“Perhaps we should remind you of your place.”
The boy's hand shifted on his hilt as his weight dropped into a forward lunge. A standard opener, designed to bully rather than kill. The Kenseikan courtyards bred dozens like him.
Kenshin watched the incoming low-Ki strike. The trajectory arced wide, ribs exposed. Kenshin merely turned his heel, letting the fist graze air by his ear before driving an open palm into the attacker's solar plexus.
The blow transferred internal force rather than blunt shock. The boy's breath hitched into silence as his diaphragm locked, knees folding under him. He dropped onto the flagstones in an unmoving heap of silk.
Ren, the lanky youth, froze, his own half-drawn practice katana clattering against its saya. The third youth, a burly disciple named Jiro, stared with parted lips, fingers rigid against his weapon.
“What… what was that?” Ren stammered, his voice a reedy whisper.
Kenshin ignored him. He simply flexed the fingers of his striking hand, a faint ache a pleasant reminder of latent power. The fallen opponent had served as a benchmark, nothing more. The kinetic efficiency registered cleanly in Kenshin's mind; he needed greater scale.
Jiro snarled, lunging forward with a wild, overhand blade thrust meant to bludgeon through guard.
Kenshin flowed. The [Echo Chamber] had taught him precision. Not just strength, but the economy of motion that made strength lethal. He met Jiro’s lunge with a step that shifted him outside the blade’s arc, his hand finding the boy’s wrist, twisting. Jiro cried out, his weapon clattering to the ground. Before he could react, Kenshin’s other hand, a blur, found a pressure point beneath Jiro’s ear, a technique refined over centuries of practice in one hundred worlds. Jiro’s eyes went hazy, his limbs lost their coordination, and he crumpled, twitching, beside Daichi.
Ren retreated two paces, unsheathing steel with rattling hands. Kenshin had not drawn breath once during the exchange.
“Stop,” Ren pleaded, his voice cracking. “I’ll… I’ll tell the masters. You’ll be expelled, Takeda. Or worse.”
Kenshin merely tilted his head. “Expelled from what, Ren? I am already nothing.” His gaze was chillingly flat, devoid of the familiar fire or shame. “But you, you stand in my path.”
Ren saw it then, not just a threat, but a cold, absolute resolve. He saw the predator in Kenshin’s eyes, a hunger that had not been there before. The youth tripped backward, dropped his steel onto the pavers, and sprinted blindly toward the inner archway.
Kenshin watched him go, then glanced at the two twitching figures on the ground. A waste of time, but a useful data point. He felt the surge of Ki within him, a river of pure, potent energy. The Echo Chamber was real. Its promise, real. He needed more. He needed to sleep.
By the time sentries answered the shouting, Kenshin had cleared the terraced cliffs bordering the floating isle, leaving the two inert bodies behind on the flagstones.
Talk rippled along the upper barracks before sundown: Kenshin Takeda, fresh from the Ouroboros Pit, had dropped two seniors in seconds without unsheathing a weapon.
Meanwhile, couriers from the lower skyshelves brought grimmer dispatches. Seishu, a farming hamlet three islands down, had been reduced to powdered granite. A circular depression a kilometer wide had caved the central plateau into the void, showing the precise burn pattern of concentrated Ki.
Kenshin, oblivious to the terror he had inadvertently sown, found his old dorm room locked, as expected. He shattered the lock bolt with a short pulse of Ki against the latch, pushing the timber inward. The room was sparsely furnished, a simple futon, a low table, and a small, dusty shelf for scrolls. He didn’t care for comfort. He cared only for the next cycle.
He lay on the futon, closing his eyes, letting his consciousness drift. The familiar twilight hues enveloped him. Yume, the silent kitsune, sat patiently at the edge of his vision, its starlight eyes observing him without judgment, a silent sentinel to his relentless pursuit.
When he awoke, the stark, white text greeted him.
[Hours Slept: 10]
[Total Echo Training Time: 1000 Years]
[Ki Assimilation Complete]
The surge was almost painful now, a river becoming a deluge. His entire being thrummed with raw energy, every cell awakened, every fiber honed. He sat up, the air crackling around him. He felt… boundless. He could crush stone to dust, leap across ravines, move faster than the eye could follow. It was glorious. It was everything he had ever wanted.
A tentative rap came at his door, or rather, where the door had once been. Kenshin turned. Standing in the gaping frame, his spectacles askew, was Kenji, the academy’s timid librarian. Kenji clutched a heavy, restricted Imperial scroll, its crimson seal broken, its ancient paper crackling under his trembling fingers. His gaze darted between the cracked jamb and Kenshin, the parchment rattling in his grip.
“Kenshin,” Kenji whispered, his voice barely audible, “you… you must see this. The Imperial Guard found it at Seishu Village. The Ki signature… it’s yours.”