The Stupid Cannon Fodder is Stunning Today

Chapter 23: A Madness Most Discreet

This chapter is brought to you by 裸の勇者 by Vaundy.

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Duri hadn't always been the youngest among her siblings.

But after Ten, well...

She was two when they left the village. She hardly remembered her mama and papa. They were distant, hazy memories that lurked in the back of her head and didn't seem all that important. 

In their place, it was Toby who held her and Toby who comforted her. Toby was the one who bought her all the pretty dresses and braided her hair. 

When she and Tess wanted to join the Saintly Sister with Rasa, it was Toby who gave her a dagger and brought her to the training ground.

Duri hadn't realized how much Toby had sacrificed and given up. He acted so much older and was so very mature for his age. He was like an adult that they all confided in, and he kept their secrets and listened to all their disagreements, and made sure they were happy. 

It didn't seem very fair that their village put the burden on Toby. He was, after all, only a boy. 

Duri had been eight once, and she felt as helpless as she did when she was six. Could anyone imagine a child of eight fighting in The Arena for a living?

Toby did it. He killed and killed and became Cat, all the while Duri wore her pretty dresses, had her hair braided, and went to her lessons with her siblings. 

Cat.

Oh, how Duri hated that name. 

She loved Hungri and the others, but she abhorred the monicker more than she hated the name Tobus. 

Toby was not a beast, nor a monster, and the very act of calling him by a name that was not his own was like a master naming a pet. 

Toby was simply Toby, Duri's older brother. 

"Tobus," the Monttevi mutt that was always following Toby had shown up once again to be a pest.

And of all days, it was during their rare outings into the city square. 

The mutt hid it well, but Duri knew his hidden intentions. 

She despised him so for his audacity. 

How dare he think himself Toby's savior?

Duri played with a thin blade in her hand as she watched the mutt bother her brother. 

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Tess remembered when the village burned. 

She never told her siblings that, but she remembered. At the age of three, she remembered the flames in the distance, the smoke rising into the air, and holding Duri's hand. 

Toby had noticed, because, of course, Toby noticed. 

Her memories were expansive, and every single detail from the moment she opened her eyes to this very moment before her, seventeen years after the village was burned, was recorded in her mind. 

Rasa had told her she would be a useful asset to the Saintly Sister. 

Duri had looked into her face, observing the piercings on either side of her nose bridge and below her lips, the smirk that stretched from ear to ear, and those eyes, vermillion red like that of Lord Calypto, and nodded. 

It seemed like destiny, in the end, to stain her hands in blood. 

Toby had done it for their sake, and he was special in a way that was not like Tess, but something similar and just as dangerous.