After school ended, Vishi was walking home when a boy approached him. His face wasn't clearly visible, but one could tell from his aura—the energy around him—that he was not someone to be messed with.
Approaching Vishi, the boy said, "Yo, copycat! Why don't you just skip school altogether? You don't need the knowledge they teach there anyway."
He spoke like a close friend or brother would—his tone friendly, yet sharp at the same time.
Vishi replied, "Well, what can I say? School has mandatory attendance, and I'm not a rip-off like you." He said the last sentence with a sarcastic grin.
Their banter continued until they reached an abandoned house. Its previous owner had once messed with some local mafia and was killed in his own home. According to the rumors, before the man's death, the gang members raped his wife in front of him—one by one. Some say she is still serving those people; others believe she died after being abused too much. The husband's body was never found, or so the story goes.
Vishi didn't care about such rumors. He used to come here with the other boy to practice martial arts. The boy's background was still unclear to Vishi, and he wasn't interested in knowing. All he knew was that his name was Vishnu—no surname—and that he was skilled in martial arts to the level of a battlefield soldier, perhaps more. Vishi had concluded this from their previous spars.
They had met here by coincidence and started sparring because Vishnu had recognized Vishi's talent—his ability to perfectly copy martial arts moves at a single glance. That only worked for simpler moves; for advanced techniques, Vishi had to watch two or three times before copying them perfectly. But before mastering any move, Vishi first had to hone his body to suit different martial arts styles—since each had unique physical requirements.
Vishi had been training, or rather sparring, with Vishnu for about three years. His only reason was to protect himself and his mother.
Vishi had been deceptive since birth, capable of rational thinking at an age when most children could barely crawl. The reason he cared for his mother—a woman connected to him by blood even before birth—was that, unlike his father, she cared for him deeply. Still, he considered her foolish for believing in romantic ideals. She had many chances to leave his father's grasp but never did, thinking Vishi's future would be doomed without him.
That was one of the reasons Vishi always pushed himself to his limits—he had a mission, for now: to protect this woman. He understood human psychology well enough to know that people tend to perform better when doing something for someone deeply connected to their emotions.
While all these thoughts ran through his mind, Vishnu called out, "Oi! What are you thinking about? I enjoy fighting you when you're serious."
Vishi had a favorable impression of Vishnu. Though he seemed carefree, when fighting he carried the cold aura of a killer—a predator. Neither of them had ever questioned the other's reasons for fighting.
After sparring, Vishi was on his way home when he noticed large cars parked outside his house. There were men standing at the door. Sneaking closer, he overheard sounds coming from inside—horrifying sounds.
His mother was being raped, while his father sat in front of her, watching.
The scene reminded Vishi of the story of the abandoned house. Then, one of the men raping his mother said loudly, "Wow, Vurkel, your wife is tasty! I'm glad I saw her at the party today, or this beauty would have escaped my eyes."
His mother's clothes—those she had worn to the party—were torn. Red marks covered her body, likely from beatings.
Vishi's eyes held no anger, no pity, no remorse—not even for his father. He simply calculated. With so many people here, escape seemed impossible. While he thought, his father's throat was slit and his body thrown into a car. His mother, still half-naked, was shoved into another car with the leader—the main rapist. Every guard ogled her.
She spotted Vishi hiding and, with her eyes, told him to escape. But the leader ordered his men to find the boy, saying, "If he's beautiful, bring him in as a male prostitute."
Hearing this, Vishi's mind raced—calculating every possible way to help his mother escape, and perhaps kill the leader.
That's when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?"