Chapter 97: The Calm After the Storm (Part 2)
The morning sun had barely crested the horizon when the peaceful quiet of the household shattered into complete, unadulterated chaos.
Yuki lay tangled in the soft linen sheets, his arms wrapped securely around Vee and Kasumi. Both women were sleeping deeply, exhausted from a long, passionate night of making up for lost time. A soft, warm breeze blew through the open balcony window, carrying the sweet scent of morning dew and blooming lavender from the garden below.
It was absolute bliss—until heavy, frantic footsteps stomped down the upstairs hallway like a march of miniature iron golems.
BANG!
The bedroom door flew open, slamming violently against the stone wall.
"YUKI!" Ember screamed, standing in the doorway wearing her oversized, rumpled cotton tunic and holding a charred, smoking wooden spatula like a broadsword. "THE FIRE BREAD IS ATTEMPTING A DEMONIC RITUAL! IT IS PRODUCING BLACK SMOKE AND SPITTING SPARKS AT ME!"
Yuki didn’t move. He didn’t even open his eyes. He simply buried his face deeper into Vee’s hair, letting out a long, agonizingly exhausted groan.
This moron is going to give me gray hair...
Beside him, Vee’s eyes snapped open. She didn’t look flustered, embarrassed, or shy about being caught unclothed under the sheets. She looked like a predator that had just been woken up five minutes before its scheduled alarm.
Without a word, Vee reached blindly over Yuki’s chest, grabbed a heavy brass candlestick off the nightstand, and hurled it at the door with lethal precision.
CLANG!
The heavy brass missile missed Ember’s forehead by a hairsbreadth, embedding itself deeply into the wooden doorframe behind her.
"GET OUT, YOU FIERY GOBLIN!" Vee roared, her voice echoing through the entire house.
Ember froze, her large crimson eyes darting from the embedded candlestick down to the bed. Her gaze took in the tangled sheets, the discarded silk dresses tossed casually over a nearby chair, and the three of them piled together in broad daylight.
Slowly, her face transformed. The angry, pouty expression vanished, replaced by a deep, furious blush that spread from the tip of her nose all the way to the roots of her fiery red hair. She became completely flustered, momentarily baffled as to why they even owned a candlestick in a house with such advanced technology.
"Y-Y-You..." Ember stammered, her voice squeaking into a pitch so high it defied all known laws of physics. "You... you degenerate swine! You disgusting, shameless, perverted house-pet!"
Kasumi stirred softly, rubbing her sleepy rose eyes as she pulled the blanket up to her collarbone, a gentle, amused smirk playing on her lips. "Good morning, Ember. Did you burn the toast again?"
"I DID NOT BURN IT! THE APPARATUS BETRAYED ME!" Ember shrieked, pointing her smoking wooden spatula directly at Yuki’s face. "Is this what you do while I am downstairs battling the forces of culinary dark magic?! You engage in degenerate, multiple-partner hedonism?!"
Yuki finally opened one eye, looking at her with supreme, unbothered indifference.
"Ember," Yuki said, his voice husky from sleep. "Did you seriously come barging into my bedroom at six in the morning because you don’t know how a toaster works? Also, what are you saying? What does ’hedonism’ even mean to you?"
"IT IS NOT A TOASTER, IT IS A CAGE OF FIRE!" she screamed, her face so red she looked like she was about to go supercritical again. "And why are you so relaxed?! Have you no shame?! You are an Inquisitor of this nation! You are supposed to be a righteous warrior, not a... a harem-building warlord!"
"I am a retired baker," Yuki corrected flatly, sliding his arm around Kasumi’s waist and pulling her closer. "Well, technically I’m on vacation since I can’t really retire... Anyways, get out of my room and go turn off the stove before you burn my house down. And if you touch my bread dough again without washing your hands, I’m assigning you to manure duty on the farm for a month."
"MANURE DUTY?!" Ember gasped, taking an offended step backward. "The fact that they gave you permission to buy so many animals and land even though you have this pocket dimension is bullshit! I AM A PRIMARCH! I AM THE VESSEL OF THE—"
SNAP!
Yuki flicked a loose leather belt off the foot of the bed, snapping the tip against the floorboards right beside her bare toes.
"AH!" Ember squealed, jumping a foot into the air.
"Out," Yuki said calmly.
She glared at him with absolute, burning hatred, her chest heaving as she clutched her wooden spatula to her chest like a sacred relic.
"I am telling the King you run a house of sin!" she huffed, spinning around on her heel so fast her oversized tunic billowed behind her. "And the bread was stale anyway!"
She stomped furiously back down the hallway, her bare feet slapping loudly against the wooden floorboards until a loud CLANG echoed from the kitchen downstairs, followed immediately by her high-pitched coughing as smoke filled the lower floor.
Silence returned to the master bedroom.
Vee let out a long sigh, resting her forehead against Yuki’s collarbone. "I am going to throw her into the river, Yuki. I swear to the gods, I’m going to tie a brick to her ankles and throw her into the river."
"Don’t waste the brick," Kasumi giggled softly, kissing Yuki’s jawline. "She’d just use spatial magic to swap places with it."
Yuki chuckled, closing his eyes as he wrapped both arms tightly around his girls, listening to the chaotic sound of their former enemy coughing downstairs. For the first time since the Citadel fell, the morning felt bright, lively, and completely worth waking up for.
"Never did I think I would be raising a grown woman like a child," Yuki chuckled softly. "She gets flustered just seeing adults do adult things. I wonder if she’s ever had a boyfriend."
"I can go ask her," Kasumi said, starting to spring out of bed.
Yuki and Vee both grabbed her arms instantly, pulling her back down with a soft thud.
"Kasumi, leave the poor girl alone, you freak," Vee said.
"Hmph! It’s not like I was going to do anything that bad," Kasumi pouted sweetly.