Simple breakfast

A cube of cheese and a bottle of ketchup, those two things had been used in a brutal, successful attempt at waking me up. The strike had happened at seven o'clock, the exact time when the first stores were opening. The worst part of all, the culprit had sneaked her way into the kitchen when I was still asleep, had taken whatever she wanted from it and had started throwing things from the outside of my space, without giving me a chance to enforce my rightful privilege to capture and hug.

According to the only witness, who was at the same time the main suspect, the culprit had just wanted to show me the entire content of our fridge and apparently, since I had taken the cooking upon myself for this week, buying everyday groceries was also a part of my responsibilities.

Vio had been surprised when, without putting up much resistance, I had proceeded to comply with her wishes. But there was another reason spurring me into action so early in the morning.

Now, I was on my way back from the local supermarket, with three heavy bags full of food. There were a few cups of instant noodles, pancake ingredients, spaghetti ingredients, scrambled eggs ingredients, milk, cereals, sausages, a couple of rolls, some snacks and three bottles of cola inside.

Expecting me to go and buy fresh bread every single day is a pure heresy, this should last us till the next Monday.

Instead of taking the fastest route back home, I chose a longer way around.

My body hurt slightly after sleeping on the floor, but at least the mind got bored with pressing the replay button. Thankfully, one of the few things I was good at was a quick adaptation, but I decided that after establishing my esper group every member should undergo a mandatory training in the slaughterhouse to build some basic resistance against the gory stuff in real life. Though this idea would require some testing and polishing of the details first.

I was also planning out a series of tests to perform using the green stones during the today's evening and jumping into the mana spot right after that.

I wonder how Yuni obtained all those mana infused items and trinkets. Them being given to him by TET doesn’t sound right. Or everyone else is really good at hiding this stuff and like always, I’m the only one kept in the dark. Or maybe they are prizes for conquering mana spots.

Two streets away from the shop I found a tribe of small people undertaking their daily journey. Each of them had a backpack filled out with the precious mankind’s knowledge, there was also a high possibility of it containing some time killing devices. After comparing the address, which I had memorized from a certain contract, to the direction where all those middle schoolers were going, a conclusion that this still wasn’t her optimal route had emerged. I continued searching.

Viktoria is probably on her way to school as well. Vio’s taking this week off and so am I, but what about Rora? Does she go to school like a normal girl or spends her entire life hiding in someone? The difficulty is going to rise exponentially if she’s glued to Aura most of the time.

Parallel to the previous street was another artery supplying the nearby middle school with students. This one seemed like the best pick for Aura to walk unless she was being given a lift by Silvie.

I’m seriously starting to get worried about Luna, heavens help me I would love to know what’s going on with her. Why they didn’t kill her yet… not that I’m complaining about that.

I removed snow from a low stone wall of someone's garden and sat on it. With all my bags I should look like a person taking a short break. A visual confirmation was required before proceeding to the next step of my plan.

Unfortunately, after waiting till every middle schooler had been long gone, there were still no signs of the silver princess. I would have to either establish an observation point closer to her house or use Vio to infiltrate middle schools in the area.

I grabbed everything and turned back home.

Which school is Vio going to anyway? It would be really stupid to discover that I was ignorantly playing a stalker while in reality they’re classmates.

“Slow-nii-chan, I didn’t tell you to get me a first-rate fresh poultry from the suburban farms, next time try to use a place that’s a bit closer or call a taxi if you really need to go on a trip to find your inner chicken.”

Said a bored looking lump of curly blonde hair sitting in the chair, she was lazily stretching her upper half on the table. Vio had returned to her proper appearance and less revealing clothes consisting of a dark green hoodie and jeans.

I put the bags on the kitchen’s floor and started unpacking.

“Sorry, I was doing a little espionage work on the side.”

“And fighting with evil, yay delusional-nii-chan. What was this note about not letting anyone in, debt collectors?”

“Something like that, treat any intruder like an enemy wanting to take you back to the mansion. Before I forget, do you know Aura Toril? Or is there any silver-haired girl in your school?”

Vio started ‘ummmm’-ing.

I was planning to explain the note in detail later, while conducting the slime tests, it would also double as a great way of convincing her that such powers truly exist... if the stones were real.

She stopped and asked me a question:

“Doesn’t ring a bell, is she rich?”

“Rich? Why?”

“You may not know it... my brother never cared much about me and my life, but I’m attending an all-girls middle school for pampered rich kids. It has this nice name of saint bla bla bla something.”

“A private school?”

“A private swamp. God, I hate the people there. ‘O-ho-ho-ho how do you do my significantly less successful classmate?’ or ‘look at the diamond necklace my papa bought me for my birthday, it’s about a million more times expensive than the one you have, oh pardon you don’t have one o-ho-ho-ho’ or ‘people with grades better than mine must be cheating o-ho-ho and the ones with grades below mine aren’t worthy talking to o-ho-ho’. Oh! And listen to this one, it’s genuine, ‘I’m organizing a tea party in my home, everyone interested should put their name on the list and after a background check I will pick five people who will be allowed to attend’. Not to mention that I’ve once said ‘fuck you’ to the teacher and now they’re all avoiding me like a plague. I would gladly throw all those little bitches for Viktoria to play with or let Vincent fuck them till they break, especially Noel.”

I had to admit that glancing upon Violet’s dark side was quite fascinating and she made a good ‘o-ho-ho’ impression, it suited her. Furthermore, judging by how fiercely and lively she was talking about her school life, she must have been dying to share it with someone.

"Now stupid-ni-chan, try to imagine the additional destruction you've caused with that message. Although now that I recall it, seeing their shocked faces was pretty funny, a pity that mine wasn't better at that time."

A different kind of imaginary scene was revealing itself in my mind when I added this newly discovered face of Vio to the ones she had already shown me.

Putting Vio in a skimpy leather outfit with a whip in hand…

...no, no, no there’s already Viktoria for this role, though in the case of my twin, with her color and outfit coordination she would end as a leather zebra instead.

“I've already paid for it, don't try to use it against me again. Then why did you pick this school?”

All in all, it has to be a blonde with twin drills.

My cheeky little sister had clicked her tongue, and answered in a slightly regretful tone:

“A mistake, I didn’t want to attend the same school that the rest of my siblings did so I asked father to pick me something else… I was stupid.”

Despite her words, she had quite a satisfied expression and, with her head resting on crossed arms on the table, Vio was carefully watching my reaction, fishing for any signs that I was disturbed by the things she had said. I gave her an amused smile and grabbed one of the items from the bag.

“Here, catch.”

A local newspaper, bought on my way back, was thrown in her direction. Her reaction was too slow and it hit her squarely in the forehead. She made an unhappy pouting face but nevertheless started reading it.

Looks that I’ve passed this test, giving a lecture on how she shouldn’t say such things about the classmates would probably end with her hiding a part of her true self from me.

“Bully-nii-chan, this newspaper is wrong…”

“What do you mean wrong?”

“The year is wrong, it says 2018 in here, but look around our flat. The radio has yet to be invented, not to mention the TV and don’t even get me started on such sci-fi bullshit ideas like computers! We’re clearly living in 1818.”

“Your thinking is too shallow my little sister, this is a newspaper from the future. Make a note of all the big companies mentioned in it, we’re going to buy their shares as soon as they hit the market and in two hundred years we'll be millionaires. Gonna figure out how to turn us into vampires first.”

Vio snickered slightly which easily broke through her faked pouting mode and continued to read silently with a slight smile, while I was finishing unloading the last bag.

“Next week, there’s a grand opening of a new asylum in our city, should I reserve a room for crazy-nii-chan?”

“Make it a room for two, if the rent is cheap and if it has nice surroundings we can move out straight away.”

“Rejected! Next one… let’s see~... this one, a local laboratory is selling some pretty interesting stuff cheap.”

“Guess where the door came from.”

“Ooooh! That explains a lot.”

She was evidently having fun and looked for another story that could be easily warped into a joke or a jab at me.

“Any news about people dying?”

I finished unpacking everything and was now preparing a simple breakfast.

Like in some park for example…

“Death people… death people… want me to read you some obituaries?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Nothing? Heh, TET’s quite effective in suppressing information or the police’s still waiting for more clues before releasing anything to the press.

“Onii-chan, now that I think of it, didn’t you have a laptop on the desk? Did me not providing you with the basic food necessary for survival forced you to sell the thing that was your very soul…”

The more she had said the slower the words were leaving her mouth-

“...forget about this one, it was my brother’s soul, maybe it’s better that it’s gone.”

- only to accelerate suddenly as if trying to leave the area she had mistakenly encroached upon. This was probably her first attempt to openly talk about the things I had told her last Sunday.

Now… this is a hard one. Her mood plummeted all by itself and her stare is stuck on the desk. Should I let her be or do something about it.

To not catch her by surprise I made sure that she heard my loud steps and stopped in front of her with my arms outstretched.

“I want to activate my hugging permit.”

We remained silent for a long while, before she finally switched her gaze to me, sighed and stood up. There were already first signs if tears in the corners of her eyes.

“Yeah, s-since I’m in your room, i-it can’t be helped.”

Vio allowed herself to be comforted by my tight embrace, while I was busy with being happy that I somehow managed to get out of this minefield without triggering any explosions, though after this incredibly long last minute only a little brain power was left to enjoy the warm sensation in my arms.

For once no mistakes were made.

“I want to talk about it with you in detail… but not now. There’s still too much of a double meaning in the warmth I feel now. It wouldn’t be fair both for my brother and my onii-chan if I started confusing the two of you. Give me some more time.”

“I’ve also got some things to talk about, some scary things, some funny things, and some unbelievable ones, but for now let’s eat and go out on a crazy shopping trip. No monetary restrictions.”

She giggled a little with her face buried in my chest before she took out the big guns:

“I can see through your trap, nevertheless I will keep my part of the bed deal, but if you will make me buy yourself a golden bed encrusted with rubies, my onii-chan will become a eunuch while sleeping on it. Then I won’t have much trouble with distinguishing the two of you. Good idea?”

I put more strength into hugging her, but the obtained result was totally opposite to the one of a playful refusal I was expecting.

“Kyuuu!”

The hell was that sound?

I released her and looked down, only to find Violet trying to cover her face that was quickly becoming beet-red, she had probably made this small-animal-like cute-sounding-noise unconsciously.

Handling this swirling blonde ball of emotions may be harder than I thought.