The change did not announce itself with pain.
It revealed itself through imbalance.
At first, it was subtle enough to ignore. A slight delay between breath and movement. A faint heaviness in the limbs that did not belong to fatigue. A quiet resistance in the body, as if something within Karna had begun pushing back against the very force he had awakened.
He stood alone at the edge of the training ground before the session began, his posture straight, his breathing controlled, but his awareness turned inward.
Something was not aligning.
Not the flow.
Not the environment.
Him.
The instinctive layer he had touched in the previous training was still there, still active in some form, but it was no longer smooth. It did not integrate cleanly with his movement. It surged, then faded, then surged again—unpredictable, powerful, but unstable.
Karna exhaled slowly.
Not rejecting it.
But not embracing it blindly either.
Because he understood something important.
