Bab 22: Family?
"Black Knight, get him!"
"Understood!"
Two voices yelled out to each other on the wide streets of City S in the Theta region. A man dressed in prison garbs ran ahead of them, clearly trying to get away from their pursuit.
'Hmph, not so fast! Black Matter Conjuring: Black Matter Chains!'
Black Knight yelled in his heart and called upon his power for use, several black chains shot forward out of his palms and trapped the escaping criminal down.
"No way I'm going back to that shit hole!"
The criminal was very indignant and activated his abilities. He was an Evolutionary, meaning he didn't have access to the kind of powers the Awakened had, that was the problem most Evolutionary had; they were one-trick ponies.
This guy was especially no different.
"Activate: Ox Build!"
The man in prison clothes rapidly increased in size, his muscles bulged and his veins popped, just like an ox. He pulled on the chains wrapped around his legs and tried to destroy them using brute force.
"It's no use, I made my Black Matter Chains out of the strongest material in the world, can you guess what that is?"
Hugo insulted subtly, watching the man continue with his futile attempts to escape.
"Black Knight, bind him and let's get the hell out of here!"
The other voice spoke from the side irritatedly.
"I said if not familiar with me, Hyena, you are familiar with me, no need to call me by my title, it will make our relationship stifling."
Hugo smiled lightly and played with the chains coming out of his palms.
"Fine, Hugo, bind him up and let's get the hell out of here."
Hyena replied with his best snarl but snickered at the fact of Hugo ordering him around.
Hugo looked at the struggling opponent and shook his head in pity. Hugo summoned more chains from his hands and wrapped them around the criminal.
"Woah, look it's Black Knight and Hyena!"
"And they defeated another enemy just now!"
"Look, that's C rank criminal, Niu!"
"That trash shouldn't be C rank at all. If not for him being one of the four demon brothers, they would barely consider him E rank."
Like the rankings for beasts, they divided the rankings for humans from F to SS Rank. SS was the strongest level, and F was the weakest.
Hugo and Hyena found the closest police officer, well, Hyena did, Hugo was too disgusted to go near another officer.
"Here officer, get him to solitary confinement. It'll be a shame if he escapes again."
Hyena spoke carefully and looked at the officer's facial expression to make sure he would do what they needed him to.
"Do not worry, I will report your deeds to the Skydancer Association." Hyena smilingly nodded at the cop's answer and walked away from him to meet Hugo.
"You really don't like cops, do you?"
"Of course not." He scoffed back and walked over to where his hovercycle was parked.
"So then you hate Miss Avery?"
"This..." Hugo could not answer his accusation because he didn't hate Avery, he just detested some of her actions.
"How about we call it a day?" Hyena proposed and hopped onto his herculean motorcycle.
"Che, fine!"
Hugo started the engine of the hovercycle and steered the machine towards the direction of his home.
"Hold up!" Hyena called out and followed him hurriedly.
. . .
Hugo and Hyena parked their hovercycles in front of a large mansion.
"Hey, you can't just freaking speed up like that, you're now a skydancer for god's sake!" Hyena screamed when they reached Hugo's clan house.
"Stop yelling! This is a sacred place." His usual carefree tone turned stone-cold with that statement. Hyena didn't know why, but he felt himself shut up on instinct.
"So... you live here alone?"
"Technically yes but no, I still have people to keep me company." He answered in a roundabout manner and opened the door to the house.
"Huh, what do you mean?"
"You'll see."
Hugo clapped his hands and all the lights of the living room turned on.
'Damn, his family was more well off than I expected.' Hyena marvelled at the things in the house, from expensive furniture to even expensive paint.
Hugo led him up the various floors of the building and finally, they reached one of the multiple rooms in the house.
"This is where you'll be staying until you find your own residence in Theta."
The room was fairly large, and that was only the bedroom itself, there was still a medium-sized bathroom and toilet within the room.
After dropping his luggage in the room, Hugo asked that they left the house. When Hyena asked why all he said was;
"It's almost dinner time."
He didn't realize what Hugo meant until they reached a house very close to Hugo's own.
"Hyena, Mr and Mrs Oda. Mr and Mrs Oda, Hyena." Hugo introduced the couple to Hyena and vice versa.
Standing on the other side of the door was a middle-aged Japanese couple.
"Pleasure to meet you, a friend of Hugo's." Mrs Oda spoke kindly with a small smile on her face.
Hyena stretched out his hand to shake theirs.
"Thank you, ma'am." Mrs Oda's smile stifled a bit, but she still shook his hand, anyway.
"After hearing you were coming to visit today, we made your favourite dish, fried rice and eggs!"
Hugo's eyes sparkled as soon as he heard what they said.
"Huh, how did they know you were coming?" Still, Hyena was confused, and there were some things that still didn't make sense.
"Oh, yeah, you still don't know her powers."
The Oda couple left Hugo to explain their daughter's powers, as even they themselves did not know much about the power.
"Well, Ruki is an Awakened with a particularly eye-catching power."
"So, what is it?"
"Well, she has something you should know as Psychic powers."
"Wait, you mean like..."
"Yep, Apportation, Astral Projection, Levitation, Teleportation, Psychokinesis, Telepathy, Divination, Pyrokinesis and many, many more. If you think I'm strong, then watch Ruki in action, it's a pity she is non-confrontational."
Hugo waved off the topic of her abilities, but Hyena couldn't help but think of the hurt she could have brought upon Two Face and the other candidates.
"Ruki come down for dinner!"
Mrs Oda yelled near the stairs and waited for her daughter to come down.
"I was already down, I've been here all along."
"Oh, then why didn't you say so?"
Ruki was invisible to all except Hugo.
She looked Japanese like her parents, even a little more than her parents. Her long dark hair ran down her back and onto her legs, she held her hands behind her back and observed Hyena with her keen dark eyes.
'Beautiful as always.' Hugo had always admired Ruki. She was beautiful, strong and had a similar sense of justice.
"Let's dig in!"
"Thank you for the meal!" The two visitors and Ruki clapped their hands together and yelled out simultaneously.
"Speaking of that Hugo, you don't need to thank us, we're family after all."
The word seemed foreign after years of not hearing it.
'We're family? Are we really, family? What is family anyway?'
"So, Hugo, Hyena and Ruki, what are the ranks you got from the exams?"
"I got S-Rank," Hugo spoke with a mouthful of rice.
"B- Rank, those bastards, after how strong I've proven myself to be," Hyena spoke the last parts under his breath, but not low enough, not caring whether the couple or anyone else heard him.
"I got... SS-Rank." Ruki made herself visible and was quietly eating the fried rice.
"Not surprising."
"That's our daughter!" Her parents seemed glad at first, but this turned into confusion.
"What does this SS rank signify?"
"You really don't know that, have you been leaving under a rock all this while?" Hyena laughed awkwardly and wondered where Hugo met these people.
"Basically, they are the strongest of all of Humanity, not answering to anyone. And there are S ranks like me, above all but below one." Hugo smiled bitterly. He mostly did not care about the rank he got, but this insult was just too much.
"Oh, makes sense. Hehe, so our daughter commands more influence than you?" Mr Oda winked mischievously and his eyes revealed a hint of pride within.
"No, not really. I and Hyena have been out all week fighting crime and defeating monsters, Ruki did none of that, so she doesn't have as much public exposure as we do. So in terms of publicity, we are leagues above her, but in terms of sheer status, she trumps us."
The couple still couldn't help but feel proud of their daughter's achievements.
"Right, Satoshi is coming back a few months from now!"
Hugo stopped eating for more than a few seconds and thought back to the not-so-good memories he had with Ruki's elder brother.
"Who's Satoshi?"
"Sigh, he stays where you came from now, you might know him as the legendary Light Swordsman, an S rank Skydancer," Hugo sighed displeasingly and lost all appetite to eat.
"Really?"
"Yea, he is also Ruki's elder brother and my adopted elder brother too."
Hyena's eyes widened and stared at the Oda couple and thought of the Light Swordsman's countenance.
'They really do look alike!'
"Hehe, I get what you're thinking, Mr and Mrs Oda have an infamous reputation of birthing geniuses although they're only normal people."
"How many children do they have?"
"Four, including Ruki and Satoshi. The third child Awakened the ability, Weather manipulation. She has the power to conjure up lightning storms though she just only turned 4 and awakened her powers. As for the last born, he's a baby and has not awakened yet, but he can already solve complex arithmetic."
Hyena sat there, dumbfounded. What kind of humans would have abilities to produce offspring like this? Three awakened in a row, which was just too much for him to take in, they people considered giving birth to two Awakened was already rare, but three was legendary and expecting a fourth one to awaken was unheard of.
"Well, you're very lucky to have such talented children."
Hyena bowed to the couple who sat by the side and pretended they weren't listening.
"Oh, it's nothing, we just feed them well."
The people at the table joked around until it was time for rest. Hugo and Hyena left the house with filled stomachs and eased minds.
Hadiah
-- Hadiah diterima Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
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