After that day, my training in yao power became part of the quiet daily routine at the Valerion estate.
At the academy, I still lived as Elysia’s familiar,
ate lunch with Iris,
and after school, became a model at the accessory-making club.
But once I returned to the estate, I went to the training ground at the appointed time.
With the family watching, I practiced making small foxfires, blurring my presence, and coating my body in an extremely thin layer of yao power.
The more I used it, the faster my body grew accustomed to it.
That was both a joyful and unsettling thing.
Because it felt as though old memories that had been sunk in a deep sleep were slowly awakening at the tips of my paws and the end of my tail.
But I was no longer alone.
Elysia was by my side.
Grayden told me when to stop.
Leopold guarded the training ground.
Isolde and Mina made sure I took breaks.
Lucius thought of ways to block outside eyes.
And Camilla kept cheering me on so that I would not be afraid.
Amid all those gazes, I thought quietly.
Whatever it was that was awakening inside me.
Whether it was Wolyeong’s memories, or traces of a past I still did not know.
At least for now, I did not have to bear it alone.
That fact alone let me breathe a little easier.
It was the night after the weekend’s yao power training had ended.
I was curled up on the small cushion prepared in one corner of Elysia’s room.
Perhaps because I had spent the day repeatedly making foxfires at the training ground,
grasping my scattered presence again,
and practicing coating my body in a thin layer of yao power, my body felt a little languid.
But I did not feel bad.
At first, even floating a single tiny spark above the tip of my forepaw had been difficult,
but now I could move it to a certain extent, to wherever I wanted.
Of course, Grandfather Grayden was still not satisfied.
“Before you learn how to release power, learn how to stop it.”
I had heard those words so often they were practically nailed into my ears now.
Even so, I was definitely growing more accustomed to it little by little.
The problem was that, at times, that familiarity felt strangely natural.
It did not feel like learning something for the first time, but like recalling something I had known long ago.
A sensation that this body already knew it first.
I did not find that feeling very comfortable.
‘Well, nothing happened today, at least.’
Thinking that, I closed my eyes.
Elysia was sleeping quietly on the bed.
The Valerion estate, too, was sunk in the depths of night.
Only the dim glow of the magic lamps burning low in the corridor shone faintly, and the moon was up outside the window.
It was an extremely quiet night.
And yet.
All of a sudden, the tip of my tail twitched.
“……?”
I opened my eyes.
There was no one in the room.
Elysia was still asleep, and the window was closed.
But something was strange.
Deep inside me, I felt an incredibly faint tremor.
It was not mana.
It was not aura.
Nor was it the presence of a spirit.
It resembled my yao power.
No, rather than resembling it…… it felt like something that had broken off from the same root.
I slowly raised myself up.
‘What is this?’
At first, I thought it was fatigue from training.
Perhaps my senses had become sensitive because I had used so much yao power during the day.
But that was not it.
This was not a tremor that had arisen from within me.
It was a sensation as though something far away, very far away, was reaching the tips of its fingers toward me.
At that moment, my vision went dark for the briefest instant.
I was standing in darkness where nothing existed.
No, it felt as though I was standing there.
Black mist filled every direction.
Beyond that mist, a red light flickered very faintly.
Eyes.
The moment I thought that, the red light slowly turned toward me.
It was an unpleasant gaze.
Rage and obsession, resentment and hunger were tangled together within it.
But it was not a complete being.
It felt empty in places, torn apart, scattered, forcibly clinging to a form.
And behind it.
I saw tails.
One, two, three.
No.
Amid the black shadows swaying in numbers too countless to count, one tail alone, strangely alien, was split with red.
I understood instinctively.
That was something that had fallen away from me.
More precisely, before this body had become completely empty.
A piece born when the remnants of the soul left behind in this body broke away.
Something I had thought vanished.
Something I had thought scattered.
But it had not disappeared completely, and still remained somewhere in this world.
‘……You are.’
No words came out.
No, to begin with, I was a fox right now.
But my thoughts were clear.
That thing resembled me.
But it was not me.
It was connected to this body.
But it was different from the me of now.
Not moonlight-like yao power, but a black and murky energy like a scorched moon.
Not a silver-pink flame, but black smoke split with red.
And from deep within it, I thought I heard a very low voice.
— My……
I stopped breathing.
— ……body…….
At that moment, my consciousness wavered.
I reflexively drew up my yao power.
A small foxfire bloomed at the tip of my forepaw.
Not in the room, but within the darkness of my consciousness.
The silver-pink flame flickered faintly.
When it saw that light, the black mist retreated as though flinching.
The red eyes narrowed.
It was certainly far away.
It could not reach me yet.
It had not even properly awakened yet.
Even so, that gaze alone was chillingly distinct.
As though gritting my teeth, I thought.
‘Don’t come.’
The instant I thought that, the foxfire grew a little brighter.
The black mist scattered as though torn apart.
The red eyes, the black tail, and the low voice all receded in an instant.
And in the next moment.
I was back in Elysia’s room.
“Haa…….”
My breathing was rough.
Strictly speaking, since I was in a fox’s body, I was only panting softly, but my insides were trembling violently.
The room was still quiet.
Elysia was asleep.
No one had awakened.
No one knew what I had just seen.
Sitting on the cushion, I could not move for a long while.
What I had just seen was not a dream.
Nor was it a hallucination born from the fatigue of training.
It had been too vivid.
Something that shared the same root as my yao power, yet had twisted black.
A part of the soul that had broken away from this body.
No, something that had once been part of the soul.
It was still alive somewhere.
Should I say alive?
Or should I say remaining?
I did not know yet.
But one thing was certain.
Just as Wolyeong had said, it had truly come looking for me.
‘Did it say…… my body?’
I looked down at my forepaws.
Small silver-pink fur.
The body Elysia stroked.
The body that ate meals at the Valerion estate, became a model at the accessory-making club, and chewed bread in front of Iris.
Right now, it was my body.
The body I moved, I thought with, and I lived in.
But the existence from moments ago had called this body as though it were its own.
I curled my tail around myself.
It was unpleasant.
It was a little different from being afraid.
Of course, it was not that I wasn’t afraid.
But before that, a strange defiance rose from deep within my chest.
‘Don’t make me laugh.’
I had not come into this body because I wanted to.
But the one living in this body now was me.
The one Elysia called Haku was me.
The one Camilla ran toward, calling cute,
the one Mina covered with a blanket,
and the one Iris observed to an annoying degree were all me.
So.
For that black remnant to talk about this body was, strangely, intolerable.
For a long while, I looked at the moon outside the window.
Should I say it?
To Elysia?
To Leopold?
To Grayden?
The Valerion family already knew that I was no ordinary familiar.
And they did not force me to answer questions.
If I told them, they would certainly try to help.
But I shook my head.
Not yet.
This was too vague.
I had only sensed its existence.
I did not know where it was.
I did not know what it was.
Nor was there any immediate danger.
Above all, if I told Elysia, she would definitely worry.
She was already cautious about my yao power training, so what would happen if I brought up something like the black remnant of a soul aiming for my body?
She probably would not be able to sleep properly.
I looked toward where Elysia lay sleeping.
She was breathing quietly, knowing nothing.
A person who, even after receiving the Double Crown, still worked hard, worried about me, and stayed by my side.
I wanted to protect her.
For now, rather than telling her and sharing the worry, I felt I should keep it to myself until things became a little more certain.
‘For now, only I’ll know.’
That was what I decided.
It might be cowardly.
Someday, when Elysia found out, she might get angry.
She might ask why I carried it alone, why I did not tell her.
But right now, I truly knew nothing.
There was an existence.
Something connected to me existed.
It had been a part of the soul that had broken away, and now it was twisted black.
That was all I had learned.
I buried that existence deep within my heart.
‘The tenth tail…….’
The blackened remnant of a soul.
A piece that had broken away from my body.
A tail trying to return to me.
I quietly closed my eyes.
For now, no one knew.
Not Elysia, not Iris, not the Valerion family.
Only I knew.
That somewhere in this world, something black connected to me remained.
And that someday, it might come looking for me.
I let out a small breath.
My voice was very quiet.
So quiet that the sleeping Elysia could not hear it.
But deep inside me, a single silver-pink foxfire was burning quietly.
It was still small.
It was still weak.
But someday, if that black thing truly came looking for me.
Then I would have to say it.
Something more important than whose body this had been.
Who I was now.
That I was Haku.