Edelweiss

Hidden in the mountains, amongst rocks and dust, in the heat of the summer sun, a tiny white flower is sprout. You wouldn't believe there's anything here besides dried grass, stones and the debris from the battle happened here a decade ago, but, this little flower, already dry on the base, still shines brighter and more pure than the sun! A boy standing beside it, gazing  down in wonder, pounding to himself, ‘Can I become like this flower?’

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The silence after a battle is absolute. It was still silent when an old man walked amongst the corpses, some wearing weapons and armory, some just women and children, clutching on to their belongings even in death. “Can you even call this a battle? Or more like a massacre?” He looked around for something useful while talking to himself. One of the belongings in the arms of a woman caught his eye. “Is there already a rat in it? The fighting took place just yesterday…” He crouched down and carefully move the arm of the woman aside, ready for being attacked at any moment. “Even a mouse is an enemy!“ But, what he found there wasn't a mouse or any other animal. It was the only thing he couldn't declare an enemy. It was a child, not even a year old.

An old man, who lives alone in the mountains, isn't the best suited person for taking care of a child. So it's no wonder that this little guy learned fast how to take care of himself. Also the patience of the old man wasn't big. Everytime the boy didn't learn something fast enough, the old man hit him. And instead of playing with other children or learning things children normally learn in the first few years of their life this boy had to run through the wilderness, throwing little knifes and learn which plants can kill or heal someone. Only much later the boy learned that normal children don't do such things. But for now it was the only way of living he knew. So the boy grew up, got stronger and taller. He learned how to fight and how to kill in many different ways. There wasn't any regrets in his doing. That was something he didn't learn. What needed to be killed, he killed. The deer for the dinner or the nobleman in a castle to which the old man brought him in.

When the boy was maybe about ten years old, the old man didn't come back from one of his getaways. At first the boy didn't noticed it. Only a few days or a few weeks, the time he was alone by himself was so precious to him, he normally got catched up in it till a hit of the old man wake him up again. But now a different man arrived. He was from the village the old had taken him to a few times before and the boy remembered him as Sota. So, Sota told the boy to come with him to this village and live there because the old man wouldn't ever come back. He took the boy to the abandoned battlefield where he were found by the old man and told him what he knew. It wasn't much. The battle took place about a decade ago. A feud between neighbors. The victorious one was killed by the boy himself, three years ago.

“You need a name.” Sota told him on their way to the village. “A name?” The boy looked up. “Yeah, a name, i can't call you ‘boy’ all the time. In the village every child has their own name.” The boy thought about it for a few minutes. “So it's a name. What will you call me?” “Mh, how about ‘Shin’? It means trueness of all… maybe it'll help you to find your own truth.” The boy, now called Shin, nodded, not really knowing what the man was talking about.

And so the boy lived in a village full of assassins and murder. Because, nothing other had the old man been and nothing other had become of the boy. Shins everyday life didn't change much. He trained, sometimes even with the other children. But Shin already knew so much more and his skills were a way better. Shin shared the house with Sota. It was only a shack with one room for both of them, but this wasn't new for the boy. The village elder sometimes came to him. “Go, kill this guy, we got an order to do so. You have to do your share of work for living here!”

So a few years went on. Due to the missions Shin had to take on and because of nothing else to do than train or sleep he soon was better as most of the adults in the village. At least in killing people.