In a far corner of the Underworld, the smoke of war still hangs like damp fog, and the earth is cracked like an old bowl waiting for mending. Blades are sheathed; everyone saves their strength like embers cupped in the hand.

Inside the Divine Ling Family, Clan Head Shinryo Akisuke sat with Yanbu Mineichiro of the Flamebu Family, two old trees scarred by lightning, talking of revival after the storm. Their defeat had pulled their hands out of the Underworld’s currents, so now they met, quiet as winter fields, to plan.

Mineichiro had barely settled, ready to speak, when the door banged open like a drum, and a teenage boy stormed in like a gust.

“Father, I have something to say!”

“Zou! I told you we have a guest today. How can you be so rude!” Akisuke’s voice snapped like ice as he reprimanded his son before the guest.

Only then did the boy notice the figure in the sitting room. Heat rushed to his face like dawn to snow. He bowed quickly. “I’m sorry, Uncle. I overstepped.”

“It’s Zou, isn’t it? Long time no see. It’s fine.” Yanbu Mineichiro’s tone softened like a breeze through bamboo. “Akisuke, he’s just a kid. Don’t mind it.”

“No. This kind of discourtesy is a taboo in the Divine Ling Family.” Akisuke’s words fell like stones.

“But, Father, I really need to say—”

“Enough. I know what you want to say. My answer is no.” His refusal was a blade drawn halfway, cold and final.

“But I really—”

“I said it already, Zou. Your engagement still stands.”

“But the other party is gone!”

“My decision won’t change.”

“Father!”

Watching the argument rise like steam, Yanbu Mineichiro weighed whether to step in. Shen Ling Zou had fought his son, Yanbu Junichi, and he’d never minded that clash of antlers; to him, strength is law, and the boy who dares to fight is worth respect. Of course, it helped that his own son had won; victory makes tolerance easy as spring rain.

Even so, this had gone far enough. As an elder, he should cut the knot.

“Pardon me. Let me say a few—”

A stranger’s voice cut through the room like a bell, stopping father and son in mid-heat.

Shen Ling Zou turned—and froze, like a deer catching moonlight.

“Uncle, I need a word with Zou. Excuse us.”

A young man of twenty stood there, short black hair neat as ink strokes, a handsome face with a smile perched at the lip like a bird on a branch. His air was gentle, a warm lamp rather than a cold blade.

“Yuuya!”

Recognition burst from Shen Ling Zou like a spark catching tinder.

“Oh, Yuuya. Long time.” Akisuke’s brows eased.

“Mm. Uncle, and Uncle Yanbu—long time. I was a handful when I was little and made trouble like a stray firecracker. Let me apologize for that.” His bow was smooth as flowing water.

“No need. I forgot that long ago,” Mineichiro said, voice easy as smoke.

“Thank you. I’m here to see Zou. Hope I’m not in the way.”

“No problem. Go.” Akisuke waved it off for Shitou Yuya’s sake, letting the cloud pass. “Zou, keep him company.”

Not wanting to linger and stir the embers, Shitou Yuya caught Shen Ling Zou’s arm and led him out. The door slid shut like a lid on a pot, and the little flare of conflict guttered out.

They stepped into the courtyard, where flowers and grasses dotted the ground like paint splashes, and the old Japanese lines of the house held the air steady like a calligrapher’s hand. Between them, the mood settled, warm as tea.

“Yuuya, when did you get here?” Shen Ling Zou’s voice carried happiness first, like sunlight before footsteps.

“I was passing through and thought I’d drop by,” Yuuya said lightly, a breeze across a pond. In truth, purpose burned under the calm, but the surname of the Four Pupils Clan opened these gates like an old key.

“It’s been so long. I missed this.”

“Yeah. Almost two years, right?” At twenty, Yuuya had always been half an older brother to seventeen-year-old Shen Ling Zou, steady as a taller tree in the same wind.

They’d met because of Shen Ling Zou’s engagement to the Four Pupils Clan. At twelve, Zou had met Shitou Yuya at a banquet, two boys like two sparrows on the same branch. Back then, Zou disliked him—because of the engagement, because he was family to his nominal fiancée. Yet time softened the edges like river stone; their bond didn’t sour but ripened, and in the end they were as close as blood.

To Shen Ling Zou, the unseen fiancée was a name on paper; Yuuya was the friend he could grasp like a warm shoulder. After the Four Pupils Clan’s upheaval two years ago, they saw each other less, but their bond held like a red string that never frayed.

“Zou, I heard about you,” Yuuya said, voice low as dusk. “You argued with your father because of it, didn’t you?”

“Eh?” The sound was a small splash.

“No need to hide it. I know.” His eyes were calm yet clear as winter water. “You prefer someone on the other side more than your fiancée.”

“!” Shen Ling Zou’s eyes widened, a deer startled in the thicket. Yuuya’s words skimmed the surface, but they touched the root.

He knew because he’d heard Akisuke’s table talk, smoke after dinner drifting with rumor. Knowing Zou’s nature like a map, Yuuya felt it was more than talk, so he came, feet quick as a messenger’s.

“I…” Heat and shame rose first; the words lagged like stones in the mouth.

“It’s fine. I don’t blame you,” Yuuya said. Understanding laid like a hand on a restless back. Still, a small dimness hid in his gaze, the shadow of a wish once held—that Zou might become family.

“I’m sorry, I…” The apology tumbled out like a fallen cup.

“Zou, it’s fine. Pretend I never said it.”

“No, I want to say it. I’m… sorry. I went and fell for someone who doesn’t even like me.” The confession hung like rain in the air.

The one Shen Ling Zou liked stood with the enemy. That surprised like thunder on a clear day, but Yuuya would respect his choice. His father would not.

Somehow, Shinryo Akisuke had caught wind of an improper affection, and he’d raged in private, scolding hard as a lash. Rumors flew like startled sparrows, and by then they had pecked at Yuuya’s window too.

“Yuuya, I owe your sister an apology.” Shen Ling Zou bent in a deep bow, heavy as a stone placed on the ground, his regret clear as rain.

Yuuya could have punched him; a sharp pain might have been easier than this soft ache. Beyond friend, Yuuya was also the brother of the nominal fiancée—two weights on the same scale, enough to anchor a bow.

“I can’t decide your heart,” Yuuya said, voice even as a quiet road. “You don’t like my sister; I can’t change that. You’ve been like this from the start—no spark for her. I prepared myself for it long ago. Don’t carry it like a millstone.”

“But I—”

“I’m just grieving for my reckless sister, nothing more,” he said, looking up at the sky, eyes drifting like kites toward the past. “No one can force their other half, right?”

The direct bloodline of the Clan Head is a pillar in any house. In the Divine Ling Family, aside from Shen Ling Zou, no other bloodline branch remained, a lone torch in a long night.

The Flamebu Family had many direct bloodlines, siblings enough to fill a circle, from twenty-somethings to grade-schoolers, a true big family. Yet theirs was the house that had lost the most direct blood over the years; names vanished like leaves in a flood.

The Four Pupils Clan had only a few direct bloodlines: Shitou Yuya, and the girl who was Shen Ling Zou’s fiancée in name. A Clan Head’s blood is a treasure, yet even the Four Pupils Clan had cast one out.

Yuuya’s sister had been eliminated by the main house two years ago. She fled like a bird from a snare, then vanished, life or death unknown, her trail like footprints washed from sand. Yuuya refused to believe she’d died, so he held the engagement fast like a knot in a rope—and that stubborn knot tightened everything we see today.

Now it seemed needless. A bitter smile tugged at Yuuya’s mouth like a cracked reed. He’d annul it another day.

“Zou, let me change the subject.” His tone shifted like a wind turning.

“Yuuya…”

“This is serious,” he said, eyes sharpening like flint. “The Underworld hasn’t settled. Fights are stirring like hornets in a shaken nest.”

“I know your Clan Head lost in the last war,” he went on, palms open like he was showing empty hands. “Your family’s unsteady. I won’t drag your family into it. This is a personal ask. I want you to join.”

“Join what? The Underworld struggle?”

“That’s right. The Underworld’s tipping toward chaos. If this keeps up, the map will tear. I’ve heard the Church is about to move.”

“They plan to hit us while we’re down?” Shen Ling Zou’s voice cooled like steel in water.

“Very likely. And the faction formed by Flamebu bloodlines who were cast off is writhing awake too. The Flamebu young master may wade in. I bet the Magic Institution won’t sit still either.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the one you care about might join this fight. It’s only a maybe.” He held Zou’s gaze like a lantern. “And I might find a trail of my missing sister. In short, it helps us both.”

He’d laid out his plan: pull Shen Ling Zou into a struggle that would shape the Underworld like a river carving stone. The stakes were not small; he needed a blade he could trust.

As Shen Ling Zou weighed it, a woman’s voice came from behind, light as bells, sharp as a pin. “What are you talking about?”

“!” He turned and saw a woman standing there, a playful smile tucked at the corner of her lips like a fan half open. His heart skipped like a stone.

“You’re…!”

“Long time no see, Zou.” She smiled, warmth like spring against the face.

“You’re here too, Rin.” Yuuya grinned in greeting.

“Mm. Someone had me worried, so I came,” she said, eyes flicking to him like bright fish. “Right, Yuuya?”

“Uh… okay, let’s not make it about me.”

“Kananin Rin…” Shen Ling Zou spoke her name without thinking, looking up now where he once looked level. Years had stretched a ladder between them.

She was the current head of the Kananin Family, the youngest of the seven Clan Heads, a fresh banner raised only a year ago. A new moon among old stars.

…

While the scene unfolded in the Divine Ling home, far away in the main house, Asagi Renka had finished talks with her parents and was sketching a new plan, brush steady as a heron’s leg. Mizuki had already agreed to her request; only one person remained, and her hours were all needles.

The phone rang, a silver bell in a quiet room.

Lian Hua glanced at the caller ID. Surprise flared, then a smile bloomed, a petal-soft charm that matched her face. “Hey. Miss me?”

“You’re still the same. And you know that won’t work on me.”

A girl’s voice chimed on the other end—the one Lian Hua knew best. Joy lifted in her chest like a paper lantern catching wind.

“Come on, don’t say that—I’m totally proper, okay~”

“Proper? Then you wouldn’t be a butterfly flirting from flower to flower. When will you actually stick to one girl?”

A cold laugh slid through the line, frost on glass.

“Ara, are you… jealous~”

“Sorry to disappoint. My heart’s still water, not vinegar.”

“Tch, no fun at all. Back then you clung to me like a shadow at dusk~”

“Stop hauling out childhood. Let the old days sleep.”

“So cruel—winter wind right in my face~”

“Do I need to be tender with you? No—no soft petals for you.”

The voice kept up its cutting yet polished critique, a blade wrapped in silk—so familiar to Lian Hua.

“Lian Hua, I’ve got something to tell you. Come out for a bit.”

Lian Hua already knew what she meant, even without the words—like recognizing a shape by its shadow.

It was probably about her, threads tugging back to the knot.

Her mood tightened into seriousness, yet a crescent smile stayed, like the moon behind thin cloud.

“Then, the usual place, Aya.”

The spark of the incident had already caught.