Royoshi couldn't just ignore something the Citadel masters had asked him to join.

The evaluation room was smaller than expected, but it looked dangerous and isolating.

"Royoshi Kairo. Step forward."

He did.

It was Master Devrik.

"You know why you have been called here?"

"I don't know, sir," Royoshi replied.

"We noticed and analyzed your footage," Devrik said. "Your growth pattern doesn't match any of the previous ones."

"Really?" Royoshi replied. "Guess I am unique."

"No, you are just trying to hide your Shuryoku. We can tell that."

"I'm not trying to-" Royoshi stopped before finishing his sentence.

A huge sphere of Shuryoku was aimed right at his face.

He quickly dodged it.

A machine threw that at him.

"See," Devrik said. "You dodged that with ease. Most students would be out cold before the ball even touched them."

"HOW CAN I NOT DODGE IT?" Royoshi replied. "That ball was about to hit my face!"

"Kairo," Devrik asked. "You know who you share your last name with?"

"Uh… myself?" Royoshi answered

"No," Devrik said. "You share your name with echo."

"Who's echo?"

"Rikishu Kairo."

Royoshi stood there still for a bit without speaking a word.

"Rikishu…?" Royoshi asked. "The one who died trying to protect the world?"

"Yes," Devrik replied. "That Rikishu."

Silence lingered for some moments afterwards.

"You have two paths, Royoshi Kairo."

"One," he continued. "You remain a regular recruit. You fail when expected. You pass when convenient."

Royoshi frowned. "And the other?"

Devrik's eyes sharpened.

"You accept observation and restriction."

The room felt smaller.

"This is not punishment," Devrik continued. "This is containment."

Royoshi swallowed. 

"And if I refuse?"

Devrik paused. 

"Then we stop pretending you're harmless."

Containment.

The word echoed louder than the machine hum.

"You're not arresting me," Royoshi said finally.

"No," Devrik replied. "If we wanted to do that, you wouldn't be standing here."

"That's… not soothing…"

Devrik almost smiled. Almost.

"Royoshi," he said, voice lower. "The Citadel was not built to protect the gifted; it was built so the gifted can protect the world."

"And what if they don't want to?" Royoshi asked. "What if they just want to live normally?"

"Then history won't remember them."

The lights in the room slowly dimmed. The hum of the machines became slow.

"Rikishu Kairo," Devrik continued, "was never meant to be a symbol."

Royoshi's jaw tightened.

"He didn't ask to be Echo," Devrik said. "The Citadel named him after his damage reports stopped coming in."

"Damaged…reports?" Royoshi blinked.

Devrik waved a hand. Data flickered to life—fractured projections and timestamps with redacted locations.

Cities spared.

Anomalies that simply ended.

"He left echoes," Devrik said calmly. "Residual Shuryoku that bent probability. The places affected by it had their reality behave better than it should have."

Royoshi felt a strange pressure in his chest. A familiar pain.

"He was contained," Devrik finished. "And he agreed to it."

Royoshi looked away.

"So this is about him," he said quietly. "Not me."

Devrik shook his head. "It's about patterns."

He stepped closer.

"You dodge before danger commits. You fail in ways that confuse observers rather than reassure them."

Royoshi swallowed.

"That's not a coincidence," Devrik continued. "That's training."

The room went very quiet.

"I don't know what you're talking about…," Royoshi said quietly.

"I think," Devrik said, "that someone has taught you how to survive without being seen."

A long pause.

"And I think," he added, "that someone is doing it again."

Royoshi's pulse spiked in worry.

He didn't move. Didn't speak.

"You don't have to confirm it," Devrik said. "Your body already does."

He gestured again. The data vanished. The room returned to bare metal and low light."

"You circulate under stress without expansion," Devrik continued. "You retreat before escalation. You fail without collapsing."

Royoshi clenched his fists.

"That's not talent," Devrik said. "That's teaching."

"If Rikishu Kairo taught you," he continued, "then he taught you the one thing the Citadel never perfected."

Royoshi forced his voice steady. "And what's that?"

"How to disappear without dying."

"This evaluation is not to expose you," Devrik said. "It's to determine whether you've gone too far to stop."

The air thickened. The machine behind him started again.

Royoshi felt the pressure immediately.

He held it.

Barely.

"If I accept…," Royoshi asked. "Do I get a choice?"

Devrik considered him.

"For now," he replied. "Yes."

The pressure lifted.

The machine powered down.

"Devrik turned away."

"You will remain in Class C," he said. "Your failures will be tolerated. Your successes will be delayed. Your file won't stay open to anyone else."

He stopped at the door.

"But Royoshi Kairo," he added without looking back, "if Echo truly found a way to teach without being seen—"

The door slid open.

"—then the Citadel will eventually demand to see the lesson."

The door closed.

Royoshi stood alone in the evaluation chamber, breathing slowly, circulating steadily.

After a few moments, he left the evaluation chamber, too.

The pressure was gone.

The attention had only just begun.