Kai shook the stone fragments off his shoulder.

Kai looked at the hole in the floor he’d come up through.

He shrugged nonchalantly.

"Understood." He folded the newspaper carefully and set it on the desk.

"I do it every morning. I don’t like starting the day without reading and having coffee, though." He picked up his cup.

---

Lira emerged.

The dress with the cut on the shoulder Vayne had made hours earlier, the only visible sign of combat on her person.

She lunged.

Kai moved.

The space was wider here.

Lira’s follow-up strike arrived before Kai finished repositioning.

A real kick, with full hip, the kind that seeks not anatomy but distance.

He crashed through the guild’s inner door — wood, which gave way without much resistance — and landed in the assessment room where the rank crystals were still on their pedestals, the display case still unrepaired since registration day.

From the threshold of the broken door, Lira watched him.

"Coffee?" Aldric said.

"No, thank you." A pause.

"I could sit and talk while drinking a cup of his."

"Understood," he said, in exactly the same tone he’d used to answer Kai.

[GarcíaFTW: ALDRIC OFFERED COFFEE TO LIRA]

[StreamerHunter: "I could sit and talk while drinking a cup of his" — LIRA BEING LIRA]

[Jac_Moore: Fifteen years as guildmaster. Nothing moves him.]

[xSorinx: Eris among them. Just watching. They know Lira would be annoyed if they helped.]

---

Thirty plus Eris, spread around the perimeter of the guild.

She watched Kai getting up in the assessment room.

---

He walked back into the main room.

"Confidence is back," she said.

He set his stance — the low Muay Thai stance, fingers extended, Qi active from the start.

Not the small smile when something turned out right. Something calmer.

Lira looked at him.

"I’m working on it."

---

Not because Kai was stronger — but because he fought differently.

The Qi active, integrated into every movement as it had always been, only now conscious.

Lira deflected it. Stepped back one step.

Lira blocked it with her forearm. Stepped back half a step more.

Lira dodged it — but backward, giving ground instead of simply redirecting.

Not because she can’t handle it. Because she prefers the space.

---

"Thanks."

"I know." Kai repositioned. "Why are you retreating?"

"You already evaluated me."

"The Qi."

Kai looked at her.

"Thinking about every strike is what a student does." She lunged.

[NocheEterna99: "thinking about every strike is what a student does]

[StreamerHunter: "you changed between the catacombs and here" — Lira notices it before the system]

[Jac_Moore: "enemy and critic" is the perfect summary of Lira]

[RagingMutant: Eris lost to Kai. Now she sees Lira having to adapt to him. She’s processing.]

---

Not the most intense — the longest.

"How much do you know about A_D_M?" Kai said, blocking.

"Is that why you came?"

"About me?"

Kai blocked the first, dodged the second, took the third on his arm.

"That wasn’t a compliment either."

---

[NocheEterna99: "a very inconvenient one" — Lira describing Kai to Serah indirectly]

[DragonicLegacy: she came 880km out of curiosity. EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY KILOMETERS. OUT OF CURIOSITY.]

[Mist_Of_Death: "that wasn’t a compliment either" / "I know" — they’ve had this exchange four times and I still like it every time]

[Pedro_Sierra: ε=ε=ε=( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ε=ε=ε=ε= "I came out of curiosity" ε=ε=ε=( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ε=ε=ε=ε=]

Lira increased.

Kai felt it in his arms first.

Qi compensated — but compensating had its own cost, and the cost accumulated on top of everything he’d already accumulated in the last hours.

Not to the side.

With enough force that the Qi active in the block was insufficient.

Falling.

He stayed on the ground a second.

Eyes closed.

Lira approached.

The vampires on the perimeter didn’t move.

"Well fought," Lira said, from above. "For a human."

"Your blood," she continued, her voice with the predator instinct fully active, "will be the most interesting thing I’ve tasted in decades." She crouched slightly.

"It’s the most considerate thing I can offer you."

"Nothing to say?"

Lira looked at him.

The position was good. Close to the target. With enough space for what was coming.

"The dawn is beautiful from here, I imagine," she said, looking at the edges of light around the boards. "Though I never see it."

"Are you going to get up?"

Lira extended her hand toward him.

---

Lira was a meter away.

Exactly where he needed her to be.

Short. Genuine.

Her eyes changed — from predator instinct to something sharper.

Kai got up.

"Your ego," he said, looking directly at her, "made you fall into the trap."

Kai’s fist struck the largest board on the window.

The wood exploded outward.

Directly onto Lira.

The sound that came from Lira was not that of someone who knew what awaited her.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!"

Pure and absolute.