A Pressure to Overcome

  Workers packed into the room shoulder to shoulder, breaths brushing against one another’s necks. The air was already stale, hot, restless.

  At the front stood a boy with pale skin and striking blond hair tipped white, his pitch-black eyes unblinking. He didn’t move, twitch, or even look alive.

  A hunter.

  Dozai recognized him, everyone who had endured the Yearly Maho Assessment knew him.

  Dozai felt Rei tap on his back and he turned slightly towards her.

  “You’ve been here before, right? How does this work?” she whispered.

  He then saw Nobu and Rizaru also glancing at him, waiting for answers.

  Dozai’s jaw tightened slightly.

  “Just stand as long as you can. Don’t give up early.” His voice was flat. “They remember that.”

  Before Rei could press for more, a voice cut the air clean.

  Brayden Reeve, the overseer of the assessments.

  “For all new workers, three minutes. Stand for at least that long. Pass out before the first minute…” His tone curled sharp. “You’ll regret it.”

  The room went silent. Every chest drew a shallow breath.

  Brayden gestured to the blonde hair, white tips boy beside him.

  “Lucious.”

  The boy closed his eyes. When they opened again, calmer somehow. His face often appears emotionless, but there is always a lingering glint of hunger in his gaze, eyes too wide, pupils like an abyss.

  Then, he unleashed his Abyssal Pressure.

  It didn’t strike like a sound or sight. It dropped.

  A suffocating density slammed down from nowhere, pressing into every pore, every bone.

  Air thickened until breathing scraped raw in the throat.

  Edges of vision quivered, colors running like wet paint.

  Stomachs twisted, ears screamed, balance swung sideways.

  If Hellick’s pressure was a hailstorm of iron command, Lucious’s was simpler, colder. The jaw of a predator closing slow and sure, with only one intent.

  To devour.

  Kids collapsed instantly. Bodies hit the ground like sacks of wet grain.

  “Tch. Bad batch again,” Brayden muttered.

  Dozai grit his teeth, until his body shook. The pressure pushed against him until his skull rang hollow. He forced himself not to gag.

  He didn’t just feel the weight, he listened for what was behind it. Beneath the hunger, beneath the bloodlust, there was something else. A gnawing emptiness. A need so sharp it felt nauseating.

  It was begging to be filled.

  He glanced sideways. Nobu was trembling, every tendon straining, sweat dripping down his jaw. Rei let out a scream, raw and piercing, before her knees buckled. Both were moments from breaking.

  Then his eyes fell on Rizaru and his eyes widening at the scene. He felt the weight digging into her. But her body stood firm, as if something inside her met Lucious’s abyss head-on.

  The air around her hummed differently, the faintest echo of her own Abyssal Pressure bleeding out, instinctive and untamed.

  Dozai’s breath caught. No one could teach that. No one could fake it.

  Did she just figure out how to do it by watching Lucious and Hellick? Or… Had she always known how?

  “Two minutes.” Brayden called.

  Guards whispered from the side, their eyes fixed on Rizaru.

  Rei hit the ground. Kenny and Roi crumpled moments later across the front.

  Too many bodies lay sprawled on the floor, only a handful still upright.

  He saw Nobu on the brink, his body swaying like a candle about to gutter out. Consciousness flickered in his eyes, there one heartbeat, gone the next. Dozai felt it, faint but undeniable. The edges of Nobu's own Abyssal Pressure straining to surface, raw and jagged, like an animal gnawing at its cage. Nobu's face twisted, not in fear, but in something darker.

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  Rage.

  Pure unadulterated rage.

  The kind that burns so deep it looks almost feral, like he was dragging himself upright on fury alone. For a moment, it didn’t even feel like he was resisting Lucious, it felt like he was remembering something so visceral from this experience that his whole body reacted.

  Dozai’s breath caught.

  Nobu...? That's not.... How?

  But it didn't last long, Nobu's eyes rolled back. His body gave out all at once, slamming to the ground.

  Dozai sucked in a sharp breath, heart hammering. His mind scrambled for answers that weren’t there.

  And that scared him more than the fall.

  If there is suppose to be an awakening process... Then how come...

  His eyes slowly slid to Rizaru again. She wasn’t just enduring anymore.

  She was steady, focused, her stance like a blade sharpening itself against the weight.

  Every head in the room could see it.

  Dozai’s thought scraped out, bitter and awed all at once.

  How the hell did someone like you end up in a slave camp...?

  A Maho’s Worth

  Finally, before Dozai could decide whether to fall or keep standing, the bell tolled.

  Three minutes had passed.

  The weight vanished all at once, like a trap jaw unclenching. The air thinned so quickly it burned his lungs.

  Dozai bent forward, panting. He kept his hands on his thighs, but his eyes stayed sharp.

  Scanning. Counting.

  Only him, Rizaru, and one other shape, a platinum blonde haired girl with golden shimmering eyes, in the far corner still upright. Barely.

  Brayden clapped, slow and deliberate.

  “Hm. Two, maybe three, with spines not yet fully broken.”

  Rizaru didn’t move right away. She pulled in a long breath and stared at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. For the first time, there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes, like she’d done something even she didn’t believe.

  Lucious walked out without a sound, dismissed with a flick of Brayden’s hand.

  “Phase two.” His fingers clicked.

  Irena strolled forward, stretching like she’d just woken up. “So bossy,” she muttered, but she raised a hand all the same. The tip of her finger glowed faintly as she pressed one to Rizaru’s forehead, another to her chest.

  Dozai felt the shift in the room.

  A prickle under the skin, faint but invasive, like someone combing through the marrow of his bones.

  Irena's Maho was to scan otheres—she'd used it on him last year too.

  “Let’s see… Maho, Maho… Huh... Why is—”

  CRACKLE!

  Irena stumbling back.

  "AH SHIT!" She clutched her hand—blood already streaking down her finger where the nail had been blown clean off.

  Brayden's voice snapped. "What is it?!"

  Irena winced, flexing her hand. "I don't know! I can't get a clear read! It's like trying to scan a storm... All I get is feedback. Like her mana is subconsciously protecting her."

  Brayden narrowed his eyes. “Strange. I don’t feel any mana coming from her.” He placed his hand on Rizaru’s shoulder and he could instantly feel the erratic nature of her mana and something else bubbling inside her.

  His eyes widen slightly. “That’s new…”

  “She needs more testing before we inform Master Hellick." Irena muttered, bandaging her finger with a small cloth. "Fuck this hurts...”

  The room went still. Brayden studied Rizaru, who only stared back. Her gaze unflinching.

  His lips curled. “Good eyes, kid. Master Hellick will be pleased.”

  Guards pulled her toward the side door.

  She glanced back only once, toward Dozai. The look passed between them, quiet as stone and then she was gone.

  “Next. The boy who survived last year.”

  Dozai’s knees ached as he forced himself up. Every step dragged, but he walked anyway, slow and steady, toward the guards.

  Brayden tilted his head. “Peculiar. You survive again. You better show us something different this year.”

  Dozai didn’t answer. His ears twitched at the sound of Irena’s boots shuffling closer.

  She touched him, forehead, chest, and her glow spread again. “Maho, Maho… Hmm..."

  A pause.

  "Yeah, nothing.” She frowned, chewing her lip. “No…Wait. Feels like something should be there. Like a spark that won’t light.”

  Brayden’s gaze sharpened. “Same as last year?”

  “Yeah.” Irena’s voice faltered. “It’s… strange. My Maho should read him. It’s like It's not awaken, it's... woven into him.. apart of his very being?”

  “Impossible. He hasn’t gone through Manaburst.”

  “I know,” she snapped, then softened. “That’s why I don’t get it.”

  Her eyes flicked to Dozai. He stared back, silent, giving her nothing.

  She sighed, scratching her head.

  “Probably nothing. Still feels too close to someone who doesn’t have Maho. Besides, we tested him further last year and nothing came up either.”

  Brayden’s knuckles cracked. His eyes lingered on Dozai, cold and weighing.

  "A spark that won't light is just dead kindling. We have a storm to contain." He jerked his chin toward the door where Rizaru had been taken. "One anomaly is trouble enough. Back to work. Now you, the blonde girl, Four-Seven. Come here.”

  Dozai stepped away, moving as commanded, stepping his way over the collapsed bodies.

  He passed by the strange blonde girl, her breath was shaky but when he glanced at her hair, it looked like it was shining in the light.

  Dozai didn't question it; there was always at least one strange worker who passed the test, though she seemed newer than the other workers.

  As he walked, his face was blank, but his chest felt tight.

  They said he didn’t have Maho.

  He knew better.

  He remembered the way time had slowed under beatings, under Hellick’s Abyssal Pressure. The way his eyes traced every twitch of muscle, every angle, every sweat drop whenever he was on alert, but only his eyes. His body lagged behind, useless.

  He could see danger before it landed, but never move fast enough to do something about it.

  The thought curdled in him, heavy and cold.

  If that was his Maho, then it wasn’t strength.

  It was the perfect curse for a ghost, to see everything and change nothing.

  But if that was true… why can’t I remember my awakening?

  The question slid off his thoughts like oil, refusing to settle.

  Whenever he pushed too hard, pain answered—sharp and invasive, like something inside him rejecting the idea itself. His body knew and his instincts recoiled and tightened around a single, wordless command, looping back again and again.

  Survive.

  That night he lay awake, eyes open to the rafters above with lingering twitches in his fingertips.

  The space beside him was empty where Rizaru used to lean.

  He didn’t speak, but the silence pressed in heavy.