After filling his plate to near structural collapse—eggs, meat, bread, some fruit that looked too perfect to be real—Seyfe took a slow survey of the massive cafeteria.
Every table was either packed with cadets laughing like they'd known each other for years or dead silent with fresh recruits who looked like they'd rather melt into their chairs than talk. Clusters of people. Groups already formed. Spaces already claimed.
He wandered between tables, tray in hand, getting the occasional side-eye or awkward shuffle from someone pretending not to see him. It was like being back in the dead city's scavenger queues—except fancier and somehow even more isolating.
Eventually, after far too long of a search, he found a half-broken table in the corner—legs uneven, close to a flickering light panel, and just far enough from the food lines that no one would stumble by accidentally.
"Figures," he muttered, setting the tray down and letting out a breath as he sat.
The moment he took his first bite, he realized something else: the food was… actually good. Suspiciously good.
"Yeah," he said under his breath between chews, "definitely a trap."
He glanced up once more at the sea of unfamiliar faces. They really didn't take into account how many people they'd stuff into this place, huh?
A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Overcrowded, under-planned, and way too shiny. Just like the rest of the government."
Once breakfast was cleared—trays dumped, stomachs full, and conversations still buzzing in hushed excitement or tired dread—they were ushered out by a few Veiler staff. Seyfe followed along with the crowd, dragging his feet slightly as the harsh morning sun met them outside.
The open field was enormous, ringed with tall perimeter walls and lined with all manner of combat dummies, training bots, and weapons racks. It was the kind of place where serious training happened—where bruises were earned and egos broken.
But what really caught Seyfe off guard was the number of people gathering.
"Is this... all one squadron?" he muttered, squinting as he took a mental count of heads.
One of the cadets standing beside him—taller, clean-cut, probably from a better part of the cities—snorted. "Welcome to the overflow generation. They crammed every eligible cadet they could find into this intake. Budget cuts, increased threats, political pressure—pick your poison."
Seyfe's gaze swept over the sea of uniforms. One hundred and two cadets. All under the same banner. All expected to work together, train together, survive together.
He couldn't help but raise a brow. This isn't a squadron. It's a damn army in denial.
An instructor barked through a megaphone, slicing through the hum of conversation. "LINE UP. RANK ORDER. GET MOVING."
Seyfe blew out a breath, muttering to himself, "Let the circus begin."
He shuffled into formation with the rest—just another name in a system that still didn't know what he really was. Or what was quietly building inside him.
Just as the cadets were snapping into a shaky line—some standing stiff, others slouching like they hadn't fully registered what was happening—a ripple of attention pulled through the ranks. The sound of boots against the compact earth echoed, sharp and confident.
Seyfe's eye twitched. He didn't even need to fully look up. He already knew.
Of course it's her.
Aki walked past the front of the formation with that same composed precision she always carried—Veiler uniform sharp, hair tucked back, expression unreadable. Her presence alone was enough to shift the atmosphere. Some cadets straightened instinctively. Others whispered to each other, unsure of who she was but sensing her authority immediately.
She stopped dead center, just in front of the gathered squadron.
Her eyes scanned them all once—brief, assessing—and then finally landed on Seyfe for half a second longer than anyone else. Barely a glance, but Seyfe caught it. That almost-smirk she was holding back.
"Cadets," she said, her voice calm but loud enough to cut clean through the air, "I am Field Officer Aki. Effective immediately, I'll be overseeing your physical evaluation, discipline conditioning, and survival ranking. Whether you like it or not, I'll know every weakness each of you has before the week is over."
She let that hang in the air before pacing slowly again.
"This isn't some fantasy camp. You were not chosen because you were exceptional—you were chosen because you were disposable enough to be trained, tested, and either discarded or turned into something useful."
Seyfe couldn't help the grin forming on his face. Yup. Same Aki as always. Pep talks with a knife twist.
She paused once more and gave a final statement, crisp and sharp:
"Let's begin."
And just like that, the first test of blood, sweat, and maybe some unspoken revenge... officially started.
The first few laps felt like nothing—Seyfe had run longer distances in the dead city with nothing but grit and necessity pushing him forward. He was used to moving quickly, the harsh conditions, the unpredictability of the world he'd come from. But this was different.
The ground was even, the air clean, the sun beating down relentlessly, and those damned instructors shouting at every turn.
"Faster! Move those feet, cadet!" The voice of Aki rang out, cutting through the space. It was almost like she was everywhere—like her eyes were on him even when she wasn't.
By the time the laps hit fifty, his legs were starting to protest. His breathing, even with the enhanced stamina he'd always prided himself on, started to grow ragged. Two hundred laps, huh? Piece of cake. But the cake was stale, dry, and it kept getting harder to chew.
He pushed through the pain, his body screaming as he kept pace with some of the other cadets who were just as determined, though they weren't doing much better than him. I've run through worse... he kept telling himself. I can take this.
But it wasn't just the running.
The push-ups followed. The first thirty or so weren't bad, but the next seventy... each one felt like the ground was pulling him down. His arms, shoulders, chest—everything burned. Sweat poured down his face, his hands slipping against the rough dirt beneath him as he struggled to push himself up again.
By the time the first hundred laps of deadzone came, Seyfe's body had become nothing more than a heavy, aching mass. His mind had started to numb from exhaustion, each lap becoming a mechanical process, his legs barely responding. His feet dragged through the dirt, and his vision blurred, the world twisting and warping.
He'd done a hundred laps before, sure. But these weren't the same. The "deadzone" was a stretch of hellish, unforgiving terrain designed to break even the toughest cadets. The ground was uneven, the air thick and suffocating, like every step was a challenge just to stay on his feet.
Every time he pushed forward, he could feel the wear on his joints, the strain in his muscles, the almost overwhelming urge to just stop and collapse.
By the time the last lap of the deadzone was nearing, Seyfe's legs were like rubber. His body screamed at him, telling him to quit, to stop, to let the world go dark. But he didn't. He couldn't. Not after everything he'd already survived.
He reached the final stretch, dragging his tired body forward as the others struggled beside him. Aki's sharp eyes were still on him, her gaze unwavering, calculating. She stood at the finish line, arms crossed, expression unreadable as the last few cadets pushed through.
Seyfe was ready to collapse, but he didn't stop. He just kept moving, step by grueling step, until he crossed the finish line.
And then—nothing. The rest of the squadron stumbled in behind him, but Seyfe just stood there, chest heaving, blood pounding in his ears.
Aki finally spoke, her voice calm as if this was just another day in the office.
"Congratulations, cadet. You survived... but don't get comfortable. The real training starts now."
Seyfe's legs gave out then, and he dropped to his knees. His body was done. He was done. But he had survived, and that, for now, was all that mattered.
Aki didn't flinch. Her eyes narrowed slightly, amused more than anything, arms still folded across her chest as she stared down at him.
"Oh? And here I thought hell was where you came from," she replied coolly. "You should feel right at home then."
Seyfe spat into the dirt beside him, trying to steady his breath. "At least hell didn't come with a hundred pages of paperwork and smiling psychos in white coats."
"Get used to it," she said, turning on her heel. "This is just physical conditioning. Tomorrow, we start pushing your core. You're not even at phase one of the Veiler regimen."
He groaned, flopping onto his back. "Core training? What—do I need to start glowing and shoot lightning out of my hands now?"
Aki didn't stop walking. "Only if you want to live."
That shut him up for a beat. She's not joking...
He stared at the sky for a while longer, sweat pooling into the cracked dirt beneath him.
"...Screw this place," he muttered. "And screw that smirk of hers."
But deep down, even through the burn in his bones and the weight of exhaustion, there was something else creeping in—something unfamiliar.
A flicker of purpose.
And that pissed him off even more.
Seyfe squinted through the blur of sweat running down his forehead, scanning the rest of the field. Bodies were scattered across the dirt like fallen leaves—some groaning, others trying and failing to crawl toward shade. A few looked like they might actually pass out any second.
Well... at least I'm not the only one getting their ass handed to them.
But what really caught his eye were the few cadets who stood with barely a scratch on them. They weren't gloating, just... calm. Controlled. Breathing steady, posture relaxed, like this was just a warm-up.
One in particular, a tall guy with silver-dyed hair and a scar over his brow, didn't even break a sweat—arms crossed, expression unreadable. Another, a girl with buzzed sides and tattoos lacing up her neck, was casually stretching like she was waiting for the real training to begin.
Seyfe clicked his tongue. Monsters in human skin, he thought bitterly.