The forge was cold, and the anvil looked larger when it wasn't used.
Raizen sat on a low stool with his forearms on his knees, Luminite blade across his legs. Hikari was right behind him, leaning on his back.
Her fingers held the edge of a cloth pouch, holding a shard of a white mask.
Neither spoke.
Obi was aimlessly walking around the room.
"He knew" Obi said finally, to nobody in particular. "He knew and walked out anyway!"
No one answered.
Obi stopped walking in circles for a few seconds, then went on. "He could have told me. A word. A look. An "Hey Obi, I am going." Anything! Do you know what it feels to wake up in a room and knowing they chose to make you find an empty chair!? He was not alone. He made himself that way."
Raizen lifted his head.
Obi's mouth kept moving. "He taught me which hammer to use by watching how my wrist trembled, and he couldn't tell me he was going to fight twenty men who make knives fly with their minds? He thought I would be in the way, is that it? He thought I would break the distraction by breathing too loud? What the hell!?"
"Obi." Raizen cut him off
The blacksmith raked a hand through his hair and left it there. The line between his eyebrows deepened. "No. Let me be angry for one minute, Raizen. It's not fair."
Raizen stood, one blade still across his palms. He set it on the workbench, gently. Then he faced Obi and stepped into the space between words.
"Nothing is fair. Takeshi knew you would follow" he said.
Obi blinked. "And?"
"And that would have killed him faster." Raizen did not raise his voice. I understand why he left us out. I wanted to be there too. As much as you did. Maybe even more."
"Oh! So we just sit here and be clever about it after he's gone, huh?"
"No." The forge light put a faint sheen on Raizen's cheekbones. The cut at the corner of his mouth had healed into a pale mark. "We stand where we are and carry it forward. That was the choice he couldn't make. That's what he wanted us to do."
Obi's protest returned, smaller. "He should have at least let me try…"
Hikari looked up from the white shard. Her eyes were steady. "Takeshi believed your life is not something to uselessly spend" she said. "That is why he never asked."
Obi turned his head away, jaw clenched. He picked up a small hammer just to put it down again. "I hate that it makes sense."
Raizen closed his hand once, then opened it. "He left a better world behind. We don't let it go to waste."
Obi looked at him then - stared, really.
Something in Raizen's posture had changed since the night of the letter. Straighter, stronger.
The change lived lower, like a weight had moved and finally found its place.
"You sound just like him" Obi mumbled.
"I don't want to sound like him" Raizen said. "I want to honor him. That's different."
A soft knock came at the door and then opened without waiting for an answer.
Louissa stepped into the room. She wore a shawl that made her look even smaller.
"It is done"
Obi's fingers curled. Raizen's chin dipped once, a slight nod.
Louissa looked at each of them, one at a time.
"Every trace of the Moirai is gone" she said. "Their door, their masks, their little red lights, everything. They're dead."
Obi's voice came out like a metal pipe dropped on a stone floor. "Takeshi, too."
Louissa didn't soften the truth to make it comfortable. "He did what men like him do best."
Hikari's gaze tracked a curl of metal shaving that lay on the floor near her foot. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.
"He did what he believed only he could do" she said. "He was wrong about that... But I'm glad he finally made his dream come true."
Louissa nodded. "He was, indeed, stubborn. It kept him alive longer than it should have. And killed him sooner than we wanted. Most strengths are like that."
Obi swiped at his face with the heel of his hand, hard enough to hurt.
No one tried to make a joke. No one tried to turn grief into a lesson. Louissa took one step closer to Raizen and Hikari. "Listen to me now" she said gently. "All things end. We honor them by deciding what begins instead."
Obi let out an annoyed breath. "Begin what!?"
Louissa tipped her head at Raizen's blade on the bench, at Hikari's staff sitting against the wall.
"You have a path whether you like it or not. You two have trained a lot. Now you know what you can do. Approximately. You have learned to pull two percent of the right kind of power and not let it burn your hands."
Hikari's eyes brightened. "Are we ready…?"
"Not quite, but close to as ready as anyone could get" Louissa answered. "The Lotus Academy asks for perfection. It asks for endurance and the willingness to be better than everyone else."
Then she let out a small grin:
"That's in the first phase. Until you join a Vanguard branch"
Obi snorted, smile finally returning to his dumb face. "They're going to break your favorite rules, gran"
Louissa's smile was now even wider. "They already have. But some rules are simply made to be broken."
Obi looked at Raizen and, for the first time since he had paced the first triangle, the line between his eyebrows eased.
"If you need a blade rebalanced, bring it now" he said. "I ain't letting you stand in a place that judges without perfect stuff."
Raizen nodded once. "Thanks"
Louissa moved to the door and paused with her hand on the frame. "One more thing" she said without turning. "When you walk in there, don't forget that mercy is a kind of strength. Your time there might try to teach you otherwise."
"So uh... Be impolite and refuse the lesson!!" Obi's smile came back.
Raizen stuck a finger in his ear. "Alright, Obi... No need to shout"
Outside, the Underworks got ready for another morning. A cart wheel squeaked past.
The city did not stop. It never could. People had learned to move inside of it, no matter what.
Louissa stepped out into the hall. Over her shoulder, to the three figures, she added a last line:
"You are ready. Not because you are strong. Because you are just at the beginning."
Raizen picked up the blades again. Hikari tied the pouch back to her hip.
Obi leaned, lit from below, putting coal on for the first fire of the day, and with a grand smile on his face, he said:
"I think... You're ready. I mean, ready enough!"