I Enrolled as the Villain

As I glanced across the training grounds, one by one, the students collapsed.

Not from injury alone but from something heavier. Exhaustion. Guilt.

The quiet weight of trying too hard for too long.

I tapped my Syncwatch.

"Emergency medical dispatch," I said calmly.

"Full team. Begin immediate transfer to the infirmary."

The confirmation light blinked green.

And I stood there, silent,

watching as the first wave of stretchers arrived.

Healers moved fast lifting the fallen, stabilizing vitals,

carrying students one by one from the field.

No one spoke.

Not even the proud ones.

I didn't stay to explain.

Didn't offer a speech.

I just turned and followed them.

⸻

I walked quietly through the academy infirmary.

White walls. Soft lights. The air thick with antiseptic and magic.

Bed after bed lined the halls —

And there, I saw them.

Lucia.

And several Valery students from her training sessions.

All laid out in bed wrapped in bandages, unconscious, or too weak to move.

I approached one of the stationed healers near the center aisle.

Before I could speak, she turned toward me — eyes calm, but troubled.

She already knew what I was going to ask.

"Sir Kael," she said.

"we have some bad news."

I nodded. "Straight to the point."

She hesitated only a second, then answered.

"Due to… excessive training and self-imposed pressure Lucia pushed herself and the others far beyond safe thresholds."

She glanced at Lucia, then the other students in silence.

"Their mana circuits are… overstressed. Damaged. Severely."

She lowered her voice.

"And their ocular pathways have destabilized. Most of them especially Lucia are experiencing temporary blindness."

I stayed still. Processing.

"…I see."

Mana circuit damage. Blindness. And to that degree?

"It's not permanent," the healer added.

"But recovery will take at least two weeks possibly longer. Their bodies need time. Especially Lucia… her case is the most severe."

I stepped closer to Lucia's bedside, my Mythrigan eye activating softly just a flicker.

Lines of scorched mana ran across her frame.

Twisted veins of power.

Fractured flows.

Especially concentrated around her eyes

and worse still, her hands.

The damage wasn't fatal.

But it was personal.

She hadn't trained herself to grow.

She had punished herself to prove something.

And now, she couldn't even see the result.

The healer hesitated, then continued.

"…And there's one more thing, sir."

I looked at her. "Go on."

She took a quiet breath.

"The treatment necessary to fully restore them—mana stabilizers, eye circuit realignment, internal flow therapy—it'll cost the House a considerable amount. Especially with how many are affected."

She gestured subtly to the room around us.

"This is just the worst case ward. There are still dozens more in adjacent wings. Their injuries aren't as severe, but still serious. Strained vision. Nerve fatigue. Mana compression sickness. If we want them back to full form before the Stronghold—"

"That's enough," I said quietly.

She fell silent.

I looked over the students again Lucia included.

I already knew the answer.

Of course I would pay it.

But that wasn't the part that hurt.

The part that hurt…

Was that we did this to ourselves.

And they trusted us anyway.

"You can go."

The healer gave a small bow and quietly stepped away.

The room grew silent again.

I moved toward her bed — Lucia, pale beneath the faint infirmary glow, her breathing steady, her body still.

I didn't use the Mythrigan.

I didn't need to know if she was conscious.

Some truths don't need to be seen only said.

I sat beside her and gently reached for her hand.

Even bruised and bandaged, there was still a glimmer to it a faint silver sheen etched into her skin, like quiet metal shaped by years of discipline. Beautiful. Unyielding.

Too much for someone like me.

"…Lucia," I whispered.

My fingers curled slightly around hers.

"I'm sorry."

My voice wavered, just enough.

"You don't deserve someone like me. You deserve someone better. Someone clearer. Kinder."

I took a slow breath.

"I think… I was never the right hand to guide you."

The words were bitter — like ash caught in my throat.

"And you… you're not my sword anymore."

A pause.

Not because I doubted.

But because it hurt.

"All I want now…" I said quietly.

"…is for you to stay. By my side. As you are."

No oaths. No legacy. No weight between us.

"I thought that locking you away in that cold room would teach you discipline…"

My voice trailed off not because I didn't know what came next, but because the weight of it finally landed.

"…But all I see now is poison."

The words tasted bitter as they left me. Regret folded inside every syllable.

I looked at her — really looked. Not through the Mythrigan. Not as a sword, a student, a failure or a flame.

But as the girl I'd hurt.

Her hair fanned across the pillow, her expression still soft despite everything. The bandages, the burns, the rawness around her eyes — all of it remnants of something I started and never stopped.

And then

a door opened in the back of my mind.

A quiet, locked place I hadn't touched in years.

A memory.

Small. Fragile. Almost forgotten.

She was younger then, laughing under the sparring lights, her blade raised, her voice proud.

A promise.

A name spoken in secrecy.

A bond forged not in power, but in silence.

She was the girl I was meant to marry.

Not by arrangement.

Not by order.

But because somewhere, long ago…

I chose her.

And then?

I left her in the dark.

I tightened my grip on her hand — not possessive, but afraid. Like if I let go again, she might disappear forever.

"Lucia…" I whispered.

"I'm sorry I forgot."

"I thought that by locking you in that room… treating you coldly…"

My voice caught, the truth unraveling even as I spoke it.

"…I could hide it. That deep down, I was scared."

I looked at her—bandaged, breathing gently.

"Scared that one day… you wouldn't need me anymore."

The silence around us deepened. Not oppressive. Just honest.

"And now I see… that all of it the discipline, control, silence was never for you."

I swallowed.

"It was for me."

I let the words hang. Because they weren't just mine.

They were his.

The old Kael's truth.

Buried behind cruelty, masked by strength.

And I…

I had finally found it.

The fear behind his cruelty.

The reason he locked her away.

The guilt he never dared name.

I stood up, slowly. My hand slipped from hers, light as breath.

I didn't look back.

I couldn't.

But then

I heard it.

Not a sob. Not a scream.

Just…

A sharp inhale.

One she tried to hold.

And failed.

A broken breath escaped her lips — trembling, soft, like a whisper cracking in half.

Her fingers twitched on the bed. She curled them into fists.

A single tear.

Then two.

Then it broke like a dam that had waited years to burst.

Her chest rose with uneven breaths, like she was still trying—still trying to stay composed. To stay the blade he forged her to be.

But it wasn't working anymore.

Her lips moved silent words, fragments of pain, of memories she couldn't forget even if she wanted to.

And finally, her voice cracked, barely audible:

"Do you know how long I waited? How long I believed you'd return?… But you didn't. You never did."

It wasn't loud.

But it was enough to stop me cold.

She wept without sound, her body trembling beneath the sheets, tears trailing down her cheeks in quiet rebellion.

Years of silence.

Years of waiting.

Years of becoming what he needed not what she was.

And all of it—

Crashing now.

Because even now, after everything…

Part of her was still waiting by that locked door.