Yoshinori reached Illumina’s dorm with a stack of books pressed against his chest and no real certainty that any of them would help.

The Grand Library had given him more than he could carry comfortably. 

Aiko walked beside him with two thinner books tucked beneath one arm, though she had spent most of the return from the library looking like she wanted to throw them at someone. Ryuji followed a step behind them. 

Yoshinori shifted the stack of books against one arm and reached for the door.

Inside, Itsuki was sitting in the common room.

Yoshinori stopped so abruptly that Aiko nearly walked into his back.

She sat at the table with her hands folded loosely in her lap, wearing her gray sweater and black skirt, her hair neater than it had been that morning. She looked tired. Her eyes were still red, and the softness in her face had not returned fully, but she was there in the common room rather than hidden beneath a blanket in the bedroom, facing the door as if she had chosen the place on purpose and had been waiting for the sound of them coming home.

Aiko’s grip tightened around the books under her arm. Ryuji stepped into the doorway behind them, his calm expression shifting before he caught it. Relief moved through all three of them at once, too sudden to hide and too delicate to trust.

Itsuki looked at them.

Her mouth opened once, then closed. She glanced down at her hands, drew in a small breath, and lifted her eyes again.

“I wanted to be here when you came back.”

Aiko’s face changed first. She looked as if she wanted to cross the room immediately and wrap Itsuki in a hug so tight that nothing could take her away again, but fear stopped her halfway through the thought. 

So Aiko stayed where she was, blinking harder than necessary.

Yoshinori lowered the books onto the nearest chair because he no longer trusted his grip. “We are glad you were.”

Itsuki’s fingers tightened in her lap.

Ryuji stepped inside carefully and closed the door behind them. 

Aiko swallowed. “Did you sleep?”

Itsuki nodded once. “Some.”

Itsuki looked from Aiko to Yoshinori to Ryuji, and the effort of meeting each of them seemed to cost her more than walking ever could have. “I’m sorry.”

Aiko’s expression sharpened immediately. “No.”

Itsuki flinched a little, not from fear, but from surprise.

Aiko set her books down too quickly and stepped forward, then stopped herself again. Her hands curled at her sides instead. “Don’t apologize.”

Itsuki looked down. “I know I’ve been… far away. You kept trying to reach me, and I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even look at you sometimes.”

“You did not hurt us,” Yoshinori said.

His voice came out firmer than he expected. Maybe firmer than he meant it to, but he did not soften it. Itsuki looked at him, and he held her gaze carefully.

“We were worried about you,” he continued. “That is not the same thing.”

Aiko nodded hard. “You went through something horrible. You don’t owe us an apology for not knowing how to be okay afterward.”

Itsuki’s lips pressed together.

Ryuji moved to the couch and lowered himself down with slow care. Once seated, he looked at her and gave a faint smile. “You don’t owe us normal.”

Itsuki’s eyes filled quickly.

She wiped at them before the tears could fall far, embarrassed by the weakness, or maybe by how easily kindness still broke through her. “I still feel like I should say it.”

“Then you said it,” Aiko replied. “And now we are not accepting it.”

Something almost like a smile touched Itsuki’s face.

Ryuji leaned back against the couch, careful with his ribs. “That was a very official rejection.”

“I can make it more official if needed,” Aiko said.

“I believe you.”

Yoshinori picked up the books again and carried them to the table, setting them down in a careful stack near one corner. Itsuki looked at them with faint curiosity.

“You brought a lot,” she said.

“I did not know what would be useful.”

Aiko crossed her arms. “He brought half the library because the other half was attached to shelves.”

“That is not true,” Yoshinori said.

Ryuji glanced at the stack. “It is close.”

Yoshinori ignored that. “I thought we could stay here today. Read. Rest. Think. Not go back out unless we need to.”

Aiko looked toward Itsuki, making the question silent.

Itsuki lowered her gaze again, but this time she did not retreat into herself. She seemed to think about the offer, really think about it, before nodding. “I’d like that.”

For a while, the dorm became something close to peaceful. It was not whole or happy yet; those words still belonged too far away. But it was quieter in a way that did not feel empty. Yoshinori opened one of the books and began scanning through a chapter on spiritual control after depletion, though he read the same paragraph three times before understanding it. Aiko sat near Itsuki instead of beside her, close enough to be present and far enough not to press. Ryuji took one of the thinner books and balanced it awkwardly against his knee, though after a few minutes it became clear he was reading less than watching the others breathe.

Itsuki stayed at the table with them.

That alone changed the room.

The afternoon moved slowly.

At some point, light shifted across the floor and the silence became easier to carry. Aiko asked Yoshinori what one of the books said about portal residue, and Yoshinori explained that it was mostly useless because the author seemed more interested in sounding intelligent than being clear. Ryuji said that sounded like half the books in the Grand Library. Aiko asked if he had read half the books in the Grand Library. Ryuji said no, but he had suffered near them, which counted for something.

Itsuki listened, even when her expression barely changed and she offered no response. That alone was enough to make each small exchange feel less like they were pretending and more like they were remembering how the room used to hold their voices.

Then, as the afternoon leaned toward evening, Itsuki stood.

The movement pulled all three of them toward attention at once.

Itsuki noticed. Her shoulders drew in slightly, but she did not sit back down. “I want to make dinner.”

Aiko blinked. “You want to cook?”

Itsuki nodded.

Yoshinori closed his book halfway. “You do not have to.”

“I know.”

Itsuki looked toward the small kitchen area attached to the common room. “I want to.”

No one argued immediately.

Itsuki had spent days being guided from place to place. If she wanted to choose something as simple as cooking, taking that from her felt wrong.

So he nodded. “All right.”

Itsuki walked to the kitchen.

At first, she moved carefully. She gathered a pot, a cutting board, a knife, and a small basket of ingredients. Her hands paused over the vegetables longer than necessary before selecting carrots, greens, and mushrooms almost automatically. Then she reached for fruit from a bowl near the shelf, enough for all of them, though she did not say anything about it.

Both Aiko and Yoshinori noticed.

Ryuji looked down at the fruit, then back at Itsuki, and his faint smile carried more sadness than humor. None of them said the old words aloud, but they all remembered them anyway. If Itsuki cooked, everyone ate vegetables and fruit. No exceptions. No negotiations. Tetsuo had once tried to hide greens under bread and had been caught within three seconds. Shunjiro had complained exactly once before Itsuki stared at him until he ate the whole plate.

The memory moved through the room without needing a voice.

Itsuki began cutting vegetables.

Her first few movements were steady enough that Aiko relaxed a fraction. Yoshinori opened his book again but did not truly read. Ryuji shifted on the couch, watching with the practiced calm of someone trying not to make concern feel like a spotlight.

The knife slipped, not enough to cut her, but enough to strike the board at the wrong angle and send a few uneven pieces scattering.

Aiko stood halfway. “I can help.”

“I’m okay,” Itsuki said quickly.

Aiko stopped.

Itsuki gathered the pieces and continued.

A minute later, she reached for the pot before setting the knife down, realized it, corrected herself, then placed the knife too close to the edge of the counter. Her hand trembled when she moved it back. She added water, then paused as if she had forgotten what came next. Her breathing changed.

Yoshinori closed the book fully.

“Itsuki.”

“I’m okay.”

He stood. “You do not need to do this alone.”

“I know.”

“Then let us help.”

“I can do it.”

The words came sharper than she probably intended.

Aiko’s face tightened, but she did not answer. Ryuji lowered his book to his lap.

Itsuki turned back toward the vegetables, and this time the shaking in her hands was impossible to miss. She tried to gather the cut pieces into the pot, but several slipped from her fingers and fell onto the counter. Her shoulders rose with a breath that did not go deep enough. She picked up one piece, then another, moving faster as if speed could cover the tremor.

Yoshinori stepped closer, stopping just outside the kitchen space.

“You do not have to push yourself this hard.”

Itsuki went still.

The pot steamed faintly beside her. The knife rested on the counter. A few pieces of carrot sat near her hand. For a moment, Yoshinori thought she might deny it again.

Instead, her head lowered.

“I have to keep moving,” she said.

Her voice was small enough that the room seemed to lean toward it.

Aiko took one careful step forward. “Itsuki…”

“If I stop, I think…” Itsuki’s fingers pressed against the counter until they whitened. She swallowed, but the next words still broke on the way out. “I think the darkness is going to take the rest of me.”

No one moved.

Itsuki’s shoulders trembled.

“I know that sounds stupid,” she whispered.

“It does not,” Ryuji said immediately.

She shook her head, tears slipping down her face without the force of sobbing behind them. That somehow made them harder to watch. “When I’m still, I see everything.” She looked down at her palms as if expecting them to betray her again. “If I stay busy, I can breathe. If I have something to do, even something small, then I’m still here. I’m not just… sinking.”

Yoshinori felt the words enter him and settle heavily.

He had wanted to stop her because he was afraid she was hurting herself, but now he understood that stopping completely might hurt her too. Rest was not always peace; sometimes it was simply a quieter room for pain to grow louder.

Aiko came to Itsuki’s side first.

She did not take the knife or move Itsuki away from the counter. Instead, she simply picked up the pieces of carrot that had fallen and placed them into the pot.

“Then we’ll keep moving with you,” Aiko said.

Itsuki looked at her.

Ryuji set his book aside and pushed himself up.

Yoshinori turned at once. “Ryuji.”

“I am walking to the table,” Ryuji said. “Not fighting an SSS-ranked vegetable.”

Aiko glanced at him despite herself. “Sit before I make you regret that sentence.”

“I was planning to sit.”

He lowered himself into one of the chairs near the kitchen table. Yoshinori brought the bowl of fruit over and set it in front of him.

“You can cut these,” Yoshinori said. “Slowly.”

Ryuji looked at the fruit, then at the small knife Yoshinori placed beside it. “I have been assigned fruit duty.”

“It is an important position,” Aiko said.

“Is it?”

“No.”

Itsuki gave a tiny, wet laugh.

No one reacted too strongly, though Aiko looked down at the pot as if it suddenly required all of her attention. Yoshinori felt his own throat tighten and turned toward the shelves to gather bowls before his face could reveal too much.

The meal came together slowly after that.

Itsuki still led. That mattered. She chose what went into the pot, adjusted the heat, tasted the broth, and added herbs with a concentration that steadied her one breath at a time. But she no longer did it alone. Aiko washed the remaining vegetables and handed them over as Itsuki asked. Yoshinori brought plates, checked the bread, and followed instructions without trying to take control. Ryuji sat at the table cutting fruit into uneven pieces, occasionally making comments about how the fruit had clearly challenged him and he had defeated it honorably.

Aiko told him the slices were different sizes.

Ryuji said variety was important.

Yoshinori said nothing because his own attempt at slicing bread had produced one piece too thick, one too thin, and one that looked like it had been torn from the loaf by a monster.

Itsuki noticed.

“That one is Shunjiro’s,” she said softly.

The room quieted.

For half a second, fear flashed across her face, as if she had not meant to say his name and expected it to break something.

Then Ryuji looked at the ruined piece of bread and nodded solemnly. “Accurate.”

Aiko’s mouth trembled. “He would complain and then eat it first.”

“He would say the ugly one probably tastes better,” Yoshinori added.

Itsuki looked at the bread for a moment.

Then she nodded. “He would.”

When the food was ready, they carried everything to the table together.The meal was simple: warm vegetable soup, bread, sliced fruit, and water. It was nothing grand or worthy of a castle kitchen, but when they sat down, the dorm felt less abandoned than it had since they returned.

Itsuki waited until all of them had food before picking up her spoon.

They ate slowly. Conversation came in small pieces. Aiko asked about one of Yoshinori’s books. Ryuji complained mildly that his fruit duty had gone unappreciated. Yoshinori said the fruit was cut well enough to be eaten, which Ryuji accepted as high praise. Itsuki listened, answered when she could, and when she could not, the others let the silence remain without making it feel like failure.

After dinner, none of them left the common room.

Yoshinori read from one of the books while Aiko sat with her legs tucked beneath her on the couch. Ryuji rested against the cushions, finally admitting without words that the day had taken more from his ribs than he wanted to say. Itsuki sat near the table with a cup of water between both hands, watching the lamplight move across the room.

The closed bedroom door no longer called to her the same way. It still waited, and eventually she would have to sleep and face whatever dreams might come. But for now, she was here, her friends were here, and the darkness had not taken the rest of her.

Night settled over Radiance slowly.

When they finally rose for bed, no one made a speech about the day. No one said Itsuki was better. No one tried to turn one meal into proof that everything would be all right. Aiko only paused near the girls’ room door and looked back.

“Ready?”

Itsuki looked once toward Yoshinori and Ryuji.

Yoshinori held his stack of books against his side again. Ryuji stood beside him, one hand near his ribs, tired but smiling faintly.

Itsuki nodded. “Goodnight.”

Aiko’s eyes softened. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Yoshinori said.

Ryuji lifted one hand slightly. “Sleep well.”

Itsuki followed Aiko into their room.

Across the dorm, Yoshinori and Ryuji entered theirs. Tonight, the room did not feel quite as cold when Yoshinori lowered the lamp.

In the girls’ room, Itsuki changed into nightclothes and sat on the edge of her bed.

Aiko climbed into her own bed and turned slightly toward her. “I’m right here.”

Itsuki looked at her through the dimness.

This time, she answered.

“I know.”

Aiko’s breath caught softly, but she did not say anything else.

Itsuki slipped beneath the covers and turned onto her side. The darkness around the room was still frightening. It still held shapes her mind wanted to fill with memories. 

Itsuki closed her eyes.

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The night did not pass cleanly.

Itsuki slept longer than she expected, but not peacefully. Sometime before dawn, Aiko woke to a thin, frightened sound from the bed across the room and found Itsuki curled beneath her blanket with one hand pressed against her mouth, trembling as if she had brought some piece of the dream back with her. There were no names this time, no broken apology or explanation, only darkness clinging to her so tightly that she could not sit up at first.

Aiko did not ask what she had seen.

She rose quietly, crossed the small space between their beds, and sat beside her. When Itsuki reached for her, Aiko let her hold on. She stayed there until Itsuki’s breathing steadied, one hand moving slowly over her back, the other gripping the blanket where Itsuki’s fingers had twisted into it. The room around them remained dim and private. Yoshinori and Ryuji did not wake. If Aiko heard Itsuki whisper something too soft to understand, she kept that too.

Eventually, Itsuki’s trembling faded. Aiko helped her lie down again, then remained sitting on the edge of the bed until Itsuki’s grip loosened from her sleeve. Only after Itsuki fell asleep did Aiko return to her own bed, though she stayed facing her until morning touched the walls.

When dawn finally came, the dorm felt different from the day before.

Yoshinori was the first to enter the common room, already dressed, his expression sharper than it had been the previous morning. The stack of books he had brought back from the Grand Library still sat on the table, marked with folded slips of paper and uneven notes he must have made after everyone went to bed. Aiko came out next, hiding a yawn behind one hand. The tiredness beneath her eyes was obvious, but she carried herself with more steadiness than she had the night before. Ryuji followed a few minutes later, moving carefully with one hand near his side and the other braced against the wall for the first few steps before he pretended he had not needed it.

Itsuki came out last.

She had changed into her gray sweater and black skirt again, and though exhaustion clung to her face, she did not hesitate in the doorway this time. She crossed to the table and sat with them, hands folded near her lap. Aiko glanced toward her once, brief and protective, but said nothing about the night.

Yoshinori noticed the exchange.

He did not ask.

Instead, he lowered one hand onto the table and flexed his fingers slowly, testing something only he could feel. His spiritual energy rested beneath his skin with a steadiness that had not been there since the battle, no longer sharp enough to burn out of control or scattered beyond his reach. It was present, full, and waiting for direction.

“It came back,” he said.

Aiko turned toward him. “Your energy?”

Yoshinori nodded. “During the night, I think. It feels complete again.”

The words should have brought relief. They did, in part, but Yoshinori felt the weight of them settle deeper than that. Having his energy back meant his body had stopped giving him an excuse to remain still. It meant he could train and prepare, and that he had to do more than read about movement or think about Shunjiro being somewhere beyond reach. Power returning did not solve anything. It only removed one reason he had been forced to wait.

Aiko leaned back slightly and closed her hand. Faint pressure moved around her, not visible exactly, but present enough that Yoshinori could sense the old shape of her ability gathering beneath the surface.

“Mine is close,” she said. “Not all the way, but close enough that it feels like it’s waiting at the edge.”

Her fingers brushed unconsciously near the scar on the left side of her face. The wound itself no longer hurt. Aiko noticed where her hand had gone and lowered it quickly, jaw tightening as if she had been caught doing something she disliked.

Ryuji eased himself into a chair with a slow breath. “My energy feels fine.”

Aiko studied him. “But?”

“My ribs are voting against everything else.”

Itsuki’s mouth softened, not quite a smile but close enough that Ryuji’s dry expression warmed.

Yoshinori allowed himself one small breath of amusement before his attention returned to the table, the books, the morning, and the restless pull in his chest. “I want to find Kaito.”

Aiko’s face sharpened with immediate understanding. “For training?”

“For permission,” Yoshinori said. “We are still under orders. If we start without telling him, he will hear about it before we finish stretching.”

“He probably already knows you’re thinking about it,” Ryuji said.

“That is also possible.”

Aiko stood. “Then we should go.”

There was no hesitation in her answer. Whatever part of her was not fully recovered yet, she wanted to move as badly as Yoshinori did. Sitting in the dorm had helped for one evening. Remaining there forever would turn help into a cage.

Ryuji rested his hand against the table and pushed himself upright with careful effort. “I have nothing better to do than be told by Kaito not to do things.”

Aiko pointed at his ribs. “That will probably happen.”

“I like to be present for my own restrictions.”

Yoshinori looked toward Itsuki.

He kept his voice gentle. “Do you want to come with us?”

Aiko turned at the same time, already measuring Itsuki’s expression. “You don’t have to. I can stay here with you if you want.”

Itsuki’s fingers moved against her skirt.

The offer seemed to touch her, but it did not settle. She lowered her gaze, and for several seconds she said nothing. Yoshinori watched the way she gathered herself before speaking, not like someone trying to hide, but like someone choosing each word because the wrong one might break apart in her mouth.

“I want to see Mariah.”

Aiko’s concern showed immediately. “Mariah?”

Itsuki nodded.

Ryuji’s expression became more serious. “Are you sure?”

“No,” Itsuki admitted.

The honesty quieted them more effectively than reassurance would have.

Itsuki drew a slow breath. “But I need to know what happened to me.”

Yoshinori understood what she did not say.

Before Dungeon Valley, Itsuki had trained with Mariah. None of them had seen every lesson, but they had seen what came after: Itsuki learning to send focused beams of energy through her staff, turning a healer’s tool into something that could strike, defend, and break through attacks that ordinary energy should not have touched. Back then, it had seemed impressive and useful, a sign that Itsuki’s gift was broader than any of them had understood.

After Oceanside, that same memory felt heavier.

Yoshinori had seen what happened when the butterfly appeared.

He had not forgotten the Shadow Elf Dungeon, even though Itsuki had no memory of what had taken her over there. He had not forgotten the sudden force that had poured through her, the way her power had changed from gentle restoration into something vast and destructive enough to rival people far beyond their rank. And he had seen it again against Suzu: the ornament in Itsuki’s hair, the butterfly, and the terrifying flood of energy that had let her stand against her corrupted sister while everyone else broke around her.

Itsuki remembered the second time.

That was why Yoshinori did not ask about it.

He could feel Aiko thinking the same thing beside him. Ryuji too. The question was in the room, not spoken because all of them understood how easily curiosity could become another blade.

Itsuki’s hand rose toward her hair before stopping halfway.

The butterfly.

She hated thinking of it that way, as if naming it gave it a place beside her. It had saved lives. It had given her strength when she needed it most. It had also taken something from her, or opened something in her, or revealed a part of her power she did not understand and did not trust. The tiny gold shimmer Linda’s food had woken remained deep inside her, unchanged since yesterday, fragile enough that she had checked for it the moment she woke. It had not grown. It had not vanished either.

She had not told them.

Not yet.

“Mariah knows more about my power than anyone,” Itsuki said. “If something is wrong, she might be able to find it.”

Aiko’s brows drew together. “Mariah can be…”

“Mariah,” Ryuji finished.

Aiko gave him a look, but did not argue.

Yoshinori considered the closed door, the hallway beyond it, the route toward the healer wing, and the red-haired woman whose curiosity never seemed to sleep. He trusted Mariah’s skill. He trusted her loyalty to Radiance. He trusted that she would not intentionally harm Itsuki.

That was not the same as trusting her gentleness.

“She will push,” Yoshinori said.

“I know.”

“If she pushes too hard, leave.”

Itsuki’s gaze lifted to him and she nodded. “I will.”

Aiko stepped closer. “I can walk with you.”

“I want to go alone.”

Itsuki’s face tightened, as if she expected the request to hurt them. “Not because I don’t want you there. I just…” She struggled, then pressed her hands together in her lap. “I need to do this myself.”

Aiko’s expression softened despite the worry behind it. “Okay.”

Ryuji nodded. “Then we will go bother Kaito.”

“That is not what we are doing,” Yoshinori said.

“It might become that.”

Itsuki looked between them, and something steadier entered her face. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If Kaito lets you train, then train. Please don’t wait for me.”

Aiko searched her face. “Are you sure?”

Itsuki nodded. “Yes.”

This time, Yoshinori believed her.

Aiko reached for her, then paused, asking without words.

Itsuki stepped into the hug first.

Aiko held her carefully, eyes closing for a brief second with visible relief. When they separated, Ryuji lifted one hand in a small wave from near the table.

“Good luck,” he said.

Itsuki answered softly, “You too.”

Yoshinori gathered two of the books from the table, then seemed to think better of it and set one back down. Aiko tucked her own thinner volume under her arm. Ryuji straightened with the slow patience of someone negotiating with his own bones.

At the door, they separated.

Yoshinori, Aiko, and Ryuji turned toward the corridors that would lead them to Kaito and whatever permission he might give. Itsuki turned the other way, toward the healer wing, toward Mariah, toward answers she was not sure she wanted but could no longer avoid.

The dorm door closed behind them.

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Itsuki reached the healer hall first.

She had expected to find Mariah there because every memory she had of the woman placed her somewhere between medicine, blood, and questions no one else wanted to ask. But the healer hall was quiet. Beds were still occupied, supplies still moved from hand to hand, and the scent of salves and clean cloth still clung to the air, but the panic of the first days had faded into routine. Helper healers crossed the room with bowls, fresh bandages, and clipped instructions, each of them busy enough that Itsuki almost turned away before speaking.

A young healer noticed her standing near the entrance and hurried over. “Miss Nozomi?”

Itsuki’s fingers pressed lightly against the edge of her sleeve. Hearing her name from someone she did not know still felt strange, as if every stranger knew too much about her already. “I’m looking for Mariah.”

The healer’s face shifted with recognition. “She’s in her research room. Down the east corridor, second passage past the old records archive. The door has a silver mark on it.”

“Thank you.”

The healer bowed her head and returned to work.

Itsuki left the healer hall and followed the directions alone.

The research room was not far, but it felt removed from the rest of the castle in a way that made each step quieter than the last. The corridor narrowed after the records archive. The air cooled slightly. 

Itsuki stopped in front of the door with the silver mark.

She lifted her hand, but the knock came out so softly that she almost wondered if Mariah would hear it.

“Come in,” Mariah called from inside.

Itsuki opened the door.

The room beyond was cleaner than she expected.

She had imagined something stranger, darker, maybe a place filled with bubbling containers and ugly things preserved behind glass. Instead, Mariah’s research room looked almost elegant. White counters lined two walls. Shelves held labeled vials, sealed cases, folded cloth, small instruments, and stacks of organized papers arranged with unnerving precision. A wide desk stood near the back beneath a high window, its surface divided neatly between medical notes, spiritual diagrams, and a single black tray holding a stone.

Mariah stood beside that tray.

The stone was about the size of a closed fist, smooth and dark gray, with thin pale lines running through it like old cracks filled with moonlight. At first, Itsuki thought the light came from the window. Then the lines pulsed once, slowly.

Itsuki felt it more than saw it. A faint pressure touched the room, gone almost as soon as it arrived. The sensation made the tiny gold shimmer inside her soul tighten, as if noticing another heartbeat nearby.

Mariah did not cover the stone.

She only turned her head, red hair sliding over one shoulder, and smiled when she saw Itsuki standing in the doorway. “There you are.”

Itsuki’s hand remained on the door. “You were expecting me?”

“Eventually.” Mariah removed one hand from near the stone but left the tray exactly where it was. “People with unanswered questions tend to seek out people with uncomfortable answers. Come in.”

Itsuki stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Mariah’s eyes moved over her face with quick, bright attention. “You are standing straighter now.”

“I have things I need to ask you.”

“Good.” Mariah’s smile deepened. “I have been waiting for that sentence.”

Itsuki did not like how pleased she sounded.

Mariah gestured toward a chair near the desk, but Itsuki did not sit. Her eyes drifted once more to the stone. The pale cracks pulsed again, soft and measured.

“What is that?” Itsuki asked.

Mariah glanced down as if she had forgotten it was there, though Itsuki doubted Mariah forgot anything that rested within reach. “Something I am not ready to discuss.”

Itsuki looked back at her.

Mariah’s smile remained calm. “That is not a refusal forever. Only for today.”

The answer made the stone feel more important, not less.

Itsuki turned her attention away from it before curiosity could pull her too far from why she had come. “My energy came back.”

Mariah’s expression changed immediately, not with concern but excitement.

Itsuki saw it flash through her eyes before the healer’s composure smoothed over it. Mariah crossed the room with sudden purpose, taking a small measuring crystal from one shelf and a thin silver instrument from another. “How much?”

“Barely anything.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“What were you doing?”

Itsuki’s mouth tightened. She thought of Linda’s borrowed stall, the stew, the bread, the warmth, and the tiny gold speck that had appeared where nothing had been. She did not want to bring Linda into this. 

“I was out,” Itsuki said. “Then I felt it.”

Mariah noticed the omission. Itsuki could tell. The woman’s gaze paused on her for one precise second before moving on without comment. “Where?”

Itsuki pressed one hand lightly against her middle, though the shimmer was deeper than any place her fingers could reach. “Inside. Not in my hands. Not where I usually feel healing. Deeper than that.”

Mariah’s excitement sharpened into focus. “May I examine you?”

Itsuki hesitated.

Mariah stood too close to answers and too far from comfort. Still, Itsuki had come here for this. Running from the first question would make the walk meaningless.

“Yes.”

Mariah pointed to the chair again. “Sit.”

Itsuki obeyed.

The examination was not painful, but it was not pleasant either. Mariah placed the measuring crystal between Itsuki’s hands and set two fingers lightly against the inside of her wrist. Spiritual energy moved from Mariah in a thin, controlled thread, not entering deeply enough to invade, but close enough that Itsuki felt her entire body become aware of it. The sensation crawled beneath her skin like cold water searching for cracks.

Itsuki gripped the crystal harder.

Mariah watched the reaction with interest. “Uncomfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That means there is something for your body to object to.”

“I don’t think that is comforting.”

“It was not meant to be. Comfort is Yumi’s specialty.” Mariah leaned closer to the crystal as a faint glimmer appeared inside it, almost invisible at first. “There.”

Itsuki’s breath caught.

A point of gold flickered within the crystal.

Mariah smiled as if someone had handed her a priceless artifact. “Remarkable.”

Itsuki pulled one hand back. The gold in the crystal faded.

Mariah let her. “So. The absence was not permanent.”

“You sound happy.”

“I am.”

Itsuki looked up sharply.

Mariah met the look without apology. “Would you prefer I sound disappointed?”

“I don’t know what I prefer.”

“Honesty, I imagine.” Mariah set the crystal down carefully. “Then here it is. I am relieved because your spiritual energy showing even the smallest sign of return means you are not sealed completely. I am excited because the manner of return confirms that your case is not simple exhaustion. I am concerned because the energy I detected just now is only a fragment, and fragments often lead back to larger things that may be sleeping for a reason.”

Itsuki swallowed. “You said before that you couldn’t feel anything.”

“I could not.”

“Then why now?”

“That is one of the questions we will spend a great deal of time irritating together.”

Itsuki looked down at her hands. “There’s something else.”

Mariah became very still.

Itsuki forced herself to continue before fear pulled the words apart. “When I fought Suzu, something appeared.”

“What kind of something?”

Itsuki’s fingers curled against her skirt. “A butterfly.”

Mariah blinked once.

That small reaction told Itsuki more than a gasp would have. Mariah had not known.

“A butterfly,” Mariah repeated.

“A black one.” Itsuki’s voice lowered. “It appeared out of nowhere. It landed in my hair, and then something entered me. Energy. Too much of it. It didn’t feel like recovering. It felt like being filled by something that had been waiting outside my body.”

Mariah’s red eyes brightened, but she did not interrupt.

“It was beautiful,” Itsuki said, hating the word as soon as it left her mouth. “Unnaturally beautiful. And frightening. When it touched me, everything changed. I could move. I could fight her. I could stand against Suzu when I shouldn’t have been able to.”

The memory rose with enough force that Itsuki’s breath thinned: blood filling the air, Suzu’s empty eyes staring back at her, and impossible power flooding through her staff as her own body answered with strength she had never earned and could not understand.

“I remember it this time,” she said.

“This time?”

Itsuki’s stomach twisted. “The others told me it happened before. In the Shadow Elf Dungeon. I don’t remember it. Not clearly. They said there was a butterfly then too.”

Mariah crossed slowly back to her desk, not because she was losing interest, but because her mind had begun moving too quickly for stillness. She took one blank page and wrote two words across the top: Black butterfly.

Itsuki disliked seeing it written.

Mariah tapped the pen once against the page. “And the energy felt as if it entered you rather than rose from you?”

“Yes.”

“Did it carry corruption pressure?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it feel like Suzu?”

“No.” Itsuki answered that quickly. “Not like her. Not like the corrupted. But not like me either.”

Mariah’s smile returned slowly.

Itsuki’s skin prickled.

“So my theory was correct.”

The words landed wrong.

Itsuki’s head lifted. “What theory?”

Mariah wrote another note before answering. “That your power would answer under direct confrontation with the source of your deepest fracture.”

Itsuki stared at her.

The clean room seemed to lose air.

Mariah continued, still focused on the page. “I suspected your ability was not merely absent or underdeveloped. It had always behaved strangely in examination, especially during earlier training. Your healing energy was gentle in expression, but traces around it were not gentle at all. They were sharp. Dark. Destructive in a way that did not match the surface of your ability.”

Itsuki stood so quickly the chair scraped behind her.

Mariah looked up.

“You knew?”

“I suspected.”

“You knew something might happen if I faced Suzu?”

“I believed it was possible.”

Itsuki’s voice rose, thin and shaking. “That was my sister. That was not a test.”

Mariah did not flinch. “No. It was a battlefield.”

The answer struck harder because it was calm.

Itsuki’s hands trembled at her sides. “You’re not even sorry.”

“I did not arrange the battle. I did not send Suzu Nozomi to Oceanside. I did not place you in front of her.”

“But when you found out she was there…”

Mariah’s silence answered first.

Itsuki felt anger cut through the fear, bright enough to make her speak louder than she felt. “When you found out I was going to face her, part of you was happy.”

Mariah set the pen down.

“Yes.”

Itsuki recoiled as if slapped.

Mariah’s voice remained precise. “Not because I wanted you hurt. Not because I wanted your sister to break you. But because a theory I could not safely test had reached a condition in which it might reveal whether I was wrong.”

“That is worse.”

“It is honest.”

“It is cruel.”

“Yes,” Mariah said.

The admission stole the next words from Itsuki’s mouth.

Mariah stepped away from the desk, her expression sharper now, not defensive, not apologetic, but stripped of the little theatrical softness she used around most people. “I am many things, Itsuki. Curious, ambitious, useful, and at times cruel. I would be a worse healer if I pretended otherwise. But do not mistake my cruelty for carelessness. I watched your power because I believed it mattered. I believed you mattered. And when you stood against Suzu, something inside you answered loudly enough to keep three guilds from being slaughtered.”

“Not everyone was saved.”

The words tore out of Itsuki before she could stop them.

Mariah did not soften.

“No,” she said. “Not everyone.”

Itsuki’s eyes burned.

“But the Titans survived because you stood. Illumina survived because you stood. Mars survived because you stood. If your power had not emerged when it did, the number of graves outside Radiance would be far larger.”

Itsuki shook her head, tears gathering but not falling yet. “Don’t say it like that.”

“I am saying it because you need to understand the size of what happened.”

“I know what happened.”

“You know the pain of it,” Mariah said. “You do not yet understand the power.”

Itsuki looked away.

The dark butterfly hovered in her memory, delicate and wrong, its wings opening in her hair as impossible energy poured through her. She remembered wanting Suzu to stop. Wanting her friends to live. Wanting strength so badly that maybe the world had answered with something worse than weakness.

“I don’t want it,” Itsuki said.

Mariah watched her.

“If that thing comes with losing my energy, losing myself, becoming…” Her voice cracked before she could say Suzu’s name again. “Then I don’t want it.”

“Good.”

Itsuki blinked through the tears. “Good?”

“Yes. Fear is appropriate. Refusal is informative. Blind hunger for power would worry me far more.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Itsuki’s anger wavered, confused by the answer.

Mariah moved to one of the shelves and removed a thin folder. She opened it across the desk, revealing diagrams Itsuki recognized with a sick twist of familiarity. Notes from her old training. Staff-channeling exercises. Energy-flow sketches. Then, beneath those, newer markings she had never seen before. Two separate patterns had been drawn over a rough outline of a human body, one light and flowing, the other jagged and dark.

“Your healing energy and the destructive energy do not read as one signature behaving in two ways,” Mariah said. “They read like two signatures forced to inhabit the same vessel. Your healing restores structure. The other side does the opposite. When it touches something, it deconstructs from the core, then shatters what remains.”

Itsuki’s throat tightened.

She knew it. She had seen it against Suzu. Hearing it spoken as a property of her own body still made her feel sick.

Mariah continued, “That does not mean the destructive energy is evil. Destruction is not corruption by default. A surgeon cuts. Fire cauterizes. A broken bone must be reset before it heals correctly. Ending a harmful structure can be part of restoration.”

“It felt dark.”

“I believe it is dark energy, or something close enough that the distinction may be academic until we know more.”

Itsuki looked at the diagrams. “You think my power is tied to corruption.”

“I think your power and corruption may drink from neighboring wells.”

Itsuki took a step back.

Mariah lifted one hand, stopping the panic before it grew teeth. “Not the same well. Not necessarily. But close enough that your ability responds to forces most healers never touch. That is why I taught you to fire energy through your staff. You needed an outlet that was not simply placing your hands on wounds and hoping the world gave you enough time.”

“You didn’t tell me it was dangerous.”

“You were not ready to hear that your healing might have teeth.”

Itsuki’s jaw tightened. “You don’t get to decide what I’m ready for.”

Mariah accepted the hit with a slight tilt of her head. “No. I do not. I can decide only what I am responsible for teaching now.”

The room quieted around the pulse of the stone on the tray.

Itsuki felt the faint gold shimmer inside her answer that pulse again, not growing, not moving, only existing. Small proof that something had survived inside her. She clung to that tiny gold spark rather than the butterfly or the flood of borrowed power it had brought with it.

Mine, she thought.

The word surprised her.

Mariah seemed to notice the change in her posture. “The butterfly is not your source.”

Itsuki looked at her. “You don’t know that.”

“No. But from what you described, I can make an educated guess. It behaved like a trigger or amplifier. It entered from outside, delivered energy, and forced an output far beyond your stable capacity. That suggests it is connected to you without being identical to you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Most important things are rude that way.”

Itsuki gave her a look despite herself.

Mariah almost smiled. “Your own energy is returning as gold. It is small, but present, and that is where we begin.”

“I don’t want to rely on the butterfly.”

“Then don’t.”

Itsuki stared at her.

Mariah spread her hands slightly. “I do not know what called it. I do not know what it is. I do not know how to prevent it from appearing, and anyone who promises otherwise is either lying or stupid. But I can help you strengthen the energy that belongs to you. I can help you understand the destructive signature without surrendering to an outside force. If you learn to stand on your own power, then the next time something offers you borrowed strength, you may have a choice other than drowning in it.”

Itsuki wanted that.

The wanting scared her nearly as much as the butterfly did.

She wanted her healing back. She wanted the beam Mariah had once taught her. She wanted power that would let her reach a battlefield before friends fell. She wanted to never again stand with useless hands while someone she loved bled in front of her. That want was sharp enough to be dangerous, and for the first time she understood why Mariah looked at her with such interest.

Itsuki did not only want to heal.

Part of her wanted the strength to break whatever came for them first.

“What is your goal?” Itsuki asked.

Mariah’s eyes brightened. “All of them.”

Itsuki frowned. “All of what?”

“To help you regain your energy. To keep Radiance alive if Eclipsed Abyss returns. To understand a power that may connect healing, dark energy, and resistance to corruption in a way no record I have read can explain. To satisfy my own curiosity before it eats through my skull. To make sure a young healer with a catastrophically interesting soul does not accidentally destroy herself because everyone around her was too polite to ask terrifying questions.”

Itsuki did not know how to respond to that.

Mariah rested one hand against the folder. “I will not pretend my motives are pure. Pure motives make people careless because they stop checking themselves. Mine are mixed. That is why I am telling you what they are.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Reasonable.”

“I’m angry with you.”

“Also reasonable.”

“I still want answers.”

Mariah’s expression softened by the smallest degree. “That is usually where learning begins.”

Itsuki wiped at her face before the tears could fully fall. Her hands were still shaking, but she no longer felt like the room was about to swallow her. The anger helped. The fear helped too, in a strange way. They made her feel present.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Mariah closed the folder, leaving one blank page on top. “First, we confirm the gold shimmer without forcing output. No healing attempt. No staff channeling. No contact with active wounds. Your energy is too fragile for heroic experiments.”

Itsuki nodded.

“Second, we map the difference between the returning energy and the destructive signature I recorded before. If they are truly separate, you need to recognize them before either one moves through you.”

“And the butterfly?”

Mariah glanced once toward Itsuki’s hair, where nothing rested now. “We record what you remember. Every detail. Then we leave it alone until you are stable enough that thinking about it does not make your breathing change.”

Itsuki hated that Mariah noticed.

She nodded anyway.

Mariah picked up the measuring crystal again and set it on the desk between them. “If you decide to stop, we stop. If I ask a question you cannot answer, you say so. If I sound too pleased about something horrifying, you may tell me.”

“I will.”

“I assumed.”

Itsuki sat back down slowly.

Mariah took the chair across from her rather than standing over her. That small choice did not erase anything. It did not make Itsuki trust her. It did not make the cruelty of Mariah’s earlier admission less sharp. But it gave Itsuki enough space to place her hands around the crystal again.

The gold flicker appeared after several breaths.

Mariah’s gaze fixed on it, brilliant with curiosity, but this time her voice came quieter.

“Then we begin with the part of your power that still belongs to you.”

Itsuki looked at the tiny light inside the crystal and forced herself not to look away.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Yoshinori knocked on Kaito’s office door with Aiko at his left and Ryuji standing slightly behind them.

The answer came quickly. “Enter.”

Yoshinori opened the door and stepped inside.

Kaito sat behind his desk with several papers spread before him, his blue cloak draped over the back of his chair rather than across his shoulders. He looked more rested than he had the day before. A pen rested between his fingers, and a half-finished note lay beneath his hand. Hiroto stood near the side of the desk with his arms folded, his large frame taking up space without making the room feel crowded. Mei sat by the window with another small stack of papers resting in her lap, lavender hair falling neatly over one shoulder as her violet eyes moved from the documents to the three young adventurers entering the office.

Kaito set the pen down. “Yoshinori.”

Yoshinori closed the door behind them and bowed his head respectfully. Aiko did the same. Ryuji’s bow was shallower because of his ribs, though he tried to make it look intentional.

Kaito noticed anyway.

“What is it?” Kaito asked.

Yoshinori lifted his head. He had practiced the first sentence on the way there, not because it was difficult, but because speaking in this room made everything feel official. As long as the thought stayed inside his head, training was only something he wanted. Once he said it in front of Kaito, it became a request, and requests could be denied.

“Our conditions have improved,” Yoshinori said. “My spiritual energy returned fully sometime during the night. Aiko’s is almost restored, and physically she is ready to train. Ryuji’s energy feels stable again, but his ribs are still damaged.”

Ryuji raised one hand slightly. “My ribs have strong opinions.”

“No,” Kaito said.

Ryuji blinked. “I did not finish.”

“You were going to make light of it.”

“I was going to make it accurate.”

“You were going to make it sound less serious than it is.” Kaito leaned back in his chair, eyes steady on him. “Do not.”

Ryuji lowered his hand with a faint, guilty smile. “Understood.”

Aiko glanced at him as if to say she had been about to do the same thing, then returned her attention to Kaito.

Yoshinori continued. “We came to ask permission to begin training again.”

Kaito’s expression did not change much, but something in his posture eased. He seemed pleased, not because they wanted to train, but because they had come to him before deciding they already had the right. Yoshinori was glad they had. The last thing Illumina needed was another order broken because grief had convinced them urgency was the same thing as wisdom.

“You are asking before starting,” Kaito said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The single word carried more approval than Yoshinori expected.

Hiroto’s mouth curved slightly. “That already puts you ahead of half the adventurers in this building.”

Mei turned one page in her lap. “More than half.”

Kaito rested his forearms on the desk. “Yoshinori, you may resume training, but you will begin with control. No full-output lightning until you prove your energy has settled properly. Aiko, if your energy is nearly restored and your body is not showing strain, you are cleared to train as well. Build pace before intensity. Your ability punishes carelessness, and I have no interest in explaining to Yumi why you collapsed because you tried to jump directly back to battlefield speed.”

Aiko nodded. “I understand.”

Kaito’s attention shifted to Ryuji.

Ryuji straightened a little without meaning to.

“You will not spar,” Kaito said. “You will not take impact drills. You will not run until breathing no longer pulls at the break. You will practice spiritual control, footwork that does not twist your torso, and light movement only. If I hear that you turned a recovery exercise into a contest with your own pain, training stops.”

Ryuji absorbed the order with more seriousness than his earlier joke suggested. “Yes, sir.”

“Yumi will continue treating you daily,” Kaito said. “If you do that and stop trying to prove your ribs are decorative, you should be fully healed in another week. Two at most.”

“That is faster than I expected,” Aiko said.

“Yumi is very good,” Mei said quietly.

Kaito nodded once. “She is. Do not make her work harder than necessary.”

“I won’t,” Ryuji said.

Kaito held his attention for another breath, making sure the words had landed. Then his eyes moved past the three of them toward the empty space that should have belonged to someone else. “Where is Itsuki?”

“She went to Mariah,” Yoshinori said.

Kaito’s hand stilled on the desk. “On her own?”

“Yes.”

Aiko’s fingers tightened around the book tucked beneath her arm. “She wanted to go alone.”

Kaito took that in without immediate judgment. “Did she say why?”

“She said she needed to know what happened to her,” Yoshinori answered.

Mei’s eyes softened slightly, though she remained silent.

Kaito looked down at the papers in front of him, but Yoshinori could tell he was no longer reading them. “Mariah is the right person for that.”

Aiko did not seem fully convinced. “Is she?”

“For answers, yes,” Kaito said. “For gentleness, not always. But Mariah understands Itsuki’s power better than anyone in Radiance, and Itsuki choosing to go to her matters. She needs decisions that belong to her.”

That answer did not erase Aiko’s worry, but it gave the worry a place to stand. Yoshinori felt the same. He trusted Itsuki’s choice. He trusted Mariah’s ability. Trusting both did not make the thought of them together any less unsettling.

Kaito noticed their faces. “If Mariah crosses a line, Itsuki is allowed to leave. She knows that?”

“She does,” Yoshinori said.

“Then let her have the chance to act on it.”

Aiko lowered her gaze and nodded.

The office settled into a more difficult kind of silence, not empty, but waiting. Yoshinori had known the next question would come. He had carried it from the dorm to the hallway, from the hallway to this door, and now that they were in front of Kaito, he could feel Aiko and Ryuji waiting for him to ask it because he was the one who had taken the first step into leadership while Shunjiro was gone.

He hated that reason, but he asked anyway.

“Is there any update on Shunjiro?”

Kaito’s expression became very still.

Hiroto’s faint amusement disappeared. Mei lowered the paper in her hand fully now, giving the question the respect it deserved.

Kaito did not answer quickly. 

“Two SSS-ranked guilds are searching for him,” Kaito said at last. “That is the confirmed update. They have routes, authority, supplies, communication methods, and orders to report anything that could lead to him or to Eclipsed Abyss.”

Yoshinori nodded, though the answer was not enough. It could not be enough. Aiko’s jaw tightened beside him, and Ryuji’s fingers rested lightly against the edge of the chair near the door.

Kaito seemed to know all of that. “I will not pretend we have more than we do. There is no confirmed location yet.”

Aiko inhaled carefully through her nose.

“But,” Kaito continued, “wherever Shunjiro is, he is doing what he always does. Surviving longer than anyone gives him permission to.”

Ryuji’s mouth moved faintly, almost a smile and almost pain.

Yoshinori let the sentence settle inside him. It was not proof. Kaito had not offered it as proof. That made it easier to hold. A lie would have broken under its own kindness, but this was different. This was faith built from experience, and Yoshinori could accept that without feeling treated like a child.

“Your order has not changed,” Kaito said. “Illumina remains in Radiance. You do not leave the kingdom, you do not chase rumors, and you do not decide that restored energy means permission to act on your own.”

Aiko’s shoulders stiffened, but she answered with Yoshinori. “Understood.”

Kaito’s eyes moved between them. “Training is allowed because you need to recover your bodies, regain control, and become capable of standing when the next order comes. It is not allowed so you can punish yourselves for what happened.”

Yoshinori met Kaito’s eyes and forced himself to answer honestly. “I understand.”

“Good,” Kaito said. “Because if I see training become self-destruction, I end it.”

Hiroto gave a low hum of agreement. “He will.”

Mei added, “And he will know.”

Ryuji glanced at her. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is practical,” Mei said.

Kaito picked up the pen again but did not return to the papers. “There is one more thing. Someone is on his way to Radiance. His name is Rayne.”

The name meant nothing to Yoshinori. Judging by Aiko’s face, it meant nothing to her either. Ryuji seemed to search his memory and find the same empty result.

“Who is he?” Yoshinori asked.

“Someone I trust,” Kaito said. “He is expected to arrive in two or three days. When he does, he will take responsibility for your training.”

Aiko’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You are not training us?”

“I will be involved when I can,” Kaito said. “But Radiance does not currently allow me the time to train you properly every day. You need consistency, and Rayne can give you that.”

Yoshinori accepted the answer even though disappointment touched him. Kaito had guided them through too many turning points for his absence from their training to feel small. Still, if Kaito trusted Rayne enough to hand Illumina to him, then Yoshinori had to take the name seriously.

“What should we expect?” Ryuji asked.

Hiroto answered before Kaito could. “Rayne does not waste movement, words, or weakness.”

Ryuji considered that. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“It can be,” Hiroto said.

Mei’s lips curved slightly. “It is also effective.”

Kaito gave Hiroto a look that suggested the description was accurate enough to be allowed. “Rayne will not be gentle. I did not ask him to be. But he will not be careless with you either. There is a difference, and you will learn it quickly.”

Aiko shifted her weight, energy returning to her posture in a way Yoshinori had not seen since before everything. “Then what do we do until he arrives?”

“Get back up to pace,” Kaito said. “Yoshinori, rebuild control until your lightning responds cleanly every time. Aiko, restore precision before force. I want swaps that do not rely on panic. Ryuji, you will focus on spiritual control, defensive timing, and movement that does not make Yumi angry enough to come here herself.”

Ryuji nodded. “Avoiding Yumi’s anger is a clear goal.”

“It is a survival skill,” Hiroto said.

For once, Ryuji did not argue.

Kaito stood slowly enough that the movement revealed more fatigue than he probably wanted them to see, then came around the desk and stopped in front of them.

“You are allowed to train,” he said. “You are allowed to want strength. You are allowed to be angry that you need it. But you will do this correctly. You will listen to your bodies, listen to Yumi, listen to whoever is responsible for you, and listen when someone beside you says you are going too far.”

His eyes paused on each of them in turn.

“You have already lost enough because people stronger than you moved carelessly. Do not repeat that mistake in smaller form.”

Yoshinori bowed his head. “We won’t.”

Aiko nodded. “We’ll do it right.”

Ryuji gave a faint smile, quieter than his usual one. “I will be annoyingly responsible.”

“That would be a refreshing change,” Kaito said.

Hiroto coughed once into his fist, badly hiding amusement. Mei turned another page in her lap, though her eyes carried the same faint warmth.

Kaito returned to his chair and picked up the pen again. The conversation was over, but not dismissed without care. “Go. Start lightly today. Report to Yumi afterward, especially Ryuji. If Itsuki returns from Mariah and wants to rest, let her. If she wants to speak, listen before answering.”

Yoshinori felt the instruction settle with the rest. “Yes.”

Aiko held the door open this time. Ryuji stepped through first, moving carefully enough that Kaito would have no reason to call him back. Yoshinori followed, then paused before leaving the office fully.

“Kaito.”

Kaito looked up.

“Thank you.”

Kaito’s answer was quiet. “Become strong enough that you do not need to thank me for permission.”

Yoshinori held his gaze for a second, then nodded.

He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Aiko waited beside Ryuji a few steps away. Her book was still tucked beneath her arm, but her free hand had curled into a fist, not from anger this time, but from readiness. Ryuji stood carefully, face pale with the effort of remaining upright longer than his ribs preferred, but he did not complain. Yoshinori could feel his own energy resting steady beneath his skin, no longer a memory of power, but power returned and waiting to be shaped.

They were not free to search.

They were not whole.

They were not ready for Rayne, whoever he was.

But Kaito had given them the first thing they could use.

Permission.

Yoshinori turned toward the training area, and Aiko and Ryuji walked with him.