Chapter 555: The Distance Above Them (Patreon)

Kenway Colosseum — Kenway Keep — Philadelphia

The iron-bound doors of the Kenway Colosseum opened before Kassandra reached them.

Servants responsible for maintaining the private arena had noticed the approaching group from across the estate grounds, and by the time she stepped beneath the great stone archway, lamps had already been lit around the circular fighting floor. Their warm glow climbed the surrounding tiers and reflected against weapon racks positioned beyond the boundary line.

Kassandra entered first.

Reuben and Thulani followed immediately behind her, with Shakoka, Oldgate, Avery, Caroline, and Jonathan coming afterward.

Jonathan had nearly remained behind.

His responsibilities as Head Butler did not vanish because Kassandra wanted exercise, and he had already begun considering whether another servant should oversee the preparations he had promised Oldgate and Avery. Kassandra had solved that question before he could excuse himself.

"You too, Jonathan."

He had regarded her for a moment, then handed his notebook to one of the nearby attendants.

"As you wish, Lady Kassandra."

Now seven enhanced fighters stood within the Colosseum.

Avery counted them.

Then counted Kassandra.

His expression became increasingly suspicious.

Kassandra stepped into the center of the arena before removing the Staff of Hermes from where it rested against her back. She carried it toward the edge of the fighting floor and placed it carefully against a padded stand near the weapon racks.

Reuben watched that more closely than Avery understood.

Kassandra turned around.

"Leave your weapons there."

Thulani glanced toward Excalibur.

Reuben's attention moved briefly toward the Sword of Damokles.

Oldgate looked at his heavy cutlass, while Avery's fingers rested near the pistol at his belt.

Jonathan had arrived wearing his short sword and hidden blades beneath his sleeves.

Shakoka carried his bow.

Caroline had brought nothing.

Kassandra placed both hands behind her back.

"We start without them."

Avery looked around.

"All of us?"

Kassandra's eyes settled upon him.

"All seven."

Avery waited for someone to correct her.

Nobody did.

Reuben calmly removed the Sword of Damokles and placed it on the rack. His throwing knives followed one after another.

Thulani unfastened Excalibur.

Shakoka set aside his bow and curved blade.

Jonathan removed his short sword, then carefully locked both hidden blades so they could not deploy accidentally.

Oldgate placed his cutlass and pistol aside.

Avery remained still a moment longer.

"You truly intend to fight everyone at once?"

Kassandra rolled one shoulder.

"If seven Vanguard operatives enhanced beyond ordinary human limits cannot make me work with their bare hands, giving you swords will only provide seven people with expensive things to drop."

Thulani's mouth curved.

Reuben exhaled softly through his nose.

Avery looked toward him. "Does she always speak like this before fighting?"

Reuben loosened his shoulders as he stepped away from the weapon rack.

"No."

Avery looked relieved for half a heartbeat.

Oldgate finished rolling his sleeves upward.

"She becomes worse when she starts winning."

Kassandra heard them from the center of the arena.

"You are both welcome to make me stop."

That ended the discussion.

Caroline removed her outer coat and folded it over the edge of the rack. Beneath it, she wore practical dark clothing appropriate for someone who had expected to spend the evening reviewing Celestial ledgers rather than fighting Vanguard commanders.

Kassandra's gaze remained on her slightly longer than on the others.

Caroline noticed.

"You're studying me already."

"I haven't seen you fight properly in some time."

Caroline tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear.

"I've been busy."

"With tea."

"With an empire built partly on tea."

Kassandra smiled.

"Then let's see whether commerce has made you slow."

Caroline's eyes narrowed pleasantly.

Around them, the others began spreading out.

There was no signal.

Reuben moved first.

He did not charge.

His left shoulder turned as though beginning a straight entry toward Kassandra's right side, while his weight shifted forward enough to sell the attack without fully committing his hips.

Kassandra read the feint immediately.

That was precisely what Reuben expected.

He dropped his level as though transitioning into a sweeping attack against her lead leg, but the sweep never completed because Thulani was already accelerating from the opposite angle.

Avery's eyes widened.

Thulani was enormous, yet the first three steps carried none of the sluggishness his size suggested. Asura's Crest drove strength through his legs and hips so efficiently that he crossed the distance with startling speed, entering behind a shoulder check powerful enough to send an ordinary man across the arena.

Kassandra shifted away from Reuben's unfinished sweep.

Exactly where Thulani wanted.

His shoulder nearly reached her.

Kassandra rotated.

Instead of retreating, she stepped closer, planting one hand against his upper arm while using the other against his shoulder to turn the enormous pressure away from her centerline.

Thulani immediately changed.

The shoulder check became a body lock.

His hands caught her arm and upper torso.

Kassandra's boots dragged half an inch across the stone.

Avery saw it.

Thulani had actually stopped her.

Then Kassandra's chakra moved.

Not explosively.

A controlled reinforcement flowed through her shoulder and back, combining with the strength of Asura's Crest as she lowered her center of gravity.

Thulani's grip remained formidable.

Kassandra deliberately peeled one of his hands loose before rotating through the space beneath his arm.

She did not get the opportunity to finish.

Jonathan had been waiting.

He appeared at her newly exposed side with no wasted motion, throwing a compact low kick toward the outside of her knee while one hand reached for her wrist.

Kassandra raised her leg just enough for the kick to pass beneath it, but Jonathan had already abandoned that attack. His wrist-trap changed into a short elbow directed toward her ribs.

She caught the forearm.

Jonathan stepped closer rather than pulling away.

That placed him precisely where Reuben wanted him.

Reuben attacked again from behind Jonathan's shoulder, using the other man as visual obstruction before suddenly changing direction and going low.

Kassandra stepped backward.

Shakoka was already there.

His hunting instincts had placed him beyond the immediate collision from the beginning. Rather than joining the mass around Kassandra, he had watched her hips, foot placement, and preferred retreat angles until he identified where she was likely to escape once Reuben and Jonathan compressed the space.

His low kick came toward the back of her supporting ankle.

Kassandra changed direction at the final instant.

Shakoka adjusted beautifully.

The kick became a forward step into a tackle intended to catch her hips while she was still transferring weight.

Kassandra smiled.

She twisted away, but that movement carried her directly toward Oldgate.

The massive captain did not bother disguising his intention.

His forearm drove across the space ahead of him with enough force to make the air move.

Kassandra ducked.

Oldgate's second hand reached for her.

She slipped beneath it.

Avery was waiting behind him.

Unlike the others, he had spent the opening exchanges studying.

He had already concluded that chasing Kassandra's speed would be pointless, so he positioned himself near the place where someone escaping Oldgate's reach would naturally arrive.

His hands caught for her arm.

For one instant, Avery believed he had predicted correctly.

Kassandra's approving smile confirmed that he had.

Then she was no longer where his hands closed.

She pivoted around his outside shoulder so closely that the sleeve of her Vanguard uniform brushed his arm.

Avery turned immediately.

Too late.

Kassandra was already gone.

Then Caroline reached her.

The first punch was straight.

Kassandra slipped outside it.

Caroline watched the movement.

Her second hand followed with a hook that Kassandra redirected from the wrist.

Caroline remembered the angle.

Kassandra stepped laterally.

Caroline attacked again.

It looked like the same straight punch.

Kassandra began the same escape.

That was when Caroline's shoulder position changed.

Instead of extending fully, she shortened the punch and rotated into an elbow aimed directly toward the space Kassandra had used during the previous evasion.

Kassandra's forearm rose.

Their limbs met with a sharp impact.

For the first time since the spar began, Kassandra had not merely escaped.

She had properly blocked.

Caroline's knee was already rising.

Kassandra redirected it with her thigh before pushing Caroline half a step away.

Caroline did not resist the displacement.

She used it to change angle.

Reuben entered from the opposite side.

Thulani stepped across Kassandra's other escape line.

Caroline's eyes moved once.

She understood where Kassandra intended to go before either man did.

Rather than attacking Kassandra herself, Caroline attacked the destination.

Three short steps carried her across the angle as Reuben's feint pushed Kassandra away from him.

Caroline's palm arrived first.

Kassandra redirected it.

The following body shot forced another defense.

Caroline changed rhythm before the third strike and drove her knee upward toward Kassandra's ribs.

Kassandra twisted enough for it to graze past.

Her eyes brightened.

"There you are," Kassandra said as she caught Caroline's forearm and redirected another elbow. "I was wondering when you were going to stop following them and make me follow you."

Caroline stepped through the redirection instead of fighting against it.

"You would be easier to follow if you remained in the same place for longer than half a heartbeat."

Reuben heard them as he changed angles.

"This is precisely why I didn't warn anyone about her."

Thulani caught Caroline's next strike on one forearm when Kassandra redirected it toward him.

The impact made his expression change.

He looked at Reuben.

"You could have mentioned that."

Reuben smiled faintly.

"You never asked."

Thulani gave him a flat look.

The formation closed again.

For several minutes, the seven attacked as one problem instead of seven separate ones.

Reuben manipulated tempo, constantly offering attacks that existed only to attract Kassandra's attention toward something else.

Thulani consumed space.

Jonathan waited for openings created by everyone else.

Shakoka guarded retreat lanes.

Oldgate became a moving wall.

Avery stopped trying to be faster and concentrated on prediction.

Caroline watched everything.

Kassandra remained ahead.

Not far ahead.

That was what became frustrating.

She slipped between Reuben and Jonathan immediately before their angles closed, caught Thulani's wrist during a body-lock attempt, and redirected enough of his momentum that Oldgate had to interrupt a shoulder charge to avoid colliding with him.

Avery anticipated her retreat.

Kassandra stepped inside instead.

Shakoka moved to block the outer route.

She changed direction before his feet finished planting.

Jonathan's elbow nearly found her ribs.

Her palm intercepted it.

Caroline attacked the moment the interception occupied Kassandra's hand.

Kassandra ducked beneath her elbow, entered Avery's space, pivoted around him, and briefly used his body to obstruct Shakoka.

Oldgate finally cornered her between himself and the edge of the central floor.

He drove forward.

Kassandra allowed him to believe the angle had closed.

At the final instant, she stepped inside his shoulder line, caught his arm, and rotated with the tremendous force he had created himself.

Oldgate stumbled past her.

Thulani caught him before he fell.

Oldgate looked back.

Kassandra was smiling.

"Bigger does not make you subtler."

Oldgate straightened.

"I wasn't attempting subtlety."

"I noticed."

The next time Thulani caught her properly, both hands closed around her arm.

His grip tightened.

Kassandra stopped moving.

Thulani pulled.

For a moment, nothing happened.

His expression changed.

Years of enhancement, brutal training, and the strength granted by Asura's Crest surged through his shoulders.

Kassandra remained planted.

Then she broke his grip.

Not effortlessly.

Deliberately.

Finger by finger, leverage by leverage, until her arm came free.

Thulani stepped back.

His face revealed very little.

Inside, the sensation was far more uncomfortable.

He knew how strong he had become.

That was precisely why the result bothered him.

Caroline came in immediately afterward.

Her palm met Kassandra's forearm.

The impact cracked across the arena.

Caroline felt the strength hidden behind the block.

Her eyes narrowed.

Kassandra was withholding an enormous amount.

The thought did not discourage her.

It sharpened her.

Caroline attacked harder.

The Apple of Eden had once placed movements into her body that she could execute without understanding. Years had changed that. She had dismantled those inherited patterns, studied why they worked, discarded what did not suit her, and rebuilt the remainder around her own body and the strength granted by Asura's Crest.

Kassandra recognized the difference.

Caroline no longer looked like someone remembering how to fight.

She looked like someone thinking through violence in real time.

When the formation finally collapsed, it happened because Kassandra chose to break it.

She redirected Reuben's low entry into Thulani's line, forced Jonathan to abandon a wrist trap when Shakoka's tackle crossed behind him, then caught Oldgate's arm and used his momentum to block Avery from entering.

Thulani turned.

Kassandra stepped through his guard.

A short shove to the chest moved him several feet.

Shakoka attempted to intercept.

She swept his leg.

Jonathan entered.

She trapped his wrist and guided him toward the ground without damaging the joint.

Oldgate recovered.

A pivot left him charging toward empty space.

Avery changed direction before committing.

Kassandra still caught his balance and sent him rolling across one shoulder.

Reuben lasted longer because he had expected the structure to fail.

He deliberately disengaged, looking for a second entry.

Kassandra intercepted him before it formed.

Then Caroline remained.

Everyone else had been displaced.

Caroline continued attacking.

A right straight became a palm.

Kassandra parried.

Caroline rotated into an elbow.

Kassandra slipped underneath.

A low kick attacked her lead leg.

Kassandra lifted it.

Caroline used the motion to change level and drive forward.

Kassandra caught her wrist.

Caroline immediately turned the captured arm to attack with her other hand.

Kassandra stopped the palm less than an inch from her own face.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Caroline's breathing had grown heavier.

Kassandra's had barely changed.

Then Kassandra released her.

Caroline stepped backward.

Around them, seven enhanced fighters recovered from the remains of the formation.

Kassandra looked slowly across the arena.

"Was that the frightening Vanguard Alaric keeps telling me about?"

Thulani straightened.

"You prohibited weapons."

Kassandra glanced toward the racks.

"Then stop complaining and get them."

The mood changed.

Reuben's faint amusement disappeared.

Oldgate looked toward Kassandra.

The expression on her face was familiar enough that an old memory from Bristol returned immediately.

He exhaled.

"This is beginning to feel unpleasantly familiar."

Avery looked toward him.

"What does that mean?"

Oldgate walked toward his weapons.

"The last time she looked that entertained, several trained Assassins and Vanguard fighters spent an afternoon discovering how many different ways someone can lose a weapon."

Kassandra heard him.

"Don't ruin the surprise."

Avery stared after Oldgate.

Then the weapons came out.

Reuben drew the Sword of Damokles.

Throwing knives disappeared into concealed positions across his uniform.

Thulani lifted Excalibur.

The ancient weapon responded immediately to his touch, its presence seeming to enlarge the space around him even before he moved.

Jonathan armed himself with his short sword and unlocked both hidden blades.

Shakoka took his bow and curved blade.

Oldgate retrieved his heavy cutlass and pistol.

Avery drew his cutlass while checking the priming of his flintlock.

Caroline remained beside the rack.

A servant offered her a sword.

She shook her head.

"No."

Avery looked toward her.

"You're remaining unarmed?"

Caroline flexed her hands.

"Yes."

That answer worried him more now than it would have fifteen minutes earlier.

Kassandra walked toward the side of the arena.

For a moment, Avery thought she was retrieving the Staff.

She passed it.

Her hand never touched the ancient artifact.

Instead, she turned toward the seven fighters while empty-handed.

The Staff of Hermes remained visible behind her.

Reuben noticed.

So did Thulani.

Oldgate's mouth tightened.

"Begin when you're ready," Kassandra said.

Shakoka's arrow moved first.

He did not aim at Kassandra.

He aimed at where she would need to step once Thulani advanced.

Excalibur came around in a controlled horizontal sweep whose reach transformed an enormous portion of the arena into forbidden space.

Kassandra stepped inward.

Reuben had expected it.

The Sword of Damokles thrust toward the opening while one of his knives left his off-hand toward the stone near Kassandra's foot.

The knife was not meant to hit her.

It closed the easiest escape route.

Jonathan attacked the remaining line.

His short sword moved with controlled precision while his left forearm stayed deceptively close to his body.

Kassandra parried his blade with her bracer.

Jonathan rotated his wrist.

A hidden blade snapped outward toward an opening that would have been safe against an ordinary swordsman.

Kassandra twisted away.

"Good," she said, her eyes briefly meeting his. "That would have killed someone who forgot you had a second weapon."

Jonathan withdrew before she could trap his arm.

A pistol fired.

The shot crossed the space Kassandra had been about to enter.

Avery lowered the smoking weapon.

Kassandra glanced toward him.

"Good idea."

Avery began smiling.

"Your eyes betrayed the shot."

The smile disappeared.

Oldgate arrived.

His cutlass struck with the force of a boarding axe, forcing Kassandra to abandon the line Avery had created. Oldgate's free hand immediately reached for her shoulder.

She avoided the grab.

His pistol appeared at almost point-blank range.

Kassandra moved before the trigger finished breaking.

The shot passed behind her.

Avery's expression became serious.

Now he understood how Oldgate had survived decades at sea.

Shakoka fired again.

The arrow struck stone exactly where Kassandra would have moved to escape Reuben's sword.

She changed direction.

Another arrow was already traveling toward the new route.

Kassandra smiled toward him.

"That one was better."

Shakoka did not answer.

He was already drawing another.

Thulani's Excalibur descended vertically.

Kassandra stepped inside the effective arc before the enormous blade could recover.

Thulani changed grip and struck with the pommel.

She deflected it.

His knee came immediately afterward.

Kassandra turned her hip and absorbed the edge of the attack without losing balance.

"You're controlling too much space," she told him as she slipped outside his shoulder.

Thulani turned with her.

"Is that a complaint?"

"A warning."

His next sweep shortened.

Kassandra's smile widened.

He had listened.

Then Caroline entered.

Everyone else's weapons created a forest of dangers around Kassandra.

Caroline treated them as pathways.

When Excalibur forced Kassandra left, Caroline was already moving left.

When Reuben's knife closed the next route, Caroline attacked the only space remaining.

When Jonathan's short sword occupied Kassandra's right side, Caroline struck toward the ribs on the opposite side.

A body shot nearly landed.

Kassandra redirected it.

Caroline changed immediately into a low kick and followed with a palm toward the shoulder.

Kassandra intercepted.

Caroline remembered the defense.

Two exchanges later, she deliberately recreated the same entry.

Kassandra used the same interception.

Caroline had prepared for it.

Her elbow changed angle halfway through.

Kassandra was forced to make an additional step.

She laughed.

"Have you been hiding this behind those damned ledgers the entire time?"

Caroline continued attacking without answering immediately.

A short hook became a shoulder entry.

Kassandra redirected it.

Caroline rotated into another palm.

"Some of us have businesses to run while you people are playing with swords."

Reuben threw a knife past Kassandra's shoulder.

"She once boarded my ship and nearly proved how misleading that statement was."

Thulani blocked Caroline's redirected elbow with both forearms this time.

"I would prefer everyone stop discovering hidden levels of strength after I have already agreed to fight them."

Kassandra slipped away from Excalibur's next cut.

"Complaining wastes oxygen."

The group tightened its coordination.

Then something unsettling began occurring among the veterans.

Reuben noticed first.

Years earlier, he had fought Kassandra when all of them were considerably weaker.

He had become faster since then.

More deceptive.

More disciplined.

The Sword of Damokles had changed how he approached space itself, while real war had taught him how to manipulate multiple opponents instead of merely surviving them.

Yet Kassandra was reading him sooner now.

His best false entries once bought a fraction of her attention.

Now her eyes moved toward the real purpose before the feint had fully matured.

His growth was real.

So was hers.

The distance had increased.

Thulani discovered the same truth physically.

Excalibur amplified strength that could devastate ordinary soldiers, while Asura's Crest had transformed his already massive frame into something that could batter through fortified positions.

He forced Kassandra into a bind.

Excalibur locked against her bracer at an angle where leverage favored him.

Thulani drove forward.

Kassandra's boots remained planted.

Her arm bent slightly.

Then stopped.

She looked directly into his eyes.

Thulani increased pressure.

Kassandra held him.

The realization settled uncomfortably in his chest.

He was vastly stronger than the man who had once sparred her.

She was farther beyond him now.

Oldgate understood it in the most visceral way.

Bristol returned to him every time Kassandra stepped through an attack that should have trapped her.

Back then, he could rationalize the humiliation.

He had been comparatively ordinary.

Now he was enhanced.

Battle-tested.

Far stronger.

Far faster.

Harder to kill than entire squads of conventional soldiers.

The explanation no longer existed.

He had climbed the ladder.

Kassandra's rung had risen with him.

Worse, it had risen faster.

Avery possessed no old memory against which to compare her.

That perhaps made the progression easier to see.

His skepticism gradually disappeared.

He stopped speaking.

Every person around him was genuinely trying.

Reuben's knives were moving quickly enough to kill normal fighters before they reacted.

Thulani wielded Excalibur like something a fraction of its weight.

Jonathan's hidden blades repeatedly appeared from angles Avery himself nearly lost track of.

Shakoka's arrows controlled entire routes through the arena.

Oldgate's boarding style would have overwhelmed nearly anyone at close range.

Caroline remained unarmed among all of it and somehow looked more dangerous than most of the weapons.

Kassandra was still winning.

Avery was disarmed for the second time when she caught the flat of his cutlass between reinforced palms, changed its direction, and rotated his wrist until the weapon left his fingers.

He retreated several steps, breathing hard.

"Is she actually using everything?"

Reuben looked toward him.

Then toward the edge of the arena.

The Staff of Hermes remained untouched.

Avery followed his gaze.

His expression slowly changed.

"Oh."

The realization eliminated whatever remained of his disbelief.

The final formation emerged several minutes later.

Reuben initiated it.

His first knife deliberately missed.

The second forced Kassandra away from the safest line.

The Sword of Damokles occupied the route she would otherwise use to punish him.

Shakoka's arrows removed the distant escapes.

Thulani stepped forward with Excalibur, using broad controlled pressure to make nearly half the arena dangerous without interfering with his allies.

Jonathan entered the narrow spaces Thulani left behind.

Oldgate and Avery compressed the remaining angles with cutlasses and carefully timed pistol threats.

Caroline waited.

She understood what everyone was building.

More importantly, she understood where it would end.

Kassandra saw it too.

For several seconds, she allowed the formation to develop.

Her expression changed.

The playfulness remained, but something more serious entered her eyes.

Against almost anyone else in the Assassin's Creed world, this would work.

Not because any one fighter was overwhelming.

Because the target would eventually run out of correct decisions.

A knife closed one route.

An arrow closed another.

Excalibur made an entire direction fatal.

Jonathan punished the narrow safe space.

Oldgate and Avery turned disorder into lethal close-range pressure.

Caroline waited at the end of the equation.

Kassandra moved.

Reuben saw the gap she chose.

His eyes widened.

There wasn't supposed to be one.

She slipped between the Sword of Damokles and Jonathan's short sword during the tiny fraction of time when both weapons had committed to intersecting lines but neither had reached the crossing point.

Her hand touched Jonathan's forearm.

His sword shifted three inches.

Three inches were enough to ruin Avery's pistol lane.

Avery aborted the shot.

Kassandra was already inside Excalibur's effective arc.

Thulani attempted to shorten his grip.

She stepped past his shoulder and used his enormous body to obscure Shakoka.

The archer lowered his bow rather than risk the shot.

Oldgate brought his pistol around.

Kassandra struck the barrel aside before it leveled.

The weapon fired harmlessly into the ground.

Avery changed his cutlass line to avoid Jonathan.

Reuben attempted to rebuild the formation.

Kassandra broke the angle before he could.

Then Caroline arrived.

The entire structure had collapsed.

Caroline still adapted.

Kassandra expected a straight entry.

Caroline changed halfway.

Her foot trapped Kassandra's lead step while one palm attacked high and the other threatened the body.

Kassandra had intended to redirect the first hand.

She was forced to move differently.

One extra defensive motion.

That was all.

Yet Kassandra's grin appeared immediately.

She caught Caroline's wrist, rotated around the foot trap, controlled the elbow before Caroline could convert the captured limb into another strike, and shifted her balance just far enough that Caroline's next counter could not generate power.

Caroline stopped.

Kassandra's forearm rested close enough to her upper chest that continuing the exchange would end badly.

Their eyes met.

Kassandra released her.

Silence spread across the Colosseum.

Reuben's Sword of Damokles had been displaced.

Thulani stood well outside ideal range.

Jonathan's sword arm had been redirected.

Shakoka no longer possessed a clean shooting line.

Oldgate's pistol lay several feet away.

Avery had been forced out of position.

Caroline remained closest to Kassandra, but even she had been neutralized.

At the arena's edge, the Staff of Hermes had not moved.

Kassandra looked around.

Her breathing had finally deepened slightly.

That alone told the experienced fighters more than empty praise would have.

"You're much better."

Nobody spoke immediately.

Kassandra turned toward Reuben.

"Your knife geometry is clever, although you reveal the second blade when your shoulder becomes too still."

Reuben nodded, immediately storing the criticism.

She looked toward Thulani.

"Excalibur suits you, but when you become too interested in controlling the entire arena, your recovery becomes predictable."

Thulani inclined his head.

"Understood."

Her eyes moved toward Shakoka.

"You denied me three routes before I intended to use them. Keep doing that."

Shakoka's expression showed quiet satisfaction.

Jonathan came next.

"Your hidden blade would have killed a less attentive opponent."

Jonathan nodded.

"Thank you, Lady Kassandra."

Kassandra looked toward Oldgate.

"Your directness is still irritatingly effective."

Oldgate gave a respectful inclination of his head.

"Better than subtlety I don't possess."

"Agreed."

Avery waited.

Kassandra smiled faintly.

"Your pistol was a good idea. Your eyes betrayed the first shot, but the second was much better. You also stopped trying to outrun me very quickly."

Avery breathed out.

"I am fond of learning lessons before they kill me."

"That is why you're still alive."

Finally, Kassandra turned toward Caroline.

The others noticed the difference immediately.

Kassandra studied her for several seconds.

"The Apple gave you memories."

Caroline's expression became more serious.

"You made them yours."

Caroline said nothing.

Kassandra continued, "That matters. You aren't reproducing techniques anymore. You're understanding what each movement is supposed to accomplish, then changing it when circumstances change."

Caroline nodded once.

"Thank you."

Kassandra's smile returned.

"And you are much stronger than most of them realize."

Thulani looked toward Caroline.

Reuben did not.

He had known.

Kassandra glanced toward him and caught that detail.

"So you knew."

Reuben gave a small shrug.

"I saw her board The Wraithling."

Thulani slowly turned toward him.

"You truly could have mentioned that."

Reuben's expression remained composed.

"It seemed more educational this way."

Kassandra almost laughed.

Then Reuben looked toward the Staff.

His expression became more thoughtful.

"Lady Kassandra."

"Yes?"

"How close were we?"

Kassandra knew what he meant.

Everyone did.

She turned her head toward the Staff of Hermes.

For a few seconds, she genuinely considered the question.

Then she looked back at them.

"To making me use the Staff?"

Reuben nodded.

Kassandra's expression carried no cruelty.

Only amusement and honesty.

"No."

The answer hurt more than any taunt she had delivered during the spar.

Thulani exhaled slowly.

Oldgate looked toward the stone floor.

Avery stared at the untouched artifact again.

Kassandra let them absorb it before continuing.

"That doesn't mean what you just did was poor."

Their attention returned.

"If those seven minutes of coordination had been directed against nearly anyone else I know in this world, I would be discussing their funeral arrangements instead of your mistakes."

The group became quiet.

"You have become dangerous enough that I actually had to pay attention to the formation rather than simply overpowering whoever was nearest."

Her gaze traveled from face to face.

"Reuben, Thulani, Jonathan, Shakoka, Oldgate—you are dramatically better than when I first fought beside or against you."

Her eyes shifted toward Avery.

"You adapted intelligently despite having no experience fighting me."

Then toward Caroline.

"And you surprised me."

Caroline smiled faintly.

Kassandra looked over all seven again.

"Do not mistake the distance between us for failure."

That changed something in the room.

Reuben understood before most.

They had climbed.

That was undeniable.

The problem was that Kassandra had never stopped climbing either.

Centuries of combat lived beneath every movement she made. Isu blood ran through her body. Asura's Crest strengthened a foundation already beyond ordinary humanity. Chakra now reinforced muscles shaped by more than two thousand years of surviving wars, mercenaries, armies, Assassins, Templars, Cultists, Isu constructs, and everything history had placed in her path.

Alaric continued teaching her.

Vanguard continued exposing her to new methods.

Kassandra continued adapting.

The distance was not proof that their growth meant nothing.

It was proof that hers had continued too.

Oldgate looked toward the untouched Staff one final time.

Years earlier, he had believed Kassandra impossibly far above him.

He was no longer the same man.

Neither was she.

That was the uncomfortable truth.

Kassandra moved toward the edge of the arena and picked up the Staff of Hermes only after the spar had ended.

Golden light traveled briefly through its surface as it recognized her touch.

Avery watched.

That was when the final ceiling became obvious.

Everything they had just experienced belonged to Kassandra alone.

The Staff had not participated.

Kassandra turned back toward the seven enhanced fighters.

"Clean yourselves up," Her mouth curved. "Then you can finally give me those reports."

Reuben looked down at the bruise already forming along one forearm.

Thulani rolled a sore shoulder.

Oldgate retrieved his pistol.

Avery picked up his cutlass.

Jonathan immediately began checking the others for injuries despite having participated himself.

Shakoka recovered his arrows.

Caroline walked toward the coat she had abandoned beside a stack of Celestial Tea reports.

The Vanguard had come to the Colosseum believing they were dangerous.

They left knowing they were.

They also left with a much clearer understanding of how much farther above them Kassandra still stood.