Return of the S-class Young Master

“Look, Brother Ciel! The maple leaves are in full bloom again. It is the best time of the year to walk around. Come on and walk with me.”

A sweet voice pulled Cielo from the abyss he was in. He opened his charred eyes with great difficulty, no matter how painful it was to peel his eyelids apart.

The color of ash that filled Cielo’s vision did not dim the sparkle within his little sister’s eyes as she carefully lifted his body from the bed. Her movements were precise, a telltale sign that she was used to lifting him up from the bed onto the wheelchair.

“I heard that you scared my friends again.” Shiela groaned playfully as she placed a blanket on his lap before guiding the wheelchair he was seated on to the shared balcony of the complex. “Brother Ciel, you can’t keep on scaring them. How can I work if I will worry about you all the time? What will we eat then? And what about your medicine?”

‘Shiela, you should leave me to die. You do not deserve a brother like me,’ Cielo could only say these words at the back of his mind.

With his tongue burnt from the incident decades ago, Cielo could only moan incoherent words. His stiff neck vehemently shook as he tried to move his head. His hat fell, exposing the burn marks around his bald head and charred face.

On instinct, Cielo covered his horrendous face with his equally burnt and skinny arms.

A pair of small yet warm hands cradled Cielo’s trembling hands before he felt her tiny kisses around his knuckles—in which his joints could almost be seen through his thin skin.

“Brother Cielo is still the most handsome man for me!” Kneeling in front of her twin brother, Shiela continued with her cheery voice. “For me, even until the moment I die, Brother Cielo is still my hero no matter what everyone says or whatever you think. I-I know that Brother wants to leave me. Sandra told me she saw you hurting yourself…again.”

‘That explains why all the sharp tools are gone,’ he thought.

Shiela continued. Though she was smiling, through Cielo’s gray vision of the world, he saw how a single tear fell from her right eye. “You promised. You promised it will always be you and me, even against the Regalia Clan.”

Upon the mere mention of the Regalia Clan, Cielo flinched—not from fear but from the unsatisfied anger in his heart. But with the presence of his crying little sister, he could only put down his fury at the back of his mind as he wiped her tear with his trembling crooked hand.

His fingers, which could not bend anymore, remained stiff as Cielo ended up hitting Shiela’s chin in the process.

Luckily, his struggle made her giggle. “See? You are the only man in the world who wipes my tears away, Brother Cielo.” Shiela carefully placed her head on his lap as her gaze focused on him. “You told me when we were younger that you would protect me until death separates us. You are not lying, right? Liar, liar, shits fire, remember!”

‘When will you grow up and realize how big of a burden I am to you, Shiela? It has been twenty years since you shouldered a useless brother like me. I should be the one protecting you, not this.’ Cielo lamented, his gentle gaze pinned on his only family, the only person who threw her future as the young mistress of the Regalia Clan just to be with him.

Cielo was about to pat Shiela’s head when a familiar voice from behind him stopped what he was about to do.

“Look, who’s here! It’s the monster from apartment number twenty-two!”

Though Cielo could not look behind him, he knew very well by the timbre of the intruder’s voice who he was. He could already picture his infamous green dragon tattoo on his bulky right arm.

“Ah! Ahyrsh!” Cielo was about to say ‘Xyrus’ when his lack of tongue produced a gibberish sound, making the intruder laugh.

“Hahaha! Freak show grows some spine, huh? Why? Because your pretty little sister is here? Is that it?”

“Stop it! We are going back now so you can have this entire area.” Shiela was about to turn her brother’s wheelchair around when the next thing she knew, her brother got thrown by the sudden kick she could not stop.

“Stop! What is wrong with you?”

Cielo twitched like a fish out of water. With his distorted body and muscle spasms, his thin and charred body kept on twitching as he continued to moan incoherent words.

“Brother Cielo!” Shiela, who was about to run toward her brother, was pulled back by the bunch of friends that Xyrus brought along. “Let go of me! Shark-headed freak, let go of me or so help me god I will turn you into a hammerhead shark! Let go!”

“Feisty. I like it,” said one of Xyrus’ friends who was keeping Shiela from helping Cielo.

Though half of his face was buried in the dirt, Cielo saw how his sister struggled. The incoherent words continued to spew from his scarred lips.

‘Son of a bitch, get away from Shiela! We did not do anything wrong, nor did we offend you, but you keep treating us as if all the sins of the world are caused by us! Get away from her! If there is anyone who deserves to get hit, it is me! Do us all some favor and end me right now!’

No matter how much he screamed in his mind, Cielo’s words were delivered as a bunch of gibberish moans of a man who was as useless as garbage.

Seeing his brother convulsing on the dirtied ground, Shiela released an ear-shattering scream, making the four thugs flinch. “Let go of him! I can do anything! I-I will do anything. Just let him go, please! I beg of you!”

‘No!’ Cielo screamed back in his mind.

Xyrus stepped on Cielo’s head, inching the latter’s face further into the pile of dirt as he howled in laughter, immediately followed by his friends. The burst of their mocking laughter echoed within the small and derelict complex, disturbing every family in the area, but no one dared to show their complaints—too afraid that they would be the next target.

In the end, the residents of the small complex listened to Shiela’s cries and Cielo’s struggles. They pretended not to hear anything.

Though Cielo was used to this kind of treatment, he could never get used to the feeling of sheer anger.

The greatest feeling Cielo felt was anger for the listeners who could have helped them, rage for Xyrus and his friends, and anger for himself, followed by self-pity.

‘If only I could turn back the time when I was still sixteen years old, and I was still the young master of the Regalia Clan. ‘Cielo thought back to when our mother was still alive as Xyrus started to kick his head. His gaze remained transfixed on his sister, who was now trashing her body like a mad woman.

“My, oh my. Look at this scene,” a gentle voice filled with mockery stopped the riot in the balcony. All attention was directed to the newly arrived man on the scene.

With his face buried in the dirt, it was not enough for Cielo to stop the flow of memories back when he was at the peak of his prime years—the years in which he was still the heir to the patriarch of the Regalia Clan.

‘Cael!’ He screamed at the back of his mind, remembering the stepbrother he once trusted.

“Boss, I don’t know what you are doing in this area. You clearly don’t belong here,” said Xyrus. His tone was neither arrogant nor humble as he addressed the newly arrived gentleman. “You are not here for this shithead right here, right? No way!” Xyrus kicked Cielo’s shoulders, making the latter roll.

Cielo was now seeing the man who he once swore to kill twenty years ago. Veins popped around his neck and forehead as he screamed. “Argggh! Arrrggg!”

Shiela kicked the crotch area of the man holding her. “I said let go!”

The man groaned while holding his crotch. Shiela, on the other hand, immediately cradled her older brother—her burning eyes stared at the man who had just arrived. “What are you doing here? Big Buddha like you are not welcome in this neighborhood!”

A fine man clad with the finest of clothes grinned at Shiela. “Now, you do not talk to a brother like that, Shiela. Brother Cielo is doing pretty bad in disciplining you, I presume.” His gaze on her body went up and down, scrutinizing Shiela as if she was some sort of an insect. He scoffed. “What happened to the little princess of the Regalia Clan?”

“Princess? Oh, please! Regalia Clan doesn’t need a flowery princess. They already have me.” Followed by the man’s question, a sweet melodious voice pierced through the desolate area. Her soft allure enticed Xyrus and his friends, rendering them with hanging jaws as their eyes remained fixated on the voluptuous woman who had just arrived. She linked her arm around Cael’s left arm, closing the distance between them when she attached her bosoms to his arm. “Right, dear?”

Cielo and Shiela simultaneously went rigid—significantly more so for the former.

Through gritted teeth, Shiela spat the woman’s name. “Ara.”

“Wrong.” Ara crossed her arms, emphasizing her bouncy bosoms as she gazed down at Shiela, who was practically kneeling on the dirty pavement. “I’m Arabella Regalia. Cael married me last week right after the inheritance ceremony.” She comically gasped, covering her red lips with her dainty hands. “I’m sorry. I forgot to invite you, oops!”

‘Inheritance Ceremony? They already passed down that cursed seat to Cael? Then why are they still here?’ Cielo pondered. He could only listen to Arabella’s voice—the girl that had been promised to him since he was young.

“As if we would dare step into the lair of the beasts. And stop with your façade, Ara. We grew up together. I was there when you professed your undying love to Brother Cielo before the accident happened! Ungrateful wench! You and your family would remain in the slums if my mother did not pick your mother from the mud!”

Slap!

Cael crossed the distance between him and Shiela to deliver a resounding slap. With eyes filled with fury, he easily lifted her up by the neck.

Ara immediately nodded at Xyrus and his thugs while dropping a wad of cash on the ground—a simple transaction not to tell a soul of what they saw here. “Oh, look at that. We can call her ‘Purple Princess’, right, dear? Go and show me your awesome kickass attitude.”

Hearing the flirty voice of his wife, Cael turned to Ara with a widening grin. “If I won’t?”

Without making a sound, Ara licked her middle finger languidly, eyes knowing she had delivered her intention well upon seeing the growing erection of her husband. With a seductive smile, she mouthed two words: kill her.

‘Get away from my sister! Turning me into a monster and sabotaging my mother’s medicine is still not enough for you? Now, you want to take my sister away from me? What did I do wrong to you, Cael? I accepted you as a brother when no one in the Regalia Clan did. I never blamed you and your mother for what happened to my parents’ marriage!’

Bang!

The coughing fit from Shiela’s ashen lips suddenly stopped as her body went limp from Cael’s grasp.

“Filthy bitch,” spat Cael. He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands before dropping the used cloth onto the unmoving body of his stepsister.

‘Nooo!’

Tears relentlessly fell from his eyes.

‘Do not take her away from me! Shiela, wake up! No! You have so much more to offer in this world! Why? Why do this to you? To us? We acted as if we were dead for decades! We obeyed every rule they threw on us! We did our best fulfilling the lives of the trash of Regalia’s Clan! What more do you want from us?’

“Aaaarrgggghhh!” Cielo’s train of thought could only turn into a series of gibberish words as he crawled toward his sister. With his shaking arms, he hugged her unmoving body. A dark liquid painted his hands as he pulled her to him, offering his warmth to her—as if by doing so would bring her back.

‘Shielaaaaa!’

Slowly, the black-and-white version of his world turned utterly turned black while he cradled the corpse of his sister.

“Make him stop. He is so annoying, dear.”

In one fluid motion, Cael pulled out a gun, aimed it at the back of Cielo’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Red. It was the last color Cielo saw before dropping onto his sister’s body.