The eastern observatory stood abandoned.
Most students avoided it—not because it was forbidden, but because nothing useful was taught there. No elemental drills. No instructors. Only stone platforms, broken lenses, and a massive open dome that revealed the night sky.
Kurogane slipped inside just after midnight.
The academy slept, but the wards were awake. He could feel them brushing against his senses, testing, measuring. None reacted.
Not yet.
"You're late."
Raishin's voice came from above.
Kurogane flinched as the man stepped down from a fractured platform, landing without a sound. The air shifted immediately—pressure building, subtle and sharp, like the moment before a storm breaks.
"I almost didn't come," Kurogane admitted.
Raishin studied him. "Good. That means fear still outweighs arrogance."
He turned and gestured to the open center of the observatory.
"Kneel."
Kurogane hesitated. Then obeyed.
The stone beneath him was cold.
"Close your eyes," Raishin said. "And do nothing."
"I don't understand."
"That's the point."
Kurogane closed his eyes.
At first, there was only darkness.
Then—movement.
Earth pressed inward.Water flowed, restless.Fire pulsed impatiently.Wind tugged at the edges of his awareness.
Instinctively, he tried to separate them.
Pain exploded in his chest.
He gasped, collapsing forward as lightning surged through his body—not outward, not visible, but inside. It was sharp, tearing, like something trying to carve a path through his bones.
"DON'T," Raishin snapped.
Kurogane clenched his teeth, trembling violently. "It hurts!"
"Yes," Raishin replied coldly. "Because for the first time, you're not suppressing it."
The pain intensified.
Not burning.
Splitting.
The four elements inside him collided—then stalled, locked in perfect, unbearable tension.
"That space," Raishin said quietly. "The silence between them. That's where lightning lives."
Kurogane screamed.
The air above him cracked.
A thin bolt of blue-white energy snapped into existence for less than a heartbeat before vanishing. The stone floor beneath him shattered, spider-web cracks racing outward.
Raishin moved instantly.
Silver threads flared from his robes, wrapping around Kurogane like restraints. The pressure eased, snapping off the surge before it could finish forming.
Kurogane collapsed fully, gasping for breath, vision blurred with tears.
"I—can't—" he choked.
"You can," Raishin said. "Or you die. There is no third option."
Harsh.Honest.
Raishin crouched beside him.
"Listen carefully," he continued. "Elemental wielders command. Conductors endure."
He pressed two fingers lightly against Kurogane's sternum.
"Your mistake is trying to control lightning like fire or earth. Lightning is not shaped. It is channeled."
Kurogane forced himself upright, every nerve screaming. "Then what do I do?"
Raishin withdrew his hand.
"You stop separating them."
Silence fell.
"What?"
"You allow the elements to exist simultaneously," Raishin said. "Equal pressure. No dominance."
"That'll tear me apart!"
Raishin's glowing eye hardened. "Yes."
Kurogane stared at him, breath shallow.
"Again," Raishin said.
This time, Kurogane didn't try to divide the sensations.
He let them overlap.
The pain returned—worse than before—but different. Not chaotic. Focused.
Pressure built.
And then—
Not an explosion.
A line.
Lightning formed inside him like a held breath.
Thin.Controlled.Terrifying.
Kurogane's eyes flew open.
A single arc of lightning crawled across his arm, skin unharmed but numb. The air hummed violently.
Raishin exhaled slowly.
"Good," he said. "You felt it."
The lightning vanished.
Kurogane collapsed again, shaking uncontrollably.
"Why… why isn't anyone else taught this?" he whispered.
Raishin stood, turning away.
"Because conductors burn out," he said. "Or go mad. Or level cities."
He paused.
"And because the last successful one… became the Darkness Emperor."
The words struck harder than any lightning.
"So I'm cursed," Kurogane said hollowly.
Raishin looked back at him.
"No," he said. "You're walking the edge."
He stepped toward the exit as the observatory began sealing itself again.
"Tomorrow," he added, "we repeat this. And it will hurt more."
Kurogane lay there long after Raishin left, muscles twitching, skin buzzing.
But beneath the pain…
For the first time…
The elements were quiet.
Not obedient.
Not separate.
Balanced.