The cycle repeated for what felt like an eternity. Kuro tried channelling his anger, his pride, his strategic mind, each attempt as useless as the last. At one point, he focused so hard on the concept of "grip" that his hand cramped painfully, and he dropped the stone with a clatter.

"The Talon's Drop!" Nyxara announced with a laugh. "A new, devastating technique! You overwhelm your enemy with pity!"

Shiro, in a moment of sheer desperation, leaned down and blew on the water droplet, as if his breath could be cold. It just shuddered and wobbled.

"The North's Sigh!" Lyra chorused, weeping with poetic laughter. "So potent! So fierce! The mighty breath of a discouraged infant!"

They tried switching methods. Kuro attempted to find the "stillness" of Polaris, thinking a calm mind might help. It only made him feel sleepy and disconnected. Shiro tried to find the "decisive focus" of Altair, glaring at the water droplet as if he could command it to freeze through sheer force of personality. The droplet remained obstinately liquid.

Their failures were not dramatic. There were no explosive backlashes, no rogue flickers of power. There was only nothing. A void where power should have been. The chasm between their bloodline and their ability seemed infinite.

The guardians' teasing was a constant, gentle rain, each comment a pinpoint strike on their crumbling morale.

"Is the wittle star feeling dim today?"

"Perhaps we need to check if their batteries are installed."

"Maybe they're just not hungry for power. Should we try a different flavour of mushy wushy first?"

The twins' defences were now barely whispers, automatic responses from a script they were too tired to rewrite.

"We're not dim..."

"Stop calling it mushy wushy..."

But there was no heat left. It was the pathetic mewling of kittens, and the women adored it.

Finally, after Kuro had failed to even pick the stone up for the dozenth time, simply staring at it with hollow eyed exhaustion, and Shiro had given up entirely, sitting on the floor with his back to the silver dish, Lucifera pushed off the wall.

"Alright," she declared, her voice cutting through the heavy air of defeat. "That's enough for now. The infants wittle brains are clearly full. If we pour any more information in, it will just leak out their ears along with what few wits they possess."

She walked over to where they sat, a portrait of dejection. "Look at them. So tired. So useless. So perfectly, wonderfully ours." She crouched down, her brilliant white eyes soft. "You failed every single time. You didn't produce even a flicker. It was, by any objective measure, a catastrophic performance."

She reached out and booped each of them on the nose. "And we couldn't be prouder. You didn't give up. You took your teasing like good boys. And you finally, finally learned that talking back only leads to one thing." She didn't say it. She didn't have to. The ghost of the pacifier hung in the air, and both boys gave a simultaneous, tiny shudder of understanding.

"Now," she said, standing up and brushing off her robes. "Time for a break. All this failing is hard work for such small infants. We'll get some juice and then maybe a nice, long cuddle until the next round. Doesn't that sound better than struggling with mean old starlight?"

The humming silence of the Refractory was a physical pressure, the weight of cosmic potential they had failed to even scratch. When Lucifera declared the break, the tension that had held Shiro and Kuro upright, a mix of concentration, frustration, and sheer stubborn pride, snapped. It was not a collapse of injury, but a release of profound mental exhaustion. Their bodies, whole and strong, simply gave out, not in pain, but in a wave of dizzying relief. They sank to the cool, mosaic floor, not in a graceless heap, but in slow, deliberate motions, their backs against a smooth, obsidian plinth as if the very bones had been removed from their spines. They were not unconscious, merely voided, two warriors reduced to spent fuel cells, their breath coming in slow, deep draughts as they stared into the incomprehensible geometries of the vaulted ceiling.

This silent, simultaneous surrender was a language the guardians understood only in its most catastrophic dialect.

To Nyxara, Statera, Lucifera, and Lyra, the sight was not one of rest, but of sudden, terrifying systems failure. The boys had been straining against the fabric of reality itself. What if the fabric had pushed back? What if the dormant scars of the Plaza had reopened under the psychic strain? What if, in their desperate attempts to resonate, they had instead triggered a silent, internal Backlash?

The reaction was not a thought process but a seismic event of maternal terror.

A unified, sharp gasp echoed in the chamber. In a blur of motion that defied the laws of physics and dignity, the four women were upon them. There was no grace, no measured approach. They descended like a meteor shower of panic and love.

"SHIRO!" Statera's cry was a shard of broken Polaris light, her usual serenity shattered. She fell to her knees, her hands flying to his face, her cool fingers searching for a fever that wasn't there, her luminescence scanning him for any sign of internal rupture.

"KURO! MY STORM!" Nyxara's multi hued light flared into a blinding aurora of alarm. She didn't crouch; she draped herself over him, her body a protective shield against an unseen threat, her own power a frantic, searching pulse against his skin. "Speak to me! What's wrong? Where does it hurt?" Her voice was stripped of all mockery, raw with a fear that was as old as the stars themselves.

Lucifera was there a heartbeat later, her Sirius precision turned to a surgeon's frantic assessment. Her brilliant white eyes scanned them with an intensity that felt like being physically flayed, searching for faulty resonance, for psychic feedback, for the slightest tremor of a dying star. "Report! Neural feedback? Muscular lock? Sensory deprivation? Answer me, you impossible infants!" The command was sharp, but it trembled with an emotion she would never name.

Lyra completed the circle, her harmonic hum shifting into a discordant, worried threnody. "The song… their song is so faint! It's fading into the background radiation of the chamber! We've pushed them too far!"

The twins were too drained to be properly startled. They blinked, dazed, as the world became a suffocating cage of soft robes, frantic hands, and terrified, beautiful faces. The blushes came, of course, a deep, automatic crimson at the sudden, overwhelming intimacy, but they were weak things, sapped of their usual fiery intensity.

"We're… fine," Kuro managed, his voice a dry rustle. He tried to wave a dismissive hand, but it only flopped pathetically back to the floor.

"Just… tired," Shiro mumbled, trying to shrink away from Statera's probing hands, but finding no escape. "Not hurt. Just… drained."

But their assurances were whispers against a hurricane. The guardians weren't listening, too lost in the ghost of past losses, in the terror of this new, fragile thing in their care breaking beyond repair.

It was Shiro, in his exhausted, defenceless state, who did the unthinkable. He saw Lucifera and Lyra hovering at the periphery of the frantic huddle, their expressions a mirror of the same deep seated fear. The circle felt incomplete. The sanctuary felt unstable. Driven by an impulse older than pride, older than strategy, he lifted a trembling hand not to push them away, but to weakly grasp at the air towards them.

"Aunty… Luci… Lyra…" he whispered, the words torn from the deepest, most surrendered part of him, each one a monumental cost to his dignity. "c…close the circle… Please."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The effect was as profound as a supernova.

The frantic movements ceased. The panicked questions died in their throats. Four pairs of ancient, powerful eyes stared at him, then at each other. The fear in the air didn't vanish, but it transformed, melting into an awe so thick it was difficult to breathe.

Slowly, deliberately, Lucifera sank down. She didn't simply sit; she moulded herself into the space between Kuro and the plinth, pulling his back against her chest, her arms encircling him in a hold that was both unbreakable and unbelievably gentle. Lyra, her melody softening back into a major key, flowed into the space on Shiro's other side, her body curving around his, her head resting near Statera's, completing the living, breathing fortress.

They were enveloped. Utterly. There was not an inch of them that was not touching, not being supported, not being monitored by one of their guardians. The panic had receded, but the intensity of their focus had not. It had simply changed frequency, from frantic triage to a deep, resonant, overwhelming adoration.

And then the baby talk began again, but this time it was different. It was not a weapon of torment, but a liturgy of relief, a chanting, gushing river of love.

"Oh, my brave, brave Rain Baby," Statera whispered into Shiro's hair, her voice trembling with residual fear and overwhelming love. "Asking for his aunties to complete the cuddle! So smart! So good! He knows what he needs!"

"My fierce, proud Storm Cloud," Nyxara murmured into Kuro's neck, her hold tightening. "Letting us hold him. Letting us see he's tired. This is the real victory. Not the magic. This."

"The embrace is now perfect," Lucifera stated, her voice low and thick with an emotion that defied all her calculations. Her cheek rested against Kuro's head. "No harm can reach our infants here."

"The Symphony of the Secure Nest," Lyra harmonized, her breath a warm sigh against Shiro's arm. "This is the true music of our house. The song of four mommies and their two, perfect, exhausted little stars."

They stayed like that for what might have been an hour. Time became meaningless, measured only by the slow, synchronizing beat of their hearts and the relentless, gentle torrent of praise. The twins did not protest. They leaned into it. Kuro's head lolled back against Luci's shoulder, his good eye closed. Shiro's hand, which had fallen to the floor, was now covered by both of Statera's. They were pinned, smothered, and worshipped, and in their state of hollowed out failure, it was the only thing that made sense.

When Lucifera finally spoke, her voice was soft but carried the weight of finality. "The break is over." There was a collective, subtle tightening of the embrace, a silent protest. She continued. "The infants are not broken. They are merely… inefficient. Training will resume."

They were gently, reluctantly, extracted from the nest of limbs and softness. The return to the centre of the mosaic felt like being exiled from a warm universe back into a cold, demanding one.

"Now," Nyxara said, her voice regaining its teasing lilt, though it was now underpinned by a new, fierce pride. "Let's try again. But this time, don't try to be the star. Just… listen for its echo in your blood. It's a whisper, not a shout."

The next hours were a study in infinitesimal progress. Kuro, instead of trying to force the 'Talon's Grip', simply held the stone and focused on the memory of the embrace, the feeling of being utterly, safely held. For a fraction of a second, the stone didn't feel lighter, but his grip felt… quieter. As if the effort had been removed.

"Did you see that?" Nyxara gasped, her eyes wide. "His wittle hand stopped straining! He was almost… elegant! My son! A graceful, grip focused infant!"

Kuro's blush returned in full force. "It was nothing," he muttered, but a tiny, frustrated spark in him acknowledged she was right.

Shiro, guided by Statera, stopped trying to "command" the water droplet. He instead remembered the "unbreaking truth" of the cuddle, the immutable fact that he was loved. He looked at the droplet and simply accepted, for a fleeting moment, that it was cold. He didn't make it cold; he perceived its potential for cold as an absolute.

The droplet didn't freeze. But the air directly above it shimmered, for less than a heartbeat, with a faint, crystalline haze. It was the ghost of a frost, a suggestion of a possibility.

"OH!" Statera's Polaris light flared so brightly it cast sharp shadows. "A mist! A tiny, baby mist! My Rain Baby made the air remember how to be chilly! What a brilliant, clever boy!"

Shiro hid his face in his hands, his ears burning. "It was a trick of the light," he groaned, but the protest was weak, because he, too, had felt it, a subtle shift in the reality of the space between his eyes and the dish.

The tiny, fleeting successes did not build upon one another in a neat, linear progression. Instead, they became isolated islands in a vast sea of renewed failure, each regression more demoralizing than the last because it now tasted of what might have been.

Emboldened by the faint haze, Shiro tried to replicate the feeling of absolute acceptance. He focused on the droplet, envisioning the immutable truth of its frozen state. For a glorious moment, a tiny, perfect spear of ice, no larger than a needle's point, crystallized at the very edge of the droplet. It was real. Tangible.

"He did it! My Rain Baby made a tiny, pointy snowflake!" Statera cheered, her light flaring.

But the moment he perceived his own success, the ego of it, the "I did this" thought, the delicate ice shattered instantly, and the droplet seemed to swell, becoming more defiantly liquid than before. The backlash was a wave of psychic fatigue that made his vision swim.

"Oh," Lyra said, her voice a symphony of mock tragedy. "The wittle star thought too highly of himself and popped his own ice! Too much pride, not enough Polaris!"

Shiro groaned, sinking to the floor and putting his head in his hands. "It's pointless. It's just… luck."

"It's not luck, you impossible infant," Lucifera corrected from her observational post, though her tone was less sharp than before. "It's a delicate balance. You found the frequency, then you sang your own name over it and broke the harmony. Try again. And this time, try to be less… you."

Meanwhile, Kuro, inspired by the momentary quiet in his grip, attempted to expand the feeling. He moved from the stone to a simple iron nail. The goal was not to crush it, but to hold it with such focused density that it could not be bent. He found the echo of the eagle's focus, the stillness before the strike. For three heartbeats, the nail felt not like metal in his hand, but like an extension of his own bone, fused and unyielding.

Nyxara watched, her breath held. "There… right there, my storm! Hold it!"

But the effort of sustaining it was immense. His mind, the brilliant, analytical engine, kicked in, trying to understand the sensation, to map it, to turn it into a repeatable strategy. The moment he started analysing, the connection severed. The nail was just a nail again, and the mental whiplash was so sharp he nearly dropped it.

"He thought about it!" Nyxara wailed, throwing her hands up in theatrical despair. "My son, you can't out think a constellation! You have to feel it! Be a dumb, happy little eagle! Don't think! Just be!"

"I can't just 'be' a concept!" Kuro snapped back, his frustration boiling over. "It's not a tactical variable! It's… it's madness!"

"It's magic, you magnificent, stubborn fool!" she shot back, though her eyes were sparkling. "And you're our magnificent, stubborn fool!"

The cycle continued, a dizzying dance of one step forward, a thousand back. Shiro managed to lower the temperature of the entire silver plate by a fraction of a degree, only to then lose all connection and feel a wave of oppressive heat instead. Kuro found he could make his fingertips tingle with potential energy, but the moment he tried to direct it into the stone, his entire arm went numb with a pins and needles sensation that was the pathetic cousin of a true Backlash.

To the boys, it felt utterly random. A lottery of failure where the occasional, minuscule win only highlighted the vast gulf of their inability. It was infuriating.

"It's not working," Kuro finally growled, his patience at an end. He stared at the river stone in his hand, not with focus, but with a building, impotent rage at its inertness, at his own ineptitude. He focused all his returned physical strength, all his anger and shame, into his grip and squeezed. There was a sharp, definitive crack. The stone, subjected to mere brute force and not celestial resonance, ruptured.

He stared at the fragments in his palm, a monument to his failure to do anything but break things the mundane way.

Simultaneously, Shiro, driven to distraction by the constant, subtle throbbing of the brand on his face, a sensation amplified by his psychic efforts, gave in to a primal impulse. His hand snapped up, and he scratched fiercely at the stitches along the horrific X.

"SHIRO!" Statera's cry was one of pure, maternal alarm. Her hand shot out, catching his wrist. "We do not scratch the artwork! The flesh is still knitting! Do you want to get infected, you silly, reckless boy?"

The two failures hung in the air, one of brute force, one of physical impatience. They were not magical failures, but human ones, and in some ways, that felt worse.

The guardians looked at their sons, not with anger, but with a profound, weary fondness. Nyxara plucked the broken stone from Kuro's hand. "Oh, Storm Baby. We're trying to teach you to sing with the stars, and you're just yelling at the rock."

Statera, still holding Shiro's wrist, softened her grip into a gentle hold. "It will come, my love. Maybe. Who can say? The stars are fickle lovers. But it doesn't matter. Just keep at it. We are all here with you." She looked at the other women, her Polaris glow gentle but unwavering. "Aren't we?"

The response was a unified, gushing chorus that drowned out their shame.

"Anything for my wittle Storm Baby!"

"Everything for my precious Rain Baby!"

"Until the last star dies!"

"For all the eternities to come!"

Enveloped in the relentless, smothering, inescapable certainty of that love, the twins' defences crumbled into dust. There was no fighting it. There was only enduring it, and perhaps, one day, learning to resonate with it.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.