The spirit daggers that had been orbiting in lazy patterns suddenly snapped to attention—all eight of them locking into formation around the Verya warrior like a constellation taking shape. Emerald light pulsed along their edges, matching the glow of the runes mapped across Ryzen’s skin.
Eight blades. Eight extensions of will made manifest—with his ninth in Selena’s possession. Zyxel had seen Ryzen fightmany times before on the asteroid base—along with brief glimpses during the arena battles at the Harvest Festival—but watching him prepare for combat in earnest against Kaede was something else entirely. The daggers responded to thought alone, each blade moving with independent purpose while remaining part of a greater whole.
Like watching eight minds share one body.
The sight made Zyxel’s scholar’s mind race with questions. How did the Verya maintain that level of coordination? What neural pathways had evolved to allow such precise telekinetic control? He’d studied the species’ genetic records during his time on the asteroid base, but seeing their abilities in action revealed complexities no data file could capture.
While most Verya had one or a pair of spirit weapons, somehow Ryzen had nine, and his brother had a long sword.
Kaede activated his psydaggers. The blue-violet hum filled the training yard.
“Don’t hold back,” Ryzen said. His voice carried an edge—grief transformed to steel, loss forged into focus.
“I never do.”
They clashed.
Zyxel stumbled back as the force of their collision shook the air. Kaede moved like shadow given form—there, then gone, then somewhere else entirely, his psydaggers leaving trails of violet light that seemed to hang in the young dusk. Ryzen met each strike with a blade, deflecting Kaede’s weapon while four other daggers arced toward openings the assassin hadn’t left.
But the openings weren’t there.
Kaede twisted through the storm of emerald blades like he could see them coming before they moved. Which, Zyxel realized, he probably could—that tactical REI of his processing trajectories, calculating probabilities, turning combat into mathematics that his body solved in real time.
Ryzen adapted. The daggers shifted patterns—no longer a coordinated assault but a web of random violence, each blade moving independently, chaotically, forcing Kaede to react on instinct instead of prediction.
The assassin grinned.
His form blurred—that impossible teleportation that defied physics, the signature ability of his hybrid physiology, his high tech and Oetsae—and suddenly he was behind Ryzen, psydagger driving toward the Verya’s spine. But Ryzen had already turned, two spirit daggers crossed to catch the blow, and three more screaming toward Kaede’s exposed flank.
Kaede vanished again. Reappeared. Struck. Vanished.
Ryzen’s daggers flowed around him in patterns that seemed almost organic—a living shield of emerald light that anticipated, adapted,learned. Where Kaede’s teleportation should have created unpredictability, the Verya’s multiple blades covered every possible angle of approach.
Zyxel watched with the intensity he usually reserved for cellular analysis. His scholarly mind dissected their movements, cataloged their techniques, searched for the underlying patterns that made them so deadly.
Kaede fought like violence itself—pure aggression channeled through absolute precision. Every strike was meant to kill. Every movement calculated for maximum lethality with minimum energy. He didn’t think about fighting. He simplywasfighting, the same way a star was burning.
Ryzen fought like controlled devastation—eight minds operating in harmony, each dagger an extension of a will that had been forged in war and tempered by loss. Where Kaede was shadow, Ryzen was storm. Where Kaede was certainty, Ryzen was adaptation.
Together, they were poetry.
The realization struck Zyxel like one of Kaede’s blows. He’d been trying to copy their styles—to become what they already were. But that wasn’t what this training was about. He couldn’t be Kaede. Couldn’t be Ryzen. He needed to find his own. His own language of violence that complemented theirs instead of imitating.
His eyes tracked their dance across the training yard, and slowly—so slowly—he began to see the spaces between them. The gaps their complementary styles left open. The places where a third combatant could fit, couldcontribute, without disrupting the flow they’d already established.
The spar ended in stalemate—Kaede’s psydaggers pressed to Ryzen’s throat and stomach, two spirit daggers hovering at the assassin’s heart, neither willing to yield first.
They held the position for three heartbeats. Then both stepped back simultaneously, acknowledging the draw without needing words.
Ryzen’s daggers returned to their lazy orbit. Kaede deactivated his psydaggers.
Both turned to look at Zyxel.
“Your turn,” Kaede said.
The combination drills started slow.
Kaede called patterns—simple rotations at first, one combatant engaging while the other two repositioned. Zyxel stumbled through the movements, legs protesting muscles they’d never been asked to use, balance wavering with every pivot.
