Before he even realized it, the visions playing out before Kei’s eyes had drawn to a close.
He remained standing motionless within the hazy expanse. The forest stretching out beneath the moonlight, the leaves sparkling like stars in the night sky, and the silhouette of Julius pulling him into his embrace had all vanished. Only an empty, hollow silence remained, a place devoid of wind, sound, or anything else for him to cling onto.
"Father..."
A murmured whisper slipped past his lips.
Kei slowly raised a hand to his face.
His fingertips brushed against a cold, wet streak. Tears had begun streaming down at some point, tracing a path down his cheeks and drenching his chin. He stared at the droplets on his hand, acting in a daze as though they belonged to someone else entirely.
He couldn’t clearly recall when he had started crying.
Perhaps it was when Julius bent down to press a kiss upon his forehead. Or perhaps it was when that man declared that regardless of the cost, he had never once regretted saving his son.
My Son.
Those two simple words alone made Kei’s chest ache fiercely.
He had lived for far too long under the conviction that he had no family whatsoever. The mages within the Magic Tower used to tell him he was an abandoned child, a nuisance no one wanted to claim. Hearing it repeatedly, he had gradually come to believe it, too. By the time he reached adulthood, Kei no longer harbored any expectations of anyone ever returning to search for him.
And yet, Julius had done precisely that.
He defied time itself, paying a horrifying personal price, purely to ferry him back. Even though Kei retained zero memories of him, and even though he might never truly know who he was, Julius had still chosen to save him.
Kei understood full well that Julius had sacrificed his very self simply to grant Kei a healthy, illness-free body.
A choked breath caught in his throat.
"Keep watching. Don’t stop. There is still much more I wish to show you."
The voice rang out beside him, gentle, yet brooking no room for Kei to cower or escape.
Startled, Kei whipped his head around. A tiny silhouette drifted leisurely over, halting directly level with his line of sight. Her emerald locks swayed within the hazy luminescence, alongside her crystal-clear eyes of the same hue, deep and profound as though having witnessed countless seasons of leaves falling only to sprout anew.
Kei stared at the young girl in a daze.
"Little girl... are you the Tree of Life?"
The gentleness vanished from her features in an instant.
The Tree of Life glared at him. Concentrated emerald natural energy converged mid-air, transforming into a large hand that struck Kei squarely across the back.
*Thwack!*
He lurched violently forward, nearly losing his footing mid-air.
"I am practically half a mother to you, you brat! How dare you treat me like a child?!" She raised her hands, pointing an accusatory finger right at his face. "My appearance cannot change, understand?! Measured by human lifespans, I have lived for hundreds of thousands of years!"
Dumbfounded, Kei hurriedly bowed his head. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you..."
"You’re still calling me a little girl?!"
"I apologize... Lady Tree of Life."
"That’s much better."
She continued her reprimand unabated.
Ranging from Kei lacking any judge of character to how dare he let the one who nurtured him refer to her as a little girl, before reminding him that her age made her the ancestor of his ancestors’ ancestors. Kei stood silently, offering nods of acknowledgement from time to time.
He had no earthly idea how to explain himself.
The Tree of Life before him genuinely looked small enough to make one instinctively want to reach out and cradle her, yet her awe-inspiring presence bore zero resemblance to a child.
Not until she finally deigned to fall silent did the void around them grow quiet once more.
The Tree of Life let out a soft sigh. Floating right up to Kei’s side, she patted his head gently.
"Are you feeling terribly aggrieved, Kei?"
Kei froze.
"Julius did that purely because he wanted to save you. He had no other choice left."
He pressed his lips tight together. The bridge of his nose stung fiercely, and his throat constricted. Every single word uttered by the Tree of Life struck the deepest, most vulnerable corner of his heart, a place he had spent years trying to bury beneath dust.
Yet Kei didn’t feel wronged, nor did he feel any anger.
He felt an overwhelming wave of joy.
That smoldering happiness rippled outward inside his chest, swelling to such a magnitude he had no idea what to do with it.
"As it turns out, there was someone in this world who loved me. As it turns out, I once had a father, a father who held me close, who worried over me, and who was willing to trade away everything just to keep me alive."
He wasn’t an abandoned child, contrary to what the mages in the Magic Tower claimed.
At the very least, not within Julius’s heart.
Kei lowered his head, desperately fighting to suppress a sob. Yet tears continued dripping onto the back of his hand, drop by solitary drop.
He had once convinced himself he didn’t care to know who his parents were, since knowing wouldn’t change a thing anyway. What was lost could never return, and the past could never be rewritten.
Yet he had been dead wrong.
Simply realizing that someone had once loved him was enough to cause this much agonizing pain in his heart.
The Tree of Life didn’t rush him. She simply stroked his hair soothingly, granting him a moment to cry his heart out. Within that silent expanse, that gentle touch reminded Kei of Julius’s hand stroking his cheek back within his memories. One man had been unable to stay by his side, while the other remained right here; both had bestowed upon him a tenderness he had never dared dream of receiving.
After a long beat, the Tree of Life finally spoke up. Her voice dropped low, entirely stripped of its previous banter.
"However, our current situation is far from stable, Kei."
Kei lifted his head. Tear droplets still clung to his eyelashes.
"Right now is the moment you must strive to rouse Julius. I am reaching the limit of how much longer I can protect him."
The joy that had just blossomed within Kei’s chest froze solid in an instant.
He clutched the edge of the Tree of Life’s robes, gripping so tightly his knuckles turned white and shook violently.
"What do you mean by that?" Kei stared straight into her eyes, absolute panic bleeding into his tone. "What on earth has happened?"