Kori was already taping her fingers when the two arrived.
She stood beside a glass rack where two long, black cases rested like coffins for something expensive.
Beside them, a second rack held replicas - blunt twin swords and a staff built with the exact same weight and balance as the real deal.
"Lemme see them hands" she said, her version of hello.
Raizen and Hikari lifted their hands. Kori checked wrists, thumbs, forearms, shoulders.
"Bruises... Awesome! Today you learn how your work holds up against someone who worked just as hard, if not even harder."
Mina's voice floated through the observation glass.
"Telemetry live. Dueling Bay Two ready, just like you asked. Scoring on vitals."
"Wait. Dueling bay - ?" Raizen started, but Kori cut him off before he could whine.
"Replicas first." She patted the padded weapons. "You'll earn the real ones - on limiter... Who knows when."
Suddenly, two silhouettes appeared from the corridor. Kori's students.
They didn't look older than Raizen and Hikari.
The guy was tall and airy, hair a bright brown like freshly-cut wood. It fell past his shoulder and looped behind one ear. He looked distinguished but mocking at the same time.
"Arashi" Kori introduced him. "Annoying accuracy, and a beast with guns."
Arashi bowed like a noble at a gala and grinned. Two sleek training pistols sat in open holsters at his hips.
The replicas were non-lethal, but still painful enough to make you not want to get hit.
The second figure was quiet even when she moved.
Straight crimson hair, the bright color of a new wound. A claymore rested across one shoulder as if it weighed as much as a stick.
It didn't.
"And this is Keahi" Kori continued. "Doesn't talk much at first, but she's kinda nice, I guess... I'm not going to say anything besides this - she's way stronger than you'd expect."
Keahi nodded once, eyes steady.
"Warm up however you want" Kori said. "Then we start playing."
Raizen took the replica twins and knew instantly they'd been measured to him. Grips exactly where his palms expected them. Balance perfect under his knuckles, so he cut exactly where he aimed.
Hikari lifted the staff-spear and felt the perfect weight settle along her forearms. One sharp end, one complicated end, and both felt… Just right.
"Good." Kori smiled. "Bay Two. Raizen first."
The dueling bay was a square of dark matte flooring bordered by white walls. Cameras blinked overhead. Mina's graphs woke up and started moving up and down.
Arashi rolled his shoulders. "First touch buys tea" he said, amused. "First vital buys dinner."
"Woah,woah!" Raizen laughed, hands up. "I don't have that much money."
Kori's hand swung down. "Go."
Arashi didn't draw right away. He walked at a calm distance, then quickly cleared the leather and snapped a green-white shot that cracked like a whip. Eon-infused shots.
Raizen leaned back, barely dodging. The round missed by a millimeter.
He was already moving before the second shot, trying to close the distance. That's usually the right answer to a gun.
He slid in, one blade guarding high, the other low.
A third shot went for his thigh. Raizen predicted the trajectory, parried, and used the moment to spring forward.
"Hello" Arashi said in Raizen's face, hopping sideways. He stepped back, but didn't give Raizen any opportunity to get too close.
Raizen tried to read Arashi's pattern, but gave up after seeing that this guy took every single opportunity to pressure him. So he took distance right before shots, when Arashi least expected it. Risky, but rewarding.
Arashi smiled like a teacher spotting a clever answer he wasn't expecting. "Not bad."
Two shots, almost at the same time - one at the chest to steal attention, one at the ankles to steal balance.
Raizen picked wrong on purpose. He let the chest shot slide along his blade and moved his leg late, dangerously close to getting bit.
In the same moment, he spun low, second blade stopping a short distance from Arashi's torso.
"Score: 1 to 0, Raizen, vital" Mina called.
Arashi's eyebrows climbed. "Interesting…"
Second round, Arashi stopped being readable. No rhythm. Step mid-fire, baiting mistakes every time he hesitated on purpose.
Raizen stopped chasing and started taking space. He recalled what Kori taught him some while ago.
"Distance you say?" Kori asked calmly. "Steal it. Don't beg for it."
And that's what he did Raizen stole it - half-step here, a dodge mid-motion, forcing Arashi's barrels in angles he didn't like. He didn't give Arashi room to breathe. Arashi was pinned.
Raizen's second blade came for the chest vital -
Arashi did something Raizen couldn't predict.
He didn't fight the pin. He just rolled with it, and turned Raizen's control into a trap.
His off-hand pistol cleared its holster so fast Raizen didn't even see the draw.
A practice round snapped into Raizen's chest.
The rounds still stunt badly, despite being only training
"Score: 1 to 1, Arashi, vital" Mina said, a little impressed.
Raizen sucked in a breath. "These toy guns have no recoil…"
"They're lighter, and the practice rounds aren't just how I like them..." Arashi agreed. "But you don't get excuses."
"It's still one-one, don't get too cocky" Raizen breathed, eyes bright.
They traded points like fencers.
Raizen slid a blade to Arashi's shoulder - 2 to 1.
Arashi tapped Raizen's ribs literally mid-air. His accuracy was, indeed, scary. 2 to 2.
Last point wins.
"I shall remember this lesson" Arashi panted, smiling lightly. "Thank you in advance."
Raizen answered by trying to make him hesitate and stepping early, catching him off-guard. But somehow, Arashi was always fast enough to return and step back.
Raizen almost had him - wrist aiming somewhere else completely, forearm trapped, blade lined for the perfect swing -
Arashi pivoted, spun and traded his elbow, a non-vital point to save his chest. Raizen's blade was too far away from him now, and it needed a half a second to block
That half second was enough.
A clean neck shot coming from nowhere snapped, sharp sound echoing though the empty room.
"Match point. 3 to 2" Mina announced. "Winner: Arashi."
It was that close.
Too close.
Kori's hand landed on Raizen's shoulder. "You tried to finish with pride" she said. "Finish him next time."
Then she looked at Arashi. "And you - control your playfulness. How many times did I tell you not to play with your opponents?"
Arashi smiled. "As you wish. I won't play with my food anymore."
"That's not what I meant-" Kori started, then sighed. "Next!"
The girls met in the middle without noise.
Keahi planted her claymore's tip and studied Hikari's staff-spear like she couldn't figure out which tip was more dangerous. She was taller, broader.
"You call it when you've had enough" Keahi said softly.
"You too" Hikari replied.
Kori's hand came down again. "Go."
Keahi moved first. No feints. The claymore rose above her head and fell in a clean descending arc that would have ended someone if it were live.
Hikari wasn't there when it arrived.
Keahi dragged the blade through a horizontal sweep.
Hikari slipped below it and snapped the back of Keahi's knee with the blunt end.
Not vital, but a point.
1 to 0.
Keahi shortened her swings and tried controlling Hikari's options when dodging. Hikari gave ground on purpose, drawing the big blade into a pattern that was perfect for her.
Then Hikari met the next swing with her staff, slid the heavy steel off line, and stepped as close to Keahi as possible, where claymores are weakest.
Keahi didn't panic. She used her shoulder like a hammer.
Hikari bounced back and fell from the impact, breath cut for a second.
Then she changed her rythm.
Swing. Tap. Retreat. Tap. Changing angle.
She attacked quickly and stepping back, forcing half-centimeter adjustments until Keahi's posture looked… Slightly uncertain.
Feeling it, Hikari faked high with the spear tip and tried swinging at Keahi's back.
"You're strong" Hikari said, meaning it.
"You're quick" Keahi replied, meaning it as well.
The next exchange mattered.
Keahi drove forward in three compact steps, with simple yet inevitable cuts. She went for wide swings - which was her mistake.
Hikari leaped, stepped on the blade-mid swing and tapped Keahi's shoulder with the "sharp" end.
Point. Hikari. 2 to 0.
Keahi breathed once, readjusting her posture. She backed out and lowered the tip toward the floor, an invitation for Hikari to overreach.
Hikari didn't bite the bait
She stayed on the edges, just ar the right distance, pulse high but controlled.
Then Keahi tried a final trick - a deliberate kick, followed by a brutal rising diagonal meant to catch the dodge.
Hikari stepped in.
With a move she hadn't learned here.
She stepped forward too much and completely leaned on that leg, switching her weight in the last second.
The staff snapped up in an arch and hit right beneath Keahi's jawline.
"Vital" Mina said softly. "Winner: Hikari."
Keahi lowered her sword and wiped her jawline.
"What you did…" she said, voice excited. "I'm not sure what that was. But it was superb." then, she held out her fist for a fist bump.
"Thank you" Hikari replied, and just stood there, because she didn't know what a fist bump was. So she just held out her palm awkwardly, settling for shaking Keahi's hand instead.
Kori gathered them at the edge.
"Good, good, good!" she said - Kori's word for excellent.
"Raizen - close the space sooner. Don't chase hands. Suffocate decisions. You were a few milliseconds away from winning. But Nyxes don't hesitate."
Raizen nodded.
Kori turned to Hikari.
"You didn't flinch when you should've, and you didn't celebrate when you could've. Learn one thing from her" a chin at Keahi, "and one thing or two from him" a look at Arashi, "and you'll be something I don't have such a good word for yet."
Then, pointing at Keahi and Arashi: "I'll talk to you two back at home."
"Wait, at home-!?" Raizen tried to ask, but Mina dimmed the bay lights before he could finish.
Kori took a few steps back and tapped the cases.
"You earned a minute. One pass each with the real ones. No heroics."
Then she opened the cases.
Obi's masterpieces.
Golden particles circled along Raizen's twin blades. Ocean-blue light gathered at Hikari's staff end and slid down channels like a river finding its bed.
Raizen raised one blade and cut one precise line, low left to high right.
Air seemed to slide apart, then ease shut after. The gemstones - Luminite - really seemed to help him.
Hikari set the staff end to the ground. Blue pulsed once, twice, three times.
Then she spun and drew a tiny spiral with the spearhead.
A thin crescent of blue light followed the staff end, then vanished like a shadow that wasn't supposed to exist.
Kori's face went blank.
Her eyes instantly sharpened, as if she'd just seen something she wasn't meant to see.
"Alright, that's enough!" Kori said calmly. "Cases closed, you'll get them again soon-"
"Awee, already?" Raizen sighed, dissapointed.
The cases closed, Raizen and Hikari left after thanking.
Kori stayed a moment longer, gaze on the air where Hikari's crescent was a few seconds ago.
Her jaw was completely clenched.
"Mina" she whispered. "Clip the last twenty seconds. Mark it private."
Mina glanced through the glass, curious. "Flagged."
Kori turned away, unreadable. "She can already use Eon...?" She mumbled.
And after what she'd just seen, the future would hold even more terrifying questions.