Parricide

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.

As Ruka ran in, she found that the front door to the mansion was unlocked. Curiously as well, neither of her grandfather’s two servants were home, or at least not present. “Hello?! Anyone home?! Anyone?!” Ruka felt nervous as she walked through the house, and as she entered the living room, she found it to be trashed. “Woah…” Furniture had been moved, several vases had been broken, and when she walked up to the TV, which had the news blaring loudly on it, she also found a broken bottle of vodka on the floor. “Oh no…”

“Hey! Ruka!”

Ruka turned around to find her grandfather stumbling into the living room with a bloodied epée in one hand and a bottle of whiskey. In an instant, she felt a level of panic she had not felt since Aki had forced himself upon her. “Gr-… Grandpa…”

“I took care of our servants before you got here,” he said before he took another swig of whiskey. “They didn’t exactly like what I was gonna do when you got home. They, uh… They didn’t like the ideas I had, but fuck ‘em.” He then took a second swig of whiskey, finishing the bottle before dropping it on the floor and letting it shatter into numerous glass shards. “They won’t be bothering me anymore.”

Ruka began to cry tears of fear. “Grandpa, what did you do…?”

He callously asked her, “Why the fuck are you crying?”

“You… Why did you…?”

“Ah, fuck it. Who knows anymore?” He then wiped his mouth and rubbed his forehead. “You know, uh…” Ryota said as he leaned on a wall, slurring his words as he spoke. “I never fucking liked your mother, Ruka, and every fucking time I had to see you, I saw her. My son could have married a better woman instead of the whore he found. Your mother was a trashy woman that my oldest son was tempted by. Instead of marrying a girl of a more refined class, he went and married her.”

Ruka’s reaction to those words was one of anger. She grabbed a vase and held it up as she yelled, “You take that back!”

“No! I won’t! I’m not gonna apologize for what I believe in!” He then asked the sword at Ruka, telling her with hatred in his eyes, “Why did you have to survive that God damn car crash anyway? I thought I had enough problems in the family with your one uncle, but then you came along. You act too much like that whore of a woman your mother unfortunately was.”

“Don’t say another word about my mother or Uncle Daisuke!” Ruka then gripped the vase tighter in her hands.

“What? Are you afraid to throw it? Stop being so God damn indecisive!”

“Fine!” Ruka then threw the vase at him before running away, causing him to fall over and drop his sword when it smashed against his chest. As she ran, she thought to herself, “I need to get to my room! I need to get to my room and grab my saber!”

As she raced up the stairs and then ran to her room, she ran past the dead body of Haruto, who had been stabbed by the épée several times, as her grandfather yelled, “You little fucking bitch! I’ll have your ass for that!”

Ruka then flung open the door to her room and raced to her closet, opening it up and grabbing the bag containing her saber just as Ryota ran into the room, forgetting his sword due to how drunk he was. “No! Get away!”

“Come here!”

Ruka then reached for her sword, but in her panic, it slipped out of her hands and fell to the ground. At that moment, both of them reached for the sword, with Ryota going down on his knees to grab it. Ruka felt time slow to a crawl as she grasped the saber’s hilt and aimed it up at her grandfather. Seconds felt like hours as her grandfather fell onto the saber, the tip penetrating his chest and going all the way through before emerging from his back.

“You…” Ryota then coughed up blood due to his wound. “You…”

Ruka then let the sword, and her grandfather, fall to the floor. “I…” This felt completely different to her than when she had killed Aki. A mixture of relief, guilt, and fear swept over her as she slowly stood up, her saber still gripped tightly in her hands and covered in her grandfather’s blood as his life slipped out of his body. She looked at his corpse as she breathed heavily, trying to calm herself down. She then looked at her sword and said to herself, “Oh no…”

It was at that moment that she heard her phone vibrate with another text. Breaking out of her trance, she pulled it out and looked at it, seeing that it was a text from the Agency. However, before she could read it, she heard a loud crashing sound at the front door of the mansion, followed by a loud inhuman roar. She rushed out of her room to find that the doorway to the mansion had been completely destroyed, and the walls surrounding it were heavily damaged. Additionally, something large and covered in feathers began walking into the mansion that walked on six legs that Ruka knew immediately to be a magical beast. This beast had a single head with two mouths, both with sharp teeth and long tongues, one of which grabbed a small table on the floor and threw it across the room, smashing it into numerous wooden pieces.

Ruka quickly held out her left hand to transform, and by doing so, she attracted the beast’s attention. Focused now on killing the beast, she dropped her original saber in favor of her uniform’s sword, displaying it to the beast and yelling at it, “Get back! You aren’t welcome here!” She had never faced a beast this big before, and sweat poured down the side of her head as she worried about what could happen to her.

As Ruka stood her ground and the beast stared at her, Himiko, who by coincidence happened to be walking nearby, was running as quickly as she could to the reported location of the beast. She had no idea that the beast had attacked Ruka’s house until she rounded a street corner and saw the front entrance to the mansion completely blown away. Shocked, she yelled out, “What the Hell?! Ruka!” As she ran up, she transformed and readied her rifle, firing several shots at the beast and turning its attention away from her. Her shots were not accurate given that she still had a cast on one arm, but they still managed to hit the beast.

Ruka saw her run in and ran down the stairs to join her. “Himiko-san!” When she did, one of the beast’s tongues flew out of its lower mouth and tried to reach for Ruka, prompting her to slash it and cut a few feet off of it, spilling the beast’s blood all over her.

Himiko meanwhile fired more rounds at the beast, but all this seemed to do was anger it. When it used its upper mouth’s tongue to attack her, she yelled, “Shit!” The beast then grabbed a hold of her rifle and ripped it out of her usable hand. Himiko tried grabbing several of her throwing knives, but the beast then used what was left of its second tongue to grab her unhurt arm and wrap around it before pulling down, breaking the arm instantly and causing her to scream in pain. “Agh! My fucking arm! Aaaagh!”

Seeing this, Ruka flew into a rage, screaming at the top of her lungs at the beast as she attacked it with her sword, “GOD DAMN YOU!”

As Himiko watched while still dealing with the pain of having her other arm broken, she saw Ruka’s hate-filled expression as she attacked the beast, and was astonished, thinking to herself, “It’s as if she’s gone berserk. She must be letting out all the rage and anger she’s felt from everything going on up to now here.”

Ruka slashed one of the beast’s legs, but in response, the beast turned around and tried to bite her with one of its mouths, which she narrowly dodged. Ruka in response swung her sword at its face, causing it to scream in pain when its nose got slashed and blood poured from it. The beast then tried to grab onto her sword by wrapping its unhurt tongue against it, but Ruka managed to keep it in her hands and fight the grip of the tongue as hard as she could with both hands. She yelled at the beast, “Let go already!”

Himiko then stumbled to her feet, and despite the pain from her broken arm, she managed to grab one of her throwing knives with her casted hand and yelled, “Hang on, Ruka!” She proceeded to stab the beast as best as she could to distract it, causing it to once again let out a yelp of pain before it instinctively used its tail to hit Himiko as hard as it could.

As Ruka’s sword came loose from the grip of the tongue, she watched as Himiko was flung into the wall and slammed into it with such force that it cracked even further. In that moment, her rage finally reached its maximum limit as she charged at the beast, angered that it had hurt Himiko so severely. She let out a loud indecipherable scream of fury as she sank the sword into the beast’s neck as much as she could. However, the beast’s neck was too thick for her to go all the way through, so she pulled it out and then battled back both of the beast’s tongues, screaming in anger as she slashed both of them and whittled them down as much as she could.

When the beast tried to swipe at Ruka with one of its legs, she replied by completely cutting the leg off before it even had a chance to reach her. Now down to five legs, it began to lose balance as it tried to bite her, to which Ruka once again slashed up its face, this time blinding the beast by slashing across its eyes. When the beast whipped its tail again in frustration and pain, it managed to slice through the wall and cause the electricity in part of the house to cease functioning due to damage to the wiring, darkening the lights in the front room. As Ruka looked to the wall, she also noticed smoke starting to billow from the kitchen entrance near where the damage the tail had done was, indicating that a fire had started there.

Ruka knew she had to kill the beast and get out of the house before the fire spread to her and Himiko. “I have to kill this bastard now,” she thought to herself. “If I don’t, me and Himiko-san will die in the fire!” She then attacked the beast one last time, once again coming down with the sword on its neck. She yelled at the beast as she put all of her might into beheading it, “GO TO HELL!” Finally, after pushing as hard as she could and staying firm despite the beast trying to wrestle her off of it, the head of the beast finally came off. Ruka fell to the ground as the beast slumped over and died before she got up and ran to a gravely-injured Himiko. “Himiko-san!”

As Ruka sheathed her sword and grabbed her from under the shoulder to drag her, Himiko told Ruka, “You… You killed a Class Two…”

“Huh?!” Ruka was shocked to hear the level assigned to the beast by the Agency’s dispatchers. “That was a Class Two?!”

“Yep…” Himiko then coughed up blood as Ruka dragged her out of the mansion. “Not even I… Not even I’ve killed one… Not directly…”

As she did, Daisuke and another magical huntress were running down the street, both of them fearing the worst from the location given to them in the text that had been sent out. Daisuke shouted as he saw Ruka and Himiko, “RUKA! RUKA!”

“Uncle Daisuke!” Ruka then set Himiko down and told him, “The beast attacked the house! I killed it!”

Daisuke shouted in shock, “You killed it?!”

“No fucking way,” said the other magical huntress that was with Daisuke, who was about nineteen and bore dark blue hair and a spear for a weapon. “A kid like her killed a Class Two?!”

“She… She did,” Himiko confirmed with a weak nod before she coughed up more blood.

Daisuke told her partner, “Go in the mansion and see if anyo-“

Ruka interrupted him with, “No! It’s on fire! Look!”

As they all looked on, heavy black smoke began to pour from the ruined front entrance of the mansion. Daisuke said to himself, “Oh my God…”

As Daisuke and his hunting partner ran up to the mansion, Ruka turned to Himiko and told her, “You’re gonna be okay. We got help coming, Himiko-san…”

“No…” She weakly shook her head as she began to slowly slip out of consciousness. “You… I won’t…”

“Hey, come on…” Ruka held her up in her arms as tears began to form in her eyes. “Himiko-san, you can’t die… Your sister and your boyfriend need you…” After a brief pause, Ruka admitted, “I need you…”

Himiko gently touched Ruka’s cheek, smearing some blood on it as she told her, “You’ll be a great warrior, Ruka…” She then closed her eyes for what would turn out to be the last time.

“No, no, no, not this… Anything but this…” As Himiko went limp in her arms and her hand fell to the ground, Ruka realized that she had stopped breathing. “Oh my God… No…” Ruka then broke down and sobbed, clutching Himiko’s body as close to her as she could. “Himiko-san! Don’t leave me! HIMIKO!” Her rage had dissipated, replaced by an overwhelming sense of sadness and despair at what had happened on that fateful day in October as the sirens of fire engines, ambulances, and police cars began to approach the chaotic scene.

…

October 25, 2019

Daisuke sat down with Ruka privately at his home, with her having fully moved in by this point. “So,” he said to her. “I wanted to speak to you alone about what’s gonna happen from here on out.”

Ruka, who had barely gotten any sleep since the attack, asked him, “What do you have to say?”

“You’ll be living with me for the foreseeable future, first off. Second, I want to propose the idea of buying out your contract so you don’t have to be a magical huntress anymore.”

The young girl sighed. “I understand you don’t want me to be one, Uncle Daisuke, but I’ve made my choice. Besides, it would cost you too much to buy out my contract when it’s so early into my time as a magical huntress. We both know the rest of our family doesn’t care about us, so we can’t rely on them for money.”

“I’ll find a way, Ruka.”

“And you’ll be wasting your time, because I’m not going to stop, at least not yet. You can’t change my mind. I’m sorry.”

Daisuke sighed. “You’re really committed to this, aren’t you?”

Ruka smiled and confidently told him, “Of course. Also, another thing. I want to live alone at some point in the future, preferably somewhere close to where my grandfather’s house used to be.”

“You’re thinking that far ahead?”

“I can’t stay under your roof forever. You’ll have a family soon, and the last thing you need is a second child to deal with.”

Daisuke grew silent, pondering her niece’s words and figuring out what he could do. He weighed the benefits and drawbacks to letting her stay as a magical huntress and preparing her for living on her own in his mind. He thought to himself, “Ruka really is wise beyond her years. My brother taught her well when he was still alive.”

“Also,” Ruka told him, her voice growing a bit somber in tone. “Kaya-san is going to move away soon. Her family doesn’t want to stay in Yokosuka anymore after what happened to her older sister. I also… Well… I also heard that Murata-san and Murata-kun’s parents might separate, and their mom in particular doesn’t want Murata-kun playing with us anymore.”

“I’m really sorry for them,” Daisuke replied. “Of course everything goes wrong at once. I can’t imagine what that must be like, Ruka.”

“And one more thing…”

Daisuke, noticing her tone of voice had now shifted to one with a hint of anger, asked her, “What is it?”

“From now on, you’re the only family member from my father’s side I’ll acknowledge. When you die, I’ll no longer have any connection to the Kishio family.” It was clear she resented her father’s side of her family rejecting both her and her deceased mother, and wanted nothing to do with them aside from Daisuke.

“Are you sure about going that far?”

“Very.”

Daisuke admitted to her, “I hate to say it, but I can see why you think that way.” He then proposed to her, “How about this? I’ll prepare you to live on your own, and I’ll teach you how to fight magical beasts properly. I guess you’re right that I can’t actually stop you from being a magical huntress, but I can at least teach you and help you. Does that sound good?”

“That sounds perfect,” Ruka nodded. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

“You know, you really do sound like someone who’s a lot older.” The two of them then shared a laugh in response to his joke. “Am I wrong, though?”

“Not entirely,” Ruka agreed.

…

In the days and weeks following that fateful day, many things changed for Ruka. Grief-stricken by the loss of their daughter, Himiko’s family, including Shiho, soon moved away and left their old lives in Yokosuka behind, wanting to find a fresh start. Meanwhile, with her old home destroyed by the attack and then by the fire, which was determined to have been caused by several candles being knocked over when the Class Two had attacked the mansion, Ruka moved in with her uncle and transferred to another elementary school within Yokosuka, meaning she had to leave her newly-established friend group behind.

2019 had been a year with many challenges for Ruka. She had become aware of her changing body as well as how people perceived her for it, followed by what Aki had done to her, leading to her self-image getting damaged severely. This, of course, paved the way for her becoming a magical huntress despite her uncle’s reservations, followed by her killing Aki and then her own grandfather, the latter of which nobody except her knew since the fire had removed much of the evidence of what her grandfather had done and what she had done before the attack. Everyone else assumed that the beast and the fire had killed Ryota and his two servants, and that Ruka was the only survivor.

Of course, as with before, no one else in the Kishio family offered any kind of support to Ruka aside from her uncle. Not even her aunt, her father’s sister, offered anything, a clear indicator that they held similar beliefs regarding her mother to Ryota. With all of this going on, she soon realized that she was largely on her own aside from her uncle, who would soon make good on his commitment to retiring as a magical huntress and instead take an administrative job for the Protection and Research Agency. It would be here, of course, that he would eventually run into the Miyashita family…