Chapter 2: "Sword in the Cradle"
There were no cries when Kael was born. Only a soft breath, as if the soul had returned from somewhere far colder than the womb.
Hera held him first—not the goddess of grandeur she once was, but a quiet matron with eyes like tempered gold. She studied his face as if she'd seen it before. "You're not just hers," she whispered. "You're someone else's echo…"
Alfia didn't say much. She never did. But when her arms wrapped around her child—her only child—something broke in her silence. Kael nuzzled into her skin not like a newborn but like someone remembering warmth.
He suckled hungrily, but not without grace. His tiny fingers curled at her chest, not just to hold, but to listen—as if her heartbeat were a lullaby he'd once heard through steel.
And in his dreams, where language hadn't yet been learned, Kael stood in red fields beneath iron skies. Swords were planted like gravestones. A great furnace roared behind him. "I am the bone of my sword…"
He awoke without a cry. His eyes opened slowly. Quietly. Alfia froze.
The Weight of Recognition
It wasn't the color of them that unnerved her—it was the weight. A child's eyes should not carry the burden of having once tried to save the world.
The warmth of Alfia's arms was undeniable, but Kael did not weep or reach with clumsy panic. He listened. To the sound of her blood, the rhythm of breath, the soft rustle of hair brushing over silk.
This world… Orario. He remembered it. But memory was fogged by steel and fire. Something in his body ached to act. To protect, before he could even crawl.
The system remained dormant—or perhaps simply quiet. But the template pulsed beneath his skin. Not in language. Not in magic. But in instinct.
Alfia, for her part, could not explain it. She had seen infants. Many, in her mercenary years. Some were weak, some shrill, some ill. But this one—her son—moved as though every motion was considered.
He did not flail. He reached. Held. Drank.
And when he did, something coiled tight in her chest. Not lust. No—not yet, not from her. But a strange tension. As if the child saw her as more than a vessel. As if he were taking strength, not just milk.
He watched her with those eyes—too gray, too old. And she, the Silent One, whispered without knowing why: "What are you, little blade?"
Divine Observation
Hera noticed, too. The goddess was more careful than affectionate. She had lost too much to be anything else. The fall of the Zeus and Hera Familias had carved a wound in her divine soul that time could not mend.
Yet when she held Kael, she felt the cold steel of his soul press against her warmth. She studied his hands—not just how he gripped, but how he didn't. His strength was already precise. She watched him reach for cloth, for her hair, for her sleeve, and never once did he grasp blindly.
"He doesn't move like a child," she murmured.
Alfia remained seated, arms folded over her knees. "He isn't."
"He's yours," Hera corrected. "But something else rides in him, Alfia."
She didn't deny it. Her eyes softened as Kael squirmed in his cradle of furs and linen. He did not cry. He had never cried. He only watched.
The village grew used to the strange, quiet child. They whispered of his silver hair, his unnaturally calm demeanor. Some claimed he was blessed by the moon. Others said he was touched by prophecy. None guessed the truth—that he was something far more dangerous and far more precious.
A soul carrying the weight of heroic failure, learning to love again through the milk of goddesses and the warmth of divine arms.
Dreams of Steel
In the red dream that came each night, the world swirled in heat and dust. Fields littered with broken weapons stretched to a bloody horizon. Kael stood there again, his consciousness floating between infant helplessness and the phantom strength of a legendary archer.
His body was older in the dream—a teen, perhaps. Tall, lean, covered in burns and scratches. His arms ached with memory of drawing impossible bows, of projecting blades that existed only in dreams of steel.
And behind him, the forge whispered. "You will never be a hero," the voice said. "But you will be what heroes leave behind."
He looked down. In his palm was a curved blade—black and white—familiar. Kanshou. The forge flared with memories not his own, yet carved into his very essence. I remember this… don't I?
The Unlimited Blade Works spread before him, an infinite armory of noble phantasms. Each weapon told a story of triumph and tragedy, of heroes who had fallen and legends that had been forgotten. He was their keeper now, their inheritor.
"Trace… on," he whispered in the dream, and felt power flow through pathways that shouldn't exist.
Then the dream broke, and he returned to warmth, to breasts, to breath. To the scent of Hera's garden oil and the clean scent of Alfia's robes. He suckled again. Not because he needed to… But because it anchored him to this new life, this second chance.
The Growing Awareness
Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months. Kael's body grew stronger, but his mind remained a storm of competing instincts. The template system hummed just beneath consciousness, sorting through heroic spirits, analyzing compatibility, preparing for the moment when his Falna would finally unlock.
[HEROIC SPIRIT ANALYSIS: ARCHER - EMIYA]
[Compatibility: 94%]
[Memory Integration: Active]
[Projection Magecraft: Dormant - Awaiting Magical Circuits]
He began to understand the cruel irony of his situation. Here he was, reborn into a world where gods walked among mortals, raised by the very goddesses who had once commanded the strongest Familia in Orario's history. Yet he remained trapped in an infant's body, unable to speak, unable to act, unable to protect the women who had become his entire world.
The frustration burned in him like forge-fire.
Alfia sensed it. During their quiet moments together, when she held him against her chest, she would stroke his silver hair and murmur words meant for warriors, not children.
"Patience, little sword," she would say. "Even the sharpest blade must be tempered slowly."
Hera, too, seemed to understand. She would trace patterns on his forehead with her finger—not quite blessings, not quite magic, but something that made the system hum with anticipation.
"When you're ready," she promised. "When your body can handle what your spirit demands."
First Steps
At three months, Kael crawled. Not clumsily—with purpose. He followed the scent of steel, the glint of kitchen knives, the shimmer of hearth fire. His fingers found wooden spoons and balanced them like blades, testing weight and grip with an infant's hands but an archer's instincts.
He didn't babble. He hummed. Strange tones. Melodies not born of this world—battle hymns from wars fought in distant timelines, lullabies sung by heroes long dead.
Hera once caught the tune and stopped mid-prayer. "That's not something a babe should know…"
But she didn't forbid it. Instead, she began to hum along, her divine voice weaving harmonies that made the very air shimmer with power.
Alfia, now used to the quiet weight of her son's presence, no longer tried to treat him like an ordinary infant. She spoke to him not in baby talk, but directly—warrior to warrior.
"You'll fight one day," she told him one night while cradling him beneath a moonless sky. "I see it in your eyes. In the way you hold yourself. I won't stop you. But I won't lose you, either."
Kael looked up at her face, illuminated by starlight and the soft glow of divine grace. His hand brushed her jaw, small and warm. There was no smile—he had not yet learned to smile. But there was something deeper. A promise.
Even if he could not speak, the blood of EMIYA pulsed through his borrowed life—a man who had failed to save everyone, who had died with regrets, but who had never stopped trying.
This time would be different.
This time, he would be ready.
The First Whisper Returns
On his 100th day, as Hera held him during the evening prayers, the system stirred.
[MILESTONE REACHED]
[GROWTH ACCELERATION PROTOCOL: INITIATED]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO FALNA COMPATIBILITY: 2 YEARS]
A warmth spread through his chest, different from the comfort of divine embrace. This was power recognizing power, potential aligning with destiny.
Hera felt it too. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the child in her arms. "It's beginning," she whispered.
Alfia appeared at her side instantly, silver hair catching moonlight. "What is it?"
"His awakening." Hera's voice carried the weight of prophecy. "The child who will reshape Orario. The son who will surpass even the heroes of old."
Kael met their gazes with eyes that held the depth of infinite blades. He could not speak yet, but he understood.
The world had given him a second chance. Two mothers who were goddesses in their own right. A system that would grant him power beyond imagination.
He would not waste it.
The sword in the cradle was beginning to stir.