"…they wanted a hunting dog… so they bred and raised one."
Hearing her shaky words a cold indignation filled Zatu's heart.
He had been raised to get a combat class and knew better than anyone the sacrifices it took to guarantee it.
And from her meek appearance at the moment, she must have sacrificed just as much as he did.
The thing was, he chose his life and she didn't choose hers.
Imperceptibly his hands ball as a mix of pity and indignation swirl in his stomach.
And as he watched her shoulders grow smaller and her body start to shiver her voice reached his ears once more.
"The day I awakened I killed both of them."
She said in a voice so guttural Zatu could almost see her vomiting out a mix of rage, guilt and sadness.
Silence takes over the room as Zatu stares at the shaking Illya.
She doesn't look back, instead keeping her head down and barely maintaining a poker face.
His heart aches as if a cat was scratching it open.
'Is there even a difference between a beast and a parent that goes out of their way to shatter its own child?' he thinks to himself as his fists tighten harder, before they relax back open.
At the same time he knew that hating on dead people rarely helped anyone.
'What is the best thing I can do right now?'
His focus shifts back to the small Night Fang.
Her demeanor and presence are the exact opposite from what he saw earlier in the day.
So fragile and vulnerable it felt he could blow her away with the lightest breath, even though with her power level he probably couldn't hurt her even with his sword in hands.
At this point it was more than clear to him he had stumbled into something he probably shouldn't.
To drop a confession on his lap on the first day they met after a single pointed question was a level of folding he rarely saw.
Well, except when Arbo asked for something on the streets…
'Shit, does she think I'm interrogating her?'
He wavered, he knew the council word was law within the city and that if he wanted to it would be trivial to run wild with the power that granted him.
Case in point, pushing out a clearly traumatized confession without even trying.
'Heavens above I was just curious, I need to reassure her somehow.'
Thinkin to this point his body moved by itself, his arms wrapping gently around Illya much like his grandpa used to do for him.
"Its okay, you're not alone in this Illya."
'Okay think fast, she is clearly judging herself hard for obvious reasons. Should I argue I think it was justified?'
'Nah, I don't know enough about what happened and she clearly doesn't think it was okay…'
As Zatu panicked inside his head, Illya started to sob in his arms.
'Fuck fuck fuck, think of something BRAIN! FAST! ANYTHING!'
"I feel a lot of self hate in your words, why?" Zatu blurted softly before panicking harder.
'NOOOO, what the fuck am I doing? I should try to stop this, not digg harder into her trauma.'
But what was done was done, since sobbing Illya had already started her answer.
"Because I deserve it… only a bad dog bites its owner." She whispers as tears start to fall into Zatu's arm.
'Well… fuck it, I brought us here so I might as well pull this thread to the end.'
He sighed, squeezing her lightly with his arms.
"Listen, we haven't known each other for long, but you don't look like a dog to me. Do you think you were wrong in killing your parents?"
She nods meekly.
"They gave me everything I have, they built everything I am."
'She implies a yes, but her words don't directly answer my question.' His eyes narrow, before pushing back.
"That is as true now than it was back then and yet you still killed them, why is that?"
Her trembling stops, her breath slows and her eyes glaze over far beyond the Inn's walls.
"There was this woman when I was a kid that always went to my parents for shroom products, she was tall, sharp and had the classic black and golden eyes from a shroom user."
A small smile crept in Illya's lips.
"Even my parents had to show respect to her and every time she appeared she would talk to me, give me better food, give a few potions for my wounds, but most of all she would give me a look."
Her smile grew.
"Not quite of pity and fear like those I found outside my training grounds, nor one of disdain like those I found inside of it. It was a look of understanding, a look that told me she was just like me."
Feeling her emotions calm down, Zatu lets go of the hug and pulls a chair to sit beside her.
His curiosity screams to know more, but he keeps his mouth shut and his ears open to the rest of her story.
"I felt seen, I felt happy, at least for a moment there was someone out there who knew."
A sigh escapes her lips as her smile fades away.
"For months before my awakening my parents and handlers warned me my first mission would be a test of my loyalty, that failure meant losing any worth and a dog without worth will be discarded for good."
Her brows frown a small tear sliding down from her narrowed eyes.
"I told myself it would be easy, that compared to the years of hard challenges and punishments a test of loyalty would mean nothing, I had killed before what was just one more body in my path?"
A tremor runs up her neck.
"But when they walked me to that cell and in it I saw Seraphina, the only other person I had known that was just like me was now laid there, beaten and bloodied, writhing in the ground."
In her mind the scene starts to play, the sound of that woman's moans, the smell of blood in the air, how heavy the dagger they gave her felt.
"They locked me inside the cell and gave me a day to end her life or else…"
Illya shakes her head, her breathing speeds up, her body starts to shake once more.
"But I couldn't do it, even as Sera herself reassured me it was fine, even if that was the final mission before I became something worth keeping, I just… Couldn't."
Her sobs come back as her next words die on her throat.
Seconds go by as she struggles to continue before Zatu takes her hand in his.
"What happened next Illya?"
As he squeezes her hand a barrage of words flows out, the memories of that day getting more and more real.
"As Seraphina tried to convince me to end it all, that it would be better for both of us, that we both had no real choice on the matter, something snapped inside me."
She gulps as her eyes go bloodshot.
"If I couldn't do this there was something I could do. So I merged with the shadows and escaped that cell, they hadn't even asked what skills I had awakened."
She chuckles.
"With the same silent steps that were engraved in my movement, with the same quiet breathing that was reinforced even while sleeping I crept around their house through corridors I had never even seen before."
Her hand starts to squeeze around Zatu's left hand and pain starts to shoot up his arm, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Afraid if he interrupts her right now he might never have the chance to know this story's end.
"With practice I searched the house, room after room, careful to not get caught by the maids and guards. It was all so luxurious, so different from the spaces I had lived in."
Rage flashes in her eyes.
"As I put everything I learned to practice I felt myself lose the notion of time, just kept going room by room, searching, hunting. At some point I entered in a daze, losing myself over the process till finally…"
Illya closes her eyes, her hand leaves his and she starts patting Sir Howard.
"They were fucking when I found them, oblivious to what was about to happen. Silently I readied my dagger and crawled up the bed with them."
Her eyes open and lock with Zatu, bloodshot and shaking.
"They hadn't even noticed till they each took a strike and they couldn't even scream after my dagger pierced their necks."
On the verge of a breakdown she pushes out one last murmur, her eyes locked on Zatu's.
"They were always so tall in my eyes I couldn't believe myself when I tumbled them down with my own hands."
Tears and snot flow back down and Zatu pulls her up into a hug, dropping poor Sir Howard from her lap into the ground.
Feel his curiosity satisfied and guilty as fuck for having poked around her past Zatu stared at the ceiling silently.
'I should stop putting my nose in other's pasts' He thought to himself as her tears and snot smeared his shirt.
Needless to say, this was not the first and won't be the last time his curiosity of those he got to know would cause a breakdown.