Chapter 26: “The Day After Victory”

  Scene 1: Morning Assembly – Ren

  The bells rang late.

  Not by much—thirteen seconds, by Ren’s internal count—but enough to make the gears grind in his head like something was out of alignment. Maybe it was the way the steam vents hissed too loud across the quad, or how the banners strung from the towers flapped with too much cheer. Red. Gold. Blue. Like a parade of expectations woven from stitched linen and false calm.

  Students poured into the central courtyard like water from a spigot, pressed in by the bells, the summons, and the spectacle. Ren moved with them, not through them—half-dragged by momentum, half-shoved by classmates whispering his name too loudly.

  "There he is!"

  "Silver Dart's pilot!"

  "Did you see him during the dive? That counter-thrust correction—"

  "I heard Kyokuto’s pilot cried after."

  He kept his head down, jaw tight. The heel of his boot clicked on the iron grates beneath the school’s open courtyard, damp with last night’s rain. Steam hissed underfoot—old runoff from the morning turbine cleanings.

  And above it all, the stage waited. Polished brass. Wood inlays. Headmistress Amagiri stood there, hands clasped behind her back like always, face carved from the same stone as the academy’s watchtowers. No microphone. She didn’t need one. When she spoke, people shut up.

  Ren barely reached the third row of the courtyard floor before her voice carried through the air like a blade through silk.

  “You flew like Hinode should.”

  Silence. The kind that doesn't feel like peace—more like the air holding its breath.

  A tremor moved through the crowd. Someone cheered. Then another. Then too many. Clapping, whistling, hollering. The noise swelled like a pressure boiler about to burst.

  Ren’s ears rang.

  He didn’t feel proud. He didn’t feel victorious. He felt like a cog jammed in its slot, spinning too fast to remember which gear he used to be.

  To his left, Taiga was beaming, bowing over and over like a court jester at his coronation. Someone had thrown him a rose. He ate the petals.

  “School idol!” he shouted, waving it like a flag. “Captain of Cool! Taiga-chan strikes again!”

  Ren almost laughed—almost. But then he saw Hana’s spot in the row behind them.

  Empty.

  He glanced up toward the first-tier balconies, where the upper-year students leaned against wrought-iron railings, faces flushed with admiration and envy alike. Above them, the academy’s airship docks creaked with slow morning traffic. Steam-barges slid past lazily in the haze. Somewhere, a far-off bell tolled from Workshop Tower.

  Too far.

  Amagiri’s speech was short, as always. A nod to teamwork. A reminder that flight was a privilege, not a right. Something poetic about balance in the sky reflecting balance in the soul. Ren caught none of it. His hands were clenched behind his back, nails digging into the scarred leather of his gloves.

  Mei stood beside him, perfectly composed. Even with wind teasing strands of her white-gold hair across her cheek, she looked like a statue—one that could dissect you with a glance. She didn’t glance at Ren.

  She didn’t have to. He knew she’d seen Hana slip away that morning. Just like he knew Mei wouldn’t mention it until Hana was ready to talk.

  When the crowd finally dispersed, banners curling as the steam thinned and the gears of the academy turned back to routine, Ren stayed behind. Watching the stage. Watching the place where he’d been praised in front of hundreds, and felt absolutely nothing.

  Behind him, footsteps echoed off the grate.

  “You gonna stand there all day, hero?” Saki drawled, voice muffled by the sweetbread she was chewing on.

  Ren didn’t turn.

  “I don’t feel like a hero.”

  “You wouldn’t. That’s why you’re a decent one.”

  He did turn then. Just enough to catch her grin. Crooked. Crumb-dusted.

  “They’ll start carving statues if you keep brooding like that,” she said, licking sugar from her thumb. “Go find Hana. She’s the one who looked like the world ended yesterday.”

  He started to ask why her, why not me, but the question lodged in his throat.

  Instead, he nodded once, muttered something halfway between a thank-you and an apology, and stepped off the courtyard grates, back into the fog of his own thoughts.

  Scene 2: Rin Skips the Spotlight

  —-: Rin

  The rooftop tiles were slick with dew, and Rin’s boots didn’t exactly have rooftop clearance. She crouched low anyway, skirt bunched around her knees, peering through the rust-laced railing as the courtyard below erupted into cheers.

  From this far up, the students looked like tiny moving cogs—interlocking, twitching, mechanical. Colorful specks in a school built of red brick, steam pipes, and expectation. She could barely make out the headmistress’s words. Not that she needed to. She already knew what she’d say. Something about pride. About flight. About living up to the legacy of Hinode Academy.

  Rin hated that word.

  Legacy.

  Like something handed to you in a box, all clean and final. Like you couldn’t crash it.

  She leaned her cheek against the warm copper pipe beside her and exhaled. Below, Ren was standing like someone had soldered him in place. Taiga was spinning in circles. Saki was probably already writing tomorrow’s rumor draft in her head. Hana was gone.

  Rin... was right here. On a rooftop. Watching.

  Again.

  A soft clunk behind her.

  She didn’t turn. Didn’t have to.

  Mei never made big entrances. Her footsteps were like precision instruments—quiet, exact. If Mei wanted to sneak up on you, she could. Today, she didn’t bother.

  The bento box landed next to Rin with a neat tap. Wrapped in patterned cloth, folded with obsessive geometry. Still warm.

  Rin glanced sideways. Mei didn’t say anything. She just sat, legs tucked to the side, hands in her lap, back straight as a ruler. The girl could make sitting feel like a ceremony.

  "...Thanks,” Rin murmured, voice barely audible over the distant whistle of turbines shifting direction above the school.

  No response. Mei didn’t need one.

  For a few minutes, the only sounds were the dull hum of airships cycling through morning patrols and the metallic tick-tick of the rooftop’s pressure valve discharging. Steam curled skyward like lazy ghost fingers.

  Rin picked at the bento. Two pickled plums. Rolled omelet. Rice with a single sardine balanced like it was on trial. Mei’s cooking was always...aggressively symmetrical.

  “I didn’t think you’d be up here,” Mei said finally, eyes still on the sky.

  “You did. That’s why you brought two chopsticks.”

  Mei blinked slowly. “Fair.”

  Rin chewed slowly, thinking. Or trying not to. Which was worse.

  “I should be down there, right?” she asked, mouth full.

  “Yes,” Mei said.

  Rin nodded. “Cool. Great. Love that.”

  She shoved another bite in her mouth. Rice stuck to her lip. She didn’t bother wiping it.

  “I just... I didn’t do anything.”

  “You did,” Mei said flatly. “You flew support. You rerouted power to the stabilizers mid-drop. You fixed the intake problem on Ren’s right nozzle.”

  “Yeah,” Rin muttered, “and then I sat back while everyone else danced the skies and took the credit.”

  Mei didn’t flinch. “Would you rather they crashed?”

  Rin paused. Looked out again.

  A breeze stirred the edges of her bangs. Below, the students were already breaking off into their own little constellations—gossiping, laughing, reenacting aerial dives with arms spread wide. She could almost hear Taiga’s ridiculous impressions from here. Someone shouted, “Silver Dart forever!” and someone else shouted, “Marry me, Taiga!”

  Rin squinted at that last voice. It might’ve been Saki.

  “Legacy, huh?” she murmured.

  Mei tilted her head.

  “They say we’re supposed to be proud. Of carrying on the name. Of being part of something historic.” Rin’s fingers tightened around the chopsticks. “But it just feels... heavy. Like we’re shackled to someone else’s flight plan.”

  This time, Mei didn’t answer. But her silence wasn’t empty—it was focused. Like a held breath.

  Rin risked a glance sideways.

  Mei’s gaze was on the sky now, not the school. Not the students. Just the sky. Pale blue, marbled with smoke trails from morning drills. It looked peaceful. It looked endless.

  It looked like something she hadn’t earned yet.

  And beside her, Mei said softly, almost too softly:

  “Maybe it’s not about legacy. Maybe it’s about choosing where you fly from here.”

  The silence after that was long. Long and warm. Rin didn’t say thank you. Mei didn’t demand it. The breeze picked up again, and they sat side by side, watching the last of the banners ripple in the wind like wings not yet open.

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  Scene 3: Ren Hounded by Attention

  —-: Ren

  If someone else said “Silver Dart” one more time, Ren was going to weld his name shut.

  He hadn't made it ten steps past the dorm gate before the first reporter pounced.

  “Ren Ichiro! What inspired the roll-cancel maneuver in the second loop?”

  Flash.

  “Ren! Is it true your father was a pilot at—”

  Flash. Flash.

  “Will you be joining the Nationals Youth League this summer? Rumors say they’ve already reserved a spot—”

  The only thing Ren could hear clearly was the pop in his ears from overpressurization. Or maybe it was from the nerves. Or the fact that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday and his stomach was folding in on itself like a badly drawn blueprint.

  A second group rounded the hedge gate. Students this time—first-years with armfuls of notebooks and eyes too wide for comfort.

  “Can I have your autograph?”

  “Ren-senpai, can you sign my wind goggles?”

  “Ren, will you be my mentor?”

  “Do you like cats or dogs? Wait—are you dating anyone??”

  “Is it true Taiga almost fell out of the cockpit and you caught him with one hand?!”

  “No, I—what?”

  He sidestepped them with the grace of a man dodging cannonfire, but they clung like static, a sticky blend of awe and caffeine. Every time he tried to speak, someone else cut him off.

  He tried to get to Workshop Wing. Wrong move.

  A team from Gokuryu High—the elite rival academy with uniforms that looked like they were stitched by thunderclouds—was waiting in the commons like a recruitment squad.

  “Impressive flight,” said their captain, a girl with graphite-gray eyes and a smile like a lockpick. “You’d do well in our fleet formation strategy course.”

  “We offer full scholarship,” added another, thrusting a sleek black folder into his hand. “And unrestricted lab time.”

  “I—uh—thanks?” Ren said, caught somewhere between flattery and fight-or-flight.

  The girl’s smile sharpened. “Think about it. Hinode has tradition, but tradition doesn’t win the World Circuit.”

  Ren’s throat went dry. Not because of what she said—but because for a sliver of a second, he believed her.

  He turned away too quickly. Walked faster. Didn’t realize someone else had sidled up to him until they spoke directly into his ear:

  “She’s wrong, you know.”

  Ren jumped so hard he almost uppercut the poor guy.

  “Jiro! Don’t sneak up on people like that!”

  Jiro grinned, unbothered, clutching a clipboard and half a sweet potato.

  “Sorry, sorry. I just figured you could use some backup. Or a taser.”

  “Do we have tasers?”

  “No, but I could build one by lunch.”

  Before Ren could respond, another wave hit. Upperclassmen now—actual flight team seniors, all suddenly remembering Ren existed.

  “Impressive performance, Ichiro.”

  “That roll-cancel… I haven’t seen that since the Hakuryu Wars.”

  “Ever consider transferring into my strategy sim class? I think you’d dominate.”

  Ren mumbled his thanks, tried to nod like he meant it. His eyes darted toward the clocktower. If he moved now, he could reach the maintenance deck and hide for twenty minutes without—

  “Ren Ichiro!”

  This voice stopped him cold.

  Professor Kaieda. Head of Engineering Flight Theory. Her lab coat flared like a battle flag in the wind, and her boots clanked with every determined step.

  “Don’t dodge me again,” she said. “You’ve skipped two interviews, one exam review, and a tactical debrief.”

  “I was—I mean, I’ve been—”

  “Busy being famous?” she deadpanned.

  Ren flushed. “I didn’t ask for that.”

  Kaieda’s stern look softened, just a bit. “No. But you’re handling it better than most.”

  Then she shoved a datapad into his chest.

  “Your analytics. Study them. You’re fast, but you’re burning too much steam in vertical shifts. Fix it or it’ll cost you against Jiyu next term.”

  She stalked off before he could say thanks.

  Ren stared down at the datapad. Graphs. Loops. Exhaust ratios.

  It didn’t look like victory. It looked like homework.

  The noise was a wall again—student chatter, gear grinds, workshop whistles, turbine hum. Someone shouted his name from across the quad. Another tossed him a pen. It hit him in the shoulder.

  “Ren-senpai! Sign my notebook!”

  He turned on instinct. Signed it. Smiled. Kept walking.

  Kept walking.

  And only when the quad started to thin—only when the gates to the hangar came into view—did he finally let his shoulders drop.

  I should feel something, right?

  But all he felt was tired.

  Scene 4: Hana Withdraws

  —-: Ren

  The workshop always smelled like possibility.

  Ozone. Steam. Metal polish. Fried grease from Taiga’s emergency snack stash in the back cabinet. Normally it was buzzing this time of day—welders sparking, vents coughing smoke, first-years shrieking over jammed servos.

  But now?

  Empty.

  Echoes bounced off the high iron ribs of the ceiling like ghosts in a bell tower.

  Ren pushed open the side door slowly. The hinge squeaked—loudly enough to announce a trespass. His boots clicked against the grating as he stepped into the low light of the repair bay, scanning the cluttered tables and unused scaffold ladders.

  Hana wasn’t in her usual spot. No grease-smeared overalls hunched over a burner. No humming under her breath. No muttered complaints about “this damn coil refusing to obey the laws of physics.”

  But the crystal forge in the corner was active—barely. A dull pink glow pulsed from inside the casting vault.

  He followed the light.

  There, behind a curtain of hanging chains and stray boiler tubing, she sat—legs folded under her, sleeves rolled past her elbows, goggles lopsided on her head like she’d forgotten they were even there.

  She wasn’t tinkering with a project. She wasn’t even rebuilding anything.

  She was holding a single crystal core in a clamp, turning it slowly between her fingers, like it held the answers to something she couldn’t name.

  “Hey,” Ren said quietly.

  Hana jumped like he’d hit her with a voltage spike. The crystal nearly slipped. She caught it, barely, and finally looked up.

  Her eyes were rimmed red. Not from crying—probably. Maybe. It could’ve been the forge glow.

  “Didn’t hear you,” she mumbled.

  Ren hesitated. He shouldn’t have come. Or maybe he should’ve come earlier.

  “You skipped workshop,” he said, softer now. “Thought that violated, like, five of your personal commandments.”

  “I’m allowed one sin a year,” she muttered. “I’m using it now.”

  She picked up a microfile and began scratching at the crystal's seam with exaggerated care, as if it needed fixing. It didn’t. Ren could tell.

  Silence filled the space again. Not hostile. Just… full.

  He sat cross-legged across from her. Waited.

  After a while, she spoke.

  “Everyone keeps talking about the flight,” she said, not looking at him. “The dive, the counter-pulse, your angle correction. Taiga’s stupid pose in the cockpit.”

  Ren grimaced. “He called it ‘sky jazz hands.’”

  “Ugh.”

  Hana’s laugh was soft and short, like it had been left out in the sun too long and gone brittle.

  “And me?” she said. “You know what someone told me in the hall today? ‘You must be proud—your tools didn’t fall apart.’”

  Ren’s brow furrowed. “That’s not fair.”

  “It's not wrong.”

  Her voice cracked just slightly, like the edge of a gear grinding out of rhythm.

  “I’m not the star,” she muttered. “I’m just the screwdriver.”

  Ren opened his mouth—then closed it.

  Hana kept going.

  “I don’t want glory,” she said quickly. “I’m not asking for parades. I just… I thought I was part of it. Not behind it. Not beneath it.”

  “You are part of it,” he said.

  “Then why did the news articles only list three names?”

  That landed like a wrench to the chest.

  Ren had seen them too. Every headline screamed Silver Dart's Victory! but the photos were all him, Mei, Taiga. Hana hadn’t even been cropped—she’d been erased.

  He looked at her again. Really looked.

  Her hands were trembling. Not from fear. From holding too much and not knowing where to put it.

  “I don’t fly without you,” he said quietly.

  Hana snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Pilot’s nothing without their tech. Spare me the brochure.”

  “I mean it.” He leaned forward. “Every time I push the throttle, I think, Did Hana weld this right? Every time I brake, I think, Did Hana double-seal the chamber? I don’t trust the sky. I trust you.”

  She looked up at him then. Eyes wide. Like someone had turned the lights on from the inside.

  “...You’re such a dork,” she said, blinking fast.

  “I know,” Ren smiled, rubbing the back of his neck. “World-class, apparently.”

  Hana chuckled softly. Then rubbed her eyes with her sleeve.

  He stood up, offered a hand.

  “Come on. Workshop smells better when you’re yelling at it.”

  She stared at his hand a moment, like she might slap it away. Then sighed.

  “Told you I’m using my annual sin.”

  “I’ll let you sin again tomorrow. Double coupon.”

  She took his hand.

  The forge hummed quietly behind them. The crystal glowed soft and steady. For once, that was enough.

  Scene 5: Taiga Gets a Fan Club

  —-: Taiga

  Taiga Fujiwara had always known he was destined for greatness.

  But even he had to admit—this was a bit much.

  The second he stepped onto the quad that morning, it was like someone had opened a floodgate labeled "TAIGA APPRECIATION, MAXIMUM VOLUME." Screams. Actual screams. Dozens of students waving paper fans with hand-drawn doodles of his face. One girl had made a banner that said TAIGA STRIKE ZONE with hearts around it.

  He didn’t know what that meant. But he liked it.

  “W-Will you sign my wrench?!”

  “Do your Sky Jazz Hands again!!”

  “TAIGA-SAMA! CAN YOU SMILE?!”

  He smiled. Immediately. The crowd squealed.

  Taiga struck a dramatic pose, one boot on a stone bench, arm raised like he was saluting the sun. He shouted to the heavens, “I accept your love!”

  Then promptly fell off the bench and into a bush.

  “HE’S SO AUTHENTIC,” someone gasped.

  Taiga, dazed and covered in leaves, blinked at the sky and whispered, “...They get me.”

  Within twenty minutes, he was surrounded. Someone had built a booth. A booth. Out of wood scraps and old wing brackets. There was a paper sign taped to the front that read:

  OFFICIAL TAI-CLUB REGISTRATION

  (Includes pin and badge sticker. No refunds.)

  There were already twelve members.

  “What is this?” he asked, genuinely confused.

  “Your fan club,” said a girl with two braids and smudges of engine grease on her cheeks. “Obviously.”

  He blinked. “I have a club?”

  “You are a club,” said another.

  Taiga’s mind buzzed like an overclocked crystal coil.

  Fan club. Him. This was the start. The saga. The beginning of an era! His name would echo through the halls of history. They would paint murals. Bake pastries. Sing songs!

  He cleared his throat and stood atop the supply crate someone had dragged over.

  “Ahem. Thank you, loyal skyfolk,” he said, arms wide like a particularly handsome airship. “But no movement can soar without a proper name! Therefore, I, Captain Taiga Fujiwara, declare this noble fellowship—”

  He paused. Dramatic pause.

  “—THE TAI-GANG!”

  Silence.

  Then: a slow clap.

  Then more. Then cheering. One kid threw a scarf.

  Taiga grinned, eyes shining. He leaned toward the braided girl. “We’ll need membership cards. And secret handshakes. Oh—and matching goggles.”

  She blinked. “You know this started as a joke, right?”

  Taiga froze. The world tilted.

  “I... what?”

  “You kinda just tripped into the bush and we thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s chaos incarnate,’ and... well. It escalated.”

  Taiga opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

  Then struck another pose.

  “Well, joke’s on you, because I’m taking it very seriously.”

  The crowd roared again. Someone gave him a thermos of peach tea. He signed it.

  By lunch, there were thirty-two members. Someone made a song. It had three lyrics:

  “Taiga! Taiga! Chaotic Sky King!”

  He liked the sound of that.

  Maybe fame was supposed to come quietly. With slow nods and whispered reverence.

  But not for him.

  For Taiga Fujiwara?

  Fame came with glitter paint, marching boots, and a slightly off-key theme song.

  And honestly?

  That felt exactly right.

  Scene 6: Jiro Makes a Mistake / Ren in the Hangar

  —-: Ren

  “So... good news and bad news,” Jiro said, poking his head into the hangar like someone checking for a gas leak.

  Ren didn’t look up from the deck he was sweeping. He was only halfway through the job, and already the bristles of the broom were catching on loose bolts and old feathering from the last sky trial. His shoulders ached in that dull, lived-in way they always did after a long day of smiling when he didn’t mean it.

  “I’m not in the mood,” he said flatly.

  “Too bad. This is very much your mood now.”

  Ren sighed, leaned the broom against the wall, and turned around. Jiro was holding up his communicator like it was cursed.

  “You know how Saki sends me her... ‘drafts’ before publishing them?”

  Oh no.

  “Jiro.”

  “And you know how she likes, uh, feedback?”

  “Jiro.”

  “And you know how the school board has a group comm link for official filings?”

  “...Jiro.”

  “I hit the wrong ‘send.’”

  Ren stared at him. “How wrong?”

  “Love in the Sky? Silver Dart’s Not-So-Silent Triangle!” Jiro read off the headline, grimacing. “Quote: Tension rises at ten thousand feet as sparks fly in the cockpit—between pilot, mechanic, and strategist. Could this be Hinode’s next scandal—or just a particularly romantic draft of a training manual?”

  Ren put a hand over his face.

  “Did you at least delete it?”

  “I tried. But Chairman Yamada heart-reacted.”

  Ren groaned into his hands.

  Jiro dropped onto a bench with a defeated fwump, holding the communicator like it might explode. “Saki’s gonna end me. Or worse—interview me.”

  Ren didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was too busy trying to figure out how exactly the phrase “tension in the cockpit” was going to look when printed on the front page of the academy paper.

  “I didn’t even know I was in a triangle,” he muttered.

  Jiro gave him a sideways look. “You seriously didn’t?”

  “Don’t start.”

  Jiro smirked. “Well, I mean, you and Mei have that synchronized-breathing thing. And Hana yells at you like she’s secretly in love. And you and Taiga... okay that one’s just terrifying.”

  Ren didn’t respond. Instead, he dropped onto the floor next to the bench and pulled an old crate toward him. It creaked open with a puff of dust, revealing a stack of yellowed envelopes.

  Letters.

  From home. From before.

  He ran his fingers over the top one. Still unopened. He hadn’t been ready. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

  Jiro noticed. Quieted.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  Ren nodded. “Yeah.”

  Then: “No.”

  The hangar was dim now—sun slipping below the glass panes high overhead, staining the metal scaffolds in amber and rust. The Silver Dart rested behind them like a sleeping beast, wings folded, engine silent.

  Ren leaned back against the cold wall, the letter resting on his knee.

  “I thought winning would feel... different.”

  Jiro didn’t laugh. Didn’t joke.

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “Me too.”

  For a long time, neither of them moved. The hangar buzzed faintly with the leftover heat from the engines, and outside, a wind kicked up, rattling the upper catwalks like distant applause no one had earned.

  Ren didn’t open the letter.

  Not yet.

  But he held it like maybe, someday, it would tell him what came next.