“|| Year: 2039. Location: Planet Earth, NA. ||”

 

Under a starry sky, in the middle of the night, a small baby was sleeping in a Moses basket. The latter was sited in front of a huge building surrounded by tall steel ramparts.

 

If you looked closely, you would be able to see red dots of light flickering on the upper half of the walls. These inconspicuous red dots kept moving from one side to the other and some of them pointed at the small baby like eyes staring at a prey.

 

The cold wind of the night blew and the baby shivered unconsciously, at the same time, one of the ramparts suddenly moved and opened like a sliding door. A woman wearing a nurse outfit approached the basket and looked at the baby in it.

 

There was a single nameplate with the infant, it said 'Arimane'. Nothing else. The woman contemplated. She looked around and sighed.

 

"Honestly… leaving a baby like this is way outdated," she muttered and grabbed the basket with the baby inside.

 

"Hey, little guy, I'm sorry but you'll have to bear with us," the woman whispered. When she saw the baby sleeping peacefully, she smiled softly and brought him with her inside the ramparts.

 

When she went past the outer wall, the eye-like dots stopped staring at the baby and resumed their inspection of the surroundings. Once the opening on the rampart closed, the nurse ended in a pretty garden. She followed a stone path, passed by a few lakes and reached a sort of modern building. It appeared that the propriety was quite vast and that building was just one of the smallest located on the outskirts.

 

When the woman entered the well-lit hall, she directly went to the reception. She carefully put down the basked on it.

 

"It was this child who was spotted by the ‘watchers’," she told to the man sitting behind the reception. He had a really sharp and cold expression, his eyes showed that he had seen a lot in his life. He was cleaning a handgun when he was addressed.

 

He stood up and inspected the baby. "Who would abandon a child this way nowadays?" He uttered. "And just in front of this establishment of all places," he shook his head and took the nameplate in his hand. "Should I consider this as his first name?"

 

"I think so," the nurse smiled and nodded. "Well, I have matters to attend, please take care of this child." She bowed and walked away.

 

The man shrugged and pulled the baby out of the basket, then put him down on a blanket he spread out on the counter. He took a small square device and placed it above the infant.

 

A small circle opened up on the device, like the lens of a camera. A blue laser scanned the baby in less than a second and the lens instantly shut down. After a few seconds, the other side of the device projected a screen and the man looked at it. He read all the information that appeared on it.

 

"Oh?" He was quite surprised. "He's a tough kid. It's rare to see a baby having this kind of body resilience. It's like his body is ahead of a few years," he commented and turned around to connect the device to a computer on the desk.

 

He started typing on a very thin keyboard that seemed to be tactile. On the thin screen, a record appeared with the information about the baby's scan and a picture of him. "Fifteen months, huh?"

 

When the name case was underlined on the screen, he looked at the nameplate one more time before typing what was on it. When he registered the file, a message appeared on his screen. It looked like a sort of metal plate.

 

He tapped on the screen once and a machine not far started working. It looked like a printer and what came out was a small identification plate with something engraved on it.

 

The man took it, hanged it around a small chain and put it around the child's neck. After that, he sighed and put back the baby into the basket and carried the latter out of the mansion.

 

While he was carrying him, the plate shook and was illuminated by the moon's shine.

 

<14.12.2037 >

<Arimane>

< -------- >

<AS. Forces. PC>

<Joined: 18.03.2039>

 

It was a dog tag.

 

***

 

"A soldier, huh?" Lilis muttered after looking at the scene unfold. "Well, it isn't that surprising… That establishment; is it an orphanage or some kind of military institution?" She wondered. "Did his parents leave him there on purpose?"

 

She kept thinking while she continued watching.

 

***

 

The man brought Arima to another building. This one was massive compared to the previous one and in contrast, the outside looked like a sort of medieval castle with stone façades.

 

When the man arrived at the doors, he knocked twice. Then, an intercom appeared on the wall next to the doors. He placed his hand on it and opened his mouth. "It's me, Moria." The doors immediately opened and he entered.

 

Surprisingly, the entrance was quite small and just led to a normal corridor. The interior though was a lot cleaner in contrast to what the exterior could let you think. After just a few seconds, an old woman arrived from one of the doors and smiled at the man. "Sir Moria, what happened?"

 

Moria showed her the basked he carried with him. "We found him during my shift so I came myself to hand him. I already tagged him," he said while giving Arimane to the old woman.

 

She received the basket with widened eyes. "This is intriguing. Why would someone do this?"

 

Moria shrugged. "I have no idea. The weirdest thing is that the watchers only reacted to him and there’s no image whatsoever of someone putting him in front of the ramparts," he replied and the old woman looked at the baby perplexed.

 

Moria turned his back and prepared to leave when he recalled something. "Ah, right. He had a nameplate on him. It was written 'Arimane' on it. I don't know what kind of parents would give the name of a demon to a child," he snickered and left the mansion.

 

"Arimane…" The old woman muttered while staring at the baby. "Ahriman, huh?" At that moment, the infant opened his eyes and gazed at the old woman.

 

She was a bit startled by the look in those eyes. It's not like it was sharp or cold. He was just a child after all. But hey were far too calm. Those silver eyes were not looking at her in fear of the unknown, but they were trying to probe into her identity. It was pure and bare curiosity.

 

She took him in her arms and smiled. "You’re a really smart child, aren't you?" She spoke and Arimane tilted his head which made her laugh.

 

"Let's go then," she declared and brought him to a certain room of the ‘castle’. On her way in the corridors, some women and men staff greeted her politely, and there were even soldiers among them. They all asked about the child she was carrying. The latter was always staring at them as if he was trying to see through everything.

 

At some point, the old woman reached a particular room. Inside, there were a lot of small beds with babies ranging between one year and four years old. She put Arimane on an empty one and placed the Moses basket beside him. Arimane sat down and looked around in confusion.

 

The old woman chuckled. "This place is an orphanage, a military one, made to welcome children without parents and raise them into soldiers. We're living in this kind of world now. Don't worry, life here is pretty good even if it's strict."

 

She knew that the boy wouldn't be able to remember her words, but when she saw the child looking around with unnaturally smart eyes, she couldn't help but explain.

 

Arimane looked at her once before lying down and closing his eyes. She felt amused and quietly left the room. The seemingly intelligent kid fell asleep soon after.

 

The next day, a young lady entered the room to wake the children up. She took care of each and every one of them. When she saw Arimane, she was a bit surprised and swiftly glanced at the document she had with her. "Ah, so it's you the new entry from this night."

 

She then changed his clothes like the others. After that, the children who could walk were told to go to the usual place and they walked out first.

 

"I have to carry the others, huh?" The lady complained then looked around and widened her eyes when she saw Arimane standing perfectly.

 

"You, you're just one year old, right?" She muttered and Arimane tilted his head like he was oblivious of anything.

 

The woman smiled and shook her head. "Follow me then," she said while carrying another kid and left the room. Arimane mused, then carefully followed her.

 

After a minute, they had arrived at a totally new room with a vast area and a high roof. It was full of children, toys, and kid books. There even was a TV. Of course, there were also some adults monitoring them.

 

The woman who brought Arimane here put down the kid she had in her arms in a certain zone for children below the age of four. "You can join them and play, the first lessons will begin soon," she told Arimane and left to fetch the remaining children.

 

Arimane looked around interestedly and approached a bookshelf. He blinked and chose a book before sitting by letting his body fall on the ground. When he opened the book, he saw letters and words but couldn't understand them.

 

But above each word, there was an image. He looked up and down between the word and the image numerous times. It was the word 'chair' with the corresponding image. Arimane raised his head and observed his surroundings. He spotted a small chair just like the one he saw on the book.

 

He stood up and touched it. He sloped his head and kept touching it with a confused expression. After a minute of contemplation, he finally decided to sit on it.

 

After that, he reopened the book and continued to read it. He was sure that the word corresponded to the image, but he had no idea as to how he should pronounce it. He just started memorizing the letters.

 

Not that far from him, a woman who was working on some papers remarked the child's strange demeanor. When she observed him for a few minutes, she smiled gently.

 

"What are you looking at?" Another staff sitting at the same desk asked her.

 

"That child over there is pretty funny. He's trying to read although he never learned before and he isn’t giving up."

 

"Hm, that's impressive. He should be around one year old. He must be quite smart."

 

"Yes, I think so too."

 

Meanwhile, Arimane kept memorizing each word and their meaning as much as he could for an entire hour. He did that on two different books before a middle-aged man arrived in the room and set up a blackboard in the center of the room.

 

He got the attention of every child thanks to the staff looking after them. Every kid there was at least one year old. They weren't that smart but they still knew when to listen. But some would still wander and cry from time to time of course.

 

"I'm going to teach you the phonetics, please listen," the man announced. The older kids understood what he was talking about, but the younger ones were a bit dazed.

 

Only when the man started writing letters on the board did they react. Especially Arimane. His eyes sparkled when the man began to give sounds each time he pointed at a letter or a group of letters. He attentively listened.

 

The woman who marked him earlier smiled when she glanced at him. It was the same for the old lady that brought him during the night. She was standing near one of the room’s doors as she watched him. She left after a few minutes though.

 

Thus, Arimane's daily life began that day.

 

***

 

Back to the present.

 

On the PA’s roof, Arima pulled something off his neck that had come with him to this world along with his clothes and lifted it toward the starry sky. It was his dog tag with his full name, 'Arimane Blade', engraved on it.

 

But there was something else with it. It was actually a dual tag. And on the second plate, another person's information was printed on it and the family name was the same.

 

Arima let it reflect the moonlight for a moment then put it back. It was strangely hidden by the fabric of his clothes. Night took a glimpse of it before falling asleep.