Inside Yugo and Ryuga's room in the Fifth Dormitory, the air was thick with a shared, somber weight. Every face in the room was clouded with gloom.
Aside from Fee and Yui, everyone who had witnessed the incident at the hospital was present.
Half of them were lost in bewilderment, while the other half writhed in the agony of their own guilt. And then there was one man, whose silent presence bled with a simmering, hollow rage.
In that stifling atmosphere, Yugo was the first to speak.
"Everything happened so fast, and there's still so much we don't understand. I need to hear it all. Tell us what you know—right here, right now."
Yugo had decided that clearing the air of discord among his friends was more urgent than treating the injuries he'd sustained at the hospital. Even though his wounds had not yet fully closed, he pushed himself to hold the group together, acting as the pillar they needed in this oppressive moment.
The Warrior Shrine Maidens felt the weight of his selflessness. Recognizing that he was prioritizing them over his own recovery, they nodded. Setsuna was the one to answer.
"Yes… we’ll tell you. But before anything else… I am so sorry for keeping such a massive secret from you. We never intended to deceive you."
"It’s alright," Melt said, offering a soft word of support. "Some things are too important to just talk about. It makes sense that you couldn't say anything."
"We’re not idiots," Anhel added. "We have a general idea of why you had to keep it quiet."
Melt and Anhel’s attempts to bridge the gap brought a flicker of relief to the three girls, who bowed their heads deeply in apology. Though Yugo remained silent, he shared the sentiment; he understood that Raiha's secret was not something easily shared.
"Raiha’s secret is a matter of the highest confidentiality, even back in Yamato," Setsuna explained. "Because of that, we were strictly forbidden from ever speaking of it."
"Hmph… I’m sure you were," Ryuga muttered, his voice laced with cold irony. "Even if it was just a small castle town, word that the daughter of the House of Utsusemi had transformed into a dragon and attacked her own people would cause a massive scandal. Especially when that monster took lives."
"I am… so incredibly sorry…! I have done… something unforgivable…!" Raiha gasped.
She looked as though the weight of his gaze alone was enough to crush her heart. As she spiraled into an agonizing apology, Yugo placed a firm hand on his partner’s shoulder to restrain him.
"Ryuga, let’s just listen for now. You can hold them accountable after we’ve heard the whole story."
"……"
Ryuga neither agreed nor argued. He simply clamped his jaw shut and stared at Raiha with a hollow, unmoving gaze.
"Raiha, tell me," Yugo urged gently. "What happened to you five years ago? Why did you become the Mad Dragon?"
"To tell the whole story… I must first explain these eyes. This is the mark of the sin that I and the House of Utsusemi have carried all this time."
Raiha reached up, her fingers trembling slightly as she brushed aside her bangs to reveal the eye hidden beneath.
Melt and the others recoiled in visible shock. It was the first time they had seen it up close—a golden, reptilian eye that was undeniably inhuman. In the silence that followed, Raiha began to recount the transgressions of her family.
"About ten years ago, I fell deathly ill. I was hovering between life and death for weeks. The sickness was so severe that my right eye rotted away in its socket. My fever wouldn't break, and the doctors eventually gave up, saying there was nothing more they could do. As I lay there in agony, waiting for the end, my parents made a decision that should never have been made."
Raiha’s small hands shook violently as she dug into her past. The room was deathly quiet as she confessed the crime the House of Utsusemi had committed.
"My father and mother believed that if they could implant a piece of a dragon—a creature with immense life force—into me, they could save my life. And so… they took a Dragon's Eye that had been kept in our family’s care and used it to replace my lost right eye."
"They implanted a Dragon's Eye…?" Marcos blurted out, his face turning pale with shock. "Wait, if I remember correctly, in Yamato—!"
Raiha nodded solemnly, finishing the thought for him.
"In Yamato, taking the power of a dragon into one’s own body is the ultimate taboo. Just like Zaraki, who is hunted as a criminal, I became a taboo existence—something that should not be allowed to live."
"No… How could they…?" Melt whispered, her voice trembling.
Raiha spoke with a grim finality, comparing herself to Zaraki, the man who had committed the great sin of eating dragon flesh. It finally clicked for everyone in the room; the reason she could breathe lightning was because the Dragon's Eye had transformed her into a half-dragon, just like the criminal they were pursuing.
Anhel was the first to break the silence. "How many people actually know about this? A secret that huge… there’s no way you could keep it completely under wraps, right?"
"You're right," Setsuna replied. "The truth was shared with the House of Kogarashi and the House of Amamiya because of our close ties to the Utsusemis. From there, it wasn't long before the Yamato Government found out as well."
"Then how is Raiha still living a normal life?" Yugo asked. "Even if she’s from a prestigious family of Warrior Shrine Maidens, they wouldn't just let something like that slide."
"There are two reasons," Setsuna explained. "First, the government decided that a cover-up was more beneficial to Yamato than a public scandal. They knew the chaos that would erupt if the House of Utsusemi’s actions were revealed, so they chose to bury the truth. And the second reason is…"
Setsuna trailed off, her expression twisting with pain. Before she could continue, Raiha spoke up to finish the explanation.
"The other reason I wasn't punished… was because the Yamato Government offered my family a deal. They agreed to hide the truth on one condition: they wanted to periodically measure the changes in my body as a half-dragon. My family accepted those terms. From that day on, I was subjected to endless experiments in the name of data observation."
"That’s horrible…!" Melt cried out, her eyes welled with tears. "Raiha, they were treating you like an experimental animal!"
"Looking back… I should never have clung to life," Raiha said, her voice cracking. "If I had just been executed as the taboo I am, that tragedy five years ago would never have happened…!!"