"We now seem to have matching hair."
Ran snorted, looking at the streak of silver brushed back on his father's head. He looked to the right directly into the mirror on the wall to see his own white forelock.
"Six years plus and that's the first thing you say to your son?" He asked.
Kenija shrugged. "I had several things planned. A speech about loyalty and bravery, another about family and love. There was even this plan to throw things at you and curse you, another to hug and comfort you. I…" Kaito Kenija took a deep breath and his placid expression broke as his eyes glistened. "Standing here right now…I…I…"
Ran was unable to hold himself back anymore. He crossed the surrounding of burgundy zabuton cushions, his feet hurried on the polished wooden floors, sidestepped the chabudai table, and crashed into the arms of his father.
He remained there for a while, ignoring the faint sound of sniffles he heard, he just clung to his father. "You stink of blood and ash."
Ran looked down at himself. He was still dressed in the armour of the arrow of victory. It was caked with his blood from his injuries and there were burns all over it.
At least he wasn't still bleeding and healing back up in an endless cycle. It seemed the Fey ritual had been targeted at Xin, or his mother had rid him of the curse. He hadn't even noticed when it stopped.
He pulled away from his father and reached for the essence of Hundun, the red swirls forming around his hand and cascading down his body.
Blood and dirt was transformed to light and faded away, his armour was transformed to a t-shirt and shorts combo with warm, white house shoes.
His father was gaping at him as were his friends. He smiled at them and looked down at his new outfit. "There, isn't this much better?"
"Uh, since when could you do that?" Haru asked, stepping close. "That did not look like kin."
"Since when did you even have kin?" His father asked.
He looked from his father to Haru, and the latter looked away with a guilty expression.
"Ah, I see Haru did not tell," he said, nodding as he understood while his friend hadn't. His father might not have been able to take the truth of what had led to him developing kin.
But the truth could never be hidden, and as things stood, this was the moment of it.
He headed over to one of the couches and sat down, gesturing for the others to do the same. "It seems I have a lot to tell you all."
Ran's father took a seat behind his study table while Haru and Kigana joined him on the couch.
Closing his eyes and sinking into reminiscence, Ran began the tale. He spared no detail, from his visits to Master Sei to what he'd wrought as the Arrow of Victory and meeting his mother. Then he told him the same tale he'd narrated to Kigana and Haru about his mother.
He only opened his eyes when he was done and found his father staring at him.
"What are you going to do now?" His father asked.
Ran let out a bark of laughter. "What can I do? She's the Yōsei no joō."
"So you're just going to give up? That does not sound like the son I raised, the boy who braved through Naraku to express his defiance against death."
Ran snorted and looked away. "That was one thing, this is another very much different situation. I have no idea what to do here."
"And you had an idea when you sought passage to Naraku?"
"In fact, I did. They didn't just work out," he stubbornly argued.
"If you can't do anything then you can at least warn everyone that she's free," Kigana suggested from beside him.
"With the destruction I left in limbo the whole universe is probably aware of that by now," Ran said, dismissively. He sighed and looked at his father. "If you have any idea I'm open to listening, father."
The man gestured toward Kigana. "What she said." Ran made to speak but the man held up a hand. "They know she's out and about, but they don't truly know what she's capable of. She more than likely made her arrest easy knowing you will one day come to limbo, she wanted to be there waiting for you. They are not aware of her danger, her lust for destruction. Only you are."
Ran stared at his father with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. "I don't think I understand, father."
"You must show them what's in your head."
All of them fell silent for a moment, digesting that suggestion and then Haru raised an important point.
"To reach the Feys, though," the acolyte began, "we must seek passage to Etherheim."
Ran nodded in agreement. He'd been there before, once. "To step into Etherheim we must offer something of great value, even for a half Yōsei like me."
"An estimated measure would be?" His father asked.
Ran looked at him fondly. "Certainly not a billion Yen, else I wouldn't even need to mention it," he said, causing his father to roll his eyes. "Something of greater power, I fear. A bottled aura of Amaterasu would do."
Everyone gaped at him and his father was the first to snap out of his shock. "Would anything else be suitable?"
"Primordial knowledge, in fact any rare knowledge. Feys are hoarders. Artifacts, something like the Hako–"
Immediately he sat up and stared off into space. "I think I can get my hands on the Hakokage."
"You said she destroyed Xin right?" Haru asked.
"Drove him into nothingness with the Feyling word of destruction, but there's a possibility he might return," he said in a so-so manner.
"Do you think she would have gone after the Hakokage?" Haru asked.
Ran shook his head. "No, she wouldn't want to be anywhere near the Noxsphere. No one would want to be anywhere near the Noxsphere right now and that was where I left Xin and he always had the Hakokage with him, even if it could not be seen."
"Why do I have a feeling we are going to the Noxsphere," Haru said, collapsing into the backrest of his chair dramatically.
Ran grinned. "We are not going inside, no. That would be stupid. We're only just going to wander near its threshold."
Haru rolled his eyes. "Like that's so much better. The jaws of a shark as opposed to its gullet."
"But wouldn't all the horrors of the Noxsphere have escaped by now?" Kigana asked.
"It depends," Ran said, "it could be that only a second has passed in Kurana since my departure."
She nodded. "That makes sense. But it could be that weeks have gone by."
His father spoke up. "Even with that there's the danger of adaptation." He explained further upon receiving curious looks from all of them. "Some predators adapt to dangerous climes and environments easily. A few of the abominations locked in there could have done the same with the Noxsphere and now that it has been broken they won't try to leave, merely begin–"
"Expanding territory," Ran completed, looking thoughtful now.
"Well that's going to be dangerous," Haru said, then looked at all of them. "So, are we going back?"
Ran looked at his father instead. "You are going to let me?"
Kaito Kenija smiled sadly. "Sometimes I wish I'm a nine-tailed fox, a Shinigami, or even a vampire. This sort of trip I should be right behind you. Do you know why I didn't face much fear knowing you were in Naraku, son?"
Ran shook his head. He had a suspicion but he didn't know the actual truth.
His father continued. "It's because I always knew, I knew you were Reficulus. Your mother was the one who had me adopt you and she didn't bother to disguise herself as a mortal. She said only the best for a son of the destined Queen of the universe, she wanted a conglomerate family to serve her son and prepare him for her perceived destiny. She did not expect that I'd treat you as a son instead of a Master. Still, she did not bother to do anything about it. Knowing Fey nature she probably saw it as an opportunity for us to establish a bond which she could use against either of us. Why am I saying all of this? Well, it's to tell you that I know you, your mother herself revealed your nature to me. I know that no matter what trouble you pass through, whatever obstacle you face, you will go through it like iron through fire, purified and strengthened into steel. I don't fear you dying son, what I fear is to see you suffer."
There was a heavy silence and Ran felt tears gather in his eyes. Before he'd have held them back, but he let them flow.
He was no longer the Ran who was empty from having lost his father. No, he was better now, older, he had his father again.
He was a young man who'd risen from the ashes of a young boy, a soul mending from despair.
He was a vacuum slowly being filled, even as his future seemed bleak, his present—this very moment with his father, it shone like a thousand stars.
Right now he could die happy, he was a young man who had realised something personally life changing–
It was not wrong to cry.