"Lucy-kun, there's something that's always bothered me." Tsukino once said.
"Why did you suddenly stop talking to people? On the first day, you were very cooperative...even though your actions were questionable."
She asked without expecting a reply, but surprisingly, Lucy answered:
"I had just lost my mother that day...and all my thoughts were consumed by grief and hatred towards my father."
Tsukino wanted to apologize for bringing up such a sensitive topic, but Lucy seemed to be in the mood to talk.
"At first, I thought at least one person could have understood what my mother felt, but no. Second, I wanted to manipulate all of you into surviving against the samurai, but after I saw my aunt in the air, I changed my mind."
He sighed, looking towards the castle of glass.
"Friends and allies are important, but there are things one must do alone. If you tell your current lover to slap your old lover, you would have won, but if you work hard and step on them, that's even better than the previous win."
"Sure, there's strength in numbers, but think of it this way: a group of ten ones gathered together would only amount to ten, but if a group of four fives gather together, they would amount to twenty. Before you go looking for allies, be strong first, make others want to ally with you, not the other way around. Because in the end, the biggest source of help you can get is from yourself, not anybody else."
"When you do get allies, make sure they're near the same league as you. If you play with those below you, they might drag you down with their negative energy. If you play with those above you, they might demotivate you to the point when you become too dependent on them. Your allies must be able to understand your problems, even if you don't share them."
Tsukino's lips curled up as she thought back to that day. That was probably the most she had ever heard Lucy speak since the day they first met.
Sighing, she muttered, "Yurei can be fun sometimes."
The members of Yurei weren't chatty among themselves, but the silence made them observant. Everyone knew how Mikino was breaking the rules behind their backs, but no one brought it up. The woman was torn between right and wrong; she didn't know what she wanted. If the fight with her cousin had continued, she would have died, despite seeming to have the upper hand.
'I hope everything is right now... Sometimes hurting yourself to let someone notice that their actions might cause a big problem in the future is the right thing to do.'
Tsukino recalled when her brother stole a few Kojin from someone; she had punched herself in the face secretly and told him it was someone looking for his money. Her little brother never stole again. This was right, because in the future, he might have stolen from someone who would have gotten them into real trouble. Although she got slightly addicted to pain, her methods were effective.
Putting the past aside, Tsukino focused on her mission, heading towards the entrance to the second floor with a cold look. Arriving, she was greeted by a burst of people cheering the fight happening on the concrete stage.
Shrugging them off, she clicked her tongue, dissatisfied with the mediocre fights. Her eyes scanned the crowd for someone from the Zaha organization, and in only a few seconds, she noticed Saruko deeply seated in the crowd, enjoying the show.
Walking over to the crowd to meet her, Saruko asked, "What happened to Mikino-chan? She was fun to be around!"
Tsukino shrugged coldly, "Let's get down to business."
Saruko sighed, her face focusing on the stage, "Since you're already strong, you might as well battle. But you must carry at least 10,000 Kojin to battle the strongest person here."
Tsukino pondered for a few seconds, 'Although Mikino won a lot of money using the hunt, it still doesn't come near 10,000 even with the one I already had. Who should I ask for money in the primordial space? Or I can simply borrow a few Kojin from Yurei's treasury.'
Just as the thoughts were escaping her mind, a male voice called out from the fighting stage, "I have shocking news! Someone said they're going to challenge Yamabuki Hina!"
Before Tsukino could locate who this challenger was, she found the buff man looking at her, "I heard you're the challenger. Am I right?"
The young girl cast a vicious glare at Saruko, who just winked at her teasingly, and sighed, 'I heard the Queen of Gambling is the strongest person here, taking care of her might deal a big blow to this place.'
She answered briefly, "I'm the challenger."
But as soon as the words left her lips, she remembered what Lucy had told her a few days ago;
"The problem is that you're a pushover. You agree to almost everything that comes your way; it would be good to say no for once."
Before Tsukino could retract her challenge, the crowd was already bad-mouthing her about how naive and ignorant she was, which didn't sit well with her.
She just rolled her eyes at them, as she listened to the male announcer's words.
"You'll have to show me something if you want to battle Yamabuki Hana. There's nothing like a battle to show your skills. If you go all out, there will be no one to challenge you, so think of it as a light warm-up. Why don't we start with a 1,000 Kojin bet? The amount might increase depending on the outcome."
Tsukino furrowed her brows, realizing, 'Is this their plot to figure out my strength? How shameless of them.'
Tsukino scoffed in her mind, went on stage, and placed her bet. She awaited her opponent.
The moment her opponent arrived, the announcer introduced them, yelling, "We have two lively girls here tonight. On the right side, we have Black, someone who once fought Hina herself. On the left, we have White, the idiot!"
Tsukino felt offended by being called an idiot, but she took large breaths of air and kept her cold demeanor. Her gaze fixed punctually on her opponent, who attacked without warning.
Unsheathing her dual katana, she sliced off the fire attack into two, charging straight at the girl. Her opponent threw a small comet at her, but Tsukino remained unfazed, jumping backward. She infused Rei into her blades, swinging them and releasing two gray crescent arcs that destroyed the small comet.
A smile formed on Tsukino's lips, 'Lucy-kun was right; I'm indeed fit to be an onna-musha.'
The moment her thoughts faded, she decided to finish this stupid game. She sent two large gray crescent attacks towards the crowd, killing many spectators in the process.
Saruko wanted to protest that this wasn't part of their plan, but they all put on masks and joined her in the attack. In the end, this was the only simple way to force the strongest people of the gambling den out.