Chapter 1468: Suspicious, Enthusiastic and the Blushing Sword Beauty

Phei’s parents were not some distant curiosity buried within the Young Master’s childhood. Their deaths sat beneath too many of the events now surrounding him, one of the ugliest knots left in a history filled with people who had lied, hidden things and decided a young boy deserved ignorance more than truth.

Danny had been one of the remaining people Phei believed might carry answers regarding that accident.

Phei had specifically wanted him alive.

Now Danny was dead.

Hayashi dragged one hand slowly down his face. "How exactly am I supposed to convey that news?"

Ryuzen opened his mouth but nothing useful presented itself.

Hayashi gestured irritably toward an empty stretch of the chamber as though Phei might suddenly appear there simply to make the situation even more unpleasant. "’Young Master, excellent morning. Beautiful weather we’re having. By the way, the man you specifically wanted kept alive because he might possess information concerning the deaths of your parents has died while under our protection. Would you care for tea?’"

Ryuzen winced. "When you say it like that..."

Hayashi stopped pacing and stared at him. "How else would you like me to say it?"

A suspiciously bright voice came from beside the windows.

"Oh, I can help!"

Both men turned.

Yuzuki had suddenly become remarkably present.

The distant expression that followed her through most of the conversation vanished as though somebody had opened a curtain behind her eyes. She rose so quickly that the chair shifted several centimetres across the floor, while one hand instinctively straightened the clothes she had apparently forgotten existed several seconds earlier.

"I can go tell Young Master for you."

Silence filled the chamber.

Ryuzen and Hayashi stared at her.

Yuzuki, somehow, appeared unaware of how profoundly enthusiastic she had just sounded about volunteering to deliver terrible news.

"I mean, you’re obviously busy working through the Danny problem, and if the Empress is occupied with the Lins, then disturbing her again doesn’t make sense. I can find him and explain everything properly, and if he has questions I can return and ask you, or I could remain there while you figure out exactly what happened and then..."

Her words began slowing as she finally noticed Ryuzen’s expression.

Hayashi did not notice.

His thoughts remained trapped inside the actual catastrophe: "No."

Yuzuki blinked. "But Father, I can—"

"This is my responsibility."

Read the room old man Hayashi!

Hayashi’s agitation settled into decision with the speed of someone who had spent too many years carrying burdens to hand one away merely because it had become unpleasant. "We took Danny into our custody. I gave the orders surrounding his protection. Whatever occurred afterward answers to me before it answers to anyone else."

Yuzuki stepped forward. "Yes, but if you tell me exactly what happened, I can tell him. There’s no reason you personally need to go all the way there when I could simply—"

"No."

"Father."

Hayashi sighed. "Yuzuki." The finality beneath her name made her jaw tighten. "I will tell the Young Master myself."

"But Father, I—"

Space distorted around Hayashi.

He disappeared before she reached the end of the sentence.

"—can do it."

Yuzuki stared at the empty place where her father had been standing.

Her mouth remained slightly open.

She slowly closed it.

"Old bastard."

Ryuzen heard her and he was no longer thinking about Danny.

For several very interesting seconds, he simply studied his sister.

Yuzuki felt it before she looked toward him, she turned her head. "What?"

Ryuzen said nothing. His suspicion grew.

Yuzuki’s brows drew together: "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Still nothing.

The longer he stared, the more obviously uncomfortable she became:

"What?"

Ryuzen slowly leaned forward.

Yuzuki leaned back an equal amount. His eyes moved over her face with such exaggerated concentration that irritation began replacing unease.

"What are you doing?"

"Studying."

"Study something else, aho."

Ryuzen stepped closer and didn’t mind the moron insult from her.

Yuzuki’s eyes narrowed immediately. "Ryuzen."

His face suddenly transformed.

Realization arrived with all the grace of a man discovering buried treasure beneath his sister’s dignity.

"Something is fishy."

Yuzuki’s heart gave one deeply inconvenient beat.

"What are you talking about?"

Ryuzen came closer.

She stepped sideways: " Stop there manuke."

He followed.

Yuzuki’s hand drifted almost unconsciously toward the sword resting beside her chair.

Ryuzen pointed directly toward her face. "There!"

She froze. "What?"

"That."

"What?"

"Your face."

Yuzuki scowled. "I have always had one."

"It’s red."

Her stomach dropped.

"It is not."

"It absolutely is."

"You’re imagining things."

"You’re as red as a tomato... your ears are turning red! What’s this? You’re blushing!"

"I AM NOT IDIOT!"

Ryuzen’s eyes widened with the delighted horror of an older brother who had just realized the universe had placed ammunition in his hands capable of sustaining him for years.

"Oh, shit!"

Yuzuki felt her cheeks become warmer; the colour spread all the way to her ears, much to Ryuzen’s delight. Although Yuzuki looked ready to murder him, her increasingly crimson cheeks rather undermined the threat. Her embarrassment deepened, and the smug amusement on Ryuzen’s face suggested he was enjoying every second of it.

Ryuzen slowly pointed towards the empty space where their father had vanished, his expression changing as a rather delightful suspicion occurred to him. "Oh, my god you wanted to go see him!"

Yuzuki stared at him. "See who?"

His mouth opened, although whatever answer he had intended to give was briefly forgotten as an enormous grin began spreading across his face.

"The Young Master."

"There are many young masters."

"Really? That’s all you gonna say after you "heroic volunteering?"

"I was just volunteering to help."

"You never volunteer to help Father."

"I help Father all the time!"

Ryuzen laughed, thoroughly unconvinced, and the amusement on his face only deepened when Yuzuki’s cheeks acquired a richer shade of crimson. Her expression remained admirably indignant, but the warmth spreading beneath her skin was making a rather convincing argument against her innocence.

He stepped closer, evidently intending to examine this fascinating development, until Yuzuki planted a palm against his chest and shoved him back.

"What happened?" His men-hater sister was after all volunteering to meet one herself, enthusiastically so, even!

"Nothing happened."

"Where did the Goddess take you?"

Yuzuki’s expression hardened instantly. "None of your business."

Ryuzen pointed at her triumphantly. "There! You do that every single time. You’ve become insanely defensive lately whenever anybody asks where you went."

Yuzuki turned away from him, granting Ryuzen an excellent view of the crimson color spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. His grin disappeared for half a heartbeat beneath an expression of pure disbelief before returning twice as large, and judging by the delight illuminating his face, he had just discovered something he intended to torment his sister about for the foreseeable future.

"What happened, and why are you blushing?"

Yuzuki whipped back around so quickly that her hair swept over one shoulder. "I’m not blushing!"

"You are practically glowing!"

"I will kill you."

"Was it because of something about the Young Master? Something happened?"

Her fingers closed around the hilt of her sword.

Ryuzen immediately sprang backwards, already laughing because that reaction had answered considerably more than anything Yuzuki might have confessed. He had been teasing her partly for his own amusement, but the sudden appearance of a weapon suggested he had stumbled upon something far more entertaining than he had originally suspected.

"It was! Of course its the—"

"RYUZEN!"

"What did he do?"

"Nothing!"

"That sounded incredibly convincing."

"Nothing happened!"

And technically, infuriatingly, Yuzuki was telling the truth.

Phei had never kissed her, nor had he touched her in any remotely romantic manner.

He had arrived, accepted the arrogant challenge she offered him, knocked a Sky Sovereign unconscious with one restrained strike, and earlier he had filled several unbearable seconds of her existence with a Lust she still refused to examine too closely.

Nothing had happened.

Unfortunately, her body appeared to have developed its own interpretation of those events, and it was displaying that interpretation with an enthusiasm Yuzuki would have preferred to suppress.

The more Ryuzen questioned her, the hotter her cheeks became, until even the furious glare she directed at him seemed incapable of concealing what he had already noticed.

Her brother’s gaze travelled from her flushed face to the embarrassment blazing behind her furious eyes, then settled upon the sword she had managed to draw halfway from its sheath. He regarded the weapon for a moment before looking back at her, his expression acquiring the radiant satisfaction of someone who had just been handed an exceptionally valuable piece of information.

"Oh, this is fucking priceless."

Yuzuki’s blade came free.

Ryuzen ran!