Chapter 76: EX 76. Concern
The Yakomoto family was vast, sprawling like a royal dynasty rooted in power, dominance, and prestige, but within its many branches, only a few were ever allowed to bask in the presence of Governor Yakomoto himself. The rest? They were treated as excess. Background actors in a grander story, left to fend for themselves with scraps of recognition. Some weren’t even granted the authority afforded to a noble family’s dog, let alone the dignity of being called a Yakomoto.
Nikko was one of them.
The stigma didn’t begin with her lineage alone, it began with time. In the Yakomoto household, the most gifted children received their Trial Resonance before their first birthday. The truly exceptional, the ones destined to awaken Supreme Talents, received it the moment they took their first breath. But Nikko?
Nikko didn’t awaken until she was five.
In the eyes of the family, that wasn’t delay, it was disgrace. A defect. A warning label stamped onto her soul. And in a place where weakness was met with mockery, and mockery with mercilessness, her late awakening was like bleeding into a shark tank.
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The sun burned high above the training grounds, but its warmth did little to ease the cold sneers from the gathering crowd. At the center of the ring stood Nikko, eighteen, her dark hair tied back, her black clawed gauntlets glinting under the sun. She wore standard Yakomoto training armor, scratched and dented from past battles, and still too loose around the arms. Her opponent stood opposite her, Daikichi Yakomoto, he wore a broad, heavyset training armor and wielded a massive battle hammer nearly as thick as his waist. Despite his bulk, he radiated confidence. The same confidence that came from years of being treated like real Yakomoto blood.
Surrounding the ring were their half-siblings, leaning against the railings, smirking with thinly veiled contempt.
"The Fifth-Year’s about to embarrass herself again,"
"What do you expect from a concubine’s daughter?"
"It’s disgusting breathing the same air as her," "Hope I don’t get infected by how talentless she is."