Flashback - 10~ years ago

A brief image in the shape of a soundless memory. A mortgage for a home funded by Octarians that couldn't be paid anymore after the enduring period of poverty. Parents selling their oldest child out to the branch of the Octarian army that they couldn't pay back their mortgage to. Refusing to look at the expression of the child, one reeking of the terrified sensation of betrayal, only being dragged out of their home before one of the two younger siblings hold on to the Octarian that was dragging their brother away, only to be toppled down by a short tackle from the walking piece of a tentacle that was taller than both of the boys. The flashback ends with a condescending look from the Octarian at the ware's sibling before the flashback abruptly cuts off the moment it turns around. The visage itself - The sense of helplessness he and his older brother felt entangled by - It is that seething rage of negative emotions that race through Katou's mind what stands out the most whenever he attempts to think back to the few bits of memories that his amnesia had blocked. Whether it was for the better or the other way around is something he is still trying to figure out.

[...]

Flashback - Four years ago

*WHAM!*

The sound of a long wooden stick that was held by the tentacle of an Octarian hitting an Octoling's back in the middle of 3 digit push-ups stroke across the Octarian Trainings room for Low Class Soliders. This one being an exceptionally passive and frail one, yet training and surviving under the same conditions as the rest, his physical performance underlining nothing more but his non-existent low reputation and class at the age of 14.

"Come on! FASTER!! FOREIGN OCTO-TRASH CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT!!!"

The Low Class Solider began to pass out under shaking limbs, gasping pain and pinched eyes. He broke down on the ground, unable to move, let alone speak at all, only lying at the puddle of his own sweat and Ink.

"WITH NOT EVEN 200 PUSH UPS, YOU ARE MORE THAN USELESS!! THE AVERAGE SOLIDER CAN DO FAR MORE THAN THAT WITH THEIR HAIR ALONE!!"

Even a couple of other Octolings began looking concerned at the unconscious Low Class, and shocked at the Octarian, yet only able to stay quiet while spectating. The Octarian grabbed with the tentacles on its head the hair of the Low Class, smashing his unconscious face into the puddle of Ink that he passed out on.

"COME ON, LIFT YOUR FUCKING HEAD UP! AT LEAST DO THAT!"

No reaction. His face was covered and unrecognizable under the puddle of his own ink. The numb sensation of the cold air having pinned down his bruised, beaten up and overheated body.

"Tch!"

He spitted on the knocked down Low Class and moved out of the room, with his order being before he left:

"Nobody help the brat, leave him there!"

[...]

His consciousness returned somewhere in the middle of the night, under coughing from the stomped windpipe, whimpering from the returning pain, and sobbing that he was unable to control under the purple deformed bruises across both his body and beaten up visage. Holding the bruised parts of his body under simultaneous gasping and sobbing in an curled up position under the mat floor below him, unable to get up, he continued to whimper in a cramped up voice, under the puddle below his face, the ink mixing with his tears, pee and cold sweat:

„Saito...
Fusuya...!
I'm done for... I can't take this anymore..."

Too injured to move, he remained stuck in his position, wincing in pain, his woe lost in the darkness of the room.
It was until...

„Sou!"

He could hear a frail, feminine voice. One he had heard before. One he had left at home when he joined the army. Someone who never really could pronounce his nickname properly, thus proceeding to call him...

„Sou?"

„Uh?"

He tried getting up from the messy puddle, only able to lift his head off from it. Under lessened groaning and heightened sobbing the Octoling desperately tried to look up. There she was. It almost seemed - even if for just a Moment - like the hallucination of her was actually right behind that window.

„Sou!"

„That - Voice...

...

(Credits go to Daidaiikaika on Twitter for the closest thing I have to a reference for Sou's little sister)

Azura?

...

I'm starting to lose it, aren't I?"

[...]

It was the reality this Octoling had inadvertently slipped into. Something he despised, yet never questioned. Saying nothing against it, only doing his job under the abysmal conditions of the Octarian army that ironically — were seen as luxury in another part of the country.
With a beating he always received from one particular Octarian that he served under. No matter if it was during training...

*Wham!*

„HURRY UP IDIOT!!! Damn low-class scum..."

"I'm so - Sorry, Sir..."

Putting the shoes on the feet of his commander, as his subordinate who is meant to do so, one of the things the other soliders weren't obligated to do...

*Smack!!*

"PICK UP THE PACE!!"

Even if it was getting beaten up in front of a crowd because of something minor such as a bad mood...

"Check this guy out - While being the fragile bottom of the barrel he even has been accepted by the help of some connections to participate in some Performance-Improving Experiments! While most of the candidates are either mid-to high and sometimes even low classes, I swear if someone has it desperately needed, then it's that low life right behind me that couldn't even hurt a fly, even if he wanted t-

....!!!"

Even if it was just a slightly tight grip on him when putting a towel around his neck as he requested.

*WHAM!!*

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO PULL THERE, HUH!?"

He slammed the Low Class right into a concrete wall in the middle of a meeting with other superiors, with the Low Class only staggering paralyzed and under shock from the Octarian beating him down into the ground with a stick that might as well have been a bat. The Low Class only could emotionlessly take the beating, as his commander shouted at him:

"DID YOU DO THAT ON PURPOSE? DID YOU TRY TO STRANGLE ME, AN AUTHORITY OF THIS ARMY??!
DO YOU WANT TO END UP HEAD-FIRST INSIDE A BLENDER?!? UNGRATEFUL BASTARD!!"

Only the stares of the other superiors were able to eloquently stop the beating as the Low Classes face was covered in bruises, Ink, and an hollow, cold expression lacking of any emotions as his commander talked himself out of any accusations before they could be held up with a goofy smile.

"... Please gentlemen, let's keep this between us, shall we? It's all just jokingly dishing out hits!
He knows it's a joke and we mess up all the time like that, so don't worry about it!"

The Low Class only could let these words hall through his head if he wanted to stay alive. It was another day in which he had to control an unnatural amount of anger, with nothing to let it out on. His emotions, his thoughts, all going down the drain as his emotionless stare spaced out under all the Ink he was covered in from the beating.

"I'm going to kill him..."

"I'm going to fucking kill him..."

Not as if it ever came to be anyways.

[...]

The Low Class stumped across a long path across the empty metro, only progressing with shaky legs, an Octoling Armor that wasn't his size and the Carbon Roller a friend of his had given him for this mission. Slow steps, that would lead him to an immersive disappointment - That being the first word that came to mind. It was more akin to a word beyond the Octoling's regressed vocabulary that he couldn't put to words properly - Something he could only feel soaring and screeching inside of him at the firm scenery.
The shocked sorrow of seeing the dark skinned Octoling with the white Fro in a puddle of lime green Ink, lying dead with his throat slit open and his face mauled beyond recognition on the ground by the rusty knife and misplaced teeth of the obese Salmonoid-Subspecies before him. Rather than having it's normal colors, it possessed a color combination that resembled more of a sanitized figure.
And it only got worse with its irritating, mental and hysterical laughter as its glare moved from the corpse to the Low Class.

"That was... Saito...
... Yeah. Now I remember.
You helped me learn how to stand on my own two feet. The basics nobody else felt like teaching - And how to overcome the odds even when Ink hits the fan.
And he lost to a meatbag that was slower than him?
And it only had a knife...?"

The Low Classes' thought process was a total mess - Multiple thoughts were crossing his mind, some about making a run for it, the others being fleeting memories about the same Saito who was now lying mauled down beyond recognition on the ground.

—————————————————-

"Need a hand?"

"Turn that frown upside down, because I am here to pick you up from the mud!"

"The first step is to turf! You'll have more movement options and it's something the people on the surface fight by as well! War is won by positioning, therefore Mobility is key, remember that!"

"Actually, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Saito. What's your name?"

"U-Uh... KA-10-."

"Nah, I meant your REAL name silly!"

"Oh. Uh...
... Sō- Sou."

"Well then! Sou it is then! Heheh!"

„...W-What's so funny...?"

————————————————-

"I-I.... I have to run....
I.... I gotta get out of there...
I have to run....!!"

And with shaking legs and a paralyzed expression, he tried to move as the Salmonoid continued with a screeching laugh. Either now or never.

"Haaaah....!
Whaaaaaaaaah...!!!!
Haaaah...!"

And so he ran. Without any control over his body. He ran, ran and ran. All the way...

*Wham!*
*WHAM!!*
*WHAM!!!*

... right towards the Salmonoid, under a furious, yet paralyzed screech of emotions.
The fear vanished from his face. His eyes were expressing the same amount of distress that he was letting burst out of his vocal cords. He began smashing the Carbon Roller repeatedly into the Salmonoid's face. Without registering the concussion of the first hit. Then it began losing the feel of the nerves on its face. With the Low Class still screaming his sorrow out while continuing ground-pounding it into a lime green stained pulp.
Even after the Salmonoid landed a serious cut straight through his lower torso - He kept going even after its face broke. Even after the Roller broke. Only until its face had become unidentifiable under the layer of roller-shaped marks stacked on top of each other, with the ink covering it all. As if the deeper the knife went in — the harder the blows were getting.

[...]

He stopped seeing red after an eventual while, returning to the bottom of the oblivious under shaky hands and hyperventilation. The sight of the sanitized Salmonoid-Heavyweight perplexed him, made the hand shake that was holding the tainted carbon roller, even more by the sight of the Salmonoid being beaten beyond recognition. That - And the sight of its former knife, about an arm length wide, pierced through his stomach. He was unable to recall when it hit him due to a massive delay of the pain kicking in, and instead, had his eyes and his fading consciousness locked on - Saito's body.

Roughly half of his face was missing, including eyeball and ear alike on the left side. Some of his fingers might have been missing as well as he realized from the brief sight of it.
The low class did not react.
Neither did he say anything. It wouldn't had been much of a deal if the expedition wasn't so far away from any available respawn stations. He knew what was before him was essentially an open-eyed corpse that couldn't hear him anymore but even then - Slowly breaking down to his knees without a sound, he propped himself up with his hands until his pierced body had reached the floor, lying next to what was left to the closest thing he had to a mentor and a friend at the time. He was at the verge of fainting and thus, wanted to get one desperate question out of his paralyzed throat, under chipped teeth, a state of Delirium and silently bawling eyes - Even if it was only a corpse that would hear the question now.

„It's...

It's - O-Okay if I die now, right Saito?

Saito?

Saito...?"

His memory cut off, and only then was able to recollect being carried on a stretcher by two Octoling Rivals. Upon questioning they briefed him into that „that other Elite" was beyond saving when they found the two of them. It did not seem as if the two females were actual medics, but they were the only ones from the group who found the other two. Further questions were swept aside as he was told to not bother with it, in spite of all the respect the low class could perfectly re-collect that all of the middle and lower ranks had for Saito and the way he treated other people similar to him.
He did not questioned it upon being told to not do so. He bottled it up, and signed up for the experimental-training program Saito advised him to go to, which by itself only was able to let a low class in through the connections Saito set up for him. After that, the memories began to turn hazy. His first thoughts during the incident were to return to the base - Even if by limping - Attempting in frail steps to walk out of the area he was in. Step by step, as if the cold sweat on him was what began weighting him down. He was in fact found later on, unconsciously lying at the floor of a side alley. Saito's body allegedly missing, in actuality thrown into the waters of the sewers they were in, as recorded in some of the Kamabo-surveillance cameras.

The Low-Class Solider whose name used to be Sou -

That was the Octoling later mildly known as - „Katou".

[...]

Those were all of the memories Katou was able to re-collect after his amnesia had passed a year later on the surface. Every other memory he received from the memcakes may have felt like better experiences - But none of them ever felt like they were his own memories.
And after these two, it gets only all the more hazy - From few pieces of memories about being the subject as yet another generic lab rat that later on gave him his Kraken-like hardening ability, sometimes bedridden and sometimes lost in an even bigger wake-walking coma of his hallow consciousness.
A coma that only ended...
With a song.
The same song that woke Katou up...
In the middle of a dumpster deep down in the underground. All alone. Without any Agents to guide him. In a journey he only survived with wits, luck, and a will to live, kept alive by a desperate dream.

——————————————————

———————————————

Timeskip - Today

[...]

„Heeey, check it Katou! On the radio! I know you barely have any experiences with the Idols of Inkopolis but, still remember which band this is?"

„Of course I do. That's Off the Hook. Your favorite band. Didn't you told me once how you used to know one of them? Albeit not under the best of circumstances?"

„Heheey, that's my boy!~ Cheers!"

The sensation of having someone being proud of you. Even if the working conditions in his new job are still pretty bad, just not that bad, it's the sense of appreciation that is the best part for Katou of the whole job at the Teriyaki-Store, whose Boss was also an Octoling that picked Katou from the mud after he reached the surface - After that year in Grizzco.

It was - As if Katou nearly had forgotten how to smile.

"Thanks, Boss."