The next hundred paces down the path were hard-fought. At the first intersection, Ifra blasted a stone at them. Yuriko barely managed to deflect it with her side-blade before she got hit, and returned a shot from the Plasma Lancet. The other girl had already ducked out of sight by then.

Ptang!

The stone smacked against the cobblestones and bounced into the hedges. Yuriko remained on guard. A glance behind her showed that the squad had pulled away a couple dozen paces, and she ran after them, only for the sniper behind to shoot at her. She sidestepped out of the way.

“Swarm fodder!” the sniper yelled.

“You couldn’t hit the broadside of a hill!” Yuriko shot back.

“Hey, don’t get personal!” A light bolt followed his retort but such an obvious shot was quite easy to dodge, except, it curved to follow her movement. Eyes wide, Yuriko tilted the lancet up and pulled the trigger, willing the bolt to strike true.

The lancet’s bolt smashed against the caster’s and shattered the guiding Animus. The bolt dissipated right after.

“Nice shot! Here, have some more!”

Yuriko narrowed her eyes. The sniper was about fifty paces away, still not within lancet range. She should take him out now before he gets the chance to snipe down the ward and the other squad members.

“I’m going after the sniper!” she yelled back.

“Wha--?”

Yuriko ignored the question, already running. Her senses were on a hair-trigger and she dodged the shots sent her way. She was warier of Ifra and whomever she had with her, too.

Shoot! Dodge! Keep running!

Running flat out, the sniper only had the chance to shoot twice before she was close enough to properly threaten him. She wasn’t versed in mobile shooting, so she didn’t even bother. A powerful leap saw her scaling the boulder he was using as a nest and the next moment, she sent a slash towards his head. The sniper rolled off the boulder, landing on his hands and feet two paces below.

But Yuriko had him now. The boy’s black eyes widened in alarm as she shot a lancet bolt at him to make him leap to his right, only for her training blade to smash into his arm.

“Ahh!”

Thud! Thud!

Two hits later, his amulet lit up and he stomped his foot in frustration.

“Do better next time!” Yuriko left her words floating in the wind as she ran back to her squad. All told, it took her less than twenty seconds to approach and take out the marksman. As she headed back, Ifra came out of a side passage, eyes wide in consternation. Another member of her team was beside her and they both attacked. Ifra with another stone and the other with a spear.

Yuriko smacked the stone and redirected it towards the spearman. She shot at Ifra with a lancet bolt which was intercepted with a floating stone. The spearman blocked the deflected stone with the shaft and lunged at her with the next movement.

Yuriko spun on her heels, deflected the spear up and shot a bolt at him, catching him on the shoulder. With a wince, he backed off, while Ifra rushed forward, brandishing a side-blade and a buckler.

“I didn’t think you were more than a pretty face,” she sneered.

Yuriko parried the sword blow, eyes wary of the stone orbiting Ifra’s head. She pointed the lancet at Ifra’s leg, to which she moved the stone to hover protectively low, but that was merely a feint. Yuriko thrust the side-blade at Ifra’s face, making her flinch, as she raised both her weapon and shield to block.

Yuriko quickly redirected her thrust, turning it into a horizontal slash as she took a step forward. It caught Ifra’s waist, deflecting off the forceweave jacket, but that counted as a hit.

“Chaos!” Ifra cursed, jumping back. Yuriko didn’t let the other girl escape though, one less opponent meant an easier time to finish.

While Ifra was off-balance, Yuriko shot a bolt at the leg she had her weight on, and as the other girl struggled, followed up with a stab to the shoulder. That would have been the end of it except the spearman swung his weapon at her chest. With the second dance still active, it was easy enough for her to twist and abort her stab to a parry.

Clack!

For the next minute, they exchanged blows. Yuriko made judicious use of the lancet to threaten, prod, and ultimately, to strike. She managed another hit at Ifra, while the spearman hung on by a thread. All the while, Yuriko danced around their blows, parrying if necessary, or simply not being where they were aiming at.

The girl was the harder opponent, with the added necessity of keeping an eye on the stones stopping Yuriko from finishing things already. That, and she was limited to using the second dance.

“Tssk!” she clicked her tongue. Ifra and the spearman were keeping to defence. “If you’re not going to attack, then I’m leaving!”

She leapt back, disengaging before either examinee could react. Spinning on her heels, she sprinted, leaving them in her dust. She followed the path, wondering how far her squad had pulled ahead.

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A couple of turns later and she emerged into a wider clearing and her squad was up front, fighting off another group of examinees and outnumbered two to one. So it meant that there was more than one team on assault. She recognized Danazzo as one of the attackers, wielding a glaive with a flourish as he and another boy pincered Gwendith.

Their squad leader was holding her own easily, her side-blade countering each of Danazzo’s flourishing blows while her other hand glowed with a pink light. A moment later, she touched the other boy’s spear, and in the blink of an eye, it was covered in frost. He dropped his weapon a moment later, hissing in pain.

Gwendith cooly stepped forward and ran him through, well in a manner of speaking. His amulet flashed and just like that, he was out. The rest of the team wasn’t faring any better though.

Peyton and Alexandros were fending off a flurry of blows aimed at the instructor-ward but some others were already out-flanking them. Ella-Mai and Jaidon had been neatly separated from the group while they fought for their lives.

Yuriko took all of this in with one look. She yelled, trying to draw attention, and started firing the lancet, catching one of the boys attacking Alexandros in the back of the head. But she was too far away. The next moment, the Warders were outflanked, stabbed in the back and downed. The next instant, they took hold of the instructor. Just like that, the test was over, and the squad failed.

“Chaos,” Yuriko muttered.

Gwendith glared at their opponents but dropped her weapon in defeat. Their muted groans were drowned out by Danazzo’s team’s cheering.

“Well, let’s head to the Atrium for the judging,” the instructor said with a smile. “That was a wonderful showing, don’t worry,” he added hastily, “Failing the mission doesn’t mean you’ve failed the exams.”

Sighing to herself, Yuriko followed the others as they trudged down the paths.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Jaidon said when she came up next to him. “We were outnumbered in the first place, and this is the first time we’ve worked together, so…”

“Danazzo’s team won.” Yuriko stated simply.

“Well, we fended off two teams. That has to count for something.”

“Where were you? Why did you run off?” Gwendith pointedly asked Yuriko.

“I had to take out the sniper. Encountered the rest of his team and I had to fight them, too.”

“We could have used you here.”

Yuriko shrugged uncomfortably. Gwendith snorted derisively and marched off.

“Don’t mind her,” Jaidon said when Gwendith was several paces away, “she’s carrying her clan’s expectations on her shoulders.”

“You know her well?”

“Everybody in our year does.” Jaidon shrugged. “Nice to look at, but…” he glanced at her and looked away.

The Atrium was in the centre of the Hedge Maze, or at least that’s what Yuriko assumed. Unless she climbed up the hedges she wouldn’t be able to tell, and here it had grown to three paces high.

The ‘dead’ examinees were already there along with the other instructors. Yuriko wondered what happened with the other two teams since there were only thirty-two students present. The place was wide, about fifty paces across. There were benches, a stage, and a dozen acacia trees that spread their shade across most of the clearing. They gathered near the stage.

The instructor-ward headed to the other proctors. Master Antiga sat with a panel of other proctors, receiving the observations and making some notes on crystal tablets.

Yuriko’s heart was at her throat. She hoped that her showing had been enough to convince the proctors that she belonged in the elite class but from the results of the practicals, she knew everything was still up in the air.

Then the instructors started to call names. The startled examinees headed to the proctor’s table. Some were led by an instructor to one side and they talked for a few minutes. A slight shimmer in the air around the student and proctor and the fact that Yuriko couldn’t get a hint of what they were talking about, meant that a privacy field had been erected.

Other examinees were led to a different area and, from there, they sparred with an instructor for a minute or so, then were told to return. Yuriko wondered if she would be tested too. Not all of them were. Gwendith and her posse, the ones in the team anyway, weren’t tested.

“Yuriko Davar,” the instructor-ward called her over.

With her heart pounding even harder than before, she felt her Animus strands slip into a meditative circuit, much like the one she used for Recovery except this one focused on her mind, her lungs, her heart, and eventually, her blood. She felt the heat of it running down her veins as if the sun shone down on her during a cold day. Comforting.

By the time she arrived at the table, her pulse had returned to normal and she faced the panel with equanimity. The instructor led her a distance away but unlike the others, Master Antiga followed behind them. Yuriko held in a frown.

“Well,” the instructor-ward said after the privacy field came up. It was a small runestone, an elongated oval three inches long and an inch wide, that produced the field. “That was a credible showing. You’ve managed to down five opponents without taking a single hit. Impressive work. From your records, those weren’t your Facet but a simple Animus technique that you learned from it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Either way, incredible talent in melee. What other weapons can you wield with equal skill?”

“I’m training greatsword techniques, spear techniques, and rifle-blade.”

“Your dominant hand?”

“Ambidextrous.”

He nodded, interest plain on his face. “Are you related to Kato and Marron Davar?”

“My elder brothers.”

He frowned at that. “So you didn’t receive the same Heritage. I see.” He scribbled something down on the crystal tablet using his fingers. “Master Antiga?”

“Ahem, let’s continue with what you did wrong.” Yuriko felt her stomach drop.

“You were divisive in the squad. While you had acknowledged Gwendith Sharine as the squad leader, you continued to question her. This led to the rest of your squad dividing itself between you and her. A divided squad cannot stand on its own, no matter how exceptional its members. The results were clear and none of the instructors predicted otherwise.”

“Well, they were outnumbered two to one,” the other instructor mildly interrupted.

“Even so. They should have been able to progress further down the path if they had better cooperation. I won’t say that Miss Sharine didn’t have any fault, but some of it clearly falls on you, Miss Davar.”

Yuriko didn’t know what to say. She numbly stared at Antiga.

“Finally, when you separated for independent action, you did so without the permission of your squad leader, resulting in the rest of the squad being further undermanned. The analysis is that if you had been with the team when the second ambush happened, there would have been a better chance of pulling through. You went independent in the belief that by eliminating the team remaining behind, you would have been able to further safeguard your squad. Am I wrong?”

“No, ma’am. That’s what I thought at the time,” Yuriko looked down to her feet.

“Indeed. And the result was as such. I would have expected more from Kato’s younger sister, and Knight-Captain Davar’s daughter, but well, I learned to live with disappointment. Still, your combat skills are good, but I honestly don’t believe that those are enough in the battlefield. Instructor Gethen?”

“Nothing to add.” He shrugged. “Oh, don’t worry, despite Master Antiga’s words, I think you’ve a good chance anyway to join the elite class.”

Master Antiga snorted but didn’t comment further. “You may go.”

Yuriko nodded, trudging back to the bench. She scrubbed her hand through her hair and wondered what would happen now.