"Use the negatives in life to fuel your flame of hope." -Rei Regiis Diaboli

After I saw what happened with my own eyes, I was left without words. I had no idea she had it this bad, I also started shedding tears from all the pain that I’ve seen bestowed into another human being. A kind, a charming, playful girl was put through all of this. I understand why she didn’t want to make physical contact with anyone now.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her towards me, giving her a big warm hug.

“I’ll take care of you from now on, I won’t let anyone touch you, I won’t let anything bad happened to you. From this day on, I’ll protect you with my life, I promise.” She raised her arms and also proceeded to hug me as hard as she could, but then she thought.

“I’m a monster though, I killed my own father and tried to kill myself three times… and now I killed that person right in front of you! The person I didn’t want to disappoint!” I slowly back away from the hug and gazed at her eyes, I could see her broken soul crying as loud as possible.

“It’s not your fault Kasai, nothing is your fault, stop blaming yourself.” I was trying really hard not to break down crying like her.

“But… but… if I didn’t exist mom wouldn’t have died either!”

“Kasai…” there was only one way I could fix her spirit… I decided to reach in and softly kiss her. My heart skipped a beat, and everything went silent for a couple seconds. Briefly after, she also started kissing me back. Her soft lips, her fragrant breath, and sweet perfume indulged my senses; I started playing with her hair, and she wrapped her arm gently around my neck. We slightly backed off, looked into each other’s eyes, and I slowly started wiping her tears away from her cheeks with my fingers. Shortly after, I heard her in my head trying to say the words,

“I-I… I-I L-” That was heartwarming, even her thoughts were stuttering.

“I love you too Kasai. No matter what happened, no matter what happens, I will always be at your side.” She turned extremely red, so did I… but we kept kissing for a while more. I didn’t care if Shizuka saw us, I didn’t care if my parents did, I didn’t care about anything at that point, I just wanted to be with her and no one else.

In conclusion, we both kept working on our kissing skills for a while on the porch.

“K-Kasai, I think we should head inside the mansion, it’s getting really dark outside.”

“Y-yeah, let’s do that.” I was wondering what happened to her teasing personality, I guess she was just playing after all. We headed inside the house, our parents were outside the lab for once and saw us walking in.

“What happened to you two? Did you catch a fever or something?” Said my mother Ayumi while rushing towards us.

“N-No! We were just… eating some spicy snacks outside.” I’m not the greatest at lying, but I try.

“Ah? But I thought you didn’t like spicy things!”

“Well, Kasai does so she wanted me to try some.”

“Is that so?” She didn’t seem too convinced, I was really trying to hide the fact that I kissed her because they want me to end up with Shizuka, so I don’t want to make drama.

“Can I try something else?” Said Kasai with telepathy while winking at me.

“Shut up!”

“Huh?” Crap, I said that out loud!

“Yeah, hahaha, that’s what the brand is called! ‘Shut up’ apparently if you eat them then it will be so spicy you won’t be able to talk.”

“Creative name, but I’ve never heard of those.” Yeah, Shizuka’s mother is as smart as her, so she definitely caught the lie, but at least she seems like she doesn’t care that much.

“You need to get better at lying.” I heard Kasai say.

“Listen, little girl! I would be good at lying if the subject wasn’t this embarrassing.” I told her through our mysterious telepathy.

“Sure, sure.”

“And stop teasing me! A couple of seconds ago you could barely make up words in your head!”

“H-Hey! S-Shush!”

“Huh? Kasai is getting even redder.” Said Ayumi.

“Oh! Yeah, she is more sensitive to spice than I am, so she gets this random red cheeks out of nowhere after eating something spicy.”

“Ah. Well food will almost be ready so call Shizuka down, she seems not to answer my messages, she is probably reading a book.”

“Oh, right. I’ll get to it, mom.” I realized I said mom by mistake, but I didn’t really mid.

“Mom?!” She jumped at me and hugged me. “Aww, you’ve finally decided to call me mom!” I didn’t think she will get this happy but saying that it was a mistake it would have made the situation awkward, so I’ll just address her as ‘mom’ from now on I guess. “Huh? Now you’re turning purple.”

“A..Air…”

Kasai and I walked to my room for a second, I wanted to talk to her about our current situation. We sat on my bed and looked at each other.

“W-What is it? Is it time for us…?” She asked while blushing

“Huh?” I was hoping this wasn’t going in the direction I thought it was.

“I don’t know if I’m ready… my heart is pounding fast, and I’m starting to shake quite a bit… please be ge-”

“STOP IT! I just took you here to quickly chat about our situation.”

“What do you mean?” She grabbed my arm and rested her head on my shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with us together right?”

“No there isn’t.”

“So?” She looked up at me. I sighed. I knew that if we were going to make our relationship public, then a lot of drama would have fallen upon this mansion, and I would be okay with it if we didn’t have more significant problems to deal with at the moment.

“Kasai, first I want you to know that I want to be together with you, I see myself marrying you in the future and living a quite intense life of fun together.”

“Oh… that’s sweet.” She looked down from embarrassment.

“I Didn’t mean it that way!” I took a deep breath, and said, “How can I say this while showing that I want to be with you but can’t…”

“Hmm?” She looked back up. I gently grabbed chin and kissed her. I could feel her heart was beating out of her chest through my shoulder. “I want to be with you, but we can’t right now. First, we have to get your voice back, then we have to alert the king when it’s all done I will graduate, and after that, we can move into our own place. I want this to stay low until we are free of problems ok?”

“Oh, that’s fine.”

“Wait… really?”

“Yeah, I understand. Being your secret girlfriend is better than nothing after all.”

“No way it’s this easy.” When I try to convince Shizuka into anything she just doesn’t want to listen, she is a pretty stubborn girl.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you, I am a bit insecure that I won’t be able to keep up with your expectations from me as a ‘future wife,’ but I trust you!”

“No way in hell. You will definitely be an amazing wife.”

“Heh, hopefully!” She sighed and said, “But I also can sympathize with Shizuka… a whole year trying to get your attention but because of everyone else’s fault for trying to be with her she probably thinks you lost interest.”

“Yeah… well.”

“And to think that a girl like me can just come and in a month take your crush… that’s pretty heartbreaking; I agree in waiting for this, right now it’s not a good moment to show off.”

“Wow, I thought you were going to be mad and jealous at her.”

“No, in reality, I like her. She is very admirable, even though she can be a bit childish; sometimes, I almost idolize her, but she is the one that doesn’t like me, but I can understand.”

“I agree.” I was very surprised by Kasai’s feeling on Shizuka, she is like the complete opposite of her.

“B-but can we still kiss? I-I really enjoy it.” I blushed and said,

“Well, only occasionally ok?”

“Ok!” I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it too… it kinda, gives me peace of mind, and I do need some relaxation time to time, we all deserve some type of relaxation.

“Wait before I go, I need to ask you something.”

‘What is it?”

“I know your childhood was… but I want to know how you learned how to unlock your singularity, and how did you practice.”

“Oh, well, while I was at the orphanage since I was along most of the time, I sometimes decided to head to a place that nobody went to, and started practicing fighting alone, just to use it for self-defense in the future, so I don’t feel threatened anymore. It also helped me with my trauma, so I know that if anything happens, I can defend myself.”

“So, you just learned by yourself?”

“Well not really, we sometimes had martial arts classes in our orphanage, so I really put out when it was time to train, and our master noticed that.”

“Oh, so he decided to train you in specific?”

“Ehh, not really. Since I was mute, there was no way I could communicate with him, but when the other adults told him about my history, he seemed to pity me, so that started to piss me off.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, he started to tell me that I don’t have to do certain things if I didn’t want to and gave me weak training.”

“So?”

“So, I had to challenge him, and I managed to beat him to show that I’m not weak.”

“You don’t like being pitied huh?”

“I hate it with a passion, just because I’m a girl they think I’m weak and can’t be compared to a boy. So, I proved them all wrong, the teacher got pissed like a baby and decided to ban me from the classes, and everyone else started getting scared of me, but I didn’t care, that helped me trying to escape unneeded attention.” I smiled. Seeing such a strong girl like her, mentally and physically really impressed me… but that just means I have to step my game up if I want to be her shield. “But having a… the quite unique and good body didn’t help.”

“Huh? Well… I wouldn't blame them; if you were a model, you would stick out like a sore thumb and destroy the competition.”

“D-Don’t say that! It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s also true!”

“A lot of boys tried to hit on me, but they were all stupid and ugly. The difference between you and them is that you actually care about something more than just my body… right?”

“Yeah! YEAH! Definitely”

“Ahahahaha, shut up.” She realized I was just kidding.

“Of course I do Kasai, what kind of question is that?”

“It was a rhetorical question. The first time you saw me you were more concerned about my well-being rather than my body.”

“How would you know?”

“Hehehe, maybe I could read your thoughts even before.”

“What?!” Oh my god, how many embarrassing things has she heard?!

“Well back to my story. More masters from other dojos came and challenged me, my name was spread across the whole province. I always managed to beat them all, but it seemed that the more and more I beat the more they hated me, well, more like envied me.”

“Really? That’s so cool!”

“Heh, you think so?”

“Yeah! But I’ll get better too!”

“You’re pretty strong already Rukito.”

“How would you know? You haven’t seen me fight once!”

“My singularity is pretty special!” She said while smiling.

“Oh right, how did you unlock yours? I thought only the military knew how to unlock the magic flow.”

“As you saw in the flashback, my father used his singularity to mute me, so they knew magic since he was a veteran.”

“He unlocked your magic flow?”

“No, when I was 10, in the orphanage, before my father picked me I overheard something on the other side of the wall.”

“What was it?”

“Apparently I wasn’t the first, there were more girls like me before me. He took kids, unlocked their magic flow, and if they had a good singularity, then they would be kept for human trafficking.”

“He… sold children?! Based on their singularity?”

“Yeah… sadly is something that is happening even more now that magic is getting leaked outside the military.”

“So why didn’t he sell you?”

“Well, I had a very special singularity that he wanted to keep.”

“Before I ask you what it is… I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I don’t like bringing your past, and I don’t want you to remember all those bad memories…”

“Oh… don’t worry Rukito.” She proceeded to wrap her arms around me and give me a soft unexpected French kiss. While we were kissing I heard in my head, “This makes me forget all my suffering.” My heart skipped a beat, that really meant a lot to me, and I also didn’t expect the French kiss, she is pretty bold, and I like that.

“I bet it does.” She suddenly jumped back to her sense and started blushing like crazy.

“Oh my god! Sorry! I’m still not used to it.”

“Haha, it’s fine Kasai, as long as no one sees us you can kiss me all you want.”

“Really?!”

“Well… you have to make sure no one is looking at us.”

“Ok!”

“So, what does your singularity do?”

“I also have a hybrid singularity you know?”

“Really?! Finally, I find someone that does too!” She started giggling.

“Yeah, let me explain something to you.”

“Huh?”

“You see Rukito, most scientists have it wrong on how exactly we die.”

“What? No, they don’t.”

“You’re right, they don’t, they just tell us a modify version of the actual thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“The reason why we die it’s because every day we all get this ‘negative energy’ into our body, and what that negative energy does is slow down and corrupt our bodies and make them feel sick.”

“What? I don’t understand…”

“Think of it as a virus, symptoms of a lot of excessive negative energy are stress, depression, anxiety, etc... When this negative energy gets accumulated into our body, we start aging faster, even though we might have the same amount of years, that doesn't mean our bodies are the same age, that's why sometimes you see old people look young or young people look old, it all depends on the negative energy.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, but if we meditate, we can throw that negative energy away, that's why elves and monks live a lot longer than we do because they meditate all day.”

“Ok but, what does this have to do with your singularity?”

“Let me finish. Now I have two twin daggers, they can turn positive energy (more known as ‘life energy’) into negative energy, so if I drain positive energy from people they start feeling sick, and when I turn it into negative energy and release it off into another living thing, then depending on how strong the negative energy was the person will either die or feel extremely sick, just like if they were 100 years old.”

“Oh! I get it, so you can basically steal life energy from people.”

“Yeah.”

“So kind of like a succubus?”

“Hey! I can also steal life energy from plants, and it’s with stabbing, not having sex with them!”

“Ahahaha, I was just joking. But you can also turn that energy into negative energy and release it to make people age faster, or get a sickness, right?”

“Correct! So the more life energy I accumulate, the stronger is the release.”

“I can definitely make a dirty joke with this.”

“Stop…”

“What? Kasai telling me to stop being dirty minded?”

“I mean if you really want to start getting dirty we could be f-”

“NEVER MIND!” She started giggling. I realized that she is the type of girl that likes teasing, but when you actually get to the matter, she gets super shy. “So that still doesn’t answer how you would know I’m strong.”

“Oh right! Well, when I use them, I go blind, that’s the drawback.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, haha, I had to learn how to fight while blindfolded too! Every time I hold them a blindfold of ancient writing appears in front of my eyes, I was lucky your teacher didn’t notice.”

“But still, that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Well, I can feel spiritual energy while I'm blindfolded, and yours is amazing, it’s definitely the most powerful one I have ever sensed.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah, but that’s your potential energy, I can’t feel current energy.”

“Oh… so that’s basically what I could have if I trained more?”

“Pretty much.”

“Ah… well still! I’ll give it my best.”

“Want to see the daggers?”

“Oh, sure! That would be awesome!” She closed her eyes and said,

“Spirit Vamps.” Ancient writing started circling her whole body and two daggers crossing each other appeared on her lower back. Then, a cyan neon blindfold appeared covering her eyes with writing inside the fluorescent blindfold surrounding her.

“What do you think?” She said while looking straight forward. I waved in front of her, but she didn’t seem to see a thing. “So?”

“It looks so cool!” I had an idea, I decided to be sneaky and try to give her a flick on the nose without her noticing, I got slightly closer, got ready, but she dodged it, then started giggling.

“You dummy, I know what you’re trying to do.”

“I was just testing you and seeing if you really do know how to fight blindfolded.” She giggled even more.

“I also know that you waved your hand in front of me before, I just didn’t react because I wanted you to try and do that.”

“So how did you know?”

“Well, you got a bit nervous when you got closer to my face, so I sensed a different changed of tempo in your breathing, and your heartbeat started increasing.”

“Oh wow.” She unsheathed the daggers and showed them to me.

“Look, these are my daggers.” They were two twin daggers with a very unique design of owls. One had a black owl, while the other one had a white owl, I’m guessing it is to symbolize the dagger that takes positive energy and the dagger that releases it into negative energy.

“Owls?”

“Yeah, they say that if your singularity has an animal, it means that it’s your spirit animal.”

“Oh, so mine would be the wolf?”

“Yeah.” I looked closer at the dagger since I can’t hold another person’s materialistic singularity, or I’ll faint, I decided to tell her to flip them.

“Sure.” She flipped the dagger, and I saw that behind them, something was engraved, I take a closer look, and on one of them it says ‘Hope,’ and the other says ‘Determination.’

“Hmm? What’s that for?”

“What? Remember I can’t really se-” She gasped and flipped them back. She blushed and said, “Oh my god, that’s embarrassing.”

“What?” I chuckled.

“I… wrote that in my dark times… when I had no hope or determination to keep going.”

“That’s nice,” I smiled,

“It’s embarrassing!”

“Nah! I find it cute.”

“A-Anyways! Yeah, I called them Spirit Vamps!”

“Copycat, I called mine, Spirit Daisho.”

“Hey, I didn’t even know you when I named them.”

“Suuure! My singularity basically uses positive energy to cut things, yours is basically the opposite, uses negative energy to fight.”

“Yeah, they are somewhat similar in a sense.”

“We really are similar, even our looks are… it’s kinda creepy thinking about it.”

“Yeah…. It really is. And we’re not even related.”

“We’ll look into our past when we solve our problems, it probably has to do something with magic, but for now, I have to call Shizuka down to eat, you should start heading there.”

“Right!”