“Kill him.” The words echoed through her mind as she took another look around the room. Some of the objects were standard, but many had more horrifying implications. She saw clubs and other slow killing weapons, various torture racks, a noose, and many other objects. Not wanting to picture all the horrible ways to kill, she closed her eyes to avoid looking at the weapons..

“Why are there so many…” She paused to collect herself, worried that her voice would betray her horror. “...so many options?” After a moment’s thought where he didn’t respond, she burst out in anger. “And why do you want me to kill him?!”

He still refused to respond, instead looking at her expectantly, in the infuriating way only teachers could.

“I fucking knew it. You’ve been training me to be a killer, haven’t you? Your own personal assassin? And now this is a test of loyalty or something?” After a few moments, he slowly responded.

“This is not a test of loyalty. That will come later, assuming you accept the job.” She perked up, hoping it meant she wouldn’t have to kill, at least yet.

“I don’t have to take this? I can walk away without touching a hair on his head and just go back to normal?” He simply nodded his head in response. “I… I need a minute.”

Needing to be away from the scene, she walked out of the room and sat down on the floor. She knew this was likely one of the most important decisions of her life and didn’t want to rush it. If having the capacity to kill someone was the test, then clearly she passed whatever other requirements there were. This wasn’t just a decision about whether she could or would kill this person, it’s whether she could become an assassin or not.

Strangely, the first question that came to her mind was whether she wanted to do that with her life. She’d be leaving The Academy behind, both physically on missions and mentally. Even though she would undoubtedly come back, she would be very separated and alone. Although admittedly, that wouldn’t be much different from what it was already like. She’d been closing herself off from everybody to hide her secrets, which would become much easier to strengthen and hide with that lifestyle.

Her next thought is whether she’d be ok with being that kind of person. Her job would literally be to kill people. Although not just to kill people, she would always be wearing a mask, probably sometimes literally. It dawned on her at this moment that this was the reason for learning all the acting and make-up earlier in the month.

Furthermore, she may have to perform infiltrations. To her, that sounded incredibly lonely. Nobody would see the real her, which is already a little true, but she’d likely never be able to relax and enjoy herself either. Half of the job would be killing and the other half would be pretending.

Next, she wondered how far she would have to travel and for how long. Would she go on long-term missions and be gone for years? Would she have to fake serious relationships as someone else. If it went far enough, would she have to sacrifice her body to accomplish her goals? She didn’t like this train of thought, but decided to table it for the moment.

She recalled that when she mentioned a loyalty test, he had said not yet. She wondered what that would be and sighed as she realized they would probably desire unyielding loyalty to them, something she wasn’t ready to give, at least right now. But loyalty aside, was she willing to let them have complete control of her life? As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she nearly laughed out loud. They already did have complete control of her life, nothing would change.

Trying to gain some sense and consolidate her thoughts, she had to ask herself what she would lose. Freedom was her first thought, but then she realized that wasn’t true. It wouldn’t be freedom that she would lose, it would be any chance at freedom for the rest of her life. If she agreed to this, she figured it was like selling her soul to them. Although she didn’t think she had a great chance at leaving if she wanted anyways. The worse one for her was losing any chance at relationships. Undoubtedly, all relationships would be controlled, both friends and romances. She also might be forced to partake in relationships she didn’t want.

Returning to her earlier thoughts, she would also have to become a killer. Honestly, this felt like it should be the crux of the issue, but it didn’t bother her as much as she expected. She felt surprisingly ok with it, which worried her. Did she really value her freedom to have relationships more than the lives of others? She didn’t want to think about that, so she moved on. It would also be dangerous, which surprised her to realize it was the first time she thought that. She immediately ignored it as it didn’t bother her in the slightest. It might actually be fun.

Then she asked herself what she would gain. That question rang through her head a second time as she had to give it more thought. That was when she realized that she would gain freedom, but in a different sense than she first thought. Both this test and the previous test were a perfect example. Even if they decide the target, she would get to choose how to do things. She would also get more freedom to work on her magic, which was a strong point in favor. Additionally, she’d also get to travel. When she was younger, she never wanted to travel, but after learning so much more at The Academy, and frankly being stuck within the academy, she found the idea enticing. She didn’t want to be trapped working as staff at the academy her whole life.

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Coming upon that realization, she thought harder about what being trapped within The Academy as staff would be. She‘d still be learning to fight like everybody, but wouldn’t be taught to kill as efficiently as she would as an assassin. She probably be cooking and working with the same people her whole life, spending her time with the people she might eventually trust . That didn’t sound too bad as it is similar to what she had originally planned for her life, but this community was smaller. Unlike when she was younger it sounded so boring now. She’d learned about the different peoples and cultures out in the world, and all of the wonderful things she could see, both natural and man-made.

If she stayed, the only thing she would see would be the view from The Academy windows, which was beautiful to be frank. But she would lose that view soon But that would as the staff accommodations are on the bottom floors! All-in-all, she’d be spending her time doing the same thing everyday and staying safe. That was half the job of being a null anyways. Well, at least normally.

Staying at the academy as a null, she had been educated on what ithrax actually were. A new group of ithrax was born once every starfall so about once every thirty days on average. Each cell had somewhere between three and eight people, including the null. They were connected from birth, having incredible bonds that help them find each other despite coming from different families, and often different species. The only one separate from the bond is the null, as magic doesn’t work on them.

What makes ithrax so unkillable is that as long as one is alive, they can always respawn. Somehow, ithrax have a way to use unattuned mana unlike the general population. They could convert their own mana to unattuned mana, a process that supposedly very strange.

Whenever an ithrax dies, another ithrax within the cell must spend some time, a week at minimum unattuning their mana. Once done, they draw upon their mana and through a process still not fully understood, the dead ithrax’s body is regenerated as if they never died. Exactly what state they come back in, she still didn’t know as she didn’t get trained for this. If they lose a limb days before death, do they come back losing a limb or not?

Regardless, nulls disrupt the system slightly. They can’t absorb mana or be created from mana normally, so it doesn’t work right. Should a null die, the body of another ithrax in their cell will try to respawn them. But because the null’s body absorbs mana so strongly, it will drain the ithrax of all their mana, killing them to respawn the null. If they were the last ithrax, this leaves the null as the only one left.

Respawning off nulls was a crippling event, but it would still be better than death. As ithrax, although null, their body naturally tries to respawn the dead ithrax. But since they have no mana to use, their body will consume itself to create another ithrax, typically losing an entire limb in the process. This process also permanently damages the mana capacity of the ithrax that spawned off them. If this happened on repeat and the ithrax had no more mana to lose, they could not respawn and would instead be dead forever.

Of course, this process means the null is crippled as well until they’re also killed and respawned. This of course kills the ithrax they spawn off so more than one need to be alive before this happens.

All of this comes down to the purpose of nulls manning the academy. To start this painful experience, it requires either the null to die or every single one of the other ithrax to die. As such, half of the job for nulls is to not die.

They’re the last resort if the rest of the team dies, so their roles as the staff of The Academy is functional on many levels. Of course, they all still receive extensive training both fighting against mages and non-mages. This creates an army of trained nulls protecting the academy should any idiot ever try to attack them.

Due to all of this, there was a chance she could still have to kill someone due to the nature of the position, although that would be astronomically unlikely. Her job would be cooking, yes, but primarily being safe and trapped within the academy. With all of this in mind, it seemed to come down to one question. Was becoming a killer for The Academy worth her freedom? Whatever kills and missions she’d be sent to do would happen anyways, they’d simply get another null to do it. For now, that was probably the man that had been training her. Then was she ok with becoming their killer and is she ok with being a killer in general? Before she could think too hard on it, a much more important question came to mind. Did she trust The Academy? Would she be targeting people that deserved it?

No deliberation was necessary to answer the question. She did trust the academy. They were the objective party in the world, not beholden to any nation and always working to keep them in check. They had led the world well so far and she was sure anybody they targeted were a danger to society. And being a killer, well… after deciding that the reason for the killing was just, being a killer didn’t scare her. She could be a killer for the academy. She would be their assassin. With her decision made, she opened the door and walked back into the room.

She almost shuddered, seeing all the various tools of death scattered around the room. Just because she was ok being a killer didn’t mean she was fully prepared. Many of them looked more like torture devices than tools for death. She was okay being their killer, but torturer, not so much. Mentally fortifying herself, she swiftly grabbed a knife off one of the tables, marched up to the tied man, and slit his throat.