The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

The smell of garlic and sesame oil hit Jin before he even stepped into the kitchen.

He paused in the doorway, letting the warmth soak in, not just from the stove, but from the quiet buzz of voices and the soft clatter of cooking. Seul stood near the counter, her hair tied back, sleeves rolled to her elbows. A pot simmered gently on the burner in front of her, steam curling into the air like lazy smoke.

Jin leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Didn’t know you were on chef duty tonight."

Seul didn’t look back. "If I left it to Joon again, we’d all be eating protein bars and regret."

"Hey," Joon called from the other room. "I heard that."

"You were supposed to." She gave the soup a slow stir, then glanced over her shoulder at Jin. "Besides, it’s nothing fancy. Just something hot before we all pass out."

Jin nodded and stepped inside. The kitchen wasn’t large, but it was bright, clean, and smelled like a place people actually lived in. The rice cooker clicked in the corner, and plates were already stacked on the side, ready to be dished out.

Areum leaned against the far wall, her hair still damp from a quick shower, glass blade resting inside its sheath across her back. She perked up when she saw Jin enter, straightening quickly.

"Oh! Jin!" she said, a little too loud. "I meant to show you earlier, I’ve been working on splitting the blade."

He raised an eyebrow. "Splitting?"

"Yeah! Like, instead of keeping it solid all the time, I figured I could shatter it mid-air, you know?" She gestured with her hands, miming an explosion. "Then control the fragments like little projectiles before pulling them back together."

Jin blinked once. "That sounds... dangerous."

Areum grinned. "Only if I mess it up."

"She’s actually getting good with it," Doyun said from the corner, where he sat cross-legged, tapping something into a notepad. "Almost took Joon’s eye out earlier."

"I was wearing goggles," Joon shouted again.

"Barely counts," Doyun muttered.

Jin walked over and took a seat at the table, stretching his legs out under it. "Still, that’s smart. You’re not just relying on raw output anymore."

Areum beamed at the praise and flopped into the seat across from him. "I mean, I’m still figuring it out. The pieces move weird once they leave my hand. Takes more focus than I thought to control them."

"You’ll get it," Jin said. "Don’t rush. You’ve already come a long way."

Doyun looked up from his notepad. "What about me?"

Jin smirked. "Still melting targets?"

Doyun shrugged. "Melting. Corroding. Making them panic. It’s progress."

"Actually," Seul cut in as she started scooping soup into bowls, "he’s figured out how to shape it. Not just spit and pray anymore."

Doyun scratched the back of his head, clearly trying to look modest. "Kind of. I can angle it, give it more pressure. Still stinks, though."

"It’s acid," Seul said flatly. "Of course it stinks."

Jin laughed under his breath as she handed him a bowl, warm and fragrant in his hands. "Looks good."

"Eat it while it is." She moved around the table, placing bowls in front of the others. Areum had already started poking at hers with a spoon, blowing lightly on the steam.

Joon wandered in last, hair damp, sleeves pushed up, and slid into the seat next to Doyun. "Am I late?"

"You’re the reason we didn’t starve," Jin said. "So I’d say no."

"Thank Seul," Joon said, already digging in. "She stopped me from seasoning it with energy drinks."

"Please stop bringing that up," Seul muttered, settling into the last empty chair.

For a few minutes, the room filled only with the sounds of eating, the quiet clink of spoons, the occasional cough of someone eating too fast, and the content hum that only came after long days and good food.

Jin ate slowly, letting the warmth settle in his chest.

Across the table, Areum was still talking, now about some ridiculous plan she had to turn her glass blade into a whip. Doyun threw out a few physics-related objections, which she promptly ignored. Seul and Joon traded sarcastic commentary while Echo leaned halfway into the kitchen, sipping tea and offering dry reactions every now and then.

No one was arguing. No one was bleeding.

It was nice.

"Hey," Areum said suddenly, cutting through the quiet. "Do you think we’re actually getting better?"

Jin looked up.

She wasn’t smiling. Not teasing. Just asking.

He didn’t answer right away.

Then, slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. You are."

Areum looked down at her bowl, ears turning a little red.

Doyun cleared his throat, clearly trying to act unaffected, but Jin could see the faint curl of a grin on his face.

"You all are," Jin said. "You’re learning. You’re moving. That’s what matters."

Seul glanced at him, something unreadable in her eyes, but she said nothing. Just kept eating.

Outside, the sky had faded to navy, stars beginning to peek through the haze. The windows reflected the warmth inside, candlelight flickering faintly over glass.

Jin leaned back in his chair, bowl half-empty in front of him, and let the moment settle.

Small victories.

They mattered too.

The halls were quiet by the time Jin stepped away from the kitchen.

The others had started drifting off, Seul had disappeared first, muttering something about setting an early alarm. Areum had crashed across one of the common room couches, still talking in her sleep about bladed whips. Joon and Doyun were debating something under their breath, half-hearted and fading.

Jin didn’t feel like sleeping yet.

Not in the dorms.

Not in the heat of that many bodies in one place.

He needed something still.

His body was tired, yes, sore in that sharp, satisfying way that told him he’d pushed just enough, but his mind was still tracing lines through forms, revisiting the fight with Hanuel, the flow of the River’s Edge sequence, the precise places his balance faltered when pressure came from an angle he didn’t expect.

His feet led him without thought.

Back to the library.

It was dark when he stepped inside, the old lamps giving off a soft, golden hum. Dust hung still in the air like it hadn’t noticed the day had ended.

He moved past the familiar shelves, rows he’d walked earlier that same day. Past the section he’d studied for hours, deeper into the far left corner where the older, less-touched books leaned against each other like conspirators.

His fingers skimmed the spines, half-reading titles.

Then paused.

A thin, black-bound book. No title on the spine. No obvious label. Just worn leather with a faint pattern etched into it, overlapping circles and narrow, vertical lines like temple markings.

He pulled it free.

The cover bore one word, printed in precise, hand-drawn strokes.

Heian.

That was all.

He opened it.

The pages were uneven, the paper brittle, but the ink had held. There were no diagrams, no modern formatting. Just passages, observations, maybe, written like a monk’s journal.

"They walk with blades as if they were born in hand.

But even the strongest among them whisper of the one behind the blade.

The edge is not just metal. The edge remembers.

And some remember too much."

Jin read in silence, eyes flicking over each word, the strange rhythm of the text settling into his brain like cold water.

He didn’t realize when the lines started blurring.

When his blink became a breath.

When that breath became longer.

He leaned forward slightly, the book still in his lap, one hand resting on the open page.

And then—

The shelf across from him shifted.

Only slightly.

Like something behind it had... twitched.

Jin blinked.

But the library was still.

Except it wasn’t.

The air was heavier now, the warmth from the lamps fading, replaced with a pressure that curled behind his ears, a ringing, soft and constant, like sound being crushed by weight.

He stood, or thought he did.

Except the library was gone.

Or rather, it was still there, but cracked.

Warped.

The lamps were too far apart now, the shelves too tall, leaning at impossible angles. The walls had vanished. There was no ceiling.

Only black above. Like night stretched wrong.

Jin’s breath caught.

And in the darkness ahead, where a reading alcove had once been,

something opened its eyes.

Wide. Pale.

No pupils. Just glow.

Like fire frozen in ice.

The figure stepped forward. Slowly.

Its shape was human, almost. Broad-shouldered, wrapped in loose black cloth like funeral robes. Its arms were too long. Fingers too thin. Its face covered by a mask, red lacquer and gold, carved into a smile far too wide.

But it was the eyes that held him.

Burning. Quiet. Ancient.

It didn’t speak at first.

Just watched.

Then, its mouth moved beneath the mask, slow and deliberate.

A voice reached him.

Not loud.

Not angry.

Just there.

Right in his head.

"You’ve finally come."

And Jin’s heart stopped.

Then the darkness swallowed everything.