The inner workings of the building made John question why he even bothered making sure nobody followed them. A good 50 people were active in and around the base floor, making calls, sitting at computers, holding stacks of paper, losing half of them as they ran from point A to point B.
It was an almost comedic display of bureaucracy at its worst. Didn’t help that basically everyone seemed to work against each other; people tripping happened at least thrice while John passed. “Sorry, the interns are always overly enthusiastic,” Liz sighed as they made their way through.
“You say that like you are already part of the upper structure,” John noted.
“Nah, but I can join as an apprentice whenever, I have an open invitation,” she smirked. “And that’s only half thanks to mom’s influence. ‘Cause I am awesome!”
“She is your sister, alright,” John joked towards Rave and earned himself a little bit of a pinch in the side for that.
They entered an elevator at the side of the building. Located inside a glass tube, they had a wonderful view over the city as it quickly ascended. “So, how has life been, sis?” Liz asked. “Haven’t really spoken in like… 5 years?”
“Ya know, punched that guy, started dating this nerd,” she pointed at John with her head, “being awesome. How was it for you?”
“You know, zapped this guy, started dating some jock, being rad,” Liz pretty much mirrored what her sister said.
This was nice, in John’s humble opinion. Sure, the two of them weren’t chatting vividly, like sisters on good terms would do, but at least they were exchanging a bit of small talk. John could feel the air get heavier when the lift’s door opened, though.
They were on the highest story of the building, which spoke volumes about just how high Nariko’s current standing in the Abyss Auction must have been. The room they stopped at was a highly luxurious office room. The black carpet was so clean that John almost didn’t want to step on it, but Liz went ahead, so he followed.
The reason for the heavy air was, without a doubt, Nariko sitting behind an elegantly swung, dark blue tinted glass table. She moved her eyes off the computer screen and looked at the arrivals; with a simple wave of her hand, she gestured for both of them to sit down. “I’ll go make some tea,” Liz said, opening a door that led to living quarters that likely filled the rest of the story.
Nariko punched in some more words into her keyboard before turning to Rave and John. “Do me the favour and take a shower, Jane,” she said.
“What?” Rave immediately sounded annoyed, which was a supremely good start for family talk.
‘Whatever the outcome of this will be, it will be hard to convince me that Rave got her social side from her mother,’ John thought.
“You are still wearing that battle suit and are probably covered in salt, go take a shower and borrow some of Elizabeth’s clothes,” Nariko turned back to her work, “we can talk afterwards.”
Rave pressed her lips together but then sighed, “I guess I could use something clean to wear. Stupid way to say all of that though.” With that, the techno-lover jumped out of her seat and followed Liz into the living area shouting,
“Liz, where is your shower?” as the door closed behind her.
John fully expected Nariko to descend on him with something she wanted to talk about without her daughters around. Instead, he was met with a quiet that was only filled with the sounds of a mechanical keyboard rattling down words on a screen.
“…Did you really send Jane away just so she wouldn’t be covered in salt?” he asked after a solid seven minutes.
“That stupid girl doesn’t know what is good for her,” his girlfriend’s mother answered and gave him a glance that made it very clear that she did not really mean the shower.
‘Okay, I’ve about had it with this,’ John thought- ‘If she throws accusations my way, I can do the same.’ “You are a terrible mother,” he just straight out said. She furrowed her eyebrows,
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me,” John shrugged; “You are a terrible mother. I am not sure about ‘terrible person’, but you sure as all hell are not doing the mother thing well.”
Nariko sighed and went back to work, “Maybe, I have enough with my own daughter and husband judging me. Your opinion is heard but discarded.”
“Don’t you mean ex-husband?” John pointed out.
To his mild surprise, Nariko shook her head, “You can wait until Jane comes back to hear the whole story.”
And that he did. Rave returned shortly thereafter in a shirt and jeans which both fit her very well but looked a bit too proper on her. It was just unusual. She also brought the tea with her, “Liz said she is going out or something.”
“It seems I cannot even keep tabs on the one of you two that decided to stay with me,” Nariko mumbled and grabbed the cup of tea Rave hesitatingly handed her.
“So whaddya wanna talk about?” Rave asked as she fell back into her seat, cold bottle of cola in her own hand. “Ya wanna gloat about how ya beat your own daughter effortlessly or something? Want me to break up with John again?”
“No, I am meaning to tell you… everything. I had a talk with Regan following the revelation that you and your boyfriend were polyamorous. To my shock, I had to find out that he never really informed you about the broader reasons for our official divorce,” Nariko said.
“So ya yelled at daddy for a bi-“ Rave stopped and blinked in rapid succession, formulating her next words very carefully she added, “did you just say ‘official’?”
“Yes, daughter, your father and I never actually divorced… we took an extended break,” Nariko sighed. “It is a bit hard to explain without context, so please try to keep your impatience in check and don’t interrupt me, as you usually do.”
“If ya refrain from being a…” the techno-lover cleared her throat and reached for John’s hand. “Just get on with it.”
“As you well know, our extended family still resides back in Japan,” Nariko said.
“Wait, wait,” John intervened, “extended family? I thought it was just your grandparents.”
“It is… isn’t it?” Rave turned to her mother, who looked seriously disgruntled about being interrupted at the start.
“No!” the blue-haired woman half-shouted; “We are a whole clan! How do you not know this?!”
“Well, ya never told me!” Rave complained.
“I most certainly did!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Jane, even if you are denying me you will use proper words and not this gibberish!”
“Make me!”
“Are you asking me to beat you twice within one day?”
While that did make Rave shut up, John was pretty sure he now knew where Rave had her inability to explain even the most basic stuff from. It was honestly quite fascinating to him, seeing how her mother, no matter the amount of anger Rave held, still had such a massive impact. Not unexpected, just interesting.
“So, starting even further back, as I apparently need to explain our family history to you because you didn’t listen when I did… Did you not listen to my father either?” Nariko suddenly remembered. “When you stayed with him about 12 years ago? I expect him to have laid this out.”
“All I remember is him talking about dragon tuna… and I was eight,” Rave pointed out.
Nariko pinched the bridge of her nose, “And Regan never informed you either?”
“He was busy NOT talking about ya after ya, ya know, divorced him and broke his heart?” Rave actually looked more amused by her mother looking like she was going to burst out in anger at any second than annoyed that she was missing her whole family history; “All I know is that I am part of the fifth generation and that our family is cursed to have really cool hair.”
“Let’s start from there then,” Nariko, scribbling a note on a pad that undoubtedly said ‘Reprimand parents and husband for my own failures’, mumbled. “At the end of the Edo period, a Dutch man fell in love with the then female head of our household. It was a chance meeting in a natural Illusion Barrier, as she was the first in our family to have any Innate Abilities and he was an explorer that came to Japan under the guise of a sailor. The romance between the two of them is long, convoluted and frankly not particularly interesting. The important part is that they married eventually, she took his name, and since then we are called the Hollmey clan, whose current head is me.”
“Wait, so, uhm, two questions, First, so it’s not actually dads name, and B, so, I am like, the princess of an important Japanese household or something?” Rave seemed to like the second a lot.
“No, his name was Smith,” Nariko answered.
“That’s so boring though!” her daughter complained.
“Why do you think he took mine? Your father always liked… eccentric things,” Nariko answered.
She took a sip of tea from her cup that, as John now realized, had Hello Kitty on it. He was not quite sure what he expected from the woman that actually married Regan.
“To answer your second question: our clan stems from a family of dishwashers and cooks.”
“That’s just as boring!” Rave complained even louder.
“I am quite sorry, Jane, but this is the reality of the situation, so quit your sniffling!” Nariko reprimanded her in the tone that only parents can use when they were annoyed with their kids.
Rave just rolled her eyes, humans could get immune even to that if it was used too often. Evidently, Nariko had used it more than just one too many times.
“Moving on to the current situation,” Nariko sighed. “Japan is under constant threat by the Korean seat of the Divided Gates. We have no central authority to turn to, nobody who protects us. In older times, the Mandate of Heaven would have protected us. They have bigger issues than our island, however, and maintaining their diplomatic relations with the Dangun Clan is more important to them.” Stopping, Nariko dropped her volume to a low mutter. “I lost more than a few family members to these raids, and you, Jane, will never get to meet your aunts.”
A short silence ensued as Nariko took another sip. This time neither John nor Rave had a question or comment. John had heard of these raids before, but he had not expected to somehow be tangled up in that so closely.
“But why would you even let me hang out with my grandparents if Japan is that dangerous?” Rave eventually asked.
“Because it is safe for them thanks to what I did,” Nariko told her with a stern look; “With no authority on the island, I turned to the only authority that is global: money. And no one has more money than the Abyss Auction, Jane.” She ran her finger over the rim of her now empty Hello Kitty cup, “It is my money that keeps my family safe, my influence that buys us protection from the Koreans. I met your father on the way up the ranks. He was happy where he was, but I couldn’t stop at a simple venturing position. I needed more. It tore us apart that I never had time for you and Liz. He said I should make you my priority, I wanted to make Japan safe for us to live there one day. Both at the same time wasn’t realistically maintainable.”
“So, you and dad divorced,” Rave said.
“That was a large part of it, yes. I decided that my work at the time was more important, he said I could concentrate on it after you two grew up. We fought over it, a lot. In the end we decided to break it off and publicly split. I sold the ring on the auction as a sign to all my enemies that I was really done with Regan, that they couldn’t get at me through him,” Nariko sighed, and the wrinkles cast shadows over her otherwise youthful face. She suddenly looked very tired. “I didn’t want any of this to work out the way it did. Regan took custody over you, Liz insisted on staying with me. So, I allowed her and had her stay safely with your grandparents for most of the time.”
“…Is that all of it?” Rave asked as silence fell over the room; “You prioritized work over your kids because you needed money to build a better future, dad didn’t agree, and then you decided to split it off?”
“And come together later down the line and see if we could resolve it, yes,” Nariko nodded.
Rave stood up.
“Where are you going?” Nariko asked, stretching an arm after her in a longing motion as her daughter headed for the exit, John at her side.
“You are still a shitty mom,” the techno-lover said, “but you are not a bad person, and I need time to get that into my head. We talk again after this whole tournament kerfuffle is over, okay?”
The pink-haired girl kept her head straight-ahead, her mother couldn’t see her face, she couldn’t see her mother’s face. “…We will face off again when you enter the arena,” Nariko warned.
“I know,” Rave nodded.
“…Then I hope we will talk again, Jane.”
“Sure thing, mom.”
Only John saw that both of them had wet eyes as he and Rave left.
The inner workings of the building made John question why he even bothered making sure nobody followed them. A good 50 people were active in and around the base floor, making calls, sitting at computers, holding stacks of paper, losing half of them as they ran from point A to point B.
It was an almost comedic display of bureaucracy at its worst. Didn’t help that basically everyone seemed to work against each other; people tripping happened at least thrice while John passed. “Sorry, the interns are always overly enthusiastic,” Liz sighed as they made their way through.
“You say that like you are already part of the upper structure,” John noted.
“Nah, but I can join as an apprentice whenever, I have an open invitation,” she smirked. “And that’s only half thanks to mom’s influence. ‘Cause I am awesome!”
“She is your sister, alright,” John joked towards Rave and earned himself a little bit of a pinch in the side for that.
They entered an elevator at the side of the building. Located inside a glass tube, they had a wonderful view over the city as it quickly ascended. “So, how has life been, sis?” Liz asked. “Haven’t really spoken in like… 5 years?”
“Ya know, punched that guy, started dating this nerd,” she pointed at John with her head, “being awesome. How was it for you?”
“You know, zapped this guy, started dating some jock, being rad,” Liz pretty much mirrored what her sister said.
This was nice, in John’s humble opinion. Sure, the two of them weren’t chatting vividly, like sisters on good terms would do, but at least they were exchanging a bit of small talk. John could feel the air get heavier when the lift’s door opened, though.
They were on the highest story of the building, which spoke volumes about just how high Nariko’s current standing in the Abyss Auction must have been. The room they stopped at was a highly luxurious office room. The black carpet was so clean that John almost didn’t want to step on it, but Liz went ahead, so he followed.
The reason for the heavy air was, without a doubt, Nariko sitting behind an elegantly swung, dark blue tinted glass table. She moved her eyes off the computer screen and looked at the arrivals; with a simple wave of her hand, she gestured for both of them to sit down. “I’ll go make some tea,” Liz said, opening a door that led to living quarters that likely filled the rest of the story.
Nariko punched in some more words into her keyboard before turning to Rave and John. “Do me the favour and take a shower, Jane,” she said.
“What?” Rave immediately sounded annoyed, which was a supremely good start for family talk.
‘Whatever the outcome of this will be, it will be hard to convince me that Rave got her social side from her mother,’ John thought.
“You are still wearing that battle suit and are probably covered in salt, go take a shower and borrow some of Elizabeth’s clothes,” Nariko turned back to her work, “we can talk afterwards.”
Rave pressed her lips together but then sighed, “I guess I could use something clean to wear. Stupid way to say all of that though.” With that, the techno-lover jumped out of her seat and followed Liz into the living area shouting,
“Liz, where is your shower?” as the door closed behind her.
John fully expected Nariko to descend on him with something she wanted to talk about without her daughters around. Instead, he was met with a quiet that was only filled with the sounds of a mechanical keyboard rattling down words on a screen.
“…Did you really send Jane away just so she wouldn’t be covered in salt?” he asked after a solid seven minutes.
“That stupid girl doesn’t know what is good for her,” his girlfriend’s mother answered and gave him a glance that made it very clear that she did not really mean the shower.
‘Okay, I’ve about had it with this,’ John thought- ‘If she throws accusations my way, I can do the same.’ “You are a terrible mother,” he just straight out said. She furrowed her eyebrows,
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me,” John shrugged; “You are a terrible mother. I am not sure about ‘terrible person’, but you sure as all hell are not doing the mother thing well.”
Nariko sighed and went back to work, “Maybe, I have enough with my own daughter and husband judging me. Your opinion is heard but discarded.”
“Don’t you mean ex-husband?” John pointed out.
To his mild surprise, Nariko shook her head, “You can wait until Jane comes back to hear the whole story.”
And that he did. Rave returned shortly thereafter in a shirt and jeans which both fit her very well but looked a bit too proper on her. It was just unusual. She also brought the tea with her, “Liz said she is going out or something.”
“It seems I cannot even keep tabs on the one of you two that decided to stay with me,” Nariko mumbled and grabbed the cup of tea Rave hesitatingly handed her.
“So whaddya wanna talk about?” Rave asked as she fell back into her seat, cold bottle of cola in her own hand. “Ya wanna gloat about how ya beat your own daughter effortlessly or something? Want me to break up with John again?”
“No, I am meaning to tell you… everything. I had a talk with Regan following the revelation that you and your boyfriend were polyamorous. To my shock, I had to find out that he never really informed you about the broader reasons for our official divorce,” Nariko said.
“So ya yelled at daddy for a bi-“ Rave stopped and blinked in rapid succession, formulating her next words very carefully she added, “did you just say ‘official’?”
“Yes, daughter, your father and I never actually divorced… we took an extended break,” Nariko sighed. “It is a bit hard to explain without context, so please try to keep your impatience in check and don’t interrupt me, as you usually do.”
“If ya refrain from being a…” the techno-lover cleared her throat and reached for John’s hand. “Just get on with it.”
“As you well know, our extended family still resides back in Japan,” Nariko said.
“Wait, wait,” John intervened, “extended family? I thought it was just your grandparents.”
“It is… isn’t it?” Rave turned to her mother, who looked seriously disgruntled about being interrupted at the start.
“No!” the blue-haired woman half-shouted; “We are a whole clan! How do you not know this?!”
“Well, ya never told me!” Rave complained.
“I most certainly did!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Jane, even if you are denying me you will use proper words and not this gibberish!”
“Make me!”
“Are you asking me to beat you twice within one day?”
While that did make Rave shut up, John was pretty sure he now knew where Rave had her inability to explain even the most basic stuff from. It was honestly quite fascinating to him, seeing how her mother, no matter the amount of anger Rave held, still had such a massive impact. Not unexpected, just interesting.
“So, starting even further back, as I apparently need to explain our family history to you because you didn’t listen when I did… Did you not listen to my father either?” Nariko suddenly remembered. “When you stayed with him about 12 years ago? I expect him to have laid this out.”
“All I remember is him talking about dragon tuna… and I was eight,” Rave pointed out.
Nariko pinched the bridge of her nose, “And Regan never informed you either?”
“He was busy NOT talking about ya after ya, ya know, divorced him and broke his heart?” Rave actually looked more amused by her mother looking like she was going to burst out in anger at any second than annoyed that she was missing her whole family history; “All I know is that I am part of the fifth generation and that our family is cursed to have really cool hair.”
“Let’s start from there then,” Nariko, scribbling a note on a pad that undoubtedly said ‘Reprimand parents and husband for my own failures’, mumbled. “At the end of the Edo period, a Dutch man fell in love with the then female head of our household. It was a chance meeting in a natural Illusion Barrier, as she was the first in our family to have any Innate Abilities and he was an explorer that came to Japan under the guise of a sailor. The romance between the two of them is long, convoluted and frankly not particularly interesting. The important part is that they married eventually, she took his name, and since then we are called the Hollmey clan, whose current head is me.”
“Wait, so, uhm, two questions, First, so it’s not actually dads name, and B, so, I am like, the princess of an important Japanese household or something?” Rave seemed to like the second a lot.
“No, his name was Smith,” Nariko answered.
“That’s so boring though!” her daughter complained.
“Why do you think he took mine? Your father always liked… eccentric things,” Nariko answered.
She took a sip of tea from her cup that, as John now realized, had Hello Kitty on it. He was not quite sure what he expected from the woman that actually married Regan.
“To answer your second question: our clan stems from a family of dishwashers and cooks.”
“That’s just as boring!” Rave complained even louder.
“I am quite sorry, Jane, but this is the reality of the situation, so quit your sniffling!” Nariko reprimanded her in the tone that only parents can use when they were annoyed with their kids.
Rave just rolled her eyes, humans could get immune even to that if it was used too often. Evidently, Nariko had used it more than just one too many times.
“Moving on to the current situation,” Nariko sighed. “Japan is under constant threat by the Korean seat of the Divided Gates. We have no central authority to turn to, nobody who protects us. In older times, the Mandate of Heaven would have protected us. They have bigger issues than our island, however, and maintaining their diplomatic relations with the Dangun Clan is more important to them.” Stopping, Nariko dropped her volume to a low mutter. “I lost more than a few family members to these raids, and you, Jane, will never get to meet your aunts.”
A short silence ensued as Nariko took another sip. This time neither John nor Rave had a question or comment. John had heard of these raids before, but he had not expected to somehow be tangled up in that so closely.
“But why would you even let me hang out with my grandparents if Japan is that dangerous?” Rave eventually asked.
“Because it is safe for them thanks to what I did,” Nariko told her with a stern look; “With no authority on the island, I turned to the only authority that is global: money. And no one has more money than the Abyss Auction, Jane.” She ran her finger over the rim of her now empty Hello Kitty cup, “It is my money that keeps my family safe, my influence that buys us protection from the Koreans. I met your father on the way up the ranks. He was happy where he was, but I couldn’t stop at a simple venturing position. I needed more. It tore us apart that I never had time for you and Liz. He said I should make you my priority, I wanted to make Japan safe for us to live there one day. Both at the same time wasn’t realistically maintainable.”
“So, you and dad divorced,” Rave said.
“That was a large part of it, yes. I decided that my work at the time was more important, he said I could concentrate on it after you two grew up. We fought over it, a lot. In the end we decided to break it off and publicly split. I sold the ring on the auction as a sign to all my enemies that I was really done with Regan, that they couldn’t get at me through him,” Nariko sighed, and the wrinkles cast shadows over her otherwise youthful face. She suddenly looked very tired. “I didn’t want any of this to work out the way it did. Regan took custody over you, Liz insisted on staying with me. So, I allowed her and had her stay safely with your grandparents for most of the time.”
“…Is that all of it?” Rave asked as silence fell over the room; “You prioritized work over your kids because you needed money to build a better future, dad didn’t agree, and then you decided to split it off?”
“And come together later down the line and see if we could resolve it, yes,” Nariko nodded.
Rave stood up.
“Where are you going?” Nariko asked, stretching an arm after her in a longing motion as her daughter headed for the exit, John at her side.
“You are still a shitty mom,” the techno-lover said, “but you are not a bad person, and I need time to get that into my head. We talk again after this whole tournament kerfuffle is over, okay?”
The pink-haired girl kept her head straight-ahead, her mother couldn’t see her face, she couldn’t see her mother’s face. “…We will face off again when you enter the arena,” Nariko warned.
“I know,” Rave nodded.
“…Then I hope we will talk again, Jane.”
“Sure thing, mom.”
Only John saw that both of them had wet eyes as he and Rave left.
