Smoke wafted from Rai’s hand. The impact was scorching.

Rai was sat next to Sin, his arm outstretched. He blocked the punch after noticing Sin’s indecision.

“You should act faster Sin. I know you can, so next time have faith in your own skills.”

“You idiot, I didn’t react on purpose. What do you think would happen if I fought him, huh? Dad would have to deal with a whole mess of stuff.”

Rai'd forgotten. Sin was the daughter of the Deceiver, and Haldi was the son of the Arbiter.

“Ohh... Right, I forgot you had to deal with that.”

Haldi’s normally plain face showcased a flurry of annoyance, rage, and fury, all together. He tried to pull his fist away, but he couldn’t.

Rai’s grip was firm.

“I don’t remember saying you could go.” His lightning blue eyes pierced the Archangel. “What is it with you nobles. First Hiron, now you two. Can’t you mind your own business and leave others alone?” Rai stood up, letting go of Haldi’s fist. He walked over Tullian, who was unconscious on the ground. “Ah, he should be fine. Amy, Lina, do you two know any healing spells?”

Amy and Lina were both in shock, but Amy broke out of it first.

She nodded at Rai.

“Alright. Heal Tullian while I deal with these clowns, then take him to the infirmary afterwards, alright?”

Amy nodded again. She stumbled to the floor as she went to heal Tullian. The tears in her eyes had stopped flowing now that she’d been given purpose.

Sin noticed what Rai did there. She appreciated that he acted to salvage Amy’s emotional state at the same time as help Tullian.

Rai stretched his arms out as he walked into an open space without any students sat at any tables.

“Let it be known that I’m doing this because I want to! Not for any other reason!”

He gestured for the twin Archangels to come at him.

“Bring it.”

Hilda and Haldi stared at each other. They’d practically lost it by this point. What was at first them defending their father’s honour, had become a session of them venting their anger out on their juniors. But there wasn’t anyone who could stand against them without losing out.

For everyone else, it wasn’t worth it.

But Rai didn’t care about all that. He just wanted to have some fun now that he’d eaten a great meal.

Haldi began. He flew towards Rai with a light imbued punch, just like how he did against Tullian and Sin.

Rai parried it with a Stormflow induced hand.

His voice crackled throughout the mess hall.

“You’ll have to do better than that, c’mon man. That can’t be all you’ve got, right?”

“ARGH!”

Haldi unleashed a barrage of punches that would’ve been enough to rip through a stone wall.

But Rai dodged them.

All of them.

“Gosh, you’re so slow! And you...”

He caught Hilda’s foot mid-air. Rai turned to him with a disappointed look on his face.

“You’re just weak.”

Rai tossed Hilda backwards, causing him to lose his footing since he was only stood on one leg. Hilda stumbled to the ground, clipping his wing on a stray table-chair. He yelled out in pain.

Haldi was fuming.

“You bitch! You hurt Hilda!”

“Huh?! You two started this, so why are you acting like you’re victims now?! What’s that about?”

“Fuck you!” Haldi shouted.

He created a beam of light that shot from one hand to another. It seared through the metal holding a table together like butter.

Uh... I probably shouldn’t touch that.

Rai wanted to use Antithesis, but Kallad’s words came to mind. He couldn’t afford to use the technique in a situation like this.

Instead, Rai zoomed to Haldi’s side, and kicked his leg which caused him to buckle.

Haldi released his spell as he used his hands to stop himself from falling face first into the ground.

“My turn now.” Rai said.

“Uh... wait a second! It’s all good now, right? You won, right? You can stop now!”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Rai punched Haldi square in the face.

The students watching the brawl all winced.

A satisfying crunch came from underneath Rai’s fist. As Rai pulled back his hand, blood poured out of Haldi’s nose.

“Wy wose! WU WOKE WY WOSE!”

Rai broke his nose.

Haldi jumped to his feet and grabbed Hilda. They ran out of the cafeteria together.

Whew. That was more annoying than I expected.

“Hey guys, I think they’ll leave us alone now.”

No one responded.

In fact, everyone was frozen.

“Guys? Hello?” Rai waved his hands in front of the people around him.

He walked over to Sin.

“Sin? Can you hear me?”

“They can’t hear you.”

Everything faded to black.

Rai was left stood in an empty void. There were stars in the distance where Sin was previously sat.

Rai turned around frantically, only to freeze at the view of what was behind him.

Zenith... His world. The twin suns were on the other side of it. For some reason, they weren’t that bright while he was stood here.

An echoing voice that was neither masculine nor feminine came from his side.

“No. That’s not your world.”

Rai turned to look for the origin of the voice. There was a humanoid... a celestial looking figure. Their body was made up of mini galaxies and stars. Their face was completely obscured, the only thing that gave away some form of humanoid form being stars and galaxies that were in the same position as a pair of eyes and mouth would be.

“Who...”

“You need not know. Yet.”

“What's that supposed to mean?! One second I'm in my Academy and the next I'm here, wherever the fuck this is!” Rai exlaimed.

“Calm yourself. Why would I spend this long trying to reach you just to kill you? It’s taken me this long just to finally reach you, so I’d rather not squander the opportunity.”

“What... what's that supposed to mean?”

The galaxies brightened and dimmed repeatedly... Is it laughing? The echoes made their way through his mind.

“For a dragon by blood, you know very little of the true world, do you not?”

Rai stared at it. This... thing. It wasn't a human, nor was it an elf or dwarf or any of the other races on Zenith.

“True world? Dragon? Wait, how’s that not Zenith?! Will you please answer my questions instead of giving me more to ask?!”

The echoes reverberated around the endless universe. The celestial laughed once more.

“What you see here is not your world. But your true world. The world you know is nothing but a fake.”

A fake? What the... How is that even possible. They must be lying, or trying to deceive me. Rai’s apprehension toward the celestial figure was clear. But, he felt no bloodlust, no desire to kill coming from it. In fact, he felt no emotions at all coming from the figure. He felt like it was true to its own words in that it didn't want him dead.

“Little dragon. You must reach me. Embark on your father’s path and learn the truth of your world. You have to find the key. Transcend. Only then will you see, only then will you reach true Balance.”

Transcending again... that’s the same thing that old hobo said before!

The celestial figure made a body movement similar to earlier. A sound came out that somehow resembled a chuckle, if that was even possible.

“Time is short. Your life will not end in the way you expect. My only piece of advice would be to go with the flow. Do not fight against it, or you will drown. I will send you back. Remember, you must reach me! Return to the true Zenith, that’s the only way yo-”

Rai was back in the cafeteria.

He stared at Sin, who was smiling at him.

“That was awesome Rai!”

“Sin! Did you see that?!”

“Uh, yeah. You just handed the Archangels their own asses. Everyone here saw it.”

“What? No, not that! Forget that! The galaxy! That celestial! Did you see it?!”

“Rai, you should go to sleep. It sounds like you’re going crazy.”

Did she not see it? Did no one else see it? What the fuck...

Tullian patted Rai on the back.

“Hey Princess! You didn’t mention that your boyfriend was such an awesome fighter!” Tullian said as he was being held up by Amy and Lina. Amy had healed him back to consciousness, and Tullian was able to witness the whole thing.

Boyfriend?

Both of Rai and Sin’s faces were flushed. They looked at each other, then at Tullian. They spoke over each other.

“It’s not like that!”

“We’re not together!”

“Oh... did I hit a sore spot? My bad.” He rubbed the back of his head, “It just seemed like you guys were together, whoopsie.”

Rai and Sin looked at each other with eyes that said ‘Do we really look like that?!’

The confusion that they shared would quickly fizzle as the conversation drifted back to Rai’s 'battle' against the Archangels.

In the end, their first Academy lunch was far too eventful for Rai’s liking. He hoped his next lesson would be a bit more relaxing. Right now, Rai wanted to just forget about the celestial being and focus on what was in front of him. What he could see, smell, hear, and feel.

“What’s our next lesson again? We have the same lessons for the most part, I just forgot.” Rai asked Sin.

He didn’t want to take out his schedule because of the lightning it would emit. At times like this, Rai often wished he had a choice when it came to how flashy his spatial storage was.

Sin pulled out her schedule from her spatial rune. She read through the day’s schedule quickly.

“It’s weapon skills training, then we’re finished for the day.”

“Weapon skills training... fuck.”

Rai’s next lesson wouldn’t be as relaxing as he wanted.