The Guild's facility was nothing like Seigi imagined.
From the outside, it was just another sealed subway entrance, a forgotten stairwell plastered with rusted boards and layers of graffiti. But once Hana led him down, past the dead lights and crumbling tiles, the air shifted.
The tiled walls gave way to reinforced steel, humming faintly with energy. The flicker of fluorescent bulbs was replaced with clean white strips set into the ceiling, casting sterile light across wide, echoing halls. The scent of dust gave way to oil, ozone, and disinfectant.
Then the space opened—and Seigi stopped in his tracks.
It wasn't just a base. It was a city beneath the city.
Training mats stretched across one side like a dojo fused with modern architecture. Further back, a shooting range rattled with the muffled crack of gunfire. Sparks hissed from a workshop where operatives in coveralls disassembled strange tech beside half-gutted rifles. On a mezzanine above, other men and women watched silently, some with clipboards, some with arms folded, eyes sharp as hawks.
"This…" Seigi breathed, unable to mask his awe. "This has been here all along?"
Riku slung an arm around his shoulders with a smirk. "Welcome to the funhouse, Hero Boy. Here's where the real stories get written."
Aya shook her head, petite frame dwarfed by the cavernous space. She smoothed her cardigan sleeves and gave Seigi a patient look. "Don't listen to him. It's not a funhouse—it's where you're broken down until there's nothing false left. Then you learn who you are."
Riku clutched his chest like she'd stabbed him. "You ruin everything with your honesty."
Hana's mouth tilted at the corners. "You ruin everything with your noise."
Their banter disarmed Seigi, but only for a moment. He forced his jaw steady. "And what happens if I don't measure up?"
Riku shrugged. "Then Aya patches what's left of you, Hana writes your epitaph, and I steal your badge for a trophy."
Aya rolled her eyes, smiling faintly. "Ignore him."
---
The Drills
The training began immediately.
Riku sparred him first, his movements all sharp edges and coiled violence. Every strike was a test. Every taunt was a hook digging into Seigi's pride.
"Heroes don't flinch!" Riku barked, swinging hard enough to rattle Seigi's bones. "The Veil won't give you breathing room, so neither will I!"
Seigi's fists met his, clumsy but determined. He stumbled, rose, swung again. Sweat poured down his temple, his knuckles bruised against Riku's guard. And still Riku laughed through bloodied lips.
"You're firewood, Detective! Let's see if you burn bright enough!"
When Seigi finally landed a blow, the ground cracked beneath it—dust erupting in a sharp cloud. Aya gasped, rushing to his side. Riku twisted away, grin sharp but warier now.
"Careful," Riku muttered. "Miss me with that swing and you won't have a sparring partner left."
Aya pressed her glowing hands to Seigi's shoulder, warmth knitting bruises before they could settle. "Strength without control isn't strength," she told him gently. "If the thread drags you instead of you guiding it, you'll destroy yourself—and the people standing next to you."
Hana, arms crossed from the edge of the mat, spoke at last. "He'll learn. But only if he walks close enough to the edge to see what waits there."
---
Montage time..
The days blurred together.
Aya drilled him in precision—catching pebbles blindfolded, listening for the faintest scrape of stone before it reached his skin. She made him balance a glass of water on his head while she tapped his shoulder, his knee, his ribs with sharp bursts of energy. "Hold still," she'd chide gently when the glass wobbled. "If you can't trust your own centre, you can't trust the thread." When he failed—and he often did—Aya was there to heal the small cuts, to press warmth back into his aching muscles. Her touch was light, her voice softer still: Don't forget you're human, even when you feel like you're not, Aya pressed her glowing hands against Seigi's shoulder. "Power without control isn't strength," she murmured.
Hana, watching from the edge, tilted her head. "The way his veins respond… it's unusual. They carry too much memory, too much fire."
Seigi frowned, sweat dripping into his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Hana only shook her head, lips tight. "Nothing for now. Just—don't push too far too fast."
Hana honed his reflexes. She circled him like a predator one moment, like a dance partner the next, striking from impossible angles. He thought he'd learned her rhythm, but every time he reached for certainty, she was already there, parrying, redirecting, her movements whispering of a future just beyond his grasp. "You're thinking too loud," she murmured as she knocked his wrist aside, her eyes unreadable. "The thread is quiet. Listen to it." Sometimes she struck fast enough that the air snapped; other times she struck so softly he barely felt the touch, only the sting of knowing she'd found another gap in his guard.
Riku was merciless. He drove Seigi through endurance drills until his lungs burned, barking insults and grins in equal measure. Laps across the underground chamber, push-ups until the stone floor bit into his palms, knuckles splitting against wooden dummies until sweat blurred his vision. "Heroes don't quit, Hero Boy!" Riku's voice echoed like a war drum. "You puke, you keep running! You bleed, you keep swinging! That's the deal!" And when Seigi staggered near collapse, Riku hauled him upright, laughing. "You'll thank me when you're still standing and your enemy's not."
Each night Seigi collapsed into stillness, body trembling, muscles screaming. The taste of iron sat on his tongue; his hands felt carved raw. But as his breath steadied, eyes closing against the ache, something else stirred. The shimmer came easier. The world tilted more often, bending like it wanted to test his hands. His awareness stretched past the pain—into the hush between breaths, the flicker in the torchlight, the invisible current running beneath the stone chamber.
And when it happened—when he felt the thread respond—the exhaustion melted into something like awe. For a moment, he wasn't broken, wasn't bleeding. He was becoming.
---
Kurogami
Kurogami never sparred. He never shouted. He simply watched from above, his presence heavier than all the drills combined.
When he spoke, it was like a blade laid across Seigi's chest.
"You want to be a hero?" Kurogami's voice rolled across the chamber. "Then stop saving the few. The Veil thinks in centuries. In nations. If you want to matter, Seigi, you must learn to think the same."
Seigi met his gaze, breath ragged. "I just want to protect people."
"Then protect them from themselves," Kurogami said softly, almost kindly. "Be the fire that burns away weakness. Be the proof that myth is real."
The words lodged deep. Seigi couldn't tell if they inspired him—or frightened him.
---
The Veil's Whisper..
One night, Seigi sat cross-legged on the mat, sweat drying on his skin. His breathing slowed until the hum of the facility fell away. The thread pulsed through him like a second heartbeat, bright, alive.
Balance.
But then it shifted. A pull. A sharp pressure, as though another hand tugged at the same invisible line.
His eyes shot open.
The chamber was empty. The lights hummed faintly overhead. But the air carried a hiss, too soft to be sound, too sharp to be his own thought.
We see you.
The words slid cold into his marrow.
The Veil wasn't waiting. They were already here.