Chapter 43 — Training Grounds: Sparks and Shadows
Ten minutes after the teleport plaza settled back into its usual hum, the little group moved as one — a curious, mismatched pack that drew more attention than any single player in the square. Moonlight Echo led the way with easy confidence: Luna's heavy footsteps, Aria's light, practiced stride, Neko's quick, darting path — and behind them,
Haru walked calmly, Saeko trailing like a nervous comet while Reina kept a watchful, possessed sort of stride at his side.
They reached the Training Grounds,
A semi-private field tucked behind the main district: stone pavers ringed by trimmed grass, a wooden post with target marks, and little practice constructs mimicking mobs.
It was where players tested rotations, practiced combos, and flexed in front of one another without the risk of a dungeon wipe. Sunlight in the game poured down soft and forgiving. The whole area smelled, in a digital way, of warm leather and fresh-cut grass.
Moonlight Echo unrolled a bedroll-size interface and grinned. "Alright. Training round. Cute practice, then a short run," Luna decided. "I want to see Haru-chan's improvement. If the rumors are true, today we test."
Neko clapped her gloved hands. "Yes! I want to see the legend who clears Temple like a dream. If she's a pro, I'll buy her a drink — virtual tea with sparkles!"
Aria floated a soft laugh, voice like chimes. "We'll be gentle. Haru, if you want to skip anything, say so. No pressure."
Haru gave a small, easy smile. "I'll try. I'm still learning. But I want to see what I can do."
Saeko's fingers tightened around the hem of her robe. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I'll try, too," she muttered.
Her Light Oracle gear looked tentative in comparison to Luna's tanking set and Reina's heavy armor, but Saeko's resolve had a quiet, stubborn heat that no one could fake.
Reina's eyes flicked to Haru once — just once — and the color warmed on her avatar's cheeks, nearly imperceptible. She squared her shoulders. "I'll tank the dummy then show you how to hold the line," she said, voice slightly too sharp. Inside, a small war drum beat: show him strength, make him safe, make him look at me and remember the one who can shield him from everything.
The first exercise was simple: target dummies with stagger windows. Luna explained patterns while Haru and Reina took turns. Reina pulled with showy, controlled aggression, then let Haru take a swing. He moved with calm economy, rune-etched sword arcs clean and efficient. The dummies fell like neatly aligned blocks.
Luna's brow rose. "Huh. That timing. Not bad." Her voice mixed admiration and the soft, professional hunger of someone always scouting talent.
Reina felt heat rush up her neck when Haru looked at her, gave the smallest nod. "Good tanking," he said simply. No fanfare, no extra applause — just a sincere, technical compliment. It did something to Reina; she blinked, stiffened, then smiled like a soldier who'd been praised by a general. Pride — private, fierce — filled her.
She hid the blush behind stoicism, but Saeko saw it. Saeko saw everything.
The training moved to healing drills next. Saeko's hands trembled as she queued up skills.
The party would spam a rotation while she kept everyone afloat. Saeko concentrated, heart thumping like a bird. She'd practiced idle rotations, watched streams, scribbled notes on cooldowns — but nerves made fingers clumsy.
Haru watched for one rotation, then leaned forward and whispered a few simple calls: "Mark of Focus when you see the blue flare.
Don't waste full mana on shield, pulse the regen after I land the slash." His instructions were gentle, not patronizing. Saeko felt the world compress to those two or three words and the steady cadence of his voice. She executed, breathing with the actions, and the numbers on the overheal bar stuttered into calm.
She exhaled, cheeks flaming. "O-Oh — thank you. I… I understood better that time."
Haru's smile was a small, disarming thing. "You're doing really well. Relax a bit and trust your rhythm." That single, unforced encouragement turned Saeko into a knotted blossom that couldn't help but soften.
Nearby, Luna and Neko traded looks. "They're acting very… strange around Haru-chan," Luna said later, deadpan but with a twinge of curiosity. "Like protective weird."
Neko giggled and made a small face. "Adorable chaos. Are we witnessing real-life drama dynamics in game form?"
The Training Grounds had the pleasant hum of low-stakes competition, but it didn't take long for something larger to arrive: the Silver Valkyries — not subtle at all. Their guild banner, a polished silver sigil of winged shields, entered with a fanfare of summoned mounts and a half-dozen stellar avatars. The leader, an avatar in ornate ceremonial armor and a smile honed for press shots, floated forward like a queen.
"Such a lovely gathering," she trilled in world chat and then in local, sliding into the practice circle. "I saw your little video. Haru-chan, darling — are you new to East Sky? Silver Valkyries were just looking for a new star to showcase."
They assumed, naturally, that Haru was female. In a world where male players looked rare and male IDs usually belonged to role-players, assumptions hardened fast. The guild leader's tone was playful but sharp: recruitment attempts on sight were a sport.
Reina stiffened and stepped before Haru without quite thinking. The stone wall avatar she'd built expanded in front of the group like a physical sentence. "She's not for sale," Reina said in a tone that dropped the joke like an anvil. Her shield glinted; she looked ready to push the Valkyries off their pedestals.
Saeko, without thinking, stepped closer to Haru, and in a reflex that made her palms sweat, she shifted her robe so the light oracle modeled an arm into a sort of human screen. "Um — we're training," she choked out. "Please don't bother him." Her protest was small, but the conviction carried.
The Valkyries blinked — amused, not insulted. "Oh? Protective friends. How sweet." The leader's smile sharpened. "If she's as talented as the footage suggests, we'd be happy to provide grooming and promotions. Our stylists are world-class."
Moonlight Echo watched it unfold with bored interest turned intrigue. After the Valkyries left, Luna shook her head. "That was bold. They tried to recruit a 'she' on sight. Typical."
Reina's hands curled around her shield handle until faint white knuckles showed. She mouthed silent, violent vows at the departing guild.
"If anyone tries to take him…" her mind finished a dozen threats, none pretty. Outwardly she forced a smile. "No one's taking him."
Saeko's heart thrummed a clumsy rhythm. She had to slow down, breathe, regain composure. Haru's presence made her feel exposed in a way she hadn't expected — and rather than retreat, she wanted to be better.
Moonlight Echo, ever inquisitive, eventually pulled Reina aside. "Okay, real talk," Luna said, folding her arms. "What do you actually think Haru is? Girl or boy?"
Reina froze. For a second, her mind went empty. To protect Haru, she would not allow strangers to shape the narrative. If word spread that Haru was a boy — in a world that made strange things of that fact — complications could follow. So she answered on reflex, with the confidence of someone rehearsed.
"Haru-chan is 100% a girl," Reina said, voice even. "Soft voice, light movements — definitely a she."
Aria put her hand on Reina's shoulder and smiled like she'd been reassured. "That's what I thought too. The tone is soft. It's adorable."
Saeko, who'd lingered, found herself echoing without thinking. "Yes. Haru-chan is a girl," she said quickly. The lie tasted like iron, but it felt necessary in that moment. Inside, her chest tightened with a fierce, uneasy protectiveness.
Lying to the team felt wrong, but it also felt like building a fragile shield around Haru — one she was willing to hide behind.
Neko, who loved chaos, raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Fine. I'll bet on it. Ten virtual tea cups: Haru-chan is a girl. If I lose, I'll wear a full maid outfit on stream for a week."
Luna shrugged with a smirk. "Deal. If you win, I'll host a training stream praising your genius."
They laughed, the kind of laughter that tidy buffers awkwardness. But Neko's grin twisted slightly into something sharp and calculating. "But here's a test," she said. "There's one small phrase that guys in our server mess up — a local slang word.
Boys usually stutter on it because of the way their voices handle the consonants. If Haru says it without pause, I'll believe a girl; if he stumbles, I'll bet boy."
Reina's body went taut. This was exactly the kind of trap their teammates would set. Saeko's stomach dropped. They had to prevent that test from happening. If Haru's gender leaked, "protective" could become a violation of his privacy, and privacy had a very thin margin in a world where boys had to be guarded. They exchanged a glance: lie reinforced, defense met.
"Not happening," Reina said, short and to the point. "We're not doing tests."
Aria raised an implicit brow. "But curious…" she started.
"Not today," Saeko said. "We're here to run a dungeon as a party. No silly bets."
Moonlight Echo shrugged; the bet would have to wait. The mood shifted nicely into something healthier: the team planning a gentle, cooperative dungeon run. They spread gear, checked cooldowns, and sat on the grass to go over strategies.
Haru's voice drifted in the circle. "I don't want anyone to feel forced. If you want to run this, I'll follow the plan. Saeko, if you want to lead heals, I'll be the mid-range and call for rune windows."
Saeko's eyes widened. "Me? Lead? I — I'll try."
Reina's jaw softened at the sight of Saeko's earnestness. Haru's calm, inclusive way made both girls want to be better and do the right thing — it was that twin impulse of rivalry and care: to be useful to him, to earn his gaze.
They geared up. The pre-run banter got lighter. Luna teased Luna-style, Neko made impossibly dramatic food puns, and Aria scolded them with soft charm. The group felt like a small, warm engine — composed and noisy and full of purpose.
Ten or fifteen minutes into the practice drills, the Training Grounds' Nearby Player List flickered. For a single heartbeat, Haru's name — the one that wouldn't stick to social feeds because Hanma had kept his details guarded — blipped in someone else's local readout. Akari Hoshizuki, who had been fumbling through servers all night, finally managed to join East Sky–02.
She hovered in a dark corner of the map with practiced patience, watching from a distance with the quiet intensity of someone long devoted. Her avatar, unremarkable and plain by design, stood still and small, the better to blend into the crowd. Her eyes narrowed, and inside her chest her old, cold thrill flickered into life when Haru's name popped for a second on her list: Nearby: Haru.
She whispered the name under her breath. "So close," she breathed. "So close." Then the list rearranged and his name moved away with his steps. She watched him, every small motion stored like a photograph.
Haru, unaware of the faint rustle of someone ghosting him in the server, paused and — perhaps from the tiny tickle of digital air, perhaps from a real-world draft — sneezed softly. "Ah-choo," he murmured.
In real life, when someone joked under their breath, he sometimes reacted in that peculiar way; in-game,
it was a signature smallness that had people smiling. Saeko looked up, cheeks flushed from practice, and giggled.
Reina's armor chimed as she shifted. Both girls glanced at Haru at once, and then, automatically, both reached out — Reina's strong palm closed lightly on his forearm, Saeko's fingers brushed his sleeve in a protective, almost possessive twin.
The moment was small, perfectly mundane — and it gave both Saeko and Reina tiny, private explosions of something like triumph and panic.
Behind them, Neko snorted and leaned in like an incisive judge. "Aha. Exhibit A of synchronous jealousy. I take notes."
Luna narrowed her eyes, but there was a curious softness to it. "Protective… interesting."
Aria just laughed in that warm way of hers and patted Saeko's shoulder. "Okay, talking aside — are we entering or not?"
They sat a second longer on the grass, joking and planning, but the soft thrill of rivalry hummed underneath. The contest was quiet and polite for now: who could be more useful, who could be more brave,
who could earn Haru's easy compliments again. Haru, for his part, accepted both attentions with the same gentle respect, unaware how close a boundary some of them were crossing.
As the party queued for the dungeon, Akari's shadowed corner became an eye.
She watched their names cluster and counted patterns like a meticulous archivist.
Her breath was even; her focus was total.
She had spent years filing away the smallest details about him: how he crossed a corridor, how his smile softened, the scent of a laugh she'd once heard in the hallway.
Now she watched him move through a digital training field, surrounded by other women who clothed themselves in different kinds of devotion. Her teeth pressed on the inside of her cheek.
"He won't escape me," she whispered. The words left her lips with the softness of lace and the cold of a blade.
The party completed preparations, clicked the dungeon entry, and moved into shimmering light together — a little family of impulse and tenderness. They didn't know Akari watched from a distance; they didn't know Neko had her small wager; they didn't know the Valkyries were still scheming or that Hanma's lawyers would be lurking in the backstage of things that very evening.
For the moment, the Training Grounds held only warm light, practiced drills, soft compliments, and the faint echo of something dangerous looking and waiting in the dark.
And when the map blinked for a single second and Akari's name slid away again into the server night, she didn't run. She noted, she planned, and she saved every small moment for when the moment to approach — gently, perfectly, inevitably — finally came.
The dungeon line blinked green. Haru looked at the two girls who'd wrapped his sleeve, gave a small, easy laugh, and said, "Let's do this."
Both Saeko and Reina squeezed, fingers tightening with protective intent.
"No one's talking about you," they said , as if it would keep him safe.
Haru smiled, calm and slightly bewildered, then stepped into the light with them.
Outside the screen, Akari closed a notebook labeled Operation: Locate Haru — Digital Monitoring Phase and whispered into her dark room
— To be continued...
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Author Note 📝
Sorry for making you all wait, my dear readers.
Believe me, I wasn't kidnapped, I wasn't asleep, and I didn't run away to another world.
I'm just fighting my biggest villain right now: that you already know about guys.
My upcoming exam on 17 December.
Yes, that cursed thing.
It has successfully stolen my time, my peace, and half my brain cells.
Every time I try to write a chapter, my exam syllabus jumps in front of me like:
"NOPE. YOU'RE MINE TODAY."
So from now on, I'll be updating with a one-day gap.
If I upload today, no chapter tomorrow… but I'll upload the day after.
This way, you get proper chapters, and I don't fail my exam and start crying in a corner.
Thank you for understanding, and thank you for still supporting me even when my schedule looks like a broken roller coaster.
— king_fuzu