Estate of Draconic Balance

The interior of the estate resembled an ornate dojo.

It was grand and very spacious, with tall wooden beams stretching towards the very top. As Yoruhi looked up, he could count at least fifteen floors based on the number of railings he saw. The walls were made of a dark red cherry wood, and the black wooden floors were lined with neatly placed tatami mats.

Large scrolls hung along the walls, each painted with long, twisting dragons. Beneath them stood towering racks filled with katanas both wooden and real, each arranged in perfect order. There were a few dragon statues that sat in the corners, but most of the space was left clear and dedicated for training.

“Welcome to the dojo,” Tatsuko’s father said, “Otherwise known as the Estate of Draconic Balance. What do you think?”

“Prosperty’s Balanced Garden…” Yoruhi murmured, misinterpreting his words, “it looks very prosperous but where’s the garden?”

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

“Wow… such refined language at a young age,” Nene remarked before turning to Tatsuko’s father. “Did you steal the kid from a family of scholars?”

“I didn’t ‘steal’ any kid,” he defended himself, “as for his family, we’ll discuss that later, but he seems to have lost his memories.”

They looked at Yoruhi who looked down in silence, realizing that he had messed up his little kid act again.

“But anyway, it seems he misheard us,” Nene said with an endearing smile that parents had when their child made a silly mistake. “It’s not ‘Prosperity’, but ‘Dragon’, and it’s not ‘garden’, but ‘estate’.” she explained.

Yoruhi nodded in understanding, putting up his child-act again.

“I wouldn’t have made that mistake,” Tatsuko said proudly, causing him a little annoyance.

He was an only child, and he wondered if having a sibling meant always having someone who took every opportunity to annoy you by your side.

“Let’s start heading up now,” Nene said, already annoyed with the sibling rivalry that had begun before the relationship was even official.

Up? Yoruhi wondered.

Nene touched a strange orb on the wall next to them, causing it to slide open and reveal a hidden elevator behind it. Yoruhi stared at the elevator with wonder, trying to figure out how such a contraption worked in this world.

Once they got in, the elevator shot them up towards the twenty-first floor, just above the available training space where the living quarters for the owners of the estate were located.

Unlike the dojo below, this space was a lot more homey in comparison. It still retained a bit of its elegance in the way the wooden walls and floors were designed and polished, but it was much less opulent and lacked the ornateness of the expensive statues and paper scrolls that adorned the training hall.

In front of them was a strange large door.

“Let me carry Tatsuko off to her room,” Nene offered as Tatsuko’s father turned around to drop her off.

“Does she have to?” Tatsuko complained, “I don’t like being floated around.”

And how is a small fairy supposed to carry her anyway? Yoruhi wondered.

“Sorry Tatsuko,” her father apologized, “but I have to go speak with your mother. If it’s successful, we can get you a new brother like you always wanted.”

At the sound of that, her expression brighted, and Nene began to wave her arms in front of her. Suddenly, a bright glow surrounded Tatsuko’s body before she was slowly lifted off her father’s back. Yoruhi’s eyes widened in amazement at the sight.

Magic, he realized, it exists in this world.

Nene walked off down the hallway while floating Tatsuko behind her, leaving behind Yoruhi gaping in awe like a kid staring at holiday lights for the first time. Tatsuko’s father then kneeled down and pat Yoruhi on the head.

“Why don’t you go explore the place,” he said, “I’m counting on you not to break anything okay? You’re a good kid aren’t you?”

Yoruhi nodded his head but wondered why, even if he was a good kid, would anyone let a stranger’s child roam around freely. He was thankful for the trust however, and began to explore the long halls of the estate while Tatsuko’s father slid open the doors to the room in front of them.

Seeing how much smaller he was compared to everything was a bit disorienting to Yoruhi at first. It hadn’t been as disorienting as it was until now, because almost everything he had seen so far up to this point was abnormally sized, from the trees to the spaciousness of the dojo. But now that he was in a more homey environment that he was used to, seeing things such as an ordinary dresser being taller than him, made him feel very short.

As he explored the house, he felt a sense of fun and childlike adventure. To him, the place felt like an unexplored maze with many rooms that he didn’t know the purpose of, and it was very entertaining trying to guess and explore them all.

Eventually, he ended up back where he started, right at the elevator in front of the large doors. There, the voice of Tatsuko’s father caught his attention.

“...the boy’s parents are dead.”

Yoruhi froze.

What? He wondered, pressing his body against the door to eavesdrop.

“But that is no fault of our own, Hayate,” a female voice said. It sounded soft and serene but also calculating and precise.

“You know it is. As one of the heads of the Sakura Noble Family, we oversee this jurisdiction of Hanamichi, and that includes the forests that extend around the city. We send out patrols to clear out the malevolent spirits that sneak out of the spirit realm for a reason. That woman… based on the signs of her dissipating magicules, had been attacked by spirits before her death. It is a miracle that the boy even survived, but even so he retains no memories of the incident. We have failed them, Mizuki.”

A short silence fell in the room, giving Yoruhi a chance to process everything that had just been said.

My parents… are dead? he thought.

He never knew his parents in this world, but even so he felt that some part of himself had been lost. For the first time since he got here, he thought back to his real parents, the ones in the old world. He never liked them, but he wondered if they were grieving right now. He wondered if he would grieve them if they were the ones who had died instead.

“I know… that you fault yourself so easily,” Mizuki said, “but not everyone can be saved.”

“Then let me at least make it up to the ones I can’t.”

Another short silence fell before Mizuki said, “fine. At least let me see the boy.”

Yoruhi heard the sound of footsteps approaching and he attempted to scramble away, but for some reason, couldn’t find the strength in his legs to do so.

The door slid open before he could even move, and the two speakers in the room stared at him in surprise.

“Are you… ok?” Tatsuko’s father, Hayate asked before kneeling down.

Ok? Of course I’m o— Yoruhi froze as the man’s finger brushed off a stray tear that had been falling from his eyes.

I’m… crying…?

He had been crying without knowing it.

It was mostly obvious that a parent and their child would grieve for each other when the other died, but what about if the relationship between each other was strained? The answer, for Yoruhi at least, was yes.

The idea that he would never see his parents again, and that he had no parents in this world either, took a toll on the small child’s heart. He had never felt this alone in the world before; it was a level of loneliness he had never reached.

He realized he had been completely severed from the one group of people he took for granted—the people that he always had no matter how many friends he lost and how many times they moved: his parents. Sure, he hated them, but at least he had them, and he never realized how much just having their presence in his life meant to him until now.

And so when Hayate reached out to hug the poor lonely boy who never knew or acknowledged the love of his parents, the boy cried. 

It was a warmth he hadn’t felt in forever; a feeling of safety that took the boy back to a time when everything was alright about the world.