The morning sun hung low and blood-red over the Godoka plains, casting long, spindly shadows across the dirt clearing.

Standing in a rigid line were the five recruits: Austin, Joran, Rix, and two other youths named Kale and Mira.

They were all dressed in simple leather tunics, their faces a mixture of apprehension and grim resolve.

Pacing slowly in front of them, her boots crunching rhythmically on the dry earth, was Shina.

She was a vision of controlled intensity. Her silver-blonde hair was tied back in a tight, practical braid, and she wore lightweight steel greaves over her boots.

Her hands were clasped firmly behind her back, and her eyes—a piercing, unnatural violet—seemed to hum with an inner light.

"Listen well," Shina began, her voice like cold iron. "Aura is not a gift. It is a rebellion. It is the soul's refusal to be snuffed out by the world. To awaken like me, you cannot simply pray for it. You must demand it."

She stopped in front of Austin, her gaze boring into his. He felt a faint, static-like heat radiating from her—a physical pressure that made his skin crawl.

"The process I will use is the only one the Ironwood Clan knows: the Extremis Trigger," she declared.

"I am going to fight you. I will not hold back. I will push you past exhaustion, into a state of life and death. When your mind truly believes your heart is about to stop, your aura will either ignite to save you... or you will simply break."

She stepped back, spinning her ironwood baton. "Form a circle. Austin, you're first."

Austin stepped into the center. His wooden practice sword felt clumsy in his sweaty palms. Before he could even settle into a stance, Shina was on him.

The first strike was a blur. The ironwood baton whistled through the air, slamming into Austin's ribs with a sickening crack.

He gasped, the air leaving his lungs in a sharp wheeze as he stumbled back.

"Too slow," Shina hissed. She didn't give him a second to breathe. She followed up with a low sweep that knocked his feet from under him.

As Austin hit the dirt, she brought the baton down toward his collarbone. He rolled instinctively, the heavy wood thumping into the earth where his head had been a second before.

He scrambled up, his vision swimming, his side screaming in pain.

"Get up! The beasts won't wait for your breath to return!" Shina shouted.

For the next ten minutes, it wasn't a fight; it was a one-sided slaughter. Shina was a whirlwind of violet light.

Every time Austin tried to swing, she was already gone, reappearing on his flank to deliver a bruising strike to his shoulders, his legs, or his back.

His leather tunic was torn, and his skin was a map of rising welts.

His breath came in ragged, bloody hitches. His muscles felt like they were filled with molten lead.

The other recruits watched in horrified silence; they weren't seeing a training session, they were seeing a boy being systematically dismantled.

Austin fell again, his wooden sword spinning away into the dust. He stayed down this time, his forehead pressed against the cool dirt.

His mind was screaming at him to quit, to let the darkness take him, just like it had taken his village.

"Why am I doing this?" a voice whispered in the back of his mind. "They're all gone. I'm alone. Just let it end."

Shina walked over and planted a boot on his shoulder, pinning him to the ground. She leaned down, her violet eyes inches from his.

"Is this the Hero of the Shadowheart?" she mocked, her voice cold and biting.

"A boy who gives up when things get difficult? Your family died in the fire, Austin. They turned to ash. Do you want to know what they felt at the end? They felt fear. They felt weakness. They felt the same helplessness you're feeling right now."

The mention of his family was like a spark dropped into a keg of black powder. The grief that had been a hollow ache for days suddenly sharpened into a jagged, white-hot blade of fury.

"Shut... up..." Austin wheezed, his fingers clawing into the dirt.

"Or what?" Shina pressed harder, the physical pressure of her aura beginning to crush his chest.

He couldn't breathe. His heart hammered frantically against his ribs—the Extremis Point. His vision began to tunnel into blackness. His brain, sensing the imminent end, sent out a final, desperate signal for survival.

"I SAID SHUT UP!" Austin roared.

In that heartbeat of absolute desperation and hate, something deep within his marrow snapped.

A sudden, violent surge of heat erupted from the base of his spine, flooding his limbs with a sensation like liquid lightning.

A faint, flickering glow of crimson-red light burst from his skin, pushing back against Shina's violet pressure with a localized shockwave.

Shina's eyes widened. She leaped back just as a burst of raw, unrefined aura exploded from Austin.

He didn't stand up; he launched himself. He didn't even reach for his sword. He tackled Shina with a roar of primal rage, his movements suddenly twice as fast as they had been.

For a split second, the unawakened boy was gone, replaced by a vessel of pure, flickering red energy.

Shina caught his shoulders, her own aura flaring to contain him. She struggled for a moment against his raw strength before twisting and pinning him to the ground with a sophisticated grappling move.

The red glow around Austin flickered, then died as quickly as it had appeared. He slumped into the dirt, unconscious, his body finally spent.

Shina stood up, brushing the dust from her leggings. She was breathing slightly harder than before, a look of genuine shock—and a hint of respect—crossing her face.

She looked down at the boy who had just attempted to kill her.

"He did it," Joran whispered from the sidelines.

Shina looked at the other recruits, her violet eyes colder than ever. "He survived the trigger. He has the spark. Now... who's next?"

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