The dark silence of the portal broke with a quiet hum as Naoko stepped through it, her silver hair glimmering faintly in the moonlight that filtered through the arcane shimmer. She emerged within the cold, familiar walls of the Rotschi palace—specifically, her personal chambers. The heavy obsidian doors sealed behind her with a low groan, returning the room to its sterile stillness.
The chamber was vast, with minimal decor save for the symbols of moons etched onto the black-marble floor, and crystalline lanterns glowing with soft green light. In the center of the room, resting upon her bed like a broken relic, was her son—Jin. Encased in a barrier of faint green healing mana, his body remained unmoving, his breathing shallow yet steady. The barrier shimmered gently, constantly cleansing and stabilizing his condition.
Naoko walked forward slowly, her bare feet making no sound against the stone floor. She stopped by the edge of the bed, eyes narrowing as she gazed at her son. Above him floated a heart of mana—a synthetic core pulsing steadily with green and crimson light. It bore her magical signature, formed from her own divine blueprint. It was keeping him alive. Replacing her presence.
She lowered herself onto the dark velvet settee beside the bed, her back straight, expression unreadable. The room hummed softly with mana activity, and the air carried a metallic tang—residual from the heart's energy and the enchantments saturating the barrier.
Naoko murmured to herself in a cold, measured tone, "I must do this. I cannot risk contamination."
Her hands rose to the clasp of her robe—an elegant black gown threaded with silver mana runes—and slowly began to disrobe. She stripped away each layer with clinical detachment, her movements graceful and precise. She even removed her undergarments, laying them aside with care.
"Even with my clothes treated in Green Moon mana," she said aloud, her voice flat, "I cannot risk the slightest trace of foreign material—bacteria, corrupted essence, or even a sliver of external mana—interfering with the healing process. The barrier cleanses, yes, but I must exceed perfection."
Once fully bare, her porcelain skin catching the ambient green glow, Naoko conjured a translucent garment spun entirely from raw mana—an ethereal nightgown, whisper-thin, clinging to her form like a veil of starlight.
"The thinner the material," she stated, inspecting her arms, "the safer it is."
She began to wash herself with Green Moon mana—her palms glowing as she swept her hands across her skin, sanitizing herself entirely. Her skin shimmered faintly under the spell, purified of all contaminants. Even her silver hair was gathered and treated, bound up in an elegant knot that revealed the sharp line of her collarbone and shoulders.
With a slow, deliberate step, she passed through the healing barrier and into the warmth it generated around Jin. She was utterly calm—her heart rate stable, her breathing like the ebb of the ocean. Inside, the air was thick with life energy and the deep pulse of magic.
Gin lay still, his upper body exposed, his muscular form pale under the barrier's glow. Scars ran across his chest like a war map. His previous core was gone. What remained was an empty cavity—an arcane vacancy waiting to be filled.
Naoko held the new heart in her palm. It glowed a dark crimson, interlaced with threads of black. A mana heart forged from her modified design—adapted to harness and withstand the volatile energies of Destruction Mana.
"You are not ready to accept it yet," she whispered, lowering the heart just above his chest. "Your body must learn."
She didn't implant it—not yet. Instead, she positioned it to hover, suspended by enchantments. It would feed his system externally for fifty-nine days. During that time, his body would slowly become familiar with the new mana signature, adapting cell by cell to its chaotic intensity.
Naoko extended her hand, fingertips glowing with concentrated mana. She reached into Gin's mana channels—his Shiraine—and began connecting pathways between his body and the floating heart. Each thread was woven meticulously, her expression never shifting.
"We start with the outer conduits," she murmured, her tone flat. "Then align the lunar nerves... adjust the frequency... counterbalance the destructive vibrations."
For hours, she remained inside the barrier, hands glowing, eyes narrowed. Her body glistened faintly from the heat of the healing field, her breaths slow and regulated. She applied sacred runes of purification, each one designed to suppress side effects, prevent rejection, and reinforce Gin's endurance.
She paused only briefly, her eyes scanning the data sigils floating in the air—projected by the room's arcane matrix. His vitals were stable. Just barely.
"Fifty-nine days," she repeated. "And then... you'll awaken into something greater."
Naoko leaned back slightly, still within the barrier, and folded her hands in her lap. She would remain here, monitoring, maintaining, and managing every heartbeat, every mana fluctuation. She was the only one in the world capable of managing such a volatile transfer.
Outside, the moonlight from the red eclipse filtered through the narrow slit of a window, casting a faint glow across the barrier's surface. Inside, Naoko sat like a sentinel—calm, cold, and unstoppable.
She wasn't just a mother.
She was the architect of Jin's rebirth.
"there were no scars on his chest, but because of the operation and the mana transfer"
"and parts of his body began to tear apart quietly, and the Moon's mana healed him again, and so the cycle of tearing and healing continued"
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