Kagaya looked at the two of them with a mixture of amusement and exasperation, gesturing for Horitake and Shinobu to sit.
Being close companions, there was no need for stifling formality. Horitake and Shinobu took their seats on either side of Kagaya.
Once settled, Kagaya voiced the concern that had been weighing on him since he opened his eyes. "Horitake, Shinobu... now that I've woken up, I can certainly feel that my body has undergone a profound change. I feel a level of health I haven't known in years—my spirit feels invigorated, and my blood feels... full, if that makes sense. Yet, strangely, I feel a peculiar weakness in my limbs. My body feels sluggish, as if there is a disconnect between my intent and my movement. I cannot fully command my own muscles. Why is this?"
Horitake and Shinobu exchanged a knowing glance. Both had already formed a hypothesis, but neither spoke immediately.
Horitake gestured toward Kagaya's arm. "Master, if you would be so kind as to offer me your hand. I need to check your pulse."
Kagaya complied, placing his left arm on the low table before him.
Shinobu made the same request, and Kagaya offered his right arm to her.
And so, in the quiet of the room, Horitake and Shinobu sat like two bookends, each taking a pulse. As they focused, the silence stretched, confirming their suspicions.
They met each other's eyes again with perfect synchronization. Shinobu lowered her gaze, choosing to remain silent for the moment, leaving the explanation to Horitake.
Horitake began to gesture with his hands as he addressed Kagaya and Lady Amane. "Master, Lady Amane, please rest easy. Your current physical state is perfectly normal. It's simply a matter of..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
Why the sudden pause? Because Lady Amane was still in the room.
The existence and nature of the Life Supplement Potion were matters of extreme strategic importance. It was a secret that could change the balance of power, and as such, the fewer people who knew the details, the safer the organization—and the potion itself—would be.
Kagaya, perceptive as always, immediately understood Horitake's hesitation. He cast a gentle, silent glance toward his wife.
Lady Amane, having been reassured that her husband was out of danger, felt her heart settle. Having shared years of silent understanding with Kagaya, she immediately recognized the unspoken cue. Without a word or a hint of offense, she stood and quietly excused herself, leaving the three of them alone.
Though Horitake felt a pang of guilt for excluding her, the gravity of the secret demanded it.
Once the door slid shut, Horitake continued his explanation. "This is a lingering effect of the potion still working through your system. The principle behind it is quite specific..."
Horitake launched into a lengthy, detailed lecture, relaying the findings from his and Shinobu's research the previous day. He used a barrage of professional terminology and complex medical theories.
Kagaya, who was not a specialist in alchemy or medicine, soon found himself drowning in a sea of jargon. His expression grew increasingly bewildered.
Seeing the Master's confusion, Horitake cut his academic monologue short. He realized he needed a more grounded, intuitive way to explain the phenomenon.
His eyes landed on the tea set on the table, and a spark of inspiration struck.
Holding up his own teacup, Horitake turned to Kagaya. "Let's use an analogy, Master. Suppose, for example, that this cup represents your body."
He gestured to the empty space inside the cup. "The capacity of this cup determines your potential for health and the length of your natural lifespan—essentially, the maximum amount of time you are destined to live.
"The tea inside the cup represents your life force, your vitality. The more tea there is, the stronger your life force and the longer your remaining years. Under normal circumstances, the tea slowly evaporates over time—your life is gradually consumed until, one day, the cup is empty. That is when a life reaches its natural end.
"Before we intervened," Horitake said, his voice softening, "your situation was... dire."
Without asking, Horitake reached over and took Shinobu's teacup, using it as a prop. He slowly poured most of the tea from his cup into hers, leaving only a tiny, shallow pool at the bottom of his own.
"Master, before the curse was broken, this was the state of your life. The 'tea'—your vitality and longevity—had been drained away until almost nothing remained. Later, when the curse was lifted and you began to recover, some of that vitality returned."
He poured a small amount of tea back into his cup from Shinobu's, though it still didn't even reach the halfway mark.
"The curse was gone, and you began to heal. But the damage the curse inflicted on your 'cup' was irreversible. No matter how much you rested or how well you ate, your vitality could only ever recover to this point. You lacked the means to refill the cup to the brim. In this state, even without the curse, your body was like this cup—less than half full."
The demonstration was clear and visceral. Kagaya looked at the cup, a look of realization dawning on him.
"I see... even without the curse, my remaining lifespan was less than half of what it should have been. I likely wouldn't have lived past my thirties or early forties."
Horitake nodded solemnly. "That is the hard truth. Living past thirty would have been a struggle; reaching forty would have been nearly impossible. The curse had already exacted its toll on your life essence. But that no longer matters! Yesterday, you drank the Life Supplement Potion. And that changed everything."
To illustrate, Horitake performed the final step of his demonstration. He took all the tea from Shinobu's cup and poured it into his own until it was brimming, nearly overflowing.
"The Life Supplement Potion is exactly what it sounds like—a way to refill the cup. By drinking it, you've replenished a massive amount of vitality. We can't guarantee you'll live to be a hundred, but restoring you to the full lifespan your body was originally meant to have? That is well within the realm of reality."
Looking at the nearly full cup in Horitake's hand, Kagaya felt a surge of genuine joy. After all, no one wishes to leave the world before their time.
"I understand now, Horitake. But that brings us back to my question: why do I feel both healthy and strangely weak at the same time?"
Horitake set the cups back down on the table but kept his eyes on them to continue the explanation.
"Master, the human body is the cup, and the life force is the water. Normally, the water in the cup is still and calm, representing a balanced state of being. But just now, I poured a large amount of water from one cup into another. While it filled the cup, the action itself stirred the water, making it turbulent and unsettled.
"That 'turbulence' represents your current state of life force. It is in flux. In a normal, healthy person, the body could easily absorb such a shift. But your constitution has been frail for so long that it cannot immediately stabilize this sudden influx of energy. That is why your body forced you into a deep sleep—it was a defensive mechanism to protect you while your system quietly adjusted to the new life force."
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