How to flatte_ your sister

The road to Violet’s room was blocked by maid’s outstretched arms.

This situation had already lasted for more than ten minutes and going back to ask for father’s assistance was currently under serious consideration.

“Laura, how many times do I have to tell you that everything has already been settled. Move.”

She was a red-haired girl in her twenties, once under Victor’s command. According to the memories she should have been a perfect fit for the bright-sunny-annoying-airhead category, but there was no trace left of any of that in the person blocking my way.

“Laura, move!”

The motionless guard standing in the middle of the corridor with a sharp knife in hand remained unresponsive. If I violated the space which Laura was ordered to protect, I would seriously have to fight her and the chances of me winning unscratched were dim.

On her cheek was a scar in the shape of a cross, marking her as one of Viktoria’s zombies, utterly broken and loyal pawn with negligible chances of going back to normal life - a person that had received own legal death certificate.

“Laura, stand down and let him pass.”

From behind me, a man’s deep voice sounded, it belonged to Michael. Its effect was instantaneous, she relaxed her stance and hid the knife into one of the many pockets in her uniform.

“Understood, Laura will now return to her duties accordingly to today’s timetable.”

Despite her calm voice, the hate-soaked stare was locked onto me up to the very last moment. It gave me goosebumps and prevented from moving till I was sure that she had disappeared behind the corner. Right after her, without sparing me a single glance, went Micheal.

Fucking madhouse.

Everything went so well back in the father’s study that for a short while the true nature of this place had concealed itself under the guise of eccentricity and then Laura had dragged it back to the surface. Together with that grim reminder came back the vivid details of my recent ordeal involving a certain tube.

The pace of my steps went up. I wanted to grab Vio and free us both from this house without further delay.

At the end of the third floor corridor, opposite to my old room, was the door to Violet’s personal space. There were two fist-sized holes in it. One at the bottom and the other in the place of a handle, a draft of cold air was coming through them.

I didn’t bother with knocking and pulled the door open.

Behind it was an empty room with a small figure of a girl sitting in the middle. In front of her was a tray with some food and a jug of water, it looked as if she was a prisoner awaiting her sentence. Violet wore her entire winter defenses including gloves, wool parka, scarf and even jeans in place of the usual skirt. It stopped being strange upon noticing a glassless window through which a cold winter air blew.

My tactless entrance had left her speechless, but for a reason entirely different than lack of knocking. Violet bit her quivering lip and quickly wiped the incoming tears. She got up and briskly walked in my direction, grabbed my hand and pulled out of the room.

She’s shaking like an aspen leaf and holds me with her whole strength.

I didn’t have to be a genius to realize that she wanted to leave this place as fast as possible and that it wasn’t the time to ask about the details, but at the very least I had to make sure we weren’t forgetting anything.

“What about your luggage?”

She just shook her head slightly to answer my question as if uttering even a single word would render her unable to walk. Violet was leading the way in such an impatient way that I had to save her twice from falling down the stairs.

Two silent maids were following behind us all the way down to the entrance hall. One of them had a phone in her hand, probably recording the whole situation, but other than that they didn’t do anything. Michael was already waiting in front of the house exit, ready to escort us out of the property. He passed me some documents while opening the heavy front door for Vio.

“Read it later.”

“Sure.”

I stored them away and allowed myself to be pulled once more by my little sister. Strangely, the security chief emotionless expression was slightly less cold when he looked at Vio. He perfectly adapted to her speed and walked right next to her akin to a huge guardian dog.

In no time we were on the other side of the fence, back to the normal world. Only then Violet stopped and looked at Michael.

“T-t-th…”

She tried to say something but her trembling voice made it impossible. In response, the security chief nodded slightly and went back inside the property.

Once again I was given a chance to admire how this blonde girl stayed relatively calm only through sheer willpower, but I knew that what she needed the most was to let it all out. I squatted with my back turned to her, ignoring the curious stares of occasional passersby, and said:

“Come, jump on.”

There was no reaction so I slightly pulled on her hand urging her to do that. She hesitated, but ultimately put on her parka’s hood and allowed me to give her a piggyback ride. This made me certain that she sought someone's warmth each time she wasn’t acting and was earnestly undergoing mental distress, just as she had wanted me to pet her head last time.

After three steps I could already hear silent sobs growing louder from the direction of her face which was buried behind the double cover of my back and the hood.

Instead of taking the bus, I decided to slowly walk back to her new home.

Violet was now someone I had agreed to protect and take responsibility for. This entire chain of actions was spurred by my first visit in the Votroadan’s domain. At that time I had wanted an entirely different ending for our relation, but I was content with the way things turned out.

With only one excursion and a little bit of talking acting as the entire summary, it was still too early to reminiscent of the things we did together. But, I couldn’t deny that the meaning of the weight on my back had evolved at least three times during the last few days.

From an easily obtained cute younger sister whom I took as an obligatory gift included with the transmigration package and treated more like an unlocked achievement.

To a good way of helping in my soul reformation and the best example of showing Votroadan that his words wouldn't come true…

Though I’m still ashamed that the latter part failed.

To a potential source of getting money from our family and a pleasant tease target. Yeah, back then I was planning on using her as an easy way of milking more cash from our father.

To this combined form she had now - cute younger sister, pleasant tease target, important ally, high-potential member of my esper group - with a big emphasis on the last part.

Starting to work on those three promises as fast as possible is a must.

Not to mention that having a pretty girl on my back, who had placed her safety and peace of mind into my hands was an agreeable feeling.

Maybe I’m a little too self-centered, but it’s not as if she’s losing on this deal and having her by my side should shorten the process of creating a real bond between us.

Violet stopped crying when we were passing through one of the side streets, but when I tried to put her down she proved to be unwilling of cooperation, her arms remained tightly clamped around my neck.

“T..e m. … ..e ..y ba.. .. yo.. ...t.”

Her words were barely audible due to them being mumbled into my back, but I understood the general meaning and resumed walking.

The first ten or twenty minutes were fun… but it has been close to an hour and my hands are numb. The worst of all it feels like I’m carrying a fluffy pillow, if only it was summer.

I felt some wriggling from behind and the tip of her nose had emerged close to my left shoulder.

“You’re late… but… thank you for coming. I was starting to get really worried…”

With a slightly hoarse voice, making little breaks to clear her throat, her first words were ones of gratitude, which helped to decide on one of the different ways of treatment I was preparing for her.

“Non, non, non, my dear little sister. You’re forgetting about one important thing.”

There was a little snicker followed by a short sniffle from Vio, she had instantly caught on the thing I was referring to.

“Nope, I didn’t forget about that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aren’t you the one owing me big? I’ve endured all those spiders without telling Viktoria that our brother’s hardware has a different software installed, not to mention that you were supposed to fetch me on Monday!”

A newly lit spirit began to weave itself into her words, she was quickly regaining her usual liveliness.

“Did I just heard you trying to forcefully break our agreement or did my ears went bad from all the wailing that has been broadcasting from my back?”

After quickly crossing a street, I picked another side alley to walk. There were too many curious eyes making me uncomfortable on the main streets. She waited patiently for me to shift the full attention back to her before resuming our conversation.

“Hmm? And what will the guy who will never be on time even when it comes to begetting own child do? Take me back to that mansion? Good luck with that, we will be able to stay there together for a long time to come.”

Amused, I moved my right hand under her hood and tousled her hair gently, an incredibly warm and smooth feeling made me forget about the pains of piggybacking. Violet didn’t resist, relaxed her stiff neck and leaned the chin upon my shoulder.

At this rate she will start purring like a cat.

“You’re right Vio, I won’t take you back, but you may not be able to enter my flat if you won’t honor that agreeme- hey! Did you just tried to bite me?”

My hand emergency evacuation was accompanied by her snickering.

“I will tell you a secret, everything needed to start my new life is inside my pockets. My credit card, my phone, all the necessary documents and a copy of the key to your front door. I’ve obtained it ages ago.”

This statement of hers, so full of victory that it could be used as an oration marking her own independence day, was an obvious sign that with each step distancing us from the mansion her mood was clearly being uplifted.

“I hope you’ve got a nice keychain adorning it, as decoration is the only role it can still fulfill. Viktoria has evaporated my old front door, there’s a new one in its place. By the way, she has also given me a horse’s dose of a muscle relaxant and I nearly suffocated before she has stuffed a plastic tube into my throat.”

“You talk as if you’re the only one who had it bad! You know what she did to me?”

“I’m actually dying of curiosity, but wasn’t sure if it’s okay to ask about that.”

“At least your episode was quickly resolved thanks to your one and only Violet, you may show your gratitude later. In my case, after coming back that Sunday, I’ve discovered that everything from my room was gone. My bed, desk, clothes, stuffed animals, even the carpet... you saw it yourself, a bare room.”

“Yeah, it sucks to lose all your belongings, but there’s more to it, right?”

“She has locked me inside the room, blocked the door and made a hole in it, then she started asking questions from the other side. Each time I refused to answer or answered too slowly, a big ass fucking spider was released by her servants through that damn hole. Not even an hour later I was sitting curled up in the corner with a room full of fucking tarantulas. They were everywhere, some were almost twenty centimeters big… when I think of how that shit was crawling all around the walls and the ceiling of my room…”

I was planning on arguing who had it worse, but after imagining the situation she was describing this idea was unanimously annulled by my mind’s factions.

We were close to my flat.

“... anyway, I had to spend an entire night in that room too scared to even scream for help. I’ve heard that they react aggressively to loud noises and was hoping that you will come and get me out from there first thing in the morning. But when there was no change even though the sun was already high in the sky and one of those shits has brushed against me, I took off my blouse, wrapped around the hand and broke the glass in the window. I was seriously considering jumping from there...”

Good that Vio doesn’t have an arachnophobia, otherwise she would have jumped out the window a minute after the release of the first spider.

“... Michael saved me. He must have been informed about the broken window and came to my rescue, but he shot off the padlock blocking the door handle with a gun. Never in my life, I had screamed so much as back then, when over twenty huge tarantulas started scampering madly all around me.”

“That’s how you were brought back to father’s study?”

“Yes. I didn’t even have to explain anything, he was already in the middle researching the whole situation himself. Still, we’ve made a bet. If you came to the mansion before this week would end and still wanted to take me under your wing, I was free to go. But, until that time I had to remain in my room. Taking even a step out of it, except for the scheduled toilet breaks, would render that bet invalid.”

During the whole explanation, she spoke in a relieved tone as if she was talking about the last night’s nightmare, convinced that it had passed and would never again come back to haunt her.

“I see, we both had it hard. For now, jump off my back.”

“What?”

“We’ve arrived and I’m not going to carry you up the stairs.”

I started trying to shake her off, to which she had reacted by entangling her legs around my waist. In this position, she would stay attached even without my support.

You and your cute behavior have won this round.

“I’m in the featherweight category, so climb those stairs with haste my loyal steed!”

“Of course you’re not heavy, after all, you’re a pure justice type, but even a small stone inside your shoe becomes a burden wh- hey you brat!”

Violet had put a cold, saliva covered finger inside my ear.

“Less talking, more walking!”

“That’s it! You’re going down!”

After making sure that the coast was clear I moved to place my back, and the backpack on it, against the wall and slowly started increasing the pressure on her.

“Hey! Wait! What are you doing?!”

“Crushing you?”

“What a childish act and I have my soft parka, there’s no way-”

I increased the pressure.

“-stop, please! Awawawa it hurts! I give up! I give up!”

Both her legs and arms locks were released and she had detached herself.

“I feel like Rock Lee after removing the weights, I bet I could jump ten meters high if I wanted to.”

“And I’m even flatter than I already was, I won’t forget this.”

“Ho? So you admit that you could be a mascot of the flat earth society?”

“Me talking about it and listening to someone else talking about it are two different things, you’re just adding extra points to the intensity of my incoming revenge.”

We looked at each other, unable to hide big smiles betraying our true feelings. Talking with her felt really refreshing and the perspective of fooling around with my little sister in the days to come was akin to the feeling of being back home after hours of traveling in a tight and uncomfortable bus seat.

“Come I have to show you my- our flat defense system.”

“Defense system?”

“You will understand when you see it.”

On the way up the staircase, I was trying to imagine how messed up our conversations would become if we added Luna into the equation.

I could make them my left and right hands in the esper group. But first I gotta get her back. I hope that recovering her will go as smoothly as today’s home visit.

Violet followed after me all the way to the door, pointed at them and said incredulously:

“Did you stole that from Nasa? Or did I miss a spaceship crashing nearby?”

“I’ve heard this line before. Here, catch.”

The second key card to the door was thrown to her, she caught it nimbly and inspected up close.

“Violet, to open this door you need to input a six-digit code first and then use that card on the side panel.”

“Got it, so what’s the code?”

“Non, non, non, my dear little sister. You’re forgetting about one important thing.”

This time there was no escape for her.

“You don’t mean…”

“Oh yes, I do. Moreover, there are two codes. I’m going to tell you only the one to open the door and if you don't fulfill your daily oni-chan quota, I will use the other to change it, which will render you unable to open the door. So, do you feel like keeping your part of the deal now?”

I gave her the most guilty-pleasure ridden smile I could muster and observed carefully her astonished expression. Violet took a deep breath, released it slowly, looked at the door then back at me, finally gave up and said in a sickly sweet voice:

“What’s the code oni-chan?”