Keep yourself away from Louis. Why would he need to keep his distance from his cousin to the point of not even getting near him?

Louis never contacted him again, and he knew about the successful businessman he became, and still never tried to contact Mike.

Not like Mike was in a desperate need, but still could call your family. He just thought his family, excluding his mother, was not very friendly towards each other, maybe his grandfather's doing? Who knows. But reality can be weirder than fiction.

The meeting started not long after that. Mike and the other bodyguards stood at a certain distance away from the meeting table, for almost two hours. They discussed the situation in Asgars, not wanting to intervene but mostly about empty words.

Why would Rose need to attend those kinds of things? Had something to do with one of her companies or who knows, Mike would rather not care about it, he just hoped to leave after the meeting, not willing to talk with Louis.

Luckily that Louis would not go to talk with him in the middle of the meeting. Still, it was just a few days on the island so he hoped for those days to finish soon.

The male bodyguard, even took his phone and with muted volume, started to play a simple game.

"Just act like you are doing something serious and nothing will happen" Said the man in a low voice to Mike while he felt his eyes on him.

"Point taken, thanks for the info."

He made a mental note to download a game later. Anyway, the man could not take his phone out for more than 5 minutes anyway, but it was good enough to get out of the boredom of the meeting.

Even Louis was showing a bored face, yawning. But nobody dared to look at him with a weird look.

Finally, some questions were directed at Louis, but he just casually answered to them. Still, nobody insisted on him.

"The Red Corps and the Blue Institute are both under Aotheles' territory, so I can only follow their rules." Said Louis while answering the others, he had no will to explain detailed things, as everybody participating in the meeting already knew the implication of his words.

"What about the international water business?" Said Rose, everybody looking at her not because she asked Louis directly, but because of other 2 reasons; first it was a too direct question, and second, because nobody dared to ask complicated questions to Louis nor ask him a related question more than once.

"... Maybe can work, I can try, but Asgars will ask the same, so you guys would need to know how to deal with it."

The answer was simple, but people got stunned at why would he answer detailed things to her.

The meeting finally reached an end and they were doing the formal procedures and saying goodbye to each other, but Louis got up of his chair without talking to others, he even went past Rose and reached Mike.

"It's been many years, I see you are doing good, so I guess the old man finally passed away, right?"

He made emphasis on the words "Passed away". Louis is an ex-member of the organization, so he knew that his grandfather was really not dead, his words made it clear to Mike that implied another thing. Louis clearly knows about the house, but how much does he know? Doubts passed Mike's mind on how to answer him.

"Yes, a few months ago" He answered short words. He realized that he would already know that info, if their grandpa was faking death or really dead, they would know it, so his question was more of some kind of formality.

"I see... well, is good anyway. Say, Mike, from a 1 to 5 count, which number?"

That one question made him wonder, what was his cousin talking about? It took some time to realize the real question: "What phase of the Bloody Hand are you from 1 to 5?"

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"Fuck..." cursed Mike in a low voice, his cousin knew about the ability even when he never got the same ability.

After some time in silence, he answered "0". Then he already felt the weird looks on him, nobody knew what they were talking about even when all eyes were fixed on them, but the close people, including Rose (who got close as soon as she saw Louis approaching Mike) could listen to them.

"He said from 1 to 5, why 0?" that was the thoughts of the people around. But they got their thinking changed by Louis' reaction.

"Pffffft... hahahaha! Man, you know how to make me laugh, It reminded me of old times...." Louis wiped his tears from laugh.

"..." And Mike was in silence, he was thinking of what Louis was looking for, and the eyes on him were piercing him enough.

"Ah well, let's accelerate things, shall we?" said Louis in a low voice, to be only heard by Mike.

"What...?" He could not finish him asking when Louis faced Rose.

Rose was stunned for a moment too, but then showed a smile. - You know each other, then I guess you are really family, right? I knew it - She said the last sentence in a lower voice.

"Family, yes, I guess we are the only 'Blood' alive in all Gaia. Anyway, lend him to me for a moment, you can come if you want."

Instead of asking the person in question, Louis, he asked Rose, because he knew he would not abandon work freely, and instead of asking her to accompany him, he asked for her to follow.

Anyone could think that it was disrespectful, and it was. But nobody pointed out, Rose's father wanted to say something, but got stopped by Rose's happy response.

"Oh please, I would love to see what you two are about, yes."

"Haha, come, Mike, your boss already gave the order, I want to see how much you learned."

"Don't I have some FUCKING SAYING ON IT?!" Mike cursed and followed helplessly Louis. They were followed by Rose and her two bodyguards and a man with cold behavior and also silent, Louis assistant.

It was common sense in Gaia that nobody would need a bodyguard or something for security while accompanied by certain people, Louis included.

Louis' control over his ability was not only beyond strong, but also his power was far from common.

In the travel, they got in a luxury car, Louis' assistant took the driving seat and the others still fitted perfectly in the car and still there was enough spare space

"To my training grounds" instructed Louis to his assistant, and the man drove without delay.

"It would take some minutes to arrive, anyway, I guess old man Alex told you something before 'passing away', don't think I want to dig into the secrets too, I just want to ask, did he say something about me?" Asked Louis.

After some consideration, he told the direct truth to him.

"Yes..."

After some silence, Louis laughed again "Haha! Just... oh man, so funny, I think he never mentioned something good about me, right?"

They had casual conversations after that, mostly with Rose, since Louis felt like Mike would give him short answers anyway.

But it was more Rose answering to him because when she asked a complicated question, Louis would be evasive. And while being asked about their family, Louis and even Mike could just give simple answers.

They never gave another simpler answer because their family, excluding the Blood lineage, was nothing out of ordinary.

Some minutes later, they arrived at a big dome, Louis' private training ground.

As they got inside, Louis signaled Mike in the lockers direction.

"You guys wait here, Mike and I will change clothes"

As they got in the lockers Mike finally asked.

"What the hell are you up about?"

"I want to test how my cousin is improving, I know a little about the Blood family's ability after all, so I think I can help you." Said without delay or doubt.

What would they do was just to spar?

Mike doubted him, but anyway followed, he could not reject anything anyway, it was like he was the newbie in a black company.

Before heading out, while in sports clothes, he gave Mike a piece of cloth.

"What...?"

"Blind training, of course, you know about it, right?" The answer came before finish the question -I also have something similar. - And then Louis took the same kind of cloth to cover his eyes while reaching the center of the arena.

"Give your all, the best methods are about to give your all anyway, right? I won't suppress my strength"

Louis' advice was just a piece of simple advice, so Mike gave it no thought and put the cloth to cover his eyes.

"I'm not going to lose this combat, serious or not"

"Oh? I used to train with artificial soldiers, so I guess I should behave a little anyway. Ok, no ability intervention from my side, you go first." Louis' ability was going to be used only to know where Mike was.

Mike took the words and got close to Louis, ready to strike, he took this spar like the ones with Claire, but lighter than with Claire. Silly thoughts, Louis was really going to go with strength enough to far surpass Claire's "heavy" training.

Better said, it was about to be a full real combat.