"Kaden! Wait a moment, please." Mai said as she ran to catch up with him, Aaron and Via.
"Thought you were heading home for the night Maira." Kaden replied.
"I have some questions, if you don't mind."
"What kinda questions?"
"... You never told me what had happened during your first attempt of the gate... If I'm overstepping, then I understand -"
"No, no, no, it's cool." Kaden replied.
Aaron read the perturbed look on Kaden's face and immediately knew where his head was.
"Via and I are gonna catch up with Elder Claire. See you two in the morning." Aaron said.
"We are?" Via asked.
"Nope, just keep walking."
"He's a wingman by nature." Kaden thought to himself.
Kaden glanced back at Mai and noticed that she was patiently awaiting for him to begin.
"Sigh, c'mon." He said while walking off with Mai following close behind.
"..."
"... Is this too sudden?" Mai questioned.
"No, it's just... where am I supposed to start with something like this." He replied, placing both of his hands behind his head. "Sigh... I saw my dad in the trial."
"From your previous world?"
"I don't have a dad in this world now do I?" Kaden replied sarcastically. "Probably a good thing, I don't need anybody else being disappointed in me."
Mai's eyes widened to that response.
"My old man was a huge piece of shit. He jumped on every given chance to call me a disappointment, and his favorite thing to say was, 'Ain't no way you could be my child.' He said that so many times I started to question it myself. Then even after that, there came a point where I didn't even want to be."
"You didn't want to be your father's son anymore?" Mai restated.
"I didn't want anything to do with him, but I had nowhere else to go. I was just a kid after all, but my mom. To this day, I don't understand why she stuck around for as long as she did."
"Her being your mom wasn't enough of a reason?"
"It'd be nice to think that, but I don't think she had anywhere to go either. Ya see, my mom came from a christian household, and they basically disowned her for her choices."
"What do you mean by 'christian'?" Mai asked.
"It's uh, a kind of religion. Back in my world, people have their gods who they worship just like you guys do here, and along with that, everyone has their different practices on what they think will appeal to their god. For instance, my mom's family believes that sex before marriage is 'immoral' and 'adulterous'. Let alone having a child outside of marriage."
"That was their reason for disowning her. I can only imagine what they thought about you as the child."
"Hmph. Along with that, she never had a decent education, so when it came to finding a job, there weren't many options for her. Decent, options anyway. So she became reliant on my dad."
"The world you're describing sounds so similar to what I've heard about Ignus." Mai stated.
"Yeah, and that world's burning as if everyone there were fire users." Kaden replied while kicking a rock down the path.
"I'm assuming you don't mean that literally."
Kaden smirked and nodded his head, but his gentle grin quickly faded from his face.
"Aaron said he forgave me for what happened, but that doesn't make what I did go away. I need to be better, and him forgiving me doesn't negate everything else I did."
"Everything else like what exactly?" Mai questioned.
"...I didn't do anything for her in the end." Kaden hesitantly responded.
"Your mother?"
"... He treated me like absolute dogshit, but thinking back on it, the things he did to my mom made the things he did to me seem like tough love. I wish I was an oblivious an ignorant kid, but it was easy for me to figure out what was going on every time my mom turned the TV volume to max, then getting dragged away to the bedroom by my old man. At first she used to struggle, but after a while, it was like she accepted this is how it is. I remember shorty after I turned fourteen, I had a little growth spurt. I grew like five inches in about half a year. You know what he started to say to me after that? 'You're old enough to take man blows now boy.' So that's what he started to do. Punching and slapping and choking and throwing me around like I was some rag doll!"
The anger in Kaden's voice grew with every word of that last statement. Mai had no words to input as she followed along, timidly taking in every word that flew from his lips.
"As bad as he used to beat me, I ain't never swung back at him. Except for this one time. My mom started to bounce around to some minimum wage jobs, which made her come home a bit later than usual. One evening, he was having one of his episodes again, drinking and goin' on bout some bet he lost on a basketball game. Of course, he turned his frustration towards me and started roughing me up again. I didn't care yanno, but halfway through, my mom came home and saw him. She hated what he used to do to me, but anytime she tried to intervene, he would raise his voice and threaten to beat her too. Usually she'd back down after that, but that wasn't the case this time. For some reason, she didn't back down that day. She pulled at him aggressively and raised her voice every time he raised his. It was the first time I ever saw her like that, and I was shocked. As I stood there and watched the two of them struggle over whether or not he should be hitting me, I remember feeling very nauseous. The world started spinning around me, and even their voices became muffled. I clinched my stomach as this wave of nausea began to drown me where I stood. It almost felt like I was gonna pass out until..."
WHAP!
"I told ya didn't I!?" Kaden's father exclaimed as he stood over his mom. "I warned ya but ya didn't fuckin listen! Stay out of my goddamm way before you get half of what he's gettin!"
Mai abruptly stopped walking while Kaden carried on for a few more steps, before eventually stopping as well.
"It wasn't until that moment, that I was completely oblivious to the anger that had been swelling up inside of me for years." Kaden stated while clinching his fist. "I knew it wasn't the first time he put his hands on her, but actually seeing it in front of me caused me to lose it."
"Either you stay outta my way or you could get the fuck out." Kaden's father stated as he stumbled backwards and turned back towards Kaden.
He was greeted by a powerful right hook from the teenage kid which connected cleanly on his chin. The father who was already trying his best to maintain his balance, then crashed into a table and dropped onto one knee.
"There ya go ya little shit. Fight back for a-"
Before his father could've finished speaking, Kaden leaped forward and drove his foot straight into his face.
"I jumped on him and swung at him again and again and again." Kaden stated. "I remember hearing my mom yell my name more than a few times, but I wasn't listening. He had this pocket knife that was among the things that fell on the floor when he hit the table earlier. I don't even recall picking it up, but somehow it ended up in my hand, and I was more than ready to use it. I wanted to kill him."
Kaden glanced back at Mai before fully turning to face her with a slight grin on his face.
"In that moment I thought,'Yeah, maybe I am his kid after all.' But before my emotions could've gotten the best of me, my mom grabbed my arm that was holding the knife. I could've felt her hand trembling as tears drained down her face."
.....
Kaden breathed heavily as he stared down onto his father, who was already unconscious from the previous damage he sustained to his head from the adrenaline filled Kaden.
"Kade, please... be better than him." Kaden's mom pleaded to him in a very shaky voice.
He slowly averted his gaze up to his mom before panning back down to his unconscious father. Kaden's sporadic breathing eventually calmed down as his mom slowly freed the knife away from him.
.....
"That was the last time I ever saw my old man." Kaden explained to Mai. "The neighbors heard the commotion, and this wasn't the first time, so they went ahead and called the police. After an investigation was done, I was taken away from my parents because they found evidence of domestic abuse, child abuse, and child neglect. I spent the next four years in a foster home until, eventually, I was on my own."
"Your mother just allowed them to take you away from her?" Mai questioned. "I mean, it surely sounded like she cared for you, so why would-"
"-She told me that I'd be better off in the foster home than with her. That she wouldn't have been able to take care of me better than they could. I didn't care about any of that. In my eyes, she had just abandoned me."
"Yet you still say you didn't do anything for her."
"Cause I was eventually placed into a situation where I could've done something." Kaden solemnly replied. "When I turned twenty, I started buying these scratch cards and playing the lottery. The lottery is basically this gambling thing where you have a very small chance of winning a lot of money. Some people play it for their entire lives without winning a single penny. Me though, I was lucky enough to win big on only my seventh try. 16.4 million dollars landed in my lap by chance, and it was all mine. I didn't need to worry about anything anymore, and I didn't waste any time buying things to compensate for those days when I didn't have much. I appreciate Aaron so much for sticking with me even after my head inflated the way it did. Cause looking back on it, besides him, there wasn't anybody that was in my corner for me. They all just wanted my money."
"You're mom too?" Mai asked.
"...No. She didn't change at all, and that's what always bothered me. Before I got that money, she would reach out to me regularly asking, 'How am I doing', 'Am I eating well', 'Is school going well', all that kinda stuff. Sometimes I'd reply, and then other times I'd just air her off. There was a big part of me that hated my mom because it felt like she gave me away so easily, yet still wouldn't let me just forget her."
"It doesn't seem like you wanted to forget her. There's also a big part of you that really loves your mom, and that's also the part of you that's holding in all of that regret."
"Regret?" Kaden questioned as Mai slowly stepped passed him.
"You didn't give your mom any of that money you won, did you?"
Kaden swallowed heavily and hesitated to answer.
"...She never once asked me for a single dollar. But she kept calling and leaving messages to check on me even though she was probably in a worse place than me. I died without doing anything for her. If she had never had me in the first place, I bet her life would've been so much easier."
"That's an assumption you can not make on your own." Mai exclaimed.
"C'mon! That much is clear as day. She would've never gotten stuck with that piece of shit dad of mine, and her family wouldn't have tossed her out either. All I did was make her life miserable."
"Then why after everything was she still reaching out to you!?" Mai questioned.
"..."
"After losing everything and everyone supposedly because of you, she never displayed any form of resentment towards you. Why is that?"
"How would I know?" Kaden answered with growing frustration.
"Yes you do. Or at the very least, you have a reason that you've placed hope in. Otherwise you wouldn't be trying to go back at all."
"..."
"A part of you believes that your mom loves you, and there's nothing wrong with thinking that." Mai stated as she stepped closer to him. "The dichotomy in your head must be tearing you apart, and I understand why, but you should not let the negative thoughts win."
"...As if it's that easy." Kaden replied in a somber voice before walking away.
Those few words from Kaden left Mai speechless and disheartened. This was the first time anyone had trusted her with such sensitive personal information, and she was genuinely trying her best to give meaningful advice. While slightly saddened by the outcome of this conversation, she also became even more determined to help Kaden in any way she could.
The Next Morning...
"Both parties are now present and ready for departure." Elder Treya stated. "Party A, comprising of myself, Kaden Adams, Aaron Cooper, Kenzo, and Damien, will be traveling just outside of Aestus to the gate of pride. Party B, consisting of Sister Claire, Via Heder, and Mai, will be traveling inside of the Redwoods. After the completion of Kaden's attempt, Damien will remain behind to await the return of party B. Any questions?"
Silent gazes were passed around by members of both parties, but nobody had any complaints. The faces of everyone all exhibited a neutral demeanor, but hidden underneath were feelings of anxiety, concern, doubt, and also hope. No matter what they were feeling, nothing could have prepared them for the oncoming series of events they were about to experience.