The weight of Seiji's body was considerable, but the effort to carry him to his bed was more mental than physical. A dull fatigue seeped into my bones, and it wasn't just from exhaustion. As I moved, I noticed a strange slowness, a resistance where there had once been fluidity. I tested my strength as I adjusted him in the sheets—the same movement that had felt easy before now required conscious effort.
The damned Principle wasn't content with just tearing out my most powerful ability; it sabotaged the others. The superhuman strength, my physical foundation, had been impaired. A quick check of the system screen confirmed it: my Superhuman Physical Attributes were marked with a debuff, a significant reduction in their capabilities.
Almost all of my acquisitions were affected. Almost. A quick glance at the list showed that [Blink] remained untouched, its description as clear and promising as before. My only ace in the hole, my mobility trump card, was safe. The passive trait, however, wasn't so lucky, suffering a slight reduction.
But those were secondary concerns. The immediate priority was Seiji. A deeper examination, using the little medical knowledge the original Jun possessed and the sharp perception I had brought with me, revealed an alarming truth. His exhaustion wasn't normal. The brief time he spent as a vessel for that god seemed to have drained something vital from him. Combined with the grief and insomnia that had likely consumed him after his son's "death," his body was on the verge of collapse. The silent diagnosis I formulated was that he would sleep for a long time—easily a month or two.
And that meant one thing, simple, clear, and extremely dangerous:
"I am unprotected now."
The statement echoed in the solitude of my father's room. My presence in this house, which had momentarily become a fortress under Seiji's protection, was in fact tolerated, not accepted. I was the mistress's son, the fruit of a betrayal, a stain on the immaculate image the Kumohari clan tried to project. With Seiji awake, my position was precarious. With him in a coma, it became untenable.
Ah, the irony. The gaming table I thought I was turning in my favor had been flipped upside down with a single, capricious divine move.
And, as always for a gambler like me, there was only one way to turn the game around when the cards were bad: raise the stakes. Play more boldly, more unpredictably.
"Take care of my father, Dunn." My voice cut through the room's silence as I turned toward the door, deliberately giving him my back. It was an act of contempt. "Don't make me break your other arm."
The sound that came from him was unmistakable: a dry gulp of saliva, loud and tense in the still air. The message was received. I didn't bother to check his reaction. I simply left, each step an echo of my renewed determination.
But the path back to my quarters, which I had hoped would be quiet for planning my next move, was intercepted. The universe, or perhaps just a sarcastic fate, decided my ordeal wouldn't wait.
They were standing in the wide hallway, blocking the path like two spoiled guardians of a kingdom I was invading. Yuki and Yuri Kusanagi.
The Harlot's children.
They possessed the same features as her, as if cut from the same arrogant, poisonous cloth. The same well-kept chestnut hair, the same red eyes that stared at me with a mix of disdainful curiosity and inherited hatred. Even their facial features were a mirror of their mother's: Yuri, slightly older, with the same rigid, defiant posture; Yuki, with a sharp, predatory smile that didn't suit his age.
"Well, well, look what we have here?" Yuri, the older one, was the first to strike. His mockery was a blunt weapon, trying to be disdainful but carrying the weight of obvious insecurity. Two years older and he still needed to assert himself against someone fresh from the grave.
I didn't move. I remained where I was, letting my gaze sweep over them with deliberate slowness, analyzing every detail like a gambler assessing opponents at the table.
"An heir," I began, my voice flat, almost bored, "who now faces the effeminate brother and the sister who looks like a cheap copy of our stepmother, with a smile that could easily crack a mirror."
The taunt was childish. Deliberately so. I was 13 now, in this body. It wasn't my fault if the sharpest tool at my disposal was a playground insult, especially when it hit with such precision. I might be a cosmic gambler, but the vessel was a teenager.
Yuri clicked his tongue, a sound of impotent frustration. Yuki, on the other hand, scowled. The resemblance to her mother was uncanny—the same clenching of the jaw, the same coldness in the ruby eyes that promised vengeance.
She stepped closer, invading my personal space with a confidence that bordered on pathetic. "Now that Daddy is in a coma, you can't be protected, you little brat."
The term "Daddy" sounded as fake as her smile. My gaze narrowed, not in fear, but in pure contempt.
"You still call him Daddy?" I let out, a confident, cutting smile spreading across my face. "Grow up."
I shifted my gaze back to Yuri, ignoring Yuki as if she were an annoying fly. The dynamic was clear: he was the weak leader, she the venomous lieutenant.
"By any chance..." I began, my voice low, laden with an intention I didn't fully understand myself. It was a hook cast into fate, an invitation to chaos.
It was here and now. The moment to roll the dice.
My mind, a casino always open, placed the silent bet.
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Rolling...
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Unlike the dramatic suspense one might expect, the process was instantaneous. A flash of inner light, a spin of possibilities compressed into a nanosecond. There was no time to hope or fear.
And then, shining with a brilliance that seemed to defy the very darkness approaching, it appeared.
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An epic ability!
[Interaction]
|Rarity: Epic|
Interact with matter and energy, whether distant or near.
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A slow, deliberate curve formed on my lips as my gaze, now laden with the weight of this new cosmic verb, fixed on Yuri.
There was no gesture. No snap of the fingers or furious concentration. It was a thought, clear and absolute, like an unsheathed blade: He should not be on the ground.
And the world obeyed.
Yuri's body, which moments before had been planted on the floor with arrogance, detached from the ground. It wasn't thrown; it was as if gravity had simply given up on him. He floated, his limbs twisting in a mix of surprise and panic, his ruby eyes wide with disbelief. And then, with the same lack of ceremony, he was slammed against the corridor wall.
The impact wasn't a dull thud. It was a crash that echoed through the silent halls, making the crystal of a distant chandelier tinkle. The plaster and noble wood wall cracked under the force, a spiderweb pattern emanating from where his back had hit the surface. He hung there for a moment, not by my will, but by the force of the impact, gasping, breathless, the previous mockery completely erased and replaced by terrified confusion.
Yuki stood paralyzed. Her face, a perfect copy of her mother's contained fury, was now disfigured by pure disbelief. Her jaw nearly hit her chest, her eyes wide, staring at her brother pinned to the wall like an insect in a collection. She couldn't process it. This wasn't a brute force Quirk. It wasn't a shove. It was something... different. Something that defied the physics she knew.
I didn't look at her. My steps were calm, measured, as I closed the distance between me and Yuri. I stopped just inches from him, close enough to see the cold sweat beading on his forehead, to hear the grinding of his clenched teeth.
He was trapped, not just by my ability now, but by the pain, the shock, and the crushing of his ego. I leaned in slightly, my smile never fading, and stared directly into his wide, terror-filled eyes.
My voice came out soft, almost a whisper, but cutting through the air.
"Do I look," I paused, letting the word hang, "like I need protection?"
The sight was... satisfying. Yuri's face, once a mask of cheap mockery, was now contorted in impotent rage, mixed with the burning shame of public humiliation. Every line of his expression screamed fury, but his eyes, still wide from the shock of the impact, betrayed the fear eating away at that fury from within. It was the perfect picture of defeat.
And I smiled at him. Not a grin of loud triumph, but a quiet, almost intimate smile, like someone who has just received confirmation of a theory. The smile of a gambler who saw the ball land exactly on the number he had bet on.
With a thought as casual as the previous one, I released him. The invisible pressure holding him against the wall dissipated. Yuri fell to the floor with a dull thud, his knees buckling under his own weight. He stayed there, gasping, not for lack of air, but from the combination of pain, shock, and humiliation. His hands braced against the cold floor, and he avoided my gaze, focusing on a point on the luxurious carpet as if it were his only anchor in a world turned upside down.
"Get out of my sight," I said, my voice flat, carrying an authority that didn't stem from a title, but from the newly demonstrated power. "And do me the favor of never appearing in front of me again without permission."
I turned, shoving my hands into my pockets with a careless gesture, and began to walk away. Each step was a period at the end of the sentence I had pronounced. But one final lesson needed to be taught. The humiliation wasn't complete.
"Ah, and also..."
I stopped, without turning around. My mind, now an instrument tuned to the symphony of [Interaction], issued another silent command. This time, directed at Yuki.
She, who was still paralyzed, suddenly felt an invisible, irresistible force acting upon her knees. It wasn't a brutal shove, but an undeniable pressure, as if a giant hand were guiding her downward. Her knees bent, and she knelt on the floor with a small gasp of surprise, her wide ruby eyes fixed on my back with a new kind of horror—the horror of absolute, impersonal subjugation.
"Keep your gaze lowered in my presence," I remarked, my voice echoing calmly in the now silent hallway. "I am not accepting looks at the same height as mine."
And then, I continued walking, leaving the two siblings there—one gasping on the floor, the other kneeling and forced to lower her head—wrapped in the heavy silence and the bitter taste of their own humiliation.
As I walked away, a warm, familiar sensation spread through my chest.
I must admit, I enjoyed that.