Chapter 35: Strained Relations

A chuckle came from Parc as he entered his room, "you know, last time I had two girls waiting in my room for me, one of them was tied up and stripped to her panties. In comparison, this is just disappointing."

He placed a hand on his hip as he watched Eris burst into steam and flounder for words.

"Wha!? Could you not be so vulgar in front of my sister!" Eris shouted, hoping up from his couch. Inwardly thinking about how interesting of an idea that was.

"Potentially," he shrugged, nodding with a sarcastic smirk on his face.

"I hate you, you demon," Eris grumbled, falling back onto the couch with a grunt.

She still wasn't pleased that her sister was going to go through with this farce. Sure Parc was cute… Kind… handsome… No, wait, she shouldn't be thinking that.

He's a lascivious demon who can't keep his hands to one girl and now he's targeting her traumatized little sister.

'He's not going to aim for me as well, is he?' she gulped at the thought, feeling a feeling of frogs bounding in her belly that made her heart flutter.

"No you don't. You still cry his name every night when you masturbate." Maya did the unthinkable and snorted while still holding dead, fishlike eyes that lacked any form of light in them.

Eris burst to crimson, arms flailing through the air, "n-no I don't!"

She couldn't convince a piece of paper she was being honest with a stutter like that.

And judging by the blank stare her sister was giving her, neither did she.

Eris nervously looked to Parc, blushing furiously when she saw his aggravating grin like he'd just heard something fun again.

"Who's side are you on!?" Eris stomped her foot down, huffing as she crossed her arms frustrated.

"My own." The response was instantaneous.

While Parc was enjoying this little familial bonding, he still had to ask, "so, take it you've decided on the date?" he asked Maya specifically.

"I'm still not hap-"

"Now or later doesn't matter." Maya interrupted Eris.

"Why do you keep int-"

"I just want this to be over with."

Eris went silent, cheek twitching as she stared at her sister with unrestrained annoyance, "you know, ever since you started talking again, you've really ch-"

"Things happened." Maya half lidded eyes stared into Eris's freezing her in place, "I changed. Stop acting like you haven't. It's pathetic." Her voice never shifting from its soft, unemotional intonation.

Eris was shocked, did her sister, her little sister. Call her pathetic?

"Maya, how dare you!" Eris's rose her storm like voice, "I'm doing everything to help you! I've spent months caring for you! And you call me pathetic!?"

"Yes." It was blunt, so blunt that Parc felt he could pick it up and hammer a nail into wood with it. "I was raped and abused for hours. Just like you were. And I am the only one suffering from it. Was your virginity being stolen really such a minor thing to you, sister?"

Parc hissed at how scathing her last word had been said.

Eris drew a blank. Did she actually think that?

Clenching her hands into fists, Eris's throat began to bulge, a sign of her teigu activating, and a sign that things would soon get loud.

Parc wanted to stop this argument, but he had no doubts that stopping it would only draw both their ire's and possibly put a fracture in their relationship with each other.

"Don't you say that," Eris's voice trembled, her throat returning to its smooth state as she calmed herself enough not to burst everyone's eardrums. "You don't know anything, Maya. So don't you dare think like that about m-"

"That is my decision to make, sister. Not yours."

"Stop. Interrupting. M-" Eris ground her teeth together. Anger flittering through her eyes.

"No."

"Maya! Stop this n-"

"No."

Eris was visibly fuming.

"Fine! Act like that!" she threw her hands into the air, "you want to know why I act like 'losing' my virginity is so minor!?" She screamed, her voice unleashing a torrent of energy that pushed Maya with enough force to cause her to stumble and nearly collapse onto the floor.

"BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T TAKE MY VIRGINITY!" Eris was panting.

Maya holding her ear looked up to her sister with what could be conveyed as surprise.

"I haven't had it in a long, long time. Maya." Eris turned away from Maya, making quick strides to the door. Tears trailing down her cheeks. She didn't say anything else as she opened Parc's door and slammed it behind her.

Leaving Parc standing there in awkward silence with Maya, feeling like he had intruded upon a very private conversation he shouldn't even have heard the beginning of.

"Eris…" He muttered. He needed to talk with her. "I'm going to check on her." He said.

Just as he lifted his foot, he heard the sound of ruffling fabric behind him causing him to pause in place.

"Ignore her." Maya said behind him.

Turning his head around to Maya he saw her naked, her clothing bunched up around her ankles.

Her breasts while not large, were appropriately sized for her small frame, coming in at likely a small B-cup with plenty of room to grow in the future. Atop them, two small pink nipples.

His eyes travelled down her body, recording every inch of her thin figure, stopping at her crotch where a thin bush of pubes were steadily growing.

"You wanted to prove yourself. Then do it." Her eyes seemed to somehow be even more lifeless than before.

But he could see it, the slight red tint snaking into her eyes, how they were growing more glassy. She was going to cry.

Parc groaned internally. He had two girls with issues, one of which had just run away to who knows where within the compound and another who may very well just be a broken girl who couldn't come to terms with what had happened to her.

"No." That was the only answer he could come up with. "I don't have to prove anything to you Maya." He lifted his hand to his head and began to rub it.

Maya's lips opening as if to ask him why.

"Just. Stop talking." He stopped her before she could even try. "Look. Maya, what happened to you was shit and horrific. You are angry at your sister and the world. Maybe even yourself. But the way you treated her? That was too far. Way too far." He shook his head.

"No it wasn't."

"Maya," Parc groaned. "Yes. It was." Rubbing his temple he tried to find the right words.

"Making your sister cry like that. To SCREAM like that. Do you know when I first heard her scream loud enough that it could crack the ground let alone shatter glass," he lifted his hand in the direction of his now glassless window.

Maya kept quiet.

"The day I found you both. I don't know how much you remember of it. But when I ran into you and Eris. You were lying on the ground surrounded by dozens of corpses. Your rapists who Eris killed. And you know what she did once they were all dead? She ran to you."

"When I appeared. She mistook me for an enemy and attacked me. All because I wanted to come and help you. I was lucky she didn't know how to properly use her Teigu back then, otherwise I'd likely be dead right now."

He sighed, "but you know what I remember the most about that day?"

Maya blankly stared at him, "her eyes. They were scared and angry. She would keep looking between me and you as she attacked. Just to make sure you were safe. She may not have had much control of it, she still might not. But she forced her Teigu to listen to her and kept you safe."

Parc turned away from her, making slow steps towards the doorway, stopping just as he opened it. Not daring to look back.

"You called her pathetic… But tell me. Aren't you just as pathetic as her?" gently closing the door, he let it click shut. Before throwing his head back, knocking it against the door.

Inside Maya was stood in silence, processing everything Parc had said.

It's true she didn't remember much. Everything about the day was hazy to her. She could see their faces looking down at her with desire. Eris reaching out to her as one of the men ground her face into the ground and the pain in her loins that she felt at the same time as that being the last thing she remembered before everything went black.

Maya's legs wobbled beneath her, collapsing to the ground, body hunching forwards ever so slightly.

She didn't weep, not a word escaped her, nor an utterance of sound. But then, why were droplets of water covering her legs?

***

The air rippled with energy and unholy wails that dug the earth sending chunks of earth spiralling through the air. Uprooting trees from the ground and shattering their bark into many thousands of pieces.

The more hearing sensitive danger beasts within hundreds of metres of the origin of the wails collapsed into piles of dead flesh from fear. The causualities only growning larger in number the closer they were.

The only safe ones being those with poor hearing, and even then within a hundred metres was still deadly.

"AHHHHHH!"

Eris yelled harder than she had ever done before. She wanted an out and screaming just seemed like the best thing to do. So that is what she did.

She ran from the compound as deep into the forest as she could.

She knew how dangerous she was, how her voice could kill. Of course she did, she used it to rend those bastards to lumps of mangled flesh on the floor.

"I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"

Eris cried out. She didn't hate Maya, how could she hate her own sister? That was just an infeasible thought. But the words still sounded so right at this moment.

"GRAAAAAAAH!"

Her chest heaved as she screamed one last time, the land around her cracked and splintered, any trees or foliage sent racing through the air in a circle around her.

Collapsing onto her knees tears naturally found their way to her eyes. Her arms wrapping around herself to comfort her aching heart.

"Eris…" She heard a soft footsteps approaching from behind her. She didn't lift her head to see, she already knew who it was.

"Aren't you supposed to be proving yourself to Maya?" she asked with a squeak to her voice.

Parc shook his head, though she couldn't see it, "no. I don't have anything to prove to her. If anyone is to prove themselves, it's her."

"She doesn't have to prove anything," Eris's eyes shot up to him, angered. "After what happened to her she has nothing to prove herself for. Not to you and not to me. Its this sick fucking world that has to do it." Her fingers dug into her arms.

Sighing, Parc lowered himself onto the ground next to her. "And how do you expect it to do that?"

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but nothing came out. "That's…" she ground her teeth together.

"Eris," Parc leaned back and stared up into the misty night skies, "when this whole mess with the Empire is dealt with, when we have Honest and the Emperor gone and the R.A sets up a new regime. Will that be enough?"

It's true that everything that happened to them was due to the Empire. But there was more to it than that. It wasn't just the government, but the people as well. No matter how much they tried to change things, some would not take it easily.

They could imprison the nobles who abuse their powers, they could execute the monsters who play with bodies as if they toys.

But there would always be people out there who will do such terrible things without a thought. Even after everything changes there would be people who find loopholes in it and will continue to abuse it, there was little doubt about that.

"No." she mumbled hugging her legs tight to her chest. "this world's gone too far."

Nodding along Parc sighed, "I agree. I don't think there's anything to redeem this place. Not yet at least. That's why I'm not trying to change anything."

Eris looked up to him confused. Parc catching the look she gave him, smirked.

"What? You think I care enough about this place to care about what happens to it?"

She nodded.

"Well, you're wrong. I wasn't born here; my family is most certainly not here. All that is here for me, is a few goals I want to accomplish before going back home to continue looking for my mother." Parc noticed Eris's curious eyes. "My mother was kidnapped when I was thirteen. I've been searching for her since." he explained, a frown taking to his expression.

"I'm sorry." Eris said feeling a tinge of guilt.

"Don't be," he chuckled, "I've heard 'I'm sorry' so many times for that its getting boring. My life has been terrible and filled with tragedy after tragedy. I just don't let it get to me. Least, not as much anymore. I still hold my grudges tightly to my chest and have full intentions of acting upon them. But I don't let them control me."

"What you said about Maya not having to prove anything. You're wrong." He returned to the main subject at hand, he wasn't here to talk about himself.

"I agree with you on her having nothing to prove to either me or you. I really do. No, the one she has to prove herself to, is herself. She needs to prove to herself that just because something terrible happened, she can still live, that she can get stronger, that she can overcome her own problems and escape the pit she's in."

"Why does she have to do that!?" Eris rose her voice. "It wasn't her choice to become like this!"

"Because, if she can't, she'll never be happy again."

"Take it from me. I went through something just like Maya when my mother was taken from me. I was depressed and lonely. I would spend days on end not eating just curled up in a ball in my room. But I was lucky, I met these two people, Akane and Tsukiko. My neighbours back home and they helped me get back on my feet. Helped me build up enough confidence that I got out of my depression, they helped me figure my life out even if just for a few years."

He cleared his throat fondly remembering the mother daughter duo who practically adopted him after his mothers disappearance.

"What Eris is going through… she doesn't need sympathy, she doesn't need coddling. What she needs is her sister to be there for her, to listen to everything going on in her head and give her an out for her emotions. If you try to force your love onto her, it won't end well. Give her space and time while guiding her along. It's not a fast cure, but these types of wounds, their not something you just patch up with a bandage and ignore."

Parc finished his speech, leaving Eris silently staring at him.

"I… I need to talk with Maya," she forced herself to her feet, coming to a conclusion.

Parc smiled and nodded, listening to Eris walking back towards the headquarters.

"It was my dad." Parc turned to Eris, seeing her standing by a fractured tree, looking back to him. "He was drunk after mom passed away. He was going for Maya but I ended up getting in his way, so he took me instead."

Parc was left mouth agape, but nothing came out.

"There, now we're even." She shrugged, disappearing into the woods moments later.

Parc shut his mouth and groaned, rubbing his temple for what felt like the hundredth time today, "god this planet is so screwed," he mumbled.

"Hnn?" He felt something clamber atop his lap. Opening his eyes, he looked down to his lap. "Hello there," he muttered seeing the small orange striped kitten with beady black eyes curling up on top of him.

"Where's your mom?" He asked as he looked around the field, knowing full well that if 'mommy' was around, it wouldn't be a very friendly encounter.

Finding nothing he turned his attention back to the cub. Gently lifting his hand to scratch behind the kittens ear, it is purring contentedly at the feeling. "Your mom leave you alone then?" It didn't respond.

"I'm talking to a cat. I'm really losing it," he chuckled.

The kitten looked up to him with a slight tilt to its head.