“Yo, Daichi. Sup?”

A young girl approached Daichi with her hand raised in a wave. Daichi looked at the girl from the corner of his eye then let out an annoyed groan, before pretending to not have noticed the girl. He looked at his phone and scrolled through MeTube, trying to enjoy himself, but the girl dropped her bag on the seat next to Daichi’s and sighed.

“I thought I missed first class today. Lucky!”

She took out a light book to fan herself while panting heavily. The girl noticed that Daichi was ignoring her as usual, so she decided to sneak a peek at what Daichi was watching.

“Zondrias?!”

She exclaimed. Daichi sighed then turned around, hoping that the girl wouldn’t be able to see what he was watching then. However, the girl was persistent! She jumped over to the other side just to see what exactly Daichi was doing.

“Stop it, Nagai Ashi.”

Daichi was keeping the girl away, but the girl did not back down.

“I told you already! My name’s Nagato Ashito. Now let me see it.”

She reached out with her long arms then managed to grab Daichi’s phone to take a peek at it once again. Once she retrieved it, her eyes glittered when she looked at it.

“The new movie! You’re also going to see it?”

She asked. Daichi sighed then sat back in defeat.

“I was planning on going to see it with my little sister. It’s coming out this Saturday, right?”

He admitted and the girl sat down next to him.

“Same here. I was going with my older brother.”

“That so?”

“Yep.”

She grinned at him, forming dimples. Daichi however was very suspicious of her.

“Didn’t you say Zondrias was for kids only?”

He pointed out, making Nagato scratch her cheek embarrassingly.

“I, uh, decided to try it? And it was nice?”

Daichi scanned her closely, looking for any spots where he could identify lies. She was nervous, given the way she always scratched her cheek when she was under pressure. Her dark hair was in a bob cut with a pink clip keeping her bangs out of the right side of her face. He remembered giving her the clip when hers got missing. Her dark eyes were bouncing around their sockets and her face was turning red.

Daichi shrugged then grabbed his phone from her to continue watching his stuff.

“Hey, Nagato-san. You free to come to the mall with us this Saturday?”

A bunch of guys and girls came close to her and asked.

“Naa. I’m going to the movies this Saturday. No thanks.”

She rejected them with her hands folded.

“Movies? Think we can go with you?”

One of the boys asked. The girl looked at Daichi for a moment with a “hmm”.

“No. I’m going with someone already.”

“Eh? Come on!”

The students complained, their cries soon turned to annoying noise.

“What movie is it, even?”

Someone asked.

“Um, the new Zondrias one.”

“Zondrias? Isn’t that anime for kids?”

“It’s not an anime this time, though. More live-action.”

“Eh? Still for kids, isn’t it?”

They pointed out.

“Oh um, yeah. I’m going with Daichi and his kid sister.”

“Wha-“

She placed her hand on Daichi’s mouth to stop him from objecting to her.

“HUH?!”

The group unanimously cried out, making the entire class look their direction.

“You’re going on a date with the abnormal?”

PA!

“Not a date!”

She slapped the boy who said that, making him fall to the floor. The others looked at her direction with obvious fear in their eyes.

“Not a date, ok?”

She said, flustered and red. Someone nervously laughed.

“I-I see. Still, so the abnormal’s got a little abnormal sister? Freaks.”

Upon hearing this, something in Daichi snapped. He had been called Abnormal his entire life, but hearing that being said about his little sister set a fire in him. Daichi scanned through the crowd and identified who it was. The boy Nagato slapped earlier.

The young elf stood up from his seat and approached the boy.

“Huh? What are you looking at, freak?”

The boy asked Daichi.

“Don’t call my sister an abnormal.”

Daichi muttered, his voice barely audible.

“Huh? What was that?”

Daichi’s hands started to vibrate with power. Invisible to the unaware eye, Daichi’s black nether energy was swarming his right hand. He raised it then looked at the boy. The boy noticed a weird light in Daichi’s eyes.

“I hope you’re ready to pay for that.”

PA! DUM!

***

“No more T.V, no more MeTube, no internet for the next 2 years. You will not be visiting my workplace ever again and you both are certainly not getting into fights at school again.”

Yellen was pacing up and down across the hall, holding her head.

“Take it easy, Yellen.”

“No, I won’t take it easy, Alexis. How did they become so violent? Fighting on the same day?”

Yellen asked, making me think about all the training we’d been doing in secret.

“Here, sit down.”

Alexis grabbed her and directed her towards the arm chair. Yellen sighed then sat down, having no choice. Alexis also gave her an ice pack to put on her head.

“At least we now know that they won’t be bullied in school.”

Alexis mused, but Yellen glared at him.

“Psst. What’d you do?”

I whispered to Daichi. He looked at me from the corner of his eye before speaking.

“I um, I slapped someone.”

Just like me!

Is what I wanted to say, but Yellen was glaring at both of us. Well, in times of danger, there was always an escape route.

*Sniff* *Sniff*

The sounds of my sniffing echoed in the room. Everyone went dead silent then looked at me surprised, by my actions. Tears were slowly streaming down my cheeks and my hands were down, with me just looking at my parents.

“N-No… I-Ibuki.”

Alexis slowly approached me.

Over the years, I had realized there was one thing my parents feared when it came to me. My unusually high-pitched crying voice.

“C-Come on, sweetie.”

He was about 5 steps away from me with his arms reaching out for me. We seemed to have a conversation with our eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Alexis.’

“N-No. Don’-“

“WAAAA! WAAAA!”

I began the water works and banshee cry. My ultimate move that stomped everything in the house. I was here to establish my print. I was the ruler of this house! Muhahahaha!

BONK!

I felt an unimaginably powerful knock on my head, causing me to shut up and look up. What I saw was a beast, glaring angrily at me.

“I. Am. Not. Amused.”

The beast had my mother’s voice and physique, but its aura was not fooling me. Still, I gulped and remained quiet. I could settle for being second-in-command in the family.  

“Uhoh.”

Alexis spoke out from where he was. I could see there was something on his mind. He ran out of the room.

Correction. He tried to run out of the room, but mother proved to be too fast for him. She grabbed him by the legs and dragged him closer to herself.

“Ibuki, Daichi. Go and think about what you’ve done. But no more internet, is that clear? As for you. You’re going to be crying a lot today.”

She dragged Alexis out of the room. The man kept trying to cling on to objects to save himself, but mother was simply too strong.

“Help. Me.”

He whispered, but there was nothing two kids could do about their mother, was there? They both left, leaving me and Daichi alone. I quickly went to the shelf where my tablet was. However, the wi-fi had been cut off.

“Nooooo!”

I went on my knees in tears.

“S-Sorry.”

Daichi apologized. I sat up then looked at him.

“Sorry for what?”

“Eek!”

He looked away.

“Squire.”

I approached him with a tiny amount of killing intent. Just so mother wouldn’t come out this time.

“I-I told a lie.”

“What lie?”

He shut his mouth and looked away from me.

“Sorry, I can’t say.”

He apologized once again then jumped off the chair, running away. At this moment, I was very interested in what exactly he had done. What could be worse than getting me to lose access to the internet?

I rose my hands to form an icicle. I was going to beat the brat till he spoke. Then I ran out of the room, albeit slower than he was running. I got to the staircase, but I could hear screaming from above, which meant mother was punishing Alexis.

“Young miss.”

One of the butlers in the house called out to me.

“Sorry, but have you seen my brother?”

“Master Daichi? He ran in that direction.”

He pointed to the way leading to the garden out the back.

“I see. That means he’s hiding in the kitchen.”

Obviously Daichi had told the butler to lie to me in case I came running after him. The butler sighed and I could see a cold sweat forming on his forehead.

I ran past him with force flowing through my legs. In a matter of seconds, I was in the kitchen area. The cooks were busily preparing our dinner, making me scout around for where Daichi was.

“Oh, young miss.”

One of the cooks came over to me.

“Where is Daichi?”

I asked and he laughed. He came in slowly then whispered into my ears.

“First drawer to your left.”

I glowered at it. I could sense Daichi’s aura in there. It was faint, meaning he still hadn’t mastered presence erasure like I told him to. I grinned then approached it. I put my hand on the handle, then I started to talk.

‘The servants choose no favorites, so in a situation like this, they always listen to the orders of the first one to come. Still, I don’t see how Daichi can trick me with his level of aura control. Ah well, this is the end.’

I opened the door and there was nothing inside.

‘What?’

In that moment, I heard a cheeky laugh. I looked up and Daichi was flipping over with a basket in hand. He dropped the basket on the ground trapping me underneath it, before zooming out of the room.

‘W-Wait. Did he create a fake presence?’

I noticed that Daichi had done something abnormal for a child his age. I was genuinely impressed. Maybe the term abnormal was not wrong for both of us. However, it was still not nice being called that.

Also, at the moment, all I needed to do was catch Daichi, then I could ask questions.