Bir’s confidence was terrifying. She had a happy smile and entered the fight as though her victory was assured.

It was terrifying, how it broke his heart.

Tom knew what was about to happen, and he hated it. He had only known her for a couple of months, but he had adopted her, even if she didn’t know it. As far as he was concerned, she was part of his family, and he was cognisant of what was happening.

The fight started, and Corrine taunted her as she easily blocked all of Bir’s strikes.

“Show me something, anything.”

“Do something impressive.”

“Anytime now. This isn’t good enough.”

“Is that fate trick really all you’ve got?”

The smile on Bir’s lips faltered as the one-sided fight continued. Corrine wasn’t striking back, but that’s what she had done for the six fights before this. Defend for two minutes, then finish with prejudice. Bir had been exercising her fate to help her development, but not in the overt direct way he had with his spell development. Instead, she had used it to help her exercise, and that had aided her in gaining some early muscle memory and endurance. On earth, she would have been equivalent to a child who had been doing daily gymnastics since she had turned two. That strength, that balance shone through in her attacks, particularly when it came to her endurance. By this point of the battle, all the other challengers had been visibly flagging, but she was still going strong.

“Your endurance is good, but not enough to surprise me.” Corrine proclaimed. “Sorry,” she looked at him and Pa as she said that. “Sorry, but you know what’s next.”

“No, please, don’t. Please!” Bir begged.

Tom shut his eyes and triggered Dampen Senses. It was a risk, but he knew what would happen if he watched her be brutalised. He could tell himself that it was for the best, but he couldn’t witness an older kid hurt her. If he did, he would crack.

The ring drowned out all sound by creating a crushing roar of white noise, and his eyes went completely out of focus.

She is okay. Nothing is happening to Bir, he told himself. He didn’t believe it, but with his senses blocked he didn’t know for sure and that was enough to stop the anger boiling over.

He counted to a hundred and opened his eyes.

“Can he fucking hear me? Feel me,” A finger poked his forehead. “Rage boy, you there? Anyone home?”

“I am,” Tom answered warily. He instantly assessed the state of the room.

Bir was gone, and there was no fresh blood on the floor. She probably just got escorted out of the room. He knew the words were most likely a lie, but the rage didn’t have sufficient evidence to trigger a boil over. It listened, and he won the fight.

“Good, let’s fucking get this done.”

He stared in shock at Corrine. Since when did she swear like a sailor?

“We already don’t have enough time. Fucking Dim shouldn’t have sent fucking nine of you. Arsehole knew, but didn’t give a shit.”

His internal alarms were going off.

“What’s happening?” There were so many warning signals, the foul language, the shift of attitude, the fact she wasn’t testing them.

Corrine snorted:

“I’m doing my job. We’re going to have a fucking incredible heart to heart, hug and cry afterwards. Without any of the emotional bullshit. Got it?”

“No,” Tom answered, honestly. “I have no idea.”

“What are you saying?” Pa asked.

Corrine chuckled. “I’m saying, I know that both you, Kang.” She looked at Pa, “And you, Tom, have been reincarnated.”

Tom felt his blood freeze. If he hadn’t watched her dismantle seven people before him effortlessly, he would have attacked her now. As it was, he knew how futile such an attempt would be.

“There, your secret’s out, and we can stop the bullshit acting and talk frankly. And don’t fucking criticise my language. I spend all my fucking life censoring myself. If I’m in friendly company, I’ll talk however I fucking want.”

Neither of them said anything - Tom because he was trying to understand what he was hearing, Pa didn’t know what the other boy was thinking. But then, he was either a little child confused out of his mind, or someone who had been reincarnated and stunned into similar silence by Corrine’s bizarre behaviour.

“Fucking thank god you have some brains in your skulls. I half expected my words to cause you dumb fucks to confess, which would have been moronic. Silence is golden. Mind you, your recalcitrance is pointless, given that you,” she stared at Tom, “Decided it was okay to use a Dampen Senses ring at full power in front of someone you didn’t know. I guess, little rage boy is cultivating the mentally challenged persona?”

He hesitated.

“How did you know what I was doing?”

Corrine laughed in his face. “There you go, proving the fucking point. No brains. Are you serious? Are your instincts that terrible that you react and, in doing so, confess to an interrogator’s guesses? No, I didn’t know for sure that you were using your ring. But I do now”

“What are you talking about?” Pa asked. He was inching toward the axe that Bir had dropped. Tom knew he should have been seeking a similar advantage, but he also recognised how pointless it would be. A practice weapon wouldn’t help them here.

It was all academic, because she noticed:

“Stop that shit. The axe won’t help you, and it’s not necessary. I’m not here to hurt you. Take my hand.” She held them out. One for each of them.

Tom caught Pa’s eyes, and the other boy shook his head.

“Not a fucking brain cell between you. I could kill you without issues.”

There was a roar of flames behind her that made him blink and tear up in response to the latent heat. They died down at a flick of her finger. Compared to where Tom was at currently, he was beyond outmatched. Is this what a rank seventy assassin could do? Perfectly pretend to be someone else and wield deadly magic in addition to physical power?

“Take my hands. I don’t have cooties.” She laughed.

Both of them realised that they had no choice. There was no harm in cooperating.

He took the one offered him and he felt an electrical shock, or something that mimicked an electrical shock at least. It wasn’t real, because his muscles hadn’t constricted and, with all the work he was doing with the ring, he recognised the difference.

“You both sensed that, hey” Corrine, or the thing pretending to be her, said cheerfully. “It’s a passive acknowledgment of our reincarnated status. I don’t expect you to believe words, and, if you did, you would have been idiots who don’t deserve to be reincarnated. Now, fucking focus, this bit’s important. I want you to reach into your core and actively push out and attempt to make a connection to me.”

What she was suggesting wasn’t any mystical process he was aware of, and nor would it be binding in any shape or form. He still glanced down at his feet to confirm there was no visible circle.

“No, I don’t trust you.” Pa said defiantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Fucking paranoid shits.” She was smiling broadly, like they had finally acted in a way that deserved some respect. “I swear by the GODs that I am not attempting an action that will harm humanity.”

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Tom felt the oath settle. It had been sworn by the GODs, and his interpretation was part of the binding. Whoever she was and whatever her ploy, was it was guaranteed not to harm humanity. That also guaranteed his own life, because him being killed would have represented a negative number of ranking points. It was safe, so he did exactly what he had been instructed to. No energy moved that he could perceive, but there was a ding in any case.

Confusion rocked through him. He didn’t know what was going down.

“Good,” Corrine said, dropping her hands. “I fucking hate inducting newbies. Geniuses? Have you worked out what’s happening yet?”

Pa nodded. Tom didn’t.

“Well, go into your system room and check.”

“I don’t have a system room.”

“Shut up, Kang.”

Tom had seen enough. The pseudo system room was not like the official version where, when you entered it, the transition was obvious to everyone. He could go in and out as often as he wanted, and no one would ever know.

He retreated into the mental space and saw that an addendum had been added to the single title he could see in there:

You have positively identified Corrine Hayley Roberts as a fellow reincarnated.

You will be incapable of deliberately or accidentally revealing her reincarnated status to anyone else.

Note any attempt to circumvent this restriction goes against DEUS’s wishes and will count as blasphemy.

Corrine has also positively identified you, and the same conditions apply to her.

Tom returned to the real world ,as he knew exactly how punitive the time dilation in the pseudo room was, and he needed time to think; time to understand the feelings flooding through him.

Corrine was not an assassin. She was one of them, and her actions to date made no sense to him. Outrage in his heart vied with relief. She was not a killer, no; but her new status made her behaviour even more reprehensible. The conflicting emotions locked his muscles.

He stared at her, his contradictory feelings clear on his face. He felt like screaming to release the pressure. For a moment there, he had been sure he had been about to die.

“Good rage boy, he knows the truth. What about you, Kang?”

Pa’s eyes tightened, and understanding went through Tom. Pa had definitely been reincarnated, and presumably, in his previous life he bore the name of Kang. His brain made more connections. The occasional static electricity that zapped between them when they touched suddenly had an additional context to it. That, he realised, was an acknowledgment of their shared circumstances and not a result of the fabric they wore, as he had assumed before.

Not just Pa, he realised. Corrine had blamed Dim earlier for their class size. Dim, Dimitri - the same sparks occurred on the few occasions he had made contact with the older volunteer.

He retreated momentarily into his system room. He had half expected the title to have updated to reflect the connections he had made, but it was unchanged.

That didn’t mean anything, not by itself, but there was a way to validate at least half of it.

His hand rose, and he grabbed Pa’s arm while repeating the process that Corrine had described. Primarily, he was making his core reach out to the other boy.

There was a ding.

Elation ran through him. He had been right; and, if Pa was a reincarnated one, then that was great news: it meant Tom wouldn’t be doing this alone. He would have someone to confide in. He checked the title, just in case the ding was for something else.

You have positively identified Xu Kang as a fellow reincarnated one.

Internally, he screamed in delight. He wasn’t sure what this changed, apart from its impact on his mental health.

Corrine had seen the movement and was nodding in a very satisfied manner. He stared at her with hard eyes. She was one of them, she had been reincarnated too, but he remembered her picking on little kids. There was something wrong with her, something off. It was possible the stress of coming back to life had broken her. He was not sure how to manage her. All too vividly, he recalled their first encounter and how she had made Bir cry. He couldn’t stay silent:

“If this is true, why the hell were you picking on kids?”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned:

“I don’t like your tone. I was looking after you, you fucking newbie.”

Tom remembered what she had done. An older kid being a bully, that was one thing. He could live with that. But with Corrine being an adult, her actions were not something to be overlooked. It went from a potential excusable mistake of youth to something twisted.

“Looking after me?” He challenged. “How do you figure that?”

“Because you had to be tested.”

“You made an innocent four-year-old cry,” he yelled.

“Easy, rage boy. You might be a reincarnated one, but I can still wipe the floor with you.”

“She was a kid. Do you get off on hurting harmless children?” He waved at the blood spots on the ground to illustrate his point.

Outrage filled her face. Her cheeks went bright red. “No, you fucking shit. I don’t fucking get my jollies off doing that. You arrogant cunt, you take that back you, dumb bastard of a whore.”

“Then why hurt a kid?”

“Because I’m doing my fucking job!” she yelled at him. “Saving fucking humanity and doing my best for them.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Shut up and listen,” she demanded. “You think I need credits? I don’t and this.” She gestured angrily at the blood spots. “It’s a shit duty, a soul-crushing one, and I only applied so that I could give you two a briefing without leaving a trail for anyone else to follow. The benefits of this meeting to humanity’s position was too significant for me to not do over something that matters as little as my own stupid feelings. As for that first day, that was the same thing. I was checking that you guys weren’t going to do anything to get yourself killed. Ensuring you heard the lecture at the ritual. Rage boy, to be honest, you worried me, but I decided your acting was good enough.”

Tom stared her down incredulously:

“You were being a bitch to help us?”

“Yes. I’m not a fucking degenerate cunt. I hated hurting the kids, but it was duty.”

Surprisingly, he was not consumed with fury. He was in control of himself, but he remembered the tears running down her cheeks.

Corrine’s eyes flicked away, and Tom struck. Fist in a ball, he stepped forward and unleashed a lightning-fast jab.

She used a dodge skill to sway out of the way effortlessly:

“Cut that shit, rage boy. We’ve got more important things to talk about.”

“But you…”

“Yeah, I picked on the innocent because picking on you directly wouldn’t have got me anywhere. All of us reincarnators are tough fuckers. I can’t target a reincarnator directly. They’re not going to break cover over something like being hurt. But making your friends suffer, or some random innocent girl at a dining room table... That kind of thing gets our blood pumping. We might be resilient, but most of us are suckers for the innocent. I needed to make sure you wouldn’t lose it, that you wouldn’t run to a volunteer and be articulate, or try to pull rank, or something ridiculous like that. I was testing you. If you had failed, I would have had this conversation earlier. Lots of us, given our backgrounds, aren’t great actors. You two did great, rage boy antics aside. By the way, what the fuck’s with that? If that was intended to improve your cover, it doesn’t do shit.”

“I don’t know.” Tom admitted.

“You don’t know?” Kang asked, concerned. “That’s not good.”

Tom shook his head:

“I have missing memories. I’m assuming that it’s related to that.”

“Fucking figure it out.” Corrine snapped. “It draws too much attention, even if it doesn’t directly reveal you to be one of us. But we haven’t got time to discuss that issue any further. I need to bring you up to speed.” She looked up at the ceiling. “And I don’t know where to fucking start.”

Kang sat on the ground, cross-legged, and gestured for them to join him:

“Maybe tell us about how this works?”

Tom cleared his throat:

“First of all, how dangerous is the threat of assassins?”

She laughed:

“Don’t fucking go around telling everyone you’ve been reincarnated, and you’ll be fine.”

“What’s your view on developing quickly?” Pa asked. No, the right name is Kang, Tom corrected himself in his own head.

She frowned at that, and also sat down. Rather than being the only one still standing, Tom followed.

“It’s a good question,” she admitted finally. “You have eyes, right. I assume you’ve used them. You can benchmark yourself, can’t you?”

“Yes,” Kang answered flatly. “The older children are far more powerful than I expected. I think we can probably get away with almost anything.”

“Yeah, some of them are geniuses. There’s a normie that developed a water domain at thirteen six years ago. She was an absolute freak.” She pointed at the filing like cabinets that contained the spell hierarchy and spell forms. “You’ve seen them, yeah?”

Both Kang and Tom nodded.

“They make the rapid advances possible. There’s kids that find them early, and that gives us a lot of flexibility. My rule of thumb is this, my primary skill.” She clicked her fingers and a small flame appeared. “I don’t tell anyone how far I’ve progressed with it. They know I have some fire, because at the end-of-year tournaments I’ve selected fire spells and skills for the last couple of years.” She laughed. “They think that’s all I’ve got, but really they’re just cover.” The flame grew into a ribbon and coiled around her like a snake. It burned so hot and bright he had to look away. “I’ve got a tier four skill and the spells up to tier three already. By the time I hit fifteen, I’m going to have a domain. But that’s what I’ve hidden. Once I’m out in the world, I’ll pretend that I got awarded a fire domain from a trial or bought it with experience, but that won’t happen for years. My secondary abilities…” She waved her hand, and a breeze swept the room, ruffling their hair. “And the martial fighting form are the ones I let everyone know about. Because of them, I’m ranked fourth in my year. Not so high as to get unwanted attention, but sufficient for no one to raise an eyebrow if I place well in the combat tournaments. Not that I show even those off fully. If I did, I would be the clear number one, which is something I don’t want to be known.”

“Got it,” Tom said simply. “We want to be close to the top, but not the best”.

Internally, his plan for what he was showing publicly came together. He would be a lightning hammer expert and pay homage to his mate, Thor.

Corrine nodded:

“That’s what’s recommended, but we all do it differently. What else… so, spell hierarchies are an incredible resource. I recommend for you to take them seriously.” She pointed at the more obvious bookshelves. “Those are worth reading, but when you do so, try to read between the lines. Finally, there’s the weekly trial. To my mind, that’s the key to supercharging everything. You can bring all your training together into a coherent whole in there.”

“I’ve spoken to the administrator.” Tom volunteered immediately. “I’m learning a crafting skill and spear mastery, and have been since day one.”

“Me too,” Kang told them.

“Great. Now I want to talk about the fucking important stuff. For example, the secrets hidden in all the isolation rooms.” She looked up at the cupboards that Tom had already explored.

Kang followed her gaze and appeared to be confused. “I don’t get it. Is there a secret door up there?”

“Something like that,” Corrine confirmed with a small smile. She pulled out what looked like the glasses a crazy scientist might wear, complete with different magnifying lenses and coloured filters you could move into place. “Try these on.” She held them out to Kang.