The holographic projector flickered to life, casting Director Shirogane's gaunt silhouette over the assembled students. The air smelled of ozone and tension.
*"The following first-year candidates have been promoted to Prime status,"* he announced, his voice like a scalpel.
Six names.
Wayne ozumaki, Kazaki Ren, Miko, Ayan Kuretsu, Lina voort and Jin takeda.
No Denji.
"Prime Candidates will undergo weekly biometric evaluations," Shirogane continued. "Scans will be conducted exclusively by myself. Any unauthorized access to your data is punishable by death as it will be seen as betraying humanity."
Wayne smirked, cracking his knuckles. "Guess we're the academy's new show ponies."
Kaz kept his face blank, but his pulse hammered in his throat.
Something about the way Shirogane's eyes lingered on him made his skin prickle.
---
The dormitory was a monolith of black steel and frosted glass, its corridors lit by the cold glow of biometric panels.
Kaz's keycard hissed against the reader. The door slid open to reveal a sterile cube—two beds, two desks, a single reinforced window overlooking the training yards.
Wayne tossed his duffel onto the left cot. "Try not to snore."
Kaz didn't answer. His fingers traced the wall—smooth, seamless. No vents. No visible cameras.
*Too* clean.
Down the hall, Miko's door hissed shut behind her. She moved like a ghost, her shoulders hunched, her gaze fixed on the floor.
---
The sky bled from ink-black to iron-gray when Kaz woke. Through the narrow window, he watched the academy's floodlights flicker off one by one, surrendering to the slow creep of dawn. The horizon swallowed the last stars, leaving only the jagged silhouette of the training yards.
Wayne was already gone. His bed was made with military precision, the sheets taut enough to bounce a coin.
Kaz rolled his shoulders, feeling the phantom ache of the first trial still coiled in his muscles. The air smelled of ozone and distant rain.
Somewhere below, the academy stirred to life.
---
The hall buzzed with whispers as Kaz entered.
He made his way past the usual unmarked table and went to the prime candidate section.
The table was new—raised slightly, separated from the rest. The other students' eyes followed him, their voices sharp with gossip.
*"—heard one of first years dominated the trial —"*
*"—and the defect just hid like a coward—"*
Kaz ignored them. His plate held seared meat glistening with amber glaze, where the others got synthetic protein cubes.
Taking his seat, he noticed miko hadn't touched her food at all.
"Not hungry?" He asked.
Miko poked at her food. "It's… alive." She replied. Taking note of that, he turned his attention to the other member on the table who didn't seem to care about that. Wayne took a savage bite, blackish juice running down his chin. "Tastes like victory if you asked me"
Kaz's fork hit a nerve cluster and the muscle fiber twitched as he attempted to eat. That was the end as he as well concluded he couldn't eat that.
---
The classroom was smaller now. No second-years. No third-years. Just the first years that remained and a new professor—a woman with a voice like chilled steel.
"Symbiotic enhancement is not evolution," she said, tapping a hologram of a kaiju's neural lattice. "It is assimilation."
Miko sat rigid in the front row, her fingers twitching against her tablet.
Kaz caught Wayne's smirk from across the aisle. "Didnt know you attended classes. Thought you were all brawl and no brain ," he mouthed.
The professor's gaze snapped to them. "Problem, master kaz?"
Kaz kept his face blank. "No, Professor."
She held her stare a beat too long before continuing.
---
A knock was heard on the door before being pushed open. Professor Hiraku was the one who walked in. His gaze met with Kaz's,
"Mentorship assessment," he said, like it was a chore.
Knowing the drill, she excused him to go with the professor.
They took the western corridor—the one that led away from the training center, deeper into the academy's steel bowels. The lights here were dimmer, the walls lined with pipes that throbbed in time with the ventilation cycles.
Kaz counted the turns. Left. Right. Another left.
"Expecting an ambush?" Hiraku sneered.
"Not really, just thought it would be physical assessment not whatever this freak show is." Kaz replied.
The air smelled like antiseptic and something older—wet concrete, maybe. Or blood.
The lab was a tomb of white tile and humming machines, the sterile air sharp with antiseptic and the ozone bite of active scanners.
Kaz sat on the cold examination slab, his fingers curling against the edge as Hiraku circled him like a vulture. The scientist's gloved hands adjusted the emitter array with clinical precision, but his eyes were dark with something hungrier than curiosity.
"Let's see what's so special about you," Hiraku murmured, "that the Director is going out of his way to keep you." The scanner flared to life, its beam slicing through Kaz's skin like a blade of light, mapping what shouldn't exist.
The hologram erupted above the console—a grotesque masterpiece of biology defying nature:
- **Two brains** (one shriveled, stem fused to the cerebellum like a parasitic twin).
- **Four hearts** (clustered in a lopsided diamond, each pulsing out of sync, fighting for dominance).
- **Zero enhancements**.
Hiraku's breath hitched. His stylus snapped between his fingers, the sound like a gunshot in the silent lab. For a fraction of a second, his mask slipped—revulsion, awe, greed flashing across his face before he locked it down.
Kaz sat up slowly, "Disappointed?" He asked.
Hiraku's smile was a razor cut. "Not at all," he lied smoothly. "I just needed to know what your body could handle… before I push you in training." He turned back to the console, fingers flying over the keys—deleting data, covering tracks. "For your safety, of course."
Of course.
---
The sun had bled out behind the compound walls by the time Kaz found his dorm. The Prime Candidates' buildings were identical—sleek, gunmetal-gray, and numbered just vaguely enough to make him circle the block twice before recognizing his own door.
He turned the corner and nearly tripped over Wayne, who was sprawled outside Miko's room like a discarded jacket, one boot propped against the wall.
"She's been in there all since after the lecture. No lunch or dinner," Wayne said, flashing teeth. "Think she's dead?"
Kaz ignored him and knocked but there was no answer.
Then he noticed—the door wasn't locked.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open.
The room inside was a warzone of light and shadow. Miko stood silhouetted against the glow of the mainframe, her fingers wrist-deep in its exposed wiring. Her pupils were void-black, swallowing the irises whole. Code spilled from her lips in jagged, staticky syllables, like a corrupted transmission.
Kaz grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back. Her skin burned under his grip, her pulse fluttering like a trapped bird's.
"It's in the walls," she gasped, her voice raw. "It's in the—" before passing out.
Behind them, Wayne let out a bark of laughter, slouching against the doorframe. "Pfft. Drama queen."
---
Here's your refined passage with heightened atmosphere, sharper dialogue, and more visceral tension:
---
**The sunrise clawed its way over the academy walls**, staining the steel-and-stone corridors in gold and rust. Kaz took the long route to class—past the hollowed-out sparring rings, where the scent of ozone and old sweat still clung to the mats. The silence here was thick, broken only by the sound of someone's foot tapping against the ground.
Aoi shinogame.
She lounged against the weathered training wall, arms crossed, her smirk a blade's edge. Sunlight caught the silver pins in her hair, turning them into tiny, mocking stars.
"Checking on Miko?" Her voice was syrup and splintered glass. "How… sweet."
Kaz didn't break stride. "Jealous?"
She barked a laugh, but it withered when he kept walking. Her next words lashed after him, sharp with warning:
"You're messing with the wrong girl, defect."
The threat hung in the air like the aftertaste of a storm.
Kaz didnt look back neither did he stop.
---