Divided by Dawn

The change came softly this time. No writhing, no post-battle exhaustion. In the quiet of the dorm room, the thing that woke up wasn't some mindless monster. It was focused. Aware. 

His red eyes snapped open, drinking in the room's comfortable darkness. 

He stood, stretching. The body didn't ache; it hummed with a caged energy. He could feel the auras of the other students in their rooms nearby, faint and fluttering like distant candles. 

Innocent. Boring. 

"About time," he murmured, his voice a low, rumbling baritone. He glanced at Tsukuyomi, who was perched on the desk, swinging her legs. "This place stinks of hope and sunlight." 

"I know. Disgusting, isn't it?" Tsukuyomi agreed with a grin. "But you have to admit, the irony is just delicious. He ran from one battlefield right into another and didn't even notice." 

Henry—the night-Henry—strode to the window, gazing down at the campus lit by soft globes of light. "He thinks he can control me in here. Learn to tame me." He let out a dry, mirthless laugh. "He thinks I'm some dog to be trained." 

"And what do you think?" Tsukuyomi asked, floating to his side. "Are you going to tear down his little paradise?" 

"Tear it down? No. That's too easy," he shot back, his red eyes locked on the now-empty courtyard. "He wants to learn how to control me? Fine. I want to learn, too. I want to know why he pulls back. I want to get to the bottom of this pathetic weakness he calls a conscience." 

He turned to the goddess, a cold smirk playing on his lips. "In the Obsidian Heart, I was in my element. Here, I'm in enemy territory. And to conquer an enemy, you have to understand them first. I'm going to use this 'school' to dissect the mind of my other half. I'll figure out what makes him tick, what makes him break. And when I've learned it all... there won't be two of us anymore. There will be only one." 

Tsukuyomi regarded him with a fresh spark of interest. "You don't just want control. You want to completely erase him. You want to become the only Henry." 

"He's a mistake. A product of my parents' guilt," Henry said, his tone dropping to ice. "I'm the consequence. The truth. Survival. His whole journey has been a joke, just getting dragged from one place to the next. He came here looking for strength, but the only strength that matters is already inside him. He's just too scared to use it." 

They passed the night in silence after that, a dark understanding settling between the entity and the goddess. He explored the edges of his cage, feeling the barrier of solar energy outside—a constant, low-grade irritation, like a fly buzzing just out of reach. He could feel Joseph's presence inside the tattoo, not as a voice, but as a weight. A lock. 

A lock that he knew, one day, he'd find the key for. 

The first hint of dawn was a gut-punch. The vibrant power in his veins began to ebb away, and his counterpart's physical exhaustion and emotional messiness came rushing back in like the tide. 

"The show's about to start again," Tsukuyomi hummed. 

"Let him have his little stage," the night-Henry snarled as his dark hair flickered and lightened, his red eyes fading to blue. "Every actor needs their time in the spotlight before the final act." 

Henry woke with a jolt, his heart hammering against his ribs. He was in his bed, morning sun flooding the room. The memories of the night were like shards of glass—sharp, painful, and crystal clear: the conversation, the cold resolve of his other half. He wasn't just a passenger anymore; he was a witness to a conspiracy against himself. 

A blue and silver uniform was folded over his chair. Putting it on felt like he was an imposter. He grabbed his katana, strapping it to his back under the uniform's blazer. It was a cold comfort against his skin. 

His first class: "Basic Magic Control." The classroom was an amphitheater, and the professor, a tall, thin man named Master Kael, had hands that looked like they were made of solidified smoke. 

"Power without control is just destruction without a point," Master Kael said, his calm voice carrying through the room. "The first step to mastery isn't about unleashing your power, but containing it. Today, we focus on the most basic drill: shaping a single sphere of your personal energy and holding it steady." 

Henry watched as other students closed their eyes. Spheres of energy started to form in their hands. A crackling ball of fire, a murky orb of ice, a slowly spinning chunk of earth. 

He closed his eyes and tried. He reached for his energy, but what he found was a battlefield. There was his own power, weak and hesitant, and then there was the vast, sleeping reservoir of his other half's dark power. Trying to pull from one without the other was like trying to pull a single thread from a messed-up tapestry. 

He focused, sweat beading on his forehead. He tugged at the weaker energy—his. A tiny, wobbly sphere of sickly, pale light flickered into existence in his hands. But then, tendrils of darkness began to leak from the tattoo on his arm, drawn to the display of power. The shadows crept toward his tiny ball of light. 

"Mr. Henry?" 

Master Kael's voice made him jump. The shadows snapped back instantly. His sphere of light dissolved into nothing. The professor was beside him, his smoky eyes examining the tattoo visible on his arm. 

"Your affinity is shadow," Master Kael noted. "And yet, you try to manifest light. Why?" 

"I..." Henry stammered, not knowing what to say. Because I'm scared of the shadows. Because the shadows aren't me. 

"Don't be afraid of your nature, young Henry," the master said softly. "The goal is not to deny who you are, but to command it. Try again. This time, don't fight the darkness. Invite it. But remember," his eyes sharpened, "you are the master. It is the servant." 

With his heart in his throat, Henry closed his eyes again. He reached for the darkness, not with fear, but with a shaky command. 

A small sphere of pure darkness, the size of a marble, formed in his palm. It was cold, silent, and perfectly stable. 

A smile touched Master Kael's lips. "A start. A good start." 

Henry stared at the little ball of darkness in his hand. It was the first time he'd ever used that power by choice. 

And to his own mix of horror and fascination, it didn't feel monstrous like he'd always imagined. It just felt... like his.