HIATUS

Tonight is Christmas eve, I'm currently in my childhood bedroom. It is required for all the family members to be present for our Christmas eve dinner. The moment I arrived here this morning you could see that the mansion was fully covered in decorations, but only in the evening would you be able to see the full display of these decorations take effect.

I walk towards the dinner table and saw that my grandmother was seating in the main seat. My family members began taking their seats and I seated myself beside my father. Included in this dinner is Bernard. The man is already 81 years old. Due to his age, he has been getting tired lately and has been spending most of his time in his bed.  If you observe Bernard carefully you can see that he is hiding his fatigue and tired expression. He is clearly doing everything he can to be seen as a healthy old man.

'Note to self, check up on the health of Bernard' I said to myself with worry.

"Good, it is wonderful that all of us can gather here today, even in our busy schedules", my grandmother said.

"Of course mother, the family is what matters most", my father said as he looks at everyone at the table.

Shortly afterward the food was delivered and we began to eat our meal.

"How's your company doing dear?" my mother asked me.

I swallowed the food that was in my mouth and said "So far so good all things considered. The company is still 2 years old but the stock price is continuously going up. Right now I have multiple drugs that are currently waiting for FDA approval. Our recruitment team and R&D are working extremely well, but due to the death of Howard Stark we may need to increase the timeframe of one of our projects".

"Dying when Christmas is so near, that's sad", my brother John commented. Before my mother could reprimand my brother for his comment William said something.

"Seems like a lot of work", William said as he drank a glass of water.

"Don't worry brother, since you want to work in the family business, you'll eventually have as much workload. So, you just need to wait", John smilingly said to William. The two of them seem to have decided who will lead the family business after our father eventually resigns in the future. Since John is adamant that he wants to become a doctor in the future, a career that my parents and I wholeheartedly support. That made William the only one that can inherit the business from our father.

"Damn…..even thinking about it stresses me out already…", William commented.

Hearing the comment of William made our father smile.

"How's The Carter Malls doing father?" I asked.

"After I took over as CEO, I began a rapid expansion. The previous CEO was just too slow in that regard, the man was too cautious. We're also considering changing the name, but we're still not sure if that's worth the hassle", my father said.

The rest of the night was talking about what was going on in our lives after grandmother reprimanded us about talking only about business. The dinner and our talks lasted all up to 1 am in the morning. My grandmother decided to continue our Christmas celebration later in the day so we can all sleep. All of us return to our bedroom after saying goodnight to one another.

The moment I returned to my bedroom I summoned a clone. The clone will remain in my bedroom while I sneak out. I left the mansion to go to my old hideout.

Inside of my old hideout, I could see another one of my clones watching over a man that has his mouth gag and his eyes blindfolded.

"..a....h…u...k..." the man wanted to say something but the gag prevented him from talking.

This man is a serial killer that has been killing people on the highways of Chicago. I had my clones track him a while back.  Sure, I could go and tell the police about him, but he is more useful to me.  Rather than him rotting his life away in a prison cell, that's if he doesn't get the death sentence.

I took a scroll from a storage seal that I place on my belt.

I unfolded the scroll, and written in the scroll is a version of a Summoning Jutsu. I took a deep breath and gather my composure, preparing myself for what I'm going to do.

I place a small amount of blood and flesh in the scroll, then I made a few hand signs. Slowly, seal formula could be seen moving towards the gaged man. The man screams for a moment as dust and ash slowly encase him.

I began focusing on the person who I wanted to summon, finding them in the pure lands or basically another dimension where souls reside.

The man soon had the appearance of Howard Stark, before I restored all of Howard Stark's senses I place a control seal in the back of his neck.

Edo Tensei was mostly composed of two seals. The seal to perform the Edo Tensei itself and the command seal to control the living corpse.

As I returned the senses of Howard Stark, he opens his eyes immediately afterward. Confusion could be seen in his eyes.

He looks at me and asked, "Ethan…where am I?"

Slowly a smile was being formed on my face and  I said to Howard, "Welcome back to the land of the living Mr. Stark".