The morning began without warning. The skies were pale, stretched with quiet clouds, and the usual trace energy that crackled faintly around the edges of the tower seemed strangely dormant. For once, it wasn't the training that brought tension into the air—it was the man standing at the bottom of the hill.
He didn't belong to any known Guild branch. His gear was functional but neutral, clean but generic. No regional patch. No academy badge. No combat layer over his trace band. Just a plain dark coat and a stone-still expression. He had been standing there long enough to be noticed, but he hadn't moved. Not even once.
Donnie noticed first. From the northern ledge, where he'd been sketching out new trace sequences in the dirt with the edge of his foot, he saw the silhouette by the slope and narrowed his eyes. This man wasn't a traveler. He was waiting. Not like someone passing through—but like someone measuring the air before stepping inside someone else's house.
Veera joined him minutes later, wiping sweat from her neck after a training drill with two of the younger students. "You see him?"
"Yeah," Donnie said without looking away.
"He hasn't moved in fifteen minutes."
"That's long enough to not be a scout."
Kaito walked up the broken stairs on their left, arms folded. "Want me to call Mara?"
"She already knows," Donnie muttered. "She's watching from the upper window. She's probably already started tracking his rhythm."
"Should we go down?"
Donnie hesitated. Then, finally, "No. If he's waiting, let's make him wait longer."
And they did.
For the next hour, no one approached him. But no one ignored him either. The courtyard adjusted its rhythm subtly. Fewer jokes. More quiet movements. Even the wind didn't seem to pass through the grounds the same way it usually did. It circled now, as if unsure whether to touch the man by the gate.
Then, at midday, the man moved. Just once. He stepped forward.
Not enough to be seen as hostile.
But enough to make his presence known.
---
By the time Donnie stepped out of the stone arch leading down to the lower yard, Veera was already in a steady stance nearby, not aggressive but present. Kaito remained up above, casually seated on the rail like he was just observing another session. Two of the younger students had retreated toward the inside. Mara, unseen, hadn't moved—but Donnie knew she was watching through a side mirror that reflected energy instead of light.
Donnie stopped ten feet from the visitor.
"You've been standing there a while," he said calmly.
The man nodded. "It's a good view."
"Better views on the other side of the ridge."
"I'm not here for scenery."
Donnie waited.
The man didn't smile. Didn't frown. Just watched him with the kind of stare that measured everything without showing a single judgment.
"Why are you here?" Donnie asked.
"They told me to stay out. That stepping into this space would be seen as a risk. I came anyway."
"Who told you?"
"The people who trained me to follow rules."
Donnie's stance didn't change. "And are you following them now?"
"No," the man replied. "I'm trying to figure out if I ever really did.
Donnie studied the man for a few more seconds. The expression hadn't changed, but the answer had already told him more than any badge or ID ever could. This wasn't a Guild assassin. He wasn't a spy. He was someone whose belief system had been shaken, maybe by Donnie himself, maybe by something else. And now he was here, not to kill, but to look for proof.
"You're not here for a fight," Donnie said.
"No. But I came ready."
"What are you hoping to see?"
The man tilted his head slightly, as though the answer had already been considered a hundred times before this moment. "I heard a rumor that your trace builds from the middle, not the start. That your stance doesn't begin with certainty but with confusion. I want to see if that's true."
Donnie gave the smallest nod. "You could've just asked."
"I wasn't sure you'd answer."
Now Veera stepped closer. Her tone wasn't hostile, but it wasn't gentle either. "You came alone, unarmed, and quiet. But you've been watching us for over an hour. You've made everyone aware of your presence. That's pressure—meant or not."
The man turned to her. "You're right. I came to test the air. Not to disrupt it."
"And now that you're in it?" she asked.
"I want to see it move."
Veera looked at Donnie, who gave her a subtle nod. Then he turned and stepped to the center of the courtyard, motioning for the man to stand across from him. He didn't raise his guard. He didn't power up. He simply adjusted his stance—half-turned, shoulder sloped, arms relaxed like someone ready to fall or rise at the same time.
The man followed. Stood across from him. No tension. No signal to begin.
They moved.
It wasn't a fight. It wasn't even a duel.
Donnie launched into a fractured form, cutting halfway through Collapse Edge and rebounding with a stuttered angle instead of full release. The man responded, not with a block, but with absorption. He let the energy skim past his left side and turned it into a pressure slip. For a moment, both of them were off-balance—and that's when Donnie triggered it.
Recoil Surge activated with a low sweep behind his hip, firing trace backward instead of forward, like a reverse slap of wind against a slammed door. The man didn't expect it. His guard caught too late, and the surge knocked his footing loose.
He didn't fall.
But he stumbled.
He adjusted quickly—too quickly—and raised his hand, signaling an end.
"I saw it," he said, breath steady. "That wasn't retaliation. That was surrender turned into force."
Donnie didn't speak. Just exhaled and lowered his stance.
The man bowed slightly. "I won't stay."
Veera asked, "Will you report this?"
"I'll share what I've seen. But not through the channels they gave me."
He turned and left.
He didn't look back once.
---
Inside the tower, Donnie didn't sit down. He didn't write in his sketchpad. He went straight to the wall by the observatory and ran a trace loop from the side panel. Mara joined him minutes later, saying nothing at first.
When she did, her voice was low.
"They're not coming to crush you, Donnie. Not yet. They're coming to measure your center."
"And if I have one?"
"Then they know how wide the damage could spread.
Later that day, Donnie didn't speak to anyone. He trained alone near the broken trace altar, repeating the Recoil Surge over and over—not to perfect it, but to understand its boundaries. The more he used it, the more he saw that the technique didn't rely on strength or clarity. It needed instability. It activated best in uncertainty. When the balance was off, the recoil could fire from an emotional center, not just a physical one.
By the fifth hour, his legs shook from fatigue. He dropped to the stone floor, chest rising and falling.
Kaito approached, holding out a cloth. "You're draining yourself."
Donnie didn't take it right away. He wiped his hand on the edge of his shirt. "I had to see how long the pattern could sustain before collapse."
"Learn anything?"
"Yeah." He looked up. "If I'm calm, it won't work. It needs imbalance. Doubt. It fires from pressure, not peace."
Kaito gave a small laugh. "Then don't use it unless you're falling apart."
"I'm trying to find a way to channel it without needing to break first."
---
Meanwhile, Veera worked with two of the new recruits—both younger, barely stabilized in their formwork. She didn't feed them theory. She let them move how they wanted. She corrected only when they repeated a motion without feeling.
"You're copying what you saw," she said. "That's not enough. It doesn't belong to you yet."
One of them—Aris, a girl from Northbelt—stepped forward. "But if it works—why change it?"
"Because one day, it won't. And when it fails, you won't know why."
She tapped her own chest. "Until you feel it here first, it's not yours."
---
By nightfall, Donnie sat with Veera on the high platform again. They didn't talk much. The wind was picking up and distant clouds hinted at rain.
"You think he was the first?" she asked.
"No," Donnie replied. "Just the first to admit why he came."
"What do we do when the next one arrives?"
Donnie glanced upward.
"Next time, I might not have the patience to explain."
She didn't smile.
She just nodded.
---
Mara placed a message shard into a hidden channel that night, connected only to a few old allies beyond the Guild.
She whispered into it carefully: "He's stabilizing techniques faster than predicted. His range is spreading. They're coming to shape the narrative. But the students aren't listening anymore."
Then she crushed the shard.
---
Donnie opened his sketchpad one last time before sleeping. This time, he didn't draw.
He wrote:
> "Some step forward to break you.
Some step forward to learn.
Some step forward to see if they still believe in what they were told.
Today, I met the third one.
I'm not sure which is more dangerous."
He closed the book.
And this time, he finally slept.
---
End of Chapter 24
© Anthony Osifo 2025 – All rights reserved.