Snippet #1978634

Hansel resisted the urge to roll his eyes when Gretel slipped into her cute and sweet facade. Or rather, what she thought was her cute and sweet facade. In reality, Gretel was such a horrible actor that even a blind man would not have been fooled by her attempts to disguise her murderous nature. He never bothered telling her this though, because he feared that she might cut his head off out of anger. Family bonds could go only so far in the face of a murderous girl's rage. He didn't feel like dying yet. So he let her go on and believe that she was fooling everyone. He never bothered though. No, Hansel believed that staying true to himself was the best approach in any situation. Besides, in his nineteen years of experience, he had come to realize that disguises could take one only so far in life. Sooner or later, the truth was bound to slip out. It was an indisputable and incontrovertible law-like gravity. What goes up, must come down. What stays hidden must be revealed.

The girl in front of the duo introduced herself as 'Scarlet St. Lucas', but Hansel didn't like that name. It was much too stuffy and uptight. Little Red sounded so much better. He briefly wondered where in the world a girl like her could have gotten such a childish nickname. What was she exactly? He surveyed her for a few seconds, taking in her stature, her dress, her seemingly pleasant mannerisms. Well, if she was acting, she was certainly twenty times better at the art then Gretel would ever be. When she bothered to ask their names, Hansel didn't even hesitate twice to respond. After all, there was no harm in Scarlet figuring out who the two of them were.

"Me, I'm Hansel. Hansel Lorraine. And this,"

He reached towards the side and scooped his little sister into the nook of his elbow, pressing the back of her hand against the underside of his arm. He knew that she didn't like it when he did that, but for the sake of appearance, she would lay off scolding him for a while.

"This is my younger sister Gretel. Right, Gretel?"

To the innocent bystander, it seemed as though Hansel was asking a rhetorical question. In reality though, he was asking Gretel for real. It wasn't unusual for Hansel to completely forget who he was-and who his sister was as well. He had paid a price to earn his skills as a hunter and assassin. That price had been his memory function. Something was definitely broken inside his head.