"…What do you mean?" Emerald found herself asking, and almost cursed herself as Thiefs Respite lowered lightly in her grasp.
She hated how pathetic she was that she wanted to hear more. Hated the flush that came to her cheeks at his words.
"Again, exactly what I said," the kid gestured at her with his hand, "You look a bit gaunt, and could do with a bath for sure, but you're gorgeous, and you've got an incredible semblance. Illusions right?"
Gorgeous? Her?
She felt her heart beat harshly in her chest and her grip become shaky, "…Yeah…" she replied, practically having to force it out.
"Like I thought, an incredible semblance, not to mention you're pretty damn fast, without my own semblance you're way faster than me, and not to brag but I'm pretty much one of the best at Signal, maybe thee best now that a couple top years graduated," the shook his head and said, and came to a stop standing right in front of her, smiling at her with bright blue eyes, "I'm Daiki, you?" he asked, even though he was practically standing in point blank range of her weapons.
She hesitated for a moment, looking completely conflicted to Daiki's gaze, before replying, "…Emerald." she said, softly.
'I'm playing with fire here.' Daiki thought, even as he grinned at her, "Emerald huh? That fits. With the pretty hair, how beautiful you are and that incredible semblance, what else could you be likened to except a precious gem?"
He was hamming it up. Well, he more or less meant his words and what he said. She really was incredibly pretty, and while her cheeks were a bit gaunt and she looked like she hadn't ate a full meal in weeks, her curves were very apparent. Full thighs, thick thighs, large breasts. And her semblance was crazy useful for sure as well.
Honestly, it was probably only thanks to the healing properties of aura she wasn't pure skin and bones though.
Either way, he was definitely playing with fire here. But then, it might not have been that nice to say or think, but Emerald was so starved for affection and someone to care for her, that she fell in line with Cinder and became a fanatic for her, just because she outright told her she had uses and she wouldn't need to go hungry again.
Cinder wasn't exactly charisma incarnate, or even good at talking really. She was kind of dumb as fuck actually.
…Not to toot his own horn, but Daiki liked to think he was at least a better person than Cinder. Sure, getting to Emerald as he was right now was still skeevy as fuck, but it was still better than Cinder.
And Mercury.
And Adam.
Fuck Adam by the way. He was so gonna kill that guy. In fact, if he had Emerald on his side killing that cuck loser would be easy peasy.
Fucking barn animal.
…Like a precious gem?
Her?
A tingle ran down Emerald's spine, and she felt her cheeks heat up even more. She even found herself having trouble maintaining eye contact.
"Me?" Emerald asked.
And the kid, Daiki just grinned, "Yup, honestly if I had you by my side and helping me out, I could achieve most of my goals pretty easily," he bragged, "If I could, I'd snatch you up for myself right here and now."
"…You would?" she swallowed heavily and feeling her heart beat begin to race, beating a mile a minute.
"If I could, assuming you'd let me," he grinned, before his eyes filled with mischief, "Then again, a girl like you? I might just grab you and steal you away anyway, fuck everyone else."
She should be disgusted by such a statement, a normal woman would be at least. Yet, all she felt was a flutter in her stomach.
"And…what would you need me for?" she hedged, and she saw his eyes flicker to her cleavage displayed in her crop top, before flickering back to her own, if she wasn't paying her full focus to him she would have missed it, "Beyond the obvious."
She wasn't that dumb, him thinking she was beautiful was one of the reasons he'd mentioned already. Multiple times.
He shrugged, grinning, "You seem decently tough, and you've got an awesome semblance…" he trailed off for a moment, leaving her in suspense before abruptly shrugging, "Well honestly right now until my plans come into fruition I couldn't even afford to have a girl as amazing as you on my payroll. unless you wanna be my live in maid, until I can afford full time assistant."
"….A maid?" Emerald blinked.
"Well I do need one, but it's really more me thinking you'd look really hot in one," Daiki just laughed, then held his hand out towards her, "What do you say? I can't promise you everything right now, but I can at least promise you a place where you won't ever need to worry about going hungry again, and somewhere warm and safe….well relatively safe."
He shrugged, "I'm assuming you can deal with the odd beowolf here and there without issue at least going by what I've saw."
Emerald couldn't help but gape at the boy, her mind a whirl of thoughts. This was crazy, so out of the blue. She'd never expected anything like this in a million years. Just some random guy, kid, whatever struck by her looks and seeing a worth in her nobody else ever had.
What were the chances? It almost didn't seem real.
She wanted it to be though.
He, Daiki was the only one who'd ever saw anything of worth in her at all, in her entire life.
"What….about your parents?" she asked, feebly.
"I doubt they'll mind," he shrugged, hand still held out, "They're dead, been dead for more than half of my life. I live alone in a pretty big place all to myself. It gets kind of lonely, and hard to clean up. Also partly the reason why I need a maid."
Oh?
Was it conscious thought? Or was it instinct? Emerald couldn't even tell what one it was herself as she reached out.
And took his hand.
"…I've never had to clean a house before, but I could try." her lips twitched up.
So did his, mirroring her own, "How are you with pleated skirts and thigh highs?" he asked in return.
Emerald blinked, "…I couldn't tell you, I've never been in the position where I could afford nice clothes like that."
"That is so tragic," Daiki gave her a pitiful look, his hand wrapping around her own, and Emerald blinked as she found the boy tugging her along as he turned around, "Alright come on then, I'll show you my place where we can live totally in sin."
And the flirting was back.
…Emerald found she was actually quite liking it and his attention.
On the way to wherever the kid was leading her, he didn't let go of Emerald's hand at all, as if she would disappear the moment she did.
…To be fair, if her nerves did get the better of her, she might have. As it was though, the close contact and the way he casually talked to her, let her soothe her own nerves a bit and get rid of the fluttery nervousness that was besotting her.
It was quite a long walk to be honest, towards the very edge of Vale, just outside the protective range. Towards the kind of place where only huntsmen and huntress trained or the desperate tended live.
For a moment she actually thought he had been lying about everything and felt a brief sense of panic, but finally his home did come into view.
And quite the home it was. Which he happily pointed out.
Large and spacious with a lot of free land around it. It wasn't quite a mansion, but Emerald wouldn't say it was far off either.
…Then again what did she know about houses? She'd never even lived in a proper one herself.
It looked like a cottage, but simply far too big to be one, and as she followed him towards the home, Emerald noted that the wide semi circular viewing terrace let her see into a downstairs kitchen and what appeared to be a living room up stairs.
Even being out on the outskirts where only the combat ready tended to live, Emerald figured the place cost a pretty penny.
'…What the hell am I even doing?' Emerald huffed to herself internally, eyeing her hand clasped in the boys own as he led her by it. She really was pathetic, wasn't she?
Letting some kid she just met take her home, just because he praised her? Just because he claimed to see her worth?
…She hadn't even asked what he was trying to accomplish. Though, it didn't really matter she supposed. He could have done anything he wanted to her before, nobody would have saw or stopped him back in that alley, and with that absurdly powerful looking semblance of his own, she didn't stand a chance against him.
And…naive it may have been. But, deep inside her the little girl that had never had anyone care for her before, wanted to believe him. And she thought she'd outgrown such naive crap.
'Which is why I'm utterly pathetic.' Emerald rolled her eyes as the boy, Daiki opened up the door to the place and led her into a wide sweeping hallway with a large shaggy white fur rug in the middle of it and a hanging rack beside the entrance door. Rich laminate flooring, sweeping archways leading into two different rooms with no doors on the sides of hallway, a large and grand staircase, and just below the arching stair ways was two doors, one thinner than the other, she assumed the bigger lead to the basement.
She wasn't sure about the other.
"So this is my place," the kid finally let go of her hand and turned to her with a grin, "Pretty sweet right?"
"….Yeah, lucky you." Emerald replied on instinct, before realising what she did and mortification spread through her. She sounded so ungrateful when the kid was inviting her to her place the only one who saw worth in her and-
He laughed, "Yeah, I won't lie, my parents might have croaked but at the very least they didn't leave me hanging."
She grimaced, "…Sorry…I didn't mean to say it like that and sound so bitchy and jeal-"
Daiki just continued laughing, "Don't worry about it," he waved her apology off, "Come on, I'll show you the kitchen and we can grab a bite to eat, you probably haven't had a good proper meal in ages." he said, turning on his heel and beckoning her to follower her through the left archway.
What?
Emerald blinked slowly. Just like that? Mouthy little shits usually got a backhand for mouthing off even for little things like that from her experience.
Was he simply that naive? Or just too forgiving?
Putting it out of mind for the moment, Emerald followed after him and found herself stepping into quite a large kitchen. White marble flooring, stainless marble countertops, and incredibly high tech looking gadgets and such all around, some she hadn't even seen before in her life.
And his fridge…it was massive!
Emerald stood awkwardly beside one of the marble counters with a couple sitting stools at it and watched as the younger boy opened up the fridge and began rifling through it, "What are you up for for?" Daiki asked, without looking back at her, "Something hot? Something cold? Maybe a shake or two?"
"….Eh…." Emerald just stared, "Whatever you're having I guess?"
He paused rifling in the fridge and pulled his head out to look over his shoulder and give her a deadpan look, "What a typical girl response," he snorted, "And you don't need to stand around like a lemming, take a seat, relax."
…Was that supposed to be an insult or something? She wasn't even sure what normal girls tended to be like beyond naive and giggly and annoying, all happy all the time.
But Emerald didn't say anything and just sat down on one of the stools.
"I'll make some sandwiches and chicken then, I made this nice roast the other day, full of all the vital proteins anyone on the grind needs," he hummed aloud, "What's your poison by the way? Vanilla? Strawberry? Chocolate? Banana?"
"…What?" Emerald was once again, lost.
In a way, it was kind of novel for Emerald. Watching as the boy went about dragging a massive turkey…or chicken? From his fridge, cut off a bunch of pieces, put it on a plate…microwaved it in a microwave that was literally installed within his wall.
And then made two massive sandwiches on chicken for them both. Before pulling out a blender from a cupboard and she watched as he mixed some pretty high quality milk into it with some form of powder he called 'protein powder'.
And blended it into a pair of vanilla milk shakes for them. That was what the 'poison' question was apparently what flavour she'd prefer. She just went with vanilla because he was.
And then he sat them down in front of her, pulled up a stool and sat opposite of her and began digging into his own sandwich.
Hesitantly, she reached for her own, taking an almost nervous bite out of it. It was good. that was her immediate thought.
The chicken meat was juicy and tender, the bread was soft and easily bit up between her teeth.
She swallowed, taking in the small bite she'd taken out of it, before looking over at Daiki to find half of his already gone, he was practically shoving it inside his mouth with each massive bite.
…Was it weird she thought even his eating was stupidly confident?
"So…" Emerald decided to broach the one subject he'd mainly alluded to for her, but hadn't expanded on, "What exactly…are your plans? And how could I help you with them?"
She would have to prove her worth.
Daiki paused mid-bite, cheeks bulging with the amount in his mouth, before chewing a bit and swallowing. Before downing half of his protein shake in one big gulp, "Ah, that was great," he burped, before smirking at her, "Wanting to get straight down to business huh? Emerald, babe, you need to relax a bit. Chill out a little, get comfortable before diving right into it all."
"I'd love to, but the whole thing about me being here is me being part of your plans," Emerald shrugged, relaxing a tiny little bit, his demeanor eased the tension from her shoulders, "I need to make sure I can do what you want before I'm sure of my position anywhere."
Daiki blinked, before rolling his eyes and smiling, "Well I can get that at least," he replied, "Though I'm pretty sure you can already do everything I need, but even if you couldn't, I'm not gonna toss you aside even if you suddenly lost your semblance or something."
"Because you want to dress me up as a maid and bed me?" Emerald raised an eyebrow at him, almost challengingly.
He hadn't tried to hide the fact he was attracted to her at all.
'Like a precious gem.'
His voice from earlier echoed in her head and Emerald did her best to ignore the fluttery butterflies it brought to her stomach.
"Well yeah, you're beautiful," Daiki shrugged unrepentantly, "But also, because I'm greedy as fuck and refuse to give anything I want to anyone else."
Despite herself, Emerald found her cheeks heating up at the blunt statement.
"Besides, you can do it all anyway," he continued with a grin, "Well, most of it at least. Does your semblance work on grimm?"
She nodded, "Yeah, it does," Emerald replied, "It's not quite as effective on them because they can sense our emotions and all that, but it still works on them."
"Then you're absolutely perf-" he began to say, before pausing, "Well I would call you perfect, but I honestly hate the idea of perfection, so I'll just settle for saying you're absolutely amazing and the best fit I could ask for."
Her cheeks felt like they were blazing as she took in his words. She didn't really get his dislike of perfection, but she didn't really mind either way right now.
"But anyway I've got only a few real goals right now, though they're pretty big," he continued on, leaning his head forward and resting it atop his palm, staring directly into he eyes, "I'm going to become super rich in the future, probably second only to the Schnee. The specifics for that aren't really important and explaining how is kind of complicated. But since you'll basically be my maid and assistant, it needs to be you."
"Me? Why?" Emerald found herself leaning forward, a smile involuntarily tugging at her lips.
"Well, eye candy for one," Daiki winked at her, and she found herself swallowing, he really was quite good looking, "But with your speed, aura already unlocked, semblance and with how sly you are, and the life you've lived, you've got everything you need to keep an eye out for the wrong sort."
Emerald found herself nodding, "Right…yeah," she said in return, "I can do that."
"Secondly, there's someone I want to kill," Daiki's gaze and voice turned absolutely serious almost instantly, and Emerald actually found her eyes widening in shock at the sudden turn, he wasn't so naive after all like she thought not long ago, huh? "In a straight up fight, it'll be a little while before I can beat him head on, the guy is stronger than most fully trained huntsman. But with you and your semblance, I can kill him right now if I want."
There was a lot of questions Emerald wanted to ask, but she settled for two, "Who? And why?" she asked.
…Even though she actually didn't care. She'd killed people before, and hadn't regretted it. If Daiki needed someone dead…then she would happily help him.
What did she care about some random person? When they'd obviously done something to piss of Daiki, the only one who saw anything in her. Who had a place for her by his side.
"His name is Adam Taurus, he's the new leader of the White Fang here in Vale," Daiki's face for the first time screwed up into something frightening, a deep scowl, with a murderous rage in his eyes, "That damn barn animal jumped me with his little Vale pack not long ago and overwhelmed me. Just because I'm human. He was raging about some cat girl faunus leaving him, and blamed humans and saw me as a target. Bastard slit my god damn throat and it's only luck I'm alive." he bit out with a snarl, and lifted his chin, and it was only because of his words and her immediately focusing on his neck that she saw it.
A thin, pale scar almost too pale to notice spreading from one side of his throat to the other. Her eyes widened, 'He survived that!?' she gaped.
"Killing him isn't enough though," Daiki bared his teeth almost ferally, "He humiliated me that night in front of all his little barn animal friends before he got to finishing me off." he all but snarled, lifting his head from his palm and clenching his hands into fists so tight she saw his aura spark over them to stop him from damaging himself.
"So I won't be satisfied until I humiliate him in return," the boy bit out, "I'm going to take everything he has pride in from him, I'm going to dismantle the White Fang, and I'm going to find that girl he's so obsessed over and I'm going to fuck the absolute shit out of her until she shouts from the roof top about how superior we humans are, and only when he's at rock bottom and the girl he's so in love with stolen from him and everyone of his little barn yard pack knows about it, will I kill him."
Wow…
Okay. That was…a lot. He was incredibly angry over this Adam Taurus guy. Not that she could really blame him. It didn't even seem that he was that angry about him almost being killed-
But rather, the humiliation.
…What the hell had this faunus guy done to Daiki to ignite such a rage in the boy who casually laughed off her trying to steal from him and then attacking him?
It must have been something incredibly demeaning.
She kind of didn't like that look on his face though, she liked the laughing casual, flirty Daiki from before.
"So…I'm not enough alone for you, huh?" Emerald gave him a hopefully teasing smile, trying to change the subject, "You gonna dress this cat girl faunus up as a maid too?"
"Doubtful," he scoffed, before shaking his head, "I've got a general profile for her, she's another white fang activist pain in the ass. Usually such a little annoying twit wouldn't come anywhere near a guy like me that will dismantle her little operation, hell I'd arrested her if it weren't for that piece of trash Adam."
A smirk finally returned to his face, "That's where phase one of my plan comes in though, you know the whole getting rich as the Schnee more or less?" he replied, "I don't want to brag, well actually I do because bragging and impressing a pretty girl like you would make me feel awesome."
A giggle bubbled from her lips, "Well impress away, I don't mind," Emerald replied, feeling a warm feeling course through her. He wanted to impress her huh? He was already really impressive though, "Do you want me to flutter my eyelashes? Gasp a little bit?" a bit of her sarcastic side bubbled out involuntarily due to the new atmosphere.
"If you could, that'd be great," Daiki laughed, apparently not at all minding, "But basically, thanks to studying my semblance, I've found a way to generate electricity, like from lightning dust without any dust. In the future, it'll become a second energy source for all of Remnant, discovered by me, and unlike dust it's totally renewable so it'll be cheaper and easier for homes across the world to use to power instead of dust."
A gasp actually did leave Emerald's mouth at his words and her eyes went wide as he spread his arms wide and grandly, "Nobody likes Managerie, they're whiny fucks, and because of that they get shit deals for everything, including dust imports," he snorted, "But see, they're people too at the end of the day, most of them at least. Not including those White Fang barn animal trash. And say I give them good deals? It'll make living so much better for a lot of them. I'll become the god damn hero of the faunus, and have Adam Taurus' little girlfriend buy into all the hype that will come about and crawl into my bed all of her own choice," he finished, his grin becoming completely smug.
"You're…going to become the hero of the Faunus, an entire species of people with hundreds of thousands, millions even of members, all just to get back at this Adam guy?" Emerald gaped.
"Well it'll help me out a lot later as well, since everyone will be getting it," he shrugged, "But yeah, honestly I'm mostly going to see about helping the faunus out with a few little freebies and help, just to get back at Adam."
That was…wow. Was it petty? She didn't know, all she knew was this guy literally slit his throat and humiliated him in a way that seemed to drive Daiki into a rage. Petty was simply too small a word to describe this.
…She couldn't say she didn't like his style though. Completely fuck this guy who done him dirty, over and make his life a living hell, take everything from him.
Normal girls probably would be put off about a guy they were interested in wanting to fuck another girl. But…while she'd much prefer his attention on her, she didn't give a fuck about other girls as long as he continued to have a place at his side for her and-
"But yeah anyway," Daiki sighed and his smug smirk turned into a genuine smile that he levied at her as he stood up and walked around the counter to stand in front of her, "If you become mine Emerald, you don't need to worry about ever going hungry or anything like that again. I'm going to take everything this world has to offer from the women, to the money, to the fame. And you're going to be beside me every step of the way." he said, reaching out to her and gentle cupping her chin.
A shudder ran down her spine, "Okay…" Emerald's lips curved up into a massive grin, "I'm all yours, Daiki." she breathed out.
"Brilliant." his brilliant blue eyes glittered, before he leaned down and his lips captured her own.
Alright boys and girls here we be back and bouncy with the good ol' chapter five.
Not a whole lot went on in this chapter. It was really about Emerald and Daiki managing to recruit her and gain her loyalty. Probably done pretty badly, but well, have you seen how Cinder did it. She just rolled up on Emerald, cornered her and said, 'Come with me if you don't ever want to be hungry again.' and boom, that was Emerald set on the Cinder Route. It was pure dumbassery.
Well, I suppose it did reveal that Daiki is very petty, so petty he will go to great lengths to uplift an entire race just to rub it in the face of a guy who wronged and humiliated him, to then steal his girl and cuck him. Truly a pettiness we as people have to admire.
Welp, anyway that's all for this chapter. I'ma head to bed. As always if you wanna read ahead with advanced chapters for this, Systematic Shinobi, Mayhem, Devour, To Go Even Further Beyond and more, then you can do so on the Pa-atreon.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.