Engines beat the air into shape.

Snow flattened in rings. Rotors roared over the ridge and tilted the tree tops sideways. A quadcopter braked hard above the slope. Ropes dropped. Boots hit snow - fast, clean, practiced.

A second craft hovered behind it. A third came in wide. The sky felt crowded in a good way for once.

Then a darker shape sliced down.

A figure knifed through clouds, wingsuit catching wind. He folded at the last second, flared, and landed in a kneel hard enough to throw powder up in a halo. A pole slid into his hand and split - twin blades locking with a metallic click.

Rune grinned like the mountain owed him money. "You can breathe now, rookies!" He called

Oren dropped beside him and slammed his shield into the snow like planting a flag. Ryuu thudded down a step later, mechanical limbs hissing. Keita unfolded his twin fans; edges flashed pale and sharp. Behind, the second-years spread without a word.

One more body hit the ground and didn't turn for the front. Iris, the healer. "I'm heading for the wounded." She ran for the camp at a dead sprint, coat streaming.

Oren's visor turned toward Raizen in a quick, clipped nod. "Before the comms died - Alteea caught the signals too late. Lighthouse sensors tried to read it and blew up. All of the glass shattered. Whole top floor looks punched."

Raizen looked up the ridge, past fog, past cloud. What breaks machines by existing?

The trees let go of more shapes.

The next rush came fast.

"Left hinge" Raizen said, now even more tired, but not showing any signs.

Division Two stepped into the gap like they'd trained on this slope. Division Three and Four (them) folded around them without thinking. Lines meshed. Angles clicked. For a breath it felt like the world would accept the plan.

It didn't.

Nyxes hit like a tide. In the middle of all of them, One had two extra arms that kept trying to be wings and had given up halfway, hard and sharp along the edge.

"Keep tight!" Oren shouted, shield up. Keita's fans cut invisible arcs that made snow leap and wind cut. Ryuu moved in short bursts, machinery roaring, punching holes the size of barrels. Rune spun his twin-blade spear in a bright circle and charged with a laugh.

He charged too far.

"Rune -!" Oren started.

Too late. He vaulted past the hinge and went solo, spear flashing, carving a clean line two bodies deep. He was fast. Brutal. But wasteful. He left his sides open like he dared the mountain to try him.

A four-armed Nyx took the dare.

It slid out of the fog quiet as a thought, two lower arms braced, two upper limbs long and sharp where wings had failed. It moved… elegantly, but wrong. The first sweep came wide and flat, faster than it should. Rune brought the spear up to parry and realized in that instant he was a beat late.

A golden blur hit him from the side.

Raizen dashed, grabbed Rune by the collar in mid-step, and yanked him clear. The blade-wings smashed the snow where Rune's head had been. The shock shook his teeth.

Raizen didn't let go. He got in Rune's face.

"What do you think you're doing!? You're getting yourself killed!"

Rune bristled. "Watch your mouth, rookie -"

"Then act like a Vanguard."

No time to argue. The Nyx lunged again. Pride shut up. Instinct took over. Raizen went low. Rune went high. The spear pinned an arm, Raizen cut the other. The thing tried to learn that move and ate the second stroke instead. It split along clean lines and went to gold dust.

They stood a breath apart, both breathing hard.

"Stay in the line. We can't lose anyone." Raizen said, already turning.

Rune swallowed what he wanted to say. "Fine."

Keahi took midline. Her blade glowed orange-gold. Heat rolled off the edge in small breaths. She didn't chase kills. She just defended. Every stroke left a thin seam of fire.

Hikari was half a pace off Raizen's right. She didn't waste a motion. Staff turned, a blue ray snapped from the tip and burned a neat line through a plated elbow. Spear-shards formed above and fell - in a small, tight burst that turned two rushers into pinned shadows, then dissolved. She was calm when calm was expensive.

Arashi owned the extremes. Green hummed under his fingers. He shot points of light across throats and joints. He banked a shot off a low ramp Ichiro lifted for him and found the soft hinge behind a shield. The next shot cost more heat and his grip burned anyway. He didn't stop.

Lynea's skates spat violet lines that traced circles around miners trying to stay on their feet. Fragments snapped out and in, shaving ankles and wrists wherever a body overreached. Esen laughed when it hurt and stomped the air. Shockwaves fell in heavy beats down Ichiro's carved structures.

They held.

For a while.

The Nyxes got mean. The simple ones kept coming in straight lines. The stronger ones learned to split attacks. A pair would block while a third tried to backstab. One used a fallen body as cover. One mirrored Hikari's footwork, badly, but still got closer than it should have.

"They're copying" Keita warned, flicking a fan through a neck and stepping back into Oren's guard.

"They don't need to copy if we don't give them anything" Oren said, voice tight, shield ringing.

Rune snarled and cut three times in a row, wild and gorgeous, the spear a windmill of silver. A heavy Nyx ducked under it and slammed him in the chest with a blunt limb. He slid five meters, rolled, and came up laughing because that's how some people are built. Raizen didn't laugh. He dashed in and cut the arm that would have made Rune stop laughing forever.

"Stay with me" Raizen snapped. He didn't wait to see if the lesson stuck.

Ryuu roared, metal fists smashing a charging body into a tree. The tree won. The Nyx didn't. Keita's fans opened, caught wind, and drew a white crescent that cut three Nyx heads off. Oren's shield took a hit that cracked the surface in a star. He kept it up anyway.

"Alteea's trying to reconnect. AGAIN!" Arashi started, static scratching his ear.

"Not now" Raizen said, blades up, feet light.

They weren't winning. They were not losing. There's a difference. It hurts more.

Gold dust rolled off the slope in slow, pretty streams and disappeared with the wind. Breath took too long to come back. Every strike had to mean something. None of them meant enough.

"Hold the center!" Keahi called. Her voice warmed the air a degree. People believed her for another thirty seconds and moved with her. They, too, were getting wounded.

Esen slipped and saved himself with a slap that cracked the air and made his side light up with pain. "Still hilarious" he grunted. Ichiro built another step under him before he fell. "Thanks" Esen said, and detonated a pulse that flipped two shadows inside out.

"Left - two!" Oren shouted.

Raizen didn't look. He was already there.

He cut the first across the ankle and let it fall into the second. He dashed again, hit a trunk foot-first, and changed angle midair. A claw swung for where he had been. He arrived behind it finished it.

Rune landed at his shoulder, spear ringing. He didn't look at Raizen this time. "You trained in the Rust Room" he said, almost grudging. "Didn't you? I heard some things…"

"Yeah" Raizen said, parry-cut-step. "It doesn't let you stop."

Something behind the trees shouted without a mouth. The air thinned. The line bunched. Even the second-years felt it.

"Rotate!" Oren called. Ryuu swapped with Keita in one step, fans flashing over Ryuu's shoulder as he hammered the air into a Nyx. The formation held… Kind of. It worked against a front. This wasn't a front. This was everywhere.

Arashi's shots turned mean and small. No flourishes. Eyes. Strictly the necessary. His arm was dripping blood again.

"Raizen -" Alteea's voice cracked through in fragments. "- too many - pull - unstable - something-" Then noise. Then nothing.

They were already here. And it still wasn't enough.

Keahi's edge dimmed a little. She breathed out and made the dim look like a choice. "One minute" she said, and it meant: please don't die yet.

The line shivered. It didn't break.

Raizen moved like he had more lungs than he did. He carried corners. He kept a dozen stupid deaths from happening with a step and a cut. He didn't look like a leader. He looked like an answer the fight hated.

But the Nyxes didn't get tired. They didn't run out. They kept coming from the trees in waves and in pairs and from angles no one could cover forever.

"Raizen!" Rune shouted, pointing with the spear. More silhouettes on the slope above. "They're too many…"

Raizen looked up.

The peak hid behind cloud. Still. Quiet. Waiting.

He breathed out. The sound fogged and went nowhere.

"There's only one way to end this."

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