Lady Misfortune: Daddy, I'll Be A Righteous Villainess!

The young girl wakes up to soft blankets and bandages wrapped around her.

Pain stings throughout her small, weak body as she tries to move in the bed, her eyes closing as she hisses out a deep, shaky breath. She puts a hand on her head to try to lessen the ache. Her memories are painful vignettes, her thoughts a jumbled mess. 

Really, she only remembers spotty moments of before, during, and after those 'people' came. 

"You think you can get away just like that?! Who do you think you two are?!"

"I'm gonna kill you! Damn little bitches! I'm really gonna kill you!"

The ache in her head gets worse. 

She tries her best to put up with the pain – to tune out the voices. Ignoring the dryness of her throat, she pulls herself up in a sitting position. She looks around her surroundings. 

"Where am I?" 

She finds white walls and wooden flooring. 

There's a sliding door before the bed that's slightly opened, letting in a draft from the hallway outside. From what she can tell, she's no longer in the hospital. 

The lack of personality of the room weighs heavy on her. The impersonal feel of the blank walls and brown floor gives her a dreadful feeling. But it fades for a moment when she thinks of the only family she has left.

"B-Big sister."

Then, the girl remembers seeing the petrified look on her face as she looked down on her bleeding body. She was also shouting something back then, but she could understand a word she said. 

"Where were you?!"

The question was forced out of her mouth when the door opened up completely. But it's not her elder sister. Her shoulders slackened when it revealed an unfamiliar-looking woman with a roll of bandage in her hand and a bucket of water in the other. 

"Oh, you're awake…!" the stranger beamed, closing the door and rushing to the bedside. 

"He will be pleased to hear that you're up. For now, let me change your bandages, alright?" 

The little girl blinks, eyes hurting at the reaction. But she doesn't care as she just stares at the smiling lady with wariness.

"W-Where… W-Where is my big s-sister?" she stammered out, coughing a bit.

"Oh, the other child with the brown hair? She's been up almost a week – if I remember correctly," she explained as she poured a glass of water for her.

"A-A week?"

"Yes. She should be outside helping with the chores. A very capable kid. Pretty strong too! Not a lot of us at this mansion can be that hard-working, so we're very glad to have your elder sister here." 

She rambles on, but the girl is not listening to her. Then, suddenly, she throws off her blanket and tries to stand up, much to the woman's horror. 

"Wait! Please, sit back down…!" she exclaimed, reaching for her shoulders delicately before pushing her back down as gently as possible. 

"You're still badly injured. Please, at least let me change your bandages. I can help you find your big sister after that. Is that okay?" 

She looks back at her - at the hands on her shoulder. When she finds a hopeful look in the lady's eyes, she briefly falters before eventually giving in.

"O-Okay. Just… J-Just hurry, please," she told the woman and sat back down, which made her let out a sigh and show her a smile.

"I will do my best," she replied before she began to unravel the bandages around her arm. 

Even after the stranger changed the bandages, cleaned up her wounds, and gave her a change of clothes, she was feeling too timid to ask for her name. She thinks it's a shame – she was kinder than any other grown-up she'd met, after all. For a while, she sulked, but as soon as she spotted that familiar head of brown hair, her mind focused back on the one thing she'd been wanting to do. 

"Big sister Claire!" she yelled out, and the girl in question turns his head. 

At that moment, the tired scowl on her face quickly turned into one of the brightest smiles she had ever seen from her elder sister.

--- 

"Young Master, wake up. Young Master."

Weiss lets out a groan, head aching a little.

He would normally get up in bed by himself. But it seemed it was not the case this time. 

Khalil came to wake him up. That only means one thing. Weiss nearly overslept.

"I apologize for disturbing your sleep, but you do remember that you have to go to school early today, right?" he reminded him, hoping he would not get scolded for barging in his bedroom at four in the morning. 

"Yeah, I do. Thanks for coming," he said as he sat up from his bed while rubbing his forehead. 

"Did you get a bad dream, Young Master?"

"Hmmm? Why do you say so?"

"Before I woke you up, I saw you looking kinda pained."

Weiss quirked a brow at that.

Then, he recalls he did have a dream – of those girls again. He stills. It's the second time it happened this week, and it's starting to weird him out.

For one, he still has no idea who those children are and why they keep appearing in oddly unusual scenarios. It's already strange that he isn't anywhere in it – he's like an invisible observer, an unseen audience. What's more, he can make out what they're saying and even what they're thinking.

He only saw the younger sister this time. The dream ended before the elder sister popped into the scene.

Weiss has so many questions in mind.

'That little girl… She's badly injured…' he remembered, grimacing at the memory of the bandages, the blood, and the brutality. 

'Did that happen after or before they went to the hospital? But she didn't have those injuries in my previous dream. What in the world is going on?'

Just like the other day, Weiss made sure to write down all the details of the dream. Khalil could only watch from the side, clueless as to what it was all about.

"Are you taking notes for what you will say later, Young Master?" he inquired as he moved closer to him and tried to take a peek – but only to cringe away after he gave him a 'do-not-even-dare' kind of look.

"No. This is different. Speaking of which, how'd my order go?" he took his turn to inquire while he continued to write – eyes on the paper, a leg over the other.       

"The plan with Mr. Mireille, yes? It's almost done. I have also finished arranging everything on my part, Sir. Your news writers and columnists had already been informed. They'll be posting the articles this morning, so expect that you'll hear words about it as soon as you get to school."

"And by noon, it would already reach the faculty staff, right?" 

"Surely, they'll get involved in this. This is the SES, after all."

"Regardless of who they are, I'll gladly confront them myself." 

"Such a shame they're part of the SES, though. Because of the wrongdoings of a few, the name of the student council would get sullied. Not to mention, they have to go against you of all people."

"Exciting, isn't it?"

Khalil sighs at that. 

To this day, he can't understand the type of amusement he's into. He'd seen him get all thrilled in solving difficult puzzles and real-life cases. Aside from doing the solving, though, he also gets ecstatic in doing the puzzles and real-life cases himself. At times, he'd enjoy it so much it's like it's the only type of amusement he knew. 

There was even a time when Weiss had dealt with some of the people who worked under Lloyd before. Khalil was there when Weiss had set what did not seem like a plan in motion.

"You're asking me what I want for my birthday? Okay, then. I want a huge mansion, and I want it to be near the beach," was what he told his father's people when they tried to suck up to him by asking what he wanted as a present for his tenth birthday.

He is the sole heir of the Saoirse family, so this kind of scenario is already common. People would always try to earn his favor – behind his back, however, they're scheming all sorts of things. It happens so often that there are some instances when he'd just use it to his advantage, and that's exactly what happened at that time.

'Turned out those people were actually embezzling the company's funds that were meant to be donated to charity, and the Young Master exposed them by placing them in a situation where they had to spend more money than usual…' Khalil recalled, sighing once more.

'I'm not sure how exactly he did it, but apparently, he'd been positive that they're really gonna spend on that mansion. Only shows how badly they wanted to get on his good side.. But I guess they just don't really care about the costs, especially since all the money they tried to use to get him that gift had come from his family's company.'