The room erupted. Conversations breaking out across every row. Guild kids turning to look at us. Blair’s posture going even stiffer.

Vale let it ride for exactly ten seconds before snapping his fingers. Silence crashed down like a physical weight.

"Here’s the fun part. I’ve reviewed both squads’ combat footage. Obsidian Elite has better individual stats, cleaner form, and more experience. They should win. Easily."

He paused.

"But the Midnight Foxes have something Elite doesn’t. You actually like each other. You coordinate. You adapt. You don’t have Blair screaming at everyone when things go sideways."

Charles stood up. "Professor, that’s—"

"Sit down, Leone."

Charles sat.

Vale’s eyes swept across us again. "Tomorrow’s gates are identical difficulty. Forest biome. Wolf packs. Standard Tier II parameters. Your clear time, core count, and coordination scores determine the winner. Not your family name. Not your daddy’s IHC connections. Just performance."

He smiled under the mask. I could tell.

"So. Train hard. Don’t die. And try not to embarrass me in front of the other homeroom teachers. I have a reputation to maintain as the professor whose students fail spectacularly or succeed against all odds. There’s no middle ground in Obsidian. Come back in 20 minutes."

Vale dismissed us with a wave and pulled out his phone, immediately absorbed in whatever game he played during class time.

The lecture hall emptied in stages. Guild kids first, clustered around Blair who stood frozen at her desk staring at nothing. Regular admissions next, buzzing about tomorrow’s competition. Lottery winners last, because we always left last.

Belle stood. "Well. That’s not terrifying at all."

"Sixty-five points," Jordan said quietly. "That’s two cores. Maybe three if we get lucky with quality."

"Or one really good boss kill," I added.

Naomi gathered her bag slowly. "What if we lose?"

"Then we’re second place going into winter evaluations." Belle shrugged. "Could be worse."

"Could be better."

"Yeah. It could." Belle looked at me. "No pressure, right?"

"Right. Just a friendly competition where half the school watches us get crushed by an S-rank heiress and her squad of trained killers."

"That’s the spirit."

We filed out into the hallway. Misato waited outside, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

"Team meeting. Noon. East field. Be there or run double laps tomorrow."

She walked off before we could respond.

Jordan watched her go. "She’s scarier than usual."

"She’s always scary," Belle countered.

"Yeah, but now she’s scary with a purpose."

Belle conceded the point with a nod.

We split up at the main quad. Belle headed toward the library to study for Cross’s quiz. Jordan shambled toward his room to either nap or die, unclear which. Naomi walked with me toward Building C.

"You okay?" she asked after we’d walked in silence for thirty seconds.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Because you get quiet when you’re thinking too hard. And you’ve been quiet since Vale made the announcement."

I pulled her into the space between Buildings C and D where nobody walked because the architecture created a wind tunnel that made standing there miserable.

Naomi looked at me with those pink eyes that saw too much.

"Talk to me."

"I’m fine."

"Liar."

"I’m concerned."

"About?"

"Sixty-five points is nothing. Two good cores. One mistake on either side and the rankings flip."

"So we don’t make mistakes."

"Naomi. Blair’s team has an S-rank, two A-ranks, and Javier, who’s probably going to unlock some protagonist bullshit ability right when it matters most."

"And we have you."

I stared at her. "I’m one person."

"You’re the person who killed an alpha with a spear. Who cleared an A-rank gate. Who went from rank 250 to 141 in three weeks." She stepped closer. "You’re the person who makes Belle laugh. Who helps Jordan stop hating everything for five minutes. Who makes Misato actually smile."

"That’s—"

"You’re also the person I’m in love with. So yeah. You’re one person. But you’re the right person."

The words hung between us like physical objects.

Love.

She’d said it before. Through text. Half-asleep in my bed. But not like this. Not in the daylight where I could see her face and watch her mean it.

"Naomi—"

"You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s complicated. I know you have Aurora and Belle and probably six other girls I don’t know about yet."

"Six is excessive."

"Is it?" But she smiled. "Look. I’m not asking you to choose me over them. I’m just saying that tomorrow? When we’re in that gate? I’m fighting for you. Not for rankings. Not for house points. For you."

I pulled her against me and kissed her forehead. Her hair smelled like coconut shampoo and morning rain.

"I don’t deserve you."

"Probably not. But you’re stuck with me anyway."

My phone buzzed. Belle, in the group chat.

"Emergency. Vault. Now. Found something."

Naomi checked hers and looked at me. "We should go."

"Yeah."

We jogged toward the Vault together, her hand finding mine as we ran.

The Vault sat in the basement of the main administration building, accessible only through a security checkpoint that scanned our IDs and logged every entry. Belle waited inside near the equipment section, her face flushed and her breathing fast.

"What’s wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s right. Look."

She pulled up her phone and showed me a detection overlay from her buffed Treasure Sense. The screen displayed the entire campus mapped in three dimensions, with value signatures highlighted in different colors.

Most were green. Common items. Pocket change.

A few yellow. Uncommon. Maybe worth keeping.

Two orange. Rare. Actually valuable.

And one massive red signature pulsing in the restricted zone north of campus.

"That’s the Platinum crystal I mentioned Monday."

"Belle—"

"I know what you’re going to say. It’s restricted. It’s probably warded. We’d get expelled if caught. I know."

"Then why show me?"

"Because it’s worth one hundred thousand credits. Split five ways, that’s twenty thousand each. That’s more than we’ll make from gates this entire semester."

Jordan appeared from behind a shelf. "I heard ’twenty thousand’ and got interested. What are we stealing?"

"We’re not stealing anything," I said firmly.

"Borrowing without permission?"

"Jordan."

"Permanently borrowing?"

"No."

Belle crossed her arms. "It’s just sitting there. Behind wards nobody checks. We have a buffed Silver-tier detection specialist, a genius shadow manipulator, and a guy who can fly and blast through walls. This is literally what we trained for."

"Trained for gates. Not theft."

"Gates are just theft with monsters."

She had a point.

Fuck, she had a point.

Naomi walked up looking concerned. "What’s going on?"

"Belle wants to rob the academy."

"I want to secure unclaimed resources for our squad’s operational budget."

"That’s just robbery with extra words."

"Exactly. I’m evolving." Belle turned to Naomi. "You in?"

Naomi looked at the detection overlay. Her eyes widened when she saw the value estimate.

"That’s... that’s enough to pay off my dad’s boat. And my brothers’ school. And—"

"Naomi." I caught her wrist gently. "We’re not doing this."

"Why not?"

"Because we just climbed to second place. We have a gate tomorrow that could put us in first. Why risk everything for a crystal that might get us expelled?"

Belle’s expression went cold. "You mean why risk your everything. You’re the one with the death timer. The rest of us are just trying to survive on fifteen hundred credits a month while guild kids buy thousand-dollar shoes."

"Belle—"

"No. You know what? Forget it. I’ll do it myself."