D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

“Whatever you’d prefer,” answered Kat as she ignored Lily’s insistence that she ask more about Matilda’s charge.

Luckily for Lily, Hunter stated, “I shall continue with my current train of thought then. Though I suppose I should specify that Matilda’s charge is Hunter KKL98SM to avoid confusion. The fights… well I admit that originally I was the source of many of our fights. Or perhaps not originally?

“When she was but a babe KKL98SM was quite adorable. She’s a gorgon actually, and her little snake hair was very endearing to me. Always trying to nip at my fingers or if I had her near my face, trying to catch my tongue. Perhaps she thought it was a worm or something. Before she could talk KKL98SM was an adorable child.

She slept a lot, which was perhaps an indication that she was more Sloth demon than anything else.

“I did ask about it, and Matilda confirmed that KKL98SM’s parents were both half shadow demon. Somehow while she avoided any of the physical tells of such a thing, she did not avoid the mental ones. It did make her easy to care for when she was younger… but when schooling started up was where the real issues arose.

“It was impossible for Matilda to convince KKL98SM to do anything more than the bare minimum required for the day. So Matilda called on my help for a bit. Matilda didn’t want to push things too far, she wanted me to be an example of what someone closer to her age could do with practice. Sadly, KKL98SM did not appreciate my efforts.

“I think she grew to hate me during this period. Not the true all-consuming hate of teenagers and adults but the hate of a child that’s decided you’re ‘A poopy snake’. From there she ensured that I regularly felt unwelcome. I put up with the attitude to spend time with Matilda… but it never really went away as we got older.

“This eventually culminated in a huge fight when she turned sixteen. I regret it somewhat now, but this was something that I am sure had been building for some time,” Hunter paused to let out a long sigh. “KKL98SM had been… well I felt like she had been wasting her time.

She’d just started doing contracts, earlier then some, and she was just… getting them done by abusing what I saw as ‘cheap tactics’. She simply purchased considerable amounts of explosives, find the target, and then throw bombs at it till it died.

“Now, before this point she was just sent against beasts of some kind. She wasn’t Rank 2 yet and couldn’t float, so most of her time was spent finding the target. Then she would just bomb it to pieces, luckily in remote areas. Well… just before this fight I had heard from Matilda that she was contracted to hunt down a criminal… and she did. In a populated area.

“To this day I still do not know if anyone died, and Matilda didn’t either. The clan hadn’t received her report yet, something that she is always behind on. Matilda was… mostly worried. She didn’t truly believe that KKL98SM, as lazy as she was, would be so callous as to kill bystanders just to save time…

“But I was not so charitable in my beliefs. I was never able to confirm them. The clan forbid my reading of them after the fight on grounds of it being private information I had no right to demand. I was not on the review council nor was I family. Which stung. I had helped raised this girl, in a small way perhaps, but through Matilda I thought of her as something like a cousin…

“So to have that refusal slapped in my face? It made me angry. Unreasonably so. Understanding I needed to remain calm, and with no contract likely coming my way for a few days because I had just returned I went to Matilda’s so that I could spend time with her and relax,” Hunter let out a slightly pained chuckle. “A mistake as it turns out.

“Matilda wasn’t there at the time, she was out shopping I believe… but KKL98SM was. I… I cannot even remember what sparked the argument, nor the specifics of what happened during it… but KKL98SM said something as I entered. It was a light jab, I know that much. Likely something about being tightly wound, or not visiting Matilda enough… and I went right off at her.

“KKL98SM and I entered a screaming match until Matilda arrived… and then even that wasn’t enough to stop us. We continued to spew verbal sewage at each other until Matilda finally had enough and knocked us both out. We woke up tied to separate chairs and Matilda informed us we WOULD be apologising to each other in a week, or we’d end up back on the chairs.

“I spent a week thinking about things. I decided I wanted my apology to be real. So I found a set of tools for crafting your own bombs and purchased them with my own funds. As well as a considerable amount of volatile compounds. I arrived at Matilda’s door a week later, present in hand and apologies on my lips. KKL98SM let me recite my entire speech, all pre-planned of course… and I gave her my gift…

“And she spat in my face. Literally. Matilda was horrified and I… I just left. I told her that her feelings were understood, and that we would never speak again. I do not know what Matilda said to her afterwards… but I ignored her to the best of my abilities for the next decade.

“I’m not really sure when we started to actually talk again… but I have attempted to remain cordial with her when I can. I do not attack her for her poor life choices, and I try not to think about the deplorable actions she has performed in regards to me… and she continues to snipe at me, likely to get a reaction. Nothing as… heavy handed as they may have once been.

In fact, I am so used to them now that I don’t even know if she means anything bad by them now…

“But fights do occasionally happen. We never meet up intentionally and I try to avoid raising to her taunts… but I admit to firing back on occasion, where it does devolve if nobody is there to stop us. So… yes that is the story of my relationship with KKL98SM. I do not believe there are should be questions but I suppose I can answer them if you do in fact have some,”

[I want to know how long ago this was] Kat repeated the question.

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“Not as long as you might think. It took over a decade for Matilda to be assigned another charge, and… while I’m not certain of the exact timeframe it was within the last year that I began to speak with KKL98SM again. Not regularly, but we’ve had two fights just this past month so… somewhat more frequently.

Though compared to the fight we had when she was sixteen they can hardly be called as such,” stated Hunter.

“Huh…” said Kat with a thoughtful look on her face. As she did so, Hunter slammed a palm into the wall. Kat held back and waited as Hunter frowned at the spot she’d hit. The wall hadn’t collapsed. She tapped it a few more times and… then shifted over a bit and slammed the wall again. This time it did collapse and she threw in some demonic fire before turning away with a nod.

“Do you think you’ll make up with her?” asked Kat.

“I do not know. Part of why we are… sort of speaking again is that Matilda has long insisted KKL98SM deeply regrets the events of that day… but I have yet to see any true evidence of that. While I could believe she regrets it mildly, or regrets the companionship we might have been able to manage despite our problems…

“I am unsure if I can truly believe she regrets her actual actions. I did mention that I believe she grew to resent me as a child? Well I would guess that in her eyes I was trying to ‘buy her off’ with a large present and a clearly pre-prepared apology instead of understanding that I took time and effort to draft my words, as well as find a suitable present.

She likely believed that I caused her years of suffering and that one apology could never make up for that.

“Or perhaps I am just spouting mistruths about her motivations. She has never made them clear, and I am basing them solely on my own understanding of her personality. Something that is clearly lacking as I was unable to provide a suitable gift and apology for her to avoid literally spitting in my face.

I suspect that had I better understood her at that time, or even before that, we could’ve avoided the fight… though I do also suspect that it was inevitable in some form,” explained Hunter.