The next day, I woke before even the darkness had started to fade.
My body hated me for it.
My legs felt like they'd been torn off and reattached by a rookie priest.
My shoulders twitched with every tiny movement.
My palms were stiff, still healing from yesterday's splinters.
But I rose anyway.
Weakness didn't care how I felt.
Strength didn't either.
By the time I slipped out of the orphanage, Ignis was still drowning in pitch-black night. The sky sagged with low, dirty stars barely visible behind the smog. The cold bit into my fingers as I made my way to the clearing.
Something felt off.
Sir Zenite was already there.
He stood perfectly still—so still it felt like the world moved around him, not the other way around. His silver armor caught the moonlight, the lion crest on his chest glowing like a silent warning.
"…You're early," I said.
"No," he replied, still not facing me. "You're late."
My heart jumped. "But—"
"In war, being early is on time. Being on time is late. Being late is dead."
He finally turned his head toward me.
"And you want to be a knight?"
The question wasn't mocking. Not hopeful either. Just sharp—like a blade held against the truth.
"I do," I said quietly.
He nodded toward the crude wooden sword I'd carved.
"Show me your first swing from yesterday."
I took a breath, raised the blade, and swung downward.
It was… okay. Better than yesterday. Still terrible.
Zenite shook his head.
"No aura. No intention. No spine." He moved behind me. "Again."
I swung.
"Your elbow is too high."
Again.
"You're breathing wrong."
Again.
"Your stance collapses at the hip."
Again.
"You're swinging like a disabled idiot."
Again.
My arms trembled after twenty swings. My shoulders burned. My grip loosened by itself.
"Again."
I pushed through.
At a hundred swings, my legs finally buckled and I fell to one knee, gasping for breath.
Zenite watched.
Silent.
Unmoved.
Judging without speaking a word.
When I could breathe again, I asked the question that had been eating at my mind.
"Sir Zenite… what is aura supposed to feel like?"
He didn't answer at first.
Instead, he crouched in front of me, lowering himself until our eyes were level.
"Do you know why knights use aura?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Mages cast with mana. Priests heal, bless, and shield with ether. Evokers whisper to spirits. Invocation users rely on gods."
He lifted one gauntleted hand.
"But knights… knights rely only on themselves and their strength."
A faint shimmer—like a thin, purple flame—coated his fingertips.
"Aura is will manifested. The strength you forge by refusing to break."
He tapped my chest, right over my dormant core.
"Aura comes from resolve. From your reason to stand. Your reason to swing. Your reason to even wake up every day."
His eyes narrowed, pinning me in place.
"And you, Rain—what is your reason?"
I swallowed.
Images flashed:
Being overlooked.
Being stepped on.
Being nothing.
Being invisible.
But beneath all of it… something steadier had begun to pulse.
"I want…" My voice faltered.
Zenite's voice softened—not kinder, but steadier.
"Say it."
"I want to climb," I said. "So no one can ever look down on me again."
My fists tightened.
"I want to be strong enough that even the world has to acknowledge me."
My voice cracked, but I didn't look away.
"I want… to change everything about myself."
For a moment—just a moment—Zenite's expression shifted. Something like recognition flickered in his eyes.
"Good," he said. "Then stand."
I forced myself up. My legs shook.
"Now swing," he commanded. "But this time… mean it."
I raised the crude wooden sword.
My arms screamed. My lungs burned. My vision blurred.
But I swung.
And the moment the blade sliced through the cold air—
Something inside me stirred.
Not a spark.
Not a flicker.
A pulse.
A heartbeat resonating with my core.
The wooden sword finished its arc with a hollow thud.
Zenite's eyes sharpened.
"There it is," he murmured.
My core pulsed again.
"Again," he said.
I swung.
The pulse matched the motion, faint but real.
"Again."
I swung again.
Twenty swings later, I collapsed to my knees, gasping. But my core… it pulsed again. A stubborn, tiny beat. Something awakening—finally—after fourteen years of silence.
Zenite stepped closer.
"A knight does not swing with his arms," he said quietly. "He swings with his conviction."
He paused.
"Tomorrow, I leave."
I froze.
He continued, "I must return to Lionhearth. My duties call."
I looked up sharply. "Already?"
He nodded once. "Continue swinging. Continue learning the basics. You cannot awaken aura if you skip the foundation."
I nodded.
He turned to go—but then stopped.
"Take the apprentice knight exam this winter," he said. "If you have the spine for it."
He began walking away, cloak fluttering in the faint morning breeze.
So I called after him—loud enough to hurt my throat.
"I'll meet you there!"
"If I have to go to hell and back, I'll still get there! So wait for me!"
Zenite didn't turn around.
But I saw it—the slightest tilt of his head.
Acknowledgment.
My legs finally collapsed, trembling, aching, useless.
But I was smiling.
Because today…
I didn't just swing.
Something inside me finally awoke.
Not fully.
Not strongly.
But it was something
Every storm begins somewhere.
And mine had finally begun to fall—
not as a drizzle… but as the first drop of something different.