This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

‘Sis? Is that a name? Or is he calling her sister?’ The continuous drop in ambient temperature stagnated briefly at Serena’s surprise at the unexpected word.

‘No…that can’t be right. He has no sister who looks like this. All of his sisters are much younger.’

Serena had met all of his family members briefly when helping to rescue Cherry, and even prior to meeting them, he’d described them to her that time Bridge became sick while she was acting as his team leader.

‘What did he say back then…?’ She closed her eyes and thought back to the time that now felt like ages ago.

In order of age, there are eleven of us in total. Bridge and I are the same age and don’t know our real birthdays, but everyone usually considers me to be the oldest and then Bridge. Then there is Milo, the twins Jasper and Jasmine, Cherry, Key, Parker, Sunny, Charlie, and Melody…

‘Yeah, that was it…only eleven siblings…right?’ Even when she’d gone to their house, there had been no other pictures hanging up than of those eleven. But something about that memory was still nagging at her, and after thinking about it further, she remembered that what he’d said hadn’t ended there.

…There was another member of the orphanage, a couple of years older than Bridge and I, who went missing when I was around 10 as well. However, we try not to mention her since her disappearance was so painful for the director… She was his biological niece, and pretty much the inspiration for why he opened an orphanage in the first place…

After remembering the rest, Serena’s eyes, which she’d closed in concentration, snapped open in shock.

‘Could it be her?’

Serena’s gaze flicked between the photo and Kain’s face. His expression hadn’t changed—not overtly—but something behind his eyes had gone distant. Like he’d completely fallen into his memories.

His breathing had slowed to something shallow and irregular. A tremor ran through his fingers as they gripped the photo, and for a moment, Serena wasn’t sure if he even saw her standing there. It was as if the world around him had condensed to just being that photo.

She hesitated, the words catching in her throat before she finally said, softly,

“…Kain. You mentioned once… There was someone older at the orphanage. Someone who disappeared?”

Kain didn’t respond right away.

His jaw clenched faintly. A bead of sweat trailed down his temple despite the chill in the air.

But his grip on the photo tightened.

Serena continued, her voice careful. “The director’s niece. The one who went missing when you were ten.”

Still, no answer.

Not even a flicker of acknowledgement. But the silence was heavy. Full of weight.

Only when she gently reached forward, resting a hand near his wrist—not touching, just close enough to remind him she was there—did Kain finally speak.

“Her name was Airalai,” he said. Just saying the name felt awkward and unfamiliar—evidence of how thoroughly they tried to avoid saying her name aloud for fear of triggering the director.

‘It’s strange… how a single name could actually feel like a dusty, untouched box of memories on a seldom glanced at shelf.’

“She was the first one there. It was originally just her and her uncle—the Director—who got custody of her after her parents had died. Eventually, perhaps out of wanting to add some more liveliness to the home, or to give her some siblings, or maybe just out of pity for kids in a similar situation to her, they both discussed opening an orphanage. She was the oldest. And then… one day, she was gone from the home.”

“And eventually, since only really Bridge and I remember her clearly, and her memory seemed too painful for the director, she practically became erased in our memories as well. Especially since the youngest ones had never met her…she went missing before they were even born. Milo hadn’t yet entered the orphanage and had never met her. And Jasper and Jasmine were too young to remember her clearly…they were only around four years old when she—”

His eyes didn’t move from the picture.

“She what…? Was she kidnapped like Gabriel and Cherry? We searched. Everyone searched. But there was never a trace.”

“And now she’s appeared. Somehow… she’s alive. With them. Working for them.”

A tinge of disbelief filled his voice. The gentle older sister in his memories that would scold them for almost accidentally crushing a butterfly while playing was now part of an organization that kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people regularly?

It made absolutely no sense.

And yet, the photo didn’t lie. That was her face. Older, colder, but hers.

He could still hear her voice sometimes, soft and chiding: ‘Kain, don’t step on the ants—they have families too, you know.’ She used to wrap a scarf around his neck even when he complained it was itchy, claiming it was her duty to make sure he didn’t catch a cold.

Kain—due to already being around 7 or 8 when he entered the orphanage, and possessing memories of adulthood in another world—hadn’t really needed to be taken care of by her. But still, the unfamiliar care of an older sibling, since he’d been an only child in his past life, was a welcome new experience for him.

If anything, despite her best efforts to seem otherwise, in much of their interactions, he would act more like the older one, helping her to braid her hair for school or helping her study, since the director was utterly hopeless at both things.

“Are you sure it’s her?” Serena asked. But the woman in the photo had a pretty distinctive face, even if it had likely matured from when Kain had last seen her, so she didn’t hold out much hope that it was a case of mistaken identity.

Kain gave the faintest of nods. His voice, when it came, was hoarse, and his eyes shadowed as a horrifying thought dawned on him.

“I can’t believe she’s working for them. What the hell happened to her?”

“Maybe she isn’t working with them willingly,” Serena tried to comfort.

Kain didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not yet. The thought that she may have played a role in the suffering of so many was still forming, sick and heavy in his chest.

‘I feel like throwing up…’