*Saturday morning*
Felix had barely finished brewing coffee when the doorbell rang.
"Wasn’t expecting anyone."
Ding-dong.
He sighed, set his mug down, and opened the door.
His mother stood on the other side: Lucia Valerius. Jet-black hair framed her shoulders, striking light-blue eyes cutting through him with the same lethal precision she had wielded across decades on the front lines.
Flanking her was his father, Cassius, his dark hair greying at the temples, broad-shouldered and carrying an identical gaze honed by years of dungeon raids.
They took one look at him. Then at each other.
"Stand still," Lucia ordered.
"What?"
"Stand still."
Her hand clamped down onto his shoulder before he could protest. Cassius was already circling his blind side.
"Turn around."
"Why?"
"Turn."
Knowing better than to resist a frontline vanguard and a veteran combatant, Felix raised his hands and rotated in place.
His mother prodded his clavicle, traced the ribs that had only recently knit back together, and checked his wrists. His father conducted a clinical physical inventory from behind.
"Any residual pain?"
"No."
"Migraines?"
"No."
"Equilibrium issues? Nausea?"
"No, and no."
"Insomnia?"
"Occasionally."
Lucia’s brow furrowed into an immediate, severe line. "How many hours?"
"Mom."
"How many, Felix?"
"Enough to function."
She stared him down until he raised both hands in surrender. "I’m a healer. Remember? That’s the job."
Neither of them yielded an inch. "We are aware," his father replied dryly.
"Then why are you inspecting me like I just crawled off a battlefield?"
His mother gave him a flat look.
"Because you did."
He didn’t have a comeback for that one.
The interrogation ran another hour past that.
They wanted every detail about the injury, and Felix gave them the sanitized cut: a dangerous monster, an unexpected encounter, some injuries, a full recovery.
He left out the words peak S-rank boss, nearly died, and unconscious for four days, on the theory that if they got the real version, they would kick down the doors of the Hunter Association headquarters by noon, and Felix preferred the building intact.
His father eventually settled onto the couch.
"So. How’s the rehabilitation program?"
"Interesting."
His mother perked up immediately. "Are you enjoying it?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
"And the prisoner?"
"She’s progressing."
His father studied him a moment too long.
"You’re taking this seriously."
"It’s the job."
"You’ve always been terrible at admitting when you actually care about something,"
his mother said, smiling, and Felix pointed at the kitchen with the exaggerated urgency of a man escaping a trap.
"Anyone want coffee?"
"You’re changing the subject."
"Yes."
She laughed anyway.
The rest of the day went by faster than he expected — his brother, his sister, his sister-in-law’s pregnancy, his father’s latest expedition, his mother’s running complaints about the family business.
By late afternoon Felix realized, somewhat to his own surprise, that he’d missed this.
His parents were loud, nosy, overprotective, occasionally unbearable but the apartment felt less empty with them in it.
Dinner that evening was at a crowded restaurant, and Felix had barely sat down before his mother started scanning the room.
"There."
"What?"
"That girl."
"Mom."
"She’s pretty."
"Please stop."
"That one, then?"
"No."
"Her?"
"Mom."
His father quietly drank his water, wisely staying out of it. "You need to start looking," Lucia said.
"I’m looking at the menu."
"That’s not what I meant, and you know it."
Felix was halfway through composing a diversion when he spotted someone familiar across the room: Ryan, seated near the far wall, and a slow grin spread across his face.
"Well, well."
Ryan froze mid-bite.
Felix raised a hand. "Ryan!"
The color drained out of Ryan’s face on the spot. Beside him sat a young woman who looked from Felix to Ryan and back, clearly putting something together.
Ryan mouthed a single word across the room: Don’t.
Felix stood up instead. "You didn’t tell us you had a girlfriend!"
"Felix," Ryan hissed, with real desperation, but it was already too late, Lucia was beaming.
"Bring them over here."
Ryan looked like he was actively praying for the floor to open. His girlfriend, for her part, was laughing. "Is he always like this?"
"Yes," Felix said immediately.
Ryan groaned into his hands. Somewhere in the restaurant, at least three phones came out, and by the time dinner ended the entire team had apparently already heard.
Back at his apartment that night, Felix had barely gotten his jacket off when his communicator chimed. Aria.
[Aria: Free tomorrow?]
[Felix: Depends.]
[Aria: I want to spar.]
His eyes lit up before the next message even finished loading.
[Aria: Association training grounds. Tomorrow morning. We’re both Ultra III now. Should be useful for both of us.]
He stared at the screen, then grinned.
Finally, a real fight.
His father noticed the look. "What is it?"
"Aria wants to spar tomorrow."
His mother’s head came up instantly. "That Frost girl?"
"Mom."
"The Frosts have been our competitors for decades."
"That’s business. It isn’t personal."
"It becomes personal the moment they’re involved."
His father chuckled. "What time?"
"Morning."
"We’ll come."
Felix blinked. "You’re coming?"
"Of course," his mother said.
"We haven’t seen you fight properly since the breakthrough," his father added.
Felix’s grin widened. "Then tomorrow should be interesting."
He looked down at his own hands. Ultra III healing proficiency. A reshaped mana coating. Sharper instincts, faster reflexes, a whole new ceiling he hadn’t had the chance to actually test yet.
Aria was one of the only people who could push him hard enough to find out where that ceiling actually sat.
A purely uncomplicated fire ignited behind his ribs. Just two Ultra III fighters finding out exactly how far they’d come.
"Tomorrow’s going to be fun," he said.
His mother eyed him. "That expression worries me."
"It should," his father said, laughing, and Felix just grinned wider, the battle-hungry part of him already looking forward to Sunday.