The transport drifted through a corridor of dead stars, its engines humming low enough to feel rather than hear.
Alkhaz stood near the viewport, hands in his pockets, posture loose in the way only experience allowed. The galaxy outside slid by in pale streaks, distant and indifferent.
The figure beside him remained silent.
That, Alkhaz noted, was deliberate.
"Still think this was unnecessary?" Alkhaz asked without looking.
The figure's voice came after a pause. Calm. Neutral. Genderless behind the distortion field.
"The Council doesn't like coincidences."
Alkhaz smiled faintly. "Neither do I."
He tapped a small holo-panel, pulling up a schematic—ancient, fragmented, half-classified. Not Zarion's echo. Not prophecy.
Infrastructure.
Old Genesis routing nodes. Decommissioned. Buried.
"They thought burying it would make it irrelevant," Alkhaz said. "It didn't. It just made it quiet."
"And you believe this connects to the boys?"
Alkhaz finally turned his head. His eyes were sharp now.
"No," he said. "I believe the boys connect to this."
The transport adjusted course.
Whatever waited ahead wasn't urgent.
Which made it dangerous.
Eclipsera did not rest.
By the time the candidates were recalled to the Crucible floor, the arena had changed again.
The trenches were gone.
The jagged terrain flattened into segmented platforms separated by wide gaps. Pillars rose at irregular intervals. No cover that stayed reliable for long. No single high ground.
And no Voidspawn.
That absence unsettled everyone.
The remaining candidates—fewer than before—stood in quiet lines. No one spoke. No one joked. Even Blaze Onyx had lost the urge to narrate.
Ken Kuruzama watched from the elevated oversight ring, hands folded behind his back. Data streams flowed past his peripheral vision—Genesis output, reaction timing, micro-adjustments in posture.
Trial One had stripped illusions.
Trial Two would assign responsibility.
The senior instructor stepped forward.
"Trial Two is not combat," he said. "If you attempt to treat it as such, you will fail."
A murmur rippled through the lines.
"You will be divided into operational units. Each unit will be given a dynamic objective. Objectives will conflict."
He paused, letting that settle.
"You are not here to win. You are here to decide what losing looks like."
Assignments appeared in the air.
Tojo scanned instinctively.
Ozaru was already reading ahead.
They were not on the same team.
Tojo felt the shift immediately—an old instinct to move closer, to synchronize. It didn't happen.
His unit populated around him:
Two humans. One Vexari. One Andromeda-born logistics cadet with no visible Genesis flare.
Awkward. Unfamiliar. Quiet.
Ozaru's unit stood several platforms away.
Elara Vey was there.
So was a Kyrr support specialist and a human girl with shielding Genesis he didn't recognize.
Ozaru noticed Elara glance at him—not reassurance. Confirmation.
Ken's voice cut across the arena, amplified just enough to carry.
"Supervisors will not intervene. Corrections will be logged. Extraction will occur only on systemic failure."
He looked directly at the candidates.
"You will feel ignored. That is intentional."
The platforms separated.
Objectives initialized.
Tojo's wrist display flickered.
UNIT OBJECTIVE: Maintain control of Node C-17. Prevent system collapse. No external assistance permitted.
He exhaled slowly.
"This isn't a fight," he said, mostly to himself.
One of the humans in his unit nodded. "Good. Because I'm terrible at fights."
The Node activated.
Pressure followed.
Not physical—conceptual.
The platform began to destabilize in phases. Energy surges. Structural drift. Timed failures that demanded coordination, not strength.
Tojo felt Destruction stir, restless.
He ignored it.
"Vexari," he said, keeping his voice even, "can you predict the next surge?"
The Vexari hesitated. Then nodded, pulling up calculations.
The Andromeda-born cadet adjusted the platform's anchor manually, sweating.
They were slow.
But they were holding.
Across the arena, Ozaru's unit faced a different problem.
Their objective required redistribution—energy routing between three failing systems. No single fix. Only balance.
Ozaru watched the patterns form.
Creation whispered possibilities.
He raised a hand—then stopped.
"Wait," he said. "If we stabilize all three, the load spikes."
Elara nodded immediately. "So we choose."
The Kyrr frowned. "Choose what fails?"
Ozaru swallowed.
"Yes."
They let one system go.
The remaining two stabilized.
Ozaru felt Creation recoil—not angry, but strained.
He breathed through it.
Ken watched the choice register.
No penalty.
Just data.
Far above Eclipsera, Nina finished clearing a Voidspawn nest and stood alone on the ridge, blade resting against her shoulder. She pulled up the Crucible feed briefly.
Saw the teams.
Saw the decisions.
Her gaze lingered on two names longer than the rest.
"They're learning," she said quietly.
Then she closed the feed and turned back to her squad.
Back in the arena, Blaze Onyx's unit tried to brute-force their objective.
It worked.
Until it didn't.
Their platform destabilized too fast. Emergency extraction triggered.
Blaze vanished mid-curse.
Stryke Vahr's unit completed their task with minimal deviation.
Too minimal.
Ken flagged it.
The Crucible slowed.
Objectives concluded.
Platforms locked.
The instructor's voice returned.
"Trial Two complete."
No cheers.
No groans.
Just breathing.
Tojo leaned on his knees, sweat dripping from his chin. His unit was intact. Barely.
Ozaru closed his eyes for a second longer than necessary.
Elara spoke softly beside him. "You chose well."
Ozaru didn't smile. "I chose least-worst."
She accepted that.
Ken's final note for the day logged quietly:
Akatsuki — hesitation decreasing. Leadership emerging under constraint.
Kael — decision-making stabilizing. Emotional load high but controlled.
Somewhere far beyond Eclipsera, a calculation adjusted.
No alarms.
No declarations.
Just interest.
The Crucible dimmed.
Tomorrow would be the last measure.
And whatever survived it would not be called a cadet anymore.