Back at the house of hell, Soujirou was watching himself working to the bone. The little boy he was watching was barely five years old, yet could carry on from dawn until dusk. This day, he was scrubbing the floor spotless. Soujirou couldn't help but notice how thin he had been, underfed and with bruises up and down his body, none of them ever fully healing before another sprouted.

A jolt of fear struck his heart when the child version of himself knocked over the table, sending the food on his flying through the air and crashing on the floor. His family, if he could call them that, grew angry as they approached the boy. For a moment, Soujirou wanted to tell himself to run, to hide, to fight back, but he was shaking as they came near the little Soujirou. They grabbed his hair, whispered demeaning words, and they kicked him as well. The little Soujirou screamed in pain, in fear, and the real Soujirou tried to close his ears to the sound, the very sound that he had made so often at that age. His natural instinct kicked in and he smiled, even as tears began to well from his eyes, the screaming getting louder and louder until he wasn't sure he could handle it any longer.

In the very next moment, Soujirou opened his eyes, relieved that what he saw and what he heard was only a dream. He could still hear himself screaming, that horrible sound of a child's fear. It had been years since he dreamt of his old family, having pushed them out of his mind after dedicating his life to Shishio Makoto as one of the Juppongatana. When Soujirou tried to push the sight and sound of his young self out of his mind to calm himself, he finally realized that the screaming he was hearing wasn't leftover from the dream at all. Somewhere close by, someone really was crying out in fear, in pain, much as Soujirou had done in his childhood. There was no way he could mistake the sound.

He sat and pondered for merely an instant before standing up and going outside to see who was needing help.