Alfred led them out of the treasury with that mechanical precision that was entirely his own not too fast, not too slow, exactly the right pace for everyone to follow without needing to hurry.
Lucien brought up the rear.
Yuma walked with his hands in his pockets, head slightly raised, carrying that post-combat energy that didn't yet know where to put itself.
— So, he said. The artifacts.
— The artifacts, Enji confirmed.
— Haruki said he had ideas.
— Haruki always says he has ideas.
— And what do his ideas usually look like?
Enji thought for a second.
— Last time he completely rebuilt the forge's entire ventilation system in two days because he decided the old one wasn't optimal. My father didn't speak to him for a week.
— So his ideas are good but complicated.
— His ideas are excellent and nobody wants them until they work.
Yuma nodded slowly.
— I like Haruki.
He paused.
— But mostly I can't wait to see what he does with my gauntlets. Because honestly, with everything the artifacts absorbed during training and the fight against Arasaka
— Mine too, said Enji. The vest, the gloves, the goggles. I've barely worn them and I can already tell something needs adjusting in the way they draw ambient mana.
— How can you tell?
— The same way you can tell your lightning is running slightly off when you're tired.
Yuma opened his mouth.
Closed it.
— Fair point, he said.
They turned into the main corridor the grand entrance hall of the Hyôga manor visible at the far end, daylight filtering through the tall windows.
— Either way, Yuma continued, we need to get back to training fast. Vantarcity is in a month and we
— Gentlemen.
Alfred's voice.
Calm. Precise. With that particular weight that indicated what followed was not a suggestion.
Both boys turned around.
Alfred had stopped in the middle of the corridor, hands clasped behind his back, expression perfectly neutral.
— Today is a rest day. Training is suspended until tomorrow morning.
Silence.
Yuma and Enji exchanged a glance.
— Suspended, Yuma repeated.
— Suspended, Alfred confirmed.
— But we have a month before
— Master Reishin was explicit on this point before he left.
Alfred reached into his pocket and produced a small notebook the same one he had used throughout the two weeks against the clone and opened it to the last page.
I quote: "If these two try to train the day after their victory against the clone, you stop them by whatever means necessary. A good warrior knows how to rest. It is a skill in its own right."
He closed the notebook.
— Those are his exact words. He also specified that this day was a reward for your victory. And that you needed it, whether you knew it or not.
A silence.
Yuma looked at the ceiling.
Enji looked at his hands.
— ...Alright, Yuma finally said.
— Good, said Alfred. Lucien will handle transferring your equipment to Master Haruki. You have nothing to do but exist pleasantly until tomorrow.
He inclined his head slightly.
— Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen.
And he departed in the opposite direction with the regularity of a clock.
Yuma and Enji stood alone in the corridor.
Yuma looked in the direction Alfred had disappeared.
Then toward the windows.
Then at Enji.
— Exist pleasantly, he said.
— That's what he said.
— I don't even know what that means in practice.
Enji was quiet for a moment. Then something in his expression loosened not much, just enough to be visible.
— I know a place or two, he said.
They left the manor twenty minutes later.
Erymis stretched out before them.
Not an ordinary town a city. Wide, dense, loud with the particular noise of places where many things happen at once. The main streets were broad, lined with tall stone facades where signs stacked three floors high. Hunter organizations had their offices between weapon shops and mana dispensaries. Covered markets opened onto alleys that led to other markets.
And everywhere hunters.
Not like the Astreum Sanctuary where the atmosphere had been studious and contained. This was the ordinary flow of a large city that had integrated hunters into its daily life long ago people in mission gear walking beside merchants, guild members arguing over potion stalls, veterans recognizable by their worn equipment moving through the crowd without slowing down.
Yuma stopped on the manor steps and took it all in.
— It's big, he said.
— This is Erymis, said Enji. My father's forge has been here for three generations. I was born two streets over.
— You know everything?
— Every district. Every shortcut. A few places my father thinks I don't know about.
Yuma nodded with the look of someone who had just realized he had the best possible guide.
— Then show me.
They spent the first few hours drifting.
No particular direction, no defined goal just streets, shops, people going about their lives without knowing that the two boys wandering past their stalls had spent the last two weeks getting demolished by a rank S clone.
Erymis had different faces depending on the district.
The forge district first closest to the manor, the smell of hot metal in the air, rhythmic hammer sounds from workshops open to the street. Enji recognized several smiths by sight. A few nodded at him as they passed.
Then the guild district an entire avenue lined with the offices of various organizations, mission boards posted outside every entrance. Registered hunters studied the listings with the focused expressions of people running serious calculations.
Yuma stopped at one board and scanned it quickly.
— Rank B dungeon twenty kilometers north. Unstable.
— We're not hunters, said Enji.
— Yet, said Yuma.
— Yet, Enji conceded.
They moved on to the central covered market a structure of metal and glass housing hundreds of stalls. Yuma stopped at a weapons shop and spent ten minutes comparing blades he had no intention of buying. Enji lingered at a mana-fiber stall a texture he didn't recognize, which he rolled between his fingers with the attention of a blacksmith's son.
They found a small square with a fountain at the center in a quieter corner between two main streets and sat on the ledge for a few minutes without saying anything because the sun was at a pleasant angle and there was no reason to get up.
— It's weird, Yuma said after a moment.
— What is?
— Not training. I keep feeling like I should be doing something.
— That's exactly what Reishin was trying to prevent.
— I know. Still weird though.
Enji glanced at him sideways.
— Can you normally rest? Like actually rest?
Yuma thought about it honestly.
— Back home, yeah. In the village it was easy there was always someone to talk to, something happening. But since I left I haven't really... stopped.
— Since the Sanctuary?
— Since the Sanctuary.
Enji nodded slowly.
— Then it's good that Reishin made it an order.
— Yeah, said Yuma. Not that I'd say that in front of him.
Around mid-afternoon, Yuma's stomach issued a firm opinion on the situation.
— Something's happening, he said, looking down at it.
— I hear it, said Enji.
— It's urgent.
— I know.
Enji looked at the street ahead, then right toward a wider avenue descending toward Erymis' center, and ran a silent calculation.
— There's a place, he said.
— What kind of place?
— A restaurant. I used to go often before the academy — almost every week when my father worked late.
He paused.
— The owner knew my order by heart. He knew what I wanted before I opened my mouth. He fed me on nights I forgot my money without ever saying a word about it.
— That's the kind of relationship you build with important people.
— The atmosphere is lively. Lots of people — experienced hunters, mercenaries, veterans telling stories about their missions. It's loud. It's alive.
Yuma sat up straighter.
— And the food?
— The owner has a specialty. I can't describe it. You just have to eat it.
— Enji.
— What.
— We're going right now.
The restaurant was called The Old Helm.
A wooden sign with a painted knight's helmet, a narrow facade wedged into a side street in Erymis' central district, between a weapons shop and a potion dispensary whose display windows glowed softly in the afternoon light.
And from the street — a smell.
Yuma stopped on the opposite sidewalk and breathed it in with the expression of someone who had just received a revelation.
— What is that smell.
— The specialty, Enji said simply.
— What does it smell like exactly?
— Something between a very long broth and a slow-cooked meat. With spices I've never been able to name. He doesn't give the recipe to anyone.
— That's a crime, said Yuma. That is legally a crime to keep that to yourself.
They crossed.
Inside, The Old Helm was exactly what Enji had described.
Thick wooden tables worn down by years of use. Warm lighting. Constant background noise multiple conversations at once, laughter, someone recounting a mission with far too many hand gestures, someone else disputing every single detail.
Registered hunters talked at the counter, guild insignia visible on their jackets. In the far corner, three people in mercenary gear were comparing scars with the quiet satisfaction of people for whom this was a perfectly normal activity.
Yuma and Enji took it in from the entrance.
Yuma with a grin.
Enji with something quieter the calm recognition of a place left behind too long ago.
An old man appeared from the back room — a white apron tied twice around a broad frame, close-cropped white hair, the hands of someone who had spent thirty years carrying heavy pots.
— What can I get for you two
He stopped.
Looked at Enji.
Really looked the way you look at someone when you're overlaying a memory onto the face in front of you.
— Wait, he said slowly. Wait, wait, wait.
He leaned slightly forward over the counter.
— Are you the kid with the white hair who came every Thursday with his class notes and always finished his bowl before I came back from the kitchen?
Enji smiled brief, but real.
— That's me, Monsieur Beaumont.
— Enji! said the old man, slapping the counter with his palm. Name of a portal, you've grown since last time! And the white hair was that always there?
— Always.
— I thought you left for the academy.
— I finished. I'm back for a while.
Monsieur Beaumont nodded with the satisfaction of a man whose natural order of things had just been restored. Then he looked at Yuma with a professional eye.
— And who's this one?
— Yuma. My partner.
— Looks hungry.
— Constantly, said Enji.
— Perfect. Both of you, sit down table by the window is free. I'll make you the specialty, on the house, as a welcome back. And I don't want to hear any objections.
— No objections, Enji confirmed.
Yuma opened his mouth.
— None, Enji repeated without looking at him.
Yuma closed it.
They settled at the table by the window.
The street of Erymis outside the steady flow of passersby, a man hauling a crate of equipment on his shoulder, two merchants negotiating on the opposite sidewalk.
Yuma put his elbows on the table and let his gaze drift across the room.
That's when he saw him.
In the opposite corner, back against the wall, a one-person table.
A man.
Hard to place his age precisely. Dressed in composite armor that belonged to no clearly identifiable style lacquered black and grey plates in the tradition of a samurai, but reworked and modernized, with reinforced shoulder guards and forearm plating that spoke of a smith who knew exactly what they were doing. A scabbard at his hip. Dark hair, slightly disheveled.
Head resting on his crossed arms.
An empty pitcher beside him.
— Enji, Yuma said quietly.
— What.
— Look over there.
Enji looked.
A silence.
— The armor is remarkable, he said.
— Have you ever seen that style of craftsmanship before?
— Never outside of history books. The base is traditional but the modifications are recent — someone reworked every single plate individually.
Yuma watched him for another second. There was something in the way this man occupied space even while asleep a low, quiet presence that didn't ask to be noticed but got noticed anyway, like a heavy object that slightly warps the surface it rests on.
— He reminds me of someone, Yuma said.
— Who?
— I don't know. Just a feeling.
He shook his head and let it go.
Monsieur Beaumont arrived at their table with two deep bowls and a steaming pot which he set at the center with the solemnity of a man presenting something that deserved to be presented properly.
— Beaumont's Hunter Cassoulet, he announced. Duck confit slow-cooked for twelve hours, white beans in black mana-truffle broth, golden gratin crust finished at the last minute. Personal recipe. Secret recipe. Don't ask.
He served both bowls himself.
The smell that rose from them produced in Yuma a reaction that was less about pleasure and more about absolute conviction.
— Monsieur Beaumont, Yuma said.
— Yes?
— Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Genuinely.
The old man smiled the smile of someone used to compliments but who appreciates them anyway.
— Eat first. Thank me after.
And he headed back to the counter.
Yuma ate.
Not fast well, fast for him, which was still quick by anyone else's standards but with a total focus on the contents of his bowl that temporarily excluded everything else.
— This is, he said between bites.
— I know, said Enji.
— No but seriously
— I know.
— How is the confit this tender that's not possible
— Yuma.
— What.
— Eat.
Yuma ate.
Enji, for his part, took his time each bite deliberate, holding the bowl in both hands, eyes half-closed with the expression of someone recovering something they'd set aside too long ago.
For a few minutes, neither of them said anything.
That was enough.
Bowls finished, Yuma leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man at peace with the world.
Enji set down his utensils.
Looked at Yuma.
Not quickly with the quiet insistence of someone who has something to say and is choosing their moment.
Yuma felt it after about thirty seconds.
— What is it?
Enji folded his arms on the table.
— Your techniques.
— What about my techniques?
— The names.
Yuma looked at him.
— The names of my techniques?
— Reishin mentioned them a few days ago. In passing. He said and I quote "his techniques work, his names are embarrassing, but it's early days, we'll see later."
A silence.
Yuma looked at the ceiling.
— He said that.
— Word for word.
— ...Honestly I thought the same thing but never asked myself the question out loud.
— He asked me if I had any ideas. Since I know your fighting style better than anyone at this point.
— And you have ideas.
— Yes.
Yuma sat up slightly. Interest had replaced surprise on his face.
— Let's hear them.
Enji placed both palms flat on the table the gesture of someone who had thought this through beforehand, the names already built, not improvised.
— Shattering Lightning becomes Thunderous Strike. More direct. It matches what the technique actually does one strike, all the lightning, one impact.
— Thunderous Strike. Yeah.
— Lightning Chain becomes Thunderous Barrage. Because it's not just a chain it's a complete sequence, a logic to the successive rebounds.
— Thunderous Barrage.
— Silent Thunder becomes Thunderous Wave. Because that's exactly what it is a wave through the ground, not thunder in the air.
Yuma nodded.
— Black Sun Fist becomes Blazing Fist. Simpler, cleaner. The invisible compression, the internal explosion blazing is the right word.
— Blazing Fist.
— Brasier's Roar becomes Blazing Explosion. Same logic blazing for the concentrated fire, explosion for what it does to the space around you.
— Blazing Explosion.
— And Final Conflagration becomes Double Detonation. Because it's two successive explosions now, not simultaneous two detonations, the first one opening the breach and the second one driving through it.
Silence.
Yuma took his time running through them each name, the feel of them, what they evoked.
— What about Blazing Flash? said Yuma. The one born against Arasaka.
— That one was already well named, said Enji. Fire and lightning in a single instinctive impact. Blazing Flash is exactly what it is.
Yuma let a moment pass.
Then he smiled.
— Yeah, he said. That's way better.
— I know.
— You could've said something earlier.
— Reishin said to wait until you had enough level for it to actually mean something. A name has to be earned.
Yuma looked at him.
— Is that a blacksmith's philosophy or a fighter's?
— Both, said Enji.
It was at that moment that the man in the samurai armor stood up.
Not abruptly slowly, with the movements of someone surfacing from deep sleep and taking their time to find their bearings. He passed a hand over his face, looked at the empty pitcher with a mild expression of disappointment, then walked toward the counter.
He placed coins on the wood without counting them.
— Beaumont. Good as always.
— You should stop drinking so much, said Monsieur Beaumont from the back without turning around.
The man's mouth curved slightly.
— It's for training. Mental state resistance conditioning. A good fighter needs to be able to perform under any conditions.
The entire room went quiet for a fraction of a second.
Then burst out laughing.
Someone slapped their table. One of the mercenaries in the back knocked over his cup. A hunter at the counter turned around with the expression of someone who wasn't sure they'd heard correctly.
— Mental state resistance conditioning, repeated Monsieur Beaumont in a voice that didn't need to be raised to carry across the whole room. Son, the day that excuse works anywhere, you come tell me.
More laughter.
The man shrugged with the serenity of someone for whom general opinion was just information among other information. He picked up his scabbard from where it leaned against the wall and headed for the door.
At their table, Yuma and Enji didn't laugh.
They'd looked at each other at the same time — a brief, instinctive glance that needed no words.
What that man had just said.
That wasn't a joke.
The man pushed the door and stepped into the street.
And walked straight into a group.
Eleven people. Dark clothing with no insignia, postures that made no attempt to hide their intentions. They blocked the entire width of the sidewalk.
Yuma and Enji had stood up without realizing it on their feet by the window, eyes fixed outside, the cassoulet bowls forgotten.
— Well then, said the one standing slightly ahead of the group. Found you.
The samurai man looked at the eleven.
Yawned.
— You again, he said.
— Today's your last day.
— That's what you said last time. And the time before. Do you have a script or are you improvising?
— We're here for the money you stole from us —
— Took, the man corrected him with an almost pedagogical patience. I took the money you had stolen. Important distinction. If you care about accuracy.
The tone in the group shifted.
Two of them stepped forward.
The samurai man didn't move.
The first one came in direct strike, fast, not clumsy. The man sidestepped, let the fist pass within a few centimeters, and the attacker stumbled into the void of his own momentum.
The second went high the man dropped his head a millimeter, pivoted slightly, and the forearm aimed at his neck found nothing but air.
Three others moved at once.
The man moved through them with a fluidity that had nothing to do with speed — no excessive velocity, no wide gestures. Just the right movement in the right place, every time, as if the attackers were communicating their intentions to him a fraction of a second before acting on them.
At the window, Enji had his arms crossed.
— Do we step in? Yuma said quietly.
— Watch him.
Yuma watched.
— ...No, he said after a moment.
— No.
The samurai man was mocking them now not with words, with his body. An evasion that left just a little too much margin. A rotation that made the attacker feel like they'd almost connected. The kind of fight from someone who isn't trying to end it quickly but wants the opponent to gradually, clearly understand the gap between them.
— He's playing with them, said Enji.
— He's playing with them, Yuma confirmed.
— And he's still half drunk.
A silence.
— I don't want to know what he's worth sober, said Yuma.
The group's leader finally stepped out.
He hadn't appeared before he'd been in the back, watching. Tall, broad, jaw tight. He stepped forward and took position in front of the samurai man.
— You pay back what you took. Or you pay another way.
— I have nothing to pay back, the man said with perfect courtesy. You extorted merchants for six months. I redistributed the funds. That's accounting, not theft.
The leader went quiet.
Then his entire body transformed.
Not armor an actual transformation. Skin, muscle, the entire silhouette coated in living steel that thickened layer by layer until nothing human remained in the shape standing before the samurai man. A Combat Mage. Metal affinity.
He charged.
Not subtly. With the full mass and force of someone accustomed to that being enough.
The samurai man sidestepped clean, no urgency and the leader passed through empty air.
Turned around.
Charged again.
The man evaded again. And again. Each charge faster than the last, each evasion carrying the exact same economy of movement, as if his opponent's speed was information he had already processed and filed away.
Then he stopped evading.
He reached for his scabbard.
And drew a broken sword.
Not damaged broken. The blade stopped at mid-length, the fracture clean and old, the metal at the break blackened by time.
The group erupted in laughter.
— That's your weapon?
— You don't even have a real sword
— He's finished, forget it
The samurai man looked at them. Looked at his sword. Then raised his eyes back to them with an expression that hadn't shifted by a single degree.
— A broken blade in the hands of a true swordsman, he said slowly, is worth infinitely more than a perfect sword in the hands of a man who has never understood its soul. As long as the steel and the one who carries it are one nothing can stop them.
The laughter died.
The leader charged a third time steel body, full power, with the fury of someone who had just been insulted without a voice being raised.
The samurai man waited.
Waited longer.
Then said, barely above a whisper, almost to himself:
— Seisui Ken Ryū Shizunami.
Silent Wave.
One movement. Just one. The broken blade traced a short, almost gentle arc and an invisible mana current spread outward from the fracture in the steel, like a wave rising from the ocean floor before it reaches the surface.
It hit the leader square in the chest.
Not a cut a push of impossible depth, one that passed straight through his steel body as if it didn't exist and struck something more fundamental underneath. A line of energy carved itself across his entire silhouette, from left shoulder to right hip.
The leader collapsed instantly.
Silence.
The remaining ten looked at their leader on the ground.
Looked at the samurai man.
Looked at the broken blade.
Then all ten jumped at once.
The man didn't step back a single centimeter.
— Seisui Ken Ryū Namikaze.
Wave and Wind.
What followed looked less like a fight than a natural phenomenon.
The broken blade moved and didn't stop fluid trajectories that matched the flow of each attacker instead of opposing it, turning every incoming force into momentum for the next strike, like a wave that swallows everything in its path and keeps moving without losing speed. Evasion and counter in the same motion, over and over, until no one was left standing.
Ten seconds.
Ten people on the ground.
The samurai man sheathed his broken sword.
Turned toward the bodies lined across the sidewalk.
And searched each one methodically a pouch here, a few coins there with the administrative calm of someone doing bookkeeping.
Then he straightened up, pocketed the money, and disappeared around the corner without looking back.
Inside the restaurant, the silence had held until it was clear no one was coming back.
Then the conversations had resumed. Gradually. With that particular background noise of people who have just witnessed something and aren't quite sure yet how to talk about it.
Yuma and Enji sat back down slowly.
Yuma stared at the corner of the street where the man had vanished.
— Who is that, he said.
Not really a question. More like a thought that had found its way out.
Enji didn't answer right away.
— A regular, said Monsieur Beaumont from the counter, as if he'd heard. Comes by sometimes. Drinks. Leaves.
— Do you know his name? Enji asked.
— He never told me. I never asked.
A silence.
— People who need to give their name give it, the old man added, wiping a glass. The others — you recognize them differently.
Yuma looked at the empty corner of the street again.
— He had something, he said quietly.
— What? said Enji.
— Like Reishin.
Enji followed his gaze.
— Yeah, he said after a moment.
He didn't add anything. Neither did Yuma.
They thanked Monsieur Beaumont, who flatly refused to accept anything from them, and stepped back into the street of Erymis, which continued at its usual pace, indifferent to the eleven men currently being picked up off the sidewalk across the way.
They walked back through the forge district.
The light had changed more golden, longer, the kind of late afternoon light that stretches shadows and makes the day feel like it lasted longer than it should.
— Should we stop by your father's? said Yuma.
— He's probably still forging.
— Exactly. We can take a look.
Enji thought for a second, then nodded.
The Aetheria Workshop was two streets from the manor a large building in black stone with high windows that let the orange light of the furnaces escape into the fading afternoon. The sign above the entrance was plain: no illustration, just a name engraved in metal.
They went in.
The reception desk was staffed by a young apprentice who recognized them immediately and waved them through without hesitation.
— Mr. Hyôga is at the main forge, he said. He was finishing a piece about an hour ago.
They walked the corridor leading to the workshops the smell of hot metal, the low sound of hammers now gone quiet for the past few minutes, the heat rising from the still-active furnaces.
The door to the main forge was slightly open.
They pushed through.
Kazuho was there back turned, forge apron on, hair tied back, an object resting on the anvil before him that he was studying with the silent focus of a man evaluating his own work.
He took a few more seconds.
Then straightened up, pulled off his forge gloves, and turned around.
He saw them.
— What are you doing here, he said. Didn't Alfred give you the day off?
— We were in the area, said Enji.
— You were in the area.
— We ate at Beaumont's.
Kazuho raised an eyebrow.
— Beaumont's still there?
— He offered us the specialty.
— He recognized you.
— Immediately.
Kazuho shook his head with a barely-there nostalgic smile the kind you don't quite display but that shows through anyway.
— Good, he said. As long as you
The wall interphone crackled on.
— Mr. Hyôga? said the apprentice's voice from the front desk. There's someone at reception to pick up an order. He says he doesn't have much time.
Kazuho looked at the interphone.
Then looked at the object on the anvil that finished piece he'd been studying with such silent focus just moments ago.
— I'm on my way, he said into the interphone.
He picked up the object wrapped in thick cloth, impossible to identify and turned to Yuma and Enji.
— Come with me.
Not an invitation. Not quite an order either. Just the matter-of-fact decision of a man who had already determined that what was about to happen concerned them too.
They followed.
The workshop reception.
A plain, spacious room with finished weapon displays along the walls and a dark wooden counter at the center.
And in front of the counter a man.
Back turned.
Black and grey lacquered armor. Reinforced shoulders. Scabbard at his hip, broken blade inside.
Yuma stopped.
Enji stopped.
The man heard their footsteps and turned around slowly.
The same face. Dark hair, slightly disheveled. Eyes that looked at the two boys with an expression that didn't give much away except maybe a slight curiosity.
— The restaurant, he said simply.
Kazuho set the wrapped object on the counter and looked back and forth between the man and the two boys.
— You know each other?
— We crossed paths at the restaurant, said Enji.
The man didn't correct him.
Kazuho nodded slowly, with the air of a man who finds the world remarkably small sometimes, and placed his hand on the wrapped object.
— Your order is ready, said Kazuho.
The man took it. Weighed it in his hands. Pulled back one corner of the cloth to look inside.
Whatever was there was visible only to him.
He folded the cloth back.
— Perfect, he said.
He looked at Kazuho.
Then looked at Yuma.
Then at Enji.
And something in his eyes something difficult to name, difficult to catch lit up very briefly before disappearing.
End of Chapter 18