The morning of the demonstration arrived, and like always, Haku pretended everything was under control.
It wasn't.
Haku stood near the courtyard, sipping his overly bitter tea and watching students scramble around with chalk, crystals, and the usual chaos you get when teenagers are asked to do anything that might explode in public.
He didn't look like he was preparing for anything major.
Because that was the trick, he didn't have to.
He already had the pieces in place.
Yue sat next to him as his personal assistant because she was bored, and cold wasn't really a thing she cared about. Alex was messing with the golem, triple-checking the stabilizers like it was going to bite someone, which, to be fair, it might since Yue was controlling it.
Neither of them looked like they were plotting anything. Which was perfect.
Haku strolled over, hands in his coat pockets. "You two ready?"
Alex blinked up at him. "Ready as we'll ever be."
Yue gave him a lazy grin. "We doing the fake-out or the 'surprise I'm a genius' routine?"
Haku smirked. "Bit of both. I say we show them just enough to make their heads spin and not enough to get arrested."
Alex stood up, brushing his hands off. "So… like everything you do?"
"Exactly," Haku said with a wink. "Oh, and try not to mention the other place, alright? Don't think I don't know what you have been up to."
Yue rolled her eyes. "Are you sure you're not the genius type? Honestly, I don't even know what is so fun about faking having powers when you do? Do you enjoy playing with people so much, you sadist?"
"Did Alex become stronger, yes or no?"
Both Alex and Yue looked surprised. Did they do exactly what he wanted?
He gave them both a long look; they were too sharp for their own good, but that's why he kept them close. He knew they were training together, knew they were swapping ideas, spells, Qi applications. He wasn't dumb. He just let them think they were sneaky.
And to be fair, they were mostly sneaky.
What he didn't know and what they weren't telling was what exactly they'd been doing during those long absences. But as long as they weren't summoning eldritch horrors or burning down districts, he let it go.
For now.
The courtyard was already buzzing. Professors, students, bored nobles pretending to care, the whole academy circus. Then the main gate creaked open, and everything got a little quieter.
The Vice Headmaster arrived.
Old, stone-faced, robes cleaner than magic should allow. The kind of guy who smiled like it cost him money.
Haku hated that kind of quiet.
Lyra came up next to him, handing him the finalized roster scroll. "You're on after Professor Elric's failed attempt to teach a mimic to sing."
"Perfect," Haku muttered. "Nothing like following a disaster to make yourself look good."
She leaned in slightly. "You sure about this?"
"Please," he whispered back. "It'll be fun."
When it was time, Haku stepped into the middle of the arena with Alex and Yue at his sides. Calm. Collected. Borderline smug.
"Today," Haku began, voice carrying, "I will demonstrate the application of multi-layered magical theory in artificial animation using the application of pure and tainted H2O."
The crowd blinked. He could almost hear their brains checking out.
So he snapped his fingers.
Two golems strode forward, graceful, precise, not a hint of instability. They bowed. Someone in the back actually gasped. Dramatic fools.
Alex tossed it a metal rod. The golem caught it, spun it once, then carved a rune into the stone floor in three strokes.
Flawless.
"Now let's introduce fire to the mix."
Yue smiled behind her hand.
"Simple enough," Haku said casually, "but what happens when we increase the pressure?"
He flicked his handand Alex performed wind magic to blast the golem. It didn't move. Then fire. Nothing. The golem held. But the Impure one, which had other elements mixed, started to slowly melt.
Then lightning.
The pure golem caught the bolt with the help of Yue's qi.
Haku smiled. "This construct is powered not by a conventional mana crystal, but by a stabilized flow web. Created, regulated, and tuned," he nodded to Alex, "by my assistant Alex."
Alex gave a small bow. Straight-faced. He sold it well.
Then Haku turned to Yue.
"And balanced by my other assistant, please let me introduce you to Yue, one of the empire's brightest."
Yue waved, sweet and innocent. Almost.
The crowd clapped, impressed, confused, but not questioning too much. Because no one wanted to look dumb in front of Haku.
Except the Vice Headmaster.
He hadn't clapped. Hadn't moved.
He just watched.
After it ended, while everyone else swarmed to talk about the demonstration, Haku walked off toward the Tower gardens, sipping from a flask. He didn't hear the footsteps until Lyra caught up to him.
"That went well," she said.
"It always does."
She gave him a sideways look. "The Vice Headmaster asked for your research notes."
He snorted. "Of course he did."
"He said, and I quote: 'That was not only magic.'"
Haku paused.
"Did he now?"
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "What are you using?"
He grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
She sighed and let it go. For now.
Later that night, back in Alex's room, Yue sat cross-legged on her bed again, flicking a tiny snowflake up and down between her fingers.
"That went pretty well," she said.
Alex was still riding the high. "We fooled the entire school."
"Except the Vice Headmaster."
"Yeah, well. He can suspect all he wants."
She chuckled. "He's right, though."
"About?"
"That wasn't just magic."
Alex nodded slowly. "We should probably be careful."
Yue smiled, eyes glinting. "Where's the fun in that? Also, Haku knows what he's doing; he just doesn't like to use his powers, you know that. "
"Don't you sometimes wonder if he has any powers at all?" Both of them silently let the train of thought go, not because they didn't think it was impossible, but after all this time, if that was the case, he surely had his reasons.
Still believing that he had powers but just didn't want to use them seemed more logical to them, after all, they had complete trust in him.
Outside, the moon hung heavy, cold, and round. In the distance, the golem still stood, perfectly still.
Almost seeming alive and waiting.