Blessed by Night

Serana was currently walking through a well lit park at night.

Minoru had chosen this spot as the meeting place and she was honestly less than thrilled about it.

'Creepy bastard, making a young girl show up in the park at night all alone.'

She ceased her internal grumbling when she finally caught sight of an older Asian man sitting alone on a park bench.

Evidently, he saw her as well and stood up with a smile.

"Serana… you've grown into such a wonderful young woman." He said with a hint of sadness mixed into his voice.

He held out his arms, indicating he wanted a hug and because she did not halt her advance, he assumed she would comply.

'I knew it! I knew my daughter would miss me!' He thought excitedly.

Unfortunately, reality is often disappointing.

Instead of the warm parent and child embrace he was expecting, Serana swiftly brought her steel toed boot directly between her father's legs.

A sickening, squelch sound could be heard and Minoru immediately fell to his knees as he yelled in pain.

"GYAAAA-"

Evidently, Serana did not believe that was enough punishment as she delivered a solid right hook to her father's jaw, sending him sprawling out onto the ground.

The money her mother spent on self defense lessons for her as a child did not appear to have been wasted.

Though one could not say that they were being used for the greater good either.

"Why!! Why?!?" Minoru yelled.

"Damn bastard." Serana looked down at the writhing man with unfiltered disgust. "You think I want you around after all this time?"

Sei had never spoken to Serana about her father but that didn't mean she did not form her own hatred of him.

She would never forget all the times in school where her friends would excitedly talk about their fathers, while she had to sit in silence.

On more than one occasion had she listened to her mother crying and she knew it was about their lack of money and support.

To her, there was absolutely nothing to be talked about with this man. As far as she was concerned, they had absolutely no relation.

She'd only accepted his proposal to meet to give him this simple message she'd been holding onto for nineteen years of life.

"Don't come around anymore. Neither me or my mother want anything to do with you." She said coldly.

With that, she left the park leaving him on the ground writhing in agony.

-

"HAHAHAHA!!!"

Malachi threw his head back and laughed heartily as if he'd just seen the funniest thing imaginable.

"What? What did you see??" Sei asked curiously.

Because she was too worried to relax, she'd asked Malachi to peep with his powers a bit and see if things were going well.

He reluctantly agreed and after around a minute, he began to laugh hysterically like this.

"She… pfft.. HAHAHAHAHA!!!" Malachi tried his best to calm down but it proved to be ineffective.

The cartoonish way in which Minoru had hit the ground had been much too entertaining to watch.

Sei had reluctantly told him why he left them, erasing any and all sympathy he could've held for the man.

He was hoping Serana would've gotten another punch or even a kick in but unfortunately she seemed satisfied with just that.

"That was great! I'll have to thank her for showing me something so funny!"

Sei had finally had enough and she puffed her cheeks out in irritation.

She grabbed Mal by the face and began to stretch and pull like his cheeks were made of taffy. "Why are you laughing? You're supposed to be checking on Serana!"

"I was! I was!" Mal chuckled.

He secretly found his girlfriend's pouting face to be very cute.

"Then what happened?? How could their meeting be so amusing?"

"Let's just say.. your daughter has pretty good aim. You should talk to her about playing soccer."

Sei was about to ask what that meant when her phone started ringing and she received a call from her daughter in question.

She hurriedly answered and the concern in her voice was palpable.

"Hey sweetie are you okay… What do you mean you're heading home already?… You did what?!!"

"HAHAHAHAHA!!" Malachi couldn't hold it in and burst into a fit of laughter once more.

Sei simply rubbed her temples as she listened to Serana's breakdown of events.

"Serana you really.."

Sei tried her best to put on her stern mother act because her daughter did technically assault someone and she didn't want her to think it was okay.

However she was having quite the difficulty suppressing a giggle herself.

-

Long after Serana had left, Minoru was still writhing around on the ground.

With great difficulty, he pulled out a burner phone from his pocket and dialed the only number saved in it.

After a while, the call connected and a cold voicd could be heard.

"What?"

"I-I can't do it! She wants nothing to do with me and she raised our daughter to be a merciless bitch!" Minoru's voice was now several octaves higher than it originally was.

"Did you think it would be easy? You're a fucking deadbeat. Of course they don't want anything to do with you. However that doesn't mean you're allowed to stop trying." The cold voice responded. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝐧𝐨𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗼𝗿𝐠

"I don't understand! Why do you even care about them?"

"That's none of your business. You've already received payment, you have no room to question me or my motives. Embed yourself back into your ex wife's life and don't call this number again until you're ready to move forward."

"And put some bass in your voice, you sound like a fucking girl."

Click!

The phone disconnected, leaving Minoru with only ruined genitals and bruised pride.

"Fucking Alex Heller… damn blessed bastard."

Minoru groaned in pain as he scraped himself off the ground and prepared to head to the hospital.

Along the way, he desperately tried to come up with a way to regain his family's trust.

He shuddered at the potential consequences of failure.

-

Mal had just seen Sei out of his apartment.

She would've normally stayed over, however with tonight's events, she elected to return home and spend the evening with her daughter.

She of course invited him to come as well, but he declined in favor of a personal matter he wanted to take care of tonight.

Derek was still on the run and Mal would not allow him the safety of being caught by police.

After changing into a long sleeve black shirt, black cargo pants and boots, he finally opened his consciousness to the night.

"Alright.. let's see where you're hiding bastard."