Chapter 13: Family Issues

[] Speaking English

{} Speaking German

Everything else is Japanese unless otherwise specified. (I won't be doing honorifics)

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["Zara darling, please tell me that this is a joke.]

So that's where mom got the 'darling' from…

The moment we arrived in front of the apartment and parked Nana's face had shifted. I didn't really understand what I was looking at, some mix of disdain and regret was my guess.

["What do you mean?"]

["Does my granddaughter truly live in such a small building?" ]

["Mom I can live wherever I want thank you very much. Just because you have snobby standards doesn't mean I have to have them as well."]

["Thats no excuse, no daughter and granddaughter of mine should be living in a city apartment."]

["Yes, well we do. So just accept that that's how it is."]

Huffing in what I assumed to be dissatisfaction mom continued on into the building. Nana reluctantly followed. That whole interaction had been extremely surprising to me.

While I had known that my grandparents were affluent and rich I hadn't expected them to be that kind of rich. I didn't actually know why we lived in an apartment, I remember living in a bigger house when I was little.

Arriving in the house led to more confrontations between Nana and mom with dad playing neutral. While that was happening me and grandpa had been left to our own devices.

"So… grandpa. What kind of sword do you use?"

"*cough* I'm sorry what..?"

"You walk like you use a sword…"

"Well, yes I'm trained to use the Crawford family sword style. But how could you tell?"

"I like to look at the martial artists on TV, you walk like one of the kendo practitioners but slightly different at the same time. So I took a guess that it was a sword but not a shinai."

"Interesting, do you find the martial arts on TV interesting?"

This was my chance, if I showed enough 'natural' talent then he may help me convince mom. Admittedly it was a little early for any weapons training as far as I was concerned, but enough support could help me start hand to hand training.

"Yeah I really like it, especially when they do the… you know what let me show you!"

Running over to the umbrella stand near the front door I grabbed an umbrella. Heading back and getting into kendo pose, I began a rather sloppy display. The whole thing was meant to look as copied as possible, but incredibly impressive for 'just copying'. Looking over at his surprised expression I guess it was working.

"So, your mother never trained you right?"

"No? I just like to watch the people on TV."

"That's nice, maybe you can watch me sometime. I may be a little rusty but I could pull through."

"Okay grandpa!"

Interrupting our little bonding moment mom stormed out into the living room, following close behind her was dad and Nana. I hadn't been paying attention to their argument but judging from their faces, it hadn't been fun.

Mom looked absolutely livid, while Nana just seemed disappointed. Dad had the wry smile of someone who had tried, and failed, to keep them from arguing.

"DAD! Stop encouraging her! She's to young to get involved in any of that."

"Wha-"

"And Ayah I already said you can't! I already let you use the internet, why can't you use that instead."

"Well because I can do both? I learn plenty, although not as much as I could if I was allowed longer then an a hour a day. So I could learn and do martial arts."

"Ayah we are not having this conversation in front of your grandparents."

At that grandpa stepped in.

"Well now Zar, let's not be hasty. She managed a decent Kendo display from only watching. That's an incredible amount of talent."

"Dad, she's my daughter. I say she can't do it, she's too young."

"See mom, even grandpa is on my side. Why won't you let me? A lot of kids my age start martial arts?"

"Cause you could get hurt, and that's unacceptable."

"But mom!"

"LET IT GO AYAH!"

At moms shout the whole house fell silent. Mom immediately turned red in embarrassment before grabbing me and carrying me to my room.

"Excuse us for a moment…"

Arriving in my room my mom set me down on the bed and turned to face me.

"Ayah can you please drop it. Ask for something else, literally anything else and you can have it. I can't allow you to do martial arts, I just can't do it. Maybe when your older and more mature-"

"This again! I thought we went over this with my internet usage, I'm plenty mature. And I'm sick and tired of you pretending I'm not!"

"Yes and I said that I would treat you like you were more mature, but martial arts is to far."

"To far! To far! I'll tell you what was to far mom! Betraying my trust and taking me to get my mind messed with by a complete stranger! Did ever occur to you that maybe I didn't want a person in my head!"

"No it didn't! You're a child who went through a traumatic event and was already emotionally distant beforehand! I'm sorry that I did what I though was best!"

At this point I was so angry that I had forgotten my situation slightly. And so I made a critical error, one that I had no clue how to fix.

"Traumatic?! Killing that guy was nothing compared to having my mind messed with without my consent!"

"Ayah!"

I immediately did the only logical thing I could think of in response to just admitting that killing him wasn't traumatic for me. I enchanted all my clothes to turn me invisible and ran-

Or at least I tried to, the moment I had stood up mom had already blocked the door by summoning a barricade and putting in in front of the door.

"Don't you dare run from me young lady! You and I are going to have a talk about what you just said."

"Uh… could we not just go back out to the living room? I'm sure grandpa is glaring at dad…"

"Absolutely not, you and I are going to have a talk about how you feel having killed that guy."

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Finally this chapter is done, it took three whole days all because of turkey day. My mom decided to go all out this year, the entire extended family came, like 20 people. So prep was crazy, and as the male child all the hard work falls to me… fucking gender roles.

"Oh (redacted) the living room needs to be repainted."

"Oh (redacted) the gutters need to be cleared."

"Oh (redacted) the dining room table needs to be moved."

Meanwhile my OLDER sister gets to sit inside and make hand turkey place mats. By far the worst thanksgiving giving I've had in a long time, but it's over and I'm back!

We approach the entrance exam every day, and with it a change in chapter release. So would you like:

three smaller chapters spaced out through the week

or

two longer ones together on the weekends.

Up to you guys.