Sakuya finally opened his eyes.
The room rushed back to him all at once—the gray walls, the cold light, the hard floor beneath his knees. But it was Mizunashi's face that held all his attention.
He was still in seiza, motionless, hands resting on his thighs. His expression hadn't changed.
And yet, something was different—something subtle, almost invisible, something that clearly wasn't meant to be seen.
A restrained satisfaction.
Mizunashi slightly tilted his head, about to speak.
But Sakuya cut in first.
"Sorry to interrupt."
He said it before he had even decided to. The question had been stuck inside him since the incident at the funeral—since Jūzō had spoken those words between blood-filled breaths. It had survived a week of exhausting training, sleepless nights, and the heavy silences of that corridor.
It couldn't wait any longer.
Mizunashi tilted his head ever so slightly to the side.
A barely perceptible motion.
But Sakuya noticed.
He wasn't used to being interrupted.
"Yes?"
Sakuya glanced down briefly, searching for the right words, then lifted his head again.
"During my fight with Jūzō… he mentioned something. A technique, or… something like that. He called it…"
He hesitated.
Mizunashi didn't help him right away.
He let the silence stretch for a second—just enough to be noticeable—then finished the sentence in a sharp, unwavering voice.
"The Fusion of Seimei and Soul."
Sakuya froze.
It wasn't just the answer that threw him off. It was the way it came out—clean, precise, as if Mizunashi had been waiting for that question.
"Uh… yeah. That's it."
He swallowed.
"I…"
"You want to know what he meant."
It wasn't a question.
Sakuya cleared his throat.
"Yeah. What exactly is it?"
Mizunashi exhaled slowly through his nose—not quite a sigh, not quite annoyance. Something in between. Like someone mentally reorganizing a lesson they hadn't planned to teach today.
He paused briefly, then spoke.
"Before I answer, let me ask you something."
His gaze settled on Sakuya with that peculiar precision of his—the kind that made it feel less like being looked at, and more like being dissected.
"Do you truly understand the basics?"
Sakuya's eyes widened slightly.
This time, he was genuinely caught off guard. Not intimidated—disoriented.
He had spent an entire week training relentlessly, focusing his Seimei, reinforcing his body, holding unnatural states until they no longer felt unnatural. He had just seen through his closed eyelids by thinking of Kanao.
And Mizunashi was asking if he understood the basics.
"What do you mean?"
Mizunashi stared at him.
Not like someone looking at a person—but like someone searching for something. His gaze cut through Sakuya with unsettling precision, as if assessing not what was there, but what was still missing.
"I think you can't help but see your Seimei as an energy you manipulate, despite our lessons."
A short pause.
"That's not entirely wrong."
Another pause.
"But it's also very far from being right."
Sakuya felt something tighten in his chest.
He had tried to stay calm. He had endured a full week of explanations that always felt incomplete—phrases that opened doors without ever stepping through them. He had held it in. Waited for it to make sense.
But now—again—the same wall.
"Why are you always so vague?"
His voice rose slightly despite himself.
"I never understand anything when you try to explain something. It honestly feels like you're trying to confuse me as much as possible."
Mizunashi didn't react.
Not a blink. Not the slightest tension in his jaw.
That absolute, unshakable calm only irritated Sakuya more.
"And another thing—"
He stopped for a fraction of a second, then decided to say it all.
"Why did you insist on training me? Have you even trained anyone before me?"
He didn't look away.
"You're the elite of the N.A.S.C. National security basically rests on you—that's what everyone says. So why are you wasting your time on me?"
A beat.
"And why do you make it as complicated as possible every single time?"
The silence that followed was different.
Mizunashi didn't answer immediately.
For the first time since their training began—since all of this started, really—something changed in his expression.
Nothing obvious. Nothing most people would notice.
But Sakuya saw it.
Mizunashi lowered his gaze.
Just for a few seconds.
Then raised it again.
His eyes had regained their usual steadiness. But something was different—a slight density, as if those few seconds had weight.
"You're right."
His voice was calm. Measured.
"You are the first person I've ever taken the time to teach."
Sakuya hadn't expected that.
Not that.
Not to see Mizunashi hesitate.
Him—whose words usually fell with surgical precision, whose silence was sharper than any answer. That suspended moment between them felt strange.
Almost unreal.
Sakuya swallowed.
"I…"
He ran a hand through his violet hair, an awkward, instinctive gesture.
"I'm sorry. That was impulsive. I didn't mean to come off harsh."
Mizunashi didn't answer right away.
And then, almost imperceptibly—as if it happened despite him—a smile brushed the corner of his lips.
Small. Brief. Almost nothing.
But on that face—usually as expressive as stone—that almost nothing felt enormous.
Sakuya noticed.
He chose not to mention it.
He spoke again before the silence could settle. Before his own honesty became too heavy in the room.
"It's just that… I want to understand."
His voice was steadier now. Less tense.
"Why are you so set on teaching me to become a real Seimeishi? Why you? Why not someone else?"
He met Mizunashi's gaze.
"Why do you insist on being the one to make me an N.A.S.C agent?"
Mizunashi studied him.
Not with that surgical precision he used for evaluation. Not with that gaze that tried to see beyond the surface.
Something different.
Something that, against all expectation, almost looked like amusement.
"You're frustrated."
Not a question.
Sakuya opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
"Uh…"
He frowned slightly, genuinely searching inside himself.
"I don't know."
A pause.
"Yeah… I think so."
Another.
"Actually… no."
He scratched his head, fingers disappearing briefly into his hair, and let out a breath—half-laugh, half-sigh—like someone who had just realized he no longer knew where he stood.
"Everything's moving so fast… I don't even know what to say or think anymore, honestly."
This time, Mizunashi answered with silence.
But not an empty one.
The kind that shifts just before something unexpected happens.
And then, slowly—almost imperceptibly at first—Mizunashi laughed.
Not a polite chuckle. Not a surface-level reaction meant to ease tension.
A real laugh.
Brief—but real.
And his eyes—those deep fuchsia eyes that usually held nothing but a cold, clinical calm—revealed something else.
Something alive.
He didn't even try to hide it.
"You see, Sakuya…"
His voice had changed. Still calm—but less constructed.
"I've been thinking the exact same thing since you arrived."
A short pause.
"As much as you vent your frustration on me… you're still far quieter than anyone else would have been in your place."
His eyes never left Sakuya's.
"And I'll admit it."
A beat.
"I'm just as lost when I try to teach you."
Sakuya narrowed his eyes.
He held Mizunashi's gaze a second too long, and something in his expression shifted.
Not anger.
Not curiosity.
Something between suspicion and a thought that probably should have stayed buried.
"You're weird, Mizu."
Mizunashi froze.
It wasn't the comment itself.
It was the nickname.
Thrown out of nowhere, with the disarming ease of someone who had just decided—unilaterally—that they were now close enough for that.
And Sakuya had that look.
That slightly satisfied look of a kid who just did something reckless and was waiting to see if it would blow up.
Mizunashi didn't get the chance to respond.
"You're not into men, are you?"
Silence fell.
Instantly.
Completely.
As if the entire room had decided to hold its breath.
Mizunashi's face—just moments ago showing something alive for the first time in a long while—shifted through several states in the span of a second.
First, surprise.
Then brief, genuine confusion.
And finally, settling with increasing clarity—irritation.
His right eye twitched.
Once.
Then he stood.
In a single, fluid motion, immediate—as if staying seated had suddenly become impossible.
And with him, something else rose.
His aura.
It spread around his body without a sound—dense, compressed—making the air vibrate just like that day.
That day Sakuya hadn't fully recovered from.
That unimaginable density that warped the space around him like invisible heat.
Mizunashi looked at him.
"So you think my lessons are abstract?"
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
"That I'm incapable of being clear?"
He took a step forward.
"Perfect."
A faint smile stretched across his lips.
Not the one from before.
This one was sharper.
"How about we get a little more… practical this time?"
Sakuya didn't even have time to process it.
In a fraction of a second, something seized the entire lower half of his body.
A brutal, immediate cold.
His legs, his hips, up to his waist—everything was engulfed in a solid block of ice that sealed around him with surgical precision, pinning him to the ground.
He looked down.
Then back up at Mizunashi.
His expression had shifted instantly—from smug satisfaction to something far less confident.
"What is this?"
He let out a nervous chuckle—the kind you use when you still hope the situation can be defused with a joke.
"It was a joke, you know."
Mizunashi looked at him.
"This is basic."
Two seconds passed.
Maybe less.
Then his foot moved in a perfect arc—and slammed straight into Sakuya's face with a force that had absolutely nothing educational about it.
The block of ice shattered as if it had never existed.
Sakuya felt the wall behind him before he even registered the impact on his face. His body had crossed the distance so fast his brain processed everything in the wrong order.
Mizunashi stepped forward.
Slowly.
One step at a time.
With that presence few had likely ever seen up close—and even fewer had walked away from.
A confidence so absolute, so deeply rooted in every movement, that it went beyond mere certainty.
It was terrifying precisely because it wasn't trying to be.
And his eyes.
Sakuya had seen them cold.
He had seen them clinical, calculating, even faintly amused.
He had even seen them—briefly—lose their usual rigidity.
But this—
This was new.
Something visceral lived in that gaze now.
Something that had nothing left of the patient teacher or the composed agent.
Something that, against all logic, looked like hatred.
Sakuya didn't move.
Not because he chose to stand his ground.
Because his body had momentarily forgotten how to do anything else.
Mizunashi stopped.
A few seconds stretched in silence.
Then he spoke.
"We're changing the program."
His voice was low.
Perfectly steady.
"Defend yourself with everything you've got."