Unspoken Bonds
Ruyi directed the transport driver to drop them off three blocks away from the primary police barricade surrounding Rion’s school district.
She had deliberately arranged to meet her father and uncle near a quiet, residential alleyway rather than at the crowded staging grounds. Pushing through the main gates meant running a gauntlet of frantic, sobbing parents desperately pleading with responders for any news of their missing children. Ruyi had no desire to be cornered by grief-stricken neighbors asking if she had seen their sons or daughters inside the glasshouse.
For the same reason, Ruyi ensured Leo was handed off to his parents in the secluded parking lot of a closed convenience store nearby.
Leo had whined quietly on the way over, utterly confused as to why they were sneaking around side streets instead of meeting his family at the official reunion tent, but he obeyed Ruyi’s calm, firm instructions without argument. The moment his mother saw him limping into the lot, she burst into tears, rushing forward to pull him into a suffocating hug while his father tightly grasped his shoulders.
"The responders said you were brought out from the inner sector..." Leo’s mother wept, wiping her eyes as she looked at Ruyi with profound gratitude. "Thank you... thank you so much for bringing our boy back to us."
"It was nothing more than good fortune," Ruyi dismissed smoothly, her tone polite but distant. "I happened to be hiding near the commercial shops when the path cleared, and I found him on my way out."
She didn't know how to properly respond to the raw, suffocating weight of their sorrow and relief. She simply bowed her head slightly, stepping back as Leo's father squeezed her hand in tearful thanks.
A few minutes later, down a quiet side street lined with residential fences, Ruyi spotted two familiar figures pacing back and forth under a flickering streetlight.
Her father, an older man with silvering hair and tired eyes, froze the moment he saw his children walking toward him. Without a word, he rushed forward and pulled both Rion and Ruyi into a tight, trembling embrace. He held them so fiercely that Ruyi could feel the rapid, frantic beat of his heart against her shoulder.
"You left your mother alone," her father choked out, his voice raspy with suppressed emotion as he finally pulled back to look at Ruyi. "She was out of her mind with worry."
"Aunt and Kael are with her," Ruyi replied, her voice softening slightly. "I needed to see you, Father. I needed to know Rion was safe."
Neither sibling offered any details about how Ruyi had managed to navigate a Class-2 danger zone to pull her brother out. They offered just enough fragmented, surface-level information to ease their father's panic, carefully omitting the blood, the shattered spears, and the terrifying beasts.
Their uncle stepped forward, patting Rion’s back with a heavy, relieved hand. "Let's all head back home. Lia must be terrified sitting by that phone."
Neither of the older men pestered the siblings for a play-by-play of the disaster. They assumed the quiet, guarded demeanor of both Ruyi and Rion was the result of deep trauma—a natural, lingering shock from barely escaping a horrific monster breach—and agreed that the children needed time and space before reliving the incident.
When they finally arrived back at the family apartment, the front door flew open before Ruyi could even insert her key.
Their mother, Lia, stood in the entryway, her eyes red and swollen. The moment she saw her son and daughter standing on the threshold, a breathless sob broke from her lips. She wrapped her arms around both of them, burying her face into Rion's shoulder as she wept hysterically, muttering prayers of thanks into the quiet hall.
Standing in the shadow of the living room doorway, watching the tearful reunion with a critical, razor-sharp gaze, was Ruyi’s older cousin, Kael.
While Lia fussed over Rion, pulling him toward the kitchen to check his minor scratches and force warm tea down his throat, Kael’s dark eyes locked onto Ruyi. He took in her dusty jacket, the faint smear of dried monster blood near her collar, and the total, chilling absence of fear in her posture. He showed clear relief that she was unharmed, but there was an underlying suspicion in his eyes that made it clear he wasn't letting her off the hook.
An opportunity came an hour later, after their mother had finally been coaxed into her bedroom to rest, exhausted from hours of frantic panic.
Kael caught Ruyi in the dark hallway as she was heading toward the balcony. He grabbed her sleeve gently, nudging open the door to the small home office and gesturing for her to step inside. He clicked the door shut behind them, locking it with a quiet click.
"Alright," Kael whispered, leaning his hip against the wooden desk and crossing his arms. "Out with it."
Ruyi let out a small, tired sigh. She offered him a watered-down, scrubbed version of the story—the exact same cover story she had fed Officer Mark and Investigator Vance about hiding near the commercial shops near the park border.
Kael stared at her for three long seconds, his face completely unreadable. Then, he let out a harsh, mocking scoff.
"Bullshit," Kael spat dryly. "The distance from where you were dropped off to the commercial district? As if you just 'stumbled' through a Class-2 zone on foot in that timeframe." He leaned in closer, his dark eyes searching every inch of her impassive face. "You awakened."
It wasn't a question. It was a cold, guaranteed statement of fact.
He scanned her arms, her neck, her stance, looking for any sign of an official Guild registration band, a mana-tracking ring, or a diagnostic tag. He found nothing.
"An unregistered awakened," Kael concluded quietly, his eyes narrowing. "How?"
Ruyi stared back at her cousin, her amethyst eyes cold and unblinking. "I was too busy worrying about my mother and Rion to care about guild paperwork. But looking at you right now... it seems you have awakened too. Maybe even before me?"
Kael went rigid for a fraction of a second, then slumped back against the desk with a long, defeated sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck, a rueful smirk touching his lips.
"Busted," Kael muttered softly. "Yeah. I awakened. About three weeks ago."
"And you didn't register either," Ruyi noted.
"Are you kidding? And get drafted into a vanguard unit to fight spatial horrors for minimum Guild stipend?" Kael shuddered. "No thanks. I like my quiet life."
Ruyi tilted her head. "How did it happen?"
Kael’s playful demeanor faded, replaced by a dark, lingering shadow of fear. "A near-death experience. Three weeks ago, I was driving back from the warehouse district late at night when a stray E-rank portal tore open over the highway overpass. A piece of falling concrete crushed the hood of my car, and an Iron-Claw beast tossed the vehicle over the guardrail. I was falling forty feet toward a rocky riverbed. I thought I was dead."
He took a deep breath, looking down at his palm. "Right before impact, my mind just... snapped. I felt this weird, microscopic pull in the air around me. Instinct took over. I anchored an invisible spatial thread from the frame of the falling car to the top of the steel bridge girder behind me."
Kael stretched out two fingers, demonstrating a faint, snapping motion. "It wasn't an explosive shield or a flashy blast. It was an invisible Spatial Tether—an anchored distortion. It pulled back against the car's falling momentum just enough to slow my descent from a fatal crash to a rough bump. The vehicle smashed into the water, but I walked out with just a bruised collarbone."
He looked up at Ruyi, his tone dropping into a serious whisper as he explained his ability in detail.
"It's completely undetectable," Kael explained. "It doesn't project energy outward. It anchors an invisible thread of void-space directly onto a target, object, or point in space. I can subtly manipulate weight, momentum, friction, or position without producing any outward mana signatures, light, or sound. When the Guild responders arrived at the crash site to clear the stray beast, I played the part of a terrified, lucky survivor who happened to survive a bad car drop. Their mana sensors didn't pick up a single ping from me."
Ruyi listened intently, filing away the mechanics of his Spatial Tether. It was a remarkably clever, passive sub-type of spatial manipulation—ideal for staying hidden while secretly controlling the battlefield.
"Rion also awakened," Ruyi informed him quietly.
Kael froze, his eyes widening in complete shock. "Wait... seriously?! Rion too?!"
Ruyi gave a firm, quiet nod. "A defensive barrier. He manifested it inside the glasshouse when a beast cornered him."
Kael leaned back, staring at the ceiling in absolute disbelief. "Three of us in one family? You, me, and Rion? Do you think there are other relatives who have it as well?"
"The three of us have something crucial in common," Ruyi reasoned, her voice low. "A near-death experience. That seems to be the trigger for our bloodline. So if we want to find out if anyone else in the family has it, we just have to ask the relatives who have survived a life-threatening trauma."
Kael let out a bitter, quiet chuckle, shaking his head. "It's strange, isn't it? Is awakening through sheer terror a common thing across the city?"
"It happens," Ruyi said smoothly, her eyes darkening slightly as she thought of the cold, sterile diagnostic rooms at the Guild facility. "Though I don't know if we are lucky or not to awaken under such horrible circumstances... unlike those wealthy guild scions who manage to awaken in a peaceful, controlled environment with mana-cores and tutors."
Kael sighed heavily, crossing his arms as he looked at his cousin with a mixture of dark humor and shared understanding.
"Truly enviable," Kael muttered softly. "Those rich kids don't know how good they have it."