The crowd was still filtering out of the cathedral when Ethan felt the weight in his chest settle like a stone. Aya had leaned sleepily against Hana's side, her ribbon slightly undone. Kaito whispered something to a passing elder, bowing slightly. The congregation moved slowly, as though time itself was reluctant to resume. But Ethan's thoughts weren't with them anymore.
His eyes kept drifting back toward the altar—toward the ember basin where the offerings had turned to ash. Somewhere in that flame, a piece of his family had burned. A memory. A moment. That photograph.
He told them he needed a moment.
"I'll catch up," he said, voice steady but quiet.
Hana gave him a knowing nod. "Don't take long."
Kaito glanced toward him, his hand resting briefly on Ethan's shoulder before guiding Aya down the winding steps of the courtyard. As their figures disappeared into the flow of villagers, Ethan stood alone at the cathedral's base. A silence heavier than reverence settled around him. Not the sacred hush of worship—but something more personal. Something unfinished.
He turned and stepped back into the cathedral.
---
The light through the blade-slit windows had thinned, casting sharp shadows across the empty pews. Incense still lingered in the air—less now, as if the building exhaled the last breath of ritual. The altar stood unchanged, obsidian steps catching glints of fading sunlight. The ember basin was still warm, its heat gentle but final.
Ethan approached slowly.
He didn't know what he hoped to find. Maybe the photograph had survived—partially. Maybe a corner had escaped the flame. He crouched beside the basin, eyes narrowing as he searched the grey remnants. Only ash. Curled flecks. Nothing more.
His fingers hovered over the basin's edge when a voice behind him, soft as a whisper yet unmistakably present, broke the quiet.
"You hoped the flame would spare it?"
---
Ethan spun around.
The man stood no more than four meters away—close enough to hear, close enough to strike. He hadn't made a sound, no creak of wood or footstep on stone. Just there, suddenly, as if the shadows had decided to speak.
He was tall, dressed in black too refined for any commoner but not formal like the Flamebearers. A long coat framed his frame, unfastened and weightless despite the absence of wind. His golden-blond hair fell in strands just above his sharp, sculpted features, and his eyes—icy blue, almost glass-like—seemed to drink in Ethan's entire presence.
Not a glow. Not a flicker.
But something in him felt… wrong.
Eerie.
Godlike.
And wholly out of place.
---
Ethan's body stiffened.
"You—" He recognized him. From the road back from the picnic. One of the figures with the Church's foreign envoy. He hadn't said a word then. Had barely looked their way.
"What do you want?" Ethan demanded, rising to his feet. His voice echoed off stone, far too loud in the hollow cathedral.
The man didn't blink. He stepped closer. Just one step.
"You looked so serious during the offering," he said. "A little boy trying to play the role of man."
Ethan's fists clenched. "Who are you?"
Another step. That unblinking gaze locked onto him like it could pierce flesh.
"Funny," the man said, "you bow with them… burn with them… walk like one of them."
He tilted his head.
"But you're not theirs."
Ethan's breath caught.
"What did you just say?"
The man smiled, and it was the kind of smile that made your blood forget how to move.
"I said you're adopted."
---
The words didn't hit all at once. They landed like quiet cracks forming in stained glass—impossible at first, then too obvious to deny.
Ethan didn't respond right away.
His mind flailed backward—memories of Hana brushing his hair, of Kaito lifting him onto his shoulders, of Aya clinging to him in the rain. Every moment felt real. Felt lived. How could it be anything else?
And yet…
His eyes narrowed. "You're lying."
"I'm not."
Ethan's breath trembled, sharp and shallow.
He didn't speak. Couldn't. His thoughts raced—trying to find the seam, the crack, the moment that would make this not true. But everything felt too sudden, too raw.
His hands trembled. A silent heat rose in his chest. This man—this stranger—thought he could just say something like that and walk away?
Ethan moved.
---
He surged forward, a sudden burst of motion born from something deeper than rage—from panic. From the need to silence this intruder before the words took root. His arm swung toward the man's jaw, knuckles tight, breath held.
But the man wasn't there.
The pew beside Ethan creaked.
Ethan blinked—and the man was sitting casually three rows down, one leg crossed over the other, resting an arm on the pew's back like he'd always been there.
"What—?" Ethan staggered, turning mid-stride. He hadn't seen him move. Hadn't even felt the air shift. One moment the stranger had been within reach. The next—impossibly—he was gone.
"What the hell are you?"
The man chuckled softly. "You're quick to swing. That's good. You'll need it."
Ethan stared at him, heart pounding, cold sweat building along his neck. He'd never seen anyone move like that. Not even the fastest men in town—not even the martial instructors.
It wasn't speed.
It was impossibility.
Ethan tried to steady his breath, but his body wouldn't listen. The man's calm—his poise—was unnatural. Not just eerie. Wrong. There was no sign of magic, no glow, no sound. But Ethan knew in his bones that something stood in front of him that should not be.
He clenched his fists again.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, his voice low, the anger now trembling beneath layers of confusion and pain.
The man smiled faintly, as though the question amused him more than it should. His eyes never left Ethan—not blinking, not shifting.
"You looked for something in the ashes," the man said, almost kindly. "And found nothing. That's how it begins."
Ethan flinched at the words. How it begins? What was beginning?
"I don't know who you are," Ethan said, stepping forward slowly now, deliberate. "But if you ever talk about my family again—"
"You'll swing again?" the man interrupted smoothly. "Predictable. But good. Anger is easier than truth."
Ethan froze, teeth gritted. "You think you know the truth?"
The man tilted his head, his pale gold hair catching the thin light like a blade's edge.
"I know you're asking yourself a question now. One you can't admit out loud. One that's louder than anything your parents have ever said."
He leaned forward, eyes glittering.
"If I'm not theirs… then who am I?"
Ethan staggered back a step. The words didn't cut like knives—they hollowed. Like something was being scooped from inside him, and nothing was left to fill it.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "No. I don't care what you say. They're my family."
"They raised you," the man said with a shrug. "Doesn't make them your blood."
The word blood hit like a hammer.
And something cracked.
Ethan roared—not with reason, but with raw instinct—and lunged forward again, not for a punch, but to tackle the man outright. To grab him. Shake the lies from his throat.
But again, he wasn't there.
This time Ethan turned mid-lunge—but too late.
The man now stood behind the altar, impossibly fast, framed by the massive obsidian wall carved with the Seven Gates. His figure, shadowed against the faint golden glow, looked almost sculpted—like something etched into time rather than born of it.
"I could tell you more," the man said, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeve. "But it's more fun to let you spiral on your own. Besides…"
He leaned slightly forward.
"…you wouldn't believe me yet."
Ethan's body was trembling—not from fear, not exactly. But from something far colder: a fracture inside the truth he had always known. That photo he'd burned—the ribbon, the drawing, the things his family gave up—all real. But now… all questioned.
"I don't need to believe you," Ethan said, voice cracking. "You're no one."
The man raised an eyebrow, as if disappointed. Then, after a pause, he gave the first flicker of something deeper.
"…You'll remember this moment," he said. "Long after you forget my face."
And with that, he turned and walked calmly down the side aisle.
Ethan blinked once—and by the time he looked again, the man was gone.
No sound.
No trace.
Only the faint warmth of the ember basin remained.
And a question Ethan could no longer unthink.
"If I'm not theirs… who am I?"
That was the moment his misfortune and suffering began.