

There it was, in neat black script, a name that made something cold and sharp click into place inside him: Seraphine Kyra-Chrono.

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