Chapter 10: 10
The doctor arrived exactly at ten, a compact man in his sixties with neat gray hair and the weary eyes of someone who’d seen too many secrets. His name was Akahoshi. He carried a sleek, expensive-looking portable ultrasound unit and a demeanor of pure, unflappable professionalism. He barely glanced at Baki, offering a curt nod, and directed his respectful fear entirely at Yujiro, who loomed in the doorway like a monument.
“The room,” Akahoshi said, his voice dry.
Yujiro led him not to the bedroom, but to a spare room he’d converted into a temporary clinic. It was austere: a medical cot, a steel side table, harsh LED lighting overhead. The windows were blacked out. It felt like an interrogation cell.
“On the table,” Yujiro said to Baki, his tone leaving no room for discussion.
Baki hoisted himself onto the cool leather of the cot, the paper sheet crinkling under him. The air in the room was chilly. He suppressed a shiver. Akahoshi moved with economical motions, plugging in the machine, warming a bottle of gel under a portable heater. He didn’t speak unnecessary words.
“Full abdominal transabdominal scan,” Akahoshi murmured, more to himself than them. “Given the reported… accelerated morphology.” He gestured for Baki to lift his shirt.
Baki did, exposing the taut, rounded slope of his stomach. The cold air pebbled his skin. Akahoshi’s eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of clinical surprise quickly schooled. He squeezed a generous amount of warm gel onto Baki’s skin. The sensation was oddly grounding, a familiar step in a profoundly unfamiliar process.
Yujiro stood at the head of the cot, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the monitor as Akahoshi powered it up. The machine emitted a soft, high-frequency whine.
Akahoshi picked up the transducer, a smooth, wand-like device. “This will be pressure. Breathe normally.” He pressed the device firmly into the gel, sliding it upward from Baki’s pubic bone.
The grainy, black-and-white image flickered to life on the screen. Baki turned his head to see. There it was—the familiar, alien landscape of his own interior. A dark, fluid-filled space. And within it, the stark, white, pulsating blob of a heartbeat. It was bigger than he’d expected. Much bigger. The rhythmic flicker was fast, a frantic, healthy metronome.
Akahoshi was silent, his brow furrowed in concentration. He moved the transducer slowly, angling it. The image shifted, cross-sections of spine, the curve of a tiny skull. He measured. The soft clicks of the caliper function punctuated the silence.Click. Click.
“Crown-rump length,” Akahoshi said, his voice flat. “Consistent with approximately eighteen weeks gestation.”
Eighteen weeks. The number hung in the air. Baki had conceived barely ten weeks ago. The acceleration wasn’t just noticeable; it was quantifiable, a medical fact on a screen. He felt a cold trickle of sweat down his side.
Yujiro leaned in, a predator studying tracks. “And the activity? The movement?”
“Profuse,” Akahoshi said. He continued to glide the transducer. “Muscular development appears significant for the dating. The bone density is… remarkable.” He paused, angling the wand sharply to the left. The image swam. “Interesting.”
“What?” Yujiro’s voice was a low rumble.
“The placental position. It’s large. Very large. And the uterine contour…” Akahoshi moved the transducer back to the center, then slowly, meticulously, tracked to the right. He froze. His breath hitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible sound. His professional mask slipped for a full two seconds, revealing pure, unadulterated shock.
He slowly turned his head to look first at Baki, then up at Yujiro. His mouth opened, then closed. He looked back at the screen, blinking as if to clear it.
“Doctor,” Yujiro said. The single word was a warning.
Akahoshi swallowed. “A moment. Please.” His hands, which had been so steady, trembled slightly as he adjusted a dial, enhancing the image. He moved the transducer back and forth between two specific points, measuring again.Click. Click-click.
Baki’s heart started to hammer against his ribs. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. The doctor’s fear was a scent in the room now. “What is it?” Baki heard himself ask. His voice sounded thin, distant.
Akahoshi didn’t answer immediately. He took a slow, deliberate breath, steadying himself. He looked at Yujiro, deciding something. “You requested a full assessment. What I am seeing is… unprecedented in my career.”
“Just say it,” Yujiro growled, his patience evaporating.
Akahoshi turned the monitor slightly so they could both see clearly. He used the pointer, a bright arrow hovering over the chaotic, white blobs on the screen. “This,” he said, his finger tapping the glass, “is one fetal pole. Heartbeat strong, anatomy developing at an advanced rate, as we’ve noted.” He moved the arrow. “And this… is another.”
The world didn’t so much tilt as simply vaporize. Baki’s brain refused to process the words. He stared at the screen. Two. Two clusters of rhythmic, flashing light. Two distinct spinal columns, curving in the dark. Two skulls.
“You are carrying dichorionic diamniotic twins,” Akahoshi stated, the medical terms falling like stones. “Two separate sacs, two placentas. It explains the excessive size, the profound metabolic demand, the intensity of the movements.” He paused, letting the enormity sink in. “It also explains the radical acceleration. The gestational system is under a dual load. The hormonal signals are likely compounded, creating a feedback loop of extreme development. The body is, in essence, running two separate biological programs at twice the intended speed.”
Baki felt the gel go cold on his skin. A buzzing filled his ears, drowning out the hum of the machine. Twins. Not one impossible life, but two. Two sets of Hanma genetics combusting inside him. Two beings growing at a warp-speed rate that defied medicine. The hunger, the size, the relentless kicks—it all snapped into a new, terrifying focus. He wasn’t building a fortress. He was housing a war.
His stomach lurched. He gagged, a dry, convulsive heave. The horror was physical, a tsunami of nausea and dread.Two. He was a vessel for two. The world narrowed to that number, repeating in his skull like a bomb’s timer. His hands flew to his face, cold fingers pressing into his eyelids, trying to push the image out.
A low sound broke through the static in his head. It started deep, a vibration that rattled the instruments on the side table. It built into a rough, rolling chuckle. Then it erupted into a full, booming laugh.
Yujiro was laughing. Not a polite laugh, but a roar of triumphant, unbridled joy that shook the walls. He threw his head back, the cords in his neck standing out.
“Twins!” he boomed, the word a celebration. He slammed a fist into his own palm with a crack that made Akahoshi flinch. “Of course! It was there in the data! The excessive HCG, the radical growth—it wasn’t an anomaly, it was a multiplier!” He looked at Baki, his eyes blazing with a ferocious, blinding pride. “Do you understand? You’re not just carrying my heir. You’re carrying my legacy. A matched set. Built-in competition from the womb!”
He turned to the pale, stunned doctor, grinning like a shark. “Their viability? Their health?”
Akahoshi, struggling to compose himself under the force of Yujiro’s elation, stammered, “B-biologically, they appear robust. Extraordinarily so. But the strain on the carrier…” He glanced at Baki, who had curled slightly on his side, shaking. “The metabolic and physiological demands will be exponential. The accelerated timeline compounds the risk. Preterm labor is a near certainty. The body may simply… exhaust its resources.”
Yujiro waved a dismissive hand. “He’s a Hanma. His resources are deeper than any chart can measure.” He leaned over Baki, his laughter softening to a thrilled, possessive rumble. He placed a massive hand over Baki’s gel-slick stomach, covering both heartbeats at once. “Two. You incredible thing. You’re giving me two.”
Baki looked up at him, the horror in his eyes meeting Yujiro’s unrestrained euphoria. The gap between their reactions was a chasm. He felt split open, hollowed out by the news. Yujiro saw only doubling, an exponential increase in his own power and legacy.
“Get out,” Yujiro said to Akahoshi, not looking away from Baki. “Send the encrypted images. The fee is quadrupled. Your silence is purchased, not requested.”
Akahoshi didn’t need telling twice. He wiped the transducer with frantic efficiency, packed his machine with trembling hands, and was gone in under a minute, leaving the cold gel, the crinkled paper, and the seismic revelation hanging in the air.
The door clicked shut. Silence, except for Baki’s ragged breathing.
Yujiro’s hand was still on him, warm and heavy. “Baki,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Look at me.”
Baki couldn’t. He stared at the wall, seeing double. Two heartbeats thundered in his core, a frantic, synchronized drumroll of a future he couldn’t comprehend. The weight in his belly was no longer a mystery; it was a sentence. Two lives, growing on a borrowed, crashing timeline.
Yujiro cupped his chin, forcing his head around. His eyes were alight, fierce and warm. “This changes everything. For the better. It’s perfect.”
“Perfect?” Baki whispered, the word cracking. “It’s a disaster. I can’t… I’m not built for this.”
“You are because you are doing it,” Yujiro said, his thumb stroking Baki’s cheek. “You’re already doing it. You think I’m elated just for me? This is your strength, manifesting in a form no one could have predicted. You are sustaining two of the strongest lives that will ever exist. It’s the ultimate fight. And you’re winning.” He leaned down, his forehead pressing against Baki’s. “My son. My magnificent, formidable son.”
Baki closed his eyes. The words were a balm and a brand. The pride in Yujiro’s voice was a drug he craved and resented. The terror was a cold stone in his gut, right beside the two living, kicking causes of it.
One had been an unimaginable challenge.
Two felt like the end of the world.