Shia

"Coming! Who is it?" Shia opened to door in an apron and spatula, her hair bundled up in a cloth. She paused when she saw Kaia standing there with a box of cakes in hand. "Kaia?"

Kaia had her head down, this was all part of the plan but she felt too nervous to look Shia in the face after disappearing for so long and, also, bailing on them that day.

"You'll go in there while I tell them to be stationed outside the house."

"Why do I have to be there?" Kaia protested, not wanting to be anywhere near her.

"Most of them are with my father, who is coming today. I can send only three with you. But I'll need to call the others when I come tomorrow." Ran snapped at her. "She's not the only one that needs protecting, Kaia. Remember that."

He walked back to his car and before he closed the door, he said, "Remember what you have to send to me the moment they enter the house … if they enter the house that is."

Kaia looked up at her and tried to sign but she was enveloped into a hug.

"It's you. Thank goodness you're ok. You're really ok. You're ok." She sighed out and held her tight as though Kaia might disappear again if she loosens her hold. "I'm so sorry, Kaia. I- That day, I-"

Kaia hugged her back, she couldn't listen to Shia blame herself for something she had no part in. She was right to not contact her all this time. Keep her distance. It's only because she needed to protect that she met with her, otherwise, as Ran said, others shouldn't be entangled in her mess.

After what felt like forever, they pulled away and look at each other. Shia placed her hand on the scar that run down Kaia's face and smiled sadly at her as she traced it.

She took in a ragged breath and blinked her eyes rapidly, turning away from Kaia.

"Come inside. Come on." She gently pulled her into the house. "You came on time, I was just making your favourite tomato soup. I don't know why I was making that but isn't it good that I made it?"

She took her to the kitchen and made her sit on one of the chairs. "You wait there. I'm just about to be done."

Kaia looked around the kitchen, it was a small one with not many gadgets. They like to be old fashioned with household items.

It's an all-white kitchen with a table at the left corner and several cabinets at the bottom and top, wide-open windows where herbs grew on the window stilt.

Outside the kitchen was their garden. It's not as luscious as Dorran's one but still beautiful nonetheless.

Kaia became fidgety when she saw how many windows just the kitchen has and how big they were. Anyone would be able to enter easily this way.

She could swear that she felt eyes on them every time she moved.

Her nervousness got the better of her and she walked to the window, latching them shut. She then pulled the curtains over the windows, making sure there was no way anyone could peek through. When she was satisfied, she went back to her seat still very tense.

Shia looked at her from the corner of her eyes, she worried when she saw how tense Kaia was.

She turned off the gas and clapped her hands together to say "finished" like she always does.

But when she clapped her hands together, Kaia grabbed the closest thing to her, which is a cup and looked around them, panicking.

"Kaia." Shia walked up to her and took the cup from her trembling hand, placing it back on the table.

"Hey, look at me." She stood in front of her and smiled. "Remember who I am? Three-time Judo champion, versed in military-style combat because of my father. Even the boys couldn't beat me. So don't worry, ok? I'm going to be fine."

Kaia looked up at her and nodded but didn't seem entirely convinced.

Shia thought for a minute, then ran to the drawers beside the gas stove. Pulling them open, she took out two knives and walked back to Kaia.

"Here. Feel safer now? I promise, no one's going to hurt you again." She handed one of the knives to Kaia, who took it without hesitation. "Careful it's sharp. Dad has this problem of always making sure the knives are sharp enough to cut a person just by looking. That's never happened but he's determined to try."

Kaia stared at her reflection in the knife, the image of her mother's disgusted expression upon seeing her appeared in her mind and she could only turn away.

"Kaia. Could you help me here?" Shia called to her as she carried the soup to the table. "Can you get two bowls from that cabinet please?"

Kaia, with the knife still in hand, made her way to the glass cabinet and opened it. Taking a bowl out, she noticed a movement in the reflection in the glass from the other room.

Keeping her eyes on the reflection she gripped the knife and bowl harder. She heard a crash to their left just as a man jumped onto Shia, who flipped him right onto the table.

Another man appeared in front of Kaia, who threw the bowl at him, mistaking it for the knife. It broke when it made contact with him and he became mad.

Shoot.

The man lunged himself at her as they crashed on to the floor.

"Kaia!" Shia ran to her and helped her pull the man's limp body off her. The knife embedded into his stomach.

"Are you ok? That's his blood, right? Not yours?"

Kaia shook her head, relief washing over Shia. "That's good. I can't believe he, literally, ran into your knife."

She laughed loudly but gathered her composition when she saw Kaia look at her in confusion.

She cleared her throat, "Sorry. It's just that these things happen to me so often I try to find something funny about the situation otherwise I'll get nervous. Ok. Want to eat here or the living room?"

Kaia stared at her and then at the men, one lay dead while the other is knocked unconscious on the table. Her soup all over him and the ground.

"Come on." She pulled her past the body on the dining table, a knife ran through his palm to the table. "Oh, don't mind him. He just ruined my three hours of work so I got mad. Oops?"

They walked to the living room and sat on the couch. "Want do you want to watch, Kaia?"

Kaia looked at the blood in her palms and her clothes, trying to wipe them away.

Dirty. So Dirty.

"You didn't do anything, ok Kaia? He was the one that attacked you." Shia grabbed a hold of her hands, stopping her from wiping too hard. "Since lunch is gone, why don't you go wash up while I make another one?"

Kaia shook her head. She didn't want to leave her alone for another minute, though she seems very capable of protecting herself.

"Don't be scared, Kaia. Nothi-"

They both turned their head in the same direction, trying not to make a sound while Shia slowly inched forward.

Then a crash came as people in hoods broke into the house. Shia slid down the couch and pressed a button as they opened fire. A force field appeared over them.

Kaia stared at the bullets being crushed as they hit the force field in amazement.

"Kaia!" Shia pulled her down the couch and said, "Stay here ok? You'll be safe here. These people must be for my parent's discovery. It's at the bottom basement of the house. I'm sure these are just there to take us out, others will be on their way to the basement."

She took out guns from under the couch and wore a vest. "They entrusted that to me." She inserted the bullets into the gun and clicked it. "I have to protect it. Do. No. Move from here."

She took the gun and began firing it at them as she made her way to the stairs, her aim is impeccable.

Kaia has always thought Shia looked beautiful but that this moment, she couldn't be any prettier.

She took her phone out and send the signal to Dorran and carefully made her way past the pile of bodies down to the basement.

She heard bullets being fired on her way down.

This is unfair, her parents should have a proper system of protection for their daughter's sake. Not just teaching her how to fight and use guns.

Kaia reached the bottom of the stairs and hid behind a pillar, observing the scene in front of her from her, or at least what she could make out.

No matter how skilled Shia was, she is outnumbered seven to one.

Kaia watched from the pillar as Shia took out three other men, with a woman at the vault, trying to crack the code.

Shia is going to run out of bullets any time soon.

As if on qué, they heard the sound of the empty gun.

"Finally. Go get her." The woman took off her mask and she had the worse face Kaia had ever seen. Others were bad but hers was just awful, just how much lifespan did this woman exchange?

The remaining four men walked to get Shia, only two of them came back with her, alive.

Shia was gasping as they continued to kick and hit her. She was wounded in several parts of her body because of the bullets.

"Enough." The woman pulled her by her hair and showed her two vials. One green and the other purple. "Do you know what this is?"

"Do you? You don't look smart enough to know."

Kaia slapped her head.

Shia is fearless. Unnecessarily fearless.

She heard a slap and a grunt from Shia. "No, you little-. Hey. I got an idea for miss smart mouth here. Why don't we test this on her? Hold her up."

She took the green vial and opened it. "I heard that even a drop of this hurts so much that you start throwing up your insides. Let's see now, why don't we?"

She grabbed Shia's face while holding the Vial right side up as something came flying and impaling itself into her hand, making her drop the vial as she screamed in pain. A bit of the liquid splashed onto Shia's face but nothing happened, yet.

"Who did that?! There. Kill her." She pulled the iron out of her hand.

The men dropped Shia and aimed their guns at Kaia. Shia pushed herself up and grabbed onto one of the man's legs, making him miss, the bullet hitting his friend in the stomach.

"Kaia! Run."

Bang.

The woman shot Shia in the back, blood flowing from her open wound. She stepped on her shaking body as she made her way to the men "I always hated brats like her. Now about that oth-"

Kaia charged at them, holding another rod in hand, they have a lot of those lying around, and hit the man across his face. She then hit him on his head with a strength she didn't know she had, leaving a huge gash in his skull.

When he flopped to the ground, she slammed the rod into the other man's skull. From the corner of her eye, she saw the woman running out the huge hole they made to enter inside.

Taking a steady aim, she threw the rod straight to her thigh. The woman screamed even louder as she fell to the ground.

Dorran came down the stairs to the sound of the scream with the men. He looked at Shia bleeding on the ground, the poison slowly taking effect, and all the men around the room, some were in more of a mess than others.

When he entered the room completely, he saw the hole to the outside. A woman lay on the ground struggling with a pole on her leg.

That woman looks familiar.

Wait a minute.

He ran to her just as Kaia sat on her waist and pulled the rod out of her leg. Without wasting a second, she began to hit the woman all over. She used her hands to cover her face as Kaia kept hitting her. Even smashing the bones in her legs.

"Kaia! Stop." Dor grabbed the rod. "That's my mother."

The woman peeked from her bruised hands and looked at Dorran. "Is that you? My boy." She reached her bloodied hands to him.

Kaia completely ignored him and pulled the rod from his hand about to hit her head.

"If you kill her, I'll not help you with Shia!"

The rod stopped just inches from the woman's face. Terrified, the woman fainted.

Kaia pointed the bloodied rod at him and signed, "I see her even a meter from me or my friends, I'm going to make sure she wished she died today."

Kaia threw the rod at his feet and made her way to Shia. Dor followed after her, after instructing some of the men to take his mother to the hospital and keep an eye on her.

Kaia held Shia up as she gasped with pain. She looked so distraught when she looked at Kaia.

"What happened to my sweet innocent Kaia? I'll kill whoever made you like this. Ouch." She groaned with every movement, the bullet is lodged somewhere in her back and the poison is slowly peeling the skin off her face.

She saw Dorran making his way to them and signed for him to hurry up.

"Here." Dorran gave the purple vial to Kaia. "We'll just tell them that it got stolen too. That will heal her and she's killed a number of people, her lifespan isn't going to drop that significantly."

That would explain why his father died in a day of consuming the poison and Shia took sixty hours.

Kaia opened the vial and forced Shia to drink it. Now, all that's left to do it wait.

October 18: Shia's house was attacked today and she had to be taken to the hospital. I don't know what happened but it hurts me to see her in so much pain. I hope she gets better soon.

October 21: I was with Shia as she died. At least I know that she's peaceful now. I miss her. X