The chamber was quiet.
Too quiet.
Kurogane lay on the stone platform at its center, thin lines of pale blue light still fading beneath his skin. The wards etched into the walls hummed softly, layered upon layered—restraints meant to hold back disasters, not children.
Mizuki Yukihana stood near the far wall, arms folded within her sleeves, eyes fixed not on Kurogane, but on the air beside him.
"Show yourself," she said calmly.
The temperature shifted.
The light bent.
And Raishin stepped out of nothing.
His boots touched the stone without a sound. The silver threads in his robe crackled faintly, answering a tension only he could feel.
"You're early," he said.
Mizuki didn't turn. "You're reckless."
Raishin smiled thinly. "You always confuse recklessness with refusal."
She faced him then, ice-blue eyes sharp. "You're training him in lightning."
"I'm teaching him how to survive it."
"That energy is forbidden."
"That energy is inevitable."
Silence stretched between them, heavy and charged.
Kurogane stirred, eyes fluttering open.
Raishin looked at him first. "Easy," he said quietly. "Don't try to hold anything yet."
Mizuki noticed the word hold.
Her gaze hardened. "You've already altered his internal circulation."
"I stabilized it," Raishin countered. "Before your academy fractures it trying to force him into four boxes."
"You presume much."
"I remember everything."
That stopped her.
Raishin took a step forward, boots echoing softly. "You want him restrained. Segmented. Element by element. You want obedience through limitation."
"And you," Mizuki replied coldly, "want to turn him into a walking fault line."
Raishin shook his head. "No. I want him integrated."
He gestured toward Kurogane.
"Lightning isn't born from dominance. It's born from equality. Pressure without release."
Mizuki's fingers tightened. "And when that pressure fails?"
"Then it breaks," Raishin said simply. "Like it always has."
Kurogane pushed himself up slightly, wincing.
"…You're both talking about me," he said weakly. "But no one's asking what I want."
Both of them froze.
Mizuki exhaled slowly and approached him. "What you want may not matter if it endangers thousands."
Raishin knelt on the opposite side. "What you choose determines whether anyone survives."
Kurogane looked between them.
Mizuki — control, safety, restraint.Raishin — pain, risk, truth.
"What happens," Kurogane asked, voice shaking, "if I follow the academy's path?"
Mizuki answered without hesitation. "We suppress the lightning. Seal the conduction gap. You'll function as a multi-element wielder. Limited, but stable."
Raishin added softly, "And every year it'll hurt more. Until one day… it ruptures."
Kurogane swallowed. "And your path?"
Raishin met his eyes. "You'll suffer. You'll fail repeatedly. And you might die."
A beat.
"But," he continued, "if you live… you will never lose control the way you did today. Lightning won't erupt. It will flow."
Mizuki snapped, "He's a child."
Raishin didn't look away. "So were we."
That landed.
The wards hummed louder, reacting to Kurogane's rising heartbeat.
Mizuki noticed instantly. She raised one hand, reinforcing the chamber.
"Decide," she said, voice low. "Because I won't allow this to continue in shadows."
Kurogane closed his eyes.
He saw his village.His mother's shaking hands.The wall of earth rising between him and fear.
"I don't want to be contained," he whispered.
Mizuki's jaw tightened.
"I don't want to hurt anyone either," he continued. "But… if suppressing this means it'll break later—"
He opened his eyes.
"I choose the pain I can see."
Raishin let out a slow breath.
Mizuki looked at him for a long time.
Finally, she spoke.
"Very well," she said. "You'll train under conditional oversight."
Raishin's head snapped up. "You're allowing this?"
"I'm not approving it," Mizuki replied coolly. "I'm monitoring it."
She leaned closer to Kurogane.
"If your lightning exceeds acceptable thresholds," she warned, "I will end this myself. Do you understand?"
Kurogane nodded.
"Yes, Master Yukihana."
She straightened.
"Then this is no longer an academy issue," she said. "It's a containment experiment."
Raishin stood.
"And experiments," he said quietly, "tend to change the world."
The wards dimmed slightly.
And deep within Kurogane's chest, the tension shifted—not easing, not worsening.
Aligning.