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She's always been two steps behind the princess. The princess, who came in with talent in her bones and blood. The princess with the charming smile and charismatic words. The princess who she knew to be her superior even when the princess had only been an orphan girl, recently taken off the streets.
It's just her luck, really. She's skilled at using shinsu, a skill that cannot be cultivated without having a contract. A contract that no one bothered teaching her to sign, because she was the lowest of the low, just another body for the other, better girls to practice on.
She had bangs, but they were tiny. Little more than specks of light, no larger than a child's eyeball, and that was when she poured all she had into a single one. Otherwise? Practically worthless.
Sure, she had some skill with a needle. She wasn't terrible with knives. A sword small enough for her could be wielded with decent proficiency. But it doesn't mean anything to be okay, when others were at best decent and at worst downright talented.
Sure, she learnt how to use almost every weapon available. And she used those basics to buy herself some leniency, to teach others the basics of an unfamiliar weapon. That's what she did for the princess, too.
In this mansion full of girls, most aimed for the top. She had no such interest. Her aim was purely to be useful enough that the housekeepers wouldn't kill her, and to balance that with being weak enough that the other girls didn't see her as a threat.
She used to be a little above the very bottom. Then she saw the princess. She saw the hunger in those eyes, and the ambition in her heart. The young, scrappy girl with so much potential that she had no way of not making at least a good way up the rankings.
The other girls usually avoided killing their competition. To kill someone means to put a target on your back. Up top, that's not really a problem. But lower in the rankings? Having a target results in two things. Either you die, or show so much potential that the housekeepers step in. Not much, just enough to stop you from dying against sheer numbers. Which of course only gets you killed by the girls up top.
But the princess? The princess didn't care. Once she had her first taste of blood, she just kept going. Bite after bite. There was blood in the water, and none of it was from the princess.
None of the others saw the princess's true nature, but she did. And she knew if she did nothing, she'd become just another body-turned-steppingstone.
All she could do was teach the princess, and hope that she'd be spared. The princess learnt all of the basics. She told the princess how the girls fought, each of their personalities and how they'd react to her.
She begged the princess to wait. To learn enough that the first kill could look like the desperate attempt of a girl who just got lucky. And that's exactly how it appeared. The princess killed the girl between the two of them. The princess finally had a seat at the table, and she knew the princess wouldn't be content until she reached the top. That she could no longer hold the princess back. And that all she could do was hope that she wouldn't be the next kill.
She wasn't the next kill. But not by much. The princess is a predator. Always was, always will be. The princess came for the girl right above herself, just like the last time. It was only her knowledge of the princess that turned a lethal blow to merely a damaging one. It was only the slight care the princess felt that a second blow didn't follow. And perhaps the knowledge that killing two girls in such quick succession would get the princess targeted.
Anyway, the princess moved up a seat at the table. She survived, which was really all she wanted. The princess continued her hunt from there. Above her, girl after girl thought they could deal with the lucky newcomer. The nobody who had been so far down the table that she hadn't even had a seat.
That being said, after a third of the table had died, people started changing their minds. They started seeing the princess as a threat. Unfortunate, really. It was a bit too late. The princess couldn't take on and kill all of them at once, but the housekeepers could and did set limits. One on one matches, no more than three a day, just like the top girls.
Three a day wasn't great, but it was doable. Especially when she started meddling. Her bangs weren't any good in combat, but that's not all that they could do. Shinsu is energy, pure and simple. A bang, despite being commonly used as a weapon, is simply a collection of that energy.
In between rounds, little balls of shinsu float over to the princess. They're tiny, compressed down to nearly nothing. They're dim, light suppressed until they barely glow. From a distance, they can be mistaken for a speck of dust, having caught the light shining down from above. They're still full of energy, enough to ease the knots in muscles and speed up healing around wounds. Enough to relieve, or if that's not possible, numb the pain.
This wasn't an experiment. This wasn't guesswork. Those happened years ago, when she was laying in the thin blanket and aching all over. When she was rearranging her body so that the open cuts, if nothing else, wouldn't be touching the cold, hard ground. When she had a higher ranked girl stomp on her ankle for no reason other than she wanted to. When she had to walk, no, fight, on a damaged ankle and ignore the pain.
No. The princess gets the perfected versions. The ones that use every drop of shinsu to its full potential. The ones that don't burn through veins while passing through. The ones that don't accidentally tire out the body in return for closing wounds. The ones that won't leave the recipient worse off than before, broken on the ground because she couldn't fight off a higher girl.
She knows she could sell her abilities. She knows that healers are valuable. But she's also been around long enough to hear the stories. Some girls have some talent, just enough to use shinsu, enough to perform basic healing. But they aren't good enough to be specialists.
Those girls only waste the housekeepers' time. Those girls get no protection. Those girls get singled out. Those girls get pushed down a spot or two than what they actually should be.
It's not much better for the talented ones. Some become personal healers, then they get passed around, moved through every top girl until they die in the crossfire. Others try to avoid that, healing only themselves. But then they become a threat and taken out.
They’re all just rumours, but the real story doesn't matter. What matters is the parts that hold true in every tale. The girls go to the housekeepers and learn they aren't as talented as they hoped. Not enough to get whisked away to a safer place. They become targets, for one reason or another. All of them ended up dead. That last part is all that matters in the end. She isn't going to be another nameless, faceless girl staining the sands.
The healing is enough to give the princess an edge. It serves as a safety net, letting the princess push a little further for the victory, for the kill. It lets the princess go for a riskier victory over a safer draw.
By the time the princess is halfway up the table, girls have become wary to challenge. The top girls still think that the princess will stop by the time they're even remotely threatened. The top girls are too busy fighting amongst each other to spend more than a few moments each day looking lower down.
Some don't even notice the princess making her way up the table. They do notice the increasing bloodshed in the lower levels, that the girls are dying faster than the housekeepers can replace them. But that doesn't mean they attribute it all to a single girl.
After all, they haven't properly seen the princess. They haven't seen her eyes filled with determination. They haven't seen the way she cocks her head, lips glistening from when she licked them a few moments back. They haven't seen her fight, bloodlust flowing off her in waves as she aims for the jugular, points her needle between the third and fourth ribs, as she goes in for the kill. No. They've yet to notice the tiger cub among the cats.
Which is their misfortune. It doesn't take long for the princess to carve a bloody path through the table to the head. Some die, some surrender before the fight has even begun, and only one has been permitted to survive losing a fight against the princess. Either way, the girls, living or dead, part for the princess.
The princess slows down once she's reached the head. Part of it is caution. Part of it is the restrictions set by housekeepers. Part of it is that the princess lacks information.
For all that she gave all she knew to the princess, the head and foot of the table are basically worlds apart. The top girls are practically nobility. Sure, legally speaking all the girls are nobility, but there's a difference between a legal insurance and actually being considered a part of the family. The top girls have a chance at being properly sponsored, picked up by an individual and given tutors. At being adopted. At being raised like an actual daughter.
That's what the top girls are hoping for. A proper shot at getting out of this life. A chance to become a nobleman's daughter, to have a proper foundation for climbing the tower. And if they are good enough, a chance to get Jahad's blood. To become a princess.
Of course, you all know that doesn't happen here. Let's break immersion for a second. You all know who the girl is helping, who the one being called 'princess' is. You all know that Princess Endorsi gets to the head of the table, all alone and choosing from whichever dish she desires. And while 'the princess' might let a little subservient healer live, she won't let the top girls do that. She doesn't let threats live.
And moreover, the head of the table is filled with girls just like her. Endorsi would rather die than be subservient. She's a slipper waiting for the right time to be lost, waiting to walk out of the display case.
Do you really think any of them would let another girl take their position without a fight? Do you really think that the skill gap will ever get big enough that they won't stand a chance of defeating Endorsi? As long as they stand a chance, they won't stop fighting. And Endorsi knows that. So she won't let them live long enough to try again.
And I think that explains quite enough about her conquering of the table. Let's get back to the girl.
She watches from the foot of the table as the princess rules supreme. Over half of the table has been massacred. The top half is almost all deserted. No one wants to get close to the princess dripping with blood. The lower ranks are filling back up, but it's slow. Talented orphan girls don't exactly grow on trees.
She's still at the lower end of things. She can't say she minds. Her intention was only to survive, and that succeeded. No other girl walked away from a fight against the princess. Others might want a seat by the princess's side. Others might want the best food, the best room, the acknowledgement and attention that comes with being the top girl's right hand.
She's not trying to vie for the attention. She's not trying to get herself out. She sits, waits, and prays that she survives whatever gets thrown at her. She watches, plans, and keeps a careful eye on the atmosphere. She's a nobody. She likes it that way.
And then things change. A girl fighting her way to the top of a group of girls is simple. Commonplace. A necessity in every group of princess wannabees. A girl killing half her competition to do so? A girl who paved a path with the blood of her peers and built a staircase out of their bones? A bloodthirsty little apex predator that went unnoticed until she unsheathed her claws?
Now, that's a story worth telling. That's a story that even the powerful will listen to, purely out of curiosity and a desire for entertainment. That's the kind of story that spreads like wildfire. Look! This middling noble threw spaghetti at a wall, and finally one stuck! Look! Here she is, a rare pearl picked out of the garbage heap that is the middle tower.
And suddenly, the princess is the centre of attention. Suddenly, offers to take the potential princess candidate in, to teach her, to help her, flow in from every direction.
And of course, she sees none of that. The princess may, but she doesn't. Maybe even the princess has to rely on rumours. She doesn't know. She hasn't spoken to the princess in ages. Every now and then again she catches a glimpse from a distance. But that's all. And well, that's what she wanted, wasn't it? To be forgotten, nobody, alive but wallpaper, simply part of the furniture.
The princess got to the top, and she survived the princess's ascension. They both got what they wanted, and they no longer need each other. She should stop caring. She should stop thinking about the princess. The princess never cared. Never saw anything in her save for her use. Still, the princess will leave. And that hurts.
The princess eventually accepts offers. Or perhaps the offers are accepted for the princess. It's not easy to tell. She likes to think it's the latter. Then she backpaddles and hopes it's the former, that the princess holds autonomy, little as it might be.
Eventually, the whole house learns that the princess is a princess in title as well as demeanour. Now she can finally call her 'princess' in public without worry. Not that she speaks much. Noise draws attention and that makes you more of a target.
She's glad, even as the house empties and sends the girls back out onto the streets. After all, one princess means power. Multiple means potential danger, bad enough that it's worth wiping out the new line before it gets big.
She follows the princess’s story from a distance. It's been well over a hundred years since they first met. Still. The most important part of her life was lifting the princess up in those first moments. She was at least partially the reason the princess made it through that first year of constant battle.
For the princess, she's probably nothing. The princess has probably long since forgotten both her face and name. That doesn't stop her from hoping that the princess continues climbing. That the princess keeps being famous and beloved. That the princess gets the power she craved since she was little.
Who knows, maybe one day she'll actually meet the princess again. She is a regular, after all. She actually started climbing before the princess, a fact which sometimes teases a smile out of her. That hope was shattered when the princess repeated history, speeding through the floors that took her decades in a matter of years. And now the princess is climbing to the top, not so much as a glance her way this time.
Meeting the princess again isn't going to happen anytime soon, if ever. She's stuck on floor twenty, same as she's been for a long time. She runs a little healer's hut, same as she's done for a long time.
The princess climbs floors like nothing, even winning prizes from the workshop on her way. She fights battle after battle, constantly in the spotlight. Supposedly, she also caused a change in leadership on the 39th floor, one of the hell train levels.
Really, she and the princess live in different worlds. She should have known.
It doesn’t stop her from wondering, what if?
She knows the answer, though. The answer is no. It never could have been.