The Red Hand

Chapter 351 – Women are Nothing But Trouble.

"I can't believe your Mom actually moved out." Hishya commented as she set Kana down in front of her aunt's house, retracting her wings. "I was certain that she didn't have what it took to get away from your Dad."

{And also that it wouldn't be a peaceful exit...} (Hishya)

"Their relationship is complicated at the moment." Kana sighed. Her mother had gone through with her ultimatum, though rather than immediately split from Taichi, she'd moved in with her older sister. The hope was that the separation would have some kind of positive effect on the man, but whether that was to actually happen was dubious at best. "Dad's not exactly happy with the situation, but even he admitted that they needed some space since they'd been at each other's throats ever since... Ever since Mom went back to 'normal'..."

{They got close to a fist fight from what I was told, something I never imagined that I'd see since they both hated how much their parents fought like that.} (Kana)

"I suppose that means one down and one to go." Hishya pat her on the back to reassure her. "Though let's try and break whatever nonsense was put on your father without needing to replicate Silfana's mind break."

{I've had that done to me, its not fun. Not fun at all...} (Hishya)

"That would be ideal... Onee-chan said from some documents she found at Naomi's house, our family probably did some kind of brainwashing magic on them, so at least we know they weren't like that because they truly hated Onee-chan..." Kana said with a bitter smile. Akagi had told her repeatedly that it didn't matter if they were controlled or brainwashed. She couldn't forgive them for what they did to her, as no matter what their true feelings were, Akagi couldn't wave her hand and make the decades of abuse and emotional neglect vanish. Kana had hoped that knowing the truth might bring the Demon some solace, thought it only seemed to make her even more frustrated as she cursed the family for stealing something irreplaceable from her.

{Onee-chan...} (Kana)

"But let's put all that out of our minds, for now." Kana shook off her thoughts as she slowly opened the front door, calling to her Aunt and Uncle. "Aunt Nana, Uncle Arima! We're here!"

"There's my favorite niece! Your Aunt and Mother are in the living room!" A man's voice sounded from the kitchen alongside the roil of a coffee pot.

"Huh, now that I think of it, I don't think I've met your Uncle before." Hishya said as she and Kana took off their shoes.

"That's not surprising. He's away on business trips, and I know that Aunt Nana has been nagging him to be home more often." Kana explained that he'd worked a variety of jobs throughout his life and was currently easing toward retirement in a more administrative focused role. "I'm just worried that he's out finding a younger girl to replace Aunt Nana with." She snickered, making it so that her not-so-quiet voice could be heard from the kitchen.

"I heard that!" Arima yelled from the kitchen. "And for the record, my secretary is a sixty-year-old married woman and would kill me if I so much as tried to flirt with her. Not to mention that your Aunt would hunt me down and burn me alive!"

"Your damn right I would!" Nana yelled from the living room, where the girls could hear some kind of commentary coming from the T.V. "You're stuck with me until the end, old man! I'm to old to be dating again!"

"What a woman I let sucker me into this marriage." Arima laughed as the girls stepped around the corner and peered into the kitchen, catching sight of the older, yet strikingly good looking, man wearing a blue suit and red tie while drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee. "Listen you two, take it from me, never marry a woman. They're the biggest troublemakers you'll ever deal with." He winked.

"Oh, I 100% agree with that! This one is nothing but trouble." Hishya snickered while nudging Kana as she rolled her eyes.

"But that's why they're worth it!" (Hishya x Arima)

{Oh great, they get along...} (Kana)

"You've got yourself a good one there, Kana!" Arima set his coffee down before walking over and introducing himself to Hishya, shaking her hand. "I've heard much about you, Hishya. Thank you for taking care of my niece." He smiled. “She's a bit of a handful, am I right?”

"Oh definitely. It's a thankless job, but somebody has to do it." Hishya said with a shit eating grin on her face. "If we leave her up to Akagi, then she's liable to go Scary Kana full time."

{How about I do it right now?} (Kana)

"Are we done picking on me?" Kana groaned, realizing that retorting would only make things worse.

"For now." Hishya winked as she was poked in the cheek by her girlfriend.

“You do remember that I know where you sleep, right lizard?” Kana blew a raspberry at her.

{Oh you know more than that.} (Hishya)

"Oh don't be such a stick in the mud. It just means she cares about you, Kana." Arima laughed at their little back and forth which reminded him of how he and Nana acted. "Your Aunt's done that kind of stuff to me since we met in college, and she never stopped even when we got to this age."

{In fact, I think it got worse!} (Arima)

"Oh great. Good to know that I'll be dealing with this forever." Kana replied, though she couldn't stop the small smile from forming on her lips.

"Oh, don't be a big baby." Nana said as she snuck up behind her and pat Kana on the head before moving around her toward Arima. "If you ask me its better to have a bit of back and forth in a relationship than be a bunch of tired old geezers that can do nothing but sit at home and watch T.V." She laughed as Arima wrapped his arm around her. "Your Grandfather and Grandmother on my side were about as stoic and boring as you can imagine."

"I think Kenji was born without the ability to laugh. I swear that I never even saw him crack a smile even once in his life." Arima laughed as his AR device beeped in his ear. "Oops, I'm going to be late." He said before kissing Nana on the cheek. "I'm only going to Yakutsk for three days this time, and once we get back, I've got a surprise for you." He winked.

"Considering our thirtieth anniversary is coming up, it'd better be a good one." Nana laughed as she returned his kiss.

"How's two weeks in the Bahamas sound?" Arima smiled. “I even got us VIP suites.”

"I think it will do." Nana smiled as the two hugged. "I'll be looking forward to it, so come back quick, alright?"

"Don't worry, I will. Its only a boring educational conference anyway. Something about the burgeoning field of A.I. rights." Arima said before dumping his coffee into a thermos and picking up his briefcase. "Alright, I'm off. Kana do me a favor and tell your sister I said hi and keep an eye out for her, she's been through a lot and needs you more than you know." He said before heading out the door to a waiting cab.

{He always said those words to me every time we parted, but now... They hold an even greater weight...} (Kana)

"I swear, that man has the energy of someone in his thirties despite being over sixty." Nana chuckled as she watched the car drive off from the kitchen window.

"Wait, he's over sixty?!?" Hishya was surprised and confused by the revelation that Arima was even older than Nana despite looking around the same age. "What?!? Did he get implants and mods?!?" She knew that some people would pay good money to reverse some of the effects of aging, but most things beyond superficial makeovers were generally snake oil.

{How much did it cost to reverse the aging process that much?!?} (Hishya)

"His sixty-second birthday is in two months." Nana answered her questions. "And no, he's never done any kind of procedure like that. He did get a knee replacement a few years back, but he's all natural other than that." She smiled.

"Cheats." Hishya clicked her tongue. "Some people have all the luck."

"Says the immortal Dragon, who will look like this for the rest of time." Kana said as she poked her in the cheek. “I don't know why you're complaining, Ms. perfect skin without even trying.” She'd grumbled about that fact a number of times, as did Mika and Naomi. Though Mika was quickly exiled from the “allowed to be jealous group” by virtue of Magical Girl power giving her the same result.

"We're not talking about me right now, and also, don't go reminding me about that." Hishya poked her back.

{Nope, not thinking about it, not thinking about any of THAT. All that matters is now and I'll let future problems be future me's issues!} (Hishya)

"Alright, alright. No, need to get all grumpy, Ms. Lizard." Kana giggled as Hishya thumbed her nose at her.

"That's Empress Lizard to you." Hishya retorted with her proper title. "But anyway, let's not get distracted. We did have a reason for coming here after all."

"Yeah, we came to see Mom." Kana's expression turned a bit more serious as the jovial nature of the conversation died down. "Is she in the living room? I can hear some kind of stream on the T.V." There were all kinds of noise coming from the living room and Hishya felt like something about what she as hearing was familiar.

{Is that some kind of VOD?} (Hishya)

"Huh? Oh yeah, she's been watching a seemingly endless amount of recordings of your sister." Nana explained that Shima had been nonstop watching videos for a while. "Not sure if watching hundreds of hours of recorded video streams is healthy, but I'm not about to stop her."

{Nor could I at this point...} (Nana)

"Recordings?" Kana raised an eyebrow. "Of Onee-chan?"

{They exist? I know there's definitely no home movies of her, so it must be from V.R.} (Kana)

"I guess since everything that happened your Mother has wanted to try and understand the daughter she abandoned." Nana explained. "Rishia was always interested in gaming, and from what I know of that girl, she spent far too much time diving into V.R." She gave a wry smile as she recalled the times she babysat the young Akagi. "The long and the short of things is that I let slip one day that there were probably records of all those events she participated in, and well... She's been obsessed with watching them ever since."

“I knew it! She is watching the VODs!" Hishya nodded. "Those are usually not saved for very long, but you could probably find ones for larger events archived out there, somewhere." She'd watched plenty of recordings herself, mostly as ways to study future opponents for upcoming matches so that she could understand how they played.

{There might be some pretty good ones out there too, especially that Mech Warriors Torny.} (Hishya)

"I suppose watching Onee-chan in her element is probably one of the best ways to understand her." Kana noted that it was probably the only way to truly understand Pre-FWO Akagi. "I watched a few of her games from time to time, but I was admittedly never really that into gaming or events like that." She scratched her cheek in embarrassment. Kana did try and interact with that side of Akagi as much as possible, and while she did cheer her on and push her to embrace her potential in the virtiual world she was never that interested in gaming herself. "But it would be interesting to see how Onee-chan was before the whole FWO disaster."

{I spent a bit of time with her in some V.R. chat rooms, though I don't think we played too much together.} (Kana)

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but your sister hasn't really changed too much over the years. Besides the whole fluffy Demon of Doom part, of course." Hishya chuckled. "Whether it was within FWO or in many of the games we played together before that, she always took it seriously. We both invested an unreasonable amount of time into gaming and looking back now, Akagi was truly more alive when she was playing." She'd talked with her plenty in chat rooms, but Akagi always seemed the most happy when properly immersed in V.R. games and was a completely different person than she was in real life.

{Our V.R. chat sessions were always fun, but she was the kind of person who preferred banter while playing something rather than sitting in a virtual café and chatting. Not that I blame her. Knowing what I do now, it's no surprise she became what she did. Demon Lord or not, Akagi was never going to be a normal person at the end of the day, and I'd wager that she would've eventually turned into one of those people who completely lost sight of the real world and tried to turn the virtual world into their 'true' reality. Though she more or less did that, didn't she?} (Hishya)