Kori was already taping her fingers. She stood beside a glass rack where two long, black cases rested.
Beside them, a second rack held replicas - blunt twin swords and a staff with the exact same weight and balance as the real deal.
"Lemme see them hands" she said, her way of hello.
Raizen and Hikari raised them. Kori checked wrists, thumbs, arms, shoulders.
"Bruises... Awesome! Today you learn how your work holds up against someone who worked just as hard."
Mina's voice floated from behind the observation glass.
"Telemetry live. Dueling bay two primed, like you asked. Scoring on vitals."
"Wait! Dueling bay-?" Raizen already started asking, but Kori cut him off before he could whine.
"Replicas first" Kori added, patting the padded, fake weapons. "You'll earn the real ones - on limiter. Who knows when"
Behind the corner came 2 silhouettes. They didn't seem older than Raizen and Hikari.
The guy was tall and airy, his hair the bright brown of freshly-cut wood, so long it fell past the shoulder and looped behind one ear. A slim useless monocle hung from a chain like a private joke. He stood with the lazy confidence of a man who owned rooms by practice.
"Arashi" Kori presented him. "Annoying accuracy, and a beast when it comes to guns"
He slightly bowed like a noble at a gala and grinned. Two sleek training pistols rode in open holsters at his hips - vented slides, lighter material.
Non-lethal, like Mina said - but enough sting to make you not want to get hit ever again.
The second was quiet even when she moved. Straight crimson hair, the bright color of a new wound. She carried a claymore across one shoulder as if it weighed as much as a stick.
Trust me – It didn't.
"Keahi" Kori continued. "Doesn't really talk much at first. I'm not going to say anything other than that she's wayyy stronger than you might expect."
Keahi nodded once, her eyes steady.
"Warm up" Kori said. "Then we start playing."
Raizen took the replica twins and knew instantly they'd been measured to him, grips exactly where his palms expected them. Balance perfect under his knuckles, like a promise that they will cut exactly where he'll want them to.
Hikari lifted the staff and felt the weight sit along her forearms just as she first felt it. Same thing: One sharp end, one… Uh… Complicated staff end.
"Good" Kori smiled. "Bay two. Raizen first."
The dueling bay was a big square of matte flooring bordered by white walls. Above, cameras and sensors blinked. Mina's graphs started moving.
Arashi rolled his shoulders. "First touch buys tea" he said, amused. "First vital buys dinner."
"Hey man" Raizen laughed, raising his hands in the air. "I don't have that much money"
Kori's hand cut down. "Go."
Arashi didn't draw first. He walked at a good distance, then - crisp - cleared the leather holster and snapped a green-white shot that cracked like a clap.
Raizen leaned - dodging by a millimeter.
He was already moving before the second shot. Closing the distance. Normally, that was the answer to a gun.
He slid, one blade guarding high, the other low. A third shot went for his thigh - he predicted the trajectory, parried and used the push to spring forward.
"Hello" Arashi exclaimed, already drifting back, hopping to the side. He gave angles, not ground.
Raizen swung for the line the bullet would ride - Arashi smiled like a teacher spotting a clever answer he wouldn't expect.
"Not bad."
Two shots, almost stacked - one at chest, to steal your attention, one at the ankles, to steal the balance.
Raizen picked wrong on purpose, let the chest shot slide along his blade, and moved his leg, dangerously close to be bit. His blade moved, stopping right before Arashi's neck.
"Score: 1–0 Raizen, vital." Mina called.
Arashi's eyebrows climbed, delighted. "Interesting..."
Second round, he stopped being readable. No rhythm, step mid-fire, high-low, low-high.
Raizen stopped chasing and started winning space, letting shots show him the corridor he needed to enter.
"Distance" Kori called calmly. "Steal it. Don't beg for it."
Raizen stole it - half-step into the hip, parry the wrist, force the muzzle to the floor. He basically didn't give his opponent where to go. Arashi was trapped. The second blade came for the chest vital-
Arashi cheated.
He didn't fight the pin - he sat with it, rolled, and turned Raizen's control into a gap. A practice round snapped from his off-hand pistol - Raizen hadn't seen the draw - and sharp pain exploded across his chest.
" Score: 1–1 Arashi, vital." Mina said, slightly impressed.
"These toy guns have no recoil! But the accuracy is… Surprising, to say the least. They're definitely lighter…"
"It's still 1-1" Raizen breathed loudly.
They traded next points like fencers.
Raizen slid a blade to shoulder- 2–1.
Arashi tapped ribs, catching Raizen off-guard
2–2.
Last point wins.
"I shall remember this lesson" Arashi smiled lightly, eyes sharp. "Thank you in advance."
Then he cut lines into the bay, twin guns speaking a language that punished hesitation.
Raizen answered by carving safe zones and stepping into them a moment early, blades flashing only to move hands, not to chase barrels.
He almost had him - bind, wrist stolen, forearm trapped, blade lined for center mass - but Arashi pivoted, and saved not his chest but his elbow, stealing Raizen's lever just long enough to spin and mark a clean shoulder shot.
"Match point, 3-2" Mina announced. "Winner: Arashi."
It was that close. Too close.
Kori's hand found Raizen's shoulder. "You tried to finish with pride" she said. "Finish with math next time." A glance at Arashi. "And you – control your playfulness when you teach with pain."
Arashi smiled. "As you wish."
"Next" Kori announced.
The girls met in the middle without noise.
Keahi planted her claymore's tip and studied Hikari's staff-spear like a problem. She was taller, broader. When the blade left the floor, it sounded like authority.
"You call it when you've had enough" Keahi said softly.
"You too" Hikari answered.
Kori's hand came down again. "Go."
Keahi moved first - no feints. The claymore fell in a clean descending arc that would have ruined a man if live.
Hikari wasn't there when it arrived. Keahi dragged the blade through horizontal. Hikari dodged, and hit the back of Keahi's knee with the non-lethal end.
Scored, not vital. 1–0.
Keahi shortened the swing and bullied space. Hikari gave ground on purpose, drawing the big blade into a pattern with too much muscle memory. Third swing. Fourth. It felt like her and the claymore's weight were completing each other.
Hikari met the next swing at the midpoint, slid the heavy steel out of line, and stepped in, past the space where claymores are weak.
Keahi didn't panic. She used her shoulder like a hammer.
They collided. Hikari bounced, breath cut for a second. Keahi didn't rush. She settled into a high guard that wrote a simple sentence: Don't risk your life. I cut here.
Hikari smiled a breath. "I'll try a different thing, then." She seemed to say.
She began to write little questions with the staff end - tap, retreat - forcing half-centimeter angle changes until her opponent had a posture that looked slightly confused.
Feeling it, she tried swinging high with the spear tip, then stepped inside Keahi's blind side and
hooked the ankle with the tooth below the head –
"You're strong" she said, meaning it.
"You're quick" Keahi replied.
The next exchange mattered.
Keahi drove forward in three compact steps, where big blades surprise people by being nimble.
Hikari choked up on the staff and fought like a fencer with a long dagger - beating the flat, returning small cuts.
Point. Hikari. 2–0.
Keahi breathed once. She backed out and lowered the tip toward the floor, making the claymore into a trap - an invitation for Hikari to overreach.
Hikari didn't bite. She stayed on edges, pulse a bit high to call steady.
Then Keahi tried a final trick: a deliberate shoulder-drop, followed by a brutal, rising diagonal meant to catch a dodge.
Hikari stepped – a step she never even learned.
Her right foot planted heel-first, weight switching on the inside edge. It was a half-moon kick that turned momentum into stillness and returned it in a single, simple counterattack.
The staff-blade snapped up and set, calmly, beneath Keahi's jawline. If this hadn't been training, it would have been the end for her.
They froze.
"Vital" Mina said softly. "Winner: Hikari."
They didn't move for a breath. Kori's icy eyes studied Hikari like a study she wanted to memorize.
Keahi lowered her sword and touched fist to chest in a small salute.
"What you did… I'm not sure what that last thing was… But it was superb" she said, weight on the word.
"Thank you" Hikari replied, shaking her firm hand.
Kori gathered them at the edge.
"Good, good, good" she said - Kori's word for excellent.
"Raizen - close the space sooner. Don't chase hands. More like… Suffocate decisions. You were a breath away from winning."
Raizen nodded. The hunger for the rematch set.
"To you" Kori told Hikari, "You didn't flinch when you should have and didn't celebrate when you could have. Learn one thing from her" a chin at Keahi, "and one thing from him" a look to Arashi, "and you'll be something I don't have a bad word for yet."
Mina dimmed the bay lights toward neutral. Kori tapped the case glass.
"You earned a minute. One pass each with the real ones. No heroics."
Then she opened the cases. There, the masterpieces Obi has crafted.
Golden breath woke along Raizen's twin blades. Ocean-blue gathered at Hikary's staff end and slipped down channels like a river finding its bed. Everyone nearby felt it - the hum wasn't loud, but it was there. Like it was… Alive.
Raizen cut a single, precise line from low left to high right. Air seemed to slide apart and ease shut after.
Hikari set the staff end to the ground, blue pulsing once, twice. Then she lifted and drew a tiny spiral with the spearhead. A blue line followed the staff end, making a crescent that disappeared, like a shadow that wasn't supposed to be there. Then it stopped dead on a point, without tremor.
Kori's expression didn't change - except for her eyes. They sharpened as if she saw something that she shouldn't have seen
"Time." Kori affirmed. "Cases closed."
As the lids latched, Kori stood a moment longer, gaze on the mat where Hikari's crescent line had kissed the floor.
Her jaw set.
"Mina" she added, voice back to flat.
"Clip the last twenty seconds. Mark it private."
Mina glanced through the glass, curious.
"Flagged."
Kori turned away, face unreadable again. The Rust Room dimmed a notch, fans hushing.
And after what she'd just seen, tomorrow would ask even more terrifying questions.