The room was freezing.
On purpose.
The Citadel's VR Sim Vault used aggressive cold to thin blood flow, slow muscle reaction time, and add another layer of suffering. The walls glowed blue with hard-light constructs consisting of blades, towers, climbing walls, Kaiju projections, and memory-form enemies based on real-world encounters.
Fifteen candidates stood at attention, and Yang stood behind them. Not with them. Behind. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be in the room at all. Maintenance Guys didn't get sim access. But once a month, the Citadel allowed low-levels to "observe" trials under command supervision—more as punishment than opportunity. If you volunteered, and no one objected, they let you try.
No one else from the sublevels ever asked.
But Yang always did.
The test began on the fourth chime.
The first cadet—Kale, of course—sprinted forward, light weaved over his limbs as the sim synced with his reflexes. His every movement was precise and fluid. He struck the hard-light Kaiju clone with a sweep-kick that shattered its leg, then spun through a midair vault and landed clean behind cover.
Applause then erupted from the officers behind the glass.
Yang stared and his jaw clenched. He'd studied this sim sequence and watched every archived run. He knew each step to take. He could see it all in his head. The timing, spacing, and flow.
But watching and doing weren't the same.
His name was called last. Not because of formality. Because it was a form of cruelty.
"Yang—Tier-3 auxiliary—enter the field."
He stepped onto the platform, heart pounding. The others watched from the side, amused, like they were waiting to see a dog slip on ice.
The sim engaged.
The cold hit hard and the Hard-light enemies shimmered into view.
Yang moved. His first step was good. He slipped past the first dummy, ducked underneath the blade and countered with a knee-strike. It was sloppy, but it still connected.
The second target came faster. He hesitated, and he knew hesitation killed. The construct clipped his side. He staggered, causing him to roll, but he soon recovered.
When it came to the third target, he missed his timing. He was too high on the swing and blocked late. As for the fourth, it got him from behind and slammed him flat on the earth beneath him.
The room rang with failure chimes. He hadn't made it halfway. He was met with silence.
Then—
"Simulation complete. Candidate: unfit."
The lights dimmed and Yang stood slowly. No one clapped, but someone snorted. For half a second, he thought—no, he knew—he could've done better. If he'd moved an inch faster. If he'd—
"Maybe you'd score higher with a mop," Kale said from the line. "Oh wait—you already have one!"
Laughter filled the room from the other candidates as Yang stepped off the platform, facing stone. He didn't look at the others nor did he speak. He even didn't stop when an officer barked his name.
"Auxiliary Yang, remain at post!"
He didn't. Because his ears were already ringing too loud to hear. The reprimand came an hour later. A full tribunal review. No charges filed, but the message was clear:
"Stop volunteering."
"Stop wasting our time."
"You are not a candidate."
Yang returned to Sublevel 9 in silence. His hands didn't shake this time. They were too numb. He collapsed on his cot and stared at the ceiling, letting the recycled air hum against his skin. He thought about never showing up again. He thought about letting the officers win and let the upper levels pretend he didn't exist and let the Citadel have what it wanted: a quiet, obedient failure.
But then his fingers curled. It was slow and reflexive. Like something deeper than thought had clenched inside him.
The rage wasn't loud. It didn't scream. It simmered.
He was late to training.
Holt didn't scold him. He didn't ask why he looked like he hadn't slept. He just handed him a wooden sparring pole and said:
"Hit me."
And Yang did. Or at least he attempted to as Holt deflected it.
"Again."
He swung and was blocked again.
"Harder."
Yang struck and was blocked.
"Put the disappointment in your arms," Holt said. "Put the shame in your knees. Turn every insult they gave you into momentum. Again!"
Yang attacked.
Again.
And again.
And again.
But Holt didn't let up. He didn't give him a win. He didn't say he was improving. But he kept standing in front of him. Kept letting him swing. And after an hour, Yang collapsed with a bloodied lip, a swollen hand, and exhaustion.
He looked up through his blurry eyes and asked—
"Why do you keep wasting time on me?"
Holt stood over him, arms crossed but didn't answer right away.
Then:
"Because once, I trained someone just like you. A maintenance girl."
Yang blinked.
"They said she was unfit. She wasn't chosen. But she trained anyway. She trained herself like it mattered to her and the world."
He exhaled.
"Her name was Rei."
The name hit like a drop in still water.
"What happened to her?" Yang asked.
"She passed me on her fifth try. Didn't tell anyone. Just showed up at the sim deck and outscored every awakened candidate on reflex and kill ratio."
A pause.
"They tried to stop her. But the Godseed awakened within her anyway."
Yang's eyes widened.
Holt knelt.
"The Godseed isn't a birthright. It's not given."
He pointed at Yang's chest.
"It's earned."
(Days later)
The first thing Yang learned was how fast you could bleed without realizing it.
He lay flat on the cold deck of Sublevel B4 with his lungs heaving, vision spinning, and the side of his neck stinging from where Holt's training blade had grazed him. A clean line of red trickled down, warm and sharp. The cut wasn't deep, nor was it lethal. But it was very real.
The simulation field was still active on blackout mode. There was no light or no horizon, only the motion-activated pressure sensors on the floor and faint glimmers from the edges of their blades. The rest was darkness. Total. Holt's preferred training condition.
"You're too slow on the return parry," Holt said, voice echoing like a ghost in the dark.
Yang blinked the sweat out of his eyes.
"I can't see a damn thing."
"Then start listening."
Holt's blade tapped the deck once and Yang listened as the air shifted behind him.
He rolled left, but the impact still caught his ribs and sent him sliding against the floor. It wasn't bone-breaking, but it was enough to take the breath out of him. He lay there, coughing, and teeth clenched.
"That's two hits," Holt said. "In a real fight, you'd already be dead."
Yang didn't answer. He stood unsteady. But standing. His hand gripped the hilt of his training blade tighter. It had a wood-core, yet it weighed like real alloy like it wasn't meant for comfort. Just for pain.
He swung wide, testing the space, but hit nothing.
Then—tap. Behind him again.
He pivoted. Too slow.
Another blow caught his thigh. His knee collapsed. Holt moved like he wasn't bound by gravity. His footwork was perfect, silent, terrifying. It wasn't speed. It was control. He chose where and when to be seen. And Yang couldn't keep up. But he didn't stop. By the end of the session, Yang was covered in bruises, a long shallow cut on his arm, a split lip, and two possibly cracked ribs.
Holt didn't gloat, but he didn't praise him either. He clicked the field lights back on with a code stamped into the wall, and the room reassembled itself—rows of broken lockers, discarded weights, old shell casings from an earlier age.
The simulation faded. But the pain stayed. And Yang slumped against the wall, blade across his lap.
"You said this was a conditioning exercise," he muttered, voice hoarse.
"It was."
"Then why does it feel like you're trying to kill me?"
Holt crouched beside him and produced a med-gel strip from his coat. He peeled it, and gently pressed it to Yang's neck where the blood had started to dry.
"Because one day," Holt said, "something out there will try."
He pressed the strip down harder. Yang winced. Holt moved with care, but without softness like a soldier treating another wounded soldier, not a boy he was mentoring.
Yang noticed the way Holt's hands moved. Efficient and steady. But the knuckles trembled slightly. Always. As if he was trying to keep something inside from spilling out.
"I fought in full blackout once," Holt said after a while. "Thirty meters underground. Reactor breach. Kaiju breach overhead. There was no support. No light. One of my mates was blind. Another lost her legs in the first contact."
He looked at the ceiling like it was a grave.
"We still finished the mission."
"How?"
Holt's expression didn't change.
"I didn't have a choice."
Yang sat in silence for a moment, staring at the frayed edge of his blade. The grip was worn smooth from use.
"Why aren't you in the records?" he asked quietly.
Holt's eyes didn't shift.
But something behind them did.
"What records?"
"Citadel archive says you served, yes—but there's no team list. No squad number. No first deployment date. Just a gap. Two years."
Holt said nothing.
His hand returned to his coat pocket. He pulled out another gel strip and began taping Yang's split lip.
Yang let him.
For some reason, it felt more honest than anything else the Citadel had ever done for him.
"The gap," Yang continued, "is just labeled: REDACTED – clearance tier six."
A long pause.
Then Holt spoke.
"Because we weren't supposed to come back."
Yang froze.
Holt's voice was low. Detached.
"Our squad—Squad Nine Echo—was assigned a cross-dimensional containment mission. We were the first unit to deploy to contain a Kaiju."
He stood up.
Walked to the far wall. His shadow stretched over rusted panels.
"The command said we'd be back in six hours."
"And?"
"We came back in twelve. Out of nine that went, only three survived."
Yang stood slowly, ribs aching.
"What happened to the other two?"
Holt's jaw tensed.
"One went mad months later and committed suicide. The other followed not long after."
Yang said nothing. He couldn't. Holt's hand reached for the back of his neck and continued pressing more gel.
"They erased the mission from Citadel history like it never happened."
He looked over his shoulder.
"That's what the Citadel does it buries failures."
Yang crossed the room.
Stopped a few feet from Holt.
"But you're still here."
"I stayed for one reason."
"Me?"
A pause.
"Not at first," Holt said. "But yeah. Now? Yeah."
Yang blinked.
He had no reply.
Only the sound of his pulse in his ears.
"You remind me of Rei. I know I told you this before," Holt said. "but she wasn't supposed to matter. Who mattered anyway that is."
He looked down at Yang, eyes not hard this time—but tired.
Old in a way that wasn't age.
"You don't have to be a Godseed Warrior to make a difference."
"But you were one."
"Still am," Holt muttered. "I just don't fight anymore."
"Why?"
Another long pause.
Holt's fingers tapped once against his chest.
"Because sometimes the armor chooses wrong."
He turned and walked away.