(A/N: Let's see if I can cook with this arc...)
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Sometimes in 2006...
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In a Zenin training compound, two figures engaged in hand-to-hand combat with precision strikes aimed at vital points. Their battle continued for hours before the man clad in black armor signaled to stop.
"Hahhh, finally!" The girl, with an appearance of about 6-7 years old, plopped down on the ground, panting heavily. Her raven hair was the signature of the Zenin Clan heir. Her breaths were labored, but there was undoubtedly a satisfied smile on her face.
It was none other than Maki.
Since Veilhem and Makima returned from the mission, Maki had asked Veilhem to teach her how to fight relentlessly. Despite the fact that he turned her down multiple times, she would bring up this subject whenever they met. It irritated him that she was studying combat arts from him when he wanted to relax.
Like damn, kids these days just want to grind these old bones.
Her persistent eagerness finally won him over, even though he initially refused because he wanted to take a little vacation. Maybe Maki had forgotten that she had been head-first slammed into the ground the last time they sparred.
Veilhem readily took her on as his apprentice because she felt a little sorry for that'small' incident.
They have been sparring for three hours every day without fail since then. He had to admit that Maki was a very talented fighter in hand-to-hand combat.
Of course, she was beaten to a pup for the first few days, even though Veilhem had held back a lot of his strength to match her level. The reason for that, though, was that he employed a few cunning moves to divert her attention before dealing a severe blow. It included throwing dirt at her eyes, sweeping her ankle, using his cloak to block her vision from the upcoming blow, stepping on her feet, etc.
But after only a few months, she was able to maneuver around them with ease because she had grown accustomed to most of it.
'Is she a monster?' Veilhem noted in his mind that he needed to reconsider Maki; he felt a little regret now.
"Do you need some medical treatment?" Veilhem said, not looking at Maki but opening a cheap beer he had brought from the convenience store earlier.
"Yes, please…" Maki's exhausted voice reached his ears.
"Too bad I won't carry you to the infirmary." He waved her off before leaving. This infuriating gesture caused Maki to erupt, and a tick mark visibly appeared on her temple.
"Seriously, why did you even ask?" She yelled in frustration even though she was exhausted.
"Just because." Veilhem answered as if it were a matter of fact. Still, Maki found this to be even more annoying. Unfortunately for her, Veilhem seemed indifferent and quickly finished the beer.
Just then, a different girl approached Maki while wearing a worried expression. Although her hair was shorter, her face was strikingly similar to Maki's. It was Mai, the twin sister of Maki.
She assisted Maki in standing up and glanced at him every now and then, which he was fully aware of but chose to ignore.
"See, you're good even without me." Veilhem brushed it off, patted Mai's head, and messed with her hair.
"Maybe you could be a little easy on me then?!" Though Maki objected and complained, he understood it was only an act on her part.
"Too hard to keep up? Aren't you the one who asked for it in the first place?" He teased her and noticed her fierce gaze burning behind his back. Chuckling a bit, he continued his annoying speech.
"What's up with that gaze? Do you have any complaints? Oh, I forgot that you're a crybaby! My condolences." He slapped his forehead and quickly apologized to her in an exaggerated tone as if he had made a mistake, but that only made Maki's fierce gaze burn more with rage.
"I'm not!!" She snapped back, but it sounded like a little Tsun from her. Veilhem would literally be dead thousands of times over if a look could kill.
The training compound door suddenly swung open, and when the three of them turned to face it, Naoya Zenin was approaching them with his trademark arrogant grin. His eyes landed on Veilhem, seizing him up from head to toe before he took a disdainful look at the twin.
"I don't even have a word to describe how useless you are! You're doing physical training with that cosplaying knight over there? For what exactly?" Naoya tapped Maki's forehead several times, mocking the months of labor she had put in. He leaned close to Maki and continued to spew out his nonsensical wimps, but it was starting to irritate her.
"You are doing a useless thing for nothing really." Veilhem was enjoying being on the sidelines of the conversation when Naoya spoke to him. Nevertheless, Veilhem shrugged his shoulders and did not appear to be bothered.
"Perhaps you think that putting effort into it could change anything, but let me tell you this. You are fucking worthless." Naoya turned to face Maki once more, and this time, his remarks were even harsher and even bordered on being a hater with passion toward the twin.
Maki, on the other side of the conversation, could only endure those harsh but true words. She grated her teeth and stared fiercely at Naoya, but this just made him even more amused.
"Heh, after all, you have no cured technique, little to no cured energy; what are you expected to achieve?" He continued to provoke Maki, but before she could throw a punch at him in anger, Mai had already used herself to block her from Naoya. She tried to defuse this tense situation but it wasn't enough.
"At least your sister is more brave than you, but that isn't enough." Naoya mocked and before they could interfere,
-Slap-
A sharp sound resounded, causing Mai to stumble and fall over with a red mark on her cheek.
"Fucking useless." Without even looking at her, Naoya continued to belittle their efforts.
Indeed, Veilhem could stop him, but he had no motive to. He was actually a little curious to see how Maki would take this.
Will she choose to give in and accept defeat or will she use her current abilities to fight a losing battle?
Maki was on the verge of losing her temper; she balled her fists so tightly that some blood leaked out. She lunged a punch towards Naoya's face, but he easily sidestepped it.
To counter, Naoya kicked her in the abdomen and then delivered an uppercut to her jaw.
It was not looking good for her right now; Naoya fought her just after their sparring match with Veilhem. Her body was already exhausted, but she didn't want to give up. However, the reality was often disappointing.
A blow to the abdomen caused her to drop to her knees, gasping for air as her lungs forced the air out of her body.
It has always been this way: Maki and Mai had no influence within this clan and were despised by everyone in this shitty clan for lacking talent in the Cursed Technique. Even their mother shunned them for the same reason. It became sickening how much these rumors and their treatment of them deteriorated. They seemed to be of a lower species than ants, not to mention humans.
She hated these impotent feelings.
Eventually, she was unable to even lift her finger to touch him. Even though she had been severely beaten, her fiery eyes never died and instead continued to burn brighter than before. She wanted to make them pay, vowing that one day she would fuck this place up and leave.
But wanting it and managing to make it were two different things; she wasn't that stupid. She would lie down for the time being and wait for the opportunity. Thus, Maki could only endure the hard beatings from Naoya until he was tired of her.
After Naoya left, the twins dragged their tattered bodies to the infirmary. A hand suddenly grabbed them by the scruff of their collar. They were obviously confused—he had watched them helplessly beaten up, and now he was aiding them?
Noticing their puzzled expression, he spoke. "I will help you on the way to the infirmary." He walked to the infirmary with them slung over his shoulders like a bag of potatoes.
They made a little protest, but it was ineffective because he disregarded their little antics like they were a breeze.
"But why didn't you help us when the fight started?" Out of the blue, Mai, who had given up trying to get away, asked him. This earned a curious look from Maki too.
"But would you like to interfere, though?" He didn't answer but gave her a question.
"...no." Maki said weekly. She must have believed that by assisting her, he would find himself in a difficult situation because of her. After all, who would help someone useless like her?
"Figure as much." A small laugh escaped from Veilhem, but he saw that Mai was scowling at his response.
"I can help you beat up that little shit, yeah, sure. But I can't help those who don't want to be helped. What you need is a will to do it; you just need to manifest it. If there is a will, there's always a way." He gave them an explanation of his ideology, which the two 6-year-old girls found a little too difficult.
"And... it will be sweeter when you punch that face with your own hands, right?" He said, grinning, which made the two'sacks' he was carrying on his back smile.
After dropping them off at the infirmary for treatments, he returned to the place where he lived with Makima.
Veilhem slid the door open and saw her, still in her pajamas, lying on the couch watching TV. She rarely wore anything other than the same old black-and-white civil servant uniforms. Well, it wasn't that he could judge her style of clothes now, could he? He himself always walked with his usual armor around.
He flopped onto the couch, watching TV with her in a sluggish manner. She made some space for him to sit and used his thigh as her pillow. He didn't have any complaints though, as if the whole intimate thing like this was normal.
He would sometimes caress her glossy red hair as she watched, and she seemed to enjoy it as well.
"Veilhem-san, do you think it's a bad show?" She asked, seeking his opinion.
"I think it's doing fine. Or perhaps I haven't watched that many." The show wasn't anything particular, but it still did its job of entertaining.
"It's bad." She said it with certainty.
"Elaborate please." He raised one of his eyebrows and turned to look at her.
"The characters were acting without a brain; the plot itself was so contrived that it's easy to guess what will happen next." She went on her rambling, and he felt like half of the things she said didn't click in his head.
"I understand that I don't understand at all."
"Umm... it's fine if you don't, as I'm pretty picky with movies and shows alike." She let out a chuckle as it reminded her of her first-ever defeat.
It was certainly not a pleasant memory for her to say. Thinking about this made her pout in frustration and she needed to vent it by hugging Veilhem. Makima placed her ear near his chest but found no beating rhythm of the heart, a trait of an undead.
It's ironic, isn't it? An undead without a heart understood emotions better than her, a devil with a beating heart. A feeling of alienation in ahuman's world was the only thing that exclusively belonged to them, but she found it oddly romantic.
"I guess we are both freaks?" Makima looked up at him and pecked a small kiss on his cheek, smiling seductively. However, in his eyes, she was just being all smug and doing whatever the hell she wanted, but he found that he couldn't get himself to refuse this oddball.
"I find your sudden statement weird but it summarizes us well enough."
Makima chuckled at his comment and got up from the couch. She dressed herself in her standard civil servant attire in front of him. Though, being a knight, he had his own code telling him not to look at her while she was changing.
"You really need to be careful with these things." As he turned away from her, Veilhem spoke.
"I know, that is why I do it. Treat it as a special gift from me." With a mischievous smirk, she left the room, leaving a flustered Veilhem frozen in place; his brain had crashed.
After she left, he regained his composure and mumbled to himself. "Sure enough, she is a real deal."
With the documents in her hands, Makima's mind did a quick calculation as she drove to Jujutsu High. It was time to carry out the plan Makima had been working on for the past few months, assuming nothing too significant happened.
She would have to wait a little while longer for everything to fit together. Flipping through the pages, she stumbled upon a file that was highlighted.
It bore the name of someone she had taken an interest in lately.
[Geto Suguru]
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(A/N: 50k words milestone reached, yippy.)