amrealurban
War does not begin with sirens. It takes root in a classroom where a smiling teacher kills pity in children - not with shouts, not with punishment, but with love. Madam Yaren does not merely teach. She mints future soldiers. Her voice is soft, her touch gentle, but her weapon is not fear. Fear is too crude, too visible. She uses love - a love so pure, so absolute, that the children do not notice their souls changing shape.
How do people become killers?
When ten-year-old Kai whispers his first «I will take revenge,» he does not recognise the words as foreign. They fit his mouth like a key in a lock. Someone has already stitched them into him - syllable by syllable, lesson by lesson - along with the hatred that will become his fate. He smiles as he speaks them. He does not know that his heart is no longer his own. That it beats to a rhythm she composed. That the first casualty of this war is not the body. It is the soul.
And Madam Yaren will remain at the school. She will teach new children. New avengers. New meat. And on her chest the three skulls will still shine, and on her lips - the smile of a person who knows: her lessons will never be forgotten. Because hatred is the strongest love.