A couple of knocking sounds resounded and startled both of us as we were gazing at his reflection.

"Akir?" The slightly raspy voice of an old man came from the other side of the door.

"Yes?" he answered, trying to sound normal even though he had been crying just now.

"May I come in?" the old man asked.

"What for?" he asked, unnerved by the consequences of being seen in such a state.

"We need to talk about your monthly test results," the old man answered.

"Ah," he let out in panic, and soon after, the door on our right opened.

'This scene seems familiar.' I thought.

In walked an old man with slicked-back black hair with some gray mixed in. The man was wearing a perfectly fitting black suit that gave him an air of sophistication.

The old man sauntered elegantly to us and handed a stack of papers with red outlines into the hands of the boy.

"Your test results have not only gotten worse, but they have done so by a wide margin. Your father and I know you have the potential for more, though. We believe it's just a matter of the effort you're putting in," the old man said as he walked even closer to us.

The boy's eyes looked through the paper, and his vision started to get blurry.

"But... I have done my best. This is everything I have. It's just that the standard is raised too quickly. No one could keep up with it." he started explaining, getting his words out as fast as he could, making his speech turn almost indecipherable.

"Oh, but someone has kept up with it. Thus, you are to do so as well. It's your father's wish."

"Huh? No..."

"Don't worry. I know you can do it. You just need some motivation and discipline."

"I—"

"Me and your father came up with some solutions for that. It's for your best."

Before the boy could say anything more, the old man grabbed the back of his neck with unprecedented force.

"Ahh, wait, stop." He struggled but couldn't do anything about the old man's solid grip.

"You need more focus and more determination. You are just a project. Don't think that the master's mind is clouded by emotions. He is far beyond showing mercy just because you are his son," the old man once again repeated a speech that the boy had already memorized every word of.

I just watched it happen. I didn't feel angry. If anything, I felt amused. He just couldn't accept his fate, could he? He just kept struggling and yelling like it was going to change something.

After a while, me, him and the butler arrived before a metal door. The old man opened the door with his left hand and threw us in. I couldn't feel anything, but I assumed that it was cold in the room since it didn't take long before he went to sit against the wall, curled up, and started shivering.

In the cold, seconds passed like minutes; the minutes felt like hours, and the hours went as slowly as days.

"Die, just die." He mumbled. "Die, die, die, die, die..." He continued.

Then, shortly after, his breathing quickened, and he started weeping.

'This is kind of boring.' I thought as I witnessed the frail child weeping uncontrollably.

Such simple actions could prevent all this, but he was just too incompetent to learn simple things.

"No. That's not..." he started talking.

'Oh, so now he's talking to himself. Great!' I thought. 'Hey, voice, this is pointless. Can we just skip to the next scene?' I thought, but didn't get a response.

***

'A couple of hours have already passed. It should be about time,' I thought, and shortly after, the large door opened with a loud creek.

"It's time," the old man informed him, gesturing for him to return to his room.

He stood up slowly and sniffed a little as he walked out of the cold room with his head down. I observed the red carpet with symbols on it as he was walking back into his room. After we arrived in his room, he went straight into bed, covered his face with a pillow, and started crying again.

It was a truly frustrating sight.

If I could give him advice, it would go along the lines of, "Break the pattern today or the loop will repeat tomorrow.".

"Shut up," he said as if he had heard me, and again I felt my consciousness being sucked inside itself.

***

Again, I found myself studying in my room, but this time the boy wasn't crying. Instead, his pen moved at a fast pace.

It was peaceful, but my body seemed to be completely exhausted.

He was blinking a lot and on the verge of falling asleep, but then the door to the room was flung open.

He almost fell off the chair in shock.

The servants always knocked, but this time there was no knock.

It was him!

The man walking aggressively towards me was a 30-year-old man with a fairly large frame and dark gray eyes that were hard to see because his black hair that covered his forehead got in the way.

The boy unconsciously stood up and tried to look confident, but as the man got closer, he shrank back into a small, cowardly child.

"What is this?!" the man yelled and smacked the stack of papers with red outlines he had in his hand onto the table. "Do you have any idea of how much time I have invested in you? Only for you to be a failure!"

"But, but I met the standard," the boy pointed at the papers and said, his voice shivering.

"Yes, barely, but that's not enough!

"Ah... I—" The boy was trying to articulate an answer when a large and extremely hard fist hit the left side of his face.

He fell to the floor, barely managing to keep my eyes open.

"Master!" the old man yelled as he rushed into the room. "Oh, no. Akir!" the old man yelled, but his father put an arm up to prevent him from reaching me.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Leave him. He's no longer your responsibility."

"But—" the old man insisted.

"You heard me."

"What about the project?"

"It ends here. This project is a failure. His improvements aren't rapid enough," my father said.

"Have you forgotten about all the potential he has shown?" the old man pleaded.

"It is clear now that I was wrong. Such potential does not exist," his father answered indifferently as he gazed at the boy in disgust.

"Then what are we going to do to Akir?" the old man asked, as he looked at his sorry figure."

The boy had managed to stay conscious this far, but couldn't move and barely heard what they were saying.

"Send him to—" his father was saying, but then the boy's eyes closed, and I could no longer follow the scene.

***

A few days went by, and he found himself in a facility that was far from society. His room was only large enough to fit a bed and a table.

He had sunk into a deep depression and just slept all the time. The facility was hell. All freedom was taken away, and endless tasks were given to replace it. Well, he deserved this. He could have prevented this by simply being better, but he was unable to. Well, there was no happy future for him in any case. If he had stayed there, he would have just spent my life as his father's project.

Actually, there was a chance of him living a happy life, but it was ripped away when his mother decided to sell him to his father.

Even though he was born as a human, he was treated and sold like an object. But now he was such a broken object that his value had sunk to the negative. The owner now had to pay others to take care of him. He was a castaway with no one. All that remained for him was this place. That was his life. No purpose, just suffering and loneliness.

The days in the facility passed, and the boy sank lower and lower. A weak little boy with no social abilities was inevitably going to be the victim of groups. No particular reason was needed. The facility was a place for unwanted children of the rich. Such unwanted human beings were bound to be rotten to the core and take their unpleasant emotions out on others. And the boy just happened to be the easiest target.

Then a special day came.

The boy had had the habit of talking to himself, but until that day nobody had answered. The discovery of another person that day was the best thing ever.

For a while, the boy's loneliness was cured.

One side asked, and the other responded. One side joked, and the other laughed. However, as time passed, the other started to speak in ways the boy couldn't comprehend, about things he couldn't grasp, and in such a manner that scared him.

He started to ignore the voice, but even his best efforts were null in the face of that horrible side of himself he had cultivated and let breathe as a part of himself. In the end, he wished the thing had just died. Something so horrible never should've been born in the first place. Such an atrocity had to be destroyed.

But he was much too weak to do anything about it. It grew from just a small little part in the depths of my brain into a monstrosity that threatened to overtake everything. That part of him could no longer be suppressed, and it yearned for power. Its will far surpassed the boy's, and it was ready to do anything. It talked about all the horrible things it would do when the boy was powerless to stop it. And on one particularly bad day, it finally happened.

The boy woke up to the numb sensation of being trapped in your own body, which I had once felt.

That was the day of my true birth.

***

I started fighting back.

It was rough at first. It took me time to learn the correct techniques and even more time to learn how they were to be implemented in action.

I started to destroy people, and I liked it.

I imagined the boy sinking deeper into the abyss every time he saw such a thing. It was best for him to get comfortable there since it was the place he was bound to float in for the rest of my life. He probably liked it that way, too. It was for the best. He could rest everything in my hands and abandon the world that always seemed to hate him, in any case.

That was my gift for him.

Eventually, the increase in my combat proficiency was noticed by everyone, and as a result, my opposition grew. Before I knew it, I had to fight tens of people all alone.

That was when I discovered something outside physical force.

The discovery that if you rip out one of their eyes, the rest become less willing to challenge you. Under high stakes, humans weren't able to function logically. They defaulted to instinct.

It was a discovery that cost me months in isolation with rations so small that I felt like I was going to die from starvation at any second. I never once regretted it, though, because that discovery led to more and more discoveries.

And at the end of that tunnel, there was an orchestrated display of pure chaos that let me taste freedom for the first time in my life.

The facility and the people in it were wiped from the face of the planet, but my freedom still wasn't complete. I needed money—lots of it. I could commit crimes, but that would lead to an even more risky life, and with my skills, I could make enough money to last a lifetime in maybe five years, so it wasn't necessary either.

I had no time for meaningless things like revenge. It was just a waste of time, and a search for me had most likely already begun, so it was best to keep a low profile.

Thus, my path was decided.