One Month to Prepare

​The announcement came on a Monday morning, without much ceremony.​"In one month," Vann said, standing before the assembled class, "the end-of-term tournament will take place."​An electric silence swept through the room.​"Every one of you, with the exception of the top-ranked student, will participate." His gaze flicked briefly toward Doran, who remained impassive, arms crossed. "Single-elimination format, one-on-one. The second and third-ranked students will receive a first-round bye, but will face the winners of that round directly in the second."​He paused, letting the numbers settle in our heads.​"The winner of the tournament automatically advances to Class A. Joining them will be the top two overall performers of the term, based on cumulative points—unless one of them wins the tournament, in which case only the top two move up."​So three spots. Maybe fewer.​"You have one month." Vann swept his gaze across the room, quiet gravity in his voice. "What you do with it will determine which of you is still wearing the Class B uniform two months from now."​Nobody asked a question. Nobody dared.​Week 1​The training hall echoed differently now.​It was no longer the polite silence of collective learning. It was something tenser, more personal—each person aware that the student beside them might soon stand opposite them, blade in hand.​I worked on infusion every evening, long after most of the others had returned to the dorms. The concept seemed simple on paper: flow my mental energy into the metal, like pouring water into a vase. In practice, it was a completely different story.​"Failed again," I muttered, watching the blade fade back to its ordinary gray hue for the tenth time that evening.​"You're forcing it too much."​Doran had approached unheard, a towel draped around his neck, clearly on the verge of turning in himself.​"What do you mean, forcing it too much?"​"Mental energy isn't brute force." He crouched beside me, observing my blade. "You're trying to push it into the metal as if it were pressurized water. But it's closer to... letting it flow. Not pushing."​I closed my eyes, searching for that familiar warmth. This time, instead of forcing it toward the blade, I simply tried to let it stream out—gently, without constraint.​The metal shuddered. A faint but steady blue glow began to trace along the blade.​"There you go," Doran said, a faint smile on his lips. "That's it."​I maintained the glow for a few seconds longer before it flickered out, exhausted but satisfied.​"Thanks."​"We're in the same class." He stood back up, slinging the towel over his shoulder. "For now, at least."​That last sentence hung between us, heavier than it should have been.​Week 2​Rafe progressed in his own way—slower than me with infusion, but with a stubborn consistency that commanded respect.​"Do you know who you don't want to get matched against?" he asked me one evening, practicing getting his own blade to glow, with little success.​"You," I replied, half-joking.​He gave a nervous little laugh. "No, seriously."​I thought for a moment. "Bram, maybe."​Bram was training in a corner of the hall, alone as always, striking a dummy with a brute force that made the entire frame shudder with every blow. A former scavenger, rumor had it—someone who had survived long in the Ruins by taking rather than asking. He spoke to almost no one, except Silas, who was equally quiet and usually trained a few yards away without a single word ever passing between them.​"Yeah," Rafe agreed. "Him, I'd rather avoid."​At the other end of the hall, Yuna worked with almost clinical precision—every movement calculated, every gesture economical. The daughter of brigade medics, she approached combat the way one would approach a diagnosis: analyze, target, execute.​"Her," I added, "she gives me a bit of a chill."​Rafe nodded, looking genuinely unsettled. "She never looks anyone in the eye when she fights. Just at the weak points."​Week 3​The mess hall that evening felt less like a noisy pit of chatter and more like a quiet arena of discreet calculations.​Corwin, true to form, sat down at our table with an enthusiasm that felt almost out of place given the circumstances.​"We're all going to tear each other apart in a month, and you look happy," Fenn called out from across the table, a bitingly cynical edge to his voice.​"We're not going to kill each other," Corwin corrected, unfazed. "We're just fighting to advance to the next class. It's motivating, isn't it?"​"It's stupid," Fenn countered. "This whole system is stupid. The ones at the top stay at the top, and the ones at the bottom tear each other apart over crumbs."​"Maybe," chimed in Mira, who had approached with her tray and sat down uninvited, as was her habit. "But it's the system we've got. Might as well make the best of it."​Elin, sitting slightly apart, looked up from her notebook—she spent more time observing others' techniques than training herself, making up for her physical weakness with a meticulous reading of every fight.​"Statistically," she said without fully looking up, "shorter fights favor brute force. Longer fights favor technique and endurance. Each of you should know which category you fall into even before the draw."​"Thanks, Elin," Priya said dryly, clearly irritated. "It helps so much knowing I might lose before I've even started."​Priya, I had noticed over the past few weeks, trained harder than anyone else—sometimes to the point of complete exhaustion, systematically refusing to stop until she reached a goal only she seemed to know.​Wren, quiet as ever, was scribbling something in her own notebook without joining the conversation. No one knew exactly what she was jotting down—dragon observations, rumor had it, but apparently notes on us as well.​I looked around the table at this ragtag group of people who, in a month, would be fighting each other for three spots.​We're supposed to be a class. And yet, in a month, some of us won't be anymore.​Week 4​During the final week before the tournament, training took on an almost feverish intensity.​My blade now responded with a consistency I wouldn't have thought possible a month earlier—not yet perfect, not as steady as Doran's, but reliable. Enough, in theory, to pierce human skin, even if the mere idea of using it against a classmate left a bitter taste in my mouth.​"You're going to have to do it, you know," Rafe told me one evening, as if reading my thoughts. "Hurt someone. Maybe me, if the draw pits us against each other."​"I know."​"Does it bother you?"​I paused for a moment, searching for an honest answer.​"Yeah. But I still prefer this to ending up a firefighter."​Rafe gave a tired but genuine smile.​"Me too."​On Friday evening, the eve of the weekend before the tournament, Vann gathered us one last time in the training hall.​"The draw will take place on Monday morning," he announced, his voice as neutral as ever, but with a restrained gravity that betrayed the moment's weight. "The tournament will begin on Tuesday."​His gaze swept across the room, lingering briefly on each of us—Doran, impassive as ever; Bram and Silas, silent in their corner; Yuna, already mentally analyzing scenarios only she could see; Priya, fists still clenched from a workout she refused to end; Rafe, beside me, jaw set in determination.​"One month," Vann concluded. "Use this weekend to rest. You'll need it."​No one moved immediately after he left the room. We stood there, fourteen weary silhouettes, quietly measuring how far we had come—and the path left to walk, pitted against one another, starting Tuesday.