The room trembled with unspoken tension, a fragile membrane of civility about to rupture. Henri's muttered "What?" carried more than mere confusion—it was a dam holding back a flood of barely contained fury. The veins at his temples pulsed, a cartography of rising anger that no smirk could mask.
"An unwritten skill?" Alphonse's voice dropped to a low, concerned murmur as he glanced at Marquis. The boy—no, the heir—avoided his father's gaze, but they both knew the truth. Marquis never backed down from a challenge, no matter how razor-thin the margin between opportunity and destruction.
Around the table, the air grew thick and viscous. An unwritten skill was both a death sentence and a lifeline—a cruel lottery in a world where the 17 wonders dictated survival. Each family head understood the brutal calculus: the wrong skill could transform a promising heir into a corpse faster than a breath.
Leonardo struggled to piece together the fragments of information. "Isn't an extra skill good?" he asked, his naivety hanging in the air like a fragile soap bubble.
Elara's response cut through his innocence. "Good?" she scoffed, her voice sharp with experience. "It's a double-edged sword that could slice through your entire future."
Anna leaned forward, her explanation measured but passionate. "Imagine fire manipulation as your attachment skill, and you're suddenly granted ice conjuring. Sounds powerful, right? But mastering one skill is a lifetime's work. Two fundamentally opposed skills?" She shook her head. "That's a path to mediocrity—or worse."
The background hummed with additional tension. A knight in mismatched armor shifted uncomfortably, their relationship with the guide a jarring contrast to the clinical atmosphere of the room. "It's hot in this armor!" they complained, a moment of petulance that seemed wildly out of place.
Then everything changed.
Takashiro Ryuji approached, his sword gleaming with a promise of violence. The room seemed to hold its breath, the air growing razor-thin with anticipation.
"Rule 1: No outside help from humans," a disembodied voice announced. "Break it, and you explode."
The rules were simple. Brutal. Absolute.
When Ryuji drew his sword and called out "Itto-ryu," the world seemed to fracture. His father, Kokoro, met his gaze with a chilling detachment. "I was tired of living anyway," he said—a statement that was both surrender and challenge.
The katana fell.
Kokoro's head rolled across the floor, a grotesque punctuation to years of unspoken tension. Blood pooled around the discarded armor, a dark testament to a relationship burned down to its most primal core.
"Ah... I actually killed him," Ryuji muttered, a complex mix of shock and clinical detachment threading through his words.
"Rule 3: Killing is allowed," the voice declared, almost playful in its indifference.
Henri stared, his world recalibrating around this sudden, violent act. Kokoro—a rival, an enemy—was simply gone. Eliminated with the same casual efficiency one might swat a fly.
The helmet—the kabuto—lay separated from its owner, a symbolic dismemberment. Thirty-two iron plates, once a protective fortress, now just a hollow shell. The shikoro's neck guard, the mabisashi's visor, the maedate's katana cutting through darkness—all rendered meaningless in a single, decisive moment.
Ryuji cleaned his blade, each movement deliberate. "He wasn't fit anyway," he said, as if discussing nothing more consequential than a disappointing meal.
The heads of the families sat in stunned silence. This was more than a death—this was a recalibration of power, a violent inheritance passed from father to son with the swing of a blade.
The quest had begun.