Enji had recognized him before anyone else did.
He had stopped in the doorway of the workshop hall, one hand still on the frame, his eyes fixed on the man sitting casually on a workbench at the far end of the room. Silver-blue hair. Red eyes half-closed with the relaxed indifference of someone who had never once needed to stay alert. A sword with a blade the color of deep ocean water leaning against the bench beside him, catching the forge light in a way that made it look like it was breathing.
Enji had seen that face in a file Reishin had shown them during their first week of training. A single page. No photo, just a name, a rank, and four words of description.
Rank S. Seisui Ken Ryū.
Enji frowned slightly.
Then something clicked into place.
"Wait," he said.
Kazuho looked at him.
Yuma looked at him.
The man looked at them.
Enji took one more second, a final verification inside his head, the pieces assembling themselves one by one.
"You're Ren Nobukage."
The silence that followed wasn't a silence of surprise. It was a silence of confirmation.
"Good," said the man. "At least one of you knows."
Kazuho nodded with the quiet satisfaction of someone watching something fall neatly into place.
"That's him," he said. "Ren Nobukage. Rank S hunter."
Yuma looked at Enji.
"You knew him?"
"By reputation. And he's part of the same guild as Reishin. I had never seen him in person."
Enji paused.
"Rank S at twenty-three. One of the youngest in history alongside Reishin."
Ren observed them both with that calm eye that never hurried. Then he settled on Enji, something in his posture, in the way he had said the name.
"You mentioned Reishin earlier," he said. "With a particular familiarity."
"He's our master," said Enji simply.
Ren went still for a fraction of a second.
Just one.
Then he burst out laughing.
Not a polite smile. A real laugh, loud and genuine, with something authentically amused inside it that completely changed his face. The laugh of a twenty-six-year-old, not a rank S.
"So it's you," he said, catching his breath. "The so-called geniuses that old fox tracked down."
"He told you about us?" said Enji.
"He sent me a message two weeks ago. Three words. 'I found interesting people to train.' Coming from him, that's a full speech."
He looked at them alternately. Enji standing with his usual reserve. Yuma who hadn't said a single word yet but whose eyes hadn't left Ren since he had heard the name.
There was something in that gaze. Not deference. Not fear. Just a reading, direct, honest, unfiltered.
Ren knew that kind of look. He had worn it himself, once.
"So here you are," he said. "Reishin's protégés."
"Yeah."
That was Yuma.
One syllable. But with something frontal inside it, something direct. The kind of word that isn't trying to be polite, just trying to be true.
Ren turned his eyes toward him.
Yuma looked straight back.
"I want to fight you," said Yuma.
Silence.
Kazuho briefly closed his eyes.
Haruki, from the doorway, straightened slightly.
Enji looked at his teammate with the expression of someone who has just heard something both expected and completely insane.
Ren, for his part, didn't move.
"Pardon?" he said.
"I can feel you," said Yuma. "Since earlier at the restaurant. That strength. It's enormous, almost as much as Reishin."
No arrogance in his voice. No calculated bravado. An observation delivered with the same simplicity as if he were commenting on the weather.
"And I want to know what it feels like to strike against someone like you."
A longer silence.
Ren looked at him truly, the way a duelist evaluates someone not on what they are but on what they might become. Eyes that didn't settle on the body but on something behind it.
Then he looked at Enji.
Same thing. The reserve, the precision in the gaze, the way he held his body even at rest.
"There's something there," he said quietly. "In both of them."
One corner of his mouth lifted.
"Reishin always had the eye."
He straightened.
"I accept."
"Ren," said Kazuho.
"This fight will let me test my new blade. Two birds, one stone."
He looked at Kazuho with an open, direct expression.
"Do you have a combat room here?"
Kazuho hesitated.
A real hesitation, short but visible. The hesitation of a man measuring what he is about to authorize.
"Yes," he said finally.
"You're completely insane."
Enji had waited until Ren and Kazuho were a few steps ahead in the corridor before turning to Yuma. His voice was low, calm, and carried the weight of someone laying out facts.
"Ren Nobukage. Twenty-six years old. Rank S. One of the greatest duelists active in the hunter world. You saw him earlier, eleven people on the ground in ten seconds and he was holding back. Two school techniques on people he could have finished with one."
"I know," said Yuma.
"And that makes you want it even more."
"Completely."
Enji looked at him.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Sighed with the quiet resignation of a man who has learned to recognize the battles he cannot win.
"Alright," he said.
It was at that moment that Haruki appeared at the end of the corridor. Apron removed, hands in his pockets, with that slightly distracted air of people whose mind is always back in the workshop even when the body is elsewhere.
He saw them. Saw Ren a little further ahead with Kazuho. Stopped.
"Ren Nobukage," he said. "He came to pick up his order."
"He's also going to fight Yuma in the combat room," said Enji.
Haruki looked at Yuma.
Looked at Ren.
Looked at Yuma again.
Then his face lit up.
"Perfect."
He disappeared back into the workshop at a near run.
Everyone watched him vanish.
"He just had an idea," said Enji.
"Looks like it," said Kazuho with the resigned smile of a father who has recognized the symptoms for too long.
The combat room of the Aetheria Workshop was in the basement.
Large, plain, the floor in treated stone that absorbed impacts without cracking. Mana markings embedded in the walls, absorption seals that prevented energy overflow from destroying the structure. Old traces of past fights in the stone, barely visible but there for anyone who knew how to look.
Yuma walked in and felt something settle inside him.
Ren walked in after him and swept the room with the practiced eye of someone who instinctively evaluates every space in terms of distances and angles.
They took positions facing each other at the center.
"Before we begin," said Ren, "I'll be clear about what I want to see."
He crossed his arms. Not with the gravity of a veteran dispensing a lesson, but with the direct curiosity of someone who is twenty-six and enjoys seeing what people have inside them.
"Reishin told me you had potential. Reishin never says that. So either he's right, or he's lost his mind. And I've known him since I was twelve, he hasn't lost his mind."
He looked at Yuma with that calm eye.
"Show me what his protégés are worth."
"Wait."
Haruki.
He was coming down the stairs carrying something in his arms. A carefully folded garment, with the care of a blacksmith presenting work that matters to him.
He stopped in front of Yuma, eyes bright.
"Here. Put this on."
Yuma took the garment and unfolded it.
A black tactical vest. Plain, fitted, with a symbol embroidered in red at the chest that seemed almost luminous even without direct light. A hood in the back. A short cape at the waist, not decorative, designed to emphasize movement without hindering it. Sleeves that ended in fitted black gloves.
Yuma turned it over. Examined it.
"This is for me?"
"It's your base equipment," said Haruki with a warmth in his voice that wasn't trying to hide itself. "The gauntlets and boots are being adjusted separately, but this is what goes with them. I've been working on it since you signed the pact. I had ideas but I wanted to make sure it was perfect before I gave it to you."
He paused.
"Try it on. Tell me what you think."
Yuma put the vest on.
Adjusted the hood at his back. Moved his shoulders, his arms, rolled his wrists a few times in quick rotations.
Something in his expression changed. Surprise first, then something deeper, more settled.
"It's perfect," he said.
Haruki smiled. A real smile, wide, the smile of a blacksmith watching someone wear his work for the first time and understanding that it fits exactly as he had imagined.
"I'm glad you like it," he said.
Ren looked at the outfit with the eye of someone who understands work done well.
"The symbol at the chest."
"Tied to his pact," said Haruki. "It's part of the design, not decorative."
Ren nodded.
"Can we begin?"
"Yes," said Yuma.
He took his stance. Feet apart, weight slightly forward, arms in guard. The vest followed every movement without resistance.
Ren brought his hand to his hip.
And drew the new sword from its sheath.
Still sheathed, but the sheath itself was remarkable. A deep blue, almost luminous, with reflections that recalled the sky in the middle of a cloudless summer afternoon. A faint cold mist escaped from it, barely visible, like condensation on a glass of ice water.
Ren looked at it for a moment.
"Kazuho."
"Yes."
"This is very fine work."
Kazuho inclined his head slightly.
"I know."
Ren brought his eyes back to Yuma.
"Let's go."
Kazuho raised his hand.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Ren.
"Yes," said Yuma.
"Then begin."
Ren did not draw.
He advanced with the sword still in its sheath, one hand resting on it with that particular lightness of people who don't need to grip what they hold to control it.
Yuma charged.
Thunder Strike. All the lightning concentrated in the right leg, propulsion released into the fist at the moment of impact.
Ren deflected with the sheath.
Not blocked. Deflected. The minimum movement to let the fist pass without meeting resistance. Mizukage, the glide across the floor, the shadow that avoids without effort.
Yuma chained. Lightning Chain, electric rebounds from different angles, each strike generating the next without pause.
Ren followed.
Sheath, shoulder, lateral shift. Namikaze, the fluidity of flow and counterflow that managed multiple angles without ever seeming rushed. Each movement economical, without surplus.
Yuma changed registers.
Blazing Fist. Fire compressed into the right fist, internal explosion on impact.
Ren evaded with a step back. The heat of the passing blow grazed his cheek.
He stopped.
Looked at Yuma with something slightly different in his eye.
"Good," he said. "But you're retreating."
"I..."
"Don't retreat. Water doesn't retreat. It goes around, it absorbs, it responds. But it doesn't give up ground."
Yuma looked at Ren.
Looked at the sheath in his hand.
If this is how you fight, you're wasting your time.
The voice in his head was deep, measured, with that quiet arrogance he recognized immediately.
Yuma went still.
"Haruki."
"What?"
"I can hear Arasaka in my head."
A silence in the room.
Haruki cleared his throat.
"Ah. Right. That's normal, I should have explained before, sorry. The pact you sealed connects you directly. He can speak to you, you can hear him in real time. It's one of the effects of the bond between a demon and his bearer."
"And you're telling me this now."
"I had other priorities. But you've got a rank S in front of you so focus, we'll talk about it after."
Yuma turned back toward Ren.
Stop retreating, said Arasaka's voice. It's an amateur's habit. You retreat and you offer the ground. You offer the ground and you lose the initiative. And without initiative against someone at this level you will do nothing but absorb.
A pause.
Go forward. Chain. Force him to respond instead of giving him time to choose. And don't embarrass me.
A beat.
Make yourself useful for once, Arasaka added, with that undertone of affectionate contempt that was probably the warmest version of encouragement in his vocabulary.
Yuma breathed.
And went again.
This time differently.
He wasn't attacking to land hits anymore. He was attacking to chain. Each strike placed like a link, each movement calculated so the next was already in motion before the first had finished.
Thunder Strike. Blazing Explosion. Lightning Chain. Deep Thunder discharged into the floor on landing.
Ren stepped back.
Half a step.
Then another.
Something in his expression recalibrated. Not surprise, but a reassessment.
"There," he said. "That's it."
He released the sheath and drew the blade.
Blue like the sky at full summer, a clean cold light that didn't so much illuminate as exist. The icy mist intensified around the bare blade, a light vapor, almost beautiful, tracing the movement of the steel through the air.
Ren looked at it for a fraction of a second.
"Beautiful weapon," he said quietly, to himself.
He raised his eyes to Kazuho.
"Congratulations. This is beyond what I hoped for."
"Haruki worked the finishing," said Kazuho.
"It was our shared work," said Haruki immediately. "My father forged the soul of the blade. I did the final shaping."
Kazuho looked at him.
Haruki shrugged slightly.
"It's true."
"Yuma!"
Haruki turned back toward the fight.
"Let everything go. Fire, lightning, maximum. Don't hold back. There's a surprise waiting for you."
Yuma nodded.
And released.
Fire Mantle first. Compressed fire over his entire body. Lightning on top of that. Lightning Chain activated simultaneously, two energies spinning around him like two opposing currents that reinforce rather than cancel each other.
The temperature in the room climbed a notch.
Enji, from the wall, observed every detail. Ren's angles, his reaction speeds, the patterns in his evasions. His Pure Mage eye cataloguing without stopping.
Ren attacked.
The first exchange was violent.
The blue blade moved through the fire with a disconcerting fluidity. Nagare, the continuous current, each strike carried by the flow of the previous one without interruption. Water and fire didn't speak the same language and Ren knew the grammar of both.
Yuma held.
Not easily. Ren had the immense advantage of technique and experience. But Yuma wasn't retreating anymore. He absorbed, responded, chained.
Good, said Arasaka in his head. Keep going. Don't stop thinking.
Then Ren changed technique.
Kageuchi. The strike from the blind angle, like water threading between rocks.
It came from the right angle, where Yuma had a fraction of a second less to react.
The impact passed through his guard and pushed him back two steps.
Enji straightened slightly against the wall.
Ren didn't stop. Sazanami immediately, the rapid undulating chain attacks that tested distance and timing, looking for the crack in Yuma's response.
Yuma covered. Parried. Responded with Double Detonation. Two successive explosions at the same point of impact, the first one opening, the second driving through.
Ren absorbed with the flat of the blade.
And countered with Fumizuki. The arc jump, the strike that followed a calm and implacable lunar flow, arriving from above where no one was looking.
Yuma dodged with a roll.
Got back into position.
The two of them looked at each other.
"Yuma."
Haruki.
"Pull your hood up."
Yuma hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Then, between two breaths, he pulled the hood over his head.
Glasses appeared.
Integrated into the hood, two tinted lenses that pressed automatically against his eyes. Yuma could see through them, but he saw more than reality. Schematics appeared. Trajectory lines. Distance indicators. Mana analyses pulsing around Ren like luminous outlines.
"What is..."
New system detected.
A voice. Different from Arasaka, clearer, slightly mechanical, with a precision in its articulation that had nothing human about it.
User analysis in progress. Identified: Yuma Sekyhiro. New owner confirmed. My name is Archer, Combat Intelligence. Function: analyze battle conditions and provide real-time recommendations. Initialization request: engage in combat to complete calibration.
"Understood," said Yuma quietly.
Archer analyzed in real time. Ren's angles, his reaction speeds, the patterns in his evasions. The data appeared in the lenses as simple schematics, immediately readable.
Left attack angle: underexploited. Right reaction delay: 0.3 seconds. Recommendation: high feint, low strike to the left.
Yuma tried it.
Ren blocked, but barely, and the reaction time was exactly what Archer had indicated.
Calibration complete. Opponent level: extraordinary. Priority recommendation: activate darkness mana.
"I don't control it yet," said Yuma quietly.
Understood. Alternative protocol activated.
The red symbol on the chest of the vest changed gradually. From red to black, then to something between the two, a shade that didn't quite belong to the normal spectrum of light.
And Yuma's darkness mana activated.
Not like before. Not the uncontrolled explosion, not the black smoke overflowing everywhere. Something more contained, present, real, massive beneath the surface, but held.
Stabilization at 67%. Recommended maximum threshold for first use: 80%. Do not exceed this limit.
"Understood," said Yuma.
Ren watched the change.
Watched the symbol on the vest.
Watched Yuma's eyes behind the lenses.
He didn't understand everything he was seeing.
He attacked anyway.
Ryuusui. The body becoming fluid and elusive, the running water that adapts to all obstacles, defense and attack in the same movement without ever stopping.
The blue blade came from everywhere at once. Not multiple strikes, but one continuous movement that changed angle before the eye could follow it.
Yuma parried with his left forearm. The darkness mana forming a dense layer, solid enough to hold.
The impact resonated through the entire room.
Ren stepped back half a pace.
Opportunity window: 0.4 seconds. Strike.
Yuma struck.
Right fist loaded with darkness mana, raw, direct, no technique built around it.
"Dark Fist."
The impact lifted Ren a few centimeters off the ground.
Everyone in the room held their breath.
Enji had straightened completely.
Haruki had wide eyes and a smile he wasn't even trying to contain.
Kazuho watched the scene with an expression that showed nothing but inside which something was moving.
Ren landed.
Steadied himself.
Looked at his forearm, where the darkness mana had struck.
Then looked at Yuma.
And smiled. Genuinely, openly, with inside it the simple joy of a twenty-six-year-old duelist who has just received something he wasn't expecting.
"Interesting," he said.
He tightened his grip on the blade.
And his mana activated.
Not brutally. Like water rising. Gradually, naturally, with the patience of things that don't need to hurry because they know exactly where they're going.
Ren's water mana enveloped the blue blade.
And something happened.
Where the water mana touched the air, it froze. Not instantly, not explosively. Gently, in successive layers. The water came first, as always. Then it set, crystallized, became ice without Ren seeming to want it or control it. It was in the blade, in the metal itself.
Thin frost crystals appeared around the blade with each movement.
Ren looked at his hand.
Looked at Kazuho.
"The ice effect," said Kazuho quietly. "The dragon ice scale you brought me last month. I integrated it into the core of the blade. Your water mana activates normally, but on contact with the air it transforms into ice. Water first, then ice. It doesn't interfere with your technique, it extends it."
A silence.
Ren looked at the blade again. The crystals lining the blue steel, the frozen mist escaping with each movement.
"This is," he said slowly.
He searched for the word.
"This is exactly what it needed."
He raised his eyes to Kazuho with something sincere in his expression.
"Thank you."
Kazuho nodded simply.
"It's my work."
Warning, said Archer in Yuma's lenses. Mana accumulation in the opposing blade. High and rising intensity. The ice modifies trajectories, recalibration in progress. Recommendation: maximum strike, darkness mana concentrated, short window before the ice covers the terrain.
Ren focused.
The air around him changed. That same pressure Yuma had felt at the restaurant, multiplied. The blue blade covered itself in frost along its entire length, the crystals climbing from the guard to the tip like a wave freezing in time.
He looked at Yuma with a serene and absolute expression.
"You fought well," he said calmly. "Truly. Now..."
Strike now, said Archer.
Yuma loaded the darkness mana into his right fist. Everything Archer had stabilized, concentrated into a single point.
He charged.
"Dark Fist!"
A power that didn't quite belong to Yuma yet, too large, too deep, like borrowing something you don't yet have the right to fully own, unfolded from his fist.
The whole room felt it.
Ren, for his part, was still.
Like deep water. Like something that doesn't need to move because it knows exactly what is about to happen.
He raised the frost-covered blade.
"Seisui Ken Ryū, Shizuka no Ha."
Silent Blade.
Not a wide gesture. The opposite. The most discreet technique of the school, the strike that cuts almost without sound, that embodies the absolute calm of water before it swallows everything.
The collision was dull, massive. A vibration that rose from the floor up through the walls.
Yuma felt his fist stop cold.
Then the return wave arrived.
Clean, cold, with the ice of the blade leaving a glacial burn on his forearm at the moment of contact.
He was lifted off his feet.
He landed three meters away.
Stayed on the ground for a second.
Stone ceiling. The vest symbol back to red. Archer silent.
"Combat over," said Kazuho. "Victory to Ren."
Ren approached.
He extended his hand toward Yuma with the naturalness of someone for whom helping someone up after a fight was as ordinary as shaking their hand before one.
Yuma took it.
Got back on his feet. Shook his head slightly.
"You fought well," said Ren.
"I lost."
"Yes. And you fought well. The two coexist."
Enji came over. He looked at Yuma with that particular expression, not worry, not surprise. Just something honest.
"I knew you would lose," he said.
"Great, really feeling the confidence."
"And you challenged him anyway knowing you would lose."
"Of course."
Enji looked at him for a second.
"That's why you're going to become strong," he said finally.
Yuma laughed. The simple, direct laugh of someone who doesn't need to digest defeats because he transforms them into something else before they even land.
"You could have said that from the start."
"I was hoping you would lose less quickly."
They laughed at the same time.
Haruki stepped toward Yuma, hands extended, with a slightly apologetic expression.
"I'm going to need the vest back."
"It works perfectly..."
"It works very well," said Haruki. "But I have two or three adjustments left on the darkness stabilization and the synchronization with Archer. It needs to be perfect before Vantarcity. I'll have it back to you in two days at the most, I promise."
Yuma removed the vest and handed it over reluctantly.
Haruki took it carefully, folding it immediately with the precision of a blacksmith putting away his best work.
"How many things did you put in there?" said Kazuho.
"It's my greatest work to date."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting for now."
Enji glanced at his own equipment from the corner of his eye. The white vest, the gloves, the glasses, still awaiting adjustments.
"Mine..."
Haruki turned toward him with a smile.
"Will be just as good, I promise. I have a few details left to sort out, two or three days. But you're going to like it."
Enji nodded, something in his expression settling quietly.
"Thank you, Haruki."
"It's my job. And it's also a pleasure," Haruki added sincerely.
Ren had resheathed the blade during all of this. He turned back toward Yuma.
"It's time for me to go."
He looked at him. Not from above, not with the distance of a rank S toward a rank F. Just a direct gaze, from one equal to a future equal.
"Stay as you are. Keep charging where others think too long. And become stronger."
"For a rematch," said Yuma.
"For a rematch."
"I want to surpass Reishin and you."
Ren paused.
"Now there's a goal," he said.
"My dream is to become the greatest hunter of all time," said Yuma.
A beat.
Then Ren smiled. That open, genuine smile that recognizes something familiar.
"Then you have work to do," he said simply.
He gave Kazuho a brief nod, a warm gesture toward Haruki, and walked out of the combat room with that economical, regular stride that was the same as at the restaurant.
His steps climbed back up the corridor.
The workshop door.
Silence.
They came back up from the basement a few minutes later.
Kazuho and Haruki were already talking about adjusting Archer's stabilizers. Enji listened with the attention of someone taking mental notes. Yuma walked slightly behind the group with that particular post-combat air.
In the main corridor of the workshop, something crossed Enji's mind.
He stopped.
Looked at Yuma.
"Alfred," he said.
Yuma stopped too.
"What?"
"Alfred told us to rest."
A silence.
Yuma looked at the ceiling.
Looked at his hands.
Looked at the corridor behind him as though he could retroactively calculate the consequences of his afternoon.
"He's going to tear my ears off," he said.
"Probably."
"He's going to take out the notebook."
"Certainly."
"He's going to quote Reishin."
"Word for word."
Yuma took a long breath.
"It was still worth it."
"Completely," said Enji.
And he smiled. That rare, brief, but real smile.
Yuma looked at him.
"You're happy for me but you're going to watch Alfred dismantle me without doing anything."
"I'm going to watch Alfred dismantle you while being very happy for you. There's a difference."
Yuma rolled his eyes.
He turned around and started running down the corridor toward the exit.
Enji watched him go.
"You're running for nothing!" he called. "Alfred is already at the manor!"
"I know!" Yuma called back without slowing down.
Enji shook his head.
And walked on at the easy pace of a man who has had a very good day.
End of Chapter 19