So I could choose my own path… and maybe—maybe—master more than one kind of magic?

  That should’ve been the part that stuck with me most.

  But it wasn’t.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said at the end.

  I looked down the row of desks. They all looked the same to me. Ordinary. Identical. And yet Toshihiro had implied that one of them was the worst choice I could make.

  Did it have something to do with darker desires? With the kind of hunger that doesn’t want to protect anything—only possess?

  A thought slipped through me, quick and foreign, like an echo that didn’t belong:

  Not everyone who seeks power wants to save.

  It was so obvious it made me want to scold myself for how na?ve my own thoughts had been.

  The sentence didn’t feel like mine.

  And still, it lingered—floating in my mind like an air bubble trapped under water.

  Silence settled between us.

  Toshihiro stood motionless, as if he were observing something beyond my presence—like my thoughts were as visible to him as the objects in the room.

  The faint classroom light painted shifting reflections across his owl mask, and I had the uneasy feeling that the eyes behind it weren’t looking at me…

  they were reading the smallest changes in my face.

  For a moment I wondered if that was the real lesson.

  That every choice—no matter how innocent it seems—reveals the deepest parts of the one who makes it.

  “If you have no more questions,” the teacher said gently, breaking the stillness, “I want you to go home. Rest. Eat well. And be ready to learn again tomorrow.”

  Then, almost casually—

  “Believe me,” he added, “it won’t be anything like what you’re used to.”

  I stood.

  Toshihiro moved his hands with graceful precision, and the space around us seemed to turn on its axis.

  The walls folded. The floor exhaled.

  And in a blink, we were back in the main reception of Nebenbei.

  The vertigo of the shift stole my breath. It felt like my body had been dragged through an invisible river—returned to the shore of reality only when I had no strength left to resist it.

  Zenhaff sat on the main display, licking a paw with the same indifference as if the universe hadn’t just rearranged itself. The sight was almost funny.

  Also… comforting.

  In the middle of all this madness, her arrogance was the closest thing to a constant.

  “That was quick,” she said without looking up. “Giving up already? Running back home?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m going home.”

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  Her cheeks puffed as she tried to hold back laughter. She failed spectacularly. The laugh burst out of her so hard she actually toppled off the display with a dull thud.

  “See you tomorrow, Zenhaff,” I said, smiling.

  When I turned toward the exit, I caught her staring at me in disbelief. Her tail lashed in clear irritation.

  “Not all students come back a second time,” she muttered—mostly to herself, but just loud enough for me to hear.

  The words tied a knot in my chest.

  I couldn’t tell if it was a warning.

  Or a compliment.

  Or both.

  I was about to touch the front door when the masked man spoke behind me.

  “Mizunkai.”

  Instantly, a bright turquoise light wrapped around my body.

  The glow was gentle—but the energy inside it felt alive, like every thread had its own awareness, moving with purpose, weaving around me like liquid arms.

  I turned, searching for an explanation.

  “That spell will help you reach the surface dry,” Toshihiro said, adjusting his mask. “It works even if you can’t swim.”

  His tone was formal—

  but there was something warm in it. A softness that slipped through his usual solemnity like a single, honest thread of care.

  I didn’t answer.

  I just nodded… and stepped through the threshold.

  The water welcomed me like a benevolent mother.

  The turquoise light expanded around me, parting the lake into a corridor that held me in gentle warmth. The underwater world unfolded in absolute silence, broken only by my own breathing.

  I could see tiny luminous particles drifting around me—like stardust suspended beneath the surface.

  And I could breathe.

  Each stroke was light. Natural. The water didn’t crush me now—it carried me upward.

  For a moment, I thought I heard laughter.

  Maybe I was exhausted. Maybe my mind was playing tricks.

  It wasn’t cruel laughter.

  It wasn’t joyful either.

  It sounded… old.

  I turned slowly, searching for the source of those ethereal voices.

  Nothing.

  Only water—vibrating with a hidden life.

  The turquoise aura guided me up. Pressure eased. My body rose without effort, and the surface became a clear membrane that opened to let me pass.

  When I broke through, cool air slapped my face.

  Afternoon light painted everything gold and rose. From this angle, Ziwanda looked different—less threatening, more quiet—

  though even the quiet felt like it was waiting for something.

  I floated there for a few seconds, still, watching sunlight filter between the trees. The beams formed glowing columns, like pillars guarding the forest.

  The turquoise enchantment clung to my skin with hypnotic delicacy. Water slid off without soaking. Cold couldn’t reach me.

  I felt strange—caught between two natures.

  Not of water.

  Not of air.

  As if, for a brief moment, I belonged to both.

  Without effort, I reached the shore.

  Fresh air filled my lungs. The fading light brushed my skin in copper and honey.

  The silence was so pure I could hear droplets slipping from leaves.

  I scanned the trees, half-expecting Akuma to be there.

  Everything looked still.

  But tension threaded through the wind—an underlying murmur that didn’t belong to the forest.

  I didn’t see him.

  I felt him.

  Something, somewhere, knew I was back.

  A bird’s cry split the quiet—sharp and sudden—as if the woods were warning its inhabitants, if there were any, that I’d returned.

  I stood still, senses stretched, waiting for a movement. A shadow. A sign.

  Nothing.

  Only wind.

  I hugged my arms—more instinct than cold—and stepped into the trees.

  Behind me, the turquoise glow began to fade, leaving a faint trace on my skin. A residual shimmer that would take hours to die completely.

  When I rubbed my forearm, the light broke into tiny sparks that rose a few inches and dissolved—like fireflies without bodies.

  The feeling it left behind was strange.

  Relief… and emptiness.

  Part of me didn’t want the magic to fade. I wanted that arcane warmth to stay—proof that everything I’d lived wasn’t a dream.

  As I walked, the forest sounds wrapped around me: the soft crunch of damp ground, the distant hush of things moving, the wind sighing through branches.

  Everything felt sharper.

  As if Mizunkai had widened my senses.

  Maybe it wasn’t just that I heard more.

  Maybe it was that I understood.

  The forest had rhythm. Cadence.

  Even intention.

  And I didn’t feel alone.

  A soft current passed beside me—barely there—lifting dust and dry leaves. I turned, and I could’ve sworn I saw a quick shadow sliding between the trunks.

  Not Akuma.

  Something smaller.

  Less lethal.

  Something that paused to watch me…

  then vanished into the dark.

  I kept walking, without looking back.

  This time, without fear.

  As the glow died away, a realization clicked into place with bright clarity:

  Mizunkai wasn’t just protection.

  It was a tether.

  A mark.

  An invisible thread tying me—whether I wanted it or not—to Toshihiro and to Nebenbei.

  And as I crossed the forest, I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe that was the true price of magic.

  Not bringing power back with you.

  But carrying it.

  And once you do…

  the world you thought you knew never becomes the same again.