as the grandchild of the man behind borg, kai had certain privileges at the institution that none of the other children there were allowed. while he trained under the same conditions, ate the same meals, slept in the same dark & cramped room with a dozen other kids, & received many of the same punishments, the rules of borg were far more lenient on kai. the dress code of uniform was not enforced upon him as on the others, he was allowed to roam the halls outside training hours ( provided there was at least one staff member accompanying him ) , he was punished on the spot instead of being sent into solitary if he spoke out against any of the personnel or vladimir, & in fact was the only person, personnel or child of borg, who could talk back to vladimir, though even he did not always get away with it unscathed.
in addition to this, he was the only child allowed any contact with family, even if said family was solely soichirou & this contact was for purposes of monthly training updates which for the majority consisted of vladimir providing a progress report & kai standing next to him in silence until the end of the call when his grandfather would finally address him & kai wouldn't even have to say anything when a sharp nod was always enough, though eventually even a nod went without saying.
aside from these spare "privileges", kai's life within borg was much the same as that of the other children. he would spend hours each day relentlessly training his stamina, his body, his battling, being merciless in his training matches, even as he was aware of what could happen to the children that lost. ( kai only ever lost once in his time living in borg's walls, spending a week alone in a dingy cell as punishment. he was five years old & had been at borg for two days. )
new victims battlers arrived every few weeks, & they always cried &/or screamed during their first few days there, breaking down from the sudden pressure & the intensity of the training, few holding out long enough to contain their distress until they were sent to their rooms, the only places, aside from the cells, where they were safe to cry & scream ( some children didn't stop for months before breaking in ) . kai was no exception, being the one of the few, but he was one of the ones that learned fairly quickly the new rules that would govern their lives for a long, long time.
the first rule was that it may have been an abbey, may have been called a monastery, but the only gods they were to serve there were borg itself & vladimir ; no gods capable of mercy would hear their prayers while in the confines of borg's unholy walls, no matter how they screamed.
the second was that borg's word was law, & if you argued with any of the staff, or worst of all vladimir, it would surely be the last time you ever argued with anyone. ( while kai's privileges spared him the true extent of punishment for back-talk, he very quickly understood to never argue or disagree with any of the adults. )
the third was that any emotion aside from anger was useless in the eyes of borg & there was no place for sorrow or joy in their regime. as such, it followed that there were no friendships formed. it was every child of borg for themselves, & anyone caught helping the battlers deemed too weak was punished as an accomplice.
there were many other rules, made explicit by the staff & reminded of often, but these were the unwritten ones that the children learned on their own & which guided them in following borg's actual rules. the essence of them burrowed its way beneath kai's skin, & haunted him even upon losing memory of the abbey. it still haunts him, & likely always will.
