In the great stone belly of the Clock Tower, before even the city's mists began to stir, silence lay thick and sacred.
The gym was cavernous, hollowed from marble and old stone veined with faintly glowing sigils, residual mana pulsing like the breath of a sleeping god. The chandeliers overhead were dim, casting halos of amber light that barely reached the far walls. It did not feel like a place for exercise or instruction. It felt like a crypt for ghosts of effort, where sweat was tithed and pain recorded.
And Shisan stood alone in its center.
He wore the black uniform Rin Tohsaka had provided, lined with deep brass — the attire of a scholar-warrior, dignified yet severe. Reinforcement glyphs were subtly etched along the cuffs, the stitching heavy with intention. It clung to him uncomfortably, particularly where the dormant phoenix tattoos slept beneath his skin, but he said nothing. His stillness was not from discipline alone — it was habit, survival, ritual.
His arms rested at his sides, his gaze unwavering. Not relaxed, not coiled — simply present. Like a blade displayed upon an altar, awaiting invocation.
The heavy doors opened with a hiss of magic and old hinges.
"It's six in the morning," came Rin's voice, sharp enough to chip the stillness. Her steps echoed across the polished floor, the rhythmic tap of her heels cutting through the gloom. "Training was supposed to begin today. Not before the damn sun has a say in it."
Shisan turned slowly. The light caught in his eyes but didn't reflect much back.
"I read your letter," he said.
She stopped a few paces away, one eyebrow rising. "My… letter?"
"You wrote, 'Be at the gym the next day.'" His gaze drifted to the high window, where the sky still hung steel-colored and unwilling. "This is the next day."
Rin let out a breath through her nose, pinching the bridge of her nose like she'd just lost a bet to the universe. "Note to self: annotate all future instructions with hours and a blessed timepiece."
"But I am ready," Shisan said. There was no defiance in his tone — only fact. "I assumed promptness would please you."
"Tenacity isn't the problem," she muttered, giving him a tired smile. "Context is."
She studied him for a long moment. The stiffness in his stance. The shadows etched under his eyes. The slight misalignment of someone not just new to this world — but unrooted in it.
Still, she nodded. "I'll take obsessive literalism over tardiness."
Shisan returned the nod, but his attention flickered sideways. "Claudius is not here."
"He has classes," Rin replied, tone casual. "He'll come later."
She caught the faint movement in his jaw — a tightening, quickly dismissed. She filed it away for later.
From within the folds of her coat, she drew something that did not glint but pulsed.
A sleek, black collar — narrow and unassuming, but veined with faint red light that shimmered like dying embers beneath glass. It throbbed softly in her palm, like it was tasting the air.
Shisan's expression shifted — not in alarm, but recognition. The kind of instinctual alertness animals show when something unnatural enters the clearing.
"What is that?" he asked.
Rin raised a brow. "Mystic code."
He tilted his head slightly. "Mystic… code?"
"You don't know what that is?" She sighed, but there was no mockery in it — only the fatigue of a tutor who had accepted the burden of an alien pupil. "Right. Of course you don't."
She stepped forward, each motion precise. The collar glimmered with subdued menace as she held it between them.
"Mystic codes," she began, her tone shifting to lecture-mode, "are magical extensions of a mage's will — artifacts, weapons, regulators. Most mages can't fight effectively without one. They augment what we do. Rings that boost output, staves that channel spells, trinkets that delay feedback loops."
Her fingers ran along the collar's edge. "Some are elegant. Some are dangerous. This one's both."
Shisan narrowed his gaze. "What does it do?"
"It turns your emotions into a weapon." Her voice softened, but it cut more than it soothed.
He said nothing, so she continued.
"This collar amplifies your emotional output. Not your strength. Not your mana flow. Your feelings. Anger. Grief. Fear. The whole ugly symphony. It listens to your inner storm and cranks the volume."
She looked him dead in the eye. "You awakened during the compression test because your circuits didn't respond to logic or spell structure. You reacted. Raw. Unfiltered. Instinct, not theory. Emotion lit the fuse."
He stared at the collar, still between them. Even without touching it, he could feel it — a chain that didn't bind the body, but the soul.
"And you want me to wear something that… digs into that?"
"I want you to understand what lives under your skin," she said. "I want you to master it before it masters you."
She circled him slowly now, like a ritual in motion.
"You've got fire, Shisan. But fire without restraint is just… disaster. This collar doesn't protect you. It forces you to find your limits. And if you can't… well. Better you burn here than on a battlefield."
He didn't respond immediately.
Then, silently, he reached out and took the collar.
It was cold. Not the natural chill of metal, but the emptiness of a thing designed not to comfort but to reflect.
He raised it to his throat and clicked it shut.
The reaction was immediate.
A slow, inexorable tightening — not enough to choke, but enough to remind him it was alive. The veins of red brightened, heat seeping into his spine. His chest tightened, not from pressure, but memory.
A scream echoed behind his ears. Smoke choked his nose. A shadow — small and reaching — turned to ash before his eyes.
His knees bent.
Not collapsing — bracing.
A hiss escaped his lips as a pulse of heat traveled up his spine, cresting behind his eyes.
The collar had found the ember.
Rin stepped forward, hand raised. "Breathe."
He did. Slowly. Like drawing breath through a bed of nails.
"You're not dying," she said calmly. "It just feels like it. That's the point."
The fire receded — barely. His fingers twitched, then stilled.
"Let it settle," she murmured. "Let it become part of your breath."
He nodded.
Then she turned, flicking her hair back with the offhand flair of someone already thinking three moves ahead. "Come back at six p.m. sharp."
Silence.
"…I don't know when that is," Shisan admitted.
She stopped. Slowly turned.
"You… don't know how to tell time."
He hesitated. "Where I was raised, we used bells. And birds."
"Birds."
"Yes. Certain birds only sang at certain hours. It was quite reliable. The sparrow of threefold dawn, for instance…"
Her face was unreadable. "Let me guess. For magical alignment purposes?"
He nodded solemnly.
"You were raised in either a monastery or a cartoon."
He wisely said nothing.
She reached into her pocket and thrust a silver watch into his hand. "This is a clock. Short hand — hours. Long hand — minutes. When it looks like this," she twisted her wrist, "that's six p.m. Understood?"
He examined the device as if it might turn to ash in his hands. "I will master it."
"God help me," she muttered as she strode off.
The air outside clawed at his lungs — not with the crystalline purity of temple stone at dawn, but with the acrid bitterness of alchemical frost, laced in something stagnant. It was the kind of chill that didn't simply pierce skin, but seeped into the marrow and settled there like mold. Shisan moved through the Clock Tower's corridors as one walks through a dream half-remembered — with purpose, but without comfort.
The collar at his neck pulsed quietly. A second heartbeat. Foreign. Watchful.
It throbbed not with rhythm, but with vigilance. Each step through the lesser dormitory wing echoed too loudly, as if the stones beneath him remembered his presence — and disapproved. These halls were old. Forgotten. Not the polished sanctums of honored lineages, but the neglected bones of a body that no longer claimed them.
The walls were a jaundiced yellow where plaster hadn't cracked, and sigils meant for protection or privacy had long since faded into graffiti. Shadows bled from corners without the grace of torchlight, flickering in rhythm with memories the building had long tried to forget.
This place was not meant to be walked by those who mattered.
And that was why the voices ahead didn't hesitate.
A grunt. Low. Familiar. Followed by the dull, rhythmic percussion of violence.
Then — a voice. Not loud, but sharp.
"On your knees, dog."
It was spoken like a name.
Shisan froze.
Not out of fear. Out of deliberation.
He turned and advanced toward the sound — slow, deliberate, the weight of each step falling like a judge's gavel. No blade drawn. No aura flared. Just presence.
The corridor opened into a crooked junction choked in gloom. No light glyphs glowed here. The moonlight that filtered through a broken window was fractured, laying thin, silver bars across the scene — as if the very air had become a prison.
Claudius was slumped against the wall, half-upright, blood smearing his mouth like an artist's errant stroke. One eye already darkening, his chest heaving, but legs still braced. He hadn't collapsed yet.
Three older students stood over him. Towering. Smirking. One rolled his shoulder like a bored executioner deciding whether to continue.
The leader stood at the center, arms folded like he owned the space between heartbeats.
Hambrock.
He had the kind of grin one inherited, not earned. The smugness of a man who had never been told "no" by anyone who mattered. He radiated disdain — not the loud, brash kind, but the slow, simmering rot of someone who saw others as moldable tools. His eyes weren't on Claudius anymore.
They were on Shisan.
"Stand up," Hambrock muttered to Claudius, delivering a lazy kick to his thigh. "You're not done until I say you are."
Shisan stepped into the moonlight.
His entrance wasn't dramatic. It was surgical.
One more step. That was all it took to change the air.
The tension arrived like a frost.
Hambrock looked up, and for a moment, his smirk faltered — not out of fear, but surprise. "Well, well," he drawled. "Who do we have here?"
His flunkies shifted, subtly tightening formation. They could smell it — the shift in pressure. Something else was in the room now.
Shisan didn't answer. He only looked.
Claudius coughed. Wet. "Go away," he muttered, not lifting his gaze. "This doesn't concern you."
But there was something bitter under his words — not resentment. Shame.
Hambrock snorted. "He's right, you know." He rolled his neck until it cracked. "This? This is family business. Dog to master. Doesn't concern strays."
Shisan's eyes drifted from Claudius to Hambrock. "You're not even pretending this is about pride."
Hambrock laughed, genuine and sharp. "Pride? No. This is about rank. Chain of command." He jabbed a thumb toward Claudius with performative disgust. "That's what happens when a mutt forgets who feeds him. Not only did this idiot avoid his ass-kicking in the combat exam, but he had the audacity to wipe his own sister's memories."
The words landed like stones flung through stained glass — not with volume, but with precision.
Shisan blinked once.
It was a small thing — barely perceptible — but behind it surged a flicker of something deeper. The air thickened, taut as drawn wire. He didn't move. Didn't speak. But the collar at his throat stirred in quiet recognition, responding to the sharp turn in his heart.
He looked at Claudius. Slowly. Searchingly.
And for a moment, something fragile passed between them.
Claudius didn't flinch — but the breath he let out was not steady. His hands, already bruised and slightly shaking, curled at his sides like dead leaves crumpling inward.
He didn't deny it.
Didn't explain it.
Only stared at the ground, jaw clenched as if trying to crush a word he couldn't afford to say.
Shisan's voice came low — quieter than before. Not judgmental. But sharpened by something like curiosity stained in concern.
"Is it true?"
Claudius's head lifted, eyes meeting his for a heartbeat — raw, not with guilt, but with the exhaustion of carrying it.
"Yes."
No armor. No sarcasm.
Just a bitter truth laid bare.
Hambrock grinned wider, emboldened. "See? Even he doesn't deny it. A coward in the field and a coward in the family."
Shisan stepped forward — just half a step, but enough to pull the shadows around him tighter.
Hambrock followed suit and stepped closer, the air around him coiling with cruelty. "What about you, boy? You gonna bark for me too?"
Shisan's fingers twitched. The collar responded. A low, quiet pulse — like a tuning fork submerged in blood.
"Let's settle this," Hambrock said, bouncing slightly on his heels. "One-on-one. You win, I shut up and leave your little friend alone. I win… I get to put a leash on that collar of yours."
Shisan opened his mouth to speak.
Claudius's voice sliced in. "Don't."
It was a warning, sharp and personal.
"This isn't your fight."
Hambrock didn't wait. With practiced ease, he drove a fist into Claudius's side, sending him sprawling.
"Not his fight?" Hambrock scoffed, crouching beside the boy. "He's already my dog."
The collar at Shisan's throat constricted — not enough to choke, but enough to bite. Mana surged up his spine. His vision swam for a moment, not with rage, but heat. Like molten glass pushing against bone.
But he didn't erupt.
He stepped forward and looked Hambrock in the eyes.
"I accept."
—
The fight began with no warning — no stance, no feint, no chant.
Hambrock struck like a veteran of back-alley brawls — fists callused by experience, eyes cold with certainty. The first blow caught Shisan in the ribs. The second hit his jaw. The third was a shoulder-check designed to stagger.
Shisan didn't dodge.
He endured.
And Hambrock noticed.
"Oh. You're one of those," he said, circling now. "Tough guy. Quiet. Tragic. Let me guess. Whole family burned in a church? Raised by wolves? No? Something worse?"
He swung again — low this time. Cheap. Intentional.
"Or maybe you're just some failed summoning gone wrong. Left in a cave to rot"
Shisan gritted his teeth. The collar throbbed again.
"Is that thing on your neck to keep you from going rabid? Or is it just a tag? You know, so they know where to return you if you get lost."
He stepped in closer now, eyes gleaming.
"Yeah. That's it. I see it now. You're not one of us. That uniform — doesn't sit right on you. That posture? All wrong. You carry yourself like a scarecrow in borrowed silk. You're not a mage. You're a myth someone dressed up and shoved into school."
Shisan's hand twitched. His eyes burned.
Hambrock leaned in, voice lowering to a hiss. "You know what you are? You're a stray. Something the Tower scooped out of the wild and put a collar on to show off. But you don't belong here. You're not anyone. You're just a ghost pretending to be real."
The collar glowed.
Red veins crawled up Shisan's throat like vines of flame.
Hambrock tapped his own neck mockingly. "They even collared you. Clock Tower's little pet. How poetic."
Shisan exhaled.
It wasn't breath.
It was pressure.
And he moved.
One step. A pivot. A strike.
His fist struck with the weight of memory — firestorms, collapsing temples, screams turned to ash. It landed in Hambrock's chest with the dull, divine finality of a closing tomb.
Bones cracked.
Hambrock's breath left him like a dying spell.
He dropped.
Shisan loomed.
His fist remained clenched. His other hand trembled. Red light laced his veins like script too old to be read aloud. The collar cinched tighter — not punishment, but invocation. The seal of something not yet free.
One more strike. That's all it would take.
And just before he fell forward to strike—
Crack.
Claudius had hurled himself into the side of Shisan's head with the precision. No technique. No flair. Just raw interruption.
Skull against skull.
The world reeled.
Shisan staggered, not from the pain, but from the jolt of clarity — like a fever breaking at the edge of delirium.
Claudius stood between them.
Blood glistened on his lower lip. One eye had already begun to darken. His stance wavered, bent at the knee like a dying flame refusing to go out.
Hambrock's lackeys didn't wait for orders. They moved as one — scrambling to lift their leader off the ground. No curses. No threats. Just the hurried silence of people retreating from something they did not understand.
Then they were gone.
The corridor fell still.
Two figures remained.
Claudius sagged against the stone wall, ribs heaving, every breath scraped from a chest that felt like it might collapse inwards.
Shisan stood, arms hanging at his sides. His fists had uncurled. Barely. They trembled with restraint. Or perhaps confusion.
The light in his collar dimmed. The red retreated, though it left its echo beneath the skin.
"You interfered," he said. Not angry. Not questioning. But lost.
Claudius wiped his mouth.
"I don't need to fuel your savior complex."
His voice was cold. Not because he was cruel — but because he was bleeding from somewhere deeper.
"I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it."
Shisan's brows furrowed.
"I wasn't trying to save you," he whispered. "I was…"
He stopped.
He didn't know the word for what had compelled him. It wasn't heroism. It wasn't guilt.
His hand lifted as Claudius began to walk past Shisan.
It pressed against Claudius's chest, lightly — a gesture more uncertain than confrontational. Like he needed to prove he was still there. That the anger hadn't hollowed him out completely.
But no words came.
And Claudius — who had spent too many days surviving, too many hours bleeding for pride — just shook his head.
"You don't get to decide when I need help."
His tone was bitter. But there was something else beneath it — something like fear.
Not of Shisan.
Of being seen.
He brushed past him without another word, leting Shisan's hand fall away.
He just stood there. Hand outstretched. The warmth of another heartbeat fading from his palm like the ghost of firelight on old stone.
—
High above, concealed behind a veil of warped air and woven silence sigils, Rin watched.
Arms crossed. Expression unreadable.
She had expected a fight.
She hadn't expected… this.
A flicker of emotion passed through her. Not disappointment. Not pride.
Recognition.
Then — as she turned to leave — something shifted at the edge of her vision.
A silhouette.
Slender. Male. Just beyond the ward line.
Not approaching. Retreating.
He had been there the entire time.
Not watching the fight.
Watching Shisan.
Rin didn't follow.
But her frown deepened, the corner of her lip tightening.