Henri's muttered "What?" carried more than mere confusion—it was a dam holding back a flood of barely contained fury.
The veins at his temples pulsed, a cartography of rising anger that no smirk could mask.
"An unwritten skill?" Alphonse's voice dropped to a low, concerned murmur as he glanced at the Marquis.
The boy—no, the heir—avoided his father's gaze, but they both knew the truth.
An unwritten skill was both a death sentence and a lifeline—a cruel lottery in a world where Skills dictated survival.
Each family head understood the brutal calculus: the wrong skill could transform a promising heir into a corpse faster than a breath.
Leonardo struggled to piece together the fragments of information. "Isn't an extra skill good?" he asked.
But then he realized—based on everything he knew about Rasvian energy and how skills tie to a person—having an unwritten skill you don't need was like being a fisherman with the ability to farm. It's useful, sure, but you don't farm—so what's the point? There goes another slot.
Elara's response cut through his thoughts. "It's a double-edged sword that could slice through your entire future."
"Figured," he replied, watching the table as fog shaped around them.
Elara leaned forward, her voice clearer and more assertive than his. "Imagine fire manipulation as your attachment skill, and you're suddenly granted ice conjuring. Sounds powerful, right? But mastering one skill is a lifetime's work. Two fundamentally opposed skills?" She shook her head. "That's a path to mediocrity—or worse."
Anna sighed seeming to not agree with it but remained silent.
The background hummed with added tension. A knight in mismatched armor shifted uncomfortably.
"It's hot in this armor," they complained—a moment of petulance that seemed wildly out of place.
Then everything changed.
Takashiro Ryuji approached, his sword gleaming with a promise of violence. The room seemed to hold its breath, the air growing razor-thin with anticipation.
"Rule 1: No outside help from humans," a disembodied voice announced. "Break it, and you rot from the inside out."
The rules were simple. Brutal. Absolute.
The fog seemed to wrap around Ryuji, shielding him from others' gazes, but the aura he exuded pulsed with malice.
When Ryuji drew his sword and called out, "Itto-Ryu," the world seemed to fracture.
His father, Kokoro, met his gaze with a chilling detachment.
"I was tired of living anyway," he said—a statement that was both surrender and challenge.
The katana fell.
Kokoro's head rolled across the floor, a grotesque punctuation to years of unspoken truth.
Blood pooled around the discarded armor—a dark testament to a relationship burned down to its most primal core.
"Ah... I actually killed him," Ryuji muttered.
"Rule 2: Killing is allowed," the voice declared, almost playful in its indifference.
Henri stared, his world recalibrating around this sudden, violent act.
Kokoro—a rival, an enemy, was simply gone. Eliminated with the same casual efficiency one might swat a fly.
The helmet. the kabuto, lay separated from its owner. Thirty-two iron plates, once a protective fortress, now just a hollow shell.
The shikoro's neck guard, the mabisashi's visor, the maedate's dragon coiled around—all rendered meaningless in a single, decisive moment.
Ryuji cleaned his blade, each movement deliberate.
"He wasn't fit anyway," he said, as if discussing nothing more consequential than a disappointing meal.
The heads of the families sat in stunned silence.
This was more than a death.
This was a recalibration of power—a violent inheritance passed from father to son with the swing of a blade.
The quest had begun.