An Arcanist's Citadel 19 (Patreon)

An Arcanist’s Citadel

Chapter 19

-VB-

Orihime sighed as Alan came home. 

Her husband has been getting very busy lately, and honestly, she was not happy about it. When he had been busy before, he always spent that time at home, usually researching new magics and spiritual things. Even when he was setting up businesses to generate passive income, he did it with a half-hearted effort because even without that income, they were well off enough to, well, not need it. 

Her husband always liked his redundancies and safety nets. 

And that’s probably why their family didn’t suffer as much as they could have during the Batarian Raid or the follow-up retaliations that were sure to have followed after how spectacularly the Batarians lost face here. 

Because if there was one thing that the Batarians and her home people shared, then it was a face culture. 

Losing face was worse than losing profit.

Her husband was the opposite of that. 

Losing profit (or gains) was worse than losing face. Because he said it all of the time. 

‘The only thing that matters to me now is my family. Nothing else. If I have to burn the galaxy to see you all safe, then I would do it in a heartbeat.’ 

And, technically, he had. The galaxy was burning, just not with literal destruction but a metaphorical shift. 

The Systems Alliance was no longer the small, new kid of the block. The Batarian Hegemony was reeling from losing so many deniable assets in such a public fashion. The Citadel Council knew about her husband and his activities. The Christians were here en masse as well, trying to dig up anything they could about her husband’s abilities. 

Oddly enough, she felt safe.

Some of it had to do with the fact that she was no longer the weak girl she was during her high school days. When she had to rely solely on Alan for safety. Now, she was … well, she supposed that if she went all out, then she might be able to fight Kurosaki-kun as she last saw him back home, but that was over a decade and a half ago. By this point, he was sure to have grown even stronger because that’s just what he did. 

Regardless of how she measured up to past and present figures in her life, she knew that she was objectively strong enough to have fought at least a third of what Alan defeated during the Batarian Raid. Tatsuki would have taken half. Together, they would have been able to drive off the raiders.

There was also another form of safety, though: prevention. The Batarian souls that Alan shackled were all now working for her family’s sake. They fueled the wards. They alerted them to people who wanted to do them harm. 

But all of that also kept him from home for longer and longer each day, especially since the Christians and Turians came by with things that kept triggering Alan’s research brain.

“Welcome home!” she called out from the kitchen. She quickly washed her hands, shook them dry, and walked into the living room.

He looked up at her from where he was taking his shoes off, and his eyes glowed with that possessive joy whenever he saw her. 

She held her arms out for a hug, and he happily complied. He stepped up in between her arms, let her drape them over his shoulders, and they kissed. 

She hummed happily before pulling away first when she felt his hands come down and squeeze her ass. 

“That’s for tonight, honey~,” she grinned. “Right now is time for you to relax.”

“So no sexy time?”

“You get more ideas after sexy time, and that means no relaxation. So no. You’re gonna go and get yourself a warm bath, come back here, and I’ll feed you.”

“Oh? You’ll feed me?”

“Yes. And today, all of the kids are out with Tsuki-chan, so we’ll have the house to ourselves. At least until six.”

“But no sexy time until tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. He gave her another kiss, this time on her forehead, and left to get that bath. 

She watched him go and then sighed fondly. 

It was simply a fact of nature that there was a main breadwinner and a supporter(s) in the house. Alan’s place as the lead of the house was not in any shape or form in doubt. 

Her place - and that of Tatsuki’s place - as the family’s supporters was also not in question. Even if they were some kind of a daring adventurer group, she and Tatsuki would play the supporting roles because Alan was simply their leader and husband. 

Perhaps it was different in some other families. She recently met a mother while picking up her youngest from his daycare, and that mother lamented how Orihime, with her beauty, was left to be a housewife instead of a model or celebrity. 

But that’s not what Orihime wanted. 

What she wanted was to be a mother who cooked good food for her children, make sure Alan got home and rested well, and watch her children grow strong and healthy. Better if they were upright and moral.

She didn’t want money or fame or anything like that. 

Maybe it had to do with the fact that she’d seen beyond the veil, a privilege not many got to have. There, on the other side of life, she saw that things like money and fame didn’t hold strength. Only power did. 

She disliked it, but her dislike had nothing to do with what she did to prepare for it. It’s why she had also trained. Why Tatsuki had trained. Why she didn’t stop Alan from continuing his research, even though there were times he went missing for days. Or the fact that he violated souls. 

Maybe once their children had all grown up, she might have some more words about it, but right now, after the recent raid? 

She was happy to let him keep doing what he did best. 

And she was actually happy about this academy thing he was trying to do, because that would obviously mean that he would stay home longer, which was always good.