The academy called it a simulation.
That was a lie.
Kurogane realized it the moment the ground changed beneath his feet.
The air wasn't warded evenly. The mana flow wasn't regulated. And the silence—tight, deliberate—was nothing like a controlled training field.
This place was designed for one thing.
Failure.
He stood alone in a forest of stone and ash, pillars rising like broken teeth from the ground. No sky was visible—only a dim, artificial haze that swallowed sound after a few meters.
Assassin-class trial.
He exhaled slowly, grounding himself.
Don't search.Don't provoke.
Lightning listened best when he didn't rush it.
A flicker to his left.
Too slow.
Pain exploded across his shoulder as a blade grazed him, not metal but condensed mana sharp enough to slice cloth and skin alike. Kurogane stumbled back, blood darkening his sleeve.
No warning.
No announcement.
Only intent.
He rolled instinctively as another strike cut through the space where his head had been. Stone shattered instead.
"Good," a voice whispered from nowhere. "You react."
Kurogane swallowed and forced his breathing steady.
The assassin constructs used here weren't golems. They were adaptive projections—half-thought, half-killing intent. Designed to slip through elemental defenses by never fully materializing.
Earth was too slow.Fire too loud.Wind too imprecise.
Lightning—
Too dangerous.
For now.
A ripple in the air behind him.
Kurogane turned just as a shadow condensed into a blade-form. He raised his arm instinctively—
Too late.
The blow never landed.
The air snapped.
Not violently. Not explosively.
A thin line of lightning traced itself through the projection's core, dissecting it with clinical precision. The assassin construct collapsed without sound.
Kurogane froze.
He hadn't summoned it.
He hadn't even decided.
Lightning had acted on intent alone.
His heart pounded.
That's new.
The forest shifted.
Three signatures this time. Spread wide.
Pressure crawled along his spine as the conduction space inside his chest responded—his body anticipating rather than reacting.
For a brief moment, panic flared.
Then—
Calm.
Not peace.Alignment.
Kurogane moved.
He didn't chase the constructs. He positioned himself where their paths would intersect, letting tension build naturally. Fire wasn't present. Wind barely stirred.
But imbalance always leaves traces.
The first assassin struck.
Lightning answered.
Not outward.
Through.
The second tried to retreat—too slow.
The third adapted.
It lunged low, avoiding the conduction arc entirely.
Kurogane felt it a fraction too late.
The blade drove into his side.
Pain blossomed white-hot.
This time, lightning screamed.
Not as discharge.
As resistance.
Kurogane gasped as his body locked up, muscles seizing. Blue-white veins flared beneath his skin, uncontrolled but contained—barely.
The construct recoiled, destabilized by feedback.
Kurogane forced himself upright, teeth clenched hard enough to crack.
"No," he whispered. "Not now."
He pressed both hands against his chest, doing the one thing Raishin had warned him never to do during combat.
He anchored.
Earth responded instantly.
Stone rose, not as a weapon but as support—bracing his stance, grounding excess pressure before it could tear outward.
Lightning followed the path of least resistance.
The last assassin construct disintegrated.
Silence returned.
Kurogane collapsed to one knee, blood soaking into cracked stone. His vision blurred at the edges, static ringing loudly in his ears.
The environment dissolved.
White stone replaced ash.
The trial chamber returned.
Mizuki Yukihana stood behind the observation barrier, hands clasped tightly.
Raishin was already moving.
He knelt beside Kurogane, fingers hovering just above the boy's sternum, eyes narrowing.
"…You're adapting," he said quietly.
Kurogane looked up weakly. "That… doesn't sound good."
Raishin's expression was unreadable. "It's irreversible."
Mizuki stepped forward. "Explain."
Raishin didn't look at her. "His nervous system is restructuring. Lightning isn't just passing through anymore. It's being accounted for."
"That shouldn't be possible," Mizuki said.
"It is," Raishin replied. "Because he keeps surviving."
Kurogane let out a shaky laugh that turned into a cough. "So… I passed?"
Mizuki studied him for a long moment.
"Yes," she said finally. "Barely."
A pause.
"And with consequences."
She knelt as well, meeting Kurogane's eyes.
"You used lightning instinctively," she continued. "That lowers reaction delay—but increases dependency."
Kurogane frowned weakly. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," Mizuki said softly, "that one day your body may decide lightning is not optional."
Raishin closed his eyes briefly.
"That day," he murmured, "is closer than I thought."
He helped Kurogane to his feet.
As they left the chamber, the academy's wards hummed—adjusting, recalculating.
Somewhere deep within the system, Kurogane's classification quietly changed.
From unstable assetto
Emergent Threat.
And for the first time since his arrival at Hikari Academy, lightning did not feel like something waiting to escape.
It felt like something settling in.