Chapter 163
Ashita fell silent, his mouth slightly open like someone who wanted to ask something but did not know where to begin, while beside him, Nirma felt something strange beneath the white bandage wrapped around her right eye—not pain, not itchiness, but a faint pulse, as though something behind the cloth had suddenly awakened, as though it had suddenly heard its name being called by someone it had never even met before.
"What a shame," the old man continued, his eyes returning to Nirma, and this time his gaze was different.
Not judgment.
Not comparison.
But a kind of respect born from the realization that even if someone does not inherit the blood, they can still inherit the soul.
"What a shame that your bloodline is neither from the Great Abnormals nor from the Ningsih family. But most of Sinta's personality—the way she viewed the world, the way she smiled when the world was collapsing around her—is reflected so clearly in every corner of your left eye, Nirma, and in the expression upon your face that… resembles the craziest girl I have ever known. A girl who laughed when she should have cried. A girl who wore a terrifying smile while everyone else was running backward in fear."
The old man then turned around—his movement slow and fragile, like a statue that had only just realized it could move after spending so long as nothing more than decoration—and faced Ashita. Then, to everyone's surprise, his wrinkled hand rose and gently patted Ashita's shoulder once, twice, three times, like someone giving blessings to something that had not yet happened, or perhaps like someone welcoming a person he had never expected to meet during the little time he had left in this life.
"You," he said, his voice trembling, yet within that tremor was a pride so deep that Tegar, standing beside him, unconsciously swallowed hard.
"You are part of the Ningsih bloodline. You are related to me, Ashita. Perhaps you will never know exactly where that connection lies—perhaps a distant cousin, perhaps a nephew from a branch of the family whose records were lost—but blood never lies, child. Blood always knows where it must return."
Nirma stood frozen.
Her left eye—the only one visible between the bandages and the veil that had begun to loosen—remained fixed upon the old man without truly seeing him, because her mind was too occupied choosing not to formulate any questions, allowing all the astonishment, all the confusion, all the nameless premonitions to settle at the bottom of her consciousness like sand that knows it does not need to move because the water carrying it will eventually become calm as well.
Meanwhile, beside her, Arya did not change his posture even for a second.
His eyes remained sharply fixed upon the old man.
Not with hatred.
Not with curiosity.
But with the pure vigilance he had sharpened over years as an agent, vigilance like that of a guard who understands that the most dangerous weapons often come not in the form of knives or bullets, but in words that strike too accurately, too close to wounds that never truly healed.
"You do not need to look at me like that, child," the old man suddenly said, his eyes shifting toward Arya with a small smile that no longer felt unsettling. "I will not make any more guesses. At least not today."
Arya did not answer, but his clenched fist slowly loosened.
Not because he trusted him, but because he realized that in front of someone who had lived longer than he should have, constant tension would only make him easier to read, like a book with its pages spread wide open in the middle of a storm.
And among the four of them, the wind that had stopped earlier finally began to blow again, gently carrying pollen from the palm grove that somehow smelled sweeter than before—as though nature itself had exhaled after witnessing something heavy finally spoken aloud, something that should have remained hidden yet chose to emerge because there was no time left to remain silent.
"Ashita," the old man began again, his voice now different—not hoarse like dry wood anymore, but softer, more careful, like someone about to ask something deeply personal while knowing the answer might not be easy to hear.
"Where did your parents come from? Because the Ningsih bloodline—the last line recorded in memories that did not vanish when the worlds merged—completely ended right after the birth of Sinta Melina Ningsih. No children, no branches. Yet here you are."
Fuuuuh!!
"Your blood does not lie. So there must be someone, somewhere, who serves as the connection between Sinta and yourself."
Ashita lowered his head for a moment, his eyes falling upon the sand that had begun turning golden beneath the slowly rising sun, and when he lifted his head again, there was something on his face Tegar had never seen during all the years they had worked together.
Not sadness.
Not anger.
But a strange kind of relief, the relief of someone finally being allowed to say something he had long believed nobody would ever want to hear.
"I was not born from a womb," Ashita said softly, his voice flat like someone reporting a fact, yet at the edges of his words there was a tremor that unconsciously made Nirma turn toward him.
"Nor was I created from any kind of laboratory tube. I simply appeared. Existed. Just like that, as a baby. In the middle of the road, at night, with no one seeing where I came from."
He paused, taking a breath before continuing with a steadier voice, though still carrying wounds time had never fully closed.
"The people who found me—the ones I later called father and mother—were not my real parents. They had no rights over me. Nor any obligation to raise me. And they treated me like an asset that needed to be studied. Beaten, bruised, humiliated—not necessarily because they were evil, perhaps, but because they never saw me as a child. Only as a specimen that happened to grow."
Hearing that, Tegar clenched his fists at his sides.
Not because he was angry at Ashita, but because he was angry at himself for never knowing, never asking, for having always seen his companion merely as an efficient agent without ever realizing that behind that efficiency was a childhood destroyed before it even had the chance to begin.
The old man let out a long sigh.
Not a weary sigh, but one of relief, like someone who had carried a burden for far too long and had finally discovered that he did not have to carry it alone because someone else bore a burden equally heavy, even if in a different form.
"I feel somewhat sorrowful," he said slowly, his eyes fixed upon Ashita with a gaze he had never given anyone before—a grandfather's gaze toward a grandchild who had walked roads far too steep for someone his age, "to hear that a descendant of the Ningsih family had to endure violence until the age of six. But strangely enough… it is very similar to the fate of the protagonist in her novel. He too was small, alone, whipped by the very people who were supposed to protect him. Perhaps, in any world, in any timeline, being part of the Ningsih family means paying a price no one ever asked for."
He shook his head slowly, and then his smile returned once more—a smile that this time did not reach his bright eyes, a smile bitter like coffee left sitting for far too long.
"But your life, Ashita—even though it is tragic—is still far better than my fate within the novel."
To be continued…