Yurui The Cursed One

“Okay, that’s enough for now,” Maya announces as she steps in between us.

Marcus's grin disappears from his face.

Maya crosses over to Narun, checks him over, then turns back to me. “Were you trying to hit him that hard? I said keep it light. That applies to you too, you know.”

“No,” I reply, keeping my head down.

“Did you mean to hit him at all?” She asks, giving me a weird look.

I hesitate.

“Not really.”

That earns a much more interested look.

Narun straightens, one hand pressed against his side. “Shit, you didn’t even hesitate for a moment.”

“Seems like it,” Maya says, then adds, “Can we maybe test your capabilities without throwing people through walls?”

Marcus nods immediately. “I'm suddenly all in favor of that.”

My face flushed a little.

This time, not a single person argued with him.

Maya returns to me and walks a slow circle around my body as she observes me carefully. “We already know you're strong. The real question is how much punishment you can take before you lose control.”

I narrow my eyes. “I don't like where this is going.”

Maya sighs. “Nobody's asking you to like it, but you do have to do this whether you want to or not.”

I swallow hard.

“Listen, just look at yourself.” She gestures vaguely at me. “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. If anyone should be worried, it’s the person you’re up against.”

When she puts it that way, I do feel a little better. Somewhat, at least. I’m not exactly thrilled about being made out to be some terrifying brute, though. I’m the brain person, goddammit, not some lumbering oaf. And even if she has a point, that doesn’t make me any more excited about brawling with my new teammates just to test my limits.

A dubious-looking grin washes over Maya as she disappears from my view.

I only heard “Brace for it.” before I felt talons closing around my forearm.

I start to turn, but I spin sideways as the floor vanishes beneath my feet.

There’s a brief, disorienting moment where I realize I’m hanging in the air, Maya’s talons locked around me tightly enough to hold my entire weight and make me feel as if my bones were about to get crushed to powder. Her wings beat once, hard enough to send dust rolling across the floor, and the room spins around me.

Then she lets go.

The floor rushes toward me before I can even process as to what was happening. I twist on instinct, trying to turn with the fall, but this body is too large and unfamiliar for me to correct myself in time. My shoulder hits the floor first. The reinforced panel cracks around me with a sound sharp enough to resemble a gunshot, then it gives way completely as I crash through it in a massive burst of dust and shattered material. A chunk of broken wall crashes against my shoulder before bouncing off my armor and landing beside my head.

For several seconds, I just lie there beneath the debris and wait for the pain to arrive, yet it never comes.

Carefully, I move one arm, then roll my shoulder. Both work perfectly. My ribs feel fine too, and even the back of my head, which I’m fairly certain hit something on the way down, doesn’t hurt in the slightest. I push myself upright, sending pieces of the shattered wall sliding from my armor. Marcus is staring at me when I straighten up, dust and God knows what else still spilling off me in a slowly settling cloud. A few feet away, Maya touches back down onto the floor, to her surprise, I was already back on my feet, brushing away the dust from my chest. There was not even a scratch on me.

Heh, I bet you didn’t expect that. Bitch. Now, to be fair, neither had I, and this wasn’t the first time my new body had completely exceeded my expectations, so it was about time I made peace with it.

I look around the now banged-up room.

“Well,” I say, looking at the hole in the floor behind me, “that's definitely coming out of someone's paycheck.”

Marcus looks from me to the ruined floor behind me. “What the hell are you made of?”

“That’s what we are trying to find out right now, aren’t we ?” I reply, giving him a look.

I run a hand over the part of my shoulder that took the brunt of the impact, half expecting to find a crack in the armor or at least some lingering ache underneath it. There’s nothing. I already knew this body could take punishment. It had survived more than enough to prove that. Still, knowing it in theory is one thing; getting hurled through a reinforced floor and climbing back out without so much as a bruise makes the reality of it feel a lot harder to ignore.

As I brush the last of the dust from my shoulder, the heat beneath my ribcage pulses again. It has been there ever since I transformed, but something about it has changed. What had been a steady warmth now feels denser somehow, concentrated deeper inside me, as though every hit is feeding more into it.

I press a hand against my chest.

The sensation answers with another slow pulse.

Narun glances toward Maya. “So, are we going again or what?”

“No,” I say immediately, trying to put a stop to any further brawling before it can gain momentum. From what I’ve seen so far, these guys don’t seem to have much more of an idea what’s going on here than I do.

He ignores me completely, only for Maya to ignore him in turn. She keeps her attention fixed on me, studying me with the same look she had after I sent Narun flying into the wall, though there is something different about it now. There is no concern in her expression, no sign that watching me get thrown through a wall bothered her in the slightest.

Something about the way she looked at me made my heart beat faster.

“Get ready. We’re going with Formation Y,” she says at last, turning toward the others.

Marcus groans. “Come on, seriously? We’re doing that during training?”

I narrow my eyes. “Okay, before we start this, I think I should ask as to what the hell formation Y even is ?’’

Maya gives me a look and waves me off dismissively. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Uh-huh. Somehow, I’m not too sure about that,” I reply, watching the others begin to move into position.

Marcus points vaguely toward the section of wall I just destroyed. “Are we still taking it light? Cause that doesn’t look light to me.”

Maya bends down, picks up a piece of debris with her mouth, and throws it at Marcus. It catches him square in the side.

“Aw—hey!” He jumps up, then immediately raises both hands. “Alright, alright. Message received.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Narun taking advantage of the distraction and quietly edging closer. More concerningly, I can feel Oba moving somewhere behind me now too.

Shit. I had really been hoping he would stay out of this.

I still have no idea what his blessing actually does, but it looks fucking ominous. Thick, dark plates of beetle-like armor cover most of his body, nothing like the more flexible shell wrapped around mine. His looks dense and rigid, the kind of armor that seems built to take a direct hit without giving an inch. Which is a problem, because if this turns into a straight contest of strength, I’m not exactly confident I come out on top. Especially when I can’t even use my own blessing properly.

I look from one of them to the next.

“Seriously? Gonna gang up on a lone girl? That’s really brave of you guys.” It would seem basic decency is not part of the course for security force training.

Maya spreads her wings. “Sorry, but I don’t think that one V one’s are gonna cut it. We are gonna need to push you to the limits.”

Of course they do. I wonder how much of this is some kind of hazing ritual. Well, if it is, I’m not just gonna roll over and take it. Let’s see how they’ll react when I haze them right back.

A few minutes ago, the idea of Narun charging me alone had been enough to make my stomach tighten. Now there are four of them spreading around me, and somehow I’m calmer than I was before. Maybe it has something to do with the large hole in the floor behind me.

Maya had thrown me through reinforced paneling hard enough to break it apart, and I had climbed out without even a bruise. Narun, meanwhile, had already learned what happened when I hit back harder than intended. The difference between us suddenly feels a lot more tangible than it did when I first walked into this room.

Marcus settles somewhere to my left. Narun lowers his stance directly ahead of me, while Maya crouches a little farther back, her wings opening behind her. Oba has moved far enough around my right side that I can no longer see him without turning my head.

I don’t.

My breathing slows instead. I was in full focus mode, and I wasn’t scared or nervous in the slightest. I could feel a smile creeping on my face.

Fine.

If that’s how they want to play it, then I might as well give them exactly what they’re asking for.

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