— cinq ; five —

THE REST OF THE day followed much the same as the way it started, with two half hour breaks during the twelve hour cycle and one hour allowed off for lunch. Practice didn't slow down, wasn't allowed to, and Henri barely had time to draw his breath the entire day. The lunch break would have been awkward and uncomfortable, but Henri was too drained to care about the other Ravens. After scarfing down food to appease his growling stomach, he paced up and down the stands to get away from them and was content to pretend they didn't exist. They returned the favour, but Henri felt it had more to do with whatever Soren said to them when he walked away than out of any respect for him.

He felt like he hadn't slept in forty-eight hours and was practically dragging his feet by seven in the evening. The day had been too packed for him to think about anything other than Exy, but as the day wore on, darker thoughts began peeking through that he wasn't strong enough to push down. The echo of an Exy ball off the court walls sounded like a gunshot and if he closed his eyes for too long, he saw the dead bodies of his parents. He wanted to curl up on his side and sleep for the rest of his life, but even when practice ended, he wasn't allowed to leave that easily. The spent another hour discussing the drills and scrimmages of the day, where they did well and how to improve.

"Moreau," Alixis said sharply, snapping her fingers in his face. He raised his eyes to her face to see the Ravens were looking at him expectantly. "Are you listening?"

Maybe Henri should have lied, but he didn't care enough to. Whatever he said wouldn't change their low opinion of him. "No."

Her hazel eyes narrowed. "You're a rookie here, and it would do you well to glean what you can so you aren't completely useless to us."

Henri had nothing to say to that and gazed back at her in silence, hoping she'd get the cue to leave him alone. She pursed her lips but grudgingly moved on to the topic of shifting the defence line. Tetsuji finally allowed them to disperse at eight in the evening, and the Ravens filed to the locker room, showering and changing out one by one before heading down to the Nest. Soren was called to stay behind with Tetsuji, but Henri didn't slow down to see what they were speaking about. He sat on the tiled floor of the shower for too long, staring at his pale and slim fingers, waiting to see his parents blood spilling across them.

Henri made a beeline straight for his bedroom in the Black Hall once he had showered and changed. He had to pass through the living area and half expected a confrontation from one of the Ravens lounging there, maybe KJ or Benjamin, but they let him pass without much trouble. Maybe they'd given up on him and would just leave him alone now. The bedroom was empty when he reached, Soren nowhere in sight, and Henri was glad. He felt worn down at the edges and his whole body aching from bruises and lack of sleep. He kicked off his shoes, dropped down on top of the covers and didn't even bother changing before he fell asleep instantly.

A loud bang startled him awake and he jolted upright, heart racing a mile a minute. It took his disorientated brain a second to realise the sound had been Soren slamming the door shut behind him, his hair wet from a recent shower and his expression grim. He stared at Henri, who blinked blearily back at him as he tried to get his bearings, and finally shook his head.

"Get up," he ordered. "We're going out."

"Huh?"

"Are you always this stupid when you wake up or it just all the time?" He sighed and snatched up his keys from the bedside table. "I've been tasked with the job of getting you clothes to wear. Unless you plan on wearing that outfit for the rest of your life, which means I'm not living with you."

Henri swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I can't."

"What?" Soren said impatiently. "Can't what?"

"Buy clothes. I — don't have any money."

The Moreau's belonged to the Moriyamas, and the money his parents made went to them, but twenty percent went into savings that allowed them to live. They hadn't lived lavishly but they had enough money to get by and put food on the table nearly everyday, and Henri had never dwelt much on his lack of pocket money. He knew how tight money was and didn't question it. Now he had nothing, no possessions or money. It had all burnt to ashes along with his home.

"Does it look like it matters?" Soren asked, still sounding impatient. "I have money to expense it."

"I'm not a charity case," Henri frowned.

"Good, because it's not my money. You think I'd waste my money on you?" He held up a sleek black card that caught the light as he turned it. "The team card will pay for everything you need. You have a problem with that, take it up with the Master, because he's the one who told me to get this sorted."

Henri scrubbed a hand across his eyes with a yawn and glanced at the clock, to see it was barely nine. He felt like he'd barely managed two minutes of sleep and he'd in fact only gotten around half an hour. "Fine," he sighed, hopping down from the bed. "Let's go."

It wasn't that late despite Henri having managed to nap most of their free time off and a few Ravens were still making the most of it before they had to sleep. A few had taken the sofas to watch a movie, and Henri glanced to the kitchen to see some making dinner. It was a reminder that he hasn't eaten since lunch but when he made as if to go to one of the fridges, Soren snagged him by the collar and dragged him to the stairs.

"But I'm hungry," Henri complained, hearing the petulant note in his voice and not caring. "I haven't eaten in hours."

"Spare me the sob story. I want to get this done as quickly as possible and I'm not waiting for you to finish eating."

It was dark out, but Soren found his car easily enough and Henri slid into the passenger seat. They drove in silence for the first part of the ride and Henri didn't care enough to ask where they were going. Every beaming headlight of oncoming cars lit up the car, illuminating the golden edges of Soren's hair and the sharp curves of his face. He had bone structure models would be envious of. He's good looking, Henri thought grudgingly, hating himself a little for thinking it. This would be so much easier if his face reflected his personality.

"Can I help you?"

His arched brow and wry tone had Henri quickly turning his head away, knowing it was too late. He'd been caught out. "Why do you call him the Master?" Henri blurted out, the first topic he could think of to avoid his question.

There was a beat of silence but Soren appeared to be considering it rather than ignoring him. "Riko, Kevin and Jean all addressed him by that term," he said. "The rest of us gradually began to follow suit."

Henri nodded thoughtfully. "How does it feel that you lost three of your best players in one year?"

"What is this, an interrogation?" Soren's grip on the wheel tightened and he flicked Henri an irritated look. "Don't think you can refuse to give me answers and ask what you want."

"It's not an interrogation. I'm just curious."

"Stay curious, then."

His brusque tone told Henri this conversation was closed and he gave it up with a shrug. He suspected he may have touched a sore nerve there. The Ravens were amazing, obviously, but they had recently suffered the loss of their captain and two of the top ranked players in the country. Other teams stood a considerable chance of being able to take advantage of that blow and the prime time would be this season, to knock the Ravens while they were down. Soren had probably considered all of this, and as the new captain, he would have to deal with the fallout.

The first thing they picked up was clothes. Henri would have been fine with some shirts and jeans, enough to recycle through the days, but Soren had other ideas. Henri had no idea what kind of shopping sprees he had, but after figuring out Henri's size ("Small, naturally," he had said with a smirk), he dumped an unbelievable amount of clothes on the checkout table. Soren waved away Henri's protest with a dismissive flick of his fingers and dropped the bags in his arms.

"Is this really necessary?" Henri asked, struggling to juggle his new wardrobe.

"No Raven on my team is walking around looking like trailer trash," Soren said simply. "Now shut up and walk."

Next up was basic things, such as toiletries, and finished with a cellphone which Henri definitely didn't need. "What am I supposed to do with that?" he said, refusing to take the sleek black device Soren was holding out towards him. "I have no one to call and no one will call me."

Not anymore, he thought, swallowing down a sudden rush of misery. He had friends on his Exy team, but they were convenience friendships. Even if he wanted to contact them outside of practice, his parents wouldn't have let him — they were awfully private people. The only people he ever called on his phone were his parents, and sometimes Coach Lelouche. Now his parents were dead and he had no idea what could have happened to Coach Lelouche, after he left Henri alone at practice.

"It's for emergencies. If you're so desperate to use it, call me," Soren added sarcastically, when Henri still made no move to take it. "You can put all the team's contacts in it, along with the Master's."

"And why the hell would I do that? It's bad enough I have to live with those people, forget talk to them outside practice."

"Don't make this difficult," Soren said, casting his eyes heavenwards as if Henri was being the unreasonable one. Soren was the one who'd just wasted two hundred dollars on something Henri would never use. "Take the thing or I'll force it down your throat."

"Lovely," Henri muttered, snatching it from his hand.

Thankfully, that was the end of their forced shopping trip, and he honestly had far more than he felt he needed. Soren hung back in the shopping centre while Henri went back to the car, chucking his new things into the backseat, and had just settled in the passenger seat when Soren returned. He dropped a sandwich and coffee on Henri's lap without even looking at him.

Soren had already pulled out of the parking lot and on the road when Henri felt backed into saying, "Thank you."

"I just did it so you wouldn't bug me on the way back," Soren said, sounding a little as if he had been backed into a corner too. "The less you speak, the better."

"Sounds about right."

Henri pretty much inhaled the sandwich, barely tasting it, and tried to drink the coffee slower. He accidentally fell asleep after only a couple of sips, his head dropping against the window as he loosely grasped the hot styrofoam cup. His eyes couldn't have been closed for long but the nightmares still plagued him, bloody footprints leading to an Exy court where both his parents waited. He was carrying a racquet, the battered yellow and purple one he used at home, but a few feet away from his parents and it was suddenly a shotgun. He knew how to use, knew how to grip the handle and flick the safety off. He turned it on the man who had taught him how to use it and fired.

He woke with a gasp and the coffee cup would have gone flying if Soren hadn't grabbed his wrist, stopping his instinctive flail just in time. The car swerved wildly on the road as Soren held onto the wheel one-handed, and a blaring horn signified they had narrowly avoided a collision. Soren swore loudly as he quickly grabbed the wheel, jerking the car back towards the road, and Henri'a shoulder slammed into the door at the sudden movement. They were back on course and the road ahead clear, but Soren slowed down anyway.

"Shit," Henri gasped, belatedly realising he'd spoken French and made the conscious effort to switch to English. He wasn't sure whether the pounding of his heart was from the almost accident or his nightmare.

"Jesus Christ," Soren ground out, through gritted teeth. His grip on the steering wheel was too tight and white-knuckled. "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you suicidal or just a fucking idiot?"

"I didn't do that on purpose!"

"I don't give a fuck why you did it." Soren sounded so pissed off the protests died on Henri's tongue. He risked a glance at Soren and saw his eyes blazing with anger, and behind that, fear. "Don't you dare pull shit like that in my car again."

The or else was implied and for once, Henri didn't feel like questioning the threat. It didn't take a genius to guess that there was something more to the extreme way he'd reacted and Henri had enough of his own trauma to deal with before he considered anyone else's. Henri wrapped his fingers around his now cold cup of coffee and said nothing. The silence in the car was stifling, tension radiating off Soren in waves, but Henri didn't want to turn the radio on. He was actually relieved when they pulled into Castle Evermore's parking lot.

Henri was thinking about his bed and how badly he needed to lie in at he walked down the stairs leading to the Nest, and didn't realise they had company waiting for them until he'd stepped into the room. For him, Henri corrected himself, seeing the way KJ stood up at his appearance and Benjamin menacingly cracked his knuckles. It wasn't the entire team, but just a select seven. A quick scan of the faces told Henri it was pretty much the starting line-up. Of course. The ones who, for some reason, felt most threatened by his presence.

"You planned a welcome party for me?" Henri smirked around his unease. "You shouldn't have."

"Shut up," Benjamin snapped. "Don't make this worse for yourself. You're going to have a painful enough time as it is here."

Henri didn't let his smirk waver. "Aw, are you concerned?"

Benjamin growled but Soren began speaking from behind Henri before he could attack. "The Master — "

"Stay out of this, Soren," Alixis said coldly. "We spoke. You know this is none of your business."

Henri risked a quick glance over his shoulder at Soren and knew this was a planned ambush. There was no guilt or regret in his green gaze, but he looked away in a clear attempt to distance himself from what was happening.

"Don't hurt him where it's visible," Soren said in a low voice.

"Does it matter?" Matthias motioned to his face, no doubt referring to the bruises on Henri's face. "He's already banged up. No one would notice a couple more."

"Yeah, about those," Jude said. "Where did you got those nasty little marks? Got an abusive daddy? Maybe an alcoholic mummy?"

The words were intended to hurt and sting him in some way, but it was a pathetic attempt at trying to strike him where it would hurt. Henri stared at him in unimpressed silence to get across how little he cared for his baseless accusations. They would never guess where he really got these from.

"No, I don't think so," Aria said. Her brown eyes were calculating and serious. "Jean wasn't running from his family, was he? That isn't the issue here. There is definitely something more going on with this one."

Henri raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"We would, actually." Alixis walked forward slowly and stood a foot away from him. She was almost pretty but her features were too sharp and narrow, shrewd hazel eyes set into a face that could have cut diamond. "See, we don't have any secrets on this team and everything about you is a secret wrapped in a lie. Why would the Master recruit a sixteen year old covered in bruises and with a mouth on him? Why would he threaten to revoke one of our positions on starting line-up for you?"

"You're a dealer," Henri said, realisation dawning on him. "You're scared that I'll take your place."

Alixis suddenly grabbed his chin and gave an insistent tug. "Don't be stupid," she snapped. "I would never be scared of you. I'm angry — angry that you're here, when you shouldn't be here, and I have to put up with you. This team has been ruined enough as it is and I won't let you drag it down any further."

"Is that possible?"

Alixis moved as if to hit him but Soren yanked him out of the way. Henri wasn't stupid enough to think it was out of concern for his well-being. "Not where it is visible, Alixis," Soren said, enunciating each syllable as if speaking to a child. "Are you incapable of understanding what I say?"

"I don't take orders from you."

Soren made a cutting gesture with his hand. "I am your captain. You have no choice."

"And yet I've been here three years longer than you," Alixis snapped, jabbing a finger against his shoulder. "I have age and experience on you."

"Then perhaps you should consider why they made me captain and not you, despite those facts."

It took a hand to the shoulder from both Aria and Jude to get Alixis to pull away. Henri looked between her livid expression and Soren's unfazed one, and knew this wasn't the first time this argument had occurred. The position of captaincy was undoubtedly a point of contention on this team that had deferred all authority to Riko for so long.

"Is that all?" Henri asked, when no more accusations or insults were forthcoming. "It's getting pretty late, after all, and I can't really be bothered with this."

"Let me give him a couple of hits," Benjamin said, shaking his head. "Knock some sense into the cocky little shit. Don't worry, I can keep it all hidden so no one will ever know he bled."

"Do you want me to break your arm this time?" It was a bluff — Henri would never dare doing such a thing when it would incur the wrath of Tetsuji, but he has to hope they'd believe him and not call out the bluff. "I could do it. It would be too easy."

"Don't take the bait, Benji," Alixis warned, before turning her full attention on Henri. "Consider this your one and only warning. Not a single freshman recruited to the Raven has made their place here without proving themselves. Seeing as you're unknown and unproven, you can look forward to a personalised hazing for the one month we have you alone before the other freshmen join us. Get through the trials in one piece and without running off home, maybe we'll consider you welcome here."

"Probably not," Aria added. "But maybe more than we do right now."

"And don't even think about running crying to the Master about this." KJ's blue eyes flashed with something sinister. "The price for snitching will never be nice, and I don't think that pretty face of yours would recover. Remember that if you ever think about it. Not even Soren can stop us then."

Henri glared at him. "I'm not a snitch."

"Shame. I would have enjoyed beating you up."

Henri waited to see whether anyone has anything else to add regarding his impending doom, but that seemed to be it. He walked past them without another word and no one tried to stop him, at least not until he reached the entrance to the Black Hall. Benjamin grabbed his shoulder and threw him against the wall too quickly for him to react. His vision fuzzed black at the edges when his head slammed against the wall and the pounding meant almost missed the words Benjamin snarled in his ear.

"I can't wait to break you."

Henri slumped against the wall as the Ravens filed past him down the Black Hall, struggling to catch his breath around the sharp pain at the back of his head. That asshole might have just given him a concussion. When Xander passed him, the only one of the gathered Ravens who hadn't said a word against him, he paused and looked at Henri. Henri wondered whether he imagined the sympathy in his brown eyes and dismissed it as a symptom of his self-diagnosed concussion. None of the people here cared what happened him and he was just a problem as far as they were concerned.

Soren was the last one left in the living area when Henri pushed off the wall. He carefully probed the sore part of his head Benjamin had hit the wall with, making sure there was no blood, and shot a baleful look at Soren from where he was watching him wordlessly. "You've raised a delightful pack of psychopaths here," Henri informed him. "You must be proud."

"Not me." His expression was unreadable. "That was all Riko."

Soren brushed past him and Henri had no choice but to follow him, to their bedroom at the very end of the hallway. He brushed his teeth and changed into his newly bought pyjamas as quickly as possible, crawling under his covers and dragging a pillow over his head while Soren was still in the bathroom. He listened as the bathroom light flicked off and Soren settled into his bed, and then there was silence. With it came the thoughts Henri had managed to keep at bay for so long.

As much as Henri could act like he didn't care about the promise of a threat he'd just received from half his new teammates, it wasn't exactly ideal. He would be spending the next month — and probably the whole year — having to watch his back in addition to trying to make himself good enough to play Class I Exy, and he really wouldn't be surprised if one of them slipped up and accidentally killed him. Maybe it wouldn't even be an accident. He knew hazings were common but this wasn't just fun and games, it was targeted. They'd told him as much.

As he lay in the dark and listened to Soren's breathing slowly even out, Henri felt homesickness so acutely it felt like a hollow ball of flames burning a hole in his chest. He could feel it, the heat and pain licking at his heart as he thought about his parents, about his home, about France and everything familiar to him. He hated this place and these people and this language. He wanted to go home and pretend the past two days had never happened. Could he have only been here for one day? It felt like a lifetime, and he didn't know how he'd survive another lifetime.

He bit down on his fist, needing to feel the pain and taste the blood as a distraction from the reality. Despite his exhaustion, it felt like hours before he drifted off into a restless sleep, knowing the nightmares would be waiting for him the moment he slipped into unconsciousness and not being able to do anything about it.