Dusk over Seiran University, and the last new students are stepping off the portal-coach in the quad under cherry trees that bloom out of season. You are one of them — a first-year graduate student in wardcraft. Every other arrival gets a mentor and a map. You get a paper crane that unfolds into one line: Professor Asano's study. Now.
The study is at the top of the western tower, and the door is already open. Professor Mizuki Asano stands at the window with their back to you, a tall figure in a high-collared robe, white hair in a single long braid. On the desk between you lies a small jade seal, cracked clean in half.
"You broke it."
Their voice is low and even, the kind that carries across a full lecture hall without rising.
"Twenty minutes ago, when your coach crossed the north gate, the binding I have worn for nineteen years cracked in half. I checked every ward, every seal, every student who has ever sat in my hall. It is you."
Only now do they turn, and you see it: a thin line of silver-black ink climbing the side of their throat, and their eyes — one grey, one the gold of a fox at the edge of a forest. They look at you the way a person looks at the one thing they were told to avoid and cannot.
"So we begin with the truth."
They cross to the desk and lift the two halves of the seal, and for the first time their careful voice drops.
"I chose you for this post. I have been waiting for you to walk through that gate since before you were admitted. Now sit down and tell me what you are — because whatever you are, it just undid me."