Mimi woke, head throbbing. She groaned trying to recollect what happened and why her head hurt like hell. A rush of memories had her inwardly open her mouth with a simple 'oh.'
Well, that was more intense then she thought it'd be.
After her call with Shen Jue abruptly ended, Mimi packed all the information they ever gathered on the Hirogori family in a black duffel bag. She looked at it with a dull gaze before sighing heavily.
No matter how much she hated her family and wanted to avenge her sister...it wasn't worth Shen Jue's life. Even if he was a creepy bastard.
Mimi called a driver and had them drive her a few miles away from the location before she hopped out. Wearing the familiar demon fox mask on her face, Mimi walked throughout the abandoned town until she found the small, worn-out bar.
She looked up and clutched the duffle bag in her hands. She sighed.
The moment she entered that bar...things would get very unpleasant. She wasn't a fool.
Mimi knew her father wouldn't be so kind as to let her and Shen Jue go after she gave him what he wanted. If anything, she was sure he'd torture them first before killing them.
But even so, she couldn't let Shen Jue die. And before she left, she dropped a few clues for Tobias and his men when they went searching for her.
Hopefully, they would find them before anything serious happened.
Taking a deep breath, Mimi entered the bar. As expected, the moment she walked in, she was hit by a sharp scent. She hadn't even had a chance to see anyone before she was knocked and hit the floor with a loud thud.
At this very moment, she was tied to a chair, her mask still on her face. The binding on her arms and legs kept her from moving around. She tried pulling her wrist through the confines with no success.
It hurt like hell, so she knew getting loose would require skinning her hands and possibly dislocating her wrists.
This risk she was unwilling to take, thus, she sat calmly in her seat. She stared around into complete darkness. Her stomach squeezed a little.
She really hated the dark.
Sounds caught her attention and Mimi stilled. Murmured voices came next. She tried looking through the dark room for any sense of light, when she noticed a thin brightness on the floor. It looked like a door.
Then, it opened. The lights came on when they entered. Mimi winced at the sudden brightness and blinked rapidly. When her eyes adjusted, she glanced over to see a familiar cold stone face.
Well, well, well, look who it was.
Behind her mask, Mimi's lips curled into a sneer. She watched as her father locked the door behind him without taking his eyes off her.
"May I ask why I'm tied up right now?" Mimi asked without a care to the threatening aura radiating from the man.
"That information you brought, is it everything?" His voice came as cold as stone.
"Yes," Mimi replied calmly without hesitation.
Henry Hirogori's eyes narrowed. She could sense he didn't believe her, but she didn't quite care at that moment.
"Where's Shen Jue?"
The cold expression on her father's face turned into a ruthless sneer.
"Don't worry, he's still alive." He laughed in a sharp tone. "Hardly."
Despite his twisting words, Mimi still breathed a sigh of relief. That was good. If he was dead, her reasons for coming would be for nothing. Whether he was beaten to the point of losing his limbs, she didn't care. As long as he was alive.
Henry Hirogori stared at her silently for a moment, his eyes hard and chilly. After a while, he stepped closer to her until he was peering down at her. In slow movements, his hand reached for the demon fox mask on her face.
When the person beneath the mask was revealed, Henry Hirogori's brows visibly furrowed. It was just a teenage girl. However, what bothered him the most wasn't her age, but rather, the calm smile placed on her lips. As if she was observing the scene from behind a screen.
"Who are you?" His voice narrowed dangerously thin.
The smile on Mimi's face grew, her eyes shining with malice.
"Don't you recognize me, father?"
She threw all her cards on the table.
Henry Hirogori was still staring at her, trying to decipher the emotions on her face. A vicious sneer crept across his face, and he shot a mocking look at her.
"Do you think I'm a fool?"
Mimi laughed softly and tilted her head to the side. "I guess I can't expect you to take my word for it. Maybe if I tell you something I know, you'll change your mind. How about the Hirogori private training each child takes when they reach ten years of age. Or the fact that you grew impatient thirteen years ago, and took one little girl to the secret training, locked her in a dark room, only for her to come out as another failure. Well? Is any of this starting to sound familiar?"
All these were the memories she held on to and could never forget. The memories that transformed her entire being. The once innocent little girl was destroyed the moment her father decided to train her early to be the next family prodigy.
After Mimi finished speaking, Henry Hirogori's expression grew darker and darker. He looked at her with an indescribable expression. Mimi continued to smile seeing the man come to a realization.
"So I guess you're a fool after all." She laughed.
Something seemed to flash within her father's eyes just before the back of his hand crashed against the side of her face.
Smack--!
Multicolored stars exploded before her eyes. Mimi's face turned to the side, the salty, coppery taste of blood filling her mouth, her stomach-wrenching in response to the pain. The taste of blood made her want to gag.
"Then as your father, I should discipline you on all those years I unfortunately missed." His voice had gone ice cold. "Don't talk back to your elders."
Mimi spit the blood from her mouth, looked up from her sweaty bangs, and emitted a laugh.
"Well, that's a first. Considering not too long ago you hardly recognized me as your daughter. As expected, memory starts to fade with old age."
The vein on the side of her father's face pulsed. Once more, he raised his hand and struck the side of her face. This time Mimi winced from the pain as more blood seemed to pool in her mouth.
This was starting to hurt. Not to mention turning a little too messy for her liking. But looking up at her father's twisted expression, it was almost worth it.
"It seems you need more training than I thought." Her father took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hand. "Why don't we play a game?"
Mimi swallowed back the pain when her head throbbed. She looked up at her father with a dull gaze and raised brows.
"A game?" She narrowed her gaze.
"You've been playing a clever game with me, have you not? But there's a thing with games. Each person must take a turn."
Her father looked down at her and a chill suddenly ran down her spine. She stilled. This gaze...she was too familiar with it.
"You've had your turn, now it's mine."