The fangs came down slowly.

Raizen watched them fall. Curved, sharp, close enough that he could see his own reflection in the slick white surface.

Every single one of his breaths scraped against the old rib fracture.

Somewhere at the edge of the circle world, a voice cut through.

"Show me"

Mina's voice.

"Show me, Raizen... How strong you really are."

She didn't shout.

She didn't sound worried.

It was a simple request.

She knew the truth.

Raizen's lips moved before anything else did.

A small breath slipped out of him, almost a laugh.

He just smiled.

It was tiny. Wrong for the situation.

The wolf didn't understand smiles.

It understood motion.

Its jaws dropped lower.

Raizen moved his right hand.

His fingers slid off the wood floor and found the hilt at his hip.

But he didn't yank the sword free.

Pinned under the beast's weight, ribs screaming, the breath barely in his lungs, he pushed with his thumb and drew the blade a palm's width out of its sheath.

Steel showed.

The air changed.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the exposed edge lit up.

It was not a loud surge. No explosion, no roar.

The lightning was smaller than that. Way denser. Way more powerful.

A tight, condensed spark crawled at the bit of metal like a living thing. Gold light ran in a thin line, too bright for how little there was of it, clinging to the blade as if the world outside the sheath was not ready to hold it.

Raizen felt Eon rush up his arm like fire. His muscles wanted to tense, to follow it, to let it all out.

But he didn't.

He held the sword exactly where it was. Controlled. Powerful.

The beast saw the light.

It saw the way the metal glowed. Heard the sharp, strange buzz of that spark.

It felt the pressure of Eon, not like the chaotic, familiar pattern its master gave it, but like a knot of lightning pointed straight at its life.

Predators didn't have words for things like that.

They just didn't need them.

Something in the beast's body screamed one thing.

Danger.

Its pupils suddenly widened, orange irises covered by black.

The growl in its throat broke.

The killing bite never landed.

The wolf's head jerked back. Its jaws snapped shut just short of Raizen's throat.

For a fraction of a second, it froze.

Then it moved like something had grabbed its spine and yanked.

The front paw near Raizen's head tore free of the wood. The other paw left from next to the hip.

The beast landed a few steps away, paws spread, fur bristling. Its chest heaved. A high, broken whimper came from its throat.

Raku threw his hands out.

"What are you doing!? Finish him!"

The wolf did not listen.

Its body stayed low, ready to run. Its eyes didn't even flick back to its master.

They stayed locked on Raizen, on the tiny spark still showing at his blade.

The circle had gone beyond quiet.

It felt like sound had been pulled out of the air.

Saffi didn't move.

Her chest moved too fast. She had been halfway to screaming at him a second ago. Now her voice was gone. Her eyes were wide, fixed on him.

He was just laying there, still on his back, hair messy, shirt torn, bloodgathering at scratches

And smiling.

The Eon spark along the blade danced once more, then sank inward as Raizen let the sword slide back into its sheath.

The light vanished.

He brought his hand away from the hilt and planted it on the wood. Slowly, he pushed himself upright. His ribs protested. His lungs burned. He sat up anyway, then used his knees to find his feet.

The wolf flinched when he rose, muscles twitching like it expected Raizen to leap at it.

Raizen stood in the middle of the circle and brushed a smear of dust and blood off his chin with the back of his hand.

He looked at Raku.

Not with triumph or pride. Not with anger.

Just with that same calm he had even when the fangs were a breath away.

Raku stared back.

His mouth was open. No words came out at first. The Eon around his hand thinned and flickered, forgotten.

"What..." He swallowed, then tried again. "What did you just do?"

Raizen blinked.

He could still feel the echo of the spark in his fingers, like pins and needles under his skin.

"Nothing" he said.

It wasn't true.

He controlled his Eon spark. A lot of energy, but very concentrated.

Not all his strength - far from it. But enough for the beast to feel what would happen if he let go.

The senior squad around the circle shifted.

"He made it scared" someone chuckled.

"... The blade was barely drawn... How much is he holding back?"

The questions stacked on each other in low, fast voices.

Instructors at a nearby platform had turned all the way toward the ring now.

Raizen started walking towards Saffi and Mina.

Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Saffi grabbed his arm, firmly.

Before "Are you insane!?" Saffi snapped. "You let it pin you and then you... you just..."

She didn't have words for what she had seen.

Raizen looked down at her grip. Her hands were cold.

"I wasn't going to die" he laughed.

"That's not the point" she hissed, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Her eyes searched his face. "You're still hurt. You could barely breathe and you still wait until its teeth are right there to do something?"

He thought about that.

The truth was simple.

"It wouldn't have been scared if I used it earlier" he answered calmly.

She knew he was right, so she let go of his arm.

Then she took a step back, eyes still on him, but a different look inside.

Not disgust. Not rejection.

Just a new, sharp awareness of the line between them. Of how easily he could have turned that same spark on anything else in that circle if he had wanted to.

She felt a bit... Scared.

Mina walked in.

She stepped into the circle with the same unhurried pace she had walked the halls with, boots quiet on the scarred wood. The seniors around parted for her without needing to be told.

The wolf made a low, uncertain sound when she came close to it.

She didn't even spare it a glance.

Her eyes were on Raizen.

Blood on his cheek. Shirt torn at the collar. A wide smile at the corner of his mouth. Breathing too shallow. But standing straight anyway.

She already got used to this image of Raizen... All of the time in the Rust room made her clearly remember. Standing straight, gently smiling even when he looked like he was about to enter a coma.

She smiled when she remembered how he still brought an ice pouch for Hikari, even when his face was swollen from too many hits taken.

Sometimes, she even had to kindly remind him not to act like a human shield, protecting nothing. He didn't even care, and continued to parry.

She stopped a few steps in front of him.

"Good" she saidz trying to match Raizen's smile.

"You can control it wonderfully... Not gonna lie, Raizen... You surprised me."

Control.

Not strength. Not potential. Not luck.

Back in the Rust Room, he was wild and contisntly pushing his limits, making even Kori raise her eyebrows.

Maybe that was the only way he knew how to move forward. Perfecting. But this wasn't polishing.

This was a boy, steps away from death, choosing not to unleash everything and trusting a thread of power instead.

Raizen huffed a breath. "Heh... Still working on it"

"Same usual line, I see..." Mina replied, a spark of humour in her eyes. Her gaze flicked to the trembling wolf at the edge of the circle.

"You just scared one of Ukai's better student's beasts without taking a step. If Raku wants to keep that thing loyal, he is going to have to drill some order into it."

Raku stiffened.

His jaw clenched. His eyes flicked from Raizen, to the sword at his hip, to his own beast that refused to come any closer.

"It slipped" he said. Too loud, like he was talking to everyone at once. "It misread the Eon output. That is all. I'll fix it."

No one argued. But everyone thought: "Tell me You're losing without telling me you're losing"

The silence that followed his words said enough.

One of the senior girls - the one who had recognised Raizen from the mountain report - stared at him with a long, thoughtful look.

"He let it win" she said quietly. "And still came out on top."

But Raizen didn't care that he won.

His chest ached. His head buzzed. And the thing that pissed him off the most, he was wearing his good shirt!

He didn't draw his swords. He didn't move the way he did in the Arena, some time ago.

He just showed his teeth without opening his mouth completely.

That was enough.

"That is enough spectacle for today" Mina said. Her tone had shifted back to the professional one she had used at the gate.

"Raku, you better go review the footage and make up with your puppy. You clearly have blind spots."

"Raise and Saffi, I apologize for that, but come with me! We still have a lot to show."

Her hand flicked toward the edge of the circle.

The crowd began to loosen. Students started to talk again, train again. But the sound didn't feel like normal training noise anymorem

It sounded like ambition, like seeing a danger and preparing for it.

Raizen started walking forward. Saffi matched his pace to his side, like she was ready to grab his arm if he swayed.

He was ready to tell her that he was fine, that he he had been through worse, all those excuses that somehow still worked.

But he decided not to say anything.

Because the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Slow, measured clapping rolled across the training ground.

It did not belong to any of the students. It did not belong to Mina, or the instructors, or Raku.

The sound came from behind an arch that led back into the main building.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

Each one clear. Unhurried. Like whoever was making it had all the time in the world.

Conversations died mid sentence.

Students turned, bodies instinctively shifting to make a path without being asked. It wasn't an order that made them step aside. It was something older - the respect that came with recognising a rank.

A tall figure walked through the space they left.

He wore a long robe the color of deep water at night, dark blue cloth that brushed the wood when he moved. His hair was the same shade, straight and tied back, catching the light in faint waves.

He walked like the clapping sounded - slow, sure, not needing to hurry to be heard.

One of his eyes was an ordinary, sharp yellow.

The other was not.

Where the left eye should have matched, there was instead a pale, ghostly cyan. The iris glowed faintly, lines moving inside it.

A Chasmis.

Somehing like Kori's.

The clapping came from his hands. He did not speak. He just walked forward, each clap echoing against the training platforms and the living ceiling of branches above, rolling through the sudden hush.

Mina's shoulders went a fraction tighter.

Saffi swallowed and moved a tiny bit closer to Raizen without thinking.

Raku shut his mouth and lowered his hand, not responding to his other classmate's questions.

The man with the blue eye stepped to the edge of the circle and stopped. His clapping slowed.

Clap.

Clap.

The clapping suddenly stopped.

The man did not lower his hands.

That ghost-lit eye fixed on Raizen sharp, searching, dissecting like it was looking past bone and muscle...

As if the inhuman eye was staring straight at his soul.

The Chasmis pulsed once.

A thin smile curved his mouth.

Not friendly.

Not cruel either.

Just... Interest.

Like he had finally found what he came looking for.

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