[I feel bad for these guys. I really do. None of them deserved what happened to them. Oh, Masaru's one of my favorite characters now wh o o ps, and different writing style. First this focuses on Masaru, then the Warriors of Hope as the whole]

Blood still stains long after he cleans himself up.

"Get out punk! Why don't you move yer skinny little ass and get me some alcohol, huh, brat?!" 

He still tried to smile. 

His father beat him, over and over, pain scorching his skin, just as hot as the fire that fueled his very personality, scars ripped down the side of his forearms, darker in contrast to his tan skin, yet he didn't yelp out loud, he never yelped out loud. 

"I'm sure yer defective! Stop smilin', will ya?!" 

Soon, he became numb to the aches in his skin, to the pain in his heart, but when he met her, when onee-chan offered them another chance at life just before the joint-suicide, he let open the gates again, just so he could hurt, just so he could love, just so he could feel. 

She died. 

She vanished from his existence, she hurt him just like he had feared, yet on the outside, he still pretended that he was okay with it, that all he was going to do was win in vain, but it still hurt. 

Monaca, innocent little Monaca. 

A back-stabber, no less. Her compassion was fake. Everything was about her was fake. Her flaws. Her weaknesses. Her strengths. 

She was a puppet-master, and the four of them were puppets, only puppets to be used, only puppets to dance upon bodies and ages of bloodshed. 

Everything started to hurt again. 

Help me. 

The aftermath of the wreckage revealed the pain of them all, having been hurt too many times by her. There was not only knives in their back, but daggers, speaks, axes, arrows, everything that could hurt them. 

People said that actions are louder then words, but words can hurt more then actions. The truth? They would destroy you, both of them, from the inside out. 

When they recovered, dragging themselves from the rubble and wandering the street, streaked in dirt, but those couldn't hide the mental scars that were evident in their eyes and expression, in the way they held themselves. 

Sometimes, Kotoko would hear her trigger word, in reality and in her dreams, and she would wake up in tears, screaming, crying, shaking, and the other three comforted her. A hand on hers, one on her shoulder, and Masaru gave her his headphones, despite not being connected to music of any kind, yet the bulky object seemed to calm her a bit. 

Jataro still hated himself, but his mask was gone, abandoned, just like the four of their souls were. He didn't react as badly as some of they did to objects that reminded of them of their past. 

For Nagisa, he would freeze up every single time he saw a needle or a wire, and there were times when he didn't get sleep, and that would remind him of his past and he would refuse to sleep except for small bursts maybe two or three times a day of about half an hour naps. 

Kotoko was set off on the slightest thing, you even mention the word 'hope' or 'gentle', she would either go into sadist mode, which was scathing on everyone's end (Even Nagisa disappeared for two days after she dealt some nasty insults towards him), or full-on sob mode. 

Him?

Masaru was just another kid with an abusive father. And now he abused himself with self-harm. Not with blades, no. 

He forced himself to go to the bar and just sit in, inhaling the disgusting smell of alcohol and cigarettes, the very same smell that used to dominate his father's household before Masaru had killed him. 

They were all monsters.

They killed their own parents, and enjoyed it. 

M o n s t e r s