Pain. That was the first lesson.
It echoed through every cracked rib, every bruised muscle, every heartbeat pounding behind the orphan's eyes as he lay on the cold, uneven rooftop. Blood dripped from his lip onto the concrete like a ticking clock—slow, steady, inevitable. Around him, the neon buzz of city lights blurred against the night sky, mocking his suffering. The twelve who had beaten him were gone now—long gone—but their laughter still echoed.
He had survived. Again.
But it was changing.
In the silence, something stirred—not outside, but within.
"You've tasted it now," a voice slithered into his thoughts, smooth and deep, ancient and cold. "The world's truth. How sweet is its cruelty?"
He didn't flinch. This wasn't the first time he'd heard the voice. For weeks now, since the bruises first started to hurt less, since he noticed the cuts healing faster than they should've, the voice had been whispering. At first, he thought it was madness. A fragment of a dream. But dreams didn't watch. Dreams didn't guide.
"Who are you?" he asked inside his mind, barely able to sit up.
"Your shadow. A mirror that chose to speak. Your instincts, shaped in pain. I do not have a name yet. You haven't earned the right to name me."
A dry laugh coughed from the boy's cracked lips. Even his hallucinations had pride.
"Fine. Then speak, shadow. If you're going to haunt me, say something useful."
The shadow did. It always did.
---
Three months ago, everything had changed. The day the blood didn't belong to just him.
He had been surrounded again—twelve older boys this time. One had a brick. One had chains. He remembered the tension in the air, the sudden silence, the way the wind had shifted.
And then came him.
Seren.
He didn't walk—he drifted. His steps made no sound, as if the world yielded to his calm. His presence was like a blade across the sky—elegant, merciless.
The orphan remembered how he had watched—wide-eyed, bloody, frozen—while Seren dismantled the group with terrifying grace. Bones snapped like twigs, teeth scattered like glass beads. Seren didn't shout. He didn't taunt. He moved like water—still, but with devastating depth.
And when it was over, he hadn't even looked at the orphan. Not really. He had only said one thing:
"Grow stronger."
---
Tonight, beneath a flickering lamppost, the orphan found him again.
Seren stood with his hands in his pockets, back straight, eyes distant. It was as if the world bent around him without touching him. The orphan stepped forward, limping, fists clenched.
"I remember you," he said, voice hoarse. "I need to get stronger."
Seren didn't turn.
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to kneel anymore."
A pause. Then, finally, Seren looked at him.
"No one will help you," Seren said. "Not truly. Not without taking something from you. Even me."
"I don't care," the orphan replied. "Use me. Break me. Just teach me."
A smile flickered at Seren's lips—brief, almost invisible.
"Then bleed."
---
Training wasn't a routine. It was war.
Seren threw him into it without preparation. There were no soft beginnings. Just endless sprints across crumbling rooftops, push-ups on broken glass, dives into rivers at midnight. Seren would appear, vanish, strike when the orphan least expected it. Every time he fell, Seren watched.
Sometimes, the shadow spoke too.
"He's not teaching you to fight," it whispered. "He's teaching you to survive the impossible."
And slowly—achingly—he did.
His bruises healed faster. His vision sharpened. His footsteps grew quieter. He could sense things before they happened—the flick of Seren's foot, the tension in the air. Pain became a language. Silence became home.
---
One night, after collapsing near an abandoned train track, he closed his eyes and whispered:
"Shadow. You said you were a mirror. What does that mean?"
The voice answered instantly.
"You were born in the dark. Raised in silence. You never begged. That's rare. And I... I am that will. That fury kept locked in your spine. I'm no demon. I'm your proof."
"Proof of what?"
"That nothing can drown a star that learned to shine in mud."
---
He began to see Seren differently now.
Not just a savior. But a warning. This world had rules. Seren had broken them. And so could he. But there would be a price.
The shadow stirred more often now.
It took form behind his eyelids—massive, beastlike. Horned and winged. But only inside his thoughts. He couldn't summon it. Not yet.
Still, it watched. It waited. Like a loyal predator.
"When you're ready," it whispered, "I will rise with you. Until then, I am your hunger. I am your leash."
---
The orphan trained. Fought. Bled. But he also listened.
To Seren's silence. To the rhythm of the wind. To the aching whispers of his own limbs, begging him to stop.
But he never did.
And one day, Seren handed him a dull black stone.
"Name yourself," Seren said. "Names are power. You earn them. You carve them."
The boy looked at the stone. He looked at his bruised fists. He looked at the beast inside his mind.
He still wasn't ready.
So he said nothing.
Not yet.
But the world would hear his name soon.
And it would tremble.
---