“Karim, you said you wouldn’t practice today.” protested a young boy who looked about thirteen. He had ruby red eyes, curly red hair, brown skin and was dressed in luxurious red and gold robes.

Seeing that he got no reply, the boy’s face scrunched up, his slightly chubby cheeks and angry but cute gaze combined to make him seem very lovable.

The person he was addressing however, completely ignored him.

In a practice field at the back side of a beautiful lakeside mansion, Karim stood straight as an iron rod. Beads of sweat glistening in the summer heat dripped down his face, the veins on his arms expanded and his immature but defined muscles pulsated as they struggled to hold two hand weights, held out in front of him horizontal to the ground that were at least twice his body weight.

He had short midnight black hair and his dark brown eyes appeared emotionless as he focused completely on his task.

“I thought we could play today.” Thought Kufu, the luxuriously clothed young boy.

Seeing as there was no point in watching anymore, Kufu got up to leave. As soon as he did so, three middle aged guards stepped forward from the shadows and bowed. The gold, red and black armor they donned, looked like magma burning their striking figure into the eyes of all that saw them.

“Take me home.” Said Kufu.

“As you command Prince.” Said the leader of the guards. “Jars, bring the carriage around.”

One of the two guards behind him immediately got up to carry out the order.

As Kufu watched him leave, he couldn’t help but look at the mansion one more time. He and Karim had been close pretty much since birth, as had the relationship between their two families, not that he fully understood that dynamic or how it worked. Separated only by a few months, they were brothers in his eyes and that was enough.

However, he couldn’t help shaking his head about how weird this brother of his was. When they were much younger from what he could remember Karim was said to be sick, so his family prepared a separate mansion for him to live in a few miles from the city, by the lake side and away from the public. As far as he could tell though, Karim seemed fine. He had asked multiple times what the sickness was whenever he came to visit but each time Karim would shake his head and refuse to respond.

It was only two years ago on their eleventh birthday that they decided to celebrate together that Karim started to let him in, but his sickness was not what he was expecting. His mom and tutor had taught him about a few of the categories of sicknesses out there but none of them matched Karim’s ailment.

A sickness that would make you practice against your will? If you didn’t, you’d feel like the world was about to end for you? What the hell was that?

And that isn’t all. His sickness would apparently make him ‘feel’ the intentions of people around him. So much so that as a child he was afraid of almost everyone at his family’s castle, leaving him in tears, afraid and despairing almost all day long.

The only cure was isolation. As Karim continued to grow up with limited contact with people and with training of his mind, he was starting to master how to be less emotional. Thus, why he was his current stone faced, muscular, serious self.

Kufu could tell that there were still some things that Karim wasn’t telling him, but his father had taught him that everyone was entitled to their secrets just like his private stash of good stuff that he had hidden somewhere safe.

Thinking about all his secret treasures Kufu could not help but smile. Taking one last look at the training figure of Karim in the practice field, he walked out of the mansion.

…….

Half an hour later, the trembling Karim finally started to show expressions of pain and struggle on his face. Drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, he could no longer hold on.

Throwing the weights on the floor and subsequently siting down on the ground to rest, Karim cast a lonely figure on the practice field.

He looked up at the sky, lost in thought. “It’s getting worse.” He suddenly said.

Before, he could get away with intensive training five days a week and the terrifying feeling in his heart would subside but recently, he’s had to increase the frequency of practice to every single day and even that was barely enough.

Unfortunately though, that was all he could do, even if his mind wanted to do more, his body just wasn’t up for it. He was still only thirteen after all. Even adult warriors needed to rest, or they would be doing more harm than good.

“I need to convince father to let me start practicing with enhancements.” Karim thought to himself.

Before he could think of how he would accomplish this, the shadow of a person came into his field of view. “Alright get up, we need to clean you up before the Lady arrives.”

The person speaking was Sherry, one of two people who stayed at the castle full time, her purpose is to look after his wellbeing. Well, that was what his father told him anyway, but Karim had the feeling that there were other people not far away watching him. This had nothing to do with his sickness, it was just his intuition. Otherwise, why would Prince Kufu’s father feel satisfied allowing him to come here with only three guards, no matter how capable they may be.

Seeing the same unresponsive expression on Karim’s face that she had long gotten used to, Sherry felt a pang in her heart. Others may not know how much her young master had suffered before coming here but she knew quite well. The child before her at one point even feared his own mother. And now they were talking about him recovering. In what way?

Sighing, she kept her thoughts to herself and simply grabbed him from the ground and carried him into the mansion for a bath.

“She’s doing this again.” Karim thought, not bothering to struggle out of Sherry’s grasp. He had tried before and it didn’t work, she was just too strong.

After washing up and dressing in his house’s noble attire, a pair of purple-ish black trousers, a white dress shirt, purple tie and raven black coat with the family crest on the back. The crest bared the image of an unsheathed katana basking in the radiance of a full moon in the background, that was the emblem of House Night.

Looking at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror, Karim smiled bitterly. “In any case if I do die one day because of this sickness, at least I’ll look presentable.”

Although the nightmare of his childhood was mostly due to the fear of feeling the bad intentions so many people in the castle had for him, the worst part was no one believing him.

No one could believe that there was a force inside of him that seemed to be guiding him away from bad intentions/danger while at the same time compelling him to work harder on improving himself, even threatening him.

The threats came with no pain but every time he refused to comply with what the force within him wanted, he felt his consciousness start to fade, on the brink of vanishing. That was his warning every single time and for a child it was painful that no one believed him, instead they called him sick with a mental demon, forbidding anyone from, as they called it, ‘enabling his demon’.

Thus, he had no choice but to live in isolation and learn to control it, eventually lying to his father and the priest and shamans that his sickness was going away when it was getting worse.

“Dong, Dong.”

Sherry suddenly knocked on the door, interrupting his thoughts.

“Young Master, the Lady is downstairs waiting for you.”

“Coming.” Karim replied. Taking one last look at his visage in the mirror, he turned to leave.

……….

At the dining room of the mansion, a beautiful lady in luxurious noble dressing was seated at the table. Although she wore make up to hide it, if one looked closely, they could tell she’d been crying. However, anyone that knew her well would immediately know why.

She was Karim’s mother. The second wife of his father and also one of the people he’d hurt the most.

“Mother.” Stated Karim, moving close to her side. She immediately stood up and hugged him.

“How’ve you been this week Karim? Tell mom everything.” She said, taking her seat once again.

Moving to the other side of the table, Karim also sat. This was their weekly scheduled lunch time. Something that had occurred every week ever since his mother Korina, left the lakeside mansion after a certain incident occurred.

Speaking of that incident, it can only be described as sad and unavoidable. Being the second wife that was highly favored by Karim’s father Korina, should have been given even better treatment upon birthing a son, the only son from his father so far. However, with the ‘sickness’ he developed, the opposite happened. She left to live with her son alone far from the main house.

As a young noble woman growing up sheltered by her family, she had never experienced anything like it. Despairing, anger and hatred kept building up inside her. An unwillingness to accept the fate she was given took over and at the moment when these frustrations were at their peak Karim had coming rushing to her side throwing a tantrum about the terrifying feeling inside him.

It was at that brief moment of madness that deep inside her she wished he was never born. She wished he never existed.

And it was also at that very instant the force inside his heart told Karim that his mother was dangerous and he needed to stay away. It was the strongest reaction the force had ever had, and Karim could tell it was telling the truth by the way his mother was looking at him at that moment. He would never forget that look in his lifetime.

What happened next was a son who grew terrified of his mother, one who refused to see her and thus she had no choice but to move away, leaving Sherry to care for him.

This only added to her pain, but Karim was still her son so every week, she insisted on seeing him. The guilt from the temporary insanity sobered and also shocked her thus she dedicated herself to her only child.

And in her eyes, this dedication and love had started to pay off as her son was gradually getting more normal, even her husband had visited him more often, pleased that he was recovering.

What she didn’t know was that this ‘normalcy’ was actually due to Karim training himself to drown out the noise of people’s bad intentions towards him. Whether it was envy, jealousy, despise, ridicule, as long as it was negative, it counted as a bad intention and the force in his heart would react.

The thoughts people kept within their hearts thinking no one could ever be privy to whilst displaying convincing masks on the outside could not hide from the force in Karim’s heart. Thus, he practiced hard to limit what he could consciously perceive to ‘danger’, whilst unconsciously suppressing the other intentions and the results were much better.

The consequence of his birth and upbringing so far was that he was in no way normal, nor would he ever be.

Fate whether fortunately or unfortunately is at play.