1569 A.D.
In his eyes reflected the sky. It wasn't a sky that was clear, it wasn't a sky where people could call blue. It was a sky covered with clouds, an overcast that blanketed the lands.
The farmers nearby rejoiced at the gift of rain. Women complained and hurriedly kept their laundry. Children sat by the small windows to await the ritual of Sharyu Zuku to begin. People hastened their footsteps to avoid getting their sandals wet.
And yet, Katachi sat there, motionless.
K : (The sky is vast...)
His face twisted, expressing a deep longing. No matter how much he had yearned it, that was not something people could just get.
K : (Can I fly in it, away from here...?)
He stretched his left hand up towards the sky, and clasped it gently. A small bird flew past, and his eyes followed.
How badly he wished he could fly freely, like the bird.
If given the opportunity, he would have given everything he had in order to escape this place.
Alas, what the mind wants was what the body could not get. Giving up, he relaxed his left arm and it landed onto the soft grass and soil with a thud.
"Katachi! Be a good boy and help me keep the laundry, will you?"
A familiar voice called out to him, a little hasty and rushed.
K : "Yes, Mother Rin!"
Shifting his weight between both legs, he slowly stretched them and stood up. Katachi brushed off a few stalks of grass and dirt attached to his cloth shirt and headed towards her.
*** ***
Before he even began to remember things, Katachi was abandoned by his parents.
The reason, the cause was unknown, and as much as the young 9-year old wished to find his real parents, he knew he couldn't. What was a young, 9 year old supposed to do, when nobody was even willing to give him the slightest of clue?
All he knew was that when he was found, a wooden tablet with "Kotsuba Katachi" carved on it was tied to his anklet. He knew nothing else regarding his parents.
Mother Rin was a kind soul who found him crying on a soft patch of grass at the outskirts of the town. Nursing and raising him as her own, she soon had a second mouth to feed at home, but that was not a problem for the formidable nun.
The townsfolk, however, did not take his arrival with equal cordiality.
Adults branded him as a bastard child. Children hurled rocks and nasty insults at him because their parents said it was fine to. The only ones who haven't ill-treated him were the elderly whom he had been nice to, and Mother Rin herself.
Katachi's childhood was littered with horrible memories; So many of them, that he would rather not recall any if it were possible.
His only happy memories were of those he enjoyed with Mother Rin, and when he was alone, usually in the library or open in the fields, or in that one spot near a field where he could admire the carefree children from afar, in morbid silence.
And yet, Mother Rin insisted that he should be kind to others.
R : "Listen very carefully, Katachi. There are two things I have to tell you."
The first time he came back crying at the age of four, Mother Rin comforted him.
R : "First, you have to know, Katachi. I love you a lot, I really do, but I am not actually your mother. I am not the mother that gave birth to you. You were just outside the town, lying in a patch of grass near a field of medicinal herbs. Your parents may be dead and they may have gave their lives to make sure you were safe."
That was bound to break a child's heart, under normal circumstances. But what's broken can't be broken any further.
R : "But don't worry, Katachi, Mother Rin is here for you. Come here~"
Katachi remembered the warmth of Mother Rin's bosom and arms clearly when she hugged him after saying that. It was a cozy, comforting, accepting warmth that made him relax and feel that he was loved. His urge to cry was suppressed immediately, and he reciprocated Mother Rin's motherly snuggle.
R : "That was the first thing you need to know. Mother Rin may not have given birth to you, but Mother Rin wants to be able to love you like how your mother would have wanted to. Is that okay?"
Nodding his head gently, Katachi remembered a flashback where one of the adults in town on the pillory accepted all of the bad words and insults without flinching.
R : "The second thing I want to tell you is also really important. Are you ready?"
With that one adult as his model, he mimicked the man with much effort, took a deep breath and exhaled, gearing himself to accept anything.
R : "You have to treat others with kindness, Katachi. Even though they may be bad, even though they may hurl bad words and rocks at you, you still have to be kind to them. They are immature right now and are doing foolish things in a moment of folly, but you have to bear with it and reply with kindness. There will come a day where they themselves, just like you, will turn into adults and regret doing those things."
Mother Rin's love and guidance, and the townsfolk's behaviour towards him forced Katachi to mature at an abnormally fast rate; When compared to other children and even the adolescents, he was perhaps maturing too quickly, forming a rather large anomaly.
Yet, as much as Mother Rin made sense with what she had said, he did not run towards her crying because he was bullied.
It had been for another reason - One not even she had expected.
*** ***
K : (This madness... No more shall it plague us. If I must give my life, I shall do so for Mother, whom has taken such great care of me.
Such that the ones to come after me would be free from it... Such that the people behind me suffer no more.)
*** ***
It was time for Katachi to step onto a new stage.
As he hit the rich age of 10, he was now old enough to enrol into one of the famous academies in the region - the Sage Raufid Magus Academy.
Packing his stuff, he prepared to set off almost immediately. Being the poor child he was, he had not much to carry with him, except the clothes on his back and some documents to certify his identity as a student.
R : "Be sure to sleep well, eat well, and grow up properly, okay, Katachi? You can always come back any time."
The nun looked back at him with tears in her eyes, as she held the wrists of the young boy gently. She was clearly saddened by his departure, but it is impossible for change not to transpire.
K : "Yes, Mother Rin. I'll be sure to come back and visit every couple of moon cycles."
Katachi straightened the strap to that shoddy and flimsy thing he called a bag, and entered the riderless carriage dispatched by the school.
And with that, Katachi began his life on a new world stage.
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