The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 60: Three months time skip

Chapter 60: Three months time skip

Seconds bled into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Days into weeks. Weeks into months. It had been three months since Zephyr set his foot on the grounds of Elden Vow.

A lot had changed since then. He was no longer a naive, scared boy. He was now a brooding bitter—sharper, colder. Frustration had left its taste on his tongue, and bitterness had become his language. All in all, failure had made him bitter.

He originally thought he’d stockpile Hollow Arts, maybe blaze past the curriculum. Reality laughed hard in his face. It took him two whole months—two damned months—to modify a single Hollow Art. One. And even that felt like a fluke. Every time he thought about it, he came close to tearing his own hair out. Now he understood why students bolted from that class the moment the tournament announcement was made.

But not everything had gone sideways. He had climbed to Grade 3 Zeta. Endless hunts, endless Aether hearths devoured—it had paid off. He was close to a breakthrough, one foot hovering over the edge of Epsilon. But his soul lagged behind, too newly ascended, too raw.

And then there was the cleaning committee.

One miserable afternoon after a particularly humiliating Weaving class, Zephyr had stormed into the cafeteria to vent over cheap tea and eggs muffins. He barely had time to sit before two officials in black uniforms flanked him, their eyes devoid of warmth. They’d come for the loan he’d taken two months prior.

The choice they gave him? Simple— join the cleaning crew, and seventy percent of his earnings would be funneled straight back to the academy until the debt was paid.

Or

Get an extended time period of seven days and risk being taken to the prison school where he would have to work hard and all the earnings funneled into the school until he paid his dept.

That was how he ended up sweeping halls with a crooked broom, cursing louder than some beasts could roar.

But perhaps the greatest change wasn’t within him, but around him.

As the days passed, tension began to simmer beneath the polished floors of Elden Vow. The Tournament of Power loomed ever closer. It was no longer a distant event spoken of in whispers—it was real, and its shadow stretched long and cold over the academy.

Posters began appearing overnight. Training halls stayed lit deep into the night. Spars turned brutal. Smiles grew thin. Everyone was preparing—rivals sharpened their teeth, allies kept their secrets close, and more than one duel left its mark in shattered stone or broken bone.

The air itself felt heavier, saturated with a quiet violence waiting to ignite.

Zephyr felt it too.

Each time he swept a hallway or collapsed in meditation, he imagined the battlefield. Imagined the faces of the victors and the losers. The ones he’d stand against. The ones he owed a little something to.

The Tournament of Power was coming—and whether he liked it or not, he would be there. Elpison or not.

*********

"Hold it! You’re doing it wrong. Is that how I taught you? I don’t want to point fingers, but you guys still suck!" Merin’s voice rang out across the hollow class— it was literally hollow as they were nobody save for she and Zephyr.

’I know I’m doing it wrong. And yes, this is how you taught me. Don’t fret—we’re the only ones in this damn class.’

Zephyr didn’t say it aloud, but the look on his face said enough.

"Damn it," he growled as the Aether wisp in his hand fizzled out. With a low groan, he centered himself and tried again.

Ghostly red wisps flowed from his index finger. They hovered, flickering in the air, before condensing into a tight thread. He extracted a second wisp, mirroring the process. The two strands coiled, twining with careful precision, then fused into one.

Now came the hardest part.

Zephyr detached the far end of the thread from his finger and held it aloft with sheer willpower. He urged it to curl around, guiding it to meet the other end.

It bent slowly under his mental grip—like a ribbon drawn by invisible hands. The ends neared each other. One obeyed, eager to connect. The other resisted, repelled like mismatched magnets.

Instead of pouring in more Aether, Zephyr doubled down on intent. His will pressed harder.

The thread trembled.

Then—snap.

It shattered into minute wisps, scattering like dandelion fluff.

"Darn it!" The curse slipped past his lips this time. He ignored Merin’s rambling critique and tried again.

Failure.

Again.

Snap.

Again.

Snap.

"Darn it!!" His voice rose with each attempt.

Again.

Snap.

"DARN IT!!!" Zephyr slammed a fist on the desk. The reinforced wood held, but dust drifted into the air like a ghost of defeat.

It wasn’t the fact that he failed that bothered him— at least it wasn’t the entire cause if it. He had previously connected it before— numerous times but today. Today seems to evade him and that was the reason he was annoyed. And miss Merin wasn’t helping either.

"I told you calm down and you might get it, you won’t get it, but you might". She said sarcasticly.

They had grown closer through the three months spent together and he was used to her sarcastic jabs. But today he was just off and not himself. Maybe it was the tension that the tournament was starting tomorrow or maybe it was the fact that he was the weakest participating in the tournament.

"It’s not like you are of any help". He spat at her annoyed.

"Hey don’t be a sour moron". She said still sarcastic.

"No am not joking, how have you helped me in anyway". He said, bitterness had taken over his mind. Failure stung.

"Well I helped you in your weaving class and even assisted you in honing your fighting skills".

’More like beat the breaks off me’. The fighting training she spoke of was borderline torture. He couldn’t count how many times he was sent back to his dorm unconscious. She had taught him a very serious lesson.

Violence isn’t always the answer— it is the solution.

"Yeah right". He muttered under his breath. Then she said something that set him off.

"Don’t blame me for your poor ability. Am not the reason you’re not talented. Or for making that mistake". She said, her voice carrying a slight edge, she had an annoyed expression on her face.

"Yeah you’re right". Zephyr said his voice laced with dull anger. "This was a mistake. A mistake that led to me wasting three months of my life listening to something that doesn’t matter". She turned to him, her face filled with anger.

"Don’t insult the Art, blame your own incompetence". Her face was red as she pointed a finger at him.

Zephyr’s eyes darkened as her words sank in.

Incompetence.

It echoed in his mind, louder than any yell. Louder than the voice of his clan when they called him Aetherless trash. Louder than the guards who laughed when they dragged him through the tiles in shackles. Louder than the nobles who watched from the balconies, whispering and smirking.

He stood up, fists clenched, breathing shallow.

"Incompetence?" he repeated quietly.

Merin opened her mouth, but the look in his eyes gave her pause. His shoulders were trembling—not with fear, but with fury.

"You think I don’t know I’m failing?" he said, voice flat but tight like a bowstring ready to snap. "You think I don’t hear that word every time someone looks at me like I don’t belong here?"

He pointed to the shattered remnants of Aether floating like dust.

"I made that mistake, yeah. But I keep showing up. Every day. I didn’t bolt when the others ran—I stayed. I keep failing and failing and failing and I’m still. Here."

His voice rose slightly, but there was no roar. It was quiet anger—the kind that burns under the skin.

Merin folded her arms, her earlier fury giving way to something more guarded. "You want pity?"

"I want progress," he spat. "But maybe I was wrong. Maybe all this Hollow Art crap is a waste of time. Maybe what I need isn’t stringing threads of Aether together—it’s breaking things. Burning everything down until nothing’s left but me."

There was a long silence between them. The air felt like it might crack.

Then Merin’s voice came, cold and sharp as glass.

"Then maybe you should leave."

Zephyr flinched. Her tone wasn’t sarcastic anymore. It was deadly serious.

"You want to throw it all away? Fine. Walk out that door and go back to mopping floors and pretending you’re a beast among wolves. But don’t you dare disrespect the craft just because it’s hard."

He looked away.

"I’m not like you," he muttered. "I didn’t grow up knowing how to shape Aether like it was second nature. Didn’t inherit my supposed birthright nor did my clan honour me. I’m scraping through. Every step forward feels like I’m dragging a corpse."

Then he let out a dark chuckle. "And that’s the different between us". With that he walked out of the class, leaving Merin to her thoughts.