Chapter 86: There’s no closing the door once opened

The door opened on its own. It wasn't locked. 

Something was wrong. 

"Let's go in," I whispered. 

Marg nodded. 

Furniture was on the floor and things looked chaotic. 

It almost looked like a fight broke out in here. 

'What happened in here?'

My heartbeat rose, and I didn't like this. "MOM!?" I ran around the house. "Elsa!?"

I didn't get an answer. I didn't know why but the anxiety was hitting me a bit too hard. "WHAT the hell happened in here!?"

"Mhmmm? What?" Elsa came down from upstairs, rubbing her eyes. She was in her nightgown. 

Was she seriously asleep?

"What happened? What is all this? Where's mom!?"

"Stop shouting. My ears are hurting." She yawned. "Did you check the kitchen?"

"The kitchen?"

Why would mom be in the kitchen at this hour? Mom only started cooking after eight. And from the looks of all this stuff lying around, it didn't seem likely that she'd be in the kitchen, looking all pretty.

But I still headed there anyway. 

"Well, you were right." My cheeks twitched a bit, but I controlled myself. 

"Toldya."

"How the hell were you asleep through all this?"

Elsa proudly pumped her chest. 

This was another one of those times when I seriously wanted to slug my little sister. 

"Who is that?" Marg questioned. She was right behind us. 

"I don't know, really." 

Mom was seated on a chair and a man was right beneath her feet, battered. I couldn't tell if the guy even was alive anymore. The poor guy was battered so bad, it was hard to tell if he was breathing or not.

As for mom, well, she was completely unharmed but she wasn't quite sane. 

"Well hawve a seat, HICC*" She was drunk instead. 

I saw my mother getting drunk three times in my entire life. She had at least 10X more alcohol tolerance than normal people. And yes, this was the third time. 

'Just how much frigging wine did she drink?'

And she had a bad habit of drinking only red wine. 

But this did explain the condition of the house though. 

I did take a seat, facing her directly. "Who's he?"

"Your father." With that said, she raised her feet and slammed her heel on the guy's back. The guy raised his hand to greet all of us and then back to his stationary position of kissing the floor. 

I didn't care if the guy beneath her feet was my father or not, but I felt bad for him as a fellow human being.

'After all this time? A coincidence?'

It certainly didn't feel like one.

"Good timing I guess. I kind of wanted to talk about my seals."

I couldn't care less about the man below. After all this time, I didn't really feel all that much necessity to even waste mental resources on the man. So I just pretended he didn't even exist. 

"Well-" Mom began but was abruptly stopped as the man below her feet finally tried to get up. For a second mom's chair was about to fall over. "Stay down, you damn piece of shit!" She kicked him hard, way too hard. 

The chair never fell.

I looked back and both Elsa and Marg were grimacing. I couldn't fault them. But Elsa did surprise me. She wasn't saying a word even after knowing the man to be our father. 

"I think that should be enough. There's no point in getting charges for murdering people." Besides, I needed answers.

Mom clicked her tongue and raised her foot. The man stood up with a swaying body and dusted his clothes. He went to the corner, got a chair, and sat next to mom, pretending like nothing had ever happened. 

Though, the amount of blood the guy was leaking, did seem fatal if nothing else. 

"It's been a long time Jintel." His voice was deep and prickly. I still recognized it.

Calling me by the name I wanted to be called, wasn't going to earn him any points. 

I didn't even give him a glance and just stared at mom. "Well, what is this? Did you two fight?" It was kind of apparent, so I moved on. "Recently, a shadow's talking to me and I saw a black thing inside my head too. Oh and-" I grabbed a ceramic glass from the table and showed her my powers. "I can do this now."

"Hey, that was expensive." Mom wasn't in the best of moods. She was still drunk and I guess this wasn't the best time to have a conversation. 

"Those seals were placed on you by Hyora. She can manipulate space, so I had her create three spatial barriers inside your head." SO, the man beside her answered instead.

'Hyora, Hyora Battlesuin?'

"Why?"

"To save you. To prevent them from taking over. To prevent another catastrophe."

"Catastrophe? Do you mind explaining a bit more?"

"You see-" The guy didn't get to finish as mom stomped his feet solid with her heels. "ARGHH!" The guy let out a high-pitched squeal but contained it. 

It looked very painful. 

"Can we not talk about the past? Let's just talk about the present and-"

"No mom. I have to know. If I don't, I can't move on." I'd already made up my mind. This couldn't go on. 

Mom sighed and glared at the man right next to me. As if to say 'This was all your fault.'

The man cleared his throat. "Thirteen years ago, you were infected with a strand of the K-virus. There was no cure and if things went on, you would have died if you faced extreme situations. Of course, that would have been the case only if you were excited to that extent. Your powers were quite similar to your grandfather but your container- your body, was too weak. So if you were excited and tried to use your powers, your body would have crumbled." He seemed hesitant to say more. He looked behind me at the two girls.

"It's fine. Go on."

"You were kidnapped by an unknown group of people." The man finally sighed. "I lost my mind on that day. Everybody in our family searched for you far and wide. But they couldn't find you. Marcus was very little at the time so he couldn't locate you either. But your grandfather, Julio released a burst of alpha and beta particles so strong, half of the continent was scarred. Of course, no one was hurt badly but he exhausted his powers. And he did that eleven times before collapsing. But then he found you." The man glared straight at me. "He gave us the location and flew off. When he found him he was weak but he didn't give you up. He fought the men, he fought a thousand armed and powerful men while protecting you. I got there late. And by that time, Julio was so injured that he couldn't even stand anymore. But you were still in his arms. That was the trigger."

"Trigger of what?" I was afraid to ask. 

'All of that was my fault?'

"The trigger of your illness. As you might know, there were three variants of the K-virus. And we already have the cure for the common one. The other two went extinct over time. But that isn't quite true. There's another strand. A strand that most of the world doesn't know about. The rarest one. You were infected with that rarest variant. And the virus further enhanced your powers, weakening your body ever so more. Your mother was with Elsa, so she couldn't come and yet-" He stopped for a second, grimaced, and continued. "You eradicated everything in sight. You were mad and you destroyed everything. Buildings, animals, people, and even nations. I tried to stop you but I was stopped by Hyora's barriers. In her words, I'd have died even before reaching you." 

"But dad- Your grandfather still persisted and reached you through that destruction." Mom's voice was calmer than before. "He was immune to radiation. And even I believed that. But he wasn't. Even he took damage as weakened as he was. But he didn't give up and saved you with the help of one of his friends. He stopped your rampage with a smile. And once everything was cleared he took you to a mountain and taught you about various things for two years. You should only have vague memories about that. Because-" Mom stopped. Her voice shivered a little. She was drunk, but even so, she was sad.

"The memories are also sealed." My vision was at the ground. The reality was something I couldn't escape from.

I wanted this, I wanted to know, but this. This wasn't something I could handle. I didn't want to know anymore.

"We sealed your powers with the first seal and your other half with the second: you're half kin, son. That was the consequence of the virus. The third barrier prevents your memories from surfacing. It was the will of your grandfather at his deathbed." The man glared straight into my eyes. 

"Deathbed?"

"He died at the age of 71 when you were five." Mom looked straight into my eyes.