Victory

In the morning, they rose one by one, movements stiff and wary after so many cold nights.

Katsu was the last to stand.

He expected pain.

Bruises, frostbite, the bite of overused magic.

But as he stretched, his body felt strangely mended. Almost whole.

He glanced down, fingertips brushing his side.

There, vivid against his skin, was a mark.

A faint red stain.

The shape more suggestion than reality.

The Leviathan's idea of a joke.

Not lipstick, not really.

Just her way of reminding him who had stitched him back together. Figures.

Sydney was already packing up the remains of their camp, her face drawn but her hands steady as she cinched the straps on her bag.

She caught Katsu's eye for half a second and gave the smallest nod.

Something between a thank you and a truce.

Rei finished tying his boot.

Flexing his foot with a wince.

He said nothing, but when he stood, he handed Katsu a ration biscuit. Half broken, but still food.

No one talked about the ambush.

No one mentioned the magic that had nearly gotten them killed, or the way Katsu's wounds had vanished overnight.

Instead, they moved in quiet, practical rhythm. Bedrolls packed. Fire pit scattered.

They checked supplies, checked wounds, checked the treeline. Sydney cleared her throat.

"Let's move before the cold sets in deeper."

Katsu nodded.

He fell into step between her and Rei.

The three of them moving through the waking Wildglow together.

No longer strangers, not quite friends, but something new and unspoken between them.

The forest watched in silence, but the team…

Scarred, changed, and still breathing—walked forward into the last day.

"This is the last day, right? We should be… going somewhere? Or will they come to us?"

Katsu asked suddenly, slightly smokin.

Sydney groaned, pulling her cloak tight around her, hair wild and eyes shadowed. The House symbol on her cloak finally visible.

"Really? I imagined a final mission. Something dramatic, at least."

Rei arched an eyebrow.

Rolling stiff joints as he stretched.

"Me too."

They shared a brief, thin laugh.

One that barely touched their faces.

All three glanced at the trees, nerves fraying with each heartbeat. The world felt coiled, expectant, as if even the birds were holding their breath.

Then a scream ripped through the woods, piercing and raw, cutting the morning to pieces.

Instinct took over.

Katsu moved, eyes finding Rei's in a flash of shared recognition. Sydney looked to them.

Group 32 bolted.

Boots churned icy needles.

Branches whipped against their faces, sunlight strobing through the racing trees.

The rhythm of their sprint fell into sync: Katsu leading, Rei close on his flank, Sydney just behind, her breath hot in the cold.

The forest became a smear of color and speed; every sense honed, exhaustion left far behind.

They burst from the trees and skidded into a clearing, momentum carrying them forward—

—Then halting them in horror.

A monstrous beast dominated the snow, twice the size of a carriage horse and wreathed in bristling white fur, each hair matted with frost and blood.

Its back was hunched, ridged with black spines, limbs thick as fallen logs.

Yellow eyes burned in a wedge-shaped head, jaws agape, fangs dripping with gore and spit.

In one claw, it dangled a girl by the waist, her limbs flailing weakly, a scream ripped raw from her throat.

The scene was chaos: two students bleeding into the snow, others huddled in terror, one boy crawling, eyes wide with silent pleading.

Nobody moved. The air was electric—fear and blood and cold magic churning together.

For an instant, time stretched.

Katsu's heart hammered.

He caught Rei's gaze.

Something unspoken clicked between them.

Sydney's hand hovered at her belt, eyes locked on Katsu, trust shining where fear should have been.

An echo thundered in Katsu's mind:

"Never use the magic I taught you in front of others… Trust only those whose names you've written... "

His father's voice.

A memory. Half-warning, half-command.

He breathed out, steady. Glanced at his friends—no, his team. "I've written your names," he said, a promise and a confession both.

Everything snapped into motion.

Katsu surged forward, reality shuddering around him. His foot hammered the ground; space bent, a ripple in the world.

His eyes burned red as he crossed the distance in a blink, grabbing the girl and wrenching her free from the monster's claws.

With one swift pivot, he flung her to safety behind him, already spinning back toward the beast.

Rei's magic flared.

He was already in motion, bolts of lightning crackling between his fingers.

Launching them in rapid arcs that danced across the monster's flanks.

Each strike staggered the beast, fur blackening, air ringing with the shock.

Katsu was a blur.

Two brutal kicks hammering into the creature's jaw, sending up a spray of blood and teeth.

The monster roared, swinging a claw, but water spun through the air. Katsu's will dragging every droplet from mist and breath.

It slammed down like a tidal wave, pinning the beast, freezing at the edges, holding it fast.

Sydney broke through the edge of the clearing, her hands wreathed in fire. She shouted a word. Old, proud, Keahi-born.

Flame erupted from her palms, a radiant column that lanced upward. Bloomfire.

The inferno swallowed the monster whole, the explosion painting the snow orange and gold, scorching shadows from the tallest pines.

Heat and chaos spun out in every direction—until Katsu raised his hand, pulling the blast inward.

The fire coiled and twisted, folding in on itself as he shaped it to water.

The energy howling into a torrent and freezing into a gleaming, seamless dome of ice.

The light dimmed. The clearing shrank to breath and steam and silence.

Inside the dome, time stood still.

Only Katsu's hand moved, steam curling from his knuckles as the heat slowly faded.

Then the dome groaned, fissures racing out in spiderweb lines, until at last. It shattered, shards of ice collapsing to the ground.

Group 32 stood in the center.

Breathless and battered.

Shoulder to shoulder, a wall against the ruin.

The monster was gone.

Only smoldering fur, ash, and broken stone remained. Around them, the rescued students gaped, wide-eyed and silent, too shocked to speak.

Even the wind stilled, the world pausing to witness the impossible.

For the first time, Wildglow was silent.

For the first time, Group 32 stood unmistakably victorious.

And as the sun edged higher, they realized: this was the ending they'd been waiting for. This was the legend they'd just written themselves into.