I was born in a small village on miners north of Atlas, the only child of a poor couple of Faunus. My father worked in the mine, my mother in the kitchens of the workers. They wanted to give me a better life, and it was thanks to a bit of luck and a bit of careful planning that they managed to introduce me to the son of the manager of the mine. Lawine was a kind boy, well-behaved all things considered, he was just a year older than me, just ten years old at the time, and we liked each other from the start. My mother often told me that he was my chance for a better future, that if I could remain friends with him then he could have could have brought me to Atlas where I could have found a job inside a rich household. I listened when she told me to always be nice to him, to obey him and to always look pretty. The years passed, I went with Lawine to Atlas, to be his personal maid while he attended Atlas Academy. Life was good. I had to work, sure, but I had a comfortable bed, warm meals, and a friend that I hoped would be something more one day. I knew I was doing something right because Lawine was jealous and possessive and often called me pretty. My parents' letters were full of joy and hope for my future, and I was able to send them even some money. The other staff members were sometimes envious of the attention I received, and mean comments and teasing were ordinary. Even Lawine had to keep appearances, but I knew that he didn't mean it. He was everything I thought I wanted, and as we grew up I understood that he wanted me too.
Then one day, by mistake, I spilled some hot tea on a butler (one of the worst). Maybe they thought I'd done it on purpose, maybe they were just waiting for an excuse. I was badly beaten, during the night. I knew there was some animosity, but I never thought that so many would have taken part. When Lawine found out he was furious. He screamed and threatened, and I was so happy to see him defend me.
He attended combat school and offered to teach me how to defend myself. We disguised the lessons as dance classes, and two teenagers didn't take long to take this opportunity to make their relationship more "physical". It was the happiest time of my life. He said that he loved me, he sent me flowers and poems. He always told me that even if I was nothing to the rest of the world, as long as I was his I would be important and I would have the best that he could give me. Lawine was such a tender lover, always present and ready to help me, and before I realized I already depended on him. I loved him so much that sometimes I thought my heart would explode. Only much later I realized that those who are too loved do not give love, and whoever loves less is the strongest. As time went by he started to treat me less well, when we spent time together he did it like he was doing me a favor. He made me feel less important and dosed love and cruelty with perfection. He still was the most tender of lovers, but outside of the bedroom...
I guess there are no set rules in love, that you just have to be who you are, but the only true rule is that if you don't love yourself then nobody will ever truly love you back.
I thought it was my fault. How could be his? Our sparring sessions became more intense, and he even unlocked my aura when the bruises started to become too unpleasant to look at. "I like you more when you are pretty".
When we trained I was never good enough to give him a proper challenge, but I had learned that if I didn't do my best he would get angry. He said that he was doing it for my own good, that I had to learn to defend myself, but somewhere in my mind I think I understood that, while maybe that had been the original plan, at some point he just started to enjoy beating me, to see me struggle. Afterwards, he would sometimes force himself on me. There were days when I wanted to rip off my nose so as not to feel the stink of blood and bodily fluids left on me.
I started to send fewer letters and all the lien I managed to save to my parents: I didn't want them to know.
It was the cruelest of traps. It was like having my heart broken piece by piece and then having those pieces stolen away. It hurts, but you always hope that you'll get some of those pieces back. Sometimes he made small gestures of affection, and like the fool I was I dared to hope, I dared to be happy again even for a moment, only to have another piece of my heart torn away. There were moments, after a slap and kiss, when I wanted to cut off my tongue, because I had talked inappropriately or to just not feel the taste of his lips.
Dear child ... dear child, I do not know much about the world, but one thing I know: that every child deserves a mother who desires it, that gives happiness from all the pores at the thought of being able to hold him in his arms.
Dear child, you would deserve a mother who feels joy in feeling you grow inside her, a mother who knows how to show you the beauty of the world and who loves you with every fiber of her being, in every moment, forever.
But what kind of mother would I be? I who know nothing but pain and fear now, I can offer you nothing but a life like mine: a cursed life. I'm a mother who does not even want you. Dear child, forgive me if you can.
I cry for you, in this hell from which the beatings that have been addressed to me have saved you.
Forgive me.
I am a lower being, an object owned by another person. I have no eyes, no mouth, no hands. I can not hear or speak or love because I no longer have a heart. I can only go on, keep running until my charge runs out and I'll stop moving. I'm like a puppet. My spring is my one and only heart: the only living part of me, which however does not belong to me. I feel it ... I feel that it pulsates against my will. Bum ... bum ... bum ... Why do not you stop? Why do you keep hitting me? Do not you understand that you're hurting me? Bum ... bum ... bum ... if you continue like this I will never be able to stop crying.
Once upon a time, I was sure that we would have had a long and happy life. I've never been so wrong in my life.
His sweaty hands grabbed my neck, so hard I thought he would tear my head off. Salty tears that came down my cheeks, silently. I'm nineteen, and everything has been taken away from me.
There were days when I just wanted like to stop feeling, sink into a muffled oblivion and simply sleep.
There were days when I simply wanted to die. That day, however, I simply wanted to kill.
I couldn't defend myself, even with aura unlocked I could not defend myself against him. What was aura for then? He told me that it was a manifestation of the soul and that semblances were somehow connected to it. So I just wished with every fiber of my being for something that could kill him, for something that would strangle the life out of him, for something that would make him experience what it meant to have something growing inside of you just to then have it roughly torn away, for something that would cling to him until the end, for something that could suck away his very essence, for something that, unlike me, would have been invulnerable.
And so I caressed his cheek, one last time, then put a finger to his lips... and poured all of my aura into his mouth. He exploded from the inside-out.
It is said that when something or someone is hurting you, the only thing you want is to get away, to escape. It's not true. The first instinct you have when something or someone is hurting you is to destroy that something or that someone. The reality is that inside every one of us, Faunus or human, there is a beast. For some is a tiger, for others a pig, but each one of them is delighted when they hear the desperate screams of a victim. Life isn't precious or sacred: it's a fragile and common thing that we put on a pedestal because we are afraid of death. I'm still afraid to die, but I no longer care about the lives of others. Sure there is beauty and kindness in the world, there are innocence and love, but I simply don't care. It doesn't concern me. After all, everyone has to go through his own life on his own, and others are nothing but background characters inside your own painting.
The hell of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the hell that we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to avoid suffering for it. The first is easy for many: to accept hell and become part of it to the point of not seeing it anymore. The second is risky and requires constant attention and learning: to seek and know how to recognize who and what, in the midst of hell, is not hell, and make it last, and give it space.
I choose the easy way out: I was finally able to see the world for what it is and I accepted it.
This is the story of how I obtained my freedom.
Now I can tell you the story of how I became a mercenary...
While I laid motionless on the bed with blood and gore all around me, a sudden sense of clarity overcame me. I knew that I had just killed the heir of a rich and powerful family, I knew that I had no friends willing to help me and I knew I would probably be condemned to a life in prison in the best possible scenario if the authorities managed to arrest me. The solution was pretty obvious. A young faunus girl fleeing from justice that needed shelter, food, training, and resources really had just one option available: the White Fang. So I cleaned myself, with one of those long showers in which you try to clean not only your body but also try to wash away something deeper that you can't quite define. I packed all that I could, all the lien I could find (quite a bit, given the status of my ex-lover), the dust, Lawine's weapons (four double-barreled guns), clothes and so on, and then left in the dead of night.
Finding the White Fang wasn't hard. I just had to ask around a bit in the faunus districts to be pointed in the right direction. I gave them a false name, said that my parents had died in a SDC mine and that was all I needed to be welcomed with open arms.
I had no interest in the White Fang or in their cause. To me, they were just bunch of deluded fanatics and terrorist, too blinded or stupid to see that violence could never manage to permanently change the opinion of an entire society for the better. But they served me well nonetheless, helping me complete my training and sheltering me from the authorities. Sure I had to do some work, take part in some operations, but it was worth it. I had all the time and the resources I needed to perfect my fighting style, adjust to my weapons and learn to use dust in ways that best suited me. Those were years of sweat and blood and broken bones. My training in the White Fang wasn't like those offered in the huntsman academies, but more a sequence of battles and fights that forged me and made me grow faster. But constant battle changes and twists a person.
Looking back to those days I have to say that it was almost like living the life of another person. A surreal experience derived from the fact that I had erected around me a series of walls and worn a series of masks in order to isolate myself from the world and metabolize my traumas. So while my body, almost on autopilot, trained and played the part of a fervent White Fang member, my mind slowly came to terms with her conflicts and doubts. For example, there was the matter of my parents towards whom I still felt affection, but that part of my considered at least partly responsible for my tribulations. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I owed them nothing, so I sent them one last letter, in which I explained how I was able to secure a job in Vacuo, and that was it. Who knows... if I had stayed in my home village I could have been happy. Maybe I would have been poor, but at least my soul would not have been tainted the way it was.
My time in the White Fang was my chrysalis stage, and when three years after my joining I decided to leave the terrorist group, I had finally decided how to live the rest of my life. My conclusion was to live for myself and no other. I was going to enjoy life my way, taking what I wanted when I wanted, without binding me to anything or anyone, I would live without rules if not my own and would not allow anything to hurt me anymore. I had learned that strength meant power, and power meant freedom. Lewine had such a hold on me because he had power over me, while I had none. I had been his property, in a sense, until I had obtained a power greater than his. This is the way Remnant works: the strong prey on the weak. Grimm prey on humans, humans prey on other weaker humans and or faunus and those prey on animals. There is no reason to deny this truth, no purpose in softening it with nonsense like "it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak" or "society is what counts and has power" because the worst enemy of all of us isn't really the closest Grimm, but the closest person.
And so the solution really is simple: to be as free as you can possibly be you need to get as close as possible to the top of the food chain.
In my case, since predators are on the top of the food chain, I had to become a predator myself. I already had the training and the skill I needed, so all that was left was practice.
Without the backing of the White Fang it had become too risky to stay in Atlas, so I moved to Vacuo where I knew I would be as far as possible both from the Atlesian authorities and the White Fang (I wanted to start a new career, after all), besides having the best odds of finding what I needed. Vacuo was exactly how it had been described to me and even more suitable to my needs, as it was really true what they said: "if you can survive in Vacuo, then you are welcome in Vacuo". The first thing I did was to search for jobs in the underground, and since requests were plentiful I was spoiled for choice. I started with fairly harmless chores to test the terrain and understand how to move, like guarding duty for warehouses full of illegal goods or helping in robberies, and as my skills began to be noticed I received more enticing proposals such as henchman (or henchwoman) for some mob boss or bodyguard and debt collector for usurers.
Soon after my third job I came to the conclusion that sex was a weapon too useful and pleasurable to have it spoiled by the risk (even remote) of a pregnancy, so I decided to undergo a surgery that made me completely sterile. Afterwards, I spent almost a week drinking myself into oblivion, crying myself to sleep, and eating sweets like I wanted to double my body-weight. Then, one morning I wake up and discovered that I wasn't distressed anymore.
At that point, it did not take long before I was commissioned the first murder. It was supposed to be a test of loyalty for my boss at the time (a corrupt politician) that wanted me to get rid of a nosy policeman who had received a good training in Oasis Academy but didn't make it into Shade. I was a cheaper to hire than a professional huntsman and since I didn't know the true identity of said boss he wasn't risking much by sending me. I knew that was my chance to really get in the business I wanted and most importantly to prove to myself if I could do it. It would not have been the first time I had killed, of course, since in the White Fang it wasn't uncommon to have to take a life during a mission (especially if you actually were able to fight). But to kill someone for money? An innocent with a family and loved ones? This was going to be a new trial.
It wasn't the easiest job to start with either: the man had aura, some training, at least a gun as a weapon, was almost never alone, often changed his routine, was kept under surveillance by his colleagues who knew he was a potential target and had a well-protected home. Long story short the chances of me killing him unnoticed were close to zero, especially if I wanted to meet the condition I had placed upon myself. First of all, I didn't want collateral victims, so no blowing up his car or something like that. Second, my identity was to remain unknown, so I couldn't attempt to get close to him and kill him in his sleep after seducing him or get a job in his favorite coffee shop to poison his morning espresso. I was confident in my disguises because a wig and some makeup could go a long way, but my build and skin tone was a bit too recognizable to the trained eye of policemen looking for the murderer of their partner. Third I wanted this job to go flawlessly, in order to impress my employer and spread the word that a new professional hitman had arrived in Vacuo.
So, after some careful planning, I decided to kill my target with style and in a way that no one could trace back to me except those that knew that it was me who was supposed to kill the previously mentioned policeman. I made sure that the policeman died for apparently natural causes. I had obviously done some research on the target and even placed a bug inside his car (thanks to my semblance) and found out that he had the habit of taking some kind of dessert after lunch and dinner, be it at home or in a restaurant, even if it was just a fortune cookie.
I knew that his daughter birthday was coming up and I only had to be in the same place they decided to go to celebrate in order to enact my plan. The restaurant was crowded that day, full of children and with several plainclothes guards, but a young woman with his boyfriend didn't attract any attention (I had taken the trouble of charming a random good-looking human just for the occasion). We took a table halfway between the kitchen and table of my target and enjoyed a pleasant dinner. My escort wasn't exactly my type but he knew how to behave and didn't bore me too much even if I was giving him only half of my attention, so halfway through the meal I had made up my mind that if I was going to get lucky that night with my first job, so would he with his first date.
When one of the waiters brought the cake out of the kitchen, I acted. When the waiter carrying a huge cupcake on a tray, passed by me, I turned to him and tapped him lightly on the forearm, asking for the bill. He smiled and he replied that he would let me have it as soon as he had finished cutting and serving the cake, or he would have communicated it to a colleague. Perfect. I watched with a polite smile my target's daughter laugh and blow on the candles placed on the cupcake, family and friends take photos with their scrolls, and finally, the waiter approached with a knife to cut and distribute the giant dessert. No one noticed the honey color droplet slip from inside the waiter's sleeve to the knife and then in the cake. I made the droplet move around inside the cupcake, waiting for the piece meant to go to my target, and just waited for him to eat it. I sensed the droplet being picked up, placed in his mouth, and then swallowed. Time for the finale: the droplet was a compressed jelly, so I just had to expand it a little to completely occlude the victim's respiratory tract and choke him, making it look like an unfortunate accident. Some people screamed, some just stared in silence, some tried to help with the famous maneuver that helps in this kind of situations, and some called for an ambulance, but it was all for naught. Tears streamed down the face of the family members gathered there, while I covered my mouth with both hands, and worn a disconcerted expression that didn't quite reach my eyes.
This was just the first of a long series of murders that eventually led me to kill even the corrupted politician that had requested my services as a hitman for the first time (just the cherry on top, if you ask me), and allowed to become one of the most known and feared and demanded assassin in Vacuo by the age of 25. In some circles, I became known as "The Killer Geist", or "The Phantom Assassin" because some of my targets died in ways that simply could not be explained unless you accepted that said death had been caused by a seemingly harmless object, almost like some dark will was possessing it to ensure your demise. Truth be told I hate this nickname. Sure is convenient to be associated with something genderless, elusive and mysterious, but I think it lacks charm. Something like "Last wish", or "Murder Magician" would have been cooler, but alas it's not like I can go around spreading a different nickname, and what's more "Killer Geist" and "Phantom Assassin" somehow suits my type of assassinations (even if it couldn't be farther from my fighting style). Maintaining my identity safe is easier than you may think once you know the right people and use safe means of communications, so I'm pretty much able to go around in broad daylight and only have to be careful when I go in certain places (in which cases I usually wear a disguise).
I kill as few as possible to reach my target, I do clean, fast and precise work. My professionalism isn't in dispute.
I take what I want, I remove what I don't like. No one can hurt me, no one can own me. I am young, I am beautiful, I am rich, I am powerful.
I am on the top of the food chain and I am ready to do anything to remain there. I am Free.