A moment later, a spark returned to his drowsy eyes.
Yes. Why care about true or false? Why care about real or illusory?
"When the false becomes true, the true is also false; where nothing becomes something, that something is still nothing."
''The me from my previous life is real. Roy of the Zoldycks is real. Eiichiro Kamado within the cognitive world is also real...''
''And I only need to do what lies before me and cherish the people before me.''
A faint smile returned to Roy's lips. He rose and dressed.
Almost four o'clock. The morning run could not be skipped. It would serve as warm-up for practicing Sun Breathing.
At the moment he awoke from the dream, Roy had been delighted to see "Sun Breathing" appear on his panel.
It was gray, though, with a note... he had to withstand the "Weight of the Sun" to activate it.
However—''the Weight of the Sun...''
Roy pulled on vest and shorts and looked to the horizon. A pale fish-belly white was already tearing at the dark.
The heat latent within it would test human will to the extreme.
He wasn't sure he could pass. He would simply start and see.
He drew a deep breath, pushed open the door, and ran.
Elsewhere, an old man dozed in a rocking chair, an anime playing softly...
In a bedroom tucked in a dark corridor corner, a bloodless face suddenly opened its eyes...
Meanwhile, in the master bedroom upstairs, a man pressed a woman hard against the window wall...
Everyone labored in their own way. Roy allowed no slack either.
From mountaintop to foot and back again, the daily five kilometers ended quickly.
When he returned to his room and looked far out, resplendent dawn clouds accompanied a red sun leaping over the horizon, a rush of primeval wildness and inexhaustible vitality rolling toward him.
Moved, Roy closed his eyes and began to drill Sun Breathing.
Unlike Tanjuro, this time he used Nen. With Sun Breathing as the guide, he set aura coursing through his body.
Then he felt a sear.
It grew and grew. As he worked through "Dance," "Clear Blue Sky," "Raging Sun," and the rest, it swelled into a blaze that, in an instant, seemed to ignite him from feet to crown.
Pain... sharp pain... unbearable pain... as if a living man were set upon a bonfire and roasted alive. Roy almost blacked out.
Leaning hard on the doorframe, he did not collapse.
So this was the meaning of only one Tanjiro emerging in a thousand years, from the Warring States through the Edo period to now.
''I will burn this rotten age to ash...''
''I want sunlight to shine so that the flies and dogs of men have nowhere to hide...''
''I will borrow the sun's true fire to scour all darkness and cut down every demon...''
Through the haze, as he hovered on the edge of fainting, Roy seemed to hear someone's dream-mutter. A figure appeared in his pupils without his noticing—
A swordsman holding a flute.
Deep red hair. Flame-like patterns spread over his brow. He stood quietly at the end of time, looking on Roy with warmth, smiling as if to say—
"Those who exhaust the path meet at the same end."
"Elder brother, I said there was no need to worry about the Breathing Styles dying out. You see it now."
Yoriichi Tsugikuni... the silhouette looked so much like him...
Roy dimly recognized the face. His body tilted, and he slid down the doorpost.
The deathly heat dispersed. Released, Roy gulped air, utterly spent.
At least the pain had not been for nothing.
His panel chimed in time to comfort him.
[Notice: "Sun Breathing" activated....]
[Current progress: Entry (1/100)]
''It finally... worked...''
Roy laughed. The red sun shone. Dawn washed his face. He spread his arms without thinking,
savoring the moment.
Five o'clock. As the old clock in the corner chimed, the butler Wutong arrived as usual with the breakfast cart.
He knocked by habit, then saw the door ajar and Roy sitting right beside it.
Wutong blinked, stepped up, and reached to help him up.
Roy opened his eyes. In that instant—
Wutong felt a stab in his eyeballs, as if he'd stared at a rising sun—or as if a laser pointer had been pressed to his pupils. His vision blew into static.
"Ah—"
A scream split the air.
After that, Roy's butler was changed from Wutong to the iron-barbie—Zi Bonian.
"Is he all right?"
"The doctor says it's only temporary blindness from shock. He'll recover in a few days."
"Good."
Wutong was sent down for treatment.
After Roy finished his morning training, he ate lunch while Zi Bonian reported his condition.
Spearing a piece of steak, Roy frowned. "Pass it down. Double his salary this month."
"There is no such rule." The old butler folded his hands before him, face blank. "He is a dog of the Zoldycks. Food is enough."
"But you, young master..."
Zi Bonian leaned in, a great-ape bulk swallowing Roy whole, and asked sternly, "The master bids me ask: how did Wutong sustain his injury?"
According to the doctor: the eyeballs had been strongly stimulated, triggering a stress response and temporary blindness.
So what was the stimulus?
Silva wanted to know. Zi Bonian wanted to know. But since Wutong had not given Roy up, Roy would respect the choice and give the man his due.
He slowly drew a napkin and dabbed his mouth.
"I, as the master, have no obligation to explain anything to a dog."
"You call Wutong a dog—are you not one too?"
Zi Bonian nodded, quite convinced. "Of course I am."
Then his tone turned. "But the master is not."
"Then let him come and ask me himself."
Roy pushed back his chair and stood.
Pointless to trade words. He respected a butler who would die for the Zoldycks. He did not accept a mind that refused to see people as people and insisted on seeing them as dogs.
He walked straight past Zi Bonian—
and also past a hollow-eyed ghost.
Illumi Zoldyck appeared to have just come back from a kill. A dense reek of blood clung to him.
Hands in pockets, he walked toward Roy as Roy walked toward him. As they passed, he halted, tilted his head, and flicked a glance. "A dog is a dog. A man is also a dog."
"Killing a man and killing a dog are equally simple."
"Is that so." Roy gave a cold smile and left Illumi with a narrow, dazzling back.
"Then congratulations, my dog of a younger brother. At least you are self-aware."
Illumi: "..."
With a "shhk—"
He bared a hand-blade.