"Lord Robert indeed carries a thick air of mystery around him."
"He looks cold and elegant at once, exactly what you would expect from a Supernova who heads one of the thirty royal families."
"He has been a talent since he was young. How dare you speak of him as though he were anything less."
The guests who had stood frozen and silent through Robert's arrival finally found their voices again once he disappeared into his own room, and the chatter that followed came faster and louder than before. Among the Karma family's own consuls and relatives scattered through the crowd, pride sat plainly on every face, some of them barely containing their smiles.
Sasaki had kept his eyes on Robert the entire time, and just before Robert stepped fully out of sight, he had turned back for one final glance, sharp enough that Sasaki felt it even from a distance.
Sasaki let out a slow breath. He did not need to breathe at all in his living corpse form, but he had made a habit of it anyway, one small piece of a much longer effort to feel more human than the form allowed.
He turned his gaze back toward the garden.
It did not stay quiet for long. Wind began gathering into a vortex just beyond the mansion's edge, and the force building within it grew strong enough to tear at the garden itself, bending stems past what they could bear and stripping petals from flowers that had stood untouched all evening.
A meditation aura poured into the space left behind, red, purple, and gold particles swirling together as three Supernovas stepped through at once.
All three were old, and all three carried a weight in the hall that had nothing to do with age.
The man at the center, walking slightly ahead of the other two, was tall and built with the kind of muscle that came from decades rather than years. A long beard reached down to his chest, and his red eyes burned with a dominance so total that anyone caught beneath his gaze felt the air around them thicken. His hair and beard had long since turned white, and deep lines creased his face at the cheeks and forehead, yet none of it bent his posture, and he stood as straight and unyielding as a spear driven into stone.
This was Albert Blackbell, the man who had trained Sasaki in the sword since he was a child and who had raised him afterward as his own son.
On his left walked an old woman with long white hair, faint wrinkles gathered at the corners of her mouth, and purple eyes that seemed to hold entire conversations no one else could hear. There was warmth in the way she carried herself, an easy amicability that made her look, at first glance, like any grandmother one might pass in the street. She was nothing of the sort. This was Alberta Blackbell, Albert's younger sister and Sasaki's adoptive mother, and the moment her eyes found Sasaki across the hall, a small smile spread across her face, one that carried far more meaning than its size suggested.
Yet for all the presence Albert and Alberta commanded, most of the guests found their attention pulled instead to the eldest man walking on Albert's right.
His hair had gone fully white, and his golden eyes carried the kind of depth that only comes from having lived through more than most people could imagine surviving. His back had curved with age, forcing him to lean on a cane gripped in his right hand while his left rested against the small of his back for support. His body trembled faintly now and then, the wrinkles across his skin deep enough to map decades onto his face alone.
This was Christopher Blackbell, and though he looked every bit the frail old man one might see resting on a park bench or shuffling through a hospital corridor, not a single person in that hall would have dared treat him as such.
Two guests standing near enough to catch a good look at Christopher kept their voices low, though neither could quite hide their fascination.
"Is that really Christopher Blackbell? I always pictured the previous Meditation Master differently." The younger of the two, a woman in pale green, kept her eyes fixed on the cane in his hand.
"Pictured him differently how? Younger, you mean." Her companion, an older man with a neatly trimmed mustache, allowed himself a small smile. "He earned every one of those wrinkles. He was the 106th Meditation Master, a true Supernova in his prime, and not the kind of man anyone crossed twice."
"He does not look like it now."
"Looks rarely tell you anything true in this city." He glanced toward Christopher again before continuing. "His youth was not an easy one either. Most of his fiercest rivals were his own siblings. He fought that battle alone for years, no wife, no family of his own, nothing but the climb, until he finally broke through and claimed the seat for himself."
"So how did he end up like this? Bent over a cane, back to Supernova instead of True Supernova?"
"His lifespan ran out on him, or close enough to it. There is a technique that buys more years, but it does not come free. It cost him his rank. He traded True Supernova for the chance to keep living, and by the sound of it, he never once looked back on that trade."
The woman's eyes drifted, unconsciously, toward Albert and Alberta walking just behind him. "And those two? People keep saying they are his children, but I heard he never married."
"He never did. They are not his by blood." The older man lowered his voice slightly, though there was nothing but respect in it. "He found triplets once, abandoned by some branch family within his own bloodline, back when he still held the seat of Meditation Master. Most men in his position would have handed them off to a servant and moved on. He raised them himself instead. Taught them everything he knew. Guided them through every failure they had."
"And they turned out well, clearly."
"Well is an understatement." He nodded toward Albert. "Albert and Alberta both became Supernovas in their own right, and neither of them lost gracefully to anyone who challenged them. The third triplet, Alexander, no one has seen him in years, though I could not tell you why."
The woman's gaze finally settled on Sasaki, still waiting by the door. "And that is the boy they raised, then. Albert and Alberta's doing."
"That is exactly right." The older man's smile faded into something more thoughtful. "Whatever else people say about Sasaki Alberich tonight, know that the hands that shaped him were some of the finest this family has ever produced."
"The third triplet, Alexander, I have not seen in years, though I could not tell you why." The older man's mustache twitched thoughtfully as he said it.
"Wait, Alexander Blackbell. You mean the one who became the 107th Meditation Master?" The woman's eyes widened. "The True Supernova?"
"The very same. He inherited Christopher's legacy in full and rose all the way to True Supernova himself, something neither Albert nor Alberta ever managed." He shook his head slowly. "And then he simply vanished. He has not set foot in Lumenia in over a century now."
"A century. Where does a True Supernova even go for a hundred years without anyone noticing?"
"That is the question, is it not? No one knows. I have heard rumors for decades, and none of them ever amounted to anything real." He glanced toward Sasaki again. "I heard even the boy himself had to search for years, chasing coincidence after coincidence, before he finally tracked his uncle down."
"So with Alexander gone, who has actually been running things? The Blackbell family, Lumenia itself, all of it?"
"These three standing right in front of us. Albert, Alberta, and Christopher, holding everything together in Alexander's absence, just as they have for longer than either of us has been alive." He said it plainly, without a trace of exaggeration. "They were the legends of their generation. No one in this hall would dispute that."
"Were." The woman caught the word immediately. "You say that like it is already finished."
"Because it nearly is." He allowed himself a faint, almost wistful smile. "Old waves give way to new ones eventually; that is simply how it goes. From what I understand, all three of them have already decided where everything they built is going to end up."
"With Sasaki."
"With Sasaki," he confirmed, watching the boy standing straight and still at the mansion's door. "Whatever legends they were, tonight looks very much like the night they finally step aside for his."
...
Seeing Sasaki standing there, the expressionless masks all three of them had worn since stepping through the vortex finally cracked, joy breaking across their faces at once, their eyes catching light in a way that made them look, for just a moment, far younger than their years.
They started up the stairs together, unhurried, and began making their way toward him.
Watching them come, Sasaki felt something loosen in his chest that he had spent years keeping locked tight. A small smile touched his face, and he looked down at his own hands as his form shifted quietly beneath his skin, the living corpse state releasing its hold on him. His eyes bled back from empty black into a deep Egyptian blue, and for the first time all evening, he looked less like a weapon standing guard at a door and more like a boy about to see his family.
That was when the weight of every gaze in the hall landed on him at once.
He froze.
His heart slammed against his ribs, fast enough that he was certain someone must be able to hear it. He was scared. He hated that he was scared, hated that even now, after everything, a room full of strangers watching him could still make his hands want to shake, but he forced himself to stay exactly where he was anyway. He did not retreat into the safety of his other form. He did not let his face go blank again. He stood there, human and unguarded and terrified, and let them look.
The crowd had already begun to notice something was different about him even before the smile fully registered, and once it did, a ripple of disbelief moved through the hall faster than any of them could contain.
No one in that room had ever seen Sasaki Alberich smile.
Albert reached him first and rested a broad hand on top of his head, ruffling his hair the way he must have done a hundred times when Sasaki was small. His voice came out warm, rough at the edges with something that sounded suspiciously close to pride. "Congratulations on your wedding. Look how far you have come, from that stubborn little thing who used to try killing himself a dozen times a day just to see if it would finally stick."
Sasaki's throat tightened. He managed only a quiet, "Thank you, Grandpa," as Albert stepped past him, and even saying that much took more out of him than facing down most opponents ever did.
He had always called them Grandpa and Grandma, despite Albert and Alberta being his adoptive father and mother in every way that mattered on paper. It had simply always fit them better, and none of the three had ever bothered correcting him.
Alberta stopped in front of him next, holding out a small blue flower between two fingers, her smile softer than her brother's but no less full. "Make sure this reaches your wife. It is a protection charm, though it doubles well enough as a hairpin if Mona would rather wear it that way."
Sasaki took it carefully, his fingers brushing hers for just a moment, and nodded, not quite trusting his voice a second time. She patted his arm once and continued past him toward the room set aside for them, no escort trailing after her. None of the three needed one, and everyone in the hall understood that well enough not to offer.
Christopher came last, leaning on his cane, his golden eyes studying Sasaki for a long moment before he finally spoke.
"Here is your wedding gift."
He held out his hand.
A paper airplane sat folded in his palm.
Sasaki blinked at it. "What? An airplane?"
Somewhere behind him, a guest whispered, not nearly as quietly as they thought, "The actual hell?"
More than a few people in that hall stared at the sight in open disbelief, certain they had misunderstood what they were seeing, since no one would have believed a story like this without watching it happen with their own eyes.
Then Sasaki laughed, a short, genuinely pleased sound that seemed to surprise even him, and he took the paper airplane from Christopher's hand and sent it sailing forward with a light flick of his wrist. It cut through the air in a smooth, quiet arc before dropping neatly into the center of one of the garden's flowers, not a single petal disturbed by the landing.
"You hit it." Christopher's voice stayed as blunt and dry as ever, though something almost like approval lingered underneath it. "You have taken 'Cut' all the way to its limit, then."
He said nothing more and walked past Sasaki toward the room where Albert and Alberta already waited, his cane tapping softly against the floor with each step.
The crowd parted for him without a word, the way they had for the other two, and not a single guest so much as considered approaching him.
...
In his room, packed floor to ceiling with instruments meant for divination of every kind, brown crystals arranged in patterns only he could read, and hangings in white, brown, and black draped across every wall, Robert stood perfectly still, a thin trail of white incense curling up from a burner near the window and filling the space with a scent meant to sharpen the mind rather than soothe it.
He had watched every second of what happened outside.
Most guests in that hall had already dismissed Christopher's gift as nothing more than an old man's eccentricity, a charming oddity to gossip about over wine, but Robert understood it for exactly what it was the moment the paper airplane left Christopher's hand.
"That was no careless gesture. Christopher does nothing carelessly, and certainly not something like that." He spoke to the empty room, his voice low, almost a murmur. "If this had truly been nothing more than sentiment, he would have waited. He would have done it once every family head stood together to witness it. He did not wait. That alone tells me this was meant for me, and me alone."
He remembered, then, exactly what that gesture referenced, and the memory settled over him like a second layer of incense smoke.
Years ago, Christopher had drilled Sasaki relentlessly with exercises built around paper airplanes, forcing the boy to catch them, throw them, and strike orbs hidden throughout the estate's gardens with nothing but a folded scrap of paper as his weapon. What had looked, to any outsider, like a strange and even cruel game had in truth shaped Sasaki's accuracy, his perception, and his ability to read patterns most people never even noticed existed. That training had eventually crystallized into something far more dangerous, the technique the entire city now spoke of only in hushed, careful tones.
Cut.
The memory of that technique aimed at him personally, once, years ago, sent a cold ripple straight through Robert's chest even now.
He closed his eyes halfway and let his fingers begin to move, quick and precise, brown light kindling behind his eyelids with every gesture. The longer the light burned, the steadier his pulse became, until the tremor that had crept into his hands finally stilled completely.
Once calm, he ran through a series of divinations, small and unassuming to anyone watching from outside, the kind of motion a stranger might mistake for idle fidgeting. Any lower-ranked Overseeing Pathway user who witnessed the true depth hidden inside those simple gestures would have stood frozen on the spot, utterly unable to comprehend the layers of meaning folded into something so small.
The results came back, and his frown deepened the instant he read them.
"So it was meant for me after all. Christopher used that gesture to tell me, without a single word spoken aloud, that Sasaki has taken Cut all the way to its absolute limit, precise enough to strike orbs he cannot even see. The fact that he threw it, and that Sasaki caught the meaning behind it instantly, means my intentions were already understood before I ever opened my mouth to voice them. And the plane landing at the center of that flower, untouched, undisturbed, that was his answer. That was a refusal to cooperate, dressed up as something beautiful enough that no one else in the hall would ever suspect it."
Robert let out a slow breath, heavy with something close to grief, and beads of sweat gathered along his hairline the longer he sat with what he now understood.
"Then I am left with no other option." His hands curled slightly against his knees. "I will have to rely on 'Him' after all."
As the three Blackbell Supernovas disappeared into the room prepared for them, Sasaki turned his attention back toward the garden, where the air had already begun to change again.
A meditation aura threaded with pink particles gathered slowly at first, then all at once collapsed inward into a small black hole that crackled with veins of white lightning, and a figure stepped out from the center of it as though the tear in the air had simply been waiting for him to walk through.
Short pink hair. Light purple eyes that dimmed and sharpened again in the same breath, never quite settling. Purple sparks danced randomly across his skin, flickering in and out of existence without any pattern Sasaki could immediately name. He wore a fitted pink bodysuit over a frame that was lean but unmistakably strong, built for speed rather than raw force.
His brows drew together the moment his eyes landed on Sasaki, and there was nothing in his expression that resembled fear, not even the faintest trace of it.
The air between them tightened.
To think he would be the next one to arrive. Sasaki kept his face perfectly still, giving nothing away, and met that unflinching stare with one of his own.