The dorm was quiet.
Kouji sat at his desk, one leg folded beneath him, fingers tracing lines in his sketchbook. Weapon concepts, strange shapes, impossible symmetry. Nothing he'd ever used in battle — but somehow, he felt like it.
He tapped the pen once against the paper.
"You said this curse is… reconstruction?"
The voice responded like a breath under his thoughts.
"Yes. You can create. You can combine. Anything you touch — anything you understand — you can reshape into something new."
Kouji glanced at a scrap of steel on the corner of his desk. Just a pipe fragment from a collapsed walkway. He stared at it for a moment, and already, blueprints clicked into place in his mind.
"Because of the analyzing ability," he muttered.
He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.
"So if I can understand something, I can build it?"
"Or destroy it, if you shape it wrong."
"Have you had a user before me?"
The pause was brief.
"If I did, I don't remember them."
Kouji's brows furrowed slightly. "You forget?"
"Maybe I was meant to. Maybe they didn't last long enough."
Kouji didn't reply.
The silence between them wasn't cold. Just… heavy.
Then the Devil added, voice lower:
"But I remember you."
The training room echoed with the sound of impact.
Kouji landed, rolled, and pivoted back with a spear formed from dust, concrete chips, and a steel rod. The weapon held perfectly — no strain, no splintering.
Ryo caught it mid-air with a hand wrapped in cloth and shifted his weight just slightly — and the weapon disappeared.
No crack. No break.
It just phased apart.
Kouji blinked.
"You're cheating."
Ryo raised an eyebrow. "Then learn to cheat better."
They circled each other again.
Kouji forged two short blades in a blur, reversed his grip, and lunged.
Ryo stepped forward, one foot gliding across the ground, his body flickering slightly — not teleportation, not speed, just a wrong kind of movement.
Kouji's strike missed entirely.
"What was that?"
Ryo didn't answer.
Kouji tried again — faster, heavier. His curse moved cleanly, precisely — it felt natural now, like a second pair of lungs.
But every time he got close, Ryo was already gone. Not evasive — absent.
Like he'd stepped out of physics itself.
By the time Kouji's foot hit the ground for the final clash, Ryo had already caught him with a flat palm to the chest and sent him skidding backward.
Kouji hit the mat with a soft grunt, breathing hard.
Ryo stood over him, calm.
"You're stronger now," he said.
Kouji stared up.
Ryo offered a hand.
After the spar, Kouji left the training wing alone.
He stepped into the hallway near the north elevators, still wiping sweat from his neck with a towel.
"Looks like someone got humbled."
He turned. Yumi stood there, leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, hair loose as always, still wearing her partial uniform jacket.
"Ryo?" she asked.
Kouji nodded. "Yeah."
"I'm guessing you lost?"
He nodded again.
"Good. You needed it."
She walked beside him toward the dorm wing.
Kouji glanced at her, a little sideways.
"I feel like I'm normal again," he said. "Like… I've got control back."
She stopped walking.
He turned.
Her expression was soft, but unreadable. "That's not the same as being okay."
"I didn't say I was okay."
She smiled faintly and dug into her pocket, pulling out a crushed energy bar and tossing it into his chest. "You're still you if you're complaining about the taste."
He caught it. "Thanks."
Yumi turned to leave — paused — and looked over her shoulder.
"Glad you're walking around again. I missed that."
Then she disappeared into the stairwell.
Night fell.
The window creaked open.
Kouji didn't even look up this time.
Yuusuke dropped in with his usual lazy grace, already chewing on something.
"Told you they couldn't keep me away forever."
Kouji raised an eyebrow. "What'd you do this time?"
Yuusuke flopped onto the second bed, arms behind his head.
"We're a team again."
Kouji paused. "...We are?"
"You. Me. Hanzo."
He grinned, eyes half-closed.
"New field team. Akechi's the lead."
Kouji stayed quiet for a moment.
Then, quietly:
"Yuusuke…"
"I'm a Demi-Human"
Yuusuke opened one eye.
"You think I didn't know?"
Kouji blinked.
Yuusuke smirked. "I've known since the warehouse collapse.
"Someone with such a bad food-taste can't be human anyways"
Kouji looked down, then laughed — just a little.
Yuusuke sat up, grinning like always.
"I won't tell anyone"
"…Thanks."