A/N: Reviews will be greatly appreciated and reviewers will receive virtual chocolate if they so desire.
Chapter One: Kazuichi Souda
Souda is eight years old and his father is showing him how to build a bike from pre-made parts. He's only been watching for a few hours and he's already sure he could it himself. But he bites into his bottom lip and waits for his father to finish up the tutorial; he knows Dad doesn't like to be interrupted. So he just stares at all those parts, who practically screaming at him to snatch them up and make them into something more than a scrap.
He sneaks into the workroom to try it himself the next day. He's done with his first bike by noon and proudly displays it. His mother smiles and pats his hair, saying he's so smart to learn so fast. When she leaves, Souda turns to Dad, smile on his face and ready for praise.
It vanishes the instant he sees Dad's expression. His father is glaring, his mouth drawn into a snarl.
"Why did you touch my stuff, you little brat? You got the chain all wrong too! That stuff costs money!" Souda drops to the ground and covers his head before the blow strikes him, sending him sprawling onto his side.
It takes another two tries before he gets the process right. The purple and black bruise on his cheek hurts when he bumps it for a week.
Souda is twelve years old and he hates school. He can't speak like the other students do. He finds himself with a mouth that jumbles words and hands that shake. Everywhere he goes, Souda is sure he's hearing them whisper about "that wimpy emotional baby that snuck in from the preschool" and watches as they chuckle.
He drops his gaze to glare at the ground and when he gets home, he immerses himself in his work. His father rarely drops by, and when he does it's to ask if he's made something they can sell. Other times, Souda avoids him. There are many new bruises up and down his arms from when he fails to stay far away from the man.
Souda is thirteen and he's cut school for the first time. He hasn't seen father this mad since he accidentally blowtorched a fender into uselessness. The beating from that had left a black and blue array down his back that hurt when he touched it. It hurt right then as he brushed against the back of the tiny chair in the principal's office. That incident had only been a week ago, after all.
Now Father is livid and the anger in his eyes promises pain when they're away from the prying eyes of school officals. Souda listens with quiet fear as the principle explains that he'll be suspended if he cuts again, and Souda just nods.
Souda is in high school and he's acutely aware that his attempt at change isn't working. Fingers are pointed as his classmates ask if that pink-haired, sharp-toothed teen is the same Souda from middle-school and he insists that he's someone else. Someone sniggers and says he's a bad liar.
Later during lunch, someone jabs him in the side when he's not looking. He screams and everyone laughs.
At home, he builds a tiny, tiny rocket, and watches with a dark bags under his eyes as it flies over his house. From somewhere inside the home, father yells that whatever that infernal sound is, it better stop really fast or he's going to regret being born. Souda tries not to wonder if he already does as he collects the little rocket and hurries inside.
Nothing changes. The endless cycle of heartless students and a heartless father and no one to appreciate the increasingly complicated machines he was making never ends. Souda cuts more classes. He locks himself away with nothing but mechanics after particularly harsh words or beatings.
Day after day after day after day after day.
Souda is eighteen and when Junko Enoshima asks him to build a rocket for a person to ride up and abruptly, quickly, fatally back down to the earth, he accepts.