Chapter Text
Atsushi Nakajima is three and a half years old, lying on the cold stone floor and chained to the wall by his ankle, starving and too weak to cry, when he says something to himself which he will later forget until many years after this:
"I want to be a tiger."
No one hears him say this.
No one, that is, except for her.
She is… new. Not yet fully formed. Not truly formed in any real way, actually, in all honesty. She is barely conscious, barely a concept, but…
She understands the words he speaks. She understands why he speaks them, what he wishes for.
And then, she has her first real thought:
I will be the tiger.