"Thump—"
His heartbeat boomed like a war drum, suddenly climbing higher.
Gotoh couldn't speak yet, but through that thick causal line linking him to Roy, a thought drifted faintly across:
Young Master, give it your all!
Roy gave a quiet hum, turned, and headed for the kitchen...
Tsubone followed silently behind him, her twin pink ponytails swaying. Before leaving the room, she turned back and stared deeply at Gotoh inside the blood cocoon.
A lucky man.
To be blessed with a fate like this now—it was something he had earned.
And, faintly enough, it was the sort of thing that made others envious.
Creak.
The door closed softly.
Tap... tap...
Their footsteps gradually faded away.
Roy went to the kitchen and, under Tsubone's attentive care, ate a simple dinner. As he passed Kuraging's room, he saw the girl braced against the wall, holding a water jug that weighed well over a hundred kilos in both hands while doing squats.
On that summer night, she silently kept encouraging herself. Sweat slid down her smooth pale neck, tracing a line lower and lower until it disappeared into the white curve of her chest.
Roy smiled faintly and didn't disturb her.
Then he glanced next door. His gaze passed through the stone wall and found Kurapika sitting at a desk, pen in hand, writing something. It looked half like a diary, half like a travel journal.
Roy quietly withdrew his gaze, stepped forward, and his body dissolved into light.
In an instant, he merged with the moonlight, drifted out through the corridor window of the butler's villa, rode the wind up toward the mountaintop, and then appeared on the second floor of the Zoldyck family castle, inside that spacious, old-fashioned bedroom.
At that moment, Kikyo had just finished feeding Killua and was trying to lull him to sleep in her arms. Suddenly she caught the scent of a breeze, and the hair at her forehead swayed lightly.
Her electronic eyes flickered, and she looked up sharply.
Moonlight spilled in through the window frame, casting the hazy outline of a figure...
He had silver hair no less striking than Silva's, but unlike Silva's, the tips of the boy's hair glowed with a glassy gold, and his body seemed to give off a soft halo. From a distance, he looked even more brilliant and mysterious than Silva.
"Roy?"
"Mother."
Roy stepped out of the moonlight and gave Kikyo a gentle smile. Then he lowered his eyes to the tiny baby in her arms and said softly, "Father told me to come see Killua."
Kikyo's expression was complicated. Static-like noise flickered through her electronic lenses as she stared at Roy.
"So if your father hadn't ordered it, you wouldn't have come see Killua?"
"I would have," Roy said.
He stepped forward on spiraling air currents, careful enough not to startle the baby. When he reached the bed, he lightly pinched Killua's soft little cheek and said, "He's my brother. If I want to see him, I'll see him. I don't need anyone to tell me to."
Kikyo let out a huff that was almost a pout.
"You really have grown up. Your wings are hard now. Be careful your father doesn't hear you talk like that, or he'll deal with you."
Roy shrugged.
"Doesn't matter. Even if all I do is insult him, he's going to deal with me tomorrow anyway."
Kikyo opened her mouth, searching for something to say, but after a long moment, she still fell silent.
Roy kept teasing Killua. He didn't even need to look to clearly sense the emotions drifting from above Kikyo's head—a strange, tangled mix of indifference and concern.
Deep down, he understood perfectly.
If he were still the old "mediocre" self, the mother standing in front of him would never have paid him the slightest attention.
And it wasn't just him.
In canon, even Illumi, Milluki, and later Alluka and Kalluto never received even a fraction of the love Kikyo gave Killua. That kind of twisted, unfair love was too intense, too heavy, and filled to the brim with possessiveness.
At its root, it all came from one thing—
Killua's silver hair.
And now, in the Zoldyck family, it wasn't just Zeno, Silva, and Killua who had silver hair anymore.
That was why, after all these years, Roy could stand in this second-floor bedroom without being scolded, and even talk calmly with Kikyo for a few moments.
His silver hair, tipped with glass-gold light, swayed softly in the breeze.
He held out both hands and said gently, "Come on, Killua. Let your big brother hold you."
Wrapped in his blanket, Killua looked up at Roy with lake-blue eyes that shone like gemstones. He tilted his head, waved his tiny hands, and opened his arms toward Roy, babbling as if asking to be picked up.
Kikyo froze.
She looked down at Killua. He was usually like a little demon, fussy all day, never liking being held by Silva or by her. Only when he was hungry, sleepy, or wanted milk would he quiet down for a while.
Static flickered in Kikyo's eyes again. She shot Killua a jealous little glare, then reluctantly handed him over to Roy.
"Be careful. One hand under his bottom, one hand supporting his head. Don't get careless..."
"I know."
Roy took Killua into his arms.
It felt like holding a tiny, impossibly soft kitten. He gently smoothed those few delicate tufts of silver baby hair on top of Killua's head.
"Ah... ah..."
The causal line appeared—
one end linked to Killua, the other to Roy.
The deep bond of blood between them slowly took shape.
The moment Roy held Killua, it was like he was holding some version of his former self. That sense of blood ties, thick as water, surged through him like a wave.
For a moment, he stood there completely still.
Then—
something.
Something flashed through his spiritual sense and vanished before he could grasp it.
His brow furrowed on its own.
Seeing the sudden change in Roy's expression, Kikyo hurried out of bed in her slippers. Worried he might drop the child, she quickly took Killua back from Roy's arms.
Then she looked up at Roy, about to say something—
when she suddenly noticed a tall figure approaching the bedroom door.
From a distance, he shot her a look, signaling for silence.
Kikyo swallowed her words at once, and after seeing it was Silva, she quietly let out a breath of relief.
Dong—
At ten o'clock, the wooden clock in the corner struck the hour.
Silva had finished loosening up his body. He had originally planned to sleep in the study tonight, but at some point, he seemed to sense something.
He immediately stepped down from the chair, grabbed a towel and casually wiped himself off, then strode out of the study and returned to the bedroom.
The chandelier hanging from the ceiling cast a soft halo of light...
The second-floor bedroom was utterly quiet.
After holding up one finger to stop Kikyo from interrupting Roy, Silva went over to the sofa and lay down on it, propping his head on one hand. He and Kikyo simply watched Roy in silence.
Roy's brows were tightly drawn as he desperately chased that fleeting flash of inspiration. He stood motionless like an old monk in meditation, yet his body felt like a willow tree meeting spring, suddenly sending out thousands upon thousands of trailing branches...
Those branches linked into countless causal lines, and at their far ends were all kinds of different people.
Family—like the Zoldycks, the Kamado family, the Uchiha.
Teachers and seniors—like Urokodaki Sakonji, Sabito, Makomo, Shinsuke, Fukuda...
Followers—like Gotoh, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the Nine Pillars, the Uchiha, the Spiders, Vanessa, old Kohler...
There were enemies too. Friends as well.
Guzman. Ging. Netero. Razor.
And all sorts of other men and women, old and young—even strangers he had only crossed paths with once in passing.
Roy hung them all on the Willow of Causality.
Gradually, by sheer persistence, he finally caught hold of that flash of inspiration—
something born from blood ties,
from something he should have valued all along but had always overlooked—
Causality.
Or perhaps...
Causality Blade.
Just as Itachi's Mangekyō controlled Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi,
just as Sasuke's Mangekyō controlled Kagutsuchi,
just as Obito's Mangekyō ruled over Kamui and its space,
his Mangekyō should rule over causality itself.
Just as the sun left filth nowhere to hide,
he too could use causality to sever the self—or existence itself—from the lives of those connected to him by causal threads.
A smear of red slowly rose into Roy's pupils—
only for him to snap back to himself and erase it immediately.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
In that instant, he understood where his Mangekyō should go in the future.
He reached out and rubbed Killua's little head, then said with quiet expectation, "Killua, grow up fast."
"What you gave your big brother today... I'll remember it all."
"When you're a little older, I'll take you into the sky."
Killua stared at Roy in confusion from Kikyo's arms, then stuffed his fingers into his mouth and started gnawing on them.
Roy burst out laughing.
All the confusion left him. Clarity returned. He turned and headed for the door.
Just before he stepped out, Silva's voice stopped him.
"You're not going to say goodnight?"
"We'll see each other again tomorrow morning. Why bother?" Roy paused and cast a glance back at him.
Silva's silver hair lay behind him like a lion's mane. Expressionless, he said, "I thought you'd have something to say."
Roy raised a fist, flashed Silva a sharp grin, and said, "I think this works better than talking."
"Heh... heh... hahahaha..."
Silva laughed.
At first he kept it down, then his voice rose, and by the end he stopped holding anything back at all, laughing out loud so hard the room itself seemed to shake. Only after a long while did he finally stop.
Then he waved a hand.
Roy turned away and didn't pause again.
With one more glance, he stepped into the moonlight and vanished.
Only the bedroom door remained, drifting shut with a creak as the wind nudged it closed.
Silently,
man and boy, father and son, were separated into two different worlds.
"Hm... a new era's coming..."
Somewhere, a giant ear silently withdrew after listening in as the door closed.
On the first floor of the Zoldyck family castle, in that dim little room...
a certain dried-up old man muttered something, rolled over, and either on purpose or by accident kicked the blanket off again.
His shriveled stomach was left exposed in the moonlight until the woman appearing in the faint mist shot him a glare and helplessly bent down to pick the blanket up and cover him again, just as she had when they were young.
"Yes. A new era really is coming..."
Betty Zoldyck, her blonde hair tied in a ponytail, sat pressed against Maha on the rocking chair, bouncing gently with its motion as she watched Roy head back to his own bedroom.
At some point, she noticed that, just as always, Roy paused beside the window outside their room and respectfully bowed to both her and Maha.
A kind smile rose to Betty Zoldyck's lips.
Then she watched Roy leave, just as she had once watched Zigg go, her eyes filled with endless warmth.
"Good children. They're all good children... Zigg was a good one. Zeno and Silva were too. And now... it's his turn. Roy's..."
"Heh heh heh..."
The rocking chair creaked.
The dried-up old man, eyes half-closed as though asleep and not asleep, let out a sly little laugh and reached over to grope Betty's backside.
Immediately, she shot him a look and slapped his hand down.
"Still acting indecent in front of the child?"
"Trying to die, are you?"
"That won't do," Maha said as he slowly opened his eyes, lightning flickering faintly within them. "This old man can't die yet."
"At the very least... not before I see that child slay a god."
"I can't fall before then."
Betty: "..."
Her expression dimmed, and she fell silent.
A moment later, she took Maha's hand herself and placed it on her hip, then leaned into his arms as she had in the old days, tracing little circles across his narrow chest with one finger.
Outside the window on the other side of the wall,
Roy bent down, straightened, caught sight of that scene, and stood there watching for a moment before turning away.
Tap... tap...
His footsteps gradually faded into the distance... past the dim little room, past the corner, past the mottled old corridor steeped in age, until he neared his own bedroom.
Roy's steps halted.
He looked up.
A pale figure leaned crookedly against the wall outside his room, hands in his pockets, waiting who knew how long.
"I couldn't sleep."
Illumi's smooth black hair fell to his waist. Hearing Roy's footsteps, he turned his head and looked over with those hollow eyes.
"So I came to see you."
"Did you?" Roy resumed walking, brushed past Illumi's shoulder, pushed open his door, and went inside without looking back. "The one getting beaten tomorrow is me, not you. What are you so nervous about?"
Illumi said nothing.
He followed Roy in, dropped into Roy's chair, rested both pale arms on the armrests, and stared straight at him.
"You know Father won't hold back."
"So you're afraid I'll get beaten to death?"
Illumi stayed silent.
Roy didn't care. He summoned Little Gold, let it roll around on the bed, and prepared to catch a little more sleep before dawn so he could be in perfect shape for tomorrow. As he straightened out the bedding, he said, "Relax. I'm not that easy to kill. And I'm not nearly as fragile as you think."
"Worry more about yourself instead."
"Don't just sit around and wait to get surpassed by Gotoh."
"You don't have to humiliate me like that," Illumi said flatly.
Roy finished arranging the blankets, turned around, and looked at him seriously.
"I'm stating a fact."
Illumi: "..."
Very good.
"Then when he wakes up," he said coldly, "I'll just kill him."
~~~
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