Sakura no Hime [Blue Exorcist | Ao no Exorcist Fanfiction]

Chapter Three

For the next five years, Mayaka's resentment towards her father deepened. When she thought she and him would get along as the time passed, that he would be nicer towards her, it seems it was the total opposite. As she continued her Cram School, he got stricter and harsher in training, especially when she was failing Anti-Demon Pharmaceutics and some of her Aria classes. Even though Mayaka developed a hobby of reading, she wasn't an academic. She would pass the classes she was interested in (such as Demonology classes, Tamer Classes, Phys. Ed., and Knight classes), but would get low marks in things she wasn't too much invested in – even though she studied hard for those tests.

Out of frustration, her father started comparing her to Okumura Yukio – a boy he disliked – who was younger than Mayaka by two years, for having excellent grades – higher than those high schoolers going to cram school. He had her study and train harder, completely isolating her from other kids her age. In retaliation, by the age of 13, Mayaka started to rebel against her father.

Being in Junior High School, she wasn't monitored 24/7 by her father and could easily slip away when she could. She would skip classes she had no interest in, both in her Junior High School and Cram School; this would cause Nagato to be called in by her teachers and explain the problem. She was once threatened that she could repeat a year if she continued to skip class, but for some reason, she always manages to accelerate to the next grade since she has calculated the days she skipped classes and made sure to pass all of her homework and other school works when needed, and her grades were exceptional enough for her to pass (just above average but not too high for honor students).

Then there was the case of her stealing her father's cigarettes – which Nagato never noticed. But it was when she broke that one rule and the only rule that Nagato gave her that had him at the end of his ropes. The day she broke into her father's room.

It was one of those weekends where Mayaka was monitored by her father as punishment for her rebellious acts. After receiving intense training from her father as a disciplinary method, she was left in her room and study, but she only studied the things she wanted to. By the time she got hungry, Mayaka stepped out of her room to get some food but stopped when she saw light coming from her father's room. She could clearly see him walking around his room and then stopping before the door. She could hear the sound of the key slipping in and then the knob turning, the door never opened, but her father was gone.

Knowing that he left to go somewhere (probably a mission), Mayaka crept to his room, she tested the knob to see if the door was locked. Of course, it was. But luckily for her, she was taught how to pick a lock by a classmate who was too proud of such simple skills. With her small tools, Mayaka unlocked the door, and with a simple turn of a knob, the door opened. She found nothing special in the room, but a bed, a closet, and a table where numerous papers were sprawled on, and a black suitcase.

She remembered that black suitcase, it was the one her father brought from Kyoto and refused to let her carry. She had no idea what it held since she never saw it again after they arrived in their apartment. But now she will. Stepping closer to the suitcase, Mayaka brushed her hand at the side and to the lock. She was about to pull the latches but found them to be stuck. Confused, she lifted the case to see why, and to her shock, the case's handle wrapped itself around her wrist and then suddenly became too heavy for her to carry that dropped the case on the floor, dragging her along with it. She felt a sudden pain wash through her wrist from the sudden stretch.

"What the hell?" She said in a whisper as she tried to set her hand free but the case's strap just gotten tighter. She winced in pain at the tightness and stopped.

"That's a Liminal Demon. Kin to the King of Time."

Mayaka's blood ran cold at the sound of her father's voice, turning to the door, she saw him closing the door of his room from a location she did not know. Nagato sat down on his bed and simply stared down at his daughter, watching as she tried to stop the tightening binds.