Sighing once more, she left the cave and set out to find where her father's body could be. Tapping the buttons on her suit's interface, her armor shifted and expanded outward. A drone grew from the suit's back, detaching and flying off to scan the surrounding area for any signs of remains. She sat down on a piece of debris and waited to see what the drones could find, her mind wandering as she thought about her own actions.
'...I was acting on emotions...' She thought, the realization hitting her like cold water. She had gone to Emma because she was scared to come here personally. She was scared of reliving the past, scared to confront the truth that, like everyone else in their family, she had abandoned her father when he needed her the most.
Her father hadn't even tried to hang out with her back then, because she was always studying. She had wanted to become a scientist and unlock the full potential of her system. Her father had been fully on board with this dream and did everything in his power to help her succeed, supporting her however he could. Her father wasn't the smartest, but he had tried to find ways to help her… at times he was useful, and at times he got in the way.
But she never knew her parents got into trouble in their marriage because her full attention was consumed by her work. If she had known, then maybe she wouldn't have asked him to leave her alone while she studied. Maybe she wouldn't have shut him down every time he tried to speak with her, dismissing him because she didn't want any distractions from her research.
Maybe she would have noticed that her father's life was falling apart around him. And her complete dismissal of him, combined with her going to his best friend for help because he knew a thing or two about what she was studying...
It wasn't hard to see that her father thought they had replaced him with his best friend. That realization had come far too late for any of them, and by the time they understood what had happened, their father had long since disappeared from their lives.
Why did she really come here? She wanted to do experiments on her father's remains. She wanted to find out the reason why he didn't have a system when everyone else did. Why was it that the worst possible thing that could happen to a person happened specifically to him? It wasn't logical. None of it made sense. She wanted to make sense of it, wanted to understand how something like that could just happen to one person while everyone else thrived...
"..." Lisa looked up into the sky, where she saw Emma rocketing down towards her at tremendous speed. Emma's eyes were bloodshot and filled with killing intent, her draconic features becoming more pronounced as rage consumed her.
Emma was really going to kill her if she found Lisa disrespecting their father's remains... and oddly, without any logical reason she could identify, Lisa found herself unable to explain the truth behind why she was here. It was strange. She could just open her mouth and explain everything, calm down Emma's rage with simple words and reason... yet why wasn't her mouth moving? Why wasn't she speaking? Where was the logic in her silence? Was she not acting on emotions right now, the very thing she swore to never do?
"I can't find his remains." She said finally, her voice flat. Emma stopped in the air above her, hovering there as she looked down at Lisa and the drones flying around, scanning the area. Emma glared at her sister with suspicious eyes, trying to determine if she was lying or not... but in the end, she shrugged. She would beat Lisa up first and find out the truth later.
But just as Emma was about to move, both she and Lisa froze as they felt something appear in this world. A presence unlike anything they had ever sensed before. They slowly looked over, and their eyes widened in disbelief as they saw their father, more handsome than ever before, stepping into this universe with a calm smile on his face.
"My old home," Zenryu said with a nostalgic smile, taking in the familiar yet distant surroundings. He paused, noticing the two people who were staring at him in complete shock. For a good long second, the three of them just looked at each other in silence, no one moving or speaking. Then Zenryu's expression went cold, all warmth draining from his face. Not wanting to deal with them, he disappeared without a word, wanting to enjoy the small amount of time he had in this universe before he had to go to the plane of the gods.
"Jarvis, what should be our next move?" Zenryu asked with a grin, flying through the air at a leisurely pace. He moved from area to area, savoring every moment. For the first time in a long while, he could fully enjoy his power without restraint... he was a god now.
"How about we enjoy the food from every part of the world? We should also collect manga and anime. That way, we have data to go through to know what abilities and powers we can potentially obtain." Jarvis suggested.
"Alright, but I also want to experience sleep. I almost forgot what it's like to actually rest. We can do that properly in the plane of the gods." Zenryu said with a grin, the simple pleasure of sleep sounding appealing after everything he had been through.
"I also want to experience sleep as well... by the way, about your children," Jarvis said with interest in her voice... but then she shifted the subject towards the matter she had noticed back there.
"Ignore them. I guess they found out I was Zero or something. In the past twenty years, they just so happened to find where I was now? Convenient timing." Zenryu said dismissively, keeping his eyes forward.
"I think..." Jarvis said, wanting to tell him the truth about why they were there.
"Jarvis, let the matter go," Zenryu said seriously, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"But..." Jarvis tried again quickly.
"I said no," Zenryu said firmly. Jarvis went quiet, as this was the first time Zenryu had ever spoken to her like this. The silence between them stretched on.
Zenryu knew what he had experienced. He had lived through it, and no amount of explanations or excuses could change that. About thirty years ago, his wife at the time, along with everyone in his company, forced him to step down from the business he had started.
The business he had built with his own two hands from nothing. The business that he had gone hungry over, skipping meals because he didn't want to waste money on food when he could throw everything into making it succeed.
It was all taken away from him, ripped from his grasp. All because his wife had awakened the Business System, which gave her buffs and bonuses for running companies, and even allowed her to increase profit through skills she possessed.
He was no longer the best person to run his own company. Something which he could understand on a logical level. And since the system would only work if his wife was the one running things, he let her take over... although he didn't like the way everyone pressured him into stepping aside, treating him like he was worthless.
He wanted to take another role in his company, any role at all just to stay connected to what he had built. But with people who had systems being more suited for every position, he was forced out entirely. Unemployed.
His wife, during all of this, began staying in her office or in the tower more and more often. He would be lucky to see her for even a few minutes... but it was okay, he told himself. He tried to distract himself by spending time with his children, pouring his love into them instead.
But all of this changed one day when he went to surprise his wife at work. He walked in on her quickly getting undressed with his best friend right there in the room with her. He recalls just how time felt like it froze in that moment. Everything stopped. His so-called best friend looked back at him with a smug grin, enjoying the moment. His wife stood frozen, caught in the act... he had simply turned and left.
He didn't lash out or anything like that. He was the type of person who could walk in on his girlfriend having sex with another man and just walk away as if nothing had happened... because there was no point in fighting. What was there to fight for? Her heart? The friendship? Those were already gone.
He admitted to himself that he had lost both of those things the instant he saw that scene.
So, he spent his full attention on what was still dear to him—his children. He wanted a divorce immediately, but he didn't dare go through with it since... well, would he even get to keep the kids? A systemless man against a powerful system holder? He knew how that would end.
So, he had no choice but to go home and remain married, knowing full well his wife was cheating on him with his best friend... it crushed his heart completely. It made him feel less than a man, like he was nothing. But for his children, he was more than willing to endure that pain silently. They were the only reason he stayed in that house.
His wife tried to explain things afterward, tried to tell him it wasn't what it looked like. She attempted to make him believe that she had only spilled a drink on herself and was getting undressed to clean up... he just nodded his head and acted as if he believed her. What else could he do?
He recalls going to his parents' house after that, seeking help on what he could do. He remembers how his mother opened the door that day, a happy look in her eyes upon seeing her son standing there. But the moment she heard he was no longer the CEO of his company, that he didn't hold any role there anymore, and how his life had turned out... that happy look disappeared completely.
She had turned him away that day, promising to call and help later... not that the call or help ever came. He tried to get past her to see his dad, his little sister, and his little brother, but that only caused her to push him back and try to get him to leave. She made up some half-assed lie about them not being home. A lie he knew was false, because he saw his father looking down at him through the upstairs window, watching him be turned away.
He went to his elder brother for help after that... but like his mother, the joy of seeing him quickly disappeared from his brother's face once he learned the situation. Zenryu was quickly asked to leave. He found himself completely alone in the world, abandoned by everyone he thought cared about him. But he still had his children. With them by his side, he told himself he didn't care about any of it.
But then the government got involved. They wanted to run tests on him to see what had happened, to study why he was systemless when everyone else had awakened. And since they offered to pay him good money for participating—money he would desperately need to survive since he doubted his wife would give a shit about supporting him—he agreed to be their test subject... and he regretted that decision for a long time afterward.
They put him through hell. For a whole month, he was nothing but a lab rat to them. They subjected him to experiment after experiment, putting him through agony without care. They ignored the deal they had made with him, ignored the contracts they had signed. They told him he wasn't a human anymore, but a lesser lifeform, so the contract was void... and that meant they could do anything they wanted to him.
In the end, after finding nothing unusual about him, he was let go. Mentally broken and barely holding himself together. He went home, wanting nothing more than to see his family and feel some sense of normalcy again... but when he arrived, he found he had been replaced. His best friend was being called dad by his youngest son... he didn't even know the boy could talk yet. He had missed that milestone entirely.
He noticed how close his whole family had gotten to their new dad in his absence. Lisa, who was always busy studying, actually allowed her new dad to be around her while she worked. Maybe it was because they both had similar systems and could relate to each other... but still, the way she grew visibly annoyed when he tried to be a father to her, when he tried to reconnect... it was like she didn't even notice he had been gone for the last month. Like his absence meant nothing.
Emma, they had been like best friends before all of this. The closest a father and daughter could be. But she outright yelled at him to leave her alone and stormed off to her room, slamming the door hard enough to shake the walls. It wasn't the first time she had yelled at him. He normally made fun of her to rile her up, and it was always just fun and games between them. But this time was different. That look of disgust and rage in her eyes when she looked at him... it cut deeper than any wound.
His best friend had run out of there the moment Zenryu arrived, acting as if he had been caught living a life that wasn't his to live. Zenryu ignored him entirely, not wanting to waste energy on that man.
Instead, he turned his attention to trying to rebuild his family, to piece things back together somehow. But he realized his efforts were meaningless when he found the divorce papers sitting on the kitchen counter.
He realized his wife was already planning to divorce him... and his time with the kids was limited anyway. But the kids didn't want him anymore. They had moved on. He was also mentally unstable thanks to the torture he had endured during those experiments... so he just left. What else could he do?