The door creaked open, and two corpses walked in. Or at least that's how it looked.
Raizen stumbled inside first, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. His bandages were smudged and frayed, one sleeve torn off.
Hikari followed close, pale and stiff. They didn't speak.
They barely looked alive.
"Holy metals!" 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."
Obi sat 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.
"Whaaat? Old man, this thing is revolutionary."
"Not revolutionary, more like a prototype"
Raizen groaned louder, muffled by the table.
"Obi… please get out, before I throw something at you"
Obi beamed. "See? Even a walking corpse loves it! Anyway, I didn't come here just to show off my genius.
"Hm?"
"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!"
"Keep dreaming"
"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 dramatic look, and ran out the door, humming some weird tune.
Silence finally returned. Raizen didn't even move. Neither touched the suspicious stew waiting on the table.
Sleep caught them both instead - Raizen's head buried in the mattress, Hikari curled somewhere near.
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.
When Hikari stirred awake hours later, she found him gone. Raizen wasn't in bed either. She blinked, rubbing her eyes.
Actually, 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 even 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 when they got there. The same 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 again, sliding toggles and calling out readings.
Kori stretched in the middle of the chamber, silver bob catching the light. "Morning, sunshine!" she said.
"Or... Uh... Whatever counts as sunshine. You look like you fought a mattress 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."
"Again...?"
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 movements.
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, nearly dropping 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? Masochists?"
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?"
He shook his head.
"They were… let's say, the ones who fought when no one else could. Seven of us. Best of the best. Nyxes died when the Phalanx moved. Now legends, 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."
Then she whispered into his ear "If you want to get there... Let me show you what it takes."
She flicked her fingers at Mina. "Grid: hardest pattern. Max 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, with unshakable balance.
Raizen's eyes widened, not just at her skill, but at her right eye. For a moment, when her hair swung, her covered eye was visible.
It wasn't human.
A snowflake pattern shimmered across the bright blue iris, sharp and crystalline, as if winter itself had frozen in her gaze.
Cold, beautiful, terrifying.
Raizen couldn't look away.
That eye was not a star.
It was a weapon.
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!?"