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Death’s Daughter Chapter 30

Author: “FoodLovingPanda”

CHAPTER 30 – THE WALK BACK HOME

I had never thought that a walk could be this nerve wrecking. Since I was in the company of a man that was slowly creeping into my heart I couldn’t focus on my surroundings so in the end I decided to drop it and just enjoy this time, but the silence between us was frustrating.

When I couldn’t endure it anymore and finally spoke up.

“So, since we are like this, together, does that mean I can get your name? I can’t keep
calling you ‘you’ or ‘hey’ when I talk to you.”

“No, I don’t trust you enough to give you my name, but I don’t mind however you call me,
so you don’t have to worry that I might be offended by impolite addressing.”

Well, that sucks, I thought that knowing a name would be the easiest question I could
ask. Why does he want to hide it so much? Having a name to call someone by is important. I guess that for now I will still have to think of him as my mysterious man.

“In that case, can you tell me what you were doing here, what was that little something
that you needed to do?”

“I can answer that but it will cost you. You will have to answer my next question truthfully and in great detail. I will know if you lie about something.”

I thought about it and decided to agree. He could ask me about where did I come from or how I gained so many stats. Although being from another world is odd, it is not unheard of. I nodded and waited for him to start explaining.

“I was meeting my father, actually, stepfather, since he was in the area. I don’t get to see him much since he is never around and I travel a lot, so I decided to meet up with him. And there was something he promised me, I came to get that.”

That was so normal… Somehow I was expecting some supernatural answer like battling demons or doing some impossible work. Hearing that he met up with his family, left me without words and I ended up staring blankly at his face.

“So who is your stepfather, you said that he talked about me, do I know him?”

“Ah, it is not your turn, you first have to answer my question.”

“Okay, I’ll wait. So what do you want to know?”

I saw his eyes gleam for a bit. He stared at my eyes for a while not speaking. All I could think about was him, I forgot my surroundings, I forgot what I was doing, all I could see, hear and sense was him as he stood in front of me. When he broke the eye contact I felt my body shook as I came back to reality.

“I want to know how Maeda Naoko came to be who she is. What is it that you experienced that made you into this person that loves to fight and hunt while also hates attention and changes personality when gets drunk? How you got that scar would be a nice bonus though.”

I stopped in my tracks. I never thought that such a question would come up. This basically asked me to tell him my entire life story. The weight of this question was much heavier than the one I asked. And even though I wanted to get to know him better, I was not ready to tell him my life story.

I tried to keep silent as I began walking again, but without wanting to, my mouth began opening. I was sure that he used a spell that made me talk.

“When I was just a kid, I did not have a traditional upbringing. I did not live in a perfect family. I was part of what you would call an orphanage, but not quite a normal one. You see my mother, or should I say the woman that was taking care of the children was very lax person and didn’t bother to teach us what was wrong and what was right only how to survive in the most brutal world.”

I did not like that this person would hear my life story. This story was not normal.

“I was the youngest child there and I had six beautiful older sisters and a mother that all cared about me. I could say I was happy, I knew that I needed to be grateful for what I had and that there are others that had much less than me. For the first years of my life I was just like every other child.”

“You must realize that I did not think anything was weird as I lived with my family. When you are growing up you are told what is good and what is bad. You learn from your parents how to act and how to live. But what if your parents taught you different? What if they never told you about good and bad, but told you how to hide your true self?”

“My upbringing became different from the normal one on my sixth birthday, before I
started school. Just what you would expect from a seven year old girl I got a doll. However, my doll was special. It was a target practice. And I was also given a set of knives, needles, dart and other small weapons from my family. From that moment on I learned about all kinds of weapons, how to create them, how to handle them and how to hide it all from the society.”

I looked to see how he would react but there was nothing. His expression was unchanged.

“It was only then that I realized just what kind of work my mother and eldest sisters that turned sixteen were doing. They were definitely doing work that was not supposed to be known, and later I have learned that they were rather good at it. I admired them, all of them were beautiful and mainly they were my family. That is why I tried very hard to learn and be like them. They were my idols.”

“Everything was well for many years, but then one day something happened. I had just started junior high school when terror struck. It is obvious that you earn many enemies in such line of work and one night those enemies broke into our house and killed my mother and my eldest sister. However they did not take into account that there would be others inside the house”

“We were still covered in blood when we heard the sirens approaching us. All of us knew that we could not easily get away so we decided to disperse. Two eldest left together and the two younger each left their own way. I decided to remain, unlike the rest of them I was still in school and there was also a need to take care of this house that mother built and took care of. Moreover, since I was still a child by all standards it would be better if there is someone to ensure my sisters remain hidden.”

“The authorities arrived to a scene of carnage. There were half a dozen dead men and among them a girl kneeling in a pool of blood was crying over a dead body of two women. You asked about the scar, I gave it myself so that it seems more reliable that we struggled to kill the attackers. I knew that I would be forever branded by this tragedy and never be able to show my face easily but it was a worthy sacrifice. My sisters can inherit my mother’s work. I will remain their place of sanctuary.”

“After the crime scene was done being processed, I was led away by the authorities and after hours and days of interrogation it was deemed that my mother, sister and I killed the men in self defense and there was no criminal record for me. However the news about this event spread like wildfire and everyone I knew was looking at me like a monster. I had to switch schools, several times and had to endure many hours of therapy but I remained strong.”

“Since I lost my parents I had to be placed in a real orphanage but I didn’t want to, I
wanted to remain at that house no matter what. After much negotiation it was decided I would stay in the orphanage until I entered high school and then I could move back to that place and I would be under the supervision of other adults.”

“In the end, since I could not show my face easily thanks to the scar that I was often
made fun of I turned my interest to games, especially VR game called Free World. In that place I could hone my skills and improve them to another height and in a completely legal way. I realized that my survival skills that my mother and siblings taught me gave me an edge in the game which allowed me to reach the top and stay there.”

“This is the story of Naoko the one you are talking to. I never liked attention and shied away from it but when it comes to life and death situations I will always go for my life, no matter what I had to do.”