Whatever plan he had that started with the academy, it was going to require Mr. White’s presence, not Noah’s. And Mr. White, unlike Noah, had leverage.

He turned his head toward the air above him.

"Kael," he said.

The dragon’s ears perked — two small, angular things that tilted forward with an alertness that was almost comical given their size. His circling slowed.

"We’re visiting somewhere else," Noah said.

That was all it took.

Kael’s golden eyes lit up immediately, a brightness flooding into them that went beyond simple interest.

His wings snapped into a sharper, more energetic rhythm, and he dropped out of his lazy orbit like a stone that had suddenly remembered it had somewhere to be — diving downward in a short, tight arc before pulling up at the last moment and landing squarely on Noah’s chest with a light but deliberate thud.

He planted himself there with both feet, wings half-spread and trembling with barely contained enthusiasm, and looked up at Noah’s face with an expression that could only be described as gleeful anticipation.

"Really?" he said, the word coming out faster than his usual cadence. His tail flicked behind him. "Where are we going?"

He didn’t even wait for the answer before the next part came tumbling out.

"We’re using shadow travel, right?" A small, self-satisfied sound escaped him, somewhere between a hum and a laugh.

"My very awesome skill." He tilted his head, wings giving one more proud little flutter. "Hehe."

Noah looked down at him.

The dragon was practically vibrating on his chest, every inch of him radiating the energy of someone who had already decided the answer was yes and was simply waiting for the formality of confirmation.

Noah’s expression shifted into something that could generously be called a smile, though it leaned considerably more toward wry than warm.

"Sorry," he said.

Kael stilled slightly.

"We can’t use shadow travel to get to where we’re going."

The excitement didn’t vanish from Kael’s face all at once.

It left gradually, like air going out of something that had been carefully inflated.

The brightness in his eyes dimmed by a degree, his wings settled from their eager half-spread into something flatter and less animated, and his tail, which had been flicking with barely restrained energy just a moment ago, slowed to a stop.

He didn’t say anything.

He simply sat there on Noah’s chest with the particular expression of a creature who had been looking forward to something and had just been informed, with minimal ceremony, that it wasn’t happening.

It wasn’t devastation — it was too small and too dignified for that. It was closer to the quiet deflation of someone who had already begun composing their victory lap in their head and now had to put it away undelivered.

Noah looked at him for a moment.

Then he chuckled.

It came out genuine and unhurried, the kind of laugh that didn’t need much space — just a short, warm exhale that carried real amusement in it.

There was something about the dragon’s expressions that consistently caught him off guard.

For a creature that carried itself with such relentless self-importance, Kael’s reactions to disappointment were remarkably readable.

Almost endearing, in a way Noah suspected the dragon would strenuously object to being told.

"We’re going to the academy," Noah said, his voice settling back into its usual even tone once the chuckle had run its course.

He looked at Kael steadily. "You know we can’t use the shadow element there. Not in a place like that, with that many eyes around."

He didn’t need to spell out every step of the reasoning, but he continued anyway.

"If Mr. White shows up at the academy moving through shadows, it raises questions. And those questions lead somewhere we don’t want them to lead."

The implication was clear enough. Mr. White was a carefully constructed identity — a name, a mask, a rank, a presence that existed in a completely separate lane from Noah’s own.

The distance between those two identities was the whole point.

The moment someone with enough curiosity or enough authority started pulling at the thread of how Mr. White moved, what element he used, where that element had been seen before —

The thread led directly back to Tara.

To the shadow figure that had slipped through the adventurer guild’s defenses and ended the life of an archmage.

The shadow element wasn’t just unusual. In the current climate, it was actively associated with death and with something that operated outside the boundaries of what was considered acceptable or safe.

Revealing that same element in a public setting, wouldn’t just raise eyebrows.

It would ignite something.

Every careful step Noah had taken to build the Mr. White persona — the mask, the name, the deliberate separation from his real identity — would all be reduced to nothing.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Kael was quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that meant he was actually processing rather than simply waiting for his turn to speak.

His expression shifted through something — not quite reluctance, but the specific look of someone arriving at a conclusion they hadn’t originally wanted to arrive at.

Then he purred.

A low, rolling sound that lasted only a few seconds before tapering off. He blinked once, slowly, and then gave a single short nod.

Noah was right, and Kael had the self-awareness, however narrowly, to recognize it when the logic was airtight.

He pushed off Noah’s chest and rose back into the air, but the energy was different now — quieter, less celebratory.

He hovered in place rather than circling, his wings moving in the slow, measured rhythm of something idling rather than performing.

He drifted there, suspended, regarding Noah from a foot above eye level with an expression that had traded excitement for something more contemplative.

"Besides," he said, after a moment, his voice carrying that particular tone he used when he was pretending to be casual about something he was actually curious about, "where exactly are we going?"

He tilted his head slightly.

"You said the academy, but that’s not the whole answer, is it."

It wasn’t really a question.

Noah looked at him for a beat without answering immediately.

Then the smirk came back.

It was a quiet thing, as his smirks usually were — more in the eyes than anywhere else, a sharpness that arrived without announcement and said more than his words typically did.

He dropped his gaze from the dragon to his own hand, holding it out in front of him, palm facing upward.

The air above his palm split.

A small gray tear appeared in the space above his hand, clean-edged and precise, the kind of thing that looked almost surgical in how little fuss it made about itself.

And from it, the white demon mask emerged.

As for the spatial tear, it closed up immediately the mask came out of it, leaving no trace on his palm.

Noah looked at it for a moment longer.

Then he raised it to his face and pressed it into place.

It settled the way it always did — flush and certain, as though it had been fitted to him specifically, which in every practical sense it had.

The world through the mask’s eyes was exactly the same as the world without it. But the world looking back at him was now looking at Mr. White, and that made all the difference.

"We’re going on a little visit to the academy," he said.

Kael, still hovering at eye level, said nothing in response.

He simply watched as Noah turned away from the bed and moved toward the door — not the front door, but the one at the back of the house, the one that opened onto the narrow strip of space behind the building where the foot traffic was thin and the sightlines from neighboring windows were limited.

He stepped outside.

The air was the same as it always was back here — slightly cooler than the front, carrying the faint smell of old wood and whatever the neighbor two houses down was burning off in their yard. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Noah stood still for a moment, not moving further, just existing in the space and letting his senses do their work.

His eyes moved first, tracking the obvious angles. The gap between buildings to the left, the low fence at the back boundary, the roofline of the adjacent house where a poorly positioned person could theoretically observe the yard below. Nothing. No movement, no silhouette, no suggestion of anyone positioned to watch.

Then his mana sense extended outward.

It was a quieter form of checking — less visible, more thorough. It moved through the immediate area like a slow breath expanding in every direction, brushing against the edges of what was present and returning with information. People, presences, anything warm and alive and paying attention.

The results were consistent with what he had noted the last time he had used this spot.

Most of the neighbors were out. The working hours had emptied the surrounding houses of the majority of their occupants, pulling them toward the parts of the city where their days were spent.

The few who remained were tucked into their own routines — absorbed in whatever filled their mornings, their attention turned inward toward their own walls rather than outward toward someone else’s backyard.

No one was watching.

No one was even oriented in his direction.

He exhaled once, slow and even, and then he looked upward.

The lightning came.

It arrived the way it always did — without a buildup, without a gathering of visible energy or a moment of obvious preparation.

One instant Noah was standing on the ground, a still figure in a quiet yard, and the next a bolt of lightning descended from the sky and swallowed him completely.

A column of white and electric blue, sharp and total, lasting less than a full second.

And then it surged back upward, pulling everything with it.

He was gone.