Being blind does not mean "not seeing".
It means "not seeing anything".
Light enters the cornea and is then refracted, bent, and sharpened by the lens. It strikes the retina, stimulating the photoreceptors—cones and rods—transforming photons into electrical signals. Then, it ceases to be light and becomes a suggestion to the brain. The signal travels along the optic nerve, passing through ganglia, cortical junctions, and memory folds. And somewhere along the biological path, the brain decides that what it received must be what actually happened.
By the way, I find very interesting... A child can look at the sun and see only great brightness.
A fanatic may look into the abyss and see an ignoble prophecy.
The blind man, however, can feel the tremor of the fire before anyone notices the smoke.
There is a theory that claims that blind people have their other senses more acute, and little scientific basis would not exclude its credibility!
And more! Does Aomine Luppo no longer have the innate ability to observe what's around him?
The ability to discern the real from the unreal...?
Or...?
There is no word for the color that doesn't exist, no sound for what can only be heard from within, but there is form. After all, he didn't stop seeing "everything," he simply began seeing "nothing." It's truly impossible to describe: it's the kind of thing you only know if you feel it, and you only feel it if you know what it's like.
Something that comes when you stop trying to understand the world through someone else's borrowed eyes.
• • •
It was a cold night, in a remote area of the Yamaguchi district, in one of the Holy Temples of the Pentacle.
Aomine Luppo, at that moment, was a frail figure, but he still carried traces of his former dignity.
He was fourteen, but his position in the clergy at such an early age made him seem older. His hair was black, straight, and medium-length, falling in unkempt strands over his forehead and ears. His skin, once fair and well-groomed, was pale, marred by scratches and bruises. His beautiful eyes were mint green, with long lashes that gave the impression he was constantly analyzing everything around him. His face was angular, with high cheekbones and a narrow chin.
His body trembled slightly, chained to an altar of mossy green stone, wrapped in cold, gray iron chains. The humidity was stifling. There were no windows, only slits carved into Gothic arches through which the wind moaned. The only light came from torches fixed to hooks on the walls.
The first few minutes were silent. Then the sounds began: dry cracks, the clanking of metal tools, heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoing among the columns.
The robes of the Bishops of the Pentacle were dark blue, with gold trimmings at the collar and sleeve ends, and the symbol of the Pentacle, a pentagon with interlocking points, faded onto the chest. A scarf hung loosely around his neck, now stained crimson with blood. His body was slender, but not weak; years of ritualistic training in the Pentacle had given him a firm posture, though now he was hunched over, exhausted, and defeated.
The first few minutes were completely silent, but then came the sounds of cracking, the clanging of metal tools, and heavy footsteps.
As if someone was heading towards Luppo, ready to split his head in two.
At the moment of the "thing," Luppo could only hear his own screams and a metallic crash. And soon after, he felt an intense burning sensation that he couldn't bear.
"Euuuuuuughh! AAAAAAAAAAAaaaahhhhhh!"
The smell of fire and blood was the most innovative. It's important to note that it hurt a lot.
He was stabbing him in the eye! And it was all so fast! He pinned him down with something positively unholy.
His appearance would certainly not be approved by the Church of the Pentacle
It was impossible and illogical.
His head was "shaped like a head," but the similarities to "a head" ended there! It was engulfed in a large, bright, bluish flame, which surrounded it without revealing any outline. His eyes, or what should have been his eyes, appeared to be two yellow smudges hidden in the flames. He wore coarse, poorly made leather clothing and oxidized copper gloves.
Frankly, there wasn't much Luppo could do. He plunged several blades and needles into both eyes. He started with the eyelids, where he made small cuts. Then he inserted a metal appendage and "unstitched" the flesh. Luppo's eyes quickly became covered in blood, and his entire face was covered in blood.
The blood ran down to her collarbone and stopped on her scarf, which was already colored crimson.
Luppo tried to writhe, but each limb was tied to the altar by gray iron straps, which made it ineffective.
"Don't yell, the process will look sick if you do."
As if I hadn't already been sick from the start!
The pain was deep.
A shiver that spread down his spine, like cracked glass inside the skin, sewed itself together throughout his body.
The light that blinded Luppo wasn't the same as his childhood light, nor the one in the cathedral. It was an internal light, a slit from the inside out that reflected wherever his nose pointed.
And suddenly the man fell silent and said nothing more. He just turned his back and walked away as if nothing had happened.
This was actually a good thing, as it gave Luppo at least the end of the day to breathe a little!
However, life had a rather unusual future in store for Luppo, as after a few minutes of tranquility, the boy fainted.
• • •
Luppo woke up in a place perceptibly below the earth.
The surrounding walls exuded dampness.
The musty smell was as thick as old dust. The cold from the stone floor seeped into his clothes and the bandages around his head. I had no idea how much time had passed since that night. I didn't know where he was. Or if someone had rescued him or if he had been abandoned there.
Days dragged by in silence. No light, no visitors. Just hunger and thirst.
Then, at some untimely moment, footsteps cut through the blessed silence. They were firm and accompanied by the scent of mint incense.
The door creaked, but Luppo didn't move.
"Aomine-kun," said a sober voice, yet not entirely devoid of compassion. "I'm Sister Matsuda from the Internal Affairs Bureau. I've come to deliver this."
The sound of fabric being placed on the floor filled the room.
"Civilian clothes. As of today, your stay in this mausoleum ends. The Pentacle can no longer house you." The girl slowly dumped out a pile of poorly finished clothes.
She waited for an answer, but it didn't come.
"Look, it's big out there ... You'll definitely find a place to continue your life."
She turned around, but before she could leave completely, her voice returned:
"The morning bell will ring in three hours. Please be off this lot by then."
The girl closed the door and the latch rattled, making a sharp jingle.
Luppo slowly crept over to the pile of clothes and felt them. He felt first a collarless shirt, jeans, a scarf, and an old coat. No sacred symbols that hinted at the Pentacle.
Luppo dressed in silence. Every movement he made made his joints ache and crack. His entire body seemed unaccustomed to walking and normal daily activities.
He found the wall and slid his fingers toward the exit. His steps were made with extreme slowness.
He had unconsciously memorized the direction to the exit stairs, and as he climbed the steps, he heard the familiar sound of bells.
The temple was still in operation, but no one was waiting for it.
No one would look for him.
He crossed the courtyard and felt eyes on him. But no one spoke, no one interfered.
As he crossed the main gate, he heard it close behind him with a bang.
So tell me what I am, God... Tell me why...? Why am I here...?
It was forty-three days like this. Aomine Luppo is a boy who holds back his tears when he needs to. Forty-three nights of hunger, cold, and fever.
And then, on the forty-fourth, he found the alley that would change everything for him.
The sky was dull and there was no moonlight. He was rummaging through a trash can behind a corner restaurant, whose exhaust fan still trembled overhead, emitting the stale smell of grease and burnt garlic.
Luppo could hear the sounds of the distant street, but there, in that muffled corner between concrete walls and stacked boxes, everything seemed to be underwater.
The sky was dull, without a trace of moonlight, and the city seemed suspended, muffled by a dead heat and the greasy fumes rising from the exhaust of a corner restaurant, where Luppo was rummaging through a half-open trash can for something to chew. He was leaning against the wall, surrounded by damp cardboard boxes and worn pieces of wood, unable to see a thing, but as if he had fused himself with the structure, the wet concrete, the rust on the hinges. His hands trembled as he lifted a handful of cold, hardened rice from a discarded torn bag to his mouth.
He didn't know what time it was, or even if it was night or a cloudy morning, but he knew it was cold, and that hunger hurt more than having his eyes ripped out, because hunger left no room for emotional pain, only for instinct, for the primitive impulse to keep chewing even when the taste was rancid, even when he felt his own stomach shrink.
The bandages, already dirty and charred, pressed tightly around his head, hardened by the dried blood that had oozed from days ago, and yet he didn't dare change them.
In his humble perception, each day seemed longer than the last.
The alley was narrow, muffled by concrete walls and stacked cardboard boxes. The hum of the exhaust fan, the distant echo of cars on the street, the rustling of rats in the shadows—all formed a kind of mental map that guided him.
He learned to feel the world in a new way as if blindness had unlocked something inside him.
That night, however, something made him stop. As he chewed the remains of a meal, a shiver ran down his spine and made his shoulders tense. He heard footsteps. They weren't the hurried steps of guards or the robotic walk of employees—they were slow, light, too rhythmic to be ignored. They were coming from the left, about five meters away, where the sound of leather scraping against the floor mingled with the hum of the exhaust fan.
A chill ran down his spine and he dropped the garbage bag with clenched fingers.
Someone was there, watching him.
"You're a long way from the Temples, kid," said a deep voice, with a hint of curiosity.
Luppo turned slowly.
Without sight, he relied on sound to locate the person. The voice came from about five meters to his left, near a stack of boxes. He remained silent, waiting with his muscles tense.
"Relax," continued the voice, now closer.
"I didn't come to hurt you. I just thought it was curious to find someone in comfortable clothes rummaging through trash."
"Who…?" Luppo asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Who...?"
The man took a step forward, and Luppo heard the light scrape of leather against the floor.
"You look terrible. What happened to your eyes?"
He shook his head, trying to dispel the dread.
He laughed in a short, dry sound.
"Hm, I see. But out of spite, are you hungry? Crumbs aren't very nutritious. Would you mind going for ramen with me?"
Luppo was suspicious. No one offered anything for free, not these days.
But the emptiness in my stomach spoke louder.
"..."
Luppo tried his best to understand the stranger's intentions, but he couldn't. It was too good to be true. Really good! Food from a well-dressed man, and for free...!
"I like hearing interesting stories," the man said with amusement. "Especially when they come from interesting people, and you don't look like someone destined to eat crumbs."