The white stone gates of the Machiavelli Academy opened without a sound.
Ezio stepped through them alone.
The morning was cold, but the cold was not what made his breath slow. It was the way the air felt heavier inside these walls, as if ambition itself had mass. Students moved through the marble corridors in disciplined silence, robes brushing softly, eyes forward. They were not weak people. They were simply unfinished weapons.
Ezio felt them now.
Not their thoughts—something deeper.
Fear, restrained beneath discipline.Greed, polished into ambition.Desire, hidden beneath manners.
The Casanova Ring pulsed faintly around his heart, translating the emotional undercurrent of the academy into something he could taste. It made the world sharper and more fragile at the same time.
Lucifer's voice slipped through his mind."Careful, kiddo. You're in a room full of knives that think they're flowers."
Ezio kept walking.
Rosa waited for him in the training wing.
She stood before a long rack of short blades, her back straight, hands folded behind her. When he entered, she did not turn immediately. Instead, she listened.
Ezio felt her notice him before she looked.
"You brought something with you," Rosa said softly. "Not a weapon."
Ezio stopped three paces away. "Something formed."
Rosa turned.
Her eyes were sharp, calculating, but for a flicker of a second there was something else there—curiosity edged with danger.
"Show me," she said.
Ezio did not release his aura. He simply stood.
The Casanova Ring breathed once.
Rosa's pupils contracted.
"So," she murmured. "You chose a second path."
Ezio met her gaze. "I'm still on yours."
Rosa smiled faintly. "No one who walks two paths stays on either."
She reached for a wakizashi from the rack and held it out to him.
"If you are going to fracture your soul," she said, "you should at least know how to cut with what remains."
Ezio took the blade.
It was lighter than he expected. Perfectly balanced. Honest in the way only things designed for killing could be.
"Stand," Rosa ordered.
Ezio took position.
The training hall was empty, but it did not feel quiet. The weight of a thousand unseen observers—histories, ambitions, failures—pressed in from the stone walls.
Rosa circled him slowly.
"A sword does not kill," she said. "A line does."
Ezio frowned. "A line?"
Rosa stopped at his side. "Every strike is a path. Every path has an outcome. If you place your body on the correct line, the enemy dies whether they want to or not."
She stepped back.
"Attack."
Ezio raised the wakizashi.
He swung too early.
Rosa was already gone from the space his blade passed through.
"Wrong line," she said calmly.
Ezio tried again.
Rosa moved with almost no effort, her feet sliding, her body turning, never truly leaving balance.
"Again."
Ezio's jaw tightened.
He focused harder, watching her shoulders, her hips, the subtle shifts of weight.
But the Casanova Ring pulsed.
He felt Rosa's emotional field now—cool, controlled, unreadable. No fear. No hesitation. It was like trying to cut fog that refused to move.
Ezio swung.
Miss.
Lucifer laughed quietly."Kiddo, you can read hearts, not legs."
Rosa stopped him with a single raised hand.
"You are still trying to hit where I am," she said. "Not where I will be."
Ezio exhaled slowly.
"How do I see that?"
Rosa's gaze sharpened. "Close your eyes."
Ezio hesitated, then obeyed.
"Now feel me," Rosa said.
Ezio did.
The Casanova Ring flared softly, mapping Rosa not as a body but as an intention. Her calm was not stillness—it was readiness. A poised decision waiting to collapse into motion.
"Move," Rosa whispered.
Ezio cut.
Steel whispered through the air.
Rosa stepped back faster than before.
Her eyes widened just slightly.
"Again."
Ezio listened.
Not to sound.
To the faint shift in Rosa's will.
He cut again.
The blade passed through the space she had meant to occupy.
Rosa stopped the exercise abruptly.
"You are using that thing inside you," she said. "To read hesitation."
Ezio opened his eyes. "I'm not trying to."
"That's what makes it dangerous," Rosa replied.
She stepped close enough that he could feel the edge of her presence.
"Machiavelli teaches you how to predict systems," she said. "Casanova teaches you how to predict hearts."
Her eyes bored into his.
"Together, they make you lethal in a way swords alone never could."
Ezio lowered the wakizashi.
"Then teach me how to hold the blade anyway."
Rosa studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.
"Tomorrow," she said, "you will return to the Board."
Ezio's chest tightened.
"You will not use money," Rosa continued. "You will not burn grain. You will not collapse markets."
Ezio looked at her. "Then how do I play?"
Rosa's lips curved slightly.
"You will use what you've become."
Ezio felt the Casanova Ring pulse.
Rosa turned away.
"The line that cannot be seen," she said, "is always drawn through a human heart."
Ezio stood in the silent hall, wakizashi in hand, and understood something that chilled him more than any blade:
From now on, every cut he made would begin long before steel ever moved.