Arata didn’t pack much.

  There wasn’t much to take.

  The room felt smaller than it had three months ago. The bed, the desk, the cracked stone near the window where resonance always hummed slightly louder — all of it looked temporary now.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and let the silence settle.

  No Mad Dragon.

  No Flora's Voice resonating in his skull.

  Just the hum of the Veins beneath the Academy.

  He ran his hand along the wall where the stone met the floor.

  “This was never home,” he murmured to himself, consoling himself.

  The Academy had taught him structure and theory.

  It had also tried to categorise him and had ailed miserably.

  Label him.

  Prepare him.

  All the incidents that had taken place since he had the unfatefull encounter with the mad Dragon, all had been dangerous.

  But something about the southern laboratory felt different.

  Not safer than the life at the Academy.

  Just more honest.

  He stood and walked to the balcony.

  The mountains loomed dark against the night sky. The river below shimmered faintly, Vein-light tracing its surface like fractured starlight.

  “Tomorrow,” he said quietly thinking of leaving the unsettling yet beautiful scenic Academy valley behind.

  “You planning to say goodbye to the mountains too?”

  Arata didn’t turn.

  “I was wondering how long you’d stand there,” he said.

  Wanuy stepped fully onto the balcony, leaning against the stone railing. The faint glow of the Veins reflected in his eyes, dull and steady.

  “You’re leaving,” Wanuy said.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  Wanuy nodded once, as if that confirmed something he already knew.

  “For the laboratory,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Silence stretched between them — not uncomfortable, just solid.

  Wanuy looked out toward the valley.

  “You think that place will give you answers?” he asked.

  “No,” Arata replied. “I think it will give me problems I can’t ignore.”

  Wanuy snorted faintly. “That sounds more like you.”

  Another pause.

  “You could stay,” Wanuy said after a moment. “Train. Build control the normal way.”

  “There is never a normal way for me. Unlike you, I was not infused with dragon blood in a lab, it was at ruin site. So maybe I will not find anything at a place made on the principle extracted from the science of humans.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Wanuy didn’t argue.

  Instead, he studied Arata carefully.

  “You’re calmer,” he observed.

  “I am.”

  “That worries me.”

  Arata almost smiled.

  “You think I’m about to explode?”

  “Maybe,” Wanuy said evenly, “that you’ve already decided who you are. That’s more dangerous.”

  The wind shifted slightly, colder now.

  “If something happens there,” Wanuy continued, “you won’t have the Academy’s containment fields.”

  “I know.”

  “You won’t have instructors.”

  “I know.”

  “You won’t have me.”

  That one lingered.

  Arata finally turned toward him.

  “I don’t need protection,” he said.

  Wanuy shook his head.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  They held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

  Then Wanuy exhaled slowly.

  “If you lose control,” he said, voice lower now, “I won’t hesitate.”

  "Calm down Guido" Arata didn’t flinch. “Though if you take me down, maybe It won't be so disappointing after all..”

  That was their version of trust.

  Wanuy pushed off the railing.

  “Don’t die somewhere inconvenient,” he said. “I don’t feel like traveling south to retrieve your body.”

  “I’ll try to keep the paperwork simple.”

  Wanuy paused at the doorway.

  “…Arata.”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever you find down there,” Wanuy said, “don’t let it convince you that you are someone else.”

  Arata’s expression shifted — just slightly.

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Wanuy nodded once and disappeared into the corridor.

  Arata turned back toward the valley.

  ...

  Nebula was in the upper archive chamber when Arata found her.

  Stacks of resonance scrolls lay open around her, diagrams of dragon-line fractals glowing faintly in the dim light. She didn’t look up when he entered.

  “You walk louder when you’re about to say something important,” she said.

  Arata stopped a few steps behind her.

  “I’m leaving,” he said.

  Now she looked up.

  Not startled.

  Not confused.

  Just still and a little taken aback.

  “For how long?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Until I find what I am looking for...which is not very good, because it is literally madness.”

  She closed the book in front of her with deliberate care.

  “The southern laboratory,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  Arata nodded.

  Nebula studied him for a moment, and for the first time since she’d known him, there was no teasing edge in her gaze.

  “You’ve already decided,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  "I just thought that..." Arata hesitated.

  “you deserved to hear it from me.”

  Silence lingered between them — not awkward, just heavy.

  “You think that is where your life begins,” Nebula said quietly.

  Arata didn’t answer.

  She smiled faintly.

  “You’re wrong.”

  He blinked.

  “It began the day you refused to rebel.”

  She stepped closer now, stopping just within arm’s reach.

  “You don’t need the laboratory to define you,” she said. “But you do need it to confront yourself.”

  He searched her face.

  “Are you angry?” he asked.

  “No,” she said softly. “I’m relieved.”

  That caught him off guard.

  “You’ve been suffocating here,” she continued. “Trying to pretend the Academy is a destination, A cure-all.”

  She reached out and adjusted the collar of his uniform — an almost absent gesture.

  “Just don’t come back unrecognisable.”

  He gave her a small smile.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Don’t make empty promises,” she said. “Change. Just don’t disappear.”

  When he turned to leave, she didn’t stop him,

  What right did she have to stop him?

  ...

  He found Lyra near the lower gardens.

  She was pretending to read.

  “You’re leaving,” she said without looking up.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  At this point Arata had answered the same question so many times he was sure Lyra was going to ask something he had already heard multiple times, but what she said next shook him a little.

  She closed the book.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  The words were immediate. Too immediate.

  Arata frowned. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.”

  “That place isn’t part of standard rotation.”

  “I know.”

  He studied her.

  “This isn’t about me,” he said.

  She finally looked at him.

  Her expression was calm. Measured. Almost too careful.

  “Of course it is,Silly” she replied. “You’ll need someone who understands resonance theory. And someone who won’t panic if things go wrong.”

  “That’s your argument?” he asked.

  “It’s the only one I’m giving you.”

  Silence.

  There was something beneath her composure — a tension coiled too tight. Arata noticed it, but he couldn’t name it.

  “You’re not trying to escape something, are you?” he asked lightly.

  Lyra smiled.

  “Everyone here is escaping something,” she said.

  That was true enough to pass.

  He hesitated only a second longer.

  “If you come,” he said, “this won’t be comfortable.”

  Lyra stepped closer.

  “I don’t want comfortable.”

  For a moment, neither spoke.

  The Veins pulsed faintly beneath the earth.

  “Alright,” Arata said at last. “Come with me. Just try not to get in my way, Oh dear professor of mine.”

  Lyra nodded once.

  Not in triumph.

  Not even in relief.

  It Something quieter.

  As Arata turned away, she let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

  He didn’t see it.

  He didn’t see the way her hand trembled slightly when she picked the book back up.

  He didn’t know that the southern laboratory wasn’t just his training ground. It was someone's escape.

  It was hers.

  And somewhere far beyond the Academy walls, Rnard’s shadow stretched long — and patient.

  Any and all questions in the comments will be answered.