First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 1148: Sibling Bonding

Kirina blinked at the unexpected request from her youngest grandchild.

Once it set in just what she was being asked, her smile became wide and slightly unladylike.

She slowly turned towards her daughter with a look of profound amusement.

“Oh reallyyy now…? My baby has been complementing me while I was away? That’s quite the surprise.”

Ayaana flipped off her mother while she turned on the toaster.

K’ael nodded at his grandmother. “She said that you were the most poised and graceful she had ever seen-”

“H-Hey, hey, hey, what did we say about keeping secrets in this house?” Ayaana hissed.

“…That we’re not supposed to?”

“That’s when it pertains to your father and your other mother, not me.” Ayaana huffed.

K’ael did not understand how his father did it. He thought that women were very confusing.

“Well, as much as I would love to accept your mother’s very generous compliments.” Kirina flipped her hair confidently. “Alas, I fear that I am no longer the very best in our family. I’ve had to concede that title to another.”

K’ael’s eyes sparkled. “Really..? Who??”

Kirina looked over his shoulder.

The young boy followed her gaze to the refrigerator where Courtney was holding a can of whipped cream over her mouth and seconds away from jetting it out.

She paused when she noticed everyone in the room staring at her.

“…What? Apophis does it all the time!”

Ayaana wondered if she had somehow dropped the ball as a mother by not properly teaching her kids about table manners and adult behaviors.

“Your little brother wants a learning experience.” Kirina placed her hand on top of her grandson’s hair. “Would you be so kind as to indulge him for a bit?”

Courtney blinked slowly. “…Me?”

“Yes, you, cream puff.” Ayaana snatched the can away and pointed towards the backyard. “Outside.”

–

Daylight felt slower to come that morning.

The dark blue sheen that painted the world seemed to linger in the air, as if the world was in a state of melancholy.

A light fog rolled in over the grounds of the estate and further contributed to the slightly haunting atmosphere.

Courtney was chewing on a handful of fruit she’d remembered to steal from the fridge while she stood atop the surface of the lake.

She watched her brother carefully as he performed a series of small hops to awaken his muscles.

Briefly, his silhouette was replaced with that of his child-like appearance.

Never in life had she seen something more adorable. The fond smile on her face was genuine and from the heart.

“…Sister has grape skins in her teeth.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Courtney turned around and adjusted herself with a mortifying vengeance. Her plan for K’ael to see her as a cool, dependable older sister had gone out the window completely.

She turned back to her brother and smiled grape-free.

“S-Sorry, about that.. you ready?”

K’ael nodded.

“CRUSH HER, BABY BOY! TEACH HER THE ERROR OF HER WAYS!!”

Courtney looked towards the shore where Kirina and Ayaana were seated in lawn chairs with sunglasses.

“Is this still about the toaster waffles!?”

“Of course it’s about the toaster waffles!”

Courtney shook her head at her mother when she noticed a subtle glow occur across the lake’s surface.

When she looked back at her brother, he was pulling a very long sword out of thin air.

K’ael was a simple six feet in height, yet his sword must have only been a few inches shorter than him.

The sword was wrapped in some sort of ornamental cloth that he removed with love and care.

When his weapon was revealed, Courtney witnessed a brilliant red blade that shone with a profound inner glow.

A golden chain appeared along K’ael’s sword arm, making Courtney raise her brow.

’Very shiny…’

“…”

Courtney finally noticed that K’ael had been staring at her for around two minutes.

“Oh, fuck, right.”

Courtney hastily drew her sword from her shadow while it was still in it’s scabbard.

Her fumbling personality made K’ael wonder if his grandmother was just being generous with her praise. His sister did not seem poised enough to make a truly exemplary swordswoman.

“…” After thinking about it for a moment, he adopted a fairly normal sword stance with his weapon held out at a 45-degree angle.

“Oh, no, I’m fine, seriously! You can do things regularly, I promise I’m not as half-baked as I’m showing myself to be…” Courtney scratched her cheek in embarrassment.

K’ael didn’t look all that convinced, but with Courtney’s insistence, he couldn’t find many more reasons to refuse.

He dropped his sword to his side and assumed a straight stance that hardly seemed impressive.

All of a sudden, he vanished right before her eyes.

His body blended into the dense fog that rolled across the surface of the lake, and he vanished without a sound.

Courtney could barely even contain her excitement as she turned to the shore.

“Hey, Ma! He’s doing that thing Mira does!”

Ayaana smiled at her like a proud mother.

Suddenly, Courtney heard the rattling of chains all around her.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the glowing red sword rushing towards her.

Courtney didn’t move a muscle.

When the sword struck her, it instantly went up into a cloud of volcanic smoke that made her nose wrinkle.

Courtney loosened the drawstrings on her sweatpants to allow her tail to grow and breathe.

Her flexible appendage wagged, and there was a loud metal clang as the real sword went flying up into the air.

As it flew, the chain was suddenly pulled taut.

The blade cut through the air with such speed that it split the sound barrier.

Courtney held up her sword and knocked away the weapon.

This time, when it went flying again, K’ael appeared in the air to catch it.

Quick as a flash of lightning, he appeared beside Courtney and lashed out at her with a single slash.

Courtney held up her sword to block the blow, but when the two of them collided, she was surprised at the level of strength contained in her seemingly undersized little brother’s body.

It was nothing shy of explosive.

As quickly as K’ael appeared, he was gone.

In a less than 0.05-second interval, K’ael reappeared on her left side, then her right, followed by her front, back, above…

At a certain point, Courtney almost started to feel dizzy.

Sparks began to flutter off K’ael’s blade, growing bigger and bigger until they were gouts of flame.

Courtney could feel her brother’s weapon starting to heat up the longer their exchange went on.

In addition, it’s glow was starting to become brighter and more intense with the rising of the sun.

Courtney slammed her tail down onto the surface of the water, and the entire lake erupted.

Walls of water rose up into the air, taking both of the competitors into the air.

K’ael was a hair bit slower in adjusting his body than Courtney was.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her leaping from the surface of the displaced water as she rushed toward him.

She finally adjusted her body’s positioning.

K’ael felt his eyes widen as time started to slow down for him.

He analyzed every facet of his sister’s movements. They were subtle, yet not soft or weak in any way. There was a depth of profundity within her movements that was captivating to look at.

Instead of reacting, the way his mother and father had drilled him to, K’ael found himself waiting and watching. Desperately eager to see what his sister would do next.

And then for some reason, her movements changed. The profundity that K’ael saw ceased.

In a twist that he could not explain, Courtney gave her brother a soft thwack right between the horns.

Their eyes met, and he saw her smiling at him.

’I win.’ Her eyes seemed to say.

In that moment, time seemed to speed up once again.

The rushing water that had shot up into the sky came rushing back down, sweeping K’ael away in it’s current.

When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on his back on the shore, staring up at his mother and grandmother as they fanned his face.

“That was nice. Ready for breakfast?”

K’ael was not concerned about food in the slightest. He wanted to understand what had just happened.

He sat up instantly and looked around for his sister.

He found her on the edge of the bank with her back toward him.

A blue-colored cigarello was sitting between her lips, freshly lit. The smoke it released was pleasant and sweet-smelling.

Courtney finished refilling the lake and cleaned up the damage as best she could.

A subtle rain had started to fall over the entire front lawn.

Courtney started to fix it, but decided that it was better left the way it was.

She turned back to her brother and found him sitting up, staring at her with an odd look.

Courtney smiled at him as she held up her fingers in a small gesture.

“I only won by this much.”