Second Dominion (Fourth Age)
Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric II
Fourth Quadrant, Calixis
"Alright, we need to figure out what you can actually do with Astral Energy," Law declared."What could I do with it?" Lacrosse asked.
Law huffed. "Well, anything. The retiree over there has his Mnemia, which isn't exactly combat-oriented."
"But I can still kick your ass," Veynar added, sipping his tea.
"Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that."
"If it's not for fighting… how did you manage to hold him off?" Lacrosse asked the old man.The latter twisted his mouth into a smirk and lifted his teacup like a toast.
Law frowned and pouted. "First of all, he was NOT holding me off. Second, look… Astral Energy is energy, first and foremost. Imagine being constantly suffused by a charge. After a long time exposed to that, the body inevitably stregthens. It's the Progressive Factor: the more you use it, the more it grows. Applies both to your body and to your Aegbara.""Wow…""Besides that—well… I've seen people do anything with it: clones that store kinetic energy; quake-shocks; vibrations that fracture space; manipulating vectors… whatever. There's no fixed parameter. Then sure, the Houses have hereditary Aegbara."
"What do you mean?"
"A specific Aegbara for each House."
"So they all have the same power?"
"More or less. The core idea is the same, then each person has their own iteration, a different version of that power. The Rouge, for example, theirs is… wait, what was it called?"
"Mirage," Veynar reminded him.
Law clicked his tongue. "Mirage, right. But seriously, you never saw anything like that at home?"
Lacrosse shook his head, innocent. "Rather… how do you know all this?" he asked Veynar.
He set down the cup. "I've dealt with these people."
"Yeah, he's a veteran," Law added.
The red-haired boy frowned. "You were… in the Royal Army?!"
The old man nodded without pride, like it was a trivial detail."I see… and you?" Lacrosse turned to Law, curious. "Your Aegbara? I saw you making… blades?"
"Yeah. Severian," Law replied, drawing his silver sword. "If I don't have an object that vaguely resembles a blade, it's practically useless."His skin lit with luminous veining, and the silver-blue halo poured into the metal. He raised the sword into the air and brought it down hard, "firing" a slash at high speed toward a distant rock wall. The blade of light left a clean wake and, on contact with the mountain, sheared it clean through. The fracture opened with a deep groan, shards clattering like broken glass.
"Wow…""Your cuts are much rougher than before, boy," Veynar remarked.Law rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." Then he focused on Lacrosse again. "In the end, we just try things. It's like walking, or getting on a hoverboard. We'll keep at it until something shows up."
Lacrosse nodded."Can you do an output?" Law asked. "A 'push out'?"
"Uh… how am I supposed to do that?" the boy asked.Law scratched his chin. "Try… try imagining something's already filling you. Or try to recall as clearly as possible the sensation from when you shoved me away."
"Okay…" Lacrosse closed his eyes. His nape throbbed like there was a small heart back there. He tried to relive that sudden jolt that had sent him into a panic earlier, the same one that had flung Law lumes away.Only this time it wouldn't come on its own. He had to call it.He clenched his fists. Furrowed his brow.Nothing.
"Uh, right now he looks like he's trying to take a shit," Veynar commented, sipping tea.Law did his best to hold back a laugh and shot the old man a stern look. "Come on, shut it, that's not helping.""It's the truth."
Lacrosse opened his eyes, embarrassed. "I… I can't. It's like I feel it there, but it won't come out."Law stepped closer and looked him in the eyes. "Then change perspective. Don't think 'push out.' Think you're breathing with your nape. Not your lungs. From there."
"Breathing… with my nape?"
"Seriously, how the fuck do you talk?" Veynar added, laughing.Law grunted. "Okay, yeah, it makes no sense. But try it. Like you're drawing air from a point that shouldn't breathe. Take that impossible breath."
Lacrosse hesitated, then obeyed. He inhaled deep, focusing on that pulsing knot behind his head. At first he felt only dizziness, then a low hum ran down his spine.Veynar's cup rattled on the table.
"Good," Law said, a hint of a smile. "You're almost there. Push it."The boy groaned softly, the effort hollowing his skull. Then—boom.A violet wave, brief but sharp, burst again from his nape. The air in front of him shivered like cracked glass.
Law staggered back half a step, hit square in the chest again."Oh, fuck!" he coughed.Veynar set the cup down, finally interested. "Oh. It's not a flow. It's a strike. A single vibration."Lacrosse opened his eyes, trembling. "I… I did it?""You made a mess," Law replied, rubbing his sternum. "But yeah, that was it.""Oh heavens, did I hurt you?""No, I'm already beat up as is." He studied Lacrosse a moment and let out an impatient puff. "Alright, now let's make it concrete.""Eh?"
Law picked up a dry twig. "What? Did you think I'd have you do skeet practice?"The boy backed away, nervous. "Uh…"Veynar skewered him with a look. "What are you trying to pull?!"
Law lunged without warning. The twig whistled through the air and Lacrosse hurled himself to the ground with a strangled cry."What the hell is wrong with you?!" Veynar barked."He needs field," Law shot back. "It's the only accelerator.""And so your first conclusion is to assault a kid?!"
Law brandished the twig like a katana. "Come on, up. If you don't react, you don't learn."Lacrosse got up slowly, glancing at Veynar as if begging for help. "Couldn't we… I dunno… start with the basics?""Exactly," Law nodded. "This is the base: survive.""But… but it's just a stick.""For now." Law gave a half–smile and came in with a slash.The boy screamed and dove aside, clumsy. The blow passed a handspan from his nose."Dead as hell," Law commented."Dumb as hell," Veynar added, not getting up from his chair."Hey!" Lacrosse protested, scrambling up dusty. "I didn't have time…""The corpse's favorite excuse," Law cut in, and attacked again, faster.
Lacrosse threw up his arms on instinct. A violet glint flickered for an instant at his nape, like an electrical spark, and vanished at once. No effect. Just a tingling sensation running down his spine.
"Oh! Oh! Did you see that?!" Law turned toward Veynar, almost excited. "It's coming out!""You made him fire off a lightning bug, wow," the old man grumbled. "What a prodigy.""I felt it!" Lacrosse said, breath ragged. "It was… like a strike that wouldn't exit.""Then let's get it out," Law replied. He darted in a third time.
This time the twig dropped straight for the shoulder. Lacrosse, panicking, grabbed it with both hands to stop it. And that's when it happened: his nape thrummed hard, and from his hands burst a violet wave—dry and uncontrolled. The stick flew from his grip, clacking off the canyon wall; Law staggered back half a step, surprised. Lacrosse too nearly toppled, legs jelly.
"D-damn," the boy panted.Law laughed, rubbing his wrist. "There! See? That's how you do it."
"Do what?!" Veynar snapped, getting up from his chair. "You almost blew his head off!""Oh, come on, I didn't even touch him," Law shot back. "And look: he's already found a trigger."
Lacrosse stared at his hands, terrified. "I…""Remember the sensations," Law clapped his shoulder. "Hook them to the impulse and you've already got a way to activate it.""I have to remember… you attacking me?" the boy asked.
Veynar chuckled into his sip.Law shrugged. "Hey, whatever works." He grabbed another twig. "Okay, again."
Another charge. Another scare.Pain at the nape, again. Another shove.Not just at Law—nearby stones skittered away as well.
"It's not just a push…" Veynar deduced.
"Again," Law pressed. He raised the twig once more and leveled it at the boy's eyes.Lacrosse swallowed. He already knew what was about to happen. He was ready. Before he was even attacked, the impulse fired again. But this time it didn't push—it pulled. The twigs and even Law's sleeve were yanked for a split second, unbalancing them both and sending them sprawling to the side."…" Law straightened, brows knit. "That wasn't a shove. It could be…"
"…Gravity," Veynar finished. "He can control gravity."
Lacrosse looked at his hands."But to what extent?""…"
--
Third Quadrant, Shinkai (Seat-Planet of House Hikari)
The sea wind hurled briny droplets against the pavilion's blackened beams. Each spray left a white halo, a scar of salt, as if the whole island were armor—corroded but unbroken. Ryusei had been training for hours. His hands were raw meat beneath the wraps, but he kept striking. A blow, another, again. Every time the sound changed: split wood, creaking bone, a dull thud lost to the wind.
He had always known effort. He'd grown inside it like a second skin. But ever since that message, the body was no longer a limit: only a means to drive to collapse. Throat scorched, muscles taut, breath burning his lungs—everything was part of the exercise. He wasn't just training: he was carving a vow into flesh.
Attendants watched in silence from the courtyard's edge. They didn't dare interrupt. Someone already had fresh wraps at hand, someone else water. But no one spoke. They'd seen that look only a few times: not anger, not even pain. Absolute focus, an inner void devouring everything else.
Ryusei struck again, and again. Every punch was an image. His father prone, breath guttering out. The black blade, the Magatsu, ripping memory. And that other face: the Devil's Sabre. Not a distant shadow, not a rumor. He had seen him again with his own eyes.
They had deceived him. Convinced him it was a warped memory, a shapeless trauma. But no. It was real. His very blood had been stolen from him by deceit.
A particularly violent blow split the wooden dummy in two. The pieces thudded heavy to the floor as the wind dragged them toward the pavilion's edge. Ryusei stood, chest heaving in jerks, eyes fixed on the void ahead.
The sea below seethed in dark waves, as if even the water had memory.
Logic would have said to stop. To meditate, to wait for the House to move in its time, with its rules. But logic was the same that had kept silent when his father died. Logic was what had stolen years of memory.
No. He wouldn't stay on Shinkai to smolder like coal under ash.
The Schwarzhaus.
The name returned to him like a summons. It was the one place where knots tightened. Rouge, Lysander, Claw: each with their stake, each with their mask. And if the Devil's Sabre had truly started moving again—if that cursed blade had reappeared in the Houses' game—then there the truth would surface.
It wasn't enough to hunt him in secret, nor to challenge him in some clandestine duel. That would be just vengeance, and vengeance would not restore Hikari honor. It had to be justice. It had to be seen.
Ryusei didn't want to cut him down from behind. He wanted to rip off his mask before witnesses, before those who would carry the news to every Quadrant, to his siblings. A private clash could be erased, forgotten. But at the Schwarzhaus, under the vigilant eyes of the great Houses, every word, every gesture, became history.
Yes, defeating that monster wasn't just revenge. It was restoring his father's honor, and at once claiming legitimacy before the family. Daisuke, Hana, and Itsuki could look away, could take shelter in cold strategies and measured silences. But he could not.
If he managed to bend the Devil's Sabre, the world would stop murmuring "the Hikari failed" and begin to whisper "Ryusei Hikari won." No elder brother, no younger sister, could deny him the top any longer.
His hands trembled. Not from fear. From rage. From the tension of one who knows he has a single chance and cannot fail.
He knelt by the cold brazier and cinched the wraps around his bleeding knuckles. Every turn was a seal, a command imposed on flesh. He breathed deep—the ferric taste of blood mixing with the smell of rust. He exhaled slow, as if the wind itself had to listen.
An attendant stepped forward, timid. "My lord, shall we prepare…?""Vossheim," Ryusei cut in, without lifting his gaze. "Schwarzhaus."The attendant bowed low and withdrew without a sound. The news raced along the pavilion corridors at once, faster than the wind.
Ryusei stayed kneeling a moment longer. Then he rose and walked to the cliff's edge. The sea crashed on the rocks below, columns of water like shattered towers.
He lowered his eyes and murmured to himself, steady-voiced: "I do not forget. And I do not forgive."The wind tore the words from his lips and carried them far, beyond the waves, toward the horizon where the convergence line awaited.