The door clicked shut behind her, and the room went still again.
Steam still clung to the air, thin trails of it curling toward the ceiling like ghosts with nowhere left to go.
Toji stood there for a while, half-dressed, staring at the space she'd occupied — that still air humming faintly from her presence.
He rolled his shoulders once, exhaled, and rubbed a hand over his jaw.
> "Persistent little thing," he muttered.
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Annoying."
He picked up the towel, wiped the last of the water from his hair, and caught his reflection in the mirror.
For a second, he didn't see his face — only the scar that cut faintly across his lip. A small, crooked thing. He ran his thumb along it absently.
He remembered how it happened.
The sound of metal.
A flash of teeth.
And someone screaming his name.
Not her. Someone before her. Someone he'd buried long ago.
The memory was fast — violent — gone before it could stick.
He let out a low chuckle, dry and humorless.
> "You've got a type, Frump," he said to his reflection. "The ones who don't scare easy."
He buttoned his shirt halfway, leaving the scar visible just enough for it to mock him. He told himself her curiosity was nothing — a passing fixation she'd lose interest in once she realized he wasn't a puzzle that wanted solving....or she might get more intrigued
But the way she'd looked at him — not afraid, not intrigued, just seeing — it lingered longer than he liked.
He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward, elbows on knees.
Outside, thunder murmured in the distance, soft and deliberate.
He closed his eyes.
> "You think I needed saving?"
"You hate that someone did."
Her voice replayed clearer than it should.
He almost smiled — almost.
"Sharp kid," he murmured. "Too sharp for her own good."
He reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a small, folded photograph — edges worn, the image faded. A woman, smiling faintly, with eyes as dark as Wednesday's. He looked at it for a long time before setting it face-down on the table.
He caught himself thinking about her again.
And for the first time in years, that bothered him
Regardless he decided to go to his class before someone else came inside.
---
Few classes later:
Mist hung low over the courtyard, making the white fencing jackets look like ghosts moving in a slow parade. Morning practice had drawn a small crowd — students half on duty, half on curiosity — to watch Wednesday and Bianca trade points in the ring. The air smelled of wet stone and leather.
Bianca moved with the practiced arrogance of someone who'd been drilled into confidence. Wednesday met her blade cleanly, stubborn and precise, but the final exchange went Bianca's way: a disarming feint, a quick thrust, the tip resting at Wednesday's throat. A shallow cheer broke out, sharp and a little shaky.
Wednesday didn't move. Her breath was steady. Pride didn't always need noise.
Bianca bowed with the small, cruel smile that followed wins. "You're improving," she said, the words more barbed than congratulatory.
Someone laughed too loudly. A few students clapped. The match cleared, the crowd making room for whatever came next.
Toji had been watching from the edge, hands casually in his pockets. He stepped forward as the ring emptied, not with spectacle but with a quiet inevitability, like a tide moving in. Bianca straightened and looked at him, irritation flickering. This was her moment; she had no reason to share it.
"Since you prize technique so much," Toji said, voice even, "try someone who isn't making up weakness for you."
Bianca blinked. "Excuse me?" She smirked, the grin meant to disarm. "You want to duel me?"
"Why not," he answered. "It's a free lesson."
No one moved to stop him. The instructor—an older man with deliberate posture—watched, eyes narrowed but unreadable. He said nothing.His approval resting on bianca decision.if she said yes it would happen but if she said no...
---
The courtyard had a taste for demonstrations; they assumed it would be dramatic. They didn't expect them the duel to be clean.
They took positions. Bianca's opening was textbook—fast, correct, aggressive. Toji's response was not flashy. He didn't try to outperform on style; he simply flowed around the line of attack, small adjustments, the tiniest weight shifts. Bianca's blade sliced through a place where Toji had been a heartbeat before; she found nothing but air.
His riposte was precise: a subtle wrist motion, a redirection, and Bianca's sword clattered from her hand. Two moves. The point had been made without flourish. The courtyard made the sound of breath held until someone exhaled.
Bianca crouched for a second, chest heaving. "What the—" She reached for her sword but her hands were shaking; humiliation reads as loudly as victory.
Toji didn't gloat. He bent, picked the sword up, and set it on the rail as if returning a borrowed thing. "You rely on rehearsal," he said softly. "Not intent."
That might have been the end of it. It often is—an upset, a rumor, a bruise to someone's pride. But the instructor stepped forward. Valmont's stride was quiet, his eyes like metal.
"You moved too easily," he said, voice even. He held Toji's gaze. "Not because you're better. Because you made their work look pointless. Technique takes discipline. It's not a toy to be dismissed because you find it inconvenient."
Toji lifted his shoulders the smallest amount. "I didn't intend to insult anyone's efforts."
Valmont's features didn't change. "Intent doesn't erase effect. If you think you can simplify this into tricks, prove to me you understand craft as well as instinct." He tapped the haft of his practice blade against his palm. "Duel me."
There was no theatrics in the challenge—no challenge of pride, only of principle. Valmont had trained men who bled for form. To him, Toji's ease looked too much like contempt for process. That was a provocation that required a measured response.As a teacher it was his responsibility to make sure they don't confuse arrogance for confidence after all
Toji studied the man for half a second, then nodded. "If you think you'll learn from me, Professor." It wasn't dismissive; it was a promise of a short lesson. The ring cleared again. Students rearranged themselves on the stone, the courtyard leaning in the way clouds do before a storm.
Valmont was older, but the years had tempered him into economy: the kind of movements that come from repetition arrested at the right moment. He pushed forward first. His sword was heavy, each strike a question intended to break rhythm and reveal intention.
Toji answered as he always did. Not with flourish, not with bravado, but with exactitude. He met and redirected, never letting momentum build. It was less a fight and more a demonstration of minimalism: do the least and have it mean the most. Valmont's feint, Valmont's weight shifts—Toji read them like lines in a book. On a pivot, a small grip, a twist of the wrist, and the professor's practice blade snapped at the hilt with a clean, metallic sound.
Silence pressed in. Valmont did not stagger or curse. He stood very still, the pieces of his weapon at his feet. Then he looked at Toji, and for the first time there was something like respect in his expression—cold, careful,fear not easily earned.
"Who trained you?" Valmont asked, not as accusation but as curiosity edged with caution.
Toji set the broken hilt on the ground and met the question without posture. "No one left," he said. A pause. "Not in the way you mean."
Valmont bent, picked up the broken haft as if accepting a lesson he hadn't planned to receive. He straightened slowly, fixed his face to neutral, and said, "Be measured. We reward discipline at this academy."
Toji inclined his head once, the smallest motion of acknowledgement. He turned to go, and Wednesday's voice stopped him.
"Why did you intervene?" she asked, flat but precise. There was no flourish to it—only the fact of the question, about the act, its reason.
Toji paused, looking at her. The courtyard held its breath. "I don't want to see my wife embarrassed," he said, and his mouth was almost unreadable. It landed somewhere between jest and declaration, and nobody in the ring could say afterward that it was entirely a joke.
Wednesday watched him walk away. The solution he offered did nothing to simplify her thoughts. She did not like being called wife. She did not like the fact that she cared in the slightest how it sounded.
Valmont replaced his blade slowly, the metal whispering into scabbard leather. Around them, students exchanged looks—some fearful, some fascinated. The morning sun pushed through the mist like an accusation.
Toji left the ring without a backward glance. The courtyard felt lighter and somehow heavier for his passage. Whatever he had been, he'd shown the class he was more than a trick: he was a problem that required patience. And patience, Valmont thought as he watched the boy disappear into the archways, was not something everyone had.
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This is worth about two chapter so enjoy
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