Leon didn't answer at first.
That alone tightened my chest.
He wasn't the kind of man who hesitated for effect. Every pause he took felt measured, like something being weighed—not whether it should be said, but how much damage it would cause once released.
Leon hesitated.
Just long enough for dread to settle.
The room felt colder, not in temperature but in implication. Even the soft hum of the facility seemed to lower, as if the walls themselves were bracing.
Then—
He spoke.
That was worse.
"Your brother," Leon said evenly, "was one of us."
The words landed without force.
Without drama.
Which somehow made them heavier.
I laughed once.
It came out wrong—short, sharp, broken at the edges.
The sound echoed in the room and immediately felt out of place, like something obscene spoken at a funeral.
The words didn't register—just sound without meaning.
"…What?" I asked.
Leon didn't react to the laugh. Didn't comment on it.
That scared me.
"Arata," he continued calmly, "was an S-Rank Executioner."
My body reacted before my thoughts could catch up.
A tight pressure seized my ribs, shallow and sharp, like my lungs had forgotten how deep a breath was supposed to go. My fingers curled slowly at my sides, nails biting into my palms—not enough to hurt, just enough to prove I was still here.
The room felt slightly tilted. Not enough to stumble. Just enough that I couldn't trust my balance.
S-Rank.
The word didn't feel real. It felt borrowed. Like something that belonged to another life and had been dropped into mine by mistake.
Not violently.
Subtly.
Like the floor had shifted just enough to remind me I wasn't standing on something solid anymore.
"No," I said immediately.
The word came out too fast, too certain—panic dressed as denial.
"That's impossible," I said, too fast. Too certain.
Leon didn't argue.
He raised one hand.
The space between us responded.
Light unfolded again, precise and cold.
A new hologram formed.
At first, it was just motion—blurred shapes cutting through something darker.
Then clarity sharpened.
A man in a dark combat coat stood amid a fractured landscape. His face was obscured by a mask, smooth and featureless. Monsters lunged at him from all directions—jagged, wrong silhouettes tearing through warped terrain—
And were erased.
Not struck.
Erased.
Clean lines of motion split them mid-action, bodies unraveling before sound could form. Limbs separated without resistance. Cores ruptured silently. The battlefield cleared itself around him, as if reality preferred his presence over theirs.
Calculated movements. Perfect spacing. No wasted effort.
I had seen athletes move like that before.
Not perfection — inevitability.
The kind of movement that came from doing something so long it stopped feeling like a choice.
I remembered how Arata used to watch my races. Not cheering. Not shouting. Just standing still, eyes locked on the water like he was measuring something only he could see.
"You're wasting motion," he once told me. "Even though… that's good."
I'd thought it was advice.
Now I realized it had been recognition.
He hadn't been comparing me to other swimmers.
He'd been comparing me to himself.
An emblem flashed in the corner of the display.
S-RANK — EXECUTIONER
My breath hitched.
"Th—that's not—"
My voice cracked. "That's not—"
The figure turned slightly.
Just enough.
Black hair. Familiar posture. That subtle way of standing—balanced, relaxed, like nothing could surprise him.
I knew that stance.
He hadn't lived a double life.
He'd lived a divided one.
Just like the worlds Leon had shown me earlier—overlapping, intersecting, fracturing where they weren't meant to touch.
Memories slammed into me without mercy.
Arata at the dinner table, sleeves rolled up, laughing as Mom scolded him for eating too fast.
Arata carrying Renya on his shoulders, hands steady, voice warm as he pretended to wobble just to hear Renya laugh.
Arata shoving my shoulder playfully, calling me slow, calling me predictable.
Arata smiling at his wife like the rest of the world had no claim on them.
"Kaien," he'd say.
"Kaien."
"Hey—Kaien."
Different days.
Same voice.
I replayed moments I'd never questioned before.
The way Arata always stood closest to exits.
The way he positioned himself between strangers and our family without drawing attention to it.
The way his eyes tracked movement even while he laughed.
I'd thought it was habit. Or caution.
Now I understood.
He hadn't been paranoid.
He'd been on duty—even at home.
And all of it suddenly felt… incomplete.
Leon spoke again.
"He kept a low profile," Leon said. "Because he knew what exposure would mean."
The hologram flickered.
For a fraction of a second, Arata's movements blurred—not speed.
Distortion.
Space bent around him subtly, like he wasn't entirely bound by where he stood. The image stabilized again almost immediately, but the sensation it left behind was unmistakable.
Familiar.
My chest burned.
"…Us," I whispered.
Leon nodded once.
"He hid his rank," Leon continued.
"His missions."
"Everything."
The words stacked neatly, clinical, like a report being finalized.
"To protect his family."
Leon's voice didn't change when he spoke again.
"Arata refused promotions," he said. "Declined leadership offers. Turned down command authority."
Leon met my eyes.
"He wanted to disappear between missions."
I swallowed.
"And you let him?"
Leon nodded once.
"Because he earned the right."
My fists shook.
The realization cut deeper than the image ever could.
"So he died because—" I started.
Leon paused.
Just long enough.
"…Because maybe someone discovered the connection."
The word connection echoed inside my head.
Not blood.
Not love.
Just a line someone had drawn — a traceable connection between two lives that were never meant to intersect.
I wondered how long they'd known.
Whether it had been a file, a report, a careless moment caught on the wrong camera.
Whether my brother had felt it coming — that quiet certainty that protection had finally failed.
If he'd looked at us one last time and known.
If he'd decided it was still worth it.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Not empty.
Compressed.
"…Is that why?" I asked hoarsely.
"Is that why they came for us?"
Leon didn't deny it.
He didn't confirm it either.
He simply met my eyes.
And that answer hurt more than confirmation ever could have.
Something inside me finally broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
It felt like a support beam snapping deep inside a structure that had already been burning.
My family hadn't been unlucky.
They hadn't been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They had been erased.
Silence settled after Leon's words.
Not the kind that fades.
The kind that stays.
I stared at the space where the hologram of my brother had vanished, ears ringing, head buzzing, like my mind was refusing to complete the last step of acceptance.
S-Rank — Executioner.
Arata.
Every memory I had of him suddenly felt counterfeit—not false, but incomplete. Like I'd been living beside someone who carried an entire universe on his back and never let it touch the floor.
"…So that's why," I whispered.
Why he never talked about work.
Why he always checked exits without looking obvious.
Why his smile sometimes came half a second late.
Leon didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Outside the glass walls of the facility, the sky looked wrong.
Not dark.
Emptier.
Like the stars had been peeled away, leaving only distance.
I took a step forward.
My body moved before my mind decided where.
And that was when it hit me.
Whatever world I'd woken up in—
It wasn't mine anymore.
I'd spent my entire life believing effort was enough.
Train harder.
Endure longer.
Outlast everyone else.
That belief had shaped everything—my body, my discipline, my future.
And now I was standing in a place where effort didn't guarantee survival…
…and my brother had known that all along.
The one I'd trained for.
The one I'd planned.
The one where effort meant something simple.
That world had ended the moment my brother's secret was discovered.
And in its place—
Something else was waiting.
Something that had already taken everything from me.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 25 — THE PROTECTOR ✦