Hunted

Flampe secretly watched her bitter enemy, Cherry, talking to her crewmates trapped within the Mirroworld.

"Just the excuse that I needed!" Flampe whispered to herself.

This was the perfect opportunity! She caught Cherry red handed advising her crew, who were trespassing to begin with, on how to escape the Mirroworld! This was all but a direct attack on a member of the Charlotte family!

Now all she needed to do was to capture Cherry, which should be simple enough.

"Ahhh, I can already hear Katakuri-nii-sama praising me~!" Flampe twirled in the air. "I can't wait!"

Flampe carefully loaded her blowgun with a paralyzing dart and took aim at Cherry down the hall.

*poof*

With a nearly silent puff of air, the dart flew straight for its mark on Cherry's neck. Flampe had spent a lot of time training with her weapon of choice, so hitting a moving target was as easy as pie!

"Ooh, a piece of candy~!" Cherry bent down to pick something up right as the dart passed through the air when she had been standing. She stood back up, seemingly oblivious to the deadly attempt on her life. "Oh, it's just a marble. Who left this here?"

Cherry tossed the marble aside and continued on unhurriedly.

Flampe suppressed a growl. She had missed, but it was only a fluke. This blind woman didn't even notice she was being attacked, so all there was to do was to try again! She wouldn't get lucky a second time!

*poof*

A second shot flew, and just as it was about to strike-

"That's a neat painting," Cherry said, veering off course to admire the artwork on the wall.

Yet again Flampe's dart missed its target, and by sheer coincidence of all things. Somehow this was a great deal more frustrating than if Cherry had knowingly dodged or blocked the attack.

"Vincent Van Gogh, huh? Never heard of him." Cherry started to walk away.

Flampe furiously reloaded her blowgun, her palpable frustration clearly slowing the entire process the more she tried to rush it, practically fuming in anger the way that only a teenage girl can.

However, she did not immediately fire again. This time she waited patiently, even as her eyes went bloodshot from a lack of blinking.

Cherry stopped and picked up a heavy stone vase to examine it. This was the moment that Flampe was waiting for! Cherry was holding the vase, so she would be able to move out of the way easily.

*poof*

*peng!*

Cherry spun around whilst still holding the vase, like she was dancing with it. The dart struck the vase, making a clear sound as it hit the hard surface.

"What was that?" Cherry asked aloud.

She turned the vase around in her hands, saw a small crack in the exterior, gasped, then put the vase back down on its pedestal. She carefully turned the vase in such a way that the crack could not be seen by people walking by and whistled non-suspiciously as she speed walked away.

Flampe was trembling in rage, nearly crushing her blowgun in her grip.

Cherry was struggling not to laugh at the poor girl.

Flampe seemed to lose her cool entirely. In a cold fury, she began to load and fire darts from her blowgun as fast as she was able.

Several times in quick succession, Cherry always found a reason to move out of the way and 'inadvertently' dodge the attack.

Now, Flampe was suspicious. Once was an anomaly, twice was a coincidence, and thrice was a pattern. Any more than that, and she would have to be an idiot to think that it was pure chance that all the shots missed.

"Don't screw with me!" Flampe revealed herself, shouting at Cherry from behind.

"Hm? Do I know you?" Cherry asked innocently. "That vase was like that when I found it, promise!"

"Don't play stupid!" Flampe shot another dart at Cherry, grinning victoriously now that she knew that Cherry couldn't pretend she didn't notice.

Cherry caught the dart casually between two fingers. "Oh, do you want to play a game of darts? I'll warn you, I'm pretty good at it!"

Flampe angrily stamped her foot on the ground, sending herself floating towards the ceiling by accident. "I'm attacking you, damn it!"

"Ohhhhhhh!" Cherry slapped her fist into her palm in realization. "This is some kind of war games thing that you Charlotte kids play to train your skills, right?

"Raaah!" Flampe charged, dart held above her head with the intent to stab her.

Cherry flicked the dart in her own hand, directly popping Flampe's balloon pants and sending the girl tumbling to the ground.

"Ouch!" Flampe groaned, rubbing her hip on which she landed quite hard.

"There isn't anything on those darts is there?" Cherry asked.

"Wouldn't YOU like to know!" Flampe sassed.

"Not really, but I'm curious about whether I'm going to need to call a doctor for you." Cherry said.

"Why would I need-" Flampe noticed the dart she had been holding was now embedded in her shoulder. Her face went white as a sheet before she slumped to the ground, paralyzed.

"Well, shoot." Cherry scratched her head awkwardly. She hadn't intended to actually hurt the girl; she was just a kid after all.

Cherry leaned down to check on her and found that whatever poison she had used wasn't particularly dangerous. Flampe was still breathing and her other organs were still functioning normally. She was even still conscious, glaring at Cherry as she checked on her.

"Shall I take you to a doctor after all? You guys must have one on staff here, but I don't know where…" Cherry rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "This is a little bit my fault for messing with you, though, so I suppose I should take responsibility."

Cherry scooped Flampe up in a princess carry and started to dash down the hallway in search of someone who could tell her where to go to find a doctor. Despite Cherry's great speed, Flampe felt that they were almost gliding across the floor rather than running on it.

"You remind me a little bit of myself when I was younger, you know. Rambunctious, always causing trouble for people for my own amusement." Cherry said.

Flampe wanted to tell her to shut up and put her down, but obviously her tongue and jaw weren't cooperating.

"I grew out of it of course," Cherry lied through her teeth. "I was so focused on being noticed that I didn't care if it was for a good reason or not. I realized sometime along the way that if I wanted to be acknowledged, then I needed to give people a reason to do so, beyond just what a cute little trouble maker I was."

That… spoke to something inside of Flampe. All her life she had been seeking the attention of her elder siblings and their mother, in constant need of validation. The means by which she had learned to acquire this was her adorable looks, and certainly she was successful. She was even the long time winner of the cutest little sister award!

However, there was one vote that she could never receive no matter how she changed up her looks or acted cute. Katakuri never once voted for her. The voting was anonymous, but she knew it was him. No one else would dare claim she wasn't the cutest little sister.

She wracked her brain for countless late nights trying to think of some way to reach him, only for everything she thought of to fall flat in the face of that stoic older brother of hers.

However, now Cherry was painting a new picture for her. One where she could earn the respect of her favorite older brother! Surely, if she could attain the same level of hyper competence as Katakuri, then he would come to respect her for it!

Cherry noticed that Flampe's eyes shone with a different light than they did before and wondered what kind of change was taking place in the girl's little head.