Chapter 5: The Serpent's New Sight
Black.
The world was black. A suffocating, seamless void that pressed in from all sides. He felt the cold stone floor under his cheek, smelled the acrid tang of corrosive smoke, heard the frantic hammering of his own heart. But he saw nothing.
Panic, cold and shrill, tried to claw its way up his throat. For a strategist, for a scholar, the loss of information was the truest kind of death. He was adrift in an endless, empty ocean.
A raw, silent scream of pure fury ripped through his mind. After all of it. The betrayal. The murder. The impossible return. The agony of the purge. And he was left here, in the dark? It was a cosmic joke of the highest cruelty.
Then, the cold will clamped down. Rage was a fire, and fire casts light. He had no room for light. He needed the cold, the dark, the focus. He crushed the panic, compressed the fury, and forced his mind to do the only thing it knew how to do.
Analyze.
He recalled the formula for the permanent cure, the one he never got to make. Its primary catalyst was the same, but the final, crucial component was a mythical stabilizer: The Primordial's Tear. A legendary flower that bloomed only in the deepest, most stable Aetheric fields. It was an agent of pure, gentle restoration.
He had used Kurogane Salt. A volatile, aggressive, and cheap substitute.
The salt didn't just break down the poison, he reasoned, the thoughts sharp and clinical in the void. It broke down everything. The neurotoxin, the Hollow Soul curse, and the delicate Aetheric structures of my optic nerves.
It hadn't been a side effect. It had been the price. A pound of flesh for a pound of cure. He had gambled that his body might be ravaged. He hadn't gambled on this.
He focused inward, on the only landscape he had left. The Codex was still there, a calm, golden glow behind the veil of his new blindness.
[Founder's Codex fully integrated. Mental interface stabilized. Aether Core diagnostics available.]
[You have 15 available stat points. Allocate? Y/N]
A cold surge of triumph cut through the despair. This was power. Real, quantifiable power. He could feel the new, warm trickle of Aether from his core, a tiny but vibrant stream where before there had been only a stagnant swamp.
Allocate. The command was instant. His priorities were brutally simple.
His base physical stats were pathetic. He was a glass cannon. Before he could even think about offense, he had to reinforce the glass. His greatest weakness was his frailty.
He pushed ten points into Durability.
[DUR: 17 -> 27]
The effect was immediate. A profound, soothing warmth spread through his limbs, a stark contrast to the earlier agony. The deep, grinding ache in his bones from the convulsion lessened to a dull throb. The world stopped swimming, and the throbbing in his head subsided. It felt like a parched man taking his first drink of water.
He had five points left. He could bolster his meager Strength, but what good was a slightly stronger punch from a boy his size? His new Aether stats, AET and OUT, were tempting, but his core was too small. Pouring power into it now would be inefficient.
His blindness made the choice for him. If he couldn't see an attack coming, he had to be fast enough to react to the sound, the shift in the air. He needed speed. He needed reflexes.
He pushed the remaining five points into Agility.
[AGI: 23 -> 28]
It was a more subtle change. Not a wave of warmth, but a lightness in his limbs. The feeling of exhaustion that clung to him like a shroud receded. He felt quicker, more responsive.
KAIRO AKASHI
TITLE: Aether Initiate LEVEL: 1
AETHERIC RESONANCE INDEX (ARI)
Physical Attributes
STR: 19
DUR: 27
AGI: 28
Aetheric Attributes
AET: 12
OUT: 25
CTL: 58
AVAILABLE STAT POINTS: 0
He had taken his first true step. But the world was still black, and his room still reeked of forbidden alchemy. He had to clean the evidence. He began to push himself up, using his memory of the room to orient himself.
A soft scrape of leather came from the hallway. Footsteps. Light, hesitant, and familiar.
His blood ran cold. He recognized that gait. The soft, quiet steps of someone trying not to wake the household.
Mother.
He had less than ten seconds. With a surge of adrenaline, he scrambled across the floor, his hands finding the blanket he'd dropped. He began waving it frantically, the motion clumsy in the dark, trying to force the lingering smoke toward the open window.
Tap. Tap. A gentle, hesitant knock at his door.
"Kairo?" His mother's voice, soft and laced with her ever-present worry. "Kairo, darling, are you awake? I thought I smelled something strange."
He froze. He couldn't let her see him like this. He couldn't let her see the room. Most of all, he couldn't let her know he was blind. Her spirit, already so fragile from years of worrying over him, would shatter.
"I am awake, Mother," he called out, forcing his voice to sound sleepy and confused. He crawled to the door, his hands mapping the floor in front of him. "I… I spilled a cup of juice. I was trying to clean it."
The lie was weak, but it was the best he could do.
"Oh, you poor dear," she murmured, her voice filled with instant sympathy. The lock rattled. "Let me help you."
The door swung open. Kairo flinched, not from the light he couldn't see, but from the sudden influx of her scent. Fresh linens and the faint, sweet perfume of moon-petal oil. She was here.
He kept his head down, letting his long hair fall forward like a curtain, a habit from his first life he now resurrected for a new purpose.
"Oh, my," she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "That isn't juice. Kairo, what is that smell? And the smoke!"
He heard her footsteps hurry past him. He stood perfectly still, his ears straining, building a picture of the room from sound alone. The rustle of her dress as she moved to the window. The soft scrape of the blanket as she picked it up.
"It smells like… like one of the alchemical labs," she whispered, a note of fear entering her voice. "And Kairo, your face!"
He felt her approach. Her hand, cool and gentle, cupped his cheek. Her thumb gently wiped at the crusted blood on his upper lip.
"You're bleeding. Did you fall?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"Yes, Mother," he whispered, keeping his face angled towards the floor. "I tripped in the dark." The lie tasted like ash in his mouth. He was manipulating the one person in his first life who had shown him unconditional love. The guilt was a physical weight.
"Let me see," she insisted, her fingers tilting his chin up.
This was it. He had to look at her. He forced his eyes open, directing his gaze towards the source of her voice. He focused on the memory of her face. The kind obsidian eyes, the worried line of her mouth. He hoped his expression looked natural.
Lady Lyra stared into her son's eyes, and for a moment, she fell silent. She saw the exhaustion, the smudge of blood, the paleness of his skin. But she saw something else, too. In the depths of his familiar obsidian eyes, a tiny, impossible spark of gold seemed to flicker, like a dying ember fanned by a sudden wind. It was there for a second, then gone, a trick of the dim morning light.
She dismissed it. Her hand moved to brush the hair from his forehead. "You must be more careful. Come, let me get a wet cloth for your face and help you clean this…"
Her words were cut short by another sound from the hall. The door, which Lyra had left ajar, swung open fully.
It was Elise, the Head Maid, her arms laden with a basket of folded laundry. She stopped dead in the doorway, her kind, knowing eyes taking in the scene in an instant: the hazy smoke, the acrid smell, the disheveled lady of the house, and the pale, blood-smeared little lord.
Elise's face was a masterclass in controlled expression. A flicker of surprise, a shadow of concern, and then, a smooth, professional calm settled over her features. She took in the scene with a single, sweeping glance.
"My lady," Elise said, her voice a low, steady anchor in the tense room. She set her laundry basket down in the hallway. "Is everything alright?"
"Elise," Lyra said, her voice wavering with relief. "I… I'm not sure. Little Kairo had an accident with a candle, I think."
Elise's gaze met Kairo's for a brief, powerful second. Her eyes, so often filled with a quiet sympathy, were now sharp and incredibly perceptive. Kairo knew, with a sinking certainty, that she didn't believe the flimsy candle story any more than Alistair had.
But unlike the Head Butler, Elise didn't look for an explanation. She took command. "Lady Lyra, you look distressed. Why don't you return to your chambers and rest? I will see to Lord Kairo and have this room aired out and cleaned immediately." She stepped into the room, her presence filling the space with a quiet authority.
"But…" Lyra started to protest, her worried eyes darting back to her son.
"I will personally oversee it, my lady," Elise insisted gently but firmly. "I will bring the young lord to you myself once he is cleaned up and presentable. Go on, now."
There was a subtle power in Elise's tone, the quiet influence she held as the heart of the household. Lyra, already emotionally exhausted, relented. She bent down, pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Kairo's forehead, her lips brushing against his sweaty hair.
"Be good for Elise, my darling," she whispered, then turned and left, her form a graceful shadow retreating down the hall.
The moment Lyra was gone, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Elise closed the door, the soft click of the latch sealing them in. She turned to face Kairo, her kind face now serious, her eyes searching.
"The Head Butler has already been here," she stated. It was not a question.
Kairo gave a single, tight nod. There was no point in lying to her. She had seen too much.
Elise let out a slow, heavy sigh. "Child, what have you gotten yourself into?" She walked to the window and pushed it open as far as it would go, letting the cool morning breeze rush in, chasing away the last of the acrid smoke.
She knelt before him, taking a damp cloth she produced from a pouch at her waist and gently began wiping the blood and grime from his face. Her touch was surprisingly firm, the cleaning methodical.
"I won't ask what you were doing," she said, her voice low. "Secrets in this Spire are heavy stones. The more people who carry them, the more likely someone is to be crushed." Her eyes flickered towards the spot under his bed where he had kicked the evidence. "Whatever it is you've done, you brought Alistair's gaze upon yourself. That is a dangerous thing. He serves the Archduke and the order of this house above all else. He will be watching you now."
She finished cleaning his face and then looked him squarely in the eyes. Kairo met her gaze, his own held steady, a black, bottomless calm.
"But a mother's worry is a different kind of danger," Elise continued, her voice softening. "It is a fire that can burn down a whole wing of this Spire to protect her child. If you do not wish to be smothered by that fire, if you wish to keep your… secrets," she chose the word carefully, "then you must give her peace."
Kairo remained silent, processing her words. She wasn't offering to be an accomplice. She was offering advice. The advice of a veteran survivor in the vipers' nest of the Akashi court.
"She needs to see you are well," Elise said. "More than just well. She needs to see you are trying. Eat at the dinner table. Walk in the solarium. Let her see a spark of life in you. Appease her worry, and you will buy yourself the freedom you seem to crave."
With that, she stood up. "I will send a junior maid to clean this room. By the time she arrives, I trust there will be nothing for her to find." The unspoken message was clear: dispose of your mess.
She opened the door and paused in the threshold, looking back at him one last time. "And Lord Kairo," she added, her voice barely a whisper. "Whatever new path you are walking, walk it carefully."
Then she was gone.
Alone again in the silent, empty room, Kairo took a deep breath of the newly fresh air. Elise had given him a roadmap to survival within the family. Appease his mother, avoid Alistair. It was a simple, elegant strategy.
But as he sat there in the darkness, a new, far more immediate problem presented itself. The sun was beginning to rise. Soon, servants would come to his room. His mother would expect to see him. He couldn't stumble through his life, bumping into furniture and people. He needed to see.
He closed his eyes, though the world was already black, and focused his mind. He pushed his will into the newly awakened Aether Core, coaxing the small, warm stream of energy out. He didn't try to force it. He guided it, using the impossibly high Control stat he possessed. He sent the trickle of Aether not outwards, but inwards, towards his own senses.
Show me the world, he commanded. The idea was born from a dozen different theoretical texts he had once read, articles on sensory-type Covenants like the Inabi clan's "Echo-Sense." But this was different. He wasn't trying to feel vibrations. He was trying to build a picture.
He sent his Aether out from his body in a gentle, expanding pulse, no bigger than the room he was in. He felt it wash over the bed, the desk, the walls. He'd read that Aether reverberated differently against different materials. Wood felt one way, stone another, metal another still.
He focused on those returning "echoes," not with his ears, but with his mind. At first, it was just a chaotic jumble of noise, a confusing mess of sensory data. It was like trying to listen to a hundred conversations at once.
Filter it, he commanded himself, his brow furrowed in concentration. Organize it. Build the image.
He drew upon the cold, analytical power of the Founder's Codex. The golden system seemed to hum in response, providing him with a framework. He began to assign values to the returning echoes. The solid, dense return from the stone walls. The softer, porous echo of the wooden bedframe. The sharp, cold signature of the discarded brazier under his bed.
Slowly, painstakingly, a new kind of image began to form in the black void of his mind. It wasn't sight. It was a wireframe model, a blueprint of the world rendered in lines of faint, golden light. It was crude. Blurry. The details were indistinct, and holding the mental image took a staggering amount of concentration, draining his tiny Aether pool at an alarming rate.
But it was there. A map in the darkness.
A smile, the first genuine smile he had worn since his return, touched Kairo's lips. They had taken his sight. So he would make a new one. One that could see through walls.
The Founder's Codex responded to his breakthrough, his sheer force of will creating a new path.
[New Self-Directed Skill created through sublime Aether Control and force of will.]
[Skill Gained: [Aether-Sense (Prototype)] - Grade: F]
[Description: By emitting a low-power Aether pulse, you can interpret the returning echoes to create a rudimentary, 3D map of your immediate surroundings. Highly inefficient. Range is limited. Continued use and refinement may unlock higher grades.]