Chapter 130: Mother F-
Starfall Harmony Academy’s front hall looked more like a cathedral than a school, vaulted ceilings inlaid with slow-drifting constellations that weren’t real stars, marble floors polished bright enough to double as a mirror.
The receptionist behind the crescent-shaped desk offered the same practiced smile she’d probably given a thousand hopeful visitors before them.
"Welcome to Starfall Harmony. How can I help you today?"
"I’m here to see one of your students." Aidan kept his tone easy, casual, the voice of a man asking for directions rather than carrying his whole chest around like an open wound. "Hina Riverfall."
The smile didn’t falter, but something behind it sharpened. "Miss Riverfall is a ranked student. Visitation requests go through a formal process, and we’d need to know who you are to her."
[Tom: Here we go.]
[Arthur: Tell them you’re her long lost twin.]
[Anrita: That would not be biologically plausible, and also a lie.]
[Arthur: It was a JOKE, Anrita.]
Aidan didn’t answer right away. Beatrix glanced sideways at him, and Solenne went very still beside her, both of them clearly aware this was the moment something real was finally about to surface.
"Ugh." He rubbed the back of his neck, and the casual mask slipped just enough to show what was actually underneath it. "I’m someone she promised to marry, once. Then she changed her mind."
The receptionist’s pen paused mid-stroke.
"And I don’t mind." He said it fast, like getting it out quickly might make it hurt less. "I just need to see her. One time. Less than a minute, even."
The silence that followed lasted a beat too long.
"...I’ll send word," the receptionist said finally, voice gentler than it had been a moment ago. "Please wait here."
Beatrix didn’t say anything as the receptionist stepped away, but her hand found Aidan’s shoulder for just a second, brief and steady, and then let go without making a thing of it.
Solenne studied the floor with unusual interest. "That explains a few things."
"Don’t." Aidan managed a tired half smile. "Not today."
...
Three floors up and half a wing over, Hina Riverfall drove her opponent back across the training hall with a strike that split the air in two.
She’d grown taller since the last time anyone from Aidan’s old life would have recognized her, hair black enough to swallow the light, cut shorter now and tied back tight for combat, sharp enough at the edges to look almost deliberate.
Her eyes carried the same restless intensity they always had, dark and constantly calculating, and a thin scar traced pale along one collarbone that hadn’t been there years ago. She moved like shadow given a temper, fluid right up until the moment she wasn’t.
Darkness answered her call before she’d even finished the motion, umbral energy given the shape of a blade, and the boy across from her barely got his guard up in time to survive the follow-through.
"Again," she said, already resetting her stance.
"Give the guy a second, Hina." Layla leaned against the practice hall’s far wall, arms crossed, dark braid swinging as she shook her head.
She was compact and solidly built, freckles scattered across warm brown skin, the kind of steady presence that never seemed to hurry into anything. "Roan’s going to need that shoulder for the exam next week."
Roan straightened, rolling the shoulder in question, dark hair damp with sweat and eyes narrowed in the particular focus he brought to every single spar. Tall, lean, carrying himself with the quiet precision of someone who measured every movement before making it. "I’m fine."
"You’re bleeding."
"I’m fine and bleeding."
The fourth member of their group laughed from where he sat cross-legged atop a stack of practice mats, golden-haired and grinning, boots kicked up like the whole hall belonged to him.
Corin had the kind of easy, sunburnt handsomeness that made people underestimate exactly how dangerous he actually was in a real fight. "Corin votes we let him keep going. Entertainment’s been thin lately."
"Corin votes for entertainment over literally everything," Layla said.
"Consistency is a virtue."
Hina rolled her eyes at both of them, though the fondness underneath it was obvious to anyone who’d spent more than a day around the four of them. Rank seven on the Legendary board, and still the one who trained hardest, longest, and with the least patience for anyone telling her to stop.
A staff member appeared in the doorway before Roan could reset his stance, slightly out of breath from the stairs.
"Miss Riverfall. Someone’s here to see you."
"I don’t have a visitation scheduled." Hina didn’t even glance over, already resetting into a new stance.
"He didn’t schedule one." The staff member hesitated, clearly unsure how to phrase what came next, hands twisting together. "He said... he’s someone you promised to marry. Someone you changed your mind about."
The training hall went completely silent.
Hina’s shadow blade dissolved back into darkness without her seeming to notice it had happened at all. Her hands, steady through every spar Aidan would never see, started shaking at her sides.
"Impossible..." The word came out barely above a whisper, all the color draining out of her face at once.
Corin sat up straight, all traces of lazy amusement gone. "Hina?"
"He died." She said it like she was trying to convince herself of something she’d already stopped believing years ago. "Over a year ago. He died. How could he possibly be back?"
Layla pushed off the wall, expression hardening into something protective. "Someone’s using that against you? That’s a sick thing to joke about."
"Maybe it’s not a joke," Roan said quietly, already moving toward the door, jaw tight. "Maybe someone found out what happened and decided to use it anyway."
"Either way," Corin said, rolling off the mats and cracking his knuckles, all humor gone from his voice now, "somebody owes an explanation, and it’s not going to be a pleasant one."
Roan looked back at Hina, voice firm in a way that left no room for argument. "Stay here. Train with Layla. We’ll go find out who this is and straighten them out."
Hina opened her mouth like she meant to object, hands still trembling faintly, and then closed it again without a single word coming out.
...
Aidan was still working through what he’d actually say when Hina walked in, when two boys he’d never seen in his life stormed into the front hall instead, expressions set somewhere between furious and deeply suspicious.
He blinked.
One of them, dark-haired and precise even in his anger, planted himself directly in Aidan’s path. The other, golden-haired and grinning in a way that didn’t reach his eyes at all, folded his arms and looked Aidan over like he was already deciding how the fight would go.
"So you are the one," the dark-haired one said, voice flat and cold. ’A young chap like us wanting to meet Hina? Heh.’
"...Okay." Aidan glanced between them and the empty doorway behind them, genuinely thrown for the first time in longer than he could remember. "Not who I was expecting."
Beatrix and Solenne looked at each other and almost chuckled.
[Finn: Is that Hina?]
"..."
"..."
"..."
"So who actually are you? What’s your name? Let us scan your Digicard for confirmation." Roan demanded.
"Mother f-" Aidan paused and calmed down.