Ivan stood there, shaking like a man on the verge of death. His fingers were locked in a desperate grip around the thin, cursed piece of paper, his arms trembling so violently it looked like he was wrestling a vengeful ghost. His face was contorted in agony, sweat rolling down his forehead like a dying man’s last prayers.

  "Th-This… this is it…!" he gasped, his breath ragged. "This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life! My hands… they're leaving me! They're abandoning my body! It’s like they’re being peeled off with hot pincers!" His eyes bulged as if he were staring directly into the abyss. "This… this is my eternal torment!"

  A few feet away, Mia sat on the floor, her legs crossed, watching his suffering with tears in her eyes, not from sympathy mind you, but from how hard she was laughing. She clutched her stomach, barely able to breathe between cackles.

  "There's no way—pffft—there's no way it’s that hard!" she wheezed, slapping the ground. "It’s a piece of paper, Ivan! A single, flimsy, weightless piece of paper!"

  Ivan, still locked in his battle against existence, clenched his teeth and growled, sweat flying off his face as he forced himself to hold his stance. "You don’t get it! This is beyond impossible! It’s like holding back a tidal wave with a spoon! I can feel my soul cracking!" His voice hitched as he grunted in pain. "I can hear my ancestors weeping for me!"

  Mia gasped for air between giggles, wiping the corner of her eye. "Ivan, I swear, you're the most dramatic idiot I’ve ever seen."

  Suddenly, she sat up a little straighter, her laughter dying down as her sharp eyes caught movement in the distance. Two small figures were approaching from down the street. Ivan, struggling to keep his paper from slipping an inch, barely noticed her shift in tone. "M-Mia… if I don’t make it out of this… tell my story…"

  She ignored him, casually picking up her own piece of paper from the floor and getting into position with perfect posture. "Your eternal torment is about to end," she mused, eyes still on the approaching figures.

  Ivan, still shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, gritted his teeth. "W-What?"

  "Kaiser’s coming," Mia said simply.

  Ivan paled. His legs almost gave out. "O-Oh no. Oh no no no. There’s no way he’ll believe this! No way in hell!" His voice cracked as he forced himself to stay in formation, his whole body screaming.

  Mia smirked. "A piece of paper can’t be that hard to hold," she said smoothly. "Your struggle just speaks of your weaknesses."

  Ivan’s eye twitched so hard it looked like he might drop dead on the spot. His hands, locked in a grip of pure suffering, trembled with barely restrained fury. "You little—"

  "Good job."

  The voice cut through the night like a blade. Ivan’s suffering-fueled rant died in his throat as he turned his head with the stiffness of a man who had just seen the Grim Reaper standing behind him.

  There stood Kaiser, arms crossed, his red eyes scanning them with an unreadable expression. He gave them both a single nod. "I didn’t expect either of you to endure."

  Ivan barely heard him over the sound of his own pulse roaring in his ears, but Mia straightened up instantly, a bright smile blooming on her face.

  "Oh, Kaiser, this exercise has been amazing!" she gushed, stepping forward gracefully. "Truly a brilliant test of patience and mental fortitude!" She clasped her hands together, tilting her head just slightly for maximum innocent charm. "I feel so enlightened! My posture and my discipline have never felt better!" Then, without missing a beat, she gestured toward her brother. "Unlike this sorry excuse of a human being, who is quite frankly an embarrassment to my family name."

  Ivan, still hunched over in absolute agony, looked up at her with a twitching, betrayed expression. "Excuse me?"

  Kaiser glanced between the two. Ivan was drenched in sweat, his arms trembling like overcooked noodles, his eyes hollow from the suffering he had endured. Mia, on the other hand, looked as fresh as a morning breeze. Kaiser exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly. "Mia, I see you’ve handled this just fine."

  Mia beamed. "Oh, it was nothing!"

  Ivan, barely holding onto consciousness, forced himself to straighten up. His hands were still stuck in the form of holding a paper, fingers curled like a corpse’s grip. "Nothing?!" he wheezed, voice hoarse. "This was hell! The kind of hell they don’t warn you about!"

  Mia gave him a pitying glance. "Oh, come on, Ivan. It was just a simple exercise." She giggled behind her hand. "Maybe if you weren’t so weak—"

  Ivan, shaking with barely suppressed rage, turned his bloodshot eyes toward her. "You are so lucky I have my hands full right now, or I would—"

  "You would what?" Kaiser interrupted smoothly, arching an eyebrow.

  Ivan instantly shut up, standing at full attention despite his broken soul.

  Kaiser smirked. "Relax. You both did well." He glanced at Ivan again. "Some better than others."

  Mia grinned triumphantly, while Ivan whispered something under his breath that definitely wasn’t appropriate.

  "Alright, enough standing around." Kaiser turned on his heel. "Let’s go, we still have a room reserved in the hospital for tonight, and we have to move early tomorrow."

  As he walked ahead, Mia happily trotted after him, her smug expression practically glowing in the moonlight. Ivan staggered after them, his arms stiff and locked in the cursed "paper-holding" position. No matter how much he willed his fingers to relax, they refused to budge. His hands were stuck, as if the paper had branded itself into his very soul. Mia, practically skipping ahead, shot him a look over her shoulder. "You’re walking kind of funny. You okay there, champ?"

  "No," Ivan gritted out, still staring at his hands in horror. "They won’t move."

  Mia snorted. "Oh, quit being dramatic. Just unclench them."

  "I CAN’T."

  Kaiser, who had been ignoring them up until now, finally sighed. "Ivan." Ivan snapped his head up, standing at full attention out of pure instinct. "Yes, sir?" His voice cracked.

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  "Drop the paper."

  Ivan blinked. He hesitated as his arms trembled. "...There is no paper." His voice was hollow, like a man who had long since abandoned hope, making Kaiser squint at him.

  Mia outright burst into laughter. "OH MY GOD, YOU’RE BROKEN!" She doubled over, slapping her knee. "This is incredible!"

  Ivan’s eye twitched so violently that for a moment, he thought he might ascend to a higher plane of existence out of sheer stress. "I despise you, cheater."

  "Ivan." Kaiser’s voice was firm. Ivan turned back to him, still struggling to breathe through the phantom pain in his hands.

  "Unclench your fingers. Right now."

  "I physically can’t," Ivan insisted. "They’re locked. My hands are gone. This is my life now."

  Kaiser exhaled slowly, clearly debating whether this was worth his energy. Then, without warning, he reached forward and chopped Ivan on the wrist with a casual flick of his hand.

  "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—"

  Ivan screamed in utter agony. Mia, who had just barely managed to contain herself, lost it again, collapsing to the ground in another fit of laughter. "I CAN’T BREATHE—"

  Ivan dropped to his knees, clutching his now-free hands to his chest as if they had just been returned to him by some divine intervention. He gasped. "It’s over… it’s finally over…" His fingers twitched as feeling returned to them. "I was in there for years… I saw things… I—"

  Mia wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh man. That was beautiful."

  Kaiser, already walking again, didn’t even bother looking back. "If you two are done acting like idiots, we have places to be."

  Mia hopped up and dusted herself off. "Of course, of course. After all, we’re the kind of people who would never waste time on nonsense."

  Ivan, still curled on the ground, shot her a withering glare. "You just spent five minutes rolling on the floor laughing."

  She gave him an innocent smile. "And you just spent an hour crying over a piece of paper."

  Ivan clenched his fists in anger… And immediately regretted it as pain shot through his stiff fingers.

  Mia snickered. "Hey, maybe we should train you with origami next. See if you can survive folding a crane without passing out."

  Ivan inhaled sharply through his nose, his whole body trembling with barely contained rage. "Mia."

  She popped a piece of candy that she had somehow gotten out of nowhere into her mouth, completely unfazed. "Yeah?"

  His eye twitched. "I am going to destroy you."

  Mia grinned, leaning back on her palms. "Not with those noodle arms, you’re not."

  Aria had been standing quietly beside Kaiser, lazily chewing on a piece of candy, when her eyes suddenly narrowed. Her chewing slowed. Her gaze drifted toward Mia, then down toward Mia’s hand, where a rather familiar-looking sweet sat between her fingers. Aria’s entire body stiffened as realization dawned.

  "You." Aria’s voice was low, dangerous.

  Mia blinked. "Me?"

  "You absolute, irredeemable little gremlin!" Aria jabbed a finger at her. "You stole my candy!"

  Mia scoffed. "What? No, I—"

  "Don’t even try it!" Aria pointed at her own bag of candy, or rather, the suspiciously open bag Mia was now casually holding. "That is mine, you thief!"

  Mia took an exaggerated bite out of the stolen sweet, holding eye contact the entire time.

  Aria gasped. "You little—!"

  But before she could tackle Mia to the ground, Ivan suddenly turned on Aria with a glare so fierce it could have burned a hole through steel. "Forget the candy—where the hell did you go?!"

  Mia, equally outraged, spun toward her. "Yeah! We were with you! And then you just vanished!"

  Aria huffed, crossing her arms. "Excuse me for getting distracted by important things."

  "You got lost, didn’t you?" Ivan deadpanned.

  Aria's eye twitched. "I do not get lost."

  Mia raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

  Aria huffed, crossing her arms. "I only get lost in the sweet, endless depths of candy aisles."

  Ivan blinked. "...So you did get lost!"

  Kaiser, meanwhile, had been watching the exchange in mild amusement, but then his eyes drifted back to Mia. More specifically, the fact that within seconds of finishing that hellish punishment, she was already back to swiping candy like it was nothing. That… was suspicious.

  His gaze lingered on her, thoughtful. He knew exactly how brutal the exercise had been. The first time he had done it as a kid, he barely lasted fifty minutes before his arms gave out, his soul practically left his body, and he passed out on the floor like a corpse. Ivan had practically been reenacting that very experience just now. And yet… Mia looked pristine… That alone made his suspicion grow.

  He turned to Ivan, his tone casual. "Hey, was Mia holding her paper the whole time?"

  Mia, who had been smugly grinning over her stolen victory against Aria, froze. Every ounce of color drained from her face. "Uh—" She turned to Ivan in desperation. "Wait—"

  Ivan wiped the sweat off his forehead, still catching his breath. "Pfft, of course she did, she—"

  And then it happened. His pupils flashed an eerie green, his entire posture straightening unnaturally. His mouth opened against his will. "Oh, she immediately dropped the paper the second you were out of sight," he snitched, his voice almost robotic. "She spent the whole time teasing me while I was dying. Kept laughing at my pain. Said you were stupid for thinking this was a real punishment. Also said that if you considered this a challenge, you were probably much weaker than she expected."

  Mia choked. "Ivan!"

  But he wasn’t done. The green glow intensified. His mouth kept moving.

  "She also called you a loser for still thinking this exercise is hard—"

  "Ivan, shut up!"

  "—and said your training must have been pathetic—"

  "OH MY GOD, STOP TALKING!"

  "—and she picked her nose exactly ten minutes before you showed up."

  "YOU TRAITOR!" Mia screeched, launching herself at him.

  Kaiser pushed open the hospital doors, letting Aria waltz inside like she was royalty returning home after a long voyage. Meanwhile, Mia collapsed to her knees on the pavement, hands gripping her head as she wailed to the heavens.

  "I— I didn't mean to!" she sobbed dramatically. "I swear, I tried to fight it!"

  Ivan stood frozen in horror, his mouth hanging open as if he'd just witnessed himself commit high treason. "WHY?!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "WHY DID YOU ACTIVATE YOUR STUPID POWER?!"

  Mia snapped her head up, her face twisted in pure rage. "YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOON! IT DOESN’T TURN OFF!"

  Ivan recoiled. "You— YOU COULD’VE WARNED ME!"

  Mia threw her arms in the air. "Oh, I’m sorry! Did you want me to write it down on some fancy parchment and deliver it to you in a golden envelope?! YOU SHOULD’VE KNOWN!"

  Mia let out an offended gasp. "EXCUSE YOU?! HOW EXACLY DID YOU SEE ME PICK MY NOSE?!"

  Ivan’s eye twitched. "You don’t exactly hide it, Mia! You act like you're doing some grand, delicate operation, but it's literally right there in front of everyone!"

  Mia turned bright red. "I WAS FIXING MY NOSE—"

  "WITH YOUR FINGER UP IT?!"

  "THAT’S NOT THE POINT!"

  Kaiser clapped his hands once, drawing their attention. He had the face of a man who had just gained vital intelligence. "Well. This has been educational."

  The twins turned to him warily.

  "I now know not to take Mia’s words at face value," he mused, stroking his chin. "From now on, I'll always question her in front of Ivan. Very useful information."

  Mia paled. "Oh no."

  Kaiser then smirked, that dangerous, smug expression that sent shivers down spines. "And since you two were so eager to prove yourselves today, I think your collective punishment should continue."

  The air went still. Mia and Ivan exchanged looks of sheer panic.

  "You’re going to repeat the paper challenge," Kaiser continued smoothly, "for forty minutes this time."

  "YOU SON OF A—!"

  Kaiser raised a hand, silencing them before the profanity could finish. "I’m not done." They froze again, awaiting their doom.

  Kaiser’s smirk widened. "While you two struggle, Aria and I will be feasting on some delicious candy."

  Aria’s eyes lit up. "So much candy," she added helpfully.

  Mia looked like her soul physically left her body. Ivan was just staring at the floor, numb. Kaiser then tilted his head, pretending to ponder something. "Oh, and I might add a twist to make it even harder. Haven't decided yet."

  Mia dropped forward onto the pavement. "I refuse to live in this world."

  Ivan was gripping his temples, whispering, "This is hell. I am in hell."

  Kaiser casually stepped aside, letting Ivan shuffle in like a broken man. When it was Mia’s turn to enter, Kaiser stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. She gulped, looking up at him. "You’ve got good hands," he admitted, holding up his own hand—where, resting in his palm, were five different stolen candies.

  Mia blinked. "…Did you just rob Aria?" she whispered, to which Kaiser nodded.

  Mia hesitated for only a second before plucking one from his hand, unwrapping it, and popping it in her mouth like it was a sacred gift.

  As she chewed, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

  Maybe—just maybe—training under this man wasn’t such a bad idea.

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