**CHAPTER 5: ACING THE TEST**
The morning bell tore through the dormitory like a wounded animal's scream. Kaz Ren came awake with Vritra's whispers still coiled around his thoughts, their presence a cold weight beneath his ribs. Pale sunlight streamed through the bulletproof windows, casting barred shadows across the sterile white walls.
In the adjacent bed, his roommate convulsed over their shared sink, vomiting up half-digested ration bars. The boy's right eye had begun crystallizing overnight—geometric fractures spiderwebbing across his iris, catching the light in unnatural prismatic flashes. His trembling hands clutched the porcelain basin as he gasped out a warning between heaves.
"Symbiosis Enhancement... in twenty."
Kaz swung his legs over the cot's edge, muscles protesting from yesterday's brutal evaluation. The digital display above their door scrolled the day's schedule in cold blue letters. Applied Kaiju Biochemistry. Enhancement Restraint Training. History of Human Extinction Cycles. Each subject more ominous than the last.
When Kaz reached past the shaking boy for his toothbrush, the first-year flinched so violently he nearly collapsed. His remaining human eye darted between Kaz's unmarked skin and the scars that laddered his knuckles.
"You're really not—"
"Save your breath," Kaz said around a mouthful of mint foam. He spat into the drain, watching the toothpaste swirl around the remnants of his roommate's breakfast. "Worry about your eye before it turns your brain to quartz."
---
The uniform hung heavy in Kaz's hands—stiff black fabric with silver piping that caught the dim light. The Akatsuki crest stood out in raised embroidery over the left breast, its intricate threads rough beneath his calloused fingertips.
The mirror showed a stranger staring back. The high collar bit into his neck, the tailored jacket pulling tight across his shoulders. Hidden reinforcements lined the knees and elbows, nearly invisible unless you knew where to look. Kaz rolled his shoulders experimentally, testing the range of motion. Not terrible. Functional.
A sharp knock rattled the door.
"Ren. Breakfast in five."
Kaz didn't bother responding. When he stepped into the hallway, the vandalism glared back at him—FAILED CANDIDATE painted in dripping crimson across his door, the letters carefully styled to resemble blood.
He pressed his thumb into the still-tacky paint, smearing it across the first name on the list. Down the corridor, a cluster of second-years watched from an alcove, their enhanced pupils catching the light like predators' eyes in the dark.
"Looking pretty for your funeral, defect?" one called, his vocal cords buzzing with unnatural harmonics.
Kaz wiped his red-stained hand across their doorframe as he passed.
---
Pushing open the double doors, Kaz was greeted with a wave of chattering from all round the dining hall.
Ignoring that, something else had caught his attention and it was the way everyone was sitted.
At the central platform, elevated above the common tables, Aoi Shirogane held court amidst her inner circle. Her breakfast remained untouched, each food item arranged in precise geometric patterns. Beside her, Ryota Kaneshiro devoured an entire roast chicken, bones splintering between his enhanced teeth. The sounds of his feast echoed through the hall.
Hina Kuroda sat slightly apart, her spinal whips coiled tight against her uniform. She dissected a grapefruit with surgical precision, wiping her elongated canines between bites on a monogrammed handkerchief. At the table's edge, Renji Matsumoto flickered in and out of visibility, his form destabilizing each time he reached for another serving.
Kaz, after picking his meal, took his tray to the far corner—the unofficial "Unmarked" section where non-enhanced first-years hunched over their meals. Conversations died as he sat. A boy with fresh acid burns along his neck choked on his rice, his Adam's apple bobbing convulsively.
"Problem?" Kaz cracked open his protein shake—the label glaringly bold: NON-ENHANCED FORMULA.
---
The lecture hall hummed with nervous energy as Professor Hiraku's augmented vocal cords produced a sound that bypassed the ears entirely—vibrating directly against the bones of their skulls.
"Mutation Suppression is not restraint," the professor intoned, pacing before the holographic display of a kaiju pupa's nervous system. His modified larynx emitted harmonics that made the glassware tremble. "It is the art of convincing your own DNA to *lie*."
The projection shifted to show a human nervous system threaded with glowing blue symbiont cells. "Your enhancements are living weapons. They want to *manifest*. Your task is to make them believe they don't."
At the demonstration table, Hina Kuroda sat perfectly still, her spinal whips coiled tight against her uniform. The professor gestured to her like a curator presenting a prized artifact.
"Observe."
Hina inhaled sharply. The barbed tips of her whips emerged first—inch by inch—their serrated edges glistening with fresh neurotoxin. Then, with excruciating slowness, she began the retraction. Muscle fibers visibly strained beneath her skin as the appendages slithered back into their sheaths, her breath coming in controlled bursts through flared nostrils.
A collective gasp rippled through the class as the last tip disappeared beneath her collar. Only the dampness at her temples betrayed the effort.
"Now," Hiraku said, tapping the console. The doors hissed open as automated carts delivered specimen jars to each workstation. "You'll practice on your least volatile mutation. Begin with—"
A shriek cut him off.
At Station 12, a first-year girl clawed at her crystallizing forearm. "I-I can't—" Her diamond-like skin fractured with an audible *crack*, sending razor shards embedding into her workstation. Blood welled along geometric fault lines as she collapsed, sobbing.
Hiraku didn't flinch. "Medical team to Station 12. Note how the subject panicked—symbionts feed on distress." His augmented eyes swept the room before landing on Kaz. "Ren. Since you lack enhancements, you'll assist with containment."
Kaz rose, his chair scraping loud enough to make two first-years jump. As he crossed to the injured girl, he caught Aoi watching from the front row—her cobalt veins pulsing in time with some silent calculation.
The girl's blood was colder than he expected, like liquid quartz. She whimpered as he hauled her up, her fractured skin scraping against his unmarked hands.
"P-please," she gasped, her breath fogging in the air between them. "It h-hurts—"
Kaz tightened his grip. "Then stop feeding it."
Behind them, Hiraku's voice vibrated through the chaos. "Again. All of you. Suppression is survival—the moment your enhancements control you, you become just another Calamity waiting to happen."
The girl's fingers dug into Kaz's uniform as another shudder wracked her body. He wondered how many students this room had swallowed before spitting out survivors like Hina. How many more it would claim today.
And why, despite everything, part of him still envied their transformations.
______
The lecture was over for the day and Kaz had eventually fallen asleep during the lecture as it was mostly practical based and he wasn't really capable of being practical.
Aoi appeared at his station, her unmarked hands resting lightly on the steel table. "We need to talk."
Kaz didn't raise his head up. "You want to talk, I don't."
"I anticipated that response." Aoi's smile was a razor-cut in porcelain. "Lest I remind you—immunity makes you fascinating. Not irreplaceable."
"Your father wants me here, not the other way round" he replied, staring back directly into her eyes now.
---
Outside the fore walls of the lecture building,
The training field's floodlights buzzed to life with a high-pitched whine, casting the bloodstained polymer mats in sterile white light. Combat drones detached from their ceiling mounts, their optical sensors whirring as they took up positions around the arena. The holographic ranking board flickered overhead, its glowing projections listing two hundred names in meticulous order—Kaz Ren's still hovering near the bottom at **#147**.
A hush fell over the gathered students as the system announced: *"Sparring session initialized. Randomized match selection."*
The drones chirped. A targeting laser painted Kaz's chest.
Across the mats, a second-year girl cracked her neck, keratin blades sliding from her forearms with wet, clicking sounds. Her jawbone visibly warped as she grinned, the mutation twisting her voice into something guttural and alien.
"Look what the drones dragged in," she sneered, flexing her bladed limbs. The overhead lights glinted off their razor edges. "Heard you got lucky in the eval, *defect*."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Kaz recognized her—**Mira Sato, Rank #62**, one of Ryota's hangers-on. Her enhancements were fresh, the skin around her blades still raw and inflamed. Desperate to prove herself.
Kaz rolled his shoulders. "You volunteering to be my warm-up?"
Mira's blades elongated another inch. "I'm gonna carve that smug look off your—"
The starting bell rang.
Kaz moved before the tone finished echoing.
He ducked under her wild opening slash—predictable, she always led with her right—and drove his forehead into her nose with a sickening *crunch*. Cartilage gave way. Blood sprayed in an elegant arc across the mats as Mira staggered back, her blades flailing wildly.
The drones buzzed in frantic circles, their sensors struggling to track the speed of the takedown.
*"Match concluded,"* the system announced. The ranking board flickered, recalculating.
**RANK 147 → RANK 89**
A collective gasp. Mira collapsed to her knees, clutching her ruined face. The keratin blades retracted involuntarily, leaving trails of yellowish fluid down her arms.
Before the drones could reset, a shadow blotted out the lights. Ryota Kaneshiro loomed over Kaz, his bulk blocking the arena exit. Up close, he smelled like iron and half-digested meat from the dining hall's rare steaks. His bone spurs scraped together with a sound like grinding teeth as he cracked his knuckles.
"Cute trick," he rumbled. His enhanced vocal cords made the words vibrate in Kaz's ribs. "But real fights?" He gestured to the drones hovering above them. "Don't come with scoreboards. Or rules."
Kaz wiped Mira's blood from his brow with the back of his hand. He could feel the entire academy watching—Aoi's calculating stare from the observation deck, Hina's coiled tension by the weapon racks, even Renji's flickering presence near the shadows.
He smiled.
"Good thing I don't play by rules."
---
**CHAPTER 5: MIDNIGHT RECKONING**
The emergency lights after lights out(22:00), cast the dormitory in a dull crimson glow as Kaz lay motionless on his cot. The rhythmic beeping of the academy's night cycle countdown echoed through the empty halls. His roommate's bed remained neatly made, untouched since the boy had been carried to the medical wing after his "accidental" fall down the service elevator.
Kaz's fingers tightened around the glass shard hidden beneath his pillow. He'd been expecting a visit ever since his ranking jumped fifty-eight spots after the training arena incident. The whispers had followed him all day:
"Defect cheated.", "No way an Unmarked takes down a Stage-2.", "Ryota's offering double rations to whoever puts him in the med wing."
The first sign of trouble came with the faintest scrape of boots on polished concrete. Then the wet, clicking sounds of joints rearranging themselves - the unmistakable sound of enhanced students preparing for combat. Finally, the slow, deliberate turn of his doorknob, the pins lifting one by one with practiced precision.
Five figures slipped into the room, their modifications glistening with fresh combat gel in the moonlight. Kaz recognized them all from Ryota's inner circle:
The five figures moved with the quiet confidence of predators, their enhanced forms glistening with fresh combat gel in the moonlight. At the front stood Jiro, Ryota's lieutenant, his right arm permanently fused into a serrated bone blade that dripped viscous neurotoxin onto the dormitory floor. Beside him, Mira's boyfriend loomed, his jaw unhinged like a snake's, elongated canines glistening with fresh venom.
The hallway ghost flickered at the edges of Kaz's vision, his form destabilizing in the way only Renji's proteges could. To his left, the bruiser flexed his swollen knuckles, the fresh bone growth cracking as he prepared to strike. And at the rear, the strategist watched with cold calculation, her spinal whip coiled tight against her back.
They spread out in practiced formation, each modification a testament to the academy's brutal curriculum. Jiro's bone blade scraped against the doorframe as he entered first, the sound setting Kaz's teeth on edge. The bruiser's heavy breathing filled the small space, his enhanced musculature straining against his uniform.
Mira's boyfriend licked his elongated canines, the motion disturbingly serpentine. "Shirogane's pet defect," he hissed, his voice distorted by his reshaped vocal cords.
The hallway ghost phased in and out of visibility, circling to Kaz's blind spot while the strategist remained by the door, her whip twitching in anticipation. They moved as a unit, their enhancements complementing each other - a perfectly coordinated attack squad sent to deliver Ryota's message.
Kaz's fingers tightened around the glass shard beneath his pillow. He recognized each of them from the training grounds, from the mess hall whispers, from the ranking boards that dictated their entire existence. They weren't just random thugs - they were the academy's perfect products, molded into living weapons.
And they'd come for him.
Jiro stepped forward, his modified vocal cords making his voice buzz unnaturally. "Shirogane's pet defect," he sneered. "Let's see what makes you so special."
Kaz moved before the last syllable faded.
The bedframe became his first weapon, its metal screeching as he swung it into the hallway ghost's knees. The bruiser got a faceful of powdered glass Kaz had prepared from broken lab equipment. When Mira's boyfriend lunged, Kaz used his own momentum to slam him into the strategist, their enhanced limbs tangling together.
Jiro lasted three seconds longer. His bone blade lodged in the wall paneling when Kaz twisted away, leaving him open for a crushing elbow to the throat.
By the time academy security arrived, Kaz sat cross-legged on his cot, wiping Jiro's blood from his hands with the boy's own uniform scarf. The other four groaned in various states of disrepair around the room - one unconscious, two vomiting from the pain feedback of their damaged enhancements, the last whimpering with a compound fracture.
"They tripped," Kaz said, his breathing perfectly even.
From the doorway, Director Shirogane adjusted his glasses, the lenses flashing white in the dim light. Without a word, he turned and walked away, his polished shoes clicking against the concrete like a metronome counting down to something inevitable.
The attackers hadn't just come for Ryota's bounty or Mira's bruised ego. They'd been Shirogane's test.
And Kaz had passed.