CHAPTER 9: WHAT A FATHER KNOWS

The world inside the small Brooklyn apartment shrank to the space between two heartbeats.

THUMP.

THUMP.

Michael stood frozen in the doorway of his room, his father’s question hanging in the air like a physical weight, thick and suffocating.

"Did you see her?"

Marcus’s voice was a ragged whisper, a sound stripped of all its former S-Rank authority, filled only with a grief so ancient it felt like a part of the building’s foundation.

Dialogue tree options, Michael’s mind raced, a frantic, desperate scramble for a way out.

Option A: Tell him the truth and break him completely.

Option B: Lie.

He chose B. He always chose B.

"I... I don’t know what you mean," he stammered, the lie feeling weak and brittle on his tongue.

It was a critical failure.

Marcus didn’t get angry.

He didn’t yell.

He just let out a long, shuddering breath, the sound of a dam that had held back a flood for fifteen years finally cracking.

He sagged onto the worn fabric of the couch, the Broken Legend persona taking over completely, burying his face in his hands.

"Don’t lie to me, kid," Marcus mumbled into his palms, his voice muffled with a pain that was almost unbearable to hear. "Not about this."

"Not now."

He looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed, haunted by the ghosts of a battle fought long ago.

"Valerius called me before you got home."

He spoke in the quiet, weary sentences of his Dad Mode, each word a heavy stone.

"She told me about the energy signature."

"A perfect zero on the mana scale."

"But strong enough to collapse an E-Rank Gate and vaporize an entire nest."

Michael’s blood ran cold. The DGC had already tattled on him. Great.

"Dad, I can explain..."

"No," Marcus interrupted, holding up a hand that trembled slightly. "Let me."

"Let me finally tell you the truth."

He took another shaky breath, gathering the tattered remnants of his strength.

"Your mother... Elara... she wasn’t like the other Hunters."

"She wasn’t an Awakened, not in the way the DGC understands it."

"She was something older."

"Something... else."

Michael’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the sudden, profound silence.

He thought of the System’s notifications, the words he had dismissed as game-like flavor text.

[VERIFYING BLOODLINE: ARCANA... VERIFIED.]

[WELCOME, LAST SCION.]

Oh, you have got to be kidding me, his internal cynic groaned. It’s a literal bloodline plot.

"Her family," Marcus continued, his gaze lost in the past, staring at a faded spot on the apartment wall. "They called themselves the Arcana."

The word hit Michael with the force of a physical blow. It was real. All of it.

"They didn’t use mana," Marcus said, his voice a ghost’s whisper. "They used something they called the Void."

"It wasn’t a power they controlled."

"It was a power they... bargained with."

"A living emptiness that could rewrite the rules of our reality."

"The DGC... they were terrified of her."

"And they were fascinated."

"They saw a key."

"A weapon that could end the war with the Gates for good."

A surge of cold fury, sharp and biting, cut through Michael’s shock. It was the Warden’s story. It was his mother’s memory. It was all true.

"The Ever-Gate," Michael said, his own voice low and dangerous. "It wasn’t an accident, was it?"

Marcus finally met his son’s gaze, and the raw pain in his eyes was an open, bleeding wound.

"No."

"It was an experiment."

"A black-ops mission run by a shadow division inside the DGC."

And here comes the villain reveal, Michael thought, his sarcasm a fragile shield against the mounting horror.

"They called it ’Project Chimera’."

Lame name.

"They promised us the world, Michael."

"They promised us a normal life for you."

"All she had to do was one last mission."

"Use her power to seal the Ever-Gate from the inside. Permanently."

Marcus’s voice cracked, the sound of breaking glass.

"I was there."

"I was the commander on the ground."

"I watched them push her. I watched them use her fear for you against her."

He described the scene, his words painting a vivid, horrifying picture that mirrored the vision Michael had seen.

The swirling, chaotic heart of the collapsing Gate. The monstrous, shadowy things that bled from its walls.

"She was a goddess in there," Marcus whispered, a flicker of the old S-Rank’s awe in his tired voice. "A reaper dancing through a storm of chaos."

"But the Gate was... wrong."

"It was bleeding something toxic into her. The Void was fighting back. Corrupting her."

"She knew she couldn’t win."

"She knew she couldn’t contain it."

He looked directly at Michael, his eyes pleading for understanding, for forgiveness.

"So she made a choice."

"She didn’t just seal the Gate, kid."

"She used the last of her power, her very essence, to build a shield."

"A seal, woven from her own soul."

"A divine-tier cage, the DGC analysts called it."

"But it wasn’t for the Gate."

Michael finished the sentence for him, the words feeling like shards of glass in his throat, his sarcastic mask completely forgotten.

"It was for me."

Tears streamed freely down Marcus’s face now, hot and silent. He nodded.

"She had to hide your signature."

"The Void... it hungers for its own kind."

"And Project Chimera... they would have turned you into a lab rat. Another weapon."

"So she built a cage around your soul to make you invisible."

"She became your cage."

"I’m sorry, Michael," he choked out. "I should have told you. But I promised her. I promised her I would let you be normal."

"I failed."

Michael stood there, his world completely shattered and rebuilt in the span of ten minutes.

The anger was gone, replaced by a deep, aching sorrow.

His father wasn’t a coward who ran from his past.

He was a soldier standing guard over a grave. A husband honoring his wife’s last wish.

The witty remarks, the gamer-lingo, it all died in his throat. This wasn’t a game. This was real.

"The Seal," Michael said, his voice surprisingly steady, the mask dropped, leaving only the earnest, grieving son. "It’s breaking."

Marcus’s head snapped up, a fresh wave of terror washing over his face, the Broken Legend persona shattering.

"What?"

"When I was in the Gate today... I was hit by something," Michael explained, carefully editing out the Alchemist and his poison. "It damaged the Seal. I... I saw her. A memory. An echo."

This was it. The moment of truth.

"I have it too, Dad."

"The power."

"The System."

Marcus just stared, his mind struggling to process it all, the word ’System’ a ghost from a life he thought was buried.

"The DGC knows," Michael continued, his voice hardening. "Valerius. She knows something is wrong. They scanned me. They detected... ’Null-energy’."

"Project Chimera," Marcus breathed, the name a curse on his lips. "They’re still active."

"The man who ran it... the one who gave the final order... he’s not just some ghost, Michael."

"He’s the Deputy Director of the entire DGC now."

"A man named General Gideon."

Michael’s fists clenched. A name. A target. A final boss.

"He’s been hunting for echoes of Elara’s power for fifteen years."

"He’s been searching for another Arcana."

Marcus’s face went pale, a look of dawning horror spreading across his features as the final, terrible piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The weary dad vanished completely, replaced by the sharp, analytical mind of the S-Rank Hunter.

"That’s why Valerius was there so fast."

"It wasn’t a random patrol."

"The E-Rank Gate was a lie. A lure."

"They didn’t detect your power spike after you went in."

He stood up, his eyes wide with a terror Michael had never seen before, a terror that was purely tactical.

"They detected you the moment you Awakened in Times Square."

"They’ve been watching you ever since."

"This whole time..."

A sharp, authoritative knock echoed from the apartment door.

KNOCK.

KNOCK.

KNOCK.

It was loud. Confident. Unmistakable.

It wasn’t a neighbor.

It wasn’t a delivery.

It was the sound of the past finally catching up to them.

Michael and Marcus locked eyes, a shared, silent understanding passing between them.