Chapter 61: Homework for Gravity
The training hall felt wider than the arena, like a lung after a long run. The ceiling tracked light in thin lines. Racks held practice weapons in tidy rows, and the floor wore a web of old chalk where teachers had drawn circles and then told students to ignore them and trust their feet. Somewhere a clock ticked like a metronome learning a new song.
Kori stood by the door with her hands behind her back. She was composed, the way a lake pretends the wind is a rumor. When the door at the far end opened, her composure glanced sideways and then pretended it had not.
Kenzo walked in smiling like the room belonged to his good mood. Fifth Phalanx, if you already knew him. Long black hair drawn back with a strip of leather. Broad enough that the doorway looked narrow for a blink. He carried a hammer on his shoulder that would have made a cart groan, rectangular head the size of a small barrel, face scored with luminite lines that woke and dimmed like breathing.
Arashi murmured, not even trying to whisper, "Oh look, a cathedral learned how to smile."
"Shush" Kori said, too quickly, and then coughed. "Kenzo."
"Kori! Haven’t seen your face in some time!" he said, easy and warm. The hammer hummed when he lowered it. "These are your eight troublemakers?"
"They prefer students, but I call them disasters" Kori said, not looking at the hammer longer than a heartbeat.
Kenzo bowed a fraction, as if to a stage that had been kind. "Good. Today we are going to learn the part of Eon that most of you think is a myth until it yanks your buttons off. You have learned Eon in your muscles, in your frames, in your edges. Now we learn it in the world. Outside you."
He spread his fingers. The hammer rose from the floor with no sound. The head hung in the air like a tame storm. He moved his fingers like a man teasing children, and the hammer drifted left, right, circled once, then settled again with a floor note that rolled up the legs.
Keahi breathed out a soft, involuntary "Whoa."
Kenzo grinned wider. "Telekinesis is the old word. We don’t throw that word around here. Here we talk about grip and invitation, about how you ask Eon to hold what you cannot, and how you let it put things back down. If you push, it fights. If you invite, it helps."
"Like Kori asks us to do homework" Feris said, rolling her eyes.
Kori didn’t dignify that with an answer.
Kenzo tapped the hammer haft with two knuckles. "Anchor, vector, release. That is the whole trick and the whole problem. Anchor is where you attach your intention. Vector is what you want the world to do. Release is where you stop making a mess." He glanced around. "There will be mess."
Arashi lifted a hand. "What if my intention is to never get hit again."
"Then your anchor is too vague" Kenzo said, cheerful.
He clapped once. "Let’s see what kind of show-offs you are."
They spread across the room under the chalk lines. Kenzo drew a floating hoop three meters up and left it there, bobbing. A small target sphere drifted inside the hoop like a sleepy planet. He pointed to it. "Extra points if you can hold this without looking like you are dying. Esen, try not to invent a new accident. Arashi, try not to enjoy it too much."
"I never enjoy anything" Arashi said, deadpan.
"Lies" Keahi said and nudged him aside with her hip.
Esen looked at the hammer and his eyes widened and then brightened because this was clearly a trap and he wanted to see the hole he was going to fall into. He set his feet, rolled his shoulders, and wrapped both hands around the haft. He inhaled, set his anchor like a stubborn child, and pulled. The hammer did not rise. Esen’s shoes did. He yelped as he went up half a meter, his legs bicycling air. He let go and dropped, then discovered momentum had opinions and bumped forehead first into the haft with an apologetic "thunk".
Kori clapped. "Congratulations, you invented headbutt levitation."
"Shut up" Esen said, rubbing his brow, but he was grinning.
Kenzo’s laugh was sunlight. "Good. If it pulls you, you anchored in yourself. Anchor the hammer. Tell Eon where to hold. Do not tell it you are heavy."
"Hard not to" Esen muttered, and tried again. This time the hammer twitched. He whooped at the microscopic victory and the hammer settled again like a fat raccoon refusing to be moved.
Kenzo took the haft in one hand and lifted the whole thing without any noise from his joints. He turned the hammer one-handed, let it float for a breath, then caught it upside down. Hikari’s eyebrows went up despite herself. Kori’s mouth pretended it was a line. Her cheeks were pinker and pinker every second
"Alright" Kenzo said, "your turn. We start gentle. Objects smaller than your head. Arashi, no bullets yet. Feris, not the mace. Kori, if you would." I observed you in the arena. Impressive work, for beginners! But what you know is barely the tip of the iceberg." Then, looking straight at Raizen: "And I heard that a specific Someone wants to become better than us Phalanx"
Raizen looked away, that thought was replaced with "Be the best" for some time now. But sometimes, best isn’t enough.
Kori brought something from behind the supply cabinet, and threw it in the middle of the floor. A bright rubber ball, not bigger than a fist, cherry red color.
Ichiro smiled. "You are making this too easy" he said. "You could have asked me to lift the building."
"No" Kori said, too fast again. "The building might be easy for you, but this is better."
Ichiro eyed the ball, set his anchor, and pulled.
The ball laughed. It bounced.
Not off the floor. Off the command. The little red thing hopped three centimeters, then bounced in place, then rolled slowly as if considering its options.
Ichiro’s brow knit. He tried again with more finesse. The ball rolled the other way. He pinched the air where he thought the anchor should hold and the ball hopped in place like a frog offended by science.
Arashi leaned in, fascinated. "You have met your match."
"Be quiet" Ichiro said, teeth not quite showing.
He brushed the ball with Eon like a hand through tall grass. The ball vibrated, escaped his grip and ended up wedged against his boot. He bent to pick it up with his fingers. It popped out and hit him in the chin.
Esen lost his composure completely. "The 20-meter-pillar earth guy, defeated by a ball."
Ichiro didn’t give up. He drew in a breath, and the corner of his mouth moved because he was choosing not to be annoyed. He looked at the ball the way he looked at a stubborn hinge. The red sphere trembled, soft as a held breath, then drifted a thumb-width. He kept it there, astonished and very careful.
Hikari had chosen a thin wooden rod. She set it on her palms, closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then let the rod rest on the air above her skin. It floated for a second. Her focus burned too bright, too fast. The rod fell. She caught it without pride, reset and tried again. The rod lifted, wobbled like a bubble that had forgotten how to be a circle, and popped to the floor.
"Good" Kenzo said. "Different song. Keep at it. The trick is to stop trying to draw and start trying to breathe on the edge of a thing."
Arashi had three blunt training rounds stacked on his palm. He squinted at them like he was trying to recall their birthdays. One rose, then two, then all three, then one ricocheted off the invisible grip and pinged his forehead with neat efficiency.
"Ow" he said. "Rude."
"Invite" Kenzo said, amused. "Do not boss. Bullets hold grudges."
Feris put both hands toward her mace like she could bribe it with affection. The Eon came and the mace decided instead to love her back with equal force. Feris yelped as it skated toward her boots and ran her five meters across the floor until Kori stuck one boot in the way and arrested both girl and weapon like a door stop.
"Anchor the head, not the handle" Kori called. "You are telling the wrong end what to do."
Keahi drew a small flame from her blade and tried to nudge it with Eon above her palm. It blew up instead, a mischievous bubble of heat that smudged the air. A curl of singe appeared on Ichiro’s sleeve.
"Sorry" Keahi said, mortified and delighted.
"I’ll live" Ichiro said, and extinguished the char with a small move.
Raizen stood with his twin blades on the floor in front of him. He didn’t touch the hilts. He invited. The blades lifted a hand span. He kept his breath slow, throat loose. He told the swords to be held by the air where the balance lay, not by their weight like bags of sand.
For five wonderful seconds they floated without arguing. He smiled with every small muscle that was not supposed to move and that ruined it. The blades turned, as if remembering how to be themselves. The points dipped. The pair spun like angry forks and stabbed into the wood with an indignant thunk, quivering as if insulted by gravity.
Arashi applauded. "Perfect. Try to miss my shoes more next time."
"Maybe" Raizen said, trying not to laugh. He loved the feeling in that small window where the weapons had been more idea than object.
Esen eyed Arashi thoughtfully. "Permission to lift you?"
"No" Arashi said immediately.
"Come onn, just a bit!" Esen argued.
Kenzo smiled and didn’t rescue either of them.
Arashi sighed with theatrical nobility. "Fine. But if you drop me you owe me a sandwich."
Esen set his anchor like a handshake at Arashi’s shoulder blades. He invited the air to be a palm. Arashi rose six inches, arms pinwheeling, hair finally admitting it could move. Esen grinned, poured on a little more will, and Arashi shot up like a startled bird.
"Ceiling ceiling ceiling!" Arashi yelped as his head bumped it. He hung there, surprised and outraged.
"Release him" Kenzo called, laughing.
Esen panicked and let everything go. Arashi dropped. Raizen stepped under him without thinking and caught him like a princess. They stumbled two steps and somehow didn’t become a pile.
Arashi pressed a hand to his chest. With a dramatic voice "Oh, my utmost thanks, dear prince!"
Then, his serious voice remembered it existed: "Seriously, I can’t feel my dignity."
"You had any" Keahi said.
"Don’t mix dignity with Ego. I had both." Arashi said, and grinned despite the near concussion.