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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 47
Chapter 47: The Reluctant Hero
That was who he had been in his previous life.
At first glance, his reflection in this life bore a starkly different visage, yet upon closer inspection, the quiet contours of his face still harbored familiar traces of the man he used to be.
‘I wonder if Senior Yu Qingtu is still alive…’
His thoughts drifted to the young girl, Clarice. She was a Short-Life Species. Under the merciless grind of normal circumstances, it would be entirely impossible for her to have survived into the distant future he now inhabited.
Kagashi did not dwell on the sorrow of it, nor did he entertain the futile urge to seek them out across the stars. He was merely allowing himself a rare moment of quiet sentimentality.
One must always look forward. Whether the past was painted with bitter regrets or stunning beauty, it belonged to the past.
Reaching into the dimensional storage of his Jade Abacus, he withdrew a small, delicate sachet. The moment the fabric brushed his palm, the image of the young girl’s bright, smiling eyes surfaced in his mind’s eye.
Clarice’s parting question echoed through the corridors of his memory.
“If I were about to die, would Mr. Kagashi be willing to remember me as much as possible?”
His answer back then had been entirely heartfelt, yet it had not been sworn as a solemn oath, nor did it carry the heavy weight of destiny. Ultimately, the bond between them had been tethered only by the gentle threads of friendship.
And yet… the pure pity and radiant warmth Clarice had offered him in her final days were more than enough to earn a place in his soul for eternity.
“Once, there was a gentle girl named Clarice who gave me a hug. I will always remember that warmth, and I will remember her.”
Spoken to the empty room, this was his belated, formal response—a promise delivered across a vast, impossible span of time.
Carefully tucking the sachet away, Kagashi turned his wrist, and a traditional Ruan materialized in his grasp.
The wood was deep, dark, and beautifully lustrous, speaking of masterful, exquisite craftsmanship. Curiously, of all the lingering artifacts and echoes he had inherited from his previous life, this Ruan was the sole object completely devoid of context. He had absolutely no recollection of it.
Perhaps it was tethered to an exceptionally painful experience, prompting the Garden of Recollection—or whatever force governed his rebirth—to sever that specific piece of Remembrance before he crossed over into this life.
“Forget it.”
Forcing himself to dig up buried history would only invite unnecessary sorrow, and the blurry, fragmented edges of his missing memories were already unpleasant enough to handle.
The mere thought of Remembrance soured his mood further, especially knowing how inextricably linked it was to the Mara-Struck affliction that plagued the Xianzhou natives.
In the centuries since his honorable discharge from the military, Kagashi had never once abandoned his clandestine research into the Mara-Struck and the insidious Power of Abundance. By synthesizing the advanced biological sciences and Remembrance theories hoarded from his past life, he had actually achieved substantial, terrifying breakthroughs.
Naturally, such endeavors were considered supreme heresy on the Xianzhou. If the Ten-Lords Commission ever caught wind of his basement laboratory, a Judge would undoubtedly kick his door down to invite him for a lethal cup of “tea.”
Only the Alchemist-Physicians stationed within the Alchemy Commission’s Mara Department possessed the coveted “death-exempt medals,” granting them the legal authority to study the Mara-Struck and the Power of Abundance without facing execution.
However, the Mara Department focused entirely on finding a definitive cure. Kagashi’s direction was fundamentally different.
He had never once entertained the idea of curing the mara affliction.
The reason was rooted in cold, unforgiving logic. A deeply realistic problem loomed over the entire alliance: if the Xianzhou ever discovered a flawless cure for mara, how would humanity define life and death?
The catastrophic consequences of true immortality were already carved in blood across the annals of the Xianzhou Alliance’s history. Endless population expansion, the rapid depletion of planetary resources, violent social fragmentation, and the inevitable, never-ending wars that followed. Discussing the theoretical cure was a political landmine.
Therefore, even if the Xianzhou possessed the means to eradicate the mara affliction, it absolutely could not—and would not—be distributed to the public. Not even a whisper of its existence could be allowed to leak.
Society could tolerate dark truths operating in the shadows, but it would tear itself apart if those truths were dragged into the blinding light.
The Mara-Struck state was a necessary evil—an implicit, heavy counterweight maintaining the delicate Order of the Xianzhou. It was the unspoken consensus among the highest echelons of power.
This was precisely why Kagashi only synthesized treatments to delay the progression of his mother’s mara, rather than seeking to eradicate it completely.
There is always a trade-off. Some Pandora’s boxes are sealed for a reason.
When he finally returned home, the interior lights were still burning soft and warm. Qiu Zhiyan had not yet gone to sleep.
Seeing Kagashi step through the doorway with his usual calm demeanor, her lips parted slightly, but a sudden, chilling flash of dazed vacancy clouded her eyes.
Catching the subtle slip in her awareness, Kagashi sighed inwardly. The symptoms were accelerating.
“It’s almost past midnight. Why are you still awake, Mother? Do you have something you need to say to me?”
Prompted by his gentle voice, the hollow vacancy vanished from Qiu Zhiyan’s face. She blinked, her focus returning, and she beckoned for him to sit beside her.
“Lord Kagashi… while you were out meeting General Teng Xiao, I sat here and thought about a great many things.” She paused, her voice trembling slightly. “You should go back.”
“…Mother?”
Kagashi froze. He knew exactly what ‘going back’ meant.
Qiu Zhiyan reached out, taking her son’s hands in her own. Her grip was tight, her tone layered with centuries of complex grief.
“I’ve been losing myself lately. I easily forget what I was just thinking about… The time must be coming soon.”
“The Mara-Struck state is the inescapable fate of all Long-Life Species. I have lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred and ninety-five, yet for the vast majority of your life, I have been nothing but a shackle binding your wings.”
“You don’t need to comfort me by saying it was voluntary,” she continued, cutting off his impending reassurance. “Whether I spoke the words aloud or not, my presence was the direct anchor influencing your choice.”
“Just imagine… if I had died in battle back then, alongside your sister and that stubborn old man of yours, would you still have chosen to discharge?”
No one knows a son better than his mother, but similarly, Kagashi understood the agonizing depths of his mother’s inner struggle.
They both knew the honest answer to her question, but he refused to let her spend her twilight years drowning in guilt.
A person’s state of mind shifts drastically with the cruel passage of time, especially for Xianzhou natives teetering on the precipice of mara. The closer the breaking point loomed, the more violently their buried, negative memories magnified.
To an outsider, Qiu Zhiyan appeared as a vibrant woman in her early twenties, yet her eyes carried the heavy, exhausted vicissitudes of a soul that had witnessed too much of the world’s cruelty.
“Your grandmother, your grandfather, your uncle… they all bled out on the battlefield when I was very young.”
“When we were young, your father and I stood atop a mountain of Abominations’ corpses. We swore to spend our lives together right there in the blood, vowing to slay every Abomination of Abundance that dared cross our path.”
“At that time, your father was my entire world. Later, we had you children.”
She offered a sad, fragile smile. “People change. Ever since your sister’s era, a seed of terror was planted in my heart. By the time you were born, as I watched you grow, I suddenly realized something terrifying.”
“Whether it was me suddenly dying and leaving you behind, or you joining the army to fight Abominations and hovering on the edge of death… it would all be horribly unfair and cruel to you.”
“On the night of your sixth birthday, I argued with your father. I wanted you to choose your own path for the future, rather than directly tossing you into the Cloud Knights training camp and deciding your destiny for you.”
“But your father was impossibly stubborn. He kept shouting about ancestral teachings and martial duty, resolutely disagreeing with me… That was our very first real argument. We even came to blows.”
Qiu Zhiyan let out a long, shuddering sigh, her fingers digging unconsciously into the back of Kagashi’s hand.
“I’ve lost so much since I was a child. I am truly, deeply afraid of suffering any more loss.”
“But despite my fears, I still lost your sister. I still lost your father. Even though he was stubborn, old-fashioned, and entirely ignorant of the ways of the world—a man with absolutely nothing special about him besides his martial skills…”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “But… he was, after all, the beloved man I intended to spend my whole life with.”
“I am a cowardly woman. After the brutal battle of Yuque, I used the excuse that I couldn’t bear to lose you too. I dragged you into this quiet cage, trapping you here for hundreds of years.”
“I have failed the ancestors of the Kagashi Family. I have failed your father. But most of all, my son, I have failed you.”
“You are a descendant of the Kagashi Family, and the absolute only one in over ten generations to have grasped a weapon during the Zhua Zhou custom.”
“I didn’t believe in such superstitions originally, but the terrifying martial talent you displayed since childhood forced me to accept that perhaps everything truly is fate.”
“For hundreds of years, the high command has never summoned a retired member of the Kagashi Family back to the active ranks. Now that you are nearly six hundred years old—long past the average discharge age for the Cloud Knights—the General himself has uncharacteristically come to our door.”
“Although General Teng Xiao didn’t say it outright, I can sense the shifting winds. Something massive is going to happen in the coming years. I can no longer selfishly lock you in this cage.”
Listening to the raw, bleeding confession of the woman who raised him, Kagashi gently turned his hand over, squeezing her fingers in return.
“If one cannot even protect a single home, how can one protect the lights of ten thousand homes?”
“If the price of protecting the lights of ten thousand homes is sacrificing one’s own home, there will always be someone willing to step forward…”
Tears shimmered brightly in Qiu Zhiyan’s eyes, and a look of deep, heartbreaking respect washed over her youthful features.
“This… is the tacit choice of the Kagashi Family through the generations. Even though their original intent was unwilling, they still marched forward without hesitation. They are all reluctant heroes.”
“Lord Kagashi, my selfish side desperately doesn’t want you to be a hero. But I also refuse to let the bravery and loyalty passed down through the Kagashi Family for two thousand years be tarnished because of my cowardly interference.”
Feeling the fragile warmth of his mother’s skin against his palm, a heavy tide of emotion surged within Kagashi’s chest. He sat in the quiet glow of the room, remaining silent for a long while.
“…I understand, Mother.”
After a moment of heavy silence, a soft, melancholy smile graced Kagashi’s lips.
Actually… he had always understood.
But in the end, he was just a mortal man.
Even the Xianzhou General—an Emanator of The Hunt and the absolute supreme combat power of the Xianzhou Alliance—found himself utterly powerless in the face of the universe’s cruelty, destined to eventually die in a foreign land. Let alone someone like him.
He did not harbor such grand, sweeping ambitions to save the galaxy.
He only wanted to protect his mother. He only wanted to protect his home.
That was all.
‘Mother… even if you hadn’t said it, I was always destined to let the bravery and loyalty of the Kagashi Family be tarnished.”Because… my original intent in choosing to join the army as a child was never for glory. It was always just to protect you all. Not… the Xianzhou.”If there comes a day in the future when I bleed out on a distant battlefield, I will likewise be exactly what you called me. A reluctant hero.’
[Inorin’s Note: Zhua Zhou is a traditional Chinese custom held on a child’s first birthday, where various objects are placed before the baby. The item the child chooses is believed to predict their future inclinations, career, or destiny.]