Chapter 5: “It Wasn’t Supposed to Work… But It Did”

  Scene 1: Sunrise Solo Flight

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The sky was barely more than a bruise along the horizon when Ren stepped onto the launch strip behind Hangar 7, boots crunching over the dew-slick stones.

  The cold bit through his sleeves, but his palms were sweating. He wore his jacket half-zipped, goggles tight around his neck, and a wrench tucked into his belt like a good-luck charm. The Silver Dart waited on the pad ahead — hunched like a metal bird not yet convinced it could fly.

  The repairs were done. The crystal was seated. The seals had held.

  But they hadn’t flown it.

  Not really.

  Not until now.

  Ren ran his fingers over the control housing as he climbed into the cockpit. The steel was cold, the leather stiff, but everything felt awake somehow. The soft hum from the crystal core resonated through the seat like a heartbeat.

  He whispered to the Dart.

  “Okay, girl. Let’s see if you still remember.”

  Switch one — igniter coil: click.

  Switch two — pressure vent: hisssssss.

  Switch three — core link: thrummmmmm.

  Steam hissed from the side ports. The Dart shuddered.

  Ren pulled the starter crank.

  The engine choked. Sputtered.

  Then—ROARED.

  The entire airframe rattled like a dragon snorting to life after a very long nap.

  “Holy crap,” Ren breathed. “You actually—okay okay okay—let’s go.”

  He eased the clutch, tightened the trim tabs with shaking fingers, and felt the lift gas expanding overhead. The bag inflated — unevenly, but it held. The propeller kicked.

  The Dart moved.

  Forward.

  Wobbling.

  Skimming six inches above the ground.

  “Oh no, no, no—up, not forward—”

  He yanked the stabilizer fins. The ship bucked.

  And then, impossibly—

  He was in the air.

  Wind hit him in the face. The ship groaned like a confused beast, but she rose — uneven, uncertain, but rising.

  “YES!” he shouted into the wind. “YESSSSS!”

  One wing dipped. He overcorrected. The Dart spun a little too far left and almost rolled.

  “NO NO NO—WE STAY UPRIGHT!”

  But it recovered. Staggering, panting, held together by miracle and good bolts — but flying.

  The early morning sky was streaked gold now, the sun peeking through the low valley fog. Down below, the school’s towers cast long shadows across the training field. The wind rushed past his ears like laughter.

  Ren whooped.

  No one else saw it yet.

  It was just him. And the sky. And the stubborn old ship that wanted to live.

  He banked left, then right. The controls resisted, stiff from disuse, but obeyed.

  He was flying.

  And he wasn’t crashing.

  Yet.

  Scene 2: Crowd Gathers

  —-: Saki Ichihara

  It started with a sound.

  A wub-wub-wub that echoed faintly across the academy courtyard — not the smooth whirr of a school-certified crystalcraft, but something rougher. Older. Personal.

  Saki looked up from her thermos of rosehip tea, halfway through brushing her bangs and deeply not expecting morning drama. Then she heard it again — louder this time, accompanied by a high-pitched whine of strained pressure plates and a flicker of steam silhouetted against the rising sun.

  She dropped her brush. “No way.”

  By the time she hit the balcony outside the third-floor dormitory lounge, at least seven other girls were already there, necks craned toward the sky. One of them — maybe a second-year from the mechanics club — actually gasped out loud.

  There, circling like a drunken dragonfly above the east field, was the Silver Dart.

  “I thought that thing was a museum piece,” someone whispered.

  “It was.”

  Saki fumbled in her bag, yanked out her sketchpad, and flipped to a blank page. Her pencil was already moving before her thoughts caught up.

  The Dart was ragged, clearly unstable — the liftbag’s seams still visible in places, and the propeller was coughing like an asthmatic bellows — but it was in the air. Flying under its own steam.

  And at the helm…?

  Saki squinted.

  “He’s flying it.”

  There was a beat of stunned silence.

  Then a chorus of:

  “Wait—what?” “Ren?” “The Ren?”

  “Oh, this is going to be delicious,” Saki murmured, pencil flying as she sketched the silhouette — the yaw of the hull, the tilt of the liftbag, the expression on Ren’s face as he fought with the controls like they owed him money.

  Below the flight path, students began to gather in twos and threes. Uniform coats over pajamas. Bedhead. Toast in mouths. Half-asleep until they looked up and saw something they never expected:

  The boy who accidentally walked into the girl’s bathhouse on his first day was flying an airship.

  “Is that allowed?” someone muttered.

  “Does it matter?” came the reply.

  “No,” Saki said, smiling as the pencil danced, “it really doesn’t.”

  Scene 3: Rin Appears

  —-: Rin Arisaka

  She hadn't planned to come.

  Rin told herself — firmly, repeatedly — that she had better things to do at sunrise than to watch some reckless transfer boy throw himself into the atmosphere strapped to a pile of pre-war junk and wishful thinking.

  But she still found herself standing at the edge of the south overlook, arms crossed, hair tied up in a crisp loop, boots planted firmly like nothing could shake her.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  And she was watching.

  Hard.

  The Silver Dart dipped into view just above the tree line. Its stabilizers jittered like a cat skidding on wet tile, the propeller shuddered with every pulse, and its trim was all wrong.

  But it was flying.

  Three laps now. Not high. Not fast.

  But longer than it had any right to.

  A crowd had formed near the old bleachers. Girls waved napkins. The gossip girl — Ichihara, of course — was sketching furiously. Some of the third-years were whispering behind her. Even Headmistress Aoi’s tower window was slightly ajar.

  Rin watched the Dart descend into its final landing path. The bag hissed as it bled liftgas, the engine gave a petulant brrRRRRRRRRRRzz-chuff, and the hull settled down with a groan like an old man lowering himself into a bath.

  No crash.

  No fire.

  Just steam.

  And silence.

  Then cheers.

  She stared, arms tightening over her chest.

  The Dart shouldn’t be airborne. Not by any reasonable technical standard. It had no gyro assist, no auto-trim, no stabilizer-dampers. It ran on a crystal system deprecated ten years ago.

  But it flew.

  Because he flew it.

  Rin didn’t say anything. Her face gave nothing away.

  Except — just for a second — a flicker.

  A breath drawn in.

  Eyes a little too sharp.

  And the barest flush on her cheeks.

  Not anger. Not quite admiration.

  Irritation.

  At herself.

  For watching.

  Scene 4: Grandpa’s Verdict

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren’s legs wobbled when he climbed down from the Silver Dart, and he only half-disguised it by pretending to stretch.

  His gloves were soaked. His back was sticky with sweat. His left ear was still ringing from that last pressure sputter. His right boot squelched with something that might’ve once been a coolant hose.

  But he was grinning so hard it hurt.

  The ship had flown.

  It had flown.

  And somehow, he had flown it.

  Steam still hissed lazily from the Dart’s side vents. The liftbag was sagging gently now, half-deflated, like it had given everything it had and just wanted a nap. He didn’t blame it.

  Across the hangar strip, standing exactly where Ren knew he’d be — as if he’d timed his entrance to comedic perfection — was Grandpa Goro, nursing a paper cup of miso broth and chewing on a toothpick like it was a cigar.

  He didn’t clap.

  He didn’t run over.

  He just raised one bushy eyebrow and gave Ren a slow once-over.

  Ren saluted with a crooked smile. “Still alive.”

  Grandpa took a loud, slurpy sip from his cup. “You didn’t die. That’s a good start.”

  Ren dropped his hands to his hips, trying to breathe. His pulse hadn’t come down yet. He felt like he’d been exorcised by velocity.

  “Dart’s a little twitchy on the left-side stabilizer,” he said. “Might be a pressure misalignment.”

  Grandpa grunted. “More likely you forgot to offset the rear vector spin when you dropped into the descent curve.”

  Ren blinked. “Wait—was that what that was?”

  Grandpa grinned around his toothpick. “Now you know.”

  He turned, walking back toward the hangar with a wave over his shoulder.

  “Patch her up. You’ve got forty-eight hours to make her look intentional.”

  Ren leaned against the hull, wiped the sweat from his brow, and exhaled a shaky laugh.

  He’d survived.

  He’d flown.

  And for the first time since he’d walked into Hinode Academy, late and humiliated and soaking wet from the girls’ bathhouse…

  He didn’t feel like a mistake.

  Scene 5: Classroom Debate

  —-: Hana Minase

  By midmorning, the classroom was hotter than the boiler room behind Hangar 2.

  The windows were open, but it didn’t help — not with all the bodies pressed in, voices overlapping like clashing gears, and the rising pressure of fifteen teenagers trying to out-yell each other over the same thing:

  “He flew the Dart!” “He’s not even certified!” “It was barely stable—did you see the listing?” “He landed it.” “He got lucky.” “Luck doesn’t fly three laps, Satomi!”

  Hana sat in the second row, hands folded on her lap, trying very hard not to throttle anyone.

  They weren’t even arguing about the flight. Not really. They were arguing about what it meant. Because if the Dart worked — if Ren worked — then everything about how the teams had been structured suddenly got more complicated.

  From the back, Saki leaned on her desk like she was moderating a talk show. “I’m just saying,” she said, voice honeyed and sharp, “if the old system can fly again, maybe it’s time to rethink what counts as a ‘top-tier design.’ Or pilot.”

  A few heads turned toward Rin, who sat by the window, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, saying nothing.

  Saki smiled. Stirring the pot. Perfectly.

  “You’re all missing the point,” Hana said, standing — surprising even herself. “He rebuilt a junked ship with minimal tools, no official support, and a core crystal from before we were born. He didn’t just fly it — he controlled it. That matters.”

  Silence.

  Then someone muttered, “You’re just saying that because you’re working on it.”

  Hana’s face flushed. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  Saki arched a brow. “So what? We give him a team slot based on a sunrise joyride?”

  “I say we test him,” came another voice. “Properly. In a duel.”

  That got a murmur of interest.

  In the middle of it all, Mei, who had said absolutely nothing all period, reached for a pencil, slowly spun it between her fingers… and smiled.

  Just once.

  Subtle. Soft. Like something she’d been waiting for was finally beginning.

  Scene 6: Headmistress Aoi Notices

  —-: Headmistress Aoi

  The tower office at Hinode Academy was designed to see everything and say nothing.

  Wide, arched windows gave a panoramic view of the valley, the clustered rooftops of the school below, and the slowly dissipating fog line that the morning sun peeled away in golden sheets. It was quiet here — only the occasional flutter of the school banner outside, and the gentle clink of porcelain as Headmistress Aoi lifted her cup of tea.

  She preferred to drink it alone.

  Black.

  No sugar.

  Boiled precisely 4.5 minutes with leaves brought from the highland markets west of Tenri.

  Everything else in the world could be unpredictable.

  Not her tea.

  She sipped, eyes half-lidded, as the steam curled up past her glasses.

  Far below, students buzzed like bees stirred too early from their hives. Girls gathered near the practice field. Faculty leaned out of windows. Sketches were already being tacked to boards. A boy — that boy — had flown a relic into the sky and returned without incident.

  She had seen the whole thing.

  Three laps.

  Stabilizers flaring wildly.

  Crystal core singing like it hadn’t in decades.

  And a landing… not perfect, but alive.

  Aoi exhaled slowly.

  She remembered that sound. The thrum of a vessel powered by raw nerve and flawed brilliance. It had been a long time since any student dared that kind of flying. Since anyone even remembered what it looked like.

  The last one, in fact, had been Goro.

  She glanced to the side wall, where a sepia photo hung — old academy team, back when uniforms had longer coats and goggles were considered formalwear. Goro in the back row, grinning like a madman.

  His grandson, then.

  Interesting.

  She set her teacup down gently and turned to face the open window fully. The sky was bluer now. Open.

  Breathing again.

  “So,” she murmured to no one in particular,

  “the sky takes interest again.”

  Scene 7: Final Challenge

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The wind behind Hangar 7 always smelled like hot copper and distant rain.

  Ren liked it back here — far from the courtyard buzz, out of range of the gossip, the debates, the whispers. It was where the pipes hissed and the steel creaked, where the bones of the school hummed low and steady, like the belly of a beast that never truly slept.

  He was tightening a coolant valve on the Dart when he heard the footsteps — deliberate, even, unmistakable.

  He didn’t look up. “You know, if you came to compliment me, I’m open to it. Grudging admiration, playful sarcasm, I’ll take either.”

  The footsteps stopped.

  “You’re late.”

  Ren blinked. He turned around.

  Rin Arisaka stood five meters away, her arms folded, flight jacket slung over one shoulder, expression calm and perfectly unreadable.

  “What?” he said.

  “You’re late to challenge me,” she said flatly.

  Ren stood. “I didn’t realize I had a time slot.”

  “You made one. When you flew that—” she nodded at the Dart, “—in front of the school.”

  He raised his hands. “It was just a test flight.”

  “You made a statement.”

  Ren paused. The way she said it… it wasn’t angry. Not exactly. It was sharp, precise — like a scalpel, not a hammer.

  She stepped forward once, closing the space between them by half.

  “One race,” she said. “You win, you earn your place. You lose—”

  “I go back to the tool shed?”

  She tilted her head. “You stop pretending you belong in the sky.”

  That stung more than he expected.

  Ren looked down at his fingers — still stained with crystal grease — then back at her.

  “I didn’t pretend anything,” he said. “I flew.”

  A gust of wind caught the loose tarp over the spare rigging coils. It flapped hard, then snapped taut again.

  Rin stared at him, waiting.

  He stared back.

  Then nodded once.

  “Deal.”

  Her eyes narrowed just slightly. “Three days. Showcase qualifiers. You’ll need more than luck.”

  He grinned, exhausted but defiant. “I was planning on charm.”

  She turned sharply, boots crunching over the gravel as she walked away without another word.

  But just before she vanished around the hangar corner, Ren swore he saw her smirk.

  Just a little.

  Scene 8: Ren’s Letter Home

  Date: April 9th

  From: Ren Kisaragi

  To: Mom & Dad (wherever the skies have taken you this month)

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  So… funny story.

  Remember how you said I should “make a strong first impression” at my new school?

  Well, I may have accidentally walked into the girls’ bathhouse on Day One.

  (Technically Grandpa’s fault — he mislabeled the doors. Again.)

  I also may have nearly been decapitated by the school’s top pilot. She’s intense. Beautiful, in a terrifying, might-strangle-you-with-a-seatbelt sort of way. Her name’s Rin. I think she hates me.

  I rebuilt an airship.

  Yeah. A real one. From the bones of a forgotten relic in a haunted hangar nobody uses anymore. It's called the Silver Dart, and it… flew, Mom. Dad, it actually flew.

  I flew it. By myself.

  (Okay, yes, it sputtered. The stabilizers are twitchy. The right gear is held in place by a wrench I forgot to remove. But still — it got off the ground.)

  I think I scared the entire school. I know I upset the racing hierarchy. And somehow, I’ve been challenged to a real race by Rin herself. If I win… I might actually earn a spot on the team.

  If I lose…

  Well, I guess I go back to tinkering in the shadows.

  But I’m not afraid of that anymore.

  Because for a few minutes this morning — up in the air, with the wind punching my face and the engine screaming like a banshee with indigestion — I remembered why I love this stuff. Why I want to build. Why I want to fly.

  So wherever you are, whatever sky you’re under, know that I’m doing okay.

  Scratch that.

  I’m doing great.

  Miss you. Love you. Don’t worry — Grandpa’s only traumatized me twice this week.

  …Three times if you count the latrine incident.

  With love (and some lingering steam burns),

  Ren