Raizen woke to a soft hum in the walls and the slow warmth of sunlight on his face. He blinked until the ceiling stopped spinning. The ceiling lights were dim, but the window wasn't. It filled the right side of his vision with clean silver light.

His bed was new to this corner. You could tell by the scuff marks across the floor tiles where someone had dragged metal and stubborn wheels. The head of the bed angled toward the glass. Beyond it, the training yard sat like a map - neat lanes, chalk rings, a row of wooden dummies leaning like tired soldiers. A couple of trainees jogged slow laps, their shadows long and thin.

He smiled without meaning to.

He eased upright. Soreness answered from everywhere. Bandages rasped against fabric. When he tried to pull the blanket higher, his ribs reminded him that blowing up a mountain by force has a price. He let the breath out slow. The room steadied.

Monitors watched him in green lines and calm beeps. A glass of water sweated on the side table, a little ring forming under it.

He reached for it with his left hand. The right was wrapped from palm to elbow. The first sip felt like a blessing.

Footsteps stopped at his door. The latch clicked. The door slid and stuck half open before a hand pushed it the rest of the way with a lazy shove.

"Look at that!" Arashi said, grinning as if he'd been born in a good mood and never recovered. "Alive, vertical, and not terrifying the nurses. I'd clap, but Keahi says I should keep my hands to myself in here. Apparently touching medical equipment counts as a safety hazard."

Hikari followed him in, the quiet to his noise. She carried a tray balanced with one hand - fruit slices, a bowl of some kind of liquid that steamed lightly, two small cups with something clear and something orange. Her hair was tied back in a loose knot. There were faint circles under her eyes that hadn't been there a week ago.

Raizen tried to sit a little straighter. His ribs objected. He held the smile anyway.

"Someone moved my bed" he said.

Hikari set the tray down and checked the angle of his pillows first, then the line of the monitor, then him. In that order. "Keahi did" she said. "You asked. She argued with three nurses, one junior doctor, and the head nurse. All at once, more or less. It was impressive."

Arashi leaned an elbow on the foot of the bed like he owned it. "Kori also yelled. It was educational. I learned seven new words. Two might have been ancient dialect, or Egyptian swearing."

"Don't teach him those" Hikari exhaled.

Raizen chuckled, and the laugh tried to turn into a cough. Hikari fixed the cup of water in his hand without being asked, fingers warm against his wrist for a brief second. He drank and breathed again.

"Thanks" he said.

Hikari nodded, quick and small, like she didn't want the word to sit too long.

Arashi stretched until his back popped. He wore bandages too, under his jacket. You could tell by the way he moved around his left shoulder. He made a point of not letting anyone see him wince. He pulled a chair with his foot and sat backward, arms folded over the backrest.

"You know what the best part is?" he said. "You sleeping. The entire Wing finally slept too. Esen stopped pacing at the door and threatening to clap the building in half if they didn't let him in."

"He did not" Hikari said.

"He tried" Arashi said. "Keahi bribed him with dumplings. He really likes those. Like, wayyyy too much. Almost as much as Kori's obsession with pastries"

"Obviously!" Raizen took the spoon Hikari offered and tried the broth. Salty, clean, warm. His stomach remembered it was hungry. Hikari watched the spoon long enough to make sure his hand didn't shake, then looked away as if she hadn't.

"Did the nurses let you all go, huh… How much since we got here? Two weeks?"

"Felt longer" Arashi said. "You owe me at least four training rounds at the arena for the stress."

Raizen raised an eyebrow. "You were stressed?"

Arashi widened his eyes in fake innocence. "No. Me? I was the picture of calm. I'm still handsome, see? Stress can't take that." He leaned closer. "But don't go sleeping for around twenty hours again."

Hikari shot him a look. The kind that said she agreed, just quieter.

Raizen let the spoon settle in the bowl, heat fading off the surface in tiny threads. He looked past them at the yard again. The view was kind of nice, he could see the Academy training grounds from there.

"Keahi fought the nurses so bad, you probably won't see her around for some time." Arashi interrupted his daydreaming. "By herself. I offered to help. She said no because I'd make it a race."

"You would race, pushing Raizen's bed" Hikari said.

"Absolutely" Arashi said, unashamed.

Hikari pulled a chair up to the side and sat, elbows on her knees, hands folded. The light found her hair and turned it soft. When she looked at Raizen, the usual even calm in her gaze was there, but the edges were different - thinner, maybe. She had been holding things together with quiet strength for days. You could see it in the way the first breath she took in this room was deeper than the one before.

"You asked for the window" she said. "Why?"

"Wanted to see outside" Raizen said. "Wanted to see everyone moving."

Hikari's mouth curved. "Then… It was worth it."

Arashi tapped the bed's metal frame with a knuckle. "News tour. Ready? Feris is still floating. She naps like a balloon now. They tied soft weights to her ankles so she doesn't drift into the ceiling when she sneezes. She hates it."

Raizen tried not to smile and failed. "She's alright?"

"As alright as a person can be while defying gravity" Arashi said. "Esen broke another training dummy. He says it looked at him funny. Ichiro made a ramp out of the yard when no one was looking. Two trainees tripped and called it an ambush. Kori confiscated everyone's fun for the morning. Keahi burned toast. At first, we all thought it was a new recipe-"

"Alright Arashi. Enough is enough." Hikari's eyes cut sideways at him, but her smile wouldn't go away.

"Sorry! Won't rant again, your majesty!" Arashi raised both of his arms above his head.

Raizen laughed again, and this time it didn't hurt as much. The sound settled in the room and made the machines seem like part of a song instead of the only noise.

"Thank you" he said, and looked at both of them so they would know he meant more than the orange or the gossip or the chair dragged closer. "For staying."

Arashi waved a hand. "Please. If I didn't visit, Keahi would scold me. If Keahi scolds me, I get scared. If I get scared, I run faster. If I run, Kori thinks I'm training. It's an exhausting loop."

Hikari exhaled. "You're a bit too talkative today…"

Arashi straightened. "Okay. Serious face for one second." He made a face that wasn't serious at all and then corrected it. "You did it. It was ugly and loud and way too cold, but you did it. If I say I'm proud, will you make fun of me later?"

"Probably" Raizen said.

"Good" Arashi said, and his grin came back, the real one. "Makes me motivated."

Hikari stood long enough to pour more of the orange drink into the second small cup. She pushed it toward Arashi without looking, and he took it like they had done this a hundred times. She turned to Raizen again.

"Are you in pain?" she asked.

"Yes" he mumbled, after deciding not to lie.

She waited, then: "How much?"

"Like I wrestled a mountain and it won on points" he said. "Not a knockout."

She breathed a little laugh through her nose. "I'll ask the nurse to check your meds timing."

He watched her cross to the door and press the request button. She moved like someone used to knowing where the edges of a space were and how to avoid crashing into them. Now she was here, interrogating him about medication. She was sometimes strange like that.

Arashi drummed fingers on the chair back. "Also, very important. When you're allowed to walk the hall, you should know the third window past the med storage has the best view of the city lights at night. You can see the whole Spire! Looks like a spear someone forgot to pull out of the ground."

"Arashi… Don't give him ideas…" Hikari said, not turning.

"What? Metaphors are free" Arashi said. "You liked that view, too!"

He was right. She came back and hovered near the foot of the bed, one hand on the rail. "No hall walking until the nurse says" she added, which was her version of a rope tied to his ankle.

Raizen nodded. "I'll behave."

Arashi mouthed to him over Hikari's shoulder: he won't.

Raizen held back a smile and failed completely when Hikari glanced back, saw Arashi's face, and sighed in a way that meant she was trying not to laugh.

The nurse came and checked the lines, made notes on a board, and told Raizen in a voice that had carried a thousand orders to a thousand stubborn patients that he was doing fine and should continue to do nothing. Arashi saluted her. She did not salute back.

When she left, the room returned to its small circle of quiet. Hikari picked up the orange peels and folded them into a neat little pile. Arashi stood and stretched again, careful this time.

"We can't stay long" he said. "Kori's got us on light drills. He says if we skip, he'll make us attend a second lecture. None of us deserve that."

Hikari looked at Raizen, the kind of look that holds a string and waits to see if the knot will hold. "We'll be back" she said.

Raizen nodded. He wanted to say a lot of things. They arranged themselves into a small sentence instead. "Thanks."

Arashi circled to the head of the bed and tapped the metal with two fingers, like knocking on a stubborn door. "Rest up" he said. "Try not to move the mountain in your dreams without me."

"I'll call you next time" Raizen said.

"You better" Arashi said, and stepped back. "See you soon"

"Soon" Hikari said.

They left together. The door settled shut with a soft seal.

The room breathed. Raizen did too. He let his head touch the pillow and turned his face toward the window.

He counted his breaths. He let the pain sit where it was and didn't try to wake it. The monitors kept time and pulse. He thought of snow and rock and a decision made in a heartbeat - the way it all came down around them like the mountain had simply agreed that losing a part to save the rest was fair. He thought of Hikari's hand at his wrist. Esen pacing like a caged storm. Feris, stubborn and floating, at the camp. Ichiro shaping the ground just because he could.

They were alive.

He breathed that fact in and let it fill the spaces where fear had burned through. He had traded a cost for a life. Many lives. He'd pay it again.

His eyes closed for a moment, not from exhaustion this time but from relief so complete it felt like a tide rolling back from the shore. The sunlight moved across the blanket and warmed his knees. The glass held his faint reflection over the world outside.

"I'm glad" he said to the quiet, to the window, to the part of the mountain that still listened. "You're all safe."

He didn't need more words.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.