Dawn hadn't fully broken when I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Nozue, careful with every stair on the way down so the house wouldn't creak and give me away to Rosalia. The morning had that particular hush to it — the kind that makes even a nervous idea feel like it might actually be worth trying.
She's still asleep. Maybe I should try this on my own first, before she's watching.
I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor and thought back over what she'd shown me the night before — mana into the fingertips, and somehow, out of that, fire. She hadn't given me the words for it, not really, just the feeling of it, and feelings weren't something I could exactly follow like a recipe. Still. I'd always picked things up fast. This couldn't be so different.
I closed my eyes.
Focus. Focus… fire.
The room went quiet around me, or maybe I just stopped noticing it. Something small and warm bloomed at my fingertips, and when I opened my eyes there was a flame there, no bigger than a candle's, dancing like it had always belonged to me.
"It worked," I whispered, then couldn't help myself. "It worked! I did it!"
The flame didn't agree with my enthusiasm. It spread — not fast, but steady, crawling up along my knuckles before I understood what was happening.
"W-why is it — ROSALIA! My hand's on fire! Rosalia, help!"
She came down the stairs faster than I'd have believed her legs could carry her, hair still mussed from sleep, face gone pale at the sight of me waving my arm around like it might put itself out. "Kazu — stop, don't panic, just breathe. Let the mana burn itself down slowly, it won't hurt you if you stop fighting it. Focus on your hand, not on the fire."
I made myself go still, forcing air in and out while my hand trembled and the flame guttered lower, lower, until it was nothing but a faint warmth against my palm and then nothing at all.
Rosalia let out a breath of her own once it was over, and something in her face eased into pride. "There you go. Not bad, for teaching yourself before I'd even woken up." She studied me a moment. "Since you've already got the shape of it — let's try something with more direction. Come outside with me."
We went around to the open ground behind the house, the morning sun still low enough to throw long shadows across the grass. "Same as before," she said, "but this time, once you've got the fire compressed into your palm, push it out and say the words — Fire Pierce." She demonstrated without waiting for my questions, and a bolt of flame tore from her outstretched hand with a hiss that left the air smelling faintly of scorched grass.
"That's incredible," I said, and meant it. I closed my eyes again, chasing the same feeling from before — the fire, the shape of it, compressed into something small and sharp. "Fire Pierce!"
Something left my hand. When I opened my eyes, a scorch mark smoked faintly on the far fence post — smaller than Rosalia's, but faster, somehow, like it hadn't wanted to wait around.
Rosalia's eyebrows climbed. "You got that on the first try. It took me weeks, when I was learning." She shook her head, something between amusement and disbelief. "Alright. We're going to need more room than this for what comes next. I know a place."
The plain she led me to stretched out further than I'd ever seen open land go — no buildings, no fences, just grass rolling toward a horizon that looked too far away to be real.
"This is huge," I said, turning in place to take it in. "Do we really need this much space?"
"For what I'm about to teach you? Yes." Her voice had lost its usual warmth, replaced by something more careful. "This one asks a lot of whoever casts it."
I felt the nerves settle into my stomach alongside something else — the same stubborn spark that had gotten me through the last two days. I came here to become strong enough to survive. This is what that looks like.
"I'm ready," I told her.
She rested a hand briefly on my shoulder before stepping back to give herself room. "This is one of the strongest spells I ever learned, back when I called myself a Fire Wizard." Something flickered behind her eyes — pride, and underneath it, caution. "Watch carefully."
She planted her feet and drew a long breath, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped into something ceremonial. "I'll show you the power I once carried. Oh mighty God, grant me the power of fire who possesses the almighty flame — FIRE SPIRIT FLARE!"
The fire that answered her wasn't like anything before it. It rose in a column that bent the air around it, heat rolling off in waves I could feel from a dozen paces back, and I understood almost immediately that this wasn't a spell she was casting so much as a spell she was surviving.
"Rosalia!" I shouted over the roar of it. "Are you alright?!"
"Kazu — come here, quickly! You're safe with me, just get inside the barrier!"
I ran for her, ducking through a shimmering wall of gold light that hummed against my skin as I passed through, and found her on one knee, teeth gritted, sweat running down her temple despite the cool morning air.
"I wanted you to see it," she managed, "the real shape of it. Here it comes — hold on!"
The ground itself seemed to shudder as the flame climbed higher, and from inside the barrier I watched scorched earth spread outward in a ring, the heat outside pressing against the gold light like something alive and hungry. It felt like watching a small sun try to be born and fail.
Then, slowly, it burned itself down to nothing, leaving behind only a wide, blackened circle where grass had been a minute before.
"Rosalia," I said, dropping to my knees beside her as she sagged forward. "Are you okay?"
"My head," she murmured, voice thin. "It's… it's fine, dear. Just give me a moment."
I hovered over her, replaying what I'd just watched. "You almost passed out from that."
She managed a tired smile despite it. "I'm alright. That's the price of the spell — it can cost you everything if you're careless with it. But it comes with its own barrier built in, so whoever casts it can shield the people around them while it burns." She straightened, some color coming back into her face. "Now. Your turn."
I took the same breath she had, the same stance, and tried the same words. "Oh mighty God, grant me the power of fire who possesses the almighty flame — FIRE SPIRIT FLARE!"
Nothing came.
"Rosalia — it's not working. Nothing's happening."
She frowned, turning the problem over. "Maybe the incantation itself is wrong for you." Her eyes widened suddenly, like a piece had just clicked into place. "Kazu — your class is God. You can't very well pray to one, when you're already standing in for the position." She knelt and dragged a burnt stick through the dirt, tracing out new words with careful, deliberate strokes. "Try this instead. Read it exactly as it's written."
I crouched beside her and read what she'd carved into the earth: I, the mighty God who possesses the almighty flame, feel the presence of my fire spirit. Fire Spirit Flare.
She stepped back, and I caught the edge of her murmuring to herself, worry threading through every word. "If a god's own spell is meant to be a hundred times what a mortal casts… I hope this doesn't take the whole country with it."
"Memorize it," she told me, louder now, steadier. "And once you've got it, say it exactly, and let the spell do the rest."
I closed my eyes and gathered everything I had — which, I was starting to understand, might not have an edge to it at all. The air around me changed before I'd even finished the words, growing dense and close, prickling faintly against my skin like the moment before a lightning strike.
Rosalia's voice reached me as if from very far away. "The flare — Kazu, it's too big, it's already too big — stop! Please, stop now!"
I couldn't stop. I wasn't sure, in that moment, that I even fully understood what I'd started.
"I feel the presence of my fire spirit — Fire Spirit Fla—"
The light around us buckled, and whatever I'd been building broke past whatever edge it was supposed to have.