(Pov, Saji Genshirou)

  Saji had spent so long in the Underworld that he had almost forgotten what human air smelled like.

  When the portal closed behind him, he took a slow breath.

  Wet earth.

  Ozone from magical barriers.

  The dull hum of a city unaware it lived above something that could swallow it whole.

  Normal. Everything normal.

  He dropped his bag and stretched until his back cracked in three separate places.

  Sessions with Leviathan weren’t training.

  They were dismantlings.

  They opened you up, took the pieces out, cleaned them by force, and put you back together with the unspoken warning that next time it would hurt more.

  The Absorption Line had learned not to resist.

  He had too.

  He rubbed the back of his neck.

  Good. Back. One week gone and the territory was still standing.

  He took a step.

  And felt it.

  Not with his eyes. Not with his ears.

  With that instinct devils develop after years inside their own territory—the subtle reading of air, like knowing a room is damp before you see the condensation.

  Sona’s barrier was vibrating strangely.

  Not broken. Not compromised.

  But… irregular.

  Like a heart beating correctly—but in a rhythm that wasn’t its own.

  Saji went still, one hand extended, letting the territory’s energy pass through his fingers.

  There.

  A residue. Recent.

  Emotional instead of magical—which made no sense because barriers respond to power, not feelings. And whatever had left that mark wasn’t power in any category he recognized.

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  It was something else.

  He frowned.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  No one answered.

  The territory continued humming with that new irregularity—foreign, misplaced, like a wrong note in a song he knew by memory.

  Saji picked up his bag and resumed walking, slower this time.

  He reached the Student Council building with his frown intact. Pushed the door open. Tsubaki looked up from a desk covered in reports, wearing the specific expression of someone about to deliver news she would rather not deliver.

  “Saji. You’re back.”

  “Looks like it. What happened to the barrier?”

  Tsubaki opened her mouth.

  Closed it.

  “There’s a report,” she said at last.

  “I don’t care about the report. What happened to the barrier?”

  “There’s a report,” she repeated, same tone, same precision.

  Saji stared at her for three seconds.

  “Tsubaki. We’ve worked together for four years. When you avoid answering a direct question, it’s because the answer will make me do something you’d prefer I didn’t. So I’ll ask one more time: what. happened. to. the. barrier?”

  Tsubaki closed the report carefully.

  “We have a new Pawn.”

  Silence.

  “Human?” Saji asked.

  “Revived human.”

  “And?”

  “And his Resonance is… structurally unstable. During the fallen angel incident, he generated an emotional pulse that interfered with the territory.”

  Saji processed that.

  “How much interference?”

  “The barrier faltered for 0.3 seconds.”

  “That’s—”

  “Enough for three minor seals to require manual recalibration, yes.”

  The silence that followed was the kind Saji used to organize his thoughts before saying something he’d regret.

  “I leave for one week,” he said, calm in the very specific way of someone nowhere near calm, “endure the worst training of my life, come back with my spine rebuilt and the Absorption Line operating at ninety-eight percent for the first time since I got it—and I return to find a revived human making Sona Sitri’s territory shake.”

  “Correct.”

  “Name?”

  “Kaelan Arverth.”

  Saji repeated the name silently, as if the sound itself might explain something the words didn’t.

  It didn’t.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Recovering. The incident left him in poor condition.”

  “Dangerous?”

  Tsubaki considered the question more carefully than usual.

  “Not intentionally,” she said at last.

  “That’s not a no.”

  “No,” she confirmed. “It isn’t.”

  The back door opened.

  Sona Sitri entered with a folder under her arm and the expression of someone who had spent hours managing consequences. She saw Saji and did not slow down.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  “I’m back.”

  “Good.” She set the folder on the desk. “You’re meeting Arverth tomorrow.”

  Saji opened his mouth.

  “Don’t you want me to rest first? I just—”

  “Tomorrow,” Sona repeated, tone not a suggestion.

  Saji closed his mouth.

  Looked at Tsubaki.

  Tsubaki was looking at the wall.

  “Anything else I should know before I meet him?” Saji asked.

  Sona opened the folder. Turned one page. Then another.

  “His Resonance will likely react when you approach,” she said. “Do not interpret it as aggression.”

  “How should I interpret it?”

  “As information.”

  Saji waited for more.

  Nothing.

  “Perfect,” he muttered, picking up his bag for the third time. “Perfect, perfect. I’m going to sleep.”

  He walked toward the door.

  Stopped with his hand on the frame.

  “Sona.”

  She looked up.

  “Next time you recruit someone who makes the territory shake… let me know before I leave.”

  Sona studied him for a second.

  “Next time,” she replied evenly, “don’t leave.”

  Saji didn’t answer.

  The territory kept vibrating with that new, irregular note.

  He felt it all the way to his room.

  And thought, with the specific resignation of someone who already knew how this would end:

  This is going to be a problem.

  It’s going to be my problem.

  Of course.