Chapter 145: Did You Die?

"So, report on how the test went." The professor in charge said, papers organized across the U-shaped table.

The professors looked at one another.

"Quite peculiar." Someone said.

"How many of the Twelve were exorcised?"

"Only six."

"And the cores? Were they all returned?"

Silence.

"No." The Strategist said. "One is missing."

"The exorcism that occurred was, let’s say, a partial simulation." Glen explained, adjusting his glasses. "They turned into contained energy spheres as expected. But in the end, those cores were collected by me, as the person responsible for the academy during this period."

Pause.

"And we counted them."

"The numbers didn’t add up." He continued. "There were a total of nine hundred minor spirits for the remaining thousand students. Now only five hundred remain on the records. Where did the other four hundred go?"

"The four hundred that disappeared are not relevant." Glen said. "No more than the one that is missing."

"The one that is missing is the real problem."

"The Forgotten General." Glen confirmed.

Heavy silence settled over the table.

"When I released the original seal of the Twelve." Glen continued. "I made sure none of them exceeded the rank of the student with the highest rank, Seline. That level of power was a simulation. A fraction of what they actually were."

He looked around.

"We’re talking about the Twelve Knights who directly touched and interacted with Eldrath, the most powerful man in this Empire in his time, perhaps even today."

Pause.

"And the one we call the Forgotten General was the commander of those twelve."

"Where are you going with this, professor?"

"Wherever that core is, or whoever decided not to return it..." Glen said slowly, "...it has to be someone with enough sense to understand what they’re holding."

Silence.

"So that’s it?" Someone asked. "We’re just going to stay quiet while a general’s core and another four hundred minor ones simply disappear?"

"Calm down." The Strategist intervened. "We’re talking about Eldrath’s Knights. In essence, they would never rebel against us. The concern about hostility is almost zero."

"What we should be worried about is the student who took them."

"Any clue who it is?"

Glen adjusted his glasses again.

"Hmm. For now, no."

"As for Haru Mizuki." Another professor changed the subject. "I see that he was at the top in the previous test. This time, he dropped drastically."

"Maybe that’s his plan." Someone suggested.

"Maybe not." Glen replied.

"Look at Genials too." The Strategist pointed out. "He dropped a lot as well."

"Wonder why."

"I think we, Genius, don’t understand feelings."

"You think?" The Strategist asked.

"In any case." Glen concluded. "Mizuki is going into a retest. Because he stood out so much in the first test. If what he did was luck, we’ll find out in the retest. And we need to understand why he scored zero."

He looked around the table.

"Any questions?"

No one had any.

"Very well... Let’s talk about Arthur."

....

The euphoria passed.

Haru was left alone in the alley, his breathing returning to normal, the warmth of the kiss still lingering on his skin.

He thought about the system.

He thought about the test.

He thought about Seline.

He thought about the helmet.

He thought about Lilith.

And then:

"Yukihime."

"Eh!?" He said aloud to the empty alley. "Wait... I have a daughter."

And worse: he was her father. He couldn’t treat her like just another adventure companion, like Kira or Isabela.

He realized, with that sudden clarity that arrives too late but still arrives, that he had spent all this time worrying about surviving, evolving, understanding spirits and Knights and everything else.

While there was someone at the academy who depended on him.

"Fuck."

He ran out of the alley.

In the girls’ children’s wing, she wasn’t there.

The caretaker searched and confirmed it; she really wasn’t there. She explained that Yukihime worked as a gardener, and at this hour she was probably finishing her duties, since the children hadn’t participated in the Tribunal Test.

Haru went looking anywhere that had flowers.

He searched almost the entire academy, the eastern garden, the tree courtyard, the flower beds near the library, the small green space near the cafeteria.

Nothing.

Finally, after he had practically covered the entire perimeter.

Yukihime was returning with her watering can, small, child-sized, water still dripping from the spout.

She saw him.

And ran.

Haru sensed her before he fully saw her, as if it were natural, an instinct that already knew her movement before it happened. He turned before she reached him.

Yukihime stopped running.

She stood in front of him.

Looked at him.

"Did you die?"

Haru blinked.

"Huh!?" He thought quickly. "Can she sense how many spirits I absorbed?"

"No." He said aloud.

"Almost?"

"...A few times."

She became serious.

"Dad."

It wasn’t the way a child scolded someone. It was something else, heavier, more direct.

"Do you know what you do when you disappear?" She asked.

"Work." Haru said, not exactly lying, just simplifying too much.

"You almost died."

"A few times."

"How many?"

Haru opened his mouth. Closed it.

"I don’t know how to count that properly."

Yukihime stared at him, that old-child evaluation he had already seen before, on the first day, when she seemed older than her age inside a small body carrying a perception that didn’t match her years.

"You disappear." She said. "Go into tests. Fight spirits. Fight another Gamer. Almost die."

Pause.

"And come back smiling. Like nothing happened."

Haru remained silent.

"If you die..." She continued, her voice small but firm, "...who stays with me?"

The question landed like a weight Haru wasn’t prepared to carry.

Much more than any blow from Seline. Much more than the giant gate in the desert, the statue hunting him, anything he had faced in the last few moments.

"If you die, who stays with me?"

"I..." He began.

He had no answer.

He wanted to live. He wanted to build his harem, become stronger, understand the system, solve the mystery of his Sarcophagus.

But now there was a variable that wasn’t simply ’me.’

It was ’us.’

"Isabela." He finally said, trying. "And Kira. And..."

"They’re not the same." Yukihime cut him off, not rudely, just precisely. "They take care of me. You’re different."

"How different?"

She looked at him, choosing her words.

"Do you know why you’re my father?"

Haru was surprised by the change of topic.

"Because..." He hesitated. He had never asked, afraid of hurting her somehow by questioning it.

"Because you didn’t explode." She said simply.

"Explode?"

"When you touched me." She explained. "That’s not how it works? Parents don’t explode when they pick up their children."

Haru processed it, the memory slowly returning, remembering when he had first touched her, Touch of Goddess activating because she was female, acquiring the Mana Core skill from her instantly.

"Mana Core." He realized now. "I acquired Mana Core from her. Before she could explode."

"You only explode..." He said slowly, putting the pieces together, "...when you don’t want people around you? When you feel threatened?"

Yukihime nodded.

"Now that I have a dad, my body stays calm." She said with the naturalness of someone explaining something obvious. "Because Dad will come."

That conversation destroyed Haru in a different way from any battle.

Because there was no answer.

He wanted a harem, to become stronger, to solve all the mysteries he had accumulated over the past few days.

But now there was a goddess, inside the body of a kitsune child, who trusted that he existed specifically to keep her from exploding.

Who depended on his presence in a way he had never calculated when he accepted the role of "father" in a lie that had become a real family without warning.

"You’re different." Yukihime said, changing the subject again, looking at him with particular attention.

"Different how?"

"Fuller." She wrinkled her nose slightly. "You’re scary."

Haru found that strange.

"Like when you eat too much."

Silence.

"Are you eating a lot of spirits?"

Haru hadn’t told anyone everything, not the details, not the real mechanics of what he had done. And here was a child, sensing it through whatever connection they shared, arriving at the truth without needing an explanation.

"Obviously she can sense my internal state." He realized. "Not as some complex ability. Just like she would sense if I had a fever, was tired, or was hungry."

"She knows me well enough to notice that something changed."

"The important thing is that it doesn’t hurt." Haru replied.

They remained silent.

It was no longer simply: Haru protects Yukihime when danger appears.

It was: Yukihime was beginning to know the father she had received, his flaws, his absences, the risks he took without fully considering the consequences for her.

And Haru was beginning to understand that being a father didn’t just mean showing up when there was danger.

It meant being present before the danger appeared.

"Can you stay with me today?" She asked.

He had a thousand things to do, understand the core of the General he carried, process what Lilith had said about Nyx, decide what to do about the test retake, read about Vandris and Eldrath, find Genius.

He looked at her.

The watering can still in her small hand. Dirt on the knees of her gardening dress. Eyes waiting for an answer she already knew, judging by the way she had asked, could be no.

"I can." He said.

Her smile was immediate, not restrained, not calculated like the strange maturity with which she sometimes expressed emotion.

Just the smile of a child who got what she wanted.

"Come." She said, taking his free hand with the hand that wasn’t holding the watering can. "I need to finish watering the flowers in the southern flower bed. Then I can show you where the butterflies stay in the afternoon."

Haru let himself be pulled along.

"The system can wait." He thought. "The General’s core can wait... The retest can wait."

He looked at the small hand holding his. "This can’t."

They went together to the southern flower bed, Haru carrying the watering can when she asked him to, listening to a detailed explanation about which flower needed more water and which needed less sunlight, pretending to completely understand while in truth he was simply present.

Just that.

Present.