CHAPTER 136: EX 136. FATHERHOOD

Leon’s mind flickered with amusement as the Governor’s words settled.

’He’s taking a gamble with me...’

A crooked smile tugged at his lips, the kind that came not from arrogance, but certainty. He glanced up at the older man, eyes sharp with something that didn’t belong to a teenager. Something that had seen endings and chosen to fight them anyway.

"Don’t worry, Governor Akira," Leon said, voice steady, alive with quiet fire. "That bleak future you saw? It’ll be nowhere in sight... as long as I’m around."

There was no thunder in his words, no need for it. Just a promise. One that rang louder than prophecy.

Akira didn’t know what it was, whether it was Leon’s voice, or the unnatural calm behind it, but it moved something in him. A weight shifted off his shoulders, just a little.

’So this is the anomaly time could not touch.’

The Governor stepped closer, the edge of command returning to his expression. "Then tell me, Leon... do you accept my offer?"

His voice was solemn now, as if the room itself held its breath. "Will you become the next Governor?"

Leon didn’t hesitate. Not even a blink.

"As long as the people I care about are in this world..." he said, "I won’t let anything happen to it."

The words were simple. But they landed like stone in water, rippling with purpose.

Akira’s lips twitched into the faintest smile. "Good."

But just as quickly, the moment hardened. As His smile faded and His back straightened.

"But," he said firmly, "to accept the mantle... you must reach S-Rank first."

Leon’s grin turned playful, bordering on smug. The cockiest smile imaginable spread across his face like a challenge accepted.

"If that’s all," he said, tone brimming with mischief, "it’ll be a piece of cake."

The Governor stared at him blankly for a moment.

A twitch formed under his eye.

’This kid... why do I suddenly want to punch him?’

But before either could speak, the air shifted.

As the door swung open.

The stillness of the room fractured as time resumed its natural course, its pause having being lifted since Eden and Adrian’s recovery required the flow of time again.

Two figures stood at the threshold.

Nikko Yakomoto entered first, calm as ice but eyes sharp and suspicious. Her gaze locked instantly on the unfamiliar man standing across from Leon.

Her aura stirred slightly, just enough to darken the air.

"Who are you?" she asked coldly, eyes narrowing. Her body tensed, ready to strike if he so much as twitched the wrong way.

Behind her... came Elizabeth.

And unlike Nikko, her eyes widened, not with confusion, but with recognition.

She knew him.

’He is the man from the cave what is he doing here.’

From the moment everything had nearly ended.

And just like that, the room grew silent again.

Leon: "..."

Akira: "..."

****

Back in the corridor just outside Leon’s room, Nikko Yakomoto had just finished going over Elizabeth’s report. The younger girl had laid everything out clearly.

Nikko took it all in with that same distant look she always wore, but deep down she was having a mental crisis, as a faint flicker ran across her face.

’So... he already has someone.’

Nikko didn’t say it out loud. She’d known Leon wasn’t hers. Not in any official sense. But that hadn’t stopped her from imagining it, what it would be like to stand beside someone like him. Not as a superior, or a commander, or a symbol. Just as someone he chose.

She exhaled and shut the thoughts down with the same iron-willed discipline that came with being a Supreme Talent bearer. ’If I can’t have him... then I’ll follow him. Even if I have to carve the world in half just to walk beside him.’

’But still...’

’Is it because I’m older than him?’

The thought crept in like a whisper, slick and poisonous.

She crushed the question with the full weight of her resolve. This wasn’t the time. It never was. She stepped forward and pushed open the door to the recovery room, letting her senses flare. Immediately, she picked up another presence, faint but wrong. It was not a staff, neither was it one of their people.

The door flew open. As her gaze zeroed in.

There, standing too close to Leon, was a man in a plain robe. Ordinary and unmarked. Yet something about him was... wrong.

Nikko’s hand twitched toward as she equipped her gauntlet. Her instincts screamed. But she restrained herself, forcing a single, curt question through clenched teeth:

"Who are you?"

That simple question made Leon flinch. Not from fear, but from disbelief.

’She doesn’t know?’

He looked between Nikko and the robed man, then back again, his thoughts racing.

’You’ve got to be kidding me. Nikko doesn’t know what her own father looks like?’

But he didn’t say it out loud. Leon wasn’t arrogant enough to judge a man’s fatherhood, not when he hadn’t worn that title himself. Still, the thought chilled him.

’Would I become like that? Would power and duty ever turn me into a stranger to my own children?’

The question lingered longer than he liked, dark and clinging.

’No.’

Leon shook it off. That path led to nothing but demons in the heart, and those could kill a man faster than any blade. He exhaled and forced his attention back to the room.

’But still... how bad did things have to be for someone not to recognize their own father?’

The silence dragged until the man finally spoke, voice calm but strained:

"Is this how you treat your father?"

Akira was panicking inside.

’Shit. I was too focused on the boy. I didn’t sense her arrival.’

But on the outside, he stayed composed.

Nikko’s body stiffened.

"Father?"

No. That couldn’t be. Her father never revealed his face. Not to her, not to her siblings. Even when she awakened a Supreme Rank talent, all she ever saw was an avatar.

But then the pressure hit her.

A dense, crushing wave of mana blanketed the room like a living presence. It coiled around her, coiled through her. Her knees hit the floor instinctively before her mind even caught up. Her voice came out breathless.

"...Father."

Elizabeth, wide-eyed, followed suit.

"Governor..."

Akira blinked, slightly thrown off.

’Right... this is the effect I have on people.’

He glanced sideways at Leon.

Still standing.

The boy hadn’t moved an inch. No bow. No knee. Nothing. He just stood there with those defiant eyes, like he was watching a peer instead of a ruler.

Akira thought about reprimanding him.

Then he sighed.

’I’ll let it slide. After all... this boy might be our only hope.’