'What the hell is going on in this room?!'
The kitchen shattered into absolute chaos. The protective line Shido had built around Hori broke in a split second as both teenagers moved out of pure, hurried instinct.
'I have to catch him before he hits the counter!' Shido's mind screamed in pure panic. He didn't even care about the broken glass on the floor; his only focus was getting to Kento before his knees gave out.
At the exact same instant, Hori's mind completely blanked out. 'No, no, no—not again! I can't just stand here and watch him break!' Her legs moved before she could even process the danger, running across the kitchen straight toward the wall.
They crossed paths blindly, driven by those simultaneous waves of desperation.
"Kashima!" Hori screamed, her voice completely breaking as she ran straight toward the blonde boy pressed against the wall.
"Kento!" Shido yelled at the exact same time, spinning on instinct and rushing over to the kitchen counter where Kento had slammed backward.
Mr. Kamitani stood frozen in the center of the kitchen, his mind completely paralysed.
His sharp, calculating lawyer instincts—the ones that could dissect a corporate fraud case in seconds—were entirely useless here.
'What is this? Is it a poison? A chemical reaction?' his mind raced frantically, trying to find a logical explanation for why two perfectly healthy teenagers had collapsed at the exact same second.
'No, they haven't even touched the food yet... Then why are they clutching completely different parts of their bodies? Why is Kento in pain because of Kashima?!'
With no clue what was happening, his gaze darted rapidly between his own son and the weeping boy against the wall, a deep, heavy knot of worry twisting tightly in his chest.
For the first time in his life, the Shield of the Court was looking at a situation where logic failed him completely, leaving him entirely powerless to protect his own household.
"K-Kash..." Kento choked out.
"Cough! Cough-Urgh!"
A violent, breathless cough tore through Kento's chest, his shoulders shaking as he gasped desperately for air.
His face was violently pale, sweat dripping down his neck as he forced his green eyes open, looking past Shido's shoulder to lock onto Kashima. "Kashima... s-stay..." his voice was raw, breaking into a pained gasp mid-sentence.
"Hey! Hey! Look at me!" Shido shouted, his hands firmly gripping Kento's shoulders to keep him from sliding down the cabinet. "Stop looking over there! Look out for yourself first, you moron!"
Even as the harsh words left his mouth, Shido's own gaze snapped violently across the kitchen, his eyes locking onto the blonde boy collapsing against the wall.
'Damn it, Kashima... I'm sorry, just hold on.' Shido thought bitterly, a sharp knot of guilt twisting in his chest as he looked back and forth between the two of them.
He felt completely torn in half—every instinct screamed at him to run over and help Kashima too, but Kento was heavy and slipping right under his hands. 'What the hell did you do to yourself? What is happening to you two?!'
Shido's teeth clenched together as he tried to stabilize his brother. But as he held Kento close, his eyes shifted down and instantly widened in secret, cold panic.
Through the fabric of Kento's uniform shirt, right below his left rib, Shido noticed it—the unmistakable, terrifying glow of the hidden spiral mark pulsing with a fierce, dangerous heat.
"Gah...! H-Hak...!" Kento choked out, a strained whimpering sound escaping him as he bent low against Shido's chest.
'Damn it, why is it reacting now?!'
Shido cursed bitterly in his mind, his heart hammering against his ribs as he realized Kento's mark had completely activated in response to Kashima.
Across the kitchen, Kashima was completely losing the battle. Hot, bitter tears streamed continuously down his pale cheeks as he clutched his collarbone, his fingers digging so hard into the fabric of his uniform shirt that the threads threatened to snap.
"Kh... A-Argh..."
"K-Kashima... please..." Hori sobbed. She fell on her knees right beside him, her hands hanging in the air, trembling violently. She was entirely helpless. "W-What do I do? Where... where does it hurt? How do I make it s-stop?!"
The tears blurred her vision entirely, choking her throat so badly that her words came out distorted, muffled, and broken by heavy hiccups.
She reached out, her fingers lightly touching Kashima's freezing arm, but the boy only shook harder, his chest straining in shallow, rapid gasps against the wall.
"H-Haah... kh-kh... h-haa..."
Kashima let out those short, shallow gasps, his entire body vibrating violently at the physical contact, completely unable to catch a full breath.
"K-Kashima, no... stop! You're choking!" Hori cried out, her voice completely cracking in terror.
Panicking, her eyes snapped away from the blonde boy and darted frantically across the kitchen floor, locking straight onto Kento to see him clutching his stomach in the exact same mysterious agony.
"K-Kento..." she cried out slowly, her voice dropping into a scared, trembling whisper that was thick with tears. "Kento... you too? Why... why is everyone..."
Mr. Kamitani's fists clenched at his sides. The room was spinning with overlapping screams, weeping, and breathless coughing. His mind raced in a frantic loop. 'What is happening? What must I do?!'
'What the hell is happening to them?!'
Bzzzzzz... Bzzzzzz... Bzzzzzz...
A sudden, sharp vibration cut through the heavy layer of panic in the room. It was a low, mechanical sound, rhythmic and demanding, cutting right through the sounds of Hori's sobbing and Kento's choked gasps.
Down against Shido's chest, a faint, rhythmic light suddenly began to appear from inside the tight fabric of Kento's uniform pant pocket. The screen of the device inside was shining brightly, illuminating the cloth from within.
Shido didn't hesitate. Grabbing Kento firmly with one arm to keep him from collapsing onto the glass-littered floor, he used his other hand to urgently slide into Kento's pocket, his fingers blindly wrapping around the vibrating metal.
As Shido pulled the phone out into the open, Kento suddenly bent forward, a violent, harsh cough tearing out of his throat. His entire body shook.
"Cough! Khh—!"
"Hey! Easy—easy! I've got you!"
Shido yelled nervously, his arm tightening like a lock around Kento's waist, practically pulling the boy's dead weight against his own body to keep him on his feet.
"Kento!" Hori's voice screamed across the kitchen, her eyes widening in pure terror as she witnessed the black haired boy's sudden, violent collapse from across the room.
Shido ignored the cry, his eyes instantly snapping down to glance at the brightly lit screen in his hand to see who was calling.
Kento, blinking through the tears of pure agony, also cast his gaze downward toward the phone.
The moment their eyes locked onto the name flashing boldly across the screen, both brothers froze. A wave of absolute, cold shock crashed through them.
Their eyes widened in pure, silent panic, a heavy secret locking behind their teeth as they stared at the caller's name. The complete impossibility of that specific name appearing right now made their hearts drop.
Before they could even process it, Mr. Kamitani, finally breaking out of his frozen paralysis, stepped forward. His sharp eyes immediately caught the movement, his heavy steps bringing him right over the broken glass to stand directly over his sons.
Without a word, Mr. Kamitani reached down and firmly took the phone from Shido's grip, turning the screen to face himself.
DR. KANEKI NAGACHIKA.
The lawyer's face hardened, seeing the name of Hori's father flashing against the screen. He didn't press the accept button yet. Instead, he stared intensely at the flashing name for a fraction of a second, his thumb hanging over the screen. But his primary focus was still the boy collapsing in front of him.
"Kento." Mr. Kamitani spoke, his voice carrying a rare, strained tone as he looked down at his son's pale, sweating face. "Where does it hurt? Tell me exactly where."
Kento couldn't answer. His mouth hung open, his chest moving up and down as he let out nothing but shallow, desperate gasps for air, his fingers digging frantically into his uniform.
"Well... actually..." Shido stuttered out, his voice cracking and his heart hammering against his ribs. His thoughts were racing so fast and chaotically that he couldn't even think straight enough to figure out where Kento was actually in pain.
The complete terror of the situation had paralyzed his brain. "He just... it's just a sudden... Dad, he—"
Click.
Mr. Kamitani slid his thumb across the screen, finally picking up the call. He didn't say a word to the person on the other end yet. He simply lifted the phone, pressing the phone tightly against his ear, his eyes still locked onto Kento.
"Hello." Mr. Kamitani said into the phone.
Right at that exact second, the air in the kitchen seemed to freeze solid.
Kento's head snapped back against Shido's shoulder, his teeth gritting together. Forcing his trembling hand to press directly over the hidden, burning spiral mark pulsing through his shirt, he let out three raw, breathless words.
"Lower... left... Rib..."
The moment the words left Kento's lips, a sudden, terrifying shift crashed into the atmosphere of the room. The temperature felt like it dropped to absolute zero.
Before Mr. Kamitani could even process his son's words, the voice on the other end of the line finally spoke through the earpiece.
Instantly, Mr. Kamitani's entire body went completely rigid. Every ounce of color drained from the lawyer's face, turning him as white as a sheet. His fingers instantly lost all their strength, turning entirely limp.
THUD.
The phone slipped right out of his hand, falling through the air and slamming heavily against the floor, the loud noise echoing sharply through the chaotic room.
For a second, the phone just lay there against the tiles. Then, the small, tiny sound of the speaker cut through the heavy silence directly from the floor.
"Hello? Kamitani?" Dr. Nagachika's voice echoed through the line, sounding distant and confused on the other end. "Are you there? Hello...?"
"Lower... left... Rib..."
Hearing those three words, Mr. Kamitani froze.
The busy, frantic movement that had been driving him a second ago completely vanished. Every single drop of color drained from his face, leaving him as white as a sheet.
His features didn't twist or show panic; instead, his expression went entirely blank, completely devoid of any emotion or composure.
The sharp, calculating lawyer was gone. The father was gone.
No words came out of his throat, and his mind couldn't form a single logical thought. He didn't even blink. He just lost his grip on the situation entirely.
As the phone slipped from his limp fingers and began to fall toward the kitchen tiles, his mind shattered backward, pulled violently into a memory from Sixteen Years Ago.
The air was heavy and thick with the humid heat of a mid-July afternoon in Tokyo. Outside the wide living room windows, the bright summer sky was quickly turning dark and bruised as heavy storm clouds rolled aggressively over the city.
In the corner, a heavy, iron-bladed floor fan sat on the tatami mats. It moved its head back and forth with a low, rhythmic Whir-click, Whir-click sound, dragging the sticky air across the room.
The house was quiet. It smelled of fresh tatami, drying laundry, and baby powder. The living room was small and cozy, entirely lacking the expensive furniture that would come years later.
Back then, Mr. Kamitani was Twenty-nine Years old and still new to his job as a lawyer, and Mrs. Kamitani was home on maternity leave. They had lived in that house for only a single year.
Despite the storm gathering outside, the room felt completely peaceful.
Down on the floor, right in front of the floor fan, an Eight-month-old infant was cushioned up on a soft, stitched mat. He was a thick, heavy baby with fat folds on his chubby thighs, kicking his legs lazily against the blanket. "Dih-dih... Da!"
The infant let out a group of milky, bubbling sounds, a tiny drop of drool sliding down his chin. His oversized green eyes blinked up at the ceiling, and he reached his small, soft fists up into the air.
"That's it... look at you. You're almost there, aren't you?"
A low, gentle man's voice spoke from right above the mat. A young Mr. Kamitani was lying flat on his stomach right next to the baby.
His face was softer back then, completely free of lines or worry, and his hair was slightly messy. He didn't look like a strict lawyer at all.
He leaned closer, a warm smile breaking across his face as he extended a single finger toward the child.
"Come on, my boy. Say it again for Dad." he murmured in a playful, happy voice. He gently nudged the baby's chubby cheek with his knuckle, his chest filling with an absolute, pure happiness. "You've been practicing all morning. Let's hear it, Kento. Da-d. Can you say Dad?"
The thick baby let out a short, breathless giggle, his heavy chest shaking as his tiny fingers wrapped tightly around his father's finger, pulling it straight toward his mouth.
Across the small living room, away from the path of the floor fan, two women sat on the woven mats, their voices a soft, gentle murmur against the low hum of the iron fan.
The first was an old woman, her body slightly bent with age. She wore a simple, olive-colored kimono. Her grey hair was pulled back into a neat, tight bun, held together by a
wooden pin. Deep, elegant wrinkles lined the corners of her eyes and mouth—lines carved by a lifetime of both smiles and heavy worries.
Her hands, resting on her lap, were spotted and rough, telling the story of a mother who had worked hard to raise her household.
Sitting right across from her was a much younger woman in her mid-twenties. Her brown hair was long and glossy, falling softly over her shoulders, and she wore a light, breathable cotton dress to combat the sticky July heat. Her skin was smooth, her eyes bright and filled with the gentle, soft warmth of a new mother.
"Fufu... look at him..." the younger woman whispered, a small, elegant smile curving her lips as she watched the young lawyer roll around on the floor. "I've never seen him look so completely defenseless."
The old woman let out a soft, dry chuckle, her eyes crinkling up. "Don't let him fool you, Yuna. Ayato might look like a doting father now, but when he was an infant himself, he was an absolute terror. A tiny, loud monster."
The young Mrs. Kamitani laughed softly, a beautiful, clear sound that made her shoulders shake slightly. "Really, Mother? He always talks about how quiet and disciplined he was as a child."
"Ayato? Disciplined?" The grandmother sighed, a fond, amused look crossing her wrinkled face as she shook her head.
"That boy wouldn't sleep unless I walked him around the courtyard three times in the middle of the night. And if the blanket touched his feet? He would scream so loudly the neighbors thought the house was collapsing. He had the stubbornness of a donkey from the day he was born."
Down on the mat, the young Mr. Kamitani stopped his playing. He sat up slightly, his messy hair sticking out as he looked over his shoulder, giving the two women a helpless, mock-offended look.
"Hey, that's completely unfair..." Ayato nagged, his voice rising in a playful complaint. "Mother, you're ruining my reputation in front of my own wife. You two are clearly ganging up against me to make me look bad."
He turned back around, looking down at the thick baby with a big, bright grin. He leaned over, gently touching the infant's little nose.
"They don't know what they're talking about, right, Kento? It's okay. Dad doesn't care, because my big boy is on my side. We're a team, aren't we?"
"Da! Buuuu..." Kento babbled, his fat little cheeks puffing out.
Suddenly, the thick baby raised his chubby, soft arm and brought his tiny palm down with a sharp Smack right across Ayato's cheek.
Before his father could even react, the infant twisted his heavy body around, looking completely away toward the wall as if his dad was The Most Annoying Person In The Room.
"Pfftt—hahaha!"
A loud, burst of elegant laughter instantly broke out from the young Mrs. Kamitani, her hand flying up to cover her mouth as her green eyes crinkled with pure joy.
"Ahaha... ah, dear." the grandmother joined in, her shoulders shaking as she let out a joyful laugh. "It seems your teammate just fired you."
Ayato sat frozen on the floor, his hand pressing against his cheek where the baby had just slapped him. He stared at the back of Kento's bald little head, blinking in utter disbelief.
"Well..." Ayato muttered, a dry, sheepish smile twitching on his lips. "Maybe not."
"Da-daaa! Ah-da!" Kento mumbled happily to the wall, kicking his heavy legs against the mat, completely unbothered by the laughter filling the peaceful room.
Ayato sat on the floor, his eyes shifting away from the stubborn baby to look across the room at his wife. Yuna was still laughing, her green eyes bright and shiny, her long brown hair shifting softly against her shoulders. She looked incredibly beautiful, illuminated by the soft, warm light of the living room.
"Aya... Aya-ta!" Kento suddenly babbled from the mat, his thick little arms waving in the air as he tried to pronounce his father's name in broken words.
Ayato let out a soft sigh, a gentle, warm smile fixing on his lips. He kept his gaze locked onto his beautiful wife, completely captivated by her smile.
"My, my... Kento, you don't have to call out Dad's name just to prevent me from looking at your mother." he murmured in a soft, loving voice, his heart swelling with affection.
Yuna stopped laughing, blinking as she
caught him staring. "Did you say something to me, dear?"
Ayato instantly came back to his senses, his chest tightening as his ears turned completely red from embarrassment.
He cleared his throat quickly, his words coming out slightly broken. "N-Nothing! It's... it's just that, the way you are making fun of me right now... I just wish one day Kento does the exact same thing to you. So I can sit back and laugh."
Yuna smiled back, her chin lifting with absolute confidence. "NEVER."
"How are you so sure?" Ayato asked, raising an eyebrow.
Yuna's soft expression suddenly shifted into an evil glare, her eyes narrowing playfully as she looked down at the infant. "Because I'll hit him if he ever tries something like that with me."
Across the table, the old woman's face turned into a soft worried expression. She let out a small, worried cough, her voice dropping into a gentle whisper. "Oh, My Precious Crown Prince Of The Kamitani Bloodline... your mother is being terrifying."
Ayato immediately leaned down, wrapping his arms protectively around his thick, heavy son. He gave his wife an amused, nagging look.
"Look at that, Kento. Your mother is a Witch for threatening to hit a literal Angel."
Hearing his father's voice, Kento blinked his large green eyes. He slowly turned his head, locking his gaze directly onto his mother. He widened his eyes, making them look completely large, round, and full of innocent, angel-like sweetness.
Yuna closed her eyes, letting out a small laugh as she cleared her throat. "Fine... I'll think about it," she murmured, her expression softening completely under the baby's gaze.
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"Darling... it's just... I told you about it before, remember?"
'Perfect. Time to exploit a little loop-hole.'
----
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(๑•﹏•)
— SakuraShinomiya