The hallway lights hummed — soft and clinical. No crowd. No sound. Just the quiet shuffle of roots retracting into the floor and the faint drip of healing fluids in nearby rooms.
I blinked awake to filtered ceiling panels and the low thrum of a monitor reading my vitals. My ribs didn't scream anymore. My shoulder was stiff, but no longer shattered. I tried to sit.
A voice stopped me.
"Easy," Misaki said. She was sitting near the edge of the cot, arms folded over her knees, staff resting by the wall. "You're good, but you're not indestructible."
"Didn't ask for a lecture," I muttered, half-groggy.
"Wasn't offering one," she said, tone light — but her eyes were serious. "But, I can't blame you, with your odds, you had to push with everything you had from what I can see." Jonetsu cut through the silence
His voice wasn't mocking — just direct, analytical. He leaned casually against the doorway, arms crossed, eyes like frost behind glass.
Misaki glanced back at him, her expression tightening for a second, then relaxing.
"You could at least wait for the guy to drink water before you break down his trauma," she muttered.
Jonetsu ignored the jab. "Tatsuya's resonance was flaring. You forced him into a half-sync with his Spirit. That's not nothing."
I exhaled slowly, letting the weight of those words settle.
"I didn't mean to," I said.
"You didn't mean not to either," Jonetsu replied. "You read him. Moved in. Made the choice."
He stepped further into the room, boots barely making a sound against the tile.
"For what it's worth… You boxed in a Dragon. Most people can't say that."
Misaki shot me a look — half proud, half worried.
I tried to sit again, slower this time. "He's going to want that rematch."
"You both will," Jonetsu said. "But that'll come later."
The announcement tone chimed overhead.
""W-WELL—WHATEVER THAT WAS—GOOD LUCK TO OUR NEXT FIGHTERS…" Kiyoshi shouted, trying to catch his breath, "SINCE OUR NEXT FIGHTERS ARE KONETSU JONETSU V.S TAKAOMI RENJI!" Echoed across the hallways — "REPORT TO ARENA CORE."
He turned toward the door.
"Now it's my turn."
Jonetsu tilted his head slightly toward me.
"Watch closely."
Then he was gone — walking out like he already knew the outcome.
Misaki stared after him, then let out a quiet whistle.
"Guy's got all the warmth of a freezer door."
I leaned back against the pillow, pulse still slow but rising.
"He's not wrong," I muttered. "About what I did."
She looked at me sideways.
"Maybe. But what you did… and what it means? That's not the same thing."
I didn't respond. Because I didn't know how.
Outside, the arena began to shift again.
Wind barriers shimmered into place. Observation screens flickered to life. The crowd swelled. The murmurs became a storm.
Renji stood at the base of the stairs, head tilted just slightly as Kiyoshi filled his lungs.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" His voice boomed, shaking the dome.
"WITH EYES THAT MISS NOTHING, REFLEXES FASTER THAN SOUND, AND THE HAWK ELEMENT SURGING THROUGH HIS VEINS—THE SKY ITSELF IS HIS DOMAIN!"
Renji flexed his arms. Feathers shimmered, stretching and fanning wide as they unfurled into wings. The crowd gasped as he launched upward in one smooth motion, air bursting beneath him. He streaked across the arena in a single, clean glide—no hesitation, no wasted movement.
He landed hard in front of Jonetsu, taloned boots cracking stone. Head up, chest steady, eyes locked. Dominance made flesh.
Kiyoshi turned, voice sharpening, louder still:
"AND FACING HIM—A PRODIGY OF THE KONETSU LINEAGE! STANDING AT 190CM, WITH HAIR THAT BURNS LIKE THE SUN AND EYES AS SHARP AS ICE! A DUAL-ELEMENT USER, MASTER OF WIND AND THE RARE NINTH GENERATION ICE—CALM, CALCULATED, AND RELENTLESS—KONETSU JONETSU !"
Jonetsu stepped forward. Alone. Silent. Unreadable. Every step echoed, confined yet heavy, resonating through the arena like ice cracking across a frozen lake.
Where Renji soared, Jonetsu anchored. One was sky. The other, storm.
The crowd hushed as the two met in the center.
In the stands, Goku leaned forward just slightly, eyes narrowing.
"This won't be flashy," he muttered to Kiyoshi beside him. "It'll be exact."
Kiyoshi raised his arm high. Both fighters stood steady. Neither flinched.
His hand dropped.
"BEGIN!"
Renji didn't wait. His wings snapped wide with a sharp crack of air, and in less than a heartbeat he was airborne, circling high above Jonetsu like a hawk over prey. The crowd roared at the sudden burst of speed, but Jonetsu's expression didn't flicker.
The air shifted. His hand rose.
"Ice Element: Frost Siphon."
A streak of dense ice burst upward, sharp as a blade, aimed not to strike—but to drag. The air thickened, the current slowing, forcing Renji's glide off-balance.
Renji grinned. Smart. But too slow.
He folded his wings, diving. Wind screamed around him as he plucked two feathers free, shaping them into the curved blades of Hayakaze mid-flight.
The blades gleamed faintly as he cut downward in a lethal arc.
But Jonetsu had already moved. His foot slid across the arena floor, ice forming under him in a seamless layer. With a soft push of wind, he glided, his body cutting sideways faster than most could blink.
Renji's strike shattered stone instead of flesh. Ice shards and dust exploded outward.
Jonetsu's hand flicked again.
"Ice Element: Cold Thread."
Nearly invisible lines of ice shimmered in the air between them—razor-thin snares waiting for Renji's wings.
Renji banked hard, twisting midair, his feathers cutting some of the threads, but the rest snapped taut. The arena rang with sharp cracks as strands whipped free, one of them carving a shallow line across his cheek.
Blood welled. Just a drop.
Renji licked it away with a smirk.
Not bad, Ice Prince.
He snapped his wings once more—air bursting like a cannon.
"Hawk Element: Feather Scatter."
Dozens of feathers ripped free and shot in every direction, homing on Jonetsu from impossible angles.
Jonetsu exhaled through his nose, calm, eyes narrowing.
"Ice Hybrid Element: Glide Pulse."
Wind carried him, ice slick beneath his boots. He skated through the storm of feathers, weaving, cutting, never stumbling. Each step seemed effortless—precise, minimal, controlled.
One feather grazed his sleeve, slicing fabric. Another nicked his ear. But none pierced deep.
The crowd was on its feet now, noise rising like a storm.
Above, Goku's lips curved into the faintest smirk.
"Good. They're not playing for show."
Down in the arena, Renji's wings spread wide, silver feathers rattling against the wind. His eyes sharpened, predatory.
Jonetsu straightened, ice beginning to crystallize across the floor in a spreading web. His breath curled white in the warm air.
Two styles. Two dominions.
Sky vs. frost.
And neither had shown their true hand yet.
The air stung.
Jonetsu finally moved with purpose, his boots grinding against the stone as his hand pressed flat to the ground.
"Ice Element: Ice Spikes."
The floor convulsed. A forest of jagged crystal erupted upward, spearing toward the ceiling in brutal, uneven bursts. Each spike glittered under the lights, sharp enough to shred steel.
Renji shot higher, wings beating hard, feathers rustling in irritation as his clean flight lanes vanished beneath him. The arena—once wide open—was fast becoming a frozen labyrinth.
From above, the view was worse. Jonetsu's spikes weren't random. They were angled. Curved. Corridors of ice boxed the air, hemming Renji's movement into tighter and tighter channels.
"Cage him," Goku-Sensei muttered from the stands. "Classic Konetsu method. Cut the wings first, then the throat."
Renji banked sideways, feathers snapping against the edges of a spike as he squeezed through a narrowing gap. One wing caught an icy edge—a shallow cut tore through the outer feathers. He gritted his teeth, twisting sharply to stay airborne.
Jonetsu's breath curled cold, his eyes sharp as glass.
"You're fast," he called, voice flat. "But hawks fall the same way everything else does."
Another line of frost ripped outward, connecting spikes into bridges of ice. The floor was gone—what remained was a crystalline cage that reached up to Renji's height, shimmering and unyielding.
The crowd gasped at the sight.
Renji hovered, blades ready, chest heaving with excitement more than fear. His grin widened.
"So that's your trick, Ice Prince? Build a pretty cage and hope I sit still?"
He flexed his shoulders. His wings rattled once.
Wind pressure cracked like thunder.
If Jonetsu wanted to box him in—he'd just have to tear the box apart.
Renji's wings flexed. The ice cage groaned under the pressure.
Then he moved.
"Dance of the Silver Sky: Falcon Surge."
He dropped like a spear, corkscrewing in a spiral of feathers and force. The air detonated around him, blasting shards of ice outward as he tore through the first line of spikes like paper.
Jonetsu threw up another wall—dense, crystalline, reinforced with Wind to harden the edges. It didn't matter. Renji's blades sang as he split the structure straight down the middle, landing in a crouch that shattered the arena floor.
The ice cracked like glass under his boots.
Jonetsu's eyes flickered. Not fear. Calculation.
"Cold Thread."
Razor-thin lines snapped across the field again, a deadly lattice strung between the surviving spikes.
Renji tilted his head.
"Cute."
He spun. Wings beat once—and the threads broke without him touching them. The sheer wind pressure snapped them loose, whipping them into useless strands of frost.
The crowd gasped.
Renji didn't wait. He lunged forward, feathers scattering into a barrage. "Hawk Element:Feather Scatter." They screamed through the air, ricocheting unpredictably, forcing Jonetsu to skate hard on his ice with Glide Pulse just to keep from being shredded.
But Renji was already there.
He dropped from above, blades raised, cutting off Jonetsu's escape path before he'd even finished moving.
Jonetsu's hand shot up. "Ice Element:Frost Siphon". The air warped, slowing, trying to drag Renji mid-strike.
Renji's grin widened. His wings snapped, blasting through the pull. He crashed down, blade edge kissing Jonetsu's collar before the boy barely managed to jerk backward. A lock of his fiery hair fluttered to the ice, sliced clean off.
The crowd roared.
Jonetsu slid back, chest heaving, boots scraping across his frozen terrain. His mind was sharp, precise—but it wasn't keeping up anymore. His battlefield, his cage, his web—Renji shredded through every piece of it like it was nothing.
Renji straightened, blades gleaming in his hands, eyes bright with hunger.
"You build cages," he said, voice calm, predatory. His wings unfurled behind him, casting a shadow across Jonetsu's icy domain.
"But me—"
He shot forward, a blur of silver and wind.
"I break them."
Jonetsu's hand flicked—Cold Thread snapped across the arena again, this time layered with Wind, weaving tighter, sharper lines. He skated sideways on a burst of Glide Pulse, positioning himself behind a forest of crystalline spires.
Renji didn't slow. He tore through the threads, shredded the spires, each strike of his blades faster than the eye could follow. Every move Jonetsu made, Renji was already there—pressing, slicing, forcing him back.
"Ice Element: Ice Spikes!" Jonetsu barked, his voice tight for the first time. Spikes erupted under Renji's feet, jagged lances rising like the teeth of a frozen beast.
But Renji's reflexes were inhuman. His wings folded once, his body twisted midair, and he threaded through the gaps before the ice had even finished forming. His taloned boot slammed into a spike as he passed, snapping it clean in two.
The crowd roared, the sound almost swallowed by the crash of ice.
Jonetsu's breath fogged harder now, chest rising and falling. His mind spun, adapting, calculating—but his body couldn't keep up. Renji's speed wasn't just fast. It was absolute.
A feather blade grazed his sleeve—then another, cutting a shallow line across his ribs. Jonetsu hissed, sliding back on a sheet of ice, but Renji was already above him, wings outstretched, eyes locked.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
Too much.
Jonetsu raised both hands, channeling Ice and Wind together. Frost bloomed in a circle around him, jagged petals of crystal rising in the shape of a half-formed Frozen Bloom. His last gambit. His biggest move.
Renji dove.
The bloom shattered before it finished forming. His blades carved through the ice like silk, scattering glittering shards across the arena floor. Jonetsu staggered back, arm nicked, his trap broken before it had even taken shape.
Renji landed in front of him, crouched, blades crossed. His eyes glimmered, hawk-like, merciless.
The stands went silent.
Renji straightened slowly, feathers rattling as his wings spread to their fullest. The shadow they cast swallowed Jonetsu whole.
"This," Renji said, his voice low, steady, carrying to every corner of the dome.
"Is the difference between talent…"
He raised his blades. Air pressure warped, the atmosphere screaming as his wings snapped once.
"…and mastery."
In an instant, he was gone.
The wind shrieked. The arena shook.
Jonetsu didn't even see the strike. One moment, Renji stood in front of him, the next he was behind him, blades extended, the ground between them carved in a perfect, clean line split by compressed wind.
Jonetsu froze. A single lock of hair fell from his head, landing on the ice with a sound far louder than it should have been.
Renji didn't look back. His wings folded tight, his posture loose, his tone final.
"Remember this feeling. There are levels to this."
The crowd erupted.
Jonetsu's chest heaved, his knuckles white at his sides. He didn't fall. Didn't break. But in that moment, everyone watching knew—
Renji Takaomi wasn't here to pass an exam.
He was here to prove he was already beyond it.
The roar of the crowd still thundered through the dome, but above it all the examiners sat in silence.
Kiyoshi's jaw hung open, his mic lowered. "That… was—"
"Expected," Goku cut in, arms folded. His eyes never left Renji's wings, still half-flared in quiet dominance. "Takaomi Renji was never here to prove he belonged. He's here to remind us how far ahead he already is."
Ms. Katsumi leaned forward, shaking her head. "Jonetsu Konetsu… a ninth-generation Ice variant and a dual-element user. Do you know how rare that is? Any other match, he'd look untouchable. But against Renji—"
"Against Renji," Goku said flatly, "he looked caged. Outpaced. Outclassed. That boy isn't fighting exams, he's fighting expectations."
Kiyoshi finally swallowed, regaining his composure. His voice carried across the intercom, steadier now, but tinged with awe.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you've just witnessed it. Renji Takaomi. An applicant who doesn't simply take the sky… he owns it."
A murmur rippled through the stands. Words like monster, prodigy, hawk-king whispered in every corner.
Jonetsu stood where he was, breath heavy, sweat freezing on his skin. He hadn't collapsed, hadn't conceded—but that almost made it worse. He had fought, and fought well. Yet it was clear to everyone watching.
Renji Takaomi was on a different plane entirely.
The crowd's roar was a dull, distant thing.
Jonetsu's breath fogged in front of him, white and steady, even as his chest heaved. His ribs ached, his arm stung where the blade had grazed him, and his ice field—his carefully constructed trap—lay in ruins around his feet.
For the first time since stepping into the arena, he let his eyes drop. To the shattered spikes. The broken threads. The useless petals of his half-formed Frozen Bloom.
So this is what it feels like.
Not to lose. He'd lost before, in training, against instructors, against simulations. That wasn't new.
No. This was different.
This was standing against someone so far above him that every calculation, every pattern, every clever counter might as well have been scribbles in the dirt.
Takaomi Renji hadn't beaten him. He'd dismantled him.
Jonetsu clenched his fists, knuckles bone-white. His breath hissed between his teeth.
Too fast. Too sharp. Too complete. Every move I made, he was already there. He wasn't fighting me. He was reminding me that I didn't matter.
The sting of humiliation pressed harder than the cuts.
But under it—cold, sharper still—was something else.
Resolve.
Fine, Silver Wing. You've shown me where the ceiling is. You've shown me there are levels.
His eyes lifted, clear, bright, unwavering. They locked on Renji's back as the hawk folded his wings.
But I'll climb them. One by one. Until the day you turn to strike, and I'm still standing there.
The ice under his boots cracked softly as he shifted his stance, refusing to fall, refusing to bow.
In the stands, no one noticed the flicker in his eyes. The calm that returned to his posture.
They saw a boy humbled.
But inside, Jonetsu was already rewriting the fight in his head.
Already planning the next.
Renji turned at the edge of the arena, his feathers dissolving back into nothing, blades fading from his hands. He looked over his shoulder, eyes steady, voice calm—but loud enough for Jonetsu alone to hear beneath the fading roar of the crowd.
"You're not weak. Not sloppy. You fought sharp, and you fought smart."
He paused.
"But you're still climbing. And the summit…" He lifted his chin toward the sky above the dome. "…is higher than you think. Until you've bled on that path, until you've broken through a hundred ceilings—don't mistake talent for mastery."
His gaze sharpened, hawk-like, cutting through the silence between them.
"You've got mountains left to climb, Konetsu. When you reach the top—then you can stand in my sky."
Renji turned away fully and stepped off the field, leaving Jonetsu standing in the ruin of his own ice, the words burning hotter than any wound.
I came to just minutes later, bandaged and sore. The healers told me I'd need thirty minutes before the seals finished knitting everything back together.
Through the window, I watched an Earth Element staff member calmly re-shape the shattered arena, pressing slabs of stone into place one by one. It was oddly soothing, like the chaos of the match had never happened.
When the door slid open, I expected another healer.
Instead, Jonetsu stepped inside.
He carried himself the same way he had in the arena—silent, steady, unreadable. His arm was wrapped, his side stitched with faint seals, but his posture hadn't slumped once. He closed the door quietly and glanced between me and Misaki, who was sitting cross-legged at the edge of her cot, polishing the surface of her shifting staff.
"Jonetsu," Misaki said first, voice light but careful. "Didn't think you'd walk straight here."
Jonetsu's eyes flicked toward me. "Had to." He paused, searching for the words. "That fight… wasn't enough. Not from me."
I sat up straighter despite the ache in my ribs. "You're kidding, right? You forced Renji to move. You had him respecting you."
Jonetsu shook his head, hair falling across his sharp gaze. "He wasn't respecting me. He was teaching me. Every second, every strike, every cut of his wings—it was a lesson. That's not respect. That's a gap. And it's wider than I wanted to admit."
Misaki tilted her head, her staff pulsing faintly with her resonance. "And you came here to…?"
Jonetsu looked directly at me. "To remind him—and you—that we're still climbing. You saw it, Zakou. The difference between talent and mastery. Renji's already on the summit. The rest of us… We're halfway up the slope."
I clenched my fists under the sheets, the words settling heavy. Tatsuya's face flashed in my head— the dragonic claws, the heat emanating from them, the scales, the weight of his presence.
Misaki's eyes flicked to me, reading my expression like an open book. "Zakou," she said softly, "your rematch is coming."
My stomach knotted.
"You're not Renji," Jonetsu continued, his voice calm but sharp as ice. "And you're not Tatsuya. You're you. Which means the only thing you can do is step into that arena and make sure they never forget your name."
The room was quiet for a moment, save for the hum of the seals.
Misaki broke the silence with a smile—warm, but edged. "Guess that means you've got work to do, huh? Because dragons and hawks don't slow down for anyone."
I exhaled slowly, the weight of both their words pressing into my chest.
Tatsuya was waiting.
And this time, I wouldn't bow.
When the time was up, I stepped off the bed, tightened the straps on my shoes, and headed for the door.
"Thank you very much," I said, bowing politely before leaving the room.
Just as I passed the threshold, I froze.
"Zakou…"
A whisper. Close — too close. It felt like breath brushing my ear.
I spun around.
Nothing. No one.
"…I could've sworn…" I muttered, scanning the corridor. Cold sweat rolled down my back.
Shaking it off, I walked with the others toward the arena. The cheers got louder. Half the crowd roared for Ogosawara. The other half was chanting my name. I had no idea that this rematch — this moment — was about to rewrite everything I thought I knew about myself.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," boomed Kiyoshi's voice across the stadium, "WHAT WE ARE NOW WITNESSING IS THE REMATCH OF OUR SECOND MATCH! IF IT'S ANYTHING LIKE LAST TIME, I SWEAR ON MY FAVORITE HEADBAND — WE ARE IN FOR AN ABSOLUTE WAR!"
Just as I stepped onto the platform, the whisper came again.
"Zakou…"
This time it wasn't just a voice. The world around me dimmed, sound vanished, and the weight of my body disappeared. Darkness swallowed everything. I blinked—and I was standing in a different space altogether. Quiet. Isolated. Unnatural.
"W-Where… where am I?" I asked, heart pounding. Shadows coiled around me like smoke. My breath caught in my throat.
"Zakou…"
The voice drifted through the air like a breeze, soft yet commanding, each syllable vibrating against my bones. Smooth, feminine, but layered with something I couldn't name — something older than the world around me.
My head snapped up. "W-Who's there? What do you want?" My voice echoed too sharp against the silence.
From the shadow, a shape stirred. It stepped forward, though its form wasn't flesh. No features, no face. Only the outline of a woman — eyes glowing like twin stars suspended in the void.
Her presence pressed against me, gentle but inescapable.
"It's time," she said, her tone flowing like wind through ancient halls. "Time you learn to wield us as you were meant to."
"Us?" My chest tightened, my voice barely a whisper.
"You are not bound to a single current, Zakou. Five elements flow within you," she said, her words both a revelation and a decree. "Wind is but the first. You have only brushed the surface."
"That's—no. That's impossible," I stammered. "I've only ever—wind is the only one I can use!"
Her head tilted, glowing eyes narrowing with something like pity — or perhaps expectation.
"Then you are blind to the storm within," she murmured. "But hear this well… once the gates open, they will not close again. The winds of change cannot be chained."
Before I could speak again, the figure vanished. The blackness peeled away like smoke.
And I was back.
The roar of the crowd hit my ears. My feet hit solid ground. The lights, the pressure, the eyes — it was all back in an instant.
"NOW LET'S BEGIN THE MATCH!" shouted Kiyoshi.
Something felt off.
No — not off. Different.
I felt... light. Like my body had shed its weight, and my lungs were full of electricity. Energy surged through my limbs, and yet I felt no pain.
"3… 2… 1… BEGIN!"
The signal dropped.
I didn't move. Not at first.
Ogosawara's dragon, Rin, didn't hesitate.
The creature charged straight at me — jaw wide, teeth glowing with heat. My mind screamed to react, but my body moved faster.
"STAY AWAY!" I shouted.
I swung my arm wide — and a torrent of wind erupted from my palm, detonating outward like a hurricane blast.
The impact was immediate. Rin was blasted back across the stage, tumbling through the air. Ogosawara himself slid backward, claws digging into the tile to keep his footing.
"What the hell is that power?!" he shouted, eyes wide.
Kiyoshi lost it. "WHAT?! DID YOU SEE THAT!? A FULL WIND EXPLOSION FROM A SINGLE MOTION—ZAKOU, WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THAT!?"
"I… I didn't know I could do that…" I muttered. "That wasn't supposed to happen…"
The shock on my face must've been real, because Ogosawara didn't wait. Rin lunged at me again — this time from behind.
Too late.
He pinned me down, claws locking my arms behind my back.
"Haha! Caught you slipping," Ogosawara said, smugly. "All that firepower, but no battlefield awareness. That could've ended you."
"Then why don't we test that theory?" I said, breath short… but eyes locked.
"What—?"
I flexed my shoulders and launched myself upward.
Flames burst from my body. A swirling inferno surrounded me, searing through Rin's grip and sending the creature flying back again.
I hovered in the air — wreathed in a fiery spiral, the heat rippling through the arena.
"Agh—it burns…" I muttered. "But this will have to do."
I focused everything into my right fist, flames twisting around my knuckles like a cyclone.
"FIRE ELEMENT: FIRE FIST!"
And then I dove — straight toward Ogosawara.