I watched her walk away, joining Belle at the door while Jordan continued his dramatic floor performance. The training room felt too quiet suddenly, the hum of deactivated equipment the only sound besides our collective breathing.

"You coming?" Belle called from the doorway.

"Yeah. Give me a minute."

She raised an eyebrow but didn’t push, disappearing into the hallway with Naomi in tow. Their voices faded as they headed toward the elevators, leaving me alone with Jordan’s starfish impression and my own racing thoughts.

Friday felt impossibly close.

A C-rank gate with abnormal readings. Two teams that hated each other forced into cooperation. Blair Davenport’s personal vendetta against my existence. Hikaru recovering from nearly bleeding out in our bathroom. Cassandra’s watchful presence somewhere in the background, cataloging everything I did for reasons I couldn’t fully predict.

And underneath all of that, the constant pressure of the System. The timer counting down in my peripheral vision. The knowledge that every day I didn’t extract essence was a day closer to a death that had nothing to do with monsters or rival students.

I pulled up my status screen out of habit, letting the familiar blue glow wash over me in the empty training room.

My stats had climbed noticeably since this morning. Endurance sat comfortably at C-rank now, the progress bar showing modest gains from four hours of squad drills on top of Vale’s brutal session. Strength remained at C as well, though the bar had crept forward a few segments. The real surprise was Technique, which had apparently decided tonight was the night to finally roll over from B-rank to something higher.

The notification blinked at me like it was waiting for acknowledgment.

TECHNIQUE [B] → [A]

New baseline established. Continue training to progress.

A-rank Technique.

I stared at that for a long moment, processing what it meant. My ability to make partners climax had just jumped into superhuman territory. The System wasn’t subtle about what it wanted me to prioritize.

"You good?"

Jordan’s voice pulled me back to reality. He’d apparently decided that lying on the floor was no longer sustainable and had propped himself up on his elbows, watching me with the kind of casual concern that came from shared suffering.

"Fine. Just checking my numbers."

"Anything interesting?"

"Endurance went up. Vale’s going to be thrilled."

"Vale’s going to find new ways to torture you is what’s going to happen." Jordan pushed himself fully upright with a groan. "That man sees improvement as an excuse to increase difficulty. You hit C-rank, he’ll start training you like you’re already at B."

"Probably."

"Definitely. I’ve seen how he looks at you during sessions. Like you’re some kind of science experiment that’s finally producing interesting results."

I couldn’t argue with that assessment. Vale had been pushing harder lately, demanding more, explaining less. The kind of mentorship that either killed you or made you into something genuinely dangerous.

Jordan stood and stretched, his joints popping audibly. "Alright, I’m heading out. If Misato asks, I was a productive member of society who went straight home to rest and hydrate like a responsible hunter in training."

"And if she doesn’t ask?"

"Then I’m stopping at the convenience store for energy drinks and those terrible spicy noodles that Belle keeps stealing from my stash." He headed for the door, pausing at the threshold. "Hey. Whatever’s going on with you and Hikaru tonight... be careful, yeah? Ice Prince has always been intense, but something’s different lately. Can’t put my finger on it."

"Appreciated."

He nodded and disappeared, leaving me truly alone in the training room.

I gave myself another thirty seconds to breathe before gathering my things and heading out. The campus was quiet at this hour, most students either in their dorms studying or at the dining hall finishing late dinners. The path to my apartment building felt longer than usual, my legs still protesting every step.

The elevator ride up to the fifth floor gave me time to think about what waited behind my door.

Hikaru knew I knew.

The secret she’d protected for three years at the cost of her own comfort and health lay exposed between us now. I’d promised to keep it, promised to protect her from anyone who came looking, but promises were easy in the immediate aftermath of crisis. The harder part came later, when daily life resumed and the weight of that knowledge settled into something permanent.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The apartment was dark except for a thin strip of light under Hikaru’s bedroom door. She was awake. Whether that meant she wanted to talk or wanted to be left alone, I couldn’t tell.

I dropped my training bag by the couch and headed for the kitchen, grabbing water and the protein bars I’d promised Naomi I would eat. The food tasted like cardboard, but my body needed the calories and arguing with my digestive system seemed pointless.

The strip of light under Hikaru’s door flickered.

Movement inside. Pacing, maybe, or just shifting position. I finished my protein bar and considered my options.

Knock and check on her? Give her space? Pretend everything was normal and go to bed?

None of those felt right.

I walked to her door and stopped, my knuckles raised but not yet touching the wood. Through the thin barrier, I could hear breathing. Fast and shallow, the kind that came from stress rather than exertion.

"Hikaru."

The breathing stopped.

"I know you’re awake. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I’m going to leave some water and pain medication outside your door. The nurse said to stay hydrated and the wound might ache as it finishes healing."

Silence stretched between us.

Then: "You can come in."

Her voice was different without the careful control she usually maintained. Softer. Higher. The voice of someone who had stopped pretending, at least for the moment.

I opened the door.

Hikaru sat on her bed with her back against the headboard, knees pulled to her chest. She’d changed into loose sleeping clothes, a oversized t-shirt that hung off one shoulder and sweatpants that pooled around her ankles. Without the compression binding, the shape of her body was visible in ways it never had been before. The curve of her breasts pressed against the thin fabric. The narrowness of her waist. The way her collarbone caught the light from the lamp beside her bed.

She was beautiful.

Not in the sharp, dangerous way Blair was beautiful, or the soft warmth of Naomi, or the knowing sensuality of Aurora. Hikaru’s beauty was something else entirely. Fragile and fierce at the same time, like a blade wrapped in silk.

"Stop staring."

"Sorry." I wasn’t sorry. "How’s the wound?"

"Itches. The nurse said that means it’s healing properly, but I want to claw my own skin off." She shifted position, wincing slightly. "The medication helps."

"Good."

I stood in her doorway like an idiot, unsure whether I was supposed to enter further or stay where I was. The boundaries of our relationship had shifted so dramatically in the past few hours that I couldn’t find my footing.

Hikaru made the decision for me.

"Sit." She nodded toward the chair at her desk. "We should talk. Properly this time, without me bleeding everywhere and you playing field medic."

I closed the door behind me and took the offered seat. The chair was harder than it looked, designed for studying rather than comfort. Hikaru’s room was sparse compared to mine, almost militarily neat. No posters on the walls. No personal items on display. Just textbooks, training manuals, and a single photograph in a simple frame on her nightstand.

The photograph showed a younger Hikaru, maybe fourteen or fifteen, standing beside an older woman with the same dark hair and red eyes. They looked alike enough to be family. Mother and daughter, probably.

Hikaru noticed where my gaze had landed.

"My mother. She died two years ago. Cancer. By the time the healers found it, there wasn’t enough left to save."