Chapter 240: Chapter 240 – Memory Returns

Why did Yukie think that way? Why didn’t she want to face me directly?

Only one possibility: she knew. She knew about my ability to control minds, or stop time. That’s why she attacked from a safe distance, never showing her face, never giving me a chance to meet her eyes.

But how?

I racked my brain. Isabel? Maybe she talked after what happened in the stands? But Isabel seemed too scared to do that. Arianna? She knew about my abilities, but would she tell Yukie? No way. My dog had no strong reason to tell Yukie.

Or maybe Yukie found out on her own?

My mind stopped at one moment. One moment when I used her mouth, when I forced her, when I… Oh.

Oh. That must be it. When I stopped time and used her mouth for my pleasure several times. That girl must have deduced it from that.

Plus yesterday in the arena, when I stopped time and used her mouth again. That was the only proof. Yeah, that must be it.

After realizing that, I decided to test her.

“If you want to kill me,” I said, trying to calm myself, “wouldn’t you enjoy seeing my terrified face in my last moments of life?”

Silence. Then that cold voice came again.

“I’m tired of looking at your face.”

That voice.

I concentrated, trying to locate its source.

My eyes scanned in every direction, searching. And finally I spotted it. In the grass beside the road, about three meters from me. A small speaker. Black, almost invisible among the weeds.

A speaker. She wasn’t here. She was just transmitting her voice.

But she had to be nearby. Her ice ability couldn’t work at this range without direct concentration. She was watching me from somewhere, from a safe distance, but close enough to control the ice binding me.

The question was: where?

I moved my eyes, searching for the most likely hiding spots. The abandoned buildings around me—old structures with broken windows, closed shops with wooden boards over their doors. Where was the best place to hide while still watching me?

Second or third floor, I thought. From a height, she could see the entire area. And those dark windows were perfect hiding spots.

I tried to identify which building was most likely. But with such limited movement, it was hard to be certain.

I needed to make her angry enough to reveal herself, or at least make her slip up so I could locate her.

“Tell me, Yukie,” I called out again, my tone challenging. “The reason you won’t show yourself to me directly—it’s because you’re afraid of me, isn’t it?”

No answer. But I knew she heard.

“I know,” I continued. “You’re afraid of my ability. That’s why you won’t face me directly. You’re a coward, Yukie!”

A few seconds passed. Then that voice returned, colder than before.

“I won’t fall for such bait.”

I snorted. “Then before you kill me, can you at least tell me why you’ve hated me and tormented me all this time?” I paused, then added in a deeper voice, “Is it because I killed my own father?”

Instantly, the air around me shifted.

The temperature plummeted in an instant. My breath, escaping through the small hole in the ice, turned into thick white mist.

And the ice binding my body… grew even colder. Painfully cold. Cold that seeped into my bones, into my marrow, into every cell of my body. It felt like thousands of ants biting my skin from within, while the biting cold made me shiver violently.

I couldn’t help it. My body trembled inside that ice block, and every vibration made my skin scrape against the increasingly cold ice, adding to the pain.

She was angry. Very angry.

Good. Get angry. Show yourself.

But nothing appeared. Only silence, growing denser, heavier, and colder.

Somewhere, in one of those abandoned buildings, Yukie stood behind a second-floor window curtain.

Her short white hair was disheveled around her face. Her usually cold, expressionless face—had shifted slightly. The corners of her usually straight lips now turned slightly downward. Her normally flat eyebrows were now slightly furrowed. Her pale white eyes now gleamed with piercing intensity.

The air around her vibrated with cold. White vapor escaped with every breath. The window glass before her began to frost over, fine cracks spreading from where she stood.

Below, on the deserted street, I felt the change. The ice covering my body grew colder. The pain increased tenfold. I shivered violently, my teeth chattering uncontrollably, but I kept enduring.

She didn’t answer. But her ice grew colder.

After what felt like an eternity, that voice finally came again. From the small speaker in the grass. This time, it was colder than before, colder even than the ice binding me.

“I see.”

Just two words. But within those two words, something made my hair stand on end.

I was angry. Furious.

“HEY!” I shouted, my voice cracking from cold and rage. “WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER MY QUESTION?! SAY IT! ANSWER ME TO MY FACE!”

I paused, drawing a breath that felt like knives in my lungs.

“THE REASON YOU’VE BEEN TORTURING ME ALL THIS TIME IS BECAUSE I KILLED MY OWN FATHER, ISN’T IT?! RIGHT, ISN’T IT?!”

No answer.

I gritted my teeth, enduring the pain.

Silence. Complete silence. Even the wind seemed to stop. Only the sound of my labored breathing from the agonizing cold.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?!” I continued, louder now. “WHY HAVE YOU NEVER ASKED MY REASON FOR DOING IT?! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DESTROY MY LIFE LIKE THIS?!”

On the second floor of that abandoned building, Yukie heard every word. Her face grew colder. Her white eyes glowed brighter. And around her, the air vibrated more intensely.

But when she spoke, that flat, cold voice returned through the speaker, though this time with a different tone.

“When we first met after all that time…” Her voice paused briefly, then continued with the same cold tone, but with an intensity that made the air around me freeze even more. “That was the first thing I asked you. Why did you kill him?”

I froze, from the ice and from her words.

“But you…” she continued, her tone shifting—still cold, but with a tremor there. A tremor I’d never heard from Yukie. “You casually answered that you didn’t know anything and had forgotten. Every time I asked, you played dumb.”

Her words stabbed me like thousands of ice needles. And suddenly, that memory returned. The memory buried beneath years of pain and hatred.

.

.

.

Two years ago. Nine Stars Academy.

I had just been accepted as a student. First day of orientation. I walked through the corridors, trying to memorize where the classrooms were. The academy halls were magnificent, filled with talented students who looked at me with curiosity and contempt. But I didn’t care. My eyes were searching for only one person.

Yukie Iceblood.

My childhood friend. Because our parents were both influential people, we grew up together, played together, and laughed together. Until one day, everything changed. She suddenly disappeared, and we didn’t see each other for years.

I found her in the academy’s back garden, sitting alone on a bench by the artificial lake. Her short white hair was disheveled and unkempt, but that’s what made her more appealing. Her beautiful face stared at the lake with an empty expression—the expression she’d always shown since childhood.

I smiled. Finally.

I approached her carefully. “Yukie!”

She turned. Her pale white eyes looked at me. And for a moment, I saw something in her gaze.

But I was too happy to notice.

“Long time no see, huh?” I asked, still smiling broadly. “Sorry I couldn’t contact you all this time. Why did you suddenly disappear without—”

“Why?” Yukie cut me off.

I blinked, confused. “What?”

Yukie stood. Slowly, unhurriedly. Then, in a movement so fast I couldn’t react, her hand grabbed my uniform collar. Pulled me until my face was just inches from hers.

“Why did you do it?” she asked. Her voice was still cold, but her eyes… her eyes were different. There was fire there. Fire I’d never seen before. Fire of hatred.

I was confused. Genuinely confused. “Yu-Yukie… I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Do what?”

Her expression changed. Not much—Yukie’s face rarely showed expression. But somehow, I knew. I knew something terrible had happened. I knew she was angry. Furious.

Her grip tightened, nearly choking me.

“Why did you kill your own father, the Sword Saint?” she asked, her voice trembling—just slightly, but enough for me to hear.

“What was your reason?”

I was stunned. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

My father? The Sword Saint? Killed?

“What… what do you mean?” My own voice sounded foreign to my ears, and I felt panicked. “Yukie, that doesn’t make sense. My father… my father died in… in what, again? My father… My father died while exploring a Dungeon. Yukie, are you joking?”

“I’m not joking.”

“But… but that’s impossible!” I started panicking, trying to break free from her grip. “I couldn’t have killed my own father! What does all this mean?! Yukie, please—”

Yukie threw me.

BAM!

My body flew like a ragdoll, slamming hard into the stone wall behind me. Blood sprayed from my mouth . My vision blurred. I slid down, crashing to the floor with a loud thud.

It felt like being hit by a truck. My bones were broken—ribs, arm, maybe some vertebrae too. Blood gushed from my mouth, wetting my chin, wetting my uniform. The pain was incredible. I couldn’t move. Could only lie there, staring at Yukie standing a few meters away.

My breath came in gasps. Every inhalation felt like stabbing my lungs with thousands of knives.

And amidst that pain, I saw it.

Yukie. The ice girl. The cold girl who never showed emotion.

She was crying.

Tears streamed down her pale white cheeks—tears that froze instantly before they could fall, leaving icy trails on her skin. It was the first time in my life I’d seen Yukie cry. And somehow, that hurt more than all the broken bones in my body.

“How could you…” she whispered, her voice breaking, shattering, like glass falling from a great height. “How could you act like this and forget everything?”

I wanted to answer. Wanted to ask what she meant. Wanted to explain that I genuinely didn’t know anything. Wanted to ask why she was so certain. But my body wouldn’t cooperate anymore.

The world around me began to fade. Colors bled away, sounds grew distant. Only Yukie’s face remained visible, with frozen tears on her cheeks, an expression caught between anger and devastation.

“Yu… kie…”

And then everything went dark.

.

.

That memory returned clearly now.

That day. The first day Yukie tortured me. After that, she kept doing it—over and over, for weeks, for months. Every time with the same question: Why did you kill him? Why did you do it?

And every time I answered with the same confusion. Because back then, I genuinely didn’t know. I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember anything about my father’s death.

After some time, she stopped asking. She gave up. But her torment didn’t stop. It just changed—from interrogation to harassment. Making me a punching bag. Destroying me every day for no clear reason.

And now, after two years, I finally understood.

She never stopped asking. She just gave up on getting an answer. But that question was still there, burning inside her, making her keep hating me, keep torturing me, keep destroying me.

Because I never answered her question.

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