Asha Takahashi crossed an ocean with one name in her pocket. Hiroshi Takahashi. Her father. The man who vanished before she was born. What she finds in Kurashiki is not a reunion. It's a system. A town preserved in beauty and silence. Streets too clean. Smiles too controlled. Families who never leave. A mayor who swears he's never left Japan - yet shares the face of the man in her mother's photograph. And watching from behind it all- Lady Tsukiko. The Regent. The woman no one questions. The woman everyone fears. As Asha digs into her bloodline, she discovers that Kurashiki isn't just old - it's curated. Protected. Fed. The town doesn't survive on electricity and tourism. It survives on memory. On legacy. On blood. And the most dangerous thing in the room? Might be her. Because when one of the Regent's own tastes her blood, something ancient stirs. Something they thought was extinct. Something not even Lady Tsukiko may be able to control. Asha didn't come to inherit power. She came for answers. But in a town where predators don't blink and bloodlines don't die- Being family might be the deadliest position of all. And the town will never be the same.