I didn't know how to look at him.
Not after last night. Not after the way his eyes locked with mine, the way his weight pinned me to the bed—so close I could feel his breath against my skin. And I didn't stop him. That was the part that scared me most. I didn't want to.
Now we sat next to each other in class, and it was like none of it ever happened. Like the tension hadn't reached a breaking point just a few hours ago. Like everything was normal.
It wasn't.
Kenji leaned toward me; his voice quiet. "Hey."
"Yeah?" I said, keeping my tone neutral, eyes on the chalkboard even though I wasn't really seeing it.
"We're not… going to talk about yesterday?"
My fingers tightened around my pen. Of course he'd bring it up.
I shrugged, barely glancing his way. "There's nothing to talk about."
A lie. A shield. But one we both silently agreed on.
He nodded. "Okay."
I could still feel the warmth of his body above mine, still see the flicker of something—longing, maybe? —in his eyes. But if pretending helped us move past it, I'd pretend all day.
I opened my notebook and focused on anything but him.
Later That Morning,
I was halfway through pretending to pay attention when Kenji leaned in again.
"Something weird happened last night," he whispered. "At my house."
My heart did a small jump, but I forced myself to look at him calmly.
"Two men in black suits. Talking to my mom. Asking about me."
That got my attention. I turned slightly, brows narrowing.
"I didn't hear what they said. They left before I got close." He frowned. "Didn't like the look of them."
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could—
BRRIIIING!
The bell rang, dragging half the class back to life.
"Tell me more after school," I said quickly as I stood and slung my bag over my shoulder. "We should go through the journal too. That halo thing. The guardian form."
Kenji nodded, but I could see he was still distracted. So was I. About those men. About the strange golden glow in my eye. And yes—even about last night.
But for now, it was easier to bury those thoughts beneath everything else.
We had bigger problems.
After school, we didn't waste time.
The sun was barely beginning its descent when Kenji and I slipped into the woods again—our usual training spot, quiet and out of the way. The air was cool, shadows stretching long across the clearing as I unslung the borrowed practice sword from my shoulder.
Kenji was already flipping through the journal, thumbing past familiar notes until he stopped at a page marked with a gold-rimmed corner.
"There," he said, tapping the page. "Guardian Form."
I stepped closer, peering over his shoulder. The page was written in elegant, looping script, the ink slightly faded with age but still legible.
Guardian Form is the flame's second nature—the shield to its sword. It manifests when one chooses to protect instead of destroy. With it, the bearer gains the power to form barriers of varying strength and to heal herself and others. It is a gift of will, not rage. The deeper the resolve, the stronger the flame.
Beneath the paragraph was a drawing: a figure surrounded by a glowing shield of purple light, with radiant energy swirling around her. My eyes were immediately drawn to the markings on her arms—runic lines glowing just like the ones I saw in my dream.
"This is different," I murmured, tracing the sketch with a finger.
Kenji nodded. "It's not raw offense like Amouranth Flame. It's balance. Control."
I stepped back and took a deep breath. I could still feel the warmth in my chest—the flame never left me now. It pulsed gently under my skin like a heartbeat.
"All right," I said. "Let's see if I can do this."
I planted my feet and focused, just like Kenji had helped me practice during our Amouranth sessions. But this time, I didn't think about fighting. I thought about defending. About protecting Kenji. Even Haruka, though he didn't know any of this.
The flame within me flickered—then flared.
A soft glow radiated from my hands. I pushed it outward, and to my amazement, a faint shimmer of light formed around me like a bubble. It wasn't solid yet, more like heatwaves on a summer road, but it was something.
Kenji's eyes lit up. "You did it."
I shook my head. "Barely. It's not strong enough to stop anything."
He smiled. "It's a start."
We kept going. Again and again, I called on the Guardian Form. Each time, the barrier grew more visible—denser, clearer, stronger. My control improved. Eventually, I could expand it outward in a wide dome or tighten it into a smaller, stronger shell. Once, when Kenji cut his hand on a stray branch, I reached out instinctively—and the wound began to seal under a soft violet light.
It startled both of us.
"Okay… so healing is real too," I whispered.
Kenji grinned. "You're basically a one-woman army now."
I rolled my eyes, cheeks warming. "Yeah, an army with a very limited energy bar."
Still, it was progress. Real progress.
The sun had dipped below the trees by the time we called it for the day. I sat on a rock, catching my breath as Kenji flipped back through the journal.
"You're getting strong, Sakura," he said. "I think… you might be even stronger than she was."
I looked up. "The first wielder?"
He nodded. "You've already awakened both forms—Amouranth and Guardian. Most of the journal says it took her years to develop them both."
I swallowed. That warm rush of pressure rose in my chest again—not flame, this time, but something heavier. Responsibility.
And then I saw it again.
Just for a second, reflected in Kenji's eyes—my own right eye shimmered gold, a halo flickering just above the pupil. My breath caught.
Kenji's eyes widened. "Wait. That symbol…"
He flipped to another page. One I hadn't seen yet. The heading read:
The Guardian's Ascension
Beneath it, a crude but clear illustration of the same golden halo that had just glimmered in my eye.
"You've unlocked something else," Kenji murmured.
I felt it too. A new layer of power. A deeper connection.
But what it meant... we didn't know yet.
Not fully.
After everything that happened in training, I thought we'd be done for the day.
But Kenji… he kept flipping through the journal. He was squinting so hard at one of the entries I thought his eyeballs might fall out.
"You good?" I asked, wiping sweat off my brow with my sleeve.
He didn't look up. "There's something here. I thought it was just… nonsense. But the more I stare at it, the less random it looks."
I walked over, peeking at the page. At first glance, it really did look like gibberish. A scattered line of numbers at the bottom of an otherwise normal paragraph on Guardian Flame resilience. But Kenji had this look on his face—the one he always got when he was about to unlock something no one else had noticed.
He ran a hand through his hair. "Could be nothing. I'll look into it later tonight."
I shrugged. "Suit yourself, detective."
We packed up and headed home.
I didn't expect to hear from him again that night.
It was around eight when the knocking started.
I opened the door to find Kenji standing there, slightly out of breath, his hair wind-blown and his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder.
"Okay," he said, voice hushed and urgent. "You're gonna want to see this."
He didn't wait for an invitation. He just slipped inside, pulled out the journal, and spread it on the table. Then he dropped another notebook next to it—his own, covered in scribbles and highlighted sections.
"I ran the numbers through a few sequences," he explained. "Tried common encryptions, calendar references… even tried assuming it was a cipher."
I blinked. "And?"
He tapped his pen against the journal. "They're coordinates."
I froze.
"Coordinates to what?"
He gave me a look. One I couldn't read.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But the journal places this entry shortly after the first wielder unlocked Guardian Form. It talks about... something important being hidden. Something 'only a Guardian can retrieve.'"
My stomach fluttered. "So, you think…"
Kenji nodded. "A weapon. Maybe one of hers. Maybe one meant for you."
I stepped back, exhaling slowly. A weapon forged by the first wielder… I had no idea what it could be. But my instincts told me it wouldn't be anything ordinary.
We stared at the journal in silence for a moment.
Then I looked up at him. "So… when do we go?"
Kenji smiled, that fire I'd come to recognize lighting up behind his eyes.
"Tomorrow."
The next morning, after class, we didn't waste any time.
The coordinates led us surprisingly close to our training spot in the woods. We hiked deeper than we'd ever gone before, the forest gradually growing denser, wilder. It was only about an hour in when we saw it—half-hidden behind tangled vines and overgrowth. A narrow opening in the rocky hillside.
A cave.
We exchanged a quick glance, then stepped inside.
The air changed the moment we crossed the threshold. It was dark and heavy, the kind of dark that made your skin crawl. But it wasn't just the lack of light—it was the sensation prickling across my skin, like the air itself was vibrating. Each breath was thick, humid… and buzzing.
"Do you feel that?" I whispered.
Kenji nodded. "Static electricity. This place is charged."
Our footsteps echoed against the stone walls as we went deeper. I could barely see, but the faint purple glow flickering around my right eye gave us just enough light to guide our way.
Then we saw it.
A single slab of stone, smooth and upright in the middle of the cavern. On it, etched with a precision that felt too deliberate to be ancient, was the shape of a katana. Sleek. Elegant. A jagged lightning bolt carved down the length of the blade.
We both froze.
Kenji approached first, running his fingers along the engraving.
"This must be it," he said under his breath. "The Blue Lightning Katana."
I took a step closer. My heart pounded in my chest like a war drum. I didn't know why, but I could feel it—something was here. Waiting.
Waiting for me.