Return of the S-class Young Master

Return Of The Vengeful Heir

The first thing Cielo thought was about the harsh light penetrating through his tightly closed eyelids. With much difficulty, he opened his eyes and saw the clear blue sky.

'Blue sky?'

His eyes snapped open when realization dawned upon him. 'When is the light time I could differentiate colors aside from gray and black?'

Reaching his right hand to the sky, his attention was pulled onto his smooth arm. "What is happening?"

Still not recovering from the shock he was in, he was now touching his throat, feeling his neck for any discrepancy. "Now, I am a hundred percent sure I am dead.'

The vast greenery around him was the telltale sign that he was out of the old apartment he was in. Remembering the events that happened before he died, he haphazardly stood. "Shiela!"

Knowing Shiela died before him, his heart was filled with hope that his younger sister was with him. "Shiela!" He screamed once more.

"Shut it!" A child-like voice of a boy screamed behind Cielo.

Turning around, he was met by a frowning black-haired little boy. His golden eyes caught Cielo's attention. 

"Where am I?"

"Is that it? That is the universal question all of you are going to ask me? You are the same as your forefathers for someone who is supposed to tame me. No wonder that no one has ever succeeded in taming me." The child scoffed, crossing his chubby little hands and displaying the small black scales around his small limbs.

"You're…" Cielo frowned, mimicking the child's expression as he pointed at the grumpy ancestor before him. "You're the legendary guardian spirit of the Regalia Clan—the giant black snake linked with the silver chains."

"Took you long enough to figure that out, huh. Follow me." The child led Cielo to a spring.

Cielo stepped back on instinct upon seeing a body beneath the calm, clean spring. He watched as the child crouched and dipped his tiny hand into the water to touch the face of the distorted human underneath it.

"What? Are you afraid of yourself now? You spent twenty years in this body and never really looked into the mirror?" The child scoffed. "I do not know what to call you. In denial or stupidly hopeful? Come and see yourself—the reflection of your two decades!"

Jaws clenched and fists trembling, Cielo spat. "What's the point? I know it more than anyone else. I spent the last remaining days of my life in that wretched body? And what's the point of letting me see my mortal body? Am I not dead?"

"You are. You are dead. To be précised, you are supposed to die in that fire twenty years ago." The child flicked his wrist. "I said look at yourself."

The next thing Cielo knew, he was already crouching near the spring like the child did. Cielo's chest tightened upon seeing his body. 

"What do you see, young heir?"

A sad smile stretched on Cielo's lips as he said. "All I see is a broken man who made Shiela suffer. The useless brother who got his sister killed." He looked at the child before him. Cold cruelty was reflected in his eyes. "If you said I was meant to die twenty years ago, I would have thanked the heavens if I did die that night. Maybe, just maybe, Shiela would have survived and lived a peaceful life… away from this."

"What if I tell you, you can still change everything? Save Shiela, heck, even save your mother, boy! Take back what you lost and exact your heartfelt desire for revenge." There was a sly glint of the devil beneath the serpent eyes of the child.

"At what price?" Like a reflection, Cielo's eyes flashed with malediction. The disparity he experienced overflowed from him. "My soul?" He opened his arms to the child. "Get it. I will gladly give my body to you. Save my mother and sister, then kill all responsible for my family's demise."

The child scoffed and rolled his serpent eyes. "Oh, please! Why would I want a rotten soul like you? You may be able to fool your poor sister, but I know how those years turned you into a demon chained to your distorted body."

A malicious grin etched on Cielo's face. "You are quite updated for someone who was supposed to be dead a thousand years ago. So, what do you want? My body? Do you want to control my body?"

"Quite the opposite, actually. I want you to take me back to the mortal world, boy. Just like you, I have some score to settle. That world is nothing without me, yet they turned against me the moment I weakened!" An image of a colossal black snake flashed in place to the fuming child.

"Have you forgotten the part that I am dead, and so are you?"

The child looked at him as if he was the stupidest person in the world. With a shaking head, the child offered him his scaled right hand. "Have you forgotten who I am? I am the guardian deity of the Regalia Clan, the strongest guardian beast among all the hidden clans. Bringing you back to life is a piece of cake."

Accepting the small hand, Cielo raised his brows. "Then why wait for me?"

"First, you are malicious, while the others before you were pathetically righteous. I am no hero! I don't plan to let a hero-wannabe have my powers, no way! Second, how can I come back on my own if my body was stolen by those treacherous bastards! And lastly, you did not tame me. Are we clear? This is a mutual agreement."

When their hands connected, a searing pain pierced through Cielo's chest, making him heave his cough.

"Bwother, you alwight?"

Cielo, who was covering his lips as he coughed, snapped his eyes open and turned in the direction where the painfully sweet voice was coming from. "S-Shiela?"

"Sshh! Bwother, sshh!" 

A pair of small hands covered Cielo's lips as if she was stopping him from making a noise.

"They will hwear us and then… and then they will punish bwother again!"

Tears welled in Cielo's eyes the entire time the young Shiela talked. In one fluid motion, he engulfed the small body of his sister into a tight, warm hug—an embrace filled with longing and despair. As his shoulders shook, Cielo cried silently while repeatedly kissing Shiela's temples.

"Shiela, you are alive! You are alive!"

"Bwother?" A small hand patted Cielo's back, comforting him like she did when she was older. "Bwother, sad?"

Cielo vehemently shook his head. "No. No, brother is happy, so happy that I—"

'—I do not plan on killing the entire Regalia Clan yet,' Cielo continued his words at the back of his mind, fully intending to protect Shiela from the horrors of this world. 'I do not know what is happening, but if this is the guardian beast's doing… then I will gladly find his body just for this opportunity, even if it means I will be the world's greatest villain.'

"What is wrong with you two?" A gentle voice followed the sound of the door opening softly. 

"Ma! Bwother is sad! Bwother cwy cwy! Sshh!" Little Shiela did not stop patting Cielo's rigid back. Her tiny body did not move much, as if she was too afraid to make her brother feel hurt even more.

Cradling Shiela into his arms, a sixteen-year-old Cielo turned around and met the familiar smiling face of his mother.

Surprise filled Kriza Regalia's face upon seeing her son's tear-stricken face. 

"Ma," called Cielo to his mother in a raspy voice.

Looking up, Shiela saw the crying face of her brother. Her small lips trembled as she clutched her brother's shirt. "Bwother, don't cwy. Bwother, don't cwy, pwease!"

Kriza was left astounded upon seeing her eldest and youngest crying on the king-sized bed. Closing the distance between her and her children, she engulfed the two in a warm embrace. "Hush, now. Is it a nightmare, Cielo?"

Submerged in the warmth of his mother while his sister was in his arms, Cielo could only nod, silently wishing that if this was a cruel dream, he would rather be trapped in this dream forever.

"I don't want to wake up if this is a sick joke of a dream, ma. I want to stay with you and Shiela." He tightened his embrace around his mother and younger sister.

"Silly, boy. What dream? This is the reality." She kissed Cielo's forehead. "Don't worry. Mother is here to chase all the demons away. And… we have our guardian beasts to protect the clan's children."

'If you only know, Ma. You will be the first to be chased away because of your kindness. With you gone, they will turn on me. Thankfully, Shiela has the least presence among us, so she survived until they came back to kill us both.' Cielo looked down so his mother could not see the demon in his eyes, something his sweet mother would be brokenhearted for—after all, her sweet boy died in that fire.

 

 

 

 

CIELO STOOD AT THE TOP of the rooftop. Clad in his cottony nightwear, he did not flinch from the wind whipping his sixteen-year-old body as his gaze remained transfixed on the largest mansion in the estate. Eyes filled with malice, he merely glanced behind him after hearing a hissing sound.

"You are supposed to be in the sacred ground of the main manor, not here."

The gigantic shadow of a black snake turned into a child's silhouette. The little boy—not older in appearance with Shiela's six-year-old body—stood beside Cielo while sporting a smirk. "What? I can't walk around my land. Long before the Regalia Clan, this is my domain! And besides, they are only making up with that sacred shit pie hole! The only reason they can't see me is because I do not want them to see me. They are not worthy of my presence."

"And you are here because?"

"To tell you that you must partake tomorrow's Claiming."

The mention of the Claiming made Cielo look down at the kid beside him, totally disregarding the fact that he was talking to a thousand-year-old snake. "You do not need to tell me. I will be there for the Claiming. That seat my father is coveting from my grandfather, I will snatch it away from him."

"Oh, yeah! According to the timeline, after your father wins the Claiming, he will bring his mistress and your stepbrother. Now, I feel so stupid coming all the way here." His tiny shoulders sagged from the disappointment before a second passed, and he was a ball of energy ball once again. "Oh, right! Stop being disrespectful and start calling me Lord Rito!"

As if he did not hear the child-like guardian snake, Cielo lay down on the rooftop. With his head atop his arms, Cielo's dead gaze stared at the moonless night sky. "Rito, you have been betrayed too. That's why you chose me. Because we shared the same hate for the clan we once treated right. The Regalia Clan stabbed you in the back and chained you as their guardian beast, right?"

"You are smart indeed—smarter than those righteous fools before you." Rito copied Cielo and lay down on the rooftop. "All stories have a right time to tell. Soon, when you are strong enough to face them, you will know everything. For now, get stronger—not just for yourself and our deal, but for the people you hold dear. They will be your weak link as much as your strength."

A cold grin spread on Cielo's youthful face as he stared ahead. "No need to tell me that. When you took me back to 2022, I was ready to flip this world. The original future I endured, hell will freeze over before I let it repeat itself. They will lament my unholy rebirth. And my carnage will begin tomorrow at the clan's Claiming."