On top of the first layer, there were some assorted photographs. Not just mere portraits. They featured Togami Kojiro, his father, alongside De Montecler Amaya, his mother.

His mother, golden blonde mane sweeping down her back, had her head resting on his father's shoulder, his icy blond strands of hair brushing her cheeks as he lowered his head to look at her.

The teenager's expert eyes reviewed the photos in search of some hidden forgery. Nothing visible. He took the first pile of photographs, held together with a rubber band and labeled in mixed Roman and Western numbers.

"I, 1992"

His eyes widened, drops of sweat dripping from his forehead down. The set he was holding showed them both like lovey-dovey adolescents, his mother and his father, those two alien entities of his life. That wasn't the way he was taught a Head would act with a Chosen Wife.

He couldn't believe those photos were real. They simply couldn't be.

Why had Kobayama risked his life to bring back this stu…-

He did a double intake at "II, 1993" the next set of photos. This set consisted almost entirely of pictures of his mother pregnant… and his father by her side.

Masaka…

His fingers got febrile. He snatched all the photographs and pored through them one by one. Carefully… slowly… his blood stopping in his veins with each of them…

The Head didn't make personal visits to his harem: they were mere concubines and would remain so up until the delivery of the baby. He had been an only child, his mother delivered only him, no previous miscarriage. He had known that fact, since his medical files were kept in his room and carried with him wherever he went. So it was a fact… that pregnancy his father was presiding over, that expression he had never seen in his calculating, indifferent face… It was his. It was for him.

He took the following set of photographs, which was turned upside down and labeled, in his mother's fine writing "Choupinet". He knew what the word meant: "little soldier" in French.

He turned them over. The feeling of unease, of having a metal hook grabbing at his guts, intensified.

A baby boy, already very pale, with a whiff of dirty blonde hair, was in his father's arms. The usually serious, distant Kojiro was smiling sweetly at the newborn, sitting beside Amaya's bed. Breathing heavily, the young heir couldn't make head from toe in all this innuendo. His insides were a complete turmoil. Did he eat something… that now he needed to throw out?

The door opened slightly. It was Touko, he knew that much without need to turn.

His feverish eyes scared her. His panting breath was a bonus worry.

"J-just so you know, Kobayama-san is in bed already. You really need… to eat something and sleep… I'll whip some crepes for you…"

"Leave that for later, Touko" His tone was harsh and commanding as usual, but again there was a slight weakness in it. "I need your help here"

"Ah… o-of course… Getting you into bed?" She blushed, but stopped at the sight of her beloved shaking. He only did that when very amused – which he clearly wasn't - feverish, angry or unsettled.

"I'll sleep when I get some answers. I want you to tell me… everything you see, no buts. I don't care if you consider a detail to be unimportant, basic, stupid... You might see something I'm skipping, because you were not raised as I was…"

Touko, speechless, took the photographs from Byakuya's hands. Her eyes widened and she smiled at the little family in the pictures. So, definitely, her White Knight didn't grow up in a cold environment all his life…

"Dear me…could this… baby be you?"

"I wish I knew. It's the first time I see it."

Fukawa opened her mouth, and closed it after a few seconds. She knew enough of his family by now to know everything related to bonds and relationships was cut off from his life.

"Well… all I can see is a father holding his son and a mother looking happy…" she stammered, knowing it wasn't the reply he was seeking.

"That's the same… I'm seeing" he grunted. "It doesn't look retouched. The paper is yellowy on the back, and grainy enough to be a photograph taken with an analogic camera."

Suddenly, he let go a laugh, a cold, hollow jeer that froze the writer's blood. "I see! These are well-manipulated images for press releases, for when I was to become the Head. Amazing… it's amazing how far they could go… to forge this stuff."

"It… is a forgery? It – can't be"

"Oh, come on, Fukawa." He sounded relieved to have found a logical, rational explanation. "My family has already fooled you, remember the System… the Head… the Chosen Wife?"

She remembered vividly the torture and the deep distrust she shared with him towards his family. Still, she had that guts feeling that they weren't just actors playing a part. That they genuinely felt something – just what, she couldn't pinpoint – towards their embittered, husky son. But of course, she kept that to herself, because any mention of Amaya or Kojiro would enrage Byakuya for sure.

"Damn Kobayama, playing with me once again. He found this amusing and picked it up before leaving the mansion, how utterly—"

"Please. Stop it. Stop it right now."

Togami's frown covered the cynical, mundane smile he had been sporting until then, like a dark cloud. Fukawa dared… to hush him? Her hands were trembling – hell, no, she was trembling all over.

Was she suppressing Syo from coming out?

"Okay. So it isn't forged, you say. And what do you suggest? There is no one we can trust to…"

"Kobayama-s…" Fukawa began, but was interrupted by Togami's loud protests.

"No, no, no, no, no and no. No-way! I'm not going to confide in that viscid reptile – ever!"

"I think… we are in a dead alley, Byakuya-sama. No one else can give you an answer now. Though… I w-would wait until tomorrow if I w-where you… he's in a pretty bad shape now…"

Never, no matter how angry he was or how bothered, had Touko Fukawa seen Byakuya Togami's eyes flashing the way she saw them then.

"Who do you care more about, Fukawa? The truth I deserve to know… or that douchebag's sleep?"

There was the faintest of silence pauses. His ice-burning eyes met her opal pupils.

"Your truth" the auburn haired replied, quietly. "Be what it may be… you need to bring this… to a closure."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Katsu Kobayama was wide awake, battling with one million ghosts, when four loud bangs at the door made him jolt out of the bed. Wary and suspicious, he grabbed a flask of alcohol and gripped his bandaged, crooked fingers around the lid. He had caught sight of it early on, and was fully prepared to use it as a weapon in case of need.

"Who is there?" he voiced hoarsely.

"Me, you nitwit, open the damn door or I'll throw it down"

Fierce as usual, that cub lion of the Togamis, ruthless as a rolling boulder.

"Young master… I'm really… sorry to do this… but I just cannot open the door"

"Just what in the world do youthink you're…"

"Which were your other two names? I will open if your…answer is correct…"

He heard the Heir growl impatiently, heave a sharp sigh and mutter, more than say "Baldur Thoreau et Basile Thiers"

The two false names he went by when he studied in England and Switzerland.

The Planner walked to the door and opened it. He was full of patches and bandages, heavy iodum stains showed on every gauze he wore. He looked every bit as shaken and insecure as before, his confident, malicious demeanor completely gone. The beaten body of an adult presided by the eyes of a terrified child.

"Sorry for resorting to code. I will never, ever allow myself to be overconfident again"

"I suppose me neither" the scion confided grudgingly "But that was to be expected. Cut the petty chat and listen" he urged "I came here to get an explanation from you" He looked over his shoulder, as Fukawa timidly walked in with the mahogany box.

Kobayama's eyes closed with a sort of reverence. "Lady Amaya's sewing box. I take you saw what it contained, young master?"

"Of course I did, save your blabbering. Why did you take time to pick that sort of…stuff, instead of coming directly to me?"

Kobayama was expecting the question, yet he only uttered a small gasp, as if Togami's question had been a jab aimed to his solar plexus.

"Weren't you his – his Planner, the one he knew the longest – why did you… instead of staying by his side and fighting… you fled like a damn coward…?!" His throat constricted, willing to hurt someone to discharge the turmoil in his heart, Togami lashed at the already brittle servant, who only lowered his eyes and answered in a shaky voice:

"Because those… were my Master's orders, young master"

His father had ordered him to protect the box and the rest of the stuff?

"He cared more for these forgeries than everything else… including fighting back? He allowed to be killed? Just like that? Without putting a fight… are you telling me the Head of the Togami Group did that?"

"Allow me to dissent, young master" Togami gritted his teeth. Kobayama was frowning now. "Kojiro-sama wasn't that kind of person, and you know it. He bo-bought me… enough time to pick all the stuff and leave… He left plenty of wounded and at least… some dead behind…"

"Then why was he… why didn't he make it…"

"Too many enemies armed teeth to toe. And also he had someone he was aiming to protect, someone who just wouldn't leave his side…"

A person that could stand up to his orders. He only knew one such person, and the images he had rejected as false slowly began to make a lot of sense. If his father stayed behind for his mother…

Kobayama confirmed his thoughts. "I'm meaning lady Amaya, of course"

Byakuya's frown deepened. "It's the first time you ever called her like that."

The Planner smiled sadly. "That was because she disliked the title. Lady Amaya was elegant but utterly... unsophisticated…"

A tense silence ensued.

Completely forgotten, Touko stepped back, in an attempt to leave the room. Sure, she had stalked him in the past, yet even she had limits. It made her uneasy, overhearing that kind of private stuff about Togami's parents.

But it was the blonde himself who drew the line.

"I'm sure I didn't tell you to leave"

He looked down at his battered servant, eyes glowing with resent.

"You knew about this stuff, didn't you?"

"Sure I did, young master."

"By gossip, word-of-mouth? Because I doubt they trusted you that much as to tell you this kind of – stuff" the scion muttered darkly.

"They didn't tell me" The servant shook his head absent-mindedly "I took all those photos myself"

Touko suppressed a gasp, but Byakuya wasn't impressed nor convinced. His eyes didn't show trust nor warm up a single degree. "Then, you are the greatest…swine on earth. Why did you keep it hidden from me… was it a requisite that they were… - no, he couldn't say it - gone before you told me this?"

Slowly, Kobayama lowered his head. He looked more and more like a child left on his own.

"It certainly was, young master. At least, to the extent I was let in the information."

"So they didn't want to confront me… How convenient" he scoffed to hide his confusion.

"Both knew… you were sort of ashamed of them. Once you were declared Heir, Kojiro-sama and Lady Amaya stepped back, so that the light shone over your head only. They said you deserved your own glory, but they never intended to leave you… alone. As you rejected the other prospects… the masters thought it was a perfect chance for me to become your Planner."

He paused, apparently overcame by a wave of emotion.

"… After all, the fact you rose to Heirship… had always been a personal dream of theirs"