While the sounds of brutal psion collisions echoed in the training hall, a very different silence hung over the Reikage Estate in Tokyo. In the central study, a room designed to dampen every vibration and electronic signal, the Reikage Patriarch stood by a window overlooking a garden that felt more like a prison than a sanctuary.
A shadow detached itself from the corner of the room—a Reikage Spy who had just returned from Okinawa.
"Report," the Patriarch commanded, his back still turned.
"Young Master Satoshi is currently undergoing combat refinement under Shiba Tatsuya," the spy whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "The intensity is beyond human limits. The Young Master is merging his channels. He is mastering the void."
The spy hesitated, then looked up. "The Elders are already suspicious of the Young Master's absence. Shall I inform the rest of the Clan? They will want to know that the 'Zero' is finally being perfected."
"No," the Patriarch's voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. "Keep this secret from everyone. If the Elders or the Senate learn he is being trained by a Yotsuba, they will move to terminate the 'complication.' You are to report only to me. Understood?"
"Understood, Patriarch." With a flicker of movement, the spy vanished.
Left alone, the Patriarch finally let his shoulders slump. The cold, iron mask he wore for the Clan crumbled. He reached into his desk and pulled out a small, worn photograph—one that was never meant to exist in a house of "Zero." It was Satoshi at age five, before the weight of Decomposition had settled into his eyes.
He did love his son. But as a man raised in the Zero Institute, he was unable to overcome the primal fear that Satoshi's very existence inspired. Every time he looked at the boy, he didn't see a child; he saw the end of the world. His fear had become a wall he didn't know how to climb over.
"Forgive me, Satoshi," he whispered to the empty room. "I was too weak to be your father, so I became your jailer."
He looked toward the digital report of the girl, Shiba Saori. A strange, pained smile touched his lips. He was glad. He was genuinely glad that Satoshi had found someone who could look at a "Demon" and see a man—someone who didn't flinch when he reached out his hand.
The sliding door to the inner chamber creaked open. The Reikage Matriarch stepped into the light, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow. She had been listening from the shadows, her heart breaking with every word.
"She's a Yotsuba," she said, her voice trembling. "The daughter of the man who destroyed the world's order. If anyone can walk through the fire with our son, it's her."
The Matriarch clutched her kimono, her knuckles white. "I look at him now, and I only see the eight-year-old boy who cried out for me when his power first woke up. And I... I turned away. I let the Institute take him because I was afraid."
"We both failed him," the Patriarch said, not looking at her.
"I hope she never lets him go," the Matriarch whispered, a single tear finally escaping. "I hope he finds a life better than the one we gave him. I hope he never has to come back to this house of shadows."
In that moment, the two most powerful people in the Reikage Clan weren't thinking about the Senate or the Ten Master Clans. They were just two parents, buried in guilt, praying that their "Demon" son would find the salvation they were too terrified to offer him.
The morning after the brutal training, the air in Okinawa felt unusually still. Satoshi had slipped out of the hotel to clear his head, walking to a local grocery store. He stood in the pasta aisle, his hand hovering over a specific brand of linguine. A faint smile touched his lips; it was his favorite, and as he had learned during their dates, it was Saori's favorite too. For a fleeting second, he wasn't a Reikage or a "Zero"—he was just a boy thinking about a girl.
That peace shattered with a frantic shout from the storefront.
"Look at the news! The central hotel!"
Satoshi turned to a wall of display televisions. The screen was filled with a shaky, high-definition feed of the very hotel he had just left. Smoke poured from the upper balconies, and the ticker-tape at the bottom screamed: [TERRORIST ATTACK: UNKNOWN MILITANTS TAKE CONTROL OF MAGIAN SUMMIT HOTEL].
His heart didn't just beat; it surged with a cold, metallic dread. He dropped the pasta, the glass jar shattering on the floor, and in a blur of movement that left the shopkeeper blinking, he sprinted into the street. He didn't wait for a taxi. He tapped into his Double-Capacity MCA, boosting his physical parameters with Augmentation Magic. He became a streak of grey light tearing through the tropical streets.
Inside the hotel, the situation was a chaotic symphony of gunfire and screams. Shiba Saori had acted instantly. Moving with the liquid grace of a Yotsuba, she had already taken down a dozen armed intruders, clearing a path for the younger students to reach the emergency exits.
But as the last student vanished, she found herself caught in a kill-zone. Five elite mercenaries leveled their automatic rifles from the mezzanine.
"Target identified. Fire!"
The roar of the rifles filled the hall. Saori's Flash Cast shield snapped into existence, but the "Anti-Magician" rounds were designed to shred standard barriers. The lead tore through her defense.
Saori felt the world slow down. A sharp, searing heat bloomed in her shoulder, then her side. She fell back against a marble pillar, the white stone blooming with a sudden, violent red.
CRASH.
The massive glass front of the hotel lobby didn't just break; it dissolved into a fine, sparkling mist.
Satoshi skidded into the room, his eyes wide with a horror he hadn't felt since he was eight years old. He saw Saori slumped against the pillar, the light in her eyes flickering.
The mercenaries shifted their aim toward the new intruder. They never got to pull their triggers.
"Decompose."
Satoshi didn't use a specific spell name. He didn't use a CAD. He unleashed the raw, unfiltered fury of the Reikage lineage. In a single, silent pulse of grey light, the five men—and their high-tech armor, and their rifles—simply ceased to be. They didn't fall; they were dismantled into their constituent atoms before they could even scream.
Satoshi was at Saori's side before the dust of the mercenaries had even settled.
"Saori! No... no, stay with me!" His voice was a raw, broken plea.
He didn't hesitate. He placed his left hand over her wounds, his Double-Capacity MCA roaring as it accessed the Regrowth sequence. He didn't just heal the tissue; he forced the Information Body (Eidos) of her body to rewind to its state five seconds prior.
The bullets were pushed out of her flesh as the wounds sealed themselves perfectly, leaving not even a scar. The blood on her dress remained, but the life surged back into her face as her heart found its rhythm again.
Saori gasped, her eyes snapping open. She looked up at Satoshi, whose face was a mask of agonizing relief and terrifying power.
"I've got you," Satoshi whispered, his forehead resting against hers, his hands trembling. "I've got you. I'm never letting go again."
From the shadows of the upper balcony, Tatsuya stood motionless. He had been seconds away from intervening himself, his Mist Dispersion ready. But he had stopped when he saw Satoshi.
He watched the boy save his daughter with the same "cursed" power he had used for years. He saw the way Satoshi had unified his channels—one for absolute destruction, one for absolute life.
"He's done it," Tatsuya murmured to himself, his eyes unreadable. "He's mastered the abyss."