Chapter 179: Recognition, Regret and Rift

Chapter 179: Recognition, Regret and Rift

__________ POV Narration __________U//ppTodated fr/o/m nô/v/e/lb(i)n.c(o)\/m

Ken snickered as he stepped over the broken shards of the broken kitchen knife, he felt the fear in his parents.

They were afraid of him it seemed, his reputation preceded him even in such remote places. It couldn't be helped, he was quite literally a legend.

'Still, how come they never made the connection and realized I am their biological son?'

Ken's appearance was somewhat well documented by now. At the very least his age and blindness were both well-known.

"Well, I can't blame you for not recognizing me I guess..." Ken slowly headed to the cosy dining/living room, pulling one of the chairs and leisurely sitting down on it, crossing his legs whilst tilting his head.

The mother and father of the house were both frozen in fear, realizing that they had made a grave mistake.

They only moved when Ken gestured for them to sit down at the table.

He then reached for his mask and took it off, placing it gently on the table. His features were revealed, and both of the Shura Clan members winced a bit when they saw how scarred it was.

A twisted mound of flesh for everything above the nose, of course, he hadn't always been like that. His nose was only two small holes at first, but he decided to morph his body a bit, allowing it to look a bit more human.

Having an angled nose also had its own benefits at the end of the day.

"Does this face of mine look familiar to either of you?" Ken still held a smile on his face. His overall tone was gentle and casual.

In a sense, he had no way of being disappointed in his interactions with his biological parents, as he never even expected anything from them in the first place.

"Y-you..." The Mother was the first to react, covering her mouth with her hands whilst her eyes filled with tears.

The Father's eyes also widened in shock, recognition and finally... Fear.

"You're our son..." He seemed to be speaking more for himself than anything else.

But Ken nodded nonetheless, allowing his bangs to move, and his hair to cover the upper side of his face.

"I must say, I was not expecting to sense any tears... If you are afraid that I am here for revenge, then I must say that you are mistaken." Ken crossed his arms his calm and cordial smile remained plastered on his face.

But deep down, he looked down on the both of them.

"W-we tried to look for you! W-we had returned to that mountain!" The mother's voice broke through her cries, it seemed that they had ended up regretting their choice of leaving him for dead.

But they had failed as parents and human beings by making that choice in the first place. Any regret afterwards was a direct effect of the fact that they had done such a thing.

Although Ken could feel that his mother was suffering a bit, he couldn't bring himself to even feel pity for her.

"We were young and foolish back then... We tried to- No, for now, I need to at least say so-"

"Don't bother. I didn't come here to hear a meaningless apology." Ken interrupted his father, ignoring his mother's cries whilst leaning into his chair.

Hiroshi's eyes widened.

"So you were raised by someone else?" He was young, and not quite knowledgeable about the outside world or the way it worked.

Such innocence and naivety were somewhat endearing to Ken, but he didn't react much, merely humming when hearing the question.

"Indeed, I was raised by a rather nice group of deserting Samurai, it was a nice twist of fate," Ken spoke fondly of his family, remembering them once again, not that he had ever forgotten about them in the first place.

"But how did they adopt you? And why wasn't I ever told about this." Hiroshi gave his parents a confused look to which both mother and father looked away in shame.

"I believe that's a story that your parents should tell you. But let's just say that without the family that raised me, I wouldn't be here right now."

That statement only managed to aggravate Hiroshi's curiosity. He immediately turned to his parents once more, this time demanding an explanation.

And he got exactly that...

"W-well.. At birth, Ken, your twin brother was severely malformed. We didn't think we could raise him, nor did we think he could make it... So we left him near his place of birth." The father was the one to start explaining things, and the mother looked too ashamed even to open her mouth.

"It should be mentioned that the place of birth was the middle of a deserted mountain, in the middle of winter in the Land of Iron, where winter is a lot colder than in most other places..."

Ken made sure to add a few more details to the explanation. After all, if they decided to tell him some parts of the story, he at least deserved to know the whole picture.

And it seemed that despite his nativity and innocence, Hiroshi knew enough about the world to understand exactly what Ken meant...

His parents hadn't left his deformed twin for adoption... They left him to die in the middle of nowhere.

He was left speechless by that realization, he seemed to barely be able to wrap his head around it. But when he finally did, he turned his head back to his parents, hoping that one of them would refute it... But no such thing happened.

They were too ashamed to even lie at that point.

Ken could feel it, the disgust wellin up within his twin's mind as he looked at his parents. But that disgust was a lot more tempered than Ken's own feelings.

After all, no matter how much his opinion of them was lowered due to this matter, he was still their son. He had been raised by them for his entire life.

Still, Ken didn't need to be a psychologist to realise that a rift had been formed in that small family...

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Missed an upload since I was travelling back home. Stayed up all night and got here in the morning only to pass out for the rest of the daylight

Managed to get here safely at least and got to writing, anyway, hope you have a great day

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