Chapter 21: “Whispers of Kyokuto”
Scene 1 – Morning Homeroom Tension
—-: Ren
The steam clock in the back of the classroom ticked one last puff before freezing mid-hiss.
Ren glanced up from his notebook, half-expecting it to be a prank—maybe Taiga had swapped out the spring again. But no. This stillness wasn’t mechanical. It was human.
Ms. Shiraishi stood at the front of the room with a paper in one hand and a porcelain teacup in the other. She hadn’t taken a sip in over a minute.
Even Saki wasn’t typing.
Even Jiro wasn’t sketching modifications in his notebook.
Even Rin had stopped tapping her heel beneath the desk.
That’s when Ren knew—something was wrong.
Shiraishi finally spoke, her voice clipped and too calm. “Kyokuto Academy will be visiting the campus tomorrow.”
Steam escaped from somewhere—possibly Ren’s ears.
“Visiting?” Taiga asked from behind him, his voice cracking like a faulty valve. “Like, to say hi?”
“To inspect our facilities,” she clarified. “Standard interleague protocol.”
Ren raised a hand before he could think better of it. “Is that… normal?”
She looked directly at him. “Not since 14 years ago.”
The silence returned, denser than engine grease.
Across the room, Mei closed her datapad with a slow, deliberate click. Hana was already biting the corner of her lip.
Even Rin—whose confidence had become as routine as morning drills—stared out the window as if trying to outfly the announcement.
“What’s the big deal?” Ren whispered toward Jiro.
Jiro didn’t look at him. “Kyokuto doesn’t fly to compete,” he muttered. “They fly to dissect.”
Shiraishi sipped her tea at last, then set it down too gently. “You will all be on your best behavior. No demonstrations. No unscheduled flights. No taunting. No… creativity.”
Taiga slowly lowered the mini-drone he’d been assembling under the desk.
“Their ship is called Onikaze,” she added. “You’ll know it when you see it. Do not be late.”
Then she turned, chalk in hand, and resumed the lesson on crystal-flow torque ratios as if she hadn’t just declared an airborne ghost story.
Ren swallowed hard. The crystal core diagram on the board suddenly looked more like a target.
Scene 2 – When Shadows Land
The sound of engines had become second nature at Hinode Academy.
The clatter of rotor fins, the staccato wheeze of overworked stabilizers, the familiar cursing from the hangar deck when someone stripped a bolt — all of it was comfortingly loud, alive.
Which is why the silence that came before Onikaze landed felt like a vacuum in Ren’s chest.
He and the rest of the class stood at the observation deck outside Hangar 3, craning necks skyward, squinting past rising mist and morning glare.
Then it appeared.
A matte-black airship, smooth as obsidian, gliding through the sky without the usual rumble or huff of steam. No visible exhaust. No audible throttle shifts. Just a shimmering ripple of hot air trailing behind its needle-shaped body.
The dorsal fins were swept back at an angle that screamed predatory elegance. Its gondola—a slim crescent of polished steel and darkened windows—barely seemed attached. It hovered as if daring gravity to try its luck.
And its name, etched in sharp silver kanji across the nose:
鬼風 – Onikaze.
Demon Wind.
“Are we sure that thing runs on crystals?” Jiro whispered beside Ren, his eyes wide. “Because I’m betting half my lunch credits it runs on souls.”
The ship didn’t land so much as descend. No bounce. No hiss of stabilizer feet. Just a low chime — like a temple bell under water — and the sound of feet hitting the ground with synchronized, chilling precision.
Kyokuto’s team disembarked in a V-formation.
Six figures in full black uniforms, chrome visors hiding their faces, boots polished like mirrors. No insignias. No smiles.
The lead figure walked with purpose — not speed, not pride, just inevitability.
That’s when Ren realized he wasn’t breathing.
“Which one’s their pilot?” Taiga muttered. “Which one’s the mechanic? Or are they all just… parts of the same thing?”
The lead figure stopped in front of them. Slowly, deliberately, they reached up and unlatched their visor with a metallic click.
Jet-black hair. Pale skin. Calm, glacier-gray eyes.
The girl who removed her helmet blinked once at Ren.
“I’m Rei Kurosawa,” she said, voice smooth as engine oil over stone. “Team captain of Kyokuto.”
She didn’t bow. She didn’t smile.
Ren stepped forward instinctively and extended his hand.
“I’m Ren. Pilot of—”
“You breathe loud,” she said.
And just like that, she turned and walked away.
Behind her, the other Kyokuto pilots moved in silence, following without hesitation. Not one looked sideways. Not one adjusted pace.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
It wasn’t discipline. It was design.
As the Onikaze loomed behind them like a knife resting on velvet, Ren turned to Hana.
“I… think I just got out-intimidated by a girl whose face doesn’t move.”
“She’s terrifying,” Hana whispered.
And somehow, the worst part?
Ren kind of wanted to impress her.
Scene 3: First Contact – Engine Envy and Silent Precision
—-: Hana
The interior of the Onikaze didn’t hum. It whispered.
Hana stood in the open observation gantry that ringed the Kyokuto ship’s docked core, flanked by Mei and two Hinode upperclassmen who had very quietly decided to be followers today. The hangar bay itself was spotless—too spotless. Every panel was seamless, welded shut as if designed never to be touched again. Every pipe followed a mathematically perfect arc.
This wasn’t a racing ship. It was a flying theorem.
Mei knelt beside an exposed coolant valve, scribbling notes on a scroll of carbon paper without even glancing down.
“High-pressure heat sink, four-stack. No external bleed valve. It vents internally,” she murmured.
“That’s impossible,” Hana said, frowning.
“Only if you don’t mind boiling the pilot alive. They don’t.”
She wasn’t joking.
A Kyokuto technician—if you could even call him that—stood nearby, motionless. Not monitoring. Not guarding. Just being there.
He didn’t acknowledge them. No head tilt. No foot tap. Just a silent reminder that every second they spent here was a privilege and a test.
Hana moved to the engine array.
Where her team had twisted scavenged parts into functionality and made beauty out of necessity, this was brutal elegance. The combustion chambers were inverted — likely a negative-thrust stabilization array. And the core…
She knelt, heart thudding. Her fingers brushed the lip of the housing unit, just enough to feel the faint pulse of the crystal inside.
“They’re using a closed-core prism compression loop,” she whispered, eyes wide.
Mei blinked. “That tech isn’t even in prototype phase at Hinode.”
“It’s not in prototype anywhere. I only read about it in the Speculative Futures of Applied Aerodynamics journal. It was theoretical.”
“Not anymore,” Mei said softly.
Hana’s breath caught.
There were no steam streaks. No overpressure seals. No quick-fix bolt lines.
Everything was planned. Calibrated. Precise. The Onikaze didn’t have scars. It had symmetry.
“Can we beat this?” one of the upperclassmen murmured.
Hana didn’t answer.
She stood, dusted her gloves, and took one long, hard look at the ship’s core.
Then she whispered, not for anyone else, “We don’t beat this. We survive it.”
Scene 4: Saki’s Scoop – "Are They Even Human?"
—-: Saki
Saki stood on the edge of the third-floor railing, arms folded over her clipboard, watching the Kyokuto crew walk in silent formation through the courtyard below like they were gliding on invisible rails.
She tapped the pen against her lips. Creepy? Definitely. Newsworthy? Absolutely.
Click. She snapped a photo with her crystal lens scope, catching the gleam of their mirrored visors. No reflection. Just empty silver. Like they didn’t even blink.
“Are they wearing those even in the cafeteria?” she muttered. “What do they eat, vapor?”
A first-year crept up beside her and whispered, “One of them bowed at a vending machine. The vending machine bowed back.”
Saki didn’t even look at him. “That’s going in.”
She turned and stormed back into the newsroom loft—really just a converted storage room filled with press crystals, ink canisters, and a persistent smell of printer oil and melon buns. She shoved past Taiga, who was trying to build a periscope using a soup can and pure confidence.
“Move it, breaking news.”
Taiga blinked. “If they’re robots, do they even sweat?”
“That’s a headline. Write it down.”
Saki slammed herself into the captain’s chair—peeling leather, slight wobble, absolutely hers—and yanked a fresh crystal sheet into the press mount. She cracked her fingers like a pianist about to break a national anthem.
Title:
"Kyokuto: Machines in Uniform?"
Subhead: "Elite Team or Engineered Response?"
She wrote fast, sharp, snarky. A barrage of questions, hints, and half-confirmed rumors.
- “No confirmed sightings of them outside helmets.”
- “Speak in monosyllables. Possibly trained in a cave.”
- “Rumors suggest one of them can adjust course with a breath.”
She punctuated the last one with a tiny sketch of a Kyokuto pilot levitating with psychic power. It was dumb. It was hilarious. It was perfect.
Then she paused. Chewed her pen cap.
“Are they robots?” she murmured. “Or just really good at not feeling anything?”
She looked out the window. Down below, Ren was laughing—awkwardly—while being glared at by one of the silent Kyokuto twins.
Saki’s eyes narrowed.
Whatever Kyokuto was, they weren’t here to play. And they weren’t used to anyone playing back.
She tapped her pen on the corner of the desk.
“…Time to see if steel cracks under spotlight.”
She hit publish.
Crystal ink shimmered to life.
Headline added to Hinode Weekly CrystalNet:
"Kyokuto to Replace Humans with Crystals?"
Circulation spike: +143%.
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Scene 5: The Letter She Never Sent
—-: Rin
The dorm was quiet. For once.
No clanking tools. No Taiga narrating his own failures. No Saki muttering headlines in her sleep. Just the low hiss of steam slipping from the pipe above Rin’s bed, the room dimly lit by the orange-glow pressure lamp on her desk.
Rin sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the bedframe, a wooden box open beside her knees.
Inside: a collection of flight pins, a folded scarf embroidered with silver feathers, and a letter—creased in four places but never opened. Not really. Not aloud.
She held the envelope up to the lamplight.
To Mom.
It was her handwriting. Slanted, precise. Unsent.
She hadn’t written a new one since the entrance exam.
And yet here she was, holding the one she never mailed.
Her thumb traced the corner. Slowly, deliberately, she peeled it open.
The paper inside crackled softly. She didn’t need to read it. She remembered every word.
April 3rd, Hinode Academy.
You said flying would fix me. That I’d find the wind again.
I joined. I raced. I fell.
I’m not broken, I just don’t want to be you.
I don’t want to chase your records. I want to build my own sky.
But I don’t know how to tell you that.
She folded it halfway.
The next part… she’d never read aloud. Not even in her head. Until now.
There’s a boy here. He’s stupid. He talks too much. His ship leaks steam like a kettle having a panic attack.
But when I fly with him…
She stopped.
The words blurred for a second. Just one second.
She wiped her cheek roughly and blew out a breath.
When she looked up, her reflection in the steam-glass mirror across the room stared back—barely visible through the fog.
Not her mother’s face. Not a mirror image.
Hers.
She folded the letter shut.
Didn’t seal it. Didn’t destroy it.
Just tucked it back in the box, slid the lid closed, and stood.
She didn’t need to send it. Not yet.
But someday…
She turned off the lamp and stepped into the dark.
Scene 6: Grandpa’s Warning – “They Race to Prove You Shouldn’t.”
—-: Ren
The hangar was empty except for dust motes dancing in the moonlight and the low, metallic groan of cooling pressure lines. The Dart stood in shadow, half-covered by a tarp, its silver hull still catching enough light to gleam like a tooth in the dark.
Ren sat on the nose of the ship, legs dangling off the edge. He wasn’t working. Not tonight. Just... thinking.
Kyokuto.
They hadn’t even raised their voices.
They hadn’t needed to.
The way they moved — smooth, mechanical, calculated — gave him chills. It wasn’t just skill. It was silence weaponized. Like flying was just math and inevitability to them.
Behind him, a soft clink echoed from the workshop side of the hangar.
Grandpa Genzō stepped out of the shadows, puffing on an unlit pipe.
Ren didn’t look back. “You knew they were coming.”
A pause. Then Grandpa answered, his voice low, almost solemn. “I knew something colder than spring was about to blow in.”
Ren sighed. “They’re good.”
“No,” Grandpa said, walking up beside the Dart, hand trailing across the hull like he was checking its temperature. “They’re perfect. And that’s the problem.”
Ren tilted his head. “You don’t sound impressed.”
“Oh, I’m impressed. Terrified too.” Genzō leaned on his cane and squinted at the ceiling. “That ship of theirs? The Onikaze? Has no heart. Just drive. Just calculation. Every panel’s precision-milled. Every maneuver planned to the millisecond. Every word they don’t say is rehearsed.”
Ren swallowed. “So... what does that make us?”
Grandpa chuckled, but it didn’t carry far.
“You? You’re held together with steam, hope, and at least three loose bolts.”
Ren winced. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You think I’m joking?” Grandpa jabbed the cane at the Dart’s side. “This ship bleeds character. You’re not flying a weapon, Ren. You’re flying a rebellion.”
That made Ren blink.
“Kyokuto doesn’t race to win,” Grandpa said. “They race to prove no one else should bother. They erase the spirit of it — the chaos, the learning, the heartache. They want the skies to be theirs. Silent. Ordered. Final.”
He finally looked Ren dead in the eye. “You can’t beat them at their game.”
Ren nodded slowly. “So we play ours.”
A sharp smile curled on Grandpa’s lips.
“Now you’re thinking like a Lawson.”