Reincarnated as Napoleon II-Chapter 198: Worst Condition

Napoleon II stepped in first.

The room was dim, but not dark. Curtains had been drawn to soften the light, not block it completely. A single electric lamp was on near the bed, casting a steady light across the space.

Napoleon I lay at the center of it.

For a moment, Napoleon II did not move.

He took in the sight quietly.

The man on the bed was still the same, but not as he had always been remembered. The posture was weaker. The face more drawn. The presence that had once filled entire rooms was now contained within the limits of the bed.

Murat entered behind him and stopped a step back.

He did not speak.

The doctor turned as they approached.

"Your Imperial Majesty," he said.

Napoleon II gave a small nod.

"Report."

The doctor stepped forward, careful with his words.

"The condition has worsened since yesterday," he said. "The pain is now constant. There are no longer clear intervals of relief."

Napoleon II listened without interruption.

"There is increasing weakness," the doctor continued. "He has taken little food. Fluids are difficult. Even small movement causes strain."

Napoleon II’s gaze remained on the bed.

"And the cause?"

The doctor hesitated, then answered.

"We believe the issue originates in the stomach," he said. "Severe deterioration. Possibly a lesion or growth that is advancing."

Murat glanced at him.

"A growth?" he asked.

"Yes," the doctor replied. "It would explain the persistence of pain, the decline in strength, and the difficulty in maintaining nourishment."

Napoleon II remained still.

The words confirmed what he already knew.

The doctor continued.

"We have treated it as an internal disorder," he said. "But the progression suggests something more serious. Something that is not responding to conventional treatment."

"Can it be stopped?" Murat asked.

The doctor did not answer immediately.

"No," he said at last. "Not with what we have."

The room fell quiet.

Napoleon II stepped closer to the bed.

Napoleon I’s eyes were open.

He had been listening.

"You always did like clear answers," he said.

His voice was lower than before, but steady enough.

Napoleon II stopped beside him.

"I prefer them."

Napoleon I looked at him for a moment, then shifted his gaze slightly toward Murat.

"And you," he said. "Still standing behind him."

Murat gave a faint smile.

"Someone has to make sure he doesn’t forget the rest of us."

Napoleon I let out a breath that might have been a short laugh.

"That would be difficult."

He shifted slightly, and the movement brought a visible reaction. His hand pressed instinctively against his abdomen.

Napoleon II noticed it.

"How long has the pain stayed like this?" he asked.

Napoleon I looked back at him.

"Since last night," he said. "Before, it came and went. Now it just stays."

Napoleon II nodded once.

The doctor spoke again.

"We are doing what we can to manage it," he said. "But the effect is limited."

Napoleon II turned slightly toward him.

"You will continue observation," he said. "No delays in reporting any change."

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty."

The doctor stepped back.

The room settled again.

Napoleon I looked at his son.

"You came quickly," he said.

"Yes."

"And you brought him."

Napoleon II did not answer that.

Napoleon I’s gaze shifted between them.

"Good," he said. "Better than being alone with doctors."

Murat stepped forward slightly.

"You’ve been through worse," he said.

Napoleon I gave him a look.

"Have I?"

Murat did not hesitate.

"Austerlitz," he said. "You didn’t even sleep."

Napoleon I’s expression shifted faintly.

"That was different."

"You still complained," Murat said. "Just less."

Napoleon I gave a faint breath.

"That was a long time ago."

Murat shook his head.

"Not that long."

Napoleon I looked at him for a moment, then back toward the ceiling.

"We moved faster then," he said. "Everything moved faster."

Napoleon II remained beside the bed.

"We still do," he said.

Napoleon I glanced at him.

"I heard," he said. "The war."

"It’s over."

"So they say."

"They accepted the terms."

Napoleon I studied him.

"And you didn’t let it stretch."

"No."

Napoleon I gave a small nod.

"Good."

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

"War should end when it’s decided," he said. "Not when people get tired of it."

Napoleon II stood there without moving.

The room remained quiet around him, but his thoughts had already moved ahead of everything being said. The doctor’s words, the symptoms, the pattern of decline, all of it aligned too cleanly to be anything else.

He knew what it was.

Stomach cancer.

The same disease that had taken Napoleon I before, in another history that had already played out long before this one began. The same slow progression. The same pain that came in waves at first, then stayed. The same weakness that followed, not sudden, but steady, until there was nothing left to hold it back.

He watched his father breathe.

Each movement was controlled, but it took effort. That was the part most people missed. Not the pain itself, but the effort required just to remain still.

There was nothing here that could be reversed.

Even if he spoke it aloud, even if he explained it in precise terms, nothing would change. The medicine of this time did not have an answer for it. It barely had a name for it. At best, they would continue to describe it as a disorder, a deterioration, something internal that could not be reached.

He kept that to himself.

There was no value in speaking it.

For a moment, another thought passed through him.

Poison.

In the other history, there had been speculation. Some believed the British had poisoned him during his exile. Arsenic, slow and hidden, working through the body over time. The theory had persisted because it offered something simpler than illness. Something deliberate. Something that could be blamed.

But standing here now, watching it unfold without exile, without British custody, without any of the conditions that had fed that belief, the pattern remained the same.

This was not poisoning.

This was the body failing from within.

The same disease. The same end.