Shin Jin didn't knock. He pushed the door open and walked in.
Yuusha sat behind his desk, a cup of green tea steaming gently in his hand. Mission reports were spread across the polished wood surface—including one with Noir's name prominently displayed.
He looked up as Shin Jin entered, showing no surprise.
"Shin Jin," Yuusha said mildly, taking a measured sip of his tea. "I was expecting you."
He gestured to the seat across from him with his free hand.
"Please. Sit. Have some tea."
The casualness of it—the audacity of offering tea after what he'd done—made something hot and violent surge in Shin Jin's chest.
"You knew." Shin Jin's voice was flat. Cold. He didn't sit. "You knew it was a trap."
"I arranged it," Yuusha corrected, setting his cup down carefully. "Every detail. The location. The timing. The threats. Would you like sencha or jasmine? I find jasmine helps with tension."
Shin Jin's hands clenched at his sides.
"My students almost died."
"But they didn't." Yuusha reached for the teapot, preparing to pour a second cup.
"They survived. Demonstrated remarkable capability under extreme conditions. Exceeded my expectations, actually. The jasmine, I think—"
Shin Jin moved.
His hand shot out and struck the cup from Yuusha's grip. The porcelain shattered against the wall, green tea splashing across the pristine white of Yuusha's robes in a spreading stain.
Silence filled the office.
Yuusha looked down at the tea soaking into his robes. At the shattered porcelain on the floor. Then up at Shin Jin with an expression that was utterly, infuriatingly calm.
"I see," he said quietly. "I thought you were purely professional, Shin Jin. That you put sentiment aside and worked with logic. It seems I was mistaken."
He didn't wipe at the stain. Didn't even seem bothered by it.
"Your students are alive. That should be enough for someone who thinks rationally."
"They're children," Shin Jin said, his voice shaking with barely controlled rage. "And you deliberately sent them into a death trap. Used me—used my care for them—as bait. You're sitting here drinking tea while they're in the medical wing, traumatized and broken."
"Traumatized, perhaps. But not broken." Yuusha stood slowly, tea still dripping from his robes. "They eliminated all threats and survived impossible odds. That's not weakness, Shin Jin. That's exactly what I needed to see."
"Needed to see?" Shin Jin took a step forward. "This was an experiment to you. They're human beings, not test subjects."
"They're seers," Yuusha corrected, his tone still maddeningly calm despite the tea staining his robes. "And seers exist to serve a greater purpose. Or have you forgotten that in your sentimentality?"
He moved around the desk, ignoring the tea dripping onto the floor.
"Let me ask you something, Shin Jin. When you trained them, when you pushed them in sparring matches—were you not also testing them? Measuring their limits? "
"That's different—"
"Only in degree. Not in kind." Yuusha gestured to the reports on his desk.
"You tested them within safe parameters. I simply expanded those parameters to match the reality they'll face in the field. The difference is honesty. You pretend your tests aren't dangerous. I acknowledge mine are."
"The difference is intent," Shin Jin snapped. "I train them to survive. You put them in situations designed to push them past their breaking point. For what? Your grand vision?"
"Ah." Yuusha's eyes lit up with something almost like satisfaction. "So you want to know why."
He moved to the window, looking out over the cathedral grounds. The tea stain spread across his back like blood.
"The Order isn't enough anymore, Shin Jin. Virtue against sin. Light against darkness. The eternal balance." He spoke the words with contempt.
"It's a comfortable philosophy. A simple framework. But it's limiting."
He turned back to face Shin Jin.
"What if someone could exist outside that framework? What if someone could manipulate both virtue and sin? Could reshape the spiritual world according to their will rather than being bound by its rules?"
Understanding dawned cold in Shin Jin's chest.
"You're talking about yourself."
Yuusha smiled.
"I'm talking about transcendence. Who decided balance was ideal? Why must we serve cosmic equilibrium we never chose?" His voice held quiet intensity.
"Balance is a cage. I want to free humanity from spiritual tyranny."
"That's not liberation. That's tyranny with you as its master."
"I want to prove it's possible," Yuusha corrected. "Show that humans can transcend the virtue-sin paradigm. That we're not bound by cosmic law as tightly as we believed. Once I prove it can be done, others can follow. Humanity can finally be free."
"And Noir?" Shin Jin demanded. "What does my student have to do with your delusions of godhood?"
"Everything." Yuusha pulled out a file on Noir, heedless of the tea dripping onto the papers. "Your student is unique. A human being with no spiritual energy—existing outside the virtue-sin paradigm entirely. He's a void. A blank slate."
He opened the file, showing scans and readings Shin Jin had never seen.
"Most humans are born with spiritual energy that aligns them toward virtue or sin from birth. The system claims them before they can even choose. But Noir?"
Yuusha's eyes gleamed.
"Noir has nothing. No spiritual energy at all. He's proof that humans can exist outside the system."
"You want to weaponize his condition."
He looked up from the file.
"I want to understand it," Yuusha corrected. "If I can comprehend how his void woks, I can replicate the process. Use it to achieve true human liberation."
Yuusha pulled out spiritual readings. "The trap was necessary. I needed to see what he could withstand. Whether the crimson power would manifest under extreme duress."
"Did it?"
Frustration flickered across Yuusha's features. "Your students claim he never manifested. But there was a disturbance. Something unprecedented." His eyes sharpened. "They're lying. Protecting something. What are they hiding?"
Shin Jin kept his expression neutral. "They were unconscious. The readings could be from the almost evolved ripper."
"Perhaps." Yuusha didn't sound convinced. "But I'll find out. I need to understand what Noir can become."
"So you can dissect his soul for your vision."
"So I can prove human liberation is possible." Yuusha's voice took on reverent quality. "He's the key. Once I understand how, my vision won't be one anymore."
Shin Jin stared at the tea-stained robes, the bright conviction in Yuusha's eyes.
"You have a choice," Yuusha said. "Continue training them under my supervision with full resources. Or oppose me, and I'll reassign them. Noir will be studied directly without your guidance."
Stay and mitigate damage. Or leave and lose them entirely.
The threat was clear.
"There will be more trials," Yuusha said quietly. "That process is inevitable. The only question is whether you'll be there."
Shin Jin said nothing.
Yuusha pulled out the movie tickets he gave Shin Jin earlier from his desk—tea-stained now.
"You should still take them," Yuusha said, holding them out despite the damage. "Your students survived. They deserve the reward. And it reinforces an important lesson—that following my directives leads to positive outcomes, even when the path is difficult."
Shin Jin took the tickets because his students had fought and bled for that promise.
"We're done here," he said coldly.
He turned toward the door.
"Shin Jin."
He stopped at the threshold.
"You're angry because you feel powerless," Yuusha said quietly. "I made decisions you disagree with, and there's nothing you can do. You have to follow my orders. Accept limitations you despise."
A pause.
"But if only you were the strongest, Shin Jin. If only you held the power in this room rather than me. You would do whatever you pleased, wouldn't you? Make whatever decisions you thought were right, regardless of who disagreed. The only difference between us is that I have the strength to pursue my vision, and you don't. That's what really bothers you."
The words hit like a blade between the ribs.
Because there was truth in them. Terrible, honest truth.
If Shin Jin were stronger than Yuusha—if he held ultimate authority in the Order—would he not make his own decisions about what sacrifices were acceptable?
Wasn't that exactly what he was angry about? Not the principle of the thing, but the fact that someone else held the power to decide?
Shin Jin said nothing. There was nothing to say.
He left, the door closing behind him with quiet finality.
...
In the medical wing, he set the tea-stained tickets on the table between Piers and Soo Ah's beds.
"Tomorrow night. All four of us. That was the deal."
Soo Ah's eyes widened at the stains. "What happened to—"
"A promise is a promise," he interrupted gently, and left before they could ask questions he couldn't answer.
...
In his quarters that night, Shin Jin sat in the dark, talking to himself quietly.
What are you, Noir? What did you become?
How do I protect you from someone who wants to dissect your soul for godhood?
And how do I know I wouldn't do the same thing if I had the power?
He had no answers.
All he had were tea-stained movie tickets and a promise to keep.
And the terrible certainty that Yuusha's trials were only beginning.