"We were friends, Mad Brow and I, " T.K.O started, "And since I'm sure you were listening during the fight, you already know that his real name is Jacob and mine Daniel."

Gajeel nodded absentmindedly, chewing on the stale bread that had accommodated the ridiculously strange soup, "So I guess that explains why you two seemed so close at the beginning of the fight."

"Yeah...he was trying to get in my head with the old sympathy trick, but it wasn't needed. I let him win in the end." T.K.O sighed and lent his head against the wall while Gajeel nearly choked on the already choke-able bread.

"You mean to tell me, " he coughed once more, "all that shit about showing me why they call you T.K.O and being the champion and you went out there and threw the damn match of freedom for a friend?"

T.K.O. acknowledged this act of pure idiocy by nodding his head, "What can I say? I owed him one and I wasn't planning on just giving it to him all along. It was a last minute decision. I had an epiphany, if you will. A vision of our past and I realized that I couldn't possibly take something as precious as freedom away from him. Not after everything we went through..." T.K.O's voice trailed off as if he was going to explain whatever he saw, but Gajeel was honestly too pissed to listen.

"You're fucking insane, you know that? I don't give a damn what you two-!" T.K.O. punched Gajeel's gut, forcing him to sit down but in the fetal position.

"Shut the hell up and listen, " T.K.O ordered, and when there was nothing else that Gajeel could do besides wheeze and roll around in pain, listening was his only option. Daniel continued, "So...where was I? Oh, yeah, I wanted to be a monk..."


18 Years Ago...

As a five year old, Daniel Treville had already been sent as a slave to the country of Bellum, the country of War, from the country of Bosco, the country of trees. Bosco had just recently become known as a world-leader in black market slave trade, and a violent country like Bellum would always have use for cheap lives to strap armor and weapons onto. In Bellum, he was conditioned to the life of a savage warrior. By the end of four years, Daniel had no use for a weapon. His hands were more than enough to force a giant by the size of 7' and 250 lbs to his knees. He was the top of his class of warriors, and at nine years old, he was sent out to the front lines, already a favorite to become the next commanding general or commander-in-chief of the entire country's main forces.

Daniel was a prodigy and a future master of the art of fighting. Some suspected that he was specially created in a lab for the violence and savagery while others claimed him to be emotionless and devoid of all human characteristics. But truly, the boy had no memory of life before he arrived in Bellum. He just might have been created in a lab, but he didn't feel like an artificial life-form. He just didn't know anything other than the life of battle, and the only thing that knew Daniel better than Daniel was battle itself.

In every battle, the boy of nine would see glimpses of his past, the only thing he wanted in whatever he called a life, so he'd put his all into every opponent, into every beating, into every victory, just so he could see once again what he had lost so long ago. Maybe that did make him emotionless or a monster, but once again, it was his only purpose in life. It was the only thing he cared about in the world. Finally, he came to the conclusion that, maybe, with every kill, he was wiping away the haze that covered his memories, and in time, he completely forgot about his initial mission of finding his memories and became nothing but a wild animal that could walk and talk.

It was just as he was before, no happiness, no sadness, no anger, no reason, and no warmth-just darkness.

And suddenly, his hands were clad in a strange warmth while he was shrouded in his world of nothing. As it spread down his arms and toward his body, confusion fell upon Daniel. This was a feeling foreign to him after working so long in a robot-like existence, but nonetheless, his vision began to clear up for the first time since before he became a killing machine.

Before his vision had completely returned, sounds returned. It was the sound of fire crackling, but other than that, there was nothing. No gunshots near or in the distance; it was just fire. Maybe this was a vision of his past? His initial mission? Daniel received his answer when he could make out the face of a woman, and a smile started to make itself known on his face. A real, genuine smile.

Was this his mother? Or maybe his godmother? Maybe it was his aunt or grandmother? Hell, he would have been just as happy if it were an angel. He wondered what the memory would hold. Was it possibly his birth or even a nice family moment around a campfire? He would soon most definitely find out, but strangely, the warmth didn't spread anywhere but to his elbows and then it stopped abruptly. Worried, Daniel willed his eyesight to become whole again, but what he saw was not satisfactory, to sugarcoat it.

It was indeed a woman, but it was not a dream, Daniel realized, horrified; if anything, it was a nightmare. The blur in his vision washed away and revealed the woman, crying rather loudly, her eyes wide with fear and her mouth quivering, trying to say something but being half unable to, "Please...stop..." Tears began welling up in her eyes and soon gravity took a hold of them forcing the droplets onto his face.

The water shocked him from his stupor, allowing him the mental capability to avert his eyes toward his hands, the source of his warmth, only to find that they were both lodged into the woman's stomach; he had picked her up using his fists as leverage and the sickeningly warm blood from her body had run down his arm. In his first show of emotion since he could remember, Daniel dropped the woman from his fists, unable to speak and his eyes wide.

As soon as her body hit the ground, she coughed up more blood and slowly, ever-so slowly, she drew her last breath and passed away, eyes larger than that of a lemur's, just staring at him unrelentingly.

Horrified, the nine year old backed away, only to trip over something large, landing on his back, and when he did, he came face to face with another dead body. This one, however, was that of a boy, possibly a few years older than that of Daniel, clad in armor. His eyes were red from obviously shed tears, but do not be confused, he wasn't met with the body of the boy. He had merely tripped over it. What he saw, was it's disembodied head.

Scrambling away, he was met with another head, this one fully connected with it's body. Except, instead of two bulging eyes staring into his soul, it was only one; the other was forced into his mouth so his surprise couldn't be seen. This man's body was wearing civilian clothes, as was the woman, but the soldier was wearing armor. Had Daniel done this? What else could he have done?

Daniel stood up and examined his surroundings, only to find wildfires spread everywhere. Buildings were crumbling down and bodies were strewn every which way. Most of them were in armor, but there were others that wore casual clothes.

As far as his eyes could see, this was all Daniel saw: dead bodies, fires, and destroyed buildings. Overcome with grief, the nine year old could only run. He did not know where he was, what had transpired, what the consequences would be, or where he was even going, but he ran.


He ran for days, then weeks, then months, and finally settled down. Where, he wasn't sure of until he saw a newspaper, "Ministrel, huh..." He continued to run through the newspaper, half wondering when he learned how to read until his eyes rested on an article "Local Temple Holds Food Drive for Homeless".

It wasn't until he had read the name of the article that Daniel realized that he had possibly not eaten in the past year. Had he ever though to eat in his blood-thirsty rage or did someone from the army force-feed him through a tube?

In any case, the boy left the temporary refuge of a cardboard box, and ventured out to the mountains where the temple was located. After a long day of travelling by foot, he'd finally reached the temple, and when he did, he was astonished by the grandeur of the structure. He'd had to walk up possibly more than 200 steps to reach it, but he had no idea such a beautiful building awaited him at the top. Daniel walked through the open doors and under the archway into a very large open, cobble-stone area with a group of monks dressed in yellow and red robes standing in a closed of portion of the area that was just pure earth. All around them were bleachers filled with the homeless; some wore clothes, some not. Others wore too many clothes, and some wore not enough, but even Daniel realized this was the reality of the cruelty of the world.

Beyond them, however, was a temple that seemed to rise hundreds of thousands of feet into the air and shone gold under the waning sunlight of the evening. The tower was connected to a bottom building that enclosed the open area on three sides but one, which was the side that had the gate that opened to the outside. If someone were to look at an areal view of the monastery, they would most likely see a rectangle type shape.

As the boy had observed not too long ago, a group of balded monks were gathered in lines facing towards the crowd although they were doing nothing at this time. Maybe they were going to do a presentation of some sort? If so, what were they waiting on? The mass of homeless people hadn't likely been fed yet if Daniel was just getting there.

This was when the smell of freshly baked bread wafted into the boy's nostrils. The scent seemed to grip onto his nose, dragging him towards parts unknown inside the temple until he was met with soft but immovable resistance. Daniel's eyes shot open, expecting it to be an enemy, but it was just a portly monk. The monk's face was covered by his jolly-looking beard and mustache. His cheeks seemed to be stained red from either just working out or having too much sake. Judging from his large belly, the boy assumed the latter, "Come along now, son..." The monk slapped a hand on Daniel's back, knocking him forward and almost onto the floor, "The show's about to start!" The stranger pushed the boy back towards the open area, laughing the whole way.

Once they were back, the monk set the boy in the bleachers and went to join his fellow monks. Some looked wary of the fact that he was drunk while others shrugged it off as if it was a normal occurrence. One hell of a temple.

The big guy that escorted Daniel bellowed out among his fellows, "Welcome! I welcome you all to our annual food drive!" He raised his hands to the sky arousing a wave of applause from the weary crowd. Despite them possibly being starving beyond belief, the crowd of the unfortunate seemed rather into what the man was presenting. Maybe they had come to the show from last year, "As most of you know, we will get to the food shortly, but for now, I would like to introduce our newest Guardian of the Temple of the Sun, my son, Jacob Fuhen of the ancestral Fuhen family, founder of this here temple!" A teenager walked out from the crowd of monks and bowed to a standing ovation from the homeless, and Daniel studied him carefully, realizing the teen was the spitting image of his father.

Jacob was missing the beard and mustache, and his stomach wasn't portly, nor skinny, but chubby looking. His hair was a dark, black and tied and braided into a long ponytail in the back. Not too long from this point, Daniel was sure Jacob would end up just like his father: bald, jolly, and drunk in front of a crowd of homeless people.

So the big drunk guy was actually the head monk of the temple. Daniel thought once again, 'one hell of a temple'.

"And now, we, the Guardians of the Temple of the Sun, will exercise our long passed down Secret Arts, and afterwards, the long awaited feast will arrive! Haha!" The jolly monk slammed his hands together, creating a shock wave of air that nearly forced the lightweight Daniel from his seat. The other monks behind him fell in line and slammed their massive hands together, following suit of their leader. Surprisingly enough, their combined power was actually weaker than the drunk guy but it was still pretty strong.

A moment of silence ensued after the sound of their hands clapping together faded off into the mountains. All of the monks stood in a straight line with their heads down and their hands together, seemingly in prayer. Then it happened.

The waning sunlight eclipsed the mountain range beyond the temple, emitting a pure gold sheen that shone onto the tower that stood over the monks. Some type of reflective tool mirrored the sunlight and displayed it towards the ground, which was much darker in comparison due to being in the shadow of the mountains, and showered the monks with a brilliant golden spotlight.

Beyond them, someone began banging on a set of drums, although he could not be seen, but that just added to the mystique of the entire moment. Finally, the Guardians slowly raised their heads from silent prayer, striking fear into Daniel for the first time in ages. His heart began pounding against his chest and sweat began to trickle down the side of his head as goosebumps popped up around his body. Was this fear or astonishment? The boy had never felt neither as long as he could remember, but the look in the monks eyes was so fearsome, he could not bear to tear his own eyes away.

Although the spotlight was bright and gold, dark, menacing shadows had appeared on their faces giving them the look as if they were possessed. The lead Guardian, the drunk one, let out a cry that Daniel could not discern, and a flash of light appeared in front of the man as a wall of earth shot up from the ground and just as fluidly disappeared, then reappeared just as a wave would on the ocean. The monk behind him did the same and behind him a monk did the same all the way to the very last monk. Daniel was amazed by these flashes of light just as much as he was the walls of earth that were moving as if they had a mind of their own! Each wall would momentarily block the spotlight from reaching the crowd, causing shadows to dance along the interior walls of the temple.

The walls began to move differently now as the monks all gathered in a small circle beyond the walls. Just like their masters, the walls formed a circle and then more walls appeared to form an innermost circle as they slowly began to revolve around the monks in the middle. As if the monks and their power couldn't have impressed Daniel even further, the monks rose into the air on a platform of earth just as the sun did during its daily cycle, and with them, the walls of earth that were spinning around them. When the original walls came to a certain height, a new set of walls came in to take their original place near the ground and began spinning rapidly as if this were a cyclone of earth.

The monks rose high into the air on their cyclone until they reach the source of their spotlight and they all let out a cry and struck the platform they were on, sending a shock wave down to the ground and forcing the cyclone down back into the ground. Daniel watched the ripple effect of the earth rising up in small swells and fading away in the distance. His mouth gaped open wide as the golden light made their figures look even more fierce than before as the light made them seem as if they were gods themselves, and to Daniel, they seemed brighter than the Sun itself.

After a few seconds of posing in the light, the monks all stood stiff as a tree and bowed to the crowd as the light slowly diminished and the pillar of earth they stood on retreated back into the ground.


The next hour of festivities and eating seemed to fly by in a blur to Daniel. In fact, he was not even definitively sure if he'd eaten anything or not, but with the show he'd witnessed still left to digest, there was no room for food.

Most of the homeless had retired to extra rooms in the temple, per order of the drunk head monk. Apparently that was custom for the annual food drive due to the fact that night had fell and the roads to the temple were dangerous at night. No one argued, of course, but Daniel was overcome with a sense of intrigue about the temple. Who were these monks that could control the ground without a thought? What were those flashes of lights that the monks made appear? And why did Daniel feel so comfortable in the temple? These thoughts kept Daniel up much longer than he had originally thought, and before he knew it, he had stayed up past lights out.

When he looked around, there was no one stirring through the dark of the night. This was the perfect chance to get some answers.

Daniel slid open the door to the room he shared with a few other homeless people and snuck out into the open area in the middle of the temple. The same area where he'd witnessed that mind boggling show. He searched the grounds for some type of level or pulley that could have contributed to the show, but he only saw rocks, rocks and dirt. He looked up towards the tower.

The boy thought that the tower only reflected the Sun, but in fact, right now, it reflected the moon in all its silver glory. Daniel contemplated climbing the structure to find something there, but he very seriously doubted there could be anything useful there.

Deflated, Daniel sat in the glow of the moon, wondering what or where he should look for clues, but in the midst of his thinking, the smell of bread floated to his nose again, practically begging for him to come find the mounds of freshly cooked dough. Instinctively, Daniel crawled throughout the shadows trying not to alarm anyone. He traveled down unknown passageways and up and down flights of stairs just to find the source and when he did, he did not regret the decision.

Carefully sliding open the door to the room with the bread, Daniel peeked his eye inside to scope out if there was a human presence in the room, but once the sweet smell of the bread completely ensnared his senses, he began to solely search for the food. He soon found it, the golden dough lying steaming on a table with a knife and butter next to it. The set up seemed too inviting, and it probably was, but at this point, his hunger for the food had become an obsession so he crawled into the room, sliding the door closed.

As soon as he was upon the bread, saliva ready to come pouring out of his mouth, but a sound behind him warned him of another person's presence. Lucky for Daniel, he'd picked up on Jacob before Jacob's 2x4 got him, and he dodged out of the way just in time. Unlucky for Daniel, the board of wood hit the table and sent the bread flying through the air. Using his cat-like reflexes, the boy jumped, grabbed a loaf, and landed with it in his mouth, hands ready to attack if Jacob was still insistent on fighting him.

Jacob looked absolutely livid that some homeless kid stole his midnight snack. Although he still had two more loafs of bread, they were lying in the floor so he hurriedly picked them up and blew whatever was on them off then set them to the side, "Steal my food, huh?" Jacob hesitantly laid down his board all the while looking at Daniel who's eyes watched his every move, "Savagery, I say...Very well, follow me." The chubby teen turned around and walked out of the room and down the hallway while Daniel cautiously followed him.

Daniel was very confused at this point. He'd just stolen his bread, yet as they walked through the temple's hallways, there seemed to be no indication that he would be claiming retribution for it so he began to silently chew away at his sweet reward. Bite after bite, the bread melted away in his mouth. The white, fluffy dough tasted sweet and buttery, just as it smelled.

Once again, Daniel caught Jacob's movements just before he landed a hit on him.

A massive foot launched it's way towards Daniel's face, forcing him to lean so far backwards that his back was parallel with the ground below him. Once the foot retracted itself, Daniel straightened, noticing that they were outdoors next to a very serene lake. Daniel saw the lily pads floating around in the moonlit water. There was a path that traced its way around the water and a tiny structure hidden in the shade of a tall magnolia tree, "So beautiful..." Daniel caught himself say.

"You better take it all in now because once I beat you, you'll never come any where near this place again, " Jacob stood in a fighting stance far enough from the lake where he couldn't fall in, but close enough to where he could knock Daniel in, "You look new to the food drive so I'm sure you don't know how things work around here."

Daniel put up his hands, ready to fight at any given moment as the two circled each other, but he nodded his head yes in agreement.

"Like I thought...Well, that bread you have in your mouth is a Fuhen family secret recipe, and my father is a very loving man. He's also a very by-the-rules kinda guy. And the rule you've broken is that no one besides monks can eat the Fuhen Family's bread. If one who is not a monk of this temple eats of the bread, if they cannot beat a monk of the temple in a duel, they must be banished from the temple, never to return. If they win...then you must join the Temple of the Sun."

The words lingered in the air for a few minutes before Daniel couldn't hold back his laughter, "So you mean to tell me...if I beat you, I become a bald-headed monk? No thanks. I'm much better off without that type of baggage." No! I'm lying! Don't let me quit without actually trying! Daniel's inside voice said Make me fight!

"Still, this is a formality that I must undertake..." He charged towards Daniel with inhuman speed and did attempted a quick chop to the neck for a quick finish.

Instinctively, Daniel ducked and swept his leg under Jacob's but Jacob jumped into the air to avoid his face meeting the ground unceremoniously. Daniel had expected this and jumped up with him attempting to catch him off guard in the air with an uppercut and also go for a quick finish, and his foe had not expected the surprise. Despite his surprise, Jacob was still able to defend against and counteract the uppercut with a knee to the side. On par with Jacob's speed, Daniel also protected himself from the attack with his arm and tried a kick of his own to Jacob's side only for him to protect against it with his arm. After this ineffective series of moves, the two landed on the ground, but this did not deter their fight in the slightest.

Daniel, the quicker of the two, punched straight for Jacob's face, but he moved his head slightly out of the way causing him to miss blatantly. It continued this way for what seemed like hours. Jacob would attempt a roundhouse kick only for Daniel to duck and attempt an uppercut only for Jacob to back out of the way to commence another attack.

Early on, Daniel thought of the fight as child's play and he wore a playful smirk on his face, but the longer it continued, the more serious he became in his attacks. And once their stalemate of attacks reached its tenth minute, the eleven year old's eyeseight began to go dark. He wasn't tired nor was going blind, he was being drawn into the violence of active combat just as he had in the Bellum army. His attacks became fiercer, more powerful, and began to push Jacob back, closer to the water. As deliberate as this may have seemed to Jacob, it was pure blood lust that drove the attacks.

Jacob seemed to notice this, and began turning up the heat on his attacks, but the only way for him to be able to completely defend against the attacks, he'd have to have the same blood lust. In every attack Jacob defended against, Daniel could hear the sound of his bones bending to cushion the blow. Beads of sweat dropped of his head as his eyes widened as he soon realized that the boy had become someone else...something else.

Their skirmish edged the very edge of the lake with Jacob finding that there was no more room to let himself be backed upon. It came down to this final stand, and the look in his eyes told Daniel he had no intention of losing. Of course, this didn't matter to Daniel; he was out for blood although he too understood that this fight would end very soon. He momentarily stopped attack just long enough to power up his final punch. All of the energy in his body funneled directly towards his right fist. If he wasn't already in a forward motion, he would have likely collapsed.

Letting out a primal shout, a circle of light appeared in front of Daniel. A brownish, orange symbol that appeared just as soon as he let his right fist fly through the air towards Jacob's face, but Daniel didn't so much as blink at the distraction and sent his fist right through the illusion-like image. Daniel watched as another flash of light appeared and out came a gauntlet made of rock. The boy watched as it ran parallel with his own attack, but he was unable to dodge as all his energy was spent.

The rock-hard fist of Jacob's made contact with Daniel's face, but Daniel's attack fell just short due to his arms being shorter by a few inches. In an instantaneous type affair, Daniel was blown backwards by the force put into Jacob's punch at the same time that the power welled up in Daniel's exploded outwards in Jacob's face, sending him flying into the lake.

Jacob's punch had knocked some sense back into Daniel, allowing him to recognize the pain of being punched and the pain of crashing into something hard because of the punch. Flying into the shack hidden underneath the magnolia, Daniel stopped suddenly as if he hit something but couldn't feel it.

Confused, the boy looked around and realized that a single hand had grabbed a hold of the shirt he was wearing. At first, he suspected it to be the head monk, Jacob's father, who had come to break up the fight, but when his eyes reached the culprit, he saw that the look in the man's eyes was the exact opposite of what the head monk could have ever had. His gray eyes seemed almost stormy with lightning flashing behind them, and if he prodded too much, Daniel would most certainly pay for it. He didn't need to see the rest of his face to know that.

"You little brats..." The mystery man grumbled.
Too frozen by exhaustion, Daniel could only stutter trying to respond, but luckily, he heard the sound of wet clothes sloshing trying to stick to skin. Then he saw Jacob shuffle to the front of the shack and fell to his knees in front of the gaping hole in the side, "Grandmaster Watanabe! I beseech your forgiveness for disturbing your sleeping quarters! We were just-!"
"Don't give me that shit, Jacob! "Grandmaster" this, "grandmaster" that. You only use that honorific when you fuck up, and that's exactly what you just did, "Watanabe hoisted Daniel up higher and continued, "Now tell me one good reason why I shouldn't kill this little roach and I'll let you both walk out of here with the same number of teeth that you walked in with."
Jacob looked around nervously thinking of something to say but his face quickly picked up, "He ate the Fuhen bread!"
Daniel still couldn't see his face, but he watched his eyes squint, almost instantly being able to tell what his expression was: annoyance, "Who cares about my brother's rules about his bread? Kick his ass outta here and be done with it..." He lowered the boy slightly before picking him back up with a slight grin that could be seen through the shroud of darkness, "...Unless he beat you?"

Jacob once again looked around nervously, avoiding the question even though, to Daniel, Jacob clearly beat him, "No! We tied..."

Grandmaster Watanabe sighed and threw Daniel out next to Jacob. Groaning, the boy sat up straight next to the teen, and Watanabe continued, "So, what does that mean again? Refresh my memory."
"That means either you or father has the authority to pass or fail him..." Jacob stated matter-of-factly.
"Damn him and his stupid rules...Hey, kid!" Watanabe snapped his fingers, calling out to Daniel, snapping him from his stupor, "Damn, he's only used used a sliver of magic and he's already half dead..."
Daniel nodded even though he hardly understood a word that came through his ears.
"Give me one good reason why we should accept you as a monk of the Temple of the Sun and all that bullshit." With his crude language and threatening aura, Daniel wondered how such a man came to live in a temple with monks, but then he remembered the man's brother was just drunk that prior evening.

What a temple.

Before he could answer, the familiar head monk's voice broke through the night, "Because I will vouch for him." Daniel and Jacob, with surprised looks on their faces, spun around and saw the larger than life monk walking down the path to the shack in his normal robes.

Daniel expected there to be tension or some sort of stare down, but Daniel only saw Grandmaster Watanabe's head nod, "Good enough for me; you start tomorrow." Then the man disappeared further inside the little hut and all was silent for the rest of the night.

Everything besides Daniel's very confused thoughts.


A.N. Longest chapter to date for me. Woop woop.

I hope you guys don't hate me for making this a backstory chapter...because so will the next chapter. This chapter wouldn't have been this long had I not got carried away with the details, but they were necessary to me. Oh well. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and I'll you guys next time.

So...
Kawind OUT!