Chapter 642: Minamoto

Lia rubbed her scalp, shooting a dirty look toward the couch before sighing heavily.

"Fine, fine... The third module. Whatever."

Across the room, Silas didn’t even notice. He had just discovered a limited-run bath linen set woven from spun silkworm threads, and was currently debating whether buying six dozen was excessive or merely prudent.

’Meh, I feel like it’s okay... I want to bathe like a King.’

Forty minutes later, the dining table had been abandoned as the homework was tucked into bags lined up neatly by the front door.

The expansive Persian rug in the center of the living room had been officially declared a war zone.

Penelope sat cross-legged near the coffee table wth her knees tucked beneath her pleated skirt and her violet eyes scanning the arrangement of plastic heroes with a dissatisfied pout.

"This makes no sense," Penelope said, picking up the miniature of Vala by her base and holding her between two fingers. "Why are there only eleven of them? Where are the opposing units? What are we supposed to do with an entire crew of champions if the manufacturers didn’t include a single beast or a hostile enemy for them to butcher?"

Silas stretched lazily on the couch, folding his arms behind his head and looking down at the carpet over the edge of the cushions.

"They’re display figures, Penelope," Silas said, amused. "They’re meant for display cabinets and collector shelves so wealthy people can show their guests how much disposable income they have... They aren’t meant for backyard wrestling matches."

"A warrior without an enemy is merely an ornament," Penelope recited with the dry solemnity she had clearly absorbed from her older sister. "It is an incomplete aesthetic."

Silas snorted.

"If you really want to see them fight, you don’t need monsters... Just put Eluned and Morwenna within ten paces of each other. They spend forty percent of their time in the territory actively trying to drown or strangle one another."

Penelope blinked, looking up at him with wide, startled eyes. "L-Lady Eluned fights with Lady Morwenna?"

"Constantly," Silas said, rolling his shoulder. "It’s a lot and don’t get me started on Tasmin and Brida. They’re fighting most of the time though it’s Brida that starts it..."

"That’s a lie," Lia declared loudly, clutching the Eluned figurine to her chest like a protective shield. "Miss Eluned is gentle! She’s peaceful! She doesn’t fight people! She told me herself that all living things deserve to grow toward the sunlight!"

Silas looked down at his sister with weary pity.

"Lia," Silas sighed, "live with her for three weeks first then tell me about the sunlight. The only reason she was that nice to you is because you are my sister... If you were a stray mercenary who stepped on one of her wild lilies, she would have turned your nervous system into compost before you could say hello."

Lia puffed her cheeks out, turning her back on him completely. "I don’t care... She’s still the best!"

’What is this Eluned propaganda...?’

Before Silas could offer another unhelpful reality check, Martha emerged from the hallway, carrying three freshly ironed light jackets over her arm.

"Girls," Martha announced gently, her voice cutting through the banter with effortless authority. "It is quarter to five... Your siblings’ transports have already cleared the outer security gates of the complex so please begin gathering your parcels and checking your shoes."

Penelope and Kaede rose immediately, their posture shifting back into the disciplined manners of their respective houses.

They carefully packed their newly inspected figurines back into their custom foam trays, securing the collector’s cartons with their heavy gold ribbons.

DING-DONG!

The electronic chime of the front entrance rang through the apartment with two clear chimes.

Through the intercom speaker beside the archway, a young man’s voice sounded.

"It’s Minamoto and I arrived for Kaede."

Kaede jumped slightly, smoothing down the front of her uniform blazer.

She hurried over to the foyer, slipping her feet into her black loafers before turning around and looking toward the living room.

Silas had already sat up on the edge of the couch, slipping his feet back into his leather slippers.

Kaede looked at him with her fingers fidgeting with the strap of her bag.

"Master Silas," she murmured, her voice small. "Thank you for the food and for everything."

Silas smiled, standing up from the cushions and tying the terrycloth belt of his bathrobe a bit tighter around his waist.

"Anytime. Come on, let’s go see your brother."

He walked over to the foyer, stepping onto the polished limestone floor beside her, and pulled the heavy cedar door open.

Standing on the exterior landing, framed by the late-afternoon sun filtering through the ornamental maples, was Minamoto.

The young coastal Lord was dressed in a razor-sharp double-breasted coat of midnight-navy wool over a high-collared charcoal vest.

His long black hair was tied back in a strict traditional warrior’s queue, a dark leather scabbard carrying his ancestral katana resting at his left hip.

’Why does he always carry this around...?’

His sharp hawk-like eyes were cold, assessing the stone steps with relentless vigilance and then the door opened as Minamoto’s eyes snapped up.

Immediately they locked squarely onto Silas.

For half a second, the air between them went entirely rigid.

Minamoto saw the damp hair, the VIP hotel bathrobe, the total absence of armor, and his younger sister standing right at that man’s elbow.

"Y-you..."

SWOOSH!

In a single terrifyingly fluid burst of footwork, Minamoto’s frame blurred forward across the threshold as his right arm shot out like a striking serpent, his fingers hooking under Kaede’s armpits, violently plucking his sister off the limestone floor.

YANK!

His shoulder clipped Silas on the way through in a casual perfectly aimed nudge that sent Silas stumbling half a step sideways with his slippers catching on the doormat and his hand slapping against the cedar doorframe.

"Whoa—!" Silas grunted, catching his balance against the jamb.

Minamoto had already completed the rotation.

Without breaking stride, the young Yamato lord had tucked Kaede firmly under his left arm like a long roll of imported carpet with his long coat swirling behind him as he marched down the flagstone walkway toward a sleek black sedan idling at the curb.

"Brother! Put me down! This is a bit disgraceful!" Kaede shrieked with her legs kicking uselessly in the air and her face bright crimson as she flailed against his ribs.

She twisted her neck around, waving frantically back toward the open doorway with her free hand.

"Goodbye, Big Brother Silas! Goodbye, Lia! Thank you for the food!"

Silas stood in the doorway, his bathrobe slightly askew with one hand still braced on the doorframe.

Beside him, Lia walked up to the threshold with her hands tucked into her pockets, watching the black car peel smoothly away from the curb.

Lia looked up at Silas. "He really doesn’t like you, does he?"

"He’s overprotective," Silas sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with an amused snort. "Though honestly, snatching a child out of someone’s living room like a bag of groceries is a bit much, even for him..."

Lia snorted into her sleeve.

"He looked at your bathrobe like it had personally insulted him."

"It’s a very nice bathrobe."

"It has a sun on it, Big Brother."

"So?"

Lia raised her hand, offering a lazy wave toward the dust kicked up by the sedan’s tires.

Silas echoed the gesture with the two of them standing side by side on the threshold as the late afternoon wind rustled the maples.

For a moment neither of them said anything.

’Big Brother... You’re really cool but I won’t tell you that.’

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The heavy rumble of a high-displacement turbine engine suddenly echoed from the complex’s private driveway and cutting through the shadows of the maple trees, a car glided into the courtyard.

It was a low-slung ultra-performance car, a matte-violet Valkyrie-9... Its chassis was forged from lightweight carbon-chitin that gleamed with iridescent purple undertones in the dying sunlight.

The engine snarled with the compressed violence of an overcharged mana turbine as the interceptor came to a halt behind Silas’s Zenith IVR with the gull-wing driver’s door hissing upward with a sharp release of steam.

’There are a lot of supercars in this world though...’

A long slender leg encased in dark tailored slacks and a four-inch stiletto boot stepped out onto the cobblestones and Silas’s face instantly relaxed with a wide genuine smile breaking across his lips.

"Harp—"

The syllable died in his throat.

Harper stepped out of the vehicle, but she didn’t rush forward.

She wore a sharp bespoke three-piece charcoal suit cut to perfection, her tailored suit jacket draped casually over her shoulders like a commander’s cape.

Her long magnificent violet hair whipped gracefully in the evening draft, catching the amber light as she reached up, smoothing a stray lock behind her ear.

Dark crescents sat beneath her eyes, carefully powdered over but not quite gone, and the hand she used to smooth her hair was not steady.

She stopped at the foot of the flagstone steps, about three paces from Silas.

Then, with agonizing slowness, she tucked her right hand over her heart, bent her waist, and offered a deep flawless ninety-degree bow.

"Good evening, Lord Vespera," Harper said. "Welcome back..."

Silas stared at her. "Harper... what the hell are you doing?"

Harper straightened up.

Her violet eyes drifted over his damp hair, his oversized bathrobe, and the bare calloused toes poking out of his leather slippers.

"Is it possible," she asked. "for me to sleep over tonight?"

Silas blinked twice.

"Uh... sure," Silas said, scratching his temple. "There’s plenty of room in the guest wing. Martha, go ahead and cycle the front gate wards, will you?"

"Right away, Master," Martha called back, stepping toward the security panel.

Silas turned his eyes back to the purple-haired woman standing on the flagstones.

"Harper, are you feeling alright? You’re acting very wei—"

BOOM!

The flagstone beneath her heels didn’t crack, but the displacement of air was explosive as Harper skipped the steps and any announcement, and launched herself forward.

’Good... she’s fine.’

SLAM!

Her entire body crashed into Silas’s chest with the concussive force of an armored battering ram!

"Oof—!"

Silas let out a sudden gasp of air that he hadn’t even realized he was holding as her momentum drove him back three paces into the foyer.

Her arms weren’t gentle.

They wrapped around his neck like two bands of forged tungsten, pulling her body flush against his with such suffocating intensity that Silas felt the hard buttons of her waistcoat digging directly through the thick terrycloth of his robe into his sternum.

Her face buried itself deep into the crook of his neck with her nose pressing hard against his skin, inhaling the scent of his soap with rapid breaths that trembled against his collarbone.

She was shaking.

Beneath the flawless wool and the cold corporate perfume, her entire frame was shivering with a bone-deep terror that had finally found a wall it couldn’t break.

Silas stood still in the center of the foyer with his feet planted wide on the limestone.

His initial shock faded in a single heartbeat and slowly, his arms came up.

His right hand flattened firmly against the center of her back, pressing through the wool of her suit jacket, holding her securely against his frame, while his left arm wrapped around her waist, taking her full weight without yielding an inch.

"Welcome back," Harper whispered into his throat. "Welcome back, Silas..."

Silas let out a soft steady breath, resting his chin lightly against the top of her violet head.

"I’m back, Harper," he murmured softly. "I’m right here so you really don’t have to worry though why did you talk like that?"

"Tch, I wanted to make you worried."

"...I’ll slam you into the ground right now."

"Hey~! I’m just a girl, okay?!"

Beside the shoe cubbies, Penelope stood frozen.

The eleven-year-old girl stared at her older sister currently clinging to Silas Graves like a drowning sailor clutching a floating spar and Penelope’s face turned bright red.

She violently snapped her head away, staring resolutely at the baseboard molding with second-hand embarrassment.

’Does my sister possess zero shame?’ Penelope screamed internally, her fingers clawing into the fabric of her skirt pockets. ’NONE AT ALL?! In front of Martha?! In front of his little sister?! She’s the Head of House Whitmore and she’s hanging off him like a koala bear!’