Chapter 467: The Stray Dog Learns a New Trick
"It’s fine," I said again, because apparently Soomin needed to hear it twice before her brain would accept the concept.
"The Fox gets jealous!" she blurted, her words tumbling over each other in a rush. "She thinks you belong to us because you helped with the breathing exercises and the fruit thing and—"
I kissed her.
Quick and soft, just enough pressure to short-circuit whatever panicked rambling was about to spill out next. Her lips were warm and tasted faintly of the strawberry chapstick she must have applied in a nervous ritual before coming here. The contact lasted maybe two seconds—long enough to make my point, short enough to avoid turning it into sothing more complicated.
Her entire face went crimson.
Steam practically rose from her ears as her brain tried and failed to process what had just happened. Her gradient-blue eyes went wide, then wider, like soone had just told her gravity was a suggestion rather than a law.
"Welco back," I said, pulling away with what I hoped was a casual smile.
"I um. Yes. Back. Here. Present." The words ca out in staccato bursts as she scrambled off
with all the grace of a newborn deer on ice. Her hands flailed for purchase on nothing. "Training! You were training! I’ll just. Go. Sowhere else."
She fled.
Actually ran out of the gym like her ass was on fire, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to escape the mortifying reality of what had just happened. The door swung shut behind her with a bang that echoed through the empty space.
Left
standing alone in the gym with Raphael peeking through the doorway, one eyebrow raised so high it threatened to rge with his hairline.
"That was interesting," he said, his voice carrying that particular brand of amusent that ant I was never going to hear the end of this.
"Shut up."
"The Fox called you Master."
"I said shut up."
He walked back in, still shirtless, still grinning like an asshole who’d just witnessed sothing he could use as blackmail material for the next decade. His amber eyes practically sparkled with malicious glee.
"You got a whole harem situation going on," he said, grabbing his discarded water bottle from the bench. "It’s kind of impressive, in a stupidly dangerous sort of way."
"It’s a nightmare," I muttered, running a hand through my sweat-soaked hair.
"Looks like a good nightmare from where I’m standing." He uncapped the bottle and took a long pull. "So. You gonna tell
how you got that strong, or are we pretending you didn’t just absorb my best hit and turn it into a speed buff like so kind of video ga character?"
My turn to grin.
"Trade secret."
"Figures." He drained half the bottle in one go, his throat working as he swallowed. When he lowered it, there was sothing calculating in his expression—the look of a fighter who’d found a puzzle he wanted to solve. "Reyna’s gonna eat you alive on Wednesday."
"Maybe."
"Definitely." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "But you’re not backing down, are you?"
"Would you?"
"Hell no." He tossed the bottle aside with enough force that it clattered across the floor. "Alright. Let’s see what else you’re hiding, Stray Dog."
We went again.
This ti he didn’t hold back at all. Every punch he threw carried enough kinetic force to crack ribs, to collapse lungs, to turn organs into soup. Every kick was aid at joints, at pressure points, at the vulnerable parts of the human body that most people forgot existed until soone reminded them with violence. The air itself seed to scream with each strike, the sharp crack of displaced atmosphere filling the gym like a trono keeping ti with our dance of destruction.
But I had Kinetic Absorption working overti now, that beautiful Trait humming beneath my skin like a second heartbeat. Every hit fed the buff, the absorbed energy converting into raw physical power that surged through my muscles and bones. Made
stronger with each impact. Faster with each dodge. Better with each exchange.
By minute fifteen, I was matching him blow for blow, my fists eting his with concussive force that would have shattered the hands of the old Satori.
By minute twenty, I activated Steel Body.
Ten seconds of invulnerability. Ten seconds where I was less a man and more a force of nature wearing human skin. The transformation was instant—my flesh, muscle, and bone transmuting into sothing that possessed the tensile strength of mythical steel.
I walked through his attacks like they didn’t exist.
His fists bounced off my skin with dull, tallic thuds that must have hurt him more than they hurt . His kicks connected with nothing but unyielding density, each impact reverberating up his leg in ways that had to be deeply unpleasant. I saw the exact mont realization dawned in his eyes—the instant he understood that for these precious few seconds, he might as well have been trying to punch through a mountain.
When the ten seconds ended, I’d closed the distance between us to nothing.
Grabbed him by the shoulders with hands that still rembered what it felt like to be invincible.
Threw him over my hip in a textbook judo throw that would have made any martial arts instructor weep with pride.
He hit the mat hard enough to bounce, his body ragdolling for a mont before settling into a graceless sprawl. He lay there on his back, staring at the ceiling with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering several of his life choices.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked, his voice slightly winded.
"New trick."
"That was not a trick. That was bullshit." He sat up slowly, testing for broken bones or bruised organs. "You took my full combo and it did nothing. Didn’t even flinch."
"It did sothing," I corrected. "Just not what you wanted."
He laughed then. Actually laughed—a genuine sound of surprised delight that echoed through the gym. It was the laugh of a fighter who’d just found a challenge worth his ti.
"You’re gonna make Reyna so mad," he said, his grin returning with renewed vigor.
"That’s the plan."
"I take it back. You might actually survive this."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"Don’t get cocky. She’s still better than you. More experienced, better trained, and her Aspect is a hard counter to most close-range fighters."
"For now."
He stood, brushing himself off before extending his fist toward
in an offer of respect that felt surprisingly genuine coming from soone who usually communicated primarily through violence and insults.
I bumped it.
"Give her hell on Wednesday," he said.
"Planning on it."
Raphael grabbed his towel and headed for the showers, leaving
standing alone in the gym with my new abilities humming beneath my skin like caged lightning. Kinetic Absorption had turned Raphael’s brutal assault into an impromptu training montage. Steel Body had made
untouchable for ten glorious seconds. And I hadn’t even pulled out Lightning Rod yet—that particular ace was staying firmly up my sleeve until the mont Reyna threw her first bolt.
She had no idea what was coming.
But I did.
I was going to catch her lightning like a gift. Drink it down like fine wine. And then spit it back in her face with interest.
The door opened again, interrupting my ntal victory lap.
Cel walked in carrying a still-purring Maki cradled against her chest like a particularly satisfied infant. The cat’s two tails swished lazily through the air, her expression radiating smug contentnt.
"Your cat is very affectionate," Cel said, her tone suggesting this was both an observation and a mild complaint.
"She’s a nace."
"She’s sweet." Cel set Maki on the floor with obvious reluctance, as if parting with a favorite plush toy. "Also, Braxton wants everyone in the common room at 0800. Sothing about tournant prep and not dying horribly."
"How much ti do I have?"
"Forty minutes." She studied my face with the clinical precision of soone conducting a scientific analysis. "You look different."
"Good different or bad different?"
"Dangerous different." She stepped closer, close enough that I could sll the winter-clean scent of her skin. Her hand found my chest, settling right over my heart where she could probably feel it hamring. "What did you do?"
"Pulled the gacha."
"Of course you did." Her expression was caught sowhere between exasperation and fondness. "Did it work?"
"Ask
Wednesday after I don’t die."
"Confident."
"Delusional," I corrected.
She smiled then—that rare, genuine expression that transford her entire face from ice princess to sothing almost human.
Then she kissed .
Slow and warm and nothing like the desperate collision in the death garden where we’d both been riding the high of surviving certain death. This was sothing softer, more deliberate. A promise rather than a claim.
When she pulled back, her cheeks were pink in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"For luck," she said quietly.
"I’ll take it."
Maki owed loudly, the sound carrying distinct notes of judgnt and disapproval.
We both looked down.
The cat sat between us, her two tails curled around her body with perfect symtry. She stared up at us with an expression that radiated feline disapproval so intense it could have curdled milk.
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