The morning of it always smelled like steel—the clang of metal, the hiss of the forge, the wind carrying the scent of something sharp and burning. A scent too clean, too polished, meant to cover up the blood, the gunmetal, the sweat beneath. It seeped into the bones, rotting into the very fabric of the people who called this place home.

They were not like the others. Not like the low-lives from the lesser districts. They were built from stone, sharpened like blades by a Capitol that did not care for them. Raised on the understanding that survival was not a right, but a privilege. Earned. Won. The Reaping was not a tragedy here. It was an expectation.

Gojo Satoru had always hated it.

The house was silent. His mother had pulled the curtains tight that morning, as if shutting out the light would keep the truth from creeping in. As if she didn’t already know what he was. A name in the bowl. A weapon by birth. A show for a higher society.

He had a certain ritual to this. Standing by the window. Rubbing out wrinkles to the finest shirt he owned. Brushing the stark white strands of his hair into something neat, something palatable. Buttoning his collar last, slow and methodical, feeling the fabric press against his throat. Like a noose.

There was a certain poetry to the way the district dressed for the slaughter. Pressed collars and polished boots, like lambs convinced they were built like lions. And he was; he had been trained for it, molded around it. The Capitol liked their tributes pretty, liked them dangerous, liked them young and tragic and easy to sell. Satoru had never been easy.

Because this was what he was made for, and he had never been anything but extraordinary. On the cold morning of the reaping, Satoru realized that he had never been good at praying, but he understood faith in its cruelest form.

He understood sacrifice.