Royushi did not answer right away.

The hologram had vanished, the pressure lifted, and the med-bay returned to its artificial quiet. Machines hummed softly. Lights stabilized. The world pretended nothing extraordinary had happened.

Royushi lay there, staring at the ceiling, replaying the question over and over.

Will you stop wasting what you have?

It wasn’t an order.
It wasn’t a promise.

It was worse.

It was permission.

He closed his eyes.

Sleep came eventually—not deep, not restful, but enough to pull him forward into the next day.

By morning, the Citadel was already moving.

Recruits filled the corridors, their Shuryoku signatures brushing against one another like static. Royushi walked among them unnoticed, his steps slow, posture relaxed. His injuries had been cleared faster than expected—another decision made above his level, another thread he didn’t understand.

Whispers followed him.

Not loud ones. Curious ones.

That’s him.
The one from the mission.
He survived alone.

Royushi ignored them.

Attention had never felt like a reward. It felt like weight.

He reached an empty training chamber on the Citadel’s lower level—a place no one used unless assigned. Smooth floors. No equipment. No observers. The kind of room meant for basics.

Or isolation.

He stood in the center and waited.

Nothing happened.

Minutes passed.

Royushi exhaled slowly. “I didn’t say yes,” he muttered to the empty air.

The pressure answered.

Not heavy. Not sharp.

Just present.

The hologram formed in front of him, edges flickering faintly. Rikishu Kairo looked no different than before, though there was something thinner about him now—less defined, as if each appearance cost clarity.

“You came anyway,” Royushi said.

“I said I would stop coming,” the hologram replied. “Not that I wouldn’t listen.”

Royushi frowned. “That feels like a loophole.”

“It is.”

That earned a breath of something close to a laugh.

Rikishu gestured to the empty space around them. “Sit.”

Royushi hesitated, then lowered himself onto the floor, legs crossed. It felt childish. Vulnerable.

“Close your eyes,” Rikishu said.

Royushi didn’t move.

“This isn’t meditation,” Rikishu added. “You won’t find peace.”

“Then what will I find?” Royushi asked.

“Resistance.”

That was enough.

Royushi closed his eyes.

At first, there was nothing. Just the echo of his own breathing, the faint hum of the Citadel beneath him. He waited for a sensation—for warmth, pressure, anything that resembled the Shuryoku displays he’d seen from others.

Nothing came.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said.

“I know,” Rikishu replied calmly. “That’s because you’re searching.”

Royushi frowned. “Isn’t that the point?”

“No,” Rikishu said. “That’s the habit.”

He stepped closer. Royushi felt it—not physically, but internally. A subtle disturbance, like a ripple in still water.

“Everyone is taught to activate Shuryoku,” Rikishu continued. “To pull it forward. To shape it. To use it.”

Royushi’s jaw tightened. “And I can’t.”

“You don’t need to.”

Silence settled.

“Shuryoku isn’t absent in you,” Rikishu said. “It’s compressed.”

Royushi’s breath faltered slightly.

“Most people leak Shuryoku constantly,” Rikishu went on. “Emotion. Desire. Fear. It bleeds out of them without effort. That’s why their reserves stay shallow.”

Royushi swallowed.

“And me?” he asked.

“You don’t leak,” Rikishu said. “You suppress.”

Something twisted in Royushi’s chest.

“That’s not a skill,” he muttered.

“It kept you intact,” Rikishu replied. “At a cost.”

Royushi clenched his fists.

Images surfaced unbidden—moments of choosing not to try, not to speak, not to care. Times he’d stepped back before being pushed. Times he’d let things pass because reaching for them felt pointless.

“You’re not empty,” Rikishu said quietly. “You’re sealed.”

Royushi opened his eyes. “Then unseal it.”

Rikishu shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Circulate it.”

Royushi stared. “I don’t know how.”

“That’s good,” Rikishu replied. “You won’t do it wrong on purpose.”

He gestured again. “Breathe.”

Royushi inhaled.

“Slower.”

He exhaled.

“Don’t pull,” Rikishu said. “Don’t push. Just notice where your breath stops.”

Royushi frowned, focusing inward. At first, it felt pointless. Then—something.

A subtle pressure near his chest. Not pain. Not warmth. A resistance, like a door that had been shut so long it didn’t remember how to open.

“There,” Rikishu said. “That’s it.”

Royushi’s breathing faltered. “That feels… wrong.”

“Yes.”

The word landed with certainty.

“Circulation feels wrong before it feels natural,” Rikishu said. “Because it moves against habits you built to survive.”

Royushi’s shoulders tensed. Sweat beaded at his temples.

“Don’t force it,” Rikishu warned. “Let it move around the resistance, not through it.”

“How?” Royushi asked through clenched teeth.

“By staying present,” Rikishu replied. “Not hopeful. Not afraid. Just here.”

Royushi focused.

Breath in.
Breath out.

The pressure shifted—barely—but enough to be felt. A faint current traced a slow path through his chest, down his spine, back up again. Weak. Uneven.

But moving.

Royushi gasped, eyes snapping open.

The hologram raised a hand. “Enough.”

The pressure vanished instantly.

Royushi collapsed backward, palms pressed to the floor, heart racing.

“That was it?” he asked.

“That was the beginning,” Rikishu replied.

Royushi stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling.

“I didn’t get stronger,” he said.

“No,” Rikishu agreed. “You got honest.”

He turned away slightly, his form flickering.

“This is all we’ll do for now,” he added. “No techniques. No output. Only circulation.”

Royushi swallowed. “How long?”

Rikishu paused.

“As long as it takes for you to stop running,” he said.

The hologram dissolved.

The room returned to silence.

Royushi remained on the floor long after, staring at nothing.

For the first time in his life, effort hadn’t felt pointless.

It had felt… terrifying.

And that scared him more than failure ever had.