He paused. “I appreciate your banter, Kira. It is refreshing, at times. However, it is also a defense mechanism. For this drill, I need you vulnerable.”
Did he just call me a defensemechanism?
I think so, yeah.
Can we give him the Kira special now?
Only if he’s wrong. Is he wrong?
Shut up.
Kaedren settled into position. "You've spent the last three days feeling powerless. Your brain is stuck in a loop where you couldn't protect everyone, couldn't save everyone, couldn't control the outcome." He gestured to the space between us. "This gives you control. You set the pace. You decide how far we go. You tell me when to stop."
I understood what he was offering.
Choice.
Agency in a body that had forgotten it had any.
I moved toward him.
“Wait,” he said, all four of his hands raised, palms up. “No Kira specials allowed during this training, okay?”
I laughed. “I promise.”
The first takedown was clumsy. He let me work for it, redirecting my weight without counterattacking, guiding me toward the technique instead of away from it. When I finally got him to the mat, he didn't resist. Just let himself fall with the motion, absorbing the impact like it was nothing.
"Good," he said from beneath me. "Again."
We went again. And again. Each round, he gave me a little more resistance. Made me earn it. But he never took over. Never turned it into his victory. When I found the right leverage, he went down. When I fumbled, he reset and let me try again.
By the fifth round, I was gasping for air and my muscles burned with the good kind of exhaustion. The kind that meant something had been used up and emptied out. The kind that left no room for anything but the present moment.
He tapped the mat, signaling the end, and I rolled off him onto my back.
We lay there side by side, staring at the ceiling, catching our breath. The training bay hummed around us, quiet and still.
"Strength isn't about being harder," he said after a while. "It's not about enduring more than everyone else or refusing to feel what hurts. It's about knowing when to push and when to stop. Trusting yourself to make that choice."
I turned my head to look at him. His profile was sharp in the dim light, jaw relaxed for once.
"Is that something the Reach taught you?"
"No." He met my gaze. "That's what I learned after what the Reach taught me failed."
Something shifted in my heart. Not the weight itself, but the way I was carrying it. Like I'd been holding it wrong this whole time, and someone had finally shown me how to balance it.
"Thank you," I said. "For not trying to fix it."
"You don't need fixing." He reached over and took my hand, his grip warm and calloused against my palm. "You need to remember that your body still belongs to you. Even after everything you've asked it to do."
I squeezed his fingers.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over me. The kind that might actually let me sleep.
"I should get cleaned up," I said, not moving.
"You should." He didn't move either.
