I awoke feeling like I'd been trampled via a herd of Cerberuses. My jaw throbbed, and my head felt like a lightning rod. As I blinked the celebrities away, I found out I wasn't on bloodless stone anymore. I turned into in a small infirmary, propped up on pillows that smelled faintly of lavender. A pair of protestingly small breasts bounced over me as I tried to sit up.
"You silly little human," Yuria growled, adjusting a blood-soaked handkerchief on her head. "If you weren't so worrying, maybe I wouldn't need to fear about you!"
I rubbed my jaw, feeling fresh bruises forming on my cheek. "Broken jaw?" I guessed softly, teeth clicking against each other.
"Shut up," she snapped, turning pink. "We should have gone to the infirmary right away after my spar—meaning you attacked me out of nowhere—decked you!"
Before I could complain, the infirmary door slid open. In stepped a tall, raven-haired demon nurse with bat-like wings and a bag of glowing vials. She nodded at Yuria's makeshift bandages, then peered down at me.
"Not lots of a warrior, are you?" she requested with a faint smirk. "Fragile humans and their bruises." Her eyes then flicked to the glowing symbol on my palm. "What do we have here?"
Runic power? I blinked, sneezing a little from the lavender. "Just a sneeze," I lied.
Yuria shoved herself between us protectively. "I said stay out of this!" she snapped, baring her canines. "He's my sparring partner."
The nurse chuckled. "Partner or pet, it hardly matters. As long as he survives a week here, I'll call you a hero."
"Thanks," I muttered to the nurse's departing back, cheeks burning.
Once the door closed, Yuria threw me a leather jacket, causing a puff of dust to rise. "Put this on. Wouldn't want you to freeze to death without your Ice Queen here to rescue you."
I shrugged into the jacket. "If Lilith hears about how safely the Ice Queen escorts her prized human, we're all in trouble."
Yuria snorted. "Like she cares what Seraphina does. Last I heard, her nose was still stuck in a prophecy."
I smirked. "Either that or she's planning special ice cream for humans."
She rolled her eyes and started marching. "Come on. Time to actually train you."
We stepped outside into a courtyard dotted with ashen trees under a blood-red sky. A handful of students were watching us, eager to see the aftermath of our breakfast scuffle. Yuria led me to a circular training ring marked by softly glowing runes in the dirt.
"Fight me fair and square this time," she said, tossing me a sparring staff. "No gravity tricks."
I gave a mock salute. "Yes, ma'am." Grabbing the staff felt like holding a neon floaty in my hands — easy for her, awkward for me.
She took a stance, sparks dancing along her arms. "Go!"
I barely raised the staff when she charged. Lightning arced from her fists, as fast as a hurricane. I barely defended, stumbling back under her flurry of punches. Sparks flew off my own staff as I blocked clumsily.
Suddenly, adrenaline and panic crashed into my codex. My hands twitched. The runes on my palm and the pages of the codex glowed a deep blue. I whispered a silent prayer to whatever gods listen in the demon realm.
Then I twisted my hands as if writing invisible code. The air in the ring thickened like syrup, and the runes in the dirt pulsed. Yuria's eyes went wide.
She launched another punch. It met sudden resistance, as if she were fighting through molasses. Her fist slowed mid-swing, and she staggered, overbalancing into a slow-motion stumble.
For a heartbeat, we both froze. Dust drifted from Yuria's outstretched leg. Then she burst into laughter. "What the—! Did you just do that?" She leapt back to stabilize herself and grinned. "Using cheat moves again, huh?"
"I—uh, I guess? I didn't mean to!" I stammered, staff clattering as I dropped my guard.
Her laughter turned into contagious, and shortly I became giggling too, adrenaline pounding in my chest. If doubling gravity was cheating, I didn't care. This felt good.
"You're lucky I like you," Yuria said breathlessly, ripping off her glove and tossing it at me. "Otherwise I'd tie you up in those glowing roots for teaching me math."
I caught the glove and put it on. "Got any tips for a complete beginner?"
Her grin turned affectionate. "Start by not standing there like a scared kitten."
We sparred on for a while — me awkwardly, her playfully holding back — until dusk turned the sky purple. Blood and sweat mingled with dirt on both of us, but I felt alive for the first time in days. Even chasing Yuria around with a sparring staff felt better than sitting silently through another lecture.
Walking back to our dorm through the twilight shadows, Yuria bumped shoulders with me. "Try not to die before breakfast tomorrow, okay?"
"Only if you promise to come pick me up after classes," I replied with a grin.
She threw her blonde braid over her shoulder. "Whatever you want, human. Just don't get frostbitten waiting for me."
Back in my dorm room, jaw finally numbed by painkillers, I ran a finger over the Sigil on my palm. It was warm, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. If I could tweak gravity, what else could I do with this power?
The demon realm could spin its twisted classes and crazy exams all it wanted, but Kazuki Ren was not going down without a fight. And maybe, just maybe, training with a certain blonde demon wasn't the worst thing to happen to me.