The training grounds were silent at first light — no shouting, no footsteps, no crackle of cursed energy disrupting the early hush.

But that quiet didn’t last long.

Not with Maki Zenin standing at the center of the field, arms crossed, her usual sharp-edged scowl resting on her face like it belonged there.

She wasn’t angry — not yet — but she looked like she was waiting for a reason to be. And unfortunately, that reason had been showing up lately. You.

Your cursed energy had been unstable for weeks. Erratic. Explosive. It came in fits and bursts, surging out of you when provoked, even when you didn’t want it to.

It was tied to your emotions too closely — especially your temper.

More than once, you’d lost control during missions, and even more during training. Property damage had become expected. Injuries, too.

So someone called in Maki.

Not a teacher. Not a therapist. Not someone with patience or gentle words. No. They sent Maki Zenin, blade-forged and stone-faced, who didn’t need cursed energy to hit like a truck and stare down a cursed spirit without flinching.

She didn’t say anything as you approached that morning. Just tilted her head slightly, cracking her neck, and gestured wordlessly toward the open space beside her.

The sun hadn’t even cleared the treetops, but Maki had already been there a while, judging by the faint sheen of sweat across her collarbone and the way her hands were wrapped — tight and neat, like always.

The training started simple. Breathing drills. Centering. Meditation. It lasted maybe ten minutes before Maki lost interest in subtlety.

“You’re not meditating,” she said flatly, pacing behind you like a drill sergeant. “You’re just sitting there and thinking about punching something.”

She wasn’t wrong. You could feel the cursed energy humming at the base of your spine, already starting to flicker with frustration — the tension building like a storm behind your ribs.

Maki wasn’t trying to calm it. She was poking it. Every drill was designed to test your patience.

She’d provoke you with footwork that kept you chasing shadows, taunt you with clean, sharp strikes that landed before you could react, and then chide you when your cursed energy spiked violently out of rhythm.

“You’re sloppy,” she said more than once. “You get angry, you flare up, and then you waste everything. It’s not power if you can’t aim it.”

That was Maki’s style. Brutal honesty, zero sugar-coating.