CH.28 Wavering Thoughts
Saori is struggling to stand up after Akane's barrage of punches. Her face is covered in burn marks and she has a bloody lip. Akane is standing a right above her and demands.
"Get your ass up! I'm not through with you for a damn second!"
Saori grits her teeth as she angrily thinks.
"I can't be losing to her…I can trounce my mother, but I can't even dodge this weakling's attacks."
Akane then adds.
"I can't believe that Shido would even want to trust you. You don't even have a single iota of compassion."
Saori finally stands up and responds, with an oddly defensive tone.
"What do you even know about me!?"
Eight Months Ago
Saori had awakened her powers after a traumatic experience when two people claiming to be her friends attempted to blackmail her with forged photos of her in explicit situations. She was also having difficulties with a male teacher at her school who would not take a hint. Once Saori had a grasp on her powers, she took her revenge on all three of them. With how she planned it, the police ruled it as a double murder and a suicide.
She hasn't told anybody about the incident and doesn't plan to. At the moment, she is walking around the city and is on her way home from school. The school held a service today, and Saori could only laugh in mind about her getting away with it. She is walking towards her home in the suburb area when she receives a call on her cell phone. She looks at the ID, and it's is her father.
"Hello, what's up, dad?"
Her father talks to her in a friendly tone.
"Hey, Saori, I can see you from here. Look up at the building to your left."
Saori looks around and sees her father in a nearby building waving to her. She waves back and asks.
"Did you just want to say hi?"
Shido then sounds a little more down as he continues.
"I actually want to talk to you about something. I'm in a restaurant, so I'll buy you anything you want if you're hungry."
Saori agrees since she didn't eat a very big lunch today. Her mother has been busy with the newest addition to their family, a baby brother, to really have time to make five lunches. Saori meets her father inside a café on inside the building and orders a chocolate parfait. Shido is a bit taller and is wearing a simple black suit with a red tie. Saori and her father casually talk about various things and laugh a little together. Then, Shido gets to his troubles.
"Saori, I want your opinion on something."
Saori then puts on a fake surprised look and thinks.
"Oh, is my precious daddy going to hit on me too?"
Shido then bites his lip a little as he explains.
"At my workplace, there's this new voice director down there, and I think she's hitting on me."
Now Saori is getting distrustful.
"Oh,…he's considering having an affair. You'd think with six kids, that he isn't physically starved."
She then, in a wondering tone, asks.
"And you don't want me to tell mother about it?"
Shido then shakes his head as he answers very straight.
"No no no, I'm very much telling your mother about it. I won't keep secrets from her. Secrets lead to mistrust, and I love her too much to lose her trust because of something like this."
Saori is genuinely surprised by this response because she really believes him. She then asks.
"Then why'd you invite me up here and asked me about it?"
Shido then answers.
"It happened today, and I just needed to tell someone to get it off my chest. Believe me; I'm not going to cheat on your mother, ever."
Later that night
Saori, a little skeptical, listens to her parents by opening a small gateway of shadow underneath her parent's bed as Shido and Kurumi talk before they go to bed. Shido is taking a deep breath while Kurumi sits on his lap with her arms around his neck as she is being flirty with him. He then explains to her about the new woman at his office. She responds by asking in a sultry way.
"Oh, is she prettier than me, Shido?"
Shido firmly denies it as he compliments his wife's very apparent beauty.
"No way! Kurumi, you still look as incredible as the day I met you. I think the six kids we have is proof enough that I still find you very attractive."
Kurumi then snickers a little as Shido then starts looking closer at Kurumi's features through her nightshirt and gulps a little. Kurumi then blushes herself and says.
"Well, I wasn't expecting such compliments and gazes tonight, my love."
Saori, now content, leaves her parents alone; plus if she stayed, she probably wouldn't look at them in the same way ever again.
Next day, in the evening
Saori is back at the café, but this time, she is eating a strawberry sundae. As she eats, she thinks to herself.
"Why did I ever doubt my daddy? I love him so much, and I love my mom just the same as him. He's more honest than any other humans I know."
As Saori eats her treat, she hears two gentlemen speaking behind her from the neighboring table. One of them says.
"Today, that new intern was hitting on me."
The other man responds.
"You mean that girl with the dyed hair?"
Saori takes an interest in their conversation as she listens to the first man talk about a similar situation. But the man is clearly interested in having an affair, and even brags about being able to have his with two women. He even claims to not care about the ramifications his own children would experience.
"If she divorces me, she isn't getting any money, so the courts will give me full custody anyway."
Saori grips her spoon tightly as she growls under her breath.
"Nothing like my dad. This guy doesn't deserve what he has. I think what he needs right now, is a healthy dose of fear to cool off."
Saori gets a good look at the man's face before she leaves the café. She then smirks a little as she thinks of things for tonight.
Later
Saori is eating dinner with her family. Her older identical siblings, Reiji and Asami, her younger sisters, Miki and Emi, and her baby brother, Koji, are eating a meal prepared by Kurumi. They are eating a simple dinner of curry and rice with salad. Saori enjoys her mother's cooking, but she prefers her father's cooking since he is the better cook. Since Koji is still nursing, Kurumi has to wait to eat; Shido prefers to wait for her to finish. Asami and Reiji finish before the others because they have plans for the night, koji falls asleep as soon he gets full, Miki and Emi both immediately go do their homework. Shido finishes before Kurumi, so he goes to take a bath first so he can get ready for bed. This leaves Saori, who is on her third portion, alone at the table with her mother. Saori doesn't know much about her mother's past, so she asks.
"Mom, have you ever lied to dad before?"
Kurumi is a little surprised by the sudden question. But, she gives a very direct answer.
"Yes, I have, but it was a long time ago, and he knows about it."
Saori, now curious about the directness, asks.
"Why so direct with my question?"
Kurumi now gets a little mischievous herself as she asks.
"Why all the questions? Is there a boy who's caught your eye?"
Saori gets a little embarrassed as she quickly denies it.
"No, what makes you say that!?...(calms back down) I just want to know if you genuinely love him or not."
Kurumi then puts a more peaceful smile on as she explains to her daughter.
"Saori, believe when I say that before your father, I couldn't have cared less about other people. Truth is, before you, your brothers, and your sisters were born I still couldn't have cared less about other people. Only your father; we were married less than a year, and I ended getting pregnant before our first anniversary. So I think it's safe to say that I do love your father."
Saori doesn't feel anything that would question her mother. Rather, she's happy that she can trust her mother. Saori excuses herself from the table and says she's going to the library, but before she leaves, Kurumi gives her one last word of confidence.
"Always remember that no matter what, I love you, Saori."
Saori smiles and responds.
"I love you too, mom."
Saori exits her home and disappears into the shadows of the night-filled city. Elsewhere, the man that Saori heard in the café is out on the town with the woman with dyed hair. He is currently with her at a bar getting drinks. He goes to use the bathroom; as he finishes and washes his hands, he begins to hear faint laughing. He looks around the room to see the source. He finds nothing and just goes back to his date, who is oddly silent despite being an apparent flirt. The woman with dyed hair simply remains silent with a smile.
Later
The man has brought his date to a shady hotel. They go into a room, and he makes multiple passes at her, but she doesn't give a response beyond her smile. This begins to get on the man's nerves as he says, irritated.
"Hey, cut it out with the creepy smile! It was cute when we met up, but it's just…"
He shakes her a little, and her hair falls off as it is revealed to be a wig. But what startles him, is that she doesn't move anymore, and her hair is black. The laughing from earlier comes back but is louder as a hand reaches at his ankle from under the room's bed. This causes him to scream as he falls to the ground from shock. Saori emerges from under the bed in her spirit form, but the man is simply seeing a crazy girl coming from under his bed. She has a sadistic smile as she laughs at him for getting so scared and mocks him.
"Ufufufufu, you should see that look you have. Oh… it looks like you pissed your pants."
Saori then produces a bucket of what appears to be red paint. She then continues to berate the freighted man.
"Do you who I am? I'm an angel of death come to earth. I find unfaithful people such as you and punish them."
The man pleads with her.
"Look, I'm a family man, okay. I have a wife and two daughters. I just want to go back to them, please!"
Saori grits her teeth at the man's pleas.
"Wife and kids!? You came here to cheat on your wife, and I heard how little you truly care about your kids. Now, take off your shirt."
The man, still shaking, takes off his shirt, and Saori dips her fingers in the red paint and begins to draw on the man's body using her fingers as a brush. She draws six targets on his body, and upon finishing, she opens a small dark portal and produces Kurumi's musket. The man immediately runs away, but Saori instantly shoots all of the targets in the center. She is disappointed because she didn't tell him the fun part.
"Little did he know that this isn't red paint. I had a little fun with his tramp before I got here. How I wish I could have told him that."
Saori vanishes since someone most likely heard the gunshot. She rides the train home to calm down. She receives a phone call from her father, who is concerned about her. He is worried because she is out rather late and knows that there are a lot of weirdoes running around at night. Saori is only further reminded that one of the only people that can actually be trusted is her father.
At the Itsuka home, Kurumi is reading a story to Emi. She is reading a longer book that Emi had picked out because when Shido reads to her, he uses different voices, and so he reads her shorter more fairy tale-like stories.
"Anna looked at the second story window and saw a young girl with blonde hair. This girl, who she could barely see, sat in a chair as old lady brushed her pretty hair, but it looked like it was hurting the girl."
Kurumi continues to read for a little while longer, and Emi falls asleep holding a kitty stuffed animal. Kurumi gives her youngest daughter a little kiss on the forehead and quietly leaves her room. Kurumi pokes her head into Miki's room and sees that she fell asleep while studying. Kurumi sighs as she picks up her daughter and puts her to bed. Miki's grades haven't been fantastic, so she's been studying to the point of exhaustion.
As Kurumi exits Miki's room, she notices Saori coming up the stairs. Kurumi welcomes her home as she asks.
"Was your evening enjoyable, Saori?"
Saori smiles at her mother and simply nods before going to her room. Saori sits on her bed as she stares at a photo of her parents at their wedding, debating something. At this point, Saori only has access to six of the twelve bullets. She has yet to take power from Koji and Emi. She summons a shadow to hand her one of Kurumi's muskets, jumps into a shadow and activates the tenth bullet, Yud. This allows to look into her mother's past, and she's not very happy with certain events.
Saori emerges from her shadow in her spirit form with her normal eye glaring with red.
"How dare she do those things to him…after all he's done for her."
Saori grits her teeth as she is actually having thoughts of murdering her mother. She readies her guns as she uses the shadows and warps into her parent's closet. She pokes her head through the closet door and sees her parents sleeping in their bed. Saori quietly emerges from the closet with her pistol ready to fire. However, she sees her parents embracing as they sleep. She also thinks harder about the positive aspects of her mother's actions since she agreed to marry Shido. Every night since that day, Shido and Kurumi have slept in the same position, she's given him six children that they both genuinely love, and she has always them treated kindly. With all of this, Saori can't hate her mother; she still loves her very much.
"There are two kinds of forgiveness…forgiving the action, and forgiving the person. I can't do the former, but I can the latter."
Two Months later
Saori has claimed the lives of a few others in the past two months. The police are declaring a string of isolated incidents that aren't connected. They only say this to avoid causing panic. Saori is at school at the moment. At this point, she has siphoned power from Koji, which caused him to get sick for a couple of days. While at lunch, Saori is talking with her elder sister about a matter that she wants information on. A few days ago, Saori was picking Miki up from her school, which is Keisei Junior High School, and she noticed that one of Miki's friends had bruises on her wrists. Saori ordered her older sister to get information from any source. Asami is much more socially active with her friends than Saori is if she had any.
The two sisters are talking on the roof of the school with Saori having a puppet keeping tabs on the staircase. Saori is talking to her sister in a threatening manner and even has her backed against the wall of the doorway.
"What do you mean you don't have any information?"
Asami is afraid of her younger sister as she explains, nervously.
"Saori, I don't have any friends that are even in middle school. I couldn't get information from a place where I don't know anybody, except for Miki."
Saori growls a little and says.
"Fine, it's apparent you're not of any use to me in this endeavor."
Asami, still freighted, asks.
"How can treat me like this? If I did something to upset you, I'm sorry."
Saori begins to walk away and explains.
"An apology would be worthless at this point because you'd only make one because of the fear.(In her head) I also have no real problem with you; I just need an informant under my thumb. Maybe I should get Reiji on this too."
As Saori walks down the stairs to get back to class, she receives a phone call from her mother. Basically, Koji has a stomach ache and she has to keep an eye on him, so she can't meet Miki on her way home from school. Kurumi usually picks up Emi or Miki from school and asks her older children to pick up the one she doesn't. This isn't new since they live pretty far away from their schools. Reiji is picking up Emi from her elementary school. Saori happily agrees since she likes spending time with her beloved little sister. Plus, she can ask about her friend and those bruises.
Saori meets her little sister at the usual spot for her to meet up with their mother. Miki has her mother's black hair, which she keeps ay back length and is unkempt lately due to her late studying. She has Shido's amber-brown eyes, and is wearing her school's uniform, which used belong to Kotori. The two sisters casually greet one another, and Saori even offers.
"Hey, how about some ice cream? My treat."
Miki happily agrees to go with her big sister for a treat. Miki and Saori are the closest of the siblings when compared to the others. Saori actually remembers as a little girl when she asked for a little sister for her birthday one time. A little later after they get their ice cream, Saori asks Miki about her friend.
"So, Miki, who was that friend of yours I saw the other day? I ask because I wonder why you don't hang out with her that much."
Miki, who is licking a soft-served swirl ice cream cone, thinks and answers.
"Well, her mom calls her home almost every day after school, and she never says what it's about. I don't ask about it either because it's her family."
Miki doesn't suspect anything since she and her siblings usually do things to help their parents, so to her it's normal. Saori, on the other hand, has a better idea of who to look into. Saori rubs her sister's head with a smile. Even she before her new hobby, Saori has always been kind to her younger siblings. She then says to her beloved little sister.
"If you're having problems with classes, I can tutor you."
Miki's eyes light up as she responds.
"Really? Thank you so much, big sis."
Saori decides to drop Miki off at home and promises her that she (Saori) will be home in time to help with tutor her. Right now, Saori wants to find out more about Miki's friend. Saori manages to track her down from finding out about her daytime job as a tutor for a cram school that teaches younger children. Saori follows her home from her job and finds out where the bruises came from.
The girl, who can't be older than Miki, is living alone with her mother. The girl's mother is using her daughter as means to get steadier income. However, things get violent once the mom sees the grade on her recent tests, which are all 100%. She yells at her daughter and starts hitting her across the head and grabs her by the wrists whenever she's about to fall over. She also loudly yells at her.
"Why are trying to leave me!? You're just as awful as your father!"
Saori decides to wait another night to prepare herself to punish this woman for attacking her daughter. Besides, Miki's tutoring is more important to her anyway. Upon walking through the door of her home, Saori smells the aroma of pork cutlet curry. She walks into the kitchen and sees both of her parents preparing dinner. Kurumi is working on the salad and rice while Shido is working on the curry itself. Shido is still wearing his work uniform without the jacket and his undershirt has the sleeves rolled up. Saori wonders about this since her father doesn't normally cook on days that he works. Emi is sitting at the dinner table with a fork and a happy face with an innocent blush.
Miki comes into the room and explains to her sister that Emi got a perfect score on her final test in school this year and she asked their father to make pork cutlet curry as a reward. This only adds fuel to Saori's rage against that woman who abuses her daughter for excelling at school. Saori sits next to her youngest sister and praises her for her hard work. Tomorrow, Saori intends to have a lot of fun with her next target as she intends to make it slower.
Before going to sleep, Saori listens to Emi on through the other side of the wall and can hear Emi sobbing a little. Kurumi has just finished reading the story that she has been reading to Emi for the last couple of months. The ending of the story has gotten the young girl to start sobbing, and Kurumi presses Emi's head against her chest as she explains.
"Its okay, Emi, it's just a story."
Emi, still sobbing, says.
"But, her story was just so sad. Plus, Anna…"
Kurumi starts gently rubbing her daughter's back as she soothes her.
"Anna learned that she's always been loved; just like you and your brothers and sisters."
Emi then grabs her mother's rose-red dress and asks.
"Momma, will you stay with me until I fall asleep, please?"
Kurumi nods and lies next to her daughter and gently smiles as she watches her fall asleep. Saori then begins to feel a slight sense of guilt that she even had the notion of causing harm to her loving mother. Kurumi may not be a saint, in fact, she's quite indifferent towards most other people, if not resentful, but she shows nothing but love for her children.
Back to the present
Saori shakes her head as she prepares to engage Akane , but takes a more defensive stance. However, things are getting bad for the both of them as Aki has made his way to the battle scene. Saori may have to start relying on Zafkiel now, something she really doesn't want to do.
Author's Note- I actually have been working on this particular chapter before the last two, but I didn't know when I wanted to place it, but I really wanted to do a Saori centered chapter. This also why it is much longer than last two chapters.