Sallie Mae Salcedo sat cross-legged on the floor of the living room, back resting against the cold concrete wall. The windows were shut. No breeze. Sweat lined his collar. The tablet in his hands glowed in the dim light, cycling through profiles—names, ranks, archived duel footage.
He wore Fourth High's uniform, creased at the sleeves, the tie undone. Dust gathered near the corners of the Salcedo residence, just outside San Jose, Batangas. His rifle sim controller lay unused beside him, screen dark.
"First High, Second High, Third High." He read off quietly, swiping past familiar logos. "Fourth's still bottom-ranked."
His eyes stopped on a clip from an Imperial Duel—two-on-two format. The opposing team baited a forward push, flanked hard left, then dropped a jammer field. The tank unit froze up. No retreat, no counter.
He scrubbed backward. Rewatched the move.
Celeste Marie stepped in from the hallway, half-suited in her combat vest, eyes scanning a folded briefing in her hand. She tossed her spare headset on the couch.
"You're lucky I'm your partner in 2v2," Sallie said without looking up. "Anyone else'd be a liability."
Celeste didn't answer immediately. She watched a training sim rewind and play again. Anti-air support wiped clean by blitz casters. Four seconds into Phase II.
Then, finally: "Just don't get bored halfway through."
Sallie swiped down on his screen, pulling up a list. Imperial Sea Games Master Schedule. Nine games. Three of them circled in red.
Sallie leaned against the couch, one hand lazily scrolling through the tablet screen. Match data flickered. Fourth High's deployment strategy in last year's Conquest flashed for a moment before he swiped it away.
"When exactly's the Games starting tomorrow?" he muttered, not looking up.
Celeste stood by the window, arms crossed, her Grimoire CAD hovering beside her in standby. She checked her own display.
"Zero six hundred. Mandatory muster at Calatagan staging ground. Transport gates open at four."
Sallie clicked his tongue. "That early? Damn. Gonna need to sleep by two then."
Celeste didn't respond immediately. Her eyes lingered on a locked document in her files—one Gabriella had sent privately last week.
"You're lucky," she said, voice low. "You get to worry about matches. Some of us get briefings."
Sallie tilted his head, then raised an eyebrow. "You gonna keep being cryptic, or what?"
She tapped her CAD. The room dimmed slightly as her device pinged the wallscreen. A secure video feed loaded, paused at a grainy, low-angle shot of Malacañang's imperial hall. She didn't play it—just stared at the frozen image.
"Few weeks ago, Gabriella called me up. Told me something that wasn't in the feeds."
Sallie glanced at the screen, then back at her. "Yeah?"
Celeste spoke flat, cold.
"They caught a Japanese infiltration caster near Pasig. Young girl. River was high—she was soaked. Cuffs already on when they dragged her in."
Sallie sat up straighter.
"Gabriella said she was marking coordinates near a scaffold. Tried to burn her ID, ditched her CAD. Still got caught."
Celeste paused. Sallie watched her closely now.
"Aurelio was there," she continued. "Gabriella too. Ventura's unit had her pinned. They found a mana tag with clan markings—Ten Master encryption."
Sallie exhaled through his nose. "Heir-line?"
"Yeah. They think she was bait. Not a scout. Not a messenger. A signal for someone else to move."
Sallie's fingers stopped moving.
"What happened?"
Celeste's voice dropped to a low monotone. "Gabriella tried interrogation. Girl wouldn't speak. Took a rifle butt to the ribs. Didn't fold."
Sallie didn't joke. He didn't grin. He waited.
Celeste looked at him. "Aurelio ordered public execution. No trial. Said she goes in the closing act of the Imperial Sea Games."
Sallie blinked once.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
The room stayed quiet, save for the low hum of her CAD.
"Guess the 'Sea Games' got more than student rankings on the line," Sallie muttered.
Celeste turned away from the window. "Welcome to the Empire."
Sallie scratched the side of his head, eyes still on the tablet but no longer reading. "So what—you're saying there's a rat already inside the country? One of theirs? Maybe still waiting around wherever they're holding the games?"
Celeste didn't answer right away. Her gaze shifted back to the screen, then to her Grimoire CAD. It pulsed faintly with the latest itinerary files.
"We don't know," she said. "Gabriella didn't say if they caught the rest. Could be a cell, could be just her."
"But she was marking a jump point," Sallie pressed. "That's not recon. That's prep."
"I know."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "And now the Games are in the Mall of Asia Arena. Big, open, full of cadets and military brass. Whole nationwide delegation packed into one place."
Celeste locked eyes with him. "We don't have confirmation of another breach."
"You don't plan an infiltration just to send one kid in to die."
Celeste looked away.
He stood up, grabbing his CAD and slinging the tablet under his arm. "Then we move early."
Celeste nodded. "We're headed to Fourth High. Teleportation hubs are set up there. Gabriella's handling Imperial Gate transfers—she'll move all nine schools to the arena from there."
Sallie frowned. "That includes First through Ninth?"
"Yeah. All of them. One burst. Full deployment into the Games zone."
Sallie clipped his CAD to his belt. "I'm not playing a tournament if someone's out there planning to blow the roof off while we're busy sparring for medals."
Celeste didn't move. "You don't need medals."
He looked over, eyebrow raised.
"You need to show up," she said. "Conquest and 2v2. Those are the orders. From Gabriella. From the Emperor."
Sallie exhaled slowly, lips tightening. "Right."
Celeste stepped closer. "This isn't some hobby circuit. You don't win anything. You represent."
He opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off.
"And don't pretend you forgot what comes after."
Sallie blinked.
"You finish the Games. You step into Japan. Gabriella gives you the green light."
His expression changed—less tired now, jaw tensing.
"She promised you'd face Tatsuya Shiba." Celeste said.
Silence.
Then he looked down, muttered under his breath. "Shit… right."
"You forgot?"
"I didn't forget. I just—" He stopped, jaw twitching, fingers flexing around the hem of his uniform jacket. "Been buried under match data, spell configs, deployment charts. I wasn't thinking about that part yet."
Celeste nodded once. "You should."
Sallie looked back up. The grin didn't come this time. His voice leveled out, flat and cold.
Celeste didn't move. "That's what you told them, remember? Back when you walked into the Malacañang palace with your hands in your pockets like none of it mattered. You said—clear as hell—you'd play along. You'd do the Conquest. You'd run the Duels. You'd wear the school badge, carry the Empire's flag, smile for the goddamn war-games... as long as they gave you that."
Sallie didn't respond.
Celeste stepped closer, voice sharper. "One fight. No chains. No handlers. No politics. You wanted it written down. You told the Emperor himself—no interference. Just you and him, on the field, clean. No backups. No overwatch. No teleport failsafes."
She stared at him. "They agreed."
He shifted his weight, hands curling into fists at his sides.
"You win Imperial Conquest," Celeste said. "You dominate the 2v2s. No slips. No disqualifications. That's the deal Gabriella gave you. Your name at the top of both events."
She paused.
"Then you get him. Tatsuya Shiba. One on one. No one pulls you back. No one calls it off. Not even Gabriella."
Sallie's eyes flicked to the floor, jaw clenched.
"You said that's all you wanted. Not the title. Not the prestige. Just that fight."
Celeste watched him, her tone even now. "So get your head straight. We leave in six"
"Fine. No more slacking."
Celeste's voice dropped lower, steadier. "One day, you'll get your challenge. That day's coming—sooner than you think."
Sallie didn't answer.
"But to get there, you need to meet the conditions." She moved past him, grabbing her Grimoire CAD off the wall mount, its core humming back to life. "You already know the terms. You survive Conquest. You win the 2v2. You show the whole damned arena why they don't put a leash on you."
She turned back toward him.
"After that, you'll be on your own."
Sallie's brow furrowed.
"I won't be with you after the Duels," Celeste continued. "They slotted me for Command Simulation right after. No overlap. No time to back you up."
"I won't be with you after the Duels," Celeste continued. "They slotted me for Command Simulation right after. No overlap. No time to back you up."
Sallie blinked, finally turning to face her fully. "You're doing Command Sim?"
Celeste nodded once, pulling up her schedule on the floating display beside her. "Yeah. Soon as we finish the Duels, I move straight to the sim control room. No downtime."
He frowned. "You never said anything about that."
"I didn't need to," she said, eyes still on her loadout chart. "It's not your concern."
Sallie stepped closer. "I thought you hated those matches. You always said they were just fancy board games for officers who didn't want to bleed."
Celeste finally looked at him. "Doesn't mean I don't know how to play them."
He stayed quiet.
She pointed at the timetable. "They gave me the slot weeks ago. Gabriella wants a live test—wants to see how I handle full-spectrum command over a mixed squad. AI units, mage fireteams, mobile Tamaraw support. I already know the rules, I've studied the terrain sim packs, I've got the macro priority queues in place."
Sallie stared at her for a beat.
"You're not just testing, are you?" he said. "This isn't some academy drill."
Celeste didn't answer right away. She brought up the overlay of the sim arena—tactical grid overlaid on a map of fortified terrain.
She closed it with a flick of her fingers.
"I'm not doing this for practice," she said. "I'm doing it because Gabriella needs someone who won't flinch if they have to issue a real kill order in a simulated city full of decoys and live-feed hostages."
Sallie watched her carefully.
Celeste stepped past him again, slower this time. "Duels end. You walk into your fight. I walk into mine."
she added, "Don't make me win mine while watching you screw up yours on the split-screen."
Sallie gave a slow nod, jaw tight. "Alright. Fine."
He moved to the side, leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed now, tablet tucked under one arm. "You handle the Sim. I'll finish the Duels. No dead weight, no missed queues. We go clean."
Celeste stopped near her locker, fingers tracing the reinforced edge of her CAD case.
"They'll send the update after Simulation wraps," she said. "New match brackets. Next round of Sea Games—rosters, time slots, final placements. Could be Extraction, could be Battle Royale. Maybe even Outsnipe."
Sallie's brow twitched. "So we won't know 'til after?"
"They want live results before reshuffling," she said. "Performance-dependent placements. Win your slot, you get first pick. Lose, they throw you into the grinder with whoever's left."
He pushed off the wall. "So if I sandbag Duel, they'll stick me in Battle Royale with the rest of the half-trained psychos."
Celeste gave a short nod. "Exactly."
Sallie leaned back against the wall, tapping his temple with two fingers. "Y'know, I've been watching the replays from last year's pool matches. Imperial Games got their own names, but underneath it? Same format. Just meaner."
Celeste glanced over, saying nothing.
"Urban Warfare Trials?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "That's Mirage Bat with rifles instead of bats and no audience to cheer you on when you get shot in the face."
He scoffed. "And Death Race? They slapped armor plating on the boards and let kids run mounted formations with explosives. Battle Board with extra casualties."
Celeste didn't respond, just started sealing her CAD case.
"And Outsnipe's just Speed Shooting but without the pretty lighting and countdowns," Sallie added. "They don't score by targets anymore. They score by confirmed kill feeds. You miss? The other guy doesn't."
He looked over at her. "They didn't make new games. They just stripped the safety net and told us it's sport."
Celeste snapped the case shut. "You figured that out now?"
He shrugged. "Didn't care before. Just wanted my fight. Now I realize they turned every schoolyard match into a battlefield sim."
He pushed off the wall and moved to grab his coat. "No respawns in the finals. Not unless they let you come back."
Celeste looked over her shoulder with curious face. "They do get knocked down?"
Sallie glanced at his tablet, then burst into a short, rough laugh.
"Holy shit—look at this."
He flipped the screen toward Celeste. The paused footage showed a Japanese girl mid-air, arms out, dressed in a glitter-coated costume with wings stitched on—clearly expecting some light-show acrobatics. The title overlay read Urban Warfare Trials: Preliminary Block C, Replay Footage.
"She thought this was Mirage Bat," Sallie said, smirking, thumb tapping the play button.
The feed jumped forward—flashbang detonation, automatic fire. The girl barely landed before ducking behind a steel barricade, eyes wide, skirt scorched from a fragmentation round. A volley of mana bolts lit up the corridor. Her illusion magic fizzled mid-cast.
"She was expecting sparkles and baton flips," Sallie grinned. "Not suppressive fire from a high schooler with a shotgun in a PE uniform."
Celeste didn't laugh. She just stared at the screen, arms crossed.
Sallie kept going, tapping through the angles. "She hesitated. Got pinned five seconds in. Whole team routed. Didn't even activate her movement spell—froze up the second she saw real muzzle flash."
He tilted the screen back toward himself. "That's the real difference. They trained for pageants. We trained for killzones."
Celeste's voice was flat. "And this is just day one."
Sallie closed the video, sliding the tablet into his coat pocket. "Good."
"Urban Warfare's just warm-up," he said. "The real event's Conquest. Before the conclusion of the Imperial sea games"
Celeste looked over.
"Every class gets deployed," he continued. "Not just reps. Whole schools. First to Ninth. Frontliners, support units, mages, even the ones who flunked their last movement drills—they all go in."
Celeste already knew. She let him talk.
"It's full elimination," he said, voice steady now. "No point tallies. No safe zones. You get wiped, you're out. Your school goes down? That's it."
He pulled the tablet back out and flipped to the schedule. "Winning school gets priority for state funding, CAD upgrades, deployment clearance for real-world ops. But that's just fluff."
He turned the screen to her. "The winner gets something else."
Celeste narrowed her eyes.
"Direct audience with the Emperor," Sallie said. "Not just Gabriella. Not the panel. Him."
She didn't answer, just stared.
"And in that room," he added, voice low, "you get to ask for anything. That's the prize."
Sallie's expression shifted—no more smirk, no commentary. Just silence as he slipped the tablet into the side pouch of his coat and stepped across the room toward the gear bench.
The Imperial Haxor sat there, sealed in its reinforced case. Plain black, no markings, no shine. He popped the locks, lifted the lid.
The interior hissed faintly as the mana seals disengaged. Inside, the briefcase-shaped CAD rested in standby mode—slits along the edge closed, emitter vents dormant. He placed it on the bench, then tapped the command node at the side.
Soft glyphwork lit up along the seams. Readout streamed into his secondary screen. Temperature logs. Mana channel feedback. System lag percentages. Spell packet storage.
"Two microfractures on the absorption grid," he muttered. "Friction wear from last sync cycle. Needs patching."
He scrolled down, reviewing the memory slot holding Yunalesca's copied specs from the last extraction test. "Combat imprint's still stable… but it's bleeding sync time faster under suppression fields. Too volatile."
He turned to the emitter ports, manually opening the side panel and checking the spell filament arrays. "Disruptor conduit's misaligned—probably during that last low-altitude drop. Could drift the elemental trajectory by a few degrees."
Celeste walked past but didn't interrupt.
Sallie powered down the system, pulled a small toolkit from the drawer, and started tightening down the mana stabilizers with mechanical precision.
"They're not using direct-cast patterns anymore," he said, more to himself. "All the top schools shifted to remote-triggered sigils. Pre-loaded sequence swaps. If I'm a second late reading the structure, I lose the moment."
He paused, looked down at the briefcase CAD.
"I need it to be exact."
He rotated the grip module, removed the internal core shield, and checked the manifest glyph. Slight degradation—manageable. Still, not ideal.
"I'm not walking into Conquest half-tuned."
He tightened the casing, reset the auto-scan sequence, and slotted the repaired components back into place.
Then he stood back, watching as the CAD rebooted. Vents slid open, glyphs pulsing low and steady.
Celeste stopped at the door. "You done?"
Sallie didn't look over.
"Not yet," he said. "But I will be."
Sallie narrowed his eyes as the Imperial Haxor's glyphs completed their boot sequence, a soft chime indicating the CAD was ready. He slid on his specialized interface glove, fingers weaving through the suspended control grid projected above the briefcase.
"Alright… let's see if you're still worthy of tomorrow."
He tapped a command.
With a faint hiss, the CAD's edges shifted, mechanical joints unfolding as the briefcase split apart into three sections. Its internal core reoriented, stabilizers locking into place as a modular barrel extended outward. The weapon transformation completed—sleek, compact, and angular. A high-caliber revolver, uniquely modeled to support mana-infused rounds and magic-triggered feedback loops.
Sallie aimed it casually toward the far end of the room, where a reinforced dummy with layered magical shields stood waiting.
Click. Boom.
A bolt of compressed kinetic mana surged forward, piercing the first barrier layer and cracking the second.
"No lag on the firing pin," he muttered. "Stabilizers holding steady."
He toggled a second command.
The revolver shimmered—then split, retracting and folding into a long-edged melee form. A short sword—mana-forged, humming faintly at the edge. Balanced grip, dense weight distribution. Perfect for close-quarters counter.
Sallie twirled it once in his hand, tested the resistance field, then launched into a short sequence of precision slashes across the room. The CAD traced an afterimage of its arc in glowing blue glyphs as it recorded motion fidelity.
"Perfect."
Then, the real test.
He touched the briefcase core again. "Absorption mode: Syncroscan. Pattern input—Angela's CAD."
The case vibrated faintly as stored combat imprint data—taken during a mock duel with Angela, one of the top-ranking IFRP illusionists—began to replicate. A projected diagram of her twin-ring casting interface flickered in the air above the CAD.
He waited.
Glyphs slid into alignment, but there was a half-second stutter.
"Tch. Still a slight delay syncing illusion-type cores," he muttered. "Need to reduce recompile buffer."
He initiated another scan—"Eris Mei. Flame core, dual-threaded barrier format."
This time, the CAD hummed clean. Mana shifted through the briefcase structure, mimicking Eris's signature casting interface. A digital clone of her spell architecture emerged—complete with her volatile ignition style and mid-cast compression trick.
"No desync," Sallie muttered. "Eris clone's solid. No runtime issues."
He let the energy settle, then shut the case down.
"Gun, blade, mimic. All systems green except for one thing…" He eyed the internal buffer and the faint blip that had slowed the Angela replication. "I'll patch that before dawn."
He set the CAD back into standby, watching as it folded itself into its original briefcase form—glyphs dimming like a sleeping beast.
Celeste's voice came from behind. "So?"
The Lazy Slouch finally turned, wiping his hand on a cloth. His voice was calm now. Confident.
"She's ready."
He snapped the cloth off his fingers and tossed it aside, the Imperial Haxor now dormant and humming faintly on the bench like a loaded trap waiting to spring. He turned toward the door where Celeste was half-shaded in hallway light, arms still crossed.
"Hey," he said, nodding toward her. "Bring your CAD over."
Celeste raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
He shrugged. "You're pulling triple duty tomorrow—Command Sim, Duels, Conquest. If anything's off, even by a few microseconds, you're dead weight. And I'm not letting you drag us down because you didn't calibrate a trigger node."
She hesitated for a second—then reached back, unhooking her Grimoire CAD from its floating magnetic dock. The metallic tome hovered slightly behind her, closed but glowing faintly with residual mana threads coiling from the edges.
"I already did maintenance two days ago," she said, handing it over. "Field-tuned after our last skirmish at Fort Santiago."
Sallie snorted. "Two days is a lifetime when your enemies are running frame-by-frame spell code optimizers."
He caught the CAD mid-air, then placed it gently on the workbench. The moment his hand made contact, the Grimoire's cover opened halfway, allowing diagnostic data to link into his terminal.
"Let's see…" he muttered, fingers gliding across the interface. "Mana matrix stabilization's holding. Activation delay—0.27 seconds. Tight, but not perfect. Should be 0.19 for your style."
Celeste leaned against the doorframe, arms still folded but watching closely.
He swiped through combat logs from her previous 2v2 match. "Support spell bloom's drifting. You're bleeding precision when you layer buffs with sensory illusions. The image lags by half a frame. That's going to expose your squad in Command Sim if someone's tracking by thermal sync."
Celeste frowned. "Fixable?"
The Lazy but motivated prodigy nodded. "Yeah. I'll reinforce the burst buffer with a pulse delay stack. Should align the casting illusion with your mana emission vector."
He paused, tapped one more line. "Your emergency override was deactivated last match. Intentional?"
Celeste's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. I don't need a failsafe."
Sallie scoffed. "You're gonna want one in a simulation where the AI is designed to kill you."
He reactivated it anyway.
A few minutes later, he handed the Grimoire CAD back, now glowing sharper, cleaner—like a freshly loaded weapon.
"Anything else?" he asked.
Celeste took it, examining the faintly realigned glyphs along its spine. "You really going all in tomorrow?"
Sallie gave a slow, confident nod. "We both are."
Then he grinned, just barely. "Just don't let me find your name on the elimination board before lunch."
"No...."
Sallie crossed his arms, eyes flicking toward the now dimmed CAD diagnostics screen as Celeste secured her Grimoire back to its magnetic dock. The tension in the room had quieted, but anticipation lingered—like the pause before a trigger pull.
"They're keeping the full schedule under wraps," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "We won't get the actual match order until after the opening ceremony."
Celeste looked up. "Still holding it back that late?"
"Yeah," He said. "Standard IFRP procedure. Keeps everyone on edge. They'll announce it live once all nine schools are in position at Mall of Asia Arena—right after Gabriella finishes the Imperial Gate transfers."
He tapped his tablet again, scrolling through the general itinerary.
"First part of the ceremony's formalities. Flags, ranks, unity propaganda. Then they flash the bracket boards on the aerial domes. Boom—no time to prep, no time to panic. You get your assignment, and you move."
Celeste adjusted the strap on her uniform coat. "Makes sense. Forces everyone to stay sharp across all disciplines."
"Exactly," Sallie said. "Means you better be ready to fight in Death Race even if you thought you were doing Outsnipe. And if Conquest gets called early, we're all going in cold."
He looked over his shoulder, smirking faintly. "Hope you slept well last night."
Celeste rolled her eyes. "Hope you don't forget which mode your CAD is in and end up charging someone with a briefcase instead of a blade."
Sallie chuckled "Wouldn't be the first time. But trust me—this time, I'm loaded for war."
His tone turned dry, laced with sarcasm but edged with focus.
"You know what's funny, Celeste?" he said, glancing over his shoulder. "Imperial Conquest isn't some optional spectacle like Japan's Monolith Code."
Celeste raised an eyebrow, listening.
He turned fully toward her, voice more serious now. "It's mandatory. Every class. Every school. You don't sit on the bench and cheer while three elites play stone-tag with mana shields. You don't fold your hands and shriek when your team scores a point."
He stepped closer, tapping the side of his tablet to emphasize the words.
"You get slotted. You move out. And if your school loses the match, that's it—you're out of the bracket. No appeals. No rematches. Try again next year, if you're lucky enough to still qualify."
Celeste didn't speak—just watched as Sallie's smirk faded into something more calculated.
"No waivers. No excuses. I don't care if you're the top illusion caster, or someone's precious daughter with a ribbon in her hair—if your unit folds under fire, the Empire treats it like a battlefield casualty."
He pointed at the roster board displayed on the screen.
"There's no 'support from the sidelines' in this game. Not here. Not in the Imperial Sea Games. They want every school to bleed. To prove they're worth standing under the flag."
She paused, then added flatly, "And only the winner moves forward."
Sallie nodded slowly, gaze still fixed on the roster display like it was a war map instead of a tournament bracket.
"That's the point, isn't it?" he said, voice lower now—serious, weighty. "The Conquest isn't just a game. It's prep. Conditioning."
He turned to Celeste, eyes sharp. "They're not just testing who's the best school—they're filtering. Grooming an army."
Celeste's expression tightened.
Sallie continued, stepping back toward the CAD bench. "Every nationwide class—First to Ninth—is in it. Not just for glory. It's to weed out who's ready for the next step."
He tapped the screen, pulling up a classified briefing Gabriella had once sent him—header marked: OPERATION TOKYO FLAMEFALL: Youth Mobilization Phase 2.
"The invasion of Japan," he said flatly. "That's the real destination. And this? The Sea Games? It's just the gateway."
Celeste's voice was like a steel edge. "So they're turning students into soldiers."
Sallie looked at her, voice dry. "They already did. This is just to see who can function in live ops without falling apart."
He raised his CAD briefly, the briefcase shifting shape for just a moment into its revolver form before folding back down.
"You win Conquest, you prove you can lead a unit. You win Duels, you prove you can survive a one-on-one against another combat-class magician. You win Command Sim, you show you can make decisions that get people killed—and still keep going."
"What about the other games?" Celeste asked
"Death Race? That's not about winning a race. It's about staying alive at top speed while the battlefield collapses around you. They throw you into an armored mount or a vehicle, slap live ordnance on your back, and say, 'Move or die.' It teaches you to react under chaos. You win? That's proof you can navigate a battlefield under relentless pressure. Blitz ops. Recon drops. Forward deployment into collapsing terrain."
He held up one finger.
"Urban Warfare Trials? That's close-quarters survival. Illusions, mana suppressors, building-to-building sweep tactics. It's a live test of infiltration and suppression skills—turning cadets into ghost units. You win that? They see you as special forces material. A future Shadow Cadre operator."
Second finger.
"Outsnipe is all about precision. One shot. One breath. No margin. They monitor every trigger pull, every mana adjustment. You win? That's sniper division or fire-support command. High-altitude deployments. Long-range disruption teams."
Third finger.
"Extraction?" He scoffed. "It's just a polite word for tactical looting and hostage recovery under fire. You learn to prioritize objectives, coordinate squads, and make sacrifices. You win that? They tag you for mission leadership. Target acquisition raids. Black ops."
Fourth finger.
"Battle Royale," he said quietly, "is what's left when everything else fails. No teams. No friends. Just you and whatever you can scavenge. It's the Empire's way of seeing who survives when structure breaks and command's gone. Pure instinct, raw skill. You win that? You're not just a soldier. You're a weapon. A candidate for kill missions. Solo assignments. Or worse."
He lowered his hand and looked toward Celeste.
"You win any of them? You get promoted—not in rank, but in potential. Gabriella and the Emperor don't care who scores the highest. They care who's ready for what comes next."
He paused, gaze hard now.
"You survive the Sea Games… and you're not going back to school."
Celeste nodded slowly. "You're going straight to Japan."
Sallie leaned back against the edge of the table, arms folded as he stared out the window of the Salcedo residence. The faint wind outside rustled the trees beyond the training yard, but inside, the room was quiet—too quiet.
He exhaled slowly, then spoke, voice low but certain.
"Everyone's preparing for Japan. They just don't say it out loud yet."
Celeste turned to look at him.
Sallie's tone grew heavier, more grounded. "The Sea Games are just the final filter. Once the last match is played, once the closing ceremony wraps up… it's deployment. No breaks. No announcements. The top schools, the winners, the MVPs—hell, even the ones they think are useful—they're not going back to campus."
He turned to face her now, eyes calm but resolute.
"We are going to Japan."
Celeste didn't flinch, but the silence between them stretched.
"So," Sallie continued, pushing off the table and walking toward his gear locker, "start packing."
She raised an eyebrow. "Now?"
"Yes," he said, unzipping his duffel and tossing in his secondary CAD and extra mana cartridges. "Pack for real. Not for overnight. Not for games."
He glanced back. "Because after the closing ceremony… I doubt the Emperor's gonna let us go home. Not when Gabriella's already prepping Imperial Gate to jump the combat units straight into Tokyo airspace."
Celeste walked over to her case slowly, quiet.
Sallie kept talking, voice casual—but the meaning behind his words was sharp as a blade. "We're not going back to the residence. We're not heading to Fourth High again after this."
He looked around the room, as if memorizing it for the last time.
"We'll be shuttled straight to the post-ceremony hotel. Mall of Asia sector. Supposed to be 'rest and recovery' for participants."
He zipped up the duffel, eyes narrowing. "But it's just a holding zone. Like an airport lounge, waiting for boarding. We sit there until Gabriella calls our names and lights the damn Gate."
Celeste said nothing. She just opened her trunk, began sorting her caster robes and armored coat.
Sallie slung the duffel over his shoulder.
"When that gate opens," he said, voice dropping lower, "we're not cadets anymore."
He looked at her one last time.
"We're weapons. And Japan is where we fire."
Celeste slowly zipped up her pack, her movements precise, almost mechanical. The weight of Sallie's words lingered in the room like static. She stood straight, eyes fixed on the gear laid out in front of her for a moment longer—then finally spoke.
"So that's it, huh?" Her voice was calm, but her tone had an edge. "No debrief. No ceremony speeches. No medals handed out by grinning officials. Just a suitcase, a closed gate, and a straight jump into a foreign warzone."
Sallie leaned against the locker, adjusting the strap of his duffel.
"That's the Empire," he said with a shrug. "If you want a parade, you picked the wrong flag."
Celeste shot him a look. "I didn't pick anything. I was born into it. Just like you."
He smirked, but it didn't hold long. "Yeah… but we chose to stay."
Celeste was quiet for a moment, then sat on the edge of her bed, resting her CAD case beside her.
"You think Gabriella's really just going to open the Gate and throw us straight into Japan?"
Sallie didn't even hesitate. "No warmup. No 'good luck' messages. Just a flash of light, then we're on the streets of Tokyo with Conquest squads, flanking formations, and Tamaraw units roaring down the Shibuya skyline."
Celeste looked at him, eyes narrowed. "You're oddly excited about this."
He gave a half-smile, more tired than cocky. "I've waited too long to fight someone who can actually make me sweat."
Celeste shook her head. "And what if we don't come back? You ever think about that?"
Sallie paused… then looked her dead in the eye.
"I think if we don't go, someone else will. Someone who's not ready. Someone who'll die on day one."
He walked over and crouched in front of her, resting his forearms on his knees.
"You and me? We are the ready ones."
Celeste stared at him—serious, grounded.
"So what then?" she asked. "We fight until they stop pointing us at things?"
Sallie's voice was low.
"No. We fight until there's no one left worth fighting."
She looked away, quietly fastening her coat.
"I hope you're right."
Sallie stood, slinging the duffel again with finality.
"I know I'm right," he said. "And if I'm not?"
He smirked slightly.
"Then I'll find out the hard way… standing next to you."
Sallie tossed his duffel onto the couch, a faint grin tugging at his lips as he looked around the room—one last sweep of familiarity before the storm. The tension in his shoulders eased just a fraction.
"We still have time," he said casually, dropping onto the nearest seat with a slight flop, "to play a few rounds of FPS… maybe get one or two chapters in for my novel."
Celeste arched an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Hey, I told Gabriella," he said, glancing at the swirling mana lines on his CAD. "Once we launch that invasion, I'm done messing around. No more games, no more chasing leaderboards. And definitely no late-night writing binges."
He rested his forearms on his knees, staring off into space. "I promised the Emperor and his daughter: when the time comes, I drop the toys and pick up the real guns. All in."
Celeste studied him carefully, but Sallie's smirk held a strange mix of regret and excitement.
"End of the line for Sallie Mae Salcedo the gamer," he continued, "and hello to Sallie the… well, the 'nobody-likes-to-talk-about-it' strategic class magician."
He gave a short laugh, though it carried little humor. "They think Gabriella's the only one we have. Fine. Let them believe that. I want Tatsuya caught off guard."
Celeste's voice dropped to a murmur. "If he's half what they say—"
"I know," Sallie interjected. "But that's exactly why I'm keeping quiet. If the Japanese get wind that I can throw nukes around too, they'll have Tatsuya and his clan waiting for me like I'm some big threat."
He let out a slow exhale, tapping his temple as if knocking away a stray thought. "If I want an actual fight with him, I need him to underestimate me, to think I'm just another IFRP cadet with fancy illusions."
He leaned back, gaze turning distant. "So yeah, I'll savor these last few hours. Get some killstreaks in. Write that next chapter. Because after the Sea Games?"
His eyes flicked to Celeste, and for a moment, all the bravado was gone—replaced by a steely resolve.
"It's going to be real. And I won't need a keyboard anymore."