The door creaked open, and two corpses walked in. Or at least that’s how it looked.
Raizen stumbled inside first, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His bandages were smudged and frayed, one sleeve torn clean off. Hikari followed close, pale and stiff, as though every joint had been oiled with pain. They didn’t speak. They barely looked alive.
"Sweet saints," Obi whistled. "Did you two get run over by a cart? No, wait - by two carts. Going in opposite directions?"
Raizen groaned, collapsing into a chair. His cheek hit the table with a dull thud. "Obi..."
"Oh, don’t say my name like it’s a curse. You should be thanking me for gracing you with my presence." Said Obi, sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a lump of half-forged metal in his lap.
Hikari let out a faint exhale, the closest thing to laughter she had managed all day. Takeshi didn’t even look up from his bench.
"It’s basically a one-time use... The handle will break"
Obi clutched his chest like he’d been shot. "Whaat? Old man, this is revolutionary."
"Not revolutionary, more like a prototype"
Raizen groaned louder, muffled by the table. "Obi... please leave, before I throw something at you"
Obi beamed. "See? He loves it. Anyway, I didn’t come here just to show off my genius. I need your review, Takeshi. The underworks won’t take my word for brilliance unless the scary old assassin signs off."
"Scrap metal, barely holding together" Takeshi said flatly.
"You wound me. Fine. Be that way. But when you’re begging for one of my world-famous inventions don’t come crying." Obi said with a tragic sigh. "well, I’ll surely come with something that’ll leave your jaw on the ground! I gotta go now!"
With that, he tucked the lump of metal under his arm, shot Takeshi one last wounded look, and strutted out the door, humming some nonsense tune.
Silence finally returned. Raizen didn’t even move. Neither touched the stew waiting on the table. Sleep caught them both instead - Raizen’s head buried in the mattress, Hikari curled on the cot.
Takeshi stayed awake. He moved quietly, pinning new scraps of paper and sketches to the great map on his wall. Red string stretched tighter, connecting dots into patterns only he seemed to understand. His jaw tightened as he pressed another pin into place. A new lead. Another shadow that smelled of the Moirai.
When Hikari stirred awake hours later, she found him gone. Raizen wasn’t in bed either. She blinked, rubbing her eyes.
Raizen was on the floor, doing pushups, or what you could barely call pushups, his arms shaking with every rise, sweat dripping, but he kept forcing his body up and down.
"Ninety-seven... ninety-eight..."
Hikari blinked awake, watching quietly. "You’ll break yourself."
"I’ll break more if I don’t," Raizen panted. His face twisted with effort, but his eyes - those bright, stubborn eyes - burned with something else. Something harsher than his usual smile. "If I can’t do this... I’ll never be strong enough."
She sat quietly, watching him, unsure why her chest felt so tight.
On the table, pinned under a knife, a small note that read:
Kori’s waiting. I have things to manage
Takeshi’s handwriting, nothing more. But it said everything.
The Rust Room was already humming. White lights burned bright over the Balance Grid, the tile floor shifting and grinding in restless patterns. Assistants sat behind glass, rows of monitors glowing pale against their faces. Mina was at the controls today, cool as ice, sliding toggles and calling out readings.
Kori stretched in the middle of the chamber, silver bob catching the light. "Morning, sunshine," she said. "Or whatever counts as sunshine, you look like you fought a furnace and lost," Kori snorted. "Perfect. That means yesterday worked."
Raizen forced a grin. "At least we’re alive. Barely"
"Barely’s enough," Kori smirked. "Come on, balance time."
She snapped her fingers at Mina. "Set it slow-speed, low drop. Let’s see if they can stand on two legs."
Today’s trial was simpler in design, crueler in execution. A wide chamber with a floor of tiles and platforms, each one no bigger than a stool. They shifted constantly - sliding sideways, dropping out, rising up again with sudden jerks. A wrong step meant a long fall into a padded pit below.
"The Balance Grid," Kori announced. "Looks easy, breaks people faster than a hammer. Don’t think. Adapt. You fall, you fail."
Raizen and Hikari exchanged a glance, then stepped onto the tiles. The ground shifted instantly, a lurch that nearly dropped them both.
The floor jolted again, and Raizen dropped into the padded pit with a grunt. He groaned, climbing back up, and Kori’s laugh rang out like bells. "Perfect landing! Beautiful start!"
They trained until sweat slicked their skin and their legs trembled with every step. Mina’s calm voice cut through between rounds. "Boy’s reaction time improving. Girl’s readings... unusual... Again"
During a short break, Raizen collapsed on his back, chest heaving. "Who designed this? Sadists?"
Kori chuckled. "Close. The Phalanx. Back when I was with them, this was warm-up."
Raizen blinked, wiping his face. "Phalanx?"
Kori raised a brow. "Never heard of them?"
"They were... let’s say, the ones who fought when no one else could. Seven of us. Best of the best. The Nyxes bled when the Phalanx moved. Legends now, whispers in taverns. Most are gone." She said it like she was talking about a card game she’d once played and gotten bored of.
Raizen’s grin came back, crooked but real. "Then I’ll just have to be better than them."
Kori barked a laugh. "Kid, I like your insanity." ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ NoveI★Fire.net
She flicked her fingers at Mina. "Grid: hardest pattern. Full shuffle. Let’s give them a show."
"Come on, Kori, you know the max setting jams the motors sometimes..." sighed Mina, as she was hesitantly pushing buttons and turning knobs until they looked like they were going to pop off.
The tiles snapped into violent motion, impossible to predict, yet Kori stepped onto them casually. Her body flowed with the shifting ground, each movement confident, playful even. She strolled across like the floor was steady earth, her balance unshakable.
Raizen’s eyes widened, not just at her skill, but at her right eye. For a moment, when the light caught under her fringe, her covered eye was visible. Not human.
A snowflake pattern shimmered across the iris, sharp and crystalline, as if winter itself had frozen in her gaze. Cold, beautiful, and terrifying.
He froze, breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t decide if it was beautiful or wrong, and that scared him most.
Kori noticed him staring. Her grin turned sharp.
"What’s wrong, kid? Never seen real power before?"