By the fourteenth day, Shunjiro’s movements with the Devil’s Luck Dagger had changed enough that even he could feel it.

The weapon no longer dragged his attention toward itself every time he moved. It sat in his hand with a familiar weight now, blade angled close to his center as his feet carried him across the training field. He was still far from perfect. Malachi had made that clear more than once, usually right after Shunjiro did something he thought was impressive. But the awkwardness from the beginning was gone. His cuts no longer looked borrowed from another weapon. His steps no longer arrived a beat too late. His guard recovered faster after each strike, and the black aura around the dagger followed his motion with fewer breaks.

Malachi noticed the change.

He did not say so in a way that would make it easy for Shunjiro to become satisfied. He only watched from across the field, massive sword in hand, while Shunjiro moved through the opening exchange of their daily spar. The older man’s face remained calm, his posture loose, but there was a quiet sharpness in his eyes that had not been there during the first few days. At first, he had watched Shunjiro like a man evaluating raw material. Now, he watched him like a craftsman beginning to see shape in the steel.

Shunjiro stepped inside the range of Malachi’s sword and cut low.

Malachi turned the strike aside with the flat of his blade.

Shunjiro did not retreat the way he would have before. He let the force carry his wrist outward, stepped with it, and used the turn to shift toward Malachi’s shoulder. His dagger came up in a quick line, black aura clinging to the edge.

Malachi leaned just enough for the cut to pass in front of him.

“Closer,” he said.

Shunjiro clicked his tongue and moved again.

The sparring had become part of every day. After forms, after footwork, after energy control, Malachi brought out his sword and forced Shunjiro to test everything against a living opponent. He still went easy on him. Shunjiro knew that. Nothing about the difference between them had vanished. Malachi could end the fight whenever he wanted, and sometimes he proved that point with a single step that placed the giant sword against Shunjiro’s chest before Shunjiro could even finish breathing in.

But those moments did not discourage him as much anymore.

He was starting to read.

Not Malachi fully. That would have been impossible. But pieces. Small shifts in weight. The angle of the sword. The tiny difference between a real opening and one meant to tempt him into getting punished.

Shunjiro slipped under a slow horizontal sweep and drove forward with a thrust.

Malachi’s sword dropped between them.

The dagger struck the larger blade and stopped.

“Too eager,” Malachi said.

“I saw the opening.”

“You saw what I wanted you to see.”

Shunjiro pushed off the ground and backed away before Malachi could use the sword’s weight to close him in.

“I hate when you do that.”

“Then learn to hate it faster.”

“That does not make sense.”

“It will after you are hit enough times.”

Shunjiro frowned, but he did not argue. He reset his stance, let his breathing settle, and guided his spiritual energy through his grip instead of trying to force it through his arm. The black aura around the dagger steadied. That alone would have felt impossible two weeks ago. Back then, his energy moved like something that did not belong to him, appearing in unstable bursts or disappearing into absolute nothing before he could understand what had happened. Now, at least with the dagger, he could call it forward and keep it present.

Malachi saw the aura stabilize and gave the smallest nod.

It was almost nothing.

Shunjiro still caught it.

That was enough to make him step forward again.

Their spar continued until his legs burned and his wrist ached from repeated contact. He managed to graze Malachi’s sleeve once. He almost reached his side twice. He avoided three strikes that would have tagged him cleanly the week before. By the end, Shunjiro was breathing hard, sweat dampening his shirt beneath the cold Shadow Realm air, while Malachi looked as though he had merely taken a slow walk through the field.

Still, when Shunjiro finished the last exchange without losing the aura around his dagger, Malachi lowered his sword.

“That is enough.”

Shunjiro straightened, chest rising and falling.

“Already?”

“You say that now because your body has not realized how tired it is.”

“My body knows.”

“No. Your pride is arguing over the message.”

Shunjiro wanted to deny it, but his legs chose that exact moment to feel heavier. He sheathed the Devil’s Luck Dagger and rolled his shoulder.

Malachi placed his massive sword across his back, then studied Shunjiro for a quiet moment. The look was not praise exactly, but it carried something close enough that Shunjiro noticed. Malachi seemed almost satisfied, though he hid it behind the same calm expression he used for everything.

“You are becoming smooth,” Malachi said.

Shunjiro looked up.

“With the dagger?”

“With movement. The dagger is part of it, but not all of it.”

“That sounds good.”

“It is good. Do not let that make you stupid.”

“I will try not to celebrate too much.”

“You may celebrate when you can do it without opening your ribs to a counterattack.”

Shunjiro sighed.

Malachi’s mouth twitched faintly.

They left the center of the field, but Malachi did not lead him back to the mansion immediately. Instead, he stopped near the edge where the training dummies stood, most of them marked with cuts from Shunjiro’s practice. Some had shallow lines across their torsos. Others had deeper gashes from the days when his energy held cleanly through the blade. The Devil’s Luck effect had not activated again since the strike on Malachi’s shoulder, and Malachi had made certain Shunjiro understood that was a good thing. A random burst of power was not a foundation. The foundation was control.

Malachi turned to him.

“We are not adding anything new to the dagger yet.”

Shunjiro blinked.

“I was not asking.”

“You were thinking.”

“I was thinking about whether you were going to make me do more forms.”

“You were also thinking about what comes next.”

Shunjiro looked away.

Malachi was right.

Part of him did wonder. Now that the dagger felt more natural, he wanted to know what else it could do. He wanted techniques. Tricks. Ways to move faster, cut harder, hide the blade better, use the black aura for more than strengthening the edge. He knew he was getting ahead of himself, but the desire was there.

Malachi did not scold him for it.

“You can use the dagger as a weapon now,” Malachi said. “Only as a weapon. That is enough for this stage.”

“This stage?”

“Yes. You do not need special techniques yet. You need to become harder to read, harder to sense, and harder to catch. Your greatest advantage is not the dagger.”

Shunjiro looked at him.

“My energy?”

“Your absence of it.”

Malachi stepped closer, and his voice became more serious.

“Your energy shutting off at absolute zero is not a flaw if you can command it. Until now, it happened by instinct. That made it dangerous. It could hide you, but it could also interrupt you. If you learn to turn it off at will, then you gain something most fighters do not know how to deal with.”

Shunjiro touched the hilt of the dagger at his side.

“Because they cannot sense me.”

“Correct.”

“But they can still see and hear me.”

“Of course. You are not vanishing from the world. But against strong fighters, spiritual presence matters more than you understand. Most people do not hide well from anyone trained to sense energy. They crouch behind a wall and think they are hidden, while their soul is announcing itself from the other side.”

Shunjiro imagined someone hiding behind a door while their energy poured out like light beneath the frame.

“That makes normal hiding useless.”

“Against the right opponent, yes.”

Malachi’s expression remained completely serious.

“Which means you, Shunjiro Tenzai, may be uniquely qualified to become a champion at hide and seek.”

Shunjiro stared at him.

For a moment, he could not tell if Malachi was joking.

Then he saw the faintest hint of amusement in the older man’s eyes.

“You cannot say something like that with that face.”

“I just did.”

“You are one of the eight strongest people in the world.”

“And I respect the noble art of not being found.”

Shunjiro tried not to laugh, failed once under his breath, then shook his head.

Malachi motioned toward the mansion.

“We are testing whether you can hold zero spiritual energy without letting it spill out. Standing still first. Then moving. Then hiding. If you fail, I will sense you immediately.”

“And if I succeed?”

“Then I will have to find you like an ordinary man.”

“That sounds embarrassing for you.”

“It will be embarrassing for you if I find you in under a minute.”

Shunjiro straightened.

“You will not.”

Malachi gave him a look.

“We shall see.”

They entered the mansion through the rear doors. The familiar dimness wrapped around them, warmer than the field but still carrying the mansion’s old silence. Shunjiro had gotten used to the creak of the floors and the long shadows gathering along the walls, but there were still parts of the house he had not explored closely. Too many rooms. Too many corridors. Too much history trapped beneath dust and closed doors.

Malachi stopped in the center of the main hall.

“Stand there.”

Shunjiro obeyed.

“Turn it off.”

He closed his eyes.

At first, he reached for the same feeling that used to happen by accident, that strange drop where his spiritual energy vanished so completely that even Malachi had been startled. The problem was that trying to recreate it made the energy resist him. His instincts had spent years doing it without permission, but now that he wanted it, the act felt slippery.

Malachi waited.

Shunjiro breathed slowly.

He did not push his energy down. He did not crush it. That had never worked. Instead, he imagined withdrawing it from the surface, pulling every trace back behind a door and closing that door without slamming it. No leaking. No flickering. No sudden bursts.

His presence thinned.

The faint warmth of energy that usually sat beneath his skin disappeared.

For one quiet moment, Shunjiro felt as though his own body had become spiritually silent.

Malachi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Hold it.”

Shunjiro did.

The effort was strange. Maintaining energy took effort, but so did maintaining nothing. If he relaxed too much, his spiritual energy wanted to seep back out. If he focused too hard, it surged against the closed door and threatened to break through. He had to stay balanced between both.

Malachi circled him once.

Shunjiro kept breathing.

“Good,” Malachi said.

Shunjiro opened his eyes.

“Good?”

“Do not get excited.”

The warning came too late.

A thin flicker of energy slipped out.

Malachi pointed at him.

“There.”

Shunjiro cursed under his breath.

“Again.”

The next attempt lasted longer. Then longer still. Malachi had him stand in the hall until the silence around his soul stopped feeling like a trick and began feeling like a posture. After that, Malachi told him to walk.

That was harder.

The moment Shunjiro moved, energy wanted to return with the motion of his body. He took three steps before Malachi raised a hand.

“Spill.”

Shunjiro stopped.

Again.

Five steps.

“Spill.”

Again.

Across the hall.

“Better.”

By the time he could cross the main hall without his spiritual energy leaking out, his concentration felt more exhausted than his muscles had after sparring. It was not painful, but it demanded a kind of awareness he had never trained before. Every movement had to be quiet on two levels: physically and spiritually.

Finally, Malachi nodded toward the corridors.

“Now hide.”

Shunjiro looked at him.

“You are serious.”

“I have never been more serious about hide and seek in my life.”

“That is probably true.”

“You have two minutes.”

Shunjiro did not waste time.

He turned and moved down the hall, keeping his steps as soft as possible. The mansion opened around him in branching corridors, each one lined with portraits, old lamps, and doors that led into unused rooms. He passed the library, then the room where he had once found covered furniture beneath white sheets. His first instinct was to hide somewhere obvious but physically concealed. A closet. Behind curtains. Under a large desk.

Then he stopped himself.

Malachi would search like a warrior once his spiritual sense failed him. He would think through the house logically. He would check places where a person could hide quickly.

Shunjiro needed a place that held his attention without making noise.

He turned down a corridor he had only walked once before.

Near the end was a pair of tall double doors with dark metal handles. One door sat slightly open, as though the room had been visited recently or never fully closed. Shunjiro slipped inside and found himself in a wide chamber lit only by the dim gray light leaking through the windows. Dust coated the floor in a thin layer. Covered furniture lined the walls. A long, torn rug ran across the center.

At the far end of the room hung a giant painting.

Shunjiro froze for a moment.

The painting showed a kingdom beneath the black sky of the Shadow Realm.

Not a ruin. Not a dead place. A kingdom.

Tall dark towers rose from a valley of stone, their windows burning with warm gold light. Walls surrounded the city in layers. People filled the streets in tiny painted forms, gathered around markets, balconies, fountains, and roads that led toward a castle at the center. The castle itself was vast, built from black stone and silver metal, with banners hanging from its highest towers.

Shunjiro stepped closer despite himself.

Was this his kingdom?

The question came quietly.

Malachi had said he was a former king inside the Shadow Realm, but Shunjiro still knew almost nothing about what that meant. He did not know the kingdom’s name. He did not know how large it had been. He did not know whether this mansion had once belonged to that time or whether Malachi had come here after everything fell apart.

The painting made the idea of Malachi’s past feel real in a way words had not.

A kingdom had existed here.

People had lived under this dead sky.

They had walked through streets, lit windows, raised banners, and believed in a future.

Now Malachi lived alone in a mansion surrounded by mist and monsters.

Shunjiro’s throat tightened slightly.

What happened to it?

He thought of Malachi’s quiet meals, his endless library, his forge full of weapons too large for most humans to use, and the way he spoke about ruling as if it were something heavy enough to leave marks long after the crown was gone. He wondered how long Malachi had been alone. He wondered if the man had chosen isolation or if the world had left him with nothing else. He wondered what kind of pain could make one of the eight strongest people alive hide himself away inside the Shadow Realm and call it retirement.

A sound from far down the corridor pulled him back.

Malachi was searching.

Shunjiro quickly moved behind one of the covered pieces of furniture near the side of the room, where the shadows from the painting’s frame stretched across the floor. He lowered himself into a crouch and closed his eyes.

No energy.

He withdrew everything again.

The spiritual silence settled around him.

This time, he did not let his thoughts break it. The painting still lingered in his mind, but he held his presence behind that inner door, steady and still. His breathing became slow. His grip loosened from the dagger at his side. He listened.

Footsteps passed somewhere in the corridor.

They stopped.

Moved again.

A door opened.

Closed.

Another door.

Silence returned.

Shunjiro’s heart beat hard, but his energy stayed locked away.

The minutes stretched.

He expected Malachi to appear immediately. Some part of him still believed the older man would sense a flaw he could not feel himself. A tiny leak. A trace of spiritual warmth. Some mistake that would reveal him before he had truly begun.

Nothing happened.

Then the double doors opened wider.

Malachi entered the room.

Shunjiro did not move.

The older man stood in the doorway for several seconds, and Shunjiro could feel the weight of his attention sweep over the chamber. Not spiritual pressure. Malachi was not releasing power. This was something sharper and more ordinary: awareness. He was looking, listening, reading the room the way he read an opponent’s stance.

Malachi walked deeper into the chamber.

His boots moved over the dusty floor.

Shunjiro stayed behind the covered furniture, hidden in shadow, eyes lowered to avoid even the chance of reacting at the wrong moment. He could not stop his heart from beating. He could not stop his lungs from needing air. But he could keep his spiritual energy from spilling out.

Malachi paused near the painting.

Shunjiro wondered if Malachi was looking at it too. If he felt something seeing that painted kingdom. If he knew Shunjiro had stopped to stare at it.

Then Malachi turned.

His footsteps shifted closer.

Shunjiro held still.

A long silence passed.

Finally, Malachi spoke.

“You chose a dangerous room.”

Shunjiro’s eyes lifted.

Malachi stood a few steps away, looking directly at the covered furniture.

Shunjiro let out the breath he had been holding and allowed his energy to return in a faint, controlled pulse.

“You found me.”

“I found you by the dust near the door and the slight shift in that sheet.” Malachi pointed to the furniture Shunjiro was hiding behind. “Not by your energy.”

Shunjiro stood slowly.

“Really?”

Malachi looked at him.

“If I relied only on spiritual sense, I would still be walking the halls.”

He had done it.

Not by accident. Not because his energy randomly vanished in a moment of panic. Not because his body betrayed him into silence without permission.

He had chosen it.

He had turned his energy off, moved, hidden, and held it there long enough that even Malachi could not sense him.

A grin spread across his face before he could stop it.

Malachi saw it and let him have the moment.

Only for a moment.

“That is proof enough,” he said.

Shunjiro looked at him, still smiling.

“Proof enough for what?”

“That you can control the shutdown. Not perfectly. Not under every condition. But enough that it is no longer only instinct.”

Shunjiro looked down at his hands.

His energy rested there faintly now, present because he allowed it to be.

“I actually controlled it.”

“Yes.”

“I turned it off, and it stayed off.”

“Yes.”

“You could not sense me.”

“I am beginning to regret the hide-and-seek joke.”

Shunjiro laughed.

It came out freer than he expected, filling the dusty room in a way that made the old silence feel less heavy. The painting still loomed behind Malachi, showing a kingdom that no longer existed, but for once the sadness of the mansion did not swallow everything around it.

Shunjiro looked back at the painting.

“Is that…” he began, then stopped.

Malachi followed his gaze.

The older man’s expression changed so slightly that Shunjiro almost missed it. The amusement faded, replaced by something quiet and distant.

“My kingdom,” Malachi said.

Shunjiro did not ask the next question.

What happened?

It was there between them anyway.

Malachi looked at the painting for another moment before turning toward the door.

“Come. You succeeded today. Do not ruin it by making me sentimental.”

Shunjiro watched him walk away, then looked once more at the painted city beneath the black sky.

A kingdom in the Shadow Realm.

Alive.

Bright.

Gone.

One day, maybe he will tell me.

Shunjiro left the room and followed Malachi back through the mansion.

Later, after they had eaten and Malachi had dismissed him for the night, Shunjiro found his way back to the bath near his room. The warm water was ready, steam rising in soft clouds that blurred the edges of the stone walls. He set the Devil’s Luck Dagger carefully with his folded clothes, then lowered himself into the bath with a long breath.

The heat sank into his muscles.

His body ached from sparring. His mind ached from holding his energy silent for so long. Yet beneath the exhaustion was something stronger than relief.

Determination.

Shunjiro leaned back against the stone and stared at the ceiling.

“I did it today,” he said softly.

His voice sounded small in the bath chamber, but he imagined Itsuki sitting somewhere nearby, listening the way she used to when he talked too much after missions. He imagined her calm eyes, her quiet smile, the way she would probably tell him not to get ahead of himself even while being happy for him.

“I can turn it off now. My energy. Not perfectly, but I did it on purpose.” He lifted one hand from the water and watched droplets run down his fingers. “Malachi could not sense me. He actually had to find me like a normal person.”

A faint smile touched his face.

“He said I could be a champion at hide and seek. He said it seriously too. I still do not know how he says things like that without laughing.”

The smile faded into something warmer.

“He is strict,” Shunjiro continued. “Really strict. Every time I think I am doing something right, he finds another thing wrong with it. My feet, my wrist, my breathing, my timing, my energy, all of it. But he is not bad. He is helping me. More than he had to.”

Steam drifted between him and the ceiling.

Shunjiro’s hand lowered back into the water.

“I saw a painting today. His kingdom, I think. No, he said it was his kingdom. It was inside the Shadow Realm, but it looked alive. People were there. Streets, towers, lights. I wanted to ask what happened, but…” He paused. “I could not.”

The water moved softly as he shifted.

“I do not know what he lost. I do not know why he is alone here. But I think there is more pain in this mansion than I realized.”

For a while, he said nothing.

Then he closed his eyes.

“I am getting closer, Itsuki. I know I am still not ready, and I know Malachi would tell me that if he heard me say this. But I can feel it now. I am not just waiting anymore. I am learning things I could not do before. The dagger feels right. My energy is starting to listen. I can hide my presence on purpose.” His voice grew quieter but firmer. “I am going to keep going until I can come back without being taken away again.”

He opened his eyes.

The worry was still there. It would not leave him completely. But it did not control the shape of his thoughts the way it had when he first arrived.

He was tired.

He was far from home.

He still had no idea what waited for him outside Malachi’s estate.

But he was not helpless.

Shunjiro sank a little deeper into the bath, letting the heat hold his exhausted body while his resolve settled into something steady.

“I am coming back,” he whispered. “And when I do, I will be stronger.”