The sky before dawn was still indigo. Lamps lit the shooting range of the Felsen Training Grounds, casting a sickly yellow glow across the frost-covered earth. The cold air bit at the nostrils. Autumn was dying. Breath came out white, dissolving quickly into the darkness. Grife Garger stood at the edge of the shooting range, his arms folded across his chest. The red armband on his left arm caught the lamplight, gleaming dully. He'd barely slept the night before. His eyes felt heavy behind the lids. But there was no reason to skip this morning's training. The words from that document kept repeating in his head. ——Procurement of disposable weapons. The mechanisms of control. He clenched his back teeth. Stop thinking about it. Right now was training. Right now, that was all that mattered. Twenty-two candidates stood lined up at the firing positions. Today's training was a combined 100m and 300m shooting exercise. Five rounds each at two distances—ten rounds total per person. Scoring was based on accuracy and precision. Eleven days until the selection exam. A tension hung over everyone's movements, something like urgency, something like fear. At the second firing line from the end stood a single girl, perfectly still. Her long hair, a vivid crimson with a gentle wave, stirred faintly in the cold morning air. Golden eyes gazed straight ahead at the target one hundred meters distant. A thin scar marked her left cheek—from childhood, and Grife knew exactly where it had come from. Her frame, at 160 centimeters, appeared slender, but her posture held not a trace of unnecessary tension. Vine Ricotta. A childhood friend, raised alongside him since they were small. Over a long stretch of time, Grife had come to be certain: she was the most trustworthy person in the training grounds. The signal to begin sounded. Vine raised her rifle. Grife found himself watching her without realizing it. Her stance contained no wasted motion. Shoulders dropped. Breathing deep and steady. Her finger resting on the trigger went still for a moment——gunshot. A dry crack split the pre-dawn air. The assistant instructor checking the target raised a flag. Hit. The next round. Another hit. Ten rounds. All ten rounds struck true. When the highest score was marked on the scoring board, the nearby candidates stirred. "……Perfect again." "That girl does this every time." "She doesn't miss even at 300 meters. We can't catch up to her anymore." Voices mixed with admiration and envy, spreading softly through the range. Grife heard them at the edge of his awareness, but his gaze never left Vine. Where should her talent be directed? The words from the document he'd read last night burned quietly again in the back of his mind. ——Disposable weapons. If this talent was nothing more than a tool to Marley. The whistle signaling the end of training shrieked sharply. Before that sound had even faded, a voice cut through. "Vine. Stay." It was Lieutenant Glatz, the Marleyan instructor. Mid-forties, broad-shouldered, gray hair with a sharp undercut. Rank insignia on his uniform chest. His face held almost no expression——not contempt, not mockery, just the blank face of someone delivering administrative information. He called Vine to a halt. All twenty-two candidates stopped in place. No one moved. The assistant instructors had frozen too. Vine turned and stood before Glatz. Glatz didn't even glance at the scoring board. "I heard a female Eldian is aiming for a Warrior slot." His voice was low. Not shouting, not intense. Which made the weight of his words heavier still. "Your slot was already filled from the start. Your scores don't matter. The High Command and the Warrior Unit have no intention of making female candidates into Warriors. Today's numbers, tomorrow's numbers——they mean nothing. Do you understand?" Silence fell. Vine didn't move. Grife could see her fists slowly, tightly clenching at her sides. Her shoulders didn't shift. Her face remained straight toward Glatz. Her lips moved once, barely——but no sound came out. Grife looked at her profile. There was something gleaming at the corner of her right eye. Not tears. She was using every ounce of her strength not to cry. Her pupils trembled, and yet she held them steady, staring at some distant point. Glatz turned and walked away. The remaining candidates said nothing. Some looked away. Some turned their eyes to the ground. The air remained frozen, unmoving. Grife opened his mouth once, then closed it. Vine stood there for a while. She didn't ask anyone for help. She didn't say anything to anyone. She simply stood there. —— The rest of the morning training was obstacle courses and hand-to-hand combat. Grife tried to position himself next to Vine. But she slowly, imperceptibly, yet unmistakably, created distance. She entered the course alone, scaled the walls alone, landed alone. He couldn't call out to her. She was wrapped entirely in something that didn't want to be touched. The question of whether to tell her about the classified document now occupied his mind, but Grife felt it wasn't the right time. Felt it, or rather, saw it clearly. Driving the truth of that document into her now would be like pressing a blade into an open wound. As he ran the obstacle course, Grife's eyes followed her back again and again. She was fast. Despite being wounded, her body's movements hadn't dulled. If anything, today's Vine was sharper by a single degree, as if anger had become her propellant. In the afternoon tactical lecture, Lieutenant Glatz announced the individual training schedule for the following day. Training times were assigned to each candidate, and the details were posted on the corridor bulletin board. When Grife stood before the board, he didn't notice it at first. He read through everything, then looked again. Vine's training slot was thirty minutes shorter than the other candidates'. The reason column was blank. His fist pressed against the wall. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to kick open Glatz's office door right now and slam this paper in his face. But if he did that, it would be over. Paradise Dispatch——taken to Paradis Island, injected with the Titan serum, stripped of consciousness, transformed into a mindless Titan wandering beyond the walls. The worst punishment imposed on Eldians who removed their armbands or defied the system. Grife left the bulletin board. Something continued to burn inside his chest. —— One hour before lights out. The back alley of the Liberio internment zone lay outside the training grounds' administrative area. High stone walls stretched on both sides, and at night, the darkness without streetlights extended far. As children, Grife and Vine had often talked here. It was the perfect place for secret conversations. Vine was already there. She leaned her back against the stone wall, gazing up at the sky. Clouds were thick; stars were few. A dog barked somewhere in the distance of the internment zone, then fell silent. When Grife stood beside her, Vine glanced sideways for only a moment and said nothing. For a while, the two of them remained silent. Then Vine began to speak. Her voice held no emotion. "I decided tonight, for the first time, to tell someone about that night when I was eight." "[serious]I'm listening." "There was suspicion of falsifying the ration reports. My father was accused of forging the ledgers, and Marleyan soldiers came to the house. They kicked the front door so hard it broke. They came in." Vine's gaze didn't move from the sky. "They pinned my father to the floor. They stomped on his back with their boots. My mother was slammed against the wall, and her arm broke. I heard crying. One of the soldiers told me that if I made a sound, they'd do the same to me." "So——" "[whispers]So——" "I squeezed into a gap in the storage shed and held my breath. I could hear my father's voice. My mother's voice too. I heard everything. I couldn't come out. I knew that if I came out, everything would end, so I couldn't come out." Vine's voice remained flat to the end. The way someone speaks when laying out only facts. There was a quiet heaviness to it——the weight of someone who had spent years making peace with that memory. "So I'll become an Honorary Marleyan. I'll be selected as a Warrior candidate and take my family to a place where they're protected. That's the only reason I have to fight." "[serious]……I know." Grife opened his mouth once. Last night, in the document archive——he started to say. Vine continued. "If we're not selected, what happens to my family?" It wasn't a question. It was a confirmation. Not seeking an answer, but simply needing someone to hear that fact——a confirmation in the shape of a question. The words caught in Grife's throat. The truth that selection was nothing but a tool of control. If he told her what was written in the classified document——if he drove that truth into her while she was still running on the fuel of that night at eight years old, trapped in the storage shed——he would be taking away the very reason she was running. He said nothing. Silence fell. Cold night wind passed through the stone alley. That was when he noticed her hand trembling slightly. Her right hand, hanging at her side, was shaking faintly, repeatedly. Perhaps it had been like this all day. Perhaps it had been trembling even as she clenched her fists before Glatz. Grife gently wrapped both his hands around hers. Vine didn't pull away. She said nothing. She simply closed her eyes. For just a moment, she stood quietly with her eyes closed in the cold night wind. There were no words. The scar on her left cheek was barely visible in the darkness. As Grife looked at her scarred profile, he felt something heavy fall into the left side of his chest. After a time, Vine opened her eyes and pushed away from the stone wall. "[cold]There's training again tomorrow." "[serious]……Yeah." Her footsteps faded into the depths of the alley. Grife remained where he stood, unable to move for a while. The words from the classified document remained unspoken. The sensation of her trembling hand still lingered in both his palms. A new weight had been added to his chest. Where it would lead, Grife still didn't know. The next morning, a crowd had gathered before the bulletin board. An additional notice had been posted. Vine Ricotta's individual training slot——reduced by another thirty minutes. Signed by Lieutenant Glatz, it was being carried out quietly, but unmistakably. Systematic obstruction had begun.