The training yard hummed with magitek.
Floodlights blazed down from rune-lined towers, casting harsh white light across the steel floor etched with containment wards. Glyphs glowed faintly along the ground, suppressing echoes and vibration, ensuring that no sound of clashing steel would carry beyond these walls. The air smelled of oil and crystal dust, a mixture of technology and sorcery unique to Insomnia.
Weapons lined racks along one wall—swords, spears, heavy staves—all forged for practice. Yet none of them mattered tonight.
Because Cor Leonis had his katana drawn.
Sirius stood opposite him, clutching a practice blade of oak. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, sweat soaking through his shirt. He had been sparring for nearly an hour, body battered and aching. But Cor, the Immortal, showed no sign of fatigue. His stance was sharp and coiled, his presence like a storm barely contained.
From the edge of the yard, Zangan watched with his arms folded, face impassive beneath the scar running across his cheek. His voice rumbled low.
"You've already worked him hard, Leonis. He's barely holding his stance."
Cor didn't take his eyes off Sirius. "That's when the real fight begins."
The boy swallowed hard, red eyes fixed on his mentor. His wooden blade felt pitiful compared to the gleaming steel in Cor's hands. But retreat was not an option.
Cor's voice was steady. "Ready yourself."
Sirius raised the practice sword, knuckles white around the hilt. He had only a heartbeat to prepare before Cor moved.
---
The strike came like lightning. Sirius barely raised his blade in time. Wood clashed against steel with a jarring crack, the impact shuddering up his arms. Rune wards along the katana dulled the edge, yet the force was real enough to drive him stumbling backward.
Cor pressed forward immediately. His second strike slashed low, then high, then sweeping across with crushing momentum. Sirius blocked the first, twisted away from the second, but the third slammed across his ribs. The flat of the blade struck like a hammer, sending him crashing onto the steel floor.
Pain bloomed white-hot through his side. He gasped, vision flickering—and for the briefest instant, something flashed before his eyes:
HP: 82% ■■■■■■■■■
The numbers blinked once, then vanished.
He groaned, pushing himself up on shaking arms. His body screamed to stay down, but Cor's voice cut through the haze.
"Again."
Sirius staggered upright. The wooden blade trembled in his hands. His ribs ached, but a fiercer pain burned deeper—the shame of weakness.
They clashed again.
Cor's katana carved through the air with absolute precision. Sirius tried to recall drills—footwork, angles, counters—but nothing seemed fast enough. Every blow rattled his bones, bruises blossoming with each failed block. Sweat blinded him. His legs faltered.
Another strike crashed against his shoulder, driving him to his knees.
HP: 69% ■■■■■■■
The flicker vanished as quickly as it came. Sirius forced himself upright, teeth gritted. He swung desperately, but Cor parried with ease, his blade stopping just short of the boy's throat.
"If this were battle," Cor said, voice even, "you'd already be dead."
Sirius's chest heaved. His arms trembled. But his eyes burned with defiance.
"Then I'll move faster."
"Words don't matter," Cor replied flatly. "Prove it."
---
Time blurred. Minutes stretched into eternity. The rhythm of the yard became the rhythm of survival: strike, block, stumble, strike again. Sirius' breath came ragged, body battered beyond exhaustion. Each mistake left another bruise, each bruise another lesson written in pain.
And then—
Cor's blade flashed toward his head, faster than lightning, faster than thought.
Sirius' mind screamed too slow. But his body moved.
His feet slid into perfect stance, knees bending. His practice sword snapped upward at the exact angle, parrying the strike with impossible precision. The clash rang sharp, sparks flaring as wood deflected steel.
Before thought could catch up, his body spun with the recoil. His blade lashed out on instinct, a counterstrike born not of training, but of something deeper.
The wooden sword struck flesh.
The sound cracked across the yard like thunder.
Cor stepped back, a thin line of red marking his cheek.
---
Silence fell. Even the hum of the floodlights seemed to vanish.
Sirius froze, blade still extended, trembling in his hands. His chest heaved, every breath raw. His wide eyes stared at the blood on Cor's cheek.
He had struck the Immortal.
Zangan broke the silence, his voice low but heavy.
"His body moved before his mind. Reflex, yes—but more than that. His instincts rewrote the motion. The boy flows without knowing."
Cor lifted a hand, thumb brushing the cut on his cheek. His eyes never left Sirius. There was no anger there, only weight—scrutiny sharp as the edge of his blade.
"You didn't think," Cor said quietly. "You reacted."
Sirius stammered, voice hoarse. "I… I didn't know I could—"
"That's because you didn't," Cor cut in. His tone was firm, but not unkind. To Sirius, it felt like standing beneath a judgment he couldn't yet understand.
Zangan's boots rang softly against the steel floor as he stepped closer. His gaze narrowed.
"The body remembers before the mind. Some call it instinct. Others… something rarer."
---
Sirius lowered the practice blade, arms shaking. His mind replayed the moment over and over—the flash of steel, the perfect parry, the strike that landed true. It hadn't been conscious. It hadn't even been choice. His body had simply known.
Cor sheathed his katana with slow precision, the steel whispering into its scabbard. He gave no praise. No rebuke. Only a look that lingered heavy, as if he now regarded Sirius through an entirely different lens.
"Training's over," Cor said at last. "Clean yourself up."
Sirius nodded faintly, legs threatening to give way beneath him. He turned, each step unsteady, bruises screaming with every movement.
As he reached the exit, Zangan's voice followed, softer now, but edged with warning.
"Careful, boy. Gifts like that cut both ways. Flow too far, and you may drown in it."
Sirius paused, fists clenched at his sides. He didn't understand the warning fully. Not yet. But deep within, he sensed the truth: tonight had changed something.
---
Later, in his room, the silence of Insomnia pressed close. Outside his window, towers glittered with rune-light, neon glyphs painting the streets in blue and gold. Airships drifted across the barrier sky like silent shadows.
Sirius lay awake, body bruised and aching, staring at the faint glow of the ceiling glyphs. Pain throbbed through every muscle, but beneath it, a fire smoldered.
Not endurance. Not stubbornness. Something else.
Instinct.
His body had answered death before his mind could. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating.
And as he closed his eyes, exhaustion pulling him under, Sirius knew one thing with absolute certainty: this was only the beginning.