Skullz and Roses - Year Two

I barely made it through my first year at the Hunter Academy. Surviving it took everything I had, and I didn't come out clean. I came out tired, scarred, and still standing. That was supposed to count for something.

Second year doesn't give me time to recover.

What should have been a quiet stretch of healing and rebuilding turns sideways fast. The Academy keeps its lights bright and its halls spotless, but beneath all that steel and polish, the Guild is already moving pieces. Decisions get made without me. Lines get drawn I didn't agree to. And I learn, real quick, how little say I have over my own life, my body, or what I'm being prepared for.

Old power structures start flexing again. Politics bleed into everything. People become leverage. Problems get handed down instead of dealt with. I'm expected to follow orders, keep my head down, and carry the weight without asking why.

The pressure builds until there's nowhere left to stand that isn't unstable. Inside the Academy. Outside it too. I'm pushed harder than last year, not just to fight, but to endure whatever comes next without breaking apart.

Year Two isn't about proving myself.

It's about finding out what parts of me the system is willing to sacrifice, and what's left if I refuse to let it.