Fourteen years ago
The boy sat huddled in the bunk room's corner. The walls pressing against his back and shoulders, promising no one could sneak up on him.
His black hair was matted, bare feet dirty and scratched, and the oversized clothes hung tattered and sullied on his scrawny body. But his dark green eyes were always vigilant, and the stone always held tight behind his back.
The other children of the orphanage were still scampering about the bunk beds as the night took the light from the windows. None dared come near him.
It wasn't his first orphanage. He was removed from the last one when the priest discovered the tattoo on his back. But he learnt from his mistakes there. He'll never show weakness again.
On his first night here, when an older boy came to beat him for his worth, he was ready. Crouched in the same corner, clutching the same stone. He struck first, and he struck hard.
The Headmaster had whipped his back raw, but not even the older kids tried him since. He was certain he would be kicked out again, when the Headmaster stripped off his shirt. But he had simply dismissed him as the filthy spawn of lunatic cultists. This orphanage had no priest or any other men of the Divine Church of Light. Perhaps that is why it was so poor.
Like every night, he waited for all the others to fall asleep first. No matter what precaution you took, in your sleep, you were vulnerable.
He noticed the looks from the older boy who still carried the fat scar his stone bashed into his forehead. Let him look for revenge all he wants - he wasn't going to get it.
A girl approached. Her charcoal black hair was cropped shortly and roughly, but her features were too dainty to be mistaken for a boy's. He jumped upright, fist white-knuckled around the stone.
She blinked at him, her eyes a light, sparkling blue. The girl herself was too frail to be a threat. He feared she was a distraction, but there was no one close behind her, and he had the walls at his back.
She took in a deep breath, as if sucking in courage, and then puffed it out. "Hi."
He looked at her hesitantly, body still tense.
"Don't be scared, I am not going to hurt you." She said, and he narrowed his eyes at her. "I just noticed you are alone all the time. And I am alone too, so I thought, you know... Maybe we can be together?"
He kept quiet, unsure how to answer. She smiled at him.
It was a beautiful thing, her smile. "My name is Siera. What is yours?"
"I don't have a name." His voice sounded odd in his ears. He didn't speak often.
"How come?" She asked.
"Nobody gave me one." He answered. She frowned for a long moment.
"I can give you a name!" She suddenly called, beaming a smile.
He blinked at her, and she leaned closer, eyeing him up. "Would you like that?"
He thought about it, and shrugged. She squealed in delight, then got to work.
"You look like a..." Her small nose bent in thought as she examined him. "Kaido."
"Kaido?" His brow furrowed as he repeated.
She nodded once. "Kaido."
"Kaido." He rolled the name on his tongue.
"Do you like it?" She tilted her head aside, and peered at him in expectation. For some reason, he didn't want to disappoint her. He nodded.
Siera smiled ear to ear, and Kaido smiled with her.
-
The next night, she came to his corner again. "Why do you never go to sleep?"
"I go to sleep," Kaido answered, his fist loosening about the stone. "I just do it when everyone else is already sleeping."
"Why?" Siera asked, then followed his gaze to the group of older boys, and realized the answer. When she turned her face, and the black hair over her neck shifted, he noticed a purple bruise on her skin.
"What's that?" He frowned.
"What's wha-" She glanced back to him, noticed where he was looking at her neck, and swept her hair to hide it, eyes trailing downwards.
"Did they do it to you?" Kaido asked, his fingers suddenly clutching hard around his stone.
"No... They beat me once, but the Headmaster caught them, and gave them thirty lashes each. They didn't do it again."
Kaido gasped at the severity of the punishment. Boys fought all the time, and were rarely even scolded for it.
He himself had gotten twenty lashes for his trick with the stone, and that was exceptional. Thirty lashes were... a lot. After a punishment like that, there was no way another orphan will risk laying a finger on her.
"Then who-" The answer hit Kaido halfway through the question. If not the orphans, there was only one other option. He recalled how passionate the Headmaster was with his lashings. The grunts he had made each time the whip cut into his flesh.
"The Headmaster?" He whispered. Siera didn't need to answer; her silence said enough. The purple marks across either side of her neck showed exactly where his fingers pressed into her flesh.
"He says it's because I am special." She spoke quietly, still not daring to look Kaido in the eyes. "But it hurts... it really hurts... I don't want to be special that way..."
Tears glistened on her eyelashes. She wiped them with her fists, smearing the dirt on her cheeks. It pained Kaido to see her like this. He hated that old, perverted Headmaster now more than ever.
"I'll protect you from him." He didn't believe he could, but he couldn't just watch her cry.
"I am sorry, it's fine really." Siera sniffled, and smiled up at him, her blue eyes sparkling with wetness. "I don't want you to be punished."
Kaido frowned. "I said I will protect you, then I will."
She leaned closer to him, and raised an eyebrow, the smile still on her face. "How?"
His frown deepened in thought, then he raised the stone in his fist. Siera laughed, and her laughter was so sweet, Kaido couldn't keep his serious face from breaking.
"Fine." She said. "But if you insist on protecting me, I will protect you too."
He blinked at her. "From who?"
She made a head gesture towards the older boys gang. Just when it was his turn to ask 'how', she took his hand, and dragged him to her bunk bed. She crawled into it, and sat down with her legs folded. "Lie down."
Hesitantly, he did as she said. The bunk was narrow, and his head and shoulder pressed against her thigh. His gaze strayed to the other orphans, and his fist clenched on the stone.
She poked his chest, and he glanced up to find her pouting down at him. "Sleep."
"What, I can't, I have to-" Kaido turned his gaze back to the room, but Siera tugged his chin and returned it to her.
"Sleep." She said, touched his hand, and pried the stone from his fingers. "I will keep an eye on them."
His eyelids felt heavy, and he let them slide shut. In truth he was exhausted; the many hours of sleep he lost waiting for the other orphans to fall first took their toll. After lying down, he thought he wouldn't be able to get out of the bed even if he tried.
And yet, sleep didn't come.
Whenever peace came to him, some panicked thought disrupted it, and his eyes snapped open, darting to find the older kids in the pale moonlight. He felt a touch at his head, fingers brushing through his hair, caressing his scalp. He looked up at Siera, confused.
"My father used to stroke my head like that every night. It always made me fall asleep." She said, wary eyes peering out, one hand holding the stone, and the other in his hair.
Kaido was sad for her. He was an orphan ever since he remembered himself. It must feel terrible, to have had a family, and lose it. Then again, he never knew what it was like.
Maybe it was worth it.
Her hand continued to move back and forth over his head, fingers weaving through his hair in long, slow strokes. Kaido had never felt a touch so tender.
Stroke by stroke, every thought and worry slipped from his mind, and Siera's touch became the only thing in the world.
Before he could think of it, he slept.
-
They have shared the bunk since. One night he guarded, and one night she did, holding the stone and waiting for the other orphans to sleep. When the room quieted, they would cuddle up against the other, sharing their bodies' warmth against the desert night beneath the thin, ragged blanket.
For the first time in his life, Kaido found himself looking forward to something - to the nights with her.
After a week, he began stroking through her hair too. And after another week, when he had caught on the sleeping hours, they had quiet conversations in her bed.
She said that her father disappeared three years ago, when she was six. Her mother was good until he left. It was the Ouzei that changed her, and a few months later, killed her.
Nightmares often haunted Siera's sleep. So when he awoke to her fidgeting beside him, he wasn't too alarmed. He turned to soothe her, and saw the Headmaster looming over their bunk, dragging Seira out of it.
She flailed but couldn't break his grip, the hand he slapped over her mouth muffling her.
Whether it was reality or a night terror, Kaido acted.
His hands searched quickly, but failed to find the stone in the darkness. He scampered to the bed's end, and kicked against it, launching himself at the Headmaster. He rammed into his stomach with his head and elbows first, bending the lanky man and knocking him off Siera.
"What!" The Headmaster screamed in outrage, and grabbed onto Kaido's shirt. "You fucking son of a whore!"
Kaido tussled with wild swings, but just as the linen in the Headmaster's grip ripped, he bashed Kaido's face. The floor rushed up to hit him, and the dark room spun around him.
"Fucking demon spawn," The Headmaster muttered, knelt on Kaido's chest, and hammered his face with his fist.
"You dare," He struck again, bouncing Kaido's skull against the floor.
"To attack me!" The Headmaster yelled, spittle flying from his lips. Kaido's head banged between the floorboards and the punches until he couldn't distinguish hit from hit. He felt the slick warmth of blood on his face and scalp. Darkness spotted his vision, and blackening completely every time a fist landed.
He heard Siera's screams over the pounding in his skull, but couldn't make out the words. She jumped at the Headmaster, and he slapped her to the floor with the back of his hand.
"Please leave him alone," She pleaded from her hands and knees. "I will come with you."
The Headmaster had his fist raised when he paused to consider. He smashed it in Kaido's face one last time.
"I am not done with you." He promised, got up, and yanked Siera by her arm.
Kaido grasped the Headmaster's ankle as he stepped past. His grip was weak, and the Headmaster broke it with a tug of his foot. He turned to him, leg shifting back to gain momentum for a kick.
"Please!" Siera threw herself before Kaido, at the Headmaster's feet. "Please, you beat him enough, leave him be."
The Headmaster hesitated, sneering.
"Velsair made me too merciful." He complained and clutched Siera's hair. She stifled her whimpers as he dragged her to her feet, and out of the room.
The darkness engulfed Kaido, and he was too weak to resist it. There was nothing he wanted more than to close his eyes, and let it take him.
Get up. He tried to, but his body protested, and the throbbing in his skull quadrupled.
Get up. He struggled against the floor with all his strength. The dark room seemed to tilt from side to side, and his gut wrenched.
Get up! He climbed to his hands and knees, and threw up. Vomit splashed the floor, and his bloody shirt.
I promised her I will protect her, and I let him take her.
Every moment I spend here is another moment of him hurting her.
Kaido grabbed the edge of the bed, groaning as he pulled himself up. He flung aside the blanket, and found the stone. The other orphans had awoke from the noise, and stared at him from their bunks. They watched him stagger out of the room in silence.
His skull pulsated ceaselessly, one of his eyes was swollen to a squint, breath wheezing through his shattered nose, and dark dots swimming in his vision. But he walked on, one wobbling step at a time, and reached the Headmaster's chambers. He heard Siera scream through the door, and opened it.
They were at the bed. The Headmaster was crouched over Siera. Her cheeks were flushed with slap marks, her eyes wet with tears, and her shirt ripped, revealing milky flesh with the barest blossom of breasts.
The Headmaster leered at her with lust gaped eyes, lips stretched in a hungry grin. One of his hands forced her down as she struggled, and the other raked at her pants, pulling them down.
Kaido clutched the stone, and flung himself forward. The Headmaster heard, and turned to him. Kaido bashed the stone into his nose, a bone cracking as it dug in. The Headmaster cried out, and Kaido pulled his hand back for another strike.
"YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!" The Headmaster shouted his lungs out, and shoved him off his feet. His back thudded against the floor, and before he could gasp for air, the Headmaster was upon him.
Kaido pushed himself up, but a punch against his broken face sent him back to the floor. The Headmaster straddled him, clutched his throat in both hands, and squeezed.
Kaido couldn't reach the Headmaster's head, so he began hitting his hand in his airless panic. The stone bruised and scratched his forearm, but the Headmaster only choked harder, his knuckles whitening.
Siera clawed and pulled at the Headmaster's back, but he ignored her. His eyes were pierced down on Kaido, his face a twisted mask of murderous rage around the bloody wreckage of his nose. Kaido's throat gurgled, and the void of air was like fire within his chest. The darkness crept to him again, pulling him in, swallowing him slowly...
Blood dripped from the Headmaster's face onto Kaido's lip. Its scent flared in his nose, even as he couldn't breathe. Unconsciously, his tongue slid out, and he tasted it.
The darkness released him, and the world came alight.
He saw every pore, pockmark and wrinkle in the Headmaster's face. The angles of sweat rolling down his brow. The twitches of fury around his eyes. He heard the heavy pants forcing through the Headmaster gaped lips and nostrils. He felt the tendons of his fingers taut around his neck, the nails cracking into his skin, and his own lungs contracting onto themselves, begging for air.
He wasn't worried though. He felt what should've hurt him, but his mind was clear from pain. His panic was extinguished like a candle flame pinched between wet fingertips. His eyes flickered down, fixing on the point of the Headmaster's elbow. His hand moved a split second before he decided to strike, as if it got his idea, and executed it on a will of its own.
His muscles exploded, launching his hand in a blur. It was light as if he had spent his life with iron tied to it, and finally had it unbound. The stone crackled against the Headmaster's elbow, splitting skin and fracturing bone. A scream shuddered his vocal cords, and Kaido heard every timbre. Like music to his ears.
The Headmaster withdrew his limp hand from Kaido's throat. Kaido puffed his chest with sweet, cool air, and pushed against the floor. His newfound strength unbalanced the Headmaster on top of him, and Kaido slammed the rock into his jaw. A bone cracked, and the impact tossed the Headmaster's head. Kaido smiled.
He threw himself at the Headmaster, knocking him from his knees to his back. He raised the stone and bashed it down on his face. Another scream, another spray of blood, and Kaido struck again. And again. And again.
He wasn't angry. Not anymore. In fact, he had never been calmer. Without emotions to blur his mind, his desire came as clear as Veramor's skies. Kaido wanted to kill him.
Every strike punched a crater of torn flesh and busted bone in the Headmaster's face. The screaming stopped and only smacks against wet bones disrupted the silence. When Kaido was finished, the Headmaster's face was a sanguinary surface rigged with bony bits, unrecognizable as human.
Kaido got up, slipped the bloodstained rock in his pocket, and turned to Siera. She stared at him, face frozen and eyes wide in terror. He stripped off his shirt and gave it to her. Although bloodier, it was in one piece.
"Put it on." He said. "We have to leave."