After Haku had delicately imbued his own fur with mystical power and knitted it,
two days had already passed since he had fallen into a deep sleep from the recoil.
For the first day, they thought it was simply fatigue catching up with him.
But even on the second day, Haku did not wake.
Of course, his breathing was even, and his condition was not poor.
If anything, he was almost too peaceful.
So Elysia had brought him to her room and was personally caring for him.
On the bed, spread with a soft blanket, a small silver-pink baby fox lay asleep, curled into a ball on one side of the pillow.
Each time he breathed in, his tiny belly rose and fell slowly, and the eyelids closed beneath his long lashes did not so much as twitch.
Beside him lay what Haku had made himself this time.
It looked like silver-pink yarn, but it was not actually thread.
It was a small knitted piece made by weaving Haku’s own fur, imbued with mystical power.
Whether it was an ornament for warmth or something like a talisman, they still could not know for certain.
However, the power emanating from it was strangely stable and cozy.
Elysia sat in the chair beside the bed, gazing at Haku, then carefully stroked his head once with her fingertips.
“……He really is all right, isn’t he?”
She had checked the same thing several times during the day, but once night fell, she found herself worrying even more for no reason.
Just then, a light knock sounded from outside the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and the Valerion family quietly entered the room.
At the front was Duke Leopold.
He was a huge man, but today, even the sound of his military boots was subdued as he walked.
Behind him came Duchess Isolde, Lucius, and even Camilla, her eyes sparkling, one after another.
A little later, Gradeon followed, leaning on his cane.
As soon as Camilla crossed the threshold, she lowered her voice and whispered.
“Sister, is Haku still sleeping?”
“Yes. Still.”
When Elysia answered softly, Camilla quickly approached the bed.
Then, seeing Haku curled up asleep on the blanket, she covered her mouth with both hands.
“He’s so cute……”
Lucius let out a small sigh.
“Camilla. Your voice.”
“Ah, sorry……”
But Camilla’s gaze was already completely captured by Haku.
Isolde stood beside the bed and gazed at Haku for a long while.
The graceful expression of the noblewoman did not falter, but clear concern showed in her eyes.
“He has no fever, and his breathing is stable.”
“Yes. That’s what I heard from the Department of Special Familiar Studies earlier, too. They said there’s nothing wrong with his body. Only…… that it seems to be the recoil from using his mystical power too precisely.”
At Elysia’s words, Lucius’s gaze turned to the knitted piece lying beside the bed.
“If the price of making that is three days of sleep, this is not something to take lightly.”
“Still, Haku pushed himself to make it.”
Elysia spoke quietly.
“He saw that I was sensitive to the cold before…… and said he would try making something.”
Camilla’s eyes widened.
“For you, Sister?”
“……Yes.”
With a moved expression, Camilla looked down at Haku again.
“Haku…… you’re really so kind……”
Leopold looked at the sleeping Haku with a heavy gaze before speaking in a low voice.
“He accomplishes too much with such a small body.”
Those words were not a simple impression.
They were the evaluation of a soldier, of a man who had seen countless powerful beings.
Gradeon slowly nodded.
“Having great power and handling power delicately are two different things. That child…… is no ordinary case in the latter regard either.”
“Rather than handling it delicately,” Lucius murmured as he looked at the knitted piece, “he practically tuned it. Like a single strand of thread.”
Isolde smiled faintly.
“That is why I’m even more worried. After putting in so much effort, he himself has collapsed so deeply asleep.”
The sleeping Haku truly looked as though he knew nothing at all.
Even with the gazes of the entire family gathered upon him, he merely entrusted himself to the warmth and slept quietly.
The air in the room was tranquil.
Outside the window, night had already settled completely.
The sky was clear, and a large moon floated without a single cloud around it.
Through the open window, moonlight slowly seeped into the room.
The cool light, nearly silver, crossed the floor, climbed over the edge of the bed, and finally descended upon Haku’s sleeping body.
It was at that moment.
“……?”
Elysia was the first to blink.
The tips of Haku’s silver-pink fur had begun to glow very faintly.
At first, she thought the moonlight was creating an illusion.
But it was not merely reflected light.
Above Haku’s body, a silver aura like a haze began to rise.
It shimmered.
It wavered.
And, as though enveloping the small baby fox’s body, something slowly took form.
Camilla drew in a breath.
“……Huh?”
Lucius’s expression hardened.
Leopold’s shoulders tensed for an instant.
Isolde unconsciously took a step closer to Elysia.
Elysia instinctively leaned forward in front of the bed.
No one had told her to, but it was a movement as if she meant to protect Haku.
However, there was no hostility at all from the apparition.
What appeared within the moonlight was an existence entirely different from the small fox curled up asleep on the bed.
A complete fox.
An adult.
Dazzlingly beautiful white-silver fur, serenely closed eyes, and a form so elegant it even seemed sacred.
The figure overlapping the small baby fox’s body was, at a glance, no ordinary beast.
Above all—
The tails unfurled long behind it numbered nine.
Nine silver tails held the moonlight as they swayed gently.
It was faint like a vision, and perhaps because of that, it appeared all the more unreal and sublime.
Camilla tightly gripped Lucius’s sleeve.
“B-Brother…… that……”
Lucius could not answer.
Instead, he silently stared at Haku—no, at the mysterious figure superimposed over Haku.
Isolde’s lips parted very slightly.
Leopold’s gaze deepened.
Even he, who had traversed battlefields and faced all manner of magical beasts and powerful beings, could not easily define the existence before his eyes.
There was a sense of pressure.
But it was not a suffocating fear.
Rather, it resembled the awe one felt when looking up at an ancient mountain range.
An overwhelming rank that one dared not approach, yet could not recklessly antagonize either.
Gradeon murmured in a low, dry voice.
“……This is.”
His eyes were sharper than ever.
Elysia stood beside the bed, unable even to breathe properly.
The nine-tailed fox within the apparition had its eyes closed.
As though embracing the sleeping Haku, or perhaps watching over him, it remained there in silence.
Strangely, Elysia was not afraid.
She simply knew.
That this had not appeared in order to harm Haku.
Rather, the figure before her eyes now seemed closer to a reflection—some essence sleeping inside Haku, responding to the moonlight.
Camilla said in an extremely small voice.
“……It’s beautiful.”
At those words, everyone briefly looked back at Camilla.
Camilla was startled, yet she continued to gaze at the apparition with sparkling eyes.
“It’s not scary. It’s just…… incredibly beautiful.”
Isolde quietly exhaled.
She, too, was feeling the same thing.
“Yes. It isn’t frightening……”
Lucius spoke in a low voice.
“But it is certainly not an existence to be taken lightly.”
Leopold said nothing for a long while.
Then, very quietly, but clearly, he opened his mouth.
“Elysia.”
“……Yes.”
“I think I now understand, a little, why you trust that child.”
Elysia could not answer.
She merely looked at the sleeping Haku and bit her lip lightly.
The moonlight still illuminated the room.
The silver apparition shimmered softly several more times.
The nine tails drifted slowly in the windless room.
Then, truly like an illusion, it began to fade little by little, like mist clearing away.
One tail blurred,
then the next tail disappeared,
and the body of the white-silver adult fox melted into the moonlight.
In the end, only one small baby fox remained on the bed again.
As though nothing had happened from the very beginning.
Haku was still sleeping peacefully.
One tiny forepaw twitched once, and his round ear trembled slightly.
Then he sank back into sleep as if nothing had happened.
For a while, complete silence flowed through the room.
The first to speak was Camilla.
“……Haku really was an incredible child.”
There was admiration rather than fear in her words.
Lucius slowly nodded.
“I did think from the start that he couldn’t possibly be ordinary…… but this is beyond expectation.”
Isolde placed a hand on the edge of the bed and quietly looked at the sleeping Haku.
“And yet, he came to stay by our side in such a small body.”
Her voice held both wonder and tenderness.
After letting out a short breath, Leopold looked straight at Haku.
“Whatever his true identity is, at least one thing is clear.”
Everyone’s gaze turned to him.
“That child is necessary to Elysia.”
After a moment, he added,
“And…… to us Valerion as well.”
Gradeon laughed softly.
“Are you finally acknowledging it?”
“I never denied it in the first place.”
When Leopold replied bluntly, Camilla nearly burst into a small laugh, but hurriedly covered her mouth.
Elysia looked at her family, then lowered her gaze back to Haku.
Haku, on the bed, was still asleep, knowing nothing.
He was so small and warm that it was hard to believe he was the same being who had shown them the apparition of a nine-tailed fox beneath the moonlight moments ago.
Elysia carefully reached out and stroked Haku’s back once.
“……Sleep well, Haku.”
At that, Haku, half-asleep, wriggled slightly and burrowed a little closer toward her fingers.
Camilla clutched her heart again.
“He’s so cute……”
The air in the room, tense until then, softened a little at those words.
Isolde smiled quietly, and Lucius shook his head with a small sigh.
Even Leopold’s lips seemed to relax by the faintest degree.
The moonlight still remained in the room beyond the windowsill.
But no apparition appeared again.
Only the Valerion family silently shared the knowledge that what they had just seen had not been an illusion.
After that night, the family could no longer think of Haku simply as a “rare familiar.”
A small, cute baby fox who followed Elysia around and pricked up his ears at the smell of bread.
And yet, at the same time—
An existence that reflected the complete form of a nine-tailed fox beneath the moon.
And that fact quietly, yet unmistakably, changed the way the Valerion family looked at Haku.