Evening in a narrow Saint-Vermeil academy corridor lined with trophy blades, bracket record doors, and formal portraits of sanctioned imperial couples.

Lucien waits at the end of the corridor beneath a portrait, holding an envelope sealed with blue wax.

Lucien offers the envelope carefully, avoiding contact. Esme takes it without letting their hands brush.

Esme breaks the blue wax seal and unfolds the transcript pages.

The transcript names V. Marrante as secret confidante to three rival heirs, visualized as shadowed figures behind sealed pages.

Esme tests what she can deny under the Oath. The false parts are safe; the true details are not.

Esme understands the trap: the document is false around real details, and the Oath will not let her deny the dangerous parts.

Esme confronts Lucien, assuming he wants her to lose the semi-final.

Lucien reveals the opposite demand: Esme must not lose deliberately.

Esme demands practical terms. Lucien clarifies that he wants a real fight, not theater.

Esme names Lucien's cruelty, and the Oath confirms she means it.

Lucien explains that public praise has trapped him as a decorated version of himself.

Lucien spells out the public impact he wants: Esme's victory would force powerful watchers to ask how she knows him.

Esme explains why she cannot simply win: Lucien's honest self has never been recorded for her to study.

Lucien says Esme already wrote the person he wanted to become and invites her to read him now.

Lucien demonstrates an opening step and Esme critiques it, turning their argument into a coded duel rehearsal.

Lucien quotes a known line, and Esme identifies the guard as fear made polite.

Lucien quotes the tender unpublished line. Esme's Steel Oath warns at the truth she refuses to acknowledge.

Esme refuses to confess while admitting what she can truthfully say: she hates that he remembers.

Esme tears the forged transcript in half, briefly seeming to destroy Lucien's leverage.

Lucien reveals that destroying the paper does not destroy the threat because he memorized every line.

Esme forces Lucien to state the exact terms and whether other copies exist. The Oath holds him to his answer.

Esme accepts the challenge on her own terms and leaves Lucien with the demand to fight as his unrecorded self.