For the past three hours he paced the hallway, one step after another, occasionally stopping to look out the window
His right hand man, Akio sat down the hall with his dark hair veiling his eyes
he groaned
"She's just having a baby for gods sake!! She isn't dying or anything"
Haruto keeps looking into space, nervous sweat dripping down his chin, he didn't wipe them.
The only thing that breaks the loop is the occasional creak in the floor making him look at the nursery only to realise the creak was from his own steps
The nursery door opens
Haruto freezes mid step
The cry that filled the hallway was small and furious and absolutely alive. It cut through the silence like a blade, and Haruto felt something in his chest crack open.
He didn't realize he was moving until he reached the door.
Behind that door sat a woman her dark hair being illuminated by the moonlight, her blue eyes looking straight at Haruto, in her hands slept a new life, it was none other than his wife Ichika
"I'll name him Renji. Just like his name, I want him to be a kind man" said Ichika
"Takahashi Renji, I like it" replied Haruto now unable to hold back a smile
A small ice cloud appears over Ichika's head, slowly snowflakes start to fall making the kid sneeze
"Still cant control your clouds, can you?" Haruto snickered
"IT'S NOT THAT BAD!!!" replied now a pouty Ichika
Haruto feels the newborn's head
"He's got my eyes"
"Now that that you say it he looks just like you, a little Takahashi Haruto."
"I'm sure he will be a great warrior, just like his father" said Haruto with a cheeky grin
Ichika gets an annoyed look
"So did the oh so great warrior bring the blankets i made for our kid?"
Haruto turns on his heel and leaves to get the blanket refusing to admit he forgot to bring it.
He practically skipped across the town to his house to bring the blankets inviting stares and murmurs from people around him
"Did you see the clan head? He looked like a child who just got his favorite toy"
"Can you believe he is the same guy who became the youngest to ever claim a pillar weapon"
"Cut him some slack will you! he just became a dad"
The murmurs were suddenly cut off by a blinding flash of light.
A thunderous crash followed, rubble bursting into the street.
Haruto looked up. The blankets slipped from his hands.
His green eyes turned bloodshot as bright energy gathered around his legs.
The light was coming from the nursery.
Before the blankets hit the floor Haruto disappeared, he used all his strength to reach the nursery as soon as possible.
When he arrived at the nursery the whole room was filled with smoke, with a swing of his sword the room cleared up.
Haruto's eyes lay on the scene and he falls to his knees.
Ichika lay on the floor, four swords buried in her back. Around her were the charred remains of assassins little more than shadows burned into the walls.
"H-how?, this is the capital"
A nurse walks in, Haruto grabbed the nurse by the shoulders, his hands trembling.
"Where were the guards?"
"Turned on us" said the nurse looking bitter
"WHO DID THIS?!"
"They were wearing falcon colours sir"
"Did they get renji too?"
"Thankfully not sir, Lady sato protected her with her life"
"I-Ichika protected him? how is he?"
"The child is healthy but..." the nurse looks down in regret
"but what?!" Haruto erupts
"the child will never be able to use kai."
"W-Why?"
"There were too many assassins, Lady Sato had no choice but to use a kai blast. The blast vaporised the assassins but the energy release from it was too much for a child. The blast overloaded the child's inner wheels. They were burned out before they could even form properly. He will never be able to use Kai."
Haruto took a moment to compose himself
"I see... have you told the council of elders?"
"Yes sir, we have informed them as per protocol"
"Thanks for everything, you may leave"
The nurse leaves and haruto sits next to Ichika's lifeless body. He holds her hand
"I should've brought the blankets earlier, you always did tell me to listen. but, i was too stubborn"
tears glistened his eyes
"We promised that we would be with each other in out last moment. I guess i broke that promise too didn't i? you know all that red doesn't look good on you."
Haruto's hand feels her face
"W-why won't you say anything?! What will i do without you Ichika, you made a vow, that you'll always be with me. Keep your promise!!"
tears start falling
"Leave that! Just open your eyes for once, let me hear your voice once again, just be so giddy once more that the cloud appears, show me your snow just once again ichika! Don't leave me Ichika"
Haruto embraced Ichika for one last time, her blood seeping into his white hair. With a heavy heart Haruto removes the swords from her back, lays her back on the bed and gives her forehead a kiss before leaving for the council of elders.
The chamber smelled of old wood and older politics. Sixteen elders arranged in a half-circle, their chairs arranged by rank, by favor, by decades of careful positioning.
Elder Sato sat at the center. Old. Tired. Kind-eyed. He'd held this seat for forty years, and he'd learned that kindness was its own kind of weapon.
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"We all know why we're here."
"A baby."
Elder Takeda's voice cut through like a blade. He was younger than most. Harder. His clan had produced three Pillars in four generations. He had standards.
"We're here about a baby."
"We're here about the future," Sato said calmly.
"The future doesn't include cripples."
A murmur. Some nodded. Others shifted uncomfortably.
Elder Nakamura a woman near Sato's age, her hair silver, her eyes sharpleaned forward.
"Careful, Takeda. That 'cripple' is the clan head's son."
"Was the clan head's son. Now he's nothing. The wheels are dead. Seven healers confirmed it." Takeda's voice was flat. "He'll never use kai. Never fight. Never protect the clan. He's a liability, and we all know it."
"He's an infant."
"He's a weakness."
The chamber went quiet.
Elder Sato let the silence sit. Let them feel it.
"Elder Tanaka. You haven't spoken."
All eyes turned to the corner. Elder Tanaka was the oldest among them eighty, maybe more, his body frail but his mind still sharp. He rarely spoke. When he did, people listened.
He looked up slowly. His voice was a rasp.
"I remember when we chose Haruto."
Takeda frowned.
"What does that have to do with"
"We chose him because he was the most capable. The strongest. The best." Tanaka's eyes moved across the room. "We didn't choose him because his father was clan head. We chose him because he earned it."
"Exactly. Which is why"
"Which is why this child is irrelevant."
Takeda blinked.
Tanaka smiled. It was not a kind smile. "If he has no kai, he has no future in this clan. That's not cruelty. That's reality. The Hitohashiri survive because we do not carry weakness."
Sato's voice was gentle.
"He's a baby, Tanaka."
"Babies become adults. Adults become liabilities. I've seen it before." Tanaka's gaze was distant. "A girl, sixty years ago. Born with wheels that never turned. Her parents begged. Pleaded. The council relented."
He paused.
"She was seventeen when the Eastern Falcons found her. Seventeen when they used her to force her father's surrender. Seventeen when she died along with forty-seven others."
Silence.
Tanaka looked at Sato. "Kindness kills, old friend. You know this."
Elder Nakamura spoke again. "So we banish a baby."
"We protect the clan."
"Same thing."
Takeda slammed his palm on the armrest. "Enough sentiment. Vote. Eight of us know what's right. The other eight can live with their consciences."
Sato's voice was tired. "We don't have eight yet. We have seven."
Takeda's eyes narrowed. "You'd vote to keep him?"
"I'd vote to wait. To watch. To give the child a chance."
"A chance to do what? Grow wheels that don't exist?"
The temperature dropped.
Not slowly. Not gradually. One moment the room was warm stuffy, even, with too many bodies in too small a space. The next, every elder felt it. A cold that came from nowhere. A pressure that had nothing to do with air.
Takeda stopped mid sentence.
Tanaka's ancient eyes widened.
Sato turned toward the door.
No one had heard it open.
Haruto stood there.
He hadn't changed clothes. He was still wearing what he'd worn to the birth chamber the loose shirt, the dark pants, all of it stained with Ichika's blood. Dried now. Brown. Crusted.
His silver hair was wild soaked with her blood. His brown skin was ashen. His eyes
His eyes were empty.
Not cold. Not angry. Just... empty. Like something had been scooped out of him and nothing had been put back.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Takeda, who had been slamming his palm on armrests moments ago, sat perfectly still. His hand was frozen mid-gesture. His mouth was open.
He didn't close it.
Haruto stepped into the room.
The pressure increased. It wasn't kai not exactly. It was something else. Something heavier. The weight of a man who had nothing left to lose standing in a room full of people who had everything.
Sato found his voice first. Probably because he'd been doing this for forty years, and forty years taught you to speak even when every instinct screamed at you to be silent.
"Haruto."
Haruto looked at him.
Sato felt it. That emptiness. That nothing. For one terrible second, he understood that Haruto could kill everyone in this room and feel less than he felt right now.
"We were just"
"I know what you were doing."
Haruto's voice was quiet. Flat. It didn't echo. It didn't carry. It simply... existed. Like a stone dropped into still water.
He walked to the center of the room. No one blocked his path. No one even breathed too loud.
He stood where the accused usually stood. Where petitioners stood. Where those begging for mercy stood.
He didn't look like he was begging.
"The vote," he said. "We'll have it now."
Tanaka's hands were shaking. He didn't know why. He'd faced death before. He'd faced wars. He'd faced things that should have killed him and walked away.
But he had never faced a man who had already died inside and kept walking.
"Haruto," Sato tried again. "You don't have to be here for this. The code allows"
"I know what the code allows."
The temperature dropped further.
Takeda finally closed his mouth. Swallowed. His throat moved visibly.
Haruto looked at him. Just looked.
Takeda looked away first.
"The vote," Haruto repeated. "Now."
No one argued.
No one could.
Elder Sato found his voice. Probably because someone had to.
"The procedure is clear." His words were careful. Measured. Like walking through a field of ice. "The clan head recuses himself from matters of direct relation. You are the father. You cannot"
"I know the code."
Sato stopped.
Haruto's voice was quiet. Flat. It didn't carry. It simply existed.
"I'm not here to vote. I'm here to witness." He paused. "I'm here to remember."
No one asked what he meant.
Elder Takeda shifted in his seat. The smallest movement. The kind you make when you realize you've been sitting the same way for too long and your body is screaming at you to move.
Haruto's eyes found him.
Takeda stopped shifting.
Sato cleared his throat.
"Then we vote. By show of hands, as always. Those in favor of banishment"
"Wait."
Elder Tanaka's voice. Ancient. Rasping. But it cut through like a blade.
Everyone looked at him.
The oldest elder leaned forward. His eyes clouded with age, sharp with something else fixed on Haruto.
"Before we vote," Tanaka said slowly, "I want to hear it from you."
Silence.
"You're the clan head. The strongest among us. The one we chose." Tanaka's voice didn't waver. "You killed men before you were twenty. You cleared an entire Falcon camp alone. You earned this seat."
Haruto said nothing.
"So I want to hear it from you." Tanaka's hands were shaking age, not fear but his voice was steady. "Not as a father. As the clan head. What would you do?"
The room held its breath.
Haruto looked at him. For a long moment, nothing. Just that empty gaze, those eyes that had seen his wife die hours ago.
Then he spoke.
"I would banish him."
His voice didn't crack. Didn't rise. Didn't do anything human.
"That's what the clan head would do."
Tanaka nodded slowly. "Then you understand."
"Understanding and accepting are different things."
The silence that followed was heavier than anything Haruto's presence had brought.
Sato closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were wet.
"The vote," he said. "Those in favor of banishment."
Takeda's hand went up. Fast. Certain.
Then another. And another. Elders who had argued for mercy an hour ago raised their hands now. Not because they wanted to. Because Haruto had just told them it was the right call.
Eight hands.
Sato's voice was barely a whisper.
"Those opposed."
He raised his own hand. Nakamura raised hers. Five others joined them.
Seven.
Sixteen elders. Eight for banishment. Seven against. One abstention.
All eyes turned to Tanaka.
The oldest elder hadn't moved. His hand rested on his knee. Unraised.
Tanaka looked at Haruto. Long and slow and searching.
"You would banish him," Tanaka said. "The clan head would."
Haruto waited.
"But you're not just the clan head, are you?"
Haruto's expression didn't change. But something in the room shifted. The pressure. The weight. It grew.
Tanaka smiled. It was not a kind smile.
"You're also the father. And the father would burn the world to keep his child safe."
Silence.
"So I'll tell you what I see." Tanaka's voice dropped. "I see a man standing in front of us who will never forgive himself for whatever happens today. I see a man who will carry this weight until he dies. I see a man who might if we make the wrong choice become something none of us can control."
He raised his hand.
"I vote to keep the child."
Gasps. Whispers. Takeda half-rose from his seat.
Tanaka didn't look at them. He looked at Haruto.
"Not because it's right. Not because it's smart. Because I've seen what happens to men who lose everything. And I'd rather face the Falcons than face what you'll become if we take the last thing you have left."
His hand stayed raised.
Sato counted. His voice shook.
"Eight for banishment. Eight against."
The chamber erupted.
Through the noise, through the shouting, through Takeda demanding a recount and Nakamura screaming back and sixteen elders suddenly on their feet
Haruto stood still.
Empty.
Waiting.
Sato raised his hand for silence. It took a long time. Longer than it should have.
"The vote is tied. The code is clear. In a tie, the clan head may"
"I know what the code allows."
Haruto's voice silenced the room.
He looked at each of them. One by one. Takeda. Nakamura. Tanaka. Sato. All of them. His eyes stopped on no one and saw everyone.
"You want me to choose."
No one answered.
"You want me to look at my son my wife's son, the last thing she gave me and decide if he lives or dies."
Tanaka opened his mouth. Closed it.
Haruto's hands curled into fists. The temperature dropped again. The pressure returned. The air itself felt heavier.
"Fine."
One word. One syllable. It landed like a blade.
"I'll choose."
He turned. Walked to the door. Put his hand on the frame.
Stopped.
Without looking back:
"Renji Takahashi is banished from the Hitohashiri clan. No one from the clan shall give him shelter. No one shall speak his name. No one shall remember he existed."
Silence.
"That is my decision. That is my veto. That is my choice."
He walked out.
The door closed behind him.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then, from somewhere in the corridor, a sound.
Not a scream. Not a cry. Something worse.
The sound of a window shattering.
Then another.
Then the walls began to shake.
No one in the Hitohashiri clan ever spoke about what happened next.
Through all the noise one voice rose
"i'll adopt him"