Honkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Conversation

“It is nothing serious, just superficial wounds. We are still haggling over liability with someone.”

Yu Huai’s face was etched with frantic worry, the heavy rain plastering his hair to his forehead. He grabbed Kagashi’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the damp fabric of his coat, and pleaded with urgent desperation. “You have a good relationship with the Qingyun Academy Head. Can you vouch for me and sign off on this batch of equipment first?”

The title of Academy Head was common across the Xianzhou ships, serving as the absolute authority and principal of their respective institutions.

“The Academy Head is not here?” Kagashi asked, his voice a calm, steady anchor against the chaotic downpour.

“The starskiff was delayed in the storm. They will not be back for another half hour at least.”

“Alright. Give me the documents.”

Yu Huai hastily fumbled through his coat and produced the handover paperwork. Kagashi smoothly signed his name across the bottom line and accepted a Spatial Jade Abacus from the anxious man.

“Thanks, brother!” Yu Huai, his mind entirely consumed by worry for his wife and daughter, turned and dashed blindly back into the torrential rain.

Strictly speaking, as a mere teaching instructor, Kagashi possessed absolutely no administrative authority to sign for high-level teaching equipment on behalf of the Academy Head. However, he had once saved the Qingyun Academy Head’s life during a dire crisis. For a minor emergency like this, the leadership would turn a blind eye.

More than half an hour later, the Academy Head finally returned to the Qingyun grounds. Upon learning that Kagashi had stepped in to handle the logistics in their absence, they expressed nothing but sincere gratitude.

After formally transferring the Spatial Jade Abacus, Kagashi opened his umbrella, stepped out into the lingering drizzle, and made his way to the private starskiff parking sector to head home.

The entryway of the house was warm and quiet.

“Kagashi, you are back.”

“Yes. I will start making dinner,” Kagashi said, toeing off his shoes and carefully placing his dripping umbrella into the ceramic stand by the door.

“There is no need. General Teng Xiao came by a little while ago and brought some signature dishes from Zhiwei Shengyuan.” Qiu Zhiyan waved her hand gently from the living room.

Kagashi paused mid-step. He looked at his mother, a strange, quiet expression crossing his features.

“The General did not say anything specific,” Qiu Zhiyan added softly, immediately reading the silent question in her son’s eyes.

“Understood.”

The dining table was perfectly set, filled with the rich aromas of the restaurant’s finest cuisine. Mother and son ate in their customary silence, the only sound the faint clinking of porcelain bowls. Yet, just as there is no mother who does not understand her child, there is no child who cannot read the heavy atmosphere surrounding their mother.

“Mother, just say what you want to say.”

Ever since he had walked through the door, her hesitant, lingering gaze had not left him. Kagashi knew exactly what was weighing on her mind.

Qiu Zhiyan gradually stopped chewing. She set her bowl and chopsticks down on the wooden table and stared at her hands in silence. After a long, suffocating moment, she finally raised her head to meet Kagashi’s serene eyes.

“…Child, have you resented me all these years?”

The natives of the Xianzhou were Long-Life Species, entirely untouched by the rapid decay of mortal time. Kagashi looked at his mother’s face, a gentle visage that had remained perfectly unchanged for hundreds of years, and shook his head without a single second of hesitation.

“Never.”

Hearing the absolute respect and sincerity in his voice made Qiu Zhiyan feel even more bitter. A thousand apologies and regrets piled up in her throat, choking her. The more sensible and forgiving her child was, the heavier her own guilt became.

“You were doing it for my own good. I deeply understand that, Mother. There is no need to overthink the past.”

“But I broke your wings. You could have achieved such immense suc—”

“It is alright, Mother.”

Kagashi stood up from his chair, walked around the table, and gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a warm embrace.

“I was not without my own rebellious phase. If I had truly insisted on walking that path back then, I would not have listened to you, no matter what you said.”

Feeling the steady, comforting warmth of her son’s embrace, Qiu Zhiyan closed her eyes and let out a long, trembling sigh.

“The Kagashi Family has been a military household for generations, but my own selfish fears led you down a completely different path. I have failed the ancestors of our bloodline.”

“You are overthinking again. The meaning and the future of the living should never be defined by the dead.” Kagashi hugged her a little tighter, his voice dropping to a soothing murmur. “Let the past remain in the past. We have never lived for ancient glory. Sister taught me that more than once when she was alive.”

“Your sister cared for you so much…” Qiu Zhiyan’s eyes grew rimmed with red.

Back in those days, Kagashi had pushed himself to such terrifying extremes in his training that not only his mother, but even his elder sister had been sick with worry.

Recently, Qiu Zhiyan found herself constantly trapped in the memories of those bygone eras. The deeply etched horrors of the past replayed in her mind like a phantom theater, refusing to let her rest.

The generational blood war between the Xianzhou Alliance and the brutal Abominations of Abundance had always been a horrific meat grinder. To slay a single Borisin often required the desperate, combined efforts of two or even three soldiers. Only the Cloud Knight Vanguard, the Sword Champions, and the Generals possessed the sheer martial prowess to fight a hundred foes alone, to stand as an army of one.

But even with such godlike strength, facing an endless, writhing tide of Abominations that dwarfed the largest tsunamis, no warrior could keep swinging their blade indefinitely. Humans were still human because they possessed limits.

She had watched her comrades die tragically, their bodies torn apart on foreign soil, never to return home. She had watched her loved ones and family bleed out in a hellish landscape, mountains of corpses piled at their feet.

And on that darkest day, she had looked at her youngest son and seen a terrifying vision of the future. She saw her last remaining child following the exact same doomed path of his predecessors, destined to die alone in the cold void of space.

“Kagashi, do you remember what you grabbed during your first-year grasping ceremony when you were little?”

“…A sword.” Kagashi pursed his lips slightly.

“Yes. Among a dozen different objects, books, and toys, you reached out and precisely grabbed the only sword on the table.” Qiu Zhiyan’s face softened with a painful nostalgia. “Your father was overjoyed. He threw a massive three-day banquet just to celebrate.”

“Both the sons and daughters of the Kagashi Family have served in the military for generations. No matter what they grasp during that ceremony, they are expected to rise into the Cloud Knight Vanguard, living up to the heavy glory of their ancestors. But ever since our first ancestor, no one from our bloodline has ever been elected as a Xianzhou General again.”

She reached up and gently touched Kagashi’s arm. “You showed extraordinary martial talent from the moment you could walk. Your father, and I as well, once placed our greatest hopes on your shoulders. But the wars of this era are no longer like the honorable duels of thousands of years ago. Their cruelty and devastation far exceed anything the past ever knew. I have already lost—”

“Do not say it, Mother.”

Kagashi smoothly interrupted her words before they could shatter into a sob, his tone infinitely gentle.

“You never broke my wings. I chose to leave the sky, that is all. If I truly wanted to fly back into the storm, I could do so at any time. But… parents should not have to watch their children leave them behind. I understand. I understand everything.”

After holding it back for so many years, the tears finally spilled over Qiu Zhiyan’s eyelashes.

From his earliest childhood, her Kagashi had never once angered his parents. He was well-behaved, deeply sensible, and possessed a terrifying, heaven-defying talent. He was the perfect son. Children always owed their parents a debt of life, but she felt down to her very marrow that she owed Kagashi far too much.

After all, when he was barely ten years old, wielding nothing but a wooden practice sword, Kagashi had single-handedly defeated dozens of the Cloud Knight Vanguard stationed on the Xianzhou Cangcheng under special combat conditions. His future had been truly limitless.

It was just a bitter tragedy that four hundred and fifty-one years ago, during the horrors of the Second Abundance War, everything had changed.

“Tomorrow is the death anniversary of Father and Sister. I have already adjusted my teaching schedule so I can accompany you in the morning. Please rest early tonight.” Kagashi gently patted his mother’s shoulder and stepped back.

Qiu Zhiyan wiped her eyes and nodded slowly. “I will. But judging by your tone, are you going out tonight?”

“Just to see the General.”

“…Be careful on the way.”

“Of course. Love you, Mother.”

A watery smile finally broke through her grief. “You rascal. You are hundreds of years old and still so mushy…”