The air beneath Floor 13 was hot and heavy, like steam trapped in the earth's lungs.
Sulfur and ash clung to every breath, and even the torchlight flickered with sluggish reluctance.
Lefiya adjusted the hem of her battle robe, her fingers twitching at the hilt of her staff.
Her party pushed forward: Bete led at the front, snarling, while Tiona moved with dangerous ease behind him.
Lefiya kept her pace steady, close enough to support, far enough not to get in the way. The usual rhythm.
But her mind wasn't on the terrain or the monsters.
It was on him.
Toji Fushiguro.
She hadn't told anyone, not even Aiz, what she had done, how she'd followed him into the Dungeon, watched his cold and efficient violence, and begged him to train her.
And he had. Not kindly. Not softly. His words were harsh, his expectations worse.
No spells. No crutches. Only movement, reading, thinking, and acting under pressure.
And now, walking through this tunnel of stale breath and darkness, she could feel the echo of those sessions: the burn in her legs from his conditioning drills, the way her instincts now snapped to danger rather than dither and waver.
"Lefiya, stay close," Riveria said, sparing a glance back. She nodded quickly.
They entered a wider cavern, and that's when everything shattered.
The ambush came with unnatural silence. War Shadows burst from the walls, somehow already positioned, already hiding.
Tiona shouted, blade slashing through two before they landed. Bete snarled and lunged. But then.
The floor cracked.
A nest of Killer Ants exploded upward from beneath them, tearing out with glistening red mandibles.
They surrounded the party, numbers far too many for a mid-floor raid. Something had gone wrong. Someone had been watching them. Setting this up.
"Dammit! how many are there?!" Bete barked, kicking a War Shadow into a stalagmite.
Lefiya raised her staff, panic surging up her throat. "L-Luminous Wind—!"
But then she froze.
Too many allies nearby. Too many shadows. Too easy to misfire.
Her fingers trembled.
The old Lefiya would've stayed there, rooted in fear, unsure which spell to use, which direction to aim. The weak, stammering girl who lived under Aiz's shadow.
But Toji's voice echoed in her skull.
"You hesitate, you die. And worse, you let others die."
She clenched her jaw. Her grip on her staff shifted. Aiming too close would risk hitting Riveria or Tiona. Aiming too far would waste precious seconds.
She dropped her casting.
And moved.
Riveria blinked as Lefiya darted left, skirt snapping around her legs as she slid across the rocky floor. The War Shadow that had been creeping behind her, Lefiya's eyes snapped to it.
She stabbed it with the bottom of her staff. No elegance. No chanting. Just a single precise motion that knocked it backward.
Then, breath steady, she pointed her staff to the far wall.
Now.
"Luminous Wind!" The chant came like a whip crack.
The magic circle erupted around her, green light glowing like a miniature sun.
The gale blew forward, curling around her allies, guided by the new control she had forged through pain and repetition.
Killer Ants screamed as their chitin cracked. War Shadows were blasted into the stone.
Riveria turned fully to look at her now, a flicker of something passing behind the elven woman's usually calm eyes.
Surprise?
Lefiya wasn't done.
Three more quick steps. She pivoted behind Tiona, who grinned, clearly noticing, and launched a follow-up spell to cover Bete's blind spot.
"Don't slow down!" she shouted, chest heaving. "Push right! They're weaker at the flank!"
Even Bete raised an eyebrow at her voice.
And from the shadows high above the cavern, watching silently, Toji smiled.
Just slightly.
He had followed from a distance, curious.
Not concerned, he knew she wouldn't die, not with her Familia, but curious.
Whether she would flinch. Fall back into old habits.
Whether his efforts had been wasted.
But here she was. Not perfect. Not brutal. Not like him.
But thinking. Moving. And most of all, adapting.
That was all he ever cared about.
Back in the cavern, the tide was turning.
The ambush, while dangerous, had been timed wrong.
Overconfidence in numbers.
The monsters were being driven back now.
War Shadows melted under enchanted blades.
Killer Ants cracked apart from spell and steel alike.
Lefiya's hair was loose now, sweat plastering it to her temple, but her hands didn't shake anymore.
She didn't even realize she was moving with the others like a natural rhythm.
Timing her spells between their strikes. Filling gaps. No longer a burden.
By the time the last War Shadow dissolved into ash, her knees nearly buckled. She dropped to a crouch, panting.
Tiona came up beside her, grinning. "Daaamn, Lefiya! That was slick! Since when do you give orders?"
"I—I didn't mean to, I just—"
"No, seriously!" the Amazon clapped her shoulder, nearly knocking her over. "That was the cleanest backline coordination I've seen you do."
Riveria approached next. She didn't speak at first. Just looked at her.
Then, quietly: "You were thinking like a frontliner."
Lefiya blinked. "I—was I?"
"Timing, positioning, assessment. You were calculating enemy routes instead of waiting for instruction."
"I didn't really think about it, I just... I saw it coming. I knew what to do."
Riveria gave the barest smile. "That's what instinct becomes. With the right training."
Lefiya's eyes flicked up, toward the ceiling. Toward where a shadow had once been.
But there was nothing there now. Just the flickering light of the Dungeon, and the heavy, tired breathing of survivors.
...
The Dungeon's breath was still tonight.
The upper edge of Floor 13 was quiet again, torches humming low and casting lazy halos of amber light.
Somewhere behind her, the Loki Familia was resting after the skirmish. Jokes, scoldings, light wounds being healed, just another mission cleaned up.
But Lefiya had slipped away.
She walked with a purpose now. Not with anxiety, not unsure. There was no trembling in her hands. Just the lingering adrenaline in her blood and a need gnawing at her chest.
She found him easily. He wasn't hiding.
Toji sat against a sloping wall of stone near a collapsed bridge, one leg stretched out, the other bent.
A half-eaten skewer of some Dungeon-cooked meat hung from his hand, lazily chewed.
His eyes flicked toward her as she approached, deadpan, unreadable, a flicker of acknowledgment and nothing more.
"You didn't fall on your face. Congrats," he said flatly, biting the skewer.
Lefiya blinked.
"That's... your way of saying 'well done,' isn't it?"
Toji snorted. "Don't get cocky."
"I'm not! I just, I thought.... maybe I should report back to you." She stepped closer, flushed but standing tall. "You said you'd watch."
"I did." He tossed the stick aside, stood, stretched like a bored lion. "Saw the whole thing."
Silence lingered a bit longer. She looked up at him, waiting.
He finally tilted his head slightly. "You didn't hesitate. Used terrain. Reacted to your team's rhythm instead of waiting for theirs to adjust to you. Not bad."
Her eyes lit up.
"R-Really?"
He narrowed his eyes. "You sound shocked."
"No, I mean—yes—I just—" she rubbed the back of her head. "It's hard to tell what you think, sometimes."
"That's 'cause you talk too much."
Lefiya pouted. "I'm just trying to understand you."
"You won't. So don't bother."
A pause. She expected him to walk away after that, Toji wasn't exactly the talking type.
But he stayed there for a beat longer, watching her, eyes unreadable. Then he slowly leaned back against the wall again, arms crossed.
"...That spell. The wind one."
"Luminous Wind?"
"Yeah. You cast it like you wanted something dead. That's good."
Lefiya blinked again. It wasn't exactly praise.... but it was Toji's equivalent of a gold medal.
Her heart beat a little faster. Not in that dreamy way she felt around Aiz. This was different. This was...
Earned.
"....You remind me of a kid I knew."
Her ears perked. "A child? Yours?"
He didn't answer right away. His eyes drifted into the middle distance, and his voice turned quieter.
"Smart. Hesitant. Overthought everything. But he had potential." His jaw tightened slightly. "Used a technique with shadows. It was the only thing connecting us."
There was a heaviness there. Lefiya could feel it. She wasn't sure what to say.
She didn't.
"I used to train him," Toji continued, not really speaking to her now. "Spar with him. Watch him get up even when I knocked him down a hundred times."
"...Did he become strong?"
Toji shrugged.
"Maybe. Who know"
A silence stretched between them. The kind that didn't need filling.
Then he glanced back at her, his expression neutral again.
"You're not him," he said bluntly. "But you got guts. That'll do."
A quiet smile bloomed on her face. Not the loud, excited kind. Just soft and real.
"....Thanks."
Toji looked at her. She was still flushed from battle, hair messy, armor scraped. But her eyes had that glint now. The glint of someone chasing power, not for glory, but for purpose.
And he sighed.
"I'll teach you something new next time."
Her head snapped up. "Wait, really?"
"Don't make me regret it."
Lefiya straightened like a soldier. "I won't!"
He turned, walking off into the Dungeon shadows, probably toward another fight or another stupid self-imposed exile.
But for the first time, as he disappeared into the dark, Lefiya didn't feel like she was being left behind.
...
The morning light filtered into the Loki Familia's upper floor dorms, golden rays warming the wood-paneled rooms and illuminating dust motes that danced lazily in the air.
It was peaceful, at least until a certain elven girl stormed into Aiz Wallenstein's quarters, cheeks flushed and lips pulled into a reluctant frown.
"I may have been training," Lefiya admitted, arms crossed, refusing to meet Aiz's golden eyes. "But it's not like I wanted to."
Aiz tilted her head, folding her hands over her lap. "With Toji?"
Lefiya stiffened. "...Y-Yes. But it's not what you think! He's rude, uncultured, and he probably doesn't even know how magic works!" she huffed. "But..."
The 'but' lingered, thick in the air.
Aiz's lips twitched in a barely-there smile. She had already suspected something was going on. Lefiya's recent sharpness in their last dungeon raid had been undeniable.
The way she moved, hesitation gone, footwork refined, was unlike the girl who once clung to the rear line and second-guessed every chant.
There was still fear in her eyes sometimes, but now it shared space with something else: steel.
"You respect him," Aiz said simply.
"I—N-No! I just think his methods are... efficient," Lefiya muttered, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Brutal and unnecessarily harsh, but... maybe there's something to it. And it's not like I want to think he's cool or anything! Hmph!"
Aiz nodded slowly. "Is it helping?"
Lefiya glanced down. Her voice lowered, more honest now. "Yes. I think I understand more of what it means to be in the Dungeon. Not just survive it, but live in it. The way he moves, the way he never wastes a breath... I want to be like that. For all of us."
Aiz leaned forward slightly. "Then keep going."
Lefiya's eyes widened. "You're not going to stop me?"
"No," Aiz replied. "But others might. Be careful."
And indeed, others had begun to notice.
Bete had raised an eyebrow during a recent spar when Lefiya didn't flinch at his feint.
Tiona and Tione exchanged glances when she spoke up about formation shifts during their planning meeting, more assertive than usual.
And when she didn't flub a chant mid-combat against a cluster of Skull Sheep in the lower floors, Gareth muttered something about her "finally growing a backbone."
Loki, ever nosy and rarely subtle, had started sniffing around.
"So, Lefiya," she said one evening, swirling her drink in a half-empty wineglass, voice laced with mischief. "Where've you been disappearing to lately? Not hiding a boyfriend, are ya?"
Lefiya promptly choked on her juice and smacked the table. "W-What?! N-No! That's.... unthinkable!"
"Oh-ho?" Loki grinned. "You've got this glow lately. All sharp-eyed and twitchy. Smells like secrets~"
"I-It's training! That's all!" Lefiya said, then immediately regretted it.
Loki's grin widened, eyes gleaming like a cat who'd found a mouse cornered.
"Training, huh? With who?"
"I—" Lefiya clamped her mouth shut. Too late.
Loki leaned in. "Oh, now I'm curious."
Tiona and Tione looked over from their card game, curious. Bete snorted from the window. "If she's got a secret teacher, he'd better not be trash."
"He's not—" Lefiya stopped herself again. Her voice dropped into a tiny mutter. "He's not trash."
The room went quiet.
Then Tione blinked. "Wait... are you talking about that guy? That quiet, weird, scary dude who hangs around the Hostess sometimes?"
"The one who took out the Silverback like it was nothing?" Tiona added, grinning. "What's his name again?"
"Toji," Aiz said softly.
All eyes turned to her.
Lefiya shrank in her seat, face burning. "I-it's not like I asked him to! He just... said yes! And I—!"
Loki nearly spit her drink. "You mean that guy's training our little Lefiya?! Pfft! That's rich!"
"I-it's not a joke!" Lefiya snapped, rising to her feet. "He's—He's cruel and unkind, and he pushes me harder than anyone, but... he's strong. He fights with precision, like he's always a step ahead. I want to learn that. I need to."
There was a silence that followed, surprised, heavy, but not unkind.
Aiz stood as well, brushing down her skirt. "I saw him fight once. I understand what she means."
Loki leaned back, frowning now. "Toji, huh...? That bastard's been keeping his distance, but I had a feeling he wasn't just some vagrant. Alright, Lefiya," she said, pointing her finger with mock-seriousness.
"You're still part of this Familia. I'm letting this slide, for now. But you let me know the second he pulls anything fishy."
"I will," Lefiya said, still flushed, but determined.
Later that week.
Toji watched from the shadowed cliff overlooking a clearing in the mid-floors.
Lefiya stood at its center, magic staff clenched in both hands, breathing hard. Her lips moved in chant, but her eyes remained fixed forward, sharp and alert.
She didn't flinch when the monster lunged. Her legs moved precisely, stepping into position like he taught. No wasted motion. No panic.
When the spell landed, clean, efficient, he raised an eyebrow.
She'd improved.
When the last monster fell, she slumped slightly, exhaling. Then turned her head, as if sensing his presence.
She couldn't see him, not with how well he hid his signature, but she always seemed to know he was watching.
Later, when they met again deeper inside the Dungeon, she looked smug. "Didn't mess up my chant once."
Toji shrugged. "Didn't look impressive either."
"Hmph! You just can't compliment someone, can you?!"
"I did," he said with a small smirk. "By my standards."
Lefiya blinked. Her heart did a tiny, confusing skip. "...O-oh."
He turned, already walking away. "Next time, don't trip over your footwork. And stop overthinking. Magic's no good if your head's full of static."
She followed behind, hiding her smile. "Y-Yeah, yeah..."
From the shadows of Orario, from her corner in the Loki Familia, a young elf had taken her first real step forward, and strangely, it was with the help of the most unlikely mentor imaginable.
And back in the depths of the Dungeon, a man who claimed he didn't care had unknowingly started to remember something precious... like the faint shadow of a boy he once tried to train before fate tore them apart.
Perhaps, without even knowing it, they were both helping each other heal.