Prologue:
I was weak from birth, this I knew it.
When I was 3 years old, the children at kindergarten all despised me.
Because I was a shy, a clumsy and a sick little boy.
So they started abusing me.
It wasn't fun and I didn't like it, I retaliated but they just needed to hit harder.
When I went back home, my father would say why I didn't stop getting hurt and I was becoming a bother. Mother would be so annoyed with me that in the end, she would just throw the first-aid kit on me and tell me to do it myself, cooking was the same.
Every day, boring and painful.
Wake up, go to kindergarten, be abused, come back home, heal me, cook and sleep.
In the end, father and mother would leave the house for a year before coming back, when at home, they threw at me disdainful glance and stayed for some day before going back.
They just gave up on me and I was happy like that, I was at peace at least.
I could learn all I want and do whatever I want.
From stealing and hacking, learning everything I wanted from the net and books available, I discovered a whole new side of the world.
This is what I call fun.
When I was 5, some kids nearly killed me by throwing me into a lake from a bridge, when I swam back to the shore I discovered that my body was covered in flames. Sometimes, they were shifting colors erratically, going from an indigo, to purple and purple to orange. I liked the feeling of having them.
The feeling of being safe.
After some time of well-paid effort, I finally discovered what those things were.
They are called dying will flames.
Because who in their sane minds thinks that having purple fire coming from everywhere on you is normal?
Well, not me.
Anyway, I couldn't discover any more information on them apart from them, being separated into seven categories and their basic use.
I have sky, cloud and mist it seems. I can harmonize, propagate and construct.
Wow, such amaze.
I practiced sometimes every day and now I can basically get the hang of it.
Some measly illusions, small body boost, and mind calmer.
Pathetic but better than nothing.
7 years old.
Today, mother and father came back with a kind old man, his name is Timoteo.
Father told me to shut up and do everything that was told.
We ate, talked like everything was normal. I acted like a good boy.
When everything was finished, I was sent to my room by being dragged along the collar.
It hurts.
She threw me in the almost empty quarter and locked the door.
What a brute woman.
As I was cursing her, I could hear a conversation between father and the old man, they were speaking in Italian and that was definitively suspicious.
What is clam?
Father, why are you talking about clam having babies?
CEDEF?
Who is Primo?
Ah, sky flames?
I don't understand.
Father, why are you telling Timoteo that I am retarded?
I can learn very quickly and I am already speaking and understanding Japanese, Italian and English.
Father, why are you telling him that I am very bad and useless?
Even when you're absent with mother for almost a year, I was always very well behaved.
I bought my own food, my own clothes, survived on my own. I stole money, but that was for my own good and they belonged to criminals, so it's okay.
So why are you telling him I should be given to the Estraeno famiglia? What is this family?
As Chiharu was quietly listening to them speaking, he could definitively conclude that they were finishing by the chairs being pushed.
'They are coming'
His mind was slowly whispering to him
'Run, or else they will do something to you'
'They are getting closer.'
'Go away, you must get as far as possible'
The soft warnings got more intense inside his head, clearly trying to alert him of the danger.
'They are trying to open the door'
'RUN'
His mental trigger snapped and he dashed toward the window.
He slightly enhanced his body with cloud flame and jumped through it by breaking the glass.
He activated altogether the flames, his forehead flickering weakly with an orange wisp, his fingers coated with indigo and purple conflagration and his eyes, shining with the color of a blazing sunset.
'RUN'
His mind screamed and he clearly listened to it.
Chiharu escaped through the street in the dead of the night, being chased by men in suits.
'Left'
'Right, right.'
'Left, sprint a little bit more.'
'Right, jump through the fence.'
He arrived in the field of an airport, clearly confused.
'Run behind the plane on the left end and go inside one of the slips on the right side'
He listened to this feeling and did it.
He was now in the compartment where they stored luggage in an airplane.
But he didn't care, he escaped and was safe for the moment, which was all that mattered now.
Before he fell asleep, he could hear the flight attendant, up, announcing to the passengers where they were going.
"Dear passengers, our next stop will be Italy, Venice!"
End of the prologue.