Satoshi woke to the sound of smashing glass. He got up quickly and looked at his window. The faint moonlight shone through the scattered fragments hanging in the air. He breathed a slight sigh of relief as he took steps over to the lightswitch and turned on the light..
He adjusted his eyes to the light and watched as the fragments moved themselves aside and allowed space for Yon to enter. She floated in, her small, black dress draped loosely over each of her shoulders, but tight around her legs. Even in anger, even when breaking into his sanctuary, she maintained that ethereal grace that marked her as something beyond human comprehension. She looked at the window and watched as the glass melted itself, turned into a ball of glowing radiance, and put itself back into the frame. She cooled it instantly and then sighed before looking back to Satoshi.
The casual display of power wasn't lost on him.
"What did you do?" She asked coldly.
Satoshi felt his stomach drop. He'd been so careful about following their unspoken rules, so methodical about maintaining the boundaries of their arrangement. "I went to see my grandmother," he said back, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Why?"
"Because she's dying."
Yon's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. "You didn't know that before you left."
"What do you mean?"
"I knew she was dying." Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "But you didn't. So why did you really go?"
The question hung between them. Satoshi opened his mouth, then closed it. "You... you knew she was dying and you didn't tell me?"
"Her death shouldn't affect you." The words came out sharp. "It's my problem to deal with."
"She isn't a problem!" The words burst out of him louder than he intended. "She's a person. She's dad's mother."
Yon closed her eyes and held up her hand. When she opened them again, her gaze was steady but tired. "We've had this conversation before, Satoshi. I don't want to have it again." She paused, studying his face. "All I want to know is why you thought it was appropriate to break the routine."
"Because I wanted to." He crossed his arms. "I wanted to see her, I wanted to... I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I wanted to be human"
Yon was quiet for a long moment. "You don't have that luxury." Her voice was gentler now, almost pleading. "You can play pretend as long as you want, but what happens when you turn 50 and everyone around you starts asking why you haven't aged since you were 35?"
Satoshi looked away. He'd thought about that. Late at night, when he couldn't sleep.
"What will you do then?" she continued. "Fake your death? Start over somewhere else? Watch everyone you care about grow old while you—"
"Stop."
"You still haven’t thought this through Satoshi, we’re not supposed to want these kinds of lives, we need to—"
"I said stop." He turned back to her. "That's not... that's not what matters right now."
"Isn't it?" Her voice turned sharp again. "Every time you do something like this, it compromises my cover too. Do you realize that? I've spent decades building this identity, this life, and your moment of—"
"Of what? Of caring about someone?"
"Sentimentality” She finished, her eyes glowering the darkness of the room. “You threaten all of it."
They stared at each other. Satoshi could feel the familiar frustration building in his chest. "You can't keep watching over me like this. This containment is no different than me living in the Keep."
"Contained?" Yon scoffed and turned toward the window, her hand touching the glass she'd just reformed. "Is that what you think this is?"
"What else would you call it?"
“Survival, living so that we can accomplish something greater” She turned to him again and with a fury in her eyes she stared him down, taking a step forward to confront him.
"Mom—"
"Go ahead." Her voice turned bitter. "Go back to Takeshi’s family and tell them some made up story. Tell them all what has happened and how you have powers which they could only dream of. See how they treat you after you save their lives. See how demanding they become, how entitled, how furious when you don't save them fast enough or well enough or—"
"You don't know that."
"Don't I?" She stepped closer. "I don't care if you think I'm heartless for not caring about your father's mother. She was doomed to die anyway and Takeshi will be at her funeral."
The sudden shift caught him off guard. "What?"
"I already handled the situation." She waved her hand dismissively. "The Keep has plenty of Micro-Bead Projectors. He can show up and I can direct the Keep to make a good enough simulacra to fool his family.” She shook her head and contemplated the events. “Besides you only interacted with two people, so erasing their memories wasn't too much trouble."
Satoshi felt the blood drain from his face. "What…?"
"Reiko-san and Nurse Takahara. The nurse fainted when I brought her to the Keep, but your aunt was surprisingly calm about the whole thing."
"You erased their memories?" His voice came out strangled.
"It was necessary."
"That's not... you can't just..." He struggled for words. "That's not right."
"No," Yon said quietly. "It's not. I wonder why I had to do it."
They stood in silence, the weight of her words settling between them. Yon felt the familiar ache of regret spreading through her chest—not for what she had done, but for having to explain it, for watching the idealism slowly drain from someone she cared about. The lamplight flickered, and she found herself counting the shadows on the wall, anything to avoid the look in their eyes.
The silence stretched, and she could feel Satoshi’s confusion like a ghost in the small room. There was hurt there too, and disappointment that cut deeper than anger would have. Yon's hands hung at her sides, suddenly feeling too heavy, too stained with choices that had seemed necessary at the time but felt increasingly hollow in retrospect.
Her son shifted slightly, the floorboards creaking under his feet, and Yon felt the familiar maternal instinct to protect him from truths too harsh for his young heart. But he was no longer a child she could shield with gentle lies. The silence between them carried the weight of all the conversations they'd never had, all the explanations she'd postponed until he was older, until he was ready—until this moment when ready or not, the world had forced her hand.
"Look," she said finally, her voice softer. "I don't understand why you insist on this. Why you won't come back to the Keep so I can teach you how to hide properly. Maybe I've lived too long, maybe I've forgotten what it's like to be young, but..." She lost what she was supposed to say as she looked around the simple room, appreciating it for what it was worth.
"I don't want your help."
"Why?” She asked, still seeing the care in his eyes, the eyes of his father, the eyes of a human she used to love.
"Because I'm afraid of becoming you."
The words hung in the air between them. Yon went very still.
"When you killed dad," Satoshi continued "did you feel anything?"
"I..." She curled her lip. "I had to do that. He gave me no choice."
"That's not what I asked."
"Of course I felt something."
"What?"
She was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn't answer. "Betrayal," she said finally.
"Do you know what he felt?"
Yon looked at him, and for the first time since she'd arrived, she looked uncertain.
"Fear," Satoshi said, looking down at the ground and his bare feet "He felt fear. Just like I do now."
"Satoshi..."
"Don't." He raised his hand and waved her word away. "I know you don't want to call me that anyway."
"I'm not going to call you by your actual name."
"Why not?"
"Because..." She paused, looking pained. "Because it's not appropriate. Not yet."
"When will it be? When I come back to the Keep? When I give up everything that makes me feel human?"
Her eyes looked wounded, but she said nothing.
Satoshi took a breath. "I went to grandma because I've been feeling... strange. I've started to realize how powerful I am. Compared to everyone around me, I'm like... I'm like a god. I am a god" He saw something flicker in her expression. "But I hate it."
"Satoshi—"
"Let me finish." He looked out the window at the moon. "After you gave dad access to the Momentum Field, after you taught us both how to control it better, he filled my head with stories. Heroes and... and hope. I thought I knew what I wanted to do with this power. It's why I chose to become the IronStar Bastard, but then..." His voice broke slightly. "Then you killed him and I realized there are consequences to this power."
"Yes," Yon said quietly. "There are."
"I agreed with you for the longest time. It made so much sense. That's why I stayed. But then I realized something." He turned back to her. "You're alone."
She gave a silent acknowledgement of his point, but didn’t move.
"Your entire species was hunted to extinction because they revealed themselves, right? The IronStar Bastard, I'm supposed to be your survival strategy. A way to continue the Silent Civilization." He stepped closer. "But what kind of survival is it if you're always alone? I have friends, mom. I have people who care about me. Who do you have?"
Satoshi knew his argument was sound. It was a decent enough argument that he had brought up every time his own godhood demanded more of him. But she had clearly heard that argument before and knew what the response should be.
"It's a lie." She said in mournful monotone.
"What?"
"They don't love you." Her voice turned cold. "You’re too powerful to be loved. You have too much strength and too much power. They would hate you if they knew you. Show any one of your friends your powers and see what happens. They love an image, Satoshi. An image you've created because you know they'll hate the real you."
"You don't know that."
"Don't I? I’ve lived on this earth for 4,000 years. I’ve seen tribes grow and die off around me, I’ve given them everything, and then taken away everything, and it’s always the same. They pray to you, they demand of you, and when you don’t give them everything, they begin to resent you. Even when you try to be honest with them, when you try to be a human with abilities, what happens? They want to use you. They always want something. That was what your father forgot." She gave a belligerent smirk. “He was going to save the world”
"That's not fair he was going to-"
"I don't care if your father was going to cure world hunger!" The words exploded out of her, a tear finally welling up in her eye. "I don't care if he was going to end every war, stop every injustice. My father did the same thing. The worlds we helped became perfect, peaceful, safe. And that's exactly why the Incursion hunted us down and killed every last one of us."
Satoshi stared at her. "So we just... hide? Forever?"
"Yes." Her voice was firm again. "It's the only way to survive."
"That's not living."
"It's better than being dead."
They stood in silence. Satoshi could feel the weight of her words, the logic of them, but also the terrible emptiness they represented.
Yon's head jerked toward the door. "Someone's outside."
"Are they listening?"
"Yes." She glanced around the room. "Others are awake too."
"We're speaking Silent tongue. They can't understand."
"No, but they know something's happening." She looked back at him. "This is why you need to learn the Silent aspect properly. No need for physical speech at all."
"I'm not coming back to the Keep."
Yon sighed. "They're leaving."
"You should too."
Seeing the opportunity vanish, she noticed that everything she had come to say had been silenced by what she needed to say. "I love you, Satoshi. It's why I came. I don't want this world destroyed by the Incursion. I don't want you destroyed. I want you to have a family, to be happy, but..." She shook her head. "You can't have both. You can't help people and keep them safe."
"I'll think about what you said," Satoshi replied in Japanese. "Please go."
Yon's face fell. She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead she turned to the window and flicked her hand. The glass shattered into a million pieces as she floated through.
"I'll always be here for you," she whispered.
"I know."
He watched her reform the glass, watched her small figure accelerate into the night faster than his eyes could follow. Even with his enhanced vision, she vanished completely within seconds.
He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and crawled back into the futon. Curling up in the fetal position, he tried to process what had just happened. The conversation replayed in his mind—her fears, his defenses, the terrible possibility that they might both be right.
He fell asleep that night to dreams of his father, and a hope for a brighter tomorrow that felt more fragile than ever.