Far from Asakusa.
Far from the streets Kidan once knew, though he no longer remembered them.
The White-Clad stronghold stood wrapped in silence and ash-colored gloom, its corridors lit by wavering firelight that never seemed warm. Everything there felt too still, too obedient, too clean in a way that made the skin crawl.
Within one of its chambers, Kidan sat quietly on the edge of a low bed.
His white hair still looked soft in the dim light. His blue eyes, marked beneath by the zero and triangle, reflected the flame from the wall lanterns with a distant, uncertain glow.
He had been there for some time now.
Enough to know that every morning, without fail, she would come.
The door slid open.
Ritsu stepped inside carrying a folded set of clothes over one arm and a tray in her hands.
"My apologies, Kidan-sama," she said softly. "I have brought your breakfast."
Kidan straightened at once.
"You do not need to apologize to me, Ritsu."
Ritsu placed the tray down carefully before him.
Rice porridge.
Grilled fish, lightly flaked.
A small bowl of miso soup.
Simple and warm.
Prepared with almost ceremonial care.
Ritsu then knelt beside the tray and lowered her head.
"Please eat."
Kidan looked at her.
Then at the food.
Then back at her.
"Do you always need to do this yourself."
"Yes."
"You could ask someone else."
"There is no need."
Kidan hesitated, then gave a small smile.
"Thank you."
Ritsu's expression did not change much, but there was a strange softness in the stillness of her eyes.
"There is no need for thanks, Kidan-sama."
Kidan had heard those words many times now.
Every time he thanked her.
Every time he bowed his head.
Every time he awkwardly tried to help her with something she had clearly already decided she would do herself.
Still, he said it anyway.
Because he meant it.
He lifted the bowl and began to eat.
Ritsu remained kneeling quietly nearby, as though merely being allowed to stay in the same room as him was enough.
Kidan noticed that too.
At first, it had unsettled him.
The way she watched over him.
The way she seemed to treat even the smallest things. Bringing him food, preparing his clothes, drawing his bath as if they were sacred duties.
Now, it mostly made him feel strange.
Not uncomfortable.
Just... strange.
As if he had been placed in a role bigger than himself.
A role everyone else understood better than he did.
When he finished the meal, he placed the bowl down carefully.
"It was good."
Ritsu lowered her head once.
"I am relieved."
Kidan smiled faintly. "You cooked it?"
"Yes."
"It was really good."
Ritsu said the same thing she always did.
"There is no need for praise, Kidan-sama."
Kidan laughed under his breath.
"You always say that."
"Because it is true."
After breakfast, she helped him prepare for the day.
That too had become routine.
The bath was already drawn by the time he entered the next room. Steam rose gently into the cold air. Clean cloths were folded beside the basin. Fresh robes had been laid out neatly.
Kidan paused at the entrance.
"Ritsu."
"Yes?"
"You really do not have to do every single thing for me."
Ritsu turned toward him.
Her face remained calm, but there was something like confusion in the tilt of her head.
"It is my duty."
"I know, but..."
Kidan scratched his cheek.
"I can wash myself."
Ritsu considered that.
Then gave a small nod.
"As you wish."
She turned slightly.
Then stopped.
"If you need assistance, please call for me immediately."
Kidan could not help smiling again.
"I will."
He bathed.
Dressed.
Combed his hair as best he could.
And when he stepped out, Ritsu was waiting with the same composed stillness as always.
She adjusted the collar of his robe for him before he could protest, then smoothed one sleeve and stepped back.
"There."
Kidan looked down at himself.
Then at her.
"You really take this seriously."
Ritsu's gaze lowered in reverence.
"You are a Pillar."
Kidan fell quiet.
That word again.
Pillar.
He had heard it from Haumea.
From Charon.
From Ritsu most of all.
It was always spoken with certainty.
With weight.
But whenever he tried to look inside himself and find what exactly that meant—
He found only heat.
A strange, deep heat.
And beyond that, the same terrible blankness where his memories should have been.
He looked at Ritsu.
"...What kind of person was I before?"
Ritsu did not answer immediately.
When she did, her voice was gentle.
"Kidan-sama is Kidan-sama."
Kidan smiled sadly.
"That does not answer it."
"No," Ritsu said. "It does not."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Ritsu bowed slightly and said, "Charon is waiting in the training grounds."
Kidan let out a slow breath.
"Already?"
"Yes."
She looked up.
"Lady Haumea wishes to observe your progress."
That made him stand a little straighter.
Not from fear.
Not quite.
But something close.
"I understand."
Ritsu stepped aside.
"I will accompany you."
---
The White-Clad training ground was vast.
A circular stone arena sunk slightly into the earth, bordered by high walls darkened by heat and old scorch marks. Fire bowls burned at regular intervals around the perimeter, casting flickering light across the stone.
Haumea sat atop the upper ledge with one leg crossed over the other, chin resting lazily in one hand.
Ritsu stood a short distance behind her.
And in the center of the arena—
Charon waited.
Massive.
He stood with his arms at his sides, body relaxed, blindfold tied as always, his huge frame seeming even larger against the empty sweep of the arena floor.
Kidan entered from the far side.
The stone beneath his boots clicked softly with each step.
When he stopped opposite Charon, the difference between them felt absurd.
Charon looked like a fortress.
Kidan looked like a boy.
Haumea smiled from above.
"Try not to die, okay?"
Kidan looked up at her.
"...Shut up Haumea"
Haumea laughed lightly.
"Oh, how scary."
Charon finally spoke.
"Ready?"
Kidan nodded.
"Yes."
Charon's stance did not change.
"Come then."
Kidan inhaled.
Heat rose through him at once.
The fire bowls around the arena flickered violently in response.
He moved first.
A sharp burst of flame erupted from his hand as he shot forward, his other hand already drawing the nearest bowl-fire toward himself in a twisting spiral.
The flame wrapped around his striking arm.
"I'm going!"
Charon did not answer.
Kidan closed the distance fast and cut upward with a rising hand-sword.
"Daybreak!"
The flame arced toward Charon's centerline.
Charon shifted one arm.
The strike hit.
The impact cracked the stone beneath his feet.
But Charon did not move.
At all.
Kidan's eyes widened only slightly.
Then he reacted instantly.
Rather than pull back, he redirected the fire from his own strike, bending it off Charon's guard and sending it low toward his legs.
At the same time, his free hand ignited.
"Moonlight!"
A wide horizontal slash roared toward Charon's side.
Front and low.
Two angles at once.
Charon blocked the first with his body and turned slightly into the second, absorbing both with frightening ease.
Then his hand came forward.
Kidan's instincts screamed.
He threw himself backward as Charon's palm passed through the space where his face had been.
The displaced force alone split the stone behind him.
Kidan landed in a crouch several paces away, pulse rising.
'Is he trying to kill me!'
Charon lowered his arm.
"Again."
Kidan exhaled.
Then smiled.
A little.
"Right."
He rushed in once more.
This time he did not attack straight on.
He used the flames from the fire bowls along the edge of the training ground, drawing them inward and around himself in curving lines. The burning streams spiraled with him as he moved, turning his advance into a weaving pattern of heat and shifting fire.
Charon watched quietly.
Kidan vanished into the swirl for a moment—
Then appeared on Charon's right.
"Dusk!"
Three rapid slashes flashed one after another.
Charon turned just enough to catch them on his forearm and shoulder. The impacts sounded like steel striking a wall.
Before Kidan touched the ground, he bent the scattered flame from his own attacks behind Charon and snapped it forward like a burning whip.
Charon tilted his torso.
The whip grazed past him.
Kidan landed, pivoted, and drove in with a descending slash.
"Sunset!"
This one had weight.
The flaming hand-sword crashed down toward Charon's shoulder.
Charon raised one arm and caught it.
The stone arena cracked outward from under both of them.
Kidan gritted his teeth.
He could feel it through the block.
That ridiculous solidity.
That absurd strength.
Charon was not just stronger than him.
He was stronger by far.
But he was also holding back.
He could have swatted Kidan from the arena already.
Charon looked at the locked strike and said, "Your angle was good."
Then he flicked his arm.
Kidan was thrown clear.
He hit the stone, rolled, caught himself, and slid to a stop, breathing harder now.
Above, Haumea smirked.
"He is doing better than I expected."
Ritsu watched quietly, hands folded before her.
"Kidan-sama learns quickly."
Haumea glanced back at her.
"You really are completely gone on him."
Ritsu lowered her head slightly.
"It is natural."
Haumea snorted.
Below, Kidan stood again.
His hair was tousled. His sleeves were blackened at the edges. Sweat ran down his face.
Still, his eyes were bright.
He drew in a breath.
Then planted one foot.
The flames in all the fire bowls around the arena bent toward him at once.
Charon's stance changed by the smallest margin.
He had noticed.
Kidan raised one hand.
Fire ignited in his palm.
Then, with second generation control, he drew the existing flames around it, layering fire over fire, turning one into many.
He moved.
"Fire Moon!"
A crescent slash tore across the arena.
The instant Charon shifted to meet it, Kidan snapped his fingers.
The crescent divided.
One became two.
Then the second curved.
Charon blocked the first with his forearm and absorbed the second with his chest, but that tiny delay was all Kidan wanted.
He entered close.
Daybreak to the ribs.
Moonlight to the neck.
Dusk to the flank.
His Iai Hand-Sword forms flowed one into the next with startling smoothness, almost as though his body remembered patterns his mind no longer did.
Charon gave ground this time.
One step.
Then another.
Haumea's smile faded a little.
"...Interesting."
Ritsu's gaze softened.
Kidan spun into another attack, flame spiraling around his body like a cloak. He used one hand to generate new fire while the other stole and redirected his own overflow, tightening the shape of the attack until it became a rotating ring around him.
He cut forward.
Charon finally met him with a firmer response.
Their strikes collided.
The resulting blast thundered through the arena.
Kidan was blown backward, skidding across the stone.
Charon remained planted.
He lowered his arm.
"Enough."
Kidan was breathing hard now. His chest rose and fell sharply. The heat around him flickered, unstable from exertion.
Still, he looked disappointed.
"I could still keep going."
"I know," Charon said.
Charon looked at him for a moment.
Then said, "That is not the same as it being useful."
Kidan let out a slow breath.
Then relaxed.
The flames around the arena settled.
Above them, Haumea rose to her feet and stretched lightly.
"Well, that was not boring."
Ritsu looked relieved more than anything else.
Kidan walked a little closer to Charon, still trying to catch his breath.
Charon looked down at him.
Then asked, "So."
Kidan blinked.
Charon continued in his usual blunt way.
"You forgot your memories."
"Yes."
"But you still know how to fight."
Kidan looked at his own hands.
At the faint lingering heat around them.
Then back up at Charon.
"Yes."
He frowned slightly.
"It is weird."
Charon said nothing.
Kidan's gaze drifted for a moment, distant.
"Almost like selective memory loss."
That earned him a brief silence from everyone above.
Haumea's expression remained unreadable.
Ritsu lowered her eyes.
Charon, however, only looked at Kidan for another second before saying, "Maybe."
Kidan tilted his head.
"You do not sound surprised."
Charon turned away slightly.
"I am not."
That was all he gave.
Then he started walking toward the edge of the arena.
"The forms are still yours."
Kidan watched him go.
Charon added, without looking back, "So use them better next time."
Kidan stared.
Then, slowly—
A smile touched his face.
"...Right."
Above, Ritsu stepped forward at once.
"Kidan-sama must be tired. I have prepared water. And fresh clothes."
Kidan laughed softly under his breath.
"You really did prepare everything."
"There is no need to mention it."
Haumea rolled her eyes.
As Ritsu hurried down toward the arena and Kidan turned to meet her, the fires around the White-Clad training ground continued to sway in the dim air.
---
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