The Years of Peace

Yumi returns to the Tower

The Years of Peace began after Shun Sato survived the punishment for the Second Transgression. He returned through the portal beneath the Tower after two days in the demon realm, collapsed before Mimi Sato and Yumi Raijin, and remained unconscious for a week.

Mimi healed the catastrophic physical damage but could not immediately wake him. For another week after he regained consciousness, she kept the master quarters closed and personally fed and tended him. Yumi waited elsewhere in the estate, playing the Lullaby of Haru beneath the grand tree in the hope that its melody would lead him back.

Vows and the Lady of the Tower

It was slowly destroying his mind and body, and he did not know whether he had one year or fifty. He offered Yumi the freedom to leave rather than bind herself to that uncertainty.

Yumi chose to remain. They kissed beneath the morning light and exchanged vows to face the curse together until death. Soon afterward, Shun introduced her to the complete Household of the Tower: Mimi, Zero, Suzu, Roku, Ryosuke, and Omega. A seat directly beside Shun marked Yumi's place as the Lady of the Tower.

Marriage and children

Shun and Yumi married and were blessed with two children. Ryuji Sato, their firstborn, had black hair tipped crimson. Haruka Sato had black hair tipped cyan. Both children grew within a household that had previously known little ordinary joy, and their parents, adopted sister, and the Tower's servants adored them.

During these years Shun told Yumi the exact terms of the Unbreakable Oath. The revelation did not drive her away. It committed both parents to preparing Ryuji for the combat that could release him from service to the demon throne.

The end of an ordinary childhood

Ryuji's first ten years were peaceful. At ten, his parents changed his life abruptly. For the next six years, Shun and Yumi subjected him to relentless physical, magical, and psychological training. Mimi healed the injuries, but no one explained why Haruka's lessons were comparatively gentle.

Ryuji interpreted the difference as favoritism and the secrecy as evidence that his parents did not trust him. The warm household of his childhood gradually became a place of whispered conversations and anxious faces. Shun wanted to preserve Ryuji's innocence while forging a warrior strong enough to survive; the two goals proved incompatible.

Research and hidden dangers

Shun never stopped seeking release from the family's curses. Omega, his ancient teacher, confirmed that a long-term task he had assigned her was possible but would require fifteen to twenty years. The exact object of that work is not stated at this point in Volume II, and Omega warned that his ambition carried a price.

The household also remained vulnerable to threats Shun did not recognize. Near the end of the peaceful period, an unidentified hooded woman crossed Zero's perimeter. A third red eye immobilized him and planted a command within his mind before erasing his memory of their encounter. She called him an instrument and a seed of chaos. Her identity is not revealed in this volume section and is not inferred here.

Collapse

The period ended when Ryuji's inherited curse awakened during training and killed Yumi. The event exposed the cost of the family's secrecy and led to Ryuji's Exile. What had appeared to be sixteen years of safety was therefore also a long preparation for two debts: the oath imposed by Magnus and the older curse hidden in Shun's bloodline.