"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be. She was the one who helped me escape Japan in the first place. Sold everything she owned to buy my admission lottery ticket and the paperwork to change my identity. She died knowing I was free, which is more than most people get."

The casual way she delivered that information hit harder than tears would have. This was a girl who had processed her grief years ago and carried it now like scar tissue, painful only when pressed.

"Your father?"

"Head of the Tanaka clan. One of the major hunter families in Osaka. Traditional. Powerful. Absolutely certain that his only child should be a son." Hikaru’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "When I was born, he told my mother that she had failed him. When I awakened with Phantom Edge at twelve, he decided I was too valuable to abandon but too shameful to acknowledge. So he came up with a solution."

I could see where this was going. The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity.

"He made you pretend to be a boy."

"He made me become one. Binding. Voice training. Behavioral modification. Three years of constant correction until I could pass as the son he wanted rather than the daughter he had." Hikaru pulled her knees tighter to her chest. "It worked. The Tanaka clan has a male heir now. Talented, disciplined, everything my father requires. And that heir is a fiction I’ve maintained for so long that sometimes I forget which version of me is real."

"Hikaru is real." I said it without thinking, the words coming from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. "The rest is survival. Costumes you wear to protect yourself from people who don’t deserve to see the truth."

She looked at me with those red eyes, and for just a moment, the walls she’d rebuilt cracked open again.

"Why do you care? We barely know each other. We’ve lived in the same apartment for a month and exchanged maybe fifty sentences. You owe me nothing."

"I don’t owe you anything," I agreed. "That’s not why I’m doing this."

"Then why?"

Because the System tells me you’re valuable and I should be cultivating your devotion. Because your ability would be incredibly useful in my collection. Because you’re alone in a way that I recognize, the kind of alone that comes from hiding who you really are from everyone around you.

All of those answers were true. None of them felt like the right one.

"Because you looked scared," I said finally. "In the bathroom, when you realized I’d seen you. That was real fear. Not of the wound or the blood loss, but of being known. And I’ve felt that fear. Different circumstances, different secrets, but the same terror of exposure."

Hikaru was quiet for a long time.

When she spoke again, her voice had changed. Softer still. More vulnerable than I’d heard from her before.

"The Tanaka clan has resources. If they find out where I am, they’ll come for me. My father won’t accept his investment walking away. He’ll send hunters, lawyers, whatever it takes to bring me back to Japan and back under his control." She met my eyes. "I’m telling you this because you promised to protect my secret. You should know what that protection might cost."

"I’ve got some experience with powerful people wanting things from me." I thought of Cassandra Davenport, of the cold promise in her voice when she’d warned me about crossing the wrong lines. "Your father’s clan doesn’t scare me more than what I’m already dealing with."

"You’re either very brave or very stupid."

"Probably both. The two aren’t mutually exclusive."

Something happened to Hikaru’s face. A twitch at the corner of her mouth. A softening around her eyes. For just a second, she looked like she might actually smile.

"You’re strange, Monroe. I’ve spent a month trying to figure you out and you keep refusing to fit into any of the boxes I prepare for you."

"Call me Jace. We’re past the last name stage, don’t you think?"

"Jace." She tested the word like it was a new flavor. "Alright. Jace. And you can call me... you can use my real name. When we’re alone. If you want."

"Hikaru."

The way her breath caught told me everything I needed to know about how rarely she heard that name spoken with any kind of gentleness.

"Yes. That."

We sat in comfortable silence for a while, the lamp casting warm shadows across her room. My body still ached from training, exhaustion pulling at the edges of my consciousness, but I didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Something fragile was forming between us, trust or understanding or maybe just the relief of not having to pretend.

"Friday." Hikaru broke the silence first. "The gate run. I meant what I said about participating. I won’t let a sparring accident keep me from proving I belong here."

"The nurse will clear you. And if she doesn’t, we’ll figure something out."

"We?"

"You’re part of this now. Whether you wanted to be or not." I stood, stretching muscles that had stiffened during our conversation. "Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up if the world ends before breakfast."

Hikaru made a sound that might have been a laugh. "Such consideration."

"I’m a gentleman."

"You’re a menace." But she said it without heat, almost fondly. "Goodnight, Jace."

"Goodnight, Hikaru."

I left her room and closed the door behind me, standing in the dark hallway for a moment to collect myself. The encounter had shifted something fundamental about how I understood my situation at this academy. Another secret to protect. Another person relying on me to be something more than I’d been.

My phone buzzed.

Aurora: Addison fell asleep in my bed again. She keeps saying your name in her sleep. It’s adorable and slightly concerning.

Aurora: Also she ate all my coffee jelly and blamed it on you somehow.

I typed back a response while heading to my own room.

Jace: I accept full responsibility for her jelly crimes. Sleep well.

Aurora: You too. Try to actually rest tonight. You look like death warmed over in those training videos Belle keeps sharing.

Belle was sharing training videos? Of course she was. The woman had zero boundaries and infinite enthusiasm for causing me minor embarrassments.

I collapsed onto my bed without changing clothes, too tired to care about proper sleep hygiene. The ceiling above me was the same unremarkable white it had always been, but everything else felt different.

Friday loomed.

A gate full of monsters. Two rival teams forced into cooperation. Hikaru’s secret burning in my mind alongside all the other secrets I carried. Cassandra watching from the shadows. Vale pushing me toward something I couldn’t quite see yet.

And beneath it all, the constant hunger of the System. The knowledge that I was running out of time in ways most people couldn’t imagine.

I closed my eyes and let exhaustion pull me under.

Tomorrow would bring training and preparation and the slow march toward whatever waited inside that forest biome. But for now, in this quiet moment between crisis and chaos, I let myself rest.

The darkness felt almost peaceful.

Almost.

My last thought before sleep claimed me was of Hikaru’s voice, soft and unguarded, saying my name like it meant something more than syllables.

Jace.

Just Jace.