* FORGE OF THE STORM WOLF*
Summer settled over the Raijinko estate like a warm, humming veil. After the quiet violence on the lakeside—after his mother's blade carved ten years of grief into closure—Rafael expected to feel hollow, or lost, or burning.
Instead, he felt… quiet.
Not calm. Not healed.
But quiet.
As if the storm inside him had shifted from lightning tearing the sky open to lightning humming in a cloud, waiting for its next shape.
His father sensed the shift first. Thomas Redmane watched him from the deck one morning—sun rising, vapor curling from Rafael's breath as Frostfang coiled sleepily around his feet—and nodded once, satisfied.
"You're thinking again," Thomas said.
Rafael snorted. "You say that like it's dangerous."
"It is," Thomas replied, and walked back inside.
Yuki appeared next. Hair tied in a high knot, new scar tracing her cheek like a red comet, she leaned in the doorway of Rafael's workshop as if inspecting a specimen.
"You're going to build something," she said, not asked.
He didn't bother denying it.
His mother smiled like someone who knew exactly what he'd inherited from her father. "Good. Don't let grief sit unused. Shape it."
And he did.
He stepped into the workshop that afternoon and the world outside ceased to exist.
Tools hummed awake as he approached. Runes carved into the floor pulsed, ready to shape metal and magic alike. Frostfang hopped onto a cushion by the forge, watching with the solemn intensity of a small, deadly supervisor.
Rafael laid Black Storm Howl on the table.
The black bangles gleamed faintly… but not enough. Not anymore.
He reached into himself—into the storm-core that had awakened at age ten and had only grown denser since—grasped a thread of divine lightning, and let it crackle between his fingers.
The CADs answered instantly.
Rafael closed his eyes, listening to them sing.
Then he began.
---
Fenrir's Chains were born at midnight.
Not as metal.
Not as spells.
As understanding.
Rafael dismantled the original bangles piece by piece, lane by lane. He removed archaic safety runes and replaced them with compressed binding formulas drawn from ancient Shinto scrolls. He infused frost conduction elements from Frostfang's naturally shed barbs. He merged resonance patterns from his Sky Flame into the frame.
Every adjustment he made—every twist of metal, every flicker of lightning—refined the purpose:
Contain the divine core.
Channel lightning cleanly.
Limit him—but only him.
Serve as high-grade CADs for everyone else.
They gleamed silver and obsidian when he finished, runes glowing faint and hungry like coils binding a mythic wolf.
"Fenrir's Chains," Rafael murmured.
Frostfang purred in approval, breath fogging the air.
The name was right.
They were no longer simply CADs—they were restraints for a boy who had the potential to unmake rooms by exhaling wrong.
He fastened them to his wrists.
A tremor rippled through him, as if an enormous hand pressed gently on his shoulders.
The storm inside him quieted… not muted, not suppressed, but guided.
He breathed—and for the first time in years, lightning didn't twitch in reflex.
Good.
That was the first creation.
The next would be the first true weapons of his personal arsenal.
---
The Demon Wolf Fangs began as sketches—etched diagrams across half a dozen sheets of enchanted vellum.
But soon they took shape in the forge.
Twin pistols.
Black steel with lightning-conductive channels.
Rune-carved barrels for spell cartridges.
Aether coils for spirit rounds.
Frost chambers fed by Frostfang's core shards.
Rafael forged them in silence, thinking of all the things he could not protect, of the things he would protect next time.
Five days passed in a blurred trance.
When he finished, two magitech guns lay on the table—sleek, lethal, beautiful.
"Demon Wolf Fangs," he whispered.
The forge lights flickered in agreement.
He holstered them on his hips, feeling whole.
---
When he finally emerged from the workshop after nearly a week, hair tied back, eyes bright with exhaustion and satisfaction, his parents were waiting.
Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess. You rebuilt your CADs."
"And designed weapons," Yuki added.
"And devices," he added.
"And armor schemes," Frostfang supplied with a rumble.
Rafael shrugged. "I was productive."
Yuki crossed her arms. "Show me."
He placed Fenrir's Chains on the table first.
Thomas leaned forward. "You built… suppressors?"
"Limiters," Rafael corrected. "Only for me. They adapt to my core."
"And for others?" Yuki asked.
"Normal CADs." He tapped them. "Powerful ones, too."
They exchanged a look—the kind parents share when their child does something terrifying and magnificent.
Then Rafael lifted two slim, elegant magitech wrist units—one gold-etched, one with storm-blue runes.
"For you," he said.
Yuki blinked. "CADs? For us?"
Rafael nodded. "Customized. Mother—yours channels flame suppression, spatial burst movement, and blade-enhancement arrays. Father—yours optimizes battle reinforcement, tactical mapping, and zero-latency spell compression."
Thomas whistled. "Son, you just made the military obsolete."
Then Rafael placed the third device on the table.
It was smaller.
Shaped like a phone.
Silver casing lined with soft blue runes.
A gentle glow beneath the surface like trapped moonlight.
Charm glyphs that responded to one person only.
"Who's that one for?" Yuki asked knowingly.
Rafael hesitated just a heartbeat.
"Hermione."
His parents shared an identical smirk.
Thomas clapped him on the back. "It's about time you gave that girl something other than emotional turmoil."
Yuki nudged him. "Let me see the inscription."
Rafael reluctantly handed her the polished box.
She read the rune-etched words aloud.
"To Hermione. Because you deserve the world to be easier than it is."
Yuki melted.
Thomas groaned. "We've lost him."
But the box wasn't complete yet—not without the book.
---
Rafael spent the next day poring over ancient tomes, selecting one he had ordered from a rare archive in Europe:
Lineages of the Old World: Forgotten Bloodlines and Their Echoes.
He added careful notes:
→ Dagworth-Granger lineage
→ Their alchemical brilliance
→ The political sabotage that erased them
→ Instructions for wizarding Britain's Gringotts lineage-scan rituals
→ Possible relatives
→ A gentle warning that heritage could complicate her life
He bound it in a white rune-woven box with ribbons charmed to warm at Hermione's touch.
And for the first time that summer, he sat at his desk—not forging, not calculating, not designing—and simply wrote.
Hermione,
You asked once if magic had forgotten you.
It hasn't.
I think it remembers you more clearly than you realize.
There's a name in here I want you to read. Dagworth-Granger. They were once among the greatest magical alchemists in Europe. If they are part of your history… then you deserve to know. You deserve all the truth the world has denied you.
Go to Gringotts when you can. Show them this book. Ask for a lineage path.
Your magic isn't new, Hermione.
It's returning.
He sealed the letter, placed it atop the gift, and sent it.
He didn't expect what came next.
---
Two weeks remained before Mahoutokarou reopened.
Two weeks before Hermione returned to Hogwarts.
Two weeks.
Rafael stared at the calendar, torn between logic and something far less rational.
He looked at Frostfang.
The Barioth stared back.
"Don't even ask," Rafael muttered. "I'm trying to be reasonable."
Frostfang yawned.
Rafael exhaled.
Then walked downstairs.
His parents were at breakfast. Yuki glanced up, sensing something shifting inside him.
Rafael cleared his throat. "I want to go to Britain."
Both parents paused.
Thomas set down his tea. "To visit the country, or—"
"Hermione," Yuki finished.
Rafael nodded once.
Thomas sighed. "At least he's honest."
Yuki smiled faintly. "When do you want to leave?"
"Tomorrow."
"Why tomorrow?"
"Because," Rafael said, too simply, "I miss her."
Yuki's expression softened. "Very well."
Thomas leaned back. "Fine. But we're not letting you walk into a foreign magical sector without protection."
Rafael frowned. "Protection?"
Thomas smirked. "You'll see."
The next day, Rafael learned what "protection" meant.
They arrived in Britain under carefully forged Ministry-sanctioned visitation visas. Thomas secured an entire floor of a hotel near Hermione's neighborhood.
At first glance, it seemed empty.
But Rafael noticed the military boots by the door, the faint scent of oil on the lobby carpet, the quiet murmur of voices behind permanently-closed doors.
Everyone staying at the hotel looked… wrong for London tourism.
Broad shoulders.
Sleeves too long to hide tattoos.
Eyes too sharp.
Posture too disciplined.
"Father," Rafael murmured, "this is not subtle."
Thomas shrugged. "I'm not raising you to be kidnapped."
Yuki added, "Or underestimated."
Rafael sighed. "You look like we're declaring war."
"We're meeting Hermione's parents," Yuki corrected. "It's much scarier."
Hermione's parents agreed.
They answered Rafael's email with polite gratitude—and mild panic.
When the Grangers arrived at the lobby, they froze at the sight:
half the hotel staff had the energy of elite bodyguards.
Two tattooed men were having tea reading newspapers upside-down.
A woman in a suit bowed to Yuki as she passed.
Hermione's mother whispered, "Are they… mafia?"
Hermione's father whispered back, "I think they're military?"
Hermione whispered, "I don't know but Rafael is here—"
And then she stopped breathing.
Rafael turned.
Three years.
Three years of letters.
Three years of imagining her face.
Three years of wonderings and rehearsed greetings and quiet longing.
And suddenly there she was.
Hermione Granger, almost fourteen, curls longer, eyes bright and wide, wearing a pink blouse and clinging to the book he'd sent as if it were oxygen.
Their eyes met.
He forgot how to breathe.
Hermione took one shaky step forward—then stopped, cheeks blazing.
"You're—" she whispered. "You're real."
Rafael smiled faintly. "Last I checked."
Hermione made a noise that was half laugh, half sob, and threw her arms around him before she could reconsider.
He caught her—one hand on her back, one on her waist—heart pounding too loudly for someone as composed as he pretended to be.
"You grew," she whispered.
"So did you," he murmured into her hair.
She pulled back just enough to look up at him. "Is this—am I dreaming? Because I swear—"
"You're not dreaming." He brushed a curl from her cheek. "But if you were, I'd hope I was in it."
Her face turned scarlet.
Behind them, the mothers exchanged a look.
"Oh, they're adorable," Yuki whispered.
Mrs. Granger nodded. "We should definitely start planning the wedding."
Rafael choked.
Hermione squeaked.
Their fathers exchanged identical sighs.
The rest of that day passed quietly—dinner together, Hermione showing him around the park she grew up near, her parents watching with a fond exasperation that only deepened when Rafael reflexively moved in front of Hermione every time a stranger walked by.
But the moment Hermione opened the silver arcane device he'd made for her, her world froze.
"Rafael… this is… it's beautiful," she breathed, tracing the runes.
"It responds to your magic," he said softly. "It'll warm when you're upset. Cool when you're overwhelmed. It syncs with the letters you send me. And… it glows when I'm thinking about you. Hard to explain, but you'll feel it."
Hermione looked up at him, eyes shimmering.
"You made this… for me?"
"Of course," he said. "You deserve something only you can use."
She blinked fast—and then hugged him again.
This time he held her longer.
---
The final week of summer was a blur.
Rafael trained Frostfang by the lake, snow swirling in hot August air.
He refined the Demon Wolf Fangs, carving new runes into their chambers.
He taught his parents how to use the CADs he'd built.
He mediated on the rooftop until divine lightning circled around him like patient serpents.
He sketched armor designs—"Stormborne Raiment," he called it.
And then—
The System awakened.
He was reviewing elemental rune formulas late at night when text blazed across his vision.
LEVEL UP.
EXPERIENCE: 100,000 → 0
THRESHOLD MET.
NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED:
[THE SHOP]
ACCESS? Y/N
Rafael whispered, "…yes."
A vortex of shimmering light unfolded.
Weapons.
Templates.
Artifacts.
Materials.
Upgrades.
Mystic cores.
Legendary blueprints.
Items labeled "FORGE ONLY" and "DIVINE RECOMMENDED."
Frostfang perked up.
Rafael's heart raced. His life had just split into before and after.
A new path.
A new arsenal.
A new era.
He turned toward the mountains, toward the school waiting beyond the storm gates.
"I'm ready," Rafael murmured.
Lightning rippled across his shoulders.
The Storm Wolf walked into destiny again.