Chapter 49: CH 48: PAST OF THE WHITE CAT (2)

With her back slanted against the wall, arms under her sizable breasts, and a contorted frown on her beautiful face, Rias looked up at the glaring rays of the sun while wondering if what she was about to do was right. No matter what, this was Koneko's life story, and a story that was hers alone to tell. Did she really want to share this story with someone she had only known very recently, knew nothing much about, and whose motives and beliefs she couldn't really understand with the limited amount of interactions between them?

Rias hesitated, again and again, the frown and pondering expression of hers growing deeper and deeper, but finally, she made up her mind. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. She didn’t always make her decision based on pure logic. Sometimes she only went at it with pure instinct alone and her instincts had never betrayed her to this date — a ridiculous notion, nevertheless, shared by all the Gremorys.

Her otherworldly senses were telling her that Basara was someone trustworthy and she wanted to bet on those senses like she always did. Bet on the gut feeling that he could heal, even if partially, the deep wounds that marred Koneko’s heart even now after all this time.

“Before talking about her sister, you should know more about Koneko herself. Koneko is a Nekomata. More precisely, a Nekoshou. A very rare and nearly extinct variant of the Nekomata race. We believe that the very last two of their kind are Koneko and her elder sister. Even if there were more, it wouldn’t go beyond the limit of the single digits.”

Rias wondered if she should tell Koneko's true name, but decided against it. This was a topic the two could have if they become closer.

“I won’t go into the details because I am honestly not privy to most of the information myself. What I do know was that around four years ago, my brother introduced Koneko to me. Because of certain prior events caused by her sister, Koneko had been judged as potentially dangerous and was about to be executed but my brother intervened to keep her alive, thus getting her guard.”

She gave a soft but somewhat bitter smile, filled with memories that she also didn't want to recall. Four years ago, Rias was only fourteen years old. It was one thing to have Akeno with her. The two had the same age and Akeno had lived through harsh hardships and had a maturity beyond her years. Though Akeno was traumatized by the events that plagued her life, she could still fight through it somewhat.

But Koneko's lifeless state had been far worse than anything she had ever encountered. For the first few months they spent together, there hadn’t been a day when Rias didn’t wake up with dread in her mind, fearing to hear that Koneko had killed herself or something of the like, having nightmares of seeing the young Nekoshou kill herself from the trauma she suffered and herself being powerless to stop her.

Those days had been a very emotionally draining period for Rias who had been so young back then but she did not give up on Koneko. 

Thankfully, she hadn’t been alone. Be it Akeno, Grayfia, her mother, or even Lucia, Koneko was never left alone even when she was sleeping, and finally, they managed to wake her up from her dazed dreams that forsook reality already.

It hadn’t been easy. There were still many points she wanted to change. But she did the best she could to give Koneko everything she needed to overcome or at the very least cope with her trauma and troubles.

Of course, the true breakthrough had been in giving her a new name, one that would completely sever her from her past self. Rias knew that this was nothing more than a temporary measure and that Koneko would need to face her fears and her demons sooner or later. But — It was good enough for now.

“For Koneko, her sister is both a source of fear and respect, love and hatred — a duality of contradictions that she still can't overcome. So it’s normal that she reacted as she did on detecting 'her' scent on you. Which now begs the question…How did this scent even get on you in the first place?”

Rias and Akeno, who had stayed relatively neutral until now both directed their intense gazes at Basara. They did not think that Basara was related to Kuroka or had any relations with her for that matter. After all, he was the son of Jin Toujou. 

In their collective opinion, Basara should have interacted with Kuroka without knowing her true identity and they were right about that assumption.

“Toujou-kun, I beseech you, give us all the information you can. I will immediately contact my brother to inform him of the situation. Furthermore, you should be careful too, Kuroka is an extremely powerful and bloodthirsty stray devil.”

Basara frowned at her words, he knew that one shouldn’t just judge people after only seeing them once, but was that woman really the bloodthirsty monster they were portraying her to be?

He was extremely sensitive to bloodthirst. The fact that Kuroka managed to move so close to his body while he was sleeping would mean that she had no intention to harm him at all. That…or she was extremely skilled in hiding her intent, to the point that even his absurd enhanced senses were overthrown by her masking. At the end of the day, Basara did not think that his senses were 100% accurate, they were heaven-defying sure, but they didn't have the absurdity of being completely accurate at all times… Yet.

“What exactly did she do?”

Rias' voice grew heavier with each word being uttered out, “She committed the greatest sin the member of a peerage can do… She killed her own master.”

…

…

While Rias was discussing with Basara, Koneko was sitting in the garden of the school, completely in a dazed state.

She did not wish to enter the classroom because…for one she would be forced to sit in the same classroom as Basara who still had the scent of her sister around him…

Another reason was her embarrasment due to her reaction and the fact that she attacked him out of the blue for no reason whatsoever.

In the end, after excruciatingly long thinking, she made her decision…

'I will follow him quietly after the classes end.'

If he met 'her' once, then there was a high chance that he would meet 'her' again.

What would she do when she met her after all this time? What would she feel?

Koneko did not know. Nor did she want to know. The duality of the emotions coursing through her mind was making it suffocating to even breathe. So she decided to just let it go for now. She would deal with it the moment the time for it came.

———

After hearing everything he wanted from Rias, Basara hesitated for an instance before deciding against giving the truth out to Rias, for the time being.

Of course, he did not exactly lie either, he just asked for a little more time to straighten out his thoughts. He had nothing to hide but he wished to get the opinion of Lucia first before deciding on the matter.

Ultimately, as a higher up in the devil world, also as a being who lived as long as she did and the experience she accumulated after her long life, she would surely have more information than Rias would about this sketchy scenario.

The rest of the classes went pretty well, the teacher did not even ask why Koneko was absent. As for Maria, for some reason, she was not even in school today.

During recess, Basara suddenly realized that he had no particularly close friends in this classroom of his even after the time he spent here.

He was not a recluse and could speak, laugh, and interact with different students, but there always was a little barrier he put between them, stopping them from becoming close friends.

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It wasn't about discrimination, nor did he think that becoming friends with normal humans were beneath him. 

He simply didn't wish to bring someone who had a normal life into the shit hole that was decidedly his life.

Unknowingly, he had walked out of the corridors of the classrooms and was around the zone reserved for the clubs when he heard girly high-pitched screams coming out from ahead.

"Perverts!"

"Stop them!"

"Catch them!"

Basara stopped short at a rather atypical sight, he could see two young men, one with his head shaved and another with a pair of round glasses, running while being chased by a group of girls wearing kendo clothes… though their clothes, as well as their appearances, seemed slightly disheveled.

"Catch those two peeping bastards!"

Basara immediately frowned and moved forward, easily blocking those two from moving forward.

"Gah! Move please!"

He ignored their plea and easily caught them by the scruff of their necks before putting them down on the ground quite roughly, making them groan out in pain. Horror flashed in their eyes, as they saw the girl approach them at a swift speed.

In the end, it didn't take long for the girls to reach him.

"Thank you!"

The way they smiled while glaring at the two perverts that were down on the ground made him step back a little in relative uncomfortableness.

After they finished dealing with them, quite harshly at that, two of the members approached them.

"Hello. I am Murayama and this is my friend Katase. Thanks again for stopping them. Those two bastards are really hateful. We will send them to the principal and ask that they be expelled for their perverted acts."

Basara merely shrugged as a response, not particularly feeling sorry about this information. Kuoh Academy was a school that was predominantly composed of beautiful girls.

He could understand why young men like him could be excited about coming to such a school. But there were limits that shouldn't be crossed.

Peeping was a crime punishable by the law. There was nothing funny nor amusing about it for the people that were peeped on.

As such, for them to only be expelled despite what they had done was quite the light punishment.

"Hello, senpai. I am Basara Toujou. Glad to be of your acquaintance"

They were two slender girls with moderately nice proportions. One had slightly pink hair while the other had brown hair tied in a twin tail fashion.

Though they were cute, compared to the otherworldly beautiful girls Basara was used to interacting with, they seemed quite underwhelming.

Murayama and Katase shared an understanding glance, they could see that Basara was different from the rest of the boys in this school. After all, most of them had joined for rather impure reasons.

In the end, Katase proposed goodwill toward Basara, "Would you mind following us to the kendo club? Giving you tea is the least we could do."

Murayama nodded along, they had been hard-pressed to find a male member of the club. Sona Sitri had asked that all clubs have at least one male member.

But until now they hadn't managed to find anyone suitable for that position. The first choice had been Kiba, but while he regularly visited the club, he was not an official member.

'Let's try to bring him in.'

Basara, unaware of the plan the two friends immediately had, hesitated briefly before accepting with a nod.

He had nothing better to do now anyway.

This was how he reached the clubroom while speaking with the two girls. 

Though he was surprised to meet an acquaintance, he didn't foresee the meeting.

"Basara Toujou?"

Looking at the golden-haired handsome boy holding a shinai, Basara sighed inwardly. He had the weird feeling that his day wouldn't end well either.

He was truly getting tired of this.

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