Chapter 172: What is Family? [4]

Perhaps Mikhail hadn’t planned every rumor that eventually circulated through the academy, and perhaps even he hadn’t anticipated how far things would go when he first opened his mouth, but the documents made one thing clear.

He had realized what was happening long before it reached its worst point, and instead of stopping it, he had continued because admitting the truth would mean exposing his own role in creating the entire mess.

"I couldn’t take it back anymore!"

Mikhail shouted, pointing toward the papers as though they were somehow responsible for what had happened.

"Don’t you understand that? By then, people already believed it. If I suddenly started defending you, they’d ask why I’d been saying those things in the first place, and then I’d be the liar! I’d be the pathetic bastard who spent months talking shit about his own cousin because he had some stupid grudge!"

Ilya remained silent.

"Is that what you wanted to hear?!"

Mikhail shouted, his chest rising and falling heavily.

"Fine! I knew what was happening, and I let it happen because stopping it would’ve meant admitting that I started the whole fucking thing. Are you satisfied now?"

"People died."

"...."

"People dropped out of the academy, willingly or otherwise, because they couldn’t take it anymore. There were people who had nothing to do with whatever problem you had with me, but the moment they were seen talking to me too often, eating with me, training with me, or simply treating me like a normal person, they became targets too."

"...."

"All because they were associated with me."

"Why the hell should I care about—"

"Because the people responsible for isolating them were your circle of people, goddammit!"

Ilya’s voice finally rose.

Mikhail flinched, but the shock lasted only for a moment before his face twisted again, frustration quickly overwhelming whatever fear remained.

He stared at Ilya as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why his cousin was making such a big deal out of people who, in his mind, had willingly involved themselves in something that had nothing to do with them.

"...Is that what this is really about?" Mikhail asked. "Those so-called friends of yours?"

Ilya stared at him.

Mikhail laughed bitterly.

"You came all the way here because of those idiots?"

"...."

"They knew what people thought of you," Mikhail continued, his voice growing louder again. "Everyone knew what happened to people who stayed around you, but they did it anyway. What exactly did they expect? That everyone would suddenly leave them alone because they were nice to poor Ilya Belozersky?"

"Mikhail."

Mikhail jabbed a finger toward him.

He had already admitted more than he ever intended to, and now that everything was out in the open, it was becoming easier to say the things he had spent years convincing himself were true.

"They had every opportunity to stay away from you, but they kept coming back anyway. They knew they would get cornered in the hallways, they knew people would destroy their things, they knew they’d get followed after class and beaten until they could barely stand, and they still chose to associate with you."

Mikhail’s breathing grew heavier as he spoke.

"After the first one became a target, everyone else knew exactly what would happen if they did the same thing."

Ilya’s hands slowly clenched.

"And that makes it their fault?"

"What else do you want me to say?!" Mikhail shouted. "They saw what happened to the people before them! They watched students get harassed every fucking day just because they were seen with you, and instead of taking the hint and staying away, they decided they were going to be your friends anyway!"

"...."

"You think I personally followed every single one of them around? You think I ordered people to beat them half to death?"

Mikhail struck his chest with his palm as his voice grew increasingly hysterical.

"I didn’t. I didn’t do any of that shit! So don’t come here and start blaming every single thing that happened to those people on me!"

Ilya continued staring at him.

"You want someone to blame? Fine!"

Mikhail marched toward the table and snatched up the documents, hurriedly flipping through the pages as his eyes searched through the names.

"Here, I’ll tell you every fucking person who actually did something. I’ll give you their names, their families, whatever else you want, and then you can go barge into their houses and scare the shit out of them instead!"

He slammed one of the pages down and dragged his finger across several names.

"This one used to corner people after class. These two were the ones who kept starting fights with anyone they saw hanging around you..."

Mikhail went on and on, listing student after student as his finger moved across the documents.

Every name belonged to a noble.

There were sons and daughters of lesser houses, children of barons and viscounts who had entered the academy with enough status and money to gather their own circles, as well as heirs and relatives from the families of counts, whose names carried considerably more weight.

A few came from houses influential enough that even other nobles preferred not to antagonize them casually, and among the names were students connected to marquisates, families whose political influence extended far beyond the academy.

Individually, none of that would have been particularly unusual.

Holy Trinity Academy was filled with children of the nobility, and conflicts between them were hardly rare, but the problem was how many of those names had gathered within the same social circle and eventually turned their attention toward the same handful of people.

That concentration of status had given the group far more influence than a collection of ordinary troublemakers should have possessed.

A commoner could report being harassed by another commoner, and even the child of a minor noble might think twice before openly targeting someone protected by a more influential family, but what was someone supposed to do when the students making their life miserable were backed by one noble surname after another?

Avoid one, and another would be waiting.

Fight back against one, and the matter could become a dispute involving the noble’s family.

Report another, and there would always be someone willing to insist that it had merely been an argument between students, a misunderstanding during training, or a fight in which both sides had supposedly participated willingly.

It explained how the situation had grown so far beyond simple rumors.

The people surrounding Mikhail had enough status to make resistance difficult, and once targeting Ilya became accepted within that circle, the students who remained beside him became acceptable targets as well.

The reason was simple.

It was an opportunity to bring down a noble who normally stood far beyond their reach.

Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky might have been a bastard son, but he was still the son of the Grand Duke and carried the name of the Grand Ducal Household itself.

Under normal circumstances, the children of barons, viscounts, counts, and even considerably more influential houses would have thought twice before openly humiliating someone of his standing, because the difference between their families was simply too great.

But there was a certain satisfaction in being able to look down on someone whose birth should have placed him above them.

The son of a baron who would normally have to lower his head before the Grand Duke’s family could laugh at Ilya in the academy hallways, while the child of a count could speak about him as though he were beneath them, and every humiliation became another opportunity to feel superior to someone whose surname alone should have made that impossible.

Once that became normal, it only grew worse.

And anyone who continued standing beside Ilya became another way to hurt him.