The report was filed before dawn.
SUBJECT: Cadet Arata
OBSERVATION: External Weapon Acquisition
DETAILS: Unregistered blade delivered by non-Academy individual (Darwin, retired Wyrmbound asset).
MATERIAL COMPOSITION: Obsidian-steel alloy with anomalous resonance properties.
INITIAL ASSESSMENT: Weapon does not amplify Flame alignment. No detectable harmonic signature.
RECOMMENDATION: Further study advised. Cadet behaviour unchanged.
The clerk submitting it did not add commentary. He didn't need to.
The empire disliked things that did not announce themselves.
The slate passed through three hands before reaching the Tribunal.
Then one more. Minister Halvek read it once.
Then again.
"No signature," he murmured. "No amplification. No alignment."
A pause. "Interesting."
He closed the file and placed it in the growing stack marked DEFERRED ASSETS.
"Observe," he instructed calmly. "Do not interfere."
For now.
...
Arata stood in one of many resonance chambers of the academy.
Lyra stood behind the reinforced glass, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back in a loose knot. Her stylus hovered over the tablet. The air smelled faintly of copper and ozone; the containment runes pulsed a dull gold under the floor.
Arata stepped inside.
A sword hung from his side like a shadow that had chosen to follow him.
Resonance.
He drew it, and the room dimmed for just a moment. The runes brightened to blue. The metal sang softly at first, like the hum of a wire under tension.
Lyra's voice came through the intercom. "Just a baseline sweep. Don't push it."
He nodded once. "Understood."
The first swing cut nothing but air, yet the air quivered as if it was hurt. The hum of the metal rose, low and sustained.
Lyra glanced at her readings. "Flux spike was twelve point two. That's higher than all of the new cadets"
"I can go higher. I have more skills to try out." Arata told the researcher.
"Don't go too crazy," Lyra replied, already moving behind the glass partition. She seated herself, fingers flying across the console, eyes never leaving him.
The chamber sealed with a soft hiss.
"Baseline test," she said. "No resonance amplification. No intent to disrupt. Just movement."
Arata nodded and adjusted his stance.
He exhaled once and stepped forward. The blade traced a horizontal arc.
But the space it passed through folded slightly inward, like fabric pinched between fingers and released.
Lyra's screen jittered. "Spatial compression detected. Minor, but… consistent."
Arata frowned. "I didn't push."
"You didn't have to."
He shifted his grip and tried again, this time with a feint it's an incomplete strike meant to test follow-through.
The blade didn't complete the arc. It stopped halfway, suspended in the air as if the motion had been paused.
Arata withdrew the blade slowly.
Lyra stared at the readouts. "You cancelled the action."
"I changed my mind."
"That's not how momentum works."
Arata looked at the blade. "It does, for this..."
She paced behind the glass. "Try a compound motion. Three steps. No acceleration."
Arata moved.
Step.
Turn.
Cut.
The air rippled behind the blade in a delayed wake, like the physics of the world malfunctioned.
Lyra glanced at her readings. Then she froze.
The hum dropped an octave.
Her microphone caught a faint sound under the vibration.
A voice that wasn't machine-pitched, nor distorted. It sounded human.
—a…rata…
His name, stretched thin, as if dragged through glass.
Arata's grip loosened. "Lyra, what...what was that?"
Her voice through the speaker was taut. "You heard it too?"
The sword pulsed again, harder.
And the voice came clearer, threading through the hum like a melody remembered from a nightmare.
It's so quiet here… can you hear it too?
The flame, it still remembers me…
Arata's chest seized. "Flora," he whispered.
The entire chamber answered in her tone the bright, trembling voice he remembered, broken with echo. The runes flickered white, and the containment field howled as though the air itself couldn't decide what note to hold.
Lyra slammed her palm on the override panel. Nothing. The system refused to disengage.
"Resonance's feeding back!" she shouted. "Drop the blade!"
But he couldn't. The sound anchored him. Flora's voice wasn't screaming like in her final moments, she was singing. It was Slow and Beautiful. A lullaby turned elegy.
Arata's grip tightened involuntarily.
"Flora…" he whispered.
The blade vibrated gently, almost reassuring. The blue veins along its surface pulsed in time with the song, light flowing like breath. The containment field warped inward, no longer resisting, no longer pressing it was just listening.
Lyra stared at the readings, horror creeping into her expression. "That's not a stored echo," she said. "It's not residual resonance."
She looked up at him, voice unsteady. "It's memory."
The song swelled—not louder, but fuller. The chamber dimmed, lights bending around the sound instead of through it. For a heartbeat, Arata could see her as she had been: sitting on the dorm steps, humming to calm her hands before drills, smiling like the world hadn't already decided to take her.
His chest burned.
"I didn't answer you," he said softly, voice cracking. "You asked me what I believed. I didn't know."
The song faltered just for a fraction.
Lyra felt it immediately. "Arata," she said carefully, "you're anchoring it. If you keep responding..."
"I know," he said.
He lowered the blade an inch.
The hum wavered.
"I know," he repeated. "I'm not trying to bring her back."
The song steadied again, gentler now, like a hand resting on his shoulder.
"I just don't want her last sound to be fear."
Silence crept in around the edges—not abrupt, not forced. The runes dimmed from white to their dormant glow. The containment field loosened its grip, howling reduced to a low, tired sigh.
Lyra watched the readings normalise, one by one.
The song faded.
Not cut. Completed.
Arata looked down at the blade. The glow had almost faded, but faint traces of sound still clung to it — the last echo of a girl who once sang to the Flame.
He whispered, "I'm sorry."
A final whisper came back, so soft that only he could hear it.
Then listen better this time.
"…Are you still with me?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah."
His voice was hoarse, but steady.
"She's gone," he said. "But she isn't erased."
Lyra swallowed. "What you just did—"
"I didn't do it," Arata replied, looking down at the blade. "I let it finish."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Lyra turned slowly toward the control panel and began manually severing every nonessential link.
"This never happened," she said quietly.
Arata didn't argue.
As he rose and sheathed the blade, the chamber felt… emptier. Quieter than before.
But not hollow.
She paused at the door, hand on the release.
"Arata—don't test this alone."
He nodded. "I won't."
She opened the chamber. "And don't let anyone else touch it."
He almost smiled remembering what happened when Wanuy wielded it.
Later, Lyra locked the report behind seven encryption keys.
Resonance: anomaly type — auditory. Vocalisation identified: Flora Rathore. Status: impossible.