I Copy the Authorities of the Four Calamities-Chapter 203: The Ward of Oakhaven

The hearth fire in Villa 1 crackled steadily. It cast long, shifting shadows across the polished wooden floorboards of the living room. Vane sat at the kitchen island with a clean rag in his right hand and a tin of polishing oil open on the counter. The heavy star steel shaft of the Silver Fang rested flat across his lap.

He was supposed to be performing routine maintenance on the weapon. The microscopic ether conduits etched into the metal needed to be cleared of ambient buildup after extensive use. It was a methodical, grounding task. It was exactly the kind of repetitive physical action his mind usually craved to reestablish tactical focus.

Tonight, the focus refused to materialize.

Vane had been rubbing the exact same four inch section of the spear shaft for the past twenty minutes. His left arm was still bound tightly in its sling. The dull, rhythmic ache in his fractured radius had faded into the background, completely overshadowed by the massive, tangled knot of variables occupying his thoughts.

He kept replaying the events of the morning in his head. He remembered Valerica creating a rigid distance between them on the walk to the academic wing. He remembered Isole refusing to meet his eyes during Professor Vyla’s lecture. He remembered the suffocating, terrifying tension of the two girls standing on his front porch, trapped in a silent war of attrition.

They were pulling away. They were building walls because the alternative was acknowledging a vulnerability that terrified them both.

In the brutal, unforgiving hierarchy of Zenith Academy, emotional attachments were not a strength. They were a severe tactical liability. They were open wounds waiting for an enemy to exploit. Valerica was the daughter of House Sol. Isole was a disgraced prodigy of the Silver Woods. Vane was a slum rat from Oakhaven who had lied and stolen his way into their world.

If the noble houses realized that the two most destructive anomalies in the first year class had tethered their loyalties to a commoner, the political fallout would be catastrophic. The Inquisition would not need to interrogate them. The ruling families would simply have Vane quietly erased to protect their bloodlines.

"You are going to rub a hole in that."

Vane blinked. The cold logic of his internal threat assessment shattered. He stopped moving the oil soaked rag and looked across the room.

Mara was sitting cross legged on the thick rug near the hearth. Her box of crayons was scattered around her. She was currently holding a red crayon, but she was not drawing. Her amber eyes were fixed entirely on Vane. She had her head tilted slightly to the side, observing him with the sharp, unblinking scrutiny of a feral cat.

"I am clearing the ether conduits," Vane said smoothly. He shifted his grip on the Silver Fang and moved the rag to a different section of the metal. "It requires thorough friction."

"You put salt in my milk an hour ago," Mara pointed out.

Vane froze. He looked at the small ceramic cup sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. He had prepared it for her right after they returned from the dining hall. He had been so lost in calculating the exact social distance he needed to maintain with his squad that he had completely bypassed his basic motor functions.

He sighed quietly and set the rag down on the counter. "My apologies. I will pour you a new cup."

"I already dumped it out," Mara said. She did not return to her drawing. She stood up, brushed the dust off her knees, and walked over to the kitchen island. She grabbed the edge of the tall wooden stool and hoisted herself up until she was sitting directly across from him.

She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. "You are acting stupid, Vane."

"I am calculating future sector threats," Vane corrected her. He leaned back in his chair, favoring his uninjured side. "The practical evaluations are approaching. The instructors are going to escalate the environmental pressure in the dungeons. I need to ensure the squad’s tactical formation is flawless."

Mara stared at him. She possessed the unique, brutal honesty of a child who had grown up in the mud of Oakhaven. She knew what real fear looked like. She had seen Vane plan for gang wars and monster attacks. This was not the face he made when he was worried about monsters.

"Is this about Valerica and Isole?" Mara asked.

Vane stopped breathing.

His entire physical system stalled out. He stared at the six year old girl sitting across from him. He felt the exact same jarring, sudden shock he had experienced in the lecture hall earlier that morning. He opened his mouth to formulate a dismissive, pragmatic response, but his brain completely failed to supply the words.

"What did you say?" Vane managed to ask. His voice was entirely flat.

Mara let out a loud, exaggerated sigh. She rolled her amber eyes toward the wooden ceiling, perfectly mimicking the expression Ashe used whenever Isaac complained about the weather.

"I am six, Vane," Mara said, dropping her gaze back to him. "I am not blind. They are acting completely weird, and you are acting even weirder."

Vane felt a rare, genuine spike of panic. If a child from the slums could see the fractured dynamic of his squad, the seasoned instructors and the noble heirs of the academy would undoubtedly notice it soon.

"How long have you known?" Vane asked. He abandoned the lie entirely. He spoke to her not as a child, but as a fellow survivor of the streets.

"Since we ate dinner yesterday," Mara said casually. She picked at a scratch on the wooden counter. "Valerica kept pouring your water like she was guarding a treasure chest. She glared at anyone who moved too close to your chair. Then Isole kept cutting your food and moving your plate like Valerica was going to poison it."

Vane rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right hand. He was a tactical prodigy. He had survived the Iron Groves by outsmarting a Demon General. Yet he had been completely out maneuvered and out perceived by a little girl with a box of crayons.

"They kept looking at you like you were the last sweet bun in the bakery window," Mara continued, entirely unbothered by the profound weight of her observation. "And whenever you looked away, they glared at each other. It was extremely annoying. They were making the whole room feel cold."

Vane rested his forehead against the palm of his hand. The sheer, terrifying simplicity of her logic was flawless. There were no complex vectors or mana densities involved. It was just basic, undeniable human behavior.

"It is a complicated situation," Vane muttered. "Their positions in the academy are highly scrutinized. My position is entirely unstable. If they compromise their focus, the entire squad becomes vulnerable."

Mara frowned. She reached across the counter and poked Vane in his uninjured right shoulder.

"You are overthinking it," Mara said firmly. "They just like you. You should just tell them to stop being weird so we can eat dinner normally again. I do not like it when the air gets heavy."

Vane looked at her. He saw the absolute, unwavering certainty in her eyes. To Mara, the politics of the noble houses and the terrifying power of the bloodlines meant absolutely nothing. She only cared about the people sitting at her table. She only cared that the makeshift family she had found in the floating city was acting fractured.

A slow, tired smile finally touched Vane’s lips. The crushing weight of the variables receded, replaced by a grounded, stabilizing clarity. He did not need to solve the political ramifications tonight. He just needed to fix his squad.

"You are right," Vane said quietly. "I will handle it."

Mara nodded in satisfaction. She slid off the tall wooden stool, her boots hitting the floor with a soft thud. "Good. Now pour me a glass of milk that does not taste like the ocean."

Vane stood up from the stool. He reached for a clean glass in the cabinet. He felt the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. He would speak to Valerica tomorrow. He would speak to Isole. He would not let the academy’s toxic environment rot the only genuine trust he had ever found.

He turned toward the icebox.

The sound did not register as a noise. It registered as a physical blow to the chest.

A concussive shockwave ripped through the night air. It hit the exterior of Villa 1 with apocalyptic force. The heavy wooden shutters of the living room blew inward instantly, shattering the frosted glass panes into thousands of lethal, glittering fragments.

The entire floating island of Zenith Academy shuddered.

The localized defensive wards surrounding the residential sector flared a blinding, frantic red, screaming a high pitched warning tone before shattering completely under a secondary impact. The stone foundation of the villa groaned in protest, the floorboards pitching violently beneath their feet.