"I know you're young, so the way you move isn't how normal people your age would move. Not even novice fighters can move like you do." Tsugi just gave him a confused look. "Only people who have been through something traumatic, will react the way you do at the sound of a twig breaking."

"Oh."

Lugo waited for more, but nothing else came out. "Oh? That's it? That's all you have for me, is 'oh'?"

"What did you expect me to say?"

"I don't know, some sort of explanation."

"I don't like to talk about myself."

"Really?" Lugo exaggerated sarcastically. "I never noticed!" He chuckled. Tsugi just rolled his eyes.

"How do you know the difference?"

"What do you mean?" Lugo gave Tsugi a confused look.

"I mean, how are you able to tell the difference between someone normal and someone that's...not normal?"

"By their reaction to certain situations. It's the same thing as practicing sword fighting. After practicing for so long, your muscles have that automatic reflex and moves on its own. If I were to swing a stick to a skilled fighter, they respond by moving, blocking, attacking or all three. If I were to swing a stick to someone who's never practiced anything along those lines, they would most likely get smacked with it."

"When someone has that feeling of 'danger is coming', they go into a 'fight or flight' response. So most people who aren't good at fighting during dangerous times, would most likely run. For you..." Lugo glanced down at Tsugi, "...your body goes into fight mode, hence your fast reflexes of drawing your knife." Lugo bent down and picked up a stone on the ground and proceeded to toss it in the air and catch it.

"Well," Tsugi replied scratching his head, "that's just a survival instinct."

"Yes, but your responses to situations are to the extreme." Lugo continued. "Even for most knights who see battles and fight monsters, when they hear a twig break, they will turn to see what it is, but they aren't going to draw their weapon at every single noise. Whereas 'you' are almost always on edge. Almost every movement or noise makes you respond."

Lugo sneakily hurls the stone behind him as it taped the wall next to Tsugi. In a flash, Tsugi opens his palms and turns around. Little bit of black smoke started to form in his hands, until he saw the stone rolling away and realized what had happened. He quickly shook the smoke away before Lugo could notice.

"See?" Lugo said from behind him and continued walking. Tsugi took a deep breath to calm his nerves before taking another step.

"Don't kill this idiot, don't kill this idiot." Tsugi muttered under his breath as he walked to catch up to Lugo.

"What?" Lugo turned to him. "Did you say something?"

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"Uh..." Tsugi cleared his throat. "Like I said, it's a survival instinct. Isn't that a good thing?"

"Yes, but..." Lugo sighed in frustration and combed his fingers through his hair. "Okay, you seem to have a good understanding of animals so let me explain it this way. If a dog approaches, let's say a human, and the human takes care of it and feeds it, the dog then learns to trust humans." Tsugi nods in affirmation.

"Then a different scenario with the same dog. Let's say the human takes the dog and feeds it, but every time before it gets fed, the human kicks it." Lugo swung his leg in a kicking motion.

Still walking, Tsugi clenched his fists and closed his eyes. Ruzo licks and nudges at Tsugi's hand and lets out a small high pitch whine. Tsugi shook a memory of his father out of his mind and patted Ruzo on the head.

"During the first few times," Lugo continues, "the dog is confused and doesn't understand why it's getting kicked. But, after a while, the dog then learns that when the human approaches, it will get kicked. It responds by flinching and or bearing its teeth to fight back."

Tsugi's heartbeat was picking up pace. Ruzo noticed and began to nudge Tsugi's hand again, in an attempt to calm him. Tsugi felt the cold wet nose touch his hand and he snapped out of his thoughts. He continued to pat Ruzo on his head to thank him and continued to listen intently to Lugo explain.

"If that dog gets approached by other humans, no matter if they were just walking by or not, it proceeds to show the same behavior by flinching and or bearing it's teeth. It no longer trusts humans, and thinks it will get kicked every time. That's you." Lugo looked down at Tsugi. "That's you responding to every little noise or movement."

Nightmares quickly rushed through Tsugi's mind. He stopped in his tracks, clenched his eyes and his fists tight.

Beatings flashed.

‘Stop.’ He told his memories.

Thunderstorms brewing.

‘Stop.’

Faces flashed in his head.

‘Stop....STOP!’

"STOP!!!" Tsugi ended up screaming at the top of his lungs, and opened his eyes. He had come back to the present time. They both had stopped in their tracks with Lugo staring at him with wide eyes. Ruzo whined, licking Tsugi's hands and fervently rubbing his head and body on Tsugi like a cat. Tsugi closed his eyes again and took a deep shaky breath, trying to lock his memories back up. "I'm...I'm sorry."

"No worries. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stir up anything." Lugo started slowly walking again.

"I..."

"Nope." Lugo cut him off. "You don't need to explain or say anything." He calmly walked forward. Tsugi's heart felt a little lighter. "I will no longer probe about your past. If you want to talk about it, or anything at all, I will always be here and I will always lend an ear to listen. Just know, I will never judge you and I will never hold anything against you or think differently of you. I just don't want you to feel like you 'have' to explain it right now, when you aren't ready to."

Tsugi stopped and stared at the silver haired boy walking away. He has never had anyone like that. A new feeling had developed from within his chest that he didn't quite understand. It was similar to when they were by the lake, and he didn't know what to make of it. A genuine smile had appeared on his face for the first time in a long time and for some reason tears filled his eyes and blurred his vision before rolling down his cheek.

Confused, he lightly tapped the middle of his chest with his finger, as if trying to soothe the feeling away. He wiped the tears away and caught up to Lugo.

"So what do you do at the orphanage?" Lugo asked.

"Train."

"For what?"

"It's basically a school. We learn all kinds of things. If you could choose to do only one thing in the world, what would you want to do?"

"Hmm." Lugo pressed his lips together and tilted his head back. "I don't know, there's lots of things I want to do. I can't choose just one."

"Well, that's good. At the orphanage, the goal is to try to learn everything, but there are some who have special skills and if they choose to, they can just focus on one skill."

"Skill?"

"A talent. Some people have a talent for healing, or specific type of fighting skill, education or whatever skill it is. Everyone has one, they just have to find it."

"Do you have one?"

Tsugi stared at his hands before dropping them to his sides and continued to walk. "Yes."

"This is where I learned how to develop my skills." Tsugi pushed open the gate to the orphanage.