Arasaka approached slowly.
Unhurried. Never hurried.
He stopped above Yuma lying on the floor of the dark space and looked him over with that expression that never showed anything — except when it decided to show something.
He tilted his head slightly.
— It's too soon for it to end like this.
His voice was low. Not directed at Yuma — at himself. Like an observation spoken aloud without really meaning to.
He crouched down.
— There's something else in you.
His eyes moved slowly across Yuma's unconscious body with the precision of someone reading something no one else could see.
— Something powerful. Something that's been sleeping.
He placed his hand on Yuma's chest.
And let mana flow.
Not much. Not violently. A thread of fine, ancient energy that seeped into Yuma's body like water finding its own paths — exploring, probing, searching.
Then Arasaka withdrew his hand.
Stood up.
Stepped back a few paces.
And waited.
The silence held.
Then something moved.
Beneath the surface — not visible, not audible, but perceptible in the space itself. Like a crack opening slowly in stone. Like pressure that had been searching for an exit for far too long.
Black smoke escaped from Yuma's body.
Thin at first. Almost nothing.
Then denser and denser — rising from his shoulders, his arms, his chest, as if something was burning from the inside without visible flame.
Yuma's eyes opened.
Scarlet red.
Yuma's hair rose slowly — not all at once, like under the effect of a static electricity searching for its shape. A few strands at the top of his skull took on a deep red shade, almost bordeaux, visible even in the darkness of the dark space.
He snapped into a fighting stance before he'd even regained consciousness — fists raised, legs bent, his entire body oriented toward the nearest threat.
And around him — the darkness mana.
Not like the last time in the arena. Not an uncontrolled leak, not a disorganized explosion. Something rawer. Deeper. A massive current that swirled around his body like a storm that had finally found its center.
Arasaka watched.
Really watched.
Something in his eyes lit up.
Back in the treasury — Yuma's body, still in his meditation posture, still motionless, began to change.
The darkness mana flowed first gently around him. A faint black smoke rising from his shoulders.
Then stronger.
Then too strong.
Kazuho stepped back involuntarily.
— What have I done, he said quietly.
Not a question. The realization of a man wondering whether he had just made an irreparable mistake.
Enji, however, didn't move.
He was watching Yuma with an expression Kazuho had never seen on him — calm, absolute, without the shadow of a doubt.
— He's going to make it.
— Enji —
— I can feel it. Yuma can do the impossible. That's just what he is.
Haruki was observing the scene from the doorway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
— Maybe we should wait and see what —
The darkness mana around Yuma exploded.
The black smoke doubled in volume in one second. The artifacts in the nearby glass cabinets began to vibrate. A weapon display stand swayed.
— Lucien.
Kazuho's voice was calm but absolute.
A man stepped forward from the shadows of the hallway behind the door — discreet, as always. Tall, close-cropped gray hair, plain clothing with runes embroidered subtly along the sleeves. Lucien, the senior steward — the one Kazuho only ever addressed by first name when things were serious.
— Sir.
— Can you stabilize him?
Lucien looked at Yuma. Looked at the swirling darkness mana. Evaluated.
— Yes.
He said nothing else. He stepped forward, settled cross-legged behind Yuma, and pressed both palms flat against the boy's back.
His eyes closed.
A steady golden glow emanated from his hands — ancient, precise support magic that created a gentle, continuous pressure around the darkness mana current, pushing it inward, containing it without blocking it.
The swirl slowed slightly.
Just slightly.
— Alfred.
Alfred was already moving.
He had retrieved his shield — an object no one in the household had ever seen come out of storage — and was advancing toward Yuma with the same impassive expression he wore when serving tea.
He raised the shield.
— Shield of the Brave Knight.
The technique deployed above Yuma like a solid dome of light — wide, thick, anchored to the floor around him and Lucien, creating a protective zone that also covered the Hyogas standing behind.
— Don't hurt Yuma, Kazuho said immediately.
Alfred lowered his eyes toward his employer with the same expression he would have worn if asked not to spill his tea.
— I will do everything in my power to avoid it, Sir. But at the first sign of genuine danger to the members of this household…
He paused.
— I will render him incapacitated. My duty is to protect my masters. In that order.
Kazuho nodded without answering.
They all watched Yuma — his meditating body, the black smoke still swirling despite Lucien's efforts, the vibrations in the air around him.
— Yuma, Enji murmured.
His voice was low. Not to draw attention. Just so the words would exist somewhere in the room.
— I know you can do this.
In the dark space — Yuma's hair, already raised, already red in places — lifted entirely upward all at once. Every strand pulled taut, every scarlet reflection pulsing in rhythm with the darkness mana around him. He no longer looked quite like himself.
He looked like something else.
Something that was hungry.
He charged.
Not like before.
Before, he fought with method — the combinations, the timing, the technique. Two weeks against the clone had taught him to build every strike.
This Yuma built nothing.
He just went forward.
Savage. Instinctive. With the pure, uncalculated fury of something that had just woken up after sleeping too long and couldn't yet stand the light.
Arasaka got into position.
— Disappointing, he said. I thought this would be —
The first blow landed.
A fist loaded with darkness mana — not compressed, not calculated, just unleashed with the full raw force of whatever was pouring into Yuma's body in that moment.
Arasaka blocked it.
And stepped back.
One full step.
His eyes dropped to his forearm.
To the mark left by the impact.
A fraction of a second of silence.
Then something in Arasaka's expression shifted — not much, just enough to be visible.
— …Ah.
Yuma didn't give him time to finish.
Right knee into the ribs — Arasaka pivoted to absorb, but the impact still forced him back another half-step. Left elbow on the return — Arasaka dodged with a tilt of his head, but the wind of the pass brushed his temple. Head strike toward the chin — Arasaka caught it with a palm, and this time he held.
But his feet had slid.
— Art of War… said Arasaka.
He pushed Yuma away.
— …Strike of the Empty Sky.
He vanished.
Yuma took the impact in his right shoulder — launched sideways, he rolled, got back up without pausing and kept going.
No analysis. No strategy.
Just forward.
Arasaka dodged the first combination — left fist, roundhouse kick, return elbow — with that habitual economy of movement. Every strike passed through the air a few millimeters from its target.
Then Yuma changed.
He stopped trying to aim for a precise point. He attacked the entire space around Arasaka — strikes coming from everywhere, no apparent logic, no repeated angle. Low kick to the right leg, right fist toward the chest, left knee toward the ribs, head toward the shoulder, right elbow toward the nape — a storm of blows that left no room for reading because it had no reading.
Arasaka stepped back.
One step.
Two.
— Art of War — Silent Thunder.
The electrical discharge struck Yuma from everywhere at once. He was launched. Got back up. Kept going.
— Art of War — Sickle Wind.
The cutting wind arcs sliced through the darkness mana around Yuma — who kept going anyway, arms covered in marks, eyes still scarlet red, hair still raised and red.
Arasaka dodged the next assault.
Then blocked the one after.
Then took the one after that.
A darkness-mana-loaded fist — straight into the chest, this time with no defense in between.
Arasaka traveled three meters through the dark space before stabilizing.
He stayed still for a moment.
Looked at his hands.
Looked at Yuma already reloading — hair raised and scarlet, the darkness mana swirling around him like a crown of black smoke.
And something appeared in his eyes that no one — in the entire history of those who had faced him — had ever seen there.
Genuine amusement.
— Now this is something interesting, he said quietly.
Yuma was already charging.
Arasaka closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
— But this has to end.
He opened his eyes.
— Art of War…
His voice had regained that deliberate weight — slow, precise, absolute.
— …Silence of Extinction.
He struck.
Arasaka's fist went through Yuma's abdomen.
Not a metaphor. Not a shockwave. An actual penetration — wind mana shearing through every defense ahead of the impact, lightning too fast to be felt, fire exploding inside the point of contact.
The silence that followed was total.
Arasaka withdrew his fist slowly.
Yuma stayed upright for one second — eyes still scarlet, hair still raised, the darkness mana still present around him, his body not yet understanding what had just happened.
Then the red left his eyes.
Then his hair fell, strand by strand.
Then the darkness mana dissipated.
And Yuma collapsed.
Arasaka looked at the body on the ground.
Straightened up.
And sat on it — calmly, naturally, like settling onto a rock by the side of a road.
He rested his arms on his knees and looked at Yuma with a mixed expression — interrogation and curiosity intertwined in a silence that had no need to be filled.
In the treasury — Yuma's meditating body let out a cry.
Not an ordinary cry of pain.
Something torn. Something deep. The kind of sound that comes from a place where words don't exist yet.
The darkness mana around him exploded one final time — then dissipated entirely in a few seconds, like a flame deprived of air.
Lucien withdrew his hands and slowly reopened his eyes.
Alfred lowered his shield.
The dome of protection disappeared.
Everyone looked at Yuma.
His face. His breathing. The expression across his features — contracted, tense, brows pressed together, teeth clenched.
— He's in pain, said Kazuho.
There was no neutrality in his voice this time.
— I shouldn't have agreed to send him in there.
He took a step toward Yuma.
— Alfred. Can you bring him back by force?
— Technically yes, said Alfred. The connection between his mind and his body can be forced from the outside. It would be brutal but —
— No.
Enji.
His voice was calm. Absolute. Without hesitation.
Kazuho turned toward him.
— Enji. Look at him. He's in agony in there —
— I know.
— Then —
— And he's going to pull through anyway.
Kazuho looked at his son.
Enji was watching Yuma — that face contracted with pain, that short and labored breathing, that body fighting something no one in the room could see.
And in Enji's eyes — no worry. No fear. An uncracked confidence, without shadow, without the slightest space for doubt.
Kazuho looked at that expression for a long time.
Then he stepped back.
— We wait.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of silence in the treasury — Yuma's body still contracted and motionless, breathing still difficult, the painful expression that didn't change.
Alfred standing with his shield. Lucien in the background, ready. Haruki watching without a word. Kazuho pacing slowly. Enji sitting cross-legged beside Yuma, eyes closed, like someone waiting for a friend at a train station.
Then.
Yuma's breathing changed.
Deeper. Slower. The expression on his face relaxed progressively — the brows, the jaw, the shoulders.
His eyes opened.
In the dark space — Yuma opened his eyes and found Arasaka sitting on him.
He blinked.
Took in the situation.
— Get off.
Arasaka looked at him with the expression of someone who had just been told something mildly amusing but didn't feel like showing it.
A slow, deliberate yawn.
— The victorious sit upon their conquered. That is the natural order of things. You're welcome to complain when you've actually won.
Yuma looked at him.
Then looked at the floor.
Then at Arasaka again.
— …Fair enough.
— Good.
A silence.
— So what are you going to do with me? Yuma asked.
Arasaka didn't answer immediately. He was looking at Yuma with that expression of mixed interrogation and curiosity that had appeared after the fight — something unusual on a face that normally showed nothing.
— Nothing, he said finally.
He paused.
— But I have a question.
— Go ahead.
— You look like a human. Your body, the way you fight, your mana structure — everything says human.
His eyes fixed on Yuma with a precision that made you feel dissected alive.
— But you reek of demon.
Silence.
Yuma looked at him.
— I… what?
— Your darkness mana. The way it responded when I stimulated it. The quality of that energy.
Arasaka rose finally — slowly, without urgency — and looked down at Yuma.
— That's not human energy. Not entirely.
He tilted his head slightly.
— You might be a…
He stopped.
The silence stretched.
He didn't finish the sentence.
Yuma waited.
Nothing.
— A what? said Yuma.
Arasaka looked at him with something that almost resembled a smile.
— You interest me, he said simply. Enormously.
He extended his hand toward Yuma — not to help him up, not as an ordinary gesture. With the weight of a decision made and irreversible.
— I'm signing a pact with you.
Yuma looked at him.
— I lost.
— Yes.
— Then why —
— Because you interest me, said Arasaka with a slight impatience that was the most human thing he'd shown since the beginning. More than anyone has interested me in a very, very long time.
He kept his hand extended.
— You don't need to understand why right now.
Yuma looked at the hand.
Looked at Arasaka.
And took it.
Light appeared around them — not explosive, not dramatic. Soft and continuous, like something closing cleanly rather than something bursting open.
And in that light, Arasaka's voice — different from all the previous times. Closer. More direct. Like a thought spoken from inside rather than outside.
— I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy myself greatly in your company.
Yuma opened his eyes.
The ceiling of the treasury.
Ordinary light. Ordinary air. The weapons in their display stands.
Everyone around him — Enji, Kazuho, Haruki, Alfred, Lucien — watching him with expressions ranging from worry to relief to pure curiosity.
— Yuma, said Enji.
Yuma sat up slowly.
Ran a hand across his face.
Blinked several times.
— What happened? Kazuho asked.
— I… said Yuma.
He searched for his memories. Fragments — the dark space, the fight, Arasaka's eyes above him. The extended hand.
— I don't remember everything. Parts are blurry.
He looked at his hands.
— But I know we made a pact. Arasaka and I.
Silence.
Kazuho and Haruki exchanged a glance.
— You… said Kazuho slowly. You're certain?
— Yes.
— A pact with Arasaka, said Haruki. With the demon god of war who's been sealed in that chest since —
— Are you going to make a whole thing out of this?
The voice came from the chest.
Deep. Slow. With that undercurrent of quiet arrogance that never fully went away.
— It's true. The pact is signed. You can close your mouths now.
Enji let out a short laugh — genuine, sonorous.
— Yuma is genuinely something else.
Yuma looked at him.
— Not that much.
— You just signed a pact with a rank S demon.
Yuma looked at him for a second.
Then burst out laughing.
Enji laughed too.
Both at once — that laughter echoing through the treasury with all its weapons and artifacts and history, making all of it feel slightly less crushing.
Kazuho looked at Yuma for a long time — this teenager sitting on the floor of his treasury, slightly dazed, with that flame in his eyes that hadn't gone out despite everything that had just happened.
He sighed.
Then smiled — slightly, briefly, but genuinely.
— Congratulations, he said.
He walked toward the chest and placed a hand on it.
— You're going to inherit Arasaka. And something else as a bonus — but you'll discover that when the time comes.
He straightened and looked at both boys.
— Now get out of here both of you. Your equipment needs to be upgraded — the artifacts you chose today, you need to learn how to use them before Vantarcity.
Haruki jumped to his feet, eyes lit up in a way rarely seen on him — the pure enthusiasm of a blacksmith facing work that genuinely excites him.
— I'll handle it, he said with unusual directness. Let me work on them. I have ideas.
Kazuho looked at him.
— Don't break them.
— Father.
— I'm saying that for your sake as much as theirs.
Alfred stepped toward Yuma and Enji with his customary precision, Lucien at his side.
— If you'd be so kind as to follow us, gentlemen. We'll begin with a full assessment of your current equipment before handing it over to Master Haruki.
Yuma stood up. Stretched. Winced slightly — his body had held onto something from the fight in the other dimension, a dull ache that wasn't entirely real but wasn't entirely imaginary either.
He looked at the chest one last time.
— Arasaka.
— What, said the voice.
— We'll talk again.
A silence.
— Obviously, said Arasaka. I'm not going anywhere.
Yuma nodded.
And followed Alfred toward the door.
End of Chapter 17