Dawn cut the yard into hard lines. Yuki woke to servants moving like a practiced current, to trays of steaming food set at the edge of his bed, and to the steady, inhuman patience of Shadow waiting in the corridor. He dressed slower than he needed to — not because he wanted time, but because the moment of leaving a home you'd been folded into your whole life buzzed in his skin like static.
Outside, the carriage was packed: trunks, bundles wrapped in oilcloth, a covered crate Hayate had insisted on taking personally. Shadow had arranged the route, and two clan retainers rode at the rear. It was organized, quiet, precise — everything the Akios were best at. When Suzume stepped forward to tie his scarf and take his hands for a heartbeat, Yuki kept his head bowed and let her. Mothers had this right, even in wars and schools and legacies.
"Be careful," she said simply. The words were small in the morning, but they carried everything: fear, faith, a thousand small refusals to accept what might be lost.
Hayate stood at the gate like a cliff. He did not give speeches. Instead he clasped Yuki's shoulder, looked him in the eye, and when he spoke his voice sounded like terrain settling. "If they test you harshly, show them your will. If human cruelty appears, show them restraint. If you find something you do not understand — leave it closed. Learn first. Then act."
"Understood," Yuki said.
Hayate's fingers brushed the family crest at Yuki's chest — the metal had been returned from the small ceremony only last night — then slid away. "We'll write," Hayate said, and the words were a promise and a map.
They rolled out of the Akio lands and into the road that stitched across the province toward Yamauchi. The world changed as they moved: orchards gave way to long, hedged fields, which opened to villages where market smoke braided into the sky. Carriages creaked, wheels hummed, and Shadow sat across from Yuki like a fortress that could still look tired. When they paused for midday, Shadow pushed a bowl of broth Yuki's way and spoke in the clipped voice he used when he wanted to say simple things without decoration. "We reach the city by dusk. I have contacts there. We'll not stay at any inn that smells of travelers; I arranged a private house until the academy receives you."
"How did you…?" Yuki asked.
Shadow's face softened for half a heartbeat; the man was an old soldier behind the polished countenance. "There are things I have done in service to the family for a long time. Do not ask how they were paid for. For now, learn to keep your eyes open in the city."
The road thickened as they approached Yamauchi. The city itself unfolded like a story told in stone: walls taller than the biggest barns in the countryside, spires of tuition halls and guild towers jutting into the haze, banners braided with sigils. Merchants crowded the gates; priests chanted in threads of incense; a pair of armored veterans argued over the price of salt with the kind of bitter joy men find in old rivalries. Yamauchi was not simply a capital — it was a throat where many voices tried to be heard.
When their carriage crossed the city boundary, the world felt louder. Yuki pressed his palm to the cold metal of the crest at his chest and felt the faint pulse there as if the metal remembered the boy who'd worn it at dawn. Shadow watched the crowds with the same vigilance he showed in the training yard; when a pair of rough-looking merchants eyed Yuki's crest instinctively, Shadow's posture tensed and then relaxed when the men moved on. The Akio name was obscure here by design, but the city's senses were honed to a different kind of scent. Yuki felt small among the populace, but also, paradoxically, his presence hummed with a new clarity. The training had left him cleaner somehow — less scattered, more pointed.
Their private house was simple and tucked into a narrow lane off the main boulevard, the sort of place that had once been comfortable for people who rented rooms to traveling officers and lost scholars. Shadow handled the introductions with the air of a man who had spent his life navigating obligations and favors. A woman in a plain robe received them at the door and directed them upstairs to a room with thin futons. "You'll be comfortable for the night," she said. "Master sent word."
After they had stowed the trunks and eaten the modest supper the house provided, Shadow unrolled a small map and spread it on the low table between them. "We go to registration tomorrow at the Meister Hall. I have made the introduction. The academy will not display leniency — you must be ready."
"Registration under what name?" Yuki asked. Hayate had insisted the crest be kept from public use. "I'm not supposed to use the family emblem."
Shadow's jaw clenched faintly. "We'll enroll you under a name I arranged with the registrar. It will hold no crest and be registered as a ward of a sympathetic sponsor. You will not be listed as 'Akio' in public." He tapped the place on the map where the academy's spire rose like a spear. "Keep your crest concealed until we say otherwise."
They slept in fits and starts; Yuki's dreams tasted of fire and river-slow freezing, of a crown of frost and an ember that would not die. At dawn they took shallow bowls of rice, and Shadow led him through narrow streets to the Meister Hall. The building itself was a cathedral to craft: arched doors, carved columns, wide stone steps polished by feet that had practiced magic and measured men for generations.
Inside, the registrars were brisk and efficient. Officialdom moved like a machine here: forms, ink pads, seals pressed with the gravity of history. Shadow's favors smoothed the process. Yuki signed his name without the crest, gave the alias the registrar had advised, and listened as the man explained the testing schedule in a voice that could both warm and cut.
"You'll be tested for aptitude today," the registrar said, eyes flicking to Shadow because Shadow's presence still marked them as under watch. "There will be skill trials, practical demonstrations, and an assessment of temperament. We take dangerous abilities seriously. Your sponsor has requested placement in a supervised dormitory."
Yuki signed again — multiple times — and felt the weight of bureaucracy settle like a stone. The academy wanted control. The clan wanted supervision. Shadow wanted proximity. Everything was being folded into layers of safety and observation.
They left the office and walked through a courtyard where students in varied uniforms practiced routine spells and sword forms. Some were laughing; others moved like men who'd long since accepted the world's knives. Yuki smelled the different auras as if they were perfumes: a light floral scent of healingcraft, a heavy iron of brute strength, the sharp ozone of electricity training. There were eyes on him — curiosity more than anything — but nothing violent. That made him nervous all the same.
Shadow led him toward the dormitories. A woman in academy robes gave them a curt nod and handed a cloth tag: the room number, a small code identifying his sponsor's ward. "You'll be with other first-years," she said. "Guarded, supervised. Keep your head down. The academy will find those who shout too loud."
"Understood," Yuki said.
The first-year dorm was a long hall with thin partitions — the close quarters that forge bonds fast or break people faster. Yuki's new roommates were a scatter of faces: a wiry boy with lightning-silver hair and a too-wide grin; a quiet girl who smelled faintly of salt and herbs and watched everything like a hawk; a broad-shouldered lad with a tattoo of a wolf along his jaw. Names were given quickly; introductions were slow. They asked where he was from. He'd rehearsed lies that would have been too neat; in the end he said simply, "From the countryside."
That answer satisfied curiosity because everyone there kept secrets. In Yamauchi, it was a currency. He let them ask what they wanted, answer what he felt safe answering, and the group accepted him with the cautious ease of people who'd been sorted into a machine they could not escape.
Later that afternoon, Yuki found himself alone on the roof, the city spread below like a quilt. He took off the family crest from the inside of his robes and wrapped it in a scrap of cloth. The metal felt heavier when it was hidden. Faunus — quiet but present in the threading of his chest — offered nothing but the faintest encouragement: foundations. Shadow's words from the morning echoed differently now: keep your hands clean, learn to hold the weave.
A shadow crossed the rooftop. It was Shadow himself, moving quiet as a fox. He stood a little distance away and broke the silence with a single, gruff line. "You did well today. You kept your head. Don't let pride make choices for you."
Yuki turned and met the man's rare approval with a small smile. "I won't."
"You're not a child to coddle," Shadow said. "You're a responsibility. But you're not alone." Underneath the roughness, tenderness flickered like an unreadable rune. Shadow was the kind of man who showed care as a fact, not as emotion. It fit him.
The sun dropped and the city's spires softened. Student lanterns began to pop like slow-fireflies across the quad. Somewhere below, the training grounds rang with the clip of wood on metal. Yamauchi had swallowed him, but it hummed with new rules and rhythms he would learn to play. The Meister's gates were not threats; they were machines designed to sharpen and to watch. Here, he would be tested, trimmed, tempered — and watched.
Yuki slipped the wrapped crest into the hollow of his trunk and shut it away. The family was a promise poured into metal and cloth; the academy was a crucible that would either refine that promise into something useful — or burn it. He pressed a palm to his chest where the metal lay hidden and thought of Hayate's voice: learn to hold, not to break.
Tomorrow the trials would start. Tomorrow he would meet teachers who smelled of old books and iron. Tomorrow the world would begin to rearrange him into something else. He breathed in, felt the pulse beneath his skin — not yet a roaring thing, but a thread. He would braid it into strength.
And if the city looked at him twice, he would be ready with a measured answer the second time.