The Epic of the Discarded Son-Chapter 47: Hungry Titan

He loomed over Richard, who sat with his back pressed against the wooden wall, a dagger lodged in his chest. Richard gasped, eyes locked on Shiro, still trying to understand how he was alive with a blade buried in his heart.

"When did you know?" The words barely made it past his lips.

Shiro didn’t answer right away. He sat down behind him, one knee up, back pressed against the same wall. His eyes drifted to the ceiling light dangling with the sway of the ship.

"Tell me, Graystone."

He let the name hang in the air like a threat.

Richard let out a broken chuckle. "Using my last name." Another weak breath. "I guess I hit a nerve."

And he had.

A last name wasn’t given, it was earned. Carried. It meant you were worthy enough to stand beside the family that bore it. To not have one meant the opposite, that you weren’t worth claiming. That your blood wasn’t enough. And to use someone’s last name without permission wasn’t just disrespectful.

It was a death sentence.

His eyes shifted toward Richard. "Tell me, Graystone. Have you ever felt yourself disappearing? Not all at once. Slowly. Like something is hollowing you out from the inside and filling the space with something that looks like you, sounds like you—but isn’t." A small pause. "That’s what’s been happening to me. I’m wearing someone else’s skin. And every day, a little more of mine gets peeled away." He tilted his head back against the wall and let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his lungs for years. "And the kicker? I literally shed my skin. You can’t write irony better than that."

Richard said nothing. His breathing was shallow now—each inhale a little shorter than the last, like his body was rationing whatever it had left.

"I wasn’t mad when you and the masked weirdos force-fed me power. No." The softness drained from his voice so fast it was like watching color leave a dead man’s face. "But why did you drag your own daughter into this? Why her?"

The ship groaned beneath them. The lantern above swung lazily, throwing their shadows back and forth across the wall like it couldn’t decide which one deserved the light.

Richard tried to speak. Failed. Tried again. The words came out cracked and barely held together. "You could have at least let me see her one last time." His wet, fading eyes drifted down toward the dagger in his chest, not angry. Not afraid. Just tired. The kind of tired that only comes when you’ve already made peace with what’s coming.

Shiro sighed. He pulled the dagger back—not without giving it a slow, deliberate twist first. Richard flinched, a strangled sound escaping through his teeth. Shiro twirled the blade lazily between his fingers like it was a pen and not the thing that had just been inside a man’s chest.

"Much as I want to kill you—" He stopped. Something in his expression cracked, just barely. "I can’t. You’re all she has left."

He stood up, wiped the blade on his sleeve, and started walking away. He was done with this. Done with Richard. Done with—

"Wait."

Shiro kept walking.

"Aren’t you curious?" Richard’s voice came out thin and ragged, but the words had weight. "Why we did what we did? Why every single one of us was willing to die for this?"

His feet stopped before his brain gave them permission.

Much as he didn’t want to get dragged any deeper into this, curiosity was a stubborn thing. It didn’t care what he wanted. It just sat there, poking at him, refusing to shut up—kind of like Rei when he lived in his head, actually.

He turned around. Walked back. Dropped down against the wall like a man who knew he was about to regret this.

"Okay. Go on."

"Before I tell you," Richard muttered, wincing as he shifted against the wall, "let me tell you a story."

Shiro groaned so loud the ship probably heard it. "Can’t you just tell me? Skip the backstory, the dramatic buildup, the tragic flashback—just get to the point."

"Just listen." He closed his eyes. "There was a god once. A titan. So massive he made mountains look like furniture. And one day, a prophecy reached his ears—his own children would kill him and take everything."

Shiro said nothing. Just listened. Breaking the mood with a joke wouldn’t make the story better. And something in Richard’s voice told him this wasn’t just a bedtime tale.

"So he did what any terrified, all-powerful lunatic would do. Every time his wife gave birth—he ate the child."

Silence.

"Swallowed them whole. One by one. Because dead children can’t fulfill prophecies."

Richard paused. Caught his breath.

"But the mother—she broke. Couldn’t watch it happen again. So she wrapped a rock in cloth, made it look like a newborn, and fed it to him. He swallowed it without a second thought." A thin smile crossed Richard’s face. "And the real child? She sent him far away. Somewhere the old man would never find him."

Shiro already knew where this was heading.

And it wasn’t going to end well for the hungry father.

"The boy grew up. Trained. Got strong. But not strong enough—not alone. So he found his father and tricked him into drinking something foul. Some kind of poison. And the titan threw up everything he’d ever eaten."

A beat.

"Including every child he’d swallowed."

"And that is why you always chew your food. Otherwise it comes back. And it’s angry." Shiro added, nodding slowly, like he’d just learned a valuable life lesson he planned to carry with him forever—just in case he ever had to eat his own children who might try to kill him.

Richard looked at him. The kind of look a man gives someone who just turned a story about gods murdering each other into a dining etiquette lesson.

Shiro looked back. Dead serious.

The story ended the way those stories always do. The children came together. Waged war. Tore their father apart piece by piece. And buried him somewhere so deep that even his screams couldn’t reach the surface.

He turned to Richard, brow furrowed.

"I don’t get it. What does any of that have to do with anything?"

After catching his breath, Richard sighed. The kind of sigh that carries years behind it.

"When your father was young—before the throne, before the power, before any of this—he had a dream."

Shiro listened.

"A god appeared to him. A woman. He said she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. The kind of beauty that doesn’t belong in the waking world."

Richard’s eyes drifted to something far away.

"And she told him one thing. Just one. That his children would kill him."

The ship creaked. The lantern swayed. Neither of them moved.

"He didn’t believe it at first. Laughed it off. Called it a stupid dream. But he would still tell us about her—the woman who kept showing up every night. We were young. So, we’d joke about it. Say he was lovesick over a ghost."

His voice changed. Darker now. Heavier.

"But as the years passed, something in him shifted. The jokes stopped. The laughter dried up. He became obsessed—with power, with control, with making sure nobody could ever stand above him. And then one day, without warning, he and his twin brother joined forces."

A pause.

"And killed their own father."

The words hung in the air like smoke.

"Took the clan. Took the throne. Took everything."

The ship creaked. The lantern swung. And somewhere in the back of Shiro’s skull, a door opened that he wished had stayed shut.

"That’s why he killed Liz."

It came out quiet. Almost a whisper. Like he was talking to himself.

"So she’d never grow up. Never fall in love. Never hold hands. Never have children who might one day stand together and bring him down."

The realization hit him like a fist to the chest.

Richard turned. Still weak. Still bleeding. But somehow found enough strength to look at Shiro like he was the biggest idiot on the planet.

Again.

"Yeah." The word came out dry. Almost insulted. Like Shiro had just asked if water was wet. "Next was you. But you had the audacity to come back to life."

A pause. Longer this time.

"Now it’s your nieces." His voice dropped. "Kuro’s twins. Your father is planning to sacrifice them to the mountain guardian. Offer them up like lambs. So there will be no one left. No pair. No siblings. No one who can stand together and make the prophecy come true."

The ship rocked gently. The lantern swayed again for dramatic effect.

Then he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"So technically, it’s Kuro and me." He exhaled. "You realize that even if I agree to whatever you’re planning, you still have to convince Kuro, right?"

"Don’t worry." Richard’s voice was calm. Steady. Carrying a confidence that had no business coming from a man who had a hole in his chest moment ago. "He’ll be convinced soon."

’That sounds ominous.’

"We’ll see when that happens." Shiro got to his feet. Dusted himself off. Then turned toward the dark corner of the hallway without looking at it.

"Okay, Ana. How long are you going to hide there and eavesdrop? Come out and take him to his room. A little rest will restore his mana."

She materialized from the shadows like smoke given shape. Silent. Graceful. The way she always moved—like the air made room for her out of habit.

She didn’t say anything. No witty remark. No smug smile. Just a look of quiet relief washing over her face the moment her eyes found Richard—alive, breathing, still stubbornly existing. Her hand trembled once at her side before she steadied it. She thought no one noticed.

Shiro noticed.

He turned to leave. One step. Two.

Then stopped.

"Is that why your wife was killed?"

The silence that followed was the loudest thing he’d ever heard.

"I shouldn’t have told her."

Just four words. And every single one of them was broken. Cracked down the middle. Barely held together by the voice carrying them.

Something in Shiro’s chest twisted. Not anger. Not pity. Understanding.

Now he knew why Nora never pushed. Never asked about her mother. Never demanded answers from her father.

Because if she had—if she’d found out the truth—she would have been next.

He climbed the stairs. Slow. One step at a time.

And then he froze.

A thought crept in. Quiet at first. Then louder.

’If he fears his own children will kill him, why have children at all?’

He stood there. Letting it turn. Letting the pieces rearrange themselves.

’The fight between me and Nora—was that to separate us? To keep us from getting close? From forming the kind of bond that could—’

He shook his head.

’No. That makes no sense. If that were the case, why have us in the first place?’

After Rei died, the Patriarch’s path should have been clear. No rivals. No threats. No one left who could challenge him. He could have stopped there. Sealed the bloodline. Ended it.

But he didn’t.

Then it hit him. The story Richard had just told. The titan who ate his children. Who did everything in his power to change his fate.

And failed.

Because fate doesn’t negotiate.

’He can’t change it.’

The realization bloomed in his chest like fire catching dry wood.

’He can’t stop it. He can only delay it.’

His father knew. Had always known. No matter how many siblings he killed. No matter how many children he threw into wells or fed to mountains. The prophecy wasn’t something he could outrun. It was something he could only push back—year by year, buying time against something inevitable.

And that meant he knew everything. Who Shiro was. What Richard was planning. What the masks were hiding. All of it. Every move. Every whisper. Every secret.

He let it all happen. Because he was never worried. Because in his mind, none of it mattered. None of them mattered.

And the worst part? He wasn’t even angry. He was impressed.

A smile cut across Shiro’s face. Wide. Unhinged.

’You sly old man.’

’You played all of us. Richard. Ana. Darius. The masks. Me. Every single one of us dancing on strings we couldn’t even see.’

He burst out laughing. Loud. So loud it echoed across the water and bounced off the night sky.

"You old fool!" He threw his head back, arms spread, laughing at the stars like a madman.

The laughter rolled on. Free. Wild. The sound of a boy who’d just realized how foolish he’d been, thinking he could trick the most powerful man he’d ever known.

"You dare underestimating me again!"