The Emperor's Daughter

Chapter 18: How it started

She stroked her long hair. She used to hate it because of the strange purple color. But mother said she loved it, which made her look at her hair in a different way. Her hair was long and beautiful, like the color of dusk. Until one of the cousins took a knife and cut it with just a sweep. She watched every strand of her purple hair that she loved fell on the floor like strings. Then the cousin, who did it on purpose, would apologize with a half smile saying it was an accident. But Shiki knew, deep inside, they were laughing at her choppy short hair.

Every day, when everyone was still alive, she would come home from school. Her mother and she was living in a small house that was separate from the main building. Every night, grandfather would lock the only door in the house that could lead to the outside. The door was locked from outside and could be unlocked only by on key, which grandfather kept it. In comparison, it was like a prison. But it was always warm because her mother was there for her.

Mikado residence didn't have any servants. All the work was done by the family members and there were 18 of them, including her and her mother. For the rooms that were shared such as kitchen and living room in the main building, the chore was divided. The children also took part of the daily chore, but they would dump it on her most of the time. While they were playing in the garden, she was doing their works. She didn't say anything because she heard the things her aunts said about her mother, for instances, how lazy mother and she was. Even though those words were never true, Shiki just decided to do all the chore to prove them wrong.

It was unfair, but when was this house ever being fair to her and her mother? Grandfather always tried to exclude two of them from the rest of the family. Ever since a rumour said that she was arranged to marry into the Tei family, she and her mother were always treated like they were lowlifes. While others were busy acting superior, Shiki worked diligently to bring honor to her mother and to prove grandfather that she was not a disgrace. She did all the chores that were too much for her, she spent time at night only to study, she practiced her combat skill whenever she had free time.

However, the kids took advantage of it. At first, they would gather together to show the power in number. If she refused their command, they would beat her up. There was a day her mother asked about the bruises on her body and she lied that she fell at the stairs. Nevertheless, even when she gave in submission, they got even more violent and came up with more ways to terrorize her. So she decided to stand up to them. It was hardly a fight because she never knew they were much weaker than her in term of strength.

Grandfather saw that fight. He saw how she was standing while other kids were moaning in pain on the ground. At first, she was hoping to get a praise from grandfather. But then she saw his look like he would tear her into a million pieces. Grandfather threw her into a cell. For the first time, she learned how it was to be locked in a prison cell. Her mother was not permitted to visit her, so the aunts would take turns to bring food to her and sometime would throw the food on the floor to express the anger at her beating up their kids. She stayed in that cold cell for a week, but it felt like endless.

After that, grandfather forbade her to come to the dojo for combat lesson. He tried to stop her to get better at fighting, however, she knew that if she didn't practice enough, the other kids would get stronger and stronger, and they would beat her up again. Even though she was not allowed to the dojo, she didn't stop training herself to be stronger.

"Oops. Sorry!" said cousin after pretending to trip and spill soy sauce to her new high school uniform on her first day of school. She ended up wearing her jersey jacket.

They knew that they couldn't fight her in a fair battle, so they started to do pranks on her and they kept doing that until the end. Somehow, even when their bodies got bigger, their personalities didn't change. Even the kids from Tei family joined to do the pranks. It was annoying, but it was better to endure it. Grandfather wouldn't care if she told him.

But every endurance had a limit. It was not long for her to see that all the hard works were futile. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't change how the family members perceive her and mother, nor their behavior. She couldn't change grandfather who would never see her as his granddaughter.

They were always the disgraces of the Mikado family.

The snow kept falling and covered everything. The road was mushy, like a small swamp of white snow that made her boots heavier every time she moved her feet. It was getting harder to move around, to walk toward her house. Sometimes she wondered, why her mother and she had to live in a house where no one treated them like a family member? She thought of ideas to run away and never coming back. But mother said with a bitter voice,

"They will find you no matter how hard you try. Just like how they found us."

Shiki didn't want to settle for living like a disgrace for the rest of her life, nor waiting to get married to a person that would also treat her the same as everyone else. There must be a way for her to escape this family.

"Dead. The only way to escape them is to have all of them dead."

That dark thought suddenly appeared in her mind. She ignored it at first, thinking it was a random idea. However, it grew bigger when she saw her father hit her mother. The aunts who treated her mother bad, the cousins who played pranks on her, and the strict grandfather who was trying to throw her away. All of them fed the idea to grow bigger.