It happened almost too quickly to process. Her shockwave slammed into an immovable wall, heat spilling off the casual abuse of physics. One moment he’d stood firm—the next, Nagamura had been knocked back. Something cracked, leather creaked, and the familiar thud of limbs on cheap pleather seemed to echo in the training room.
 
All she could hear was the thunder of her heartbeat. The world narrowed to the adrenaline coursing in her veins, the way her skin felt like it was stretched too tight over her frame, the whispers of charge clinging to the metal drilled through her skull. Her fingers flexed of their own volition, straining to channel once more. It would be so easy. It would feel so [i]good[/i].
 
“Jesus,” someone muttered. Her fingers stilled and snuffed out the flickers of her corona.
 
Her senses opened, and the world came screaming into terrible focus. Whispers and an awful clap of hands, the shifting of the mat under heavy footsteps, two heavy fingers dropping to her shoulder, [i]squeezing[/i], as if the arc of blood on the mat were praise worthy.
 
The world blurred at the edges even as light went impossibly sharp. Kalyani winced, a hand snaking behind her right ear to press sharply against an implant, as if she could drive it deeper into her head. The relief was slight, but it was enough to let her take a ragged breath.
 
“A real biotic,” Caelnus’ mocking warble filled the dead air. Her translator missed whatever his quiet rasping trill and clicks meant, but the intent was clear. It took almost everything to keep her hands still by her side. What an asshole.
 
Nagamura kept [i]looking[/i] at her.
 
It wasn’t the wounded puppy Court gave her, or the usual frustration and fear she saw in her victims. Nagamura's gaze pierced through her, lightning that lashed tight about her spine and forced her to [i]look[/i], damn it. It refused to let her fall back into apathy. [i]You did this, now look.[/i] There was no option but to meet his gaze and see the slash of red down his chin, shallow breaths that came with crushed ribs, and endless, simmering rage. 

"Shit." The word was more air than substance, dissolving in a breath. She wasn’t even sure she’d said it.

"Get up," The turian's hand finally left her shoulder as he took long, swaggering steps forward. A familiar panic rose in her throat, followed close by bile. There could be no round two. 

"We've gone over time," Kalyani said blandly. Trembling fingers laced behind her back, knuckles whitening around each other. "They're late for the galley."


Caelnus fixed her with an unblinking stare, pinpricks of acid green boring into her own dark eyes. Her pulse went shallow, thrumming with the need to run and make herself small. Kalyani nodded her head towards the throng of students, holding her breath. She could see Caelnus’ calculation, weighing the importance of breaking one versus throwing off the schedules for dozens.

For once, the distinctly Turian anal-retentive obsession with order worked out in her favor.

“That they are,” Caelnus’ agreement sounded airy, almost polite. It was unsettling. He looked down at Nagamura and Kalyani was amazed that he’d somehow managed to make his mandibles twitch in contempt. “Get to medical.”