Backlash at Home

WARNING: Chapters 9-14 detail Ruka's past, which includes several forms of abuse, the deaths of guardians/parents, and other potentially upsetting topics. READER DISCRETION IS HEAVILY ADVISED FOR THESE CHAPTERS.

October 5, 2019

After having barely gotten any sleep the night before following Aki’s assault, Ruka awoke around seven in the morning, still tired but knowing her grandfather expected her to be up by seven no matter what day it was. As she walked downstairs in her pajamas, she saw that her grandfather was not up yet, still sleeping after the late night he had, so she began to make herself breakfast instead by pouring herself a bowl of cereal. She did not have school today, so she did not need to get ready. As she sat down to eat her bowl of cereal, she said to herself, “Grandpa probably won’t be up until nine or ten.”

While eating her cereal, she suddenly had a flashback to the events of the night before and gasped before standing up from the table. She then looked around, wondering if Aki had somehow gotten into her home again to once again violate her. However, a quick glance at the doorway to the kitchen proved that that was not the case. Instead, one of the two servants of the mansion, an older man who had just arrived to work for the day, asked Ruka, “Ruka-sama, is something wrong?”

“Oh,” she replied to him. “It’s nothing. I was just startled, that’s all. I didn’t get much sleep last night between the party and everything else.”

“My apologies,” replied the servant with a bow. “Did I startle you?”

“It’s fine,” she assured him as she sat back down.

“Do you want me to make you something else for breakfast, Ruka-sama?”

“No thank you,” Ruka replied. “I appreciate the offer, however.”

“Very well,” he replied. “What time did your grandfather get home last night?”

“I do not know the exact time,” she replied. “But it was late. Do not expect him to be awake until nine or ten.” As the servant walked away from the kitchen, Ruka thought to herself, “If I can’t even tell him the truth, how could I tell my grandfather the truth?”

…

Later in the day, Ruka was practicing swordplay by herself. As she swung her sabre around in the basement, her moves were notably less elegant and far more powerful. She was also visibly angry as she swung down on a fencing dummy in the basement, channeling her feelings about what had happened to her in her swordplay. She yelled as she hit the dummy as hard as she could with her sword, “God damn it!” She had rarely used such profane language before, but had heard plenty of it from the adults around her, especially from her mother and her mother’s family, which came from a poorer background than her father had. She knew, however, that she needed such words to express her frustration and rage at what Aki had done to her.

As she took several deep breaths, she began to imagine the dummy as Aki. He even began to hear his voice in her head, causing her to begin to panic. “Ruka… Ruka-chan… Ruka…”

“No,” she said out loud as she dropped her sabre. “Please, get away from me.”

“Ruka…”

Ruka then took a deep breath and told herself, “He’s not here. He’s not here. He’s not here.”

“Ruka-chan…”

“He’s not here. He’s not here. He’s not here.”

“Ruka, come here…”

Finally, Ruka could no longer take it. She ran up and punched the dummy in a fit of rage, yelling, “SHUT UP ALREADY! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

As she hyperventilated, she heard footsteps from the stairs leading to the basement. Then, she heard Ryota call out to her with, “Ruka, what the Hell are you doing down there?!”

Ruka began to panic as she realized her grandfather might have heard her. “Grandpa?!”

“I didn’t hear what you were saying,” Ryota said as he rubbed his eyes with one hand, carried a cup of coffee with the other, and walked down the stairs. “Agh, shit… My head hurts…” When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he asked Ruka, “What’s up with the yelling? Are you practicing so hard you’re yelling at that damn dummy?”

“I, um…” Ruka sighed and told him, “Okay, yes, I was. I’m sorry, Grandpa.” She decided to go along with her grandfather’s theory about her yelling.

Her grandfather chided her with, “You know, it isn’t ladylike for you to yell in such a rude tone.”

“I know, Grandpa.” She then took a deep breath and picked up her sabre. “I’m ready to practice now if you want.”

“Not right now,” Ryota replied. “I got a really bad headache.”

“Did you get a hangover?”

“I sure did,” Ryota sighed. “If you want, you can practice by yourself. Just don’t go yelling a bunch, okay? You’re loud as Hell.”

As her grandfather walked back up the stairs to the first floor, Ruka sighed and began to practice with her sabre all alone in the basement. This time, she was not in such an anger-filled state, and did not let her emotions get to her as she swung her sword. “I need to get my mind off of last night,” she thought to herself. “Right now, swinging a sword is giving me comfort, even if it’s only a little.”

Meanwhile, her grandfather pulled out an envelope he had stuffed into his pocket and looked at it, the same envelope Aki had left the night before. “This is weird. Seems like a lot of money for just dropping her off…” Beyond this assessment, however, he thought nothing else of it, and just accepted the money with no questions asked, saying to himself as he stuffed the envelope back into his pocket, “But hey, I won’t turn away free money.”

…

October 7, 2019

At school, Ruka was eating lunch in her classroom when another girl in her class walked over to ask her something. “Ruka-chan?”

Ruka looked up at the girl, who had glasses and straight black hair, and replied to her, “What is it?”

The girl, named Shiho Kaya, asked her, “Do you want to come with me and Rena-chan to my house after school?”

Surprised she got asked to go over to a classmate’s house, she replied, “Oh, uh, sure. Yeah, I can go over and play at your house, Kaya-san.” She did not actually know if she could, or if her grandfather had planned something for her, but she did not care, needing some time to unwind given what had just happened to her. In her mind, she thought, “If my grandfather gets mad over this, I’ll take the punishment. I need something to get my mind off of what happened on the fourth.”

Shiho then replied to her, “Awesome! You know, you haven’t really played with us or anyone else in a while.”

“I’ve been busy,” Ruka admitted. “My grandfather is teaching me fencing at home, so I’ve been practicing a lot when I get home from school.”

Not knowing what fencing was, Shiho asked, “Fencing? Is that the thing with the swords?”

“Yes. That’s the one where people play with swords and white armor with masks.”

“Wow, that’s so cool,” Shiho beamed. “How good are you at fencing?”

“I mean, I guess I’m okay. I’m not great at it.”

“You gotta show me how you do it one of these days,” Shiho asked her. “Can you?”

“Well…” Ruka shrugged. “I guess I could do it another day if you want.”

“Aww sweet! Thank you!” Shiho then walked away to go join her other friends. “I’ll see you after school, Ruka-chan.”

“Goodbye,” Ruka said to her with a friendly smile and a wave. She then went back to eating her lunch, and as she did, she thought to herself, “Maybe if I sneak my sabre out from my room, I could bring it today. It’ll delay me a bit, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.”

…

When Ruka came home, she saw that her grandfather was not present at all as she walked in. She called out as she looked around her home, “Grandpa! Grandpa! Are you here? Grandpa!”

One of the family servants, the same from the morning after her assault, noticed her and walked down the stairs in the foyer. “Ah, Ruka-sama. Welcome home.”

Ruka immediately asked him, “Do you know where my grandfather is, Haruto-san?”

“He had to run back to the office for an emergency meeting,” Haruto explained. “He won’t be back until later, I’m afraid.”

“Did he say he needed me here until he comes back?”

“He would prefer if you stayed here until he came back,” Haruto informed her. “Why did you ask?”

“Well, I…” Ruka then sighed. “A few girls in my class want me to play with them.”

“Hmmm…” Haruto then rubbed his chin. “Well, if you get back by eight-thirty in the evening, I won’t say anything.”

Ruka smiled and told him, “Thank you, Haruto-san!” She then ran up the stairs to go to her bedroom. When she ran in, she quickly began to change her clothes. When she was done, she then grabbed her sabre and stuffed it in a small bag before running out of the room and down the stairs. As she left, she told Haruto, “I’ll see you later!”

“Have fun, Ruka-sama.” As Haruto waved goodbye, he said to himself, “I worry about her sometimes. She hasn’t been right in a few days…”

…

Ruka arrived at Shiho’s house about forty-five minutes after school had let out. As she knocked on the door, an older girl who was about fifteen and had white hair like Shiho, albeit cut much shorter, answered and opened it while holding her phone to her ear, having been in the middle of a conversation. “Hello?”

“Oh, uh,” Ruka replied, noticing the girl was dressed in a blue dress with armored shoulder and knee pads. “Are… Are you Kaya-san’s older sister?”

“Oh, you must be Kishio Ruka from her class,” the older girl replied. She then looked down at her outfit and sighed, realizing too late that she had been dressed in such a uniform. “Ugh, I forgot to get changed. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Ruka assured her with a bow. “What is your name?”

“I’m Himiko,” she replied. “Come on in.” As Ruka walked into the more modest home that Shiho’s family lived in, Himiko turned around and called out, “Shiho, your friend Ruka is here!”

Shiho then walked down the stairs and saw that Himiko was dressed in the outfit she was wearing. “Oneechan, you didn’t get changed?”

“My apologies,” she replied. “I forgot to get dressed after the last ba-“ She caught herself before she could finish the sentence. “I mean… After the cosplay photo shoot.”

Ruka asked her, “Oh, you’re an otaku?”

Blushing slightly, Himiko replied to her, “I mean, not that much, I guess. I, uh, wouldn’t use otaku to describe me.”

Shiho told Ruka, “Come on up. Everyone else is here!” She then noticed the long bag that Ruka was carrying in her arms. “Wait, what’s in the bag?”

“Oh, this?” Ruka then held up the bag to show both Himiko and Shiho. “This is my fencing sabre. I went home to grab it, so that’s why I was a bit late.”

“Woah,” Shiho said as her eyes widened. “Come on up! Show everyone!”

Ruka then ran up the stairs to join Shiho and the others inside her bedroom. As she did, Himiko returned to her phone conversation. “Sorry about that, Yuta. One of my little sister’s friends came to the door and I had to answer it.”

“That’s fine,” said a boy from her school on the other end of the line. Based on how they talked to each other, it was clear the two were very close. “How was your day after school?”

“It was uneventful,” Himiko said, knowing in her mind that she was actually lying. “I just came home and did some homework. We gotta go out again soon.”

“I know,” Yuta replied on the other end. “I’ve been busy as Hell with the archery club, but I promise, we’ll spend some nice alone time together soon, okay?”

Himiko smiled, replying to him, “Thank you. I gotta get going now. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Himiko.”

Himiko then hung up with him. She sighed and told herself, “Damn, that was too close. I can’t believe I almost revealed my status to a civilian.” She then got a text on her phone just as she was about to put it away and looked at it, finding that it was from the Agency. “Aw shit, a Class Five right now?” After checking for a few seconds to see if any other magical huntresses answered up and finding none did, she pressed on her phone screen to acknowledge and respond before turning to the kitchen door to her right and saying, “Mom, Dad, I’ll be back in like thirty minutes! I got a call!” She then ran out of the house, ready to fight a magical beast that was about two blocks from her home.

Upstairs, Shiho and Ruka walked into the former’s bedroom. Inside were two other girls and a boy who was about a year older than Ruka and Shiho. Shiho told Ruka, “Let me introduce you to the others. You already know Rena-chan from class.”

Ruka turned to a girl who was in her class that had dark violet hair and bowed to her. “Hello again, Omine-san.”

Shiho then told Ruka as she introduced her to the other two people in the room, “You haven’t met Kaede-chan or her big brother Kosuke-senpai yet, though.”

“Nice to meet you,” said the boy, named Kosuke Murata, as he bowed. “I believe you’re a grade below me like Shiho-san, correct?”

“Correct,” she replied. “How do you and your sister know Kaya-san?”

“Me and my brother used to be neighbors until we moved a few years ago,” said Kosuke’s younger sister Kaede Murata. “We still go to the same school, though. You’re a year ahead of me, Kishio-senpai.”

“Ah, okay.”

Shiho then happily announced, “Anyway, Ruka-chan has a little surprise for all of us. You see, she and her grandfather practice fencing, and in fact, she has her sabre with her.”

“I do,” Ruka replied as she carefully unzipped the bag carrying her sword and pulled it out for all of them to see. “Take a look.”

“Woah,” said Kosuke as he admired the sword and its form. “It looks so real.”

Ruka, a bit annoyed, replied, “I mean, it is real.”

Rena asked Ruka, “How long have you been practicing, Ruka-chan?”

“For about five months,” Ruka replied as she turned the sword a few times to show it off. As she put it away in the sword bag, she told her, “My grandpa is very insistent that I practice as much as I can.”

Kaede asked her, “Oh, so your grandfather fences, too?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “He’s fenced for a very long time.”

Kosuke, curious, asked her, “Do you live with your grandfather?”

Ruka nodded as her expression became rather somber. “I do. My parents passed away two years ago, so he took me in.”

Shiho, feeling bad, placed a hand on her shoulder and told her, “I’m really sorry that happened to you, Ruka-chan.”

Ruka looked at her hand and sighed, feeling a wave of discomfort crash into her upon the hand touching her. “Um… Well…” What were actually just seconds lasted for what felt like minutes before Shiho took her hand off of her shoulder. “Thank you for your kind words, Kaya-san.” She thought to herself, “Just one touch from someone else, and I felt like I was right back there a few nights ago. It was as if time itself slowed down.”

“My parents know about your grandfather,” Kaede then told her. “They told me he’s a businessman. What’s a businessman, Ruka-chan?”

“A businessman is someone who owns a business,” Ruka explained to her. “My grandfather owns a business that puts in air conditioners and heating for buildings.”

“Oh, okay,” Kaede replied, understanding a little more but still somewhat confused. “So your grandpa is… That.”

Ruka then told her, “I’m surprised you took your brother along with you. It’s not every day a boy hangs out with girls.”

Kosuke turned to her and explained in a somewhat self-conscious and worried tone, “Oh, it’s nothing, really. I’ve just always been friends with Shiho-chan like my sister.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Ruka told him. “If you’re friends with her, then you can be my friend, too.”

Kosuke chuckled, replying to her with, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Murata-kun. What sort of things do you like?”

Kosuke then showed Ruka a handheld gaming console he had been carrying and told her, “I like video games a lot. What about you?”

“I don’t play them too often,” Ruka admitted, somewhat embarrassed by her lack of experience. “I’m pretty busy at home between studying and fencing.”

Shiho, overhearing Ruka, said to her, “Sorry to interrupt, but speaking of being busy, I don’t see you often after school. Is it because you’re busy with your grandpa?”

“Yeah,” Ruka nodded. “I was really busy this past weekend, in fact. My grandfather had a gala, which is a sort of really fancy party, with a bunch of his friends from his job. I wore this really pretty red dress, and I had a good ti-“

Perplexed by the sudden pause in Ruka’s sentence, Shiho asked her, “Ruka-chan, are you okay?”

Ruka suddenly flashed back to what had happened to her the night of the gala, her expression suddenly turning to one of worry as her skin went pale. “I, um… It’s nothing.” She then took a deep breath and pulled out a phone from her bookbag. “Do, um… Do you guys wanna see the dress?”

Rena said to Ruka, “You have a phone, Ruka-chan?”

“Yeah,” she replied with a smile, feigning that everything was alright. “My, um… My grandfather gave it to me for my birthday.” She then showed the group a photo of her wearing the dress on her phone. “How do I look?”

“Wow,” Shiho said in amazement. “You look really pretty in the dress, Ruka-chan!”

“You do,” Kosuke replied out of instinct, which caused him to blush when he realized he had called a girl pretty. “Oh, uh, never mind me. Sorry.”

“No, no,” Ruka replied to him to calm him down. “It’s fine, Murata-kun. Thank you.” She then told Shiho, “Thank you as well. I think I look alright. I don't know about ‘really pretty’.”

Kaede replied to her, “Are you kidding? You look great in that!”

Kosuke then got a text on his own phone and pulled it out of his pocket. When he read it, he sighed and said to the others, “Aw man. I gotta go home. My parents want me to help with something.”

“Oniichan,” Kaede then asked him, “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No,” he shook his head. “They only want me for some reason, not you. They actually said you can stay here.” He then showed Kaede the text from their father.

“Awww,” Shiho said to him. “That’s too bad.”

“Sorry about this, guys,” Kosuke then said to the others as he got up. “I’ll hang out with you all soon, okay?”

Rena, Shiho, and Ruka all waved goodbye to him as the former said, “Bye-bye, Murata-kun.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Ruka told him as he left.

“Goodbye,” he said as he then closed the door to the bedroom.

With him gone, Kaede said to the others, “I’m confused. My parents usually want both of us going home together.”

“Yeah,” Shiho replied, equally confused. “That’s really weird. I hope he isn’t in trouble or anything.”

“I can’t see why he would be. I would know if he messed up.”

“Well,” Rena then said in a curious tone of voice as she turned to Ruka. “With him gone…”

Ruka turned to her and asked, “What is it?” Right as she finished that sentence, she could feel Rena staring at her. “Uh…”

“I’m curious,” Rena said to her. “Ruka-chan, this is… I don’t know how to…”

“You don’t know how to what?” Ruka then looked down at herself to see if maybe there was something on her clothes that Rena had noticed. “Maybe there’s a stain on my shirt,” she thought to herself as she looked and found none. “Wait, no, there isn’t. What else could she be curious abou-?”

“Do you have a bra already, Ruka-chan?”

Shiho and Kaede both blushed as Ruka realized immediately what Rena had been looking at. “Oh,” she thought to herself. “She’s looking at my chest.” She awkwardly exposed her one shoulder to show she was not wearing one before telling her with a neutral expression, “No, I’m not. Why do you ask?”

Shiho told Rena to warn her, “Don’t be so forward like that. Come on.”

Rena replied to her in an annoyed tone, “What? I can’t ask? We’re all girls here. It’s not like I’m gonna say anything bad about her if she does. I just…” She then placed a hand on her own chest. “I just want to know what it’s like to wear one before I have to get one. That’s all.”

Ruka replied to her, “I get it. You’re not trying to be mean at all.” She admitted to the group with a sigh, “Look, I know some of the boys and even some of the girls in class look at me, okay? I can’t help that I began growing a little earlier than the others. I just… I don’t like it when people say or think mean things because of that.”

“We understand,” Kaede replied. “We’re not being mean.”

Rena bowed to her and apologized with, “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

“No, no,” Ruka assured her. “I get it. You know you’ll have to get a bra soon. I know I’ll have to get one very soon. You want advice, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about asking your mom?”

Rena awkwardly replied, “Well, I… It would feel weird, though…”

“Your mom was a girl like us too,” Ruka pointed out. “She should be able to help you.”

“She’s got a point, Rena-chan,” Shiho added. “My mom already talked to me about boys and growing up.”

“I wish my mom was still around to talk to me about it,” Ruka added, pointing out how she could not have such a talk due to her own situation. “She told me a few things, but she never got the chance to sit down and talk to me about it before she passed away, and neither did my dad. You should treasure the time you have with your parents, because…” Ruka looked away very briefly as she got emotional and her hands tensed up into fists on her legs. “Because you never know when they’ll die and you’ll be left with yourself.”

Shiho placed a hand on Ruka’s knee, comforting her as she told her, “Ruka-chan, I’m really sorry about your parents.” She followed this up with a hug, which took her off-guard.

“Oh, um…” Unlike before, Ruka did not feel as uncomfortable, though some lingering sense of tension was still present as she awkwardly returned it. She knew that making a fuss over it would invite them to ask questions, and she also knew Shiho had good intentions. “I…”

As Shiho split from the hug, she told Ruka, “I can’t imagine what it must be like. Again, I’m really sorry, Ruka-chan.”

Free from the hug, Ruka wiped away some tears in her eyes and smiled at her. “Thank you, Kaya-san.”

Kaede told the others, “I’m not sure if my mom would be willing to have that kind of talk with me, at least for right now. My parents are a bit weird about that sort of thing. I don’t know why, though.”

“Some adults don’t want to acknowledge the fact we’re growing up,” Ruka said to her.

“Maybe,” Kaede acknowledged with a nod. “But it’s like… They don’t want to talk about it. They’re so… I don’t know how to say it, really.”

Ruka asked her, “Are they conservative?”

Kaede replied to her, “What does that word mean? How do you know words like that?”

“It means they don’t like change and have traditional views.” Ruka was very well-spoken for her age, and the fact she knew such a thing when most of her other peers did not was impressive. “Maybe your parents are conservative.”

“Yeah, that’s the word,” Kaede agreed. “You’re very smart, you know.”

“Nah, not really,” Ruka said to downplay her own intelligence. “I just pick up on words like that from my family.”

Rena then asked Ruka, “So, um, going back to what I said… Have, um… Have people been mean to you at school, Ruka-chan?”

“Mean to me?”

“About your…”

“Oh, you mean my…” Ruka took a deep breath and decided to rip the proverbial band-aid off. “You mean my boobs.” Shiho, Kaede, and Rena all looked at her as if she had two heads upon saying those words. “What? It’s what she was thinking about.”

“Um,” Rena replied nervously. “Yeah. Those.”

“Well,” Ruka admitted. “As I’ve told you, I can sense when people look at me. I’ve even heard some of the girls talk about it before. I… I don’t really like it when people reduce me to my body.”

Shiho asked her, “Do any of the boys mess with you?”

“It’s weird,” Ruka explained. “I mean, some boys look, yes, but the worst of it comes from other girls. They’re jealous of me, and yet I didn’t really choose any of this.”

“Let me know if anyone tries to hurt you, okay?” Shiho assured her, “My big sister taught me how to defend myself.”

“By the way,” Ruka then asked her. “I saw your sister with a costume on. Is she an otaku?”

“Oh, that?” Shiho knew that Himiko was a magical huntress, but also knew she could not tell the others that, so she would cover for her by saying she was a fan of anime and manga, which she actually was as well. “Yeah, I guess she is.”

“Do you know what anime she was cosplaying as?”

“No,” Shiho shook her head, feigning ignorance. “She’s into so many, and some of them are things I’m not allowed to watch.”

Rena admitted to the group with a slight blush on her face, “I, um… I’ve watched some anime that were for adults.”

Ruka, Kaede, and Shiho all looked at her, with Kaede asking her, “You did? How?!”

“I found it on the computer,” Rena explained. “It- It’s not like I was trying to look, so, um… I… I just watched it. I couldn’t look away.”

Excitedly curious about what she found, Shiho asked Rena, “What did you see, Rena-chan?”

“It was, uh… It was girls…”

Ruka asked, “Girls and what?”

“Girls without their clothes on,” Rena stammered out. “And, um…” She then covered her face with her hands out of embarrassment. “It’s so embarrassing. They were all older than us, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. They all looked really pretty, so I just…. Kept watching. I didn’t mean to find it, okay, I…”

“Oh,” Ruka replied as she realized what she had found. “It was that kind of anime…”

“I’m sorry, guys. I shouldn’t have brought it up…”

“Don’t be sorry,” Shiho told Rena with a pat on the shoulder. “You’re fine, Rena-chan. It’s not your fault.”

Ruka thought to herself as the other girls all talked among themselves, “Truth be told, I know exactly what she’s talking about. My grandfather always told me to stay away from dirty videos and anime, and this was why. Even so… I’ve been curious.”

…

When Ruka got home around eight in the evening, she expected to come home to just her family’s two servants while her grandfather was still out. Instead, when she walked in, she found her grandfather waiting for her in the foyer, an enraged expression on his face. Ruka’s eyes widened with shock as she dropped the bag holding her sabre on the ground and realized her grandfather had come home earlier than anticipated. “Grandpa, you…”

He yelled at her, “Where the Hell were you?! Why didn’t you come right home and stay home after school?!”

“Grandpa, I-“

“I told you you had to come right home and study, did I not?!”

“Listen, I can explain,” Ruka begged for him.

Ryota angrily demanded of her, “Okay then, go ahead! Explain!”

“I… I…”

“Don’t stammer like that, damn it!” He then stomped his foot on the floor to get her attention. “Explain to me in actual words what you did!” After another pause, he yelled again, “Answer me already!”

Finally finding the words and the courage to tell him why, Ruka exclaimed to him, “I was with some friends from school, okay?! There, I said it! I didn’t come home because I wanted to play with them for a change! I can’t just come home every day and not have a fucking life of my own! I can’t take this shit anymore!” She immediately covered her mouth upon realizing what kind of tone she used with her grandfather. “Oh, uh…”

“You little…” Her grandfather, enraged by her extremely rude tone of voice and profane language, grabbed her by the arm and began to drag her to her room. “How dare you speak to me like that! I thought I taught you differently than to speak so rudely to adults, especially your own family! I can’t believe a girl of your age would say such horrible things!”

Ruka begged as she began to cry, “No! Stop! Please, don’t do this!”

He then flung open the door to her bedroom and effectively threw her in, causing her to fall. As she got up from the floor, Ryota exclaimed to her, “You are not to leave this room except for school for the next three days! If I catch you trying to leave, there will be Hell to pay! Do I make myself clear, Ruka?!”

Still crying, Ruka replied to him, “Ye-… I…”

Ryota screamed, “DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Good,” he replied in a far more calm tone of voice before throwing her sabre bag in and closing the door. “Now, don’t bother me at all. I need some time to myself to deal with this bullshit. This is really fucking ridiculous. You should know better at your age, Ruka.”

Ruka curled up into a ball and cried to herself, hurt by her grandfather’s words and actions. “Why… Why me? Why did all of this have to happen to me?!” She looked to the bag holding her sabre and reached over, pulling the sword out of it and holding it close to her body. “Why…” In this moment of total powerlessness and desperation, that sword was the only thing that gave her any form of comfort. This would, of course, affect her in more ways than one over the next few days.