Chapter 15: Grandparents Parting Gifts.

[] Speaking English

{} Speaking German

Everything else is Japanese unless otherwise specified. (I won't be doing honorifics)

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Tensions ran high in the Krieger household, it'd been two days since Nana and Grandpa arrived and the tensions between them and my parents never cooled. Well kind of, the rampant arguing between mom and Nana had simmered down into a cold war of glares and silent disdain, which dad, grandpa, and I all seemed to agree was somehow worse.

That was the only thing dad and grandpa agreed on, or more like the only thing grandpa agreed with dad on. Dad was trying his best, but grandpa seemed content to play contrarian to dads every decision.

Today, in the hopes of at least getting everyone to pretend to be civil, I had agreed to a play date with Toru. Even if I found the way it was referred to demeaning I was still very excited to see my friend.

And that's how I ended up waiting patiently at the door as all the adults argued trying to get everything together so they could head out. It was almost comedic, if we forget that they were putting me at risk of being late.

"Mom are you using MY hairbrush!?"

"Oh yes, sorry Zara dear, must have been my old age…"

The pettiness I was witnessing was honestly astounding. At times I thought I was looking at a group of people my age and not adults. So being the reasonable person I am I created a megaphone and gave them a piece of my mind.

"CAN WE JUST GO ALREADY!"

The megaphone may have been a bit too advanced, the whole building shook from that, but it did get my point across. After looking at me for a few seconds they all stopped arguing and got ready to leave.

The drive to the park was awful as well, normally there would be some arguing but it seems my megaphone strategy was a tad bit too effective and had short circuited their brains. If I had to take a guess what they were all thinking right now it'd be something along the lines of 'we were acting like that in front of our daughter/granddaughter.' And how they're meant to be role models.

Arriving at the park I immediately spotted Toru, she wasn't invisible and was wearing a nice outfit while talking to… two sets of flying clothing. (A/N: Toru's look. Thanks GoldShiresInn for suggesting the image)

Your joking… if her parents are invisible too then why didn't she say anything. Well whatever two more bracelets that disable it isn't that hard.

Getting out of the car we headed over to the little blanket they had laid out.

"Toru!"

"Ayah!"

Hearing me Toru spun around, got up and tackled me into a hug. Meanwhile Toru's parents stood up and went over to greet mine. Immediately I felt embarrassed as my dad tried to shake Mr. Hagakure's hand and missed.

"Toru, why didn't you mention your parents where invisible?"

I whispered to Toru while the parents where all busy, she blushed slightly before whispering back.

"I completely forgot."

My face went deadpan as I thought of how to respond to that. In the end I gave up and just made another necklace for her mom and a watch for her dad both with the toggle-able quirk suppressor.

She expressed her thanks before running over to her parents and getting them to put them on. Her parents popped into existence and I realized the truth of pretty people coming from pretty genes. Her mom and dad could have easily been models. (A/N: The Hagakure's)

Both of them looked at each other and immediately hugged while crying, after a few seconds Toru started crying as well and joined the hug. Meanwhile, my family and I just kind of stood awkwardly off to the side.

After a few minutes of hugging and crying they broke their hug circle and turned to me. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hagakure walked over to me and bowed.

"Thank you Ayah, thank you for what you've done for our family."

I immediately got flustered and started waving my hands about in front of me.

"No, no you don't have to thank me I'm Toru's friend it was the least I could do. Please stand stop bowing."

They both looked at each other and then bowed even deeper.

"Thank you for being Toru's first friend as well. We were so happy to learn she finally made a friend."

At this point my parents who were standing behind me couldn't take it either.

"Please, Mr. and Mrs. Hagakure we should also be thanking you. Toru is Ayah's first friend as well and we are forever thankful for that."

My dad bowed in return while telling the embarrassing truth about my friendships or lack thereof.

After that finished me and Toru ran off to go play while both sets of parents and my grandparents sat down to talk.

Me and Toru ran around for a short while, playing tag and hide and seek. Before we both sat on a bench and continued our studies or Toru did while I taught. I was currently caught all the way up to the last year of senior high school here and wanted Toru to catch up before moving on to university level topics. I had to say that Toru was advancing rapidly. She had already moved up from ELMN 3 to ELMN 4 after only a few study sessions and being given the proper material.

I had achieved a great quirk milestone to help this process as well. I successfully summoned a tablet. The tablet was pretty awful honestly, I had to consider worth when choosing one. And it was hard to use, I couldn't just summon something that connected to all the networks and stuff like that. In fact before connecting to a network the tablet wouldn't do anything. After connecting to a network the only useable feature is a search engine. But it was a functioning electronic device so that was something.

It also helped me learn something about my quirk, something that needed more testing. The value of this tablet to me had gone down after getting access to the internet and so had the energy cost. That's why I started considering the cost in my creations and sure enough the cost went down… sometimes.

Sometimes I summon something worth hundreds of yen for very little energy but something worth 10 yen takes tons of energy. Same with enchantments, the smite enchantment is a high level enchantment that does extra damage to undead and demonic entities. In this world where it's useless it costs virtually nothing at all while a simple heating enchantment takes most of my energy reserves.

This made me think that it wasn't material or worldly costs that mattered but rather my own subjective belief about something's worth. Of course testing this was hard, but I would get around to it.

After about three hours at the park studying our parents came over to us and told us it was time to go. Although the confrontation between Toru and her parents seeing her study ELMN 5 material was pretty funny.

Not as funny as them learning that I was already at senior high school academically but still pretty funny. Following that confrontation where they seemed to realize that Toru was actually a genius and that she made easy friends with me because I was also a genius they all went home.

And sure enough the moment they were gone..

"Zara that was atrocious! What happened to all the etiquette I taught you! You were slouched, you ate like a starved convict, and your conversation manner was terrible."

"Don't talk to me about that mom! Couldn't you see that your whole prim and proper act was making them uncomfortable! They aren't your aristocrat friends, they're normal people!"

And they continued to argue all the way back home.

After getting home I decided to just head into my room and pretend nothing was happening out there. It was very rude to do so considering they were leaving tomorrow but it is what it is.

The next evening Nana and grandpa were packed and we all drove to the airport. After getting through baggage check and right before the security gate it was time to say goodbye. Nana came over with a package in her hand and crouched down in front of me.

"Here you go Ayah, this is from me."

Opening the package I saw a beautiful sight. A laptop with my name styled on the front and a card next to it with a list of academic services that the laptop was subscribed to.

"It's locked to academics only but it's still more then what your mother gave you."

Ignoring the petty comment at the end I gave her a hug.

"Thank you Nana it's wonderful!"

After that grandpa came over and crouched down in front of me as well. He then handed me what I could only assume was a wrapped gift card and asked me to open it.

Taking if from his and opening it my jaw dropped in surprised before looking over at my parents. How could I not be confused and surprised, I was looking at a membership card for a Kendo dojo.

"Thank you grandpa, but how did you get mom and dad to agree to this."

He looked at me and chuckled slightly before getting close and whispering.

"Oh you know just some concessions, on the other hand that was the best I could do. I know you probably wanted to do more but they barely agreed to one so wait till your older."

Hugging him as well I slipped the card into my pocket.

"I will, and thanks grandpa."

"No problem."

After that, and a rather terse goodbye between them and my parents, they went through security. Or well not really, they were escorted past security.

And so with them leaving, we all went out of the airport and drove back home. Mom seemed extremely upset so dad and I wisely chose to keep quite and let her work it out.

And arriving at home she went into her room and locked the door.

"I'm worried about her daddy…"

"I know Ayah, I know. She's just upset about how this meeting with your grandparents went. I'll talk to her and she'll be fine tomorrow."

Reassuring me a few more times he took me to my room and put me in bed. After saying goodnight he left to, hopefully, go console mom.

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Next chapter comes tomorrow, also I'll be making an auxiliary chapter to keep track of appearances later today.