The inevitable confrontation between Hayatto and his father arrived like a storm breaking through fragile glass—sudden, violent, and impossible to ignore. For days, the silence in the Sora household had become unbearable, stretching across rooms like a shadow none dared to address. Words hung in the air unsaid, eyes met only to look away again, and the walls themselves seemed to tremble under the weight of all that was being repressed. But silence, no matter how heavy, cannot hold back the tide forever.
It happened one evening, under the dull glow of flickering lanterns that cast long, uneasy shadows on the walls. Hayato stood in the training hall, staring at the weapons mounted on the wall—symbols of a proud legacy he could no longer bear. His father entered without a word, his presence commanding, his face carved from stone. There was no greeting, no warmth. Just a long, hard stare.
"You've stopped training," his father finally said, his voice sharp as a blade. "You're letting it win."
Hayato's jaw clenched, but he remained silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. The floor felt safer than meeting the storm he knew brewed in his father's gaze.
"Is that what you want?" his father pressed, stepping closer. "To waste everything you've been given? Everything we've prepared you for?"
Still, Hayato said nothing. The storm was rising.
The elder Sora's voice grew louder, more desperate beneath its sternness. "You were born for this. Do you understand that? Our bloodline carries power, duty, responsibility. You don't get to walk away just because you're scared."
At that, Hayato looked up, his eyes blazing—not with power, but with pain. "You think I'm scared of training?" he said bitterly. "You think this is about duty?"
His voice cracked, raw and hoarse from disuse, and his father flinched—not at the words, but at the anguish behind them.
"I see her," Hayato whispered. "Every night. I hear her voice in my head when I'm awake. I feel her cold hands reaching for me, even in daylight. And you want me to just train?"
For a heartbeat, the room fell into breathless silence.
Then came the breaking point.
His father's palm struck him across the face—a sound that cracked through the room like lightning. Not with fury, but with the unbearable desperation of a father watching his son slip beyond reach. It was not just anger in that slap—it was fear, frustration, heartbreak. But to Kaito, it felt like betrayal. Like abandonment.
The sting on his cheek was nothing compared to the fissure it created in his heart.
The sound of the slap echoed down the corridor, reaching ears that hadn't wanted to hear anymore. His mother, who had stood quietly at the edge of their lives, finally entered the hall. Her eyes—once warm and gentle—now shimmered with unshed tears. She looked at both of them, standing like strangers, and for a moment it seemed as if time itself had paused to mourn what had been lost.
Hayato didn't cry. He didn't yell. He simply turned and walked away.
But the damage was done.
From that moment on, a subtle fracture ran through the heart of the Sora household. It wasn't just between father and son—it spread like a sickness, infecting everything it touched. Meals became more than silent; they became tense. Conversations were short, laced with caution. Even the laughter of Hayato's younger sister had diminished, her innocence dulled by the ever-present unease in the air.
His father withdrew into stricter routines and longer nights of solo training, as though trying to mold the world back into order with sheer force. His mother became a quiet sentinel, always watching, always waiting for some sign that her son would return to her—not physically, but emotionally. And Kaito? He became a ghost in his own home. Present, but unreachable. Breathing, but broken.
The weight of legacy that had once felt like honor now felt like chains. And the expectations that had once lifted him now dragged him into a darkness deeper than any nightmare. His powers, his training, even his name—they all felt foreign, like clothes that no longer fit. The visions continued, more vivid than ever. And with each night, the line between dream and reality thinned.
He wanted to speak. To scream. To explain that he wasn't rejecting his legacy—he was drowning in it. But the words never came. How could he explain a fear so vast, so primal, that it had taken root in the very center of his soul?
In the days that followed, the Sora family tried to pretend. They smiled in public, bowed with grace, upheld their duties like nothing had changed. But behind closed doors, they lived in the ruins of something precious and broken. Bound by blood, yes—but also by a pain that none of them knew how to heal.
The storm had arrived, and the Soras were no longer weathering it together.