"Hahahaha, truly what an interesting child," Yasumasa mused, hiding a large grin over his sleeve.
"This year is going to be interesting; all of them are just so overly interesting.
Sakata no Kintoki stumbled forward towards the large boulder.
He stood before the moss-covered monolith. His breathing was heavy, the air around him seeming to thicken with every laboured inhale. He drew his right hand back, a hand the size of a dinner plate, and as he did, the air around his knuckles shimmered; they turned a deep, molasses brown.
His hand was trembling, and he shot it forward.
CRACK.
Kintoki struck the boulder.
There was no flash of light, no high-pitched whine. Instead, it was a dull, bone-shaking thud that vibrated through the stone into the foundations of the Academy. The massive boulder groaned. For a heartbeat, the entire stage tilted an inch to the left.
"Whoa, what great raw strength," Yorimitsu thought. By just his natural strength, he might be stronger than me.
As Kintoki pulled his hand back, gasping for air, the crowd surged forward to see. In the centre of the ancient, hardened stone was a perfect, deep imprint of a fist, the rock around it spider-webbed with cracks that pulsed with a faint golden glow.
"Woooah! Was that the Iron Fist?" a rogue in the crowd shouted. "He didn't even use a blade! He just... he forced the stone to yield!"
"Yeah, but I thought the iron fist turned your hand grey, his was almost like clay, ha, there is always something you have never seen, the world truly is vast."
"Frog in a well." Another elder spoke just ahead.
Yasumasa stood, his eyes wide with unrelenting curiosity. "Sakata no Kintoki: Rank Two. Potency: Higher grade one. Your path is clear. Step down."
Kintoki left the testing stage, and eyes followed him as he walked to stand next to Yorimitsu and the others who had passed the trial.
What followed was a montage of desperation and triumph. The sun began its slow descent, painting the sky in bruised purples and burnt oranges, casting long, skeletal shadows across the white sand.
Jiro the Wolf-Eye: A scarred vagabond from the western wastes who used a rusted cleaver to deliver a Rank One strike of surprising brutality.
Ren of the Silk Thread: A slender, feminine-looking man from the slums who didn't hit the stone at all, but instead used a needle-thin stream of Reiryoku to pierce the purification seals, earning a Rank One for his technical ingenuity.
Amidst the triumphs of the high-born and the anomalies like Kintoki, the reality of the Academy's cruelty finally struck the high hundreds.
A man in his late twenties, dressed in a salt-stained kimono that had clearly been mended a dozen times, stepped before the Kagami. His name was Takeji, a low-born son of a dying village who had sold his family's remaining land just to afford the journey to the Capital.
He placed his hand on the copper surface. He prayed. He gritted his teeth until they bled.
The mirror remained cold. Not a flicker of light. Not a hum of resonance.
"Failed," the Proctor said tonelessly, already looking past him to the next number. "Next."
Takeji didn't move. His hand remained pressed to the bronze, his knuckles white. A low, guttural sound began to rise from his throat, a mixture of a sob and a snarl.
"It... it can't be," Takeji whispered, his voice cracking. "This was it. My village... my mother... we gave everything for this chance! I have nothing to go back to!"
He turned toward the high balcony where the nobles sat, his eyes snapping open. They were no longer the eyes of a hopeful student; they were bloodshot, the capillaries bursting from the sheer pressure of his grief and rage. Tears tracked through the dust on his face, leaving dark streaks.
"THE HEAVENS ARE UNFAIR!" he screamed, his voice echoing off the silent walls of the Academy. "You were born with gold in your veins and light in your souls, while we rot in the mud! Why? Why give us the hunger for power if you deny us the means to reach it? CURSE YOU! CURSE THIS CITY!"
High above, the response was not pity, but amusement.
Lord Takeo leaned over the railing, a cup of refined sake in his hand. He let out a loud, mocking guffaw that cut through Takeji's lament.
"Listen to the peasant howl!" Takeo shouted, gesturing with his cup. "He thinks 'effort' is a currency the gods accept! Fool, if every dog that barked was allowed into the Palace, we'd be knee-deep in fleas. Guards, remove this screeching animal before he stains the sand with his commoner's salt."
The other nobles joined in, a chorus of high-pitched, delicate tittering and deep, condescending chuckles. To them, Takeji's life-ending tragedy was nothing more than a brief comedic interlude before the main event.
Yorimitsu watched as two guards grabbed Takeji by the arms. The man fought like a wild beast, kicking and biting, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the shimmering amber dome above. He was dragged across the white sand, leaving jagged furrows behind him.
His blood trailed behind as he tried grabbing onto anything.
"He isn't wrong," Yorimitsu thought
. "The heavens are unfair. He has the heart but has no talent. If hard work alone were enough, I wouldn't have suffered so much in my previous life."
Kintoki, standing nearby, looked away, his large fists clenched so hard they shook.
"I will show you all, mark my words, you all shall now the howls of the forgotten." The man growled one last time.
Yorimitsu glanced at the gate where Takeji had vanished. "That man, I have a bad feeling about him."
As the final candidate stepped down, the toll was grim. Out of the thousands who had gathered at the Rashomon Gate with dreams of power, only two hundred now stood in the courtyard. The rest were led away by guards, their heads bowed in silent defeat.
As the heat of the day broke, servants moved among the successful candidates, serving cold barley tea and salted plums on lacquer trays. The tension remained, but it was dampened by the cooling air.