Arcane Kingdom. Hirata Estate.
The grand halls, once echoing with a little boy's giggles, were now as silent as a sealed tomb. Usama walked through the empty corridors, his steps heavy, eyes hollow. Ten years. A decade of searching, scrying, and desperate hope. And nothing.
He pushed open the nursery door. There she was.
Miraya sat beside Ronin's empty crib, humming the lullaby she had sung for him every night. In her lap, she clutched his stuffed toy, its fur now matted and darkened by a decade of silent tears that fell in endless, soundless sobs.
Usama placed his hand on her shuddering shoulder, his voice low. "Miraya..."
"No," she whispered, her voice frayed. "Don't ask if I'm alright. I am not. I just want my son back."
Usama sank into a chair beside her, leaning close. "We tried. We have moved heaven and earth. Every spell, every scout, every favor... First Father died. Then we lost Ronin. Then Hayate and Miyuki..."
His voice thickened, the weight of a decade of grief pressing down. "Ten years, Miraya. It's... it's time consider... he may not be—"
"DON'T YOU SAY IT!" Miraya's shout was a raw, explosive thing. She stood, the toy falling to the floor. "Do not speak that word! Not ever!"
Usama flinched back, shocked. "Miraya..."
"If you have given up on finding my son, that is your failure," she said, her voice like frozen steel. "But you will not call him dead in my presence. You will not."
Usama rose, his own grief twisting into pain. "Your son? He is our son! Since when do I not matter to you?"
"You matter when you stand beside me!" Miraya's eyes, usually so warm, were blazing. "I carried him. I nurtured him with my own blood. I have prayed for him every single day since he was torn from my arms. I have not forgotten. I will never forget."
Usama reached for her, his voice pleading with reason. "Miraya, please. Ten years is an eternity for a lost child. If there was a trail, we would have found it."
Miraya looked at him, and for the first time, her gaze held no warmth for him at all."If you cannot find him, then I will. Alone. Without anyone else's favor."
She turned and strode from the room before he could stop her, her footsteps echoing with finality in the hollow halls.
---
Miraya stood at the edge of the Whispering Forest, ignoring the warning sigils and arcane barricades the kingdom had erected. She stepped back into her personal hell.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to relive it. The explosion. The ambush. Fighting one attacker, only to watch in horror as a second threw her child into the all-consuming darkness of the woods.
She opened her eyes, staring into the oppressive gloom. "I will do anything. Anything."
She crossed the forbidden boundary.
Inside, the air was thick and silent. Grotesque twisted trees loomed. She felt no fear—only a desperate, maternal resolve.
After minutes of pushing through the undergrowth, she stopped. Her sorceress senses honed by grief and buried potential. Flared like a spark in tinder.
There, caught on a thorny branch, was a tiny, frayed scrap of blue fabric.
She picked it up, her fingers trembling. She pressed it to her palm and closed her eyes, letting a thread of her golden Arcane Energy flow into it.
The resonance was immediate, overwhelming—a familiar, beloved signature, faint but unmistakable, like a heartbeat from a decade past. Ronin's growing power over these decades amplified resonance.
Her eyes flew open, tears now of a different kind. "Ronin..."
She looked deeper into the forest. To her enhanced senses, a trail she had never been able to see before now glimmered—a ghostly, fading ribbon of unique Arcane Energy, left by a powerful, growing child over the years. It led away from the forest... toward a place of deep shadow.
She clutched the scrap to her heart and began to run, following the trail of the city of death and her son.
---
Night. Hurt's Mansion.
The house was filled with the rich, celebratory aromas of a dozen dishes—none of them green. Bright lanterns cast a warm, inviting glow over the laden table.
Ronin sat on his place, vibrating with impatient glee. "Finally! The wait is over! Can we start please?"
Hurt dusted his hands on his apron and took his own seat. "Patience, prince. What is the first rule?"
Ronin rolled his eyes with theatrical suffering. "Right, right. Give thanks."
They closed their eyes, clapped their hands twice in the simple ritual they'd shared for a decade.
Ronin snatched up his fork and spoon, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "Now! No mercy!"
As he lunged for the feast, a knock echoed through the house—firm, urgent.
Hurt paused, his crimson eyes shifting toward the door. "Who calls at this hour?"
As Hurt moved to stand, Ronin waved him back down. "Relax. I'll get it. Probably Tony forgetting his keys again."
He strode to the door and pulled it open.
A woman stood on the threshold, breathing heavily. Her fine dress was torn and smeared with dirt and leaves. Her eyes were wide, frantic, filled with a hope so fragile it hurt to look at.
Ronin leaned casually against the doorframe. "Yes? Can I help you?"
The woman's hand flew to her mouth. A choked sound escaped her. Her eyes scanned his face—the blue eyes, the set of his jaw, the messy dark hair—and welled with instant, disbelieving tears.
"Are you..." she stammered, her voice breaking. "...are you Ronin?"
"I am," Ronin said, his tone turning guarded. "And you are?"
"You... you don't remember me?" A single tear traced a clean path through the grime on her cheek. "I am your mother. Miraya."
Ronin's face went blank. He gave a short, dismissive laugh. "I don't know what game you're playing, miss. You have the wrong house."
He began to close the door.
But, as it swung shut, he heard it—a soft, broken, humming melody. The tune seeped through the wood and into his soul.
It was the lullaby from the edge of his dreams. The one that meant safety, warmth, and a love he thought was lost forever.
His hand froze on the door. He pulled it open again.
Miraya was leaning against the doorframe now, her eyes closed, humming that lullaby through her tears.
Ronin slowly sank to his knees on the threshold. His voice was a child's whisper. "That song... my mother sang that. How... how do you know it?"
Miraya opened her eyes. She cupped his face in her trembling, dirty hands. "Because I am her. I am your mother. You are my son."
Ronin's voice trembled. "Prove it."
Miraya didn't hesitate. She leaned forward and pressed a warm, gentle kiss to his temple—the exact spot she had kissed every night. She whispered into his skin, the words she had whispered a thousand times. "You are my great Ronin Hirata."
The world tilted. Ronin shuddered violently, scrambling backward out of her grasp until he hit the wall of the foyer.
"Stay away from me!" He shouted, confusion curdling into a sudden, volcanic rage.
Miraya reached for him, her heart breaking. "Ronin? What's wrong? I found you!"
"TEN YEARS!" He screamed, tears of anger and betrayal springing to his eyes. "You left me for TEN YEARS! You threw me away! You ABANDONED me in that dark forest!"
Miraya collapsed to her knees as if his words were physical blows. "No! Never! I searched for you every day! I just... I couldn't find the path. I am so, so sorry, my star. I am so sorry..."
Her raw, unfiltered agony punctured his rage. He stared at her, this broken, desperate woman kneeling in the dirt. The furious child in him warred with the young man Hurt had raised.
He walked over and sank to his knees in front of her. His voice was small, vulnerable, the voice of five-year-old who had been lost. "Promise me. Promise you'll never leave me again."
"I promise," Miraya wept, pulling him into a crushing, desperate embrace. "I swear on my life, Ronin. I will never let you go again. My son. My baby."
Ronin buried his face in her shoulder, his own body shaking with sobs he hadn't known he'd stored for a decade. "Mom... I missed you. Every day. I missed you so much."
She rocked him, wiping his tears with the clean hem of her ruined dress, covering his face in kisses. "Shh, it's over now. I'm here. We're together. Let's go home."
Home. The word jolted him.
He pulled back, his eyes flicking over Miraya's shoulder to where Hurt stood in the doorway to the dining table, a silent pale statue.
"I... I have to go back?" Ronin asked, his voice thick.
Miraya stroked his hair. "Of course. Your father... our entire clan... they've been waiting for you."
Ronin stood, helping his mother to her feet. He looked directly at Hurt. "Hurt?"
He turned his back to them, his voice a cold, dismissive rasp. "Finally. Peace and quiet. Get out of my house, you Arcane pest."
Miraya bowed her head slightly. "Thank you. For keeping him safe."
Ronin took a step forward, his voice pleading. "You have nothing else to say to me?"
"I said get lost!" Hurt snarled, not turning around.
A soft, knowing smile touched Ronin's lips through his tears. "You can't even lie to me properly. You never could."
His eyes, sharpened by years of observation, dropped. Beneath the shadow of Hurt's bowed chin, he saw them—tiny, silent droplets falling onto the polished floorboards.
"I know you," Ronin whispered, his voice full of aching affection. "You never show it. But when you're alone... you'll cry. You'll cry a river for me, won't you, Dead-man?"
A shudder ran through Hurt's shoulders. He didn't turn.
Ronin took Miraya's hand. But as he crossed the threshold to leave, he paused. He glanced over his shoulder one last time, his voice clear and fierce, making a vow into the quiet house.
"Don't think for a second I will forget you. I will come back. And I will take you with me. That is not a request." He let the promise hang, heavy and true. "It's a warning."
The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.
Hurt stood motionless for a long moment. Then, slowly, he walked to the head of the table and sank into Ronin's empty chairir. He stared at the lavish, untouched feast—the celebration he had prepared for the boy who was his world.
His composure shattered. He dropped his face into his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, racking sobs that echoed in the suddenly cavernous room.
"You... you were my greatest headache," he choked out to the empty air, his voice raw with a grief he had never allowed himself to feel. "So why... why does it feel like my heart has been ripped out?".
---
A family was reunited.
A mother's decade-long nightmare had ended with her son in her arms.
And in a quiet, dark house, a monster who had learned to love was left utterly alone, weeping in the devouring silence.