Chapter 5 - Grandparents, neighbors and a new friend

As soon as Thomas washed his hands and sit at the table his grandma, start "scolding" him.

"Tommy dear, you were playing that stupid imaginary game of yours again weren't you?"

Even though she didn't like how her grandson was spending most of his day playing that stupid book of his, Hannah couldn't bring herself to take it away from Thomas, especially since her dear grandson was doing this so that he won't sulk over his mother's condition.

"Well, grandma, what else should I do? In the morning, I help grandpa take care of the horses and after that, I'm free to do what I want. Besides, it's not like I'm doing something wrong."

"No, dear, you aren't doing anything wrong, but grandma is just worried that you aren't playing with kids of your age."

"But grandma, that girl is strange. She only talks about fighting boys and how she would become the greatest fighter known to us. I don't want to play with her."

"Thomas Grayson! I will not stand by and watch my baby boy become a loner. After lunch you are to go and play her or else you will not get any pumpkin pie for dinner."

When he heard his grandmother threatening him with the pie, Thomas's face went pale imagining eating dinner without dessert. Even though he didn't want to stay anywhere close to that girl, his sweet tooth for pies won over his fear. In the end, Thomas only nodded at his grandma letting her know that he would go and play with that girl after he finishes his lunch.

However, contrary to what his grandma thought he would do, Thomas ate slowly, almost as if he was in no hurry, but as soon as he saw his grandma putting away the ingredients for the pie, his eyes went wide open before he dashed out of the house, running towards the neighbor's house. It didn't take him long to reach the house and as soon as he was in front of the door, Thomas took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the torture that he was going to endure.

He knocks on the door twice before a middle-aged man with light brown hair opens the door looking in wonder at the young boy. The man then glances down at the boy for a few seconds before he finally recognizes the boy.

"Ah, you must be Paul and Hannah's grandson right? Hannah did mention over the phone that you might come today to our house. "

"Hello, sir. My name is Thomas Grayson."

"I don't know if your grandma told you, but my name is Touji Shidou, Shidou being my family name. Come inside, my daughter is in the living room watching cartoons."

Despite his reluctance, Thomas followed Touji inside the living room where a small girl with an unsurprisingly boyish look was eating some chips while watching her favorite cartoons. As soon as she heard footsteps, she turned her head towards the hallway. When the little girl saw her father bringing a boy into the living room she watch him as if he had grown a second head, before she smiled brightly at her father.

"Dad, dad is he my new punching bag that you promise for my birthday?"

Touji face palmed himself when he heard his daughter's words, while Thomas took a step back when out of nowhere, a missile with chestnut hair tackle him to the floor. Despite being tackled, Thomas used everything his tiny body could muster to push off the strange girl before he glanced up at her.

The girl seemed startled, shock written clearly on her face as she stared at the boy. For a time, the world around them seemed to freeze as the girl simply stared back at the boy. Slowly, the girl's body began to shudder slightly. The shudder quickly grew and grew until it sent her whole body trembling. From between her tightly clenched lips, a small laugh was brought out. She laughed and laughed so long and loud it appeared that it will never end. However, there was nothing malicious in that laughter. On the contrary, it was a joy-filled one, as if she had finally found someone that she could play.

A few seconds later, the girl stand up before walking towards Thomas, extending her hand towards him.

"I like you, let's be friends. Shu, shu dad, I wanna watch Dragon Ball with my new friend."

Before either one of the could react, the little girl takes Thomas's hand and drags him towards the sofa, before she sits beside him. Irina then took one of her bags of chips and hand it to Thomas.

While Touji smiled at his daughter's antics, Thomas stare at her in disbelief, not being able to understand what in the seven hells just happened to him. When did he agree to be her friend and why was he watching this stupid show?

Despite what he just thought, he still watched the show with Irina for an hour, slowly starting to enjoy the fights and even responding to some of Irina's questions about him. After they were done watching the show, Irina grabbed his hand and dragged him outside.

"Hey, Thomas, do you like playing with swords?"

"Dunno. I've never had one so I don't know. Why?"

" You didn't! But I thought that all of the boys in England are learning how to fight using a sword."

"Maybe a few hundred years ago, heck, my mom didn't even let me use a knife to cut my own steak…"

"Back when I lived in Japan, there was at least one dojo in every town and city, where people were learning how to defend themselves, how to practice martial arts, or even how to use various weapons. Here pick this sword to let's spar."

For some strange reason, Thomas felt that his life was going to be put at risk when he saw Irina's smile when she gave him a wooden sword. Nevertheless, Thomas prepared himself for the inevitable beating, and despite reading and practicing twice, he was still a complete novice when it came to swordsmanship.

Seeing how open he was, Irina sneered at Thomas as she assumed a high guard, before throwing an overhand cut at him. By some miracle, Thomas parried quickly, almost reflexively, before Irina cut again, this time thought, from the other side, and just like before Thomas parried the attack. The two of them fought back and forth for a few minutes, and yet, the longer the fight continues the better Thomas was becoming. At first, he was just paring the attacks due to his intuition that he trained with Mars's help, but now after getting hit a few times, he started to think, to predict the strikes and prevent them rather than defending from them. Unbeknownst to them, Touji and his wife were watching both of them from inside the house, looking at their daughter and her new friends as they spar. While at first the two of them didn't notice it, now after a few minutes it become clearer and clearer that the boy was unconsciously using some sort of magical spell to predict Irina's attacks.

"You felt that too, honey?"

"Yes, it's similar to how those wizards used their magic when we first moved here. You have met his parents right, dear?"

"I met Jonathan a month after we moved here, but neither he nor his parents had any residual magic on them. That makes Thomas the first wizard in their family doesn't it?"

"That it does, dear. How are we going to proceed now? We moved here so that we could train Irina to take over your position, but now that she's genuinely interested in Thomas…I fear that we might hurt her if forbid her from playing with him."

"Now, now honey. Who says that we have to forbid their friendship? While I admit that this would be hard, our daughter would benefit if she can become friends with a wizard, what is so bad about having a friend here, especially after she and Issei were forced apart?"

"We still have to inform Sister Griselda about this. You watch the children while I call her and Touji, I swear to God if this ends up like last time, you will find out why I had to retire so early kind of discussion."

Touji gulped in fear before he nodded back at his wife. Meanwhile, Thomas parried high, before kicking Irina with his left foot. As he celebrates his success, Irina hit his leg, forcing the boy to his knees. Just as he was about to get back on his feet, Thomas saw Irina's sword coming towards his head and in a moment of desperation, he threw himself at her. Both of them fell to the ground with Thomas on top of Irina. As he tried to get up, Thomas grabbed something small yet soft, but as soon as lowered his head to see what he just grabbed he saw Irina's face getting redder and redder by the second. Before he could even react, Irina punched him as hard as she could in the face before running off towards her house crying aloud.

Still, on the ground and with a bloody nose, Thomas raised his hand in the air opening and closing it as if he was trying to remember the feeling, he just experienced. It felt strange, but at the same time, the small softest somehow made him want more of that, whatever that was. As Thomas was daydreaming, Touji run outside, fearing that his daughter might have put the boy in a coma, but as soon as he stood beside Thomas, he saw the boy smiling foolishly, blood flowing out of his nose, but other than that, the boy seemed happy being on the ground, making Touji wonder if the boy was alright at all.

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