The courtyard was slick with dew again.
Grass pressed flat beneath bare feet. The stones were cold from the night, and the morning light had yet to decide what color it wanted to be. Above, the clouds hung low and heavy, as if the sky had swallowed something it couldn't digest.
Mazanka stood in the center, back to them, coat half-buttoned, one sleeve rolled. He tapped a small stone in his palm with rhythmic flicks of his thumb, a habit like a heartbeat.
"Today," he said, "we train like we're already dead."
Teruko exhaled through her nose, not amused.
"You always start with something dramatic."
"That's because Kenshiki don't survive through modesty," he replied.
Rakan stretched beside her, cracking his neck.
"You sure you're not just compensating for your old age?"
Mazanka tossed the stone over his shoulder.
It bounced once, then stopped perfectly still.
"Let's begin."
They started with forms.
No Ka'ro yet. Just motion.
Teruko moved like she'd been carved from scripture—every gesture tight, every step measured. Her breathing was shallow, as if precision could override exhaustion.
Rakan was more fluid now, but uncertain—he stepped where his instincts told him, then doubted them halfway through, and it showed in the faltering shifts of his weight.
Mazanka walked between them like a wind no one could catch.
"Teruko—your blade follows your anger. Not your breath."
"It's not anger."
"Then it's fear dressed up like pride."
She flinched.
"You walk like someone being judged," he added.
"That's because I am."
Mazanka smiled—but not unkindly.
"And how long will you keep trying to pass the test you wrote against yourself?"
"Rakan—again. But stop thinking."
"That's helpful."
"You think Ka'ro flows because you're right. It flows because you're willing to be wrong."
"What does that even mean?!"
"It means you can't ride a river by punching the current."
They moved into sparring.
Mazanka sat on the edge of the platform, eating roasted chestnuts from a small pouch, watching as Rakan and Teruko circled each other in wide, deliberate arcs.
"Try not to kill each other," he said, "but if someone ends up crying, I won't intervene."
"I'm going to make you eat those words," Teruko muttered, drawing her blade.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Mazanka 'thegreat' ."
Teruko struck first.
"Shintei-Ka'ro: Hōrin Seika! Radiant Chain of Blossoming Flame."
A ribbon of pale Ka'ro burst from her tattoos, weaving itself into a spiraling cord that wrapped around her blade. As she lunged, the cord ignited—a spinning blossom of disciplined fury, meant to tether and drag.
Rakan met it head-on.
"Ikū-Ka'ro: Gyakufū Jinrai! Reversal Surge of Thunderous Wind."
He twisted his momentum backward, using his own Ka'ro like a breaking wave—redirecting the force of Teruko's bind, then vaulting to her blindside. He moved by reflex—not elegance, but instinct.
She was faster.
She spun low, caught his leg with a sweep, and Rakan slammed into the stone with a grunt.
Mazanka clapped once.
"That's progress," he said. "For her."
They tried again. And again. Each time, the Ka'ro grew sharper—but so did the frustration.
Rakan snapped once, mid-swing.
"How are we supposed to get better if you keep criticizing everything?!"
Mazanka's smile faded.
He stood.
And in a breath—he was between them.
Ka'ro flared from his body in a single, formless pulse—not loud, not bright, just complete. It swept through the space like a memory coming alive, and both Teruko and Rakan fell back, winded by the depth of it.
"You think this is about getting stronger?" Mazanka said quietly. "Strength is a side effect. A symptom. You don't train to win. You train to remember."
"To remember what?" Rakan snapped.
Mazanka's eyes narrowed.
"That you're not alone."
The silence that followed was deep.
Even the wind slowed.
Rakan looked at him, breath catching.
Teruko, for once, said nothing.
Mazanka turned, started walking away.
"Take a break," he said. "You're not ready to bleed yet."
Afternoon filtered through the thin-leafed branches overhead, casting a mosaic of gold and shadow across the quiet courtyard. The stones were still warm from their sparring. The air tasted of iron, sweat, and earth.
Rakan sat with his back to the tree, legs stretched out, one arm resting across his bent knee. His shirt clung to him, the collar torn, a smear of drying blood across his ribs from one of Teruko's more precise counterstrikes.
Teruko sat nearby, not facing him—knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, the way someone might hold a silence too heavy to place on the ground.
Between them, the hush breathed.
Their Ka'ro was still humming in their skin, not burning now—just flickering, like the warmth that lingers after fire.
A few feet away, Mazanka sat cross-legged on a stone bench with a toolkit beside him, dismantling the silver-cored travel device he'd pulled from Teruko's satchel. He worked without looking, his fingers confident, nimble. A single toothpick hung from his mouth, shifting occasionally as he hummed an old folk tune under his breath.
"Your Ka'ro's getting sharper," he said absently, not looking up. "Still messy. But less of a liability."
Neither responded.
Teruko exhaled slowly, eyes on the ground.
"He fights like a wild animal," she murmured.
Rakan scoffed. "Says the girl who tried to decapitate me three times before lunch."
"It's not my fault you can't block."
"It's not my fault you yell your techniques like you're trying to impress a thunder god."
Mazanka whistled, tone flat.
"You two flirt like you're sharpening daggers."
"We're not flirting," they both snapped in unison.
Silence followed again, but it was warmer now.
The kind that doesn't demand anything.
Just lets you breathe in it.
Rakan looked up at the sky. Clouds moved like slow travelers.
"You ever think," he said quietly, "that we weren't supposed to have this?"
Teruko turned slightly, enough to glance at him from the corner of her eye.
"This?"
"Yeah, this exact moment," he said. "Us. Rest. A courtyard. Someone like Mazanka telling us we don't need to be perfect."
She followed his gaze. Watched the branches shift above them.
"No," she said softly. "But maybe… that's why we need it now."
Mazanka chuckled, tightening a gear with a faint click.
"Spoken like someone who's been through enough drills to break the soul."
"I'm not broken," Teruko said.
"Didn't say you were. Just bent in beautiful places."
She blinked at that. Then lowered her head.
Rakan's voice softened.
"You're good," he said.
She looked over, brow furrowed.
"In the courtyard. You move like it matters. Like you've already decided who you want to be."
Teruko looked down at her hands. The knuckles were scraped, the fingers bruised from gripping too tightly.
"I haven't," she whispered. "I just pretend I have. For now."
Rakan leaned his head back against the tree trunk.
"Well, you're convincing."
"And you?" she asked.
"Still figuring it out," he said. "Mazanka keeps saying things like Ka'ro is emotion and flow and memory, but I feel like I'm just chasing shadows."
Mazanka clicked something into place on the device, then spoke without looking up.
"You're not supposed to catch the shadow," he said. "You're supposed to learn how to walk beside it."
They didn't answer. But the quiet that followed didn't feel empty.
It felt like something being stitched together.
Teruko looked at the grass, at the half-crushed petals where her foot had landed too hard during their bout.
"Do you think," she asked, "that we'll ever be more than what we were made into?"
Rakan didn't answer right away.
He tilted his head, watching the way the light caught her face in brief flashes between the leaves.
Then:
"I don't know. But I think we're already more than we were yesterday."
Mazanka set the device aside, flexed his hands, and stretched like a man twice his age.
"All done," he said lazily. "Though I can't guarantee it won't explode if you travel with a bad attitude."
Teruko stood slowly, brushing off her knees. She approached the device, picking it up with both hands.
"Thank you."
Mazanka gave a slow nod.
"You're welcome. Just don't die using it. I'm emotionally fragile."
Rakan snorted.
"Since when?"
"Since always."