The Orb's pulse turned sharp, like a blade against her ribs.
Nola stiffened. The glow beneath her skin wasn't a tug, like the times before. It wasn't guidance.
It was a challenge.
A call.
A dare.
Then the world twisted like wet cloth. The air snapped. Light surged upward, swallowing her whole.
She gasped.
Her feet vanished from the grass. She didn't fall so much as get ripped from the chamber, her body wrenched into the flood of searing light. Ari. Tris. The stone walls. All were gone.
And then, she fell down.
She slammed into gravel, the jolt punching through her knees and spine. Dust clouded around her like memory-ash.
She knew this road.
Worn. Familiar. Painfully so.
The sky hung low, smeared in smog-gray clouds. The school wall stood ahead, uglier than she remembered, bricks stained by years of rain and neglect. The black iron gate gaped open like a wound. For it was a wound on her. Emotionally.
But empty. Too empty. No one was there.
The silence hit her harder than the landing.
Nola looked down.
She was fifteen again.
Same rumpled uniform. Same threadbare jacket. Same sneakers with the left sole coming off. Same weight in her gut, a stone of dread tied to guilt and heat.
Her fingers curled into fists.
"No," she whispered. "Not this memory."
But ascension is not reached through mercy.
She walked.
The courtyard was deserted. The windows above were dark. No motion. No life.
Rain began to fall.
Cold needles on her neck, seeping through her collar like accusation.
Each step forward was heavier than the last. The past wasn't just playing, it was pressing down on her.
She reached the doors. Pushed them open.
Flickering lights buzzed overhead. That golden hue. Too dim. Too sickly.
Her boots echoed.
She turned left. Like before.
Third door.
Principal's office.
Inside, time was frozen.
Her mother sat on the bench, one hand clamped over her mouth. Her father stood, arms crossed and his shoulders tense, like holding back a storm. Across the desk, the administrator's lips moved in silence.
But she already knew the words.
Expulsion.
Violent misconduct.
Warning after warning ignored.
Fifteen-year-old Nola sat beside her parents. Her head bowed. Face drained of all expression.
A porcelain mask.
But inside, it was fire.
Not guilt for the act.
Guilt for what it did to them.
For how it cracked something sacred.
The scene buckled. Melted like wet paint.
Now she was in her bedroom. Too clean. Too quiet. The walls stripped bare. Echoes thick in the silence.
Three weeks.
No word from her brother.
No response.
No read receipts.
Just texts. Old ones. Scroll after scroll of laughing emojis and stupid inside jokes and her telling him not to disappear again.
The silence screamed.
And then, a voice cut through it.
"It was never about punishment."
She whirled.
Watanabe no Tsuna stood at the foot of her bed.
Clad in ceremonial armor, etched with glowing kanji that pulsed like veins of light. His katana sheathed at his side. A presence forged of stillness and judgment.
Nola's voice cracked. "I lost control."
Tsuna stepped forward. "So do all warriors. Once. Or twice. But control is not something you have. It is something you earn, in agony. Through fire."
The room shuddered again.
And she was there.
The cafeteria.
Empty. But not silent.
Two students stood in the center.
Her. And the other boy.
The one she fought.
The one she hurt.
Tsuna said nothing.
She watched.
A small shove.
A taunt.
His voice rang out, clear now. "Your whole family's cursed, freak. Your brother's a nutjob and you're just violent trash. Everyone knows it."
Her younger self shook.
Then snapped.
She launched forward. It wasn't skill—it was rage in motion.
The boy screamed as he hit the floor, clutching his ribs. "She burned me! She-what the hell, my skin!"
She stood over him. Shaking. Breathing hard. No mercy in her eyes. Just heat.
The memory rippled. Warped. Nola's older self flinched, tears welling.
"I didn't mean to hurt him like that," she choked. "I didn't, he mocked me. I didn't mean to snap like that."
"But you did," Tsuna said, stepping into her peripheral vision. "And deeper still, part of you wanted him to suffer. You wanted him to regret mocking you."
She stared at the boy on the floor.
Her younger face above him, twisted with rage.
Tsuna's voice lowered, slicing clean. "You carry more than your own shame. You carry your name. Your blood. And you used it to punish."
She said nothing.
"I fought for vengeance before," Tsuna said. "I know that fire. But vengeance is hollow. If you do not master it, it becomes your grave."
The cafeteria darkened.
The boy disappeared.
Only her younger self remained.
Then, Tsuna drew his blade.
"Draw yours."
Her katana materialized in her hand.
But it was heavier than ever. The golden blade shimmered, but dulled, like it, too, felt her unworthiness.
They stood, not as student and master.
But as judge and judged.
Tsuna raised his sword.
She didn't hesitate.
She charged.
Metal shrieked.
Sparks flew.
He met her with precision. Grace. Every blow felt like a question. Every deflection: a demand.
'Will you lose yourself again?'
'Will you use your blade to punish, or to protect?'
Her body strained. Her breath tore in and out. Tsuna pressed harder.
He struck low, she barely blocked.
He twisted mid-air as she missed.
Her leg buckled.
Still, she rose.
But her grip wavered.
Tsuna lunged, slicing across her chest, not deep, but enough to draw pain.
She screamed.
Dropped to her knees.
The katana clattered to the floor.
Blood soaked her shirt.
Tsuna stood above her, impassive.
"This is the pain you wielded. This is the cost of anger unleashed."
She shook. Rage tried to rise again. Her teeth clenched. Her hands twitched toward the sword.
"I…" she rasped, "I don't want this to define me…"
"Then stand."
Her body trembled. Her legs refused.
But she remembered.
Her brother's silence.
Her parents' eyes in that office.
The student on the floor.
And her own reflection afterward, fearing she had become everything the world expected of her.
Weak. Broken. Cursed.
No more.
She screamed as she pushed herself up.
Blood still trickled down her chest, but she lifted her chin.
"I stand," she hissed.
Tsuna's blade flared.
He didn't strike.
Instead, he lowered it.
Pressed the hilt to her heart.
Her katana, still on the ground, shuddered. Lifted on its own.
It spun once. Glowed.
Then landed in her hand.
Symbols seared themselves along the blade. Glowing runes in golden ink.
She couldn't read them.
But she felt them.
Strength.
Restraint.
Honor.
"I was broken," she whispered. "But I'll fight not to shatter others."
Tsuna's stern face softened.
Not a smile. Not yet.
But the faintest nod.
"You do not rise because of your legacy, Nola Makinoshi. You rise in spite of it. You are not a shadow. You are a forge."
The world fractured into light.
Pain ebbed away from her body.
Nola gasped as she came to on the cold stone floor of the chamber.
Her blade hummed in her lap.
She looked at it, really looked.
It glowed softly. Whispered strength.
She reached out and touched it.
Tears fell from her eyes.
Not from shame.
But from something harder to earn.
Resolve.
Above her, the Orb pulsed once more.
Someone else was being called.
But this time?
She was ready.
Because she was whole. Because she had bled, broken, and rebuilt.
Not in spite of the pain.
But through it.