A/N
Not sure where this is going. Bear with me.
From fear, hate will always be born.
Husky knew enough about hate; he himself was filled with it. But his own hate was not due to fear, but to anger. His hate, the shared hate of all +Anima, was all because of human prejudice.
It all began simply enough – using +Anima as soldiers in the military. At first, many young men were overjoyed at finally finding a place where they had a purpose. Over the next two years, many flyers were thrust in their faces, proclaiming the need for +Anima soldiers to be used in the +Anima movement. Cooro always looked a little interested, but Nana was quick to grab him by the sleeve and drag him away. She was girly and stupid, but she wasn't dense.
A month after Husky's fifteenth birthday, +Anima were required by law register themselves as +Anima with the government official stationed in their area. A year later, all +Anima with useful abilities – as decided by the Government – were forced to enlist in the Astarian army. No exceptions. Many were outraged – families lost their children at eleven years old, many died in pointless battles because they weren't trained efficiently. For the first time in Astaria, +Anima began to revolt. They didn't like the new laws, and tried to change them.
Protests outside the Astar palace were staged, and many +Anima were shot down when riots broke out. Those that were left fled, and were never heard from again. People stopped registering, despite the money they would've received. Humans were distrustful and fearful of their animalistic brothers and sisters. The country of Astaria, once so different in Sailand in its treatment of +Anima, tried caging the beasts.
At around this time, Husky and Nana decided the four of them couldn't stay with Haden any longer. They simply couldn't risk putting Haden and his wife in danger just for sheltering them. In the dead of night they set off, travelling like they had half a decade ago. Cooro was, of course, sad to leave Haden behind, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Senri was as vague as ever, but willing to go to the ends of the earth to be with his new family.
They had nowhere to go. It took them a few months to fall back into the routine of travel – haggling for food, doing odd jobs here and there. Like all those years ago, no one questioned the three children that came to work and left when all the money had dried up. Senri posed more of a problem.
Although Ki-mun-kur were not required to enlist in the army due to shaky relations between the Ki-mun-kur and Astaria, it was odd to see three normal human children wandering with a Ki-mun-kur. Initially, his clothes and hair gave him away right away, but Nana soon fixed that with a pair of scissors and a bit of material. He flat-out refused to get rid of the tribal beads in his hair, but they managed to get by without attracting much suspicion anyway.
Except for when Cooro forgot they were supposed to be in hiding, and decided to sprout wings and go flying. The new Cooro Punishment Stick got a lot of use in those few precious years they spent out of captivity.
The growing hatred between humans and +Anima destroyed lives. It tore families apart, forced children to grow up far quicker than they should've had to. But more than anything, it changed the +Anima. Once, when the anima was no longer needed, it would disappear. In such a time of war and conflict, the anima refused to leave their human host.
And, more importantly, +Anima that had been taken out of a host by the research facility came back to them.
When Husky was eighteen, the research facility shut down entirely. Anyone found to have anything to do with +Anima was dealt with swiftly and harshly. Astaria was officially at war with the Ki-mun-kur and +Anima. Some humans took up Sailand's practice of using +Anima as slaves, and others soon followed. +Anima were hunted, caged and sold – violently and without remorse.
As awful as it sounds, Husky didn't give a damn about his fellow +Anima. The only ones he cared about were Nana, Cooro and Senri. So long as they were all safe, the rest of the world could burn. Nana took the treatment of +Anima the hardest – she often whispered to him when they lay awake at night that she just wanted to kill all of them for what they were doing. Nana had grown up rather quickly and abruptly, changing her soft personality into something a little more jagged. Husky missed the old Nana, which only reared its head when they were forced to spend the night in the forest, and he was forced to spend the night holding her trembling, whimpering form in his arms.
Cooro forced himself to stay cheerful, but the carefree eleven year old he had once been was lost in a torrent of frustration and pain. He could never hate the humans – they just didn't understand, he said – but he hated the injustice.
It was always hard to tell what Senri made of all of it. He spent his days scribbling in the new journal Husky had bought for him after he finished the one Crystala had given him. Senri was talking a little more, but there were still times where they wondered if he was there at all; not locked away in that broken mind of his.
Together, the four once-young +Anima travelled the country. They never stayed in one place for too long, earning what they could and leaving before anyone really realised they were there at all. But still, Husky knew it was only a matter of time before the authorities caught up with them. All it took was one sighting of their +Anima markings, one slip up, and their world would come crashing down on them like a ton of bricks. Husky managed to calm his nerves by knowing that if they were ever discovered, he still had his plan. And until then, he had them, and that was enough.
