Left to Northern, he didn’t want to do any of this. The only person that could make him commit to what he’d rather not do without question was Eisha herself.

And Northern was here now, facing Raven and trying to tell her that Shin was her adopted father, not this man. But he wasn’t in the place to say it. Not yet.

So he turned to the Patriarch instead and walked towards him.

He stood in front of the man. For the first time, the grin on the Patriarch’s face had died, and he was looking up at Northern with an expression carved from stone. Still, hard, and emptied of all that performative amusement.

Northern looked down at him and scoffed.

"I presume you’re suddenly growing tired of seeing, uhn."

The Patriarch slowly lowered his eyes and said nothing.

Raven watched this happen, and something shifted behind her gaze. It wasn’t that Northern was strong enough to tame the man. She’d known that much already.

It was that the Patriarch could be tamed at all. That underneath the presence and the control and the weight of him, there was just a man, sitting on stone, lowering his head because someone stronger told him to.

Northern gripped the man’s hair and hauled him to his feet. The Patriarch rose unsteadily, and Northern kicked him forward from behind.

He staggered towards Raven.

She flinched. It was not a small flinch. She took a full leap away from the man, her body moving before her mind could catch up.

Northern paused, his eyes widening.

’Oh hell, well...’

She looked like a cornered animal trying to hold still long enough to pass for tame. Every line of her was wound tight, every muscle primed to bolt.

’Come to think of it, she had always been like this somehow... in a way.’

Always calculating. Always mapping the room for people who were threats, for the precise angle at which she’d need to strike if things turned. That was Raven. That had always been Raven. And it was exactly the thing that made her so broken.

Northern moved behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It’s okay..."

If his attempt was to calm the girl, he had gone about it in the worst way possible.

The moment his hand touched her, she flinched again and launched forward, but Northern was already there. She leaped right into him, and before she could spring away, he wrapped his arms around her and held firm.

Raven’s eyes darted between the Patriarch and the walls and the stone beneath her feet, searching for something that wasn’t coming. The cold composure she wore like armor had cracked apart, and beneath it was something far younger, far more fragile. She fought Northern’s grip with sharp, fractured movements, the kind that had no plan behind them, only panic.

Then she stopped.

She slumped against him, face quaking, her body small and still inside his arms.

A portal opened beside them. Raven didn’t notice. She was staring past Northern’s shoulder to where the Patriarch stood with his gaze still fixed on the ground, his head bowed in that same forced reverence.

Shin and Eisha stepped through the swirling light and stood in silence for a moment.

The Patriarch did not move. He did not raise his head even with Shin standing right there.

Shin looked at Northern holding Raven. Then he looked at the Patriarch. A somber light passed across his face and he crossed the distance between them and lowered himself to his knees.

Eisha stood to the side and waited.

In the silence that filled the cave, Shin’s slightly gruff voice came.

"Suho... I’m sorry."

The Patriarch raised his head. He saw Shin and his hands fisted, veins crawling up along his forearms. His eyes flicked to Northern, and he lowered his head again, slowly and reluctantly.

Northern released Raven and turned back to face them.

He nodded at Shin, who continued:

"I abandoned you when you needed me the most. I became a monster and showed you how to become one, one far worse than I ever was. Even when I sought retribution, I never sought it with you. I sought it away from you. I was running away from my sins, and I never understood that until a few months back."

Shin’s hands trembled on his thighs, fingers curling and uncurling against the fabric of his pants.

"Suho..." His voice cracked, splintering into something wet and ruined.

Even Northern, who found himself usually averse towards Shin, felt a weightful shift in his chest at the sound. Whatever walls his father had ever built, his voice had shed them all.

Shin bowed his head and tears ran down his face.

"Suho, I... I know I will never be able to gain retribution. I will never be able to fix the past I created, never be able to fix the you that I created..."

"You didn’t create me!"

Suho lunged. He grabbed Shin by the collar, and both of them tumbled across stone, the sound of it sharp and ugly in the quiet cave. Northern moved to intervene, but Eisha caught his eye and shook her head. His feet stilled, and he settled back into his position, watching the two of them.

Suho sat atop Shin and shouted.

"Made me? Don’t give yourself such astounding credit!"

He grinned like something unhinged and slammed a fist into Shin’s nose. Blood sprayed across stone. He hit him again. And again, each blow punctuated with a laugh that was half-giggle, half-snarl.

"I was made by myself, you fool! I looked at the mistakes our ancestors made, the ones that carved their failures into the family name. I took every scar and wove them into my very flesh, becoming an embodiment of everything they failed to transcend."

He spread his arms wide, still straddling Shin’s chest, and laughed at the ceiling of the cave.

"Look at me, Shin! Look at me! I am the greatest Kageyama Patriarch to ever exist! I slaughtered the elders, slew every one of those people, and yet here I am, still ruling the shadows of the world even better than they ever did!"