Post by Rika Lefcourt on Feb 21, 2012 16:49:26 GMT -8
I am not one to write journals or diaries. It has never been my thing. I always believed that it’s better to read books rather than to write them. Or, to be more precisely, write actual books instead of whining and trivial personal nonsense. At Shirasagi many of the girls had diaries and journals. I know what they wrote in there most of the time. Pointless whining about boys, and how some other girl was mean and whatever else.
Meaningless, empty, brainless. The Kiku weren’t so bad at this, neither were the Sakura. But Shiratatsu and Kikyo had their fair share of whiney little princesses. Maybe I’m unfair with this assessment, but looking back that’s what certainly comes to mind. Most girls in the Takaha- and Yashagun were Kiku and Sakura. Some were Kikyo, and, at least in my year, the smallest number was from Shiratatsu. Black Lotus of course didn’t care. Why would they? They’re the Black Lotus.
I guess the two groups didn’t fit into this imported image of the pretty princess who was waiting for the knight in shining armor to rescue her. I remember one girl in Shiratatsu who was just insufferable. All cute and sweet and... Oh merciful gods, how did she even get sorted into Shiratatsu. I guess I’ll never know.
But the thing is, Tomoe Gozen didn’t wait for a knight to come and rescue her. Hangaku Gozen rode out of the castle to meet the besieging army in combat. Some three hundred women at Hondo castle broke out of the compound and tore into the besieging army like furies. They were overwhelmed and all killed by a numerically superior enemy, yes, but they didn’t just give up and waited for rescue and they inflicted massive damage on the army at the gates of their home. Tsuru of the Ueno did similar. Instead of waiting for the White Knight she rode out of the castle with some thirty fellow women and challenged the men outside to individual combat.
I could go on about Masako of the Hojo, my own ancestor, and her deeds, but I digress. I’ve just started and I’ve already lost track. How wonderful is that.
As I was saying, this spirit has somewhat disappeared. It has been smothered by utterly ridiculous western notions. How many women in Europe commanded troops and castles? Sure, there were some who did, but they were the exception of the rule. Back home it was expected from a woman like me to defend her family’s castle to her last breath.
Today the west paints us as meek and submissive creatures, which is utterly ridiculous. When I look at movies in the muggle world, then the “Asian” woman is either an expert “martial artist” (merciful gods I hate this term so much), but never the actual hero, or she’s the useless attachment to the hero who needs help. Of course there are some exceptions, there have to be, I just can’t think of any.
And then our girls back home adapt to this nonsense. It’s bad enough that it’s so present in the muggle world, but among my kind? That’s just utterly insulting.
To come back to that girl in Shiratatsu, who was in my year, yes, she, too, was like that. And I found it insufferable. How could she demean herself to such a position? She was a pure-blood to boot, from a well-known and respected family. She was smart, too. And yet the played the role of the cute, useless dunce. Pretty, but stupid. I heard she got finally married. Apparently that was her goal the whole time.
I don’t mind a woman choosing the path of marriage and family. I know I won’t, but that’s me. It’s just not my thing. I guess I’ve always known that. But pretending to be someone she’s not in order to be “successful” at it? That’s outrageous and insulting.
I am what I am, any man interested either accepts me the way I am or we’ll never get anywhere. That’s how I see it.
But this isn’t even the topic of this. What is this even? It’s not a diary. It’s not a journal. Maybe a simple collection of thoughts? That could work. I do not plan to carry on with it. It’s not my style and I would hate the thought of leaving papers with my most intimate hopes and worries lying around somewhere where someone could possibly find them. I might actually toss this into the fire that’s burning in the fireplace not far from me once I’m done. One could say this is completely pointless, but I disagree.
Who am I supposed to talk with about the things that are scratching at the back of my head? The Nikaidô family looks for leadership and guidance. The Hojo now see me as a hostile. I could talk with my uncle but I don’t like bothering him. I could talk with Minami, but even though she’s running her own business I doubt she’d really understand my issues. There is so much she still has to learn about our world. Mayu. Mayu is still too young. She understands the problems, no doubt, but she has enough on her hands as it is. That leaves nobody except myself. Of course there are old friends from Shirasagi. But both Akemi and Reiko are about to marry into the Hojo, so that cancels them out.
Oh wait, I could talk about it with Sparky. I would only have to explain everything to him, which would take me at least a couple of weeks.
Not really an option.
No, I’m stuck with myself, which is perfectly fine.
Though, who really am I?
I am Nikaidô Sayoko. But I’m also Rika Lefcourt. And yet I don’t want to be either.
I hate being called Rika Lefcourt. I hate playing this role. I hate having to put up such a show, such a farce. The Lefcourt family were Death Eaters. I’m none of them. They were part of this Lord Voldemort’s gang. One could say they were evil. The whole bloody family. A dynasty built on cruelty, blackmail, murder and oppression. And now they’re all dead. It still feels quite odd, being here in Lefcourt Castle, without any of them around. They are gone, yet their presence still lingers. At times I wonder if one of them could turn into a ghost and could end up haunting this place. But I guess for this to happen too much time has already passed.
For a castle with such a history Lefcourt Castle is strangely free of ghosts or other demons and lost souls. I shudder to think about how many lives were snuffed out in the dungeon below me over the past few centuries. How many were muggles? How many were wizards? There are no records about this, of course not. Smart criminals make sure the evidence is gone. And what good would it do anyway? The dead are dead, they don’t care. And for the living it makes no difference, simply because most of it happened long before I was born.
Though, in light of trying to sell the castle, which will eventually happen, maybe adding a little horror story wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I know that the family lore tells of a few “interesting” characters throughout the centuries who went to “work” within these walls. I can as well milk this to get a higher price. Weird American billionaires and crazy oil-rich sheikhs are suckers for this kind of stuff. And if I can get a few more galleons, koku, dollars, pounds or yen for it, why not?
On the other hand it does make me a bit sad. The castle itself isn’t so bad. It’s quite old and has been renovated, redesigned and reconstructed over the centuries. Castle building went with the fashion, quite like back home. Though I know in Europe this was significantly worse. After all styles changed and wars continued, while Japan suffered almost three hundred years of relative peace.
It’s always relative, isn’t it? Of course there was peace among the feudal leaders, but the peasants tended to revolt every now and then. Strangely, this always happened among the muggles, but never among us. I think it’s because of the system. Our feudal system doesn’t offer muggle-born wizards many options. I think I remember an official statistic saying that many muggle-born return to muggle lives. But whether or not this is true, who knows. It’s an official statistic by the ministry of magic in Kyoto. They tend to kiss up to anyone with the prospect of being a dominating factor.
But yes, I might be tempted to actually keep the castle. Time will tell. First of all I have to get rid of all the things stored away in the vaults below. Sparky was so good and catalogued most of it. I know I will spend the next days and weeks going through it myself. I want to sell most of it, but I also want to see if there’s anything I could use.
Though some of the things down there I will rather destroy. When I was here last time I had some time to read through old manuscripts left behind by a certain Alvaredus Lefcourt. He was seeking immortality. The old quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, or the Grail or similar nonsense. According to some sources he lived to a rather ripe age, so maybe he discovered something. I rather see whatever he found destroyed. Personally I’ve never understood this quest for immortality and why so many brilliant minds, wizards and muggles alike, would end up obsessing about it.
I know, the idea sounds amazing at the first look. Immortality, never having to die, escaping death. Fantastic.
But is it really that great? The thought of living forever is utterly frightening for me. Immortality, that means never to die. Never, ever. I’d live for hundreds of years. Thousands. Tens of thousands. After a couple of hundred years I think I’d go insane. All the people I’d care about would perish around me. Not just once, but hundreds of times. Loving someone, or even just caring about someone would be out of question after a while, because I’d know that they would die while I would continue to walk this Earth, forever. I would see civilizations come and go, would see continents change, would possibly even see the planet, the sun die. Immortality sounds more like utter hell to me.
No. No thank you. I don’t want that. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen death too often to be afraid of it anymore. Or maybe because there is something after it. I’ve never been religious, I don’t think I ever will be. And to be honest, I doubt it means anything anyway. But I know there is something. Back when father died and I almost with him, when he gave up his life to rescue me, there was something there. I don’t remember much. I remember the sudden shock and surprise when the car went down into the lake. I wasn’t scared or anything. It was just a completely cool realization: this is it. I almost drowned. I know the lack of oxygen put me out. But somewhere on the edge of my mind I know there was something else there. Something that pushed me up towards the surface.
The later encounters weren’t any different. The assassin in Hogsmeade. I remember being primarily surprised. Suddenly I was under attack. I reacted and killed him. My mother, same thing. The Lefcourt family, same thing. Back home on Mount Hakkoda we almost shared the same fate as the luckless second battalion. In China, and later going after Akemi and dealing with Annabelle, there was always the risk of getting killed. Yet it never scared me, it never frightened me. Why not?
The normal reaction of a human being to imminent death is fear. But I’ve never felt it. And most of these incidents ended with me killing somebody else. I have no idea how many people I’ve killed and I don’t want to know. I do not enjoy taking lives, but I now know that sometimes there is no other choice. If they leave you no other way out, then you have to kill. I killed to survive, to protect people I love. Except maybe my cousins in the Nikaidô family, my aunt there, and the minister. But even they had it coming. The things they did were wrong and so they were punished.
Who knows, one day it will be my turn. And yet I don’t fear it. The day will come, no doubt. I will die one day. But I’m not afraid.
Ever since the Harrowing I’m absolutely sure there is something. He was there. I know it. The memory, no that wasn’t him, that was my memory, nothing else. But afterwards. He was there. He had to be. I know it. I know it violates everything I’ve ever learned as a Kiku, but that’s what I feel. And I can’t ignore my feelings. He was there. I know it. Why am I telling myself that? I don’t have to convince myself. I know it.
And why fear something that will eventually come anyway?
Now I lost track. I had to get coffee. Enough of with death anyway. People die every day, new people are born every day. It doesn’t matter. I have other things to do. Chasing after the possibility that there may be something after death isn’t among those. I will find out about that soon enough anyway. We all do.
And who is this Nikaidô Sayoko? Everybody still calls me Rika. I think I will always be Rika for some people. Sayoko works well as an official name, but I know to everyone who ever cared about me I will always be Rika. That’s not so bad, just a bit weird.
Rokuhana Rika, that was me. Nikaidô Rika, sort of, but not entirely. I miss those days. Partly because father was still alive, but also because life was easier.
No clan, no family, no duties. No playing politics with a bunch of retarded baboons in Osaka. No threat of war. No pretending to be somebody else.
I wish I could have graduated from Shirasagi. After that maybe work for the ministry, in research maybe, or down in mysteries. Or stay in the castle. Work in the library or something like that. Maybe eventually going for a teaching position in transfiguration or magical creatures. That was what I wanted to do. It’s not glorious work. Of course not. I never wanted glory. Sure, I had some stupid dreams about the past, like most of us students had them. I doubt it’s any different today. But I never wanted this. I wanted a quiet life, not the fate of an entire clan on my shoulders. Or even worse, the fate of the nation, because I know, I’m now the unknown factor, the rogue card.
I guess I would have married one day. Maybe have a few children, too. Two or three maybe. Would he have been muggle or pure-blood? I don’t think it would have mattered. What am I saying. I know it wouldn’t have mattered. This blood ideology is so incredibly stupid. I would have stayed small and unimportant in the greater scheme of things. I would have vastly preferred that.
But I can’t go back. I am what I am and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can no longer retreat, can’t run away. There’s too much at stake.
Rika Lefcourt. Nikaidô Sayoko. I would give a lot to be just Rokuhana Rika again.
This is insane.
I will have to go through the vault in Gringotts soon. That should be interesting. All the funny questions. Though it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. They should remember me, especially after I skewered Annabelle on their doorsteps.
Strange though. Getting the money is no longer the primary mission. That has changed to protecting Mayu. Yuki Adams, such a stupid idea. And yet it’ll probably work. People are so ignorant. Nevertheless, I have to be careful. Her safety is more important than the blood money from this cursed family.
That leaves just one thing.
Bloody Shiori lying to me. I don’t care about her excuses. One day I might forgive her, but right now, no. I can take her one on one in a normal duel, maybe even in a fight. But we’re not on even ground.
I am a gotoku neko. I have to learn how to shift. I know how the theory goes, but learning it by myself, at my age, that will be uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable? Seriously? Who am I kidding? It will hurt like hell. I’m an adult, I’m fully grown up. My bones are no longer growing, they’re no longer as flexible. I have to learn how to shift. And it will hurt.
Though, I wonder how my “natural” form will look like. This is actually quite scary. The woman I see in the mirror every day in the morning isn’t me. How do we even choose our faces? Is it a choice we make? Is it subconscious like the first few shifts after birth? I think it’s that. Shiori and I look alike after all. It has to be subconscious, and maybe with a certain genetic factor as well.
What am I going on about? This isn’t really the problem, is it? I can research that later, once everything here is settled. In a few years. Yes, I have to stay here that long. Mayu will graduate from Hogwarts and I won’t leave her here by herself.
I guess I will start working on the shift tomorrow. The casting itself is no issue. Wandless magic is challenging but doable. It takes focus and hard work, like shifting. To be honest, it’s the shifting that scares me. But I have to do it. I have to be ready, not only for whatever Shiori might throw at me back home. It might be useful here too.
I have to learn how to shift. I must be ready. There can be no self-doubt. I have to succeed. I will succeed.
About five minutes later these pages were smoldering in the fireplace, quickly burning away.
Meaningless, empty, brainless. The Kiku weren’t so bad at this, neither were the Sakura. But Shiratatsu and Kikyo had their fair share of whiney little princesses. Maybe I’m unfair with this assessment, but looking back that’s what certainly comes to mind. Most girls in the Takaha- and Yashagun were Kiku and Sakura. Some were Kikyo, and, at least in my year, the smallest number was from Shiratatsu. Black Lotus of course didn’t care. Why would they? They’re the Black Lotus.
I guess the two groups didn’t fit into this imported image of the pretty princess who was waiting for the knight in shining armor to rescue her. I remember one girl in Shiratatsu who was just insufferable. All cute and sweet and... Oh merciful gods, how did she even get sorted into Shiratatsu. I guess I’ll never know.
But the thing is, Tomoe Gozen didn’t wait for a knight to come and rescue her. Hangaku Gozen rode out of the castle to meet the besieging army in combat. Some three hundred women at Hondo castle broke out of the compound and tore into the besieging army like furies. They were overwhelmed and all killed by a numerically superior enemy, yes, but they didn’t just give up and waited for rescue and they inflicted massive damage on the army at the gates of their home. Tsuru of the Ueno did similar. Instead of waiting for the White Knight she rode out of the castle with some thirty fellow women and challenged the men outside to individual combat.
I could go on about Masako of the Hojo, my own ancestor, and her deeds, but I digress. I’ve just started and I’ve already lost track. How wonderful is that.
As I was saying, this spirit has somewhat disappeared. It has been smothered by utterly ridiculous western notions. How many women in Europe commanded troops and castles? Sure, there were some who did, but they were the exception of the rule. Back home it was expected from a woman like me to defend her family’s castle to her last breath.
Today the west paints us as meek and submissive creatures, which is utterly ridiculous. When I look at movies in the muggle world, then the “Asian” woman is either an expert “martial artist” (merciful gods I hate this term so much), but never the actual hero, or she’s the useless attachment to the hero who needs help. Of course there are some exceptions, there have to be, I just can’t think of any.
And then our girls back home adapt to this nonsense. It’s bad enough that it’s so present in the muggle world, but among my kind? That’s just utterly insulting.
To come back to that girl in Shiratatsu, who was in my year, yes, she, too, was like that. And I found it insufferable. How could she demean herself to such a position? She was a pure-blood to boot, from a well-known and respected family. She was smart, too. And yet the played the role of the cute, useless dunce. Pretty, but stupid. I heard she got finally married. Apparently that was her goal the whole time.
I don’t mind a woman choosing the path of marriage and family. I know I won’t, but that’s me. It’s just not my thing. I guess I’ve always known that. But pretending to be someone she’s not in order to be “successful” at it? That’s outrageous and insulting.
I am what I am, any man interested either accepts me the way I am or we’ll never get anywhere. That’s how I see it.
But this isn’t even the topic of this. What is this even? It’s not a diary. It’s not a journal. Maybe a simple collection of thoughts? That could work. I do not plan to carry on with it. It’s not my style and I would hate the thought of leaving papers with my most intimate hopes and worries lying around somewhere where someone could possibly find them. I might actually toss this into the fire that’s burning in the fireplace not far from me once I’m done. One could say this is completely pointless, but I disagree.
Who am I supposed to talk with about the things that are scratching at the back of my head? The Nikaidô family looks for leadership and guidance. The Hojo now see me as a hostile. I could talk with my uncle but I don’t like bothering him. I could talk with Minami, but even though she’s running her own business I doubt she’d really understand my issues. There is so much she still has to learn about our world. Mayu. Mayu is still too young. She understands the problems, no doubt, but she has enough on her hands as it is. That leaves nobody except myself. Of course there are old friends from Shirasagi. But both Akemi and Reiko are about to marry into the Hojo, so that cancels them out.
Oh wait, I could talk about it with Sparky. I would only have to explain everything to him, which would take me at least a couple of weeks.
Not really an option.
No, I’m stuck with myself, which is perfectly fine.
Though, who really am I?
I am Nikaidô Sayoko. But I’m also Rika Lefcourt. And yet I don’t want to be either.
I hate being called Rika Lefcourt. I hate playing this role. I hate having to put up such a show, such a farce. The Lefcourt family were Death Eaters. I’m none of them. They were part of this Lord Voldemort’s gang. One could say they were evil. The whole bloody family. A dynasty built on cruelty, blackmail, murder and oppression. And now they’re all dead. It still feels quite odd, being here in Lefcourt Castle, without any of them around. They are gone, yet their presence still lingers. At times I wonder if one of them could turn into a ghost and could end up haunting this place. But I guess for this to happen too much time has already passed.
For a castle with such a history Lefcourt Castle is strangely free of ghosts or other demons and lost souls. I shudder to think about how many lives were snuffed out in the dungeon below me over the past few centuries. How many were muggles? How many were wizards? There are no records about this, of course not. Smart criminals make sure the evidence is gone. And what good would it do anyway? The dead are dead, they don’t care. And for the living it makes no difference, simply because most of it happened long before I was born.
Though, in light of trying to sell the castle, which will eventually happen, maybe adding a little horror story wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I know that the family lore tells of a few “interesting” characters throughout the centuries who went to “work” within these walls. I can as well milk this to get a higher price. Weird American billionaires and crazy oil-rich sheikhs are suckers for this kind of stuff. And if I can get a few more galleons, koku, dollars, pounds or yen for it, why not?
On the other hand it does make me a bit sad. The castle itself isn’t so bad. It’s quite old and has been renovated, redesigned and reconstructed over the centuries. Castle building went with the fashion, quite like back home. Though I know in Europe this was significantly worse. After all styles changed and wars continued, while Japan suffered almost three hundred years of relative peace.
It’s always relative, isn’t it? Of course there was peace among the feudal leaders, but the peasants tended to revolt every now and then. Strangely, this always happened among the muggles, but never among us. I think it’s because of the system. Our feudal system doesn’t offer muggle-born wizards many options. I think I remember an official statistic saying that many muggle-born return to muggle lives. But whether or not this is true, who knows. It’s an official statistic by the ministry of magic in Kyoto. They tend to kiss up to anyone with the prospect of being a dominating factor.
But yes, I might be tempted to actually keep the castle. Time will tell. First of all I have to get rid of all the things stored away in the vaults below. Sparky was so good and catalogued most of it. I know I will spend the next days and weeks going through it myself. I want to sell most of it, but I also want to see if there’s anything I could use.
Though some of the things down there I will rather destroy. When I was here last time I had some time to read through old manuscripts left behind by a certain Alvaredus Lefcourt. He was seeking immortality. The old quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, or the Grail or similar nonsense. According to some sources he lived to a rather ripe age, so maybe he discovered something. I rather see whatever he found destroyed. Personally I’ve never understood this quest for immortality and why so many brilliant minds, wizards and muggles alike, would end up obsessing about it.
I know, the idea sounds amazing at the first look. Immortality, never having to die, escaping death. Fantastic.
But is it really that great? The thought of living forever is utterly frightening for me. Immortality, that means never to die. Never, ever. I’d live for hundreds of years. Thousands. Tens of thousands. After a couple of hundred years I think I’d go insane. All the people I’d care about would perish around me. Not just once, but hundreds of times. Loving someone, or even just caring about someone would be out of question after a while, because I’d know that they would die while I would continue to walk this Earth, forever. I would see civilizations come and go, would see continents change, would possibly even see the planet, the sun die. Immortality sounds more like utter hell to me.
No. No thank you. I don’t want that. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen death too often to be afraid of it anymore. Or maybe because there is something after it. I’ve never been religious, I don’t think I ever will be. And to be honest, I doubt it means anything anyway. But I know there is something. Back when father died and I almost with him, when he gave up his life to rescue me, there was something there. I don’t remember much. I remember the sudden shock and surprise when the car went down into the lake. I wasn’t scared or anything. It was just a completely cool realization: this is it. I almost drowned. I know the lack of oxygen put me out. But somewhere on the edge of my mind I know there was something else there. Something that pushed me up towards the surface.
The later encounters weren’t any different. The assassin in Hogsmeade. I remember being primarily surprised. Suddenly I was under attack. I reacted and killed him. My mother, same thing. The Lefcourt family, same thing. Back home on Mount Hakkoda we almost shared the same fate as the luckless second battalion. In China, and later going after Akemi and dealing with Annabelle, there was always the risk of getting killed. Yet it never scared me, it never frightened me. Why not?
The normal reaction of a human being to imminent death is fear. But I’ve never felt it. And most of these incidents ended with me killing somebody else. I have no idea how many people I’ve killed and I don’t want to know. I do not enjoy taking lives, but I now know that sometimes there is no other choice. If they leave you no other way out, then you have to kill. I killed to survive, to protect people I love. Except maybe my cousins in the Nikaidô family, my aunt there, and the minister. But even they had it coming. The things they did were wrong and so they were punished.
Who knows, one day it will be my turn. And yet I don’t fear it. The day will come, no doubt. I will die one day. But I’m not afraid.
Ever since the Harrowing I’m absolutely sure there is something. He was there. I know it. The memory, no that wasn’t him, that was my memory, nothing else. But afterwards. He was there. He had to be. I know it. I know it violates everything I’ve ever learned as a Kiku, but that’s what I feel. And I can’t ignore my feelings. He was there. I know it. Why am I telling myself that? I don’t have to convince myself. I know it.
And why fear something that will eventually come anyway?
Now I lost track. I had to get coffee. Enough of with death anyway. People die every day, new people are born every day. It doesn’t matter. I have other things to do. Chasing after the possibility that there may be something after death isn’t among those. I will find out about that soon enough anyway. We all do.
And who is this Nikaidô Sayoko? Everybody still calls me Rika. I think I will always be Rika for some people. Sayoko works well as an official name, but I know to everyone who ever cared about me I will always be Rika. That’s not so bad, just a bit weird.
Rokuhana Rika, that was me. Nikaidô Rika, sort of, but not entirely. I miss those days. Partly because father was still alive, but also because life was easier.
No clan, no family, no duties. No playing politics with a bunch of retarded baboons in Osaka. No threat of war. No pretending to be somebody else.
I wish I could have graduated from Shirasagi. After that maybe work for the ministry, in research maybe, or down in mysteries. Or stay in the castle. Work in the library or something like that. Maybe eventually going for a teaching position in transfiguration or magical creatures. That was what I wanted to do. It’s not glorious work. Of course not. I never wanted glory. Sure, I had some stupid dreams about the past, like most of us students had them. I doubt it’s any different today. But I never wanted this. I wanted a quiet life, not the fate of an entire clan on my shoulders. Or even worse, the fate of the nation, because I know, I’m now the unknown factor, the rogue card.
I guess I would have married one day. Maybe have a few children, too. Two or three maybe. Would he have been muggle or pure-blood? I don’t think it would have mattered. What am I saying. I know it wouldn’t have mattered. This blood ideology is so incredibly stupid. I would have stayed small and unimportant in the greater scheme of things. I would have vastly preferred that.
But I can’t go back. I am what I am and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can no longer retreat, can’t run away. There’s too much at stake.
Rika Lefcourt. Nikaidô Sayoko. I would give a lot to be just Rokuhana Rika again.
This is insane.
I will have to go through the vault in Gringotts soon. That should be interesting. All the funny questions. Though it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. They should remember me, especially after I skewered Annabelle on their doorsteps.
Strange though. Getting the money is no longer the primary mission. That has changed to protecting Mayu. Yuki Adams, such a stupid idea. And yet it’ll probably work. People are so ignorant. Nevertheless, I have to be careful. Her safety is more important than the blood money from this cursed family.
That leaves just one thing.
Bloody Shiori lying to me. I don’t care about her excuses. One day I might forgive her, but right now, no. I can take her one on one in a normal duel, maybe even in a fight. But we’re not on even ground.
I am a gotoku neko. I have to learn how to shift. I know how the theory goes, but learning it by myself, at my age, that will be uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable? Seriously? Who am I kidding? It will hurt like hell. I’m an adult, I’m fully grown up. My bones are no longer growing, they’re no longer as flexible. I have to learn how to shift. And it will hurt.
Though, I wonder how my “natural” form will look like. This is actually quite scary. The woman I see in the mirror every day in the morning isn’t me. How do we even choose our faces? Is it a choice we make? Is it subconscious like the first few shifts after birth? I think it’s that. Shiori and I look alike after all. It has to be subconscious, and maybe with a certain genetic factor as well.
What am I going on about? This isn’t really the problem, is it? I can research that later, once everything here is settled. In a few years. Yes, I have to stay here that long. Mayu will graduate from Hogwarts and I won’t leave her here by herself.
I guess I will start working on the shift tomorrow. The casting itself is no issue. Wandless magic is challenging but doable. It takes focus and hard work, like shifting. To be honest, it’s the shifting that scares me. But I have to do it. I have to be ready, not only for whatever Shiori might throw at me back home. It might be useful here too.
I have to learn how to shift. I must be ready. There can be no self-doubt. I have to succeed. I will succeed.
About five minutes later these pages were smoldering in the fireplace, quickly burning away.