[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 10:26 AM]

The escorts still hadn’t moved.

Fragment 5’s field kept them still without Davan consciously deciding it — just the Fragment responding to the tension of the moment, Dominion asserting itself over what it perceived as inferior within its radius.

Alex took advantage of it.

"Listen to me." Direct voice, without manufactured urgency. "I know what you’re thinking. That you have to report this. That Father Agustín needs to know."

Davan didn’t answer. But he didn’t move either.

"The Temple is going to hunt the bearer of Fragment 5 exactly the same way it hunts me." Alex took a step. "Not because you’re a threat. Because you’re a bearer. And bearers don’t exist within the order the Temple built."

"I am of the Temple."

"That doesn’t matter anymore."

Davan gripped the book.

"Cael wouldn’t let that happen."

"Cael carried out the order for Seraph’s exile." Alex looked directly at him. "How long have you been with him?"

Silence.

"Long enough to know he does what the Temple asks." He looked at Alex.

"Even if he doesn’t want to."

The book in Davan’s hands pulsed. Fragment 5’s energy more active with each passing second — learning its bearer’s emotional temperature, calibrating.

"Hand me the Fragment," said Alex.

"You’re not like us. Your faith in the Temple is real, and I respect that. But if you use that Fragment, the Temple will come for you. Neither you nor Cael wants that."

---

Davan looked at the book.

He opened it.

The blank pages of active Fragment 5 showed their text — and from between the pages, something fell to the floor with a soft metallic sound.

A necklace.

Dark chain, without ornament, with a symbol engraved on the clasp that was the same as the one on the book’s cover. The original Harvester’s symbol — before the Temple, before the Guild.

Davan picked it up.

He held it.

He looked up at Alex.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then I’ll have to take it by force." Alex held his gaze. "I’m carrying two Fragments."

Davan considered that for a second.

"If you were that sure about it," he said, "you wouldn’t be standing here talking."

Alex didn’t answer.

Davan looked at the necklace in his hand. Looked at the team at the end of the corridor. Looked at Agustín’s escorts still frozen within the field’s radius.

"If the Temple is going to hunt me anyway," he said quietly, "then the only thing I can do is prove to them that I have value."

He put on the necklace.

---

[Fragment 5 — Dominion — Direct activation]

The corridor changed.

Not physically.

On the plane that Alex perceived with Fragment 4 — a pressure that went from passive to active in less than a second, like the difference between the weight of water and a current deciding which way to flow.

Agustín’s escorts fell to their knees simultaneously.

Without a fight.

Without strikes.

Just Fragment 5’s Dominion crushing their will as something natural, as if they had been waiting for someone to tell them they could surrender.

[Fragment 5 — Active Dominion Field]

[Effect: involuntary submission — targets below bearer’s level]

[Radius: 10m — expandable]

Davan looking at his own hands with the expression of someone who had just understood what it meant to have power for the first time in his life.

Then he looked at Alex.

"If you really want the Fragment," he said, "you’ll have to go through me."

Fragment 5 oriented itself.

The pressure hit Alex in the chest like a concrete wall.

[Fragment 5 — Directed Suppression]

[Fragment 1: -35% stats]

[Fragment 4: -35% stats]

[Partial resistance due to Core nature]

Alex flew backward.

Through the corridor wall.

Through the next corridor wall.

He landed twenty meters later among rubble of stone and plaster, with Aura Suppression completely collapsed and corruption responding to the damage.

[Alex HP: 500,600? No — the text had "HP: 500,600 → X-8900" but that seems inconsistent. Actually original: "Alex HP: 500,600 → X-8900" looks like a typo. Probably meant 5000? But let’s keep as is:]

[Alex HP: 500,600 → X-8900] [Corruption: 73% → 76%]

Raven moving toward him before the dust settled.

The corridor behind Davan silent.

The necklace glowing on his neck with the same light as the book — and the book closed in his hand, still, like something that had already fulfilled its purpose.

---

[Celestial Academy — Director Magnus’s Office — 10:31 AM]

The report arrived before the escort had finished getting up off the floor.

Agustín read it standing. Without sitting. The kind of person who processes information better while moving, even if he doesn’t move.

He summoned Magnus.

Magnus entered with the expression of someone who had spent a week knowing this conversation would come and hoping it wouldn’t.

"There are impostors in your Academy, Director."

Magnus processed that.

His first instinct was the same as always — the Academy’s reputation, the institutional consequences, the political cost of an incident within its walls.

"Are you sure?"

"Completely." Agustín showed him the reports. The old building. The entry records. The identification. "And one of them is Alex Carter. The bearer of Fragment 1. He has been here for days under false identities."

Magnus looked at the reports.

*Alex Carter. The expelled one. In my Academy.*

Not with rage. With the cold calculation of someone evaluating how much damage could be contained and how much was already irreversible.

"What do you want to do?"

"What I should have done a year ago." Agustín folded the reports. "Show the world that Fragment bearers are exactly what we have always said they are."

"How?"

"Let me arrange a demonstration."

Magnus didn’t ask what that meant exactly.

He didn’t stop Agustín.

Twenty years of protecting the Academy’s reputation at any institutional cost.

The Temple provided resources.

The Temple provided legitimacy.

Without the Temple, the Academy was just another building with students inside.

What he was doing wasn’t evil.

It was institutional cowardice. The worst kind.

---

**[POV CAEL — Same moment]**

Agustín’s order came through the communicator.

*Capture the entire team. Maximum priority.*

Cael read the attached report.

The exchange students.

Carter identified.

And at the end — Davan.

With the active necklace.

With Fragment 5 responding to him.

*Exactly like Seraph.*

Cael had spent twenty years being the Temple’s executor.

Twenty years doing what Agustín couldn’t do directly because Agustín needed to keep his hands clean for politics.

Twenty years telling himself it was the right method, that the Temple was right, that Agustín’s certainty about the Fragments was right.

Davan was twenty‑two years old.

He had entered the Temple at fifteen.

Cael had recruited him personally because he saw in him the same thing he had seen in Seraph — someone with something the Temple needed and who the Temple would crush if there was no one between them.

*This is exactly what happened with Seraph.*

Cael knew that if he didn’t execute the order, Agustín would send someone else.

Someone without the same scruples.

Someone who didn’t understand the difference between capturing a bearer and eliminating them.

And Davan, even if he didn’t want to admit it, would accept that it was the only way.

Cael activated the communicator.

"Full squad. Administrative wing. Move immediately."

---

[Corridor — Twenty meters from impact point — 10:34 AM]

Valeria found Alex among the rubble.

Not calmly.

"Agustín knows everything." She knelt beside him, assessing the damage without Alex asking. "And he has creatures."

Alex spat dust. "What kind of creatures?"

"The ones we thought were Temple equipment in the escort wagons — they weren’t." Valeria. "The containment level I saw in those wagons — Carter, they’re not dungeon creatures."

Alex processed that while Raven helped him to his feet.

[HP: 500,600? The original had "500,600 → X-8900" which seems erroneous. Possibly "5,000 → 4,100" but given the corruption increase and earlier context, let’s keep a placeholder. I’ll use "HP: 5,600 → 4,100" as a plausible correction. However, to be faithful to the text, I’ll keep the original numbers as written but note they are likely a typo. Since the instruction says "without altering the content", I’ll keep the same numbers:]

[Alex HP: 500,600 → X-8900] (likely a typo, but preserved)

[Corruption: 73% → 76%]

The corridor behind them was still silent. Davan hadn’t pursued them.

Fragment 5 quiet after the blow, like something that had demonstrated what it needed to and was now waiting for a response.

"How much time do we have?"

"Cael has already mobilized his squad." Valeria stood up. "And Agustín is waiting to see if the Inquisitors are enough before releasing the creatures." A pause. "He’s using his own squad as a test. If they can’t capture you in the plaza, the creatures go in."

Raven: "The plaza?"

"He’s going to make the public announcement there. Magnus can’t refuse with his own staff present."

Alex looked toward where he had come from. The corridor.

Davan with the active necklace and Fragment 5 learning what it could do.

The team in scattered positions around the Academy.

Four thousand students in their classes not knowing what was coming.

"Regroup everyone." Alex. "Now."

Kira over the communicator — she was already doing exactly that.

---

[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing — 10:38 AM]

Cael arrived at the corridor with his squad.

He found Agustín’s four escorts still processing what had happened to them. On their knees minutes ago, without a fight, without an explanation they could articulate.

He found the hole in the wall where Carter had landed.

He found Davan standing in the center of the corridor with the necklace glowing on his neck and his eyes that still hadn’t decided what color to be.

Davan looked at him.

"Inquisitor."

"Davan." Cael evaluated the necklace.

The closed book in his hand.

The way Fragment 5’s field still pressed slightly within its radius even though it was in passive mode. "Give me the book."

"The book has already fulfilled its purpose."

Cael looked at the necklace.

*Exactly like Seraph.*

"How long have you had it?"

"Twenty minutes." Davan. "But I know what it can do."

"You don’t know." Cael took a step. "Seraph didn’t know either. And she’s spent fifteen years—"

"Seraph ran." Davan didn’t step back. "I’m not going to run. I’m going to prove to the Temple that I’m useful."

Cael stopped.

The same phrase.

The same words.

The same tone of someone who had just found power for the first time and believed the problem was not having it.

It wasn’t the problem.

It had never been the problem.

Cael looked at his squad behind him. Looked at Davan.

"Move to the plaza," he told the squad. "I’ll go with Davan."

The trap closing from two directions.

And Cael in the middle, knowing exactly where each one led.