After a while, while in their makeshift camp, Selena didn't feel like doing anything, still feeling a bit hollow inside. In order not to worry her friends she watched and just told them she was tired. Watching Hajime yell at the rabbitmen was funny as all hell and got a few chuckles.
"Just stab the thing already!!!"
"But it didn't do anything to us Hajime-san"
"IT IS YOU OR THEM!!"
"I'm so sorry, little one." As they stabbed a mole-like creature that Hajime had tied up to give the Haulia their first kill.
"Please stop" exasperated at the fact that they were humanizing their kills.
The workouts went a lot better since their pack mentality helped them push through squats and push-ups. All the while she could hear boom and crashes from a distance away. Shea was also having it rough for a last bit of training that evening.
By what looked to be midnight Hajime finally stopped with all Haulia looking like they were dead since most of them were able to move at all. It looks like a war zone, with twitching limbs or bunny ears all around the clearing.
Hajime walks up to Selena, who has been acting a little off ever since she returned with the other Haulias. Selena was just sitting on a tree stump near the devastation looking at it, but her eyes were not seeing it.
"Yo, Selena." Hajime tries to get her attention, to no avail. "Selena, you there?"
As he reaches for her shoulder to try to gently shake her, her arms snap towards his wrist, and attempts to throw him on the ground. Hajime, not being a slouch himself, grabs her and takes her down with him. As Selena attempts to inflict bodily harm on Hajime, the two end up grappling on the ground. Eventually, Hajime was able to force Selena on her back, but the two had their hands locked together between them. Selena had a wild and bloodthirsty look in her eyes, not seeing who she had been fighting up until now.
"SELENA!" Hajime yells at her, finally getting a reaction out of her.
Slowly the wild look disappears from her eyes and the haze clears to reveal the fierce and concerned face of Hajime. With a quick shove, Selena disengages and crab-walks back until her back hits a tree and curls up into a ball, all the while apologizing profusely.
Seeing that Selena is at least partially there now, Hajime stands up, dusts himself off a little bit, and walks over to her. "Now are you ready to talk about it?"
"I need a hug" Selena opens her arm up while still sitting.
Hajime lets out a sigh. "And here I thought you would bottle it up."
"Killing is a lot different in real life than in stories," Selena turns her face away, but still has her arms open, indicating to him to initiate a hug nonetheless.
With a sigh, Hajime gently wraps his arms around Selena, pulling her close as he provides a comforting embrace. His touch is soft and reassuring, offering a sense of safety and warmth. He holds her tight, offering silent support as she leans into him, finding solace in his presence. With each passing moment, the tension in her body begins to ease, and she starts to relax in his embrace. The hug conveys a sense of understanding, empathy, and care, letting her know that she is not alone in her struggles.
"I shut down my emotions to kill them…" Selena continues.
"Who?"
"All of them it didn't matter if they were the demon that looked almost human but with different colored skin or horns and the human from the empire."
"You know you didn't have to go and rescue them, we owed them nothing."
"I know but I don't want to be a burden on your team."
"I'm not going to say it wasn't a good thing that you killed them but we don't know who we can trust at the moment. The best thing is to not leave any enemy alive since they can come back for vengeance. It's not like I want to kill but in a world where life is cheaper than dirt, we need to be able to kill to protect ourselves just remember that for nothing if nothing else. It's them or us, just keep that in mind."
"Thank you, even though I think you just gave me your reason for killing, hehe."
"Yeah well, what am I supposed to say? In our world, killing wasn't a discussed topic, you know." He let out a chuckle.
With her right hand, she patted his heart. "Just don't forget where you came from, monster of the abyss."
"Hey, that's sir monster of the abyss to you. And you're the hellion of the abyss."
"And Yue is the loli goddess of the abyss then?" Selena smirked.
"Well…" and at that moment a twig broke not too far from them. Both Hajime and Selena knew she was there but since the heavy talk was just about over Selena couldn't help but tease Yue when she could.
"You want to die?" Yue said in a tone that didn't hold any venom to it.
"Want to join in the hug?"
"Hmph of course" She opened up their arms and squeezed in between the two of them, warm as she lay her head on Hajime's chest. Hehe
"Aren't you popular, Hajime." His smile crept up since he could not say anything to his defense. Not able to move away from the pink aura they were admitting, Selena pushed them to the ground with Yue on top. "It is too sugary for me," she says and walks to the other side of the clearing. "I got the first watch, don't stay up too late. We need one of you two to get the next watch."
As Selena was leaving the area, Hajime turned his gaze back towards Yue.
"She didn't even need to go through all of that," He says in a low tone, getting Yue's attention.
With a light punch to his head, Yue responds, "You do know you did kill a bunch of people right in front of her, right? She probably wanted to see if she could do the same thing."
With that, realization dawned on Hajime's face. He didn't know that Selena was going through such turmoil since he took his own experience for granted.
"She did it for you, yea know?" With that line, Hajime was struck with a mental arrow not truly aware of what Selena was willing to go through for him. "You have a really good friend there." A bit jealous that Selena and Hajime have such a close bond.
"Yeah, I really do," He says with a wistful look on his face. "Whenever shit hits the fan back in our world, she is always the first one there to help me out."
"Well, make sure you treasure her, but do remember that I am here too," Yue says, licking her lips.
After leaving the duo to their business, Selena takes a seat on a stump and then takes a deep breath and lets it out. The knot that had tied her down was loosened. "If I have to kill in the future I just want to make sure that I never enjoy the act itself." She whispered to herself nodding as she solidified one core ideal that night.
A few hours had passed that night and Yue came up to Selena. "You should get a bit of rest since Hajime will be up in less than two hours pushing those rabbitmen once again."
"Will do." And out of nowhere, she felt a hug.
"You honestly should not worry so much about it. It will all work out. you got us." Hug her back really quick.
"Thank Yue." They parted and Selena went to a nearby tree, laing back on it, and fell asleep soon after. It wasn't until she heard the cry and scream of rabbitmen wailing that they didn't want to get up so early while others were saying five more minutes. Much to Hajime chagrin.
Selena spent this time training as well with the help of Hajime who made her a shirt with weight to make her movement slower and she didn't use her mana to reinforce herself she felt with her new body she could train it beyond the current limit but the two mouth in the abyss train wasn't enough to get her physical ability up to where she had seen in the show of naruto yet.
The next early morning
"Wake up you maggots time for another day of training!!!" Most of the rabbitmen turned side to side and tried to ignore it and go back to sleep while others were rubbing their eyes slowly trying to see what time of morning it was.
Cam groggily walked over to Hajime, "Sir Hajime-san, it sooo early can't we sleep more?"
For the cheek, Hajime shot Cam's forehead with a rubber bullet. "If you don't all get up right now, we're going train all day today instead of sleeping" As he said that he shot another gun into the sky. Hearing the somewhat familiar gunshot Haulia starts waking up in panic thinking they were under attack. "I want all of you to give me 20 push-ups now!!!"
A few hours later, the Haulias were getting to their training and they were jumping around erratically and at random angles. Eventually, Selena sees Hajime confronting one of the children, with the child suddenly jumping back out of nowhere. Selena decided to pay more attention to the growing mess, hoping to see the moment Hajime breaks.
"...Are you telling me that the reason you all jumped around randomly sometimes… was just because you were worried about the flowers?" He asked in a low voice. It had been bothering him for a while, but he noticed that they had often jumped in strange directions at odd intervals. He just thought it was something they did to make their next action smoother, to better finish off their enemies.
Cam came over and said with a smile, "Oh no, of course not. We would never."
"Haha, yeah, who would do that?" Hajime said, clearly relieved.
Cam smiled awkwardly, and Hajime's expression finally began to relax a little. However…
"Naturally we wouldn't only be wary of flowers. We have to be careful not to crush the bugs either. They're the ones that come out of nowhere, so they're much harder to watch out for. Though we've managed to avoid stepping on them so far."
Hajime's jaw dropped at that. He began swaying back and forth, like a ghost. Worried that they might have said something wrong, the Haulia all glanced uneasily at each other. Still swaying slightly, Hajime walked up to the boy and then burst out into a beaming smile. The boy smiled back.
Then, still smiling… he crushed the flower underfoot. He didn't just step on it, he ground his heels deep into it.
The boy watched on blankly. Finally, he took his foot off. All that remained of what had once been a pretty flower was a few scattered petals, and a stem that'd been stamped into the ground.
"Th-The flower!" The boy's despairing wail echoed throughout the sea of trees. Shocked, the Haulia all gazed at Hajime. He turned to face them, both the beaming smile and popping vein still present on his face.
"Alright, I get it. I finally get just how soft you all are. This is my fault. I misjudged your race. Haha, I can't believe you'd actually worry about flowers and bugs when you're in a life and death struggle… Your problem is far more fundamental than a lack of combat ability or practice fighting actual enemies. I should have realized this sooner. I can't believe I was so naive… Hahaha."
"Hajime-dono?"
Hajime's smile had taken on a ghastly appearance, and Cam and the others slowly began backing away. Instead of a reply… Bang! He fired Donner. Cam was flung a short distance through the air before he crashed to the ground with a resounding thud. The rubber bullet that had slammed into his forehead fell off him seconds later with a soft plop. Only the wind stirred in the silence that followed. Hajime slowly walked up to Cam, who had been knocked unconscious, and fired another bullet at his stomach.
"Hauugh!" He let out something that was a cross between a cough and a scream as he woke up, and blinked back tears as he looked at Hajime. There was something absurdly surreal about an old man with rabbit ears sitting up in a pose Hajime had often seen girls do in anime, but he put that aside for the moment.
"Alright you worthless little shits. If you don't want your heads blown off, you better start fighting these monsters like your life depends on it! Don't you dare worry about the flowers or the bugs or any of that crap! I'll make you regret it if you do! Now hurry up and get to killing, you fucking maggots!" The Haulia all stiffened in fear at his exceptionally abusive language. But as exasperated as he was, he didn't even wait for their reply before firing Donner again.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! They scattered like the four winds, tripping over themselves to escape Hajime's wrath. All except for the little boy, who clung desperately to Hajime's leg.
"Hajime nii-chan! Why are you doing this!? What happened to you!?" A dangerous light glinted in his eyes as he glared down at the boy. Hajime looked around, trying to spot all of the nearby flowers. Silently, he began shooting at all of them. One after another they died. The boy screamed.
"Why!? Why are you doing this!? Stop it, Hajime nii-chan!"
"Shut it, brat. Get it yet? The longer you sit here crying, the more flowers die. Your tender love and care won't save them. They'll all be killed, and you'll just be sitting here with tears in your eyes. If you don't like it, then get out there and kill some monsters!"
To emphasize his point, Hajime shot a few more flowers. Still crying, the boy ran off into the fog.
For a while after, screams intermingled with the howls of monsters as the Haulia endeavored to avoid Hajime's wrath. He had to be this hard on them, or else he'd never changed the rabbitmen's overly pacifistic nature. Right now it was more important for them to learn the right mindset than actual combat techniques. Though his spartan techniques were starting to resemble Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket.
Hearing laughter behind him, Hajime blindly aims behind him and fires.
"Ow!" was heard behind him followed by a thump.
On day five of their brainwashing Hajime finally got even with Selena. "Alright if you want you worthless maggots for the pain to stop, catch Selena and bring her to me bondage style. You can try to catch her for three hours each day."
"Wait… why??!!!" Selena was getting ready to run around the forest while killing any enemies that got in her way
"You said you were getting bored of the train so I thought to spice it up you have to run away with the weight clothes while avoiding capture." At that moment most of Haulia weren't in the best state and all turned to look at Selena like predators size up their prey.
"Nice rabbits, it's only six more days…" She took a slow step back since it was creepy to be looked at like that.
"Oh yeah, you can only blow them away, no knockout, Selena. Given that you are much stronger than them." He smirked.
"Oh, you moth…"
"Get her!!" all rabbitmen had no plan as they all jumped and tried to dog pile on top of Selena at that moment.
"I'll shoot my gun when time is up!" Hajime says as Selena runs away from the clearing.
Days like this went by and Selena at first was almost caught on the sixth day since she was getting cocky and only training with chakra. Between the two, magic came easier to her due to all of the mental imprinting that was forced upon her. But due to Hajime's training, they soon came at her with waves and used dirty tactics to stop Selena. Dirt was thrown at her eyes, holes were dug to trap her, and at one point she had a few rabbitmen cling onto her arms and legs for dear life. Their eyes were bloodshot, and they were able to grab her only because she underestimated their determination.
"Can you get off!!!"
"Noo please stop, Hajime will get more ruthless since we keep failing!!"
"What do you think he will do to me if I get caught!!!" Arrows were shot at that moment. They were given the green light to go for immobilizing shots, much to her shock.
Somehow she didn't get caught that day and learned to take the rabbitmen more seriously.
Later that night, as Selena was licking her wounds, she was sewing her shirt since Yue was a bit busy with Hajime that night. She kept pricking her finger as she led the needle through the ripped parts. Shea was in awe.
"Ummm Selena-san can we talk?"
She popped her finger into her mouth out of reflex at that moment since she was sucking the blood as the wound healed itself up. She turned her eyes up since she was so focused on the task at hand since she was planning to use it the next day. "Mmm? What can I do for you, Shea?? She rubbed her finger on her pants to dry it off faster as she patted the spot next to her since she looked like she wanted to talk about something.
"I was wondering if you could help me with something. She couldn't look Selena in the eye since she was bashful.
Having an idea what she was about to ask her, she played along. 'She really is too cute when she wants to be.' "Is it about Yue's training camp?" Not miss a chance to mess with someone.
"No, that's not it," she shivered as she recalled getting frozen that day for being too slow. "No, I want to join you guys on your adventure. Hajime told me he wanted to go home so he headed to each of the great labyrinths looking for magic to help you guys get home."
"Let me guess you're afraid if you ask him he will turn you down given he hasn't been nice to you."
"Yes, I made a bet with Yue and in these next five days if I land any hit on her she will help convince him to allow me to join. I'm just trying to get your support in case Yue isn't enough."
"You know I'm not his love right?"
"Yeah, I know that but it looks like he listens to you as well as Yue."
"It's true, but I don't think you will need my help if you get Yue to help you since beating her is the best expression of your feeling to follow us."
"Do you think so?" Shea was overjoyed to hear those words.
"Yes," she looks up at the tree blocking out the sky. "Hajime is rough around the edges but he is not blind he notices you if you put honest effort in your train days and win the bet between you and her.
"So will you help me anyway?" She heard but was just scared to fail in the end.
"Ha sure I will help if you really need it."
Shea got so happy she hugged Selena in joy and not too long after they talked about how their respect train was going and Shea went to sleep that night next to Selena since she was so tired.
On the last day of training, Selena decided to watch Shea and Yue's match. It went about how you expect it to.
"Hey, I got you Yue," Shea says, wiggling in the ice prison.
"Hmph, I don't know what you're talking about."
"No, don't lie, I saw the scratch. Selena, I did it, right!!" Shea turned her head left to try to see her but was unable to since the only thing free at that moment was her neck and head. Yue was huffing and also turning.
Seeing both were looking at her she didn't want to disappoint. "Yue, I think you're losing your touch." Lighting was already flying at her since Yue was guessing that Selena wasn't going to miss a chance to mess with her. Boom! Where she once stood had a new crater. "Now, now, there's no need for such violence we are all adults here."
"I still owe you a beating" and with an evil smile creeping onto her face recalls when she was called a loli vampire. And thus another spare took place. At some point, Shea got free due to spells flying at her and she screamed all the while since she got a really good up-close view of ice, lighting, fire, and bullets. A Lot of them were near misses just passing right by her head.
Soon after, Shea went in on the fight and was so pissed that she almost got roasted by a spell that wasn't even met for her.
They leveled that small part of the forest since trees were sent flying and the wind was cutting them to splinters.
Huff huff Selena was on the ground with Shea near her and Yue stood tall on top of them. "You're such a cheat."
"It's not my fault you can't beat me still. Hajime can do it already."
Turning her head to the side Selena didn't have a response for that since Hajime and her were both very similar in terms of stats with her speed and magic being high.
"You two are monsters." Shea was looking around, seeing that want ton and destruction they caused with just a spar.
"This is just another day," Selena said nonchalantly.
"Yeah," was all Yue said to that statement.
"Anyways Yue I won, so now you have to help hehehe" Shea was so excited thinking about her new future. She spread herself on the ground.
"I wonder what lunch will be."
"Hey, you'll help right?!!"
"Selena, what do you think of rabbit stew?"
"I'm not sure if it will taste good."
"No please, I don't want to die." Shea started to cry.
"I don't know Yue. I think it would be too sweet for my taste. I'm into more salty things" 'I miss tacos. Especially since there were no tortillas in this world.'
"You could be right."
"What are tacos?" Shea asked since this was the first time hearing such a word.
"Well, it is masa (dough) that you get small balls of, and flatten it down into a circle shape and cook on a pan or open flame and any means with hot sauce make it amazing. I love the green salsa. There are these green tomatoes and serrano chiles to make it. Mmm," her mouth was watering just talking about it. (I don't know if Tortus had green tomatoes but does in my au hehe)
The two look at her oddly since she was so passionate about this topic of all things.
"I didn't know green tomatoes existed?? Did you Yue?"
"No, that's weird."
"Noooooo,'' Selena turned her body to face the floor and banged on it since green salsa was lost to her in the world of Tortus.
"I think you broke her Shea," she smiled since it was hard for her to get under Selena's skin.
"Please stop it. I didn't mean to" looking at Selena crying.
"Let's get going and see how Hajime's boot camp in hell is going." Yue grabs Selena's leg and starts dragging the drama queen since she isn't stopping.
Soon after Hajime was in a clearing waiting for the rabbitmen to get back to him since he gave them one last mission to complete before they head to the great tree and start their conquest of the labyrinth. But at that moment he heard a cry coming towards him and he saw Shea in the front all happy, Yue exasperated, and Selena who was getting dragged while wale like a baby. "Why?"
"Something about a thing called green salsa she can't make in this world or something" Yue drops and makes an ice shell to stop Selena's crying from being heard by them.
"Ah, yeah. She was big on Mexican food back in Japan." Hajime ignored Selena soon after and understood it would stop eventually.
Cam came up to Hajime and Shea and Yue were surprised at his new appearance since he was ripped unlike how he looked ten days ago.
Lana was leading the pact as they carried several carcasses of other monsters. Their appease was also drastically different just like Cam's. "What happened to you guys?" Shea asked, looking at her family.
Cam's expression changed to what she knew and asked "Whatever can you mean?" Thinking she was imagining it she didn't say anything. Turning back towards Hajime, the expression of bloodlust returned.
"Boss, we brought back the monsters you requested of us!!" It was in a very deep voice instead of what she expected.
"Good, but I only said for one." Hajime decided to ignore Cam's nickname for him since he didn't want to bring it up first.
"While we were taking the first one down, its family tried to stop us. so we just did what was natural, and we killed them all hehe." Lana was the one to respond to the question at that moment. Shea looked at Hajime since her family was clearly changed due to this man standing right in front of her.
"Hajime what did you do to my family!!!??" Pointing at them while Lana was licking her knife in glee.
Just before Hajime could say anything a small boy came from the clearing. "Boss, I have a report. It looks like Jin, Ulfric, along with a group of about thirty bear men are coming this way. I don't think they are trying to ambush you since they are just going towards the grand tree as well."
"Hmm, it looks like they want to thank you, Selena." At some point, she stopped and broke out of the ice shell Yue had made and watched things unfold.
"It seemed like it." Not too sure what would happen since the bear men should not hold a grudge.
"Cam, I want your people to encircle and stay hidden. You and Shea will follow us and we will see what is going on."
"Yes sir. You heard him, you louts! get going! who knows, maybe we'll get a chance to show our stuff hehe." All the blood lust they were admitting disappeared as they melted with the fog. Just before the little boy could join them Shea grabbed his hand. "Do you want to join me and pick flowers, Par-kun?"
"Lady Shea, I no longer do anything like that. And my name isn't Par-kun, it's Ballfelt the Executioner."
"But why, you used to love them," pick a nearby flower and present it to him.
Let out a big sigh he looked at Shea with pity in his eyes. "That was the folly of my youth. I have moved on. My squad is waiting for me. I will be taking my leave." He zoomed off as fast as he could to catch up.
Hajime looked away as he saw Shea cry and Cam just looked awkward at the moment. Yue patted Shea's shoulder since she could see where she was coming from and see her family change in such a short time.
"Hajime you're amazing you brainwash them without using any dark magic."
"Well I mean all I did was follow Sergeant Hartman's teaching," recalling how he always made his soldiers feel like they were the scum of the earth.
"I'm not sure if I should be scared he was the role model you decided on, but it helped you change a whole race of please love rabbitmen into kill from the looks of it."
"Look, I need to toughen them up. Right Cam you agree with me." Everyone turns to look at him even Shea hopes for no response.
"You were absolutely right Hajime, we needed the reality check since we were weak magots that were unfit to walk the very land we walk upon." Shea couldn't believe what her father had said and started to hit him.
"Stupid stupid."
Cam just let her hit him since he could see her point of view. Patting her head "It's going be okay Shea."