After the stranger named Kory had finally left our home, Mother grabbed our hands and brought us over to the living room.
She began explaining her decision by giving the two of us a recap of what had happened to her on her trip to get groceries.
We listened intently as she described the man who attacked her as she was about to enter her car after buying everything she needed from the store.
"It was so sudden that I couldn't even react. My wrist had been grabbed and pulled. And before I could scream... he had covered my mouth with a strong piece of tape."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"I tried my hardest to fight back but he tossed me onto the floor and I was so stunned and fearful for my life that I started to freeze up. I... I was like a puppet at that moment and he would've been able to do whatever he wanted with my body without any resistance."
'What kind of crazy person attacks someone out in the open like that!?' I screamed inside my head.
Was the person not afraid of getting arrested?
About to start tearing up, I heard the sound of Arisha crying next to me and when I turned to look at her, two powerful waterfalls were pouring down her eyes.
Quickly, I wiped away my tears and made the decision to be Mother's strong girl by holding my emotions back.
The situation must've been traumatic and still fresh on her mind.
I didn't want her to have to comfort two crying little girls at the same time.
Working alongside Mother to comfort Arisha, we were able to get her to quiet down after giving her a glass of water and making her follow along to the breathing technique that I used during long runs to slow down my heart rate.
After that, the two of us were ready to hear the rest of the story.
I was worried it was going to get worse but luckily, it didn't.
"Just because that piece of... before that man could do anything to me, like an angel descended from the heavens," Mother chuckled, using humor as a way to cope, "the boy who you two saw helping out with the groceries..."
"Kory," Arisha muttered.
"That's right, Kory. He appeared out of nowhere and used his skill to pull the attacker towards him."
'A skill-user!'
"It was like... an invisible force had grabbed ahold of the man and yanked him in the direction of the kid," she described how it went down.
I could tell by the look on Mother's face that the skill must've been a powerful one.
It wasn't like those "useless" skills that were classified into the F or E-tier.
"Then suddenly, a dark flame appeared on his hand and he punched the man who was crying for help."
The man was knocked unconscious in that single punch and after that, Kory called the police, and the man was arrested after security footage from nearby cameras that caught the incident was used to back up their story.
"I guess he must've seen the way that I was still shaking even after half an hour had passed because he offered to escort me home."
She accepted the offer and on the ride back, she began to contemplate things.
"I realized that this world isn't safe for girls like you. For a second, because you two are my daughter, I forgot just how beautiful the both of you are. I keep forgetting that my tinted glasses I view you two with aren't as tinted as I believe them to be."
Because we were her daughter.
She said those words casually but it wasn't as if she was bragging.
It was the honest truth as her looks were so captivating that she used to be a model back in her home country which was how Father discovered her existence to begin with.
She only quit working because she fell in love with my father and her workplace did not allow for relationships so she willingly left it.
"I began thinking to myself, 'there are strange people out there'. Those people... some of them don't care about the age of their targets. And you two..."
She bit her lips as if she didn't want to say these things to us but had no choice because we needed to know now even at a young age.
"You two would be top of all those predator's lists due to your looks. Today, the man who attacked me was just a regular man but what if... what if a skill-user decided to do the same to you two? It'll be the perfect opportunity to do so while your father and I aren't around."
Mother looked like she was about to tear up just imagining it.
Although Mother no longer worked as a model and mostly worked from home on her laptop, sometimes she had to go places and meet people.
"That's why I'm contemplating hiring that boy as your babysitter. Whenever your father or I aren't around to pick you up from school and stay at home with you, I'll feel a lot more reassured knowing that a powerful kid like him is with you two. And since he's around your age, you guys can also make a friend out of him," Mother smiled.
If she could, she would've hired a bodyguard for us but they were too expensive and out of the family's budget.
She considered a maid too but there didn't exist a maid who knew how to use self-defense skills.
If they had one, they wouldn't be working as a maid.
Although she offered a lot more money as she was hiring a skill-user, Kory had used his age as an excuse to lower the price and gave a reasonable cost for his "services".
He never explained why he was willing to babysit two girls for a cheap price especially since he could be working as a bodyguard elsewhere for at least tenfold the pay.
That was how our relationship with Onii-chan started.
The very next day, he stayed with us for a few hours while Mother went to a meeting. She brought a gun that our father handed her along with her.
* * *
It had been five years since we last saw him.
We were going to see him the next day but as the two of us had already moved into our new homes in the same city as him, I couldn't wait another day.
Using my Shadow Walk skill, Arisha and I disappeared into the shadows and reappeared in Onii-chan's room.
Although we didn't leave the shadow, the two of us were able to admire his sleeping face.
"Look at how handsome he is, ♡" Arisha muttered.
As the world of shadows didn't allow outsiders to hear or see anything that happened inside it, I wasn't worried about being caught.
"His room is rather messy," I chuckled as I looked around.
I was tempted to pop out of the shadows and lunge at him but was holding back and decided to focus my attention elsewhere to keep my composure.
"Do you think he'll be surprised to see us tomorrow?" Arisha asked.
I nodded as I could already imagine him approaching us after the ceremony was over to question what we were doing there.
"...But what if Onii-chan doesn't remember us?" she asked me.
"Hey," I smacked her on the back of her head. "Don't even say that."
She nodded and the two of us quickly disappeared from the room before we ruined the surprise we had been preparing for the past two years.
* * *
When I saw him staring at us and waving his hand, I wanted to jump out of my seat and head over to him.
I didn't care about what the teacher was saying.
I didn't care about the ceremony that the first-years were obligated to experience.
I didn't care about what other people thought.
I just wanted to see him up close, hug him, kiss him — and maybe do other things that I've been imagining for years.
'Onii-chan, you don't know how long I've been waiting for this day, ♡' I thought.
After the ceremony wrapped up, Arisha and I were bombarded with first-year students who wanted to get to know us.
Normally, we would've been friendly and entertained them as if they were animals in a feeding pen but I felt too impatient and Arisha was feeling the same as me.
The two of us made an excuse that we had to take a phone call with our parents.
In actuality, as soon as we reached the bathroom, I used Shadow Walk and the two of us disappeared from the real world.
We had to be quick. Not much time had passed so he must still be making his way down from the stands as he was up on the elevated portion of the arena dome.
'Found him!'
As soon as I caught sight of him walking towards the stairs to head to the bottom floor, I attached myself and Arisha to his shadow.
The first day of the new year consisted of the first-year ceremony and the rest of the day was open for students to check out their classes so we weren't worried about missing anything.
We were just waiting for Onii-chan to get into a private location alone so that we could pop out from his shadows and surprise him.