**April 9, 2103 — 3:45 pm Imperial Standard Time**
**Falconry Institute — Disciplinary Jury Chamber**
---
The tribunal reconvened at three forty-five.
Same bench. Same seven faculty members. Same recording equipment in the walls.
One difference.
Daigo Mori sat in the chair where Ichiro had been.
His lip had been treated but not fully healed. He sat with the posture of someone who had made a decision and arrived at the point of executing it.
Kanzaki looked at him.
"You requested to make a statement."
"Yes."
"Proceed."
Daigo exhaled once.
"The fire at House Karasu headquarters was not an attack by Ichiro Yoshima or Akira Hayashi," he said. "We set it ourselves."
The chamber took a moment to process that.
Then erupted.
Voices across the bench — sharp, overlapping, the noise of people whose established narrative had just collapsed under them.
"That's an extraordinary claim," Kanzaki said, cutting through the others. "The witness placed Yoshima at the scene—"
"After the fact," Daigo said. "We set the fire. We planted evidence connecting Hayashi to the location. Yoshima arrived and intervened."
"Why would your House burn its own headquarters?"
"Because we were told to."
Silence.
"By whom?"
"House Shinjo."
The quiet that followed was different from the previous one. Deeper. The faculty along the bench exchanged glances with the careful economy of people assembling implications they weren't ready to speak aloud yet.
"You're claiming," Kanzaki said slowly, "that House Shinjo instructed you to burn your own headquarters, plant false evidence against two first-year students, and frame them for expulsion."
"Yes."
"And you expect this panel to find that credible."
"I have evidence." Daigo produced a data chip and set it on the surface in front of him. "FPI transfer records. Logged through the Falcon network. Three days before the incident — a direct transfer from House Shinjo accounts to House Karasu. The amount is consistent with what was offered as payment."
An adviser at the far end of the bench leaned forward.
"Network logs don't lie," he said quietly.
A murmur moved through the chamber.
Kanzaki took the chip. Passed it left.
"What was offered beyond the points?" he asked.
"Protection," Daigo said. "From Hayashi. From the political friction surrounding the revival attempt. House Shinjo offered cover if anything went wrong. Weapons access through their military affiliations. Guaranteed FPI if we succeeded."
The murmur sharpened.
"This is outrageous," someone on the bench said.
"The transfer records are verifiable," the adviser said, examining the chip. "If this data is accurate—"
"It can be fabricated," another faculty member countered.
"Network logs cannot be retroactively altered without administrator access. That's a foundational system protection."
The debate moved across the bench in competing voices until Kanzaki raised his hand.
The chamber settled.
He looked at Daigo.
"You understand that making a false statement before this panel constitutes a major disciplinary violation."
"I understand."
Kanzaki held his gaze. Then looked toward the head of the bench.
Yamamoto had been silent since Daigo sat down. He had listened with the stillness of someone who processed information before allowing any of it to surface.
Now he spoke.
"Release Yoshima."
The bench turned toward him.
"Immediately," he added. "Provisional confinement ends pending full investigation."
Kanzaki straightened. "The investigation should precede—"
"The investigation should have preceded the confinement," Yamamoto said. "We are correcting that sequence now."
He looked at the full bench.
"House Karasu and House Shinjo are placed under formal investigation for conspiracy, evidence tampering, and conduct violations. FPI transfers are frozen pending review. House Shinjo's weapons requisition access is suspended until the investigation concludes."
He stood.
"If the allegations are substantiated — and the transfer records suggest they will be — both Houses face sanctions up to and including dissolution."
He looked at Daigo one final time.
Not with warmth. But without contempt either.
"You made the right choice," he said simply.
He left the bench.
The chamber erupted behind him.
---
**Falconry Institute — House Shinjo Quarters**
**4:20 pm**
---
Ryota heard about it before the announcement reached his section.
He was at the window when the notification hit his halo — investigation initiated, transfers frozen, House Shinjo under formal review — and the word frozen landed somewhere behind his sternum with the weight of a plan reversing direction.
He stood there running the sequence backward.
Daigo had talked.
Which meant someone had reached him first.
Which meant—
The hand across the back of his head was not gentle.
He stumbled forward, caught himself on the windowsill, and turned to find Kenji three feet away with an expression that had moved past patience entirely.
"Explain," Kenji said, "how our transfers are frozen and our House is under investigation on the second week of term."
"Daigo wasn't supposed to—"
"Daigo talked. Which means your plan had a gap you didn't account for."
Ryota said nothing.
Kenji stepped closer.
"Worst case — this reaches Father. And if Father has to come here to clean up what you started—"
"I'll handle it."
"You've handled it beautifully." Flat. "The House is under investigation. The two students you were trying to remove are still enrolled."
He leaned in.
"And Ichiro Yoshima is being released from confinement right now."
He let that sit.
"You remember what I told you," Kenji said. "When your plans fail — everything becomes yours. The transfer, the Karasu orders, the witness arrangement. All of it becomes your unsanctioned decision made without House approval."
Ryota's jaw tightened.
"But forget the investigation for now," Kenji continued, turning toward the window. "Stop worrying about politics."
He glanced back.
"Start worrying about what happens when someone like Ichiro Yoshima decides you were responsible for putting him in confinement."
He walked away.
Ryota stood at the window.
The frozen notification pulsed above his halo.
For the first time since the plan had assembled itself in his mind, something moved through his expression that wasn't calculation.
---
**Falconry Institute — Eastern Training Corridor**
**4:38 pm**
---
Ichiro was sitting on the floor of an empty corridor when Akira found him.
Back against the wall. Coat beside him. Eyes on nothing in particular.
She stopped in the doorway.
He looked up.
Neither of them spoke immediately.
Then Akira stepped inside.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Fine."
She stood there for a moment. Looking at him. The corridor was quiet enough that the ventilation system overhead was audible.
"I heard what happened in the tribunal," she said. "Daigo's statement."
"I heard."
"Mitsui arranged it."
"I assumed."
Another silence. Akira moved to the wall across from him and leaned against it, arms folded. Not hostile. Thinking.
"Why were you there?" she asked.
"At the headquarters?"
"Yes."
He didn't answer immediately.
"I heard them talking," he said. "About burning something. I followed them."
"You thought it was the pavilion."
"Yes."
"But it wasn't."
"No."
Akira looked at him carefully. "And when you realized what they were actually burning — what they were planting there — you still went in."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He said nothing.
She pushed off the wall slightly. "I'm asking you a direct question."
"I know."
"Then answer it."
"It's handled," he said. "That's what matters."
Akira stared at him. The particular frustration of someone trying to have a conversation with a wall that occasionally responds.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the one I have."
"No," she said. "It's the one you're choosing to give me."
He didn't disagree.
She exhaled through her nose and looked at the ceiling briefly before bringing her gaze back to him.
"You got arrested," she said. "You sat through a tribunal without saying a word. You let them build a case against you rather than explain yourself. Does any of that sound like something a rational person does?"
"The situation required it."
"The situation required you to nearly get expelled?"
"The situation required that no one could use what I knew to make things worse for you."
Akira went quiet.
"So you knew something," she said. "Something that would have helped you. And you didn't use it."
"Yes."
"Because using it would have made things worse for me."
"Yes."
She looked at him. "Why do you care what happens to me?"
Silence.
"Ichiro."
"It doesn't matter why."
"It matters to me."
He looked at the floor.
"You keep doing that," she said. "You show up. You do things. You don't explain them. You just — appear. And I'm supposed to understand what it means."
"You don't need to understand what it means."
"I do, actually," she said. "Because my name has been attached to everything you've done since we arrived here. The tribunal. The fire. The investigation. Whether you intended it or not — every time you act, it affects me directly."
"I know."
"And yet you keep acting."
"Yes."
She pressed her fingers against her temple briefly.
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
He looked up.
"Making it harder for me," she said. "Is that what this is? You show up, you cause chaos, and somehow the result is that my revival application looks more impossible every day—"
"No."
"Then what is it?" Her voice had an edge now. Not anger exactly. The frustration of someone who had been trying to read a language they hadn't been taught. "Because from where I'm standing, you have made my situation considerably more complicated than it already was. Before you got involved, the only problem I had was a lack of members. Now I have a tribunal record, my name attached to arson rumors, and half the campus convinced I'm using you as some kind of weapon."
Ichiro said nothing.
"So either you're doing this deliberately," she said, "or you are genuinely the most reckless person I have ever encountered. And I don't think you're reckless."
A long pause.
"Then what are you saying?" he asked.
"I'm saying I don't understand you," she said. "I don't understand what you want. I don't understand why you're here. I don't understand why you cleaned the pavilion or why you went into that building or why you kept silent through a tribunal that was about to expel you."
She looked at him directly.
"And I need to understand. Because whatever you're doing — however you intend it — it's affecting my ability to rebuild something that matters more to me than anything else in this building."
Ichiro held her gaze.
"Your House will be rebuilt," he said.
"That's not—"
"I'll make sure of it."
She stopped.
Stared at him.
"What does that mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"You'll make sure of it," she repeated slowly. "You. Personally. Will make sure that I rebuild House Hayashi."
"Yes."
"How?"
"However it needs to be done."
She let out a short breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
"You can't just say that," she said. "You can't just — decide that you're going to make sure of something like that and offer no explanation—"
"I can."
"That's not how it works."
"It's how I work."
"Well it doesn't work for me!" The edge in her voice sharpened. "I don't know you. I don't know why you're doing any of this. And I don't know if I can trust someone whose reasons I don't understand."
Ichiro was quiet.
"Do you understand that?" she asked. "I'm not trying to be ungrateful. But I have one thing — one goal — that I came here for. And I cannot afford to let someone into that goal whose intentions I cannot read."
"My intentions don't change the outcome."
"They do to me!"
The words hit the corridor walls and came back.
Silence followed.
Akira stood with her arms at her sides now, the careful composure she usually carried displaced by something more honest. Not anger — or not only anger. The particular frustration of someone who had been trying to solve a problem and kept finding that the problem wouldn't hold still long enough to be solved.
Ichiro looked at her.
For a moment she thought he was going to answer.
He opened his mouth slightly.
Then closed it.
Looked away.
"Of course," she said.
Her voice had flattened.
"Of course you're not going to say anything."
She picked up her bag from where she'd set it near the door.
"I don't know what you want from me," she said. "I don't know what you think you're doing. But whatever it is—"
She stopped at the doorway.
Turned back once.
"Just try not to make it any harder than it already is."
She left.
Her footsteps faded down the corridor.
Ichiro sat with his back against the wall in the quiet she left behind.
He looked at his hands.
At the empty corridor.
At the doorway she had walked through.
She didn't know him personally.
They didn't know each other prior to Falcon.
Little does she know, Ichiro was bound to her.
The Hayashi clan had burned on a night ichiro chose to take matters on his own. Now, he lives with the burden of thingking that their blood is in his hands.
He hadn't told her that.
He didn't know how to.
He only knew one way to carry something — quietly, completely, without explanation.
Which was, he was beginning to understand, exactly the wrong way for her.
He leaned his head back against the wall.
Stared at the ceiling.
Said nothing.
Because there was no one left to say it to.
---
*He would make sure she got her House.*
*He just hadn't figured out yet how to be someone she could accept it from.*
---