"Since you came all this way," Ren said, "how about we do this properly?"
His voice was light, almost lazy, but it rolled through the courtyard like a small stone dropped into a deep lake. Ripples followed.
Vali's eyebrow ticked upward, pale eyes sharpening with interest. "Oh?"
Ren's smile turned a shade more wicked.
"Since you're skulking around my class," he went on, "you might as well participate and start enrollment."
Bikou's grin snapped back in full. "Now we're talking."
Le Fay clutched her grimoire a little tighter, eyes darting between Ren and Vali. "Um, Onii-sama, this feels… a bit sudden…"
Ren lifted one hand and drew an idle line through the air, as if sketching nothing in particular.
The manor's floor disagreed.
Formation lines hidden beneath stone flared to life with a muted hum, threads of light racing outward. A circular pattern spread across the courtyard, thin lines of Dao-script and devil glyphs intertwining, the stones themselves shivering as if they recognized their owner.
It felt, to everyone watching, like the world had just inhaled.
"The terms are simple," Ren said. "You want to see what cultivation can do. My first students need a proper test. So…"
He began to point, one by one.
"Issei, you'll fight Vali."
Issei jerked so hard his chair almost went over. "Me? Against that monster?!"
His voice broke on the last word. Sweat prickled along his neck; Vali's gaze had already slid to him, sharp and amused.
In his soul, a dragon laughed.
[You wanted to surpass the White One, partner,] Ddraig rumbled, heat washing through Issei's veins.
"Yeah, but not on the first day of class!" Issei hissed back, voice cracking.
Ren didn't so much as glance his way. The corner of his mouth quirked, but his eyes stayed calm and focused, the way they always did when he'd already decided how the world was going to move.
"Kiba, you and Arthur," he continued. "Perfect match. You wanted a chance at the Holy King Sword, didn't you?"
Kiba's lashes lowered. Sword Intent stirred around him like a faint breeze, the air tasting subtly of steel and earth.
"…Yes," he answered quietly. The single word rang like a drawn blade.
Ren's gaze moved again.
"Koneko." His tone gentled, the edge dropping away. "You and Kuroka."
Koneko's shoulders flinched before she could stop herself. Her fingers curled into her sleeves, claws nearly piercing the fabric as her gaze darted to her sister.
Kuroka tilted her head, golden eyes half-lidded, tails swaying behind her. "…Nya?"
"Can you handle it?" Ren asked.
He didn't soften the question. He didn't shield her from it either. He simply placed it in front of her and waited.
Koneko swallowed. Old memories clawed up from the dark—the smell of blood, the sight of Kuroka standing over corpses, the shrill, accusing voices calling her sister a monster. The crushing, suffocating weight of being left behind.
But now there was another memory layered over it. A different void—Ren's nightmare trial, the moment she had stepped forward into his Saint Kingdom and accepted every part of herself. The moment her strength stopped being something she ran from.
Deep in her chest, inside the inner world Ren had helped her build, the Immutable Core at the heart of her Soul Palace pulsed once. Solid. Unshakable.
Koneko raised her head.
"…I can," she said. "I… want to."
Kuroka blinked slowly. Something soft, almost unreadable, flickered behind her lazy gaze and then hid itself again.
"…Fufu. Fine, then," she murmured. "Let's see how big you've gotten, Shirone."
Ren nodded, satisfied.
"Rias, Akeno," he finished, turning. "You'll take Bikou and Le Fay together."
Rias blinked, crimson hair catching the courtyard light. "Two on two?"
"Your destructive power and Akeno's lightning make a nasty combination," Ren said. "Those two work well together." He nodded at Bikou and Le Fay. "It'll be good practice."
Akeno's lips curved, violet eyes brightening with a familiar mischievous light. "Ara… I like the sound of that."
Thunder stirred faintly around her, sensing her mood.
Around them, the spectators shifted, the air filling with low murmurs and the rustle of cloth and wings.
Azazel lingered near the edge of the circle with a cluster of Fallen, hands in his pockets, eyes alight like a scientist presented with a brand-new lab explosion. Griselda and her group had yet to depart, Heaven's representative standing straight-backed but watching intently. Sona and Sairaorg were still present, sharing a quiet, tense silence as they assessed the risks. Rossweisse hovered close to the action, gaze analyzing every glowing line in the formations like an equation she fully intended to solve.
"Wait, wait," Irina yelped, flapping her hands. "Is this really okay?! If they go all out, things will totally blow up!"
Griselda's brows knitted. "This level of combat inside Kuoh…"
Sona pushed her glasses up, voice crisp. "If they lose control, the town—"
Ren lifted a hand and every argument broke off like a thread cut clean.
"Relax," he said. "The manor can take it."
His smile was easy, but his eyes were flat and steady, the way the ocean could look calm while hiding trenches beneath.
"And I said I'd fix this world's clunky systems, remember? Might as well start by stress-testing the new ones."
Stress-testing, to him, meant throw dragons at it and see what survived.
His gaze swept over both groups—the ORC, tense but resolute, and the Vali team, coiled and eager.
"And don't worry," he added lightly. "We'll take it… seriously."
His expression didn't change much, but something in his gaze sharpened, like a blade turning to catch the light.
"Go all out," he told his students. "Don't hesitate. Don't hold back because you 'like' someone or because they're 'important.' Treat this like a life-or-death battle."
Asia's hands flew to her mouth. "L-life or death?!"
Ren's tone stayed calm, almost conversational.
"How can you learn anything if people keep pulling their punches?" he asked. "In real fights, you don't get handicap rules. You live, or you die. That's true whether you're a devil, angel, dragon, god, or cultivator."
The words hit harder than any blast.
Rias' eyes darkened, thoughts flickering back to a marriage game played on a stage of fire—Riser Phenex's arrogance, her own desperation, the feeling of being cornered and powerless before Ren walked into her world and rewrote the board.
Akeno's lashes lowered, hiding the brief, raw shadow in her gaze—the sting of her own blood, her own half-fallen nature, and the memory of lightning that only ever seemed to burn herself.
Kiba saw, again, the broken bodies of his friends beneath a cold sky, holy swords gleaming with stolen futures and his own helplessness.
Koneko remembered herself cowering in a corner, small and shaking, while other people decided what her sister had become.
Issei remembered every time he'd watched someone stronger step in to save him. Every time he'd shouted big words with no power to back them up.
The air thickened, not with magic, but with intent.
Ren let the silence sit on their shoulders for a heartbeat longer, then softened his voice, just a touch.
"This is training," he said. "But the insight you gain when your life feels like it's on the line? You can't fake that. I'll step in if someone's actually about to die. Until then…"
He snapped his fingers.
Reality twisted.
The courtyard blurred as if smeared by an invisible hand, lines stretching and bending. The world flipped inside-out for a heartbeat, leaving stomachs lurching and senses rebelling.
Then it snapped back into focus.
They were no longer in the courtyard.
Above them spread a sky a little too clear, a shade too deep—a blue without pollution, layered with faint, drifting lights like distant Dao runes. The air was thick and clean, humming with refined worldly energy that made devils' demonic power stir, angels' light keen, Fallen's power itch at their fingertips.
Grass rolled out in every direction, every blade humming faintly with circulation patterns. Floating stones hung in the air at varying heights, some barely larger than fists, others as big as small houses. Each bore faint Dao-script and devil seals, anchoring them in invisible currents.
The entire space was a living formation.
The air itself buzzed, dense with the same pressure that had tested them at the gate, now ordered, tamed, and responsive to Ren's will.
Azazel let out a low whistle. "You made a whole training dimension around your house," he muttered. "Of course you did."
Ren didn't bother explaining that this was just the outer layer of a much larger project. He simply flicked his hand, and space obeyed.
The combatants popped apart like pieces on a game board, the field folding into four distinct "rings" of compressed space.
High above, patterns overlapped—four circles of force, like overlapping ripples on a pond, close enough that spectators could see every clash, far enough that shockwaves wouldn't bleed into each other.
On a jagged rocky plateau, Issei and Vali faced each other, wind already sharpening around them.
In a forest of floating stone pillars, Kiba and Arthur stood across from each other, their blades silent but hungry.
On a plain crackling with latent thunder, Rias and Akeno confronted Bikou and Le Fay, magic and lightning already stirring.
And in a quieter corner, where the grass grew taller and the shadows were deeper, Koneko and Kuroka regarded each other across a field that smelled of leaves and earth—sister against sister.
Ren floated at the exact center of everything, a calm point around which all the chaos would soon orbit, arms loose at his sides.
He didn't put up a concealment barrier.
If the world wanted to watch, he would let it.
"Ready?" he called, voice carrying clearly to every corner of the dimension.
Vali's wings unfurled, eight devil wings spreading behind the white dragon's light. His lips curved. "Always."
Issei sucked in a breath, pulse pounding, green jewel already forming over his left arm as the familiar gauntlet materialized.
"Ddraig," he murmured. "Let's go."
[Heh. About time, partner,] Ddraig answered, voice rich with anticipation.
Kiba drew his sword slowly, the motion controlled, the new weight in his Sword Intent making the nearest pillars groan.
Arthur adjusted his glasses with one hand, the other resting casually on the hilt at his hip. The Holy King Sword—Collbrande, Caliburn—barely glowed, but space around its edge flickered, light bending away from it.
Rias' crimson aura rose in a soft roar, demonic power climbing as the outline of her Throne of Ruin flickered behind her like a shattered crown remade in scarlet. Akeno's lightning coiled up her arm and down her back, Heavenbreaker Circuit lines faintly visible beneath her skin, as if someone had drawn glowing circuits into her veins.
Bikou spun his staff in lazy circles, senjutsu swirling around him like invisible wind, his smile that of a monkey god looking down on a prank about to happen. Le Fay's magic circle unfurled at her feet, pages in her grimoire turning on their own, runes lifting off the paper like sparks.
Kuroka's tails—two, sleek and dark—swayed in unison as she sank into her stance, more like a cat stretching before a nap than a warrior ready for battle. Yet the air around her thickened with senjutsu, heavy and intoxicating.
Koneko let her Touki rise. White ears and tails appeared without hesitation this time, her aura no longer small and tightly bound, but steady and deep, anchored by an Immutable Core that refused to bend.
Ren smiled.
"Begin."
...
The instant the word left Ren's lips, Vali moved.
White wings snapped fully open, blowing shards of stone off the plateau. Demonic power flooded the air, blending with the clean, cold surge of Divine Dividing's aura. The combination rippled like a tide of frost along everyone's skin.
His body blurred. One moment he stood a dozen meters away; the next, he was already in front of Issei, foot shattering rock as he launched forward.
"Balance Break."
Armor slammed into existence around him in a torrent of white light. Scale Mail in the form of a dragon—sleek lines, razor wings, the blue jewel on his chest blazing with Albion's presence.
"Vanishing Dragon Balance Breaker," he declared.
Issei's reaction came a half-breath slower—but only half.
"Balance Break!"
Red armor folded over him like a closing dragon's jaw. Plates locked into place, wings flared, claws formed. Boosted Gear's emerald jewel lit up like a small star.
"Welsh Dragon Balance Breaker!"
They collided in the center of the plateau, red and white fists meeting with a sound like a mountain cracking.
The air shattered.
Shockwaves ripped outward in concentric rings. The rocky ground spiderwebbed with fractures, chunks of stone tearing free and hovering in the air like startled birds before Ren's formation caught them.
Even at the edges of the training dimension, spectators felt the echo—two Heavenly Dragons roaring through their hosts, not fully unleashed, but far from idle.
Vali laughed, eyes wide behind his helmet.
"Not bad!" he shouted over the roar. "Much better than the rumors said, Sekiryuutei!"
Issei gritted his teeth as force slammed through his arm, every bone in his body screaming protest.
"Thanks," he shot back. "You're heavier than you look, you know that?"
"Boost!"
Ddraig's voice rang in his mind, power doubling and then doubling again, each pulse climbing his spine like a ladder of fire.
Vali's jewel answered in counterpoint.
"Divide."
The dragon core in Issei's armor twisted. A portion of his boosted power tore away, siphoned into Vali's armor in a clean, clinical wrench.
To most observers, Issei's aura should have visibly shrunk.
Sona leaned forward, eyes narrowed. The faint glow of her own demonic power gave her a clear view of aura flows.
"So that's how it works," she murmured. "He halves his opponent's power and adds it to himself…"
"But look," Sairaorg said, arms folded, fighting spirit flaring in his eyes. "Hyoudou's aura… it isn't dropping as much as it should."
They were right.
Issei felt the ugly, familiar sensation of losing power to Divine Dividing—but beneath that theft, another rhythm had been carved into his body over the past three weeks.
Inside his Soul Palace—his inner world of stone and sky—Myriad Origin Scripture's loops spun, etched deep by Ren's relentless training. Waste energy that should have simply bled away—heat, leakage, all the untidy excess of power—was caught, redirected, and spun back toward his core.
Cycle of Waste.
Even the "loss" Vali inflicted wasn't pure loss anymore. The instant Issei's aura dipped, that negative space was treated like empty channels, vacuum that Myriad Origin rushed to refill, using every trace of stray energy it could find.
Vali's eyes narrowed mid-exchange.
"Your power isn't shrinking properly," he muttered, knocking aside a blow and countering with a kick that cratered the plateau.
[This sensation…] Albion's deep voice carried a note of genuine interest. [He is redirecting the loss. The power I take is being replaced? No… recycled.]
"Recycled, huh?" Vali's smile sharpened. "Interesting."
He broke contact with a sudden burst of speed, white wings beating once. Distance opened between them in the space of a breath.
Vali slid one foot back and slashed his hand down.
"Half Dimension."
Invisible walls slammed inward.
Space warped around Issei, every direction compressing. The plateau groaned, lines of Ren's formation flaring as they redirected stress. To Issei it felt like the universe had just grabbed him and started squeezing, trying to reduce everything he was to half.
His knees dipped. Armor creaked under a pressure that wasn't quite gravity, wasn't quite magic, but something in between—an assault on his very "size" in the world.
In the old days, he would've panicked, flailed, shouted for help.
Now…
Now there was a world inside him.
His Soul Palace stood like a fortress under the pressure, walls reinforced with the looping circulation patterns Ren had drilled into him. The "ceiling" of that inner world dipped, but didn't crack. Instead, the compression forced the swirling dragon power inside to compact, to grow denser.
"Boost! Boost! Boost!"
Each pulse of Ddraig's ability crashed against Half Dimension's crushing field. Normally, that combination would have ended in a chaotic explosion of power blasting everywhere.
This time, Cycle of Waste seized the chaos.
Boosted power tried to burst outwards. Half Dimension denied it. Power had nowhere to go but inward, spiraling tighter and tighter around Issei's core.
Ren watched from above, arms folded loosely across his chest.
"All right, kid," he thought, amused. "Show me if you were paying attention."
Down below, Issei's lips peeled back in a grin he didn't even recognize on his own face.
"Ddraig!" he shouted.
[Got it, partner!]
"Dragon… Recycle… Drive!"
The name was dumb. He knew it was dumb. Ren had laughed the first time he said it out loud.
But names had power.
All the boosted energy, all the pressure from Half Dimension, all the "waste" Myriad Origin had been hoarding—everything twisted together into a single condensed spiral of force. Instead of spewing outward like an unfocused explosion, it tightened along a single vector.
His right arm lit up, jewel roaring so bright the color bled into his vision.
Issei stepped forward and drove his fist out.
The compressed dragon power detonated.
Half Dimension's field buckled. The air around his fist cracked like glass, visible fractures racing along the invisible walls Vali had created. The compression field, meant to halve him, met a force that refused to be anything but whole—and lost.
Vali's eyes widened as his own technique folded.
He crossed his arms a fraction of a second before the punch landed.
Issei's fist smashed into his chest.
Armor screamed, the white breastplate warping, cracks spiderwebbing out from the impact point. The sheer momentum of the blow hurled Vali backwards, plowing a trench through stone and air alike. Floating fragments of rock spun away like leaves in a storm.
He only stopped at the edge of the plateau, boots carving twin furrows into the stone as he forced himself to a halt, wings flaring to bleed off excess power.
For a moment, the only sound was the tick, tick, tick of strained armor settling.
Then Vali laughed.
It wasn't mocking. It was wild, delighted, the unrestrained laughter of someone who had just found a new kind of fun.
"So that's how it is," he said, voice breathless with excitement. "You turn the loss into fuel. Every time I Divide, you get more dangerous."
Issei panted, chest heaving, arms shaking—but his eyes burned bright.
"Yeah," he managed, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his gauntlet. "So keep taking it. I'll shove it back in your face."
Vali's aura flared again, white light spiking.
"Don't hold back, Sekiryuutei," he warned, grin feral. "If you want to beat me, you'll need everything."
"Boost! Boost! Boost!"
Power climbed.
On their next clash, red and white slammed together once more—only this time, their combined pressure brushed the boundary where Ultimate-class blurred into something higher. For a razor-thin moment, their auras spiked past Ultimate-class, flirting with Satan-class strength.
The world noticed.
In Takamagahara, Amaterasu paused mid-conference, eyes lifting as a flicker of dragon power brushed her senses, alien and yet familiar.
"…Again?" she murmured.
In Heaven, Michael briefly broke from prayer, gaze turning toward the distant, small blue planet that never seemed to stay quiet.
Somewhere in the human world, in a room dimly lit by the flicker of a television drama, Tiamat opened one eye from where she lay sprawled across a couch. Her tail twitched.
"…Those kids," she muttered, closing her eye again. "Always noisy."
Back in the training field, Ren's mouth curved, voice lost beneath the roar of colliding dragons.
"Borderline Satan-class in three weeks," he mused. "Not bad for a kid who used to yell about boobs in public."
Azazel pinched the bridge of his nose, somewhere between horrified and ecstatic. "If this leaks, every major faction's training department is going to show up at my office," he muttered. "Actually… that might be hilarious."
Below, Issei and Vali traded blow after blow.
White fists met red claws; wings clashed with wings. Every "Divide" from Albion was met with another "Boost" from Ddraig. Every apparent loss in Issei's aura was stolen back by Cycle of Waste, running hotter and faster, refining his control mid-battle.
Inside his Soul Palace, the inner sky was etched with new lines—trajectories, timings, impressions. With every exchange, Myriad Epoch True Self Canon carved tiny Dao Fruits of battle-sense, storing them for later. He wouldn't notice that now, but the next time he fought, his body would remember.
Vali felt it.
"This rhythm…!" His thoughts raced even as he fought, calculating. "He's learning with every clash. He's still behind me overall, but if I drag this out carelessly…"
He shifted tactics.
"Compress," he muttered, power flowing in new patterns.
Half Dimension tightened, no longer just halving, but trying to force Issei into narrower and narrower bands of motion, aiming to restrict his options and crush his timing.
Issei staggered, armor flaring as it resisted.
He could feel it—the gap. That subtle difference in experience, Vali's sharper instincts, Albion's cold calculations.
If he tried to match them head-on, he'd lose.
So he didn't.
Ren's training hadn't just been about power. He'd been forced to move through fields of twisting gravity, to step only when told, to strike only at the worst possible angles and still make it work. To dance on the knife's edge between "too early" and "too late" until he thought his brain would melt.
Now, with Half Dimension squeezing him, he felt the flow of battle bend toward a single instant.
Not a perfect opening. Just a shared vulnerability—a moment where both of them would be exposed.
He gambled.
"Ddraig!" he shouted inside his mind.
[Already stacked, partner!]
He let Vali Divide him one more time.
His aura plummeted. To the watchers, it looked like he'd finally hit his limit, knight's armor dimming, presence flickering.
Vali lunged, trusting what he saw. He compressed half the space between them in a blink, closing in as Albion prepared another precise Divide, aiming to catch Issei at his weakest.
Issei stepped.
He moved forward just once.
The world seemed to slow.
To the spectators, it looked as if Issei vanished and reappeared inside Vali's guard, red armor cutting a clean, brutal line through the distorted air. In truth, he simply timed his step to when Half Dimension's pressure shifted, not fighting the squeeze but riding it.
Vali's eyes widened. "You—"
Issei's fist was already in motion.
"Dragon Recycle Drive—Second Gear!"
This time, the compressed surge wasn't as massive as the first.
It didn't have to be.
It was refined, stripped of excess, every scrap of power aligned along the shortest path. It slipped into a hairline gap in Vali's stance—a flaw tiny enough that only someone dancing on Ren's knife-edge training could have found it.
The punch slammed into Vali's jaw.
White armor exploded across one side of his face, fragments of Scale Mail shattering into motes of light. Vali's head snapped to the side, his body twisting as he was ripped off his feet and sent crashing to the ground.
He hit hard, sliding across stone, carving a long, jagged scar into the plateau before skidding to a stop.
Silence fell.
Dust lifted in slow, lazy curls from the path he'd carved. A few stones tipped off the edge of the plateau and vanished into the controlled void below.
Issei's Balance Breaker flickered. He dropped to one knee, gasping, lungs burning as sweat soaked his shirt under the armor.
Across from him, Vali lay still for a heartbeat, staring up at the too-clear sky.
Then his armor began to fracture. The white Scale Mail dissolved into shards of light that drifted away like snow, revealing his face—jaw already bruising, blood at the corner of his mouth.
He exhaled once, long and slow.
Then he pushed himself up to one knee.
Issei watched, breath caught, afraid to believe.
Vali met his gaze.
His lips curved.
"…I lost," he said simply.
Issei blinked. "Huh?"
Vali rolled his jaw once, wincing faintly at the soreness as if appreciating the quality of the hit.
"In terms of damage taken, aura consumption, battle sense," he elaborated. "I lost. Albion agrees."
[…It pains me to admit it, but yes,] Albion rumbled in Vali's mind. [This time, the Red One's host has beaten you.]
Issei's eyes went wide.
Then his face split into a grin so bright it could have rivaled his armor.
"I—I did it," he breathed, more to himself than anyone else. "I actually…!"
"Don't get cocky," Vali cut in, his usual smirk reappearing, if slightly crooked. "Next time, I'll win. But…"
He tilted his head back, looking up at Ren, who still hovered above the training field, gaze cool and unreadable.
"I'll hold to our terms," he said. There was no hesitation.
Ren met his eyes and smiled—not mocking, not patronizing. Just quietly pleased.
"Welcome to class," he said.
...
In another ring, stone pillars hung in the air—some vertical, some horizontal, others diagonal, forming an irregular forest in three dimensions.
Every pillar was inscribed with faint lines of Dao-script and formation runes, allowing Ren to adjust weight and movement at will. Right now, though, he left control to someone else.
Kiba moved like a shadow through the stone forest.
His Sword Intent had changed.
Before, his presence had been all speed and light—flashes of movement, a blade that wanted to run, to escape, to carve open a path away from everything that hurt.
Now, there was weight beneath it.
His steps were still quick, but not frantic. His aura pressed down like earth, not crushing, but steady. Each movement was deliberate, every cut feeling less like a slash and more like a verdict.
"Your aura is heavy," Arthur observed.
He walked calmly along a horizontal pillar that floated like a suspended bridge in the air, balanced with easy grace. The Holy King Sword rested on his shoulder; light bent around its edge, the air there just slightly wrong, as if even reality hesitated to touch Collbrande.
Kiba offered a faint smile.
"I had good guidance," he said.
He remembered Ren's hand on his shoulder, that annoying, easy smile that somehow always made space to breathe.
"You can run on air," Ren had told him once, as Kiba stood, panting, on a shattered practice field. "That's good. But you keep trying to escape your past. Try standing still and making the world move around you for once."
Now, Kiba exhaled and let his feet plant firmly on a pillar, as if he were standing on solid ground back in the human world.
Arthur's glasses caught a flicker of light as his eyes narrowed in interest.
He struck first.
Arthur didn't announce his techniques. One moment he was walking; the next, he stepped into a slit in space and vanished from sight.
Caliburn—or Collbrande, depending on which legend one favored—sang.
Steel and holy light appeared behind Kiba, slicing downward in a clean diagonal line. The sword's edge carried a subtle twist, not just cutting through air but through the boundary between moments.
Kiba turned.
Sword Intent surged.
Heavy Earth Severing rose along his blade—an intent that didn't reach for the sky, but for the bedrock. It pulled on the surrounding space, making it feel viscous, dragging, as if reality itself had grown heavier along his edge.
Their swords met.
The clash rang like a massive bell struck in an empty temple.
The shockwave rippled out in a circle. Nearby pillars cracked, lines racing along their surfaces; a few simply shattered, chunks drifting away into the formation, their paths bent by residual intent.
Arthur's eyes glinted behind his lenses.
"Impressive," he said calmly.
Kiba's arms trembled, but his stance didn't break. The weight in his aura anchored him to the floating pillar; it didn't matter that there was no earth beneath it. His "ground" was inside him now.
They traded blows.
Arthur moved like a man walking through a familiar garden. He stepped into slits of distorted space, reappearing at angles that should have been impossible—above Kiba, below him, at his flank, behind his back.
His swordsmanship was elegant, economical. No wasted movements, every thrust and cut aimed to test Kiba's defense, to probe for openings.
Kiba's blade answered each time.
Every swing of Heavy Earth Severing tugged on the stone forest.
At first, it was subtle. A pillar would drift an inch to the left just as Arthur stepped onto it, forcing him to adjust his footing. Another would tilt slightly, changing the angle of an incoming thrust.
With each clash, Myriad Origin Scripture recycled the waste energy of their movements—vibrations, rebound force, clashing auras—and funneled them into Kiba's inner circulation. That, in turn, refined his control over his Sword Intent, which then affected the physical battlefield.
A feedback loop.
Xenovia watched from the edge of the ring, Durandal resting at her side, holy sword reacting faintly to Caliburn's presence.
"…That's not just swordsmanship," she muttered. "He's… moving the environment with it."
Griselda's eyes were intent, voice low. "His inner world is influencing the outer one through this 'Sword Intent'. It feels similar to miracles, but… also different."
Irina clasped her hands, eyes sparkling. "So cool…"
Arthur's brows rose as another carefully calculated angle failed—not because Kiba blocked it directly, but because a pillar slid just enough to force his strike off by a hair's breadth.
"…He's moving the battlefield," Arthur thought, genuine admiration flickering through him. "Not with spells. With intent."
He altered his tactics.
Instead of dancing fully around Kiba, he began to cut through obstacles directly. Caliburn's holy edge flared, light spilling across its length.
He swung once.
A thick pillar that would have taken a devil's full-powered blast to crack simply came apart, cleanly sliced. The cut edges shimmered with residual holy energy, the air along the cut rippling as if time itself had been nicked.
Light blazed with each swing.
Holy aura crashed against demonic power. Where once it would have burned Kiba, now it flowed into the loops of Myriad Origin, neutralized, re-patterned, and fed back into his Soul Palace as fuel.
"'Waste' power doesn't care what it is," Ren's voice echoed in his memory. "Holy, demonic, chaos, lightning—if it's leaking or rebounding, you can use it. Power just wants a path."
Kiba took a step.
The air around his foot thickened, as if he'd stepped on the world's spine.
"Heavy Earth Severing—Second Form."
He swung.
At first glance, it was a slow, almost lazy downward cut. Arthur had time to see it coming. Time to analyze the arc. Time to plot a dozen counters.
Then the world along the blade's path… dropped.
For a heartbeat, gravity multiplied in a narrow corridor around the swing. Stone pillars sagged toward Kiba's blade, smaller fragments pulled like meteors into its wake. Space felt as if someone had hung weights from it.
Arthur's eyes widened.
He moved to intercept, Caliburn flashing upward.
But his own sword was dragged down.
Heavy Earth Severing didn't just weigh on the enemy. It weighed on everything—stone, air, light, even the grip on Arthur's own hilt. Just for that one heartbeat, the world wanted to fall in the direction Kiba's blade declared.
It was enough.
Kiba's sword smashed into Caliburn's flat, not edge-to-edge, not insulting the legend, but redirecting it.
The impact jolted through Arthur's arms, numbing his fingers. The jagged backflow of force forced him to disengage, boots skidding along the floating pillar. He bent his knees, absorbing the shock, landing a few paces away.
He exhaled, breath slightly uneven.
A smile tugged at his lips.
"I see," he said. "You've turned your instability into mass. Your sword does not run. It makes the world come to you."
Kiba straightened slowly, sword held low, tip pointing at the ground.
He thought of Rias, reaching out a hand to him in a church he should have hated. Of Issei grinning at him like they'd always been friends. Of Ren's casual, unshakeable confidence that had given him room to breathe—and room to grow.
"I have people to stand beside now," he said quietly. "I can't afford to be blown away."
Arthur considered him for a long moment.
Then he slid Caliburn back into its sheath with a single, smooth motion.
Kiba blinked. "…What?"
Arthur's smile widened by the barest fraction.
"In a drawn-out battle, your loop will outpace mine," he explained. "You're learning with every clash. If I press now, I might win on experience…"
White magic circles flickered faintly around his hands as he flexed his fingers, feeling how the numbness was already fading.
"…But that's not the bet we're making today," Arthur finished. "I've seen enough."
He inclined his head slightly, as if acknowledging both Kiba and the man floating above them who had designed this entire scenario.
"I don't mind being a student of someone who can fix the foundation of a world," he added dryly. "And I owe you a rematch someday, when my own 'inner world' has caught up."
Kiba's grip tightened on his sword. For a heartbeat, conflicting emotions churned inside him—relief, pride, a faint sting of frustration.
Then he exhaled and let them settle.
He bowed, not as a knight of Gremory to an opponent, but as a swordsman to another swordsman.
"I'll be waiting," he said.
Ren watched them from above, eyes warm, smile small but real.
...
Thunder hummed under the field like a heartbeat.
Rias' long crimson hair spilled down her back like a banner. Her demonic power flowed out in a slow, steady tide, no longer a wild flood. Behind her, a faint crimson world shimmered into being—her Soul Palace—its sky filled with slow-turning constellations of destruction.
Next to her, Akeno walked barefoot across the scarred ground, lightning already whispering around her fingertips. Her aura carried both devil and fallen angel, blended so smoothly the distinction vanished. Under her skin, faint lines of light traced along nerves and meridians—Heavenbreaker Circuit warming up.
"A two-on-two, huh?" Bikou grinned, hopping down from the cloud and planting his staff into the dirt with a solid thud. "I like your style, redhead."
Rias smiled back, polite and poised, but there was a sharp edge in her eyes.
"I won't underestimate you," she said. "You feel dangerous."
"Oh?" Bikou laughed. "You flatter me."
Le Fay glanced between them, fingers tightening slightly around the spine of her grimoire. The air here felt wrong. Not in a cursed way, not like forbidden magic.
Like something from another world sitting on top of this one.
She swallowed once, then hid her nerves behind a professional smile.
"P-please take care of me," she said, bowing slightly.
Akeno chuckled softly, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Ara ara," she said. "So polite. I suppose we should respond in kind, Rias?"
Rias' lips curved.
"Yes. Let's show them our 'proper' greeting."
Bikou vanished.
One moment he was grinning at them, the next the air where he'd stood twisted as if punched from the inside. His presence streaked upward, Senjutsu making his movements blur into a smear of afterimages, tails leaving pale trails in the air.
He reappeared above them, staff descending like a meteor, all that monkey-like momentum focused into a single crushing blow. The staff's tip dragged the air with it, compressing the wind into a cone of pressure.
Akeno moved first.
"Heavenbreaker Circuit—activate."
Lines of lightning flared under her skin, from collarbone to wrist, from spine to heel. They connected her like a living array—ground to sky, demonic power to fallen light, Soul Palace to flesh. The circuit snapped into place with a sound like an unseen switch being thrown.
Her first bolt wasn't loud.
It was clean.
She stepped forward, arm rising in a smooth arc. Lightning gathered along the Heavenbreaker Circuit, compressed into a narrow spear of black-violet light.
It met Bikou's staff mid-swing.
Instead of trying to overpower it, the bolt slid along the staff's length, twisting. The impact rang out like struck metal. The trajectory of the blow shifted by a hair.
A hair was enough.
The staff hammered into the ground beside them instead of their skulls, carving a crater several meters wide. Shockwaves rippled outward, the grass around them reduced to ash, stones hurled into the air like shrapnel.
Bikou landed lightly on the crater's edge, staff humming, eyes shining.
"Hoo?" he said, licking his lips. "Your lightning feels… killer."
Akeno's lips curved in a familiar, dangerous smile.
"Ufufu~. Thank you for the compliment."
Her eyes slid briefly toward Ren at the edge of the field, as if to say, "See?"
He did see. The corner of his mouth ticked upward.
Beside her, Rias had already begun.
"Throne of Ruin."
Her Soul Palace flared behind her, its crimson world focusing down to a single point. From that point, an ethereal throne manifested—crimson stone and black fractures of destruction, floating just above the ground behind her. It was regal, cold, terrifying.
Chains of Power of Destruction tethered it to her inner world. Myriad Origin Scripture ran through its structure like glowing veins, catching the normally wasteful backlash of her destructive power and recycling it back into her core.
The moment the throne locked into place, the atmosphere changed.
The air became heavier, as if recognizing a ruler.
"Starfall—First Seal."
Above Rias, orbs of compressed demonic power appeared one after another. At first they were marble-sized, then grew, each one swelling with dense ruin, held tightly in check by her Throne. They drifted into a slow orbit around her, like dark red stars.
Le Fay's throat tightened.
This wasn't just demonic power. The texture of it felt wrong. It moved like a separate "world," orbiting Rias and taking rules from somewhere Le Fay's magic had never touched.
She snapped her grimoire open on instinct.
"Sanctuary Spiral!"
Magic circles unfurled in front of her in a corkscrew pattern, each one layered with defensive sigils—elemental wards, holy and demonic resistances, Norse runes and fairy script all interlocking. They rotated around her and Bikou, forming a twisting spiral of light.
Rias flicked her fingers.
The stars fell.
◆ ◆ ◆
They didn't crash like random fireballs.
Each "star" dropped with surgical intent, cutting lines across the ground, forcing Bikou and Le Fay to move along paths Rias had already mapped out inside her Soul Palace. When Bikou blurred into afterimages, the stars adjusted mid-fall, narrowing his options.
Crimson spheres grazed his shadow, detonating a heartbeat later and leaving smoking scars in the earth. The formation lines under the dirt flared as they absorbed the worst of the impact.
"Che," Bikou clicked his tongue, tail whipping as he ricocheted between falling stars. "She's herding us."
Le Fay's eyes flew from one star to another, measuring timing, velocity, angle.
"Anti-ruination lattice—deploy!"
She slapped her free hand down. A grid of light expanded from under their feet, rising up like a transparent cage. When one of Rias' stars hit the lattice, demonic power bled into the grid, its destructive nature stripped away and siphoned into harmless light that dispersed into the air.
For a few exchanges, they held.
Bikou danced, staff parrying and deflecting the smaller stars, senjutsu reinforcing his bones and muscles. Le Fay's circles rotated and reconfigured, turning some stars aside, redirecting others into the sky.
But Rias and Akeno weren't the same girls who had once needed Ren to save them.
They had a loop.
◆ ◆ ◆
Heavenbreaker Circuit recorded everything.
Every clash of Bikou's staff and Akeno's lightning, every fracture along Le Fay's barriers, every ripple in their power timing—it all flowed into Akeno's Soul Palace, etched there as living memory. The next bolt adjusted. Then the next. Her accuracy refined with each breath.
At the same time, Rias' Throne of Ruin drank in the backlash of every exploded star. Instead of letting the excess ruin leak and destabilize her, the throne turned it into new fuel, folding it back into her demonic core. Her control increased, compression improved, each star denser than the last.
Bikou laughed, even as sweat beaded at his temples.
"What the hell," he said between movements. "Every move we make, they get sharper."
"We're being… studied," Le Fay realized, the color draining from her face. "Their 'powers'—their Soul Palaces—they're learning us."
Ren's eyes glinted faintly.
"That's right," he murmured to himself. "That's what you get when you mix true cultivation with devils and angels."
Issei shivered.
"Somehow, that sounds way scarier than it should…"
Akeno raised both hands now, her hair lifting in the static.
"Rias," she said, voice sweet, eyes dangerous. "Shall we show them?"
Rias nodded.
"Starfall—Second Seal."
Her stars brightened. Their cores twisted, layers of destruction interwoven with tightly folded demonic power. The pressure spiked, making the onlookers' hair stir.
Akeno's lightning threaded into them.
Heavenbreaker Circuit directed the bolts like a conductor cueing an orchestra. Lightning wrapped around each star, tuned to precise frequencies Ren had taught her—frequencies that slipped through the gaps of most barriers, frequencies that resonated with the natural oscillation of magic circles and made them tremble apart.
The sky over the field darkened.
"Ruinous Heavenly Storm," Akeno whispered.
◆ ◆ ◆
The storm fell.
Crimson stars rained down wrapped in black-violet serpents of lightning. They struck Le Fay's rotating barriers in a staggered rhythm—not simply hammering, but building interference patterns. Each impact nudged the Sanctuary Spiral a little out of phase with itself.
Within seconds, the entire spiral shuddered like a tower of glass.
Le Fay gritted her teeth, pouring everything she had into maintaining the structure. She layered Norse runes, white magic, fairy magic, even small fragments of forbidden theory she would never use in a real battlefield.
"Stay—!" she whispered.
Akeno's eyes narrowed.
She snapped her fingers.
Several bolts converged on one specific node inside Le Fay's barrier—the keystone of the spiral's rotation. They hit at different micro-delays, stacking in a way that Heavenbreaker Circuit had already calculated three moves ago.
The Sanctuary Spiral imploded.
Light collapsed inward, then burst like a bubble. Shockwaves roared out, flinging dust and loose stones across the field.
Bikou moved instantly, trying to grab Le Fay and retreat, cloud already forming under his feet.
Rias' eyes cooled.
One of the "fallen" stars, which had appeared to miss its target entirely and vanish into the dust, flickered back into existence beside him—no, it hadn't missed. It had ridden the turbulence of the collapsed barrier, guided by the Throne's micro-adjustments, waiting for precisely this moment.
It dropped at his feet and detonated.
Not with full ruin—Rias held the destructive core back—but with a compressed shockwave that tore the ground out from under him. The earth split, formations flaring defensively as they absorbed what they could.
Bikou's footing vanished. He tumbled, staff spinning out of his grip, golden cloud dispersing into scattered light.
Le Fay cried out and tried to erect a quick barrier, but Akeno's lightning lashed around her like a whip. It didn't burn her. It cut through the last half-formed magic circle, slicing the spell to pieces.
She landed on her backside with an undignified yelp, hat flying off, blonde hair scattering around her like a halo.
The storm slowly faded.
The clouds thinned.
Rias lowered her hand. The Throne of Ruin dissolved behind her, folding back into her Soul Palace. Akeno let the Heavenbreaker Circuit dim, the lines under her skin fading as lightning sank back into her core.
They stood there in the settling dust, breathing only a little harder than usual.
Bikou lay face-down, staff half-buried in the cracked earth. His tails twitched weakly.
Le Fay blinked up at Rias and Akeno, cheeks flushed, eyes still wide with lingering awe and shock.
Rias exhaled softly.
"…Match over," she said.
Her voice left no room for argument.
Le Fay pushed herself up on shaking arms.
"I… surrender," she managed, bowing her head. "We… lost."
Bikou rolled onto his back and started laughing, chest rising and falling.
"Damn," he wheezed. "You girls hit harder than most gods I've annoyed."
Akeno giggled, covering her mouth.
"Ara… thank you for the compliment."
She glanced up at Ren, eyes shining with pride and a faint, almost shy happiness.
"Ren," she thought, warmth curling in her chest. "You saw that, right?"
He did.
Ren stepped forward, into the ring.
His presence washed over the four of them, not heavy, but deep—like the moment before the ocean's wave broke. Soul Palaces across the field reacted instinctively, their inner worlds trembling under the brush of an Ancient Saint's Dao.
He stopped in front of Rias and Akeno.
"Well done," he said simply.
Rias' eyes softened. Akeno's shoulders relaxed, the last of the tension melting away.
"You didn't lose control even once," Ren continued. "You let the system work for you. That's what I wanted to see."
His hand came up in an easy, natural motion—first resting on Rias' head, fingers sliding briefly through her hair, then shifting to Akeno's, thumb brushing the curve of her ear.
Rias' cheeks colored faintly, but she didn't move away. Akeno's smile turned a touch more genuine than her usual teasing curve.
Bikou and Le Fay watched from the ground.
"This is the guy who made that?" Le Fay whispered, dazed. "That 'Soul Palace' system…"
Bikou's grin returned, a little feral around the edges.
"Yeah," he said. "Crazy, right? No Sacred Gears, no divine blessing… just some dude who walks in and rewrites the rules."
He shivered—not in fear, but in excitement.
"I can see why Vali's interested."
Ren glanced at them and smiled, easy and light.
"You two did good," he said. "You pushed them where I needed them pushed. Take a breather. Then we'll talk about what you felt."
Le Fay blinked at being praised so casually, then ducked her head, hiding a tiny, pleased smile. Bikou saluted lazily with his staff, grinning.
"Sure thing, teacher."
Ren stepped back out of the ring.
His gaze shifted to the other side of the training grounds, where a smaller field lay under the shadow of a single, old tree.
"Next," he said quietly. "Koneko. Kuroka."
The thunder under the formations quieted.
The next storm would be different.
...
Their field was quieter.
No blazing stars. No thunderclouds. Just tall grass whispering in the breeze, scattered stones, and a single gnarled tree with roots clutching the earth like an old guardian's fingers.
The formations here were simpler, tuned not for spectacle, but control.
Kuroka stood barefoot in the grass, kimono hanging loose, the neckline a little too careless, one sleeve half slipped off her shoulder. Her black hair fell down her back, two sleek tails swishing lazily behind her.
She stretched like a cat in the sun, arms raised, body arching, joints popping lightly.
"Well, well," she crooned, golden eyes curving. "You've grown, Shirone. Taller. Curvier. Nyaa, this onee-san is so proud~"
Koneko's ears—real white cat ears—burned red.
She stood several paces away, posture straight, fists clenched at her sides. The old Kuoh Academy uniform was gone; in its place were training clothes that fit her slightly taller, stronger frame.
Her Touki flared to life, white aura wrapping around her like compressed cloud. Senjutsu rippled underneath, deeper and steadier than before.
The first time she had touched this power, she had nearly collapsed. Others' emotions had crashed into her like waves, their fear, hatred, lust, guilt all bleeding together into a suffocating noise.
Now, in the center of her being, within her Soul Palace, sat a white stone.
Immutable Core.
The emotions still came.
They just couldn't knock her over anymore.
Kuroka's smile softened at the edges as she watched her little sister's aura settle, eyes narrowing slightly.
"You really did change," she said quietly.
She inhaled.
Senjutsu flared around her—not the gentle, controlled currents Koneko now cultivated, but dark and lush, full of the wildness of untamed nature. The grass around her responded, blades trembling as if listening to an old song.
"You're still criminal scum," Azazel muttered under his breath on the sidelines, "but your control is terrifying."
Kuroka's two tails swayed as she shifted into a loose fighting stance.
"Show me, Shirone," she said. "Show your nee-san what kind of 'monster' you've become."
Koneko's eyes lowered for a heartbeat at the word "monster", then lifted again.
Ren's voice, quiet but firm, echoed in her memory.
"If you're going to carry that word," he had told her in her inner world, "carry it as yours. Not theirs."
Now, her small hands curled into fists.
"…I will," she said.
They moved.
◆ ◆ ◆
To outside eyes, it looked almost like a dance.
Kuroka vanished and reappeared with the sound of wind slipping past a blade, her body leaving afterimages in the air. Each step twisted the flow of Ki in the surroundings, her senjutsu fingers plucking at invisible strings.
Every strike she threw came wrapped in emotion.
A palm strike that whispered fear. A low kick that carried anger. A clawed swipe that brushed guilt against the skin like cold rain.
Koneko's Touki flared with each impact. Every time their limbs met, the air thudded, heavy as piledrivers hitting stone. Shockwaves rippled out, flattening the grass in concentric circles.
At first, Koneko was on the back foot.
Kuroka's experience showed in her timing. She slipped illusions in between strikes, overlaying the quiet field with fragments of the past. For a moment, the gnarled tree became the Naberius estate's cold halls. Blood smeared the walls. Voices echoed.
"Criminal."
"Monster."
"You abandoned your sister."
Koneko's breath hitched.
Her Touki wavered. Her guard rose a fraction too slow.
Kuroka's fingers grazed her cheek, senjutsu carrying a spike of sharp, self-loathing. Pain blossomed in Koneko's chest, not from the light scratch on her skin, but from the emotion forced against her heart.
Her step faltered.
Kuroka could have pressed harder there.
Instead, for a heartbeat, her eyes flickered with something like regret.
Then she hardened them.
"If you can't handle this much," she said, voice low, "you'll die out there, Shirone."
Koneko's vision blurred.
Memories she'd rather forget rose up—her master's corpse, Kuroka's back as she turned and ran, the crushing, suffocating guilt that followed. The old Koneko would have frozen there, letting the weight bury her.
But that was before.
Before Ren had forced her to stand in front of her own shadow in her Soul Palace.
Before Immutable Core.
◆ ◆ ◆
In her inner world, deep inside her Soul Palace, Koneko "saw" that white stone again.
It wasn't big. It wasn't flashy. It just sat there, unmoving, as waves of emotion crashed around it.
Fear rolled in. It washed over the stone. Some of it stuck to the surface, some seeped into hairline cracks—but the stone did not move.
Anger slammed into it. Guilt wrapped around it like a chain.
The stone did not move.
"I… am Koneko," she thought.
Images flickered in the stone's surface—Rias' gentle hand on her head, Akeno's teasing smile, Asia's innocent hug, Issei's stupid, stubborn grin, Ren's calm gaze that had seen her at her worst and not flinched.
"I am Shirone."
The stone glowed faintly.
"I am both."
The next time Kuroka's senjutsu tried to twist her emotions, it hit Immutable Core.
The fear didn't vanish.
It just couldn't push her.
Koneko exhaled.
Her stance shifted—less defensive crouch, more grounded boxer. She sank her weight properly, feet digging into the earth, Touki aligning along her spine.
She stepped in.
Her fist shot forward, no wasted motion. It slammed into Kuroka's guard with the weight of a piledriver. The impact sent a dull boom across the field. The bark of the gnarled tree shivered, a few leaves falling.
Kuroka's eyes widened.
"Who taught you that, nya?" she coughed, arm tingling from the blow. "That punch… that's not just Touki…"
"Ren," Koneko said simply.
She moved again.
◆ ◆ ◆
Myriad Origin Scripture flowed through Koneko's body like a quiet, efficient engine. Every time her muscles strained, every micro-tear in her bones, every bit of Touki that would have leaked away as wasted heat—Myriad Origin caught it, recycled it, fed it back into her Soul Palace.
The more she fought, the smoother her Touki circulated. The clearer her Immutable Core became.
To an outside observer, her growth would look terrifying—each exchange just slightly sharper than the last. Her footwork cleaned up, steps setting like hammered nails. Her punches stopped being "strong" and started becoming inevitable.
Kuroka clicked her tongue softly.
"So this is that 'cultivation' thing of yours," she murmured, more to herself than anyone. "Annoying."
She drew deeper on her senjutsu.
The air thickened. The grass darkened, turning underfoot into phantom blood. The sky dimmed—not physically, but in the shared perception of anyone caught in her field.
"You'll hurt people," whispered the world around Koneko, voices curling in her ears. "You're dangerous. You'll end up just like me."
Koneko's tail twitched.
Ren watched from the sidelines, eyes narrowed, ready to move if needed—but he didn't.
"This is your trial," he thought. "Not mine."
Koneko stepped forward.
Her foot landed in the phantom blood.
It splashed, cold and slick.
Her stomach clenched—the old fear trying to rise—but the moment it hit her Immutable Core, it dulled. The image of blood warped, shifting. For a heartbeat, the "blood" reflected Ren's easy smile, Rias' worried eyes, Kuroka's back turned not in abandonment, but in desperate, clumsy protection.
"…I don't want to run anymore," Koneko whispered.
Her knee came up.
She drove it straight into Kuroka's stomach.
The illusion shattered like glass.
The phantom blood underfoot blinked out of existence. The sky brightened. Grass was just grass again, quivering under the shockwave.
Kuroka doubled over, air leaving her lungs in a choked puff.
"…Ow," she wheezed, eyes watering. "Shirone got violent…"
Koneko grabbed her by the collar of her kimono with one small, iron grip.
Kuroka blinked.
"Oh, that's—"
Koneko turned and threw.
The motion was simple, clean, brutal. Kuroka's body flipped through the air and slammed into the gnarled tree hard enough to make the trunk groan. Bark splintered, leaves cascaded down in a rustling shower.
Kuroka slumped against the trunk, kimono sliding further off one shoulder. For a moment she just sat there, breathing, tails flickering weakly.
Then she laughed quietly.
"Okay," she said, looking up at Koneko through disheveled bangs. Her usual lazy smile was there, but there was something more genuine underneath. "Nee-san gives up. This time."
Koneko stood a short distance away, chest rising and falling more quickly than she liked, ears still red, eyes steady.
Her fists clenched once, then slowly opened.
"…I didn't want to hit you," she said, voice low but clear. "But… I didn't want to run anymore, either."
The wind stirred the falling leaves between them.
Kuroka's gaze softened in a way it hadn't in years—not since before the Naberius, before blood and crime and running.
"You've grown up," she murmured. "My little Shirone."
Koneko looked away, just a fraction.
"…After this," she said, not quite meeting her sister's eyes, "we'll talk. Properly."
Kuroka's smile turned simple, almost shy.
"I'd like that," she said.