Kazuki slowly rose from his resting position, his body still heavy yet his gaze sharp as it swept across the room. His family surrounded him—his mother Isabela, his elder sisters Ezabela and Shristi, and his second brother Sazuki. The air was thick with unspoken questions. At the door, the officials of the empire stood silently until Emperor Shang, Kazuki's father, gave a cold order.
"Leave. All of you."
The officials immediately bowed and withdrew, their footsteps fading. Emperor Shang himself stepped out without another word, Arthur following close behind. Only the core of the family remained.
Sazuki was the first to break the silence, his voice cutting through the air. "So… you're the child of the prophecy of the Fate's Chosen Path."
Before Kazuki could respond, Isabela turned sharply toward Sazuki, silencing him with a glance. Her eyes, filled with both worry and hurt, locked on Kazuki. She stepped closer, her voice trembling slightly as she spoke.
"Kazuki, are you alright?"
"Yes," he replied simply, though his tone carried a weight that made the word feel heavier than it should have.
"Then tell me," Isabela pressed, her voice soft yet firm, "why did you never tell us? From the beginning, you hid everything—about being reborn, about being the child of prophecy. Why? What could possibly make you hide something so important from your own family?"
Kazuki's expression softened into something that looked almost sorrowful. "I'm sorry, Mother. But I had to. For reasons far greater than myself."
Isabela sighed, her chest rising and falling as though she carried centuries of burden. "I do not wish to overwhelm you with questions… but I must understand at least this."
Kazuki, sensing the weight of her emotions and needing to shift the direction of the conversation, asked, "Mother, how did you even find me?"
The room stilled. For a moment, everyone looked to Isabela. Her eyes grew distant, as though her mind slipped back into the hours before dawn.
"It was at two in the morning," she began, her voice lowering. "Your father entered my chambers suddenly and told me we had to leave. I was confused, but he did not explain—he only took my hand and led me toward the castle's exit. There, I found all of your siblings waiting. Arthur and Sazuki had been summoned from their knightly duties, Ezabela was dragged from her cultivation at the war field, and Shristi was called away from her sword training. None of them knew what was happening, nor did I."
Her voice tightened, carrying the weight of the memory. "When we gathered, your father finally spoke. He revealed everything. That you were the Child of Prophecy. That you had plotted against North Ryehem. That all the shadows we had failed to notice around you were, in truth, deliberate plans of a mind far older than the child we thought we knew. Your siblings… they were stunned, Kazuki. Stunned beyond words."
Kazuki's sisters lowered their eyes, the memory still fresh in their minds.
"Your father then led us to the center of the empire," Isabela continued, "where knights and soldiers were already gathered. He explained that you had prepared for the civilians of North Ryehem to be brought here. At first I thought he had gone mad—until two hours later, it happened. Bodies began to fall gently from the sky into the war field, unharmed, as though carried by invisible hands. I could not comprehend it. Soldiers rushed to transport the civilians to South Ryehem, where a solitary chamber had already been prepared by your father at great cost. I kept asking myself—how? Who did this?"
Her gaze hardened slightly, a mother struggling with disbelief. "And then your father said, 'Raizen, through his Spiritual Material Manipulation, made this possible. But the plan was Kazuki's.'"
The words hung in the room like a blade.
Isabela inhaled sharply. "At that point, nothing made sense. My mind refused to accept it. And yet, as dawn broke, your father said: 'Now, we must find him.' We searched the battlefield and eventually… we found you."
Her voice trembled again, but this time with relief rather than confusion. "You were barely clinging to life. Your body was continuously releasing Spiritual Force beyond its own refinement—using it both to heal itself and to keep your organs from collapsing. To stabilize you, your father used one of the old crystals from the Capacity Ceremony, the same kind used to measure a child's Spiritual Force during their youth. That crystal kept your body from tearing itself apart until you could heal. Only after several hours did your body finally rest, and then… you woke up."
Silence returned to the room.
Inside his mind, Kazuki's thoughts sharpened like a blade. Exactly as I predicted. Even this part of my plan, which could have broken in countless ways, flowed perfectly. Just as I imagined.
Outwardly, however, Kazuki's face remained calm, almost unreadable. He listened patiently to Isabela's words, his eyes giving away nothing of the storm within.