The boy's thoughts settled, and he quickly fell into a deep sleep.
This ti, he dread of his past. He saw flashes: the crack of a whip soaked in salt water, the hum of an electroshock prod, the scuttling of venomous insects. His hands and feet twitched in his sleep, his muscles clenching reflexively.
You can't know the unique agony of a water-soaked lash until you've felt it tear your skin.
You can't comprehend 500,000 volts until you've had it course through your body.
You can't understand the feeling of your guts churning in poison-fueled convulsions until you've been bitten.
From the age of three, as far back as his mory went, this was his daily training. It was Silva who had personally led him by the hand and thrown him into that personal hell, all under the guise of "building the foundation for a competent assassin."
And it was also Silva who, upon realizing Roy's "limited" talent, had gradually shifted his focus to Illumi, Milluki, and the other children yet to be born.
Roy had no comntary on this. It was the Zoldyck destiny, the crucible every child born into the family had to endure. It was simply a fact of his life.
But he was still a person. And as a person, Roy had always believed he had the right to choose his own path.
The first step is to escape their control.
"AWOOOO!" As dawn broke, Mike's howl echoed through the mountains, right on schedule.
Roy's eyes snapped open. He was back in his familiar bedroom.
Today, he allowed himself an extra minute in bed, savoring the mory of the previous night. The wild boar stew Kie had so carefully prepared... it had been delicious. On a whim, he ordered an extra side of bacon with his lunch.
After eating his fill, he picked up Snow-Walker. The morning's electric shock training was done. The afternoon was his own.
Roy changed into a comfortable, loose-fitting training gi and walked down the quiet, ancient corridors of the estate. Through a large arched window, he saw a corner of the gardens. A woman whose face was half-covered by a cybernetic visor was sitting with a small child, enjoying a leisurely afternoon tea.
The child was pale and extrely pudgy, his limbs resembling stacked sausages. He was wearing a frilly little hat and an ornate, doll-like dress with knee-high socks and buckled leather shoes. At a glance, one would mistake him for a girl.
In reality, he was just another victim of his mother's peculiar tastes. Roy himself had narrowly escaped a similar fate as a child, but had put a violent end to it by tearing the clothes to shreds. To this day, his mother still looked at him with a thinly veiled resentnt, which suited Roy just fine. It ant she left him alone.
"Young Master Milluki, you mustn't eat that!"
The pudgy child had caught a butterfly and was stuffing it into his mouth, giving a nearby butler a heart attack. The butler was too late. Half the butterfly was already gone, and the only way to retrieve it now would be to wait for it to co out the other end.
"Crunch, crunch..." Milluki chewed with relish, a fine layer of colorful powder dusting his lips.
At so point, he seed to notice the gaze from the corridor. He laboriously tilted his round head, his eyes trying to focus. Who's that?
"That is your elder brother, Young Master Roy," the butler supplied, noticing Roy by the window. He placed a hand over his chest and bowed respectfully.
Roy said nothing. He didn't want to interrupt Milluki's few remaining monts of childish bliss. His gaze lingered for only a second before he turned and continued towards the training hall. As for his mother, if she was pretending not to see him, why should he bother approaching her?
To her, he was just a "failed product," after all.
Roy gave a self-deprecating smirk, his hand resting on the hilt of Snow-Walker. He pushed open the heavy doors to the training hall.
Shing. The pure white blade seed to despise gri. As Roy drew it, it flashed with a cold, blue light, its razor edge seeming to cut the very dust motes dancing in the sunbeams.
Creeak... BOOM. The heavy doors closed.
The boy centered his breathing, his fingers tracing the length of the blade. He began to dance.
"Sun Breathing—Dance."
"Sun Breathing—Blue Heaven."
"Sun Breathing—Raging Sun."
[Physique 0.05... 0.05... 0.05...]
At one point, the blade flashed. Snow-Walker left Roy's hand, flying like a silver dart across the room. A small, hidden surveillance cara in the corner let out a faint whine and went dark.
Simultaneously, in the master bedroom on the second floor, the monitor Silva was watching dissolved into a screen of static.
The man, who had been lounging on the tiger-skin sofa with a glass of red wine, didn't move. A slow, amused smile spread across his face. He wasn't angry. He simply gestured to the "injured" Tsubone, who was standing stiffly in the corner. She moved to turn the monitor off, but he waved his hand again, stopping her. Instead, he motioned towards the armory.
Monts later, Tsubone returned with a sheathed katana. Silva rose to his feet, taking the weapon in his hand. The mont he gripped the hilt, his entire presence shifted. He beca a predatory beast, radiating a raw, untamable power that was terrifying to behold.
Tsubone instinctively took two steps back, lting into the shadows to give him space. Her face was calm, but her mind was a whirlwind. The Master's interest in Roy had beco... excessive.
When did it start? she wondered. It had been ever since the boy had started performing this strange "dance."
FWOOSH! A blade of wind from a practice swing sliced past Tsubone's face, snapping her back to reality.
Silva had begun to move.
He held the sword with both hands, mimicking Roy's dance. The blade beca a living thing—slashing, thrusting, cleaving—all seamlessly integrated with the phantom-like movents of Shadow Step. For a mont, the entire room was filled with a storm of after-images and glinting steel.
When he executed the final form—"Dragon Sun Halo Dance"—the blade let out a sharp, resonant ring. Silva stopped, his feet planted, and exhaled a long, slow breath.
A low, deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. He narrowed his eyes, a profound understanding dawning on him.
"This is not a dance," he said, his voice quiet but absolute. "This is Budo."
Tsubone's eyes widened. Silva's words imdiately brought to mind one person: a certain old man with a spiky ponytail who was fond of playing with a ball. The strongest human alive, a grandmaster who had reached the pinnacle of martial arts through a daily ritual of ten thousand punches of gratitude.
What Silva had just felt was the essence of that pursuit. It was the spirit forged in the relentless quest to surpass one's own limits, to absorb the principles of the natural world, to revere life while accepting the cycle of death. And now, a glimr of that sa legendary essence had appeared here, in a training hall of assassins.
It was unthinkable.
"Take this," Silva said, tossing the katana to her. "Have it maintained."
Tsubone caught it chanically, her mind still reeling from the display. She glanced back at the static-filled monitor, where only monts before she had seen the boy's graceful, deadly form.
And a single sentence echoed in her mind.
"Are you not a dog as well?"
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