Chapter 1

The street rat

Kawahira saw a ragged little squirt with fluffy brown hair, he could describe it as if he was being nice, or a bird's nest if he was being frank. Auburn eyes followed his movements as he moved around his quaint little house that he called home. He supposed it was rather strange to see a place with an east-asian motif, but he had gotten rather fond of its culture even though he was supposed to be neutral. He was currently in Europe for business- if he'd call it something else, he'd probably get hired hands targetting him.

The boy gawking at him looked like a street rat, but France wasn't doing so good at the moment. He looked like one and smelled like one, but he couldn't peg him down as one at the moment. The boy was malnourished and had long hair, no doubt unkept and untamed and uncared for, making him look feminine. But he could very well send the lad a scowl to show that he wasn't welcome here; his unwarranted visit made the incenses he brought over here useless. He didn't know if his message was clear or not, but the lad dashed away.

The next day he was back again, this time with an actual dead street rat- no, he wasn't being metaphorical, it was a poisoned rat. Kawahira was beginning to suspect that the boy was a cat in disguise bringing tributes to make him accept the boy into his family. Then Kawahira would be promoted to its servant and poop collector. It wasn't a bad deal per se, but if he kept his silence the boy on his doorstep would stop interpreting his quietness as "There are not enough sacrifices."

Oh boy, the boy was emptying out his sleeves and rat after rat fell into the pile. He was mildly horrified and mildly intrigued as to how many rats were stored in the child's bosom. He had a bright future ahead of him as pest control. The robed man wondered if the demand for the profession would ever decrease in this era dubbed by the locals as 'The black plague'.

The brunette looked mighty proud of the rat stockpile, he practically beamed at him. When he saw that man in front of him looked stupefied, he gave him an exasperated gaze. The child then dashed off somewhere. Faced with the rodents in front of him, he wondered if the boy thought that he was the cat here and wanted to help the man survive or something. He shuddered at the prospect.

Luckily, the boy came back and this time with a canine. It better be that dead cat he saw on the road this morning. The boy didn't have any missing teeth either.

Then the child showed him how cavemen evolved, by taking a fat twig and lodging the tooth in it and thus making a knife. This was how mankind made their first tools, he was sure of it. The brunette then moved in front of the rats and took out the basket, which looked like it'd kick the bucket anytime soon, that was hung around his neck. Then he began impaling the rats and draining its blood out into the basket. Kawahira flinched at this display.

What was this madness?! Was the boy hostile towards him? Was this the warning 'get out of town, else that'd be you next?'?!

The boy then handed over the bloody basket, kicking the rats out of the porch. Why did he have to be the audience to the boy's show?! Times were changing fast and this old man could not keep up with the next generation.

What was he to do with this?!

The brunette then helped him out of this predicament, by simply pointing at him and uttering "Witch!" and then pointed at the rats and then the basket "Which?" He then shook his head at one and nodded his head at the other before finally tilting his head in question at the man- it seemed that he had a choice here...

The boy helpfully gave him the future of the rejected option, "Ditch.". How thoughtful of him... If he was to choose between a rock and a hard place, he accepted the blood basket. The boy smiled cheerfully and picked up the dead mice and scuttled off somewhere. Kawahira felt himself morbidly curious 'What's he gonna do with all those rats?'

He heard that in France, it was a delicacy to eat snails... Was it something like that? But wait, the boy called him a witch (before proceeding to rhyme all over the place.)... The Salem witch trial was rumored and gossiped in the cities. Has it made its way to even these remote villages?

Kawahira did not use the basket and just left it in a desolate corner, but the next day, the boy was back and he thought he hadn't made himself clear. So he did a demonstration for the man, he dipped his finger in the stagnant, hardening blood and drew a circle. He then looked at the man imploringly and then he drew a star in it. If the guy who disguised himself as a physician here didn't get the clue, he might as well let the boy make this house a cult base.

"I'm not a witch, boy."

If the boy was more literate, he swore he'd sass the man right then and there and say "And I'm Marie Antoinette. That's what all the witches say."

'How do I prove that I'm not a witch? What do witches even do?'

The boy who couldn't communicate with the physician proceeded to make his case. He pointed at the various medicine bottles, herbs and paste. He pointed at some of the herbs and feigned death, then he pointed at some of the pills and acted like he was as healthy as a cow.

'Well, it is true that poison was the flip side of medicine and the greatest doctor could be the greatest poison master.'

The brunette, to further make his point, took one of his hands and placed a live rat that looked petrified from the boy while putting a dead rat in Kawahira's other hand. He even bowed down in front of him in reverence. The physician, on the other hand, looked mentally drained. He was not going to look at rats in the same way again.

"Just because I hold life and death in my hands, it doesn't mean I'm a witch.

...Do the villagers want to do something to me?"

The boy nodded, and looked at something inside, but hesitated. He sighed and waved casually at the boy to do as he like, make as many demonstrations as he liked. He moved bashfully to his lit candlestick, the one he used to read and write prescriptions, took the dead rat from his hand and lit it on fire. The one alive fled for its life. Kawahira never knew that the day would come when he would think that he should act like a mouse. Jeanne d'Arc's execution seemed to have inspired the villagers to think that this was how you kill a witch.

But, dear human; Even if you do that on your fellow species, they would still turn into ashes. At least it wasn't as ludicrous as how they thought you could kill a vampire (exposure to sunlight and eating garlic of all things...)

He didn't know if it was irony, but to think they'd try burning him to death. He was a literal manifestation of the purest flames. Were they thinking of killing fire with fire? This was like drenching a drowned man or in his case, giving a torch to an arsonist. The people here were testy and would volunteer to make a mountain out of a molehill. But, he needed to introduce the candidates of the next Arcobaleno to each other.

"Say... Would you help a friend in need?"

Kawahira would bet all his money that the boy's solution would involve rats.

It did, but not in a way that he'd like it to be. The boy had moved his rats to the physician's basement- because the brunette wanted to breed them like koi fish that he had collected from his old house- an abandoned sewer hole that reeked like hell. It was no wonder that he made acquaintances with those pests.

The physician didn't normally do this, but he used sun flames to accelerate their growth and development. He had an inkling of the street rat's plan but wanted to hasten it. His noose wasn't getting any looser. Soon, the village caught up in a rat infestation. Coupled with unhygienic environments, they were getting sick all 'round the place. His medicine was the only thing keeping them alive, making them change their tune. It was their life force after all.

Unfortunately, the villagers weren't idiots.

A week later, the man saw that the boy wasn't visiting him any longer. It was a curious thing since they had somewhat gotten into a routine together. It was almost like they were family. There was a commotion in the squire.

Two palace guards looked fiercely at a scrawny boy who was hung on a pyre.

The village chief spoke fiercely for justice.

"My fellow people. Let us send this damned witch to the hell hole she belongs to.

She hath borne a grudge and tried to reap our lives and our crops.

Her rats did her bidding, biting into our wheat and cheese.

They surrounded us, cutting off our escape. They encroached on our land, our lives, our food, our joy, our pride, our fortune.

Many a mother wept at night, fear of never seeing her child again, once mornings crept upon us.

She made us fear the light as she bathed in its shadows.

She was bred in darkness and bred darkness amongst us. 'Tis was the darkest hours.

But we shan't fear for our lives. We will bathe her in light, baptize her sins, and eradicate us from our sufferings."

The burned his dead corpse and did not even bother to investigate. They did not seek the truth. They sought a life.

The boy was a street rat at the start, sought him for a witch, and became one in the end.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A life for a life.

The village had gotten a catharsis -a moment of peace.

Kawahira had inadvertently burned him into dying. But, Kawahira could advertantly burn him into living.