Akari’s mind raced as she processed everything. First, a wave of relief washed over her from head to heel. The real Koreldon City was fine. That meant her friends were alive, and Kalden’s brother wasn’t a creepy kidnapper. She’d worried about all of this in the back of her mind, but she hadn’t dared to think too hard. Distractions could be deadly at times like this.

Fortunately, this wasn’t a real war zone. The qualifying rounds had started, but her team was clueless. Like Akari, they’d all gotten hung up on their supposed kidnappings. That, and the impressive set design.

Most of these games began like the midterm exams. An airship carried the students to the arena in broad daylight, and they all experienced a live countdown. The contract had mentioned surprises, but kidnapping students seemed excessive for a game.

Then again, the Artegium had been doing these games for the better part of a century, and novelty was scarce. Not just for the students, but for the thousands who watched on TV.

Akari glared up at the sky, imagining hundreds of invisible cameras floating around their heads. No doubt the audience was all laughing at them from the comfort of their living rooms.

But she had bigger problems now. Her team planned to betray her once the game started. They’d said so in the cafe last night. Now, it was only a matter of time until they put the pieces together themselves. The first guy on Green Street had obviously known—that was why he’d attacked her out of nowhere. And the distant sounds of battle proved that others knew, too.

The group kept walking until their path opened into the Artegium Ring—the section of campus devoted to the various Mana Arts programs. As always, the library loomed in the center of the grassy field, and a web of sidewalks branched out toward the surrounding structures.

This campus had looked pristine in real life, with landscaping crews working around the clock to keep it that way. Now, the surrounding gardens had been ripped to shreds by stray mana, with woodchips and soil scattered over the footpaths. Even some of the maple trees lay flat on their sides.

Nico stopped walking as they took in the scene. “You guys hear that?”

“What?” Nimble asked.

He gestured out toward the Ring. “The fighting’s coming from inside those buildings.”

Of course. The Combat Arts Center would be filled with weapons, armor, and shields—a clear advantage to whoever got there first. The other buildings would have useful stuff, too. Healing Arts and Alchemy were a great source of potions, and who knew what sort of tech they had in the Sigilcraft and Manatronics buildings?

Akari might be faster than her team, but she was already behind. The bigger factions were probably hoarding the good stuff right now. Not to mention the cafeteria, which would be the primary source of food and water.

Focus. Akari’s breath hitched, and she slowed her pace to put some distance between herself and the others. They’d attack her the second they figured this out. She had to act first. But could she pull it off? Four weeks ago, Akari would have laughed at the idea of fighting her entire team. Now …

Either way, she had to confirm her theory before she made a move. Akari pulled out the screwdriver from her pocket, rolled up her left sleeve, and scraped the tool’s steel tip across the back of her forearm. Instead of blood, she caught a faint shimmer of white light.

Well, that settled it. Time to take out these traitors.

Akari unzipped the front of her hoodie, and her gaze darted back to the Artegium library. At five stories tall, a drop from the top floor should kill or cripple most Apprentices.

“Get down!” Akari shouted as she fired a burst of spacetime mana at the library. Then she skittered behind the nearest brick wall. Her team might have frozen before this semester, but they’d spent two months honing their reaction times. Now, those same skills would be their downfall.

Sadie, Jax, and Nimble all clustered near Akari, while Nico took cover across the street.

Good enough. Akari shot a spacetime Missile at her group’s feet, forming a portal to throw them off the library’s roof.

Sadie and Nimble fell straight through, but Jax staggered back.

Akari kicked off the sidewalk and slammed her body into his flank. The muscular boy didn’t budge an inch. She might be an Apprentice now, but so was he. He was also twice her size, with a more refined Cloak technique.

Jax sidestepped the portal, seized Akari by the hair, and threw her hard against the wall.

“What the hell?” he demanded.

Akari gritted her teeth and forced herself to cycle. The impact might have knocked the wind from her lungs, but she didn’t need air to move her mana.

Nico moved at the edge of her vision, gathering fire in his palms.

Jax restrained both her arms, but Akari fired a burst of pure mana from the center of her chest.

The Missile struck Jax in the chin, and he loosened his grip. Akari’s hand leapt forward, driving her screwdriver through his open mouth. His windpipe would have been an easier target, but serious Mana Artists knew how to Cloak against those attacks.

Jax howled in pain, and Nico launched a fire Missile toward her.

Akari slid behind Jax, using him as a shield to absorb the flame. Nico pulled back his technique at the last second, and Akari Cloaked her arms and chest, forcing Jax through the portal in the ground.

Nico threw another technique, far stronger than the first. Akari blocked it with a Construct of pure mana, but the fire flowed around it, and she barely expanded her shield in time.

Talek. Nico had gotten far better since their first duel in Raizen’s class. Back then, he’d relied on simple, precise Missiles. The sort of Missiles that helped him pass high school and admissions exams. But Raizen had forced him to adapt that style for real combat, leaning into his aspect’s strengths.

“Fire mana is raw and destructive,” the Grandmaster had told him one day in class. “Don’t hold back. Unleash it.”

A full dome could have countered Nico’s storm, but Akari hadn’t had time to learn that technique. She’d only been an Apprentice for a few weeks, and Cloaks had been a bigger priority. Not to mention her new aspect. Nico also had far more mana than her, so there was no question who would last longer.

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Akari glanced at the library from the corner of her eye. Jax was gone, but Sadie had used her stone mana to pull out a chunk of pillar and catch herself and Nimble. A few more seconds, and they’d break through a window and escape.

Damnit. No way she’d survive this game with an invisible Light Artist after her.

So instead of fighting Nico, Akari leapt through the portal in the ground. This hurled her off the top of the library, but she threw a pure Missile forward. The momentum transfer shot her back toward Sadie’s stone ledge.

The others reacted at once. Nimble formed his mana into a red laser, hot enough to burn through her skin. Meanwhile, Sadie unleashed a volley of stone projectiles.

Akari twisted her body toward them and shot a pair of spacetime Missiles. The first acted as a shield to swallow their attacks, while the second appeared on the side of the building, dislodging Sadie’s platform. At the same time, Sadie’s own attack flowed through the portal and struck her in back of the head. She stumbled and plummeted toward the garden below.

Akari’s own momentum carried her forward, straight into a stained glass window. If this were a Mana Arts movie, she would have broken through in a shower of broken shards. Instead, she hit the window like a bird against a windshield.

Talek. These things were stronger than they looked.

True to his name, Nimble scurried off the falling ledge and grabbed hold of a stone pillar. Then he flew toward the ground like a squirrel descending a tree.

Fire mana closed in behind Akari before she could follow.

Nico.

She let go of the stone ledge and let herself fall. Nico’s attack struck a heartbeat later, and the heat burned her cheek as she fell.

Akari had just enough mana left for two more portals. She extended a hand and shot one spacetime Missile toward the ground. Then she shot another toward the edge of the ring, angling a portal upward at forty-five degrees.

She fell through the first portal, and down became up. The momentum carried her back across the Artegium Ring, and she shot a burst of pure mana to slow her speed.

She landed on the sidewalk in front of the library, Cloaking her body against the impact. Pain shot through her right leg even as she ducked into a roll. A laser closed in from one side, and a fire storm from the other. She barely formed two pure Constructs to block both attacks.

Akari scrambled to her feet, blinking back her dizziness to find Nimble. But of course the little bastard had turned himself invisible. Pain shot through her thigh as she stood—a sharp wave from her knee to her hip. After weeks of pre-Apprentice training with Relia, Akari knew a broken femur when she felt one.

She should have poured more mana into her shields—that was the safest move against her former teammates. But she also couldn’t take them both at once. Better to go on the offensive.

Akari shot several quick Missiles into the ground, knocking up bursts of woodchips and soil. Some of it bounced off Nimble’s invisible form, and she leapt forward to finish him. Akari couldn’t run with her broken leg, so she shot two more Missiles behind her, vaulting her body toward her opponent.

Nimble unleashed a flash of blinding light, followed by two burning lasers. Akari closed her eyes and flared her Cloak technique. The lasers burned like a hot stove, but they didn’t cut deep. He’d need a lot more power for that.

Their bodies collided, and Akari fired another Missile at his chest. They struck the library’s foundation, and Nimble faded to mist as his skull broke against the wall.

Footsteps echoed on the sidewalk behind her as Nico approached. Shit. Her right leg was still broken, and white light leaked from several wounds throughout her body. Her channels also felt like wrung-out rags, and she’d be lucky to squeeze out one more Missile.

“Why?” Nico shouted from across the open space. “Why’d you turn on us?”

Akari forced herself to stand taller and hide her weakness. “Don’t even try,” she snapped back. “I heard you guys at the cafe.”

He frowned. “What about the cafe?”

“Last night,” she said. “After I left.”

“You …” he trailed off, then realization shone in his dark brown eyes. “You left a portal behind, didn’t you?”

Akari just shrugged. She had no reason to deny the truth to Nico, but she’d rather not reveal all her tricks on live TV. “I know Elise Moonfire paid you off.”

Nico ran a hand through his hair. “What about the part where I defended you?”

She glared at him. “How ‘bout the part where it was all your idea?”

“Look …” Nico relaxed his posture, but he didn’t stop cycling his mana. “Elise saw us talking on the first day of class. She met with me a few days later —asked me to put you in my group. This was before we even knew each other.”

Talek … that long ago? It stung a lot more than it should have. This whole time, she thought she’d made friends aside from Kalden and Relia. It proved that she could actually fit in this new world.

Apparently not.

Akari cycled her mana faster, readying a technique. She’d taken a plasma blade in her stomach when she’d killed that Artisan in Creta. This was nothing compared to that.

“We don’t need to fight,” Nico said. “We can still be allies.”

“Bullshit,” Akari said. “I just took out the rest of the team. No way you’ll let me walk away.”

“It’s part of the game,” he said in a calm voice. “I get it. You got them before they could get you. I might have done the same in your position.” Nico stopped cycling his mana, raised his hands, and took a few steps closer. “But you and I can still be allies. You won’t get far with those wounds, but I can help you.”

Right, and then he could bring her straight to Elise Moonfire and secure a spot in her faction. Or maybe he’d just kill her the second she turned her back. Thanks, but no thanks.

Nico closed the distance and held out his wrist for her to clasp. “What do you say? Allies?”

Akari moved as if to grab his wrist, but then she gritted her teeth and fell forward.

Predictably, Nico threw out his hands, ready to catch her as if she were a fainting princess. When he did, Akari raised a hand to his windpipe and releashed the rest of her mana.

Nico’s head rocked back with a sharp crack, and he faded into a cloud of white mist.

Akari collapsed on the sidewalk in his wake, trying not to cry in front of the cameras.

It’s just a game, she told herself.

But unlike most students, she had killed dozens of real people, and this felt way too much like the real thing. She almost wished Nico would have attacked her first. At least then, she wouldn’t feel like such a monster.

No sooner had Nico faded than a plastic wristband appeared on Akari’s wrist. It looked exactly like the ones they’d worn for the midterm exams, with the same three buttons on the top. Huh. Apparently, you didn’t get this until you killed someone? Or maybe you just needed to realize you were in the game.

Akari stumbled out of the open space, taking cover behind two segments of the Healing Arts Center. Once she’d reached the relative safety of the alley, she pressed the bracelet’s middle button to reveal a familiar blue interface:

“Hello, Akari Zeller. Welcome to the Eighty-Fourth Koreldon University Qualifying Round!”

The message faded a second later to reveal a short list of rules. These looked the same as previous years, but Akari gave them a quick skim to make sure.

Basically, the top thirty students got guaranteed spots in the interschool battlegrounds. Eliminating other players was the best way to score points—ranging from direct kills to indirect assists. But there were percentage-based bonuses the longer you survived. For example, if Akari lasted halfway through the game, her five kills might be worth six. If she made it through to the end, her five kills might become ten.

The rules also listed various ways you could forfeit the game. For one thing, you could say the word “quit” out loud with no other context, and you’d be given a confirmation box to answer mentally. You could also tap out, or blink several times in rapid succession.

It seemed odd to quit after getting this far, but it happened a few times every year. Maybe the stress got to people, and they realized they couldn’t handle it anymore. Maybe they were dealing with real-life problems, or maybe they just realized this sort of competition wasn’t for them. Participation wasn’t required for graduation, after all. Some people just wanted to learn combat without appearing on TV, and she could respect that.

All food was real, along with any water that came from a faucet, bottle, or container. That meant using food or water as physical weapons was strictly off-limits, and grounds for disqualification.

Finally, students were allowed breaks for various medical reasons. In Akari’s case, she’d be allowed to take her birth control and mana-building supplements every evening. Relia would probably get a break for her shardbreaker pills, too.

She finished skimming the rules, then she tabbed over to the scoreboard of 285 students. Most of the first-year class was here, along with a sizable portion of the second-years. Akari found her own name in the top ten with four kills. Only one name sat above her in the first spot: Kalden Trengsen with six kills.

She glared at the screen and let out a long sigh. “You gotta be kidding.”