Chapter 112: Chapter 33
Ichibei stood at the head of the training hall, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the disciples carry Samu's body away.
His face was a mask of tempered stone, but beneath the surface, his Ki was boiling with a dark, silent fury.
The students whispered of suicide, of unrequited love and a broken heart, but Ichibei knew better.
He had lived through wars and seen every shade of human depetivity. A man like Samu, who had built his soul through the discipline of Ki, did not simply snap over a broken heart unless someone had methodically dismantled his will.
And he knew just who is the person capable of dismantling the will of his most cherished disciple.
Ichibei waited until every disciple left the hall before moved through the hallways like a mountain gale.
He bypassed the weeping disciples outside and went straight to the guest wing, arriving at Seijirou's room where he knew his granddaughter was in.
He was about to knock, but before his hand could touch the wood of the sliding door, it glided open.
Retsu stepped out, her expression soft and serene as she saw him before she closed the door behind her with a quiet click, as if shielding a sleeping child from the noise of the world.
"Grandfather," she greeted him, her voice light and melodic. "What brings you to this side of the estate? Shouldn't you be overseeing the funeral rites for your poor disciple?"
Ichibei did not return the greeting, instead, a dark, silver-white aura flickered around his body, the air around him growing heavy and cold.
"What did you do?" he questioned, his voice vibrating with a terrifying resonance. "Don't lie to me, Retsu. I know you are responsible for Samu's death. To be able to get into the mind of my most talented disciple...only you are capable of that."
Retsu's eyes widened, and she let out a small, wounded gasp as she looked at him with an expression of shock and hurt.
"How could you accuse your own granddaughter like that? I was with Seijirou-kun all night. I watched him eat, I watched him fall asleep, and I stayed by his side until the sun rose. I never left this room for even a second."
"Drop the act, Retsu," Ichibei said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "Why did you do it?"
Retsu stared at him for several seconds, and slowly, the light in her eyes died.
The "hurt" and "shock" drained from her face like water down a sink, leaving behind a cold, emotionless void.
Her features became perfectly still, devoid of any human warmth.
"Yes, I did it," she stated. Her tone was flat, as if she were discussing the removal of a weed from a garden. "So what? A toy that threatened its owner should be discarded. That is the most logical thing to do, so I simply expedited his departure."
Ichibei's eyes flared in anger as he reached out with lightning speed, his hand clamping around Retsu's throat before he lifted her slightly in the air.
But she did not struggle for even a moment, she simply looked down at him with those empty, red eyes, with her body completely limp and unafraid.
"You have gone too far!" Ichibei growled. "Do you think I will not punish you just because you share my blood? You are a monster, Retsu!"
Retsu didn't even blink, instead, she curled her lips into a wide, uncanny smile—a grin that reached too far across her face and showed too many teeth.
It was a look that bypassed the human brain and struck the primal instincts of a predator.
Ichibei felt a cold shiver of genuine dread, and his grip involuntarily loosened as be took a step back, his hand falling away.
"Grandfather," Retsu said, taking a slow step toward him. "Your inability to even threaten to kill the murderer of your favorite disciple speaks volumes of your cowardice. You hold onto 'family' and 'duty' because you are too weak to face the truth."
In an instant, she moved with a swiftness that bypassed Ichibei's perception.
Then, with a single blur of motion, an acupuncture needle appeared in her hand and was driven deep into the back of the hand he had used to grab her.
Ichibei hissed in pain as the needle struck a nerve cluster, but he immediately reacted, swinging a heavy, Ki-infused kick at her ribs.
Retsu shifted her weight, catching the blow on her elbow with a dull thud, and simultaneously drove a palm strike into the center of Ichibei's chest.
The impact sent a shockwave through the old man's lungs as Ichibei stumbled back, coughing as his internal Ki was momentarily disrupted.
He stared at his granddaughter in genuine shock.
For the first time, he saw not just a sociopath, but a master whose power was beginning to cast a shadow over his own.
"This is the difference between us, Grandfather," Retsu said. she waved her finger, and the needle embedded in Ichibei's hand tore itself free, flying through the air and landing perfectly between her fingers. "You are bound by familial affection. I am bound only to what is real, and unfortunately, you are not real."
Ichibei clutched his throbbing hand, his voice raspy. "I am still your grandfather, Retsu. I am the one who gave you this life and these skills."
"You are not," Retsu replied, turning her back on him and walking toward Seijirou's door. "You are simply an older instrument that happened to bring me into this fake world. You were a means to an end."
Just then, she stopped with her hand on the door, turning back to offer him a genuine, radiant smile—one that reached her eyes because she was thinking of the person inside the room.
"Although, I must thank you. Because I was born, I eventually got to meet someone like him. For that alone, your existence has value."
She entered the room and closed the door, leaving Ichibei alone in the hallway.
The old man stood in the silence, looking at the blood dripping from his hand.
He wanted to burst back into the room, to exert his authority, to break her spirit before she destroyed everything he had built.
But as he looked at the closed door, he felt only a hollow exhaustion as he realized that he could not bring himself to kill her.
"Coward," he whispered to the empty air.
With a single, heavy step, Ichibei's form blurred and vanished, leaving only a faint ripple in the air where the King of Acupuncture had stood.
*
*
*
Seijirou stirred awake, the heavy silence of the mountain estate pressing against his eardrums.
He groggily opened his eyes, the morning light stinging slightly, and immediately saw Retsu sliding the door open.
She stepped inside with a fluid, silent grace, her presence instantly filling the room.
The moment she saw his eyes open, Retsu's face lit up with a radiant, bright smile. "Just in time! I was just about to wake you up for breakfast. You've slept quite deeply, Seijirou-kun."
As Seijirou sat up, he felt a sudden, sharp chill. His back was slick with cold sweat, and a lingering sense of unease crawled up his spine.
He frowned, rubbing the back of his neck.
Throughout the night, he had felt an oppressive weight on his chest, a sensation like a predator crouched in the corner of the room, intensely watching his every breath.
It was the kind of instinctual alarm that had saved his life in dozens of street fights, yet here, in the supposed safety of the manor, it had left him feeling more drained than rested.
He stood up, the floorboards cool beneath his feet, and began to strip off his sleeping yukata.
Without a word of modesty, he handed the discarded clothes to Retsu.
She already had a fresh change of clothes draped over her arm, neatly pressed and smelling faintly of cedar and expensive soap.
Seijirou didn't find the intimacy of the moment strange. In the time they had spent together, Retsu had seamlessly integrated herself into his life, functioning as a high-tier personal doctor, a strategic advisor, and a meticulous caretaker.
To him, her presence during his most vulnerable moments was simply a fact of his new reality.
As he pulled on the crisp black shirt she had provided, Retsu's tone shifted into something more conversational. "I should inform you, your training with Grandfather might be postponed today."
Seijirou paused, one arm through a sleeve, and frowned. "Postponed? Why? I didn't come all the way up this mountain to sit around."
Retsu smoothed out the collar of his shirt, her touch lingering just a second too long. "It seems one of Grandfather's top disciples committed suicide last night. The estate is currently in a bit of a localized panic. They'll likely be spending the day handling the funeral rites and the police report."
"I see." Seijirou shrugged, finishing with his buttons. "Well, if the old man is busy with a corpse, there's nothing that can be done about it. It's a waste of a day, though."
Retsu nodded in agreement, her voice smooth and devoid of any real weight. "Yes. Nothing at all can be done about it."
Seijirou stopped moving and looked at her. He narrowed his eyes, catching a strange, almost imperceptible flick of amusement in her gaze before it vanished.
"You're acting weird, Retsu."
"Am I?" Retsu tilted her head, her brows furrowing in a display of practiced confusion. "I suppose the death of a fellow disciple did bother me more than I anticipated. I'm usually not so distracted. Perhaps it is because we spent a significant amount of time together since childhood? Even for someone like me, history carries a certain... residue."
She blinked rapidly, as if suddenly realizing how her words might be interpreted.
She waved her hands in front of her face, a flush of "embarrassment" creeping onto her cheeks. "But please, don't misunderstand! Obviously, nothing romantic or sexual ever happened between us! I've been very careful to save myself entirely for you, Seijirou-kun!"
Seijirou raised an eyebrow.
Seeing her act like a flustered schoolgirl was almost surreal given her usual clinical coldness.
Honestly, he wasn't bothered by the idea of her having a past. She was a beautiful, successful woman in her twenties; having a body count of one or two wouldn't have changed his opinion of her utility or her charm.
But watching her protest so vehemently, he realized she might actually be that rare creature—a woman who had reached adulthood with her obsession so focused on a single target that she had remained untouched by anyone else.
"Is that so?" Seijirou murmured.
He took a slow, predatory step forward, closing the distance between them until their chests were almost touching.
He leaned down, his face mere inches from hers, his eyes locking onto her deep red irises as a sharp, arrogant smirk played on his lips.
"Save yourself for me, you say?" his voice was a low, vibrating growl that seemed to echo in the small room. "Then, what if I decided I wanted to withdraw those 'savings' right now, Retsu? Are you prepared for that?"
Retsu blinked, her calculated mask completely shattering.
Her breath hitched, and for the first time since he had met her, she looked genuinely and completely caught off guard.
The woman who had just coolly manipulated a man into hanging himself was suddenly trembling at a simple challenge of intimacy.
"O-Oh dear," she stammered, her eyes darting between his lips and his eyes, a nervous, high-pitched giggle escaping her. "T-this is... quite unexpected. I... I thought we were going to have breakfast..."
Seijirou's smirk widened. Seeing the "unbeatable" Retsu this flustered was more entertaining than any training session.