'I made you do this. Hold me responsible and judge me by your standards. Take out your law books, bring out your code of ethics, find a god or two and ask their opinion. If you think your father had done something wrong, then take my life. Nikki…that would be standard.'

Aniket held Nate's hand to his face and pressed his lips to the back of his palm. Nate always held himself to the toughest standards. This wasn't about how he was raised. Nate himself was a stellar example of moral character. Even if someone puts him in a stand for an entire month, they would not find anything immoral in him.

Aniket always felt that that Nate was the sun while he was the shadow. Being a shadow so long, he had forgotten even a shadow was borne of the sun's rays. He was not as despicable a creature as he once thought. He did not have to worry his form was too dark, too horrible. It too was the sun's agenda. It too was the sun's plan.

'Hmm…'

Nate saw that Aniket understood. He rubbed his head and brought him away. No longer taking him down the cliff, but exploring the forest pathways to find a way back. Aniket protested that Anita would be alone. The cliff was clearly the shortest way home.

Nate said he should get Nate's point.

As a result, they got thoroughly lost. Swatting mosquitoes at night, with nary a rabbit in sight, Aniket kicked the big fellow next to him in complaint.

Nate was unbothered. Lying in a meadow watching the moon, he smiled. 'Just wait.'

A few hours later, Anita brought the hounds of the resort and found them.

Aniket was shocked. One should know Anita had training, but she never went out into the field. She was very much like a housewife, happy to do her chores. If at all she feels like it, she will sit by the computer a couple of hours and do a little data analysis for Nate. Aniket only ever saw her as a delicate and beautiful lady who cries when she sees a cockroach.

But she scoured the virgin forest in a remote island at night just to find them?

'Tch. We're warkeepers. What's so surprising?' Nate was unamused. 'Close your jaw. I hate slobber.'

Aniket unapologetically kicked Nate. He rushed to help Anita whose dress was stuck on the thorny underbrush.

'Who wears a churidhar to a trek like this?' he was very distressed. Anita's beautiful long dress was in tatters. He had never seen his mummy look so inelegant. He nearly hit himself out of guilt and worry. But the person who caused everything was very relaxed. Shamelessly digging into his wife's belongings and eating her rations.

Seeing Aniket be beside himself, Anita laughed. 'Don't worry Nikki. You were raised in an artkeeper pod, so you don't know. Warkeeper pods raise their pod adopts very tough. I have been trekking mountains and shooting guns for as long as I can remember.'

Aniket was not satisfied by this explanation. He brought Anita to the fire and treated her wounds with water and alcohol, hissing as though it caused him pain instead.

What nonsense is this woman saying? If she was raised so tough, she would know she must change and equip herself first before going into a dangerous forest like this. She was not even carrying a dagger to clear the path. She did it all by her hands. It pricked Aniket's eyes.

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Anita gathered Aniket in a hug and soothed him. Nate shook his head at her. This remorseless woman had never cared about silly things like equipment.

The Bareclaw Tigress is what they called her. Sometimes she wouldn't even take a gun to the battlefield. She is so violent, she would spilt a man's face is two with her bare hands. The enemies who saw it would lose their morale and dare not to look in her direction.

It would be a joke if she was afraid of a few brambles.

But Nate still agreed with Aniket. A tiger is always a tiger. But a man is soft noodles if he doesn't train. Anita has not gone to battle ever since Aniket entered the pod. She has not even trained. She should not take unnecessary risks.

Timekeepers are not protective of women, but warkeepers are very protective of their tigresses. They are allowed to fight and play as much as they want, but they're not allowed to take risks. They are not allowed to take initiative in war. They should always follow a man's lead. If they can't prove themselves to follow a man's lead, they will be married off to other pods. Sciencekeepers, artkeepers, spacekeepers…whoever will take them.

Where can Nate's tigress follow Nate's lead? Or her father's, one of the greatest warkeepers of all time? The Bareclaw Tigress will follow her own lead, her own crazy, bloodthirsty path.

If Aniket didn't come along and awoken her motherly instincts, it is unclear what carnage would've risen in the battlefield.

Aniket was a greenhouse baby. When his artmothers saw his genius as a baby, they didn't put him in school. For all their eccentric creativity and limitless experimentation as artkeepers, they raised him with utmost care and discipline. School cannot raise such a genius, they said. By the time he was an adolescent, there was not a subject in the world he was not an expert of.

Aniket's mothers were convinced it was because he was an Aerog twin. The only creature raised in a womb within a womb. He was gifted by the heavens. Nate had a different idea.

The artmothers didn't have the right questionnaire. A certain brat knew how to pander to their limited knowledge. Where Nate came from, students would sneak into faculty safes under the noses of elite warkeepers keeping guard of the premises. They would steal the questionnaries.

Is it even a task to fool three women whose heads are in the clouds all day, thinking of art?

Of course, it was all fake!

Mothers are often persistently prideful about their children's achievements. This isn't their own ego. This is their protection for the child's ego. A child is born without ego and has no sense of existence in the world. The mother builds it for him.

So Nate knew he wouldn't be able to convince the artmothers that their son is not a normal kind of devil. He's a rascal beyond all the rascals in the world. A genius beyond all the geniuses.

For a genius expands a person's vision of the world and makes them think of greatness. But the devil's genius makes them think everything is the same, the entire world is nothing but ashes. All is nothing.

And he was only thirteen.

But Nate still wanted this devil child. It was no longer about wanting another man in the pod to protect his tigress. He just wanted to make the devil his son and love him.

Thus he started conquering his son's mothers. One must know Nate has no conscience in the field of romance. He only followed the rules. According to rules, timekeepers are polyamorous. It is frowned up to poke a finger in another pod. But what does frowning have to do with Nate?

He never broke the rules.

When he wanted something, he will go get it. He is beyond ardurous and beyond passionate. Charming, good looking and insistent. Who can resist him?

Certainly not Aniket's artmothers. These ladies are in their thirties. In their perception, Nate was basically an older child who they let teach their younger child. It was just that the aforementioned child had a very condensed stare and strong, firm legs. Makes their fingers twitch in search of their art brushes. Why are the legs important?

For they seem they can hold steady while carrying the weight of the world, and are yet so utterly and shamefully relaxed.

It would seem one must grab the moment. The sun has to hold up the entire solar system. He is utterly not free, even for a moment. If he's relaxed, that's a favour he's pronouncing on the world. Because the sun never gets off duty. The relaxation was also his duty. Perhaps that is why, it possesses such immense gravity. Attraction.

The artists were inspired. Everything happened naturally.

And this was when they began to relax too. Nate brought away his son wherever he wanted. They began to convince themselves it was the right thing. They wanted to force Aniket to be a sciencekeeper. They still had that idea. But Aniket chose to follow Nate and be a warkeeper. It turned out their big brained son was also very good at using his body. Mothers have new reasons to be proud. Although there is an instinctive connection with the mother, a boy is best taught by his father. This father was a little young. But their naughty rascal has become serious and obedient. The artkeepers put their worries down and immersed in their own creation.

So he won't study and he will kill instead. He won't build those bridges, won't make those medicines or that great communication technology that is meant to unite the world. He won't do any of those things he talked about. He will spend his days in a gritty battlefield, burn in the sun and thirst in the wind. There isn't water to clean the blood and guts enemy corpses have left on him. The lack of food for days would distract him in the heavy sun. His eyes fall on the flies attracted to human feces next to his sniper perch. He is suddenly hungry.

Thankfully, Anita still follows Nate wherever he goes. She takes Aniket to see the world, take part in competitions, know his peers, watch movies. Play. She had basically given up her career to plan his life for him. It is a lot more sophisticated than what the artkeepers who are recluses can do. It's a pity their perfect sun doesn't dare to tell her the truth.