The Student Council office sat on the top floor of the administrative wing, and as Muzan stepped into the elevator, he made a valid evaluation.
The student council office had the best view of the island, and the worst elevator wait times.
So Muzan got out after a floor, and took the stairs instead.
Not because he was impatient and could climb stars faster than anyone could probably blink.
Definitely not.
He pushed open the stairwell door, stepped into the hallway, and immediately found Sato waiting outside a set of double doors.
"You're on time," Sato said, which in his tone apparently constituted a compliment.
"I try." Muzan glanced at the doors. "Is the president in there?"
"She is." He paused and then said, "And the other transfer student is here as well."
"Isn't he done yet?" Muzan asked while standing beside him.
"President Enfield asked him to remain after his own test concluded." Sato adjusted his glasses and answered.
Muzan absorbed that without comment.
"Anything I should know before going in?"
Sato looked at him for a moment.
"The president is perceptive," he said finally.
He said it the way someone might say "the stove is hot" to a person who was already reaching for it.
"Thanks." Muzan pushed the doors open.
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The room was larger than it needed to be and cleaner than a student office had any right to be.
One wall was comprised entirely of a glass window, overlooking the island from above, the academy rooftops below, and the distant shimmer of the sea beyond the platform's edge.
The afternoon light came through at an angle, long and pale, cutting across the floor in thin strips.
Near the center of the room stood a machine that looked like someone had built a medical scanner and then decided it needed to be more intimidating.
It was roughly cylindrical, ringed with sensor nodes, and connected to a large display panel off to one side. A technician Muzan didn't recognize stood beside it with a tablet, not looking at him yet.
The other transfer student — purple hair, about his height, standing with the relaxed posture of someone who didn't realize how relaxed they were being — stood near the far wall.
He glanced over when Muzan entered, nodded once in polite acknowledgment, and then looked back toward the front of the room.
'Friendly.' Muzan marked him and then moved on.
Behind the desk at the far end of the room sat the Student Council president.
Blonde hair, long, falling over her shoulders, purple eyes, and, she was smiling, which meant nothing, because the smile reached her eyes in a way that looked practiced rather than felt.
She looked up when he entered, and the smile didn't change.
"Kibutsuji-kun, i presume." she said. Not a question. "Please, come in."
"Thank you." He crossed the room at an easy pace and stopped a meter short of her desk. "President Enfield."
"You know who I am?" The smile warmed slightly. "And here I was hoping to introduce myself."
"Your picture's in the academy directory, no-one would miss such a beautiful lady's name or face." Muzan complimented easily.
"Is that so?" She tilted her head, and something behind her eyes shifted, just for a moment, before the warmth returned. "I should update that. I look dreadful in that photo."
She did not look dreadful in that photo. She knew it, and she knew that he knew it too, and neither of them said anything.
Muzan found her mildly interesting.
"Shall we begin?" she asked, rising from her seat and moving toward the machine.
"Forgive me president, but i must say between the two of us, you seem to be the one looking forward to this." Muzan said.
"I'm quite curious about you, Kibutsuji-kun." she corrected pleasantly.
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The test began without ceremony.
The technician explained the process in the flat tone of someone who had explained it two hundred times and stopped enjoying it after the second time.
The test was quite simple. One had to stand inside the sensor ring, and just release their prana in different frequencies.
The machine measures Prana output, stability, and distribution. Then it maps compatibility signatures against the Lux weapon database, which was apparently extensive enough that it could theoretically match any Genestella to their ideal weapon.
Theoretically, ofcourse.
Muzan stepped inside the ring, and the sensors hummed.
The display panel lit up.
For three seconds, everything proceeded normally.
And then the numbers on the panel started behaving strangely.
The reading spiked first. Not a small spike, but a sudden jump, a sharp vertical line on the output graph that made the technician's head snap up from his tablet.
Then it dropped again, falling below the baseline for average Genestella, and then it disappeared entirely.
And after a few seconds, it came back, settled for a moment at something approximating normal, and then spiked again.
The technician looked at the readings, and with wide eyes reached out to tap the display twice, the universal "work again" method for faulty machines.
Almost immediately he pulled his hands back, embarassed of his actions.
"Is there a problem?" Claudia asked, from where she stood to the side.
"I— the readings are..." The technician paused, choosing words carefully. "Inconsistent."
"Inconsistent?" She asked with a small frown.
"Yes! Very inconsistent."
He showed her the tablet, and whatever she saw, her expression didn't change much, but she did look at Muzan for a moment longer.
Ayato, still near the far wall, glanced over. His brow had done the thing where curiosity crossed it without his face committing to the expression.
The machine was recalibrated again and again, the technician, was looking more and more distressed.
The readings did the exact same thing again. Spike. Drop. Disappear. Return. Spike.
"Could be a hardware error," Muzan said helpfully, completely hiding his amusement.
The technician glanced at him. "The machine was serviced this morning."
"Could be a software error."
"It has never produced readings like this before." The technician said again.
"Hm." Muzan stepped out of the ring. "So probably not an error, then."
Then, after a pause he continued in a tone that suggested he knew something and was trying to decide whether he should explain or not.
"Maybe," Muzan said, "I'm a different case."
Silence.
Claudia was watching him with an expression that landed somewhere between professional interest and something that hadn't decided what it was yet.
"Different how?" she asked.
"I have Prana — the machine is clearly catching that. The inconsistency is probably with what my prana can do." He shrugged one shoulder, keeping his act natural. "You see, I'm a Dante, and a rare kind at that."
The technician made a sound that was half surprise and half realisation.
And a small bit of relief mixed in.
'So it's not my fault.'
Muzan could almost hear the relieved sigh that guy must've stifled.
'Poor guy.'
Once everyone had felt the silence stretch long enough, someone decided to break the ice.
"Would you be willing to demonstrate?" Claudia had asked with a calm smile.
Muzan looked at the room. Wide. High ceiling. Glass wall on the far side that he would prefer to keep intact.
"How attached is everyone to the furniture?"
"Moderately, simce it came with the office." Claudia said with a bit of anticipation in her voice.
'Good enough.'
He raised one hand, palm out.
Nothing visible happened at first, but then the air changed.
It was a subtle change. The quality of the space between objects shifted, the way a held breath changes the feel of a room. The nearest chair slid sideways across the carpet — the legs lifting slightly as it went — and stopped. Rose six inches. Hung there with an absolute stillness.
And then, it slowly lowered itself.
Then it rose again, rotated forty-five degrees, went still,
and then just hung there.
Muzan tilted his hand towards the shelf now.
Three books lifted from the shelf to his left. They found an orbit — slow, patient, tracing a path around each other at head height — and then rested themselves one by one onto the hung chair.
The last one settled on the hand rest with a soft, final sound.
Clack! Something hit the floor.
The technician's tablet had hit the floor.
"I didn't do that." Muzan pointed at him.
The technician retrieved it and then just stood there, silently.
No one acknowledged that.
Claudia watched the last book settle.
She seemed to be in thought, and then she asked.
"Is it some form of telekinesis?" she asked.
"Gravity manipulation." Muzan lowered his hand.
"The readings fluctuate because I'm projecting Prana outward rather than using it for self-enhancement. I'd guess the machine is calibrated for the latter."
"That would explain the fluctuations, the gravity must be affecting the prana flow in some way" the technician said, very quietly, to his display panel.
Claudia hadn't looked away. "You weren't aware beforehand?" The warmth in her voice was perfectly even. "Of how your Prana would register?"
"I knew what I could do." He met her gaze and spoke calmly. "I didn't know how the machine would read it."
'I think this is a good enough excuse.' Muzan thought to himself.
But he couldn't help a mental shrug.
Because even if it wasn't, he genuinely didn't care enough to construct a better one.
All he wanted in this world was the knowledge, and resources.
Even the festa itself was not extremely important.
'It's just a sparring game of children trying to hit each other, not even a shred of blood spilled.' Muzan could only scoff.
The festa's rule required the participants to hit and destroy a badge like thing on their opponents. It was just a sparring match, although, it was a good enough rule to prevent injuries and fatalities.
But he genuinely felt that it was lacking that thrill of an actual life threatening fight.
The only reason he was participating in it, was because of the Novel feeling of participating in a tournament arc.
'Although I'd much rather participate in the Chunin Exams, the U.A. Sports Festival, the Magic Knights Exam, Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Battle City, or the Kengan Tournament!'
"I see." A small pause. "Could you explain the mechanism — the source of the instability specifically?"
Muzan looked at her with the practiced expression of a man who would help if only the universe had equipped him to do so.
"President," he said, "you're the professionals. If you're asking me, who exactly am I supposed to ask?"
The technician looked back at his tablet, as if in some deep calculation.
But the tablet's screen remained black.
Claudia held Muzan's gaze for one moment — two — then made a small sound that committed to nothing, and turned toward the display again.
"We'll classify you as a special case. Compatibility analysis through extended observation rather than standard measurement."
"Of course." He didn't have any problems, at all.
"Your Lux compatibility will be determined through practical testing, at a later date."
"Sounds reasonable."
"Wonderful." The smile arrived, warm and exact. "Welcome to Seidoukan Academy, Kibutsuji-kun."
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The double doors closed behind him as he left.
Sato fell into step beside him without being asked.
"How did it go?"
"They classified me as a special case." Muzan answered.
Sato was quiet for three steps. The expression of a man cross-referencing a data point against a larger model.
"That category," he said, "does not come up often."
Muzan made a non-committal "Hmm.", and then took the stairs down.
Behind him he heard Sato ask.
"Why are you taking the stairs?"
"I just prefer stairs." He replied.
'Definitely not because I'm impatient.' The stairwell door swung shut behind him.
He reached the ground floor before the elevator had finished its first descent.
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In the student council office, the room held its quiet.
Claudia stood at her desk and looked at the display panel.
She had not dismissed it.
Spike. Drop. Gone. Return, the pattern had been repeated many times.
She tapped one finger against the desk surface. Once. Twice. Slow — the rhythm of someone thinking.
She took out her phone and opened a specific folder and added a few new words to the already present information.
Name: Kibutsuji Muzan.
Transfer. Records: Insufficient.
Prana profile: Unclassifiable.
Special Ability: Gravity-type Dante.
Disposition: Cooperative. Documentation: Fabricated.
She paused for a moment, and then added.
Caution: Elevated.
She pocketed the phone, and decided to head back.