[Disclair: The following content contains scenes that so readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is strongly advised.]
Vanitas felt sick to his core.
’This is what a father is?’
As the scenes of Roman raising Karina replayed before him, that question refused to leave his mind.
"How far did he go with you?"
Karina’s answer ca after a pause. "As much as a father would."
Vanitas snapped.
"Cut it out with that bullshit!" He stepped forward and seized her shoulder. "Did he take away your innocence? Did he—"
The words caught in his throat. The question he wanted to ask was an uglier one he hated himself for even thinking.
’Did he deflower you?’
"...I don’t want to answer that."
"You—why?! You’re still defending him? Even now?" His voice shook with anger. "Listen to . None of this is normal. Not a single part of it at all."
Karina freed her shoulder from his grasp, her fingers tightly curling into fists.
"How am I supposed to know what normal even is?!" she scread back.
Normal was sothing she had never been given.
"Do you think I wanted to rember?!"
Vanitas released a slow breath and turned his gaze back toward the mory unfolding before them.
——Karina, you’re growing up so beautifully. For a mont, I nearly thought you were your mother.
The words were soft. Spoken with sensuality that did not belong to a parent.
The little girl, anwhile, could only smile and nod. She did not understand why the praise made her chest tighten. Complints were supposed to be kind. Yet these stuck on her skin like sothing sticky she could not wash away.
The man leaned closer, close enough that she could sll him. Close enough that space itself felt wrong.
——You should smile more. You look prettier when you do.
The mory shifted again.
The girl sat quietly at the table, eyes lowered, nodding when spoken to, laughing when expected. She had learned the pattern by then. Learned when to speak and when to disappear. Learned that as long as she played her role, the house stayed quiet.
And quiet, to a child like her, felt dangerously close to safety.
Karina’s breath trembled beside him.
"I didn’t want to rember," she said again, her voice smaller now. "I tried so hard not to."
Vanitas said nothing. There were no words that could fix this. No lecture that could undo years of confusion.
He only watched as the mory continued to rot in plain sight.
——Karina, could you co to my bedroom tonight? My back’s been overworked for days. I need a massage. You can do that, can’t you?
Vanitas’s fists clenched so hard his nails bit into his palms, blood slowly dripping.
"Enough of this."
Karina did not answer.
The mory did not pause for him, either.
A door opened sowhere beyond the fra. The sound of fabric, clothes rustling, the clinking of a belt. Footsteps crossed a threshold that should never have been crossed.
There were no words after that.
Only the sound of breathing that did not match.
Only the small, broken noise of a child who had already learned that resistance only prolonged things.
Only silence swallowing everything else.
The girl did not scream, for she could not.
But the cold blood, nonetheless.
The mory frosted over, details blurring as if sared by ice. What could not be endured was sealed away. What could not be understood was locked in a place without language.
A chamber where pain could not move.
Where ti could not touch it.
Where a child could survive by forgetting she was there at all.
"I said enough!"
The world answered him with nothing.
Vanitas wrapped his arms around Karina tightly, as if letting go for even a mont would cause her heart to shatter.
"I understand, okay?"
Karina trembled in his arms.
"I understand why you needed to forget. Why you wanted to forget. Why you chose to forget, just to protect what little peace you had left."
"...."
"But this... this," he continued, "I know it sounds harsh. But forgetting is not the answer. To forget is to stop acknowledging. To pretend sothing never happened, and that’s a punishnt far crueler than disrespect."
Karina’s fingers clenched against his coat.
"It absolutely sickens that you worked day and night just to care for that man on his deathbed. If I had known... If I had known sooner..."
His sentence trailed off.
Karina’s shoulders shook, and the restraint she had built finally collapsed.
"I was scared," she cried, sobs breaking in between. "I was terrified out of my mind. Every day. Every night. I didn’t know when it would happen again, or what I was supposed to do to make it stop."
Vanitas held her tighter.
"I thought if I was good enough, if I smiled enough, if I took care of him, then maybe he wouldn’t hurt anymore," she said, her voice breaking. "I thought it was my fault. That I was the one doing sothing wrong."
She shook her head, tears soaking into his coat.
"I didn’t even know what I was losing. I didn’t know what was being taken from . I was just a child, Professor. I didn’t know how to say no. I didn’t know I was allowed to."
Her hands curled into fabric as if it were the only thing keeping her upright.
"But so pain worse than his fists started hurting," Karina said. "I wanted it gone. I wanted it all gone. I wanted him gone. But what could I do? He was the only family I had left. Mom was... Mom was dying..."
Her words dissolved into sobs.
Vanitas’s gaze moved past her shoulder, toward the table beside the bed. There, half-hidden beneath the papers, was a used pregnancy test kit.
Positive.
"...."
And beside them were abortion pills.
His brow furrowed so deeply it felt like sothing inside him might crack.
"That man is no family."
"...."
"You owed him nothing. Not your youth. Not your fear. Not your body. And certainly not your humanity."
"...."
"But don’t forget. Never forget the pain he caused you. Acknowledge it, then move on."
"You can’t just say that—"
"I can. And I will. I would kill that man a hundred tis for you. I would send him to a place far worse than a hospital bed, far worse than hell itself, even if it ant a you that forgets would co to loathe for it."
"...."
Truthfully, the words felt like nothing at all. In front of her, Vanitas always felt as though language itself had abandoned him. Many tis, he found himself tongue-tied in front of Karina.
But at this mont, what could he possibly say to console her now?
There was nothing he could do to erase what had already been done.
Crackle——
It was then.
The world crystallized, fractured, then collapsed inward on itself.
The cold returned all at once, far harsher than before. Karina stumbled before her legs gave out, curling into herself and holding onto the only warmth left in her body while frost blood and shattered around her.
"Karina!"
But this ti, Vanitas was there.
He dropped down beside her and pulled her close, pressing himself against her as if sheer proximity could defy the cold. In truth, it did nothing.
And yet, sohow, Karina felt like the cold beca bearable.
——Mother...
The voice was still that of a child, yet far too mature for one. Her knees struck the floor with a thud.
——...Mother was killed in her sleep? How is that even possible?
The girl pleaded with the hospital staff, demanding answers, justice, and accountability. An explanation for how sothing so absurd could happen inside a governnt hospital that was supposed to protect its patients.
——There were signs of strangulation during her sleep. However, no fingerprints were found.
Karina slowly rose within Vanitas’s arms and took in her surroundings. Before her was the little girl. She was taller now, with eyes hardened from the years unspoken.
Vanitas frowned at the sight. He already knew who had killed Beatrice Maeril. A jealous, deranged man who had dared to lay his hands on soone else’s daughter.
Karina turned to look at him. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying.
"It was your father."
Karina nodded, as if the answer had already settled in her heart long ago.
"Okay."
She let out a bitter laugh. It was the only thing she could manage.
Had she acknowledged the pain back then, had she never chosen to bury it in ice, perhaps things would not have escalated this far.
She would never have cared for him. She would have never turned her back on the past, never stood at her father’s side while pushing Vanitas away.
She might have chosen differently.
But the past was already done, and this was the result.
A deep, irreparable ss.
And even so, what could she have done? It was too cruel to expect a child to confront the wreckage of her own suffering.
Vanitas placed a hand on her head.
Now, she was acknowledging it.
Now, she was rembering.
The ice that had sealed her heart away from pain was lting within this frozen spectacle called ti.
It was cruelly ironic.
The more she froze the world, the more the frost around her mories thawed. The deeper she sank into it, the clearer everything beca.
And for the first ti, she did not run from it.
To rember was not weakness.
It was proof that she had survived despite everything.
The ice continued to lt with acceptance. And in that acceptance, sothing long locked away began to breathe again.
"You know, Professor, my mother worked for the Empress. We were actually quite well off back then."
"That’s not a good thing."
She paused, then looked at him.
"Why not?"
"What kind of illness did your mother have again?"
Karina t his eyes with a steady gaze.
"Mana Core Degeneration Syndro."
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