Written by: Krilyn and Unfinished Song
Date: August 27th, 2010

Disclaimer:  This story was written by both Krilyn and Unfinished Song.  We don’t own
                     DOA; we’re just writing about it. 

Minor Lei-Fang OOC but I did my best to keep everything in cannon.  Keep in mind, everyone is young in this story.

Somewhere in Germany…

Cold...

The cold soaked through his clothes to his skin, freezing him and making his limbs ach, but it wasn’t the only cause of his discomfort. His right hand and left foot throbbed in time with his heart, the near numbness of the cold rain not enough to disembody the pain that resided in each.  His right eye was perhaps the worst. It felt like the entire right side of his head was going to explode from the agony.  Desperately, he wished he could curl into a ball simply to protect that one hurt from the elements. If that eye had hurt anymore he wasn’t even sure he would have been able to think.

It hurts…

He didn’t know he’d entered the darkness of his inner mind until he found himself awakening once more to the same scenery that had greeted him. Coming into awareness once again from the darkness of a strange dreamless sleep, he automatically attempted to open his eyes, only to be greeted by a searing torrent of pain that flooded the senses of his right side. There was a soft sound, high and hitched, and, in his delirious state, he didn’t realize that it was him: crying from the pain.

Frightened by the unknown and determined to see, he tried to open just his left eye, but despite his effort to keep the right shut, the lid caked with dried and fresh blood twitched harshly against its reflex action, sending a new wave of pain rumbling through his skull. His voice whimpered with the sound of hurt, but he was so confused by the swarms of sensations and incomprehension that he tried again, painfully clenching the hurt eye shut to pry open his left so he could see. He only managed a bare slit, the feeling of weakness so strong and agonizing it made the light burn through his one good eye, making his head hurt all the more. Again on reflex he found himself closing his eyes almost too tightly, sending a new wave of pain through his right. Even breathing hurt.

What happened to me?

For a time he chose to just lay there. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed still after his first attempt to get control of his body. He hoped that by not moving maybe the pain would ebb away enough for him to open his eyes with ease.  Still, the longer he lay there the colder he could feel his body becoming from the relentless rain.

He knew he couldn’t stay there. Though he couldn’t equate the strange blankness that faintly shrouded his thoughts with death, he understood that his body was getting colder and though it did take away the pain, it took away his normal senses, too. If he got too cold, maybe he wouldn’t be able to get up. That is if he ever managed to gather the courage to face the pain and try again.

Deciding on a new approach, he kept his eyes shut as he tried moving his arms and legs. The pain thrust anew through various wounds he hadn’t realized were present aside from his right hand, right eye, and left foot. Each intake of breath hurt, his left knee had a grinding sensation when he pulled it in a half bend, and his back muscles twitched from where they’d been pulled to the point of strain. He felt as though he had been brutally beaten, left to regain consciousness, then beaten again repeatedly.

Still, this effort was proving to not be nearly as bad as when he’d attempted to open his eyes. Being sure not to grimace and cause any further discomfort to his eye, he carefully pulled his hands under his shoulders, his right not moving quite as easily as it should have. Tensing his legs, he lifted his upper body and pushed the weight so that it was balanced on his folded knees and hands. His right hand pounded with agony, but he wasn’t on the muddy ground anymore. With a push he felt a surge of small triumph when his upper body left the weight of his hands and settled onto his hips, finally sitting in a slightly slouched posture. His left leg complained bitterly to him, the grinding sensation in his knee becoming a constant pain that cut like a knife each time his weight moved even just a little. He was feeling dizzy and his stomach churned from the pain placed on his limbs, but he knew he couldn’t stay where he was.

Where… am I?

Determined to open his eyes, he brought his right hand up and carefully brushed it against his brow, testing just how much it hurt. The bare brushing of his hand over the closed lid stung sharply, but his determination was strong. He wanted to see where he was.

Only giving his body a moment to brace itself he forced the heel of his hand against the wounded eye. Pain stabbed into his skull like a hot poker through where he should have been able to see, yet he ignored it, adding more pressure so that his hand could hold the eye firmly shut. Though his hand was half numb and hurting, it didn’t stop him from feeling where blood slowly oozed from the injury, crossing over a layer that had congealed into a solid rough mass down his cheek and part of his neck. Taking a deep breath that made his ribs hurt he pushed harder, knowing somehow that the action would help ebb the bleeding.

Unfortunately, despite his resolve, his body trembled from the agony and finally his stomach betrayed him, forcing him to balance on his left hand while his belly emptied itself of its contents, which was nothing more that a bit of bile, leaving him to suffer through the dry heaves that wracked his slender form.

He was still dry heaving from the agony of holding his hand over his eye when he finally opened the left without even thinking about the action. He saw the yellowish substance from his stomach mixing with the mud and the rain water. Its smell and sight was enough to send him into another set of dry heaves, making his stomach clench and his sides ripple with pain.

As the wave passed, he found himself balancing on his arm in a slumped position, his hot forehead touching the cold mud. It would feel good to just close his eyes and sleep… go back to the darkness he knew before awaking to this horror…

But… if he stayed here wouldn’t his body keep getting colder and colder? What would he do if he woke up and couldn’t move because he was so cold that he had gone numb? No, he couldn’t just go back to sleep. Not yet. With another surge of determination, he forced his feet under him to push up, lifting him to stand. Again his stomach clenched but he forced it down, knowing there was nothing left for him to throw up.

The surroundings that welcomed his sight were dreary and dark, the rain making everything seem a little fuzzier than normal. He was on some kind of dirt road beside a river, the waters already higher than normal, making the current unusually quick. Slowly he turned in a circle, but all he saw was the road, the river, and the rain. Nothing or no one was around, and there was nothing he could use to try to figure out which way to go. Disheartened, he looked down to his feet.
The crimson mixed with the mud surprised him.

All around his feet where he had lain for an unknown span of time was blood mixed with the moistened soil of the roadway. It expanded in little rivulets, tinting the puddles it touched a deep crimson. Seeing the amount of blood made him start shaking and hurting anew, his teeth chattering harshly as he shivered from both the cold and pain. Maybe he was also shivering from blood loss? His mind was too shattered to comprehend the implications of it all but he did understand that the amount of blood on the ground was his and that losing such a large amount would only worsen his condition.

With no guide, he picked a direction and started to slowly limp down it, his left leg sending a sharp punch of pain up his heel and toes to merge with the pain of his grinding knee before it traveled along his nerves. He hugged his free arm around his sides in an almost automatic motion to comfort the pain of breathing. The jarring motion of each step hurt his eye, and he made sure to force his hurt right hand to stay over it so he could hold his left open with ease to see.

But he couldn’t stay there. If he lay down to sleep there on the road he would probably wake up too cold to move, and there was no one around to ask why.

I don’t understand… Why am I here? What happened?

With his determination and resolve as his only weapons, he continued to trudge down the rain ridden muddy road, leaving dribbles of blood behind like the bread trail from Hansel and Gretel.
He was too young to really understand the truth. Or maybe he knew and just didn’t remember. If he lay down to sleep the truth was he would probably die of hyperthermia. If he didn’t cover his head injury he would keep losing strength from the blood that continued to flow from the wound like a constant faucet.
He was too disoriented to realize that with each drop of blood he lost, he was another minute closer to greeting the darkness of eternal sleep.

Oblivious to it all, he kept on walking, leaving only the drops of blood behind as he traveled down the seemingly endless road.

I’m… alive?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was heaviness to his body as he slowly returned to awareness; not recalling having lost his footing and collapsing to the muddy earth. He felt as though he had been asleep in the darkness forever. Everything about his body felt stiff, as though there was something restricting it. He tried moving his right hand and felt the tightness around it, lessening its mobility. His eye cracked open before he could think to keep it close to protect his right eye. Too groggy to notice his right eye didn’t hurt from the motion, he blinked, trying to clear his sleep-fogged vision. It really did feel like he had been asleep for years.
Though he should have probably cared about why nothing hurt him as much as before, he was still too cold, sore, tired, and confused to bother with making sense of it just then. Touching his left hand to his face, he wiped his good eye, his grimy fingers brushing against something on his brow that hadn’t been there before. That made him care, bringing him to full attention. He felt around his head to find something had been wrapped there, and it extended to fully shelter his right eye.

This surprise spurred him fully awake, and he sat up suddenly. He was further shocked to find that moving didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had before. The lack of pain he had felt earlier wasn’t because of the cold after all. Looking down at his being he saw that his right hand and left leg had been bandaged. He touched his hands to his sides and could feel that the tightness under his cloths where gauze had been wrapped around his hurting ribs, easing the pain of breathing. When he slowly stood he could feel the lack of mobility in his left knee where more strips of the white cloth had been wrapped tightly around it to act as a makeshift brace.

This wasn’t the only change in his surroundings. The rain had slackened while he was asleep. True he was still cold in such a way that the feeling of warmth felt like something that would never exist again, but now he could see further, and he felt just a little bit more energy than he’d had before. Down one side of the road he had thought possessed no end he could see gates that led into a city. He had no idea how he knew, but somehow he had the feeling that if he went through those gates he’d find people. But…
What will I do then? Who made the pain go away? Who gave me these bandages?

Those were the thoughts that haunted the part of his mind that wasn’t focused on keeping his balance. His left leg was unsteady, and the soles of his feet were sore from walking without protection on rocks and gravel hidden under the icy layer of mud along the road, despite the obvious care they’d been given by a mysterious stranger. He wanted to look and make sure his feet were alright, but he didn’t dare to stop and check them with his weak balance. It was hard enough keeping track of how far he could step. Things that looked far were actually close and things that seemed close he found to be a bit too far. Not only that but sometimes the objects in his sight would seem further to the left or right than they actually were. Even on the mostly even road it made taking even a few steps more difficult than it should have been. Combine that with his amount of blood loss and the cold his body was suffering and it was a wonder he was even standing at all.

It was true that his pace was slow, each small step taken with extra care, but even so it was it only took a short time for him to pass under the gates into the city and down the street that would eventually lead to the main square. He walked down the main path, the cobblestones nearly nonexistent under the numb, tattered soles of his feet.

The people around him looked at him strangely, yet despite his apparent neglected condition of tattered, muddy, bloody clothes, and bandages, not a single one of them stopped to ask him if he was alright or if he was lost. As he passed one such person, he felt himself open his mouth to say something to them, but just as he did, he found the blank confusion fogging his mind again. The passerby kept on going, staring at him with a strange mixed expression of both fright and fascination. The youth closed his mouth, not having been able to say anything to the person because of the doubt that ate at his mind.

What do I say to them?

He wanted to ask someone where he was, why he was there, what had happened to him, anything, but he had no idea how to approach someone. Every time he’d consider it, his mind would be enveloped in that mysterious white blankness of ‘what is it I’m supposed to do’ that he couldn’t fully understand. Finally he gave up the weak attempts, concentrating instead on how he was supposed to talk to people and why he couldn’t figure out how.

Am I afraid of them deep down inside? Is it because of what happened to me that I don’t remember? Strange… even before I woke up with these bandages on… that time is starting to disappear from my mind.

I wish I knew what to do. What happened to me? Where am I from? Was I running away from something? Or was it something else?

How did I end up here?

The people of the city were much different than he had thought they would be, that was a certainty. To each person who passed him, he appeared as an injured boy walking the streets alone in the late evening, his steps slow and wobbly whilst his single eye remained haunted and emotionless as it gazed forward. Many found themselves stopping to gaze in curiosity; a reaction commonly nicknamed ‘train-wreck syndrome’.

Each time he felt the trembling eyes on him, he would look up with his empty amber orb and wait for an answer to his unspoken questions. Though he didn’t know what to say to them, maybe they would know what to say to him. Maybe they would help him if he showed he noticed them looking at him.
Please help me, he silently begged.

But no one stopped to give him an answer. Not one. They all tore their eyes off him bare moments after meeting that strange eye that was as empty as a doll’s and kept on walking on their way to whatever errand they were off to accomplish. Soon, the streets began to empty and by this time his vision was blurring again. Still, he tried to keep walking, to find someone, to find an answer.

A flash of lightening, a peel of thunder, a single misstep and he found himself face down on the water sodden cobble stones of the street. It hurt, but he’d been so surprised it hadn’t even occurred to him to cry out as the wind was knocked half out of him. He raised himself onto his knees, leaning forward on his hands much like he had done earlier when he had forced his battered body up off of the road.
He raised his eye and saw what few people that remained on the streets staring at him, children clinging to their parent’s hands asking with open innocence if the youth was alright. By nature of things, the parents like everyone else turned away, hushing their curious children and bustling off in any direction that took them out of sight of the boy.

It wasn’t their problem, and they shouldn’t get involved with it.

In front of a shop window, he looked to his right as a natural reaction to attempt to get his bearings. He came face to face with a child he didn’t know whom stared back at him. It was a boy that to him seemed his age with a gentle featured face and soft brown hair. One eye was covered in white gauze while the other amber orb stared at him with equal curiosity, his black clothes just as rain soaked as his own.

“誰かなあ?”  I wonder who that is.

The reflection broke and refracted itself over and over as though there were a mirror on each side of the two boys reflecting them over and over indefinitely at the sound of his voice. There was a stab of pain from his right eye and the sounding of a strange tone almost like a chime that echoed deep inside his thoughts beneath the clash of thunder overhead.

The unique moment lasted only a bare moment, a few seconds at most, and was over. The other boy continued to stare back at him.

It was the first time he’d spoken since he first had awoken on the endless road. As he asked the question aloud the other boy’s mouth had moved at exactly the same, but no sound came out of it, as though he were the only one speaking and the other just a mime of his actions. Surprised, he slowly lifted his right hand.

The other boy did the same.

Panic was starting to well up in his chest. This wasn’t right. There was something wrong. Something was horribly wrong. He leaned back on his left hand to look at what was near the boy, the other still copying his motions. The dull wooden frame that had been left out in the weather by a careless shop keeper caught his eye. The other boy wasn’t really a boy at all. The boy was…

“…ミラー…” A mirror…

His breathing was getting too fast. The panic was growing too much. He could feel his heart beating in terror as he realized why his mind was so blank. Now he knew why he felt so bewildered and could find nothing in his mind to refer any of the things around him to.

He clutched his head as he screamed a heart breaking cry that if there had been anyone still on the street, they may have actually shown the lost boy some form of concern or even pity. But there was nothing to comfort him. He screamed and sobbed and screamed some more until his throat was as sore as the rest of his body and only the most pitiful of whimpers could make it past the rawness that had once been his voice.

His whole body trembled as he tried to calm down, but even after screaming so much the terror was still there as strong as it was when he had first realized what had happened to him. Whimpers tore out of his body that would have become screams if his throat wasn’t so pained. Tears continued to stream down his face, mixing with the rain. Now he understood why everything was so strange and blank. Not only did he not have knowledge of where he was or how he had gotten himself hurt.

The reason I’m so lost isn’t that I don’t remember how I got hurt… It’s because I have no memories! None!


I don’t know who I am!

It rained a lot in the city. The rain was cold and unrelenting, not unlike the inhabitants of the land upon which it fell. It had taken time but he had built his shield. It wasn’t something that could be touched or broken. What protected him was a wall to hide away his emotions of fear, anxiety, and sorrow deep in the emptiness where his memories should have been. He was unaware that in doing so he allowed those emotions to become his memories and permitted them to manifest themselves into the only thing he’d ever known.

The only thing he despised about his shield was how it made his chest feel. It made him cold; so very cold. He didn’t like being so cold but that’s all there was for him, and the cold was his own. It was the only thing he possessed aside from his pain, hollowness, and loneliness. Warmth didn’t even exist for him in his dreams.

Dreams… they were confusing things that tantalized him with flashes of things he felt he should know. Each time he opened his eyes the dreams were gone completely, not even leaving a whisper of their memory behind to feel the empty void of his thoughts. Each time he managed to grasp a part of the dream as he opened his eyes for another day of existence without purpose he tried his best to hold onto it, but the trials of the day and the cold and the hurt easily smothered the remembered detail until it was forgotten.

Everyday he sat against the wall of one of the neglected streets, watching people pass by, some slowing as they noticed him, others ignoring him all together. At that point he’d realized he didn’t even care. What should he care about? He had no memory of ever holding anything dear. The only thing he could remember with a certainty was cold, pain, and loss. The passing pedestrians were just movement before his eyes, his gaze not even following or meeting any of them as it had done before during his first days in the strange place. He hugged his knees tight against his boney chest in a vain attempt to resist the constant cold that plagued him both inside and out.

A shiver ran through his half-starved frame, originating both from the ever present near painful cold and the dark fear he did his best to keep buried. It was terrifying not knowing who he was, where he was from, and how he had gotten to this cold city with cold rain and cold people. He squelched the thoughts quick enough, knowing to push them back into the corner of his empty head where they wouldn’t hurt him. Replacing those lonely thoughts was a solid icy coldness that settled in the pit of his stomach and gripped tightly around his fragile heart. So many things frightened him, but he had learned over the last few days to ignore them by burying them deep into the blank vastness where his memories should have resided.

How many days have I been here? Five? Ten? I haven’t bothered to count them. Why should I count these days that only hold such cold memories?

There were a lot of things he had learned during his stay in the cold city. By watching people he had learned what he could eat, what kind of people to avoid, when to run and hide, and where he could sleep without being bothered.

Food had been his first and most terrible problem. For the first two days he hadn’t eaten a thing, not knowing what he could and couldn’t eat anymore. He had watched a family eat a feast from a safe distance through their warm window. They all seemed so happy, laughing and smiling and talking with each other without a care in the world.

It was like looking through a rip in time at a foreign world that was beyond his reach.

The man of the family hadn’t bothered to try to keep the left-over food for later and had thrown it out in the trash. He had waited an entire hour in the shadows, not moving to make sure the man wouldn’t come back out before he finally ran over to the garbage and peered at the discarded meal. By the time he had run over to it, rain had soaked into it and bits and liquids from the other items in the trash had mixed in. For anyone else it would have been inedible.

He’d eaten it.
He’d had to hold to his determination not to starve to force the stagnated remnants of what had once been a feast and was then waste down. His throat was dry and he had almost thrown it right back up several times. Something in him drove him on, made him want to keep living even if it was in such a dilapidated state.

Time kept passing, and he kept scavenging food, running from all people that came near him, and sleeping in nooks and crannies throughout the various alleyways. Before long he’d gained a reputation through the city as a mad boy that lived like a rabid dog in the dark corners of the city. Such a thing didn’t matter to him except they gave him a title, the closest thing to a name he remembered ever having.
It wasn’t a good name.

He had found out about it when he was walking down the rainy streets, looking for a decent spot to sit for a while before his weakened legs gave out on him. There were a couple of women gossiping as most bored housewives tended to do and as they noticed him walking one had exclaimed, calling him by the title that had become his name.

“My goodness, look it’s the Unwanted!”

He had stopped and stared at them, at those words. Each took a step back at the strange look he gave them before quickly turning and walking as fast as their dignity permitted in the opposite direction he had been traveling. He tried to push it down, hold it tight in the bonds of the frozen chains he had made on his tormented emotions, but it was too much, too painful for him to hold back.

He’d taken off running through the street then, not caring who he ran into, who screamed at him for brushing too close, or who noticed. If he ran far enough maybe he could get away from the feeling that was eating him alive slowly as it crawled up out of the depths of his blank memory like an awakened beast.

The Unwanted. The Unwanted. The Unwanted! The Unwanted!

He tripped and just lay there, not caring he had hurt his left knee all over again and cried into the muddy earth, releasing the sorrow that had awoken inside his shield and torn it down as though he had built it out of a deck of cards. That was why no one would help him, touch him, look at him with warmth or give him warmth: he was unwanted.

Now, a mere few hours after the revolution of his existence, he sat on the side of the street, all emotions a fine blank to him once more and buried deep beneath his heart beyond his reach. His knee still throbbed painfully from where he fell, but he was used to constant pain and constant cold.

A mirror on display in a store window across the street caught his eye, the reflection of the starving, muddy, neglected boy staring back at him. A peel of thunder, the sound of two things striking, a stab of pain in his bandaged eye, and the reflection refracted, showing his image over and over. For a split instant, he wondered if it was more than his reflection looking back at him. He looked away, used to the illusion caused by his hunger and weakness, burying his face in his arms to attempt sleep in the cold, rainy evening.

“連れて行って,” he whispered. It was his goodbye to the illusion he had thought up himself-the only small pleasure activity, he allowed himself in his world of ice and harshness.

It was the only thing he asked for, yet he could never ask an actual living creature for it, for 連れて行って. For him, in his mind, he knew it was a wish that would never come true. 

連れて行って… it was a foreign word.  He had come to understand the common tongue spoken in the city yet he had also come to realize that his native tongue was something else.

Another day, another breath, another beat of his heart, another meal that made him sick, and he kept living despite the kind of existence it was. Knowing nothing else except the few glimpses he stole through windows when he felt no eyes upon him, he had no true concept of just how much better his life could be. He would wonder often how the people in the streets managed to walk with their heads held so high and their steps so full of energy and purpose. He had no way of knowing it was because they had a home and he did not, for he didn’t know the true meaning of the word ‘home’. He just lived, moving from one street to another, one alley to another, one trashcan to another, all the while he struggled his best to keep going for just one more day so that dark sleep could take him to the only place he was truly at peace; in his dreams.

What drives me? Why do I keep going?

The questions always haunted him as he looked out of his little alley at the empty street. The rain was especially hard this day, and pounded in unrelenting sheets over the cobblestone roads. His body trembled violently beneath the water, reflexively trying and failing to fight the extra cold it brought him. He knew he was getting too cold, just like when he had first woken up, and that he should try to find somewhere more sheltered, but right at that moment he didn’t truly care. He was tired, hungry, cold, and alone.

What’s the point?

So he stayed there, huddled with his knees against his boney frame, hugging them close and staring out of the ally at the empty street. His clothes were more worn than before, having slowly become thinner with wear and tear, and the bandages that protected his many hurts were dirty and starting to come loose little by little. The constant exposure to the rain didn’t help his condition either.

He sighed, lowering his head into his arms, slightly warm tears running down the left side of his face that were quickly washed away by the rain. He didn’t know why he was crying. His face didn’t contort nor did his heart hurt or any of the other reactions that usually accompanied the tears of a small child. The tears just came, slowly making their way down his cold cheek, and he discarded his attempt to figure out why they were there.

He didn’t know his heart and feelings had become so warped by his hardships that they were truly sealed away beneath an icy shield of his own making. He didn’t feel anything. He was so hallow and alone, he was ready to give up and die. There really wasn’t a point to living like a stray dog on the street when things had yet to look up and that life was the only kind he knew; one of pain.

No! Stop thinking that. This isn’t all that bad. I may not know what is worse than this is, but I’m sure it could be much worse.

But even when I think that… these tears won’t stop…

“Excuse me, but are you okay?”

The sound that nearly echoed in his ears was a strange, foreign thing that for the first few seconds he couldn’t understand. When he realized someone was speaking right next to him in the desolate alley. He looked up, wondering why someone had chosen his little corner to hold a conversation.
And he saw soft, gentle blue eyes gazing down at him.

He found himself staring at those soft nearly aglow eyes. There was something in them that he had forgotten, something that had made him wish all cold things didn’t exist, but he couldn’t remember what.
“Where are your parents?” the little brunette girl dressed in a loose t-shit and jeans asked him. The boy could hardly believe what he was seeing; someone had finally seen him, noticed him, and more than that-spoke to him. “You shouldn’t be out here on the streets all by yourself in your condition.”

Though he knew he was being spoken to, he couldn’t seem to find his voice. For days he had spoken to no one but his reflection, saying one word and unknowingly slipping into his native tongue: “連れて行って…”

The girl took a step back, strands of brown hair falling over her sparkling eyes, but her face wasn’t horrified or wary like so many other faces had been when they’d seen him. There was an expression on it that the boy couldn’t identify. He cocked his head at the girl like a curious cat, his cold amber eye questioning her for an answer he thought would never come.

“Oh, Hitomi! There you are!” Another young girl ran into the alley, standing beside the first with the gentle eyes whom had noticed his existence. “Your dad is looking for you.  You should know better than to keep him waiting! If you weren’t his daughter I’m sure he’d have thrown you out of the dojo by now.”

“Sorry,” Hitomi said half-heartedly, turning her head to speak to the other girl eye to eye.

The boy looked from one to the other, his eye confused but waiting for those ever elusive answers. He really had been spoken to, right? So that meant the answers he wanted couldn’t be that far. His hopes, however, came crashing down as the girl who had just joined the one that had cared about him spoke again.

“I see you noticed The Unwanted,” she said with the smugness and authority of those in the know. It was almost a bullying tone, but just off a few notes in the register adults used to not seem smug, arrogant, or childish.  The girl was well-dressed and the boy could only guess she was of some importance somewhere.

Though his emotions were buried deep, somewhere deep inside the boy felt himself flinch, and the hot tears began to flow faster down his soaked cheek and collect under the thick bandage around his head whilst his facial expression never changed, their existence hidden away by the rain.

Hitomi looked at her companion in surprise. “The Unwanted? Why, Lei Fang, what does that mean?”
Lei Fang shrugged, only glancing at the boy the way someone would glance at an interesting stray dog. “Pretty much what it says: no one wants that kid. He just showed up one rainy day and started living in the streets. He’s mad, mute, and pretty much an animal.  If the mayor was not so busy I would urge from him to remove his kind from the city.”

Hitomi didn’t say anything, but a look on her face projected an expression of disapproval.  It appeared to the boy that the kind girl that had found him was having trouble speaking.

“It’s best to leave him be,” the other advised. “No good comes from that boy. I’ll see you back at the tournament.  Even though you’re already out, you might learn a thing or two from watching me.” With that the other turned on her heel and left, seeming to assume that in time, Hitomi would follow.

‘No good comes from that boy.’… Maybe she’s right…

As the other left the alleyway back to the rain drizzled streets, Hitomi knelt down, looking the boy in the eyes, rather, eye in this poor soul’s case, with that same something he had noticed in them before that he simply could not place. “’No good comes from that boy.’ Now why would they say something like that about you? You look pretty harmless to me.”

The boy looked down at his shivering knees, an odd feeling trying to break out of his icy shield that he was now doing his best to hold in place. “I don’t know,” he told the girl in a voice that quaked from the cold.  He frowned, noting how his words seemed awkward in comparison to those of the stranger.  He cleared his throat, trying to form the words that were foreign to him.  “I… I don’t know anything.”
Hitomi’s eyes widened, not in horror, but in curiosity. “Surely you know a little something. You seem fine in the head to me, despite what Lei Fang just said about you.”

“I…,” the youth looked back at her. “I don’t know who I am, or where I’m from… or… or anything. I’m just… here.” He touched his chest, indicating that he was just existing with no set thought of where or why.

“I… see,” Hitomi said, her eyes clouding slightly as he mulled something over in her thoughts. She looked back at the boy, a new kind of expression in her eyes. “You said tsureteitte when I first spoke to you. Do you know what that means?”

He nodded. “I don’t know why… but I just said it when I saw you: please take me away…” He looked back at his hands, his eye confused under its ever cold glassiness. “I’m… sorry.” Suddenly he felt like he had done something wrong when he’d said that to the girl when he first saw her. For a while he wondered if she had left because she didn’t hear him speaking anymore.

Maybe it really is better if I just go to sleep forever…

“Would you like me to?”

The boy jerked his head back up, surprised both by the voice and the fact that this girl was still there. “何?” he asked, confused and reverting back to his native tongue.

Hitomi smiled. It was a kind smile, with that same something the boy didn’t know but wanted. “Would you like me to take you with me?”

He stared, his face finally melting enough to show his pure shock that someone was there in answer to his prayer to his reflection and understood what he had said.  Did he really want it? Wasn’t it just a moment ago he had wished for his death to come?

“I… I…,” he stopped as something in his voice made it hard to talk. It felt like this throat was too tight, the tears were coming faster than before, and he felt his brows furrowing under the strain of a strange emotion he hadn’t braced himself for about to break free. Not trusting his voice to say anymore, he let go of his shivering legs, relinquishing what pseudo warmth he had gathered and lifted his left hand up to the girl in that gesture that all human beings understand so well.

The girl’s smile grew, and she leaned over, grabbing hold of his slender wrist and helping him stand.   As he leaned into her for support, Hitomi realized just how boney, wet, and cold his body was. The boy wrapped his good arm around her shoulders, holding tight and feeling a sensation flood his senses that he didn’t know. It was the same something he had first noticed in the girl’s eyes when he’d first seen them looking at him without the cold distance.

I understand now… what the thing is I saw in her that I wanted.
She’s warm.

When he opened his eyes at first he was bewildered. The place he found himself in which he found himself wasn’t any of the alleys or streets he typically slept in. Though his vision was fuzzy he could see he was inside one of the windows he always looked into just by the sight of the golden glowing light fixture above his head. Turning his head so he could glance at the rest of the room he could make out the blurred shapes of a cabinet, a desk, and maybe what was someone sitting at it. He couldn’t see any details about the room other than the most basic things since his sight was still too foggy by sleep.
There was a strange feeling all around his body that was so soothing he found himself wanting to simply shut his eye again and surrender in it. He was still wet from the rain, but the cold was almost gone, and the water on his clothes had become an uncomfortable and unwanted presence. It wasn’t enough, however, to make him surrender the new warmth he found in the soft blankets wrapped around him. He snuggled deeper into the sensation of softness and warmth, ready to disappear into his dark dreamless sleep again.

The person at the desk must have noticed him move and rose to change from a blur to a shadow leaning over him. The voice of the person asked in gentle warmth just as soothing as that which surrounded him, “How do you feel?”

“Mm…” The boy pulled the covers tighter around himself with a soft positive affirming sound, wishing nothing more than to sleep.

“I know you’re tired,” the voice said in all its wonderful tenderness, “But if we don’t get you out of those wet things and change the sheets you’re going to get cold again.” There was a soft trembling sound like bubbling water which he would later learn was called a chuckle. It sounded just as warm as the voice and the blankets and the golden light. “I just wanted to get you warm first since you were shaking so hard when my daughter brought you in.”

The boy groaned, very childishly hiding his head under the damp blanket. He didn’t want to listen to the person since he’d never been so comfortable for as long as he could remember. Warm hands wiggled their way under his weak hold and pulled the covers down off from over his head, revealing warm, blue eyes similar to those that had seen him in the alleyway set in a face that always carried a faint smile hidden under the lips.

He really did want to reply to the warmth with a warmth of his own, but just as had happened when he first found himself in the cold city with the name The Unwanted, he found he had no idea how. Instead, he spoke saying, “Where is she?”

The man standing before him smiled knowingly and shook his head.  “Hitomi will be back shortly.”
The boy nodded, still seemingly somewhat disoriented.

The man pulled up a chair beside the bed he was lying on. “You don’t need to worry.  She just ran to the other room to answer the phone.  You can call me Sensei. Can you sit up for me please?”
The boy sat up slowly, staring at the man with his uncovered eye. The cold harshness of his gaze was a great contrast to the rest of the room, but he could feel something else stirring inside him. He felt deep inside that he understood things just a little better than before, and that there was now a little bit of hope when there had been absolutely none at all. “Why are you called that?”

The man’s smile grew even warmer, which the boy had thought wasn’t possible until he saw it right then with his own eyes. “Because I run one of the largest karate dojo’s in Germany,” he answered. 
The child’s head lowered in thought, pulling up all he had learned of names in the street to understand how the man was called. “Sen-sei? Is that right?”

Hitomi’s father nodded, rubbing his hand through the boy’s hair in a gesture that the boy felt was a good thing since it didn’t hurt. It even felt a little bit nice. “That’s right,” he told him. His smile faded slightly as he looked the boy up and down then reached towards his bandaged right hand. “May I?”
Though it didn’t show, the boy was frightened at the thought of anything touching his covered hand. He stared intently at where the man’s hand hovered over it, waiting for permission. That right hand had hurt so much during his first days that he had babied it with extra care, being extra hard on his left hand to protect it and putting it through innumerable sprains and twists.

He hasn’t hurt me in anyway though…
The boy nodded, throwing what worry and fear that had started to worm its way out of his heart back into its icy shield. He watched the elder’s hand closely as he took his right hand into his much larger one and used the other to slowly unwind the already lose bandages. The first few motions just showed filthy gauze with tatters and tears in it from the length of time it had been worn.

The next layer was just off-white gauze where the bandages had been shielded for the most part from the elements, but the next layer started out a dark reddish brown shade and the bandages there seemed filthy: much filthier than the dirty ones that had started to come lose on the top layer. For a second, Hitomi’s father paused, his smile fading away, but when his eyes met the emotionless gaze of the boy he let a soft smile grace his lips as reassurance and continued unwrapping the bandage until the layer caked in old blood came completely free.

The hand beneath was filthy, coated in a layer of browned crimson. The boy noticed that the karate teacher must have been prepared for something like this since he produced from the nightstand beside the bed a bowel of warm water and a wash cloth. He held the boy’s hand over the bowel he set to balance on his knees and gently glided the cloth over the grime slowly, careful so he wouldn’t hurt the boy if there were still open sores under the thick layer.

The hand eventually came completely clean. Beneath the grim was a hand that must have been treated by a very skilled doctor. There were faint marks both pale white and puckered pink where wounds had healed, the pink ones having stitches in them that should have been taken out long ago once the cuts had shut.  The teacher studied the slender hand, gently turning it this way and that to see all the angles of its surface. He looked back to the boy, his warm eyes curious. “Do you remember who tended to your injuries?”

The boy shook his head. “I fell on the road and couldn’t get up, and when I woke up I was like this,” he explained to the man.

“I suppose there are some things we never get to know,” he said almost sadly. “Here.” He guided the boy’s body so that he was sitting with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed then set the bowel on his lap. “Hold this carefully, and don’t let it spill, okay?”

The boy nodded and did as he was told, wondering what the man--no, Sensei -he corrected himself--was planning to do next.

At that moment, rapid footsteps alerted the youth of another presence entering the room.  Hitomi’s curious figure fell into his line of vision and he shifted nervously as she approached.  Her eyes were swelling with concern and the youth couldn’t help but wonder if such worry for his sake was misplaced. 
“How is he, dad?  Is he awake?” She asked as she skidded to a stop and perched herself on the side of the boy’s bed.  Leaning forward, she eyed him carefully.  “Did he say anything? He doesn’t speak German very well but his Japanese is good.  I think he’s been wondering downtown for a while.  I can’t believe it!  Nobody helped him and Lei Fang even told me people were calling him terrible names!  I’d like to show them a thing or two!  I mean, how can somebody see someone else so badly hurt and do nothing to help them?!  I…”

The boy’s left eye widened as he tried and failed to follow Hitomi’s endless stream of dialogue.  When she punched the bed softly in irritation, he jolted backward out of reflex.  He regretted it instantly when the floodgates of pain from his injuries reopened and he couldn’t help the soft and low moan that escaped unwilling from his lips.

“Hitomi, you’re not helping,” Her father pointed out.  “Besides, you did the right thing by bringing him to me and that is what is important now.  Fate will deal with those who deserve that thrashing you speak of.”

“I’m sorry,” Hitomi sighed and tossed the youth an assuring grin.  “I didn’t mean to get upset.  I just feel so bad… and that eye…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.  The boy’s uncovered and soulless left eye stared attentively at her and she could only wonder what was concealed beneath the bandage wrapped sloppily around the other.  

“Yes, that eye,” Her father agreed.  “We should see to that.”

The boy saw the karate teacher reach up towards his forehead and work at the bandages around there that covered his eye until the two strands holding them in place came lose. “Just to be safe, close your eye.”

Now the boy was more than just frightened; he was terrified. The eye had hurt by far the worst of any part of him that had been maimed when he’d first awakened on the endless road. Though he couldn’t see what the man was doing he could feel the hands passing the gauze from one to the other as he slowly unraveled the work of the one that had tended to him during what he thought of as sleep. He focused on trying to stay calm, keeping his full trust in the man and concentrating on not shaking or breathing too fast. His heart was pounding so hard he felt like it was going to break out of his chest.  
Soon he could felt the pull where the bandage during each pass stuck to the old blood on his right eye. At that point he couldn’t conceal his trembling and the water in the bowel rippled as he shook. He didn’t want to feel that horrible sickening pain again. The thought of feeling even a whisper of the agony his eye had given him was nearly too much for him to bear.

“Dad, you’re hurting him!”

The careful movements stopped. “Does it hurt?” He asked, having obviously noticed the trembling of his patient. “I’ll stop and we can wait for the doctor to get here.”

“No, it’s… it’s not hurting,” He whispered, his voice shaking as much as his  body. He sounded like he was about to cry. “I’m… afraid. It hurt so much before.”

He could almost feel the warmth of the man’s smile radiate on him and one of his warm hands caressed his cool cheek. “It’s alright to be scared,” he assured in his constantly warm voice. “If it hurts at all just tell me so and I’ll stop, or we can even stop now if you like.”

“I’m scared sometimes too,” Hitomi added and felt around until she could feel one of the boy’s legs beneath the soft blankets of the bed.  Gently, she gave him a reassuring pat.  “Just hang in there ok.”
“Maybe I should wait…” The elder said more to himself than anyone.

The boy shook his head, the lose bandages swinging to and fro as he said, “No, I… I don’t want to wear these anymore.”

It was then that Hitomi saw it.  She had heard her father speak of it so many times during classes at the karate dojo that the words had almost lost there meaning.  He had always paid lip service to working hard, confronting your fears and never quitting.  Until now she thought she had understood. 
Now she realized the truth.   She understood nothing of real fear.  To this boy, quitting had meant much more than just losing a fight.   It had meant possibly losing his life and admitting that he was lost, weak and needed to look to others for help.  Admitting weakness yet willing to combat it at the same time – this was the essence of her father’s words.

A strange sensation surrounded the youth as Hitomi wrapped suddenly leaned over and wrapped her arms around him and held him close for a short amount of time. The gesture was foreign to him, and confused him as to his meaning, but Hitomi’s arms were so gentle and caring around him it had to be a good thing, right? Somehow the simple motion calmed his trembling and made him not nearly as scared as he’d been before, almost as though it were some kind of magic.
It was the first time he had ever been hugged.

“It’s okay.” She whispered.  “Trust us.”

Hitomi sat back and let her father resume his motions, slowing slightly to work the bandage free of the dried blood that was almost as adhesive as glue. The boy could feel the pull with each tug but held his peace, knowing that though it was alright for him to be scared that there was no need for him to feel such with these people. Finally, the bandage fell away, leaving the simple patched wad of cotton gauze that was the main bandage shielding his eye. “Okay, I’m taking off this last piece, okay?”

His body almost started shaking all over again, but once again he reminded himself that everything was alright because these people had never hurt him. The patch pealed away with a dry pulling sound and he could feel the flakes of old blood pulling free and running down his cheek. The warm moist cloth touched his eye and glided over the filth, slowly with painstaking care washing it clean. When at last Hitomi’s father patted it dry without thinking the young teenager opened his eyes.

“Looks like your eye healed up just fine,” he said, smiling warmly as he was greeted by two spheres of amber instead of one.

The boy shook his head. “It’s still the same,” he said simply.

Hitomi cocked her head and exchanged a puzzled look with her dad. “What do you mean?”
Slowly the boy passed right hand over the eye, holding the fingers over it without touching his brow. “Like this… I can’t see my hand. It’s just like when it was still covered.”

“Here. Let’s see.” The man’s brows furrowed in curiosity and he gently took the child’s chin and tilted his head towards the light. The left eye adjusted to the brightness of the light above quickly. The right iris, however, didn’t move as much as it should have, making the right eye not match. The most puzzling thing was that there were no wounds on or around the eye to indicate how such a heinous scar had come to be or what had been the source of all the dried blood. Unless someone noticed the lack of proper movement in the iris they would have assumed the kid could see out of both his eyes.

When he looked closer he noticed a very slight milky glaze in the heart of the eye, but it was so faint that only when he looked up at light would anyone be able to see the mark behind the iris.
“Do you remember how your eye got like this?” he asked, releasing the child’s chin and letting him look away from the fixture overhead.

“Got like what?” Hitomi asked.  “What’s wrong with it?  Is he blind?”

A look from her dad, silenced her.

Again the boy shook his head, the movement becoming common whenever someone asked a question. “I’m sorry.” He felt bad that he couldn’t answer any of the questions being asked of him.
He smiled the smile that captivated the boy so much, resting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. That was then and this is now.  It could just be temporary.” He paused as he thought of something. “Say, you need a name don’t you?”

“A name?”  He frowned and looked at Hitomi for an explanation.  Her face was beaming with the same excitement one might have when getting a new puppy.

Hitomi nodded, her smile growing bigger. “That’s right. How about ‘Ein’?”
The boy stared, clearly not understanding.

“It means ‘one’ in German,” Hitomi explained. “And it’s better than ’The Unwanted’. I don’t want to call you that.” She looked back to the boy’s eyes.

“Why not?” the child asked shyly.  Suddenly, he felt very self-conscious.

“Because we would like you to stay with us,” Hitomi’s father replied, his warm eyes becoming twinkling half moons as he smiled. “You may leave if you wish but I think it best if you stay at least until you are well enough to move around freely.”

The boy didn’t know what to say. At first he only stared at the man as though he had said something foreign. It was his eyes that answered as warm tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Hitomi stared in shock as the boy started to cry silently for no apparent reason. She leaned forward, looking at the boy’s unchanging face intently. “What is it?” she asked. “Don’t you want to stay with us?”

The boy sat the bowel aside on the nightstand, rubbing his face with his hands. “I… I don’t know. My chest…,” he paused with his hand resting atop where his heart was. “It feels strange…”

Hitomi blinked and then smiled as she understood, pulling the boy into a second caring hug. “It’s okay, Ein. Nothing is wrong.  It’s alright for your heart to be warm.  It means you are happy.”

It was times as peaceful as these that Ein often wondered if the cold city had all just been a bad dream. That time, though not so long ago, felt so far away now that he was living in Germany with Hitomi and her father. So much had happened it sometimes boggled his mind whenever he thought about it.

During the same night that they had taken him in, cleaned his old wounds, and gave him clean clothes, a doctor had come to see him. The elderly man had been surprised that ‘The Unwanted’ had been such a gentle and lonely kid, or so he had overheard when the old man had stepped out to speak with Hitomi’s father. He had taken out the left over stitches in his right hand and the soles of his feet and also gave him medications. One kind was to be rubbed on his old scares to help them completely heal and another to fight infections that would be caused by his malnutrition. Other than those minor things, including a slight infection in the cuts on his feet, he had a clean bill of physical health.

What the doctor hadn’t given him was a clean bill of mental health. The youth really hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but the men were so close and he was so bored he had automatically tuned himself in to listen in on what they were saying.

He had said that Ein was something called ‘traumatized’, whatever that meant, and had said that only time would cure him of that.

“You’re a busy man working in the dojo not to mention the potential your daughter has.  This… this boy I assure you is going to be difficult.  Are you sure you want to burden yourself with such a great responsibility?”

“It’s hardly a burden,” Had been the man’s reply.  “My works keeps me busy I am certain Ein will want to get involved.  Besides, Hitomi needs a sparing partner.”

“He’s been traumatized… and there’s no guarantee he will ever be a normal young man.”

Poor Ein didn’t understand German well enough to grasp what the doctor had meant and had somehow taken it to mean he had to try real hard to be please Hitomi and her father. So he worked hard, stayed on his best behavior, and apologized too often.

But he never smiled.

No matter what kindness he was exposed to, or what joy, not once had he smiled the entire time since he had been found.  Hitomi’s father smiled so often, yet whenever he felt the urge to try it, it seemed like it was something he simply just wasn’t able to do.

Maybe I’ll never remember how to smile…But I remember there were those times…

It was around her, his surrogate sister, that he had felt the warmth in his chest grow until he felt like his heart was going to burst. The first time he had felt such tremendous warmth around the Hitomi’s eleventh birthday. Their father hadn’t been able to attend, so he’d asked Ein to supervise.  

Ein didn’t know anything about how to act around Hitomi’s friends from the dojo or even around other children his age, and for the whole dinner he had been extremely nervous, remembering to do his best and be on his best behavior.  Training with them was on thing but socializing with them was something on it’s own.

It was at the dinner that he learned that the girl he’d seen with Hitomi the day she had taken him in was one of China’s rising stars in martial arts–Lei Fang.  Contrasting sharply to the warmth radiating from his sister when she smiled, he felt a bitter chill every time the Chinese girl glowered at him from across the table.  Ein shifted in his seat, lowering his gaze and wondering why on earth Hitomi had invited her.  He suddenly felt ashamed of himself though he couldn’t figure out why.

Yet he could feel the warmth growing inside him as Hitomi talked to him, and told him how happy she was that he was at her birthday celebration, but then it almost disappeared when she asked him when his birthday was.

His silence immediately triggered her memory. 

But she didn’t pity him or say what a horrible thing it was for him to go through life not knowing his birthday.

Instead she said:

“Then why don’t we make my birthday yours, too! Ein’s birthday will be the 25th of May, just like mine! That means that from now on, we’ll celebrate together!

“Not just that…soon we’ll fill that empty head of yours full with memories!”

He allowed his mind to drift on that thought as he cleaned the dojo for his father.  Hitomi had always had a way with words.  He paused as he stole a quick glance down at the now polished floor.  It was strange, he couldn’t help but think, that the young man staring back at him from the floor was the same boy he had locked eyes with out on the streets.

The door to the suddenly burst open without so much as a knock, surprising Ein into throwing the mop he was holding into the air. Stumbling forward, he deftly caught it before it could hit the floor and damage it.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” a breathless voice exclaimed.
Ein looked up to see Hitomi standing in her doorway, an excited smile on her face.

“What are you doing?”

Hitomi shook her head violently, her lightly colored hair swishing back and forth with the motion. “No time! I’m sorry, can I borrow you for a minute?”

Ein blinked, completely puzzled by the out of the blue request.

“I have to finish cleaning.”

“It can wait.”

“No it can’t. I need to finish it before supper.”

“You will!” she vowed, grabbing Ein by the hand. “Come on! We have to hurry!”

“W-where are we going?” he asked almost nervously.

“You’ll see!” she said as she dragged him along at a run. “But we have to hurry! Come on!”

They ran through the streets, Hitomi being unusually careless about the people around them. She didn’t even pause as she threw apology after apology over her shoulder for each near collision.

What’s made her this excited?

The streets widened, and soon they ran outside of town through the grassy fields and over the rolling hills. Their  feet pounded up the largest hill in the countryside as  Hitomi refused to slow and never let go of Ein’s hand as she dragged him along.

“Hang in there!” She assured him over her shoulder as the hill steepened. “It’s only a little further!”

He was too confused by her sudden actions to really notice how winded he was becoming, too intrigued he was by her actions. Before he could ask where they were going, she shouted gleefully as they reached the top, “There they are!”

She dashed along the highest point of the hill and let go of his hand, throwing her arms in the air laughing as hundreds of birds flew just a few feet above.

They flew about and circled over the heads of the two teenagers as Hitomi spun, all the while laughing and pointing up at the winged sea of grey and black above them. “At this time of day, there are always a ton of birds flying by here!” she told him. “Aren’t they amazing?”

As her glee calmed she came over and took his hand. Her warm smile reached beyond the ice of his heart to a small place he had forgotten all about as she waved goodbye to the birds that broke off from the flock circling the hill. They went on to fly off towards the distant horizon to wherever their hearts led them. “…I just had to show you!”

He turned to look at her, and she stared back, her face unable to hide her eagerness for his reaction. The warmth came again as she smiled at him expectantly and reached deep inside, creating a feeling almost like a weight being lifted off his chest, and the warmth wasn’t just in his heart, but all through his whole soul. And from the depth of his now warm soul he said two words.

“Thank you.”

And smiled.