The dormitories smelled like stone and rain even when it wasn’t raining — that particular cold-mineral smell old buildings get when they’ve been standing long enough to stop caring about the weather.
Rune lanterns lined the halls in even intervals, throwing soft blue light across a river of students moving in both directions, bags on shoulders, voices bouncing off high ceilings.
A notice board dominated the entrance hall, three deep with bodies trying to read it at once.
Someone near the front groaned theatrically.
Someone else laughed too loud at their own joke.
Nagi waited his turn without pushing, and when a gap opened he stepped up and found his name near the bottom of a list headed Room 47 — East Wing (Common Track).
*Gota.
Kakame.* He read the names twice, out of habit more than uncertainty.
*Roommates.
Okay.
As long as it’s not loud.*
He wasn’t holding his breath on that one.
The East Wing hallway was narrower than the entrance, doors closer together, the lanterns a little dimmer like the budget had run thin by the time it reached this far.
Room 47’s door was already propped open, voices spilling out before Nagi even got there.
Inside, a stocky boy with short brown hair was hauling what looked like three overstuffed travel sacks across the room one-handed, like they weighed nothing at all — which, Nagi guessed, for him, they probably didn’t.
A second boy lounged against the window frame, all sharp angles and lazy posture, a dark cloak pooling around him even though the room was warm.
Small ribbons of shadow drifted off his shoulders and stuck themselves to the wall in loose shapes, like he was doodling with them out of boredom.
“You’re Nagi, right?” The sturdy one dropped his bags with a heavy thud and grinned before Nagi had even crossed the threshold.
“Saw your demo. Sixty seconds of pure speed, no flash, no gimmicks — that was clean. I’m Gota. Earth stuff. C-rank, same as you, I think.”
“Kakame.” The one by the window didn’t bother straightening up, just lifted two fingers in something between a wave and a salute.
“Shadows. Don’t mind the decorations.” He nodded at the tendrils stuck along the wall.
“They’re harmless. Mostly.”
Nagi set his bag down on the one empty bed.
The frame creaked under the weight like it was used to worse.
“Nagi.” He looked between them, unbothered.
“Speed. Good to meet you both.”
The room itself wasn’t much — three beds, a shared desk under the window, stone walls bare except for whatever Kakame had already started decorating them with.
But it was clean, and quiet in the way that mattered, and the window looked straight out over the training grounds where Nagi had run his sixty seconds that morning.
Gota was already rearranging furniture, shoving his bed frame sideways one-handed to open up floor space.
“This whole wing’s C-rank and under, mostly,” he said, grunting with the last push.
“Nobles get the West Wing. Bigger rooms, actual servants, the works. Heard Yuji Kunagumi’s crew scored a whole suite up there.”
“Thunder boy and his friends.” Kakame’s mouth curled, not quite a smile.
“They were talking the whole walk over about ‘village speed.’ Pretty sure they think we’re gonna tank the class average just by breathing near them.”
Nagi sat on the edge of his bed and started unpacking, unhurried.
The name didn’t get much of a reaction out of him.
*Yuji.
The blond one.
Loud flow.*
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, folding a shirt he didn’t really need to fold yet.
“We’re all in the same classes tomorrow either way.”
Up in the West Wing, the halls widened into something closer to a manor than a dormitory — tapestries instead of bare stone, lanterns that actually matched.
Yuji Kunagumi had claimed the best chair in Room 12 and draped himself across it like he’d been born knowing how, two friends sprawled nearby with fresh B-rank badges still catching the light.
A servant set down a tray of tea nobody had asked for and slipped back out without a word.
“Private enough,” Yuji said, tipping his cup slightly, admiring the room like it owed him something.
“Those commoner rooms have to be closets by comparison.” He smirked into his tea.
“Did you see that speed kid’s face when I called him out? Sixty seconds and he’s done. Pathetic.”
“He’s unique, though.” The wind-magic friend said it carefully, testing the water.
“Pure speed’s not exactly common, Yuji-sama.”
“Unique trash is still trash.” Yuji set the cup down harder than he needed to.
“Tomorrow’s classes will sort it out fast enough. Theory, rank development, practical combat — they’ll see real thunder soon enough.”
Nobody in the room disagreed with him.
Nobody ever really did.
Back in Room 47, evening had settled in properly, the window gone dark blue and the lanterns doing most of the work now.
Gota passed around some kind of dried fruit from his bag like it was a peace offering nobody needed to accept twice.
Kakame had gotten bored enough to shape a pair of shadow birds and send them looping lazily around the room, more for his own entertainment than anyone else’s.
“Classes start tomorrow,” Gota said, mouth half full.
“Theory, rank development, combat flow — and they mix everyone. Nobles and us, same room, same lessons. Should be interesting.”
“Bet Yuji tries something on day one.” Kakame flicked a finger and one of the shadow birds dove, skimming Gota’s head before pulling up.
“He seemed real fixated on you out there, Nagi. That gonna be a problem?”
Nagi lay back on his bed, hands behind his head, eyes half-closed the way they usually were.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“He flows his way. I flow mine.” A beat.
“Sixty seconds when I need it. No point overreacting to someone who hasn’t done anything yet.”
Gota laughed, low and easy.
“Man, you’re really something. I like it. We’ll watch each other’s backs in there tomorrow — nobles think they’ve got this whole thing figured out already.”
Outside the window, the two wings of the academy sat lit up against the dark — the East Wing’s steady, modest glow, and further off, the West Wing burning brighter, louder, laughter carrying faintly across the courtyard between them.
Two different kinds of light, under the same roof, waiting on the same morning.
Neither wing had any idea yet how little any of it would matter once the island came for all of them.
*End of Chapter 5*