"We all have a thing or two in our family that others might find weird. Like a weird unique tradition or a particular way to keep things in order, all that is found in every normal family."
"But whatever that may be, anything too far off the norm may become a toxic nuisance corrupting your mind"
Samei- And my family is a fine example of that statement.
8 years ago (Year 392 P.B.)
In a traditional dojo-styled house located in a small town in Japan called Hokoyama, there lived a family of great renown, descendants of infamous warriors who had challenged society's inner order, long ago.
The two siblings that live there have nothing to do with their family's controversial past. Nevertheless, they are forced to lead a cruel lifestyle by their parents, specifically their father, in order to achieve something they are never even meant to learn about. All they know is that they must--
???- You've got to get stronger, Ikki. Look at you, so frail and fragile. You are nothing compared to your sister.
Ikki- I know, dad. I'm going to study more and become stro--
Ikki and Samei's father, Liam Kendomo, gets furious over his son's "foolish" statement.
Liam Kendomo- Knowledge is for the weak, son! Throw these books away and focus on your aiming and sword fighting! All you need to do is practice, NOT STUDY!
Liam grabs Ikki's books and throws them in the fireplace.
At that moment, a loud gunshot is heard and Ikki covers his ears with his hands. And on top of that, seeing his favorite books now burning in flames right next to him makes him burst into tears.
Samei- I'm back! All dummies headshotted!
Liam- Wonderful! I'm so proud of you, Samei!
"At this rate, you might become ready sooner than I thought..." Liam murmurs.
Samei does not care about her father's praises, however, and proceeds to help her little brother.
Samei- Ikki? Ikki? Are you okay? What happened?
Ikki- The books, I-- I wanted to--
Liam- SILENCE, Ikki! Don't waste your precious time of training! I'll cut off your lunch if you keep crying like a baby!
Samei- Don't worry, dad, I'll train with him! Please don't skip his meal...
Their father leaves with a single warning "I want to see all his targets gone when I come back. If not, then both of you are gonna pay for it..."
While scratching his long beard and having his always expressionless, grim look on his face, Liam leaves the practice hall and heads for his room, where his wife awaits.
Despite his strict manners and apparent apathy toward others, this man is paradoxically one of the best doctors in the world. He has worked for many years as a military psychiatrist and is highly praised as a kind and good doctor.
But the public doesn't know of these cruelties happening at home. Families do keep secrets from outsiders, but to what extent is it moral? Not that I could know, but surely not in this case...
Samei helps Ikki aim his gun, but his inadeptness makes her efforts futile.
Samei- You need to hold it a bit upwards so that the trajectory...
Ikki shoots and misses. Not only that, but scared from the loud sound he leaps a couple meters back from the stationed gun.
Samei tries tooth and nail to make his brother find the targets but even her patience has an end.
Samei- Ah..... Sorry but I need to eat lunch today.....
She takes the gun and lands 8 perfect consecutive headshots on the target dummies. So fed up with Ikki is she, that she doesn't want to look him in the eye. That would expose her dissapointment in him, a scenario that, as his sister, she wants to avoid at all costs.
Samei- Keep on practicing alone now. I'll go tell dad about the dummies and make us lunch. Okay?
Ikki- Mhm...
Ikki absolutely admires his sister's abilities. In every aspect, she is a perfect copy of his imaginary future self. On the other hand, he is the family's black sheep. He absolutely hates his inability to produce positive work and he is jealous of his sister's asccomplishments. Even Ikki is starting to become fed up with himself...
The moment the room's side-closing door gets shut, Ikki throws a punch at himself and shouts his one and only want before fainting. "I want to get... stronger..."
Unaware of her brother's self-harming habbits, Samei searches for her father. She makes her way to her parents' room and knocks on the door to tell them about Ikki's "advancements".
Liam- Permission granted.
Samei gets in the room. Her father is at his working desk at the end of the room making a signal for her to come closer. Samei says"Yes, father." and gets closer without saying a word to her mother. Her mother is in such a bad state, that Samei has no reason to lay her eyes on her twice.
On her wheelchair, she is forever stationed in the left side of the room like a doll. Her bald head is covered in accupuncture needles and her limbs are frozen to the bone. So skinny and weak, noone should stare at this truly pitiful figure for long. Certainly not her child.
Samei- Samei reporting. The dummies have all been accurately shot.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Liam- I see. Here's the key for the kitchen's lockers. Although I know he didn't do shit, for your rapid growth alone, I'll let it slide.
Samei- Thank you, father.
Samei goes to the kitchen and prepares food for herself and her brother...
This lifestyle continued for a long time. No matter how insane it was, the kids never questioned it. They had grown up with this messed up system and they didn't know what a normal life was like. So they kept on growing up without attending school, but combat lessons and strategic fighting seminars instead.
Two years since then, things have accelerated pretty fast. Samei has entered teenagehood (age 14) and has mastered her combat techniques to the fullest. Her father sees a future with limitless possibilities in his daughter and takes pride in her.
As of her brother, Ikki is trying way too hard to catch up to Samei but he is unsuccessful. Samei and Ikki are very different. Samei is a talented, strictly trained warrior, whereas Ikki has his chained heart drawn elsewhere, to science and knowledge.
"With enough effort, I should transcend her talent. That's why I'll never stop trying." These words are the only thing that Ikki has going for him.
Although that principle applies to most things, for what these two are getting themselves into, talent is a necessity. And only one of them has the strength to achieve their unbeknown goal. Samei Kendomo.
And the day that Liam never expected to come, came sooner than ever. A fourteen-year-old girl is ready for Liam's final experiment.
Liam- She's ready... I cannot believe this... 38 years in all my life, and I was useless, like Ikki. But she is something different. It was not me, not my brothers and certainly not my son...
Samei's the only one to reach the greatness you craved for and even better so... If you were here with us, I'm certain that at least she wouldn't disappoint you, Kin--, no, dad...
This is the first time in her entire life that Samei has left the huge dojo and interacted with the outside world.
Liam- Get in the limousine, Samei. The time has come.
After getting in the car, a long journey begins to find the place for Samei's special mission.
But her imminent fateful mission isn't what Samei is excited about. What she has her head litteraly stuck onto is the window of the limousing. She looks at the beauty of the outside world with glimmering eyes. She sees people going to work, kids playing around, students going to school. She is amazed at the opportunities the outside world offers.
A good while later, her daydreaming comes to an end as their destination is around the corner.
Liam takes a look at a really old piece of paper and says the following.
Liam- We're here. Samei, hold onto your gun. This practice will be different than the ones you've had before. I need you to reminisce your training and be ready for action.
Samei- Yes, father!--
The driver makes a rough parking due to how narrow the street is and startles Samei for a bit.
Liam starts talking on his phone with someone and asks them for assistance to back up Samei. The young girl is more confused than before. What in the name of god is she going to take part into?
After getting the necessary information from her father, Samei leaves him behind and follows his orders. And the location of her important mission is located in...
Samei- I need to find uncle Bardlot in these... underground sewers...
After jumping inside a fake well, Samei finds herself in a hidden, particularly spacious, underground sewer network. She searches and searches around the astonishingly clean and well maintained sewers. Wandering around surprisingly isn't much of a problem. The sewers seem to have been in frequent use, apparently.
At some point Samei hears water splashing and footsteps. Although she can't see much due to a cloud of gas steadily getting denser, she knows she has made it. Her allies together with her uncle, Bardlot, are heavily armed and camping a certain area before the mist of gas.
Bardlot- Samei, you made it just in time. We're in the middle of an important operation. Your job is the same as always. Aim at the target dummies and eliminate them.
Samei- Hai!
"But wait, where are the targets?" ponders Samei. And as if he could read her mind, Bardlot proceeds to explain.
Bardlot- D' you see these figures behind those mattalic scrap covers over there in the mist?
Samei strains her eyes to make out what he's talking about. She sees the tip of the dummies' heads over the mettalic scrap covers and nods her head a few times.
Bardlot- I leave them to you Samei. Let us bask in your majestic aiming...
Samei shoots one dummie and the tip of its head disappears. She shoots the other, also gone.
Allies in sync- Take cover!
"Oh yeah I have to utilize my whole training "kit" in this mission. So we need to pretend to be dodging enemy attacks, apparently--"
Real bullets almost kill Samei and throw her off guard.
Samei- Are the dummies armed?!
Bardlot and the others are too occupied to answer. Samei assumes that this is the next level training her father was talking about and gets excited.
Samei- Alright, fighting back? Now that's interesting!
The young warrior takes this seriously. She changes covers a few times and headshots the dummies in between. This amount of adrenaline, she'd never felt before.
So focused is she actually that she keeps on shooting the dummies without looking back at all.
"They are so little in number now. The mission is almost over! Yay!" Samei has this one thought in mind all this time that keeps her psyched up. But this also comes with a great cost.
She never realized that her allies are far fewer in number as well. Not until this happens.
Bardlot- UGHHHHH! My leg!
They got Bardlot. He keeps his body behind a pile of metal pipes he found as cover and tries to reduce his blood loss with his bare hands.
Her eyes widen. Her pulse greatly increases. She slowly realizes what is actually going on.
"This is not practice... People are dying..."
Samei rushes to Bardlot's cover, in this way dropping the front pressure she had going on from attacking.
Samei- Uncle! Uncle! Are you okay?! What is going on in this mission?! It-- It-- scares me...
Bardlot- This-- This... is... WATCH OUT!!!
A "dummy" snatches the opportunity to pressure back and goes to the front lines. It gets really close to Samei and it is ready to shoot her dead.Samei quickly aims her gun and tries to shoot it. But as she sets her eyes on it, the doubts that had been piling up earlier are revealed.
It is a man. A warrior. No. An enemy soldier...
Samei's trembling eyes close as her shaky fingers spontaneously press the trigger of her gun. From this distance, the mist is practically non-existent. Therefore, after briefly opening her eyes again, Samei sees a red liquid flow toward her feet like a small river.
She instantly panics. She slowly kneels. She loudly screams. She cannot comprehend what she is going on. No that's not true. She does not want to accept what she has been doing...
Images of the beauty of the outside world come back to Samei. In comparison with what she's currently seeing, they appear like Heaven. Salvation. Freedom...
Bradlot- Samei... Clear the remaining enemies and help me treat this wound...
Samei- (...)
Samei doesn't answer.
Bardlot- Quick! Like your training!
Samei- T-T-Training...?
Bardlot- Yes! Aren't you my brother's ultimate weapon?
Samei- Weapon...
Samei stares at her gun and then at the reflection of herself in a nearby pod of muddy water. She slowly bites her lips until they slightly bleed.
Samei- I am... not a weapon... I am a Human with a name... SAMEI!!!
Samei throws her gun away, gets upand disregards the life-threatening shots constantly being fired.
Bradlot- Wh-What are you doing?!
Samei starts slow and then accelerates her movement. She has decided for herself.
Bradlot- COME BACK HERE! THIS IS AN ORDER!
Samei turns around and gives a soul-piercing disgusted look at her uncle.
Bradlot- But... you were the perfect candidate. The one supposed to save us...
And at that moment, Samei speaks her last words to her family.
Samei- I'm sorry but now I am-- (...) I am my own hero...
The grey cloudy mist soon turns red. Samei rans for her life, as far away from the battlefield as possible, without ever looking back. She's now a ranaway. Yes. She's the toughest ranaway girl in the country, but with a twist.
She knows almost nothing about the outside world. How is she ever going to adapt to society starting from zero? How brave a child she must have been to reach this point where she currently stands... If I were Ikki, I would have also been jealous of her unbending resolve and brave character. And I also would have wanted to keep a sister like that by my side at all costs...
𝕍𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝟝— ℍ𝕒𝕫𝕪— 𝕌𝕟𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣. "𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕔𝕖𝕕 𝔸𝕤𝕡𝕚𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤..."