Chapter 361 - 6: Carried Her Away

Chapter 361: Chapter 6: Carried Her Away

Ever since they were little, Tatsumaki had possessed an intense protective instinct toward her younger sister Fubuki, along with tremendous psychic power from birth.

Fubuki still remembered that she had already possessed enough psychic power to lift people when she was in elementary school. Some brats at school would bully her because of it, giving her nicknames while forcing her to use her powers to make them float.

So her older sister had simply said, "You like flying so much? Then fly all you want," and lifted the entire school into the air.

Fubuki had possessed powers far beyond ordinary people since childhood, yet she lived forever beneath her sister’s brilliance. Combined with Tatsumaki’s excessive protectiveness, it left her with almost no chance to make friends.

To deal with a sister like that, Fubuki had painstakingly developed a way to use weakness against strength. Rather than clash head-on, she would redirect the opponent’s psychic power elsewhere with the gentle leverage of tai chi.

Psychic Whirlwind.

But today, she had proved that it was completely useless. The technique Fubuki had trained and researched so carefully was something Tatsumaki had been using unconsciously since childhood, and Tatsumaki had even perfected it into an offensive method.

"Fubuki-sama!"

The subordinates in the car tried to rush out and support her, only for Tatsumaki to flick a finger and send them flying into the wall in a row.

"What is wrong with these deadweights? Why bring people who only hold you back along when you’re a hero?"

A complete defeat.

Yimi looked blankly back and forth between the sisters. She had only known Fubuki for five minutes and understood none of what was happening, so naturally she did not help Fubuki fight Tatsumaki. She simply looked up and observed how the two of them used their psychic powers.

Amid the tense standoff, a default ringtone suddenly sounded. Tatsumaki clicked her tongue and pulled a phone from some unknown place.

"Little Tatsumaki, can you hear me? There’s a very troublesome monster here. We need you to come over. You’re the only one who can deal with it..."

"It’s always ’only you, only you.’ So annoying!"

"Please! The disaster level is Dragon! We don’t know who else could deal with it!"

Tatsumaki moved the phone away from her ear and looked down at Fubuki. "I suggest you ditch those people. All they do is get in the way."

She had originally planned to force Fubuki to come back with her, but the sudden emergency left her no choice but to leave. Using psychokinesis, Tatsumaki lifted Yimi, who had not understood a thing, and flew off in a certain direction.

After all, she had not stopped Fubuki when her sister ran away from home back then either.

"..." Fubuki slowly lowered the hand she had raised, then clenched it into a fist.

* * *

A monster’s disaster level was determined not only by strength but, even more importantly, by how much destruction it could cause. Because of that, incorrect assessments frequently sent heroes into situations far worse than expected.

No Disaster Level: God threat had ever appeared. Dragon had the widest gap between its upper and lower extremes. A monster that had only barely reached low Dragon because of destructive power was, to Tatsumaki, really no different from Disaster Level: Demon.

By the time she dealt with the monster and returned home, it was already after ten at night.

Tatsumaki bought some grilled skewers for dinner, rested her chin on the table, and stared motionlessly at Yimi as her art style gradually simplified into a crude doodle.

Fubuki had actually said Tatsumaki had no maternal instinct and would raise a Demon King. Tatsumaki had never even thought about how to raise a child, okay? Why did she have to deal with something this troublesome?

Asuna had taught Yimi many techniques for eating elegantly, but she had never taught her how to elegantly eat grilled skewers.

Yimi pinched a piece of meat off the skewer with her fingers, lifted it in her hand, and elegantly stuffed it into her mouth, getting oil all over both hands.

"So dirty."

She had never thought about it before, but was she really supposed to keep raising this dirty brat until she grew up?

Tatsumaki kicked off her shoes and started changing clothes. "You’d better wipe yourself clean with a tissue before you smear grease on any furniture."

"Tis... sue..."

Yimi looked around, found a small box, and shook it. "These aren’t tissues. What’s this?"

She had never seen one before.

"Adhesive bandages... None of your business! Even I get hurt occasionally when I kill monsters." After changing, Tatsumaki lifted Yimi with psychokinesis and carried her toward the bathroom.

"Meow, meow!"

Only now did Yimi start struggling violently. Tatsumaki suddenly discovered the brat’s weakness. Come to think of it, cats really were afraid of water, weren’t they?

Compared with everyone who had bathed Yimi before, Tatsumaki had it fairly easy. She did not even need to touch Yimi; she could wash her entirely with psychic power while washing herself at the same time.

Even though Tatsumaki was small, her pajamas were still somewhat oversized on Yimi. They were at least usable in a pinch.

When Yimi saw Tatsumaki bring out the hair dryer, she covered the ears on top of her head to block out the noise while getting ready to enjoy the warm air.

But Tatsumaki dried her own hair first.

"Mm."

Yimi sat down and waited for a while, then took the chance to ask, "That Blast, is he the strongest?"

"Probably." After all, Tatsumaki had joined the Hero Association because of that man.

When Tatsumaki finished drying her own hair and pointed the dryer at Yimi, the sudden blast of noise beside her ears made the little cat yelp.

Cat ears and a tail. If she were not so good-looking, Tatsumaki might really have suspected she was a monster. But people with genetic mutations were hardly rare in this world, so there was nothing especially strange about it.

Daycares probably accepted children around three years old. This brat was a little too old for that.

Tatsumaki looked down thoughtfully at the kitty, who had both hands clamped over her head—her ears—with her eyes tightly shut.

Right. Tomorrow she could just find some nearby elementary school and toss the brat in there, then sign her up for an after-school tutoring class as well. That would maximize Tatsumaki’s free time. For all practical purposes, her life would basically be unchanged from before.

After drying Yimi’s hair, Tatsumaki lowered the dryer to fluff the fur on her tail, finally allowing Yimi to take her hands off her ears.

Yimi looked at Tatsumaki. "Why did you, bully your younger sister?"

Aren’t you sisters?

"Bully? Which eye of yours saw me bullying her?"

"My left eye and right eye."

"You don’t understand anything, brat. Go to sleep."

Tatsumaki saw nothing wrong with what she had done, so naturally she had no intention of explaining herself. She lifted Yimi with psychic power again and tossed her onto the bed, this time putting her on the inner side.

There was no helping it. The brat moved around too much in her sleep. Falling off the bed herself was one thing, but she had taken the blanket with her too.

"If you move around at night and wake me up, you’re dead." Tatsumaki snapped her fingers and turned off the light.

"Mm."

The light had barely gone out when she felt Yimi moving.

"What are you doing?"

"How did you make, your hand make a sound?" Yimi imitated her finger snap.

"Go to sleep."

"Then, why are you sleeping with your back to me?"

"Shut up!"

* * *

"Fubuki-sama, we’ll work hard to get stronger! So..."

Please don’t abandon us!

"Mm..."

Fubuki naturally had no intention of abandoning them.

Even with a child to look after now, that woman had not changed at all. She was still just as awful as ever.

That was exactly why Fubuki hated seeing her so much. Fortunately, an emergency had come up this time. If contact with the Association had not suddenly been cut off, Fubuki generally avoided any place where Tatsumaki often appeared.

But tonight, she was going to take that risk anyway!

Midnight.

Fubuki climbed up to Tatsumaki’s window using a grappling hook. If she used psychic power anywhere nearby, her sister would definitely sense it.

After taking off her expensive high heels, Fubuki looked apologetically at the girl below, who was bracing the grappling line and helping support her weight.

There was no helping it. Having strong psychic powers did not mean her physical fitness was good.

She crept to Tatsumaki’s bedside. In the moonlight, she could see that Tatsumaki had thrown her pillow aside and had one leg draped across Yimi.

The truth was that Tatsumaki had kicked Yimi out of bed earlier while they slept.

Cat ears?

Forget it. That was not important.

Fubuki took out the stuffed toy she had prepared in advance and carefully began her substitution operation.

"Fubuki..."

Half asleep, Tatsumaki seemed to notice something. Her eyelids cracked open slightly, but then she peacefully went right back to sleep. There was no way Tatsumaki was faking sleep.

Typical of her sister. She was still alert even in her sleep.

But was she really this relaxed around Fubuki? Did she think Fubuki could not possibly threaten her? Somehow, that felt insulting too.

Fubuki picked up the equally sound-asleep Yimi.

Sorry, sis. Even if she really is your own flesh and blood, someone with your personality just isn’t suited to raising a child.

She returned to the grappling line with Yimi in one arm and tried to slide down one-handed, but she seemed to have overestimated herself a little.

"Wait, Fubuki-sama!"

There used to be an old mobile game about a panda climbing a bamboo pole. Pressing the middle button would make the panda slide down the pole and knock off every ladybug beneath it.

The process had a few complications, but in any case, they successfully carried her away. Time to get out of this city as fast as possible!