Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Raizen's shoulders tightened before he could calm down.

Atman saw it. Of course he did.

His smile shifted, sharper now.

"I know that look" he said softly. "I have seen it on very few faces. People who have either broken in there… Or broken out."

Raizen held his gaze.

His neck still ached where the ghost-Nyx hand had held him.

"You talk like you know the place" Raizen said.

Atman chuckled quietly.

"There was no padding when we built it" he replied. "No colored walls. No monitors. Rust was real. Metal, blood, sweat. If you fell, no one helped you. If you didn't stand back up anymore, nobody cared."

Raizen's fingers curled against his thigh.

"We?" he asked.

Atman tilted his head.

"Your father, Takeshi, for one" he said. "Lani for another. And myself. We took different roles. Takeshi hammered everything in place. Lani calibrated the numbers, watched for any imperfections. I designed the patterns. The drills. The kill zones."

There was something almost fond in his tone.

"We needed a place that separated those who think they are strong from those who truly are" he went on. "A place that asked questions the Lotus Academy would never dare to ask."

"How many people walked out?" Raizen asked.

"At the start?" Atman's answer was simple. "Not enough. Don't worry, they were alive. Barely."

The words landed without drama.

Raizen looked at him.

He pictured Takeshi, sitting in his old chair, empty sleeve, quiet eyes. He pictured the Rust Room he knew - white, brutal, wired, monitored, always on the edge of too much and somehow still not enough.

He tried to imagine an older version. No safety. No watchers. No padded pit.

He felt a cold shiver down his spine. But it had nothing to do with the fading touch.

"Why?" he asked. "Why build something like that?"

Atman took a few steps, slow, unhurried, until he was close enough to nudge Raizen's sword with the tip of his boot.

He did not kick it away. He just tapped it, a small reminder that he had noticed everything in the room.

"Because this world is rotting at the edges" he said.

"Nyxes. Official corruption. Human greed. Cowards in clean offices who send Vanguards and Gravers to die while writing speeches about sacrifice. The Rust Room wasn't built to entertain them. It was built to find the few people who can walk into that rot without flinching."

He looked up again.

"And you did walk through it. You did more than that. You wanted to train."

Raizen snorted.

"Some days."

"No. Every day."

"Not entirely by choice. Takeshi took me there."

"At first" Atman agreed. "But later? You know how it is. The ones who truly don't belong there break in week one. You made it far beyond that."

Raizen didn't like how that sounded.

"Is that what this was?" he asked. "You trying to see if I still remember how to be a rat in a maze?"

"At first, it was simple" Atman continued. "A blade at your throat. React or die. That has always been the opening question."

He watched Raizen's face carefully.

"When the time came, you didn't just react" he added. "You outpaced the strike, controlled your blade, and went for Hikari's neck without killing intent, even while sparring. You chose restraint when a kill would have been easier. And when my Nyx echo appeared, you managed to cut it. No one has done that before."

He spread his hands slightly.

"You have… potential."

Raizen's jaw tightened. "Then say what you want. Stop circling."

Silence settled again. The heavy kind of silence. The kind of silence that meant something important was about to happen.

Atman did not seem offended by the demand. If anything, he looked pleased.

"Very well" he said. "You want directness. I respect that."

He took one more step closer. Not enough to crowd Raizen, just enough that his voice did not need to carry far.

"Raizen" he said. "I am part of a group called the Silent Hand."

Raizen's eyes narrowed.

"Never heard of it."

"That is the point" Atman replied. "Vanguards wear weapons. Wardens have uniforms. The council signs papers. They make speeches, parade victories, decorate graves. The Silent Hand doesn't."

He lifted his right hand, palm facing up, like he was weighing something invisible there.

"When something goes wrong where the public must not see it, when a problem must be erased without noise… We come in" he said. "We are the ones who slip through cracks. Who remove threats without leaving shadows behind."

"Assassins" Raizen said.

"Specialists" Atman added gently. "Sometimes the threat is a Nyx so close that people cannot evacuate safely or in time. Sometimes it's a corrupted official. Sometimes it is a project that should never have started. We handle what others cannot, so the rest of the world can keep pretending their systems work."

There was no bragging in his tone.

No shame either.

Just facts.

Raizen thought of the Underworks. Of Wardens turning away from certain corners.

"You kill people" he said.

"Sometimes" Atman answered. "Sometimes we kill monsters. Sometimes we make sure monsters don't have time to grow into something worse. It is easy to draw conclusions from far away, Raizen. Much harder when you are the one holding the knife and looking at what they did."

His gaze sharpened.

"You have seen what negligence costs. Your village. The Mountain. Everything. You know what happens when those in charge pretend danger is under control"

Raizen's chest gave a small twist.

Atman stepped around him, slowly, passing in front of the window. Faint light painted one side of his face, leaving the Chasmis glow more visible in the dim.

"The Silent Hand doesn't get any statues" he continued. "We don't get fancy parades or memorials. Most of the people we save never know we were even there. But things are a bit less broken because we act. Quietly."

He stopped again, facing Raizen fully.

"That is what we are" he said. "And I think you would fit."

Raizen stared at him.

He remembered Hikari's hands around him while he was punching the concrete pillar. Obi's laugh. Saffi's worried eyes. Takeshi's quiet stare. Kori's voice in the Rust Room, telling him not to throw away his potential.

He imagined those same people hearing that he had joined a group that killed in secret.

"You are recruiting me" he said.

"I am giving you a path" Atman replied. "One that uses what you are already becoming. After the Rust Room, you were never going to be normal, Raizen. You know that."

The words landed too close.

"And I'm not stripping away the possibility of becoming an honest Vanguard."

Raizen looked away for a heartbeat, then back.

"What if I say no?" he asked.

Atman spread his hands again.

"Then you say no" he said calmly. "I am not the chief of Wardens. I am not the Council. I don't force."

He paused for a second.

"Besides" he added, the hint of humor returning, "if I wanted you dead, you would already be on the floor. This is not a threat."

That should not have been comforting.

It sort of was. A little.

Raizen took it in slowly, fighting down the last trembling in his muscles.

"What happens if I say yes?" he asked.

"A tiny bit of training" Atman said. "Real missions when you are ready. You remain a Vanguard on paper, a student to those who need to see you as one. But when the Hand calls, you answer silently. We would refine what the Rust Room started instead of letting it... Rust... Inside you."

He looked almost gentle when he said it.

"You want to protect people" he said. "This is one of the very few ways to actually do it."

The room felt smaller again.

Raizen thought of Nyxes slipping through cracks. Of beasts made from Eon that could tear through wood and flesh. Of the village coast, burned away. Of how many times he had already chosen to put himself between someone soft and something sharp.

He also thought of Saffi's expression when she had watched him under the wolf. That sharp new awareness. That flicker of fear.

He did not answer right away.

Atman took one slow step forward.

He did not extend his hand yet. He simply watched Raizen, giving him a moment that somehow felt heavier than time in the Rust Room.

"You were never meant for quiet roles" he said. "Whatever you choose, that much is true. The question is whether your blade stays pointed at the right things."

He finally moved.

The professor bowed slightly at the waist, a graceful, measured gesture that belonged at formal gatherings, not in a small office that still smelled faintly of ghost smoke.

When he straightened, his right hand extended, open.

"Join the Silent Hand, Raizen" he said, voice soft, clear. "Serve in the shadows. Or... Remain like prey to them."

The words fell into him like a stone into deep water.

Raizen's throat tightened again, for a very different reason this time.

Prey.

He had been prey before. When Nyxes came for the first time. When the village fell. When the Mountain roared. Each time, he had clawed his way out.

"I don't trust you" he said honestly.

Atman's smile did not falter.

"After all, I almost stabbed and strangled you to death!" he laughed. "I'm not saying you should. Not yet."

"And I don't trust your… Organization" Raizen added. "I don't know what you really do, or who really holds your leash."

"Also fair" Atman said.

Raizen drew his sword in a slow move. "I will... Think about it"

Atman's eyes studied him for a long second.

Then he lowered his hand, as if that answer had satisfied him enough.

"That's all I ask" he said. "Consider. You have time. Not much, perhaps… But some."

The last words had a strange weight to them.

Raizen's skin prickled.

Before he could ask what that meant, a sound cut through the office.

A deep, heavy bell.

It rang once, from somewhere above them. The floor seemed to catch the vibration, sending a low hum through the wood under Raizen's boots.

Then it rang again.

Louder.

Not decorative. Intentional. This wasn't the soft chime they had heard at the treehouse when the host came. This bell had meaning. Its tone was built to cut through training noise, through roars, shouts and crashing drills.

Raizen's heart jumped.

He had heard alarms before. In the Underworks. In Neoshima. In the Mountain.

Danger.

The third ring hit even harder, the sound burrowing into his chest. Somewhere outside the office, muffled voices rose, confused.

Atman's head snapped toward the window.

For the first time since Raizen had met him, something like unease crossed the professor's face. The ghost-blue eye brightened, then narrowed, focusing far away.

Raizen straightened his back, standing fully upright.

"What's that?" he asked, breath steady enough now.

Atman did not answer immediately.

They listened to the fourth toll together. The sound rolled through the walls like distant thunder.

Footsteps pounded somewhere in the corridor beyond the door. Shouts. A word Raizen could not make out.

Atman's jaw clenched once.

He looked back at Raizen.

"A warning" he said quietly.

Raizen's fingers twitched toward where his sword rested.

"What kind of warning?" he pressed.

Atman's gaze flicked toward the window, toward the unseen platforms and training grounds above and below.

When he answered, his voice had lost some of its smoothness.

"A beast" he said.

"Out of control."