Cain

Slight of build, Cain was a young man who kept his brown hair cropped short and usually pulled a plain blue-gray cap over it. Thin, arched brows framed a pair of pale blue eyes. His everyday outfit paired a white button-down, its sleeves shoved up toward the elbows, with dark trousers held by suspenders that met in a Y behind him, finished off with brown shoes. Once the colder months arrived, Koga bought him a teal jacket so he could keep training outdoors.

Before Kariya placed him with Koga, Cain was combative, sour, and dismissive, trusting no one and convinced that Bount were meant to live apart. The farm work changed him. Shoulder to shoulder with Koga, hauling water and splitting firewood, he warmed to the older Bount and confessed that his earlier existence had been shameful, though a hot-tempered edge never fully left him. In time he grew proud of his heritage and longed to match Koga in both body and will. That same swagger undid him: ignoring a direct warning, he called forth a Doll alone, and when he tried to command it he was killed, aging to dust in seconds while pleading for Koga to save him.

Years earlier, a younger Jin Kariya delivered Cain to Gō Koga, hoping the veteran would forge the youth into a strong and respectable Bount. Koga was reluctant, since their kind rarely cooperated, but he agreed after physically outmatching Cain to spur him toward real training. Bristling yet willing, Cain took up the manual labor of the farm, chopping logs, carrying water, and gathering crops.

When the two hauled potatoes to a nearby town to sell, Koga surprised him with a coat for the winter, and Cain admitted how much meeting Koga had improved his life. Three men who had watched the sale tried to rob them; Cain wanted to fight, but Koga simply shrugged off their blows and walked away. That night a mob branded them monsters, so Koga summoned his Doll, Dalk, to scatter them. Awed by her, Cain took heart when Koga assured him a Doll of his own would come in time.

Trained hard enough to shatter a wooden dummy with one punch, Cain was finally judged ready, and Koga handed him Kariya's instruction book. Warned to wait, Cain instead performed the ritual in secret and called up Waineton. The Doll, first appearing as a small green bean-shaped creature before revealing a monstrous mantis form, sensed his weakness and rejected him, and Cain crumbled to ash. Grieving, Koga and Kariya buried his remains by the sea beneath a cairn topped with his cap, and resolved to live together rather than alone.