Chapter 487: • A Cage of Good Intentions
Alister and Miyu stood beneath the flickering orange glow of the corridor’s overhead runes. The stone walls were silent—the kind of silence that crept in after the clang of steel and the echo of footsteps faded.
Alister’s golden eyes didn’t waver as he spoke, voice calm—too calm.
“You’re not leaving the city, Miyu. Not while things are this unstable. You’ll stay here. It’s safer.”
Miyu blinked. Once. Then again—slower this ti—as the words fully registered.
“…What?”
He didn’t repeat himself.
She folded her arms, the tension in her shoulders rising. “Is this so kind of joke? Because if it is, it’s not funny. At all.”
He said nothing.
Her golden slit eyes narrowed. “Alister, you do realize we’re the sa age, right? Twins?” She took a step closer, jabbing a finger at his chest.
“I’m not your kid sister. You don’t get to decide where I go like I’m so helpless civilian.”
“I never said you were helpless. But that doesn’t change the fact that this city is the only place fortified enough to keep you protected. I won’t risk you out there—not with the war and the convergence looming.”
“You an you won’t risk losing ,” she shot back. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? You’re scared.”
That struck sothing. His jaw tightened just a fraction, barely noticeable unless soone was really looking.
“I’m being careful,” he said.
“No, you’re being controlling. You get to throw yourself into danger every other day, chasing monsters and dancing with death—but the mont I try to do sothing aningful, suddenly it’s ‘stay behind, Miyu’ or ‘wait where it’s safe’? Screw that.”
Alister closed his eyes for a mont. When he opened them again, there was weariness buried behind those golden eyes—like he’d lived this argunt a hundred tis in his head already.
“I watched you die once,” he said quietly.
That stopped her cold. Her breath hitched.
“In one of the visions,” he continued, his tone like iron cooling after the forge. “The Dragon God Sword has been… showing things. Burning them into my mind. Possible realities. Possible consequences. In one of them, I saw you lying in a pool of blood.”
His gaze grew distant, haunted. “I was too late. I was always too late.”
Miyu’s breath hitched. “I… I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want you to.”
Silence fell between them—brief, brittle.
“But so what?” she suddenly said, defiant fire returning to her eyes. “It’s a possibility, not a certainty. It hasn’t actually happened.”
Alister’s brow twitched. He stared at her.
“…Are you serious right now?”
“Dead serious.” She stepped forward, jabbing her finger into his chest again, harder this ti. “Are you actually expecting to just sit around in this gilded cage while the bastards that did that to our father walk free?”
Alister’s jaw clenched.
“What do you think I am, Alister? So ornant to be polished and locked away? You think I don’t feel the sa rage burning in my gut? That I don’t ache to make them pay?”
“That’s exactly how Father thought about mother,” Alister snapped. “And then I let him and he rushed in. Head first. Reckless. And look where that got him!”
She flinched.
“What part of possible reality do you not understand?!” His voice was rising now, like a storm gathering. “I’ve seen it, Miyu! I’ve felt it. You—dead. —kneeling beside you, powerless. This sword doesn’t show dreams. It shows truths we haven’t reached yet.”
“But that’s the point, isn’t it?!” she shouted back. “You haven’t reached them. Maybe you can change them. But not like this! Not by locking away!”
“I’M DOING THIS TO PROTECT YOU!” he roared.
“And I never asked you to!” she scread back.
Then—CRACK.
Alister’s hand slamd into the wall beside her head.
Stone shattered. The corridor shook. Dust fell from the ceiling in soft clouds.
His chest heaved. Golden eyes wide, trembling. He hadn’t ant to do that—but the frustration, the helplessness, the guilt—it had all boiled over.
Miyu stared at the fracture spiderwebbing through the stone.
She didn’t flinch.
But the silence that followed was different this ti. Heavier.
More real.
“…You think I’m afraid of dying… But I’m more afraid of doing nothing.”she finally said, voice softer.
Alister didn’t answer right away.
He slowly pulled his hand back, bits of broken stone crumbling from his fingers.
Then Miyu’s voice bagen to quiver—not with weakness, but with years of repressed weight finally spilling free.
“How do you think I must feel?”
Alister blinked, eyes flickering to her.
She stepped forward. “Waking up every day in that damn hospital room, alone. My brother shows up smiling, bringing macarons like it’s all normal. But not that long after I’m cured and brought out of that hell—I find out you’re so ancient, endlessly reincarnating Dragon king or lord… Whatever. That I’m tied to so cosmic legacy of mighty dragons I’ve never even heard of.”
Her eyes glistened, but her voice sharpened like broken glass.
“I haven’t even fully recovered from that before I found out that our father—our real father—the man I never knew for most of my life… turns out to be the Union President. I barely got to know him for a day. Just a few scattered conversations, so awkward silences, and now he’s—he’s barely hanging on by a thread.”
Alister opened his mouth, but nothing ca out.
He gritted his teeth.
“All I ever had… were your visits. Your smile. Those stupid, sweet macarons. That lonely hospital room where I pretended I was okay so you wouldn’t worry.”
She stepped right up to him now, close enough to feel the heat of his breath.
“And now—now that I finally have a chance to step outside, to take control of my life, to fight for this fragile little piece of reality that happens to be mine—you’re telling no?”
Her voice dropped to a sharp whisper.
“Don’t you dare.”
The weight of her words hit harder than his own fist ever could.
Alister stood there—silent, stunned.
Because she wasn’t wrong.
He had protected her like a precious gem hidden away… but maybe he’d never asked what kind of prison he’d built around her with that love.
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