KINTSUkuroi
[Prologue II] - Trigger

February 2001

A short kid was crying. His long, curly, black hair was now covered with brownish dirt, as were his face, his clothes and the rest of his body. He was surrounded by four other kids, all taller than him. They laughed at him as they watched him struggle to get up, mocking him before pushing him back down to the ground. The short kid didn't try to defend himself, nor did he try to fight back. This made the aggressors angry, and so they continued to attack the unfortunate child. Their parents were quite a few metres away to clearly see what was happening anyway, and at any rate they didn't seem to care all that much, honestly, but what was more distressing was the fact that the short boy's family never showed up, either.

However, the short kid seemed... indolent. From his expression one wouldn't be able to tell whether he felt no pain, or he did but couldn't bring himself to care in the slightest.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" a loud voice startled the attackers as a girl with long, straight, black hair and amaranth red eyes ran towards the group from the left, getting in between the them and the bruised boy on the ground.

The girl was slightly taller than the other boys, and quite a bit taller than the short male she was now shielding with her body.

"Are you alright?" her voice came out and addressed the curly-haired male, who was having a hard time making sense of what was happening. "Why are you hurting this poor boy!?" the female demanded an explanation.

"Who are you!? His girlfriend!?" one of the attackers mocked her. "What's wrong, coward!? Need a girl to fight your battles for you!?" another taunted the boy.

"Ciel! What's going on here?" an adult female was seen running towards the girl. She had long, straight, black hair like the girl's, as well as the same red eyes as her. Her figure was slender and shapely, and she was wearing a beige blouse in addition to a tight, black, thigh-high skirt. The sight of her caused the boys to leave the place in a rather hurriedly manner. It was only when she caught up with the girl she had addressed as Ciel that she saw the boy lying on the ground.

"Those kids were attacking him so I stepped in to stop them." Ciel explained.

The woman looked at the boy for a moment before speaking.

"You're injured. Where are your parents? You need to see a doctor." the woman's voice came out of her mouth. It had a warm, caring ring to it that made the kid feel relatively at ease around the two strangers.

His reply to the woman's question never came, or rather, one could say that it came in the form of heavy silence.

The woman seemed to understand the situation to some degree as she crouched down to the kid's height.

"Listen, we'll take you to a doctor. You need to have your wounds tended to. We'll also contact your legal guardians. Surely someone must be looking after you." she proposed.

The boy simply replied by shaking his head. This made the woman wonder how he had managed to survive in such harsh conditions, but she could tell he didn't want to talk about it so she decided not to ask any further.

"Don't worry, we'll make sure you have your wounds treated. Everything will be alright." she smiled at him before picking him up.

The tall woman examined her surroundings. "Hmmm... Where can we replace someone to ask for some directions? A police officer would be ideal..." she muttered.

"Mom! Look, there!" Ciel's voice grabbed her mother's attention. As luck would have it, a policewoman was patrolling the park to prevent the occasional acts of vandalism when she saw the troubled female carrying the curly-haired boy in her arms.

"Excuse me, officer. I was wondering whether you'd be able to tell me where to replace a hospital. My daughter found this kid laying on the ground. He has some bruises due to some children bullying him. We wanted to make sure he had his wounds treated. Apparently he has no legal guardians to take care of him.", Savan explained.

"I see. This is most troubling. It pains me to say it, but social services aren't exactly quick to act in these kind of cases. Still, it's obvious that the child urgently needs someone to look after him. Well, first things first: let's take him to the hospital. I'll also need you to sign in a document with your testimony of this situation." the police officer commented, earning a nod from Savan.

"About his legal guardianship —Savan addressed the topic—... We are planning to stay here for a while. Would it be possible for me to temporarily look after him whilst the social services replace him an orphanage home?" the regent of the Giants inquired.

"Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't be possible until a long process of verification has taken place, but we're really hard-pressed into taking immediate action. We cannot shelter him at the police department, and no orphanage home would take him in for quite some time. He'd be better off in your care than otherwise. That said, we will need to verify your residence during your stay here and your own circumstances before granting you provisory legal guardianship over the boy." the police officer explained.

"That is understandable. I will cooperate in whatever you need." Savan assured her.

"I really appreciate it. You're a lifesaver."

By the time the bureaucracy was dealt with, an hour had gone by. Having the police officer explain the boy's circumstances did bring some much-needed clarity to the issue. Thankfully the boy's wounds were shallow and they meant no serious threat whatsoever. In reality it was little more than a scraped knee and elbow, but the woman was troubled by his total lack of expression. Whatever he had gone through, she dared guess, was something that would scar him for life.

The boy walked out of the doctor's room, followed by the doctor who offered him her warmest smile in an attempt to help him ease into her a little bit. Band aids on his knee and elbow and there was little more to it than that, really. However, when she saw the woman waiting for him, the doctor's expression changed to a more serious one. She handed Ciel's mother a slip of paper with something written in it. The note read:

"0962-49-2180. Please call me ASAP, and please be discrete. Thanks, Dr. Emilia Asbal."

The woman quickly slipped the piece of paper into her pocket before smiling at the two kids. She nodded at the doctor before leaving.

About half an hour later, the three had made it back to the hotel room Savan had rented for her and Ciel's stay in the Human part of the world. She certainly wasn't expecting to have a third person stay with them, especially in this situation, but she knew looking after him for a while was the only thing to do.

"So, what's your name? You probably heard mine from mom, but if you didn't, I'm Ciel!" the girl smiled happily.

"U-Um... I-I'm Nicolas..." the boy replied in a much softer voice.

"That's such a cool name, hehe! I like it a lot!" Ciel complimented cheerfully.

The woman smiled at the two kids before taking out her phone and dialling the a series of numbers:

0962-49-2180

"Hello?" the voice on the other side spoke.

"Dr. Asbal? This is Savan Surelle speaking. You asked me to call you earlier today." Savan spoke in a low voice so as not to risk the kids overhearing.

"Ah, yes. Thank you for speaking with me. There's a very important issue I wish to discuss with you."

The words Dr. Asbal spoke left Savan with a bitter taste in her mouth. She could tell what she was about to hear from the doctor wouldn't be pleasant.

"As a health professional with a focus on neuroscience, I am very much concerned about some signs Nicolas showed. He has an unsolved trauma regarding his family. I tried to subtly fish for some hints that might help me figure out what might have happened, and whilst I cannot fully assure this may have been the case, connecting the dots led me to believe that his parents may have been killed in front of him."

Savan gasped loudly. She had considered that possibility, but even so, the fact that it was now a very possible reason behind his trauma made her comprehend the full weight of what was happening.

"What makes you think that?" Savan asked, wanting to be very cautious about such a sensitive issue.

"Like I said, I can't be fully sure. However, the signs are visible: when I asked about his parents, he looked away and stayed silent. I asked him to draw his family, which he did, but then he violently crossed out his parents. In both situations, his body would tremble notoriously, especially his hands." the doctor explained.

"I see. We should contact the police. Surely they'll be able to relocate him in an orphanage home or something." Savan suggested.

"That may be possible but..." Dr. Asbal trailed off.

"But?"

"I have a strong feeling that he would not last in such a place. From what I've seen, it would seem he's chosen not to externalise his feelings under any circumstances. This is a rather common strategy bullied children devise in an attempt to protect themselves, though I must admit it's the first time I've seen such an extreme case." the doctor explained.

"But you're a psychologist, are you not? Surely you can get him to show his feelings to others. Keeping his emotions bottled up for so long can't be good for his mental health." Savan stated, wanting to replace a way to help the young boy.

"It's not that easy. I can certainly apply tactics to make it happen, but-" Emilia spoke, but she was cut off by Ciel's voice calling out to Savan.

"Mom! Mom!" Ciel called out.

"Just a minute, hun." Savan replied.

"But... It's Nicolas!" Ciel insisted.

"What about him? Is he alright?" Savan inquired

"I don't know... he's..." Ciel trailed off.

"He's what, hun?"

"... He's crying."