Kaelen found him after training.

Ren was walking through the East Annex corridor toward the exit, his bag over one shoulder, his mind already half-planning his evening cultivation session. The corridor was empty — the rest of the group had left ten minutes ago. Selene was in her office. The lights were dimming toward evening mode.

Kaelen stepped out of a side hallway and stood in the middle of the corridor, directly in Ren’s path.

He didn’t look angry. He looked like he had been waiting. The cold composure was back — the pressure from the last few days was still there, but he had wrestled it under control. This wasn’t the aggressive Kaelen from training. This was the deliberate one. The one who chose his moments.

"Valis," he said. "We need to talk."

Ren stopped. He considered walking around him, decided that would only delay this, and said, "About what?"

"About your name."

— • —

They stood in the corridor about three meters apart. The ward-glow from the annex walls cast pale blue light across both of them. Somewhere in the building, a cleaning drone hummed through an empty classroom.

"My family has records," Kaelen said. His voice was even and controlled, the way he spoke when he was being careful with his words. "Old records. Family archives going back generations. The Voss bloodline keeps track of certain names — families we’ve allied with, families we’ve competed against, families we’ve been told to watch."

He paused.

"Valis is on that list. It’s been on that list longer than any other name except two."

Ren kept his expression neutral. "A lot of families are on a lot of lists."

"Not like this." Kaelen’s eyes were steady. "The records don’t say why. That’s the part that bothers me. Every other name on the Voss watch list has a reason next to it — a trade dispute, a territorial conflict, a political rivalry. Something specific. Something you can point to and say, ’that’s why we watch them.’"

He took a step forward. Not aggressive. Just closing the distance.

"The Valis entry has no reason. Just the name, and a single note that says: do not underestimate."

— • —

Ren felt Kaia pulse in his chest. Quiet. Alert. The same way she pulsed whenever the Valis name carried weight in the air around them.

"I don’t know what your family did," Kaelen continued. "The records don’t say, and nobody in my house will explain it. My grandfather told me the Valis line was finished — a faded name, a dead branch, nothing to worry about. And then I walked into a classroom and there you were."

His jaw tightened slightly.

"A quiet student from a faded family with no resources, no backing, and no explanation for why his foundation is better than people who’ve been training their entire lives. Third place in the assessment. Held his ground against me in a head-to-head. Hit a Tier 1 beast hard enough to stagger it at Germination stage." He shook his head slowly. "That doesn’t happen, Valis. Not without a reason. And nobody will tell me what the reason is."

Ren looked at him. Behind the cold words and the controlled posture, he could see something he hadn’t expected.

Kaelen was frustrated. Not the kind of frustration that came from losing — the kind that came from not understanding. He had been raised to watch the Valis name, told it mattered, told not to underestimate it. But nobody had told him why. He was carrying a grudge that had been loaded onto him as a child, and now that the grudge had a face, he didn’t know what to do with it.

— • —

"What do you want me to say?" Ren asked.

"I want you to tell me why. Why is your name on my family’s watch list? Why does a faded bloodline produce a cultivator like you? What are you hiding?"

Ren held his gaze. Part of him wanted to answer honestly. Part of him understood that Kaelen, whatever else he was, was just a kid trying to make sense of something nobody had explained to him. The cold rivalry between them was real, but underneath it was a simpler question: who are you, really?

But honesty was a luxury Ren couldn’t afford. He had too many secrets and too many people watching. If he told Kaelen the truth — any piece of it — the information would reach House Voss by morning, and from there it would spread to places he couldn’t control.

So he gave the only answer he could.

"I’m a student," Ren said. "I train hard. I got lucky with my foundation. And I don’t know anything about old family history, because my parents never talked about it and I grew up in an apartment, not a noble house."

Most of that was true. The parts that weren’t, he delivered the same way he delivered everything — calmly, quietly, with a face that gave away nothing.

Kaelen studied him for a long time. The corridor was silent except for the ward-hum and the distant drone.

"I don’t believe you," he said finally. "But I can’t prove it. And my family expects results, not suspicions."

— • —

He stepped back. The deliberate distance returned between them.

"I’m going to request a sanctioned spar from Selene," he said. "You and me. Controlled setting. Full power."

There it was. The thing this conversation had been building toward since he stepped into the corridor.

"Why?" Ren asked, though he already knew.

"Because records and numbers and rankings don’t tell me what I need to know. A fight will." Kaelen’s eyes were cold and clear. "I need to see what you actually are, Valis. Not what you show during drills. Not what you hide behind careful technique. The real thing."

He turned and walked toward the exit. At the end of the corridor, without looking back, he said, "You can say no. But we both know you won’t."

Then he was gone.

— • —

Ren stood in the empty corridor for a while.

Kaia was warm in his chest. Not worried. Not angry. Just present, the way she always was when something important was happening, watching through whatever sense she used to feel the world around them.

’Do not underestimate,’ Ren thought. ’That’s what the Voss records say about my family. Not ’they’re dangerous,’ not ’they’re enemies.’ Just: do not underestimate.’

’Someone in the Voss family, a long time ago, met a Valis and learned that lesson the hard way. And they made sure their children never forgot.’

He thought about Kaelen’s face when he said nobody will tell me what the reason is. The frustration. The honesty of it, buried under all the cold composure and family pressure. In another world, without the grudge and the secrets and the weight of names neither of them had chosen, they might have actually gotten along.

But this was the world they had. And Kaelen wanted a fight.

’He’s right,’ Ren thought. ’I’m not going to say no.’

He picked up his bag and walked home. Tomorrow he would tell Selene he accepted. And then he would fight Kaelen Voss for real, and find out what happened when two bloodlines with a history older than both of them finally collided.

— • —

Author’s Note: Kaelen doesn’t know why the Valis name is on his family’s watch list. He just knows he was told never to underestimate it. Now he wants to find out why — the only way a fighter knows how. The spar is coming. Thanks for reading!