Chapter 79: The Aizawa missing child .
( this Chapter and the ones going forward would be written in rainas pov until I say otherwise , also please if you haven’t written review on this book please do I’ll really appreciate it )
I walked back into the cafeteria with the file in my hand and dropped it onto the table in front of my grandfather. The sound echoed across the nearly empty room, loud enough to draw the attention of a nurse passing near the entrance before she quickly looked away again.
Katsuro glanced down at the folder and then lifted his eyes to me.
His expression barely changed.
I flipped the file open, found the page I wanted, and turned it toward him.
"What else are you hiding from me?"
For a moment he simply looked at the report without speaking. Then he picked up his tea as though we were discussing something far less important than a medical record suggesting a man everyone believed was beyond recovery had shown signs of responding only weeks ago.
"It doesn’t matter."
The answer immediately irritated me.
"Why doesn’t it matter?"
He set the cup back onto its saucer with deliberate care.
"When it happened, the doctors believed he was waking up."
I remained silent and waited for him to continue.
"His finger moved. His heart rate increased. There was brief neurological activity." He paused before adding, "They were hopeful."
"And?"
"They were wrong."
His voice remained calm and unwavering.
"There has been no meaningful response since."
I looked down at the report again.
The anger was still there, but it felt increasingly difficult to hold onto it when every answer seemed to create three new questions. Felix wasn’t dead. My grandfather had hidden that from me for years. X Reveals wanted Katsuro for reasons I still didn’t fully understand. And now I was sitting in a hospital cafeteria staring at a report that suggested Felix may have shown signs of waking up only a few weeks ago.
Nothing made sense anymore.
I closed the file and pushed it aside.
"Is there anything else you’re not telling me?"
My grandfather’s gaze drifted toward the large windows overlooking the mountains. Beyond the glass, the afternoon sky had begun to fade into softer shades of grey and gold as the sun slowly descended behind the distant peaks.
Then he shook his head.
"No."
I didn’t believe him.
Not for a second.
The problem was that I knew him too well.
Katsuro Arashigumi always had an answer, and when he decided a conversation was over, no amount of pressure would make him continue it. Arguing now would accomplish nothing except convince him to become even more stubborn.
So I let it go.
For now.
The drive back to the estate passed in silence.
Our convoy rolled through the gates shortly before sunset, and by then the compound had already begun settling into its evening routine. Guards exchanged shifts along the perimeter while servants moved quietly through the halls, and one by one lights began appearing throughout the estate as darkness slowly gathered across the surrounding forest.
My grandfather stepped out of the car first. After speaking briefly with one of the kitchen staff, he headed directly toward his office without another word.
I watched him disappear inside.
The door closed behind him.
Something was still wrong.
I couldn’t point to a specific lie or even a specific detail. It was simply a feeling, a persistent certainty that I was still missing a piece of the puzzle and that Katsuro knew exactly which piece it was.
An hour later I heard movement in the hallway.
Looking up from the dining table, I watched my grandfather emerge from his office wearing a dark overcoat. One of the guards approached him immediately, and the two exchanged a few quiet words before Katsuro continued toward the main entrance.
A minute later one of the black cars pulled away from the estate.
I watched it disappear through the gates.
Then I checked the clock.
Twenty minutes.
Long enough.
I rose from my seat.
Sneaking around Katsuro’s estate was never easy. The entire compound operated like a military installation disguised as a family residence, complete with cameras, patrol routes, overlapping security shifts, and guards stationed in places most visitors never even noticed.
I had grown up here.
I knew where the cameras couldn’t quite see. I knew which corridors the guards preferred and which staircases were rarely used. More importantly, I knew how security moved when they believed everyone who belonged here was exactly where they were supposed to be.
So I moved carefully.
Past the west corridor.
Down the rear staircase.
Around the security office.
Eventually I reached my grandfather’s private quarters.
The room smelled faintly of sandalwood. Traditional scrolls hung neatly on the walls above immaculate tatami mats, and a low wooden table sat in the center of the room surrounded by cushions arranged with almost obsessive precision. Everything reflected Katsuro perfectly.
Ordered.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
I checked the obvious places first.
Drawers.
Cabinets.
Storage chests.
Nothing.
Ten minutes later I stepped back and released a quiet sigh.
Of course there was nothing.
This wasn’t where Katsuro worked.
This was where he slept.
Whatever he was hiding would never be kept somewhere this accessible.
It would be in the office.
So I slipped back into the hallway and made my way there instead.
The difference was immediate.
The bedroom belonged to my grandfather.
The office belonged to Katsuro Arashigumi.
Dark shelves stretched from floor to ceiling. Old books lined the walls beside locked display cases containing antique weapons and artifacts collected over decades. The room carried a weight that was difficult to describe, as though every decision made within these walls had left something behind.
I started with the desk.
Then the cabinets.
Then the shelves.
Most of what I found was exactly what I expected: financial records, property acquisitions, correspondence, investment reports, and enough documentation to keep accountants employed for years.
Nothing personal.
Nothing useful.
Nothing that explained why I felt like my grandfather was still hiding something from me.
Then my attention settled on the far wall.
A large dragon painting hung there in an ornate frame.
Centered.
Perfectly centered.
Too perfectly centered.
I stared at it for several seconds before finally crossing the room and lifting it away from the wall.
A safe sat behind it.
My pulse immediately quickened.
Of course.
Kneeling in front of the keypad, I entered the first code that came to mind.
My birthday.
Denied.
I tried my mother’s birthday.
Denied.
The screen flashed red.
ONE ATTEMPT REMAINING.
My stomach dropped.
"Wonderful."
I closed my eyes and forced myself to think.
Birthdays were too obvious. Katsuro would have known I would try those first.
So what mattered enough for him to build a code around it?
I stared at the keypad.
Then I thought about my mother.
Not her birthday.
Not her death.
The day she left.
The day she walked away from this life.
The day Katsuro lost her.
For all his power, influence, and control, that was the one thing he had never managed to get back.
Slowly, I entered the date.
1506
The lock clicked.
For a moment I simply stared at it, half convinced I had imagined the sound.
Then I carefully pulled the safe door open.
The first things I saw were exactly what I expected.
Stacks of cash.
Gold bars.
Several passports bearing different names and different nationalities.
None of that surprised me.
This was Katsuro.
If anything, I would have been more surprised if those things hadn’t been there.
Beneath them sat a collection of folders arranged in neat stacks.
I reached inside and pulled them out one by one, placing them on the floor beside me.
Business records.
Property acquisitions.
Bribery payments documented with meticulous precision.
Financial transfers that crossed multiple countries and multiple jurisdictions.
Enough information to destroy governments, corporations, and more than a few powerful people if it ever became public.
I continued sorting through them.
Then one folder near the bottom caught my attention.
HARRINGTON.
The word alone was enough to make something tighten inside my chest.
Slowly, I opened it.
The first photograph showed a house.
The Aizawa house.
I recognized it immediately.
The second photograph made me stop.
Aizawa Tenkaichi stood beside a woman.
My mother.
For several seconds I simply stared at the image.
I had never seen this photograph before.
Never heard my mother mention the Aizawas.
Never heard the name Tenkaichi spoken inside our home.
Yet here they were, standing side by side, close enough that nobody looking at the photograph would mistake them for strangers.
And my mother was smiling.
Not the polite smile she used for photographs.
Not the careful smile she used when she wanted people to think everything was fine.
A real smile.
The kind that reached her eyes.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen one like that.
Slowly, I turned the page.
More photographs followed.
My parents.
Me as a child.
Surveillance reports.
Property records.
Financial documents.
Years of observation condensed into neatly organized files.
The deeper I went, the more uncomfortable I became.
My grandfather hadn’t simply kept records.
He had monitored people.
Entire families.
Entire lives.
Every movement reduced to reports and photographs and dates filed away inside a safe.
I continued turning pages.
Then I found a family photograph.
The entire Aizawa family stood together.
Tenkaichi.
His wife.
Three children.
I found myself staring at one of the boys.
Something about him felt familiar.
Not immediately.
Not enough for me to place.
But familiar all the same.
I narrowed my eyes and studied the photograph longer.
The shape of the face.
The eyes.
The expression.
There was something there.
Something I should have recognized.
But before I could figure it out, I found myself turning the page again.
More reports.
More photographs.
More records.
Then a loose sheet slipped free from the folder and drifted onto the floor.
I bent down and picked it up.
A death certificate.
Twelve years old.
A photograph had been attached to the upper corner.
I looked at it.
And froze.
The room seemed to fall away around me.
The face staring back from the document was younger than I remembered.
Several years younger.
But there was no mistaking it.
Not after meeting it in my house several times.
Not after spending months working beside it.
Talking to it.
My grip tightened around the paper.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
I looked again.
The same eyes.
The same face.
The same features.
Only younger.
The document trembled slightly in my hands.
A cold feeling slowly spread through my chest as realization began piecing itself together.
The familiar boy from the family photograph.
The face on the death certificate.
The person I had known all this time.
My gaze dropped toward the name printed beneath the photograph.
The room suddenly felt impossibly quiet.
Even the distant sounds of the estate seemed to disappear.
I stared at the name.
Then at the photograph.
Then back at the name again.
My mouth had gone completely dry.
"is that ....Kuro...?"
The words barely escaped my lips.
The folder slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.
to be continued ...
