Rain rolled in without thunder.
It came as a fine, steady curtain over Kyoto, turning the shrine's stone steps slick and blurring the city lights below into smeared halos. The air tasted clean, the kind of damp that made old wood creak and foxfire burn brighter.
Alaudi liked it.
Rain quieted people. It made the world honest.
"Again," he said.
Ren sucked in a breath, shut his eyes, and tried.
They stood beneath the shrine's eaves, just out of the rain. Hibird was parked on the hanging bell rope like a feathery ornament. Roll lurked by the pillar, spines dim, occasionally headbutting Ren's ankle if he lost focus.
"Feel," Alaudi said, voice calm. "Not force."
Ren frowned in concentration. The unstable buzz of his aura, which normally frayed out in every direction, started to pull inward. Not perfectly—he was a mess, not a miracle—but there was shape now. Edges.
The shrine felt it too.
The pressure that used to spike whenever Ren stepped onto the grounds now hovered over them like a teacher with arms crossed. Watching. Waiting. Less rejection now. More… conditional permission.
Alaudi let his Cloud Flames seep into the stone under their feet, threading between the old lines carved there by forgotten caretakers. He wasn't suppressing Ren; he was bracketing him, like a frame around a wild sketch.
"Good," Alaudi said. "Again."
Ren exhaled, slower this time. The energy around him steadied further, like a flame tucked behind glass.
Hibird chirped once, approving.
"Is this really helping?" Ren asked after a moment, cracking one eye open.
"No," Alaudi said. "I'm just making you suffer for my amusement."
Ren scowled. Alaudi stared back. The kid caught himself, cheeks coloring. "…It feels different. Like it's not… spilling."
"Then it's helping," Alaudi said. "Again."
The boy closed his eyes without more argument.
Progress.
They broke when the rain thickened.
Ren retreated under the eaves. Hibird relocated to his shoulder and immediately tried to rearrange his hair again. Roll waddled into Alaudi's shadow and disappeared.
Alaudi stepped out into the rain.
The cold drops hissed against the faint veil of Cloud Flames that rose to meet them, evaporating on contact but never flaring high enough to be seen by human eyes below.
He pushed his senses out with the spread, letting the rain carry them—down the slope, through the trees, along the old stone paths, brushing the edge of the city's wards.
Kyoto hummed.
Quiet youkai signatures moved through backstreets. Wards flexed and settled as shrine maidens checked talismans. Farther out, something big and scaly turned in a river.
Nothing hostile.
Good.
A ripple brushed his awareness at the edge of that reach. Not danger—familiar.
"Visitor," Alaudi said, more to the shrine than to Ren.
Yasaka stepped into view a minute later, passing the torii like the rain parted for her.
Which it did.
Foxfire clung to her sleeves, keeping the worst of the downpour off. Her presence folded seamlessly into the shrine's old power; she belonged here in a way Alaudi never would.
Ren straightened instinctively. Hibird made himself look small. Roll reappeared beside Alaudi's boot, spines a little higher.
"Good evening," Yasaka said.
"Evening," Alaudi replied.
Her gaze passed over Ren, lingered, then came back to Alaudi. "You work quickly."
"He leaks less," Alaudi said. "He's still a problem if unattended."
Ren stared at his knees. Hibird bumped his jaw once, like: head up.
"Look at me, Ren," Yasaka said gently.
He forced himself to.
"You remember nothing of before?" she asked.
Ren hesitated. "Sometimes I feel… places. Voices. But it's like trying to remember a dream."
Yasaka studied him for a long moment, then nodded.
"You stand on a line," she said. "Not fully human. Not fully spirit. Kyoto is patient with those who try to stand on their own feet."
Ren swallowed. "I'm trying."
"I see that." She shifted her gaze to Alaudi. "And you have taken responsibility."
"Yes," Alaudi said.
"There are those among my people who question that choice," Yasaka continued, straightforward. "You are Grigori-raised, Himejima-blooded, bearing an unknown flame and an unawakened Sacred Gear. Now you shelter a stray under our nose. They ask me: is this wise?"
Alaudi didn't flinch. "And you tell them?"
Her amber eyes held his. "That Kyoto does not cower from power; it decides how to meet it."
She let that hang a second, then added, "But their concerns are not entirely wrong. So I am here to add clarity."
"Terms," Alaudi said.
"Terms," Yasaka agreed.
Ren fidgeted.
Alaudi folded his arms. "Let's hear them."
"First," Yasaka said, counting off on one slim hand, "no recruitment. You will not build your own faction inside my city. No gathering of lost things into a private army without my knowledge. The boy is exception, not precedent."
"Fine," Alaudi said. Ren shot him a look; he ignored it. "I'm not interested in running a circus."
"Second. No killing youkai, shrine spirits, or human residents under our protection unless it is clear self-defense or in service of that protection." Her tone didn't harden—didn't need to. The weight behind it did. "If one of mine provokes you, you come to me, or you end it without ending them."
"That's fair," Alaudi said.
"Third." Her gaze sharpened. "If Grigori or any other faction tries to use you or the boy as leverage against Kyoto, you will inform me. Immediately."
Alaudi thought about Azazel. About the way the man's curiosity wrapped around problems.
"He's not subtle," Alaudi said. "If he wanted to use me against you, you'd already know."
"Azazel and I understand each other," Yasaka said. "I want the same with you."
Silence stretched.
Hibird preened Ren's hair again to fill it.
"Those are my terms," Yasaka said at last. "In return: you may remain here. You may use this shrine as your base. Kyoto's spirits will tolerate your training. If something from outside threatens this city, I will not chain your flames if you choose to stand with us."
Alaudi weighed it.
It was generous. More than he'd expected. And clear.
"I can work with that," he said.
A faint smile touched her lips. "Good. Then one more thing, if I may."
He arched a brow.
She nodded toward Hibird and Roll. "Your companions are… unusual."
Ren blinked. "They're cute."
"Cute things bite hardest when dismissed," Yasaka said mildly. Hibird puffed up, agreeing. Roll's spines crackled.
Alaudi exhaled through his nose. "They showed up. They stayed. That's the whole story."
"Nothing in this city is 'just' anything," Yasaka said. But she let it go. "If their nature changes, you will tell me as well."
"Yeah," Alaudi said. "You'll notice anyway."
"True," Yasaka said, amused.
She glanced up as thunder growled far off over the mountains, the first one of the storm finally catching up.
"The peace we have is fragile," she said, more to the rain than to them. "Hero Faction, Khaos Brigade, stray gods… there are many eyes on Kyoto. Many hands reaching."
"I've noticed," Alaudi said.
"You were thrown away by those who feared what you might become." Her gaze found him again, direct. "Be careful you do not become a tool for those who praise what you are."
"I don't serve flags," Alaudi said simply.
"Good," Yasaka said. "Try to keep it that way."
She turned, fox tails fanning behind her, and stepped back into the rain. It parted around her and then closed, her presence dissolving into Kyoto's heartbeat.
Ren let out a small breath. "She's… scary."
"She's honest," Alaudi said. "You don't get many like that."
He moved back under the eaves, shook a few cooling droplets from his hair, and sat.
Ren sat again beside him without being told.
"What if I mess up?" Ren asked suddenly. "With her rules. Or yours."
"Then I fix it," Alaudi said. "Or you do. Or we pay for it. That's what terms mean."
Ren chewed on that. "…Why did you agree so fast?"
"Because they're sane," Alaudi said. "If her terms were chains, I'd leave."
Ren stared at him. "Just like that?"
"Just like that." Alaudi looked out at the rain-slick stones, the talismans fluttering at the edge of the shrine. "I'd rather sleep in the Gap again than wear someone's leash."
Ren was quiet a long time.
"I don't want to be thrown away," he said, finally. Soft. Very young.
"Then don't be," Alaudi said. "Work. Learn. Make it so anyone who tries chokes on the attempt."
Ren nodded slowly.
Hibird chirped something that sounded suspiciously like agreement. Roll nudged Ren's foot again.
"Alright," Alaudi said. "Start from the top. Feel, don't grab."
Ren closed his eyes.
Outside, Kyoto's wards thrummed in time with the storm.
Inside the shrine's boundary, violet flame and faint, unsteady power curled side by side—not perfect, not peaceful, but holding.
Terms agreed.
Conditions accepted.
Alaudi didn't call it home. Not yet.
But as he watched Ren struggle and try again, and felt Kyoto watching them both instead of rejecting them, he admitted—if only to himself—that this was the closest he'd been.