Allen looked up towards the sky, wondering how much longer until he could go home. Not like it was much of home anyway, with Cross constantly bringing over prostitutes and getting drunk. Not mention the dept collectors. How much longer did he have to pay off that last dept? Oh yeah, today. They'll surely be there waiting for him when he gets home. Thank god today's payday, not like God's done much for him anyway. First he's born with a deformed arm, then he's abandoned at birth, then he's living on the streets, and then he joins a circus. Jealous yet? Just wait, it gets better. His only friend, a dog, dies. Then, he meets a clown named Mana, who later becomes his foster father and the only person who doesn't shun him for his arm and truly loves him. Then the man goes crazy and starts calling Allen, Allen. You see, Allen actually didn't have a name, only a stage name, Red, given to him as a result of his reddish brown hair. Allen was actually the name of Mana's dog (The one who died). And that isn't the best part. Mana dies soon after, and Allen is left on the streets again, only to be taken in by the constantly drunk military general, Cross Marian, and becomes his apprentice. But that bastard Cross hardly trains him, then makes up for it later with the occasional incredibly, horrifyingly intense training and his daily depts. Not to mention he's constantly moving to hide from Central and everywhere he goes Allen has to work his ass off to get a job and pay off Cross' depts. Is this not child abuse?
Well, whatever. It's over and done with. There's no way to change the past. Oh, and I almost forgot, Mana Walker didn't die a natural death, he was murdered in an ally. And Allen witnessed the whole thing. He was frozen with fear and couldn't do a thing; something that torments him to this day. Allen got hurt too, but he lived. After they had killed Mana by repeatedly stabbing, stomping, and slashing him and tearing at his limbs, they grabbed Allen and held him against a wall. The biggest man, let's call him 'Big Man', took his dagger, already soaking Mana's blood, and carved an upside down pentagon, a symbol of hell, into his forehead and dragged the dagger from the lower tip of the pentagon across his eye. Allen struggled from a mix of the already excruciating pain, his broken heart, and the pain of his tears burning and stinging his wounds, and caused the dagger to dig a horizontal line directed eastward in his cheek. Angered, Big Man finished by slashing the dagger down through his cheek. Seeing the tears stinging his soon-to-be-scar, and still angered at Allen, Big Man cut once more a waved horizontal line under his eye, doubling the pain.
Afterwards, they beat up Allen some more, covering his body with soon-to-be-scars and deep slashes and wounds, before leaving him for the dead. On the way back from a bar, Cross had spotted him, and simply "tsk"'d before continuing. He had seen the boy many times before and actually thought he had great potential. If he dies, that just means Cross was wrong in his assumption. However, 14 days later (GO 14! Woot woot!), Cross found him leaning against a grave marked "Mana Walker", in a daze. After that, he took him in, and with the help of Mother, nursed him back to health for six months until he could once again support himself both mentally and physically, without having to depend on anyone, just like he was before he had met Allen and Mana. Except he wasn't as rude as he was back then, Mana had taught him to be kind and respectful of others, to put others first; and most importantly, to keep walking.