Chapter 783 - 783 - The Cost of an Arranged Marriage

Meanwhile, Reiji and the others had no idea that Riku had just passed them on the way out.

With Kazuma leading the way, the three continued toward the mansion where his ex-wife lived with her current husband. The entire estate was brightly lit, servants hurried between their duties, and the imposing front gate alone made it obvious that whoever lived there had money to spare.

This was the home of Kazuma's ex-wife and her new family. Judging by the mansion and everything surrounding it, she had married into serious wealth.

The only question was whether Yuzuki was actually inside.

"Yuzuki, wait for me. Dad's coming."

The moment they reached the gate, Kazuma tried to push his way inside. A pair of broad-shouldered security guards in black uniforms immediately blocked him, their expressions hard as they asked for his invitation.

Two Machoke stood beside them with their muscles tensed, ready to throw him back into the street if he tried forcing his way through.

"Let me in! I need to get inside!"

Kazuma barely seemed to hear the warning. Finding Yuzuki was the only thing on his mind, and when he kept trying to break through the gate, the guards and their Machoke stopped being polite.

His reward was a beating from both humans and Pokémon.

Kazuma's shouting had already begun holding up the guests arriving behind him, so two guards dragged him around the side of the mansion and beat him until he stopped resisting.

"Try that again and we'll break your legs."

"Kazuma..."

Uncle watched from several steps away, too frightened to interfere. He had already recognized one of the men at the gate. That guard had been among the people who took Yuzuki.

Reiji simply leaned against the wall and watched Kazuma take the beating.

"Looks like they're not too happy to see you."

Sympathy never entered into it. Less than a day ago, Kazuma had been trying to kill him. Reiji wasn't about to forget that because the man was desperate to find his daughter now.

Kazuma eventually collapsed onto the ground, his face swollen and bruised. Tears ran down his cheeks as he stared up at the night sky, but after a moment he forced himself back onto his knees.

"Reiji... Reiji, please. Help me. I just want my daughter back. That's all I want. Please..."

He lowered his head and began slamming his forehead against the ground.

Kazuma didn't blame Reiji for any of this. He had lost their fight and ended up at Reiji's mercy. Expecting compassion from someone he had tried to murder would have been ridiculous.

The person he truly hated was Riku's brother, the captain who had abandoned him on Fairchild Island and escaped alone.

Kazuma kept bowing until blood began staining the pavement beneath his forehead. Each impact came harder than the last, but Reiji made no attempt to stop him. If Kazuma wanted to knock himself unconscious, that was his choice.

Eventually, that was exactly what happened.

His strength gave out and he crumpled forward. Uncle rushed over, struggling to pull him upright before glaring at Reiji with red eyes.

"You're no friend of Kazuma's! He doesn't need a heartless friend like you!"

"Old man, don't make me laugh."

Reiji folded his arms and looked at him coldly. Apparently Uncle still hadn't understood what kind of situation he had walked into.

"Kazuma and his captain tried to kill me. They lost, and I took him prisoner. He's not my friend. Keep running your mouth and I'll kill you too."

"What? They tried to kill you?"

Uncle went pale.

This was the first he had heard of the attack. Only now did he understand why Reiji had stood there without lifting a finger while Kazuma was beaten and begged for help.

"Toxicroak, watch these two," Reiji said. "If either of them tries to run, kill them."

Toxicroak stepped forward and fixed both men with an icy stare. With that taken care of, Reiji turned toward the wall, climbed over it with practiced ease, and slipped into the mansion grounds.

As for what he planned to do inside, the answer was simple enough. He wanted to see how the rich lived, and while he was at it, there was nothing wrong with helping himself to some hot food.

The main hall was packed with guests. Well-dressed men and women stood around in small groups with drinks in hand, talking quietly while servants moved between them. Everything from the decorations to the sheer number of people invited made the family's wealth impossible to miss.

A massive round table dominated the center of the hall, topped by a seven-tier birthday cake covered in fruit and elaborate sugar decorations. Reiji had no idea whether the number of tiers meant anything, but the message behind the display was obvious enough.

These people had money, and they wanted everyone to know it.

A host suddenly raised his voice over the crowd.

"It's time for our birthday boy!"

The lights went out, and a moment later every spotlight in the room converged on the curved balcony above.

A boy around seven years old stepped into view.

His outfit had clearly cost more than most people earned in months. A tailored midnight-blue suit, embroidered lapels, polished buttons, a crisp white shirt, and an emerald scarf made him look as though someone had dressed a child specifically to advertise the family's wealth.

The guests reacted exactly as expected, murmuring about how handsome and elegant he looked while the boy stood beneath the lights as the center of attention.

"Rich people really know how to make a production out of everything."

Reiji plucked a grape from a nearby table and tossed it into his mouth. The fruit burst sweetly between his teeth, drawing an approving nod.

"Not bad."

He hadn't forgotten why he was there. Gengar had slipped away the moment Reiji entered the hall and was already searching the mansion for Yuzuki.

For now, Reiji blended into the crowd and kept eating while he waited.

The party continued around him as guests offered birthday wishes and applauded the boy. Soon everyone moved on to the candles, and another round of cheerful singing filled the hall.

Gengar returned before long, emerging silently from Reiji's shadow. Its voice reached him through their connection, carrying a simple confirmation.

Yuzuki was here.

She was somewhere behind the mansion.

Reiji waited until the shifting lights left part of the hall in darkness, then followed Gengar toward the second floor. Several security guards stood at the staircase with their Pokémon, clearly there to keep uninvited guests from wandering upstairs.

Gengar's red eyes gleamed.

A strange hypnotic influence washed over the guards and their Pokémon. Their expressions went slack, their bodies swayed, and one after another they sank quietly to the floor.

With the way clear, Reiji headed upstairs and followed Gengar toward the rear of the mansion.

He had barely reached the back when an argument carried through the corridor.

"What are you trying to do?" a woman demanded. "Why did you bring some little girl here? Today is our son's birthday. Don't start this nonsense now!"

A man's voice answered with a mocking laugh.

"What am I doing? Don't tell me you don't recognize her. She's your precious Yuzuki, isn't she?"

The woman visibly stiffened.

"I don't have a daughter. How long are you going to keep imagining things?"

Her denial came quickly, but fear had already given her away. She clearly knew exactly who Yuzuki was and was terrified of what her husband might do if she admitted it.

The man hurled a framed photograph at her.

It struck her forehead hard enough to split the skin, and blood immediately began running down her face. From the shadows, Reiji could also make out older bruises and swelling beneath the fresh injury.

Whatever had happened between these two had clearly been going on for a while.

The photograph landed on the floor nearby.

It showed the woman standing beside Kazuma, with a much younger Yuzuki between them.

The moment she saw it, she stopped trying to deny anything.

Her husband sneered.

"Still going to pretend? That little bastard is yours. You had her with some other man and still had the nerve to act innocent in front of me."

The woman stared at him for several seconds before something finally clicked.

"So that's why you changed a few years ago..."

Her voice had gone strangely calm.

"You found out about her. That's when you started losing your temper and hitting me."

"That's right. Someone told me years ago that you had a daughter. If they hadn't, I'd still be the idiot you were lying to."

His anger surged the moment he said it. His eyes reddened, veins standing out along his forehead as he glared toward the yard below.

For someone with money and status, the humiliation mattered almost as much as the betrayal itself. If the story became public, his reputation would take the hit with it.

His gaze settled on the little girl below.

"Just wait. I'm going to make that little bastard suffer, and you're going to watch every second of it. Neither of you is getting away from me."

The woman's face drained of color as she looked toward Yuzuki.

The girl stood barefoot on the freezing ground, wearing nothing but thin clothes against the cold night air. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes swollen from crying, and her whole body trembled uncontrollably. Her lips were cracked from dehydration, and she had not eaten in two days.

The sight nearly broke her mother.

"No," she said through clenched teeth. "Kazuma will come for her. He's an Elite Four-tier Trainer now. When he gets here, you won't be able to stop him."

For the moment, she believed her husband wanted to hurt her through Yuzuki rather than simply dispose of the girl. Watching her daughter suffer was the punishment he had chosen for her.

And as she stood there looking at Yuzuki, memories of how everything had reached this point came rushing back.

Years earlier, her family had decided to marry her into this household for their own interests.

She had fought the arrangement from the beginning, but she had never possessed enough power to escape her family's control. Trapped between a marriage she wanted nothing to do with and relatives who refused to listen, she began drinking heavily just to get through it.

Then she became pregnant.

She didn't even know who the child's biological father was.

By the time she met Kazuma, she was already carrying Yuzuki. She couldn't bring herself to end the pregnancy, and Kazuma stayed with her. Together, they welcomed Yuzuki into the world and raised her as their daughter.

For a while, they were happy.

Then her family found her again.

They brought up the arranged marriage as though nothing had changed and ordered her to leave Kazuma. When she refused, they stopped trying to persuade her and simply threatened the two people she cared about most.

Kazuma and Yuzuki.

She gave in.

Leaving them had never been what she wanted, but staying meant putting both of them in danger. In the end, she married the man her family had chosen for her.

When Kazuma later found her, she lied.

She told him she loved her new husband and wanted nothing more to do with him. If Kazuma believed she had chosen someone else willingly, then maybe he would give up on her, take Yuzuki, and build a life somewhere far away from her family.

After the marriage, she was careful to maintain the appearance of a happy wife. She couldn't afford to let Kazuma see through it. She knew the Trainers employed by her husband's family were far beyond anything Kazuma could handle at the time, and if he came looking for her, he might never leave alive.

She had once believed that as long as Kazuma thought she was happy, he would stay away.

Instead, the marriage slowly revealed what kind of man her husband really was. Beneath the polished exterior was a violent temper and a habit of chasing other women, and once he discovered that she had a child from before their marriage, whatever restraint he had left disappeared.

Years passed, but she never stopped missing Yuzuki.

Eventually, she began visiting her daughter in secret. Perhaps one of those visits had been noticed. She still didn't know exactly how her husband discovered the truth, only that somewhere along the way, he had learned about Yuzuki and started taking his anger out on her.

Even now, however, she hadn't completely given up hope.

Kazuma was no longer the struggling Trainer she had known years ago. He had reached Elite Four tier and apparently joined some kind of ship crew. If he came for Yuzuki now, he might finally be strong enough to take her away.

That was all she could cling to.

Kazuma just had to get here.

[End of chapter]

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