The muscular looking one grabs me by the collar, “Because of you our Rayla has to leave the country now!”
BAM!
His fist hits me in the face, “Because of you, I might never see her again!”
His fist collides with my face once more and the scrawny one punches me into the side.
“I had to smell your disgusting smell all over her today!” More punches hit me, I’m now bleeding out of my nose.
“What do you have to say for yourself, you perverted creep!?”
“I…I’m sorry.”
My answer seems to have made them even more furious so they push me to the ground and start beating me until my body starts to glow for a second and the punches hurt a little less. They then keep attacking me and Sally seems to get more and more angry that I’m not defending myself until Sally takes initiative and starts to envelop themselves in fire creating a wall of fire in front of me causing the two brothers to jump off me.
“Are you trying to kill us now!?”
In pain and bleeding, I faintly answer, “No…Sally please let it slide, I don’t want to hurt them. They’re my sister’s family.”
Sally looks outraged at what I’m saying.
“Please, it will be fine, they won’t kill me.”
Sally then, very reluctantly, calms down and the fire wall goes out.
“Gino he’s using magic, we should go before this escalates!”
“No, I need one thing first, I want you to leave my sister and never talk to her again!”
“I can’t do that…”
“Why not!?”
“Because she is my sister too.”
Enraged, Gino lets out his claws and scratches me diagonally over my face, barely missing my eye and taking flesh with him as I roll on the ground screaming in pain, blood flowing heavily from my face.
“F-fuck Gino! That was too much! Come on, let's go!”
“Tsk Fine, you better never show your face in this town again you creep!”
They then run off, slamming the door closed behind them. In absolute agony, I crawl towards my closet and get out the first aid kit. I open up a bottle of rubbing alcohol and wash my face with it causing even more intense burning pain on top of the pain from the wound itself. I then hastily bandage my face in multiple layers and fall unconscious to the floor.
I wake up about four hours later in the middle of the night, I can feel a pulsating pain in my face and the blood is starting to soak through the bandages. I try to stand up, falling over a few times before managing to walk. Picking myself up again by a wall, I drag myself towards Sher Aka and John’s room and loudly knock on the door.
“Who the fuck is it!? It’s the middle of the night, go away!”
“John, I need help.”
“Thoma Ahad? What’s wrong did you have a bad dream or-” as John opens the door he falls silent and stares at me with a shocked expression, “What the fuck happened to you!? Sherry! I need help!”
Sher Aka, only dressed in her underwear, runs to the door, sword and shield in hand quickly dropping them when she sees my face “By the six what happened to you!?” She then puts my arm around her, helps me move inside and puts me on John's bed.
“Sherry, bring me clean water and towels!”
“On it!"
Looking shocked, John slowly removes the bandages and pulls out a small first aid kit from his night stand.
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He looks immensely worried, when he says, “Holy shit Thoma Ahad, that’s deep, really deep. What happened?”
“Please don’t tell Rayla I got hurt…”
“With a wound that deep you won’t be able to hide it, fuck! Life a mysterious thing, transfer vitality from me to this person. Life Transfer!”
I can feel dark mana enter my wound as it slowly stops bleeding and closes up. Sher Aka then returns with a small basin of water and some clean towels and carefully wipes the blood off my face.
Looking at me, she demands with an angry but quiet voice, “Thoma Ahad, tell me exactly what happened.”
A bit reluctantly I recount what happened, “...But please don’t tell Rayla…I’m fine now, she doesn’t have to know.”
“You will have no other choice than telling her. Look.” She then pulls out a mirror. I’m still covered in bruises and where the wound closed up is now a nasty claw mark scar running over half my face making me look even more shady.
I then start to cry again and ask John, “Can’t you heal the scar too?”
“No, I can’t. You’re stuck with that now. You should have just fucking defended yourself! You could have easily knocked those guys out!”
While sobbing, I answer, “But if I hurt Rayla’s family she’ll be sad…”
“You’re her family too you fucking oaf!”
Putting on her clothes, Sher Aka interjects, “Stop it John, there's no need to get angry at him. What’s done is done, get your equipment ready, we're going to teach them a lesson.”
They then both get dressed and ready for armor while I plead,
“No please don’t, it’s fine. I’m okay now, there is no need to take revenge, it was my fault in the first place! I should have just defended myself!”
Sher Aka yells at me, “Don’t blame yourself, Thoma Ahad! Also, we’re not going to take revenge, we’re just going to tell Rayla. She can do whatever she wants with that information. And you’re coming with us. Can you walk?”
“Not well…”
“Fine, get on.”
She then offers me a piggyback ride and we leave the Inn. When we get to Rayla’s house, John knocks at the door so heavily it feels like he’s trying to break in.
“Open the fuck up!”
Rayla and her dad angrily open the door, “What the hell do you want? It’s the middle of the-Thoma!? What happened!?”
“Your fucking brothers decided to come by and ‘teach him a lesson’.”
“What!?”
“This is what he looks like after I fucking healed him by the way. Those claw marks are permanent now.”
Rayla seems immensely shocked, “What!?…Thoma are you alright?”
With a smile I answer, “Yeah, I’m fine!”
She puts her hand on my healthy cheek, “You’re such a bad liar…Dad, where are Marcelle and Gino right now?”
Rayla's dad puts his hand on her shoulder, “Wait, before you do anything you need to calm down.”
Rayla shows no emotions on her face when she answers, “I am calm. You could say I’m xxx right now. I’m just gonna give em what they deserve.”
“No, listen to me Rayla, this is not your job. Go stay with Thoma, I’ll handle this. They went too far, it’s my job as a father to make sure they’re punished, not yours.”
Biting down on her teeth, Rayla looks away, “Okay…”
“Go put him on the couch, there are still left overs, feel free to warm them up.”
“Okay…Come here, oki,” Sher Aka and Rayla put me on the couch and afterwards Rayla brushes over my scar and asks, “Does it hurt?”
“No, I’m okay!”
She then starts to cry,”I’m so sorry, oki.”
“Nonono, it’s alright! I’m not mad at you! If anything I’m sorry for ruining your family time!”
Putting her forehead on mine, I can feel her tears drip on my face, “Don’t be stupid…It was never going to be a real family time without you anyways.”
Then from the door that Rayla’s dad vanished behind, screaming is heard, “Ouch! Dad, stop! Ouch!”
The door then flies open and Rayla’s dad pulls Marcelle out of his room by the tail, pulls him back up by his hair and sits him down on a chair, “Left side or right side?”
“What!?”
“I’m asking if you want your scar on the left or right side of your face.”
While that is happening, Rayla’s mom runs into the living room, “What the hell are you doing!? Let go of Marcelle!”
“No. He and his brother disfigured a man, so it’s only right I do the same.”
“Are you crazy!? Marcelle would never do that!” she then looks at me and yells, “You! You did this, didn’t you!?”
“Shut up Kenzie, make yourself useful and call a doctor instead.”
“You aren’t actually going to-”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH! It hurts! Mommy it hurts!”
“My baby!!! How could you do this to your own son!?”
“It’s either that or prison. He’ll fare better with a scar, you better get him to a doctor soon or the wound will fester. I’m going to visit Gino now.”
Rayla’s father then leaves and Rayla’s mother props up Marcelle, “It’ll be alright Marci, you’ll be okay.”
Before leaving, she turns around one more time and screams, “Rayla, as long as you stay with that monster you’re no longer welcome here!” before leaving as well.
Feeling guilty, I say, “Th-they didn’t have to hurt him too! I’m fine!”
Ane looks determined, “No, oki. This is how we do things in Sovar. It’s either prison or an eye for an eye, if he had gone to prison he’d be away for at least five years, this was the better option.”
“I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t want anything like this to happen!”
“I know and it’s not your fault. I’m sorry though. For saying they will accept you, I didn’t think they could be such horrible people…”
“Don’t say that! They’re your family!”
Looking exhausted and shell-shocked, Rayla answers with a dead stare, “Yeah and so are you and yet, they not only excluded you, they even went as far as to disfigure you. That’s not the family I remember nor want to remember. I wasn’t even aware they were capable of things like that… Let’s restock tomorrow morning and leave.”
She then takes some dumplings from the kitchen, turns the lights off and carries me back to my room in the inn. When she sees the pool of blood on the ground she breaks down and starts to cry.
