Kana stared at him for a long second.
Then another.
Then she rubbed her temple.
"…You do know you have to take that off to read, right?"
Leo didn't move. "I'm aware."
Kana's eyebrow twitched. "Then why are you still wearing it?"
Leo tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear. "Because the lesson isn't just about what's on the paper."
The classroom went quiet.
Kana glanced back down at the note from the Fuuma clan—approved sensory restriction training, student assumes full responsibility—then back at Leo.
"…You kids are exhausting," she muttered.
She crossed her arms. "Fine. You keep it on. But if you miss a single question, that's on you."
Leo nodded. "Understood."
Kana turned back to the board. "And for the rest of you—no, this is not permission to start wearing blindfolds in my class. Fuuma nonsense stays Fuuma-specific."
A few students snickered.
As the chalk hit the board, Kana paused once more and glanced over her shoulder.
Leo's pencil was already moving.
Perfectly in time.
She frowned.
"…Huh."
Just barely, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Kana continued writing, chalk tapping and scraping in uneven bursts across the board.
Tap.
Scrrrk.
Tap–tap.
Pause.
Leo's head tilted almost imperceptibly.
To everyone else, it was just noise—background sound you stopped noticing after a minute. To Leo, it was structure.
The Blacklight Virus flowed thinly through his inner ear, not amplifying volume, but clarity. Each strike of chalk carried information: pressure, speed, direction. Long strokes meant explanations. Short taps meant bullet points. A pause meant a diagram was coming.
Kana spoke while writing.
"—this is why internal energy circulation differs between clans—"
Leo's pencil moved.
When the chalk dragged downward, he wrote a heading.
When it shifted left, he indented.
When Kana paused, he left space.
From the outside, it looked impossible.
A blindfolded student, calmly taking notes, never once asking for clarification.
One student leaned over and whispered, "Is he… cheating?"
Another whispered back, "With what? His third eye?"
Kana stopped mid-sentence.
The room froze.
She turned slowly and looked straight at Leo.
"Fuuma," she said, flatly. "What did I just write on the board?"
Leo didn't hesitate.
"Three circulation failures that occur when external enhancement outpaces internal reinforcement," he replied. "You underlined the third because it's the most common among younger operatives."
Silence.
Kana stared.
Then she turned back to the board and muttered, "…Of course you got it."
She resumed writing, this time more deliberately.
Leo noticed immediately.
She's testing me now, he thought.
The chalk rhythm changed—slower, more controlled.
Leo adjusted.
To anyone else in the room, it looked like magic.
To Leo, it was simple.
Sight was just one sense.
And right now…
he was learning how to fight without it.
The training hall echoed with footsteps and low chatter as students paired off.
Wooden swords were handed out.
Leo stood calmly in the center of the sparring ring, blindfold still firmly in place.
Across from him, a broad-shouldered student tightened his grip on the bokken, frowning.
"I feel very conflicted fighting a blind person," he said, shifting his stance.
Leo's lips curled into a familiar, irritating smirk.
"Sounds to me like you're scared, Boulder."
The nickname landed perfectly.
The guy stiffened.
"…I am no longer conflicted."
He dropped into a proper stance and rushed forward.
The floor creaked.
Leo heard it.
Not the step—the weight shift before it. The subtle exhale. The tension in the arms as the sword came up.
The bokken cut downward.
Leo pivoted just enough for the strike to miss by inches, then tapped the flat of the blade with his own, redirecting it harmlessly to the side.
Clack.
Murmurs rippled through the class.
Boulder swung again, faster this time.
Leo stepped inside the guard, shoulder brushing past, and lightly tapped Boulder's ribs with the tip of his sword.
"Point," the instructor called.
Boulder jumped back, eyes wide.
"Lucky hit," he muttered, charging again.
This time, Leo didn't move.
The Blacklight Virus spread thin across his skin—not visible, not weaponized—just enough to feel air displacement.
The sword came.
Leo leaned back, letting it pass, then flicked his wrist.
Thwack.
The bokken was knocked clean out of Boulder's hands and skidded across the floor.
Dead silence.
Leo tilted his head slightly in Boulder's direction.
"You tense up right before you swing," he said casually. "It's loud."
Boulder stared at him, then at his empty hands.
"…That's cheating."
Leo shrugged. "Then don't broadcast your attacks."
The instructor cleared their throat, fighting a smile.
"Next pair."
As Leo stepped back into line, Asagi watched him with a mix of pride and concern.
He's adapting faster than I thought, she realized.
And somewhere deep inside Leo's quiet mind, a single thought surfaced:
"I don't need eyes to survive."
Leo tilted his head slightly toward the sound, blindfold still unmoved.
"Hey," he said, calm and almost casual, "your name's not actually Boulder, right?"
There was a brief pause.
Boulder—former Boulder—pushed himself up from the floor, brushing dust off his uniform.
"…No."
A few students snickered under their breath.
Leo nodded as if he could see him perfectly fine. "Good. Because that'd be a really unfortunate name."
The guy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's Ishida."
Leo smiled. "Nice to meet you, Ishida."
Ishida hesitated, then looked at the blindfold again. "You really can't see, right?"
"Nope."
"…Then how?"
Leo tapped the side of his head. "Breathing. Footsteps. Muscle tension. You breathe like you're about to lift a boulder before you swing."
That earned a few laughs from the class.
Ishida grimaced. "I hate that nickname."
"You earned it," Leo replied lightly. "But hey—fix your breathing, and I'll stop using it."
The instructor clapped their hands once. "Enough social bonding. Line up."
As they moved, Ishida glanced back at Leo, a new look in his eyes—not anger this time, but respect… and maybe a little fear.
And Leo?
He stood quietly, listening to the room, feeling the space around him.
No James. No Alex.
Just him.
And somehow… it was working.
Kotaro watched Leo's back as the line shifted forward, his eyes lingering on the blindfold, on the way Leo stood—too still, too centered.
'Why is he doing this? Kotaro thought. Is it just training… or is he trying to make up for something?'
As if sensing the stare, Leo tilted his head slightly.
"You're thinking too loud," Leo said.
Kotaro flinched. "You can hear thoughts now too?!"
Leo snorted. "No. But you sigh every time you overthink. It's annoying."
Kotaro clicked his tongue, crossing his arms. "Tch. Then answer me."
"…Answer what?"
Kotaro lowered his voice. "You're pushing yourself way harder than usual. Blindfolds, solo forest runs, fighting Oni alone. This isn't normal, even for you."
Leo was quiet for a moment.
The sounds of training filled the gap—wooden swords colliding, instructors shouting corrections, feet scraping dirt.
Finally, Leo spoke.
"When you lose something you relied on," he said calmly, "you either stop moving… or you find out what you can do without it."
Kotaro frowned. "You lost something?"
Leo's smile was small, almost imperceptible. "Yeah."
Kotaro studied him, then looked away. "You know you don't have to do everything alone, right?"
Leo turned slightly toward him. "I know."
A beat.
"…But I need to learn how."
The instructor barked orders, snapping the class back into motion.
Kotaro tightened his grip on his wooden sword, eyes sharp now.
Idiot, he thought. He's not trying to prove he's strong.
'He's trying to prove he'll still be standing when no one's there to catch him.'
The next few days passed quietly—but not uneventfully.
Leo kept the blindfold on.
Classes, sparring sessions, patrol drills, even casual walks through Gosha Village—he never took it off. At first, people thought it was a joke. Then a phase. Then a challenge.
By the third day, no one was laughing.
He moved through the academy halls without hesitation, never bumping into anyone, never missing a step. In training, he reacted before attacks were fully formed, wooden swords stopping inches from his throat or ribs as if he had seen them coming.
Whispers started.
"How does he do that?"
"Is it some Fuuma technique?"
"No, it's not chakra-based… it feels wrong."
Nicknames followed, as they always did.
Just like his father Ryuji had once been called the American Taimanin, Leo earned one of his own.
The Blind Taimanin.
At first, it was said half-mockingly.
By the end of the week, it was said with respect.
Even Kana watched him more carefully during class now, tapping her chalk against the board whenever she wanted his attention—only to pause when Leo answered before she even spoke.
During sparring, students hesitated.
Some refused to fight him outright.
Others came at him harder, desperate to be the one who proved the nickname wrong.
None of them succeeded.
Asagi watched from the sidelines more than once, her smile soft but uneasy. She noticed the way Leo slept less. The way his senses were always on, like he was listening to a world no one else could hear.
One evening, as they walked back together, she finally asked, gently,
"Leo… you're not going to keep this forever, right?"
Leo paused, fingers brushing the edge of the blindfold.
"…No," he said after a moment. "But not yet."
Asagi nodded, trusting him—but still worried.
Because legends in Gosha never started loudly.
They started quietly.
With a name whispered between students.
And a boy who kept walking forward, even when he could no longer see the path ahead.
Meanwhile in his house
Aoi tried to remove the Blindfold from her son, as Leo was pushing her back.
Aoi was holding the blindfold hard. "Take that of and have lunch like a normal person!".
Leo leaned back, heels scraping against the tatami as he resisted, one hand gripping the knot of the blindfold, the other braced against the table.
"Mom, stop—!"
Aoi growled, digging her heels in like she was pulling a stubborn blade from a stone. "Absolutely not. You are not eating miso soup blindfolded. Do you know how many times you've almost stabbed yourself with chopsticks today?"
"I haven't stabbed myself once," Leo shot back.
"You poked your cheek."
"That was tactical."
Ryuji, sitting at the table with his arms crossed, watched the tug-of-war with the tired eyes of a man who had long accepted that his household was not normal.
"…He's not wrong," Ryuji said slowly. "He hasn't spilled anything."
Aoi snapped her head toward him. "Do not encourage this."
Kotaro, halfway through his rice, leaned back and squinted at Leo. "Cousin, you know you look like a chuuni final boss, right?"
Leo turned his head exactly toward Kotaro. "You're sitting three seats to my left, leaning back, rice on your cheek."
Kotaro froze. "…Okay that's creepy."
Aoi tightened her grip. "That's it." She yanked harder. "Blindfold off. Training ends at the dinner table."
Leo sighed—then relaxed.
Aoi blinked as the resistance suddenly vanished, and she stumbled forward a step, the blindfold coming loose in her hands.
She looked down at it, then back at Leo.
"…You could've done that the whole time?"
Leo opened his eyes, calm, focused—but tired. "Yeah."
"Then why didn't you?!"
He hesitated.
Just for a second.
Ryuji noticed.
"I needed to know," Leo said quietly, sitting down properly. "That I can turn it off when I choose to. Not because someone else makes me."
The room went still.
Aoi's anger deflated like air from a punctured tire. She clicked her tongue, folded the blindfold neatly, and placed it on the counter.
"…You're still eating without it," she said firmly. "Non-negotiable."
Leo nodded. "Fair."
As he picked up his chopsticks, Ryuji spoke again, tone measured.
"You're pushing yourself," he said. "Not training—pushing."
Leo didn't deny it. "I know."
Ryuji met his eyes. "Just remember something, son. Strength isn't only about what you can do alone."
Leo paused, then gave a small smile. "Yeah. I know."
But later that night, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling—
The silence in his head returned.
No James. No Alex. No guiding voices.
Just Leo.
And the steady, undeniable realization that from here on out—
Every step forward would be his alone.
To be continued
Hope people like this Ch and give me Power stones