They never saw the attack coming.
That was the point.
It happened during what the academy classified as a low-risk field exercise—a perimeter sweep beyond the inner wards, supervised but intentionally distant. No high-alert signals. No combat formations.
Routine breeds blindness.
Kurogane felt the disturbance first.
Not lightning.Not earth.
Intent.
He turned just as the air folded inward near the treeline.
"Down!" he shouted.
Too late.
The strike wasn't flashy. No explosion. No roar. A thin blade of compressed mana slipped through the space between heartbeats and tore across Raien's flank.
Raien cried out and collapsed, fire flaring wildly around him before sputtering out.
The world slowed.
Kurogane was at his side instantly, blood already soaking through Raien's robes, dark and fast. The wound wasn't deep—but it was wrong, edges shimmering with residual distortion.
Anti-healing.
Raien's breath hitched. "Heh… guess… you warned me."
"Don't talk," Kurogane said, hands shaking as he pressed down hard, earth rising instinctively beneath Raien to stabilize his body.
The threat wasn't gone.
Shadows moved at the edge of perception.
Assassin-grade again.
Kurogane felt the lightning surge in response—eager, ready. One release would scatter everything in a clean arc. End the threat. End the danger.
End this.
But Mizuki's words echoed in his mind.
No instinctive anchoring.Minimal reliance.
His body screamed at him to move.
To end it.
He didn't.
The second strike came.
Stone shattered where Kurogane had been standing a moment earlier. He barely dodged, dragging Raien with him, every muscle screaming under the strain.
Lightning clawed at his nerves.
NOW, it urged.
"Do it," Raien gasped through clenched teeth. "I can feel them—three, maybe four—"
Kurogane swallowed hard.
If he used lightning now, it would be fast. Clean. Perfect.
And it would teach his body one more lesson it might never forget.
"I've got you," Kurogane said, voice breaking. "Stay awake."
He chose earth.
Rough. Heavy. Slow.
Stone surged up not as weapons, but as walls—buying seconds, not victories. Wind snapped past as another strike missed by inches, slicing his sleeve, skin burning cold.
Seconds.
Raien's pulse faltered.
"No—no—" Kurogane muttered, panic clawing up his throat.
Lightning surged anyway.
Not outward.
Inward.
Kurogane screamed as he held it back, forcing the energy to coil tighter than it ever had before. Blue-white light bled from his eyes, veins blazing painfully beneath his skin.
The assassins hesitated.
They felt it.
Fear.
Not of lightning released—but of lightning contained.
That hesitation saved them.
Healers broke through the perimeter wards in a rush of water and light. Mizuki was among them, face pale as she dropped to her knees beside Raien.
Raishin arrived a heartbeat later, eyes already on Kurogane.
"Enough," Raishin snapped. "You'll rupture."
Kurogane collapsed, lightning dissipating violently into the ground in a harmless spray as Raishin cut the conduction with practiced brutality.
Raien coughed weakly, consciousness slipping.
"…You didn't… use it," he murmured.
Kurogane laughed weakly, tears streaking down his face. "I was too slow."
Raien smiled faintly.
"No," he said. "You waited."
Darkness took him.
Hours later, the infirmary was chaos.
Raien lived.
Barely.
The anti-healing residue had been purged, but the damage was done. He would recover—but not quickly.
Mizuki stood apart from the healers, silent.
Raishin joined her.
"He held lightning back," Mizuki said quietly.
"Yes," Raishin replied. "Against every instinct."
"That increases the strain."
"It also proves he's not lost yet."
They watched through the glass as Kurogane sat beside Raien's bed, exhausted beyond tears, one hand gripping the sheets as if letting go would break something fragile and irreplaceable.
Mizuki exhaled slowly.
"…The council won't like this."
Raishin didn't look away.
"They never do."
Somewhere deep within the academy systems, another silent update was logged.
Observation:Subject resisted reflexive lightning discharge under lethal pressure.Indicates emerging voluntary override.Physical cost: severe.Psychological cost: unknown.
Kurogane rested his forehead against the bed.
Lightning stirred—quiet, uneasy.
For the first time, it had been told no.
And it remembered.