Zeto

In the guest bedroom, Marie kneels beside Janet and maintains a thin spiritual channel back to the fairies’ small hospital room. Rosella, Lumin, and Veya answer in soft colored flashes.

The rose fairy, the blue fairy, and the green fairy light settle over Janet’s chest and throat. Her breathing smooths, her color returns, and the weakness leaves her limbs, but the missing soul-marble remains absent.

Beyond the bedroom, Friken watches the curtained windows while Mare checks the doors. Jaricho makes a quiet circuit of the first floor, and Maric listens for movement outside.

Janet opens her silver eyes, disoriented but conscious. Marie supports her shoulders as the fairies’ light fades back through the carefully held channel.

The guest room settles into guarded quiet. Janet remains conscious, supported by Marie, while the last fairy-light fades from the air and the house holds its silence.

Cold Yuichi stays beside the doorway instead of moving toward the windows. His numb hand flexes once, then rests at his side as the residence remains sealed.

Mare checks the locks again, Friken takes position beside the front window, and Maric lowers the curtains completely. For the moment, the residence becomes a refuge rather than a battlefield.

Cold Yuichi leaves The Yuichi residence — guest bedroom behind and arrives at The Quiche.

The Quiche rises around Cold Yuichi in pale stone and silent towers. Frost clings to the empty court, while captains gather along its terraces, watching his solitary arrival.

The court seals behind him with a muted bell. Captain Seraphine Vale steps from the central arch, stern beneath her white mantle, while the elder captain watches from above.

The elder captain descends to the court, crimson mantle dragging through the frost. Behind her, sealed doors unlock, revealing captains from several units who now face Yuichi directly.

Cold Yuichi’s words carry across the court. Several captains exchange guarded looks, while Seraphine studies him and the elder captain remains silent beneath her crimson mantle.

The terraces answer with the sound of unlocking seals. Pale route-maps rise from the court floor, but the strain drains Cold Yuichi’s remaining strength, leaving his legs unsteady.

Cold Yuichi bows deeply before the elder captain. The court falls quiet, and the route-maps settle into orderly rings around his feet.

New seals open beneath the court, revealing a recovery chamber, a weapons hall, and a quiet restoration room reserved for Janet. Captains move to prepare all three.

Cold Yuichi leads Mare and Friken through the newly opened seals into the Quiche training grounds, where pale platforms and weapon circles fill a wide stone court.

Captain Seraphine Vale directs Mare toward a separate ring. Waiting there is a tall middle-aged Blanko man with Janet’s silver eyes, dark hair, and a white Unit 12 mantle.

Mare steps into the ring opposite him. Silver markings rise beneath his shoes as the captain places two fingers against Mare’s chest and begins guiding his spiritual pressure.

Friken draws his green spirit bow, its limbs still uneven from the earlier battle. Across the court, Cold Yuichi enters a marked circle as Captain Seraphine Vale raises her hand.

In the captain of captains’ chamber, Cold Yuichi drives his Soul-Sword into Janet’s chest. The blade stops against her spirit instead of entering flesh, releasing a violent white pulse.

Janet’s silver eyes snap open. Her lost power surges through the room, stronger than before, but the Soul-Sword remains locked between them, its frost splitting into unstable veins of light.

Janet twists away, and the sword tears free without blood. Ice erupts across the floor, sealing Cold Yuichi’s boots in place while her white rapier forms in her hand.

The chamber’s training seals ignite around them. Janet’s first frost-lance strikes the Soul-Sword and rebounds into the walls, leaving her restored power active, dangerous, and impossible to dismiss as complete.

The rebounding frost-lance fractures the chamber seals. White power floods Janet’s rapier, but the Soul-Sword’s unstable veins clamp around Cold Yuichi’s arms and halt his movement.

Janet plants her feet and draws the rapier across the floor. A widening ring of ice separates them, redirecting the unstable current into the chamber walls.

The Soul-Sword shudders and begins pulling the renewed energy back toward Cold Yuichi. Janet’s restored aura flickers, stronger than before but dangerously incomplete.

The training seals collapse one by one, leaving the sword locked between them and the restoration unstable. Repeating the strike would only tighten the transfer instead of completing it.

Cold Yuichi moves the Soul-Sword away from Janet. The unstable veins release his body at once, tearing free as a white current and leaving his arms numb and trembling.

The entire surge pours into Janet’s chest. Her restored power ignites violently, flooding the chamber with frost and lifting her from the floor without touching her.

Janet’s rapier expands into a brilliant white blade. Ice races across the walls, while the collapsed training seals reform around her in concentric rings.

Janet closes both hands around the rapier. The storm compresses into her weapon, though the floor splits beneath her boots and frost climbs Cold Yuichi’s numb arms.