Even though Shin seemed to be standing right in the middle of the hall, in front of his brother, the Patriarch of the Kageyama clan, he was not fully present.
His mind was blank, his attention was drowned in a pool of confusion, questions, and memories he was desperately trying to dig out.
This person that Suho was talking about—he had no idea about her; he didn’t even know she existed. Of course, he had seen reports of the event of the Dark continent; one name was consistent in the mouths of several people. It was Raven.
But her full name had never been written in the reports, strangely enough. Or maybe he didn’t care about the reports enough to see.
He had read them to discover what Northern had gone through, why his son had changed so much, and couldn’t find so much, so he wasn’t interested in the girl all that well.
But Suho’s words made sense because, according to the report, Northern was a part of the girl’s team that helped search for a way out of the dark continent. The team was disbanded due to an argument that no one was particularly clear of; Northern started to act alone after they returned.
She evoked a flood that caused thousands of deaths and was captured by Luinngard.
So Shin understood the fact that she was beside Northern, and he also understood that her being in the dark continent must have been wired by Suho in collusion with Rughsbourgh for a field experiment... which was successful.
But that was not the terrifying phase of all of this. The target whom he had no idea of, someone he completely did not know but out of rebellion had raped.The source of thɪs content is .ɴet
His brother had somehow retrieved that child, groomed her as his own, and sent her to the middle of a monster-ridden continent, right beside his own adopted son?
Was this coincidence or planned out?
’No...’
Shin did not want to believe it was planned out, not by his brother. Suho was not clever enough to create a plan of such staggering scope. Then Rughsbourgh?
But the question was, what resources, what information, did Rughsbourgh possess to be able to create such an impossible plan?
Shin’s mind was racing in different places and angles at the same time; terror, pain, fear—every emotion mixed with each other in the depth of his heart.
Every beat of his heart felt crushing, too heavy to beat.
He thought that he would be able to find retribution for his sins, only to find out that his past had caught up with him. It was too late.
Suho had personally been hand-weaving his punishment, his reward, for a long time. Shin did not feel betrayed at the realization, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel hurt.
At the end of the day, his family was so fucked up that there was no path of retribution for them. Not even in the slightest, most insignificant manner.
It was why he did what he did with Northern. His decision must have endangered Northern, but Shin, looking at this moment, found more consolation and did not regret his decision.
If he were to teach Northern about the world from his own point of view, he would mess the little child up. He couldn’t teach him the essence of combat because it would slowly integrate the boy into the Heritage of the Crow.
The Kageyama clan was a bit different. The first Patriarch was a man who called himself Oda Nobunaga. He said he was a ruler in his old world who had committed seppuku only to find himself reborn in this world.
He was a strange man through and through but was the founder of the Kageyama clan, the Heritage of the Crow, and he was the one who created such a bloodline that even till now is recognized as one of the best.
This man, his cultures, his manner of doing things, set Kageyama on a different path for life. But Shin felt like his family had long ago derailed from the vision that the first Patriarch had for them.
He felt that the family had derailed so much that the word perfection was a fairytale of the past. And that was why so many Patriarchs were so hung up on it.
This chase for what should be perfect instead of accepting themselves and tracing their paths to the old ways has corrupted the authenticity of the family. It has ruined the clan.
And such damnation, such ruination, had burrowed its way into the point of their Heritage, the integrity and principles of their battle art.
The Kageyama clan was defective and its legacy, the Heritage of the Crow, was becoming something monstrous. He could feel it every time he tried to use it. And that was why he had to suppress it and not use it as much as he could afford not to.
Protecting Northern and his family from such a defect.
Shin did not regret his decision to leave. He did not regret it at all.
But at the same time, he felt wounded in several places. Like a constellation of holes had torn through his body in less than a heartbeat. He felt exposed, worthless, dying.
He wished for death.
He felt sorry too and craved fot another opportunity to try again. To choose another way to resist the puppeteer strings of his father and the ruthless principles of his family.
To meet Eisha again as a different person, to meet Northern again as a different father, and to teach him the world from the lens of a father who had conquered his fair share of the world.
Not one who had corrupted it.
Shin wanted to continue to sulk, but couldn’t. He was sharp enough to recognize the solution to all of this.
And as it dawned on him, a dangerous red light burned in his eyes and he slowly straightened, looking at his brother with a lethally sharp resolve.
The crimson light in his eyes was like the flat of a blade when light fell on it and danced across its edges.
And looking at it made the Patriarch grin like a demented bastard.
He opened his hands, black sparks flowing around them.
"I would rather kill you than let you get out of here."
The large crow at the dais of the throne seat stirred.