On the twenty-first day, Malachi stopped treating Shunjiro like a beginner.

He was still careful. The difference between them remained so wide that even Shunjiro’s growing confidence could not mistake it for equality. Malachi’s sword could have ended their sparring matches whenever he wanted, and every time he moved with even a little more intent, Shunjiro felt the gap between a rising fighter and one of the eight strongest people in the world. But the restraint had changed. During the first days of their duels, Malachi had moved like a teacher placing obstacles in front of a student. Now, he moved like a warrior beginning to demand answers.

Shunjiro felt the change in every exchange.

His own growth had not slowed. If anything, the daily pressure had sharpened him faster than he thought possible. The Devil’s Luck Dagger no longer felt like a strange weapon he was learning how to hold. It moved with him now, low when he needed speed, high when he needed to guard, close to his center when Malachi’s sword threatened to punish any wasted motion. His black aura followed the blade with steadier control, and while he still could not claim mastery, he knew the Shunjiro who had arrived in the Shadow Realm would not have lasted ten seconds against the version of himself standing in that field now.

If the guild hall in Radiance measured him again, C-rank would no longer fit.

He could feel that much.

He was somewhere higher now, somewhere in the space between A and S, not because of the dagger’s random bursts of luck, but because his body, energy, and instincts had finally begun moving in the same direction.

Malachi saw it too.

He did not say it aloud. He did not praise Shunjiro in a way that would make the boy comfortable. But there was a quiet pride in the way he watched him now, a hidden satisfaction beneath the sternness. Shunjiro had become worth shaping. Not merely worth protecting. Not merely worth sending back to Radiance alive. Worth training seriously.

That was why Malachi raised the standard again.

The giant sword came down faster than usual.

Shunjiro barely moved in time. The blade struck the ground where his shoulder had been a heartbeat before, splitting the dirt with a heavy crack that sent dust across his boots. He twisted around the impact, drove forward, and cut toward Malachi’s ribs. The dagger’s black aura sharpened along the edge.

Malachi shifted his sword with one hand.

The larger blade caught the dagger and forced it aside.

Shunjiro used the pressure instead of resisting it. He let his wrist turn with the contact, stepped across Malachi’s line, and tried to bring the dagger back toward the older man’s chest. It was smoother than it would have been a week ago. Faster too.

Malachi still saw it coming.

His knee moved first.

Shunjiro caught the faint shift and pulled back before the blow could drive into his stomach. The movement saved him from taking the full hit, but it threw his balance off just enough for Malachi’s sword to return from the side.

The edge flashed.

Pain tore across Shunjiro’s left bicep.

Blood sprayed into the air.

For a fraction of a second, his body wanted to stop.

The cut burned hot and immediate, a sharp line of pain that ran through his arm and made his fingers tighten around the dagger’s hilt. Blood rolled down his skin, warm against the cold air, and splattered across the dirt beneath him. It was not the worst wound he had ever taken. After everything in the Coastal Kingdom, after Suzu, after the moment he had been certain he was dying, a cut across his arm was not enough to break him.

But it hurt.

It hurt enough that instinct screamed at him to look down.

Shunjiro did not.

He knew what Malachi would say if he stopped. A real battle would not pause because he had been injured. An enemy would not step back politely and let him gather himself. Pain changed the fight, but it did not end it. If he was going to return to Radiance and face people like Tsubasa, Renjiro, or whatever else the world had waiting, then he needed to learn how to move while wounded.

So he moved.

Malachi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Shunjiro stepped back only far enough to keep the sword from following through, then cut inward with the dagger to force space. His left arm throbbed, and each movement sent another pulse of pain through the wound, but he adjusted around it. His left side did not lift as easily now. His balance wanted to favor the injured arm. He corrected his stance, kept the dagger ready, and let his breathing settle before the next exchange arrived.

Malachi came again.

The sword moved in a diagonal line meant to drive Shunjiro backward. Instead of retreating straight, Shunjiro stepped toward the weaker side of the swing, low and fast, letting the edge pass above him. Blood slipped down his arm and flicked from his elbow as he turned. He felt the pain try to pull his focus apart.

He refused to give it that much power.

The dagger flashed toward Malachi’s thigh.

Malachi moved his leg back and brought the sword down between them.

Shunjiro expected the block. This time, he did not try to force through it. He let the larger blade stop his first path, then used the moment Malachi’s sword committed downward to step in closer than he had dared earlier. It was dangerous. Too close, and Malachi could punish him with the hilt, shoulder, knee, or sheer presence. But the opening was there, small enough that hesitation would kill it.

Shunjiro’s body moved before fear could argue.

He slipped past the sword’s inner line, turned his wrist, and drove the flat of his dagger hand toward Malachi’s chest in a controlled strike rather than a cutting blow.

The contact landed clean.

Malachi stopped.

Shunjiro froze with the dagger pressed against the front of Malachi’s coat, his breath rough, his injured arm hanging slightly lower than before. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The field seemed to quiet around them, the dead trees beyond the fence standing motionless beneath the black sky.

Then Malachi lowered his sword.

“That would have counted,” he said.

Shunjiro let out a breath he had not realized he was holding.

“I got you.”

“You found the opening.”

A tired grin almost reached Shunjiro’s face, but the pain in his arm made him wince before it fully formed. He finally looked down at the cut across his bicep.

Or where the cut should have been.

His sleeve was sliced open. Blood stained the fabric and streaked down his arm. Drops still clung to his skin and marked the dirt beneath him.

But the wound was gone.

Shunjiro stared.

Malachi noticed the change in his expression and stepped closer.

“Show me your arm.”

Shunjiro lifted it slowly.

The movement still hurt. A deep soreness remained beneath the skin, as if the muscle remembered being cut even though the flesh had already closed. Malachi took his wrist, turned the arm slightly, and examined the place where his sword had opened it. There was blood, but no gash. No torn skin. No fresh seam of healing flesh.

Malachi’s expression changed.

Only slightly.

But Shunjiro saw it.

“What?” Shunjiro asked.

Malachi did not answer immediately. He wiped some of the blood away with his thumb, revealing unbroken skin beneath it.

“I cut you.”

“I know.”

“That wound was open.”

“I know.”

“It is not open now.”

Shunjiro looked at his arm again, his earlier satisfaction fading into confusion.

“I did not do anything.”

Malachi released his wrist and studied him with renewed interest.

“Do you have some kind of healing power?”

Shunjiro looked up quickly.

“No.”

“You are certain?”

“I have never healed myself before.”

Malachi’s gaze sharpened.

“Never noticed yourself healing?”

Shunjiro hesitated.

That question reached deeper than he wanted it to.

“I do not think so.”

Malachi looked at the blood on Shunjiro’s sleeve, then back at the unmarked skin.

“We test it.”

Shunjiro’s stomach tightened.

“How?”

Malachi lifted his sword.

“I will cut your wrist.”

Shunjiro stared at him for a second.

He trusted Malachi. That was the only reason he did not step back immediately. The older man had pushed him hard, injured him in training, and spoken with brutal honesty when necessary, but he had never been careless with Shunjiro’s life. If Malachi wanted to test this, then he believed the risk was controlled.

Shunjiro held out his arm.

“Do it.”

Malachi’s eyes rested on him for a moment, as if measuring the trust behind the words.

Then he turned the sword with perfect control and drew the edge across Shunjiro’s wrist.

The cut opened.

Blood welled instantly and spilled over his skin.

Shunjiro clenched his jaw. The pain was sharp, but clean. He forced himself to watch instead of looking away.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the blood moved.

Tiny golden grains appeared within it, so small that Shunjiro almost thought the light was playing tricks on him. They shifted like sand caught in a current, gathering at the edges of the wound. More of them surfaced beneath the skin, faint golden specks moving through the red as if something inside his body had awakened and begun repairing the damage piece by piece.

Shunjiro’s eyes widened.

Malachi leaned closer.

The grains pulled the torn skin together.

Slowly, visibly, the cut began to stitch itself shut.

It was not like normal healing magic. Shunjiro had seen Itsuki heal wounds before. Her power carried warmth and relief, closing injuries while soothing the pain around them. This was different. The golden sand did not comfort him. It worked. It moved with strange precision, dragging flesh and blood back into place, sealing the damage without taking away the soreness underneath.

The wound closed fully.

The blood remained on his wrist.

The pain did too, dull now, but present.

Shunjiro swallowed.

“That is different.”

Malachi looked at him.

“Different from what?”

“From healing. Real healing. Itsuki’s healing makes the pain fade with the wound. This closed it, but my wrist still hurts.”

He flexed his fingers carefully.

The skin held.

“It feels like the injury is gone, but my body remembers it.”

Malachi’s eyes stayed on the wrist for a long moment.

“Golden sand,” he said quietly.

Shunjiro looked at him.

“You know what it is?”

“No.”

That answer made Shunjiro’s chest tighten.

Malachi did not sound afraid, but he did sound intrigued.

“It is not your spiritual energy concealment,” Malachi said. “At least, not directly. People have spiritual energy, and some people have a special power beyond that. Your friend Yoshinori uses spiritual energy like everyone else, but his power is lightning. The two can work together, but they are not the same thing.”

Shunjiro looked down at his wrist again.

“So this is…”

“Something else.”

The words made his mind pull backward, toward a memory he had tried to organize into something less terrifying.

Shunjiro’s mouth went dry.

“There was another time,” he said.

Malachi’s attention shifted fully to him.

“When?”

Shunjiro did not answer right away. He looked toward the field, but he did not see the training dummies or the dead trees beyond the fence. He saw the Coastal Kingdom again. He saw Suzu Nozomi standing in the ruin of what should have been a city, emotionless and corrupted, her blood moving like a weapon around her. He saw everyone injured, exhausted, trying to survive a fight that had gone far beyond anything they were ready for.

“When I fought the SS rank,” Shunjiro said. “Suzu.”

Malachi remained silent.

Shunjiro continued, his voice lower.

“She was not herself. She had become something else by then. We fought her inside a barrier, and everyone was running out of energy. Itsuki had already used everything she had. She was broken. I knew that, but I kept moving because there was no other choice.”

His fingers curled slightly.

“She cut me.”

Malachi’s eyes narrowed.

“Where?”

Shunjiro looked down at his own body.

“Through the waist.”

Malachi did not speak.

“I was cut in half,” Shunjiro said.

The words felt strange coming from his own mouth. Too calm for what they meant. Too clean for how horrifying it had been.

“I should have died. I knew I should have died. I remember the pain, then the cold, then losing everything. After that, I woke up here in the Shadow Realm, healed. I thought Itsuki saved me.”

The name made his chest ache.

“I wanted it to be her. She is our healer. She has done impossible things before. And after everything that happened to her, I think part of me needed to believe she still reached me somehow.”

He looked at his wrist, where the golden sand had vanished beneath unbroken skin.

“But deep down, I knew it did not make sense.”

Malachi’s expression remained unreadable, but he listened without interrupting.

“She had no energy left,” Shunjiro said. “She should not have been able to heal anyone, especially not something like that. And if she had healed me, I would have felt her energy. Her healing has a feeling to it. This…” He touched his wrist with his other hand. “This is not hers.”

Saying it aloud made the guilt rise.

He had been holding onto the idea of Itsuki saving him like a thread tying him back to Radiance. It had comforted him, even when the logic had cracked beneath it. Letting go of that belief felt like losing a small piece of her presence, and he hated himself for feeling disappointed when the truth might mean he had survived because of something inside himself.

“She still saved me in other ways,” he said quietly, though he was not sure whether he was telling Malachi or himself.

Malachi’s gaze softened by the smallest degree.

Then he looked at Shunjiro’s healed wrist again, and the smirk that formed on his face was slow, certain, and almost amused.

Shunjiro noticed it immediately.

“What?”

Malachi lowered his sword.

“You have spent all this time telling me you have no power.”

Shunjiro stared at him.

“I thought I didn’t.”

“You were wrong.”

Shunjiro’s grip tightened around nothing.

Malachi’s smirk remained.

“You have a power, Shunjiro.”

For a moment, Shunjiro could not answer.

The words should have been exciting. They should have filled him with the same rush he felt when the Devil’s Luck Dagger first wrapped itself in black aura, or when he successfully hid his spiritual presence from Malachi. Instead, they struck something older in him, something buried beneath years of accepting what he thought was the truth.

He had grown up believing he was powerless.

Not weak exactly. Takeshi had never allowed him to think effort was meaningless, and Shunjiro had never wanted to be the kind of person who gave up because his path looked harder than someone else’s. But there had always been a difference between him and people like Yoshinori, Itsuki, Ryuji, Aiko, or even Tetsuo. Yoshinori had lightning. Itsuki had healing. Ryuji could harden his body like steel. Aiko could swap places with people. Tetsuo could command stone. Their abilities had names, shapes, directions. Shunjiro had spiritual energy, but everyone had spiritual energy. His was strange, unstable, and difficult to control, but he had never called it a power.

He had called it the only thing he had.

Now Malachi was standing in front of him with a sword in hand, telling him that everything he believed about himself had been incomplete.

Shunjiro looked down at his healed wrist. Blood still stained his skin, but the cut was gone. Beneath the surface, he could almost imagine those tiny golden grains moving through him, quiet and patient, waiting for damage to repair.

“I have a power,” he repeated softly.

“Yes,” Malachi said.

Shunjiro’s fingers curled around his wrist.

“But I never used one before.”

“You never used one consciously before.”

“That is different?”

“Very.”

Malachi lowered his sword and stepped closer, his expression still carrying the faint edge of amusement from his discovery but now sharpened by focus. 

Malachi pointed at Shunjiro’s chest.

“Spiritual energy is the force that moves through your soul and body. Every fighter uses it in some way. Reinforcement, pressure, defense, sensing, movement, weapon imbuement. That energy is the foundation. A special power is different. It is what your soul expresses when that force takes a unique shape.”

Shunjiro listened carefully, still trying to steady his thoughts.

“So my energy is not the power itself.”

“No. Your energy guides it. Unlocks it. Feeds it. Think of spiritual energy as the hand opening the door. The power is what comes through once the door is open.”

Shunjiro looked back at his wrist.

“Then why did it heal me without me doing anything?”

“Because the body protects itself before the mind understands how. Your spiritual energy was unstable, and your instincts kept shutting it away. That likely stopped you from calling your power forward on purpose. But when you were injured, your body did not need your permission. Whatever this power is, part of it responded automatically to repair you.”

“The golden grains.”

Malachi nodded.

“Those were not ordinary healing energy. They were your power taking a form inside your blood. They closed the wound, but they did not soothe the pain because they were not healing the way your friend heals. They were rebuilding damage.”

Shunjiro swallowed.

“And when Suzu cut me in half…”

“The same thing may have happened on a larger scale.”

The thought made Shunjiro’s stomach twist.

He had survived because his own body had fought to keep him alive. Itsuki had not reached across the battlefield with impossible energy she did not have. She had not somehow pulled him back from death after already losing everything.

A dull guilt moved through him again, but this time it settled differently. Itsuki had still mattered. Her existence, her pain, his promise to return to her, none of that became smaller because the wound had not been her doing. But the truth changed something. It meant that the miracle he had given her credit for had been hiding inside him.

He did not know how to feel about that.

Malachi watched him for a few seconds, then tapped the flat of his sword lightly against the ground.

“Do not sink into thought yet. We test.”

Shunjiro blinked.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“I just found out I have a power.”

“And standing there looking stunned will not teach you how to use it.”

“That feels unfairly practical.”

“It is one of my best qualities.”

Shunjiro let out a breath and lowered his hands.

“What do I do?”

Malachi stepped back to give him space.

“Do what you did with the dagger, but not exactly. When you imbue the blade, you send spiritual energy into an external object. This time, you are not sending energy into a weapon. You are using energy to open the path to the power beneath it.”

“That sounds much harder.”

“It is.”

“Of course it is.”

Malachi raised an eyebrow.

“You managed to turn your spiritual presence to absolute zero. You can survive a little difficulty.”

Shunjiro could not argue with that.

He stood in the center of the field and lifted both hands in front of him. The blood on his wrist had begun to dry, making his skin feel tight when he moved. His bicep still ached where Malachi’s first cut had landed, despite the wound being gone. He tried not to focus on either sensation.

Instead, he reached inward.

His spiritual energy answered more easily than it would have three weeks ago. It still was not perfect. There was still a strange part of him that wanted to withdraw, to shut the flow down and hide everything away, but now he knew how to guide it. He let a small current move through his body, not forcing it into his muscles, not sending it toward the dagger, but letting it gather behind his palms.

Nothing happened.

Shunjiro frowned.

Malachi spoke from several steps away.

“You are only pushing energy.”

“I thought that was the point.”

“No. The energy is the guide. Feel for what is behind it.”

Shunjiro looked at his hands.

“What does that mean?”

“If I knew exactly what it felt like inside your soul, it would be my power, not yours.”

“That is not helpful.”

“It is accurate.”

Shunjiro wanted to complain, but he knew Malachi was right. No one else could tell him precisely what his own power felt like. With the dagger, the target had been clear. Energy moved from his body into the blade. With this, he was searching for something that had existed inside him his whole life without ever announcing itself clearly.

He closed his eyes.

The first thing he felt was spiritual energy, familiar now in a way it had not been before. Beneath that, he searched for the strange sensation he had noticed when his wounds healed. The golden grains had not felt warm like Itsuki’s healing. They had felt dry, fine, and precise, like countless tiny pieces moving with purpose.

Shunjiro followed that memory.

For a moment, he felt foolish standing there with his hands out.

Then something shifted.

It was subtle at first, almost too quiet to notice. Beneath his spiritual energy, something rough and granular stirred, like a buried surface responding to pressure from below. His energy moved around it, not becoming it, but pulling it forward. Guiding it.

His eyes opened.

“I feel something.”

Malachi’s posture sharpened.

“Good. Do not force it all at once. Let your energy open the path.”

Shunjiro nodded.

He breathed in, then pushed.

Golden sand shot out of his hands.

For one glorious half second, Shunjiro thought something incredible was about to happen.

Then the sand dropped.

It poured from his palms in a loose, unimpressive stream and landed on the ground between his boots in a sad little pile.

Shunjiro stared at it.

The field went quiet.

The pile sat there, golden and completely harmless.

Shunjiro slowly lowered his hands.

“That is it?”

Malachi’s lips pressed together.

Shunjiro looked up.

“Do not laugh.”

Malachi turned his head slightly.

“I am not laughing.”

“You are about to.”

“I am controlling myself.”

“That is worse.”

Malachi lasted two more seconds.

Then he laughed.

Not a small chuckle. Not one of his usual faint amused breaths. A full, hearty laugh broke out of him, deep enough to echo across the training field and startle a few dark birds from somewhere beyond the fence. He bent slightly at the waist, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, laughing with such genuine force that Shunjiro felt his embarrassment turn into offended disbelief.

“It is not that funny,” Shunjiro said.

Malachi laughed harder.

Shunjiro pointed at the pile.

“I waited my entire life to find out I had a power, and it is floor seasoning.”

Malachi covered his mouth with one hand, but that only made his shoulders shake.

“It came out and died immediately,” Shunjiro said, growing more annoyed because Malachi’s laughter was making it harder not to laugh too. “What am I supposed to do with that? Make someone slip a little?”

Malachi straightened slowly, still smiling in a way Shunjiro had rarely seen from him.

“Forgive me,” he said, though he did not sound sorry at all.

“You are not forgiven.”

“No, I understand.”

“You do not.”

“I do. Truly. That was a tragic debut.”

Shunjiro stared at him.

Malachi’s laughter returned for a brief second before he forced it down.

“Enough,” Malachi said, though mostly to himself. “Enough. I am finished.”

“You better be.”

“I am mostly finished.”

Shunjiro looked down at the golden pile again and sighed.

“I have sand.”

“Yes.”

“I have spent my whole life thinking maybe I had nothing, and now I have sand.”

Malachi’s expression softened, though the amusement did not vanish completely.

“Do not let that little pile fool you.”

Shunjiro lifted an eyebrow.

“It is doing a good job fooling me.”

“Sand is only harmless when there is too little of it or no one controlling it. In sufficient quantity, gentle things become disasters.”

Malachi stepped toward the pile and nudged it lightly with the tip of his boot.

“Think. A single grain means nothing. A handful can blind a man. A storm of it can blind an army. Enough sand moving with enough force can strip skin, bury roads, ruin formations, and reshape a battlefield beneath your enemy’s feet.”

Shunjiro looked down at the pile again.

The disappointment did not vanish, but it loosened slightly.

“Reshape a battlefield?”

“Yes. You already fight close with a dagger. Sand could give you what you lack: distraction, cover, misdirection, defense, and range. Throw it into someone’s eyes, and your dagger finds the opening. Spin it around your body, and an enemy must strike through it before reaching you. Spread it across the ground, and footing becomes yours to command. With enough control, you could turn the space around you into a weapon before the fight even begins.”

Shunjiro’s gaze lifted.

That sounded different.

Much different.

Malachi continued.

“You can likely create sand from your power, and later, if we confirm it, you may be able to control sand that already exists around you. In the right environment, that could make you far more dangerous than you look.”

Shunjiro imagined it.

Golden sand circling his feet.

A storm rising between him and an enemy.

A dagger flashing through a blind spot created by his own power.

A battlefield where every step could become unstable because the ground itself belonged to him.

His earlier embarrassment began turning into cautious interest.

“So it is not terrible.”

Malachi gave him a dry look.

“No. Your imagination was terrible.”

Shunjiro frowned.

“I just watched it fall on the ground.”

“You watched a newborn ability take its first breath and judged it for not conquering the world.”

“That sounds dramatic.”

“It is accurate.”

Shunjiro looked down at his hands.

The idea of sand still did not feel as naturally exciting as lightning, fire, teleportation, or healing. It was not flashy in the way he would have imagined as a child. But it was his. That fact alone made something inside him lean toward it.

His power.

Not borrowed.

Not random luck from the dagger.

Not strange energy he could not explain.

His.

“What about the healing?” he asked.

Malachi’s amusement faded into focus again.

“That seems to be an automatic function of the same power. Golden sand inside the body repairing damage over time. It may only work on you.”

“I cannot heal other people?”

“I would not assume so. Your power appears tied to your own body’s survival. Your friend heals with spiritual energy shaped for others. Yours rebuilds yourself from within.”

Shunjiro nodded slowly.

“That makes sense.”

“Do not mistake it for invincibility,” Malachi said. “A wound closing does not mean there is no cost. You said the soreness remains. Pain remains. There may be limits to how much damage it can repair, how quickly it works, and what it consumes to do so. You survived being cut in half, but that does not mean you should test how many times that can happen.”

“I was not planning to.”

“Good. I dislike foolish experiments.”

Shunjiro looked at the sword in Malachi’s hand.

“You cut my wrist ten minutes ago.”

“That was a wise experiment.”

“That feels like something only you would say.”

“And yet we learned.”

Shunjiro shook his head, but his mood had shifted. The pile of sand no longer looked pathetic. It looked like a beginning, which was still embarrassing, but less devastating.

Malachi stepped back.

“Again.”

Shunjiro raised his hands.

This time, he did not expect greatness. He focused on the feeling beneath his spiritual energy, the granular presence waiting behind the flow. He let his energy guide it forward and pushed through his palms.

More golden sand poured out.

It still fell.

But the pile was larger.

Shunjiro grimaced.

“Better?”

“More.”

They kept going.

The first stage was production. Malachi made him create sand again and again until Shunjiro could call it forward without searching blindly each time. The amount varied. Sometimes only a thin stream spilled from his palms. Sometimes a heavier burst scattered across the dirt. Once, he produced too much at once and coughed from the sudden drain, forcing Malachi to make him stop and breathe before trying again.

“It is not ordinary matter appearing for free,” Malachi warned. “Your power is creating it, but that still uses you as the source. Spiritual energy guides it. Your body supports it. Do not be careless.”

Shunjiro nodded, sweat gathering at his temple despite the cold air.

After production came movement.

That was harder.

Creating sand was one thing. Controlling it after it left his hands was another. The first time Malachi told him to lift the pile from the ground, Shunjiro stared at it so intensely that his eyes began to hurt. A few grains shifted. One tiny line crawled across the dirt. The rest remained exactly where it was.

Malachi crossed his arms.

“The sand is not impressed by your glare.”

“I am trying.”

“You are begging it to move. Command it.”

Shunjiro exhaled sharply and tried again.

The golden grains trembled.

A small portion lifted from the ground, wavered in the air, then collapsed back onto the pile.

Shunjiro threw his hands out.

“That counts.”

“It counts as evidence you are alive.”

“You are impossible.”

“You are improving.”

They continued until the pile began responding more consistently. Shunjiro learned that the sand did not move like energy. Spiritual energy flowed in smooth currents, spreading through his body or into the dagger. Sand had weight, texture, and resistance. It dragged against itself. It scattered if he tried to pull too sharply. If he moved it too gently, it sagged back down before reaching the height he wanted.

He had to guide it with pressure, not force.

By the middle of the day, he could lift a thin ribbon of golden sand from the ground and make it curl around his wrist. It was clumsy and uneven, but the sight made his disappointment fade further. The sand moved because he told it to move. It circled his hand, glittering faintly beneath the black sky, and for a second he felt like a child seeing a magic trick before remembering he was the one performing it.

Shunjiro smiled despite himself.

Malachi noticed.

“There it is.”

“What?”

“You are starting to like it.”

Shunjiro tried to hide the smile.

“I did not say that.”

“You do not need to. Your face is less miserable.”

“That is a low standard.”

“It was a low beginning.”

Shunjiro let the sand fall, then immediately lifted it again before it fully settled.

This time, he shaped it into a loose arc in front of him.

The movement sparked an idea.

He drew the Devil’s Luck Dagger with his other hand.

Malachi’s eyes sharpened, but he did not stop him.

Shunjiro moved the sand across the front of his body, then stepped through the side of it with a short dagger cut. It was crude. The sand thinned too much, and the dagger’s path was not hidden as well as he imagined. But for one moment, he understood what Malachi meant.

An enemy watching the sand might miss the blade.

An enemy focused on the blade might not see the sand.

His power and weapon did not have to compete.

They could create openings for each other.

Shunjiro looked at Malachi.

“That could work.”

“It will work,” Malachi said. “Once you stop making it look like a dying curtain.”

Shunjiro glanced at the sagging arc of sand.

“That was unnecessary.”

They trained through it.

Malachi had him create sand, move it, drop it, lift it, pull it back to his hands, and spread it in a loose circle around his feet. Shunjiro failed often. Sometimes the sand scattered too far and he lost control of the outer grains. Sometimes he tried to shape too much at once and the whole mass collapsed. Sometimes he became so focused on the sand that his spiritual energy through the dagger faded completely, forcing Malachi to remind him that a useful power became dangerous if it made him forget the rest of his body.

By the later hours, Shunjiro’s exhaustion had become familiar.

His shoulders ached. His wrist still felt sore from the cut that had revealed everything. His mind burned from holding two layers of control at once: spiritual energy as the guide, sand as the expression. Yet underneath the tiredness, something bright had begun to grow.

He was having fun.

That surprised him more than the sand itself.

Training with the dagger had excited him because it made him stronger. Energy control had relieved him because it gave him hope. Hiding his presence had made him proud because it proved he was not at the mercy of his instincts anymore.

But the sand felt different.

It responded to imagination.

A cut was a cut. A stance was a stance. But sand could become a line, a veil, a wall, a spiral, a distraction, a shield. Even with his limited control, Shunjiro could feel possibilities branching outward every time the grains moved. It was not the power he would have chosen as a child, but maybe that was because he had not understood what power could be.

Malachi set a final task near what their routine called evening, though the sky remained unchanged.

“Circle your body.”

Shunjiro wiped sweat from his face with the back of his arm.

“With the sand?”

“No, with the mansion.”

Shunjiro was too tired to glare properly.

Malachi motioned to the golden sand scattered around him.

“Gather it. Keep it moving. Do not let it collapse. Do not let it drift too far. Around your body, not into your eyes.”

“That last part sounds important.”

“It is.”

Shunjiro planted his feet and raised both hands.

The sand around him stirred.

At first, it scraped across the dirt in uneven streams, gathering from different patches into a loose ring around his boots. He guided it slowly, using spiritual energy like invisible threads, though that was not quite right. Threads pulled from outside. This felt more like pressure from within the grains themselves, as if his power gave each piece a reason to follow the others.

The ring completed around him.

“Good,” Malachi said. “Now lift it.”

Shunjiro lifted.

The ring rose to his ankles, then his knees, trembling as though it wanted to spill away.

He clenched his jaw.

“Steady,” Malachi said.

“I know.”

“Knowing and doing are distant cousins.”

“Please stop helping.”

The sand rose higher.

It reached his waist, circling slowly, uneven but continuous. A faint black mist began to gather around it, the same strange aura that appeared when his spiritual energy wrapped around the Devil’s Luck Dagger. It did not replace the golden color of the sand. It surrounded it, trailing through the moving grains like shadow caught in wind.

Shunjiro’s eyes widened.

The cyclone tightened.

Golden sand spun around his body in a rough spiral, carrying that black misty aura with it. It was not large. It would not stop a powerful attack yet. If Malachi swung his sword with real strength, the whole thing would probably scatter instantly. But as the rotation grew steadier, Shunjiro could feel how it might become a shield one day.

A moving defense.

A barrier that could blind, scrape, deflect, and hide his next movement.

He laughed.

He could not help it.

The sound came out breathless and surprised, full of exhaustion but bright with the joy of finally seeing his power become something more than a sad pile on the ground.

Malachi watched him from outside the spinning sand.

This time, he did not hide the pride as well.

“Having fun?”

Shunjiro grinned, sweat running down his face while golden sand circled him beneath the black sky.

“Yeah.”

The cyclone wobbled.

He quickly steadied it, laughing again when the sand nearly slapped him in the shoulder.

“It is harder than it looks.”

“It looks ridiculous.”

“It looks amazing.”

“It looks like a beginner trying not to be eaten by his own sand.”

Shunjiro smiled wider.

“But it is moving.”

Malachi’s expression softened into something almost warm.

“Yes,” he said. “It is moving.”

Shunjiro kept the cyclone turning for as long as he could. The golden sand spun around him, black mist curling through it, and for the first time since Malachi had told him he had a power, Shunjiro did not feel stunned, disappointed, or confused.

He felt awake.

He felt like something inside him had finally opened.

When the sand eventually collapsed at his feet, he stood in the middle of the scattered grains, breathing hard and smiling like he had just won a real fight.

Malachi rested one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“That is enough for today.”

Shunjiro looked down at the sand, then lifted a few grains into the air with a small motion of his fingers. They spun lazily above his palm before falling back down.

He did not hate the sight anymore.

Golden sand.

His power.

Strange, underwhelming at first, and far more dangerous than it looked.

Shunjiro closed his hand and felt the last grains slip between his fingers.

“Tomorrow,” he said, still smiling, “we keep training this.”

Malachi turned toward the mansion.

“Obviously.”

Shunjiro followed him, exhausted and sore, but lighter than he had felt all day. Behind him, the sand remained scattered across the training field, shining faintly against the dark ground of the Shadow Realm.

That night, Shunjiro could not sleep.

He had tried. After dinner, after washing the dirt and golden grains of sand from his hands, after returning to the room Malachi had given him, he had changed into clean clothes, set the Devil’s Luck Dagger within reach beside the bed, and lay down with every intention of letting exhaustion take him. His body wanted rest. His muscles still carried the ache of training, and his wrist remained sore even though the cut Malachi had made was long gone. The day had given him too much to process. His body could heal itself. His power was sand. His spiritual energy was finally beginning to obey him. Everything he had believed about himself had shifted in the span of a few hours.

Sleep should have come easily.

Instead, his mind kept circling one thought.

Takeshi.

Shunjiro lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, listening to the old mansion settle around him. The room was dark except for the faint light that slipped in through the window, though the Shadow Realm offered no real moonlight to soften the edges of anything. He could hear nothing from outside except the distant movement of wind against the dead trees beyond the fence. The silence should have helped him calm down, but it only made the thought louder.

I should tell him.

He had avoided it for weeks.

At first, that had been simple survival. He had woken in the Shadow Realm alone, injured, confused, and unsure who Malachi truly was. The man had been kind enough to feed him and frightening enough that Shunjiro knew kindness did not make him safe by default. Malachi knew Tsubasa. Malachi was one of the eight EX ranks. Malachi had once been a king. There were too many unknowns, and Takeshi’s name carried too much weight to throw carelessly into the room.

But things were different now.

Malachi had trained him. Sheltered him. Given him a weapon. Helped him understand his energy, his absence of energy, and now the power hidden in his blood. He had cut Shunjiro open to test a mystery and then stood there with the restraint of someone who could have pushed much harder but chose not to. He had become a teacher in a way Shunjiro had not expected and maybe had not known he needed.

Shunjiro turned onto his side, then back again. After another few minutes of failing to convince himself to rest, he sat up with a quiet sigh. He took the Devil’s Luck Dagger from beside the bed, fastened it at his side out of habit, and left the room.

The hallway outside was dim and still. He moved carefully, not because he was hiding, but because the mansion at night carried a strange solemnity to it. The old floorboards gave soft creaks beneath his feet. Portraits watched from the walls, their faces half-swallowed by shadow. Somewhere far below, warm light flickered faintly against the staircase.

Shunjiro followed it.

He found Malachi in one of the sitting rooms near the front of the mansion, seated in a large chair beside a stone fireplace. A low fire burned there, casting orange light over the room and pushing back the cold that seemed to live in the walls. The flames snapped softly over dark logs, and the glow made Malachi’s purple eyes look deeper than usual as he read from a thick book held in one hand. A cup sat on the small table beside him, steam rising from it in thin curls.

Malachi did not look up when Shunjiro entered.

“If you are sleepwalking, you are doing it with unusual determination,” he said.

Shunjiro stopped near the doorway.

“I could not sleep.”

“That is less impressive.”

Malachi turned a page.

Shunjiro stood there for a moment, suddenly unsure how to begin. The room was warm, quiet, and almost peaceful, which somehow made the truth feel larger. He had imagined telling Malachi during training, maybe after another discovery, when the conversation could hide behind practical questions. But now there was nothing to hide behind. 

Malachi finally glanced up.

“You have something to say.”

Shunjiro walked farther into the room.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You usually do.”

“This is different.”

Malachi studied him, then closed the book around one finger to keep his place.

“Sit.”

Shunjiro sat in the chair across from him. The heat from the fireplace reached his face immediately, and he realized only then how cold his hands had been.

Malachi picked up the cup from the table and took a slow drink.

“What is your question?”

Shunjiro looked at the fire.

The name sat on his tongue for a moment before he forced it out.

“What do you know about Takeshi Tenzai?”

Malachi went completely still.

It lasted only a second, but Shunjiro noticed. The older man’s cup stopped halfway down from his mouth. His eyes sharpened, not with hostility, but with sudden attention. Whatever answer Malachi had expected from this conversation, it had not been that name.

He set the cup down carefully.

“Why are you asking about him?”

Shunjiro kept his gaze on the fire.

“I want to know what you know first.”

Malachi leaned back in his chair, the book now forgotten in his lap.

“Takeshi Tenzai is one of the eight EX ranks,” he said. “That alone would be enough for most people to know his name. He is respected. Heroic, according to the stories told about him. Not the kind of heroic that comes from smiling in front of crowds, but the kind that comes from appearing where disaster is certain and leaving fewer bodies behind than there should have been.”

Shunjiro listened quietly.

“He is younger than most people expect for someone carrying that title,” Malachi continued. “Dangerously powerful, difficult to measure, and not someone wise fighters approach carelessly. I met him once.”

That made Shunjiro look up.

“You met him?”

“Yes.”

“What was he like?”

Malachi looked into the fire, his expression unreadable.

“Focused. Polite enough. Not warm. He had the eyes of someone who had already accepted a burden the room had not yet noticed.”

Shunjiro absorbed that slowly.

“That sounds like him.”

Malachi’s gaze returned to him.

The room seemed to narrow around the two of them.

Shunjiro forced himself to meet his eyes.

“Takeshi is my brother.”

The fire cracked softly between them.

For the first time since Shunjiro had met him, Malachi looked genuinely shocked. It did not break his composure completely, but it reached his face before he could hide it. His brows lifted slightly, and his stare fixed on Shunjiro as if several scattered pieces had finally struck the same table at once.

“Your brother,” Malachi said.

Shunjiro nodded.

“My older brother.”

Malachi stared at him for another moment, then let out a slow breath and leaned back deeper into his chair.

“Well,” he said, quieter than usual. “That explains more than I would like.”

Shunjiro looked down at his hands.

“I thought it might.”

“You are Shunjiro Tenzai.”

“Yes.”

“And you chose not to mention that until now.”

“I did not know if I should.”

Malachi’s eyes narrowed, though not in anger.

“Because of me?”

“Because of Takeshi.” Shunjiro’s fingers curled slightly. “I did not know if you and him were on good terms. You are both EX rank. You said you met him once, but I had no idea what happened between you. If I told you he was my brother and you hated him, I could have made an enemy out of the only person keeping me alive in the Shadow Realm.”

Malachi watched him for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

“That was wise.”

Shunjiro blinked.

“I thought you would be annoyed.”

“I would be annoyed if you had trusted me blindly. You were alone, trapped in a hostile realm, and speaking with a man you had no reason to fully understand. Caution was not an insult. It was intelligence.”

Some of the tension in Shunjiro’s chest loosened.

Malachi picked up his cup again but did not drink from it.

“For the record, Takeshi and I are not enemies. We are not friends either.”

“What happened when you met?”

“Nothing dramatic. We disagreed about something, agreed about something else, and parted without trying to kill each other. For people at our level, that counts as diplomacy.”

Shunjiro almost smiled despite himself.

“That sounds believable.”

“It is also all I will say for now.”

Shunjiro accepted that. A part of him wanted more, but Malachi’s tone made it clear that pushing would not help. Takeshi’s life outside Radiance had always felt like a locked door, and tonight Malachi had only opened it enough to show that there was indeed something behind it.

Malachi studied him again, and this time the shock had faded into something more analytical.

“Tsubasa taking you makes far more sense now.”

Shunjiro’s brief smile disappeared.

“You think he knew?”

“I think it is likely the main reason he wanted you.”

Shunjiro’s stomach tightened.

“I thought he wanted me because of my energy.”

“He may have. Your spiritual concealment is abnormal. Your sand power is unusual. But criminals like Tsubasa do not ignore bloodlines when the bloodline belongs to Takeshi Tenzai.” Malachi’s voice hardened slightly. “If Eclipsed Abyss knew who you were, then taking you was not random. You would be valuable even before they understood what you could do.”

Shunjiro looked back into the fire.

The thought made him uneasy, though not surprised. Since Tsubasa dragged him into the Shadow Realm, Shunjiro had been trying to understand what the man saw in him. Now the answer might be more complicated than he wanted.

Maybe Tsubasa saw his strange energy.

Maybe he saw potential.

Maybe he saw Takeshi’s brother.

Maybe all of those were the same problem.

“I have not seen him in five years,” Shunjiro said.

Malachi’s expression shifted.

“Takeshi?”

Shunjiro nodded.

“He left. I knew he was strong, but I did not understand how strong. Not really. EX rank always sounded like something that belonged far away from me, like kings and legends. Then you said his name when you explained the eight strongest people in the world, and I…” He paused, searching for the right words. “I knew it was him. I did not want to say it yet, but I knew.”

Malachi listened without interrupting.

“For a long time, Takeshi felt unreachable,” Shunjiro continued. “Not because he treated me badly. He did not. He was my brother. But he was always ahead of me in a way I could not even measure. I thought I had no power. I thought all I had was unstable spiritual energy that barely listened. Then I found out he was one of the strongest people alive.”

He let out a quiet breath.

“It made me feel smaller at first.”

The firelight moved across Malachi’s face.

“And now?”

Shunjiro looked down at his hand, remembering golden sand spilling from his palms, first pathetic and then alive. He remembered the black aura around his dagger, the silence of his spiritual presence disappearing at will, the wound closing with grains of gold moving through his blood. None of that made him equal to Takeshi. Not even close.

But it changed the shape of the distance.

“Now I do not feel like I am standing in his shadow,” Shunjiro said. “Not the same way. I am still far behind him. I know that. But for the first time, it feels like there is a path. Like one day, maybe I can stand beside him instead of just looking up at him.”

Malachi was quiet for a while.

Then he set his cup down.

“You are not Takeshi’s shadow.”

Shunjiro looked at him.

“You share blood with him, and that matters. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise. It may explain why something special exists in you. Power often leaves echoes in a family line, even when those echoes take very different shapes.” Malachi’s gaze sharpened, but his voice stayed calm. “But do not mistake explanation for identity. Your brother is Takeshi. You are Shunjiro. His strength may tell us where to look, but it does not tell us who you will become.”

Shunjiro held those words carefully.

Malachi continued.

“Takeshi being your brother means the world may look at you differently once it knows. Some will expect greatness. Some will try to use you. Some will assume your worth begins and ends with his name. Let them be wrong.”

The tightness in Shunjiro’s chest eased further.

He had not realized how badly he needed to hear that.

“I did not want to hide it forever,” he said.

“I know.”

“I just needed to be sure.”

“And now?”

Shunjiro looked around the room, at the fire, the old walls, the book in Malachi’s lap, and the quiet warmth of a mansion that had begun to feel less like a prison in the Shadow Realm and more like a place where he was being remade.

“Now I am sure enough.”

Malachi gave a small nod.

“That is all trust ever is at first.”

Shunjiro leaned back in his chair, and for the first time since leaving his room, he felt tired in a way that might actually let him sleep. The secret was out. Malachi opened his book again but did not return to reading immediately.

“Shunjiro.”

“Yes?”

“If Takeshi has been gone for five years, then when you see him again, do not waste the meeting trying to prove you have become someone worth noticing.”

Shunjiro stared at him.

Malachi looked at the page in front of him, though his attention was clearly still on the conversation.

“Stand as yourself. That will matter more.”

Shunjiro lowered his gaze.

A small, relieved smile touched his face.

“I will try.”

“Do better than try. You are my student now. Attempted dignity reflects poorly on me.”

The smile grew despite the heaviness of the night.

“There it is.”

“What?”

“You ruining a good moment.”

“I improved it.”

“You really did not.”

Malachi turned a page.

“Go to sleep.”

Shunjiro stood, lighter than when he had entered the room.

“Good night, Malachi.”

“Good night, Shunjiro Tenzai.”

This time, hearing his full name did not feel dangerous.

It felt acknowledged.

Shunjiro left the sitting room and climbed the stairs with the warmth of the fire still clinging to him. The mansion remained dark and silent, the Shadow Realm still waited beyond its walls, and Takeshi’s name had opened questions that would not be answered tonight. But the secret was no longer his to carry alone.

When he returned to his room and lay down, sleep came much easier.