Spellworth didn't waste time.
He closed the record book, set it on the chair, and looked at Rosetta.
"Go to the waiting room. Tell the students the appraisal is postponed — device malfunction. Nothing further."
Rosetta glanced at Rush. Then back at Spellworth.
"Yes, Professor."
She was already moving.
Spellworth turned to Rush. He studied him for a moment — the steadied breathing, the controlled posture, the way Rush was already managing whatever had just happened as though managing it was simply the next task.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Then come with me."
The administrative wing was quieter than the rest of the Academy. Older stone. Narrower corridors. The kind of silence that accumulated in places where decisions were made and kept.
Rosetta caught up with them at the courtyard crossing, falling into step without a word. She had delivered the announcement and returned quickly. No wasted motion.
The three of them walked without speaking.
Rush kept his breathing even. Inside his chest the Khaos Blocker had settled back into its steady rhythm, the surge absorbed, the fracture contained. The pain had receded to a dull deep pressure he was already learning to ignore.
You acted without warning, he said internally.
A pause.
Yes, Beelzebub replied.
You could have told me what you were going to do.
There was no time. A beat. I prioritized the repair over your comfort. That was a calculated decision.
Rush's jaw tightened slightly.
Next time you make a calculated decision that puts me on my knees in front of someone — warn me first.
Beelzebub was quiet for a moment.
Noted, he said finally. Flat. No apology. Just the acknowledgment of something filed and stored.
Rush said nothing further.
At the end of the upper hallway stood two tall oak doors, slightly ajar.
Spellworth knocked once.
A brief silence.
"Enter."
The office was large and warm. Bookshelves floor to ceiling on three walls. A wide dark desk near the window. Mana lanterns burning steady amber at each corner.
Elyse stood behind her desk, a letter open in one hand. She looked up as the three of them entered.
Her eyes moved across them — Spellworth, Rosetta, Rush — and settled on Rush.
She set the letter down.
"Sit. All of you."
They sat — Spellworth in the left chair, Rosetta in the right, Rush between them. Elyse remained standing.
Spellworth looked at Rush.Then at Elyse.
"The core Appraiser broke down and its core turned to ash."
Elyse looked at Rush's wrist.
" Your sleeve "
Rush nodded and lifted his right sleeve .
Spellworth was shocked.
" This pattern, this silver geometry– a Khaos Blocker! "
"Yes." Elyse confirmed.
"Held by the Ryanheart family," she continued. "Has been for some time."
"I wasn't aware of that."
"Most aren't."
Rosetta looked at the markings on Rush's wrist. She wrote something down without speaking.
Spellworth looked at Rush.
"That means your core is fractured."
Rush nodded.
Spellworth held his gaze for a moment. Then looked back at Elyse.
"The Blocker suppresses the fracture's instability. It also suppresses his core classification entirely."
" It absorbs the mana surge from the core. " Elyse added.
"So it absorbed the mana from the core of Appraiser. This explains the degeneration."
Rosetta shifting her gaze between Spellworth and Elyse, noted everything.
Spellworth folded his hands in his lap. The exhale of a man closing one set of questions and opening another.
"This means we can never appraise his core."
"Record it as First stage Verdant Core. It is the most we can justify without a completed appraisal. "
Spellworth looked at Rush one last time. Then back at Elyse.
"Understood."
Rosetta wrote it down without being asked.
Elyse looked at both of them.
"Nothing spoken in this room leaves it." Quiet. Absolute. "Not a word."
"Understood," Spellworth said.
Rosetta looked up from her notepad.
"Yes, Headmistress."
Elyse glanced toward the window. The light outside had shifted — midday ,bright and even across the Academy grounds.
She looked at Rush and Rosetta.
"Go back, both of you."
She looked at Spellworth.
"Stay, Gilbert."
Rush stood, pulled his sleeve down, and followed Rosetta out.
The oak doors closed behind them.
The corridor was quiet.
Their footsteps moved in the same rhythm down the hallway, past the framed portraits, toward the staircase. Neither of them spoke immediately.
The administrative wing gave way to the connecting passage. Outside the narrow windows the Academy grounds were bright with mid day light — students crossing the courtyards below, the ordinary movement of a day continuing without them.
Rosetta broke the silence first.
"Does it hurt?"
Rush kept his eyes ahead.
"Sometimes."
She nodded slowly.
They descended the staircase. The noise of the Academy filtered back in gradually — voices, distant bells, boots on stone.
At the bottom of the stairs she spoke again.
"How did the core fracture?"
Rush was quiet for a moment.
"A hunt," he said." Last year."
"What were you hunting to end up with a broken core."
"I was not hunting. I was being hunted."
Rosetta didn't push further. She walked beside him in silence, her notepad tucked under her arm, her stopwatch still for once.
At the junction where the passage split — first year classrooms to the left, student council offices to the right — they stopped.
Rosetta looked at him. Not with pity. Not with professional neutrality. Something quieter than both.
"Whatever is happening," she said. "You're not alone."
Rush held her gaze unable to understand why she said it.
"I know." he said.
Rosetta nodded once. She turned right and walked toward the student council offices, her footsteps steady and even.
Rush watched her go for a moment.
Then he turned left and kept walking.