Chapter 111: Chapter 111

Tomomi’s POV
   Christmas is supposed to be a day for Christians to celebrate the birth of their God, Jesus Christ. However, more and more people are using the sacred holiday as an excuse to host parties and go on dates. Tomomi has no issues with the former, but she sure has lots with the latter. Or used to, anyway.

   It’s definitely not because she has become more open-minded. Rather, now that she has the ability and the authority to punish evil-doers, she has been extremely afraid of lashing out in case she went too far. She has done so several times in the past, and she has regretted every part of it. To control herself, she has started taking anger management classes, not to mention frequenting temples so that she could master the art of meditating. Anyway, she digressed.

   For the Date family, Christmas means hosting a party. Father and mother are both important figures, so lots of people attend the party they host each year. Politicians, judges and other important authority figures, celebrities all flock to the huge Date mansion Tomomi and her family live in.

   Tomomi never liked attending these said parties. Most, if not all people who are there are putting up a facade. She could also tell that a lot of them don’t even like going to parties. The only reason they attend is so that they could have an excuse to talk to her parents and curry favors from them. As proof of this theory of hers, her parents were surrounded by literally all the guests outside of speech-giving and meal time. Tomomi is getting real sick of it.

   “You better not let father or mother hear that.” Hiroya onii-sama warned Tomomi one time when she vented out her frustration during the age of ten.

   “I won’t, onii-sama. I’m not that stupid.”

   “Good. You’re much smarter than I am, Tomomi, so you should be more careful with what you say or do.”

   Thinking back on Hiroya onii-sama’s compliment all those years ago, Tomomi has to disagree with him. Smart people know better than lashing out in the midst of being too emotional. Smart people don’t get carried away with their newfound strength. Smart people will never, ever act like they’re above the law-

   KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

   “Are you awake, Tomomi?”

   Upon hearing Hiroya onii-sama’s voice, Tomomi got up from her bed at once.

   “I am, onii-sama!” she replies. “Is something the matter?”

   “I’m just here to tell you that breakfast is ready.”

   Tomomi looks at the digital clock placed on top of a drawer next to her bed. It’s almost nine in the morning.

   “I’ll get ready at once!”

   “Just take your time. Father and mother have already went out anyway.”

   Even with that assurance, Tomomi didn’t waste any time in getting changed. After she is done, she leaves her room and begins her journey to head to the dining hall, a journey that takes at least five minutes due to the sheer size of the mansion.

   Along the way, she was constantly greeted by the servants who work here.

   “Good morning, ojou-sama.”

   “A wonderful morning to you, ojou-sama.”

   “A fine morning we’re having, aren’t we ojou-sama?”

   Tomomi merely nods politely every time she is greeted. In this household, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the right thing at the right time but with a wrong tone will get someone fired. The last time Tomomi greeted a servant a little gruffly due to lack of sleep, her parents have misinterpreted it as she was being offended. As a result, the poor servant was kicked out. Ever since then, Tomomi has learned to speak as little as possible whenever she’s inside the mansion.

   Eventually, Tomomi reached the dining hall. There’s a huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the dining table is made of extremely expensive marble and is long enough to seat twenty people at the same time.

   Hiroya onii-sama is sitting at a spot around the middle of the table. Tomomi sits down right opposite him. Upon sitting down, the two of them were served breakfast which consists of three pieces of expensive-looking hams, two perfectly round sunny-side up eggs, a piece of hash brown fried until it’s golden brown, some salad leaves, and a glass of milk.

   One of the servants who served the siblings explained that the ham is made of Spanish Iberico pork. The eggs, hash brown, salad leaves and milk were made of equally or more expensive ingredients too (at least, Tomomi thinks so from the names). The siblings wait patiently until he has finished explaining, and only dig in after he and the other servants have excused themselves. Once they’re alone, Tomomi lets out a small sigh of relief. Finally, she could rest easily.

   “Where exactly did father and mother go, onii-sama?” she asks her elder brother.

   “They’re out attending a party hosted by someone,” he replies. “At least, I think so. They didn’t bother to leave a message as usual.”

   “I see.”

   They eat their meal quietly for a few minutes until onii-sama decides to break the silence.

   “So, Tomomi. How’s the progress of, well, your training lately?” he begins rather cautiously.

   “It has been mostly self-training these days since HE is pretty occupied most of the time.” Tomomi reports.

   “I, I see…”

   That was definitely a sigh of relief that came out from him.

   “I have no intention of being close to him, onii-sama.”

   Hiroya nii-sama averts his eyes guiltily.

   “I-I-I-I-I-I d-d-d-don’t really care…” he stutters.

   Tomomi lets out a tired sigh. Always the sister complex.

   “He’s my mentor, nothing more and nothing less. So please, stop letting your imagination run wild.”

   “You don’t understand, Tomomi! He’s a bad influence on you!”

   “How so?”

   “He has next to zero empathy, for starters. And he’s not helping people out of the kindness of his heart!”

   “Ah, those. Haven’t we already had this discussion, onii-sama? He has to earn a living, so he can’t be doing it for free, can he?”

   “Still-”

   “I am mature enough to differentiate good influences from bad ones. Please believe in me in this subject.” Tomomi interrupts.

   “Fine…” onii-sama relents extremely reluctantly.

   “By the way, onii-sama. Have you braced yourself for the party later? Or more specifically, for the dance?” Tomomi asks in an attempt to change the subject.

   Nii-sama groans at the question.

   “Don’t even get me started! Just thinking that I’ll be passed around among those shallow gold-diggers makes me want to feign illness and skip the party altogether.”

   “You know that father and mother will just see through your lie, don’t you?”

   “I know, I know. I was just ranting for a bit, that’s all. What about you?”

   “I have polished my skill in dancing for quite a bit these past few months. As such, I have little to no chance of embarrassing myself in front of my partner, whoever it may be.”

   “Um, I was actually asking about-”

   “If you’re asking about my ideal partner, both you and I know that you’re wasting your time. Father and mother will decide everything in that regard for me, so my opinion is completely irrelevant.”

   “I could try and convince our parents to change their mind.” he offers. “It’s not right, after all.”

   “No thank you. Again, you’ll just end up wasting your time.”

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   “But-”

   SLAM!

   He was interrupted as Tomomi slams her hands on the table.

   “Onii-sama, please leave it at that. If you defy them too much, you’ll end up just like me and can’t choose your own future wife. You don’t want that, do you?” Tomomi asks with barely concealed anger and bitterness. “Besides, since when did they ever listen to you? So please, mind your own business and enjoy your freedom at the cost of mine.”

   Onii-sama is visibly hurt by her harsh words. Tomomi regrets saying them, but the damage was already done. She gets up from her seat.

   “Please excuse me.” she mumbles.

   Onii-sama made a noise between a grunt and a whimper. Tomomi isn’t really sure. She left the dining hall and went back to her room. Thankfully, she didn’t meet any servants along the way this time. If they interact with her when she's in a foul mood, they would suffer the consequences for sure. Once inside her room, she lies down on her bed and closes her eyes.

   Tomomi’s parents are what people call helicopter parents. Ever since she was young, her parents have decided everything for her. Her meals, her bedtime, her fashion sense, her form of education, her future job, even her friends and playmates. Choosing her future partner is merely their latest stop. She wouldn’t have minded as much or at least discussed with them about this if they did it out of their love for her. Then again, that’s the core issue of the entire thing. They only see her as a pawn. A pawn that they invested heavily in so that they could use her one day.

   As for the reason they’re not doing the same to onii-sama, it’s because he was deemed as a failure by their parents whose results mean everything. Since onii-sama couldn’t produce any, he was cast aside in favor of Tomomi who actually shows promise.

   Under the order of her parents, Tomomi has joined the Disciplinary Committee and Student Council during grade, middle and high school. It may or may not have been the result of her hard work, but the morale of the school she attended/attending has significantly become better. As a result, she was often praised by her teachers. Not only for working hard, but also for having a strong sense of justice and discipline.

   Tomomi could only snort loudly at the last part.

   Contrary to their belief, she has none of the good qualities they mentioned. She was always bitter and jealous that other students have way more freedom than her. As such, she found pleasure in making their life as miserable as possible in the guise of correcting their morals. She’s a petty, envious and horrible human being through and through. The matter got much worse after she obtained her ability.

   When she beat up her first group of victims, the trio of thugs who were trying to rob an elderly woman with her hammer, she was absolutely exhilarated. Just like when she was being a member of the Disciplinary Committee, she had a legitimate excuse to make someone miserable. No one would pity the thugs, so she could do whatever she wanted to punish them. And she was right. Majority of the public was on her side when her vigilante activities were being brought into light. Their support encouraged her to go further. She was prepared to hospitalize every single criminal in the country. Until she was caught by Silver Wolf, that is.

   She didn’t tell him the reason she didn’t want her power sealed off. That she’s constantly looking for an excuse to beat people up. If she did, he would have sealed it off anyway, with or without her approval. For now, she has to act like a model student and feign that she’s using her power for good.

   Tomomi continues to lie down on her bed and thinks about random things until-

   KNOCK! KNOCK!

   “Lunch is ready, ojou-sama.” a voice beyond the door says.

   So it’s not Hiroya nii-sama this time. What a surprise. Tomomi gets up from her bed.

   “I shall head down at once.”

   “Understood.”

   Once again, Hiroya nii-sama is already sitting down at the dining hall. Or he has never left in the first place. It’s really hard to tell, and Tomomi had no intention of making conversation in regard to that subject, not after what had happened during breakfast just now.

   This time, Tomomi sits down a few seats away from him and waits patiently for her meal to arrive. It eventually does, and the servants explain the content of the meals to them again. Tomomi barely listened, and nodded politely to show her gratitude once the servant was done. The siblings ate their meal quietly, not speaking or even looking at each other while they did so. The moment Tomomi was done eating, she got up from her seat and went back to her room. This time, she didn’t even bother to tell Hiroya nii-sama.

   The party starts at six in the evening, so Tomomi passed the time by doing revision. Holiday or no, a student shouldn’t neglect her studies. She stopped her studying once it’s fifteen minutes before the party starts so that she could get changed into her formal dress.

   The said dress is blue in color. The skirt is pleated and reaches all the way to her ankles. It’s custom-made for Tomomi, so it fits her to a tee. Besides the dress, she’s also wearing a necklace with a ruby attached to the end and a pair of white high-heels shoes. After she gets changed, she leaves the room and heads for the ball room.

   The ball room is so huge it’s big enough to fit around one hundred people, and there’s at least half of that number of people inside right now. There are men, women, boys and girls of different ages. All of them are well dressed-up for the occasion. And most, if not all of them are surrounding Tomomi’s parents, Date Yasuhide and Date Ruika.

   Tomomi had often heard people are praising how the two of them look young even though they’re both close to their fifties. What those people don’t know is that Tomomi’s parents are regular customers of lots of beautifying products, whether it be pills or injections. Naturally, those products are extremely expensive and could only be afforded by a selected few. Heaven knows their obsession with looking young. Their “fans” would do their best on flattering them regardless due to the sheer authority that they have, anyway.

   Currently, they’re talking to a young-looking man who’s facing Tomomi. Amazingly, her parents are only paying attention to him and him alone. Everyone else who's frantically trying to get their attention are being completely ignored.

   Something about the man made Tomomi squint her eyes and take a few steps forward so that she could take a closer look at him. He seems oddly familiar, even though Tomomi is pretty sure that she has never seen him before. This is coming from her, who's pretty confident in remembering those she has met before.

   And then, he happened to glance her way. Tomomi swore that his mouth curved slightly to show her a faint smile before he redirects his focus on her parents once more. That smile confirmed that Tomomi is meant to know him. He certainly knows her, and she has a feeling that it’s not through her parents. Either way, there’s no way for her to find out as he’s occupied right now. And she’s not stupid enough to interrupt her parents, of all people.

   Until Tomomi could look for a chance to talk to the man, she settled for wandering around the ball room until the party officially began. There’s nothing else to do as pretty much everyone’s attention is on her parents, and the food is off-limits until meal time has been announced. It was then when Tomomi spots her brother who’s also being bored out of his mind. And then she quickly looks away.

   During previous parties, the siblings would keep each other company until there’s something, anything at all, for them to do. However, the incident during breakfast has created a rift between them, so Tomomi is on her own.

   Finally, after what felt like hours, her parents have dismissed the crowd around them. This indicates that the party will begin soon. A few minutes later, Tomomi’s father stood in front of a podium and made a speech that she was barely listening to. At the end of the speech, he was given a huge applause. Before he makes his exit, he declares that it’s time for the party to start. Finally-

   “Good evening to you.”

   Tomomi’s neck turned sharply towards the direction of the voice. As she had half-expected, it was the man whom she wanted to speak to.

   “Good evening, sir.” Tomomi greets back politely. “If I may be so bold, have we met before?”

   The man looks surprised for a moment, and then lets out a chuckle.

   “I suppose you don’t recognize me. After all, I had my facial structure modified.” he says. “That said, I doubt I could fool Silver Wolf and my daughter with this poor excuse of a disguise. Well, I certainly fooled you, Hanya Mask.”

   Tomomi lets out a gasp.

   “Nothing to worry about, dear. Your secret is safe with me.” he assures while winking.

   “Does my parents know?” Tomomi asks softly after she has calmed down.

   “I’m not sure. I, for one, didn’t run my mouth. You’ll have to ask them yourself. And speaking of them-”

   Tomomi’s parents approach her and the man Tomomi remembers as Austin Graylock. Tomomi noticed that for the first time ever, the other guests are actually mingling with each other instead of trying their best to make conversations with her parents.

   “I see that you’ve been acquainted with Mister Graylock here.” Father says to Tomomi.

   “He and I exchanged a few words together.” Tomomi says carefully.

   “That’s nice. Let us talk some more while having the finest meal our chefs have prepared for us.” mother says to Austin Graylock.

   “No, thank you. I would like to speak with your daughter some more.” Austin Graylock refuses.

   Tomomi inhales sharply. If it’s one thing mother hates, it’s being rejected. After all, she was used to getting her ways. This would not end well. Or so Tomomi thought.

   “In that case, we will be waiting at the host table.” mother merely said calmly.

   “Do keep our esteemed guest entertained, Tomomi.” Father says to Tomomi this time.

   “Will do, father.”

   As her parents are leaving, Tomomi looks around frantically for her brother. Having a rift or no, there’s no way he would leave her alone with a dangerous-looking man. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen. And so, she’s stuck with him.

   “Now then, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Graylock-san?” she asks the man.

   “Straight to the point, are we? Well then. How obsessed are you with gaining strength?”

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