"Duke, it was widely accepted that Past Livers had unique skills that varied from person to person. What if those skills became entwined with a bloodline? That's all well and good, but how were those skills activated? Was it innate, or was something presented to them?"
"After you mentioned an Ancestor with skills earlier, it helped me to put everything together. So now I feel free to speak on it."
After she said this, she let the silence settle slightly. It was a mean tactic, but it would make the other person uncomfortable, urging them to fill in the blank air themselves.
Medinador's mouth had formed a hard line at this point. He looked almost exactly how Delphina expected. Stressed, unsurprised, and sad. However, it was clear he wasn't ready to respond just yet. So she decided to push it further.
"At the coming-of-age ceremony, we receive a blessing from the Imperial Family, correct? But I don't need that blessing, do I. That's why Pietro was initially going to go by himself with the Knights…"
[Quest Chain; 'Who's the Prettiest Princess of Them All'. 35% complete.]
With this, Medinador sprang up and practically leapt to hug Delphina close. He seemed to be trembling slightly.
"Were you scared? Oh my little Phina, I'm so sorry. Did you feel that isolated? Is that why you kept distancing yourself…"
Delphina stood and reached up to wrap her arms around his upper back to return the hug.
"It's okay, Father. From what I read, I know the detection devices won't ever work on me. I felt like I could talk about it a little, it's just. Pietro doesn't know and Mother… Have you told her?"
"But it's just, did you never question it? Why I became a Sword Master so young…"
Medinador pulled her closer into the hug, somehow. Whilst she was certainly very sturdy, Delphina still felt mildly suffocated by this.
"I did, we did, I mean. Everyone who becomes an adult has their skill system unlocked. So your Mother also knows. It was just that you didn't show any signs, we truly thought you and Pietro were like Maria & Donovan…"
Now was the time for Delphina to push. She had to hammer home that she was different without alluding to 'the original Delphina' having ever existed. Wait, the allegory to the heroic twins, and Pietro and herself, wasn't just a metaphor after all?
"Do you mean, you thought we might be their reincarnations?"
Medinador gently pulled his face back so she could finally see it properly, and concern was thoroughly etched upon it.
"Reincarnators aren't picked up by the Past Liver detection device that Maria and Donovan worked on. It's only if they then gain memories of their previous life that it might go off. As such, suspected reincarnators are kept track of by the Hunters. Not even the Imperial Family knows."
"But that was something you were never included in, and it's why you have a separate Hunter team."
"So truthfully, yes. Both your Mother and I suspected it. The speed at which you became a Sword Master without prior knowledge was uncanny. But Pietro showed similar skills; he just lacked interest in it initially. So he started sword training significantly later than normal."
This piqued Delphina's interest immediately and concerned her at the same time. Pietro was shaping up to be a fellow 'past liver' as she heard this. He started sword training later and still became a fellow Sword Master? That was beyond suspicious.
Well, she was still assuming the Game outlined some facts about this World despite it being very different so far. She could only confirm her suspicions at the Imperial National Ball.
But what was she also hearing? Delphina's own family suspected and isolated her; no wonder she turned out the way she did, and disappointingly, Delphina had made it all that way off the back of her own skills.
Even without all of Delphina's memories, her hard work was ingrained in her very skin. As she looked down at the faint and silvery scars, she felt a wave of anger at the 'family' that kept the original Delphina at a respectable distance, whilst also giving her loving speeches.
So she stopped hugging Medinador and took a step back with a stiff face.
Medinador picked up on the change in her body language immediately.
"No, Delphina, wait a moment, I said it wrong just then. I'm not saying you were given a separate team because I suspected you of being a reincarnator. You were given a separate team because you were too young to be on those kinds of missions."
Delphina's blood was boiling; she felt unnaturally angry. Like her mood swing earlier that day, she didn't feel in control. But she had to simmer down and hear Medinador out. She wasn't going to ruin anything for herself prematurely.
"Duke Medinador, I worked very hard. Very hard every day just to get to this point. I don't know if the skill system I awakened by myself is like the one the Imperial Family helps you unlock at the coming of age…"
"I'm no reincarnation, though I can see why it could be painted that way. But after I've stayed in the Heir's wing. After reading what I have done… Why didn't either you or Mother think to speak to me?"
Medinador looked both sad and pained at the same time. Forcefully taking Delphina's hand, he led her to sit back on the sofa she had stood up from. Acquiescing to his lead, she sat down.
"We didn't know how to bring it up, Delphina, you were far too young realistically, for you to be taught all these heavy topics. There's still more you don't know. That you won't know, until after you become an adult."
"So we left you to it. A 15-year-old de Velasques picking up a sword to train is normal; it was just that it only took you 13 years to become a Sword Master. We watched you move so fast… We were convinced you just inherently remembered the skills, or truthfully, the worst, which we didn't want to face. That our Phina stopped being our baby the day she turned 15."
Delphina felt the tension leave her body as he said this. She could understand both his and Elvira's sentiments, but it just didn't excuse what they had done.
"So you… You actually assumed the worst. That I was someone else, and so you distanced yourself. Is that why you didn't ask me if it was anything else? Because you couldn't trust my words!?"
Medinador interrupted her as she appeared to become more heated, the more she spoke.
"No! Delphina, listen to me. The mention of Maria and Donovan only started to cycle through our own Knights when you became a Sword Master last year. It's truly an expression of reverence and nothing else. They would never dare say it outside of the Family."
"We didn't know, couldn't fathom who you might be if your recollection had awoken. After all, Donovan was the best Swords Master the continent has ever seen. Well, until you potentially. So it seems we did the worst thing this past year, by not just asking you, out of fear of our worst suspicions being true."
Delphina was mildly grateful for that clarification, it turned out that Delphina hadn't been isolated since her mid-teens. It was only this past year her 'parents' had unintentionally pushed her away by suspecting that she was a reincarnator.
But wait, that meant they thought she might have originally been a reincarnation of Donovan for a year, right? Or did they mean…