CHAPTER 97 — "I'M GOAT"
The VIP lounge reserved for the participants of the Crown of Ash was unusually quiet.
Beyond the enormous windows, New York stretched beneath the afternoon sky. Screens mounted along the walls replayed highlights from the tournament, including Ranmaru's victory over Blanche. Every so often, the sound of an announcer drifted through the room, followed by the distant roar of spectators from the arena.
Several participants occupied the black leather sofas. Some discussed the upcoming quarterfinals, while others watched the screens or helped themselves to the food laid out on the tables.
And right in the middle of all that activity, Zayn was asleep.
He had claimed an entire sofa for himself, lying diagonally across it with one leg hanging over the edge. His black hair was a complete mess, and one arm rested over his face. His dark uniform was slightly rumpled, but his Borealis bracelet remained securely fastened around his wrist.
He looked like someone who had forgotten that he was participating in one of the most dangerous student tournaments in the world.
A shadow fell across his face.
"Zayn."
No response.
The person standing beside the sofa waited a moment.
"Zayn."
Nothing.
She exhaled quietly.
"Zayn, I need to talk to you."
Still nothing.
She reached down and grabbed the cushion beneath his head.
"Zayn!"
"WHAT?! WHO DIED?!"
Zayn shot upright so abruptly that he nearly fell off the sofa.
His eyes darted around the room. He looked at the windows, the doors, and finally the person standing in front of him.
Nefaria Romanov.
She stared at him without saying anything.
Zayn blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then he slowly sank back against the sofa.
"Oh. It's you."
"Yes."
"I thought we were under attack."
"You were sleeping."
"Exactly. That's usually when attacks happen. Someone's asleep, somebody walks in, and suddenly everything goes wrong. I've seen enough movies to recognize the pattern."
Nefaria regarded him with her usual unreadable expression.
Her long, light-brown hair fell around her face in layered strands, framing her pale skin and sharp features. Her two eyes were different colors: one a cool, icy blue, the other a muted green. A thin scar crossed her cheek, adding to the sternness of her otherwise youthful face.
She wore a dark purple outfit with a high collar, its fabric arranged in broad folds around her neck. Against the vibrant colors of the room, her appearance seemed almost severe.
She looked at him as if she were trying to determine whether he was genuinely foolish or merely pretending.
Zayn yawned.
"So, what do you want?"
Nefaria sat in the armchair opposite him.
For a moment, she seemed unsure how to begin.
That alone caught his attention.
"Wait a second," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Did you do something?"
"No."
"Break something?"
"No."
"Accidentally destroy an Academy building?"
"Zayn."
"Okay, okay. I'm listening."
Her expression grew more serious.
"Loyd wants to kill you."
Zayn stared at her.
For a second, he said nothing.
Then he shrugged.
"Oh."
Nefaria's eyebrows moved slightly.
"Did you understand what I just said?"
"Yes."
"Loyd wants you dead, Zayn."
"I heard you the first time."
"He wasn't joking."
"Neither am I."
She studied him, trying to understand whether he was taking the threat seriously at all.
"Do you know what he said after Kira's fight with Aku?"
Zayn's smile faded a little.
He knew what had happened. Kira remained under medical supervision, and no one had been able to give a definitive answer about whether he would recover. The uncertainty surrounding his condition had cast a shadow over the tournament.
Loyd was Kira's friend.
If Kira died, Loyd would have every reason to hate Aku.
But Zayn?
He hadn't even participated in that fight.
"What did he say?" Zayn asked, despite already having heard some of the story.
"That he'll reduce you, Aku, and anyone who gets in his way to atoms of dust."
Zayn rubbed his eyes.
"Well, if he wants to talk to me, he can come find me."
"You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly. Some guy is angry and wants to fight me."
"He doesn't merely want to fight you. He wants to kill you."
Nefaria's voice rose slightly.
A few participants across the room glanced in their direction before returning to their conversations.
Zayn looked at her more carefully.
She wasn't frightened for herself. That much was obvious.
She was worried about him.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked.
"My incredible beauty?"
"Your inability to recognize danger."
"That's not true. I recognize danger perfectly well. I simply choose not to respect it."
"That's not a good thing."
"Depends on who you ask."
She leaned forward.
"Loyd is dangerous. I've watched him. When he decides that he wants something, everything else becomes secondary."
"Sounds like me when I want chocolate cake."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. You've never seen what I'm capable of doing for chocolate cake."
Nefaria didn't smile.
Zayn realized that his joke had failed.
He straightened and crossed his arms.
"Fine. Seriously, why do you think he can beat me?"
"That's not what I said."
"Then why are you worried?"
"Because he's convinced he can kill you."
Zayn burst out laughing.
It was loud, spontaneous, and completely at odds with the conversation.
"Wait. Wait a second."
He sat up and pointed at himself with his thumb.
"He genuinely thinks he can kill me?"
"Yes."
"Me?"
"Yes, Zayn."
"Zayn from the Academy?"
"I know who you are."
He stood up, ran a hand through his messy black hair, and adopted the exaggerated posture of someone addressing an enormous audience.
"Nefaria, my dear, there's something you should have understood from the moment we met."
She watched him without moving.
Zayn lifted his chin.
His grin widened.
"BECAUSE I'M GOAT!"
His voice rang through the lounge.
But something strange happened.
At the exact moment he said GOAT, another voice overlapped with his own.
A much deeper voice.
It was so low and powerful that it seemed to resonate from somewhere far beneath the surface of his consciousness.
"I'M GOAT."
Both voices spoke the same words at precisely the same time.
Yet the second voice didn't sound human.
It carried a weight that Zayn's ordinary voice could never have produced, a strange resonance that seemed to make the very air around them tremble.
Zayn's grin vanished.
He lowered his head.
"…Huh?"
Silence fell over the lounge.
Nefaria had gone completely still.
Her mismatched eyes were fixed on Zayn. For the first time since he had met her, her expression revealed something she couldn't entirely conceal.
Fear.
Not panic. Not terror that left her helpless.
Something more instinctive.
For one brief moment, she had felt as though someone else were standing in front of her.
Something that had nothing to do with the loud, reckless boy who slept on sofas and celebrated his victories by declaring himself the greatest person alive.
Then the sensation disappeared.
Zayn turned toward her.
"Did you hear that?"
Nefaria didn't answer immediately.
"Nefaria?"
"Yes."
"You heard my voice, right?"
"I heard two voices."
Zayn froze.
"Two?"
"Yours… and another one."
He instinctively touched his throat.
"What was that?"
He tried to reproduce the sound.
"I'm the GOAT."
Only his normal voice emerged.
He tried again, louder.
"I'M THE GOAT!"
Nothing happened.
He stopped.
For once, his expression became genuinely serious.
A part of him was still searching for some ridiculous explanation. Perhaps he had spoken strangely because he had just woken up. Perhaps he had imagined it.
But Nefaria had heard it too.
And the fear in her eyes was not something he could easily dismiss.
"Maybe my vocal cords are still asleep," he muttered.
Nefaria stood up.
"That wasn't normal."
"Thank you. I noticed."
"The second voice sounded different from yours. It felt…"
She stopped.
Zayn looked at her.
"It felt like what?"
Nefaria struggled to find the right words.
She had been created in a laboratory to become a weapon. Her body possessed abilities far beyond those of an ordinary human. She had witnessed extraordinary powers and encountered individuals capable of feats that should have been impossible.
Yet that brief, inexplicable voice had made her instincts tell her to step away.
She couldn't explain why.
"It felt much more powerful than you," she finally said.
Zayn didn't respond.
Under normal circumstances, he would have protested immediately. He would have declared himself the strongest, the greatest, the most talented, and probably the most handsome person in the room.
This time, he remained silent.
He looked down at Borealis.
The bracelet emitted no light. No holographic selector appeared above his wrist. No Primal had been activated.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
That was what made it so unsettling.
"Maybe it's nothing," he said at last.
"Do you believe that?"
"No."
"Then why say it?"
"Because I don't know what it was, and I refuse to start my day with an existential crisis."
"You just woke up."
"And it's already been a terrible day."
Nefaria stared at him.
"Do you ever take anything seriously?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"When I'm forced to."
Zayn picked up his jacket and draped it over his shoulders.
"As for Loyd, nothing changes. If he comes looking for me, I'll deal with him. But I'm not going to spend my time being afraid of someone just because he decided to hate me."
"And if your confidence gets you killed?"
Zayn stopped.
He turned to face her.
For once, his smile was smaller, less theatrical.
"Then I'll have made a mistake."
He paused.
"But I'm not going to live as though I've already lost."
Nefaria said nothing.
She understood the logic, even if she wasn't sure she agreed with it.
She knew what it meant to be created as a weapon. She knew that a person could be dangerous without even understanding what made them different from everyone else.
And for the first time, she wondered whether Zayn was truly as reckless as he appeared.
Or whether there was something inside him that he had yet to discover.
Something that had just spoken in his place.
Several corridors away, Yojuro Harihiho was walking alone.
The hallway was nearly deserted. Cold light spilled from lamps mounted along the dark walls, illuminating the polished floor. Behind some of the doors, muffled conversations and the sounds of television broadcasts drifted into the corridor.
Yojuro walked with his hands in his pockets.
His expression was calm, but his mind was occupied.
Ranmaru's fight with Blanche kept returning to his thoughts. He had watched his friend use the Eye of Orientation to anticipate attacks and materialize his imagination into green constructs.
Ranmaru had won.
That was good.
But Yojuro knew his friend's limitations. He understood how exhausting the Eye of Orientation could be. He had noticed the blood beneath Ranmaru's nose, too.
His friend had reached the quarterfinals.
The question was whether he would be in good enough condition to fight when the time came.
Yojuro exhaled quietly.
"You're the Harihiho from the Academy, then?"
The voice came from the end of the corridor.
Yojuro stopped.
A boy stood beside an open doorway, his arms crossed.
Kiran.
He carried himself with an intimidating confidence that made the empty hallway seem smaller. His expression was serious, and his eyes remained fixed on Yojuro with an intensity that suggested he had already formed an opinion about him.
Kiran stepped forward.
"Yojuro Harihiho," he repeated. "The one who defeated Ranmaru."
Yojuro looked at him calmly.
"Yes."
Kiran waited for more.
Nothing came.
"That's it?"
"Did you want me to say something else?"
"I thought you'd have something to say about your victory."
"You weren't there."
"Everyone's talking about it."
"Then you already know the result."
Kiran raised his eyebrows.
"You're not much of a talker."
"I'm told that often."
"And you're always this calm?"
"Most of the time."
Kiran gave him a brief, almost amused smile.
"I expected someone more impressive."
Yojuro didn't react.
"Sorry to disappoint you."
Kiran blinked.
"Did you just apologize?"
"You seemed disappointed."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Kiran laughed briefly.
"All right. I think I understand you a little better now."
He moved a few steps to the side, never taking his eyes off Yojuro.
"Your name carries weight. The Harihiho family isn't ordinary. Your clan possesses abilities that other people can't simply reproduce by training harder."
Yojuro's expression barely changed.
"You seem very interested in other people's families."
"I'm interested in people who could become obstacles."
"And I'm an obstacle?"
"Maybe."
Kiran said it casually, but his gaze remained serious.
"I don't like unknown variables," he continued. "I prefer to know who I might face. What they can do. What they're hiding. What makes them dangerous."
"Then watch the matches."
"I do."
"Then you already have some of your answers."
Kiran smiled again.
"You dodge every question?"
"Only the ones I don't feel like answering."
"And what if I asked you to fight me?"
Yojuro considered him for a moment.
"I'd ask why."
"To see if your reputation is deserved."
"You can wait until we meet in the arena."
"What if I don't want to wait?"
Yojuro raised his chin slightly.
His composure remained intact, but something in his gaze grew colder.
"Then you'll have to learn some patience."
Kiran stared at him.
The two boys stood motionless for several seconds.
Then Kiran laughed again.
"You know what? I think I'm going to like you, Harihiho."
"That's fortunate. It would be awkward if the feeling weren't mutual."
"You do have a sense of humor."
"Occasionally."
Kiran turned toward the doorway, but stopped before entering.
"One more thing."
Yojuro waited.
"I don't care much for reputations. A famous name doesn't guarantee victory. A hereditary miracle doesn't guarantee victory. Even the strongest fighter can fall when they face someone who refuses to back down."
He paused.
"Remember that."
Yojuro met his gaze.
"I will."
"Good."
Kiran disappeared through the doorway.
Yojuro remained in the corridor for a moment before continuing on his way.
He hadn't sensed an immediate threat from Kiran. Nevertheless, something about the boy stood out.
Kiran wasn't trying to impress people for the sake of it.
He was assessing them.
Observing them.
And his confidence didn't seem entirely blind.
Yojuro turned the corner.
He was about to leave when he heard quick footsteps behind him.
"Harihiho!"
He stopped again.
Kiran had returned.
This time, his expression had changed. His smile was gone, replaced by an unusual seriousness.
"I forgot to tell you something."
Yojuro looked at him.
"What?"
Kiran approached until his voice would no longer carry to the other rooms.
"If you reach the quarterfinals, don't assume the fights will become easier just because there are fewer participants."
"I don't assume that."
"Good."
Kiran lowered his voice.
"Some people here aren't fighting for a trophy. Some want to prove something. Others want revenge. And there are people who no longer care what happens to them after the tournament."
Yojuro studied his face.
"Are you talking about Loyd?"
Kiran didn't answer immediately.
His silence was enough.
"He's angry," he eventually said. "And when Loyd gets angry, it's difficult to make him listen to reason."
"Are you his friend?"
Kiran's expression remained unreadable.
"I know enough people in this tournament to recognize when someone should be taken seriously."
"That's not an answer."
"No. It isn't."
He turned away again.
"See you around, Harihiho."
Kiran walked off, leaving Yojuro alone with his thoughts.
This time, Yojuro didn't immediately resume walking.
He thought about Zayn.
His arrogance. His recklessness. His habit of treating threats as invitations.
He hoped his friend wouldn't do anything stupid.
Unfortunately, he already knew the answer.
Zayn would do exactly as he pleased.
And somewhere in the VIP lounge, the boy might have just discovered that he wasn't the only one capable of speaking through his voice.
Yojuro didn't know that yet.
Nobody did.
But the Crown of Ash had just crossed a threshold that the tournament results could never reveal.
The fights weren't merely exposing the participants' abilities.
They were beginning to reveal what lay behind them.
And some things might have been better left silent.