A still night id empty hands over the courtyard. It gave a soft oppressive atmosphere burdened by emotions. Emotions that wouldn’t escape or disappear no matter how many attempts to be fotten. They were haunting ghosts, specters lingering in all ers in silenbsp; Silent, but staring, they watched endlessly.

  Yumi almost wished that they did say something. Hearing their hateful words would be better perhaps than the acg eyes. She could only imagine what they would say and nothing was worse than imagination.

  Dark shadows hung over her face, shaving away weight from her fabsp; She shifted her eyes away. Even a gnce was too long for her. She couldn’t ma for more than a few seds. The faceless mass followed her eyes no matter where.

  Every step through the Pace was like wading through the busy streets of Tokyo. She could never be alone. The best she managed was to look at the floor and only see the legs of everyone. A peaceful pce like the courtyard could bring no fort. Yumi could only stare trying to focus her mind. And hope that just maybe for one instance maybe she could be alone for once.

  She closed her eyes and pced her head to the stone railing. Closed or not, her mental image kept the ghosts h around her. Escape wasn’t possible. But she didn’t make su escape. ‘This is just what I deserve for everything that I’ve done…’ Her lips thinned out in a grimace with her thoughts.

  Chapter 282 - Secret in

  Yuki o take a step back from things. Things only got more plicated the longer he listened. It was supposed to be more straightforward with the more answers he got, yet the opposite happened. He had so many different pieces hao him. It was hard to see the truth from the lies. Eudokia fed so many lies to him a some of them actually had some truth to them.

  He stood up and paced around the path that circled around a tree. Demostheill had more to tell him. Yuki could tell that mubsp; But he moved too quickly. Things had stopped being simple a long time ago. He thought he had gotteo it. Worse, he still didn’t have ao something so simple as who his mother was, which wasn’t what he thought.

  Allowing his brain to process things a little, Yuki came back around to Demosthenes. “Yetting a little ahead of yourself. My father had a pn, but what is this all about? How is it supposed to rete to me or even Eudokia? I thought she had gue.”

  “Eudokia discovered a little bit of what his pn was and accepted things wholly. She never actually knew what his true motive was. The only part she really listeo was that he had something he needed her to do. It was his st request to her.”

  Demostheurned his head a little to look towards a p the Pabsp; “To Eudokia, the King was everything. He was her world, his loss hit her worse than anyone. I tried to motivate her a her to do something, but she was insistent on hanging onto the past. It seemed like she po just die. She lost any sort of will to live. Then I told her about the King’s st wish he left for her. I hoped it would give her purpose again. Unfortunately, I never imagined how she would corrupt his wish. This was never what he would have wanted.”

  “What did he wao do?”

  “He wanted you to bee King. He left it to her, since she had more freedom to move around tha you back to Atntis. He expected her to expiuation to you a yreement. More than anything, he didn’t want the cil to be in charge, but it was all because he couldn’t finish his pn to free Atntis. His wish left behind for you was to save Atntis.”

  It was a little clearer cut, but it was still a lot of jumping around. Yuki waved his hands, still needing some important ao what was going on. “What a minute, he wants me to save Atntis? I don’t even know what’s going on here. I’ve got this history lesson from you, but it’s still not telling me anything about this pn he has. I don’t even know who I am. How am I supposed to save a try?”

  The old man nodded in agreement. There was still much to expin. “After his wife died rather than losing faith in the world it actually strengthened his resolve to fix the world. I actually grew ed from how fanatical he had bee about seeing it out. However, he told me he wao free us from needing to sacrifice Kings. I believed that was a worthwhile goal, even if he drove himself to madness in search of its answer.”

  “What do you mean?” Yuki didn’t really uand how it could be so hard. There was a lot about how the Throne of Atntis worked, but it didn’t seem like something that should be impossible to create. Their power could do anything they wanted. They just o imagi. Why would it be difficult to do things differently? “’t you just create a new solution with our power?”

  “If it had been that simple the sed King would have do. Atntis requires our power to remain as it is, that is a fabsp; A fact that ’t be avoided. However, the ohing we’ve never been able to achieve through our power is artificially creating our power. It only ocaturally in humans. There is no substitute for the power we use. So back then, it was decided that using someone else’s power could keep it alive.

  “Your father decided that it shouldn’t be impossible. While through our power, we could achieve signifit teological advas it was never enough. However, the world was finally making signifit strides. So he went outside to search for the answer.”

  “Outside, you mean out of Atntis? How’s that possible, I thought you said he couldn’t leave.”

  “As I said, your father was unique in many ways. So powerful was he, he could travel across all of Atntis. But that’s just what the publiows. The reality is that he actually made many trips around the world in search of his dream. It was due to these long absehat the cil made their move, never questioning his motives.”

  “Damn, this guy sounds like he has almost god-like powers.” “However, as I said before, he would have lived longer, but special circumstances lead to him dying earlier than normal. The distance away from the Throrained him greatly, but he didn’t care. Eventually, he was no longer able to move as freely. His life signifitly shortened due to his insisten his dream.”

  Yuki dropped back down into his seat o Demosthenes. Atntis could have still had their King if he didn’t focus sly on achieving his goals. Eudokia could still have a father. None of what happened o be if he had just stayed. But then Yuki thought about what it meant. “So are you saying that he made a trip to Japan a my mother. Sounds pretty cliché to me.”

  “Nothing so simple or normal as that.”

  Sighing, Yuki dropped his head back to rest against the back of the benbsp; Through the leaves of the tree, he could see the sun. Realizing it was all just artificial, he wondered about the sun too. “Of course, nothing ever be simple. What’s my story?”

  “Sadly, he’s old me the whole story and what he left behind for me didn’t provide any more answers. What I do know will probably give you more questions than answers.”

  “Figures. Well it ’t be any worse than not knowing.”

  “We’ve refrained from telling you because it could be worse knowing the truth. There is another yer to the world that you aren’t aware of that you’re involved in.”

  “Just how ma civilizations are hiding out on this p?”

  Demosthenes shook his head. He recalled many of the errands the Ki him on in his deing years. The darkness of humanity that he witnessed made him wish he had been ignorant still. “It might be easier if it was something like that. What I tell you now I give with a warning.”

  ‘Ominous much?’ Even if Yuki acted glib about his warning, he still felt uneasy about learni another ruth. He didn’t know how much more of it he could handle. The world turned i wasn’t something to wish for necessarily.

  “Listen closely, because it’s a hat no one knows, but everyone is touched by. Their reach is that far and their threat that grave. The Komatsuzaki have their hands ihing across the world. There is nothing that they aren’t involved in. And the Komatsuzaki’s singur purpose is the research of our power through any means necessary to uand it.”

  “Komatsuzaki…” Naturally, Yuki never even heard of them. It was just something that he had to trust Demosthenes. He k ossible that he could be totally bullshitting him, but it made no se this point.

  While Yuki thought about what it meant and how it affected him, something popped into his mind. He recalled Eudokia's story about her time at the South Gate. “Do you remember a time when you went to the South Gate and Eudokia had captured a signifit number of intruders that looked lio some military?”

  Demosthenes’ eyes grew wide in surprise to hear Yuki bring it up. “I didn’t think she’d talk about her past to you. Yes, I remember it. It is as you’re thinking. She never knew, but the reason I went there was because those men worked for the Komatsuzaki. We never had any direct links to them. They’ve always been good about c up their tracks, even the soldiers weren’t fully briefed, just instructed oly what they o know. So interrogations got us nowhere, they know what our powers do. So they are very careful.”

  “I’m guessing yoing to tell me my father has ties to them. If they were researg our power then it would be perfect for him if he wao create it artificially as a substitute power source for the Throne. But you’ve isoted yourself here, how do they even know about your existence?”

  “That’s correbsp; The King actually discovered them when he was searg. He old me how he found them. I still don’t know how they know about us or how they did their researbsp; I just know of their methods.” Demosthenes fell silent for a moment. Something suddenly seemed to weigh on him even more than usual through the whole versation. “Human experimentation. As I uand it, many of their tests have been to try to recreate our power forcibly in normal humans. But they were all failures.”

  The further silence from the old man told Yuki enough to know of their fate. It really started to sound like one of his stories. A cssic case of an evil anization with nard for human life in search of the ao life or being god. Something silly and selfish as always. The results were always the same, is had to die. “You’re not going to tell me I’m one of their experiments that happeo ght and they are actually in seare even today because I’m the key to the puzzle.” That would just be too cliché, but given his options he was not sure which cliché was worse.

  Narrowing his eyes, he knew Yuki joked about it, but it still surprised him how quick to pick up on things he actually was. “You are not pletely correct, but not pletely wroher.”

  “What?! You ’t be serious!” Yuki jumped up out of the bend started poking around at the air. “Now I really know I’m dreaming or my life really is a manga, because this stuff just is impossible.”

  “You wao know the truth.”

  He turned around to see how serious the Atntean looked. The thought of it all made him sigh heavily. Yuki slumped over to the bend id back. “Alright, shoot out this horrible doujinshi storyline already.”

  “The truth as I uand it, your father knew his time was running out. All of his traveling quickly shortened his life. So he o ensure his dream didn’t die with him. He needed someoo carry on his dream, but that would also be powerful enough to keep Atntis alive until the solution was found. You are his answer.

  “The research done by the Komatsuzaki had hit a wall and so the King worked with them pnning to exploit their work. They created many experiments based on what he provided, but they also ended in failure. As a st measure, he had them create you through artificial means using his DNA and one of the Japanese researchers, a woman that worked closely with him.

  “Komatsuzaki saw the advantage of someohat could be as powerful as the King as a test subject, so they tried to sabotage the experiment to make it look like the child they created died. However, the King actually fooled them and made it look like the child really died ahe child in the care of someorusted, the Hayashis.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it still made him turn his head. “My parents knew my real father. They knew everything as well.”

  “They made a promise not to reveal any of this to you until you were old enough, unfortuhey both died before that could happen. And then the King died before he could tell you everything as well. After you were borried to hold on long enough, while putting his pns into pce, such as finding Eudokia.”

  “So the Komatsuzaki think I’m dead, but if I’m just geically engineered I’m not that useful to them.”

  “Officially, they accept that you died in the experiment. Unofficially, they’ve been trying to get you for years unsuccessfully, but I dealt with their schemes. But like you said, you are a valuable subject to them, but not the solution to their researbsp; So they seem to have given up trying to get you ba the st few years. But I wouldn’t trust them. You still represent something that they lost ahat they own. So I believe they will eventually e for you.”

  “Great, as if I need more people after me. At least they don’t want me dead.” Yuki stood up and stretched. Everything piled up on him making it hard to take in. He really did end up wishing that he didn’t know. Ignorant bliss was right. “So you got any more bombshells to drop while you’re on a roll?”

  “After everything is resolved in Atntis I have one final thing to give to you. As it is now it would only be an unnecessary burden. You have your friends to think about and you should focus on them rather than your father’s pns or Atntis’ future.”

  It actually surprised him a bit to hear Demosthenes not try to for agenda on him. Yuki walked towards the tree and leaned against it. “For being one of his biggest supporters, should you really be tellio ignore everything and just save my friends?”

  “It’s what he would say I believe. To him, family was always important. When those you care about are in danger you risk everything for them.”

  “sequences be damned huh? More unbeing advice from one of the most important people in Atntis.” It actually made Yuki grin a little. He worried so much about tiptoeing around the problem that it was a little encing to hear the straight ced oell him to go wild. “I don’t o be told to save them. I pnned on doing just that! Those bastards won’t have their way anymore!”