Chapter 291: The Grandson of Creation (3)

Before Akasha’s very eyes, he watched every thread of confusion and every negative feeling he had ever harbored toward his mother slowly unravel and fade away.

All he had ever truly wanted was an explanation—the truth.

In that moment, he couldn’t tell how much time had passed in the real world, but within the visions, nearly fifty-one Eras had come and gone.

When his Uncle Xeros expressed his desire to play a part in Akasha’s Origin tale, everything suddenly clicked into place.

He had just spent what felt like ages watching how Akashi herself couldn’t decide how she wanted his life to begin.

Each version started with them apart, but he came to understand that this separation was inevitable, a result of her circumstances and the elaborate game his Grandfather had orchestrated.

He realized, too, that none of her ideas for his life had ever been meant to cause him harm.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered how he had ended up trapped in an illusion on Earth—a place where he had suffered.

But the question didn’t linger long, as he soon witnessed half an Era of his uncles and mother locked in a looping conversation, ebbing and flowing like a tide that refused to retreat.

Xeros spoke in measured lines, building his case as if origin were architecture. Quell argued with laughs and shrugs and sudden, vivid examples, ruffling her hair with jokes that were not entirely jokes.

They kept coming back to the same point: their vision for Akasha’s beginning, why it made sense, why it had to be that way, why a boy destined for a fate unlike any other should first endure the absolute lowest life could give him.

Neglect.

For years, Akashi had listened, debated, and pondered, yet every time she found herself rejecting their proposal—until the moment they finally broke through her resolve.

At last, she gazed at them with an expression unbefitting a woman who had once created an entire universe.

Uncertainty marked her face, laced with confusion and even fear.

"Won’t he hate me?" she asked quietly.

The question hung in the air, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. Xeros and Quell exchanged a glance—surprised at first, then tinged with curiosity.

"Akashi.... Are you really that connected to the boy?" Xeros asked, voice low.

Quell’s reddish-gold eyes narrowed. "This much? I truly can’t believe it."

Akashi frowned, as though the question itself were faintly ridiculous.

"Duh," she said. "He’s the most important thing in existence."

For a moment both brothers only stared.

Then the void filled with laughter—Xeros’s quieter, a rare break in the mature demeanor he carried; Quell’s louder, head tipped back, the sound of someone who had not expected to hear such a thing.

Quell brushed a hand across one eye, still wearing a smile.

"Well, that’s something new... but don’t worry, sister, it’ll be fine," he said lightly.

"Just spoil him rotten. That’s what you’re best at anyway.... He’ll come around sooner or later."Xeros gave a small nod, the remnants of his laughter fading into something calmer.

"Right... it won’t be so bad," he said. "It’ll just shape the character he needs.... The Pantheos he will be walking into... It’s not going to be kind."

-----

From that moment on, Akasha no longer wondered why his mother hadn’t been there from the beginning, or why he had been trapped in an illusion that made him feel utterly neglected.

She was everything he had ever dreamed a mother could be, caring for him deeply, and it was clear there was no one else she held in such high regard.

After his uncles departed, he witnessed her creating Luna and the rest of her universe, shaping it piece by piece.

She even went on to form the very realm he now inhabited, before placing herself into a deep slumber that lasted until the day he was truly born.

And as the last visions played across the skies, the realm fell silent.

----

On the couches below, the three of them remained.

Akashi regarded her son with the same familiar smile, fully aware of his feelings and understanding them with quiet certainty.

She had already come to terms with the notion that if Akasha despised her, she would simply have to channel her pain toward his brothers.

Aethea’s gaze lingered on him as well—eyes swirling with slow, amused galaxies.

Akasha sat in stillness, his mind unburdened by a flood of thoughts.

Aethea released a chuckle, a sound far too knowing for so small a voice.

"You may have just broken him," she teased, her feathers brushing lightly against Akashi’s hair.

"Aethea," Akashi said, her smile freezing for a brief moment before sharpening into a sideways glare at the bird. "Stop spouting nonsense."

In that moment, Akasha lifted his head.

He tilted it, taking in Aethea—the black feathers, the eyes that weren’t really eyes—before giving a small shake, weary but almost affectionate.

"Why am I not surprised..."

Aethea smiled as she slid from Akasha’s shoulder, and in the blink of an eye, she was no longer a bird.

She stood in her humanoid form.

Her long black hair framed dark eyes and a black infinity mark beneath her left eye, her pale skin untouched by the sun.

Soft feathers lined her arms and traced the edges of her form, and Akasha’s eyes widened.

"Damn, she’s hot," he thought, shaking his head again, this time more slowly, and running a hand down his face.

He then sighed shortly before looking up again.

"So... Mommy, yo—"

Akasha had just started to speak, finally giving her the attention she had once asked for, but his words trailed off unfinished.

Before he could even process what was happening, Akashi was no longer sitting across the room on the far couch. In an instant, she was right there in his lap.

Her smile stretched wide as she leaned in, the pale-purple sky seeming to fold itself closer around them.

"Say it again."

Akasha instinctively leaned back, but she moved with him, refusing to give up even an inch.

A short, helpless laugh escaped him, laced with the same gentle warmth that had lingered beneath all that overwhelm.

"Mommy?"

Akashi laughed—beautifully, unconcealed, the sound of someone who had waited through realms and slumbers and half-eras of argument for a single ordinary word.

"Once more," she said, still close, still smiling as if the whole of existence had narrowed to that name and the mouth that had finally spoken it to her.