Since his father died at the hands of the neighbor who killed him before he could do anything to him, the little boy thought things had gotten better. His mother and he moved to a town in the interior of Japan, but things got much worse over time, to the point where he wished he could go back to living with his drunken father... He was no longer called by his name. Sometimes his mother called him "brat," sometimes "kid," other times just "nobody." Over time, he came to believe that maybe that was true: he was nobody.
The house where he lived was small, with peeling walls and a constant smell of smoke mixed with sweat. He knew that smell as well as he knew his own body. There were no perfumes, no smells of good food or soap. Just smoke, cigarettes, marijuana, and sometimes the sickly sweet scent of some cheap perfume that the men brought with them.
He didn't quite understand why those men went into his mother's room and then came out laughing, or angry, or simply indifferent. He only knew that when they left, it was his turn to clean up. Rumpled sheets, glasses thrown on the floor, cigarette butts crushed in the corner. If he didn't clean up quickly, his mother would get nervous. And when she got nervous, the glowing tip of her cigarette would find his skin.
The little boy already had marks scattered across his arms and back, small dark spots that ached in the cold. He never complained. He knew that if he did, it would be worse. So he did what he had to do. He took a cloth, cleaned the floor, shook out the sheets, and pretended everything was fine.
Hunger was his most faithful companion. He learned early that stale bread with water could fool his stomach, at least for a few hours. Often, his mother would hide the food or simply not let him eat. She said it was a waste, that he had to learn to fend for himself. And he did. Sometimes he found a half-rotten piece of fruit in the neighbor's trash or forgotten scraps in the sink. He was never ashamed to eat like that. Shame no longer existed inside him; there was only survival.
When he was alone, the boy liked to curl up in a corner of the room and imagine. He imagined living somewhere else, a white house with big windows where the morning sunlight streamed in and the air smelled of fresh bread. He imagined a different mother, someone who called him by his name. In that invented house, he had a full plate and could eat without fear. In that invented life, he was somebody...
But the dream always ended when the bedroom door opened again, and another man came in. The boy learned to hide in the kitchen, behind the door, waiting for the noise to stop. It was in those moments that the silence hurt the most.
Once, one of the men pushed him against the wall as he passed through the living room. The boy fell, bruised his arm, but didn't cry. He had learned that crying didn't help. His teary eyes only made his mother roll her own, as if he were a burden she never wanted to carry.
Yet, despite everything, there was a small flame inside him that refused to go out. He couldn't explain it. Maybe it was hope, maybe it was just stubbornness. Sometimes, when he looked at the sky through the broken window, he saw the clouds passing by and wondered if one day he could leave too, like them.
One night, lying on the cold floor, the boy decided he didn't want to be like the men who came and went, nor like his mother, lost in her own addictions. He didn't know how, he didn't know when, but he promised himself he would find a way. He kept that promise like a treasure.
The days went on the same. More smoke, more shouting, more silence. The little boy kept cleaning, tidying, swallowing bread with water, and hiding his pain. But inside him, something grew: the certainty that, no matter how much he was treated as nobody, he was somebody.
And even though no one ever said his name, he knew that one day he would have one. A name that was his alone, one that couldn't be erased by smoke, by marks on his skin, or by indifference.
Until then, he resisted. Because resisting was the only thing he knew how to do.
He resisted. Day after day, he promised himself he would find a way out. But life seemed to laugh at his promise, as if it were a cruel joke meant just for him.
That rainy afternoon, the house was darker than usual. The damp walls held a strange cold, almost as if the air knew what was about to happen. Three men came in, bringing with them heavy laughter and the smell of alcohol that filled every corner. The little boy curled up in the kitchen, as he always did, but this time it didn't help.
They didn't ignore him.
Hard eyes turned to him, and for the first time, it wasn't just his mother offering him to the silence of the world—it was the world itself pulling him into the abyss. There were whispered words, laughter that sounded like thunder, and his mother merely looked away, puffing on her cigarette without a care.
"... You can sleep with him as long as you pay..."
Those were her words, as she received a wad of cash from one of the men.
The boy felt the ground slip from under his feet.
What happened next doesn't need to be said. Only silence can speak for it.
When the door finally opened, much later, the little boy left that room with short, trembling steps. His body hurt in a way he didn't know was possible. Each breath felt like it was tearing him apart inside. There were no tears. There was no scream. Nothing.
His eyes were empty.
The flame he had guarded so fiercely inside him had gone out. No hope remained, no promise, no dream. Only a dark hole where imagination once lived, where the stubborn strength to believe he could be somebody once existed.
He sat on the cold kitchen floor, hugging his knees. He no longer wanted to think about white houses, different mothers, or beautiful names. He didn't want to think about anything. Silence was now his only shield, the invisible wall separating him from the world.
From that day on, the little boy stopped hoping.
He no longer wished to escape, to grow up, to be saved. He simply existed, like a shadow lost between four walls. He cleaned the room, straightened the sheets, swallowed bread with water as always, but there was no flame left inside him.
Each time the sun rose, he only asked himself: "Why am I still here?"
And the answer never came.
The days turned into months, and the months into years. The boy's childhood crumbled like dust, without him noticing when he stopped being a child. Time didn't pass for him; it merely dragged.
Little by little, his mother began to turn on him in a new way. Cigarettes pressed into his skin, shouts, and humiliations were no longer enough. When the men left after using him like a toy, when the money ran out and the smoke cleared, she turned her cloudy eyes on him. Eyes filled with anger, frustration, and something even darker.
He never spoke of it to anyone.
How could he? Words couldn't carry the weight of what happened inside that house. And even if they could, who would believe a boy who was "nobody"?
The marks began to pile up. Bruises hidden under tattered clothes, aching bones, cuts he couldn't remember how he got. Sometimes he passed out on the cold floor and only woke up in a hospital bed. The doctors asked questions, but he never answered. He always said he fell, tripped, hurt himself. His mother, when sober enough to come along, merely nodded impatiently.
And so, he returned home. Always.
Each hospitalization left him emptier, as if the hospital were just a waiting room between one hell and another. The white walls brought him no comfort, only reminded him how much he didn't belong anywhere. He watched the other patients, children laughing or being comforted by their parents, and wondered what it would be like to have someone hold his hand...
But when his mother came to get him, her gaze was like stone. No affection, no regret. Just haste to take him back to the peeling walls, where the cycle began again.
The boy, now a little older, understood that there was no point in living anymore...
One time, a doctor tried to press him. He asked quietly if the boy wanted help, if he wanted to tell the truth. The boy just looked away. Not because he didn't want to, but because he no longer believed in escapes. The flame inside him had gone out long ago, and without a flame, there was no voice.
With every hospital visit, every discharge, he returned weaker, emptier. His mother, however, carried on. She continued with her addictions, with the men, with unloading the weight of her life onto him.
That night, the little boy was ten years old.
The room still carried the smell of the men who had left hours earlier. He dragged himself to the kitchen, his body aching, his mind empty. The flame that had once tried to resist was gone.
He opened the cupboard, found a box of pills forgotten among dirty dishes and empty bottles. He didn't know what they were, didn't want to know. He grabbed a handful with his small hands and swallowed them with a glass of murky tap water.
"It's over now..." he whispered to himself, sitting on the floor.
The world spun. His stomach burned. His head throbbed. He closed his eyes and let himself fall.
...
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in a white bed. Machines surrounded him, an IV in his arm, and a constant beeping that irritated him. He tried to move but had no strength.
A nurse noticed.
She approached, adjusted his pillow, and spoke softly:
"Shhh... calm down, you're safe now. You don't have to be afraid."
The boy didn't respond. He just stared at the ceiling, empty.
Soon after, a doctor came in. He was a man with a deep but gentle voice. He sat by the bed and stayed silent for a few seconds before asking:
"Why did you do it, kid?"
The boy took a long time to speak. His lips moved almost soundlessly:
"I... don't want to stay here anymore."
"Here in the hospital?" the doctor asked.
The boy looked away, clenching his fists. He murmured again, almost inaudibly:
"Here... alive."
The doctor sighed, lowering his head. He stayed silent for a moment before pressing:
"You don't deserve to feel this way. You're just a child... no one should carry so much pain alone."
This time, the boy turned his face to the wall and let a tear fall. He said nothing more.
...
Hours later, his mother appeared. She stormed into the room with hurried steps, the smell of cigarettes invading the sterile hospital air. She didn't even look at her son, going straight to the doctor.
"So? Is he going to die or not?"
The doctor frowned.
"Your son tried to take his own life. He needs help. Support, care..."
She let out a short, dry laugh, as if what he said was an exaggeration.
"Help? That's just spoiled kid drama. He'll grow up and forget. He's always been weak."
The boy heard every word. He stayed still, but inside he felt the crushing weight of her judgment. "Weak." That's all she saw in him.
The doctor stared at her coldly but took a deep breath and turned back to the boy. He approached, gently took his hand, and said firmly:
"You're not weak. Got it? Never believe that."
The boy didn't respond. His eyes stayed fixed on the wall, cold, silent. Inside him, only one thought echoed:
"I can't even die..."
And as the machine's steady beeping continued, he returned to silence, his only way of existing.
...
Mashu opened her eyes suddenly. The white ceiling of her room in Chaldea seemed distant, as if it were swaying above her. Cold sweat dripped down her forehead, and her skin was so pale it looked like porcelain about to crack. Her heart beat irregularly, as if each beat carried a weight that wasn't hers.
"S-senpai..." she murmured, but her voice came out weak, trembling. The feeling in her chest was unbearable, suffocating. It was as if she had been thrown into a nightmare too real to be just a dream.
Dream Cycle: the ability of a Master to dream of their Servant's life, and vice versa.
She quickly tore off the blankets and stood, stumbling to the bathroom. With each step, her stomach churned, and before she could think, she was kneeling over the sink, retching in dry heaves. Her hands shook, and involuntary tears streamed from her eyes. It wasn't just nausea. It was despair. It was a borrowed pain, so intense it seemed impossible for any human to survive it.
She leaned against the cold marble, breathing heavily, her body hunched over. And in silence, she screamed inside herself:
"That... was my Senpai's life...?"
The nameless boy, crushed by abandonment, abuse, indifference. Who tried to resist but was broken time and time again, until he lost even the desire to exist.
Mashu felt her stomach churn again, and another wave of nausea made her double over.
She bit her lips, the bitter taste rising in her mouth, as the images of those scenes burned in her mind like hot iron. Those men did that to her Senpai...? That was really his mother...? How could anyone do that! Just seeing what happened to her Senpai in that room, the memory of the smell and everything that happened to him at the hands of those men made her want to vomit...
It was too much.
Holding onto the mirror, she stared at her pale reflection and the wet eyes that couldn't stay steady.
She fell to her knees on the cold bathroom floor, covering her face with her hands.
"Senpai... how can you still smile... after all that?"
"That was... his life... his childhood... and I... I saw it all... I felt it all..."
Her chest ached, as if it were being crushed from within. The images wouldn't leave: the dark room, the indifferent mother, the men, the pain no one should have to bear. Her Senpai... her Senpai, before he became who he is now, was thrown into a hell with no escape.
She tried to stand, but her legs gave out. She slid down to the wall, resting her head against the cold tiles. Tears fell again, thick, relentless.
"Senpai... I... can't handle it... you went through all that... and I only saw it... and I already can't..."
That grotesque image made her sick...
A sob broke from her throat. Mashu hit her chest with her hand, trying to control her breathing. But each heartbeat seemed to replay those scenes. As if the trauma had etched itself into her flesh.
She remembered her own life, how she had been raised in a lab, an existence meant to be used. She remembered how she only became "Mashu Kyrielight" because he reached out to her. He saved her from the void.
And now, she had seen his void. The same void that, by some miracle, hadn't completely destroyed him.
Mashu stood shakily, holding onto the sink. She looked at the mirror again. Her face swollen from crying, her eyes red. But there was something more: a decision.
"I won't... I won't let you carry this alone. Even if I have to cross the world..."
The thought came immediately: Kazuya was in Italy, with Scáthach.
Despair burned in her veins.
She stumbled back to her room, nearly losing her balance, desperately trying to reach him through their mental connection.
"Senpai... please... I need to see you... now... I need to be with you... I need... I can't... I can't stay here after seeing that..."
She collapsed onto the bed, clutching the pillow tightly as if it were her Senpai himself. Her heart was in pieces, but it still beat, frantic, pleading for him.
The trauma made her sick, yes. Her body trembled, her mind spun in a whirlwind of memories that weren't hers. But there was something stronger than the nausea, stronger than the fear: an almost irrational desire to cross any distance to reach him.
Even if Scáthach was by his side.
Mashu didn't care.
Because now she knew.
Now she had seen the hell that forged her Senpai, the abyss that nearly swallowed him.
And yet, he still smiled at her.
She bit her lip, the taste of blood mixing with the salt of her tears.
"Senpai... please... let me be with you... even if it's just for a moment. I won't let that past steal your present. I swear..."
___________________
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