Eidolon

Warning (PG16)

This episode contains adult themes. Reader discretion recommended.

Nodding in agreement, a small knot started stirring in Rei’s stomach, “Okay. Deal.”

Reon leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on his knees, eyes bright and unrelenting. “Then listen carefully,” he started, “I will tell you the truths your mother died with.” Rei’s breath caught. The mountains outside seemed to lean closer. She sat perfectly still, her bowl cooling between her hands. Reon’s gaze held hers captive, but there was no cruelty; only a strange gravity, as if he was preparing to recite forbidden scripture.

“Your mother,” he began, “was not just a chef, Kitsu, she was a Maritani, Seraphina Sophia Maritani.” Rei frowned, “Her name was Sera Morita…” Reon’s voice lowered, “Patience, feisty concubine. Didn’t you know Morita was just your father’s family name?” She shook her head automatically, he smiled and continued, “Did you know the Maritani line once sat at the top of Rome?” Rei’s breath hitched, “Rome? No… you mean as a mob dynasty?” 

Reon nodded, “Three bloodlines built the central Italian syndicates generations ago. Three families who controlled the ports, the black-market chains, the protection networks. They were old as the stones of the city itself. Your mother’s ancestors were one of them. Though the Maritani’s lost their throne…”

Rei opened her mouth, then closed it. She had imagined many things about her mother’s past over the years. None of them included this, “What happened to them?” Reon leaned back, folding his arms loosely. “Your great-great-grandfather,” he said, “broke rank.”

The wind briefly rattled the wooden eaves outside, a cold finger against the house. “In a time of power struggle, when the other two families wanted to tighten their grip – to raise taxes, up the stakes and expand their reach and control even if the poorer districts bled for it,” his eyes flicked to hers, “As a consequence, especially the fishermen families, the ones already starving, suffered. Your mother’s great-grandfather didn’t agree with that approach.”

Rei swallowed. She remembered her mother always favored using fish, insisting on respecting it, on never wasting even a bone. She’d always said, “Fish fed my people. We honor what feeds us.”

Reon continued, “Your great-great-grandfather refused to let his people suffer more than necessary. He fought to protect the docks, the ports and the coastal populations. The other families saw him as weak, sentimental and therefore dangerous”, he paused for dramatic effect before adding, “So they exiled him. Forced him out before he could do real damage, before they had to kill him.”

Rei’s fingers tightened around the bowl, “He survived?” Reon’s smile returned, “He fled south. First to the smaller coastal towns, then to Naples. There he built something new; a smaller empire. Not grand enough to challenge the old one, but loyal – and loyalty in the south is arguably worth more than power in the north.”

Rei pictured it, a smaller syndicate built on the trust of fishermen and sailors, people who lived by tides and risk. “Is that where my mother grew up?” she whispered. “Yes”, Reon nodded, “Among fishermen families who adored the Maritani. Among loyal men who kept her safe. In a casino her grandfather ran – famous for never cheating its customers; a place where debts were paid in dignity, not blood.” Rei felt a strange warmth at that. A pride she didn’t know she had permission to feel. “Did she meet my father there too?” she asked quietly.

Reon’s expression shifted, gentler. “Your father,” he said, “was once an exceptional boxer. He traveled for underground rings across Italy. Every time he fought near Naples, he would wander into the Maritani Casino. There he would bet too much, win a lot, lose more.” After a small, amused breath Reon added, “But he was famous for smiling through all of it. A man with no fortune and no fear.”

Rei’s throat tightened. That was Jin, exactly him. “Your father was a man known to believe tomorrow would always be kinder,” Reon said gently, “Maybe your mother needed someone who believed that, after everything her family lost. After all, the two families back in Rome did not appreciate the Maritani claiming Naples… so they went after them one by one. Your mother lost more than one brother, her father too…” 

Silence stretched between them, wistful this time. “The Roman families never forgot the Maritani insurgence and when murdering a few didn’t destabilize Naples as they hoped, they gradually felt more threatened and disrespected,” Reon explained, “Syndicates never forgive those who walk away – especially not those who thrive…”

Rei studied her food, then finally murmured, “Why would she hide all this from me?” Reon tilted his head, “Because your mother fled not two syndicates – but three.” Rei’s eyes widened, her palms turned cold and her breath catching. “She kept you in the dark to keep you alive”, Reon stated plainly. Her pulse hadn’t quieted by the time he continued. He leaned in over the table, his voice dropping to a whisper that threaded through the steam rising from their bowls.

“There is more,” he declared, “Your mother’s Italian history didn’t end with a romantic eloping or a gentle exile.” Rei’s stomach tightened. She set her bowl down, unable to keep pretending she could eat. Reon shifted, the paper lantern near him casting a geometric shadow over his jawline. His piercing eyes never left hers. “Your mother,” he said, “did something your family could not forgive.” Rei braced herself, “Marrying my father?”

Reon’s lips curved faintly, “They tolerated his type. Gamblers are common in Naples, boxers also, but it wasn’t his occupation or inclinations that offended them…”, his gaze sharpened, “It was that he took her away. She left with him voluntarily, deserting her responsibility and her loyalty to her family. To Italian mobsters family is everything.” Rei sucked in an unsteady breath. “They disowned her…”, Reon explained simply, “Her grandfather, kindhearted as he was to fishermen, could not accept her running off with a man he considered a reckless dreamer with empty pockets.” Rei flinched a little at that; it was agonizingly accurate about her father, yet surprisingly painful to hear from someone else’s mouth.

“But,” Reon said, voice dropping, “regret is a ghost no family escapes.” A silence spread, thick as fog. “Her last living brother,” Reon explained, “Your uncle, the heir, was eventually assassinated.” Rei’s heart stumbled. “By whom?” she whispered. Reon shifted his weight, rose and moved to sit beside her, “By the same Rome based families who exiled your great-great-grandfather,” Reon said, “Their grudge is generational, their memory long and vengeance like a religion to them.”

Rei felt her skin prickle. She had never heard of an uncle, never seen a picture and never even known the name Maritani, nor the related hierarchies or bloodlines with weights and expectations. “So…”, Rei’s voice cracked, “So they wanted her back?” Reon’s tone grew colder, “A family without an heir is a beacon of weakness. They needed someone of the bloodline to take the mantle, to prevent outsiders from devouring what remained of their territory.”

Rei swallowed painfully, watching her hands in her lap. “Did they… sent people to find her,” she murmured. Reon nodded once, “Many. Some with honorable intentions… and some hired by distant cousins, less interested in getting her back, and more interested in making sure she never returned. Your grandfather’s regret turned into a campaign: first a search, a plea and eventually a threat.”

Rei’s breath hitched. She pictured her mother packing hurriedly. Her father joking to keep her calm. A ship or flight, destinations unknown. A new city where smog, light-pollution and neon swallowed the skies: Mirage. “Your mother and father fled,” Reon said, “Not because they wanted adventure, but because they wanted to survive – and they chose a place where old syndicates had no firm foothold.” Rei closed her eyes, fighting a swirl of grief, anger and dawning clarity. “That’s why they settled deep in Chochin…”, she whispered.

“To stay under the radar, to keep you safe,” Reon said softly, “And because they knew neither the Maritani or the Roman families could perform a large-scale search to reach that deep, not without drawing unwanted attention from the cities’ crafty Spiders or mega corporations like Kuroda Global… or worse: the Iron Oni.”

Rei felt her throat burn, staring blindly down into her jjigae. Her mother hadn’t just married a foolish boxer, she had sacrificed her family, her place in a lineage with centuries of history, because she wanted to protect her new chosen family.

Reon watched Rei struggle to process it, but there was no mockery in his expression now, only a contemplative interest, “You carry more legacy than you realize, Kitsu.” Rei lifted her eyes, meeting his’ with new vulnerability, “Why… really Reon, why tell me all this?” 

Reon’s answer was quiet, measured and unsettlingly sincere, “Because everyone wants you for what they see in you”, his gaze grew charged, “Takumi wants to control all of you, Bjorn wants your mind, Kuroda wants your data for Eidolon and the Oni wants your obedience…”, he paused, studying her like a flower unfolding, “I want to see what happens when a woman surrounded by powerful men learns the truth of her heritage.” 

Rei felt heat rush up her spine. Not exactly fear, something more volatile, something close to potential. “And…”, Reon added with a faint smile, “…because you paid for the knowledge in a currency I’ve come to cherish: your cooking – and your company.” Rei managed a breathless, choked laugh, taken aback by his smooth transition into flirting, “I.. I appreciate your honesty Reon.. but this is.. it’s a lot to process…”

They went silent for a while. A lamp flickered and the wind sighed outside. “That’s a natural reaction,” Reon murmured, expression serious, “Give it time… let’s finish dinner and then take a stroll in the mountains. Walking helps clear the mind.” Rei looked up at him astonished. She hadn’t expected him to be so understanding or considerate. “Thank you…”, she whispered and picked up her chopsticks again.

The rest of the meal passed in a comfortable silence, the initial shock of Reon’s revelations settling into a heavy, but gradually manageable, understanding. Rei finally set her chopsticks down. “Reon… thank you,” she said, her voice quieter, more reflective than before, “For telling me about my family. I … I had always wondered. Even as a little girl, I could see it in her eyes – a kind of pain, whenever I asked about Italy. She would get this faraway look and change the subject to the food we were cooking or something, anything else… after a while I just stopped asking. It felt cruel to keep poking at a wound I couldn’t see.”

Reon listened, his attention all-encompassing. He didn’t interrupt, allowing her to piece together her old memories with this new, brutal context. Only when she didn’t continue, he announced gently, “You should be grateful to her…” His tone wasn’t unkind, but factual, “She was a strong woman. To flee everything she knew, to build a new life in a place like Mirage City and raise a daughter… all with a husband who spend more time finding trouble than providing stability”, he took a slow sip of his tea, “It was no small feat.”

At the mention of her father, Rei’s expression turned gloomy. The small amount of appetite she had reclaimed vanished. She pushed her bowl gently away, her fingers tracing the grain of the wooden table. The question had been burning in her since he first mentioned Jin. She hesitated, wrestling with a lifetime of conflicted feelings, but her curiosity, increased by the night’s disclosures, won out.

“Reon,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, “You seem to know … everything. Do you know where Jin is? My father…”, she looked up, meeting his gaze head on, her own determined yet vulnerable, “I know Komorebi helped him escape the city, but I never knew where he went … or if he even managed to get out.”

Reon leaned back, his posture shifting into one of enigmatic contemplation. He let the silence stretch, watching the play of emotions on her face: the hope, the resentment, the desperate need for closure. Finally, he spoke, “I know parts of the story. My cousin arranged for a full biometric alteration. The Oni network has intel on the transport routes in use, the likely destinations”, he paused, his eyes holding hers, “But to tell you more than that would not be free … even to you Kitsu.”

Rei’s face shuttered immediately. The vulnerability vanished, replaced by a familiar, defensive pride. She looked away, at the dark window reflecting the room’s warm interior. “Nevermind,” she said, her tone deliberately neutral as she stood and began gathering the bowls, “I was just asking … but I don’t really care.” She turned her back to him, carrying the dishes to the kitchen, her movements brisk and efficient. The subject closed.