"The fight is over... Sias wins." It seemed Frei had come closer to us during our fight. Probably not content passively watching on the sides, and getting ready to intervene, as futile as it would have been considering the speed at which we were sparring.

"As it would seem." Grunted Shiwazaki-sensei. "You are bleeding." He added.

I looked at where he was pointing, his last piercing stab, that I thought I had perfectly dodged, actually scratched my left boob.

"Ah shit, didn't take that into account." C-cup damn you.

Part of my shirt under the dougi was torn, and blood was coming out of a small cut underneath it. Everyone would assume that had been made by a knife. Scary old man.

"Aaaah!" Shouted Frei, concerned.

"It's fine, I barely feel it." I reassured her.

"Your perfect boobs!" She continued, not paying any attention to me, before forcefully opening my clothing and inspecting the wound.

"Is that what you are worried about? Seriously?" I responed, outraged.

Shiwazaki-sensei coughed.

"You may have won, but if you continue your flirting in front of me, I will bash you skull in."

Frei stopped gazing into my bossoms, and stepped back to look at her father.

"This technique could've killed her!" She shouted at him.

He answered in japanese.

"Daugther, you should be more concerned about me than about him."

Still calling me with masculine pronouns... It was fine with me but made me think he was denying everything concerning my particular situation.

He was right though, Frei should've noticed the potential lethality of the technique I used. I purposely did it to make her understand that about me.

"Why should I care if he bashes your face inside your skull? Not long ago you hit me when I was on the ground." She vehementely argued back.

He didn't actually do it, but I didn't correct her, he was going to anyway.

And well, Panzer Frei was definitely not caring one bit about my old techniques, I will probably need to wait a bit to see if cute Frei would think any differently.

"You needed to be taught a..."

I clapped my hands together. This conversation was going nowhere.

"Well, Shiwazaki-sensei, I won, your daughter is mine, thank you very much. We'll be leaving next week. I recommend you patch things up with her while you're still able to and don't say unnecessary things. Frei, let's go take a walk while we let your father digest his loss. I need a bandage too, it hurts."

Both of them turned to me, ready to retort acrimoniously, before restraining themselves, in the exact same manner. I restrained my self not to laught at these mirroring responses. I didn't think it would help my case.

"Fine.""Fine." They said simultaneously.

I let a smile slip through.

They didn't notice, having gone back to a staring contest daughter-father style.

I was sitting on a bench outside Shiwazaki-sensei's Dojo. Me and Frei had gone to buy more disinfectant and better bandages at a closeby pharmacy.

She was currently treating my wound, which, considering it's location, was embarassing for both of us.

Good thing there were none of Shiwazaki's pupils in the backyard with us.

Only an old grandma was there, I didn't know her name, but she was often helping with the taking care of the old Dojo.

I don't think I ever saw her open her mouth to be honest.

Except if you counted the dissaproving looks she was throwing at us.

Frei who was unaware of our audience, began asking the questions I was already expecting. Her light shame in undressing me in plain sight had activated the Timid Frei.

"You won. How?"

"You know how, you saw everything."

"You've always held back."

"No. Those techniques have no place in martial arts, so I never used them when we sparred."

"You definitely could've used some of those techniques, I don't see why not."

I sighed.

"What you have to understand is that those attacks have one purpose and one purpose only, to make sure the person in front of you doesn't stand back up, ever. The technique in itself is a whole, with the way I was taught, I wouldn't have been able to use it without finishing it."

My lover frowned, showing me her pensive face, all emotions surfacing on her features with perfect honesty.

I smiled.

"What made you able to stop yourself this time?" She asked next.

"What do you think." I believed she knew already.

"Our training. What you used was a mixture of different martial arts, by mastering them, you were able to surpass those ninja skills."

"Erm ninja? What are you talking about? I'm not doing any Kage Bunshin you know?"

"Shut up. You don't know what real ninjutsu is about?"

I had honestly no idea what she was going on about.

She sighed. "Honestly, how can you be so smart, and still believe ninja's are what you see in Naruto... "

"Etooo..." Dang, it had been a long time ago since I had been ridiculised. But no, honestly I knew about a lot of martial arts, but ninjutsu was a lost art if I remembered well, only practised by westerners who wanted to feel cool. Maybe I was wrong. Well definitely if I had to guess.

"Ninjutsu also had one purpose and one purpose only, to assassinate their target. Kunoïchi used their body, poisons and hidden blades while some ninjas actually trained in killing blows and hiding techniques. I don't know much more than that, as it's not really used anymore, but I saw a master of that once, and the only reason why he lost was that he actually wasn't allowed to kill his sparring partner. This is the flaw, in most fights, you are actually not trying to kill your enemy, even in war settings, dead people are way easier to take care of than wounded soldiers."

I looked at Frei, mouth slightly agape. Even though I knew most thing unrelated to ninjitsu, I was slightly taken aback by the fact that she would know such dark knowledge about war.

She saw my expression, and had the cutest pout, completely opposite of the topic at hand.

"My mother is a war and war strategy historian. I learned it through her."

"Oh, impressive."

"You arrogant bastard."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Still if I don't say it, you won't be careful when you do it with other people."

"Didn't we have this conversation already?"

"You clearly haven't learned then."

I laughed quietly.

"Will you stay with me knowing my past? I wonder."

"If you don't tell me you will never know. Even though I don't want to, It'll make me leave, one day or another. I won't be able to live with someone I love, if I cannot truly know who I love. But you know that already."

Yes. I said without talking. I know, of course I know, you are not the kind of girl who can live in darkness, blissfull ignorance of everything and everyone, to never have to face the truth of life. You are Frei, sometimes scared and timid, unsure about yourself and who you really are, but with true gentleness and care, and you are Frei, strong, fearless, facing her problems even if you shouldn't, shouting at the world even though it won't stop turning. A living paradox, like every human being, but mine.

I kissed her. Softly. She tasted of strawberry.

After awhile she broke the kiss "Sias." She asked. Kneeling in front of me. Waiting.

I looked at my bandage, hiding my breasts, protecting my heart. Oh so opposite as what I was feeling.

"When I was a few months old, Hailey abandoned me as I told you. Or I should say, she left me with her parents, the Skröskind. I don't remember them so I wouldn't be able to tell you much about them."

I looked at the grandma leaving the training grounds and entering inside. Probably cleaning there next. Even though it was sunny outside and temperatures were getting warmer, the wind was cold.

"Maybe we should continue inside."

"I'm not cold." Frei answered, before taking my hands in hers.

I sighed.

"When I was three, or four, my father surfaced. He had heard about me through my mother while she was drunk."

"Ermm." Frei gave me a quizzical look.

"Oh yeah, I should tell you, my parent's relationship was pretty much friends with benefits, I told you right? When my mom was going back in Europe after her tournaments, they met, got drunk together and fucked. One of those time, I arrived. She didn't tell my dad, anyone in fact, as she didn't know she was pregnant until I came out."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Oh, pregnancy denial?"

"Something like that, in this case I would rather say it was a 'I don't have time for this shit.' pregnancy."

Frei stood up and sat by my side.

"Wow, you survived for 9 month inside Hailey Skröskind while she was training for tournaments?"

"9 months 12 days, baffling-ne. Must explain why I'm a moron sometimes. Infancy brain injury and all that."

"Nah, you're not getting a pass because of that."

"Damn."

Short silence. A gust of wind. I involuntarely squeezed closer to the woman at my side.

"So?" She pressed gently for more.

"So when I arrived she panicked I guess, left me with her parents and continued with her life like nothing happened. She even continued her relationship with my dad for a few years before she let it slip. He wasn't happy."

I looked at the sun high in the sky, then at the ghost of the moon at the horizon.

"After a short while the Jourdin's servants arrived at the old family home of the Skröskind in Sweden. They took me away, and I arrived at the Jourdin estate. It's my first memory actually, meeting my dad. I remember I was extremely happy that day. I finally met my dad and he was super nice, even better than everything I had dreamt about. After that I remember a lot of tests, questions, blood tests, even physical ones."

I felt Frei tense up besides me.

"Oh no, nothing bad, a long doctor's visit at most. And as my dad was with me the whole time, I was extatic really. If this bothers you already maybe I should stop."

She pinched my cheek, I gazed inside her eyes, faking I was hurt.

Then I looked at the little forest surrounding the temple we were in, vegetation thick enough to create a natural barrier between here and the outside world.

"Problems began when I met my grandparents. My grandmother convinced my dad to let them train me, while he was gone on the weekdays at work. Later she convinced him I didn't need a school and that their private tutors would be more effective to teach me than the french educational system. She was definitely right about that, I was at the same level as a french university student when I was 13."

"Yeah, not impressive." She jokingly added. "Barely means a 7 year old Swede."

"You're slightly exaggerating."

"Slightly. Still, that must've been lonely."

"Terribly so, all my teachers were scared of me, my grandfather barely talked to me and scared the shit out of everyone me included, and my grandmother, even though very nice, was the reason of my suffering. Still, as my future self learned, I wasn't exactly in a horrible situation either. 10Km² playing grounds with everything I wanted, I was spoiled. Things began to change when I was around 6 years old."

"Old enough to hold a wooden sword."

I laughed.

"Was that what happened for you?"

"Yup."

"Well, for me it wasn't a wooden sword, but it's the same idea. I began learning from multiple martial arts masters, my free time only came on the week-ends with my dad. But what truly changed was that my grandfather finally payed attention to me."

"Doesn't sound like a good thing."

"Jean-Paul Jourdin, my grandfather, was a monster, of a kind you cannot write in a fiction because it would seem too unbelievable, not realistic enough."

"You sound scared."

"Am I? Well that fear has been deeply ingrained inside my bones after all."

"He's dead though isn't it?"

"Yes. Even though I have this firm belief that he will still be present as long as a Jourdin walks this earth."

"You're being overly dramatic."

I smirked. "Maybe. Testament of his legacy I guess."

"He's the one who taught you how to kill?"

I nodded slowly.

"Not only how to kill. He made me practice killing."

Silence. I didn't want to look at her.

"My grandmother taught me how to defend myself and how to survive in every possible situation, her training began when I was 8. But my training with my grandfather began when I was 6 years old. First it was to expand on the techniques I was learning with the other masters. Then he made me spar with lots of different people. Always adults or teenagers. Sometimes he brought unexperienced fighters and ordered me to uncapacitate them the fastest way possible. I believe some of them died because of this. I was unaware at the time, but some of the things I did just so I wouldn't dissappoint him..."

"You can't blame a kid for his caretaker's mistakes." Frei cut me, almost angrily.

"I'm not. That's the worst part I think. It isn't doing me anything. I know what I did is wrong and that people probably died, but because I know it's my grandfather's fault and not mine, I actually don't feel any guilt. And that's what I'm feeling guilty about."

Frei scuffed. "That... actually makes sense uh..."

"Really?"

She searched for my eyes, I stood her gaze for a while.

"Yeah." She answered.

I looked away.

"In any case, it got worse and worse over time. Still my relationship with my dad was getting better, and he had convinced my mother to come back and take care of me. I was soon going to be freed of this nightmare, they were going to get married, take me in, we were going to be a normal family. He knew what I was going through, he had managed to flee the Jourdin life because of his intellect, and know he was trying to get me out of it too."

"He got away from it?"

"Yeah, by making an undetectable explosive when he was 7 years old."

"Uhm."

"It impressed my grandfather enough to prioritise his education over everything else."

"Fuck me..."

"Later."

I saw the corner of her lips go up.

But silence came again.

"What is the Jourdin family Sias?"

I didn't know what to answer.

"Let me finish first, maybe you'll get it then." I decided.

"Mh".

"So the dream my father promised wasn't to be. He may be smart, but hell, he's bad with people. When my mother arrived and saw me, she actually felt horrible. They showed them the beauty of the estate, the fastious meals, the quality of the education. She felt ashamed. The semblance of motherhood my father had awakened in her was used by my grandfather to make her wish she dissapeared and never faced me again."

I smiled.

"Still, my grandfather had underestimated something."

Frei chuckled. "Let me guess, an arrogant bastard who doesn't know when to shut up?"

"Yeah."

"I know what you did." Frei said.

"Really?"

"Simple really, you asked her for a duel."

"Dang, I'm not feeling that smart about myself anymore."

"How old where you at that time?"

"I was supposed to be in my first year of high school I think, so 12? 11 years old?"

"Pretty impressive, understanding a woman you barely met and acting accordingly when you're 12."

"Well, I was following all of her achievements, journals, videos, when the internet began, pretty much anything about my mother in the media I knew about. That's when I learned about the strange relationship between her and my dad too."

"You always hoped she would come didn't you."

"And I was damn well not going to let my grandfather have his way again so easily. So yes, I challenged her to a duel. My grandfather immediately understood what I was trying to achieve and tried to stop it, but this time my grandmother's enthousiasm outplayed even himself. He couldn't stop it."

"You lost the duel."

"Of course. But I asked for a rematch. So she had to come back."

"Shrewd Sias."

"So from then on, during one year, I battled my mother once a week. Lost every time, but got closer to her, began showing her the rotten innards of the house I was trapped in."

I stopped. The next part wasn't something I ever told anyone.

"Sias, are you alright? We can stop if you want. We have time."

"Yes we have, but I won't stop. I want show you what I have done, I want us to be a real couple you see." I smiled to her without happiness.

She squeezed my hand, not saying anything anymore.

"So while I was trying my best to convince my mother to get me out of there, I was doing the same with my grandmother. My father would help me, I had no doubts about that. Still if I wanted to be truly freed, I needed to stop grand-père in his tracks, make it impossible for him to try to get me back. I thought my grandmother would be able to reason with him."

I took a long breath.

"One day, for our survival training, she didn't show up. I knew right there and then, she was dead."

"He killed..."

"She had come in the way of his greater plan, where I had the critical role of being his future, the future heir of the Jourdins."

"He liked you?"

"In his own twisted way. You have to understand that he wasn't like villains you see on televisions, or those we recently met. Those are bad, but honestly, the damage they can do is limited. Fundamentally, they know that what they are doing is wrong, the give out excuses to live their lie as comfortably as possible, but one day or another truth comes around. Even the worst hitman has a story, family, reasons of why they do what they do."

"You seem awfully sure about that."

"Well the Jourdins have a section if you could say it like that, that focuses on the dark sides of the world. They took the role of a peacekeeper of some sorts. They manage conflicts so it doesn't go out of hand."

"This doesn't seem that bad."

"Let me phrase it differently. As long as you're not delving into nuclear, bio-chemicals, or advanced mass murders, the Jourdin let you be. If you begin to threaten the litte structure the underground has built, you get a small commando army in your back door, and everyone dies. Your friends, family, your neighbors, your lawyer, your gardener, everyone. There are entire villages that have dissapeared. Ghost cities, with no-one to testify, no-one to take revenge. This side of the Jourdin has organized genocides, just to maintain the system it had created."

"You're being overly dramatic. Right."

I looked at my lover.

She was scared.

Good.

"No."

She gulped.

"But that's not..."

"It is. I was on three of those missions. To learn."

"But..."

"But nothing, to be fair I didn't do anything, I watched as everyone died around me. While the people I knew where laughing about the whores they'll fuck the same night."

"Sias... I'm..."

"You don't have to say anything. I didn't enjoy any of it, and I would like it if my past didn't change your perception of the present me. But I know it's impossible. Just take your time to digest it, I'll wait for what you have to say afterwards. Right now I'll just finish the story."

I took a deep breath and continued, scared of watching the expression on Frei's face.

"So after the third time, I couldn't cope with it anymore. My grandmother was gone, the session were increasingly cruel and violent, soon I arrived at a point where my grandfather wanted to teach me interrogation techniques."

"Oh no..."

"Yeah, you know what that means, I recently learned those things are way too imprecise to be useful, but I guess no one told my grandfather. As crazy as he was, he actually adored the scientific method, if he knew he would have found another, probably as cruel, method to obtain what he wanted. But, anyway, those new lessons forced me to change my strategy."

I remembered the anger. My first thirst of blood.

When he showed me the inside of the room. A fateful day.

There she was, alive, barely.

My grandmother.

"Sias?"

This I wouldn't tell her, I would keep that one to the grave. No one had to know, should know this kind of twisted, cruel joke of fate.

"SIAS?" Frei almost shouted.

"Mh? Yeah sorry I was lost in thoughts."

"I thought I lost you there, you seemed, angry. Dark."

"Emo-me surfaced, sorry." I joked.

She didn't laugh. Only seemed more worried.

I continued.

"So I changed my plan. For one my grandfather would be proud of."

"Sias..."

"No I'll finish it. First, I beat my mother."

She laughed, a sour laugh. "That one I don't believe."

"I won, I assure, because I needed to. So I used my biggest strength, the truth. She dropped her sword so I won."

"The thing you did with my father."

"Something like that."

"And then?"

"Then I watched her take revenge for me. The fourth time."

"I don't understand."

"Hailey Skröskind, I used her to get my revenge."

"You used?"

"Manipulated, convinced, however you want to turn it."

"Oh Sias. No you didn't..."

"I did. I realized what I had done when my grandfather breathed his last."

Frei didn't say anything.

"I had just become what he wanted to, I created a strategy, a plan, to destroy, no to annihilate my enemy completely. I was his perfect heir. So I made a promise to myself. That I would do my very to beat him. I wouldn't become him. So I left, went to school, and learned, not the lessons but the people. That's where I met Fanny, she taught me I wasn't the only one with crappy situations, every one, in his own way had some, the only difference was that there were some who couldn't beat it, and some who could. I learned many things to be honest. And today finally I could use what I was taught, and use it in my own way, not to destroy but to grow."

I watched as the sun was swlowly setting. Soon it would be to cold to stay outside.

But for now I waited for the tears of my lover to stop falling.

Something was softly touching my heart as after every drop of water, I felt it lighten a strange weight on my shoulders.