EXAM SELECTION

The sky was still pale gray when Godori took his place in line.
He had slipped out of the house before dawn, leaving a rice ball wrapped in cloth beside his sleeping grandfather's mat. He had not looked back at the old man. If he had, he might have hesitated, and hesitation was something Godori could not afford today.
Now he stood at the edge of the village arena, red headband pulled tight, fists clenched at his sides, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
*I'm here. I actually made it here.*
The line stretched back along the stone wall in a noisy, restless snake. Boys and girls bounced on their heels, cracked their knuckles, and boasted in voices pitched far too loud to hide their nerves. Sparks crackled between the fingers of a tall girl near the front. A boy behind her had mist curling around his sleeves like smoke from a damp fire. Another stood with dust spinning in lazy circles around his sandals, as obedient as a tame animal.
Every one of them carried an element. Every one of them had felt it wake inside them, that moment when their kai had finally answered.
Godori's hands glowed with nothing at all.
He didn't care. Or at least, that was what he told himself.
A boy in front of him glanced over his shoulder. His eyes slid to the red headband, then dropped to Godori's empty, unglowing palms, and his mouth curled.
"Even *you* came here?" he said, half laughing.
*Silence.*
Godori didn't answer. He didn't even turn his head. His eyes burned straight ahead at the arena, and every voice around him thinned into a dull, distant hum, like noise heard from underwater.
*I'm going to win.*
It was the only thought in his mind, and it was enough.
The boy blinked, waiting for a reaction that never came. Then he snorted, shook his head, and turned away.
Beyond the line, the arena was packed. The villagers of Kaze no Sato had turned out in force, crowding the wooden stands and pressing along the stone walls, waving cloth banners and shouting the names of sons and daughters. Mothers clutched each other's arms. Fathers stood with their chests puffed out. Grandmothers clapped in time, and small children sat on shoulders to see over the crowd. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts and trampled grass, and the noise rolled across the arena in waves.
It sounded like a festival. But beneath the laughter and the cheering, the tension hummed, tight as a wire pulled to the edge of snapping. Everyone knew what today meant. The selection exam decided who might one day stand among the Shibura, and for one morning, every dream in the village was standing in this line.
Godori scanned the stands without meaning to. He searched the faces, the banners, the waving hands. He knew his grandfather wasn't there. He looked anyway.
Then a deep horn sounded, and the whole arena fell silent.
At the far end, an enormous board towered over the crowd. It was made of black polished wood, taller than two men, bound at the edges with iron, with a long empty panel set into each side. It looked like something carved from the night sky itself.
Hands appeared behind it. Painted wooden plates were slotted into place, one on each side, and every head in the arena tilted back to read them.
On the left, in thick black brushstrokes: **SHIZI IKI**.
On the right: **IZUMI NAGARASKI**.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then the arena **exploded**.
The shouting was so loud it shook the banners. In the line, contestants whooped and slapped each other's shoulders. The tall girl at the front hissed, "It's starting!" The boy who had mocked Godori rose on his toes to see. Godori didn't move. His eyes were locked on the board, and his breath had gone shallow.
*The first match. The first names on the board.*
His fingers curled tighter. His nails dug into his palms in the same places they had dug in on that day in the square, the day his kai had sputtered out and every eye in the village had turned away from him. He could still hear it. *Disappointment. Give up. You don't have what it takes.*
He could hear his grandfather's voice too, quieter than the rest, and somehow heavier. *You would only get injured.*
"Then I'll get injured," Godori whispered, so softly that not even the boy in front of him heard. "But I won't stop."
Two figures stepped onto the packed earth of the arena.
Shizi Iki walked out first, broad-shouldered and grinning, his sleeves already scorched at the cuffs. Lazy tongues of flame danced over his knuckles as he waved to the crowd like a man who had already won.
Izumi Nagaraski followed more slowly. She was slight and composed, her hair tied neatly back, her expression polite and faintly bored. A thin ribbon of water wound around her wrist like a sleeping serpent, glittering in the morning light.
They stopped ten paces apart and bowed, barely.
In the stands, a woman shouted a name until her voice cracked. An old man pounded his cane against the boards. A little boy sat frozen on his father's shoulders, mouth open, forgetting to blink.
Godori pushed forward a single step, out of line, until the stone wall pressed against his chest. He wanted to see everything. Every movement, every spark, every drop. If this was what he had to climb past, he would learn it one breath at a time.
The horn fell silent, and the crowd fell silent with it. Even the wind seemed to wait. Shizi cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, flames flaring brighter. Izumi simply lifted her wrist, and the ribbon of water rose to meet the light, trembling like a held breath.
---
*GONG!*
"Burn!" Shizi roared. He flung both arms forward, and a tidal wave of fire tore across the arena floor, roaring like a living beast. The heat rolled over the stands, and the crowd screamed.
Izumi did not run. She did not even blink. She lifted a single finger, and the ribbon at her wrist surged upward into a shimmering wall of water. The flames slammed into it with a furious *HISS*, and the whole arena vanished in a billowing cloud of white steam.
"Hah!" Shizi laughed, charging blindly through the mist, fists blazing like twin torches. "Is that all you've got, Water Girl?"
He hurled a second blast, then a third, each one hotter than the last, scorching the earth black beneath his feet. Each time, the water drank it down.
Silence. Somewhere in the fog, a soft voice answered.
"You're very loud."
The steam shuddered. Then it collapsed, tightening into a hundred thin, glittering needles of water that hung in the air for the barest moment.
"Wh—"
They struck. The needles lanced into his legs, his arms, his shoulders, and the fire around his fists sputtered. Shizi howled and stumbled, crashing onto his knees in the dirt. He tried to push himself up, flames flaring weakly in his palms.
A cool hand brushed his shoulder.
Izumi stood beside him, smiling sweetly, as though she were about to pour him tea. A coil of water slid around his throat like a silken scarf and tightened. His flames guttered. They flickered. They died.
"I-I yield!" he gasped.
The water fell away at once. Izumi stepped back, straightened her sleeve, and bowed politely. A single drop slid off her fingertip and splashed into the dust.
The arena erupted in thunder.
Godori's eyes were wide, his breath caught, his fists trembling at his sides.
*That's the level I have to reach.*
The morning wore on, and the arena never went quiet.
Fight after fight rolled across the packed earth. Fire clashed with stone and wind tore through ice. Lightning cracked so brightly that the crowd shrieked and covered their eyes. Walls of dust rose and fell, and the plates on the great black board were slotted in and pulled out again and again, until the painted names blurred together in Godori's mind. Winners strode off with their chests puffed out. Losers limped away, clutching their arms and their pride.
Godori watched every one of them.
He stood pressed against the stone wall where he had stood all morning, and he did not look away once. Not when a boy was thrown clear across the arena. Not when a girl's flames flickered out in the last second and left her sobbing in the dirt. He memorized how they moved and how they breathed. He memorized the moment each of them lost.
*I'm still here. I'm still standing.*
The line grew shorter. The sun climbed, then slid toward the west. The chestnut seller had run out of chestnuts long ago.
Then the horn sounded again, and the whole arena held its breath.
Hands appeared behind the great black board. A painted plate slid into the left panel, and the crowd read it in a low murmur.
**KAGA IKI.**
Then another plate slid into the right.
**GODORI FUSHIKU.**
For a single moment, nothing moved.
Then the murmur broke into laughter.
It rippled through the stands, sharp and unkind. "Him?" "The kid with the headband?" "Is that the one who..." Someone whistled. Someone else shook their head, almost with pity. Godori heard every word of it, and it slid off him like rain off a roof.
*My name.*
He stared at it, the black brushstrokes bold against the pale wood. It was real. It was *his*.
*GODORI FUSHIKU.*
His chest tightened. His heart hammered. The line of contestants shifted around him, and the boy who had mocked him that morning stared at the board, then back at him, his mouth hanging open.
Godori pushed off the wall.
He walked.
He did not run, and he did not hurry. His sandals pressed into the packed earth one step at a time, and with every step the noise of the crowd seemed to grow dimmer. The laughter and the murmurs and the whistles thinned into a distant hum. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, steady and strong.
He lifted his chin. His red headband fluttered in the wind, and the afternoon light caught it like a flame.
*This is it.*
He thought of the village square and the ring of faces. He thought of every word they had thrown at him. *Disappointment. Give up. You don't have what it takes.* He thought of his grandfather's gentle voice. *You would only get injured.*
*Watch me.*
Across the arena, a figure stepped out of the opposite entrance.
Kaga Iki.
He was huge, easily three years older than Godori, with shoulders as broad as a doorframe and arms thick as rafters. Each step he took seemed to shake the ground. He looked down at the small boy walking toward him, and a slow, lazy smirk spread across his face.
Godori did not flinch.
He walked to his place at the center of the arena, stopped, and looked up at the giant in front of him. Then he smiled. It was not a nervous smile or a defiant one. It was proud, the smile of a boy who had waited his whole life for this single moment and finally, *finally*, stood inside it.
His dream was about to become reality.
He would duel this boy, and he would win.