As the Duchess...no the Concubine held the newborn child in her arms, she rested her body on the pallet of the chamber's interior of which–
smelled of musk, stale linen, and expensive perfume.
Now accompanied by a heavy, cloying scent of dried roses and ancient, unfamiliar incense. The room was a stark contrast to the sterile, cluttered bachelor pad kitchen in Shinjuku. The candlelights around the room flickered in ornate sconces, casting long dancing shadows across walls.
Draped in heavy, dark tapestries with the depiction of a snarling beast just atop the winter stoned fireplace.
Keisuke's eyes opened, for the first time since reincarnation.
"Okay, everything is slightly more tolerable now than the whole 'being pushed through a meat grinder phase."
Keisuke's mind reflected though, still trapped behind eyes that refused to focus for more than a few inches.
Just then a stout woman with a rough uniform under a pristine white apron came into view bustling about. It was the midwife.the still pale and gasping concubine,motioned the midwife towards her, still reposed on the grand four-poster bed.
"Go," the concubine whispered, her voice laced with an anxiety that cut through the exhaustion. "Go fetch the Duke. Tell him the child has arrived safely… A boy." She managed to say while still breathing heavily.
The midwife answered, with a respectful nod " at your service" and with that curtsied and scurried out the door.
Silence descended upon the opulent nursery chambers, broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire and the concubine's shallow breathing.
Still reeling from the intensity of labor.
"Yeah, a boy. Congratulations. You've successfully made a human who can't even scratch his own nose yet. High five," Keisuke thought sharply with a dry, internal sarcasm,he tried to will his tiny, wet fingers curling them into fists.
However, each attempt ended in vain. Instead the effort resulted in a spastic twitch of his entire arm, a humiliating reminder of his total lack of agency.
Yet he wriggled restlessly, his new infant body agitated by the uncomfortable flood of thoughts that the newborn struggled with. handling a foreign consciousness issued a distressed signal. Crying, despite Keisuke's mature psyche he was nonetheless helpless to the involuntary wail that came out of him. Outwardly, however, the cries appeared as if he was gasping for air.
The concubine rested for a few moments, gathering strength, before she fixed her gaze upon his tiny frame, moving frantically.
she bundled him up in linen beside her at the side table. Her expression was initially one of a mother's relief, but when she peered closer, the relief hurled into disbelief and finally an icy dread.
Keisuke looked different. While her own hair was a striking, luxuriously red, and the Duke's Chevernyl lineage was famous for its deep,bold noble colors, the infant staring back at her had hair the color of weak tea—light brown. His eyes, just opened, were a dull, flat hazel. They were hollow, lacking the vibrant life expected of a newborn. To her, they looked like the eyes of something old and tired.
Something…isn't right the child's hair is light brown?
"Surely if the Lord found out, they'd leave him to die! no but….it's already too late."
She thought, whispering to herself in the moment.
The bad thing was, brown or hair in this specific family line was non-existent.
It was a physical impossibility, a genetic anomaly that sullied the pure lineage of the black or blue uniform hair colors typical of the Duke's bloodline.
Then a small, wet sound escaped the baby's lips, a burp or perhaps a poor attempt at speech.which he mentally interpreted as his own sardonic commentary.
"Well, lady, imagine dying to the zing of pickled ginger, waking up in your mother's guts, I want to see you smiling then."
Keisuke thought irritated by her residing dreadful face, mistaking it for disgust instead of melancholy.
Then the heavy oak door creaked open… It was the duke. He was a tall and imposing man wrapped in furs with formal attire. His eyes were a strikingly piercing blue and his high stature was one that demanded respect. He took one glance towards the concubine's face, then at the child, and his expression frowned slightly like hardened granite.
It didn't need to be told. The evidence of the concubine's infidelity, real or perceived, was clear as day in the infant's hair. The Duke's fury was a quiet and chilling intensity.
The concubine nearly jumped out of the bed, her eyes wide with a different kind of fear—fear of the Duke's wrath and of his punishment. "My Lord," she whispered, her loyalty to her station struggling with her maternal instincts, "It is not what it looks like..i-i can."
Cutting her off he said
"Is that so?... Then I shall have it tested if his mana levels are even so much as a lv 3 you'll be apprehended."
Then he ordered, voice rough and like a low growl.
"Fetch the Inquisitor. Now. We must ensure its total worthlessness before disposing of it."
he said, turning towards the midwife nearby who followed him in her expression was one of neutrality with just the faintest hint of reluctance.
"At your service sire." she quickly responded before scurrying out to fulfill the order. After a short while came a thin man wearing robes of purple silver entered the chambers. He was an experienced mage one who could check mana levels. Or how much one could harbor if they have a high magical aptitude. Keisuke stared helplessly at the man like a detached narrator.
"Okay, so we have magic here. That explains the lack of electric light."
The Inquisitor chanted and performed a brief, arcane ritual, a glow of faint blue light swirled near Keisuke's tiny chest. and hovering over a strange, shimmering meter made of what looked like crystal glowed for a moment before the light completely fizzled out.
"There is nothing here, Your Grace," the Inquisitor stated with a tone of clinical dismissal. "No potential whatsoever. He is empty."
"Empty?" Keisuke thought in retaliation. The indignity of the assessment cut deeper than the banishment.
"An empty vessel," the Duke repeated, before letting out a disappointed sigh. "Perfect. Have one of the assistants dispose of him somewhere far from the Estate. Somewhere no one will find him."
The assistant was chosen as a young, nervous man. named Barnaby, he was tasked with the grim chore. The infant was wrapped in a rough, burlap sack a far cry from the silk swaddling prior—and promptly removed from the chambers.
As Barnaby passed out from a side gate and into the winding streets outside of the Duke's Estate, Keisuke's mental state began faltering. The combination of the cold air, the jouncing movements, and the sudden shift in sensory input was overwhelming.
they crossed from the City Capital of Draque to the gales of Bourdain and finally passed through the rain-soaked thoroughfares of the lower cities.
The transition between cities and towns were all but a blur in the newborn's point of view.
A maze of timber-framed houses and muddy streets. Other figures within the space of the Dukedom—guards on patrol, merchants closing their stalls, the frequent siting of those misfortuned with poverty just near the corners of the street.
Barnaby slumped his head down a little, hoping to avoid potential eye contact with the bystanders.
While walking still he reminisced the order: "Dispose of it." Suddenly he realized what it meant, the order was simple yet as terrifying as the duke's potential punishment could be it wasn't nearly as bad as guilt he'd feel if he went through with it.
"Wait a minute I.. can't actually kill an infant what am I doing?.
Barnaby knew he didn't have the guts to sacrifice the life of a newborn child. Even if it was an order, his sense of morale overrided his fear.
The thought of leaving the child near the Trenches or out in the open would undoubtedly make him a unaliver.
"What if I just left him by the door of a stranger here… yeah up front there's a neighborhood that borders on whimster he might even be found by a kind farmer",The assistant Thought, trying to ease his own conscience just a little gripping the basket tighter using the surrounding air to keep the infant warm.
But Keisuke was fading. The sharp, pungent taste of ginger that had lingered since his arrival was gone now, replaced by the smell of damp earth and stale straw in the sack. His internal monologue became fragmented.
"Okay… new mission… survive… maybe find a way…" one by one his thoughts were starting to lose coherence.
His life in Shinjuku felt less like a memory and more like a dream. The experiences, the logic, the name "Yamano Keisuke"—it was all slipping away, replaced by the raw, primal needs of the infant body.
"Hey why am I? ... So tired... Who is Keis-...."
He finally succumbed to the darkness. Keisuke, the man, was gone for now. The "empty" child was just a small bundle of silence, his consciousness retreating deep within the new flesh.
Barnaby looked down at him. Pity in his eyes. He stopped in the backdrop of the respectable outer sector in the city, placing a basket with the sack holding keisuke in it on the doorstep of a small, neat stone cottage. He knocked hard twice and fled into the night.
Leaving the newborn, laid out still on the cold stone doorstep, slowly, surely falling asleep in the makeshift of his cradle. The world had abandoned him, and in turn, he was forgotten under the rain under the doorstep of a stranger.