The baggage carousel gave a low, reluctant thud. Like something sighing through gritted teeth. Solan Elric looked up—just in time to meet the eye of his own medical history.
It lay there, sliding toward him on the belt, swaddled in layers of burlap and strapped tight like a dead thing too dangerous to bury. Under the flicker of fluorescent lights, the explosion-proof binding glinted faintly. The Hazardous Item tag flapped in the A/C breeze, mocking him.
A few nearby passengers stared. One blonde girl in oversized sneakers whispered to her friend, “Is that, like, a cosplay prop?”
Solan Elric ignored them. Jaw tight, spine straighter than it had been all week, he stepped forward with the hollow dignity of a man retrieving a lost golf club. His fingers touched the hilt—and the cold hit him instantly, curling up his bones.
That’s when the dog stopped. The security K9—a lean, brindled mutt with a blue vest and calm eyes—tensed mid-step. Its handler gave a light tug, but the animal didn’t move. Its ears went back. Then, with a sharp huff, it backed away.
Solan hesitated. Looked around. No one else seemed to notice. He sniffed at his sleeve. Did I shower last night? The dog let out a low growl. Great. I smell like fear and international war crime.
That thing always weighed more than he remembered. Like it was full of deep-sea water. One year ago, at three in the morning, he’d watched it pull itself out of his left arm. No light. No sound. Just pain—slow and meticulous, like his bones were being redrawn inch by inch. That was how he learned he was a Kamuy-bearer. That was how the Kamuy chose him.
Ten percent of the world. That’s what the numbers say. But when it’s you—just you, alone at 3 a.m., bleeding light from your wrist—it doesn’t feel like statistics. No training. No ceremony. Just blood and consequence. Just this…thing.
He still didn’t know if that counted as lucky. But for now, he was just a guy hauling his own curse through customs.
“Welcome to New Elysion,” the border officer droned. The stamp came down on his passport with a clinical thwack. “The world’s most livable polar city.”
Solan tugged at his damp T-shirt, where sweat had painted a topographical map across his chest. A woman wrapped in a gauzy sun-shawl floated past, eyeing him like even penguins knew to wear sunscreen. “Yeah. Livable my ass,” he muttered.
Almost sixty years ago, The Dragon fell into the Gulf of Alaska. Nobody expected it to leave behind anything except a scar on the seafloor. They were wrong. Whatever leaked from the seabed changed the region—broke it, reshaped it. Around New Elysion, winter still bit, but it didn’t kill. Within the city limits, the air stayed tempered—warmer than it had any right to be. Summers climbed into the high eighties, sometimes brushing ninety, enough to make the streets shimmer. Winters hung in the twenties and low thirties, cold enough for frost but not for death. Step outside the green fringe and the world snapped back to subarctic reality—glaciers on every horizon. The scientists called it a climate torsion zone . The locals just called it hell with a postcard view.
His suitcase got stuck three times on the architect’s precious wave-patterned flooring. Norman Foster had once pitched it to a former Soviet general as “a grave for escapees.” Now it was an influencer hotspot.
Solan kicked the case loose. Licked his dry lips. The Academy at New Elysion made him a blunt offer: two years tuition-free. No welcome letter. Just a sterile, automated acceptance—and a dose of Stabilin already in the mail.
It was the good kind. Not the generic strain you found in border clinics or ration centers—the one that came with a 48% chance of neural scarring. This was Premium-tier Stabilin, straight from the program they never advertised, but everyone knew existed: a $70 million black-box budget devoted solely to keeping Kamuy students alive.
Seventy percent of the Academy’s student body carried Kamuy. And the Academy kept them alive on the most expensive drug in the world—just so they could study comparative literature. The Academy at New Elysion had been the first institution to do it. No strings. No service requirement. No post-grad buyback clause. They didn’t even ask what kind of Kamuy you had.
The vial came in a slim climate-sealed capsule. Light-blue serum, suspended like liquid frost. Microfiltered. Tamper-sealed. Serial-coded. Federal-grade dosage. The kind usually reserved for high-risk containment zones or diplomatic Kamuy-carry permits. Market price: $1,000. Black market? Three times that—if you were desperate enough, or dying slow enough, to pay it.
He’d never needed it. Not once. Maybe the doctor was right—his Kamuy was too weak to destabilize. Or maybe his Draconic Factor was just low enough to slip beneath the world’s threshold for danger.
That should’ve felt like relief. It didn’t.
He didn’t need the monthly dose, so he sold it. Quietly. Discreetly. Just enough to cover the parts of his life the scholarship didn’t touch: meals. dorm fees. laundry tokens. That crater where his GPA should’ve been.
The A/C rattled. Heat rolled back in. Solan grabbed his stuff and bolted for the tram just as the doors began to close. In the glass, he looked like a stray mutt—wet, slouched, unwanted. The sweat, the slouch, the oversized bag slung across one shoulder like a coffin.
His transcript burned in his pocket. Kamuy Rank: C-. Academics: C+. A perfect fit for The Academy at New Elysion’s tagline: **The apex of the strange. The exception to the rule.
The tram slid along the coast like a cold paper knife. Solan leaned against the window as the polar city unfolded in slow, deliberate frames. He didn’t have some grand reason for coming here. No dreams of changing the world, no burning ambition to join the elite. He just… went to college because that’s what you do. Everyone else did.
The first impression was hard to breathe through—rows of steel-gray port warehouses lined up like tombstones, the sea wind slapping the glass with the scent of engine oil and hospital-grade disinfectant. Then came the residential blocks: low, boxy houses pinned to the frozen ground in neat Nordic rows, like someone had arranged a miniature set and forgotten to add life. Then the towers rose from the mist—clean lines, mirrored sides, corporate perfect. Solan clicked his tongue. One day, maybe, he'd work in one of those. Or maybe not.
Then the city dropped away. Fields stretched suddenly along both sides of the track. The August wind ran through the silver-green grass in waves, like something brushing its fingers across the earth. The campus appeared without announcement—low buildings crouched along the horizon, shy and expensive. Oversized glass windows gleamed in the sunlight like they’d never heard of a heating bill. A bronze plaque flashed on the side of one hall, catching the sun just long enough to remind Solan of those coming-of-age movies. Except his youth had felt more like a low-budget horror film.
The library made it feel even stranger. Students lounged beneath oak trees, voices hushed, shadows dappled by leaves. Through the glass curtain wall, the sun carved precise geometries into the study floors. It was too quiet. Like the port he’d passed through earlier belonged to another world entirely.
“The Academy at New Elysion Station. Now arriving.” The announcement snapped him back.
The dorm looked older than he expected—four stories of weathered stone, open walkways, and wooden doors that felt like they had stories if you leaned in. His door was ajar. Solan stood outside for three full seconds, then knocked. His knuckles made a dull sound, lost in the hallway noise. No answer. He pushed it open. The hinges groaned like they’d been waiting years.
The smell hit him like a wall: a three-part harmony of ramen broth, solder smoke, and the ghost of whatever detergent had given up halfway. Two hundred square feet of life, crammed wall to wall. A textbook titled **A Concise History of the Drakespawn lay open on the lower bunk, its pages flapping in the wind kicked up by a spinning drone blade. A coffee mug in the corner held a toothbrush—bent, still damp—with brown residue clinging to the inside. Solan’s suitcase caught on the threshold. He was halfway through planning a silent retreat when the upper bunk shifted.
“Finally!” A mop of greasy hair popped out over the edge. “I thought I was getting a double room with the spirit of loneliness again.” The body attached to the voice dropped fast—too fast. A flash of oversized T-shirt with a possum graphic, then a jarring thud as the floor trembled.
“Mattew D Edineberg. D for ‘damn it’—as in, I failed three classes last semester. One year in, still kicking.” He grinned, barefoot, oil on his palms, wiping them vaguely on his pants. “But this time I’m turning over a new leaf. Only failing two, max.”
Solan stared. From the bird’s nest hair, to the coffee-stained shirt, to the smoking circuit board on the floor. His eyes landed on the walls—layered with posters of idol singers in outfits that defied gravity.
“Solan Elric,” he managed. “Freshman.” He shook the offered hand, and in that moment, understood why people called college ** the beginning of the end .
Matt kicked aside a pile of spare parts and beamed. “Welcome to hell’s co-op dorm, roommate.” With a flourish, he pulled two beers out from under his pillow. “Around here, we don’t do GPAs. Just survival.”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of paperwork and elevator rides. Matt talked nonstop — about the dorms, the cafeteria, a girl he once dated who thought lightning bolts could read minds. Solan nodded through most of it.
Somewhere between campus gossip and Matt’s rant about New Jersey traffic, his eyes landed on the black blade. He picked it up like it weighed nothing. Then, grinning like a kid at a yard sale, he planted his feet and raised it above his head in a perfect He-Man pose. “So,” Matt, who had no Kamuy and even less shame, asked, “what’s special about this one? Does it shoot lasers? Release some invisible slash?”
Solan shoved a piece of Jersey Shore salt water taffy from Matt into his mouth. “Yeah, its passive ability is helping me pass every exam. Almost as sweet as your candy.”
Matt lowered the sword with a theatrical sigh. Everyone knew the truth: no two Kamuy-bearers ever had the same Kamuy. Even if they looked alike, the way they used them could be completely different — and you didn’t get to choose that part. The Kamuy chose you. End of story.
By nightfall, the silence between them felt almost earned. In the dorm room, the lights flickered on like they were apologizing. Solan was still asleep, deep in some blurry dream where he was awkwardly hitting on one of the Academy girls Matt had described earlier with far too much enthusiasm.
The first explosion ripped out an entire wall of windows. The fireball lit the room blood-red — too red, like a filter dropped over the world. It didn’t smell like burning curtains or melting plastic, just… heat. And maybe cinnamon? Or something weirdly sweet. He didn’t have time to think about it.
Above him, Matt jerked awake, blinking in the red light. For half a breath, his face stayed slack with recognition. He rubbed his eyes and muttered, almost too low to hear, “Oh… right. That time again.” He tumbled off the top bunk hard. His gaze flicked to Solan — still half-buried in blankets, confusion written all over his face. Matt’s mouth twitched, as if weighing something, then his eyes went wide in a sudden, theatrical panic.
“SOLAN ELRIC! WE’RE GONNA DIE ON THE FIRST NIGHT?!”
He lunged for the wardrobe, stared inside for two seconds, then slammed it shut again. “Nope. No. Nope—this can’t be happening. I haven’t even gotten a haircut! I have a date with Emily tomorrow! Why the hell is it blowing up today?!”
Solan was still on the bed, staring at the smoke creeping under the door. His voice came out slow and hoarse. “What the hell’s happening?”
“I’ll tell you later!” Matt yanked him by the arm. “Get up, dammit—I’m not going out grilled!”
From the hallway came the sounds of boots on stairs—too fast, too heavy—someone screaming. Red emergency lights flickered like the building itself was choking. A student jogged past shouting “Remain calm!” in the exact same tone twice—like he was reading it off a card. Solan let himself be dragged along, legs still catching up to the rest of him. “What is actually going on?” Solan asked, trying to match Matt’s pace.
“Bad things!” Matt barked back. “The kind of bad where you don’t want the details until we survive it!”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting until we’re not flammable. Now move!”
Just one corridor with the lights still on—glowing too bright. The hallway angled left, then down—shallow stairs littered with fallen ceiling panels and shattered glass. Somewhere overhead, a pipe burst, spraying steam in wild arcs like a ruptured lung. Solan ducked instinctively. Matt swore and kept moving.
A cluster of students sprinted past them—eyes wide, faces streaked with soot, dragging suitcases and backpacks like they’d still make it to class.
They followed the current, each turn a guess. Every corridor looked the same: broken lights, burn marks, panic smeared on the walls. The fire alarms were dead. The emergency signs flickered half-lit, pointing in opposite directions.
Solan had no idea where they were going.
Then—
“Crisis Access Tunnel. This way.”
A man stood outside the dormitory building, gesturing like it was a lecture hall redirect. A second man, identical posture, repeated it word-for-word at the exact same volume, as if they’d both rehearsed it in front of a mirror. More voices joined in, repeating the same phrase: “Crisis Access Tunnel.” Like it meant safety.
Solan had read about them in the handbook—back when he thought half the rules were jokes. Reinforced bunkers. Built when the academy first opened. Now rebranded with cleaner terms. Crisis Access Tunnel. He’d never seen one. Had no idea where they were. But the crowd moved like it did. And he didn’t have a better plan.
The entrance to the tunnel was jammed. Hundreds of students surged toward it—shouting, sobbing, screaming. One guy in a bathrobe carried a goldfish bowl over his head like it was the crown jewels. A Kamuy flared too close to the archway, trying to force it open—and took down half the wall instead.
Solan Elric was already half-inside, panting, one foot through the gap. Behind him, Matt was yelling: “Don’t just stand there! Get in! What are you, bulletproof now?!”
Solan tried to turn back, but the crowd shoved him forward. Voices blurred past him—someone crying that their phone was still upstairs, someone else screaming “she didn’t come down, she didn’t come down—” And feet. Too many feet. Some of them stomping hard enough to bounce off his back.
The tunnel was a concrete throat lit by flickering fluorescents—humid, cramped. More bunker than hallway. More tomb than bunker. He reached back to grab Matt— but the next explosion hit like a god’s fist.
The far end of the tunnel erupted. Not a warning. Not containment. A real, full-force blast. Fire tore through concrete and flung shards like knives. The scream that followed drowned out every other sound. “They’re here! They’re breaking in—!”
No one knew who “they” were. No one saw clearly. The end of the tunnel had turned into smoke and chaos.
A student bolted forward, Kamuy blazing, static screaming off his palms. The air crackled—then popped like bubble wrap. He didn’t get the second shot off.
Another followed. Then another. Kamuy flared all over the corridor—lightning, flame, pressure waves crashing against the walls. Solan felt his entire body slam to the ground like gravity had been flipped. His skull roared. His nerves screamed.
Then—nothing.
Just static in his ears. Then white. Then dark.
He came to coughing, body glued together with pain. His limbs felt like they’d been blown apart and half-assedly taped back on. He grabbed the wall and hauled himself up. His head was spinning. His ears were ringing, and it felt like someone had poured warm honey into them—sweet, sticky, smothering.
His right hand reached instinctively for the blade.
Empty. His stomach clenched. A full second passed before he remembered—he’d left it. Rushed out too fast. It was still leaning against the bed, across several floors of concrete and a mountain of bad decisions.
“God, I’m a genius,” he muttered. He stumbled back a step, half-ready to fold behind a corner and wait this whole mess out.
And then he saw her. A girl stood at the far end of the tunnel, breathing hard—shoulders trembling. Her hair was a mess, gray dust streaking her forehead. It felt she might collapse, but she didn’t. Her eyes stayed locked ahead—unnaturally calm.
He followed her gaze. A man in a mask was walking toward her, slow and steady. In his hand, a matte black handgun. Held low, like it was no big deal. But his steps were certain.
Guns? Seriously? I thought New Elysion banned firearms.
Not my problem, he told himself. I’m not part of this. Just a passing loser.
He started to move. Back, sideways—whatever direction didn’t involve bullets. Then the girl looked at him. Just a glance. Not a cry for help. Just a flick of the eyes, quick and surgical. It jolted him like a live wire to the chest. He slipped. Stumbled. Almost fell.
Shit.
She saw me.
She knows I saw her.
And I know she knows I saw her.
His brain spiraled into the most humiliating logic loop possible. And suddenly, fear wasn’t the worst thing pressing on his chest. It was shame. Not cowardice—but the shame of being seen as a coward. That raw, stupid, burning kind that made you act before you thought.
“...What are you looking at,” he rasped, voice ragged. “Can’t you just pretend I’m not here?”
The man in the mask raised his gun. Just a few degrees. Just enough. Solan’s eyes flicked over the masked man: stance too open on the left, weight heavy on the back foot. There was light in the man’s eyes — not blinding, but enough to use. His palms itched. His heel shifted. He didn’t remember deciding to do any of that.
Underneath it, something older shifted. Not louder than panic. Just deeper. Like an old track lighting up on muscle memory.
Move
And then — for reasons he couldn’t explain and instantly wished he could undo — he moved. One step. Smooth, fast — faster than he’d ever moved in his life. Another step — pivot, body low. His left hand came up exactly where it needed to be. And then… nothing lined up.
The man sidestepped, easy as sliding a chair. Solan’s knee wobbled. His shoulder went wide. All that perfect movement collapsed into clumsy momentum. He flew past him, stumbled, left foot caught right, knee hit concrete, face hit next. He skidded a meter and a half before stopping in a heap.
The world paused. He hadn’t even finished swearing when the man turned—calm as a winter moon—and aimed the gun at his face. The muzzle was black. Emotionless. Solan’s mind blanked. Totally. No embarrassment. No shame. No panic. Just one flicker of afterthought, slipping in sideways: **What the fuck was that?
**Then one, single, crisp, inescapable thought: **This is it. This time, I’m actually going to die.
And for some reason, that made him think of his black blade — still leaning against the dorm bed, still making love to the bedframe, still not helping. Still not helping. And Matt. **Matt had said something about freshman drills being **“surprisingly well-funded.” ...Wait, no. He hadn’t. Solan had made that up himself.
Cool. Fantastic. He closed his eyes. Breathed in. So that’s it, huh. Day one: enrolled. Day one: dead. Efficient, at least.
Bang. The gun went off. Solan flinched like a kicked puppy, body curling in pure reflex. But the pain never came.
He cracked one eye open. The masked man hadn’t moved. The gun was down. The emergency lights clicked over into sterile white, and a slow hiss of electric static buzzed from the speakers overhead.
“…End of simulation. Thank you for your participation.” Staff in yellow vests stepped over the rubble, handing out performance scorecards. A janitor wheeled past with a mop bucket, whistling, and swerved neatly around a “dead” student who was scrolling on her phone.
Solan just sat there. Frozen. Brain still buffering. Simulation?
Then came the voice. That terrible, smug, prematurely gleeful voice. Like someone had been hiding backstage just to laugh at him. “Yo! That dive was impressive, bro. You looked like a sea cucumber getting struck by lightning. Ten out of ten. I mean, in rehearsals we didn’t think anyone would actually faceplant **that hard, but—respect.” Matt strolled into view, perfectly clean, hair combed, shirt tucked, expression lit up like he’d just aced a test he didn’t study for.
Solan gritted his teeth. His voice trembled: “You knew?”
“Obviously,” Matt said with a shrug. “They run this every year. Bombs, smoke, fake enemies—it’s just theater. You’re fine. You lived.”
Solan’s eyes twitched. “How many people knew?”
Matt didn’t even blink. “Almost everyone. Staff, most freshmen… anyone who’s not you, basically.” He bent down and casually picked up a chunk of concrete with one hand. It gave slightly under his grip—just painted foam. He gave Solan a once-over, head to toe. “…Even if your face broke the fall.”
“What about the people crying and screaming?”
Matt shrugged again, like it was obvious. “Some of that’s scripted. Most of it’s just students improvising. Theater kids go ** all in —you give them fake smoke and a cue line, they’ll sob like their cat just got drafted.”
Solan didn’t respond. Just got up. Slowly. Deliberately. The kind of discipline reserved for people barely suppressing the urge to commit a very specific act of violence. The girl was gone. That helped. Barely. He quietly added “everyone here is crazy” to his growing list of regrets.
“It’s just a drill,” Matt went on, like he hadn’t just become a marked man. “Supposed to remind freshmen that Kamuy won’t always save your ass. Don’t play the hero, blah blah. Vice President started the tradition. Bit of a prank, bit of a trauma-bonding thing. Said it was cheaper than therapy. Some years they do ninjas. Last year it was a dinosaur. This year it’s boring—just explosions and a guy with a gun. Never met the guy—shame.”
“I kinda like watching Kamuy-bearers panic.” Then, with an approving nod toward Solan: “Gotta say, though. You really committed. Most new kids don’t go full faceplant.”
He turned on a dime. “OH HEY, Emily! I was looking for you—about the movie tomorrow!” And just like that, he walked off mid-sentence, leaving Solan alone with the taste of smoke, humiliation, and something darker brewing just behind his eyes.
Solan kept replaying the lunge in his head — that weird little half-second when his feet landed exactly where they were supposed to, like he’d done it before. Then nothing. Like the whole thing short-circuited. Probably adrenaline. Or dumb luck. Or both. Whatever it was, it had fizzled faster than it started, and all it left him with was a mouthful of dust and an audience. Good. Let it stay gone.
“Rare to see someone fall that hard and still look so sure of themselves.”
Solan turned. The student approaching looked like he’d been printed off the Academy’s website. Polished shoes. Tailored uniform. Gold badge. Hair that somehow held its shape despite the smoke and chaos. The crowd around him parted like they’d rehearsed it.
“That leap?” the boy said. “Legendary. In the worst way.”
Solan blinked, unsure if it was an insult or a joke. “Uh… thanks?”
The boy studied him—eyes cool, posture perfect. Everything about him radiated quiet confidence. Not the earned kind. The inherited kind. Solan didn’t recognize him. Didn’t need to.
**Whoever he was, he wore the world like it was tailored for him. His badge glinted: gold-etched, with an emblem Solan didn’t know but instantly respected. Some upper-tier program, probably. One of the few that came with a full four-year scholarship—tuition, housing, everything, and an **in to anywhere that mattered.
The boy tilted his head. “What was that supposed to be, anyway? A rescue? Or just a cry for attention?”
Solan’s first thought was both. His second was You’re enjoying this way too much. He went with the first. “Bit of both,” he said. “Figured I’d multitask.
“You really think that matters,” he muttered. “Being seen like that.”
Solan opened his mouth. Then shut it. Said nothing. That seemed to piss the boy off more than a comeback would’ve. He stepped forward. Clapped Solan on the shoulder with the easy confidence of someone who’d never been told no.
“Someone should probably teach you the rules around here.” Then he walked off. No name. No parting shot. Just silence—and the crowd, already closing behind him.
When Solan dragged himself back to the dorm—bruised, filthy, and humiliated—he caught himself running his tongue over his teeth. All there. Small mercy. Still, if he had lost one, it would’ve been the perfect cherry on the day—a freshman idiot trying to play hero in a fake war.
Matthew D. Edineberg was already sprawled on his bed, one earbud in, watching a replay of the simulation on his tablet. “You know,” Matt said without looking up, “if you’d launched a little straighter, you might’ve pulled the guy’s pants off.”
Solan didn’t respond. The first thing he saw as he stepped in wasn’t Matt. It was the black blade, still leaning against the white dorm wall like it had never moved. Silent. Oblivious. Like it had nothing to do with anything that happened. It just stood there, heavy and still, like an old scar that had forgotten how to bleed.
Solan stared at it for a long time. Then sat down beside the bed, back to the frame, and rested his forehead against his knees. His gaze stayed locked on the blade, but his thoughts drifted. Since the day of his awakening, he’d carried the black blade everywhere. Not because it felt sacred. Not because he thought it was powerful. He never fantasized about splitting mountains or becoming a god. He just didn’t want to wake up at 3 a.m. one day and find something worse crawling out of his arm—alone, unarmed, and terrified.
The blade was awkward. Long. Dull. Heavy. It had never helped him. Not really. Not unless you counted blocking stray dogs in alleys or acting as a clumsy excuse during discipline hearings. More than once, he’d wondered if it was even real. If maybe it was just a shell. A prop. A failed Kamuy that never properly took. So why had it come? Why him? Why did it hurt that night it emerged—not just in his body, but in some part of him he didn’t have words for? He stared at it. Not with fear. Not even resentment. Just the part of him he didn’t like to admit was still curious — still wondering what it really was.
The air shifted. Inside the blade, something… noticed. He looked down at it, bitterness blooming. At first, he just felt tired. Then the tiredness sank. His eyelids grew heavy. His fingers turned cold. The room faded to cotton silence, like his ears had been packed with wool.
His thoughts dipped lower. Like sinking into deep water. The blade didn’t move. But something inside it... opened. And in that stillness, for the first time, Solan connected with it.
It wasn’t dramatic. No light. No roar. Just a feeling—like his breath lined up with another rhythm. Like blood had started flowing into a part of him that wasn’t even his.
Only a split second. But it shattered the quiet of the world. Inside the blade, something ancient stirred. Something that had been asleep for a very long time. It didn’t speak or act.
It simply woke up .