Declaration of War (2)
Anastasia’s crimson lips curved into a graceful arc. Her voice flowed like honey—sweet, thick, and clinging. “Even if we only share half our blood, we’re still family, aren’t we, Misha?”
Family. The moment that detestable word pierced his ears, Mikhail let out an involuntary snort of laughter. But something was off. Along with the scorn, a hot, viscous emotion surged up from the depths of his chest. A tar-like, acrid, sticky feeling that rose all the way to his throat. Before he knew it, his fist had clenched tight—hard enough to draw blood, as if possessed by pure malice. The sharp sensation of nails digging into his palm was vivid.
This…
Mikhail felt a flicker of bewilderment. Rage, hatred, murderous intent—every negative emotion imaginable swirled inside his head like a storm. They were far too intense and unfamiliar to be his own. Of course, he had always planned to deal with Anastasia eventually. She was a clear threat, an obvious obstacle to the comfortable life he intended to enjoy. But that was it. To him, Anastasia was nothing more than trash littering the roadside. Something unpleasant to look at, a nuisance that needed to be swept away. That was the extent of his feelings.
So what the hell was this violent wave of emotion?
…Mikhail.
The remnant of the original owner of this body—the one he thought had completely vanished after the possession. That mama’s boy’s lingering spirit seemed to be throwing a fit at the sight of his mother’s murderer.
Well, whatever.
Mikhail made no effort to suppress the feeling. His purpose for coming here today was crystal clear anyway: a declaration of war. If he was going to do it, he might as well fully embrace this rage as payment for borrowing this body.
“So,” Mikhail’s voice emerged cold and sharp, inversely proportional to the emotion roiling inside him. “You poisoned my mother, your half-sister who didn’t even share your blood?”
He uncrossed his lazily draped legs and leaned forward. Staring straight into Anastasia’s eyes, he continued, letting some of the original Mikhail’s emotions bleed into his words.
“Though I suppose a concubine of slave origin whose favor had already run dry wouldn’t leave much of a mess behind if she died.”
The air in the room froze instantly. The faint sound of Laura and Josepina swallowing hard could be heard. The first to react was Guillaume, standing beside Anastasia. His face turned deathly pale as he looked back and forth between Mikhail and Anastasia. Having overheard a secret of the imperial family that he should never have known, his entire body trembled violently.
“What on earth… are you saying?”
Anastasia maintained her elegant smile, feigning a look of surprise. At her shameless performance, the sneer on Mikhail’s lips grew even sharper. He could feel Laura and Josepina’s gazes on his back. He read the worry and tension in their eyes, but he paid them no mind.
“Come on, let’s not play dumb when we both know the truth, sister. Yeah?” He twisted one corner of his mouth upward. “I know exactly what kind of fucking bitch you are.”
“Misha.” Anastasia’s voice dropped a tone. For the first time, a faint glimmer of anger appeared in her eyes. “Your language is rather crude. You should maintain the dignity befitting a member of the imperial family.”
“Dignity?” Mikhail scoffed. “Fuck off.”
He raised his right hand and pointed at Guillaume’s face as if accusing him. Then his finger drifted downward, aiming at the man’s crotch. With his left hand, Mikhail formed a circular shape and crudely thrust his right index finger in and out in an obscene gesture.
“Does a whore like you even have any dignity or honor to speak of?” His voice dripped with contempt. “You never cared about that shit in the first place, did you?”
He recalled a passage from Blood, Lily, and the Double-Headed Eagle and continued in a low voice.
“Men over children, luxury over men, and above all else—power.”
Mikhail’s gaze pierced through Anastasia’s eyes. “Wasn’t that… what you loved most, sister?”
When Mikhail finished speaking, a suffocating silence fell over the room. No one could open their mouth. It was then that Laura’s hand, from behind the sofa, carefully came to rest on Mikhail’s shoulder. Whether it was meant as support or restraint, he couldn’t tell. All he felt was her characteristically warm body temperature.
Thanks to Laura’s warmth—or perhaps because he had finally spat some of it out—Mikhail’s violent emotions were beginning to dissipate. Anastasia was the one who broke the silence.
“Ahahaha!”
She threw her head back and burst into laughter as if genuinely amused. After laughing for a long while, she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her finger and spoke.
“Ahaha, how surprising. I wonder how you found out.” She seemed to ponder something for a moment before nodding. “It couldn’t have been that naive idiot Clement… so Dmitri, then? I left no evidence behind… That man really is persistent.”
She wore a nostalgic expression, as if reminiscing about old times. “That’s why his fiancée dumped him, too.”
She laughed again for a long time. Then suddenly, all traces of laughter vanished from her face as she glared at Mikhail. Her eyes now flashed with blatant murderous intent.
“So that’s why.” Her voice rang out chillingly. “That’s why. The motherless bastards joined forces.”
“No, it’s all just karma,” Mikhail shot back with a shrug. “What could a whore who isn’t even loved by her own children possibly do right?”
Anastasia’s eyes sharpened like blades. Mikhail continued his mockery without a care.
“Even if it wasn’t me, it would’ve come to this eventually. I mean… a prostitute becoming emperor? Does that even sound plausible?” He paused for a moment, then chuckled. “Of course, even if by some miracle you did become emperor, that’d be a problem too.”
“……”
All expression vanished from Anastasia’s face. She stared at Mikhail with ice-cold eyes and spoke quietly.
“Unlike at your mother’s funeral, it’s quite a pleasant sight to see you smiling like that.”
She nodded slowly, then rose from her seat unhurriedly. It seemed there was nothing more to say. The deathly pale Guillaume hurriedly moved to the door to open it for her. Anastasia pointed a finger at Laura and Josepina. A smile returned to her lips. The red-painted lips stood out starkly in Mikhail’s vision.
“I’ll make sure you end up exactly like back then.”
The moment he heard those words, the boiling emotions of the original Mikhail that had been raging in his chest vanished without a trace. Instead, his own feelings completely took over. Every trace of emotion disappeared from his face. He could no longer even force a smile for the sake of mockery.
“If you think you can, go ahead.”
It was an awkward voice, one even Mikhail himself was hearing for the first time. The heavy door opened, and Anastasia’s figure disappeared beyond it. As Guillaume gripped the doorknob to follow her out, Mikhail’s voice reached him.
“Ah, Guillaume, was it?”
Guillaume’s shoulders flinched. He couldn’t bring himself to look back.
“Sorry, man. You’re going to die soon.”
Mikhail’s voice still sounded awkward. Whether because of that or because he knew he would soon die, the veins on Guillaume’s hand gripping the doorknob stood out prominently as all color drained from it.
The heavy door closed, leaving only a heavy silence in the room. The thick, expensive perfume Anastasia had left behind still lingered faintly, but Laura’s sensitive nose picked up a sharper, more metallic scent beneath it.
The smell of blood.
Her gaze naturally turned to Mikhail. He was still sitting on the sofa, but the atmosphere around him had completely changed. His fist, clenched so tightly that it had turned white, was trembling faintly. Laura didn’t hesitate. She walked out from behind the sofa and quietly sat down right beside him. Then she reached out toward his shaking hand.
When her fingertips touched him, Mikhail’s shoulder twitched. But he didn’t pull away. Laura gently wrapped her hand around his unresisting one and carefully pried open his tightly clenched fist. In the center of his reddened palm, where his nails had dug in, were small cuts. Droplets of blood had formed like dew.
The wounds weren’t deep. But Laura couldn’t help but frown. She took out a pure white handkerchief from her bosom and gently wiped away the blood on his palm.
“Is it true?” A low voice broke the silence.
“What is?” Mikhail asked indifferently. His gaze remained fixed on empty air.
“That the one behind the poisoning of Her Majesty Empress Alexandra… your mother… was really that woman, Anastasia?”
“It is.” The answer came without hesitation. The moment she heard those short words, Laura understood. The debauchery in the capital, the exile, and all the businesses he had launched in the Far East Maritime Province—liquor, the tourism special zone, slot machines, financial products, and even Toto. Had all of it been a foundation for revenge in this very moment?
If he had just said a single word—that everything from the beginning had been for revenge…
A little more…
Had she, from the start, been nothing more than a chess piece for his revenge? The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. She wanted to ask if it had all been for revenge. But someone else beat her to it.
“Then… was all of this for revenge?”
It was Josepina, who had at some point sat down on Mikhail’s other side, opposite Laura. It seemed she had been thinking the same thing. Her face was as expressionless as usual, but faint, undeniable worry lingered in her blue eyes.
“It’s not.” Mikhail shook his head. There wasn’t the slightest hint of falsehood in his voice. “I just wanted to live well. Drink good alcohol, eat what I wanted. Play around moderately.”
He paused for a moment, then added in an annoyed tone, “Anastasia was just… in the way. So I decided to get rid of her.”
His tone suggested he truly had no interest in something like revenge.
Then…
Laura was puzzled. Then why did he get so angry?
The conversation from moments ago flashed through her mind. Mikhail had consistently mocked and sneered at his opponent. Even when talking about his mother’s murder, while there had certainly been anger in his voice, cold contempt had been far more prominent. It had been so like him. The change in his demeanor had come when Anastasia pointed at her and Josepina and declared she would “make them end up exactly like back then.”
In that instant, every expression had vanished from his face. His tone, his inflection, even the subtle movements of his facial muscles. He had transformed into an awkward, cold figure she had never seen or heard before.
Ah…
The reason Mikhail had been so furious wasn’t because of his dead mother. It was because Anastasia had touched her and Josepina. He—the Grand Duke—cared about the two of them, about them, that much.
Realizing this fact made Laura feel strangely embarrassed, so she spoke up.
“This is… the first time I’ve seen Your Highness get that angry.” Her voice trembled slightly.
“It’s fine. Now, at least.” Mikhail replied. It was obviously a lie. No one would look at that face and think he was fine.
“I said I’m fine.”
As he spoke, he forced a smile. He seemed to be trying to recreate his usual mischievous, playful grin, but it only came out as an awkward expression with barely lifted corners of his mouth. Perhaps because of that, Josepina was watching him more carefully than usual. Laura, for some reason, didn’t want to see that expression anymore. She didn’t want to hear that awkward voice anymore either. She preferred his usual self—the one who made silly jokes and played around.
Without realizing it, she gripped Mikhail’s hand tightly.
“It’s okay, Your Highness,” Laura said, looking him in the eye. “It will be okay.”
She didn’t even know what would be okay. But for some reason, she felt she had to say it. The moment her words ended, Josepina also reached out from the other side and firmly took his hand. With the warmth coming from both sides, Mikhail’s shoulders seemed to relax ever so slightly.
“……Yeah. It’ll be fine. Probably.”
After a brief silence, Mikhail finally spoke. Looking at the handkerchief Laura was holding, he added, “Thanks for the handkerchief.”
It seemed Mikhail’s anger had subsided a little. A smile returned to his face. It wasn’t quite his usual one yet, but it was far more natural than before. The smile that Laura loved.