After hearing my explanation, however, the inferno still hasn’t died down, merely simmered, coiling like a serpent beneath Karura’s oppressive shadow.

  “Hence the deception,” Nana-baa-san said at last, her voice low and edged like tempered steel. “Plausible.”

  “Three Primarchs, in one location,” I said tiredly. “We also have 10 Archons, as well as a good portion of our strength being called. And then there’s me.”

  “Makes me wonder what kind of fight you’ll be going in to,” Kuuko baa-san said fiercely. “Don’t worry, if things do go from bad to worse, I’ll come running.”

  “Not that I don’t mind the help,” I replied flatly. “But you still haven’t answered my question yet, Kuuko baa.”

  Her laugh was like a roar, which made the realm shake with arcs of lightning, again splitting the sky as the flames around us danced. This time, both Karura and the grand dragon focused their gazes on me.

  Why on earth are these two enjoying themselves?

  “Is it that bad to be tied to me?” she asked with feigned sadness.

  “Frankly I haven’t thought about joining the house of crazy and I don’t care,” I said irritably. “I am already tied to four people, which is four too many!”

  She laughed again and as before, lightning twisted across the heavens in erratic arcs before her face settled back into a calm expression.

  “My son, Shizuku’s father,” she said slowly. “He’s in Tokyo right now, he even lied about why he went there.”

  “Ok, being a bit doting is fine, healthy even,” I replied exhaustedly. “But on that level? It’s starting to creep me out.”

  She chuckled softly, unbothered by my remark.

  “If he did, I would hit him on the head,” she said. “But this is different. He said it was for work. He lied that it was a conference, but he looked troubled.”

  Me and Nana baa-san took a few seconds to digest her words. I am confused as to why he is mentioning this.

  “Shizuku’s father works for the Security Bureau,” Nana baa-san supplied. “The police force for each region in Japan operates within their own prefecture. Usually, that is until special circumstances arise.”

  That new bit of information lit up my mind.

  “You don’t, think that, that has something to do with this case?” I asked uncertainly.

  “If it is, then they were right to call on you there,” Kuuko baa-san said definitively. “This whole event seems to be bigger than we realize, if even the government noticed something.”

  Kuuko baa-san folded her arms and eyes narrowed. “I’ll keep an eye out here on my end. And I’ll get Kaguya to scout the surrounding areas just in case.”

  “But, isn’t, Kaguya nee, pregnant?” I asked confused.

  “Do you think that would stop her?” Nana-baa-san asked dryly. “The real question is whether she’ll go berserk if we mention that both you and Reika are involved—or if she’ll lose it when she finds out we hid it from her.”

  After a few moments of thought and I could only slowly nod in agreement. It’s true that Kaguya nee is intense when it comes to us. With that our impromptu meeting came to an end. I promised to keep an eye out, of course, to the best of my abilities.

  I left with more questions in mind than answers. Hell’s all I wanted to know was how to stop her daughter from prattling about things like marriage. Four people are more than enough for me and I still want to win my bet with Rin.

  Time to face the music. Again. If the music was somewhere between a crazy and insane, who wouldn’t be tempted to go back, right?

  ========================================================================

  Just as the boy left, Kuuko stepped up beside me.

  “It’s always a sight to see that inner world of his,” she said with a grin.

  True. This world is not only a reflection of who we are but what we can achieve. Most higher members in the Order have an inner world, shaped by the core of their being, their soul, a mirror of both strength and personality.

  Each one was recorded in our memorial archives, etched into remembrance stones. In a way, it meant none of us ever truly dies. Himiko (火美子) ruled this blazing fiery field of flame once. Kazenari (風成) walked upon windy fields of grass and blades, the sky bright as lightning arced over the horizon.

  Diocletian’s deep endless sea, its rumbling waves powerful enough to scour continents clean. Konrad’s great fortress, carved into the side of a high, craggy mountain of ice and iron. Even a tea shop in the case of Remington. Among the countless members the order had, only he has the veil of starlight.

  “Though I’ve always preferred his original one,” I said softly. “What happened to him, to them, was a tragedy.”

  I could still remember it clearly, a pure, blue, open sky stretched over a yellow, wind-swept desert, above white cliffs made of marble. It was crowned with vibrant Sakura trees, their petals drifting down to a gentle, open sea.

  “But his—condition,” Kuuko said heavily. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

  I exhaled, long and weary. The boy’s soul was unraveling. Once, it had been a beautiful color of bright azure and radiant gold.

  Now it seethed with every hue imaginable: reds, blues, greens, gold, even the stark contrast of white and black, all twisting, writhing together in relentless chaotic motion. Though, it’s not hard to see what they based his name on.

  That should have been fine, the problem lies deeper. The deeper you went, the more it bled into red then deep crimson—then darker still, until you reach the core. Darker than black, a roiling storm of hate, grief and anger, a festering wound that refused to heal. A black sun.

  “I will keep an eye on him, but I am still hoping for little Rin’s gamble, to succeed.”

  ========================================================================

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  “They are the reason why I didn’t visit,” I said holding out my phone for everyone to see. Reika was looking at it with so much intent.

  She had thought it was a girl, but tough luck, those pictures are locked somewhere. Besides, I already told her she should find someone else, but the girl was, as I described in a previous chapter, a freight train that refused to stop.

  Instead, I was showing them my two precious Welsh doggos, Snooky and Dooky.

  “They’re so cute!” Aika said, casually snatching my phone. I let it slide because of my benevolent heart. And the fact that she likes dogs.

  “I’ve always wanted a dog of my own!” she continued as she enthusiastically flipped through the images. Three thousand images are a lot, but at the rate she’s going, she’d be done in a few minutes, maybe an hour at most.

  “It’s because her family owns a restaurant and they live above it,” Aika explained after noticing my confused stare. “They couldn’t risk being penalized.”

  I nodded. It was understandable considering Japan’s strict laws. I then turned to watch Aika as she flicked through the images with undisguised happiness. She even found the video where I was doing a little dance with Snooky and Dooky.

  Corgi butt! Corgi butt! Butt-Butt! Butt-Butt! Butt-Butt! Butt!

  Reika moved beside her and was also looking with interest, a grin tugging at the edges of her lips. Oh, they also found another video of me and my boys, I don’t know if they’ll be able to understand it though.

  Today on this field we shall know who will inherit this land, us natives or the foreign hordes! We shall fight upon this field against your tyranny! (Yaaaaah!)

  Baroooo!

  Iseldur! Let my people go! (Yaaaaah!)

  Attaaaack!

  Baroooo! Baroooo!

  Baroooo!

  Wait! No! No butt attacks! It’s two on one! It’s unfair!

  A few moments after my chat with the old monsters, I, to the best of my abilities, piled BS on top of crazy and I managed to throw off the questioning of the scion of the crazy house.

  During that whole episode, the rest of the boys, including my brother went to the toilet. I mean—nothing weird about that, just some classic male bonding in action. I really don’t know why they all had to go at once, but I suppose they needed to bond over something.

  “Vi-kun, Vi-kun, Vi-kun,” Suzu pipped excitedly as they continued to sort through my phone. “You don’t post on twitter by any chance?”

  “No,” I said my eyebrows furrowing at the mere mention of those hated words. “I dislike social media.”

  “So, one of the organizers gave them to you?” Aiko asked, genuinely curious.

  “Yes, he brought them when he visited my country,” I replied happily. “Father was furious at first but cooled down rather quickly, when Mom told him she loved them.”

  “But you never told them how you got them or from who, until last night, right?” Shizuku said, her brow arching higher with suspicion.

  “Yep! Not, at, all,” I replied proudly.

  “What a good son you are,” she said, her smile sweet but her words laced with sarcasm.

  “You know, I let it go the first few times, but stop breaking the meta! You’re Japanese, you’re not supposed to understand that level of sarcasm!” I retorted.

  “I don’t know what meta means,” she said defiantly and haughtily. “But I’m with Rai, and she told me how it works.”

  I glanced at the aforementioned person. She stuck out her tongue at me. This is—this is bad. They’re evolving. I must up my game.

  “Come now, Vi-kun,” Tsukiyo said calmly with a motherly smile. “Both of you are talking so wonderfully. Don’t stop now.”

  I glanced at the women on my right. She was still sitting with her back straight with a smile plastered on her face. God dammit! I want to retort I really do, but she’s the type to likely talk the more you retort.

  “You know, me and my husband started out like that, always yapping at each other,” she said dreamily. Then she went off on how their relationship—to quote her—blossomed.

  Shizuku had retreated to the safety of both her hands on her face. The rest of the girls were paying half attention to her, save for the dog lover, who was positively in love with my best boys. I can’t blame her, the dog lover I mean, not the one yapping, those two could charm the dead to life, should they wish it.

  Let’s hope I never have to teach them that skill.

  “Are you listening, Vi-kun?” she asked, clearly enjoying herself.

  “Ah no, I just wondering if a fall from this height is enough to kill,” I deadpanned.

  “I said, that even if you are associated with the two organizers, you must learn to cook,” she explained patiently. “If not, you must get a high salary job, if you are not confident in your cooking skills.”

  “I mean, you are male after all, normally you’d be the one expected to work and stand on your own merit. But if your grades are poor, it would be—unbecoming—to use your connections like that,” she prattled on with a bit of smugness.

  She then laughed softly, “Oh forgive me, no wonder you weren’t listening, because they are simply the truths you don’t want to hear? Of course, you don’t want people talking behind your back that you coasted on privilege, would you?”

  “That is why you must learn to cook. It might be a bit embarrassing to be thought of as a house husband, but if there is love, you can make it work! I will support you in that, and also your diet, you must lose weight. Just to be sure I would need to sample your cooking at some point. I don’t want a son-in-law whose cooking is nasty.”

  Oh, now those are fighting words!

  Can I be blamed for falling for that? I mean, I was listening, technically, to her for over an hour now. And having to turn the sounds I hear, on and off is extremely disorientating. It’s like having to face against La Mystic.

  “I’ll have you know—” I began. Of course I started with my wonderful grades.

  Granted, my academic strategy could only be described as—selective participation. In short, I only bothered with classes that actually interest me. Of course, that left my grades rather—predictable.

  Also, there are many ways colleges grade their students, some use letters, then some use GPA there are also ones who use the reverse of GPA with number one being the highest. So, I am going to use the 100-point scale to better illustrate my point.

  For the subjects I don’t like, like Religion— which somehow spans REL01 to REL8 yet for five years, somehow only managed to cover a single religion, the entire fucking time, a remarkable feat of redundancy, which makes that even dumber, which is also why I don’t like it— and PE because of how hot the weather is, I mainly get the passing grade of 75.

  Everything else? A shining 90 and above.

  Everyone was looking at me weirdly.

  What? You can’t be called dumb if you know what you’re doing. All hail me.

  “At least, tell me you go to your classes on time,” Shizuku said sounding weary. One of these days I am going to call her mother because of the way she dotes on people like that.

  “Of course! I’m so punctual that I’m only fourteen minutes late—every single day. Consistency is key, after all,” I grinned, unbothered. “Besides, I even attend class in my dreams. Perfect attendance every time, that would make me the most studious person there is.”

  “At least he’s honest,” Airi deadpanned, a sentiment few agreed with.

  I then regaled them with tales of how I, from a young age, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a dream, took to the seas, carved my fortune from the ever-shifting sands of the tech industry—a battlefield of code, late-night shifts, and caffeine, until the knights of IT, granted me the bounty of their domain.

  Then came the stories of my travels across distant lands, where I went through the markets and labyrinths of food stalls, deep into the night, where I hunted for forgotten relics of ancient civilizations, each one a treasure found at the edge of the world, all for the sake of the matriarch of the family.

  Shizuku’s mother blinked. “So, from a young age, you worked from home, became well off, then got hired. And during your trips to Singapore and Malaysia you managed to collect recipes of food? For your mother?” she asked slowly.

  “Yep, pretty much,” I said with a small smile and a huff. I tilted my head toward my phone in Airi’s hands. “There are pictures there if you don’t believe me.”

  “So, my grades may be selective, and I oversleep, or that I am late,” I said, throwing my hands up. “You can even insult me on how poor I am, just because we live in a third world nation, but I don’t care. However, do not insult my cooking! I still have some pride left!”

  “Clearly, you don’t,” Shizuku said flatly, not even looking up.

  “Says the girl who can’t even cook porridge.”

  She slammed her fists on the table. “That was Rai’s fault and you know it!”

  “Me!? That was Ae!” Reika shot back, pointing an accusing finger.

  “Shut up! You’re both part of the problem!”

  It always gets exhausting like this with these two around. As for why—I do not know. One of the three great mysteries of the world. The other two are Reika, and my curse that only happens when I do something cool.

  I sighed and took a glance at Shizuku’s mother, who had gotten suspiciously rather silent. She was watching the three of us argue but seemed to have come to a possibly, a weird conclusion.

  “Call me mother,” she said with a sweet kind smile.

  …The fuck!?