A myriad of thoughts swarmed in my mind after leaving the commander's office.

  Sleep. What our first assignment would be. Sleep. How I would replicate the realization I almost achieved in the last fight. What Commander Lucas thought of me. Sleep. Sleep. What other rewards we would receive as the best performing squad.

  Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

  My body felt heavier with every step down the corridor. The station lights seemed harsher than usual, humming faintly overhead. My limbs moved, but the sharpness I normally carried had dulled into something sluggish and hollow.

  I needed rest. Desperately.

  It was in that haze that I perceived a person standing in the hallway of our squad quarters just before I turned the corner. I was quite distracted, so it took me a while to figure out who it was.

  Officer Bailey.

  Leaning briefly against the wall, I rubbed my forehead and exhaled. The rest of the squad was likely inside already. She hadn't come for them. The memory of the look she gave me after I was eliminated in the exercise resurfaced. My stomach tightened faintly.

  I pushed myself upright. Hopefully, whatever reason she came here wouldn't take long. I wasn't in the mood for another interrogation.

  She stood beside the door, hands clasped neatly behind her back, posture so straight it seemed engineered. For a brief moment, she could have been a statue — immovable, deliberate, cold. As soon as I stepped fully into the hallway, her eyes shifted to meet mine. There was no delay in her awareness. She had sensed me before she saw me.

  "Aldrich," she said evenly. "Just the man I was looking for. I trust your meeting with the commander was… productive?"

  "Yes sir," I replied.

  "Good."

  Her gaze lingered a fraction longer than necessary. "In case you were unaware, your squad achieved the highest cumulative score. That is not a minor accomplishment. Congratulations."

  "Thank you, sir."

  She stepped forward slightly and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. The gesture was not warm or personal. Felt more like a reinforcement of hierarchy.

  "You are an effective captain," she said. "And a formidable combatant. The two do not often coincide at your level. Do not grow complacent."

  "I won't, sir."

  Suppressing a yawn took more effort than I expected. My exhaustion was becoming difficult to mask. If she noticed, she gave no indication. I decided to shorten the interaction.

  "With respect, sir," I said carefully, "may I ask the purpose of your visit?"

  Her brow tightened almost imperceptibly as she removed her hand.

  "I came here to ask you a question."

  Her tone became more focused. "Over the years, I have observed nearly every recognized combat system taught across the academies. Armed. Unarmed. Hybridized. Even regional deviations. I am also familiar with the intent behind those systems."

  There was no doubt now. She had actually been confused earlier. And the reason was clear.

  "It is safe to say I have never encountered yours. Some of your forms were identifiable," she continued. "But the transitions between them were… wrong."

  Wrong.

  "As though they had been taken apart and reassembled without regard for orthodoxy. Not to mention that no matter how hard I tried, I could not decipher the intent in your attacks. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

  For the first time since leaving the office, my fatigue receded beneath something sharper.

  Interest.

  Her expression remained composed, but her eyes held something close to genuine intrigue. She could have easily summoned me later to discuss all this. Instead, she came all the way down to my quarters then waited for me. This was not mere curiosity.

  I had no problems telling her about my system. Most instructors at the academy hadn't noticed anything unusual about my fight patterns talk less of questioning its structure. To have the ability to identify inconsistencies in form — to track intent through execution — required experience beyond standard training oversight. That was the kind of insight held by tier 5 fighters, maybe even tier 6. There was more to Officer Bailey than I expected.

  "I didn't learn it," I said. "I built it myself."

  For the first time since the conversation began, Officer Bailey's composure fractured. She squinted like she was trying to observe me with higher clarity.

  "You expect me to believe," she said slowly, "that a combat system with that level of structural complexity was created by you? A probationary marshal not even forty?"

  "Yes."

  The word didn't waver.

  She stood silent for a moment, studying me closely, searching for any action or tell that hinted at embellishment.

  I couldn't blame her. Even my own teammates had doubted me when I first told them. They spent months trying to uncover some secret manual or teacher I must have learned it from before finally accepting that neither existed.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Only Uncle Jerry had believed me without hesitation.

  He always did.

  She stared for a moment longer before she softly exhaling through her nose.

  "Very well," she said. "Whether I find it plausible is irrelevant. My main concern is something else."

  Her weight shifted slightly.

  "What's its intent?"

  This was the tricky part.

  Every recognized combat system carried intent.

  Intent was the spine of a style — the governing principle that dictated movement selection, engagement range, psychological posture. Some systems revolved around suffocation — constant pressure, no retreat. Others prioritized surgical lethality — shortest path to termination. Some aimed for structural debilitation: joints, tendons, balance.

  Intent streamlined decision-making. In modern combat, that streamlining was everything.

  Humans were no longer physically average creatures. Genetic refinement and environmental adaptation had turned us into something else — faster, stronger, more durable. Fights weren't drawn-out affairs of attrition anymore. They were exchanges measured in milliseconds.

  You committed, executed, and adapted in micro-gaps between instinctive bursts. There was no room for philosophical wandering mid-fight. Intent eliminated hesitation. It reduced cognitive drag and kept you alive.

  "There is no intent," I said.

  She gaped. "I'm sorry?"

  "There isn't one."

  "Every structured system has intent."

  "Mine doesn't."

  "What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked.

  "I don't compress anything. I select and connect forms while fighting."

  "That's not possible," she said before she could stop herself.

  I shrugged slightly. "I don't use fixed chains nor do I have an engagement objective. I observe the opponent in real time and build connections as I go."

  She looked at me as if I'd just claimed I could walk on water.

  "Do you understand," she said slowly, "what that implies?"

  "Yes."

  Most fighters operated within a predefined decision tree, with exchanges providing information to help narrow the branches with intent. I created my tree mid-exchange, rebuilding transitions according to the direction of the fight.

  That was the part most people didn't understand. And honestly, neither did I — not fully. I had always been able to do it for as long as I could remember. I didn't feel much faster or smarter than others. It felt like I could just handle a lot of information at the same time.

  Bran had once described its difficulty as spinning plates on my nose while singing and stomping agility lights in rhythm.

  I always thought that was dramatic.

  But watching someone else process it now, maybe it wasn't.

  "Fighters do not have the luxury of recalculating structural transitions in combat," she said carefully, "that is precisely why intent exists."

  "I know."

  "What you claim to be doing is computationally excessive. That level of real-time processing should overload most neural pathways. People shouldn't be able to bear such a load."

  "I can."

  The words sounded arrogant.

  They weren't meant to be.

  Her jaw tightened faintly. "Impressive as it sounds, surely you know that such a method is catastrophically—"

  "Inefficient." I completed, interrupting her.

  No one was more aware of that than I was. I didn't fight this way because it was elegant or superior. Before the academy, I had tried learning established systems. Intent required instinctive commitment. Snap decisions within predefined frameworks.

  I failed.

  Not for lack of effort. I simply wasn't built for the kind of instantaneous, intuitive narrowing those styles required. Whenever I tried to fight traditionally, I hesitated. Not visibly. But internally. I saw alternatives.

  Too many alternatives.

  This was a weakness. So I decided to turn it into a strength. Instead of narrowing possibilities, I expanded them — then let my mind filter faster than it should have been able to. It had somehow worked. That was all that mattered. However, I was under no illusions about the extent of my abilities. I wasn't better than the others. I was on a different path.

  Assuming a fight was a locked system, most fighters are able to make brilliant, calculated entries and succeed in opening the door. I, on the other hand, stupidly tried every possible key at once. It just so happened that I had a supercomputer.

  "If you know this, then why do you choose to fight this way?" she asked quietly.

  I gave a tired half-smile. My eyes felt heavy, like there were sandbags draped over them. "Let's just say it's the best fit for me."

  Officer Bailey regarded me for a moment longer. There was no judgment in her gaze now—only contemplation.

  "I'm sure you have your reasons," she said at last, stepping back. "I can only hope you know what you are doing."

  I did too.

  "Well," she continued, a faint smile softening her stern features, "this was a pleasant conversation. You have given me quite a bit to think about. If you ever have questions—or require guidance—you know where to find me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "See you around, Stretch."

  Jen was alone when I entered the squad room.

  The overhead lights were dimmed, the long table casting stretched shadows across the floor. She sat in silence, watching a video. I closed the door quietly and took the seat next to her.

  No words. We watched the video together.

  It was the captain. The same person that stabbed me in the simulation. He had found Jen immediately and chased after her for a while before she decided she had enough. She stopped and unsheathed her sword, then turned to fight him. Or at least she tried.

  I just understood how lucky I was not to be in her position. The man was much stronger than I had expected. Every time she initiated a chain, he cut her off with precision. A tap to redirect. A shallow slash to break rhythm. A half-step adjustment that erased her angles before they could form.

  Jen was a practitioner of the Heavy Fog style, a variant of the Fog style. It relied on a continuous flow—disorientation through relentless, shifting pressure. But there was no flow here. He dismantled it before it could breathe.

  He let her think she had an opening. Let her commit. Then punished it. Again and again. Not enough to end it—just enough to display the gap between them.

  The room felt colder as I watched.

  When he finally disarmed her, it wasn't decisive. It was a lazy flick that sent her blade spinning across the floor. She didn't surrender. Even unarmed, she stepped forward.

  He evaded easily. A pivot. A turn of the wrist.

  Then he severed her left arm. Blood sprayed the air in a fine arc before gravity dragged it down. She staggered but tried to strike with her remaining arm. He removed that one too.

  She collapsed. For a few seconds, he just stood there, watching her writhe. Watching her try to crawl. He could have ended it immediately.

  Instead, he waited.

  Then, almost as an afterthought, he delivered the finishing blow.

  The hologram flickered and vanished. Quiet settled over the room like dust. I hadn't realized my jaw was clenched until it began to ache. I already disliked him. Now it was turning something colder.

  I reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

  There was no need to drag out that fight to humiliate her like that. No lesson was imparted in that exchange, only cruelty. I burned the fight into my memory—not just his actions, but the expression he wore while she suffered. Debts were best remembered in detail.

  Jen exhaled slowly, long and controlled. When she finally looked at me, her expression was neutral—but her eyes were distant.

  "What did the commander want?" she asked. "Are you in trouble?"

  "Not at all. He just wanted to talk. Apparently, our scores were the best ever from this station."

  "Really?" She managed a faint smile. "That's… good."

  The effort behind it was obvious.

  "So," I yawned. "Where is everyone?"

  "Kitchen. Cuiran's cooking to celebrate."

  "You're not going to join them? You know how good his cooking is."

  "Yeah," she replied evenly. "But I'm not really hungry so I'll stay here for a while."

  She was doing worse than I thought. Jen was never not hungry. Still, I wasn't worried—not truly. She bent, but she didn't break. I'd seen her rebuild herself before. She just needed a minute.

  "What about you?" she asked. "Going to celebrate?"

  I stood, stretching until my spine popped.

  "Nah. Tell them to save me some." I patted her head lightly. "I've got a very important matter to attend to."

  Leaving the room, I barely managed to drag myself to resting space before collapsing in the first pod I saw.

  It was the best nap I ever had.