The Uninvited Guest

The grand table was now fully occupied by the eighteen family heads.

Anna's father sat at the far right, directly opposite Ryuji's father. A visceral tension simmered between them—an ancient enmity barely restrained.

Henri wore attire reminiscent of French nobility: a grand coat with gold embroidery and a high bow circling his neck.

Koroko Takashiro, by contrast, attended the formal meeting armored—a choice that immediately drew murmurs of criticism from the other heads.

His armor was a pragmatic masterpiece: robust, battle-worn, yet engineered for fluid movement. The chest piece bore the Takashiro family crest: a stylized dragon coiled around a blade.

"Why wear armor?" Henri asked, his tone clipped.

"It is the Takashiro way, Henri," came Koroko's curt reply.

Before the tension could escalate, a figure in silver-gleaming knightly armor stepped forward. Though his helm rested on the table, his soft-spoken tone softened the air.

"You all know of the quest," he announced, hoping to spark conversation.

Most listened with thinly veiled irritation, save one—a man with flowing dark hair and piercing red eyes, draped in an enormous fur-lined chaperon and a velvet-red cape. His family crest depicted a snake coiled around a tree, the ground beneath it bloodstained.

"Don't you think we already know?" he taunted, a sardonic smile playing across his lips.

"I'd suggest we share any knowledge we have with one another. It is the 500-year quest, after all," the knight muttered.

Silence followed. No one spoke.

This was no ordinary task issued by a sage—it was issued by Sage Rolhim.

The air itself thickened. A pressure descended—not merely physical, but metaphysical. A force so overwhelming it threatened to dismember the very architecture of consciousness.

Leonardo gasped. His body screamed to collapse into the ground. He became landscape—a terrain of suffering.

Each muscle was a battlefield where survival negotiated with annihilation. His lungs, once instruments of breath, now felt like crushing chambers of desperation. Each incomplete inhale was an act of rebellion against a force bent on erasing him

When the pressure finally dissolved, silence became a living entity.

"Ah, I spoke too loudly," Sage Rolhim said simply, his presence now acknowledged at the table's head.

Leonardo collapsed. Tremors rippled through him—aftershocks of a near-extinction event.

Nearby, Elara sank to her knees, her surrender a concession to their shared flesh. Tears hovered on the brink, held back only by a will forged in the crucibles of unspoken trauma.

Around the table, most heads slumped forward, foreheads hitting wood with dull thuds – minor frustration swiftly overwhelmed.

Only the heirs and guides remained upright, though visibly strained.

"That was hard," Henri muttered to Koroko, wiping sweat from his brow.

Koroko nodded in agreement. His own knuckles were white where they gripped the table's edge. He looked upward.

His eyes were stale, empty—lifeless. They locked with Henri's, and history settled between them like dust in an ancient tomb.

"You're one nasty prick," Henri said, his voice tight. Blood rushed to his face as memories flared—flame, gasping, his fists bloodied. "What's even the point of living?" he snapped.

Koroko smirked, the expression creeping toward his ears as he slowly leaned forward, his scar-bound face fully exposed.

"You gave your son all your worst traits," Henri hissed.

"Ryuji will become a better man than I ever was," Koroko replied, the smirk not fading. "And I'll admit it—I am a bad father."

A heavy pause followed, filled only by ragged breaths. Then, a voice cut sharply through the stillness from further down the table:

"Where is Marquis?"