The automated forest simulated heavy timber and thick undergrowth. Mechanical snarls tore through the artificial trees. The ground vibrated under the weight of dozens of iron paws charging toward the clearing.

  ?Mizuki stood perfectly still.

  ?Her dark eyes tracked the incoming horde without a flicker of panic. Boiling, acidic blood poured from her bare palm, hissing as it fused with the naked steel blade to form a solid, dark-red hilt. White smoke drifted from the corrosive edge.

  ?A mechanical wolf lunged, its steel claws swiping at her throat.

  ?Mizuki tilted her head. The claws missed her by a millimeter. Her black hair swayed softly in the displaced air. She slid her wooden sandal across the dirt, shifting her weight with the effortless grace of a dancer.

  ?"First Stance... Higan Senjin." (Crimson Heaven Piercer)

  ?She thrust the blood-fused blade upward. The speed was blinding. The acidic steel pierced the machine's armored chest cavity.

  ?BOOM!

  ?The boiling blood ate through the internal wiring instantly. The wolf exploded. Slag and iron rained down, but not a single drop of oil or acid touched Mizuki’s pristine kimono.

  ?Three more machines leaped at her blind spot.

  ?Mizuki didn't look back. She pivoted on her heel, executing a flawless, sweeping turn. She swung the katana in a wide, horizontal arc.

  ?"Second Stance... Aka no Sazanami." (Red Ripple)

  ?Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!

  ?Drops of boiling blood slung from the edge of the blade, forming a corrosive crescent in the air. The arc sheared cleanly through all three Beast-Mechs in a single stroke. The severed edges immediately melted into black sludge.

  ?Mizuki used absolute minimum effort. Every movement was precise, devoid of wasted kinetic energy. She looked like a reaper waltzing through a storm of iron.

  ?While Mizuki anchored the main swarm in the clearing, Tsubaki and Kikyo scrambled through the thorny underbrush.

  ?"I found the fourth one!" Tsubaki yelled, coughing through the smoke. She whipped her head, using her ether-hardened hair—Tetsugami—to smash down the wooden door of a dilapidated cabin. She dragged a terrified mannequin out from under a bed. "Kikyo! Cover the rear!"

  ?Kikyo stumbled blindly out of the trees, her chest heaving. She raised her tarnished brass bell and shook it violently.

  ?"Jigoku no Suzune!" (Hell's Chime)

  ?Ring! Ring!

  ?A high-frequency acoustic wave slammed into the two machines chasing them. The artificial nervous systems overloaded. The wolves crashed into the dirt, joints locking up. Tsubaki immediately drove her steel-wire hair straight through their power cores, killing them instantly.

  ?"Only... only one left..." Kikyo gasped. Her pale hands were trembling so hard the bell rattled faintly.

  ?But B-Rank AI adapted.

  ?Five more machines broke through the tree line, boxing the girls in. They didn't roar. Their red optics flared, and the audio receptors bolted to their heads physically clamped shut. They deafened themselves to bypass the acoustic interference.

  ?"Ah...!" Kikyo flinched, feeling the sudden spike in killing intent. She shook the bell frantically. "W-What's happening... why isn't it working?!"

  ?The machines ignored the chime. They lunged simultaneously from three directions, claws extended to shred the blindfolded girl.

  ?Tsubaki was too far away, pinned down by two other wolves.

  ?"Kikyo!!" Tsubaki screamed.

  ?The small girl collapsed to her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut beneath the bandage, throwing her arms up in a futile guard.

  ?Before the iron claws could tear into her flesh...

  ?"Third Stance... Ketsurigetsu." (Blood Crescent)

  ?Fwip! SSSHK!

  ?A flash of crimson light tore through the canopy. The three airborne machines were severed completely in half. The ruined, melting halves crashed into the dirt mere inches from Kikyo’s shivering legs.

  ?Kikyo slowly lowered her arms.

  ?Standing directly in front of her was the familiar, small back of the girl in the kimono. Boiling blood dripped steadily from the tip of her blade.

  ?"M-My Lady..." Kikyo’s voice cracked. She scrambled to flip over, pressing her forehead flat against the dirt. "T-Thank you! Thank you for my life!"

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  ?Mizuki didn't turn around. She flicked her wrist, snapping the acidic smoke off the blade. She cast a sidelong glance at the girl groveling at her feet. Her face remained a porcelain mask, completely devoid of empathy. If there was any relief in her dark eyes, she buried it deep.

  ?She let out a quiet, annoyed hum.

  ?"Tch... Stop being a nuisance," Mizuki said flatly, turning her back to face the remaining swarm. "Find the last one. If you fail... I will butcher you myself."

  ?It was a horrific threat, but to Tsubaki and Kikyo, it was permission to keep breathing.

  ?Kikyo scrambled to her feet, clutching the bell to her chest. Tears of sheer relief soaked into the bottom edge of her black bandage. "Y-Yes! My Lady!"

  ?Minutes passed. For the crowd in the stands, it felt like hours trapped in a nightmare.

  ?The forest was decimated. The hundred Beast-Mechs were reduced to melting slag and pools of black, acidic sludge that filled the dome with toxic smoke.

  ?Only one machine remained.

  ?Its AI processed the catastrophic casualty rate. Logic gave way to a simulated survival instinct. The lone wolf didn't charge. It dug its claws into the dirt, spun around, and sprinted away in absolute terror.

  ?Mizuki didn't run after it.

  ?She casually flicked the acid from her blade and began walking. Clack... Clack... Her wooden sandals echoed methodically through the dead forest.

  ?Up on the central projection screen, the broadcast switched to the POV feed of the fleeing machine. The camera shook violently with every panicked stride.

  ?The wolf snapped its optical sensor backward, checking to see if the reaper was gaining ground.

  ?The entire arena stopped breathing.

  ?Mizuki wasn't running down the path. The pale girl in the white kimono simply flickered into existence behind a massive oak tree. Then she vanished. A second later, she flickered into view behind a closer tree.

  ?Flicker... Flicker...

  ?She made no sound. She left no footprints. She moved like a ghost bleeding through the shadows. No matter how fast the machine ran, the pale, dead-eyed girl continued to strobe closer and closer, her trajectory entirely unpredictable.

  ?"W-What is that..." a student in the stands whimpered, shivering violently.

  ?Nobody answered. The sheer psychological pressure radiating from the screen paralyzed the crowd. It felt like they were the ones being hunted.

  ?The machine finally hit the reinforced steel wall at the edge of the arena. Cornered. It scrambled to turn around, raising its guns for a desperate final stand.

  ?The screen showed nothing but empty trees and lingering smoke. Mizuki was gone.

  ?The wolf's head darted left, then right. Its internal alarms shrieked.

  ?Silence fell over the forest.

  ?~Hmm... hmm... hmm...~

  ?A quiet, chilling hum drifted from behind the machine. An old, forgotten melody.

  ?The Beast-Mech didn't even have time to turn its optics.

  ?SHNK.

  ?A flash of red crossed the darkness. The final image broadcast to the arena was the ground spinning wildly through the air, followed by a heavy metallic crash. The screen snapped to black static.

  ?Bold red text materialized.

  ?[ Hostiles Eliminated: 100/100 ]

  [ Objective: Complete ]

  ?The simulated forest dissolved into blue light, reverting the arena to flat concrete. The five mannequins vanished, safely extracted by the system.

  ?But down on the scorched, acid-pitted concrete, the nightmare wasn't over.

  ?Nature was ready to collect the Toll.

  ?Clang.

  ?The brass bell slipped from Kikyo’s hand. She collapsed to her knees. Her small body convulsed violently, shaking like she was freezing to death. Projecting the acoustic disruption had overloaded her own auditory nerves. Thick, dark blood leaked from both of her ears, dripping onto her collar. It seeped out from under her black blindfold. She gasped for air, her chest heaving as the nerves in her skull throbbed like they were about to rupture.

  ?A few yards away, Tsubaki hit the ground. The moment she released the compression on her Tetsugami, the steel-wire hair went slack. The physical backlash of forcing the hair follicles to bear the weight and impact of solid iron tore her scalp open.

  ?"Ghk..." Tsubaki grabbed her head. Fresh blood poured down the left side of her face, making her look like a demon. The muscles in her arms and legs spasmed uncontrollably from absorbing the kinetic trauma of the wolves' strikes. She curled into a ball, leaving a streak of blood on the concrete.

  ?Students in the stands swallowed hard, looking away from the butchery.

  ?But Marcus, Ethan, and Alyssa all stared at the center of the arena. Their eyes locked onto Mizuki.

  ?The girl in the kimono stood perfectly still among the wreckage. With the combat over, the boiling acid of the Chizome no Yaiba lost its stability. It bubbled violently, breaking down into white vapor that hissed into the air.

  ?Clatter.

  ?The naked steel katana dropped to the concrete.

  ?Mizuki’s right hand was finally visible.

  ?The flesh of her palm and between her fingers had been horrifically chewed open by the bare steel edge and her own corrosive blood. Dark red blood poured steadily from the deep lacerations, pooling at her feet.

  ?It was a brutal, absolute Toll. Weaponizing that level of destruction required permanently maiming herself. Ether wounds inflicted by a Toll bypassed standard medical healing magic.

  ?But Mizuki didn't wince.

  ?Her porcelain skin, already pale, was now translucent from massive blood loss. Faint, white steam continuously rose from her entire body, radiating extreme heat like an engine pushed lightyears past the redline.

  ?Any normal human would be in hypovolemic shock. They would be screaming, or unconscious.

  ?Mizuki simply looked down at her ruined hand with dead eyes. No tears. No grunts of pain. A level of agony that would kill an average recruit didn't even cause her brow to furrow.

  ?Using her pristine left hand, she pulled a black silk cloth from her kimono and began wrapping the bleeding meat of her right hand. Her movements were slow, methodical, and entirely detached, as if the mangled fingers belonged to a corpse.

  ?Marcus dug his fingernails into his palms.

  ?He finally understood the reality of the Higan family.

  ?They weren't just a creepy funeral procession. Their entire existence was a tightrope walk over an open grave. The evaluations weren't testing their skill. The exams were testing their capacity to endure the total annihilation of their own bodies.

  ?"God..." Ethan rasped, his usual bravado completely gone. "That isn't magic. That's a curse."

  ?Vanessa pushed her glasses up. Her green eyes tracked the trail of blood Mizuki left on the concrete. She looked at Marcus, her voice cold and heavy.

  ?"Burn this image into your memory, Marcus," Vanessa warned softly. "The physics of the Toll are absolute. The greater the lethal output against the enemy... the faster it consumes the user."

  ?The automated speakers broke the heavy, blood-soaked silence.

  ?[ Squad Higan - Phase Two Evaluations: Pass. ]

  [ Hostage Extraction Bonus: Perfect. ]

  ?Mizuki didn't acknowledge the announcement. She turned and walked toward the dark exit tunnel, her posture as regal and flawless as ever.

  ?Behind her, Tsubaki and Kikyo hauled each other up. Covered in their own blood, trembling violently, the two guards limped into the shadows after their queen.

  ?They left the arena, but the terror they planted in the recruits remained.