The training sector hummed with suppressed energy. In a private, sound-dampened ring, Jade was a storm of focused motion.
For three hours, he had pushed his body to its absolute limit, a whirlwind of white hair and black steel. His scythe, World-Eater, was not a tool of annihilation in this session, but an instrument of perfection. He drilled the Foundation-Breaker form until his muscles screamed, the blade whistling in precise, lethal arcs that carved the air but touched nothing. He moved to physical conditioning next, a series of explosive bursts of speed and agility that left afterimages in his wake. He was a machine of honed motion, a sculptor chiseling away at his own imperfections, the Obsidian Core within him a cold furnace driving him forward.
Sweat streamed down his temples, his chest heaving as he finally allowed himself a moment of stillness, his scythe held low. It was in this moment of cool-down, his senses expanding from their hyper-focused state, that he saw her.
In a nearby ring, separated by a shimmering energy field, a figure moved with a liquid, deadly grace he never would have associated with her.
Lyra.
But not the Lyra he knew. Gone was the hesitant academic from the Armory of Beginnings. This Lyra was a phantom, a dancer in the shadows. Her form was a blur of elegant, brutal efficiency, her body flowing between attacks from holographic drones. In her hands were not a staff, but twin obsidian daggers that drank the light, becoming near-invisible streaks of darkness. Each movement was a feint, each twist a potential killing stroke. She was a born predator, her amethyst eyes sharp with a focus that was terrifying in its intensity.
She flowed around a drone's energy blast, using its own momentum to pirouette past its guard, and delivered a "killing" stab to its core with a dagger in one fluid motion, before immediately contorting her body to avoid a shot from behind. It was a beautiful, deadly ballet.
She had to have seen his grand, noisy entrance hours ago. Yet, her gaze, sharp and analytical, sliced right through him as if he were just another piece of scenery.
Finishing her kata, she stood breathing steadily, not looking at him. The silence between their rings stretched, thick with everything unsaid.
His training-forged calm held. "You took a staff from the Armory," he stated. It wasn't an accusation. Merely a data point that no longer computed.
Lyra didn't turn. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist, a practical, warrior's gesture. "I thought it would be less obvious." Her voice was calm, but there was a new, hardened edge to it. "Easier to be underestimated when you're holding the wrong weapon."
She finally glanced over her shoulder, her gaze sweeping over him, from his sweat-dampened hair to his focused stance. There was no warmth there, only a cool, analytical appraisal that mirrored his own.
"I prefer daggers," she said, turning one over in her hand. The obsidian blade seemed to swallow the light. "They're honest. You have to get close to use them. You have to look your enemy in the eye. There's no... grand, annihilating wave from a safe distance."
The unspoken criticism hung in the air. Unlike you.
Jade absorbed the blow, finding it strangely... stimulating. "Efficiency is not dishonesty."
"Is that what you call it?" she countered softly, finally turning to face him fully. Her eyes, however, weren't on his. They were locked onto his neck. Onto the two, perfect, barely-healed puncture marks just above his collar.
Her composure shattered.
"You… you let her…" Her voice was a strangled whisper, trembling with a volatile mix of disbelief and raw, hot fury. The daggers in her hands twitched. "After everything I told you. After everything she is. You just… let her?"
Jade opened his mouth, a logical explanation about scheduled resource allocation on his lips. He never got to speak it.
With a cry of pure, unadulterated rage, Lyra moved. It wasn't a duel challenge. It was an eruption.
She deactivated the barrier between their rings and crossed the distance between them in a blur, her obsidian daggers a whirlwind of sharp, personal vengeance aimed at him. Not to kill, but to hurt, to make him feel a fraction of the betrayal scalding her heart.
Jade's instincts flared. His eyes bled to luminous violet. "Observer's Eye."
He didn't summon his scythe. He didn't strike back. He simply flowed.
He became a ghost in the space between her strikes. A tilt of his head let the first blade pass by his cheek. A subtle shift of his weight made the second sweep miss by a breath. He deflected a wrist, his forearm against hers, spinning her around. Her back pressed against his chest for a single, charged moment, he could feel the furious hammering of her heart, smell the scent of her hair—before she shoved him away and lunged again.
"You 'acknowledged' my warning and then walked right into her arms! Into her fangs!" she screamed, her attacks becoming more frantic.
"Fight back, you coward!" she yelled, tears of frustration now mixing with the fury in her eyes.
"I am," he stated, his voice low and steady as he swayed under a sweeping kick, his hand coming up to gently redirect her leg, forcing her to spin gracefully away to keep her balance. "I am learning."
And he was. The Observer's Eye showed him everything. It showed him the precise angle of her hurt in the set of her shoulders. It mapped the depth of her betrayal in the ferocity of her strikes.
The whirlwind of her anger began to slow, her movements becoming sluggish, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She was exhausting herself against his impassive defense. The message was clear: he would not fight her.
Frustration boiled over. In a final, desperate move, she left a massive opening, telegraphing a clumsy, over-committed thrust.
Jade saw it. The Observer's Eye calculated a dozen ways to disarm her, to pin her, to end it.
He chose none of them.
He simply… let his guard down. He stood there, open, and took the hit.
Not with her blade. She would never.
But her fist, clenched tight around the hilt of her dagger, drove hard into his stomach.
Oof.
It wasn't enough to truly hurt him, not with his Vitality. But it knocked the wind from him, and the meaning behind it struck deeper than any blade could.
"You… idiot," she spat, her voice cracking with emotion, her amethyst eyes glistening. She shoved him back a step, then turned on her heel, storming out of the training sector without a single look back.
Jade stood, one hand on his stomach, watching her go, the ghost of her touch and her words lingering.
A slow, deliberate clapping echoed from the entrance.
Zero stood there, leaning against the doorframe, a rare, almost smug smirk playing on his lips.
"You deserved that," he stated, the smirk widening.
Jade's head turned, his glacial gaze settling on his partner. "Your analysis is unrequested."
"Oh, it's more than analysis," Zero said, pushing off the wall and walking closer, his usual void-like aura replaced by something surprisingly... worldly. "I know that look. The look of a girl who's so furious because she still cares. It's the most dangerous kind."
Jade just stared, processing this new, bizarre variable.
"You think I was born with a sword in my hand and silence in my heart?" Zero chuckled, a low, smooth sound that was utterly alien coming from him. "The Kageyama name was legendary. Wealthy. Powerful. I was the heir. By the time I was twelve, families were practically throwing their daughters at our gates, hoping for an alliance. I was... popular."
The smirk on his face was now a full-blown, arrogant grin. A glimpse of the boy named Ren, buried under a decade of vengeance and void.
"I knew how to make them laugh. How to make them blush. I knew which compliments worked and which flowers to send. For a few years, before the duty of the blade consumed everything... I was a playboy." He said the word with a relish that was both shocking and hilarious. "So yes, Jade. I know a thing or two about the 'irrationality of girls.' I caused plenty of it."
The grin faded, replaced by his usual seriousness, but the warmth of the memory remained in his eyes. "And that is how I know you are handling this with the subtlety of a Boulder-Back. You deserved that punch."
He clapped Jade on the shoulder, a startlingly casual gesture. "Now, stop brooding. We have a Floor to prepare for. Don't be late."
Zero walked away, leaving a profoundly confused Jade in his wake.
Jade stood there for a long moment, his entire understanding of his partner quietly shattered. Playboy?
He acknowledged the command. "I will prepare."
He went to his room, the silence louder than ever. Seeking the only consciousness that might make sense of this, he plunged inward, into the throne room of his mind.
The space was vaster, colder. The pillars of black ice were taller and sharper. Alter-Jade was on his throne, not lounging, but sitting upright, his expression one of cold impatience.
"The girl's tantrum is over? Good," Alter-Jade said, his voice flat. "Now, we upgrade your training."
He gestured, and the mindscape warped. The gravity intensified, pressing down on Jade like a physical mountain. Spectral enemies made of solidified shadow and purple malice began to rise from the ground.
"Double the repetitions. Triple the resistance," Alter-Jade commanded.
Jade gritted his teeth, feeling the strain immediately. "This regimen is—"
"—necessary," Alter-Jade cut him off, his crimson eyes narrowing. "You think Level 10 is an achievement? It is a starting point. The next Floor will not care about your feelings. It will only care if you are strong enough to dominate it." He looked at Jade with utter seriousness. "By the time we step onto that floor, you will have a new scythe stance. Not just breaking foundations. Consuming them."
Jade met his gaze, the weight of the expectation as real as the gravity crushing him. After a tense moment, he gave a sharp nod. "Understood."
But before the first shadow could strike, a clear, intrusive chime echoed through the mindscape, and a translucent blue screen materialized:
Sanctuary Cycle Concluding.
Ascension to Floor 5 Initiates in: 01:00:00.
Prepare for Immediate Departure.
Alter-Jade's lip curled. "It seems the System is as impatient as I am." He dismissed the training simulation with a wave. "No matter. The real Floor will be training enough. Do not disappoint me."
The mindscape dissolved, leaving Jade with one final, chilling look from his other self before he was thrust back into his room—the one-hour countdown burning in his vision.