Blessed by Night-Chapter 456: Family Genetics

Sei knew that when she was woken up to the sight of her daughter with black hair that the morning would be a rough one.

She had no idea just how right she was.

As the morning sun rose came and the rest of the adults woke up, they were downloaded on everything that had taken place while they were asleep.

Sei felt as though her entire world was being pulled out from underneath her.

She always knew that her mother didn’t like her.

She just never thought that dislike would spill over to the rest of their family.

Had she really betrayed them..? For what?

Was it status? Or did she feel some kind of resentment?

And how did she even align herself with the Prime Minister in the first place?

Sei had so many questions that she didn’t think she would ever get the chance to ask.

She held her head in her hands as she listened to the sound of an IV drip into her father’s arm.

Across the room, her younger brother was leaning against the wall, showing signs of mild discomfort.

This was the first time he had ever been in a room alone with his sister. It was every bit as uncomfortable as he thought it would be.

Because of his, or rather their parents, she was a stranger.

He didn’t know anything about her. And every attempt he ever made to get his parents to tell him things only led to silence and more arguments.

Their mother was particularly unmoving in her refusal to speak. Sato knew Ayuka had some... personality issues, so he thought maybe Sei had left home on her own after a big fight.

But if you saw Sei interact with anyone for more than a minute, it was easy to see that wasn’t the case.

Sato couldn’t imagine her leaving anyone behind. No matter how horribly they’d treated her.

Their father was likely the worst offender in her more than forty years of life. And yet here she was, sitting at his bedside like nothing unwarranted had transpired between them.

Sato wondered how a person could be so gentle. And he wondered what his own upbringing would have been like if he had just a little bit of that gentleness in his home while he was growing up.

Perhaps it would have made him a little less cynical.

Sei finally lifted her head and caught her brother staring at her but he quickly darted his eyes away.

"O-Oh, I’m sorry... did you want to sit down or-"

"No, no, I prefer to stand..." Sato denied. "Better for the... blood flow and circulation n’ stuff."

Sei didn’t know if her brother was trying to be funny or not. She smiled halfheartedly just in case.

Sato turned his gaze toward their father who still lay unconscious.

"It’s a miracle... with all of that burn damage I didn’t think he would ever look normal again."

Sei smiled softly. "Yes, well... our family has some great healers. We’re very lucky."

"That you are... we could use some like that in our little outfit."

Sei’s next words faltered as she was reminded of just what her brother and father had been doing with their time.

"Speaking of..." she began. "How exactly did you all end up... trying to overthrow the government..?" Sei was trying to be subtle, but ended up using all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

"U-Unless you can’t tell me, then-"

"No, no, I mean... It’s not like it’s a secret or anything." Sato rubbed the back of his neck.

"At first, Mom, Dad, and I were all in one of the shelters. Not the normal ones. The kind the prime minister made for the former influential elite who ran pharmaceutical companies and made fancy airplanes...

I won’t say that we didn’t feel the end of the world but we weren’t as inconvenienced by it as everyone else was. That didn’t sit right with Dad.

Next thing you know, he starts trying to talk to the prime minister about allocating resources more fairly. Then overnight, we get booted from our cushy little penthouse apartment and stuck in one of the most overcrowded zones.

Mom was so mad that she barely spoke to Dad. Looking back now, I guess that’s where most of the trouble started. A shame we didn’t notice until now...

I dunno what got into him, but he kinda turned into a real man of the people... he started speaking to crowds and telling them exactly what was happening behind their backs.

After a while, there were riots and protests and all sorts of a fuss... the Prime Minister had our family designated enemies of the country and said we were trying to overthrow our government.

So, we all got booted out. Not just the three of us, but every one of Dad’s supporters. We took up residence in his old office building and the next morning a bunch of us got sick... then we started waking up with powers.

Suddenly the idea got into our heads that we could fight to make a real change. Now that I look back on it, I don’t know how we survived so long... It’s not like any of us have real military experience."

Sei rubbed her temple exhaustedly.

"Then that’s exactly why you’ve all lived so long. You don’t have any real knowledge of military strategy to be considered a serious threat and if resources ever start to dry up then they can just say they’re expending more than usual trying to combat you, or say you hit a storage house.

It doesn’t matter if it’s truth or a lie, the people have no way to verify the information they are given. They’ll have no choice but to believe what they’re told."

Sei didn’t say anything, but she knew that with her mother acting as a mole, the prime minister had basically their entire operation in the palm of his hand.

When she realized it had been a while since she last heard her brother’s voice, she looked up at him and found him staring at her with a stunned look.

"S-Sorry, it’s just... you’re pretty smart. I guess the rest of us hadn’t thought of it like that."

Sei smiled bashfully. "O-Oh, it’s not me... My wife Joanne used to be a senior case officer in the CIA so she’s pretty knowledgeable about stuff like this... I guess some of its rubbing off a bit."

Suddenly, Sei saw a figure move past the open door at a rather frantic speed.

"Eva? Is something wrong?"

The jackal-headed woman poked her head inside the door and smiled nervously.

"Oh, hey, boss lady... have you seen your husband around, I had a little... report to show him."

Sei furrowed her brow. "He should have been on his way to see you... Is something the matter?"

Eva unconsciously glanced at Sato.

"Oh, don’t mind me, I was just going to stretch my legs for a bit." Sato smiled.

He walked past Eva without looking back and she took his place inside the room.

Sei patted the space beside her, and the tall woman took a seat while handing her some papers.

"Malachi had us doing some testing on our little friend in holding..."

"The one who made the second generation of superhumans? You aren’t hurting him, are you?"

"No, ma’am." Eva shook her head firmly. "Just a few blood draws and tissue samples."

Sei let out a small sigh of relief. "Okay... so what exactly am I looking at?"

"Well, Malachi wanted to know if there were any kind of defenses that could be employed against the subject’s abilities. Something easy to acquire and that could be deployed relatively easily."

"Uh-huh..."

"Well, we didn’t find anything like that so far.... Instead what we found was the worst-case scenario. Malachi was trying to find a way to justify not having to reveal the subject’s existence to the boys upstairs because he knows what could happen. But with this... I don’t know if we have any way around it anymore."

Sei swallowed. "You’re scaring me, Eva. What are you trying to tell me?"

Eva bit her lip as she slowly pointed toward a line at the bottom of the documents.

"Do you see this here? It’s where we tested the subject’s spores against a variety of different genetic samples. Most showed no reaction. We found out the common denominator for evolution was possession of a shared genetic ancestry."

Sei read the paper three times over to make sure that she was grasping what Eva was trying to tell her.

And when everything finally sank in, she was unquestionably at a loss for words.

"... Are you telling me... that the man we have in holding can only give powers to other Asian people?"

Eva nodded grimly.

"If our superiors find out about this... there’s no way they’ll let it go. I really need to speak to Malachi as soon as possible."

-

"Sis, you know I love you but I was kinda in the middle of something..." Malachi said gently.

"It will have to wait. Our brother is a busy god, and he has been generous enough to make time for you."

"Mama beat him into it, huh?"

"He needed the proper motivation."

Malachi couldn’t pull away from Keres as she dragged him through their mother’s house.

As he stepped into the living room, he realized that he should have probably texted the girls and let them know why he’d miraculously disappeared.

’I hope I’m not missing anything big at the house...Shit, I was supposed to make breakfast too.’