SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 367: Same Old Bathroom

Darion was carried out moments later, barely conscious, bloodied beyond any attempt at dignity. Ysolde rose immediately, her composure fractured for the first time that night, and followed without a word. Elira went with her, eyes fixed forward, jaw tight, refusing to look back at the space where the duel had ended.

The moment the doors closed behind them, the hall erupted.

Trafalgar’s name spread through the room in overlapping waves. Not shouted, not celebrated, but spoken again and again in low, charged tones. Branch members leaned toward one another. Wives murmured behind fans and sleeves. Heirs watched with expressions that ranged from calculation to unease. Everyone had seen it. No one could soften it after the fact.

There was no room left for interpretation. That had not been a narrow victory or a fortunate exchange. It had been domination, delivered openly, witnessed by every corner of House Morgain. A true duel between two heirs of the main family, resolved without ambiguity.

The meeting resumed, voices settling, bodies returning to their places—but the axis had shifted. Conversations no longer circled the war alone. They bent, inevitably, toward a single name. Whatever agenda had filled the room before, it had been displaced.

Trafalgar didn’t wait for the meeting to formally conclude.

While the hall slowly found its rhythm again, while voices lowered and seats were reclaimed, he stepped away without announcement. No one tried to stop him. No one followed. Whether out of caution, uncertainty, or instinctive distance, the path behind him remained empty.

The corridors of the Morgain estate swallowed the noise almost immediately. Stone replaced voices. Torchlight replaced faces. His footsteps echoed softly as he moved deeper into the mansion, posture steady, pace unhurried. There was no rush to savor what had happened, no impulse to seek acknowledgment. Whatever the duel had changed, it wasn’t something he felt the need to witness unfolding in real time.

He passed familiar halls and unused turns until he reached a quieter wing, one rarely visited. A bathroom set apart from the rest, untouched by traffic or curiosity. The kind of place chosen not for comfort, but for absence.

Trafalgar pushed the door open and stepped inside, letting it close behind him. The silence settled fully then, complete and unchallenged.

The bathroom greeted him in silence.

Pure white marble stretched beneath his boots, polished to a soft sheen that caught the light without blinding. The walls rose smooth and pale, threaded with faint golden patterns carved directly into the stone, old and deliberate rather than decorative. Across from him stood a massive mirror, its surface flawless, framed in silver and glass that reflected him back with unsettling clarity. To the right, beneath a tall arched window, rested a bathtub large enough for three, sunlight filtering through the glass and spilling across the marble like a still painting.

Trafalgar didn’t need to look twice.

It was the same bathroom. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The same place where everything had begun.

Where he had stood naked. Where Trafalgar du Morgain had ended his life—and where he had opened his eyes for the first time in this world.

He moved to the basin and turned the water on, watching it run over his hands, clear at first, then tinted faintly as the last traces of blood disappeared down the drain.

’How much has changed,’ he thought.

Seventeen was close now. Close enough to feel real. Beyond that waited the war, inevitable and already in motion. And after it, the end of his first year at the academy. Too many turning points stacked too tightly together.

The family could fix things if they wanted to. Adjust records. Smooth absences. Make sure nothing counted against him. He knew that.

But he didn’t want that.

The classes mattered. The knowledge did. There was something there he didn’t want handed to him or erased for convenience. Missing them would feel like throwing something away he had chosen for himself.

Trafalgar shut off the water and looked up at his reflection.

’It would be a waste not to go,’ he decided quietly.

The blood didn’t come off right away. It clung to his skin in thin lines and darker patches, caught in the creases of his knuckles and beneath his nails, as if reluctant to let go. Trafalgar held his hands under the stream and watched the water strike them, cold and steady, breaking apart against his fingers before sliding down into the basin. The first runoff turned faintly pink, then darker, swirling briefly before vanishing down the drain.

He didn’t rush. He turned his hands slowly, methodically, palms up, then down, letting the water do its work. His fingers flexed once, then again, testing the lingering tension in his joints. The dull ache was there, deep and familiar, a reminder of impact rather than pain. Bone against bone. Skin against skin. A physical echo of something that had already ended.

He scrubbed at his knuckles with his thumb. The blood resisted, dried where it had splashed and begun to set, forcing him to apply more pressure. His skin reddened slightly, but he didn’t stop. The motion was repetitive, almost ritualistic. Wash. Turn. Rinse. Repeat.

The sound of running water filled the room, constant and unchanging. It drowned out everything else—the noise of the hall, the voices, the reactions. Here, there was only the sink, his hands, and the steady proof that what had happened was real.

The duel was over. Darion lay in the infirmary. The family had seen everything they needed to see. Whatever image they had held of Trafalgar du Morgain no longer existed in the same shape.

He pressed his hands together under the stream, rubbing palm against palm, watching the last stubborn stains thin and finally disappear. Clear water again. Clean marble beneath. No visible trace of violence left behind.

But the weight of it hadn’t washed away.

He shut the tap off and stood there for a moment longer, droplets sliding from his fingers and falling softly into the basin. His hands looked ordinary now. Almost deceptively so. The same hands that had held a blade. The same hands that had ended the fight without steel.

Trafalgar dried them slowly, thoroughly.

The blood was gone.

The consequences were not.