He found Skull on the upper training platform.
Alone.
As expected.
"I need your help," Tetsuo said.
Skull didn't turn.
"With what."
"Controlling what's inside me."
Silence.
Skull turned then.
Looked at him.
The mask giving nothing.
The presence measuring everything.
"You're serious," he said.
"Look at my eyes and tell me I'm not."
Skull looked.
Whatever he found there settled the question.
"Why now," he said.
Tetsuo was quiet for a moment.
"I finally pieced it together."
He looked at the mountains beyond the platform.
"The painting smiling."
"Belial never touching me."
"The high ranking demons targeting everyone around me instead."
He turned back.
"Lucifer acknowledges me."
"He wants me on his side."
"So he's been eliminating every reason I have to stay on this one."
Skull said nothing.
"Whatever is inside me isn't a demon," Tetsuo continued.
"It's something else."
"Something my father was."
"Neither demon nor angel."
He held Skull's gaze.
"A True Dragon."
The wind moved across the platform.
Skull stood with that for a long moment.
"And you want to use it," he said.
"Without blacking out."
"Yes."
Another silence.
"I once heard that if an angel as powerful as Lucifer could fall and become the devil—"
He said it evenly.
Without drama.
"Then a half demon can become something celestial."
Skull looked at him for a long time.
Something shifted behind the mask.
Not quite respect.
Something adjacent to it.
"I can't train you for this," he said finally.
Tetsuo frowned.
"No one can," Skull continued.
"The True Dragon isn't something you learn."
"It's someone you negotiate with."
He folded his arms.
"You'll have to speak to it yourself."
"Meditation."
"Go inside."
"Find it."
He turned back to the mountains.
"And hope it's willing to talk."
-
They insisted on being present.
All of them.
Tetsuo sat cross legged in the center of the training yard.
Ren stood directly behind him.
Amara to his left.
Cecil to his right.
Book closed for once.
Skull against the far wall.
Arms folded.
Watching.
Tetsuo closed his eyes.
Focused on his breathing.
In.
Out.
"Don't fall asleep."
He opened one eye.
Ren.
Arms crossed.
Completely serious.
"I'm meditating," Tetsuo said.
"That's what people say before they fall asleep."
"It's not the same thing."
"Looked the same to me."
"It's not—"
"Just saying." Ren raised both hands. "If you start snoring we're leaving."
"I won't start snoring."
"The princess always says that."
Dead silence.
Tetsuo opened both eyes.
"Call me that again," he said quietly.
"And I'll sever your head."
"You don't have your blade."
Tetsuo looked at him.
"I'll use my hands."
Ren opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Amara.
"He means it," Amara said flatly.
Ren looked at Cecil.
Cecil had already reopened her book.
He looked back at Tetsuo.
Sat down.
Said nothing.
Amara nodded once.
"Continue."
Tetsuo closed his eyes again.
Found his breathing.
Let everything else fall away.
The yard.
The wind.
Ren's existence.
Deeper.
Past the noise.
Past the surface of things.
Into the place where only his heartbeat lived.
One beat.
Then another.
Then—
nothing.
-
The void was exactly that.
No floor he could see.
No sky.
No edges.
Just space that existed because something had to.
He stood in the center of it.
Cautious.
Hand moving toward a blade that wasn't there.
Old habit.
"TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH."
He turned.
The figure stood at a distance that didn't quite translate to meters.
Dressed in flowing heian garments that moved without wind.
Hair drifting like it existed underwater.
Eyes crimson.
Glowing softly.
Steadily.
His face.
His exact face.
But the way it wore itself—
older.
Calmer.
More certain of everything simultaneously.
And the smirk.
Patient.
Like it had been waiting in this void for a very long time and found the wait more amusing than frustrating.
Tetsuo looked at him.
"You're the True Dragon," he said.
Not a question.
The figure tilted his head slightly.
The smirk deepened.
"I'M YOU," he said simply.
"THE PART THAT REMEMBERS WHAT WE ARE."
The void held them both.
Vast.
Quiet.
Neither demon nor angel.
Something older than the war that made both necessary.
Tetsuo looked at the crimson eyes.
Looked at his own face wearing something he hadn't grown into yet.
"Then let's talk," he said.
-
Far above the training yard—
in a space that didn't answer to altitude—
the wheel of fate shifted.
Slightly.
Just slightly.
Like something that had been pointing one direction for a very long time—
reconsidering.
-