Yuna looked at them all before leaving.
"You have two days," she said. "Use them well. The tournament won't wait for anyone."
The group dispersed with that specific energy of people who have just been given a deadline and are processing what it means. Some in silence, some talking amongst themselves, some looking at their new partner with the assessment of someone who does not yet know what they have in front of them.
Kaito approached Yūta before he went off with the others.
"Get ready," he said.
Yūta looked at him.
"For what?"
"For the next two days." Kaito settled the bag on his shoulder. "I'm going to teach you to improve in close-quarters combat, with weapons, and we'll work on the mana too. All together."
Yūta processed that.
"I'm ready," he said.
"When do we start?" said Yūta.
"Now."
And Kaito began to walk without waiting for a response, which was apparently his way of indicating that the conversation had ended and the next phase had begun.
They walked through the interior corridors of the compound for several minutes, moving away from the areas Yūta already knew towards a part of the compound he had not yet explored. The corridors were narrower here, with fewer windows and a different kind of quiet — not the quiet of the garden but something closer to the silence of a place that does not receive many visitors.
Kaito stopped in front of a small house.
It was small. Not small in the sense of modest — small in the sense that from the outside it looked as though two people could fit inside if they agreed very carefully about how to position themselves.
Yūta looked at it.
"You're serious — in there?"
"Go in," said Kaito, with a smile.
Yūta looked at the door. Then at Kaito. Then at the door again.
He opened it.
What was on the other side of the door of a little house that from the outside appeared to be the size of a bathroom was an enormous hall — high ceiling, light wooden floor, clear walls, with enough space for several people to train at the same time without getting in each other's way. The light came from sources Yūta could not identify because there were no visible windows, yet the place was perfectly lit.
He stood in the doorway with his mouth open.
"What is this?"
"Maestra Kana had it made," said Kaito, entering behind him. "With mana. The idea is that from the outside it looks like something it isn't. Useful for training without anyone knowing where you are."
"Incredible," said Yūta.
It was not the most elaborate response he had ever given, but it was the honest one.
"Get ready," said Kaito, setting the bag on the floor and opening it.
He took out two wooden sticks. He threw one to Yūta with a movement that allowed no time for hesitation — either you caught it or it hit you in the face.
Yūta caught it.
"I heard you faced a remnant," said Kaito, settling his stick. "I want to see how much you've improved since the garden."
Yūta smiled.
"Yes," he said.
And he readied himself.
What followed was different from the garden training.
Not because Kaito was harder on him — though he was — but because this time he was not simply demonstrating. He was correcting in real time, not stopping the fight to explain but interrupting it at the exact moment Yūta did something wrong.
"The elbow," said Kaito, blocking a strike. "You lift it before the arm moves. You're telegraphing."
Yūta processed that. He tried again.
"Better. Now the weight," said Kaito, dodging. "When you attack forward you load everything onto your right foot. If they push you to that side you can't compensate."
"How do I distribute it?"
"Equal between both. Not perfectly equal — depending on where you're going to move next. But never all on one."
Yūta tried it. Kaito pushed him to the right to check. Yūta did not fall, but he stumbled.
"Almost," said Kaito. "Again."
They continued. Kaito was patient in the sense that he did not get frustrated, but he was not indulgent — every error Yūta repeated received the same correction in the same tone, without impatience, but without softening it either. It was the kind of training that tired the mind more than the body because it required constant attention to things the body did not yet do on its own.
When Kaito finally lowered his stick, Yūta's breathing was more laboured than he had expected.
"How did the fight go?" said Kaito, putting the sticks away in the bag. "Tell me."
Yūta ran a hand through his hair.
"Giant cockroaches," he said. "Many of them. Kagami fought the main remnant on the floor above, I was left alone below with the horde. A pause. "I used the mana. Five seconds, like in the garden. Then it ran out and I used the dagger you lent me."
Kaito nodded.
"Good," he said. "Now we work on that."
"Thank you, but—" Yūta looked around. "We only have two days. I don't know how much can be improved in two days."
Kaito smiled.
"This place is special," he said. "Time runs differently here. Two days outside are four days inside."
Yūta looked at him.
"It's like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball."
Kaito laughed — not his usual contained laugh but something more genuine, shorter.
"If you want to see it that way, that's fine."
The mana training began in a way Yūta did not expect.
"Close your eyes," said Kaito.
Yūta did.
"Now try to feel the mana. Not look for it — feel it. Like you did in the garden with the image of the river."
Yūta found what he was looking for faster than the first time — the river was there, more accessible than before, like something that becomes easier to find each time you find it. His right hand began to glow, purple this time, which he found completely strange.
"Good," said Kaito.
"Why is it purple now?" asked Yūta, slightly unsettled.
"Every hunter's mana can be a different colour," replied Kaito.
"But before it was orange," said Yūta.
"That's normal. At first it tends to be orange or perhaps reddish, but after using it a few times it takes on the hunter's own colour. Kato's, for example, didn't change — it stayed orange, and that's also normal."
"Understood," said Yūta.
"Amane, now strike the floor."
Yūta struck.
The impact was striking, but the mana disappeared after the strike. About five seconds later, as always.
Kaito was watching him with an attention that was not assessment but something more specific — like someone seeing a pattern that does not yet have a name, but is already recognising it.
"The problem," said Kaito, "is not the amount of mana you have. It's how you're using it."
"How am I using it?"
"You're releasing it all at once," said Kaito. "Like turning a tap to full. All the mana comes out together, the strikes are strong but the reservoir empties in seconds." He sat on the floor with his legs crossed and gestured at the space in front of him. "Sit down."
Yūta looked at him.
"Yoga?"
"Sit down."
Yūta sat.
"The idea is not to release the mana," said Kaito, closing his eyes and placing his hands on his knees. "It's to let it flow. There's a difference. Releasing is opening everything at once. Flowing is keeping the channel open in a constant, controlled way." He paused. "Try it. You're not looking for force — you're looking for consistency."
Yūta closed his eyes.
He found the river. He tried not to open it all at once but to let it move on its own, at its own rhythm, without pushing it.
He lost it.
He found it again.
He lost it again.
The third time it lasted longer — not much, but longer. Yūta could feel the difference between the two ways of doing it, though he still could not maintain the second one consistently.
"Longer," said Kaito, without opening his eyes.
They continued in silence for a time Yūta could not calculate. The position was uncomfortable. The concentration was exhausting in a way different from combat — quieter but more demanding in another sense, like holding something fragile rather than carrying something heavy.
When he finally opened his eyes and activated the mana, it was not only his right hand that glowed — both hands began to glow.
And it kept glowing.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Yūta looked at his hands with something that was not exactly surprise — it was more like the recognition of something he knew was there but had not been able to access until now.
"Thirty seconds," he said.
He could not hold on any longer and the glow went out. "Kaito, did you see that? Thirty seconds," said Yūta.
"Yes, excellent," replied Kaito. "Now bring it out again and hit me in the abdomen."
"Right," said Yūta, already growing accustomed to the things Kaito asked of him.
Yūta struck once, twice, three more times.
"The strikes are weaker," said Kaito, observing. "The mana is distributed rather than concentrated. But it lasts." He nodded. "That's what we need to work on now — finding the balance between duration and potency. Now we'll fight with mana."
They fought with mana.
It was different from fighting without it and different from the explosive five seconds of before. Yūta could feel the flow as he moved — a constant presence that did not run out all at once but required attention to maintain. Every strike he threw had less force than before, but he could keep throwing strikes. He could defend. He could move.
Kaito corrected him as they fought — the flow broke when Yūta got distracted, when he received an impact that interrupted his concentration, when he tried to increase the intensity too quickly and lost control of the rhythm.
"When you lose it," said Kaito, blocking, "don't force it. Let it come back on its own."
"It's difficult when someone's hitting me."
"Exactly. Which is why we practise while someone is hitting you."
Yūta exhaled sharply, but did not argue because he had no counter-argument.
When Kaito finally lowered his hand and gestured towards the side of the hall, the two of them sat against the wall with the water bottles Kaito had taken from the bag with the foresight of someone who already knew how this was going to end.
Yūta drank for a time he did not count.
"Did you face something powerful too?" he said at last. "In the second-years' mission."
Kaito took a moment to reply.
"Yes," he said. "The remnant we encountered was different. It spoke — not like the one you described that just repeated words, but like a person. Complete sentences." He paused. "Its appearance was unusual for what it was capable of. Slender, about a metre seventy, lean build. It didn't look dangerous from the outside."
"And?"
"Speed," said Kaito. "A speed that didn't correspond to that body. We were able to defeat it, but it cost us. Us, who are second-years, with Yuna on our side." He looked at the floor for a moment. "Now I understand why the hunters who went in first ended up in hospital and others died. On top of that they were inexperienced hunters — nobody was expecting this type of remnant. If it cost us what it cost us, they simply didn't have time to react."
Yūta processed that in silence.
"The important thing," said Kaito, standing, "is that both of us came out alive. And now there's a tournament to keep improving."
"Yes," said Yūta.
"Rest is over."
Yūta stood.
"What's next?"
Kaito's fist arrived straight into his stomach.
Yūta doubled forward with the air leaving his lungs all at once and his eyes wide open processing what had just happened.
"What—"
"Endurance," said Kaito, with his usual calm. "I'm going to strike you in the stomach until you can't take any more."
Yūta looked at him from his doubled-over position.
"Next time," he said, in the voice he had left, "warn me."
"The enemy doesn't warn you," said Kaito.
And he raised his fist again.