Chapter 2: Chapter One – Goals

Chapter One - Goals

The sun was setting over the island of Octo and its inhabitants started to go home. The island was poor, but the people made an honest living off of hunting and fishing. 

Standing atop a large rock a boy swung his sword repeatedly while balancing on one leg. The boy looked no older than 12, yet his bare body was covered in scars.

His right arm which he used to swing his sword was covered in black ink and his body was chiseled to perfection. His short hair was black on the left side and white on the right, while his silver eyes were as calm as the lake in front of him. 

“Atlas! Mother said dinner is ready.” 

Shouted the boy who ran out of the nearby house. Like Atlas, the boy on the rock. This one was also young around 12 years old. 

His appearance, however, differed from Atlas. The boy had brown hair and sky blue eyes which were filled with innocents. His body was devoid of scars or any injuries and he had a small stomach showing from his shirt. 

“Alright, Zenos.” 

Atlas let out a breath of foul air and jumped off of the rock. He landed gracefully and searched for his clothes. Despite training for over five hours, there was a bead of sweat anywhere on Atlas’ body showcasing his amazing stamina. 

Following Zenos into the cozy house made up of nearby logs, they both smelt a wonder fragrance coming from the dining room. Zenos immediately took off while salivating. Atlas rolled his eyes watching this and calmly took off his shoes before following. 

“Zenos! What did I tell you about running in the house with your muddy boots.” A young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes shouted.

“Teehee.” Zenos chuckled in response making both Atlas and the young woman sigh in disappointment. 

“Atlas you know better why didn’t you take them off before coming in? Now I have to clean again.”

Atlas frowned seeing that he had now joined the blame. “Miss Maria, it isn’t my fault Zenos is an idiot.” 

“Hey! I’m not an idiot I-I just forgot!” Zenos shouted back hearing the insult. He took off his shoes and stormed out of the dining room.

Miss Maria's shoulders slumped. “Atlas come on. Can’t you be a little nicer to Zenos? You know he’s only doing it for your attention.”

“Also, you can drop to honorifics.” She added before taking a seat at the dining table. “We’ve known each other for a long time now, I don’t even mind if you call me a mother like Zenos does.”

Atlas silently nodded, and they both waited for Zenos to come back before saying grace.

“O’ Mother of creation please bless this food I will eat with my family.”

After Maria said grace they started eating. As usual, Zenos snuck the food that he didn’t want onto Atlas’ plate while Maria pretend not to notice. 

When everyone almost finished their meals Zenos brought up a topic that surprised both Atlas and Maria. 

“I want to start training.”

The room was quiet for a moment. Maria turned to Atlas, and Atlas turned back to his plate and continued to eat in silence. 

Maria turned to Zenos and stated the truth. “I only know how to fish, if you want to start training you have to ask Atlas for help.”

Zenos turned to Atlas and gave his best puppy eyes to appeal to his cold-hearted brother.

Atlas snorted after feeling the stares of two people on him for so long. His impassive silver eyes stared directly into Zenos’ making the latter tremble.

“No,” Atlas stated firmly. “You’ll only give up halfway through like the last four times.”

Maria opened her mouth to say something, but Zenos beat her. “I won’t!” He shouted, before continuing in a moderate tone. “I won’t give u[ this time I promise. Please teach me.”

Atlas placed down his spoon and rested his head on his arm. He first glanced at Maria who was calmly observing the situation before turning back to the puppy-eyed Zenos.

“What is your goal?” Atlas asked after a few moments of silence. “Training without a goal no matter how small is useless. So, what is your goal? Give me a decent answer and I help you train.” 

Atlas stood up and took his plate along with Maria’s to the kitchen. He left Zenos, who hadn’t finished his food at the table contemplate. 

When Atlas came back, he was surprised to see that Zenos had an answer, but that soon turned to confusion once the words left Zenos’ mouth.

“Why do you train? What’s your goal?”

Atlas leaned his back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. For a brief moment, various emotions appeared in his silver eyes, the most prominent being sadness. However, when he looked back down they all disappeared like they were never there in the first place. 

“I have three goals.” To show his point he put out three fingers.

Lowering one he stated his first goal.

“The easiest of my goals, yet the most fundamental one is to get stronger.”

Zenos tilted his head. “Aren’t you stronger than all the villagers?” He asked. “How strong do you want to be?”

Atlas smirked revealing his pearly white teeth. “Strong enough to be unrivaled in the world.”

Maria choked hearing Atlas and took a sip of water to calm herself down.

“Isn’t that a little too ambitious?” She asked.

Atlas shrugged. “Ambitious or not with become stronger the rest of my goals won’t be achieved. If you think your goal is too big to establish checkpoints to reach it, then it will seem much easier, if you put in the work that is.”

Zenos nodded fervently. “Then what are your other two goals?”

Atlas sighed and looked down to hide the sadness in his eyes. 

“My second goal is to find the people who killed my family… and avenge them.”

“... You had a family before?!” Zenos exclaimed in surprise. “Is that why you don’t call Maria mother or me brother?”

Atlas's face was deadpan and he ignored Zenos’ question. “My last goal is to end all wars, in the world.”

“Wars?” Zenos asked.

“Oh, right I forgot this place was out in the boonies.” Atlas chuckled. “Basically war is when two or more nations fight over something. Most of the reasons are dumb and a lot of people die for nothing… some of my friends died for nothing. So, that is my last goal and my motivation for training every day.”

“I see.” Zenos nodded while placing his hand under his chin. 

Silence descended on the room until Maria spoke up. 

“How about you guys go to bed now, it’s getting late.” 

Looking outside the window the boys could see that the sun had already set and only darkness lay outside. They weren’t able to see the moons, but there were some stars.

Atlas was the first to leave the room and he went to the room he shared with Zenos. Maria took a book from the shelf before heading into her room while Zenos washed his plate while thinking about his reason for training. 

‘I just want my belly to go down so the village girls could pay attention to me too, but I guess I need a new reason now.’

As he slowly walked towards his room Zenos couldn’t come up with a goal for training, but he didn’t want to not be trained either. 

Entering the room he saw that Atlas was laying on his bed facing the wall with his back toward him. 

“Are you up?” Zenos asked while walking over to his side of the room.

The middle of the room was separated by a black line. The left side of the room which was clean and plain was Atlas’ side. Zenos’ side of the room was on the right and the complete opposite of Atlas’ side of the room. It could be described in one word ‘messy’. Clothes on the floor, toys laying around, etc. 

“Have your reason?” Atlas asked without turning around.

Zenos played with his fingers for a moment in hesitation before speaking. “I want to train to stop all wars like you.”

“Pff. That’s a lie.” Atlas chuckled. “You haven’t even been in a war, not to mention you didn’t know what it was a few minutes ago.”

Zenos’ cheeks turned red in embarrassment. “W-well yea, that’s true, but I still want to!” Calming down Zenos’ spoke again. “I never met my parents. Nobody has, but what you said about war is true. I’m sure a lot of other kids haven’t met their parents because of war, so I want to end all wars so kids can spend time with their parents.”

Atlas didn't respond right away bringing the room into an awkward silence.

“What about Miss. Maria. Don’t you call her mother?”

At Atlas’ question, Zenos pondered for a moment. “True, but she feels mother like a big sister to me more than a mother. Well not like I know the real difference between them, just… yeah.”

Atlas was silent at Zenos’ response. 

Zenos thought he did something wrong until Atlas turned and his silver eyes stared into his blue ones.

“Fine. I’ll train you. Maybe if you’re good enough we can end all wars together. Hopefully, you won’t die in the process.”

Zenos' smile disappeared at the word die. “T-that’s a joke right?”

Unfortunately for him Atlas had already turned around and fallen asleep. That night Zenos stayed up longer than usual fearing for his life. 

What neither of them knew was Maria was listening to their whole conversation outside the door with a blood napkin in her hand. 

=

“Come on Zenos is that all you got,” Atlas asked while standing with one hand. 

In front of him, Zenos was trying his hardest to do 20 push-ups. He was currently on his seventh one.

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“I-its… too hard,” Zenos complained after falling to the ground. 

His body was covered in sweat from running five laps around the lake earlier and now doing push-ups without having a break.

“Breath while you’re doing push-ups, you keep running out of gas because you’re holding your breath.” Atlas sighed. “Also go at your own pace, you don’t need to continuously push up and down like me.”

Taking Atlas’ advice Zenos did the last thirteen push-ups. It took a few minutes and breaks, but he able happy with his minor success.

Maria who was watching from a distance clapped and walked toward them. 

“Good job Zenos.” She praised before seriously turning to Atlas. “Can you hunt today, I wasn’t able to catch many fishes this morning for lunch.”

Atlas nodded, but Maria’s next words made him sigh in annoyance.

“Also bring Zenos.”

“Why?” Atlas asked, ignoring the idiot with an agape mouth laying on the ground.

“It’s a secret,” Maria said with a mischievous smile.

Rolling his eyes Atlas went over to the shed where his hunting supplies were. He always had double in case of an emergency so, he gave his spare tools to Zenos; a dagger, a short sword, and a bow with 3 arrows.

“Come on.”

Atlas was already prepared with everything strapped to his vest. The bow and arrows are on his back. The dagger was on his waist which was easily accessible to his left hand and his short sword strapped to his right leg. 

Zenos’ weapons were in a similar position as Atlas's just his dagger and the short sword were on opposite sides of Atlas since he was left-handed. (Atlas helped him put everything on.)

“I am coming!” Zenos shouted. “Just… give me a moment… I’m tired.”

‘I can’t train for hours without getting tired like you… monster.’ Zenos kept his thoughts to himself. 

After ten minutes of waiting, which felt like an eternity to Atlas. The two finally went into the nearby forest. 

Zenos walked on the ground looking curiously at everything since it was his first time in the forest. Expert hunters would look away seeing Zenos’ carelessness inside the forest. He stepped on multiple twigs, got distracted by every creature, and was loud. 

Atlas on the other hand was like a Phantom. He jumped from tree to tree in complete silence, while watching not only his but Zenos’ surroundings. 

“Ahh-” Zenos screamed feeling something on his shoulder, but his mouth was quickly covered.

“It’s me, idiot,” Atlas whispered. “There is a horned rabbit behind that bush. I’ll lead it to you, all you have to do is stab it in the chest when it jumps this way.”

When Atlas moved his hand Zenos turned around to complain. “I never kill…” He stopped halfway through his sentence as Atlas disappear. 

Zenos took multiple deep breaths to calm himself from anxiety. Not to mention killing he had never fought another living being in his entire life. 

“Don’t worry Zen. It should be easy, right? It jumps I thrust my dagger forward it dies.”

Unsheathing the dagger Zenos held it with both hands. The black blade was perfectly polished and the handle felt smooth and comforting in his hand. He practiced a few thrusts upward which were clumsy, yet quick.

After his preparations were finished he realized something.

“When will the rabbit jump?”

A moment after he said that he heard a ‘swoosh’ then a squeal. Before he could locate the direction of both sounds a grey-colored rabbit with a tiny silver horn atop its head jumped from the bushes. The rabbit jumped higher than his height reaching a little over 2 meters high. There was no way he would be able to hit it from that height. 

As if on cue, Zenos heard another ‘woosh’ and saw an arrow fly through the sky and hit the rabbit on its horn. Blood splattered everywhere as the horn and some fur stuck to the arrow and the rabbit fell from the sky towards him.

As Zenos was preparing to kill the rabbit, he hesitated hearing its painful scream, and just as it was in his range for stabbing… he hesitated. 

‘I… can’t do it.’

Zenos closed his eyes and bit his lip. Even as his eyes were closed he could still memories the anguished face of the rabbit as it fell from the sky. It was at that moment he realized, beast or not, the rabbit was like him. A living creature.

After a while, Zenos opened his eyes only to find a fist coming toward him.

“Arghh!” 

Zenos was sent to the floor while holding his face in pain, Atlas punched him. Not hard enough to break his nose, but enough for him to feel pain. 

“You idiot.” Atlas berated. “You had a perfect shot that even a blind person wouldn’t miss and still you failed to stab the rabbit, why?”

Zenos rolled on the ground for a while, holding his face in pain. When the pain subsided to a tolerant degree he stared at Atlas with teary eyes. 

“Where the rabbit? And why did you punch me!? That hurt.”

Atlas rolled his eyes and pointed behind Zenos. “I’m not that cruel to leave a living creature in pain.” 

Zenos' eyes widened seeing the rabbit with an arrow pierced through its head.

‘It’s… dead.’

“As for the reason I punched you it is simple,” Atlas said crouching down to Zenos’ eye level. His cold eyes bore into Zenos’ as he stated words Zenos heard millions of times. “You… are… an… idiot.”

Atlas unsheathed his dagger to Zenos’ confusion and then placed it on Zenos’ neck. 

“You hesitated,” Atlas stated while Zenos sweated buckets, his eyes only focused on the dagger. “If this was a battlefield you would be dead.”

Zenos’ chest went up and down until Atlas finally sheathed his dagger again. Taking a few minutes to calm down Zenos finally rebuked. “T-this isn’t a battlefield though.”

Zenos held his neck feeling a tiny cut around it.

“Pft of course it is.” Atlas laughed. “In this world, life in itself is a battlefield. There is no such thing as heroes like in the fairy tails you read, nor are there villains. Everyone is just out for themselves trying to survive.”

Sighing Atlas shook his head looking at Zenos. “That is why I’m trying to change the world and make it a peaceful utopia for all. I thought maybe, just maybe I could do it with you, but this told me everything.”

“You don’t have what it takes to end all wars. Simply because you don’t have what it takes to do what is necessary.”

Zenos opened his mouth, but no words came out. Atlas simply stared at him until he got bored and walked away.

“H-how does killing a rabbit have anything to do with stopping all wars and making kids be able to spend time with their families?” Zenos asked.

Atlas took his arrow from the corpse of the rabbit and side glanced at Zenos. 

“To create a world of no wars, you need to have one final war. In that war, millions if not billions are going to die. If you hesitate to kill one insignificant beast. How will you cope with the fact that you took the life of a person who had a life and people who cared about before they died.”

Zenos couldn’t accept that answer. “T-that’s not true. I can kill. I can save the world!”

“No, you can’t!” Zenos was surprised to see Atlas yell for the first time. “Face it Zenos, your a pure and good kid. You haven’t seen the cruelty of the world yet and I hope you never do. However, I’ve seen many like you who have died pointless deaths because of hesitation.”

Atlas rolled his eyes. “Whether I want to admit it or not, you’ve grown on me Zen. I would hate to add you to my arm.”

To say Zenos was surprised would be an understatement. The amount of emotion Atlas has shown him in these few moments was more than their two in a half years together. The words that surprised him the most were his arm.

Atlas's entire right arm and parts of his right chest were covered in black ink. Atlas never spoke about it, but once when he was sleeping Zenos saw that it wasn’t Atlas just drawing on himself, but tiny names. Hundreds if not thousands of tiny names were on Atlas’ arm.

‘Then are those names!’ Zenos’ eyes widened at his concussion, but he decided not to make guesses. 

The rest of the hunt was uneventful. Atlas taught Zenos how to use a bow, but no matter how he tried, Zenos had zero talent. They found three more rabbits and just like Atlas said before Zenos hesitated to complete the final blow every time.

Zenos couldn’t help it. He couldn’t take the life of the rabbit no matter how insignificant Atlas said it was.

By the end of the day, Atlas caught seven rabbits. Two were going to be used for dinner tonight, four would be saved for emergencies and the last would be sold. 

When they arrived back home, to Atlas’ surprise Zenos took off his shoes.

“This is weird, it's too quiet,” Atlas said warily as he put the rabbits down and carefully looked inside the house. “Miss Maria!”

There was no reply furthering Atlas’ suspicion. 

‘Everything is the way we left it so no robbery. Miss Maria doesn’t leave the house this late at night either.’ Atlas quietly examined the house further, and Zenos copied his silence.

Atlas turned around and made hand signs to Zenos’ confusion. Atlas smacked his head and whispered. 

“Check out her room, I’ll check ours.” 

Zenos nodded and took out his dagger. Both of them knew Zenos wouldn’t use it, but if someone was in there it will be good to threaten them.

Atlas quietly opened the door and saw that their room was exactly how they left it. His side was clean, his bed made up, and nothing on the floor. Zenos’... calling it messy would be a compliment.

Atlas turned around going to check on Zenos when he heard a scream.

“MOTHERRRRRR!!!”

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