Akira sat on a mat in his tiny room, looking at his own hands. After the Labyrinth, they weren't trembling, but they held a strange heaviness—not physical, but the burden of realization. He was a shield everyone wanted to break. He was a void everyone sought to fill. His mind, usually silent, was filled with the hum of anxious thoughts.
Suddenly, the door opened without a knock. In the doorway, illuminated by the corridor's dim light, stood Reiden Kagetori. He wasn't wearing his black-and-gold jacket, only simple dark hakama. He looked relaxed, almost carefree.
"Hey, Void," he said, his voice casual, without the usual contemptuous note. "Tired of smoldering in four walls? Come on, I'll show you something interesting."
Akira looked up at him. There were no questions. Only slight surprise. He silently stood and followed him.
Kagetori led him not through the main gates, but along hidden paths known, it seemed, only to him. They left the academy grounds and ventured into the forbidden forest surrounding "Tenran." The air here was cleaner, the silence of a different quality. Soon, they reached a cliff edge. Below stretched a valley, and before them, in the rock face itself, yawned the entrance to a small cave from which a faint, pulsating glow emanated.
"Go in," Kagetori gestured inside.
The cave turned out to be a round grotto. In the center, a spring bubbled from a fissure in the floor, but its water was not ordinary—it shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, and from it emanated a thick, almost tangible energy. This was a place of power, saturated with ancient, wild Scars.
"Watch," Kagetori said.
He didn't make any complex gestures. He simply snapped his fingers. In the air before him, a complex, shimmering sphere of interwoven Scars appeared—a miniature model of a mighty Kokuro technique. It pulsed with power, threatening to explode.
"This is their strength," said Kagetori. "Sandcastles." Then he simply looked at the sphere. The golden pupils of his eyes narrowed. And the sphere... didn't explode. It began to crumble. Not with a crack, but with a quiet rustle, like a sand house in the wind. The Scars extinguished one after another, losing form and energy, until nothing remained of the mighty technique but a handful of sparkling dust, carried away by the cave's air current.
"And this is mine," he concluded, turning to Akira. "See the difference? They build. I... simplify."
Akira watched, seeing power in this light for the first time. It wasn't suppression. It was something more fundamental.
"Why?" he finally asked.
"The brain," Kagetori answered simply, tapping his temple with a finger. "It's all about it. An ordinary samurai has muscles and a blade. A magus..." he grinned, "...in the prefrontal cortex, behind the frontal bone, their personal, innate technique is inscribed. A sort of magical organ. Of course, there are basic techniques accessible to all who've developed sensitivity. But true power... it's right here." He tapped his head again. "And let me tell you a secret... my brain stands out among the rest. So yeah, I'm a cool guy."
He stepped close to Akira, his golden eyes peering into his very void.
"And yours... your brain is different. It doesn't have this 'organ.' You're not a grain of sand in their sandcastle. You're the tide that washes it all away. They're trying to fit you into their wall, make you a brick. Stupid. Stop trying. Your strength is not absence. It's a different form of being. Be the ocean."
The words fell like drops into the silence of Akira's consciousness. They held a strange, cold truth.
"I knew a magus once," Kagetori suddenly said in a completely different tone, his gaze becoming distant. "He could... absorb others' Kokuro. Not snuff it out, like you. But take it in. And seal it within his blade, to use later as his own."
Akira felt a slight push of interest.
"Who was he?"
Kagetori turned toward the cave exit, hiding his expression.
"My friend. The first. And the only one."
In the icy cave, Akatsuki Magoro slowly opened his eyes. The black surface of the Well of Souls rippled.
"Reiden Kagetori..." he uttered, tasting the name. "'The Strongest of the Modern Era.' An interesting epithet. He wears it like a crown, but does he feel its weight?"
Raidou, standing at his post, answered without delay, his voice even but with a hint of contempt:
"A pretender, master. In these times, any bright flash is taken for a supernova. He is strong, I won't argue. But his strength... is noisy. Unrefined. It lacks the elegance of eternity."
"Perhaps," Magoro allowed himself a slight smirk. "But even an uncut diamond can scratch polished metal. Keep an eye on him. I'm curious what he's capable of."
After a pause, he spoke again, his voice taking on thoughtful notes.
"Speaking of noisy phenomena... Have you not felt, Raidou, a long-forgotten storm on the horizon? Does it not seem to you that the air smells of ozone from past tempests? Could Inazuma have been hiding in the shadows all this time?"
The name "Inazuma" echoed in the cave like a whip crack. Raidou, always impassive, sharply raised his head. His icy aura flared for an instant, and the frost on the walls cracked with a quiet, vicious crunch.
"That unbridled maniac..." he hissed, and for the first time, genuine, personal hatred sounded in his voice. "If he is even alive, he has degenerated into a pathetic semblance of himself. He won't be able to land a single blow on me, master. His chaos is powerless before absolute order."
Magoro laughed—low, deep, like the rumble of a distant rockslide.
"Well then... If the Frenzied Thunder is indeed alive," his eyes gleamed with anticipation, "it will be amusing to see whose philosophy proves stronger. Your silent, all-freezing ice... or his all-shattering, frenzied lightning. No doubt, the spectacle will be worthy."
Raidou didn't answer, but his clenched fists and the icy fury emanating from him were more eloquent than any words. An old enmity seemed to hang in the cave's air, as ancient and irreconcilable as the elements themselves.