Chapter 45: Beneath Azure Wings, an Alliance Is Born
Silence thrummed around me.
Sitting cross-legged, I breathed slowly, eyes closed. The air in the chamber coiled in on itself, dense, saturated with pure mana.
Each inhale made my lungs quiver. Golden filaments slipped through my pores, gliding under my skin like warm dust, winding around muscle and nerve before streaking straight to my heart.
No pain. No resistance. Just that shiver—the one you feel when the body finally accepts the world instead of rejecting it.
The chamber Sylvara had granted us was a jewel of draconic alchemy.
Walls glowed with living runes, the floor pulsed to the rhythm of mana’s breathing, and with every breath I had the sense the room was watching me, weighing whether I could endure it.
Here, everything was amplified: heat, sensation, pain, the pleasure of feeling your own inner flow.
My body was adapting. Slowly, but surely.
My mana channels widened; my organs thrummed with a new strength, as if I were replacing flesh with something denser.
Yes... that was it. I was becoming a weapon. A living weapon.
I exhaled, let the pressure go. The glow around me faded.
Sweat trickled down my nape, but for the first time in a long while, I felt that rare thing: progress. Even a little. And that "little" was worth every battle in the world.
I stood, stretched my numb arms, and left the room.
The stone corridor met me with a cutting chill.
I crossed the training wing, torches casting golden shadows along the walls. Each step rang out, paced by my still-ragged breath.
Destination: the café.
An immutable ritual. My only luxury. My only real moment of peace.
~
The familiar smell of burned coffee hit me before I even stepped inside.
The room was already full: students, soldiers, mages... and, of course, the loudest corner, the one people usually avoided.
My table.
Or rather, the one I occupied each morning—in peace—when I was lucky enough to get there before trouble.
Except today, trouble was already waiting—scaled, smug, and in the flesh.
Sylvara, naturally, seated across from where I sat, calm, almost solemn. To her right, Garrum Thalbruk, all muscle and contained fury, arms crossed over a chest of steel. To her left, Kaelthys Dravos—tall, lean, a piercing gaze, azure gleams running the length of his scales. A cold, almost aristocratic elegance. And finally Talyra Voln—slight, taut, pale-skinned, eyes a bright quicksilver—quicker than the others, and more dangerous for the way she watched without speaking.
I lingered on the threshold a second, unable to hold back an ironic smile.
— "Seriously... now they wait for me at my own table?"
It looked like a bad parody of a diplomatic treaty: "The Hero and the Reptiles."
I strolled over without hurrying, the sound of my steps rising over the swell of murmurs around us.
The humans in the back froze, suspended between fear and admiration.
The dragons watched us with the wariness of a crowd that’s come to witness a duel, not a breakfast.
— "Morning, everyone..." I said simply, pulling out my chair.
Metal scraped: Garrum.
Even his breathing seemed to want to hit something.
I sat, crossed one leg over the other, trying not to burst out laughing.
The waitress—the same as always—approached in tiny steps, tray trembling.
— "M... Mister Kaito? Black coffee, as usual?"
— "Yes, thanks. And no sugar, as always."
She bobbed a quick nod and scurried off, relieved to have survived the sentence.
Silence thickened. A predator’s silence.
Then Reina looked up and, without a word, slid a folded newspaper toward me.
I took it, lifted an eyebrow.
HUMAN OR DEMON?!
The headline sprawled across the front page in enormous letters.
Just beneath, an even more ridiculous subhead:
"After rallying humans by sheer strength, the human Kaito makes draconic heroine Sylvara bend before him—on her own lands! Our journalists investigate: manipulation? charm? or... supernatural power?"
A snort escaped me. I shook my head, half amused, half exasperated.
— "So I’m a political incubus now, is that it?"
Reina’s eyebrow ticked up, entertained.
— "Let’s say they know how to sell papers."
To my right, a jaw noise. Garrum was grinding his teeth.
Literally.
His arms knotted, every muscle pulled tight like a cable.
I could practically see him picturing my head smashed into the table just to wipe that smile off.
I did nothing.
I crossed my legs, took the cup the waitress had just set down, and turned to Sylvara.
— "So? How are you taking it?"
She held my gaze, straight, impassive. Her golden eyes didn’t waver.
— "Truth is... strangely enough, I’m not taking it badly."
A faint smile touched her lips.
— "Papers always bark at those who move forward. And... today I finally get to join your training. Let them write what they want."
A surprised hush passed around the table. Even Reina looked up, as if she hadn’t expected such a steady answer.
I arched a brow, amused.
— "Hm. A philosopher now?"
— "A realist," she said simply.
Talyra bared a carnivorous little smile.
— "Good. I hope your ’human method’ isn’t as slow as your mornings."
— "We’ll see," I replied evenly.
I knocked back my coffee in one go. The bitterness dragged a shiver from me. Bitter, burning, metallic. Like the smell of blood.
I set the cup down, stood, and tossed:
— "Let’s go."
Reina shut her notebook. Sylvara rose at once. Garrum stayed seated a breath longer, fists welded to the table, then pushed himself to his feet.
Our eyes locked. No words. None needed. Just that promise-tight tension that said one day, one of us would end up dead.
I smiled.
— "On our way."
And the café’s hush shattered, replaced by the brisk echo of our steps toward the training hall.
When we finally stepped inside, heads wheeled toward us.
The dwarves and the elves were already there, clustered on opposite sides like rival camps trapped in a forced truce.
Silence held for a heartbeat before a gravelly laugh cracked from the dwarven side.
— "By Durgrim’s beard!" the eldest growled, fists still black with soot. "So it wasn’t just tavern chatter! Dragons are cozying up to humans now?!"
A younger one doubled over, cackling:
— "World’s ending! We’ll be melting our axes into flutes next!"
The elves didn’t laugh.
They only tilted their chins, artful in their disdain.
One of them, silver-haired, sighed with condescending calm:
— "Even Yggdrasil must be weeping in shame."
I couldn’t help smiling.
— "Or maybe she’s just curious to see what we call progress."
The silence that followed hit hard.
An annoyed "tch" snapped out of Garrum, loud enough to startle a dwarf.
As the tension ratcheted, Ayame stepped into the center of the hall. Her steps cracked against the stone, and quiet fell almost at once.
She planted herself there, hands on hips, gaze hard, precise, with not a sliver of doubt.
— "Enough. Ignore them."
Her voice cracked clean and steady.
— "Here, we focus on training. Not on squabbles, not on races. You’re here to progress—not to prove who roars the loudest."
Her words hit like stones dropped in a pool.
Even the elves, ever ready to lift their chins, looked away.
Ayame hadn’t shouted—she didn’t need to. She imposed calm by presence alone, that natural authority no one contests.
She flicked a glance at Reina, who nodded, and everyone took their places.
Order returned, and training finally began.
At first, the sound of breath and blows was enough to settle the room. Bodies resumed their universal language: sweat, pain, fatigue. Reina corrected our positions; Ayame set the cycle; Hikari made sure each wound was treated before it worsened.
I watched her a moment: she’d changed. Her magic, once hesitant, now throbbed with a remarkable stability. The healing she summoned was clean, precise, almost graceful. Her light no longer trembled—it filled the hall with a steady warmth.
Even Reina—stingy with praise—let slip a curt:
— "Good. Keep going."
And from her, that "good" was a medal.
The draconids observed everything with calculated intensity. Kaelthys synced his movements to our rhythm; Talyra gauged everyone’s strength before slotting herself into our formations; and Sylvara... Sylvara learned fast. Too fast.
She copied, adjusted, refined—without shedding an ounce of dignity.
Garrum, on the other hand, stayed an ambulatory anvil. He hit, he grunted, he did everything perfectly... except hold his rage in check. Every time his eyes met mine, his jaw bunched. And every time, I felt that tension climb my spine like a storm you refuse to admit is there.
I tried to ignore it. But after hours, it was like breathing lead. When he sent a training dummy flying with one punch, the vibration ran up into my chest.
I sighed, wiping sweat away with my sleeve.
One day he’ll hit me just to see if I make the same sound as stone.
Time passed.
The air thickened with humidity, mana, and the smell of hot metal. It felt like the hall itself was breathing with us. Fatigue grew heavy, faces flushed, hands skinned and chalked. And just when I thought we were done, a shadow fell across the floor.
Sahr’Veyra. The Headmistress. Majestic, still, her aura filling every corner.
When she entered, even the torches wavered.
Everyone stopped. Silence fell in an instant.
She studied us for a long moment, one by one, until I felt her gaze linger on me.
Then she spoke, deep and rough:
— "Good. You’re progressing. That is... surprising."
"Surprising" sounded like a forced compliment.
She went on, impassive:
— "But it’s time to add a dimension to your training. Starting tomorrow, every hero will join an Academy club. It’s mandatory. You’ll learn cooperation there."
Murmurs erupted at once.
The dwarves grumbled in chorus:
— "A club?! What next—knitting?"
The elves rolled their eyes, naturally.
Reina lifted a hand to call for silence, but I beat her to it.
— "Headmistress, a question. If no club suits me... do I have the right to create one?"
She turned her head toward me, lips curling in an enigmatic smile.
— "It’s possible. But you’ll need five members, not counting yourself."
— "Five members. Got it."
I didn’t have time to think it over.
A clear voice rose behind me.
— "I’ll join."
Sylvara. Straight, calm, obvious.
The silence that followed was almost comedic. The elves traded indignant looks. The dwarves burst into belly laughs. And Garrum... Garrum’s fists tightened, veins hammering along his forearms.
— "I’ve seen it all now!" a dwarf howled, delighted. "Dragons bending the knee to humans!"
Sylvara didn’t flinch.
She fixed the Headmistress, tone as sharp as it was steady:
— "He’ll have his five."
The Headmistress spoke again.
— "Come see me once you’ve chosen a name."
And without waiting for an answer, Sahr’Veyra turned on her heel.
Her dark scales caught the runic light, and her silhouette slipped away with a grave rustle.
Each of her steps tolled like a knell—and yet this wasn’t the end of a lesson. It was the beginning of something else.
When she left the hall, her draconic shadow flowed over the walls like a tide, then vanished behind the great door.
Silence dropped at once. Around me, the remaining draconids—Sylvara, Garrum, Kaelthys, and Talyra—stood immobile. The girls drew breath again, slowly.
No one spoke.
But in their eyes, I saw the same glimmer: the kind people share when they know—without words—that they’ve crossed an invisible line.
I swept the room with my gaze. Runes still hot, halos of mana suspended in the air, figures exhausted but upright. Everything smelled of sweat, dust, and promise.
I let out a long breath.
No, this wasn’t just training anymore. It was the start of something else.
Maybe even the start of a story.
For the first time, humans and draconids had struck together, bled together, breathed the same air without hating one another. And I felt it, deep down: if we kept on this path—if this strange fraternity survived our pride—then maybe we could actually change something. Not just our strength. Not only the Academy.
The entire continent.
I clenched my fists, heart still beating to the rhythm of the runes.
Yes.
This was where it began. Not a club. Not an exercise.
The first breath of a future no race, alone, could have written.
I left the gym with that thought.
The sky had taken on that copper tint I’d always associated with battles ending.
Sunset filtered through the Academy’s stone arches, dragging long shadows over the paving. Each step I took echoed in my skull like a muffled drum.
I could still smell mana on my skin, taste iron on my tongue, and fatigue settled over me in heavy layers, like a cloak too thick to wear.
The gym fell away behind me. Ahead, the corridors opened—warm, almost calm. I wanted to collapse on the first bench I saw. But my head wouldn’t stop.
Ever since the Headmistress mentioned the club, I’d been running the problem in circles. What name? What identity for something that, deep down, was still a half-mad bet? I caught myself imagining grand things, then laughing at them right away.
A breeze carried the scent of the inner garden. The world finally seemed to slow. I started to ease off too.
That’s when I heard the explosion.
Not a torch popping. No. A hard, short blast that rattled windowpanes and resonated up through my ribs.
I froze, every sense on edge.
The sound had come from behind an annex, where the courtyard narrowed into a dark passage.
Before I even thought about it, I was running. My boots hammered the paving, my ragged breath climbed my throat.
Each step shook off a little more fatigue, until only adrenaline remained.
I rounded the corner and saw him.
A student.
His uniform hung in shreds, his hands shook, and around him the air throbbed with raw, poorly contained magic.
His eyes, red from crying, reflected an animal kind of distress.
He was striking blindly, arcs of energy bursting from his palms to crash into wall, ground—anything.
Two other students stumbled back, panicked.
— "Hey!" I shouted, closing in, hands open. "You alright? What’s going on?"
He turned his head toward me.
His face was a mask of tears and rage. For a second I read something horribly familiar there—that bottomless sadness you can’t hold anymore.
He stammered something, a word I didn’t catch, and shoved a hand to push me away.
I slipped aside and gripped his forearm to steady him.
Everything flipped.
A mana surge hit me like a battering ram.
Air compressed; my body tore off the ground.
Then the wall.
The impact knocked the breath out of me.
Bones cracked, ribs shrieked, my left arm folded at an impossible angle. Metal rose in my mouth; I spat a spray of blood that splashed across stone.
The world lurched.
Sky blurred; light shattered into orange shards.
My ears rang.
I slid down the wall, slow, unable to draw breath.
After all this...
After the promises, the plans, the talk of tomorrow... I’m going to die like this?
Smashed against a wall by a crying kid?
I lifted my eyes—half reflex, half searching for a last fixed point.
And I saw her.
Sylvara. Standing before me, her shadow covering me like a shield. Azure wings flared, golden eyes locked on the student, her body drawn taut like a spear about to strike.
The last image I kept before everything went dark was that contrast: her pale wings, my blood-blurred vision, and the absurd certainty that even in my fall, I wasn’t alone.
Then the dark swallowed me.