Chapter 4
Natsuki stood in the shadow of the pillar she leaned against as she silently watched the dark youth they had recently saved as he sat on top of one of the smoother stones in the back garden.
Nearly a week had gone by as Takehiko, or Kumahiko as he preferred to be called, slowly healed. During that time he had been slowly introduced to all of the HiMEs as well the Otomes who had attended the Conference. Out of all of the people that the young boy had come across the ones who seemed to take the most interest in him were Rena, Mai, and Mikoto.
Rena being a mother herself was naturally nurturing and had reacted to the ill tempered boy with surprising amount patience and gentility. Of course Hiko had translated her care as being pity and had growled out that he was not a baby and he neither needed nor wanted anyone's damned pity. Despite his volatile behavior Rena was still persisting in getting to know the boy.
"Why bother? It's obvious he doesn't like anyone let alone you." Midori had asked once.
Rena hadn't been able to say why exactly only that she could see the loneliness behind his eyes.
Natsuki privately agreed about the boys loneliness, even she could see the pain he hid behind his anger. In fact he somewhat reminded her of Shizuru although he was the opposite of her.
On one hand Shizuru was the perfect lady, always polite to everyone, forever patient and calm, and she was always smiling. On the other hand Kumahiko acted more like an animal than anything, he was short tempered, foulmouthed, a perpetual frowner, and he never smiled at anyone but was quick to glare at everyone. But no matter how much Shizuru smiled it was almost always a false smile, a way for her to hide her true feelings from the world. She and Natsuki had known each other since childhood and though Natsuki did not know the whole story she was well aware that Shizuru had experienced a great deal of hardship in one form or another. While the story behind Hiko was a mystery it was easy for her to see that his anger and tough attitude was all a front to hide whatever pain he suffered from.
Mikoto's attitude towards him had been based on a somewhat child-like fascination since Hiko was so unlike anyone the young HiME had ever met before. Oddly enough Mikoto was one of the few people in the palace who didn't immediately receive a glare on sighting. The two had managed to make a small bond over their swords.
Mikoto had been extremely curious about the boys sword, he never went anywhere without it in much the same fashion as Mikoto herself treated her own sword. With somewhat childish excitement Mikoto had presented the huge claymore for the stony boy to inspect.
"This is Miroku, he's my friend and we fight together. What do you call that child?"
Kumahiko was silent as he studied the beautiful claymore before he moved to slowly unwrap his own sword.
"'Wagahai yo, akai shi da.', is what my father said me when he gave my this sword. He also told me that, 'He was mine once as he was my fathers before me and his fathers before him and so on and so forth, and now he is yours. Trust in him and respect him and he shall never fail you.'" It was a kriegsmesser nearly as long as the boy was tall and well deserving of it's name for the entire sword was the color of coagulated blood. It looked as if the weapon itself were made of hardened blood. Even the scabbard was the color of dried blood. All in all it was somewhat disturbing to look at.
Mikoto's face broke out into a wide grin and the two of them had spent quit a lot of time talking about swords in general until their stomachs both growled.
Mai was one of the last girls to meet him, due to his small size she didn't anticipate his large appetite. Of all the things that Mai could cook, and there was quit a lot that Mai could cook, he seemed to favor sushi best, though honestly he ate anything she sat in front of him. Mai found him oddly cute.
"He looks a bit like a grumpy little teddy bear." Mai told her while rubbing the back of her head.
Looking at him now, Natsuki had to admit that he did look a bit like a small bear.
His light wheat-blonde hair, which was just a few shades lighter than Shizuru's, was hardly more than a layer of tall fuzz on his dark head since it was shaved barely longer than a crew cut. He had bright brown eyes that seemed to burn and immediately caught your focus as they appeared to dare the world. A small white scar stretched across the bridge of his nose and stuck out against his dark skin.
Privately she recalled what Elliot had about the Freemen of the Free Nations a few days back.
FLASHBACK:
"The Freemen live in a near constant state of anarchy since there is no ruling monarchy. The only form of authority they seem to respect, or more accurately fear, is the Syndicate." Elliot had explain to them all.
"What is the Syndicate?" Mashiro had asked.
"The Syndicate is the collective name of the various crime organizations. The individual branches themselves run on a system nearly identical to the Mafia or even the Yakuza originations of the old world and are headed by individuals called Crime lords. Each Crime Lord rules over what is known as a 'territory' and the many smaller gangs within that territory. Even the individual Rogues respect that territory's respective Crime Lord."
That caught Natsuki's attention. "That's what that show master called Hiko, so that exactly is a rogue?"
"That's a bit complicated to explain."
"Try to simplify it."
"Well, to put it simply a Rogue is the resulting offspring from a union between a Gypsie Freeman and a Wylder Freeman."
"Wait I thought there was only one kind of Freeman?" Midori confessed, she wasn't the only one to have believed that.
"The name Freeman is simply a reference to the nationality of the Free Nations while the races of the people themselves are extremely diverse. There are the common Freemen themselves, then the nomadic Gypsies, and the feral Wylder tribes. The trope that preformed during the last day of the Conference was made up mostly of Gypsies, it comes as no surprise that they had at least one Rogue with them to do labor."
"What?!"
"The Wylder tribesmen are not referred to as feral simply because they live in the wild parts of the Free Nations, their behavior is almost identical to that of a wild beast and the half-cast rogues are treated no better than animals themselves. Normally Rogues tend to live off the streets alone, preferring their individual solitude to the company of others. But sometimes they are found or even sold to traveling tropes who use their naturally heightened strength and agility for their own purposes often seeing them as no more then a slightly intelligent beast of burden."
Natsuki felt her blood boil. "But how can anyone do that? Kumahiko is just a child for the gods sake!"
"They can do that because the Rogues are so looked down upon, and in general such a life is often better than the alternative.""What are you saying? That they have a right to treat a child like an animal?!"
"Never!"
"Then what do you mean?"
"That most Rogues do not live past the age of 15 on the streets either through disease or murder."
"Wha-what?"
"Rogues spend their entire life fighting each other and anyone else they come across. A Rogue is born fighting and so they will die fighting. It's all they have to live for and often their body is riddle with the evidence of their harsh lifestyle."
END FLASHBACK:
'How can someone so young be forced to suffer something so cruel?' She wondered returning her focus to the boy in question, but realized to late that he was gone.
**AN**
'Wagahai yo akai shi' - It's supposed to translate to I am the Red Death and I purposely used Wagahai as I instead of something like Ore or Boku because it's supposed to sound archaic which it is.
A Kriegsmesser is a German sword and the name translates to war-knife.