The Sister, the Niece, and the Blood That Saves
Laughter still echoed through the broken walls of the old family home.
The air, once heavy with fear, now overflowed with a gentle — almost nostalgic — sense of relief.
They were different now. Renewed. The gravity no longer crushed them.
They moved with unnatural ease, as if the world itself had decided to ease the weight of the past.
Danilo's father, now rejuvenated, was doing impromptu flips in the destroyed backyard, flexing muscles he hadn't seen in decades.
He jumped, spun in the air, and landed with a wide smile on his face, while his wife looked on with arms crossed, a mix of disapproval and fondness in her expression.
— "Still childish as ever…" she murmured, shaking her head.
Then she looked at Danilo with a sparkle in her eyes.
— "If you could do this for us… then you can do it for your siblings. And your nieces and nephews."
Danilo opened his mouth, ready with a sarcastic reply — but he went pale instead.
Her name slipped from his lips in an urgent whisper:
— "...Cássia."
His heart raced. How could he have forgotten?
His sister lived nearby. Just down the street.
The chaos had separated them, and he had no idea what had happened to her — or little Sury.
— "Stay here," he said, grabbing the Sealing Sword. "I'm going to find Cássia."
He left without waiting for a response.
Gravity no longer held him back, and his strides became lightning across the expanded terrain.
In less than ten minutes, he ran through the new maze of ruins and stretched streets, alert to every movement, every distant scream.
Then he saw it.
A collapsed silhouette on the ground — hunched, curled — shielding something with a mutilated body.
The image hit him like a spear to the chest.
One leg was gone. The left arm shredded to the shoulder.
Her clothes soaked in blood.
But the hardest part… was the small figure beneath her.
A nine-year-old girl, Sury, clinging to her mother as if that body were the only shield left against the end of the world.
She cried in silence, face buried in Cássia's belly.
Danilo stopped. The world froze.
He remembered his little sister.
Stubborn, annoying, sweet.
He remembered how bravely she faced pregnancy alone after discovering her husband had gotten another woman pregnant.
He remembered the divorce, the family meetings, the threats from her ex — all ignored with the same calm, determined look in her eyes.
Now she was here. Fragile. Barely alive.
For the second time since the disaster, Danilo cried.
He knelt. With trembling hands, he gently pulled Sury away, though she clung tightly to her mother, screaming and sobbing, clawing and biting, refusing to let go.
Danilo ignored the pleas.
He touched Cássia's neck.
Weak. Very weak.
But still beating.
He bit his finger.
Opened her lips.
Let a drop of his blood fall in.
The system responded.
[Activating Dark Monarch Lineage – Personal Distribution: 70%]
Initiating integration process: full regeneration and rejuvenation in progress.
Sury screamed as her mother's body began to convulse.
Wounds started closing. Flesh restored.
Her leg and arm regrew. Her skin stretched firm. Her face regained youth.
Cássia trembled, gasped — and woke up.
— "...Am I dead?"
Sury ran to her, crying, screaming, hugging tightly.
Danilo swallowed the lump in his throat and joined them in an embrace.
She looked at him confused, not recognizing him at first.
The new body, the face, the eyes.
— "...Danilo?"
— "It's me."
He explained everything.
The lineage. The transformation. His children. Their parents. And now — her.
Only then did Cássia realize her arm, her leg — they were whole. Light. Renewed.
A cracked mirror beside her reflected her new appearance — a version of herself in her early thirties, with the vitality of someone in her twenties, and stunningly beautiful.
The others arrived.
Cássia covered her mouth in shock at the sight of the beautiful and unfamiliar faces…
Until recognition set in.
— "Dad? Mom? Leandro? Kaela…?"
Her eyes widened.
Then she looked down at Sury, still crying in her lap.
She gently touched her daughter's face.
— "Do you want to be like Mommy?"
Sury didn't answer. She eyed the strangers warily.
She didn't recognize anyone.
— "Who are they?" she asked, frightened.
— "That's Uncle Danilo. Your cousins. And your grandparents."
The girl's mouth fell open in awe.
— "And… can I…?"
— "Do you want to be like Mommy?"
Sury looked around.
At the perfect faces. The strength. The beauty. The life.
— "Yes! I want to!"
Danilo whispered to his sister:
— "It's a painful process…"
Cássia shrugged.
— "She'll thank me one day."
Danilo bit his finger again.
Opened Sury's mouth and let a single drop fall.
[Distributing lineage: 60% – Integrating...]
The girl's body arched on the ground.
She screamed. Trembled.
Her clothes tore with the transformation.
Bones lengthened. Skin stretched.
Hair grew. Light surrounded her body.
And then… silence.
Sury opened her eyes.
Beautiful.
Almost unrecognizable.
Her eyes sparkled as she saw her reflection in a shard of mirror.
Then she looked at Danilo, a mix of wonder and mild resentment.
— "That HURT a LOT, uncle."
Danilo laughed, relieved.
Cássia laughed too.
And in that moment, among the ruins of a new world…
the Chicana family was united again.