The Epic of the Disc Chapter 71: Father and Son

Chapter 71: Father and Son

Rei stood there like he’d been waiting for him. Like he expected him. But this ti there was no blurriness drawn onto his face. He could see him vividly. Every feature. Clear as day, which was saying a lot, especially in a place that had no day.

"Hey, Rei. Miss ?" His eyes drifted through the familiar emptiness. "You really need to redecorate. This place is sohow worse than last ti I was here."

"You get used to it." A smile tugged at his lips. "Eventually."

"So Kuro didn’t end up here?" Shiro looked around. "Figured he’d at least stop by. Keep the old man company."

Rei’s laugh echoed through the empty space. Hollow. Bouncing off walls that didn’t exist. "This is a special place. Just for ."

Shiro slowly lowered his head. The smile faded. Whatever energy he’d walked in with drained out of him all at once, and what was left underneath wasn’t funny at all.

"I said things to him, Rei. So ssed up things—things I can’t take back." His voice ca out quieter than he wanted. Smaller. "I called him heartless. I told him his kids would never know their father. And then he died proving

wrong."

He felt Rei’s arm settle around him. Warm. Steady. The sa way it always was.

"Yeah," Rei said softly. "That feeling sucks."

"I didn’t even get to say sorry." He pushed himself away, his fists pressing against Rei’s chest like he needed sothing solid to hold onto before the rest of him fell apart. "Why couldn’t he just talk to ? Like a normal person? Instead of hiding behind a mask and playing the hero from the sideline."

He lifted his gaze and t Rei’s eyes.

"And you. Why didn’t you just tell

everything?"

Rei looked like he hadn’t aged a day. Still annoyingly handso. Warm skin, sharp jaw, features so clean it was almost offensive. Shiro wished he’d picked up so of those good looks from him. Even a fraction. Even a crumb.

He just smiled softly, but his eyes held an unbearable amount of pain behind them. The kind he’d gotten very good at hiding behind that smile.

"I’ve seen how angry you were becoming, Shiro." His voice was gentle but firm. "If I had told you everything, the entire plan would have failed, and I would have lost both of my sons."

Shiro stared at him the way a dog stares at a ceiling fan.

"What plan? What are you—there was a plan? This whole ti there was a plan and nobody thought to include

in it? The guy who just got a fist-sized hole through his stomach? That guy didn’t make the mailing list?"

Rei laughed, then sucked in a lungful of air—which shouldn’t have been possible, considering air didn’t exist in this place, but he did anyway. It was the kind of breath a man takes right before he sits you down and says, "This is going to take a while, so get comfortable."

So long that if there had been chairs nearby, they would’ve sat down and talked while having a cup of tea. But this was purgatory, so they crossed their legs and floated around in the empty nothing.

"Rember the old man?" Rei began.

Shiro nodded. "The holess one."

"Yeah." Rei’s voice shifted. Quieter now. "Before he disappeared, he passed down a gift to ."

Shiro frowned. "What gift?"

Instead of answering, he just snapped his fingers.

The void shattered.

They were back on the island. Well, not physically, but as viewers.

Below him, there were two babies. Tiny. Fragile. Wrapped in cloth and screaming their lungs out in perfect, ear-splitting unison.

Him and Kuro.

’We were that small and annoying?’

And in front of them, a sword. Drawn. Steady. Pointed at sothing beyond the fog.

It was Rei.

Shiro squinted, trying to make out familiar creature behind the mist, but the mist only gave him a silhouette—a beast with horns, two tails, and wide wings that stretched across the sky like a second darkness had decided the first one wasn’t enough.

’It all makes sense now.’

They both watched as Rei narrated the scene below, walking him through it play by play.

"At first I didn’t know what gift the old man granted . But—" Below them, Rei leaped toward the monster, sword pointing at the silhouette of the beast, and a huge flash of light erupted on impact. "Even before I jumped in front of that godlike being, the mont I landed back on this island I’d seen this exact mont over and over again. At first I thought it was just a dream, but things kept lining up."

A pause. Heavier than the void around them.

"But at the last mont, I realized it wasn’t a dream—it was my fate." He stared at the glowing explosion of light. "And as my body and my mind were slowly being ripped apart—"

The words landed like stones in still water.

"An older version of you appeared. Pulled my soul out before that thing could devour it." Another pause. Quieter. "And I waited here. In this place. For years. Alone. Until the day you finally pulled

out and into that well."

Snap.

They were back in the empty void. Floating. Silent. Two souls suspended in nothing. Shiro didn’t know how to take it all in. His brain was full. Overflowing. Every new piece of information shoved the last one aside, fighting for space with every emotion he’d been drowning in.

The words ca out shaking. Barely holding together.

"You shouldn’t feel guilty, Shiro. You’re not the one to bla." Rei’s voice was steady. Too steady. The kind of steady that takes effort. "He picked that path on his own."

Shiro’s eyes widened. "Nobody chooses to die, Rei." His voice sharpened. "That’s not a path. That’s a dead end."

Rei shook his head. Slow. Patient. The way soone shakes their head when they know more than they’re allowed to say and it’s killing them.

"He knew the path he picked."

Shiro froze. "What?"

"Kuro received the sa—" Rei paused, searching for the right word in a place where no words felt right. "Gift. Or curse. Call it whatever you want. But Kuro inherited that so-called gift from . He and I were linked." His voice dipped. Quieter. "While my body and my life force were being torn apart, I saw glimpses of you through Kuro. Right until he—"

He didn’t finish. More like he couldn’t. How could he? He’d kept that to himself the entire ti.

Even though Rei seed calm on the surface, behind those brown eyes Shiro could see it. The pain he was holding back with everything he had. Cracks running through a dam that was never built to hold this much.

Nothing worse than a man knowing when his son would die and knowing he couldn’t stop it.

Nothing worse than carrying that knowledge in silence, alone, in a void with no walls and no end and no one to tell.

He didn’t know how to respond. There was no word in any language, in any dictionary, in any world that could cut through this silence.

So he didn’t try.

He just sat there. Floating in nothing. Next to the man who had carried everything. Until Rei spoke up.

"If anyone should be standing in the guilty line, it’s ." Rei’s voice dropped. "I took a girl from everything she knew, brought her to this island, and promised her a life I couldn’t deliver." He chuckled. Broken. "So promise."

Shiro sighed and got to his feet—well, as much as anyone can get to their feet when there’s no ground to stand on.

"Not gonna lie," he said, brushing nothing off his clothes because the void didn’t have dust but the gesture felt right anyway, "I didn’t think our eting would be this depressing."

He reached out his hand.

"Much as I would love to drown in sorrow with my dad—" He glanced at his other hand. It was wrapped in that stretchy, shadowy fabric again, pulling at him, tugging him back toward the living world. A soft smile tugged at his lips. "My ti is kinda running out."

Rei looked at the outstretched hand. Closed his eyes. And smiled. Not the broken kind. Not the hiding-pain kind. The real kind. The kind Shiro rembered from the diary. From the tree. From a life that should have been longer.

He took his hand.

"Look at you." Rei’s voice was barely above a whisper. "You’ve grown."

"Only because soone showed

how." The smile on Shiro’s face widened. Warm. Genuine. The kind he only ever wore when no one else was watching. "Thanks for that, Dad."

A pause. Softer now.

"I hope I can et Mom one day."

"You look just like her," Rei said softly, his palm cupping Shiro’s face.

Before embracing him one last ti, he held him for a bit longer. Face pressed against his chest. And Shiro let him. Didn’t pull away. Just let it happen.

"It’s nice seeing you again, Dad." His voice cracked. "I wish I could stay here a bit longer." The next part ca out muffled against Rei’s chest. "But your idiot son thought it would be funny to let an irresponsible dumbass babysit his kids."

"You will be okay," Rei murmured before releasing him from the kind of hug only a father could give. Warm. Safe. The kind that made you forget, just for a second, that the world outside was on fire.

Shiro turned away. His eyes welling up. The words barely wanted to co out, clinging to the inside of his throat like they knew what was coming.

"Of course I got this." His voice wobbled. Cracked. Held together by nothing but stubbornness. "I was raised by the greatest father alive. Who even after death raised ."

He waved at Rei without looking back. Because if he did, if he turned around and saw that face one more ti, this goodbye would beco sothing he couldn’t walk away from.

"They’re babies, Rei. How hard can two tiny humans really be?" His voice broke on the last word. "I’ve fought gods. Babies should be easy. Long as they’re not as loud as Kuro and I were—I’ll be okay."

The shadowy fabric pulled tighter, dragging him back. Faster now. The void stretching thin around him.

"Shiro."

He turned toward the voice.

Rei was waving. Smiling. That sa warm, steady, annoyingly handso smile.

"Send this ssage to my father."

Rei’s mouth moved. The words didn’t reach him.

But Shiro understood every word.

He gave him a thumbs up.

Then the fabric yanked him back, hard, and the void collapsed around him. His organs scrambled. His chest compressed. His insides rearranged themselves in ways that were definitely not dically recomnded.

’Damn.’????????????????????????????????