Kazue: This is an anticlimactic chapter...sorry...


The wine was being poured by a small neko with beautiful white ears. She'd been around to everyone so the only one left was the king, or rather my older brother. She poured the wine in his glass and stepped back to wait for anyone who wanted a refill.

Brother took one sip of his wine before he spat it back out. With an angry shout, he jumped out of his seat and turned to the neko with glazed eyes. He had already drunken about ten bottles of wine on his own and was dead drunk but that only enflamed his anger even more. "You brought the wrong wine, you insolent bitch."

One raise and lower of his hand and she was down for good, her blood soaking him thoroughly. That was the first but definitely not the last time I had seen blood flow because of my brother's anger and by his hand.

Back then I was fourteen and him nineteen. I loved him as all younger brothers love their older brothers but that was when I became aware that he was not sane. He had terrible anger issues and drove others insane. I had known the men under his command weren't in their right minds but I had thought my brother was different. I really had. But that moment showed me that my brother was just as bad if not worse than the men I had become used to being around.

I believed that my brother would change; that his anger wouldn't rule his life. But that night he did change, for the worse. I suppose it was the guilt of killing that neko girl for that silly reason. Or maybe he just delved deeper into insanity.

But then he turned to me and started taking his anger out on me. First it was simple commands, making me his belittled servant. Then the comments that drove me into a corner. He started with the knife play on my body, littering my chest, back and even my face with scars. He'd said, "Now we match," as he drove the knife into my cheek.

He had been drunk and had stared at his reflection in the wine for too long. I just happened to be the next thing he saw after that. I had always thought that I looked uncannily like him but now nothing told us apart except for the skin tone. And even that was growing difficult to see through.

Brother had an obsession with my hair. It was sometimes scary, the way he'd pull my hair, or braid and unbraid it over and over again. His own hair he kept wild and uncombed but mine he spent hours on. I had already had it long but in a fight my opponent cut my hair. Brother made sure he was dead. I never saw why he cared for my hair the way he did but he would see to it that it was combed and washed every morning; even going so far as to force me into the bathroom even when he was late.

After the cut to my hair, his anger at me grew in quantity and quality. I was beaten on a regular basis from day to day. But as soon as my hair was back to shoulder length, his anger lessened again. As if he was content again, he went back to catering to my hair. From then on, no one, not even as a joke, laid a hand on my hair. Not my opponents or the men under brother for fear of being killed in anger.

Brother gradually stopped beating me as I got bigger. He lost the physical ability to hold me down. I had been given all the chores for him and with being used to being ordered around, I grew stronger. He still played his knives on me on occasion but it had lost its sting.

Before I knew it, I was the ones doing the kill orders that pertained to nekos. Brother never left the warehouse anymore. It was always me doing his work but he was still strong enough to slam any of the challengers of his position back into place. I could probably force him down but he was still my brother.

I clung to the fact that he was just my brother.


He was looking at me with a strange expression on his face; one that I don't ever remember seeing in my life. The neko was watching me with another look on his face.

It was odd but I felt my skin prickle and I instantly knew he was here. His presence still scared the daylights out of me. I turned to him, "Akefia, what are you doing down here?"

My brother looked at me with empty eyes and backhanded me across the face.

"Ah. He's drunk again. Why else would he be down here?"

He grabbed my hair before I could stumble backwards and he pulled me up to his face and sneered, "Why's the brat still alive?" He had been drunk so many times he didn't slur anymore.

I stood limply with no force left in my body. I kept my mouth shut; anything I said at this point would make him enraged further.

Akefia growled and threw me across the room against the wall right next to the kid. He moved over to me without a fumble in his step. He'd taken control of that too. It was probable that no one would even be able to tell he was drunk. But it was the look in his eyes. It was the nasty emptiness that reflected my face whenever I stared at them.

I didn't look at him and waited for the blow. I was surprised when it didn't come. I was holding my breath waiting for the pain that was sure to hit sometime.

A muffled cry drew my eyes upward. And they widened to the size of sand dollars. The neko had kicked a leg out and now had a gash down his leg. I pushed the kid's leg away and took the next one, this time a stab right into my shoulder. I flinched but nothing more.

Before he could do anything else, someone grabbed Akefia and pulled him away from me and the boy.

I looked up and saw the man that had taken the twins before. He was still the same with his impossibly long hair.

Another man was with him this time who went straight for the chains holding the boy up. He released his arms and held him up before releasing his legs and removing the gag.

I couldn't bring myself to care, I was still shocked a little that he had taken the knife the first time.

"You alright? That must have hurt." The kid was looking at me with those deep purple eyes that held so much I was forced back into my own shock.

The man holding him was looking at me with colder eyes. He set the kid down and walked over to me, turning me so that he could look at the knife still in my shoulder. He ripped the knife out in one straight line and started to bandage the wound.

I just sat there quietly, staring at my brother across the room with the other guy. Of course Akefia was giving problems. As soon as the guy was done with my shoulder, I stood up and walked over to the two others. I removed the other guy's hands from my brother and pulled my now bleeding brother towards the stairs.

Akefia tugged and punched me until I was forced to let him go. He ran back to the other guy with the long black hair and kicked him in the back, sending him flying towards the kid and the second guy.

I moved in the blink of an eye and caught the first guy before he could slam into both the others. I set him down and ran forward, heading straight for Akefia's blind side. His eye had lost most its eyesight when the scar was made. I moved behind him and slammed my elbow backwards into the spot between his shoulder blades.

Akefia instantly crumpled to the floor.


Kazue: So yea...That's pretty boring...No words spoken but the first few by Akefia...I'm adding at least one more chapter...But there may be more. Depends...

Next chapter: -unknown-