Kori didn't speak at first.

She came in with the usual click of her shoes and sat in the chair by his bed - the one Hikari always pulled close and left a little crooked. She straightened it with a small gesture. Her hands settled on her knees, then watched the monitor for a breath, then the window, then nothing in particular.

Silence made the room seem larger.

Raizen shifted a little against the pillow. His ribs tugged like a warning string. He waited. Kori didn't seem to be searching for words - more like she was letting the ones she had settle into the right order.

They started at the same time.

"Raizen -"

"I'm sorry -"

They stopped. For half a second, neither of them smiled. Then Kori's mouth tilted, small and real.

"You first" she said.

Raizen let the breath go slow. "I'm sorry" he said. "For all of it. For putting everyone in danger. For not retreating when I should've. For throwing my life at it because it felt like the only way."

Kori lifted a hand, just to mark the space between what he thought and what she saw.

"Stop there" she said. "I need to say this once, and I don't say it often." She leaned back in the chair and looked at him like she did in the Arena when she'd tracked every movement he made.

"I'm impressed."

He blinked. "What?"

"I'm impressed" she repeated, as if testing how it sounded in her mouth. "Your formations were clean. Adaptable. You placed them like you'd trained in that kind of terrain for months. You didn't. You read the Nyxes' backflow and used it. And the Rust Room doesn't actually teach that kind of thing."

He stared for half a beat. Praise from Kori wasn't a thing that visited often. When it did, it wore simple clothes.

He swallowed. "But I didn't retreat."

"The Nyxes wouldn't have let you" she said, voice even. "They were too fast. The average was Fortitude 6.2. On a mountain, that's a sprint no human outruns. You would've drawn them to the others if you'd tried to break contact. You pulled them where the mountain would help you instead."

He closed his eyes for a second and saw white and gray and falling. The way the world had said yes when he asked for too much. He opened them again. Kori was still there, steady as a wall.

"I still put my life - "

He didn't finish. Kori moved, quick for someone who always looked unhurried. She stood, leaned in, and wrapped her arms around him. Careful, but firm. A solid, human hold that pressed his bandages and put slight pain up his ribs.

He didn't make a sound.

"I know" she said, near his ear. Her voice wasn't the clipped line she used in drills. It warmed around the edges. "You did the only right thing you could do. I don't like how close you took it. It made us all worry. It made me worry." She pulled in a breath that wasn't as steady as the ones before. "But I'm glad you're alive."

He didn't have a word ready. He had a lot of them. None fit. He let the pain sit and didn't chase it. He let the hug hold him in place. He hadn't been hugged like that in a long time - like he was something you were allowed to keep.

Kori stepped back by a bit, as if letting go needed to be negotiated with herself. She wiped under one eye with the back of her finger like there was dust, not tears. The iron mask she wore for students and officers wasn't gone; it had just been set down.

"You're not just a student to me anymore" she said, soft enough that the monitor almost covered it. "You know that."

He nodded. He didn't trust what his voice would do if he used it yet.

Kori sat again and let her posture find its calm. The room pulled itself back together - bed, chair, window, machine. Raizen looked at his hands, then back to her.

"What comes next?" he asked.

"You're off Vanguard duty" she said, certain, like she was reading a rule. "For a while. All of you. The Council will review the mission and pretend they can model what happened on a wall. The Wardens will pull patterns and pretend they can predict it. Alteea will ignore both and do what she wants. I mean, what works."

Her eyes flicked to the window. "That pack wasn't normal. Nyxes don't gather like that. Not in those numbers. Not with that much bite. There are too many anomalies lately."

"Anomalies" he repeated.

"Nyxes showing where they shouldn't. Signals reaching us too late. Luminite behaving like it listens." She let that last one sit without looking at him, as if she hadn't meant to say it out loud. "Things move. We'll move with them. But not too soon."

He wanted to argue because that was the thing inside him that stood up even when he was lying down. He didn't. The memory of Hikari's grip was still on his shoulder. Kori's arms were still around his ribs like a ghost of pressure.

"I won't tell you to sleep" Kori continued. "You won't listen. But if you want something to grind - a manual, a set of problem sheets, tactical models - ask. I'll bring you something that hurts your head instead of your bones."

He let out a small breath that might've been a laugh. "I'll take the tactical models" he said. "And the manual. The hardest one you got on prosthetics."

"Of course," she grinned "You'd choose the one nobody finishes."

"I'll finish it" he said, not a boast, not even a promise, just a note he knew how to hold.

"I know" she said, and the word carried weight.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The monitor marked beats that almost matched his breath. The window held a sliver of the Spire's glow that had slipped sideways along the glass.

"You said Fortitude 6.2" he said. "Is that confirmed?"

"Alteea's preliminary read" Kori said. "Fast movers with reinforced plates, coordinated strikes on the same flank, minimal bleed-off when they hit Eon fields. But all the equipment blew up, as you said. Cause? Still unknown. But the logs are there, most corrupted, but there."

He absorbed the information. It didn't make him proud. It just fit the picture in his head of what had tried to kill them and what he'd done to keep that from happening.

"Then I'm glad we trained in the Rust Room until my legs shook" he said.

Kori's mouth tilted again. "I'm glad you listened" she said. "Even when you didn't look like you were listening."

"I always listen" he said.

"You hear" she said. "Listening is when you do something with it."

He thought about that for a beat and nodded. "Then I'll keep hearing."

"Good" Kori glanced at the monitor again. "Pain level?"

"Manageable" he said.

"Scale."

"Six when I breathe wrong. Four if I don't. The hug was a nine."

"Acceptable" she said, not apologizing for the nine.

"I'm not complaining" he said.

"I know" she said. "You don't complain. You just solve. Sometimes you try to solve yourself."

He looked at the ceiling for a second. "I'll try to stop doing that."

"You won't stop" she said. "That's who you are."

The words settled in his chest.

Kori pushed her palms against her knees and stood. The chair made a soft sound against the tile.

"I'll bring the manual after morning drills" she said. "Something you'll hate."

"I'll love it" he said.

"You'll hate it and love it" she corrected. She took one step toward the door and then half turned, as if one more thing had asked to be said. "But after all... You did well."

He nodded. "I'll try to do better."

She shook her head once. "You did well." she repeated, and this time there wasn't room left in the sentence for anything else.

She started to move towards the door. Raizen moved before he'd decided to. He caught her hand lightly.

"Thank you" he said.

Kori looked down at his hand on hers. She didn't pull away. She turned her hand and squeezed once - firm, quick, simple.

"You're welcome. Now rest." she said, nothing else."

"I'll try" he said.

"Try harder" she said, and the dry note was back to keep the warmth from spilling too far.

She didn't look back when she left. She didn't need to.

Raizen lay there and let the quiet be what it was. The pain found its corner and behaved. He watched the thin line of light on the glass fade and return as a thicker cloud moved.

He turned his head and looked at the chair. He didn't try to name what sat in him now - relief, gratitude, something like... Belonging somewhere: A feeling that he last felt long ago...

When he still had a family.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

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.