Chapter I

Bursting open the door and driving up the staircase to the king's quarters, Sao, carrying a limp Akuma, escapes from his past. Once entering the bedroom, Sao spins and thrusts the door shut, grabbing a chair and positioning it under the door handle; he then sits on the chair, with Akuma across his arms, and the insufficient amount of energy to contain his breath.

A tertiary breath becomes prominent within the room; tilting his eyesight upwards, Sao sees Rahat, one of Fajr's underlings. 'Rahat was it? Can you stand over on the left side of the room?'

'Ok, why?'

'Because I don't want to waste my energy looking at you.'

'Look, I'm sorry, I was just carrying out my-'

'I don't want to hear it! Because of you and your little make-believe gang, lives were lost, most of which were innocent. Look at this child, look at his arm, the "justice" your group imposed on this boy. I understand wanting to make a change, but you stepped across a line no one should cross.���

'What would that "line" be?'

'Taking a life you can't repay!'

'That means nothing coming from you. You've killed, I can see it in your eyes. They hate everything.'

Sao opens his mouth in retort but cannot pressure the words out, his tongue pausing his thought. Once his spite subsides, he stands from the chair and marches towards the king-sized bed, laying Akuma on its sinking mattress and royal red velvet. Grabbing one of the gold-flowered curtains, he rips off a strip, wrapping it around the pipe of blood and flesh existing as Akuma's right arm. The blood stopped staining the sheets, but it would not stop its rampage; from gold to rose gold, from dandelions to roses; Akuma's treatment is urgent, nothing less.

A mild breeze whisks past Sao's face, blowing the torn bed curtains into a flowing cape. Irritated, Sao storms to the window and slams it shut, then, switching his attention to a writing desk opposite the head of the bed. On it sat a diary, a light noble blue that stood out against the dark oak wood table. A feathered pen in a pot of ink slept in the far back right corner of the desk amongst large stacks of books about land management, accountancy, public speaking, and etiquette for royals. Flicking through the pages of the diary show a long dialogue of its user; near completion, the diary remains forever incomplete, its goal endlessly a pen away.

'What is that?' Rahat asks, peering across Sao's shoulders, not quite tall enough to look over them. 'The King's diary or something?'

'So, you burn him and his daughter on stakes and then call him "King"? What a great subject you are.'

'Like I said, I was just carrying out my duty. I wore a mask for a reason, you know. Fajr was the only one serious about the rebellion, it's just…'

'Well, it's just what?'

'Fajr had a way with words that made even the brightest points in your life look glum and controlled. I never agreed completely with her, I only wanted something that made me feel complete. My family grew up in this town, some unknown farmers on the outskirts. As you could probably tell, agriculture wasn't the easiest business to start in a desert, but someone had to do it; the town had been in the middle of a three-year famine when my father was born, he swore to never let that happen again. And yet, determination got him nowhere, his younger brother starved and his father, my grandfather, died to a heat stroke. My mother was slightly more well off, but only enough to buy some dirt and crop seeds to start the local farm. Day in, day out, my father would tend the farm, my mother caring for eight kids: me, the youngest, my two brothers Ata and Diya, and my five sisters Bisma, Chaka, Eisa, Fizza, and Giza. Being the youngest made life hell, not just because I was the youngest, but because I wasn't a planned birth. I was a twin, with Giza, but as Giza was the first born, I was deemed the spare. Being the spare, I needed to make sure I worked more than anyone. My name, Rahat, wasn't the one my parents gave me; I received my name from myself, I named myself the person I wanted to be and would travel into the town centre, working jobs everywhere: in the butchers, at the mine, everywhere, even the inn. It was from working at the inn that Fajr could hold her meetings there – I got a discount for her.

'When I reached the age of thirteen, my father fell ill and bedridden. With him not being able to tend the farm, my family was removed from our home, unable to pay the rent. Forget rent: food, water, all the things we had plenty were now luxuries to us.

'We lived like that for another two years, I think – my memory gets hazy thinking back then. Ata, Bisma, Chaka, and Eisa had all found families of their own in different parts of the world. Ata probably went to Gullhvit, the hard-working was just like him, just like father; I can see Bisma and Chaka somewhere by Lacus Dei, both were so similar, always going out into town, joining the festivals – dancing, dancing was there favourite past-time; Eisa has definitely gone to Plutus, I know because mother sent her there.

'Another year and Diya was in jail for pickpocketing, Fizza had gotten ill – as well as Mother – and Giza was taken by another family. I was living along the street, box roof, box bed; that was my life until I met Fajr last year on the third day of the third month, just past one O'clock. I was walking out of the inn during my lunch break where I bumped into her. She was carrying a pale of water, which left a dark patch on the sand below as we both fell to the ground. I expected to get beaten, as had been done to me before by people I knew and cared for more than she thought of me; maybe a shouting at, even a stare would've been letting me go lightly, but no. I will never forget her smile, her consoling smile. Smiles were rare enough in town, let alone a pure one, but there it was: a real smile.

'She invited me to walk with her into town; I accepted, with me having another fifty minutes left of my break. It was on this walk she told me about her plans. Her husband had recently left her after being fired from his job as the mine supervisor. He was fired over a joke apparently, caught at the wrong time; leaving her with their only son, Fajr was forced to give her son away. The story she told me was that the police took her child away one morning as they were sleeping in box – not so differently from me – stating it wasn't a suitable environment for a child. She swore that she would see her son again, but that she couldn't do that with the town as it was; she put the responsibility on her shoulders to fix the mess, and never, not once while I worked with her, did she put any blame on the other members.

'Speaking of which, I wasn't the first of Fajr's recruits; once I joined, Asif, Naaji, and Sabri were all there, the others joined not long after.

'Anyway – I've gone off track – I didn't mean harm, I just got swept up in ideals. I'm not asking you to forgive me, I just wanted to give you some context before you made your judgement.'

'How sad, for someone who went through all that to resort to slaughtering half the people in your town. Town? You can hardly call what you left a town. I won't pretend that I view you any differently. I don't care about your past; if you want to get into my good books change and start repaying those you've killed. That should give you some purpose to fulfil.'

'Do you have a purpose to fulfil, Sao?'

Sao glances back to Rahat, then returns to the diary, 'Maybe reading this will clear something up about all this. First a mishandled town, then a riot and purge, to an extermination crew. He must have known something about this. While I read this, Rahat…'

'Yes, Sao.'

'…Keep an eye on Akuma. If his health turns for the worst, I want you to tell me then go and look for some medicine. It's a palace, if there's medicine anywhere in this town it's here.'

'Okay, you can count on me.'

Sao flips the cover and exhales a short breath, 'Don't think I trust you just yet.'