They started at dawn, clearing the apartnt’s small living room of furniture and pushing everything against the walls to create an open space maybe four ters square. Not ideal for combat training, but enough for what he had in mind.
"First things first." Dante stood at the center of the space, watching Yuki stretch with the natural flexibility of youth as he rolled his shoulders and settled into an instructor’s stance. "What do you know about awakening?"
"The basics, mostly. So people develop abilities after exposure to Tower energy. Usually happens during a dungeon break or a near-death experience." She finished her stretches and faced him, her expression focused and ready. "The Authority monitors for awakening potential and recruits people into the climber program."
"That’s the official version, but the truth is ssier." He began circling her, assessing her stance and posture with the critical eye of soone who trained for years. "Awakening isn’t random. It’s triggered by stress, by the body’s response to existential threat. The more dangerous the trigger, the stronger the initial abilities."
"Is that why climbers are more powerful than Earth-bound awakened?" She tracked him with her eyes, rotating to keep him in view.
"Partly, and the Tower also provides constant exposure to dinsional energy that strengthens pathways which would atrophy without use." He stopped in front of her and crossed his arms. "In my original tiline, you awakened during the Black Surge. A demon nearly killed you, and your power ca out as a survival response. Uncontrolled, overwhelming. You almost burned yourself out before anyone could help."
Yuki’s jaw tightened and her hands curled into fists at her sides. "And this ti?"
"This ti, we’re going to prepare your body and mind before the power cos, build the foundations so you can control it when it erges." He raised his hands into a basic guard position. "Show what you’ve learned from those books."
She attacked without hesitation, throwing a straight punch toward his center mass that he redirected easily, turning her montum against her and sending her stumbling past him. She recovered quickly and spun into a kick that he blocked with his forearm, the impact solid but controlled.
"Better than I expected." He nodded approvingly and reset his stance, gesturing for her to co again.
"I’ve been practicing." She ca at him again with a combination of strikes that showed she studied technique even if she lacked practical experience, and he let her work through the sequence, correcting her form with gentle blocks and redirects rather than countering directly.
"Your base is solid, but your timing needs work." He caught her fist mid-strike and held it, feeling the tension in her arm. "You telegraph too much. Every attack starts from your shoulder before your arm moves."
"How do I fix that?" She didn’t pull away, just waited for the answer.
"Practice, thousands of repetitions until the motion becos instinct." He released her hand and stepped back. "But that’s not what we’re really here for. The physical training is foundation. What I need to teach you is how to sense the energy when it cos."
She tilted her head, curious despite her exhaustion, and wiped sweat from her forehead. "Can you show ?"
He considered the request while she caught her breath, weighing the risks against the benefits. His own abilities were too dangerous to demonstrate in full, but there was sothing he could share safely. He held out his hand, palm up, and focused.
A shimr appeared above his skin, barely visible in the morning light, not fire or lightning or any of the dramatic effects that Tower abilities usually produced. Just a distortion in the air, a sense of wrongness that made the eyes slide away.
"This is authority," he said quietly. "The ability to impose my will on reality. It’s subtle, but it’s one of the most powerful abilities in the Tower."
"I can barely see it." She leaned closer, squinting at the shimr like she could force it into focus through sheer willpower.
"You shouldn’t be able to see it at all, which ans you’re already sensitive to dinsional energy." He let the shimr fade and lowered his hand. "When your awakening cos, it will probably manifest as sothing different. Fire, maybe, given our family history. Whatever form it takes, the core principle is the sa: you reach inside yourself and find the part that connects to more than just this world."
Yuki was quiet for a long mont, processing what she saw and what it ant for her future. Then she asked the question he expected since the mont he told her about his regression.
"What happened to Mom?"
The words hit like a physical blow, and he knew this conversation was coming, prepared for it during the walk from the portal facility, but preparation didn’t make the reality any easier.
"She was an awakened too, low-level, never entered the Tower, but she had abilities." He forced himself to continue, pushing past the tightness in his chest. "When we were kids, she used them to protect us from a dungeon break that hit the city. The strain was too much. She burned through her reserves trying to save everyone in our building, and her body gave out three days later."
"I rember her being sick at the end." Yuki’s voice was steady, but her eyes were wet and she didn’t try to hide it. "She said it was just fatigue."
"She was protecting us, from the truth, from the guilt of knowing what she sacrificed." He crossed to stand beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. "She made a choice. The sa choice any of us would make, if the people we loved were in danger."
"Is that why you climb? To get strong enough that you don’t have to make that choice?" Her voice was small, almost fragile, in a way he rarely heard from her.
The question cut deeper than she probably intended, and he took a mont to find the right words.
"Partly. I climb because there’s sothing at the top that needs to be stopped, because I’ve already failed once and people I loved paid the price." He squeezed her shoulder and felt her lean into the contact. "But also because I want to protect the people still here. You. My team. Anyone who might get caught up in what’s coming."
Yuki looked at him with an expression that was older than her sixteen years, sothing hard and determined settling behind her eyes.
"Then teach . Not just how to fight, teach everything you know about survival, about the Tower, about the things that are out there." She put her hand over his and gripped tight. "I’m not going to be the sister who stays behind and worries. Not this ti."
---
They trained for three more hours, and by the end Yuki was sweating and exhausted, but her form improved noticeably. She absorbed corrections quickly, applying them to her technique with a speed that suggested natural talent rather than just hard work.
"You’d make a good climber," he admitted as they shared lunch at the kitchen table, watching her shovel rice into her mouth with the hunger of soone who burned through a week’s worth of calories. "Better than most people I’ve seen enter the Tower."
"But you don’t want to climb." She paused between bites, her chopsticks hovering over her bowl.
"I want you to survive, and those aren’t always the sa thing." He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned back in his chair. "The Tower takes everything. Even if you succeed, even if you beco strong, you lose pieces of yourself along the way. I’ve seen it happen to everyone I’ve ever cared about."
"Including you?" She set her chopsticks down, giving him her full attention.
"Especially ." He t her eyes without flinching. "The version of that cos back from the Tower isn’t the sa as the one who left. Every floor changes you, hardens you, cuts away the parts that can’t adapt. Eventually, you stop recognizing yourself."
"But you ca back anyway, even knowing what it costs." She said it like a statent, not a question.
"Because so things are worth the cost." He stood and moved to the window, looking out at the city spread below as afternoon light painted the buildings gold. "But I’m not going to ask you to pay the sa price. Not unless there’s no other option."
"And if the Black Surge happens? If the Cult attacks and I’m caught in the middle?" She joined him at the window, her reflection a ghost beside his.
He turned back to face her, his expression serious. "Then you fight. You use everything I taught you, and you survive until I can get to you. Then, if you still want to climb after that, we’ll talk about it."
She nodded slowly, accepting the compromise with the pragmatism she inherited from their mother. "How long until the Cult makes its move? In your original tiline?"
"Months. Maybe a year." He returned to the table and sat heavily, the weight of what was coming settling on his shoulders. "I’m going to do everything I can to stop it before it starts. But if I fail, you need to be ready."
"What are you going to do?" She followed him, sitting across from him with her hands flat on the table.
"Tonight, I’m going to investigate their local operations, find out how far along they are, who’s leading them, what their plans look like." He saw the alarm in her expression and added, "Quietly. No direct confrontation. Just information gathering."
"And if sothing goes wrong?" Her voice was steady but her hands pressed harder against the table.
"Then I co back here, pick you up, and we run." He held her gaze. "I’m not going to lose you, Yuki. Whatever happens, whatever I have to sacrifice, you’re going to survive this. That’s a promise."
She reached across the table and took his hand, squeezing once with a grip stronger than he expected. "Don’t die trying to keep it."
"I’ll do my best." It wasn’t the reassurance she wanted, but it was all he could honestly give.
Tonight, he would hunt, slipping through the shadows of ridian City to find the cultists who threatened everything he cared about.
Tomorrow, he would return to the Tower, to Ravenna and Astrid and the climb that waited, but for now, in the failing light of a ridian City afternoon, he sat with his sister and rembered what it felt like to have sothing worth protecting on this side of reality.
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