"Haha, I win again! Pass over those rocks!" Valeria rubbed her nose with a triumphant smile as she stood proudly at the edge of the grassy cliff, across from the quiet redhead. Shion grabbed the shining teal rocks and gave them to Valeria, only holding onto one for himself. Valeria arched her eyes and had her greedy hand still outstretched. "Uh, Hongshi? It's the rules, I'm supposed to have that rock."
The pair were playing rock paper scissors and the goal was to gain all of the rocks. The rules were simple: if you win, you get three rocks, if you lose, you give away three rocks. Valeria was caught snooping around a group of gambling geezers and was intrigued by the concept of "prizes". Shion pouted slightly and shook his head. "Can't I just keep one, Lifeng? It's so pretty." He lifted it in the sunlight and the colour grew richer, not necessarily sparklier. It was similar to Valeria's eyes. Valeria crossed her arms, eyeing him like he was a weird alien.
"Hey, I told you to call me Valeria! I don't like my Che'ang name. But also, there are a lot of these rocks down by the river, what's so pretty about such cheap rocks?" Valeria sat back down and tried lifting the rock up to the sky like the boy did. "I guess it has an unusually rich colour but it looks dull."
"That's what makes it pretty."
"You're an odd one but, we've got another odd one over there." Valeria threw her rock towards a bush where Tianyu leapt out of. The girl gasped and stumbled a bit before realizing she was noticed. She nervously looked down, awkward at being put on the spot.
"Not bad, you managed to find me. So what do you want?" Valeria picked her ear. When there were no responses, she turned around to see Tianyu looking at the teal rocks with interest. "...Do you want to come over and sit?"
Tianyu looked flustered but then swallowed, nodding. Tianyu then carefully sat down, sharing a brief moment of eye contact with Shion before the redhead looked away with disinterest. Tianyu picked up a rock and her eyes glowed with fascination. Valeria scoffed in disbelief. "What's with these kids? Are rocks even this fascinating. Hmph, I unintentionally started hanging with Hongshi because he seemed pitiful and then Tianyu ended up following us."
Shion got up and dusted himself, smiling at Valeria, before leaving. "I'm going to head back. Otherwise grandfather will get mad. Next time, come up with an international name for me too."
"Sure sure." Valeria waved lazily as she lied down, not sparing a glance. The boy then disappeared. Tianyu watched him leave before turning towards Valeria. "Are you two friends?"
"No, I told you I don't want to be friends with anyone, at least not within the clan. He's just pitiful, having a tyrant grandfather and a scumbag father." Valeria picked her nose and Tianyu gasped.
"Y-you shouldn't talk about the ex-Chief like that!"
"Why are you going to tell on me?"
"No…"
"Then there's no problem."
The cliff became a regular hangout for the trio and they've grown used to each other's presence. While there was a silent agreement that Valeria didn't expect anything from them nor did she want to meet whatever expectations they've had, Tianyu vowed that she would never betray Valeria. Although she was forced into a "friendship" with Valeria, the female gorilla had a soft side that many didn't expect. She had heard that Valeria's parents were continuing a strict upbringing for Valeria to the point that there were no familial bonds but rather the blood that connected them. Valeria's violent attitude, she had come to learn, was a cover for her rather empathetic nature. Even her violent tantrums was her coping mechanism to deal with whatever vulnerabilities she felt. Her family truly stuck to Lavine's motto of "Zero Room for the Weak."
On the other hand, she felt uneasy about Shion. Even Valeria didn't seem to notice the boy's strange tendency. He plastered a timid smile in front of the girl but Tianyu grew more aware of his sadistic tendencies. Even when Valeria brought her pet rabbit to show, Tianyu noticed his hands shaking and the unusual glow in his eyes. When Valeria left, he had caught a bird with ease and crushed its frame within his hand. Even the rock he found beautiful, he perceived its beauty far differently from Tianyu. Both admired the rocks because it held resemblance to Valeria. But Shion enjoyed the dullness from Valeria's eyes that seemed to occasionally lose its light and all hope when she was forced to carry her father's ironclad will. In other words, Shion enjoyed the look of devastation Valeria sometimes had. He also didn't bother hiding his true nature from Tianyu, in fact he purposely showed it to her. It was all an amusing game to him, Valeria's devastation was something she learned much later that he wanted to play with. While he slowly built a sense of kinship with Valeria during the three's hangout, he waited for the day he went out on an expedition with his grandfather. He returned, with no fake facade and showed his true self to Valeria immediately by crushing her pet rabbit.
Shocked, Valeria refused to see him because she showed slight fear. He then attacked Will, knowing full well that it would hurt Valeria the most. Over the years, Valeria had also grown more tired from the pressure her parents had given her to lead the family. She had taken on additional taxing exercise to prevent her parents from overbearing Will, but that also sparked a small and dark spot of resentment and envy towards him. Neither Valeria nor Tianyu had noticed that Shion had purposefully manipulated Valeria to cultivate the small dark spots in her heart. When she lowers her guard and expresses that she hates training or she's worried about Will, he feeds her doubt and directs her attention towards Will.
"Too bad Will is so weak, otherwise you wouldn't need to take on these training."
"We will find a cure for Will! That way, you can relax."
"So you're saying you can't even enjoy your manga like Will?"
"The difference between you two is drastic. I don't mean it in a bad way it's just.."
When Shion openly attacked Will, Valeria felt shaken and a mixture of emotions. While many of her thoughts were concerns and anger, there was a brief instance where she thought: "Am I free?"
The guilt she felt towards that one thought haunted her. She refused contact with Shion and TIanyu as she visited her younger brother at the hospital everyday in addition to the additional training she received everyday. She found out later from Tianyu, that Shion was targeting her brother to mess with her, which upsetted her more. She had anger tantrums more frequently and became more emotionally unstable to the point she developed a new coping technique, which was numbing her emotions. She started to learn how to kill other humans, and was sent to eliminate minor criminals. Although death to minor criminals was too cruel, the Che'ang government looked the other way because the Longhu clan was the backbone of the empire's strength and the Lavines consisted of a fifth of the military led by Shion and his grandfather. Valeria was filled with guilt of killing others and exhaustion from the expectations of carrying her family. She would be responsible to be one of the strongest warriors of the Lavine clan, she would be responsible for giving birth to an even stronger warrior who will be the next leader of the clan, she would be responsible for killing more criminals. After watching Shion kill his father at his coming of age ceremony, which is held as optional for other Lavines but mandatory for the two head families, she felt the stress come crashing down all at once. The stress led her to find herself wrapping her hands around her own brother's neck.
"I don't want any of this. If only you were healthy, no, if you weren't born, I could just run away with no responsibilities."
She woke up to her senses soon after he lost consciousness and shocked at what she did, she began to avoid her younger brother from guilt. As she couldn't see both Will's and Shion's faces, she began to regain control of her stress and emotions and eventually her original character. She later heard from Tianyu that Will had followed Shion on his expedition, titling him his teacher. Valeria was unsurprisingly shocked, but she had told Tianyu, the only person she could talk to: "All I can do for him is to take my position as an heiress. That's the only way I can let him live." She was then tossed onto a boat for the Hunter Exam.
"Hmmm...this Tianyu person isn't a bad person." Leorio propped his chin on his hand, not really knowing what to say. He felt bad for Valeria's burden that she carried and could see why she would want to end her clan's traditions. He also didn't believe that Valeria actually wanted to kill Will out of resentment.
"Yeh, I know. But she's still such a fat coward, why else would Shion be able to bully her around?" Valeria sighed.
"I don't know if this makes you feel better but I don't think you actually harboured ill intentions towards your brother. Don't you think it was rather that you couldn't see yourself being able to protect him that you wanted to let him off easy? Of course, I'm not saying what you did was right. Killing is too extreme." Melody suggested and Leorio nodded.
"Maybe you're right and I don't think I can redeem myself from that. But I promised myself, I won't kill anyone else so easily. Unless of course they're an absolute asshole who killed others with no sense of guilt. Or they are a redhead with a long braid, in the Lavine clan, and his name is either Hongshi or Shion. But I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to break the tradition by not killing Papa during the ceremony and I won't run away from my responsibilities. As much as I hate him." Valeria clenched her fists with a determined spark in her eyes.
"You know what? I'll help you pack a punch too! And you said that meeting us has helped you grow right? Then, I'll go to your ceremony with you and act as your brake!" Leorio folded his arm and puffed his chest out with pride because he thought he was such a cool and considerate friend. Valeria, on the other hand, thought he was batshit crazy.
"Are you insane? It's like putting a free meal into a den of lions! They're all crazy, Leorio, they have no grain of remorse for killing I can't send one of my only friends to be defiled by barbarians!" The way Valeria phrased it could easily be interpreted in a different way and Leorio immediately hit her head.
"Don't say it like that gorilla! But don't worry. If I act as your brake, then you can protect me in you're saying you can't gut a few lions?" Leorio smirked. Valeria was speechless before smiling in defeat. "I'll forgive you this once for calling me a gorilla."
As they laughed away, Melody smiled to herself. It seems like the violent tremors of her heartbeat have died down.
"What?" Valeria asked. Kurapika and Leorio exchanged glances before the blonde restated what he had said.
"I'm coming with you too."
"But don't you have your job as a bodyguard? And you just recovered and you're still wobbly and you're-" Kurapika raised his hand to stop her from talking before checking his phone. "How long do you suppose you'll take for you to wreck the ceremony?"
"Well...it's on the fifteen…"
"So I say give it ten days? Then Melody, can you tell the boss I'll be on sick leave for ten days?" The Kurta boy interrupted and his coworker nodded with a smile.
"Good luck, Valeria." She smiled before separating ways from them.
"Now then, let's go meet the infamous Shion." Kurapika smiled at Valeria while Leorio nodded. "Don't worry Valeria, you won't be heading there by yourself now. You can't run either because we are here."