Work Text:
Much of life was filled with a fog. There were blaring sounds and lights that were bleary upon inspection in any way going from one transition to another, navigating the world as a being that always struggled to understand nuance. To the child's comprehension, the rules were simple: If something was needed, it was taken, violence was met with violence, and anything that was taken was owned.
It befuddled the mind to understand why anyone would be upset at the loss of anything. Food for one. Rags another example. Insignificant, really. Why would anyone care? Then, of course, it was the mentality of the child to take but not give. Why give? Why share? Why bother? The world was a smear of frames that was bound together in perpetual motion until everything stopped all at once. All for One.
The grey world only gained any sort of grainy focus when the nameless would consume others of their power. Avarice was etched in his soul. It burned beneath the skin, craving, yearning, wanting, but never sated and hunger for more was beyond comprehension, even to himself.
Hunger was all he knew and while rags were what clothed him, his first gift had more palatable attire. The one thing that was given to him and not something he stole. His greatest treasure to care for and nurture. Protect. Own. It was his from the beginning. As fate would bestow him with this gift, it was only fitting to honor the present with a title befitting its purpose: Yoichi.
This was before he bestowed himself with any sort of moniker. A nameless orphan with only the company of his first gift. He finally decided on the name “Zen” to label his own being, marking his existence in the world, no longer a nameless and unknown. It was him and his gift. That was all he understood with absolute clarity.
His gift anchored him. It was the one steady certainty he loved in the madness that was surviving the prejudice destruction that engulfed them. So when his gift was taken, it spurned him deeply. Why? A ghastly, greedy being took the gift as his own. A cardinal sin. The effort to restore proper ownership resulted in its destruction with only a hand to mark its memory. Part of him died that day with his gift but the lingering hope of its light being passed on remained to gain some semblance of it back. A key to anchor him in his loneliness. Yoichi would continue to be, in a way, and Yoichi would once again be returned to its proper owner. He swore this to himself.
All for One. One for All.