Chapter Thirteen- The Worst Training Session
"There are two things Seraphina Valcrest does when she's feeling something she won't name: she trains harder, and she aims at whoever caused it."*
The training session that evening was notably brutal.
Seraphina ran them through forms for two hours without a break, corrected Kaito's positioning fourteen times, and at one point made Mira repeat a technique seventeen times before declaring it acceptable.
Mira, afterward, found Elias in the corner.
"She's in a mood," Mira said.
"I'm aware," Elias said, not looking up.
"It's because of the library thing."
"I'm aware," Elias said.
"She aimed most of it at Kaito."
"Also aware."
"Elias," Mira said, "should someone tell her that directing repressed feelings at the source of those feelings through combat drills is..."
"Don't," said Elias.
Kaito, catching this exchange from across the room while catching his breath against the far wall, made a mental note and said nothing.
An hour later.
Everyone had gone.
The training room was empty except for Kaito and Seraphina, who was running him through Void Sovereign stabilization drills. How to open the gate with control instead of desperation.
She was standing close. A hand on his wrist, monitoring the resonance.
Standard position.
She'd done it twenty times this week.
Tonight it felt different.
Her grip was the same. Precise, clinical, cool. But there was a tension in it, something she was managing. Like holding a door shut that wanted to open.
"Again," she said.
He opened.
The Void Sovereign spilled into his palm. Better than before. Controlled, steady. The red-black space held its shape instead of expanding wildly.
Seraphina's grip tightened slightly. Measuring.
"Stable," she said. "Good."
A pause.
She didn't let go.
They stood like that for a moment longer than necessary. Her hand around his wrist, the Void Sovereign running slow and warm between them, the training room lamp throwing amber over everything.
Kaito looked at her.
She was looking at his palm. At the Gear.
Her expression was not quite composed. Not quite unguarded.
Somewhere in between. Like the door was cracked open a fraction.
"Seraphina," he said.
She looked up.
And for three full seconds she just looked at him.
No calculation.
No management.
The eclipse eyes doing nothing except being present and direct and honest in the way she almost never let them be.
Then she released his wrist.
Stepped back one precise step.
"That's enough for tonight," she said. Her voice was level. Perfect. "The Rating Game is in seventeen days. Tomorrow we run scenario drills."
She walked to the door.
Stopped.
Didn't turn around.
"The Ashford girl," she said. "She'll try again. Her father is politically motivated and she's been sent as an envoy, not a genuine overture."
A pause.
"Don't mistake the strategy for the person."
"I know."
Another pause. Longer.
"Good," she said.
She left.
Kaito stood in the training room for a while.
The Void Sovereign settled slowly in his chest. Warm. Complicated. Running at a frequency he was beginning to recognize as specific to her. The particular resonance of the bond when she was close and pretending not to feel it.
His phone buzzed.
Shota.
Update. Now. I heard about the library. THE WHOLE SCHOOL HEARD ABOUT THE LIBRARY.
He pocketed the phone.
Turned off the training room light.
He was halfway up the stairs when he heard it.
Distant.
Below.
From the direction of the outer wall.
A sound like glass breaking.
Not glass.
A barrier.
Someone had just broken through the estate's outer ward.
The Void Sovereign detonated in his chest.
Not warmth.
A flare.
Pure hostile response.
He was already running before he understood what he was running toward.
End of Chapter Thirteen