cave

It was a gray morning, with heavy clouds sweeping across the sky as if trying to erase the remaining light from the previous night. Headmaster "Orden" stood on the raised platform in the center of the academy's courtyard, his black robes trailing behind him like a heavy shadow. Around him, hundreds of students had gathered, some yawning, others looking on suspiciously, while some remained frozen in tense silence.

Orden raised his hand. The crowd fell silent.

"Starting today..." he said in a cold, deep voice, "...a new set of rules will be enforced. Childish nonsense, slackness, and leaning on comfort… will no longer be tolerated. Those who wish to remain must endure. And those who cannot, the door is open."

A heavy silence followed his words.

Then he added, without blinking: "Every test, every training, every moment of your day... will be monitored. Those who fail more than three times will not be reassessed. They will be expelled. The era of complacency is over."

Some of the students felt as though the ground had shifted beneath their feet. This wasn't just an announcement of change... it was a direct threat.

Zenith, who stood at the front, did not move. His eyes, as still as ice from centuries past, showed no sign of surprise or fear. Zenith was not one to be easily surprised.

As for Valerian, he gazed at Orden as if reading what lay behind his words, not just what was spoken. Why now? Why this sudden strictness? Were they afraid of what happened before? Or were they preparing us for something else?

Evelyn stood by the wall, observing the faces more than listening to the words. When her gaze met Valerian's, she slightly raised an eyebrow, as if to say: This won't be easy.

As for Selena, who had been scribbling notes in her notebook, she hid a tremor in her right hand. The headmaster's words were not new to her. She had already been informed about them by Ethan... but she hadn't expected the implementation to come so swiftly.

The days that followed the announcement felt like a hammer falling on the students' heads. Sleep became a luxury, and daily training turned into a psychological war.

They were forced to run at dawn, followed by combat drills, tactical lessons, surprise tests... and everything under strict supervision.

"I feel like a machine being used until it breaks," said a girl in the second row as she dragged herself to her seat.

A pale young man responded, "The headmaster wants us strong... or dead."

Valerian endured in silence. But he began to notice signs of collapse on the faces around him. Even those who had been laughing just weeks ago were now walking with their heads bowed.

Amidst all this, Evelyn approached him one evening while he was cleaning his weapon.

"Valerian..." she said quietly.

He lifted his eyes toward her; he wasn't used to others approaching him.

"Have you noticed something strange in the headmaster's behavior?" she asked.

He paused for a moment, then said, "Everything is strange. But you're not asking just out of curiosity, are you?"

She smiled, and there was something weary in her smile. "I saw a shadow behind his decisions... I can't explain it exactly, but it's not from here. It's as if someone... is controlling him."

He kept looking at her, but something inside his chest trembled, despite himself.

After two weeks of daily exhaustion, the administration announced the date for the second test.

The test would be led by Ethan.

"We're heading to the Cave of Truth," Ethan said with a mysterious smile, standing in front of the selected group of students. "Inside... there isn't just one enemy. It's you."

One of the students asked nervously, "What do you mean?"

"This test doesn't just measure your physical strength. The cave reveals the illusions of the mind, fear, guilt, suppressed desires. If you don't emerge the way you entered... you might not emerge at all."

Another laughed sarcastically, "Are you trying to scare us?"

"I'm trying to warn you," Ethan replied with a faint smile, but his eyes were sharp.

Zenith didn't speak. He just began to move, as if he knew that words wouldn't change anything.

That night, before the test, Selena stood in the back garden, watching Ethan's shadow from afar. She waited until he was alone, then approached him silently.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.

He turned slowly. "Doing what?"

"Exposing them to all of this. The Cave of Truth?! You know what's inside, don't you?"

"Of course I do," he said simply. "That's why I'm sending them."

"But they won't endure... some of them barely made it through what happened before."

He took a step closer to her and looked into her eyes. "That's why we're testing them now. Before the real time comes, when there's no second chance. If they can't face themselves, they won't survive what's coming."

"Is that what they want? Or is it what you want?"

He chuckled softly, his voice carrying no joy. "Oh, Selena... some questions should only be asked when it's too late."

On the morning of the test, the students gathered before the entrance to the cave.

Valerian watched the gray-black rocks and the mist seeping from the mouth of the cave, like the breath of a dead being.

Evelyn stood near him, without looking directly at him, and said in a hushed voice, "What you see inside... may not be real, but it will hurt as if it is."

"I'm used to pain," he said without smiling.

Zenith walked ahead of everyone, the first to enter without hesitation. The others followed, one by one.

When Valerian entered, he felt as though the air had changed. It became heavier. As if something was gripping his chest from the inside.

And inside, each of them began to see what they did not want to see...

And each story was different.

And the stories varied, like Claire's story.

The third-year testing ground was unlike any other.

"The test today..." said the overseer in a metallic voice, "is to survive for one hour... while being hunted by fire creatures filled with venom. Use everything you've got. Any hesitation means death."

In the center of that place stood Claire Lockard.

Her white hair fluttered behind her, and her face held nothing but silence. No fear, no anxiety, not even excitement. Just that calm, cold expression, as if waiting for a train that wouldn't come.

"Begin," said the overseer, and the test started.

The creatures emerged from the rocks. Beasts with black bodies and flames seeping from their mouths, their eyes empty of pupils, yet they could see and kill. They advanced in synchronized steps.

Claire did not move at first.

She closed her eyes.

And raised her right hand.

A faint light appeared above her palm... and then the first "Moon Arrow" formed.

Transparent, sharp, pulsing with a cold blue aura, it sliced through the air without sound, like a lethal thought.

At a breathtaking speed, she shot five arrows toward five different directions. Each arrow didn't target the creatures directly, but struck the ground beside them, creating an explosion of frozen light that froze their limbs and dulled their senses.

Then she leapt.

Her movement was graceful, devoid of emotion, as if she were following a rhythm no one else could hear.

She fought, but she wasn't angry. She defended herself, but she didn't seem interested in surviving... as if staying alive wasn't the goal but just a routine.

After 47 minutes, the monsters had started to dwindle. Claire's body was wounded, her left shoulder bleeding, her clothes torn, but her face? It hadn't changed.

"Still beautiful, even while bleeding," whispered one of the young men.

But the scene was far from over.

From the other side of the arena, Astra Mayne entered, her rival for the past two years.

"You're still slow," Astra said as she walked over the corpses of the monsters.

Claire didn't respond.

"You always fire those arrows as if they'll change something. Your moon is beautiful, yes... but it's cold," Astra said as she opened her palms, a wave of rebound energy gathering in them.

"I know," Claire finally replied in a faint voice, as if speaking to herself.

Then she shot an arrow at Astra.

As expected... it bounced back.

But she didn't move to dodge it. The arrow pierced her right shoulder this time.

Blood fell to the ground, and Astra smiled.

"You haven't learned a thing."

But Claire whispered barely audible: "...Sometimes, defeat is a choice."

Then she closed her eyes.

I was fighting to stay awake...

After the battle ended, everyone stood at a distance watching the medical team carry Claire on a glowing stretcher. She was awake, staring at the sky, her eyes not searching for anything.

Inside... her thoughts were drifting far away.

Valerian... my little brother...

You're not the way you were.

You were calm, but now you're cold.

You were logical, but now you're silent... too much.

I know this path... I walked it before you.

Do you think about survival too? Or something further?

She wasn't crying. She didn't feel loss. She was just... watching the transformation that had affected her brother, as if it were a mirror reflecting what she had once been.

But unlike him, she no longer expected anything from herself.

Her heart wasn't in the test, but far away, with memories that went back to years past, when she was a little girl, carried in her father's arms, who she never knew how to show warm emotions. No kind words were said, no warm hugs were given. He was dry, cold, like the horizon that never sank into the sunset.

Her father, Lucard, was one of the coldest figures in the family. A person who never spoke about his feelings, never cared about others' opinions. He saw her as just another machine in this harsh world, nothing but an extension of his own goals and calculations.

She remembered those moments when she accompanied him in his training during her childhood. She would watch that total coldness, even when he achieved victories in battles, nothing in his face would change, not even a smile or a look of appreciation. Her small eyes would beat with confusion, but no one answered her questions. No one tried to understand what stirred in her heart.

She was carried in his arms, between harsh walls, where there was no place for weakness. And when she fell, he wouldn't catch her to comfort her; she would stay on the ground until she got up by herself. "Weakness has no place here," he would always say in a cold voice, devoid of emotion.

At that moment, her father's voice echoed in her mind, like a distant echo: "There's no place for the weak here."

She was small then, trying to understand this, trying to hold onto anything that could reflect the coldness of that voice, but something inside her was breaking, something was pleading for a tender touch, a single look to make her feel valued. But this never happened.

She grew up with those memories, learning how to hide her feelings, how to be cold in everything. Even in moments of fear, her face would show only coldness, as if she knew that life doesn't stop at the emotions of the moment. She, like her father, began to believe that this was the only way to survive.

At that moment, she was gazing at the sky, the same look in her eyes that might be like her father's. She wasn't thinking of defeat, nor of pain. She was only thinking of that coldness she had been raised on. As if this was the only way that would work in this world.

But, in the corner of her heart, she asked herself in a soft voice, unheard: Am I really like this? Have we all become mere tools to achieve our personal goals?

Then she remembered her brother, Valerian. Was I like this in the past? She wondered. Did I think that survival required being devoid of emotions, and being like our father?

But the change that had happened to Valerian was different. He wasn't as cold as their father, nor as she had been. There was something else in his gaze, something she couldn't quite define, but it was more than just coldness. That thought spun in her head, like a whirlpool she couldn't escape.

Night was falling, and Claire took a deep breath, as if trying to peel off layers of a long history. But she felt something unexpected. She felt something changing in her heart. Pain had been part of her life, but now... she felt the deep cold that didn't come just from the outside, but from within as well.

"Am I just a distorted version of our father?" she whispered to herself.

In this harsh world, survival required something bigger than silence. It required sacrifice. And maybe sacrifice was the answer her heart was still searching for.

She watched with steady eyes, as her heart wept a little in the depths of her chest. Valerian, do you see what I see? Did you see this change I touched in you? She thought of her brother, the one who had become something else... someone else, someone trying to live freely, even if his life was in constant danger.

She closed her eyes again and smiled coldly.

"Life doesn't stop for feelings," she said softly, as if reminding herself.