Closed differences

[Professor Conan Edogawa]

When he'd been told he could watch Hina duel, Conan hadn't quite understood what people were saying. As a matter of fact, when people kept telling him about Hina, as in his daughter Hinata Edogawa, winning the Duelling Tournament last year, he thought they'd been pulling his leg. Or that maybe there was a translation issue. Or that maybe someone used his daughter's name. He never thought, that they actually meant that Hinata really did win the Duelling Tournament. So today, he'd gone to the Duelling Chambers to watch his daughter go up against one of her classmates. He most certainly did not expect whatever it was that he saw. Because what he saw was not his sweet, little, innocent angel. It was a... mad woman hell-bent on destruction. And he didn't know where that came from. And here he thought, that little Hina had escaped the genetics of his and Taylor's temper. Apparently not. He would have scarily watched more of what his daughter was doing - last he checked was attempting to bludgeon her classmate over the head with a piece of debris - if it were not for the fact that his younger daughter, had run out of the duelling chamber hurriedly and seemingly in tears. And so, he went to hurriedly follow after Rose - he was pretty sure Hina didn't need him anyway at the moment - but Rose looked like she definitely did. "Peanut, baby, what's wrong?" he said as he finally managed to catch up and overtake her, placing his hands on her shoulders gently as he bent down to face her on her level.​

 

[Rose Edogawa]

Rose had barely made it down the corridor in the dungeons when she heard Touchan behind her. She didn’t want him to see her crying but something told her he would know anyway. She sniffed, wiping the tears away from her face with the sleeve of her robe, even just to give herself a little bit of peace. The evidence slipping into the fabric so it wasn’t so glaringly obvious. She didn’t want to talk to him, to anyway - she didn’t even know how to explain what she was feeling, really. It wasn’t just about the fact she lost to Ravage, she could deal with that, though it stung well enough. It was everything else, the way she’d been forced out of the duel so quickly, too quickly, how she had been used almost as a tool for his amusement - that’s what it had felt like, even if it wasn’t true. He’d given her a quick end he said.

It was the way Hina now duelled, looking like she was ready to kill that sixth year, like she barely thought about what she was doing and reacted instead, strong and confident. It was the fact she reminded her so much of Ravage. And she didn’t even know why that upset her really, as if she was suddenly unsire if her sister would have treated her the same if it was her on that stage and not the boy. Would she have seen her like a joke? Someone to be disposed of quickly? Like she wasn’t even worth the effort of the spell? Maybe she was being harsh on Ravage, he’d tried to help her, hadn’t he? But wasn’t it more to just make her nervous, throw her off? He’d flung her off the stage like she was nothing after all.

She stopped when he caught her, breath in unever coughing as she hiccuped. He crouched down to her level a little and she pulled her face away from him. She didn’t even want to look at him right now, running out like she had - ridiculous behaviour. She’d had to run though, she felt like she was going to explode if she’d stayed in there any longer. She couldn’t have just stood there, watching. Wondering what was going to happen next. She didn’t want to support that version of her sister - why did she even move like that? Why was she reminding Rose of Ravage? Did they practice together? Were they friends? Why would they be friends? It didn’t make any sense to her.

“I-” she frowned and sucked in a breath, trying not to start the tears again. She was being so stupid. “I got knocked out, right away, first round, like two spells in,” she said, trying not to relive that embarrassing display. “And Hina - she -” her face twisted again, like she couldn’t decide if she was angry or just devastated about the whole situation. She didn’t even dislike Ravage, she just didn’t understand. That was the worst part, perhaps. “She’s—she’s just like them. Like Ravage. She wouldn’t even have to try to take me down, I bet.” She was a sixth year, that was true, but if Rose had been a sixth year too, they could have been up against each other, and she couldn’t even beat Ravage, what treatment would Hina have given her? “I don’t know why I bothered, I don’t belong in there, or here. I should go back home. I want to go home.”​