4th Day of the 2nd Earth Cycle[1], 2000, g.c.
The entire living room went silent after Frost's statement. The incense smoke still curled from the black ceramic burner in slow gray ribbons, but even that looked like it was trying to leave. The crimson-filtered sunlight coming through the curtains painted the couches, table, and walls in warm tones, yet the air had gone cold enough to make the mana crystals near the ceiling dim like they ain't wanna be involved.
If there was one thing my family was good at besides fighting, it was being dramatically human. Like a Black soap opera with horns, fangs, black blood, and enough trauma to need commercial breaks. I wouldn't have guessed a collection of demonic-touched creatures would be hashing out an episode of Maury in my luxury living room, but there we were. My father, whom I had just met, was basically asking my mother if she was sure I belonged to him.
I was beside myself, if I'm keeping it real. He didn't ask where I had come from. He didn't ask what happened to me. He didn't ask why my soul felt strange, why my power looked unnatural, why everybody in the room seemed to treat me like family and king in equal measure.
He asked what I was.
Who the fuck I was.
Like the answer would give him permission not to love me. Not to acknowledge me. Not to claim me. Like blood had fine print, and my existence was some contract he could reject if he found a clause he didn't like.
That shit had my chest burning in a way no Fire Mana could replicate.
Then, to ask my mom if she believed I was theirs was a dagger slipped clean between the ribs. He positioned me as an outsider within my own family. A family built without his punk ass, might I add. Every birthday, every training session, every lesson Mom gave me, every time Grandma Fann fed me, every time Glynis fussed at me, every scrape, every win, every bad joke, every time the Mikazuki Clan treated me like one of their own because I was one of their own. Frost walked into all of that history late and questioned the foundation, like he had paid for the bricks.
I couldn't understand his angle. I couldn't understand why he didn't fuck with me before he even knew me. But the feeling was about to become mutual if he kept going.
Mom stood slowly. Her hands tightened once before dropping to her sides. Hurt sat in her eyes, but steel stood behind it.
She looked Frost directly in his silver eyes.
"I carried him, Frost. I raised and trained him. You don't get to arrive late and question what I know in my bones."
The words landed hard enough to make Glynis lean back slightly with a satisfied little lift of her brow. Charles's jaw tightened beneath his mustache, while Cecil stopped pretending to be lost in his bottle. Kairos watched from his couch cushion with concern gathering behind his scholarly curiosity, like the man had realized this wasn't just family tension anymore.
This was a wound being opened.
I looked at Frost, keeping my face controlled even though my soul felt like somebody had started dragging a blade along the inside of it.
"Is that what you believe, pops? That I'm not your blood?"
Frost's expression didn't change much, but his eyes sharpened. His aura sat around him cold and thin, like ice forming over a grave marker.
"I know where your blood is from. It is your soul I don't trust. I'm aware you're a reincarnation from another world."
My jaw dropped before I could stop it. The word reincarnation hit the room like somebody had cracked a window in winter.
For all the ways I had imagined this meeting going, that wasn't on the list. I had expected awkward silence. Maybe some cold questions. Maybe him acting like a jerk, which he had clearly majored in with honors. But I didn't expect him to pull Otherworlder out of his pocket like a loaded gun and aim it straight at me.
My eyes cut to Mom.
The sudden worry and anxiety in her face told me all I needed to know. She knew. Of course, she knew. Mom and Grandma had known about my reincarnation for a long time. But the look in her eyes said she had hoped Frost would never find out like this.
Her voice came quietly but urgently.
"Where did you learn this? Who told you?"
Frost's stare stayed on me.
"Then it is true. He is an Otherworlder."
Cecil finally lowered his bottle from his lips, eyes narrowing in a way that cut through the drunken mask he wore so well.
"Well, I'll be damn..."
Kairos's fingers twitched while holding his cup, then stopped. For the first time since arriving, curiosity looked ashamed of itself.
Kairos, sensing the situation sliding into a deeper pit, finally decided to interject. He placed his cup down with careful precision, then lifted one pale hand between us like a scholar stepping into a duel and hoping accountability counted as armor.
"If I must, I would like to correct the air. For I am the one who deduced Lord Xiro could be from another universe, due to the creations he brought to Gaia reflecting something I've seen a long time ago."
Frost turned before Kairos could continue, the motion sharp enough to slice the explanation clean in half. He wasn't concerned with a flashback. He wanted answers from me, and the way he said the next words made it clear he didn't see me as the son he had missed.
He saw me as a problem wearing his blood.
"Otherworlder, I'll ask you again... Who are you?"
Something in me tightened.
A lot of things could've come out of my mouth. A joke. A threat. A speech about how I built my life here one painful moment at a time. But staring at that man, hearing him call me Otherworlder like he had replaced my name with a slur, all I could do was answer clean.
"I'm Xiro Mikazuki... But yes, you're right. I was reincarnated by the Aeon of Death."
Cecil paused mid-gulp.
Glynis and Charles turned their attention to Frost at the same time, both seeming to understand this revelation meant more to him than anyone had explained yet. Frost went quiet, his eyes locked on me like he was trying to look past my skin and see the soul underneath. Kairos's eyes, though, found a new light after hearing my confession. It wasn't excitement exactly, but recognition. Confirmation.
Mom stepped closer, her voice firm enough to carry through the emotional fog choking the room.
"Regardless of what world he is from, he belongs here now."
Frost turned his attention to Vericka, and the coldness in his gaze made my fingers curl slightly.
"You cling to it without knowing its true nature. He's not truly my son... Our son. That thing invaded our child's body before he was born."
The room changed again. The words didn't just hurt me. They hit everybody.
Glynis looked like she was one bad breath from standing up and choosing a felony. Charles's face hardened in disappointment, the warmth he had shown me earlier dimming under the weight of Frost's cruelty. Cecil's eyes thinned as he watched Frost over the rim of his bottle, and Kairos's lips parted slightly, regret beginning to surface before he could dress it up in manners.
Mom's face went pale in a way I had rarely seen. Not from fear. From emotional pain.
Frost returned his leer to me.
"I could never trust an Otherworlder."
He stared me in the soul when he said that.
And he meant every word.
That was the part that stunned me. Not the insult. Not the rejection. Not even the way he had called me a thing in front of my mother. I had been hated before. Feared before. Misunderstood before. The world had thrown plenty of ugliness at me and watched me laugh it off or throw it back harder.
But this? This hit a younger place inside me.
A quiet place. The little boy who had heard stories about a father he never knew. The teenager who wondered if the man would be proud. The grown young man who thought he didn't need that approval anymore until Frost stood in front of him and refused to see him.
For once, I had no witty retort ready. No joke. No comeback. No petty one-liner to throw over the pain. I just stood there, dumbfounded and hurt by what I had heard.
Frost turned around and walked out of the room.
And I let him go.
That was the worst defeat I ever took. My hand was still half-curled at my side, like some stupid part of me hadn't realized there was nothing left to reach for.
I had fought monsters, Angels, Artists, Daemons, Ascended Humans, Divine Beasts, and cosmic bullshit with names too long for normal conversations. I had been stabbed, burned, crushed, dismembered, shot, and rebuilt. I had watched people I cared about suffer. I had stood in front of adversity more times than I could count and still found a way to talk shit.
But standing there while my father walked away from me?
That hurt worse than a stab through the chest.
The door slammed on his exit, and the sound snapped me back into the room. The echo cracked through the silence, bounced off the red-black furniture, and faded into the incense smoke. My sadness got dragged backward by my anger; the second reality caught up with me. The man had disrespected me far too many times in my own home. In my castle. In front of my mother. In front of my aunt.
If he wasn't going to love me, part of me started wondering what it would feel like to live up to the hatred he had for me.
That was a dangerous thought. A real ugly one.
Luckily, Uncle Charles spoke up before that trail of thought could grow teeth. The brolic Oni Sage stood from the couch with a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of his neck like he had been dealing with Frost's bullshit longer than anybody should have to.
"I'm going to follow the blockhead. Make sure he cools off and does not cause further problems."
He turned to me, and his face softened. The warmth in his red eyes felt strangely grounding, like a hand on the shoulder after falling.
"Lord Xiro, I'll be back to hang out with you a little later. Don't let Frost confuse you, nephew; you're a damn fine young man. I'm looking forward to knowing you properly."
His words gave me a slight sense of soothing. Not enough to fix anything, but enough to keep my anger from swallowing the whole room. I deeply exhaled and nodded.
Charles gave everyone a quick wave, then jogged out the door after Frost.
The air felt stale after that. Heavy with emotional confusion and words nobody knew how to organize yet. Or maybe I was just being dramatic over a broken heart caused by the realization that I wanted acceptance from a man I had never met. That sounded pathetic in my head. A Demon Lord with daddy issues. What a stupid ass headline.
Mom was quiet.
She didn't look around the room. Didn't speak. Didn't try to comfort me yet. She just stood there with a distant gaze and growing sadness drawn across her face. She had feared Frost would look at me exactly the way he just did. That was why she and Grandma had kept the truth quiet. That was why her face held guilt now, like the secret had finally escaped its cage and bitten everyone in the room.
Cecil continued to remain silent and watchful, casually sipping his bottle again and pretending to be too drunk to understand. That man understood damn near everything. I could see it in the way his eyes moved from Mom to me to the door Frost had left through. He was cataloging the event.
Kairos, who had finally put the pieces together, looked like he had a thought to share.
But my Aunt Glynis was the first to break the silence with a question I wanted to voice. She turned toward Mom, arms folded tight beneath her chest.
"Vee, what is he talking about?"
Mom blinked as if waking from somewhere far away. When she turned her head, the sorrow in her eyes was heavy enough to make the room feel smaller.
"Kurtis. He's talking about Kurtis."
Glynis's eyes widened for a second before the memory hit her.
"Ahhh, damn! I forgot about that. Shit..."
I looked between the two of them, my anger forced to make room for confusion.
"What the hell is a Kurtis?"
Mom's gaze dropped for a moment.
"He was the reincarnated serial killer who took the lives of Frost's family and friends."
The word reincarnated struck like a bell in my skull. I leaned back slightly, already feeling the bitter irony crawl over my skin.
"Reincarnated? Aww fu—"
Mom's eyes snapped to me.
"Xiro!"
I lifted both hands.
"Sorry, Mom. What happened?"
Kairos answered first, his voice soft but steady, like he knew history had to be handled with care.
"That was about 72 years ago. Frost's best friend and cousin, Bruce Kurayami, was tragically killed. Yet, during the night of his burial, Bruce's body became possessed by the soul of an Otherworlder who called himself Kurtis."
The room seemed to darken around his words. The incense smell turned thicker in my nose. Even the sunlight through the crimson curtains felt less warm than before.
Mom continued, her voice carrying the weight of someone repeating a nightmare she wished had stayed buried.
"Kurtis used Bruce's body to torment Frost for years before killing all of the Kurayami Clan members in a single night."
I had nothing to say.
No joke. No curse. No smart remark. Just nothing.
Mom swallowed, her hands tightening against each other.
"Kurtis also killed Frost's father in front of him while almost killing Frost as well."
Cecil's voice came low from his seat, roughened by alcohol and memory.
"If not for the semi-immortality from his Vessel Skill, Frost would have died often against Bruce. Otherworlders are abnormally powerful."
My thoughts slowed.
"Shit... his attitude towards me is a trauma reaction."
[Midnight Star: Belial] answered within me immediately, his tone carrying that familiar blunt disrespect.
"That still doesn't excuse him for being a dick."
I couldn't argue with that.
"Still, I wonder if Omnia knows anything about this Kurtis?"
Kairos folded his hands together, continuing with grim calm.
"Even though Frost finally killed Kurtis, he never escaped the nightmare. The entire saga left him with PTSD. He even has that addiction to moonsand because it counters the night terrors."
That added another layer to the man I had just wanted to punch.
Moonsand addiction. Night terrors. Family murdered by a reincarnated soul wearing the body of someone he loved. A cousin. A best friend. A dead man turned into a monster by an invader from another world. And then I showed up. Another reincarnation. An Otherworlder. Inside the body of his unborn son. From Frost's view, maybe I didn't look like a miracle. Maybe I looked like the sequel to his worst nightmare.
Mom lifted her head to me, and the look of failure and disappointment written in her eyes hurt almost as much as Frost's rejection.
"When Mom and I found out about you being a reincarnated soul, we both promised to never tell your father, because we feared this would be the outcome."
Her voice weakened slightly.
"I never thought he would learn that before he ever met you."
I could feel the sincerity in her words, but life had a way of always arriving with the fuckery. Even with knowledge of Frost's painful past, it didn't stop the emotional daggers in my chest from hurting. It gave his cruelty context, not forgiveness. A reason didn't magically turn the wound into a handshake.
Not a single punch had been thrown, yet I felt clearly defeated.
I honestly didn't know how to tackle the situation. The relationship in general. My pride was pressing against my back, telling me to stand my ground, tell him off, prove my place as a man, and make sure Frost understood nobody got to walk into my home and call me a thing.
But something in me wanted to try one more time. Something real Jean-ish. Something that remembered being hurt and still wanting love anyway.
Honestly, the entire situation was stupid when I reflected on it. Still, killing people was far easier than loving them. That was the ugly truth. Violence had rules I understood. Love came with missing pages, and everybody pretending they knew the instructions.
The room cooked in silence for a few minutes.
Everyone's thoughts seemed similar, trying to figure out quality steps to take for the situation to improve. Well, maybe a few people were also thinking Frost just needed a punch in the face. I knew [Midnight Star: Belial] had already built a whole training plan around it. But not everything could be solved with a fist. That was unfortunate, because punches were very efficient.
Kairos finally broke the quiet. He leaned forward slightly, his expression apologetic in a way that looked honest, not performative.
"I, again, apologize for exposing a family secret before the time. I was too busy crafting my theory to even think about how much that knowledge might affect him. Truly a blunder on my end."
I looked at him, then exhaled through my nose.
"Nah, I get it, old man. It's cool. I mean, it ain't cool exactly, but I get it. But how did you even come to that idea before even meeting me?"
Kairos reached into his pockets with careful hands and pulled out three gem-like items.
The first two were mnemonic crystals shaped like crescent moons, their surfaces smooth and translucent with pale blue light swimming inside. I recognized them instantly. One was my first copy of Black Sitcoms from Earth. The other held information on how to create a lightbulb. Old creations from my childhood. Little pieces of another life I had translated into Gaia's magickal language without fully understanding how far they might travel.
The third item was an amethyst in the shape of a pawprint.
That one didn't spark any memories.
But the style was definitely something I would have been behind. It carried that weird mix of cute, mystical, and slightly too important that followed my creations like a signature perfume. The pawprint gem glowed with a faint violet shimmer, its edges smooth but organic, as if someone had polished a piece of frozen dream. The magick I sensed within it was new but familiar. Information was stored inside, similar to a mnemonic crystal, but the structure was slightly different. Softer. More layered. The mana moved like recorded memory wrapped in emotion.
That gem had my undivided attention.
I stepped closer, eyes narrowing.
"Two of those I remember. One of those looks new to me. Where did you get them from?"
Kairos held them in his palm, the three crystals catching the crimson sunlight in little flashes.
"These are the reasons I've been waiting to meet you. You see, I received two of these gems from you, a long time ago."
And like that, Kairos rocked the room with its second haymaker for the day.
I stared at the gems in his hand. Then at his face. Then back at the gems.
This shit was starting to get too heavy to be sober for. I was understanding my mother's sensei more and more by the second. Sometimes you didn't drink because you were irresponsible. Sometimes you just needed something stronger than water.
The atmosphere in the royal living room became a gumbo of emotions as we attempted to digest what the doctor just stated.
And yeah, I said gumbo because soup would've been too simple. Soup got structure. Soup knows what it wants to be. This room had grief, shock, curiosity, anger, embarrassment, ancient secrets, family trauma, divine revelation, and one drunk monkey Sage sitting there with baijiu like my nigga had paid for premium seats.
Even the blackwood furniture looked less comfortable after so much depressing information had been poured into the air. The couches still held their expensive shape, fabric smooth beneath golden trim, but the room didn't feel soft anymore. The incense smoke drifting from the corner twisted more slowly than before, gray ribbons curling through the tinted sunlight like they were tired of carrying everybody's mood. The royal living room's warm colors couldn't fight the darkness shading the atmosphere. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, but it landed dull across the polished table, losing its shine before it reached the floor.
The ice in my cognac clanked together as the cubes shrank a bit from entropy loss. A tiny sound. Sharp, crisp, strangely loud in the quiet. Frost's words were still sitting in my chest like broken glass, Kairos's revelation had just kicked in the door behind them, and now I was staring at three old gems that somehow carried pieces of my past, my future, and a version of me with a wilder name than "Devil of Velonica."
Cecil was the first to murmur into the quiet, his voice low and amused as he leaned back with that bottle in hand.
"My, now... Things have gotten really interesting in here."
That man was enjoying this too much.
Before anyone could answer him, a knock tapped against the door.
It wasn't heavy. Wasn't urgent. Just a gentle little sound that still made everyone's attention shift.
The door opened, and Kyttin Luna peeked into the room with her usual sweet softness. My red goddess carried the warm scent of cooking with her, some mixture of seasoned meat, herbs, butter, and something sweet simmering low enough to make my stomach remember it had been neglected. Her red hair framed her face with black-tipped dreadlocks, and her twin tails swayed behind her with curious little movements as her heterochromatic blue-green eyes scanned the room.
She instantly noticed the mood.
"Master Xi, I wanted to know if I should prepare lunch for..." Her voice trailed off as she looked between me, Mom, Kairos, Cecil, and the general aura of emotional disaster. Her ears dipped slightly. "Ohh, excuse me if I'm interrupting."
I looked at her and exhaled through my nose, grateful for her timing even if she had just walked into the middle of my family therapy session from hell.
"Actually, Kyttin, I need to borrow you for a moment."
Her ears perked right back up, and her expression brightened with the kind of eager devotion that made her look like she had been waiting for me to ask.
"You need me, Master? I currently have the stove on a low setting, so I have some time. What can mommy do for you?"
Aunt Glynis looked at me so fast her judgment arrived before her face did.
I ignored that.
"Kind of. I need Omnia for a moment."
Kyttin's face fell with the dramatic disappointment of a woman who had just been told the romantic letter wasn't for her, but for her alternate personality.
"Ugghh... You suck."
"Just for a moment, Lova. Call Chomei for me. Please."
Her tails flicked in irritation as her cheeks puffed slightly.
"Grrr.... Yes, sir."
Cecil's bottle lowered a few inches.
He looked between Kyttin and me with his brow lifting, his golden-furred face sharpening through the haze of alcohol.
"Did you just say the name of the Aeon of Death?"
Kairos leaned forward as well, green eyes flashing with sudden scholarly alarm.
"You're able to speak Omnia's name?"
I blinked at them.
"Well, yeah. She's my Queen, after all."
Cecil and Kairos looked at each other with the exact same expression.
That "Is this nigga serious?" look.
Which was funny, because I was deadass. As serious as a heart attack in a hospital with no healers. Omnia wasn't just some ancient divine name to me. She was my woman. My Guardian Armament. My Creator. My goddess. My problem. My comfort. My favorite cosmic headache with a body made for sin and a mind that could challenge reality. Calling her by name felt normal to me now, which probably said a lot about how busted my sense of scale had become.
Aunt Glynis noticed things were about to get complicated, and because she was a smart woman who valued survival and unburnt food, she decided to tag out with Kyttin Luna.
"To make sure the food doesn't burn, I'll go watch the kitchen for Kyttin."
Kyttin gave her a thankful smile, ears lifting again.
"Thank you, Glynis."
As Aunt Glynis made her way out, Karma Nova began to pour out of my bioarmor.
It started as a ripple across the black fabric hugging my body. Then the surface liquefied, peeling away in glossy streams of black liquid starlight. The material flowed down my arm, slid off my side, and gathered beside me in a rising pool of dark radiance. Tiny specks of violet and silver glittered inside the liquid like stars trapped in oil.
The mass stretched upward, folding itself into Karma's silhouette until four arms lifted above her head, and her sleepy-eyed face formed from shadow with unsettling grace. Her hair fell down her back like ink washed in moonlight. She yawned softly, then leaned slightly toward me with a small smile.
Kairos's eyes widened, and this time his scholarly excitement almost climbed out of his mouth before the words did.
"Would you look at that. A Void Armoire in the Mortal Realm. That's incredible."
Cecil stared at Karma with sharper interest, his ears twitching once as his gaze moved from her four arms to the way she had separated from my clothing.
"I knew there was something fishy about his outfit. But it being a primordial creature was my last guess."
Kairos adjusted his glasses, fascination pulling his voice into a softer awe.
"Remarkable. Two creatures of the Unseelie."
Karma glanced at him with sleepy curiosity, then looked to me as if asking whether she should be offended, amused, or hungry. I gave her a tiny shrug. Honestly, at this point, I didn't know what counted as rude in divine taxonomy. Being called a creature of the Unseelie sounded like something a nobleman would say before getting eaten by faeries in an old bedtime story.
A moment later, spiritons began clustering together with Spatial Mana near the center of the room.
The air shimmered blue and lavender, and the mana crystals above us chimed softly in response. Particles gathered in a small spiral, each mote glowing like a droplet of starlight slipping through a thin veil between realms. The spell bloomed outward in a clean pulse, and Chomei Sol teleported into the living room with the elegance of a princess arriving fashionably late to a disaster she definitely smelled coming.
The Blue Queen gave the room a quick, cute wave hello, smiling with her glasses perfectly set on her face.
"Hello, everyone."
Kyttin huffed beside her, still salty, but her body already began to glow. Karma stepped closer to them without needing instruction. The Three Twilights moved into range, and the room's pressure shifted again. Red, blue, and black mana signatures folded toward one another, weaving like three melodies resolving into one chord.
Kyttin's red aura curled outward in soft ribbons, warm and hypnotic, smelling faintly of jasmine and cinnamon. Chomei's cerulean mana moved like moonlit water, cool and playful, carrying a clean sweetness like rain over glass. Karma's black starlight flowed through both of them, deep and velvet-smooth, the scent of night-blooming flowers and cosmic vanilla clinging to the air.
Their bodies unraveled into streams of mana and spiritons.
The lights braided together in front of me, red twisting around blue, blue folding through black, black stitching the entire shape into something older than all three of them. A feminine silhouette formed in the glow, tall, curving, divine. Wings shimmered behind her for a breath. Twin tails swayed behind her hips. Then the three colors collapsed inward with a quiet pulse that made the table glasses tremble.
The Twilight Goddess returned.
As soon as Omnia completed her form, her original skin texture shifted. Her complexion changed from ocean-cerulean into honey-brown as her biodoll formed around her, mortal softness laying itself over divine structure. Her Fey wings quietly vanished behind her shoulders, and her two tails swayed gently before settling low. Her long midnight hair framed her face in soft waves, and her eyes found me first, bright with teasing affection despite the tension in the room.
"A request for my return? You miss me already, Moonlight?"
She winked, because of course she did.
"Always, Omni-boo. But I'll try not to hold you for too long."
Omnia stepped closer, her smile warm enough to challenge the room's darkness.
"There is no such thing as too long with you, my love."
For a moment, the room softened.
Then Omnia glanced beside me and saw my mother. Her expression changed instantly, the teasing replaced by subtle joy and gentle respect. Mom, despite everything weighing on her face, produced a warm smile at Omnia's arrival. Vericka had come to enjoy Omnia and the Twilights as her daughters-in-law, and they loved her right back as new family. It was still wild how normal that became. My mother accepted the reincarnated Aeon of Death as her daughter-in-law faster than some parents accept tattoos.
Mom lifted her chin slightly, voice soft.
"Welcome back, Omnia."
Omnia bowed her head with affectionate grace.
"Mother Vericka, it is a pleasure to see you as well."
After everything Frost had said about what did and didn't belong in this family, Mom welcoming Omnia felt warmer than usual. Kairos stared between Omnia and me with a smile that made him look twenty years younger.
"Things just don't stop becoming exciting around you, Lord Xiro."
Cecil leaned forward, bottle in hand, eyes locked on Omnia's aura and the way her spirit was tethered to mine.
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle... She's a Guardian Armament. The Aeon of Death is bound to this kid's soul?"
Cecil took a deep gulp of his baijiu.
Yet, he couldn't hide the smile behind the bottle. His eyes narrowed with that mischievous spark again, like he was watching a train wreck but had great seats and good liquor.
"Maybe Frost has a point," he murmured to himself with a sly grin.
I shot him a look sharp enough to cut fruit. He wisely pretended the liquor made him blind. Kairos, though, was still staring at me with open certainty.
"I am, without doubt, now sure that he is the one whom I met a millennium ago."
Omnia's head turned toward him. Her eyes sharpened. The softness didn't vanish, but something ancient stepped behind it. A recognition deeper than faces moved across her expression, and the room seemed to hold its breath under her attention.
"Kairos? Is that you in that Elf skin suit? What are you doing here?"
That name hit the room differently.
Kairos.
It was my first time hearing Dr. Kai called that. I wasn't alone in my confusion either. Mom looked just as befuddled, her brows pinching as her gaze moved from Omnia to the Holy Elf doctor she had known for years.
"Kairos, who is that? Wait... wait a minute..."
Mom's voice came quieter.
"Kai?"
The doctor sighed with the calm resignation of someone who had just been caught wearing a disguise at his own surprise party. Then he straightened, hands folding neatly in front of him, and the air around him changed.
Not loudly. Not with some dramatic divine explosion. That might've been creepier.
The veil around him peeled back in subtle layers. The faint mortal rhythm of his aura thinned, revealing something impossibly old beneath it. Time itself seemed to collect around his shoulders, not as a clock or a ticking sound, but as pressure. Like every second in the room remembered him personally. His green eyes gained a depth that didn't belong to an Elf, mortal or otherwise. It felt like staring into an archive so vast that whole civilizations were just footnotes written in dust.
"Well, I guess there's no need to keep it quiet anymore. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Kairos, the Archon of History."
Mom's fingers tightened around her glass. That name had just stolen years of trust from her in one breath. Both of us were mind-blown.
Kairos had shown no signs of the pleroma's touch before that moment. No divine leakage. No outer-realm stink. No existential dread breathing down the room's neck. He had hidden it so well that it made me second-guess Cecil, too, since I couldn't sense any divinity leaking off him either. That monkey man could've been just a legendary drunk martial artist, or he could've been a cosmic entity wearing fur and bad habits. Gaia had taught me not to assume anymore.
I didn't really understand the Outer Gods much.
Archons were always spoken and written about as being found in the outer realms. While many of the 362 deities didn't follow Elohim Laniakea and the Choir of Heaven, they still weren't known for being helpful to the lower realms or mortals. That was the thing about Archons. Aeons naturally sought to assist and guide the lower realms into balanced times, even when they were messy as hell about it. Archons were different. Their involvement in the Mortal Realm usually came with cosmic dread, collateral death, and mortals writing new prayers because the old ones left them fucked up.
Those gods normally never got personal. But with me no longer being mortal, I guess one was bound to pop up sooner or later.
"So you're not just some quirky old man. Still, what's an Outer God doing on Gaia?"
Kairos smiled faintly, and now that I knew what he was, the expression felt heavier than before.
"I could ask the same of you. Although I was there the day you were born."
Mom rubbed her forehead lightly, looking like reality was asking too much from her at noon.
"I'm still not used to all of this. I miss when Moonlight was just a weird talking toddler."
I gave her the tiredest look.
"Mom..."
Cecil leaned back again, clearly amused by my discomfort.
"The fabled Archon of Night. To think that Frost would give birth to the reincarnation of the Grim Reaper."
I lifted my hand.
"That's something I've just recently found out. My goal is to simply create a paradise to enjoy while I'm here. Not reap souls."
Kairos nodded as if that answer pleased him.
"Yes. And just like you, Night Archon, I'm only on this planet to live and enjoy life."
That sounded like the kind of answer a god gives when the truth has too many bodies attached. Omnia's eyes moved to him, sharp and unreadable.
"He may not be lying, Master, but I doubt he is telling the complete truth. Kairos is known for manipulating mortal history."
Kairos placed a hand to his chest, looking harmed with perfect theatrical dignity.
"You wound me, Omnia. During those moments, I was only helping to push Gaia into its next era."
I stared at him.
"Okay. But what does the Archon of History want with me?"
Kairos's amusement faded into something more serious. He adjusted his glasses like the sentence waiting behind his teeth had irritated him.
"I met you once. Not this you. Not exactly."
He paused, then continued.
"He called himself Wolfie Von Vegas. Terrible alias, by the way. He said he was the Archon of Night. He gave a grave warning of future universal destruction."
I blinked.
Wolfie Von Vegas.
That name was so unserious it looped back around into being possible. Of course, future me, past me, alternate me, or whatever the hell that version was, would call himself something like that. It sounded like the stage name of a werewolf lounge singer who gambled with souls and owed three casinos money. I hated that I loved it so much.
But while the name was ridiculous. The warning attached to it wasn't.
"What is this, more talk of the Rapture? I know about it, already."
Kairos shook his head.
"The Rapture is only the beginning. I was tasked with giving this amethyst gem to a Majin in the future who creates memories within jewels. He told me the night Trappist met its end in a fiery explosion..." Kairos looked from me to Omnia. "...the Archons of Night and Day would awaken."
Cecil's brow rose as he looked at me over his bottle.
"This Archon of Day is the only thing I haven't seen to be correct. Unless you know where he is?"
"You mean Luda? Yeah, he's in his room with Roxy."
Cecil held my gaze for a few seconds, waiting for the joke to show itself.
It didn't.
"I can see in your eyes that you're not jesting. I can't believe it, Kairos. You were right to listen then. Things are about to get exciting."
Kairos didn't share his excitement.
"What you deem as exciting concerns me. As Wolfie Von Vegas was adamant about me finding Lord Xiro before the year lets out."
Omnia stepped closer, her tails moving slowly behind her.
"What made you believe he was the Archon of Night when he approached you?"
Kairos's eyes darkened with memory.
"That would be his spectacular rescue of me a thousand years ago," Kairos said, "that version of you saved me from a Muon. Still, watching him turn around and defeat 400 Daemons from Jerrica's army with unmatched magickal power was hard to argue with."
The word Muon snapped my focus into a tighter line. So did Jerrica's army.
Cecil gestured loosely with his bottle, his voice calmer now.
"The doctor here spoke to me about the planet Trappist's destruction about a century ago. The night it exploded was all the proof I needed to join him on this quest to find you."
Mom's face turned toward me, worry sliding back across her features.
"Oh my, Xiro, what have you gotten into?"
I looked down at the cognac in my hand, watching the melting ice drift through amber liquid.
"I wish I knew, Mom."
Kairos continued, his tone gaining careful academic precision again.
"Luckily, Lord Xiro made it easy for me by creating these mnemonic crystals and one finding its way to me. With knowledge of the Devil of Velonica, I was betting all my coins on Xiro being him. It's why I sought out the Oni from the Mayonaka Clan."
Omnia went quiet once she heard that.
I couldn't lie, the mention of a Muon and Jerrica had my interest piqued. I had already figured out that I went back in time at some point in the future, but now I was finding out just how much my future version had altered the past to create a path I'd been unknowingly following down. That thought crawled under my skin and made itself at home.
It wasn't Destini writing my life out with her control. At least, not alone.
It was me.
I was creating my own fate with a weird time loop I was somehow trapped in. Sending messages into the past. Planting jewels. Warning gods. Making sure Kairos met me before the year ended. Using my own future knowledge to shape the road under my own feet.
That was some nasty existential cooking right there. But Kairos wasn't finished dropping bombs on a nigga.
He looked at me directly, and the room's warmth faded under the seriousness in his eyes.
"Now that I know you are the one they fear, I have to warn you of the moves being made by Paradiso and Infernia. The Angels and Daemons are going to target Gaia. All because of you."
And like that, my afternoon brought back my daily dose of cosmic fuckery while I sipped a glass of family drama.
It was a medicine for my existence that I found myself getting sick of.
Meanwhile, my Oni relatives were making their way outside of the castle, leaving the carriage behind for Kairos and Cecil like they were stepping away from the main stage before somebody threw another emotional chair. Frost moved first, his cloak trailing behind him with a quiet sweep across the polished stone. Before the noon light could touch his face for too long, he pulled that pale-white skeleton mask back out and placed it over his features in one swift motion. The gesture looked practiced. Smooth. Habitual. Like hiding himself was as natural as breathing.
Charles trailed behind him, a few steps back, watching his nephew with a patient heaviness that didn't match the cheerful man who had hugged me earlier. Once they crossed through Castle Midnight's front gate, the outside air welcomed them with warmth, fresh grass, blooming flowers, and the distant sweetness of baked bread drifting from the city streets. The garden paths shimmered beneath the bright sky, and the castle's black stone reflected thin lines of sunlight along its silver trim. Birds cried somewhere above the towers. Farther out, Talasi's ambient noise grew louder—cart wheels, merchant voices, laughter, hammer strikes from a forge, and the smooth hum of mana streetlights still glowing faintly beneath the dayhalf sun.
The guards standing at attention near the gate didn't dare ask either man a single question.
Couldn't blame them. Frost's masked and cloaked appearance carried a grimness that made him look like he had walked out of an old death cult painting and forgot to leave the menace behind. Even under noon sunlight, the hollow eye sockets of his mask swallowed shadow, and the chill trailing around his body made the warmer air near him wrinkle with pale mist. The D-Class Celestial guards stiffened so hard I'm surprised their armor didn't creak. One avoided Frost's mask, like eye contact might activate a curse. The other bowed to Charles's smile with the energy of a man praying he had picked the correct god to respect.
Charles tried to ease the tension with a friendly smile. That only made it worse.
The man had indigo horns, red eyes, broad shoulders, and enough Oni presence to make a guard question every career choice that led him to standing at that gate. His smile was warm, but the guards still jumped and bowed with quick respect, hands pressing to their chests like they had just been blessed by the wrong god and didn't want to offend him. Charles blinked, then chuckled under his breath as he and Frost stepped into Talasi's street.
For a while, they walked in silence.
The main road curved away from Castle Midnight and into the city, smooth black asphalt cutting through the rebuilt district with clean silver edging along the sides. New shops stood beside older homes, their architecture showing Talasi's strange transformation in layers. Fresh stone walls. Reinforced blackwood beams. Mana-powered lamps tucked beneath old wooden awnings. Flower boxes under windows that had been replaced with glass panes. The place carried a scent of new paint, forge smoke, wet stone, and old lumber, like the town hadn't forgotten where it came from even while putting on a better suit.
Charles kept his eyes forward until the silence became too damn thick to ignore.
"Hey, Frost... Are we going to talk about your actions back there? Why did you explode like that at your son? Because that boy reached for you, and you cut him without drawing a blade."
Frost didn't immediately reply.
At first, it looked like he had decided to ignore his uncle completely. He kept walking with that controlled stride, boots landing soft against the street, cloak shifting in the breeze. His hands stayed at his sides. His masked face didn't turn. The only sign that Charles's question landed was the faintest tightening in his shoulders.
Then a sigh escaped from behind the mask, visible as a thin stream of icy mist.
"After all that we have seen here, how could you still believe that that man... that thing, wearing the Mayonaka Bloodline, is anything different from the one who stole Bruce's body?"
Charles slowed for half a step, then caught back up. His expression didn't harden, but the warmth in it gained weight.
"That boy hugged like somebody who cherishes family. You could feel the tension leave his shoulders. I don't think he's the same as Kurtis, nephew."
Frost's head snapped slightly in his direction, the mask's hollow eyes angling toward him like a blade turning.
"Do not speak his name. Let him be forgotten in the bowels of history."
Charles exhaled through his nose, looking ahead at the city.
"Still, Xiro doesn't give me the same feeling. Behind the darkness of that signature, I feel a strange light."
"Otherworlders are nothing but parasites. They literally steal the body of someone who was from our world."
"That doesn't make sense with your son. Xiro was born here. Not revived or summoned."
Frost's next words came colder.
"He must have switched souls with my real son at the last moment."
His fingers curled once beneath the cloak, like the theory hurt to hold, but he refused to put it down.
Charles finally stopped walking. He looked at Frost like he wanted to be careful, but the words came out honest anyway.
"That sounds crazy, nephew. That moonsand might be fuckin' with your mind, some."
Frost paused. For a moment, he said nothing.
The city continued around them like it didn't know it was walking beside a wound. A mother guided her child across the street. Two Celestial teenagers carried a crate of fruit past a tailor shop. A blacksmith's hammer rang out from somewhere nearby, steady and rhythmic. Frost stood in the middle of all that life with his mask aimed forward and his silence wrapped around him like armor.
Then he started walking again.
Charles followed.
As they traversed the city, the two Oni drifted away from the busier streets and into back roads with a certain familiarity. While slightly more than half of Talasi had been rebuilt into something clean, advanced, and damn near futuristic by Gaia standards, the other half still carried the bones of the old lumber mill town. That was where the alleys lived. Narrow paths tucked between buildings, some paved with new stone, others still carrying packed dirt and old wood planks. Fresh mana lanterns had been installed beside cracked walls. New drainage channels ran beneath old fences. Steel-reinforced walkways crossed over muddy corners that probably remembered every boot print from my childhood.
They were making their way north, avoiding the crowded routes they had passed on the way in. It gave them privacy, or at least the illusion of it. Talasi alleys always had eyes if you knew where to look. Cats on rooftops. Kids peeking from corners. Old folks pretending to sweep the same spot for fifteen minutes. Nosy little ecosystem, really.
Uncle Charles never stopped pleading my case.
"You gotta admit, Frost. The kid was really cool. And charismatic. Far more social than any Death Oni I've ever met."
Frost's voice stayed flat behind the mask.
"That's because he wasn't a Death Oni. He was a variant that I'd never seen before."
Charles's brows lifted.
"Wait, he was a variant? You sure?"
Before Frost could answer, a woman's voice slid down from above them, sharp with amusement and ugly confidence.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Some old fellow cosplaying the Demon Lord and someone pretending to be a Death Worshipper? Are you two lost or something?"
The interruption drew Charles's attention upward.
A brunette Sky Celestial woman stood on a stack of trash bins and broken crates, one boot planted higher than the other like she had rehearsed that entrance in a mirror. Blackened-feathered wings twitched behind her, dusty at the tips and half-folded beneath a dark leather mantle. Her gear told a lot before her mouth did. Flexible armor. Light boots. Several small pouches along her belt. A dagger in her right hand, flipped loosely between her fingers with practiced comfort. Rogue sub-job, definitely. Artist, too. A-Class from the density tucked beneath her suppressed signature.
Her smile was all teeth and bad intentions.
Charles looked up at her, genuinely confused.
"Cosplaying? What does that mean? I am not the Demon Lord."
Frost didn't acknowledge her.
Not with a turn. Not with a breath. Not even with a grunt. He simply remained still, masked face pointed down the alley like he was waiting for the obstacle to finish embarrassing itself so he could continue walking.
The Sky Celestial woman laughed, then crouched slightly on the bins, her dagger catching a stripe of sunlight from between the buildings.
"Aye, nie, no need to be concerned with the word's definition. How about you be more focused on emptying your pockets? Ain't that right, Stamps?"
Like cockroaches from under the fridge, several Dark Elves crawled out of the nearby trash bins with knives in their hands. And I mean that disrespectfully. Their dark skin and pale hair caught the alley's mixed light in flashes, while their daggers gleamed with cheap enchantments and worse maintenance.
One Dark Elf with a mohawk stepped forward and held out his hand, activating a Personal Skill. A faint ring of gray mana pulsed from his palm and washed over Frost and Charles, reading the surface level of their suppressed signatures.
"They are both pretty weak, Cierra. About E-Class from the feeling of their signature. They just look scary."
Cierra grinned wider from atop the bins.
"Like I said, fellas... It's time to empty them pockets."
On both sides of the alley, seven Dark Elf males and females surrounded the two Majin. The path ahead narrowed between old lumber walls patched with new metal plating. Behind them, more trash bins and stacked crates were boxed in the exit. The air smelled of damp wood, old vegetables, and the faint metallic tang of cheap blade oil. A few mana lanterns buzzed weakly along the wall, their glow struggling to touch the deeper shadows where the muggers gathered.
Charles didn't seem stressed.
He looked more confused than anything.
"Is she talking to us? Are they trying to rob us?"
Frost said nothing. He didn't turn. Didn't adjust his stance. Didn't even shift the direction he was facing.
He remained paused in the alley as if he was simply waiting for everyone to finish so he could resume his walk. That kind of stillness should have been a warning. Any real fighter would've felt it. The lack of flinching. The complete absence of defensive panic. The way his aura wasn't weak so much as buried beneath layers of control. But rookie mana users often trusted the first number their skill handed them. They saw "E-Class" and started to crash out.
Due to neither Oni moving to throw their pouches to the muggers, Cierra's amusement burned off fast.
Her smile dropped.
"Everyone, kill them instead and loot the bodies. We gave them a chance."
All seven muggers rushed in at once.
The nearest Dark Elf was only three yards away, knife low and angled for Charles's ribs. Another came from the left with a blade drawn across the body for a throat slash. Two rushed Frost from behind, thinking the masked man's silence meant distraction. Cierra leapt down from the bins with her dagger raised, wings flaring just enough to guide her fall. Stamps stayed back half a second longer, preparing another Personal Skill, like he thought he was the smart one in the group.
Neither Charles nor Frost flinched.
Then Frost's aura opened. No chant. No hand sign. No visible spell circle.
Just pressure.
An avalanche of icy wind expanded out from him in a single violent pulse. The alley vanished beneath a white-blue gust, and the sound hit like a mountain exhaling through broken glass. Frost's Ice Mana rolled outward in a circular wave, carrying needle-thin shards of crystalline frost that flashed in the lantern light. The air froze as it moved. Moisture crystallized instantly. Trash bags hardened into misshapen lumps. Water in cracks became jagged veins of ice. The old wooden walls groaned as frost crawled across them in branching patterns.
Within a second, all eight muggers were flash-frozen in place.
Cierra hung mid-drop, dagger raised, wings trapped in a half-flare with ice coating every feather. Her expression had locked in that perfect stupid moment between confidence and regret. The Dark Elf nearest Charles froze with his knife inches away from his own bad decision. Stamps stood in the back with his hand still extended, gray mana trapped around his fingers like frozen smoke. No one screamed. No one fell. No one finished a movement.
The alley became a gallery of idiots.
Charles remained calm, expecting nothing different once he realized the muggers were serious. He glanced around at the frozen attackers, then rubbed his chin like he was more offended by the poor assessment than the robbery attempt.
"What was he talking about with E-Class? Was that about us, too?"
Frost finally spoke, his voice low behind the mask.
"Rookie mana users don't know signatures can be suppressed and hidden."
Charles looked back at the frozen attackers, then toward Castle Midnight rising behind them beyond the layered rooftops. The black towers were visible even from the alley, sharp against the noon sky, silver trim shining like cold moonlight under the sun. For a second, Charles stared at the castle like he saw me sitting inside it despite all the walls between us.
Then he looked back at Frost.
"Yet, you froze them because they judged wrong off a surface read."
Frost said nothing.
The silence said enough, though. Charles stepped closer, his voice gentler now, but firm in the way only family could be.
"Might wanna think about that before you do the same to your son. Stretch your hand out and give that boy a chance."
Frost remained silent.
No comeback. No denial. No icy lecture.
He simply started walking again, leaving the frozen muggers behind like decorations in a winter alley. Frost's ice would hold without killing them. Probably. Unfortunately for them, "probably" was still a better mercy than their choices deserved.
Charles shook his head, then skipped forward to catch up with Frost's stride, his larger frame moving with surprising lightness for a man built like old war stories.
Frost kept his mask pointed ahead.
"The Inn should be this direction. Keep up if you're following."
And with that, the two Oni continued north, leaving eight frozen criminals standing in Talasi's backstreet as the city carried on around them—warm, loud, alive, and completely unaware that one of the coldest men on Gaia had just been handed advice he wasn't ready to admit he needed.
[End of Chapter]
[1] May on Earth.