Sleep

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"Don't you dare walk away from me, you bastard!!!"

Chang Mi's long overcoat flowed in great waves along the flow of rooftop winds. The chill of early winter stung her flesh beneath her short hair, but that did not change the warmth of the knife in her hand. From that blade sprung the blood of her deepest hatred, her deepest love. Somewhere within that cold steel lay her heart, and today she would wear it on her hand as she strode into battle.

Why do people choose to love? Why do people choose to attach themselves to one another so strongly that mere severance threatens to completely consume their beings through self-destruction?

It's because we all want something better, we all look past the reality of our own lives to risk ourselves for that distant desire imbedded deep within our hearts, no matter how far off it may seem.

Life is lonely if we do not take risks. And living an unhappy life is not worth living at all.

The small "ten" (heaven) emblem on the collar of Chang Mi's high school jacket reflected a ray of empty sunlight across the vacant building rooftop as she arrogantly strode towards her prey with weapon bared in her metal hand, in the palm and arm that he had severed from her so many years ago. On the other side of the school stood the man with the white mask, a single black circle painted on its clear forehead. On his back flew an overcoat that rode the sky like a superhero's cape, in his grip he held his own knife, a long single-sided blade not unlike a butcher’s tool in contrast to her own polished balisong. And on his chest he wore the same jacket as she, for he had finally come back to return the favor of her passionate [---].

Some people theorize that the dreams of our sleep are merely subconscious thoughts collected from our memories and given a form in images that we can understand. Others believe we can see our deepest, most hidden secrets within those illusions, things that we would not have been able to notice otherwise simply because of the barriers we put up against one another in our daily confrontations with society. For still others, that realm is their heaven, their only escape from a world they despise more than life itself...

And as she ran forward as fast she could to spill his blood upon the world, he spread his arms and dashed towards her as well, fulfilling her wonderful dream for that final, brilliant glow.

Yet, what matters the most? Fulfilling your own happiness, or fulfilling that of the ones who you really love?

"Kore wa... tada no yume?" ("Is this... just a dream?")

...

"She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love. But I can't help the feeling. I could blow through the ceiling. If I just turn and run, and it wears me out. If I could be who you wanted all the time."

--- Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees"

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"I still don't like this plan of yours," muttered Double as he slowly and stiffly navigated the hovercraft through the narrow mountain paths. Despite the cold night wind that nearly iced over the metal edges of the vehicle, Yoshime, Iesu, and Fumiya had somehow managed to fall into a deep and contented sleep in the back wrapped in thick blankets, resting against the silent and recharging mecha. Yoshime had long since nestled herself lightly into Edge's arms, the android seemingly watching over with a careful eye even as he dozed away in his recharge standby. Yet, it was the latest addition to their numbers that drew the assassin's attention the most. Fumiya Sang Wu, a man whose insanity almost killed them all. Every natural instinct in the killer's body told him to destroy the mercenary and tear him to pieces without a second thought. He was trouble both for them and for himself, the mechanical drives built into the man's mind transcending peril and logic in its mad scheme. The only thing saving the poor fool from that fate was his associates and their attempts to go along with his plan. "I'm not going to even ask if we can really trust him. You already know what I think."

"You tend to be vocal enough in your opinions so that everybody knows what you think," muttered Kouryuu, earning a sharp look of contempt from her companion. "Don't think that I don't understand your concerns though. Fumiya is definitely a loose cannon. I'd be plenty happy if he were strapped up in a straight jacket and rolled in for the crook he is. But even you have to admit that we can't pass up an opportunity like this. We've been followed and pestered by Toy for long enough. I think a chance to put him on the sidelines is well worth our time to go out of our way to achieve. According to Edge's map, we still have a long way to go and I'd like to avoid as many skirmishes as possible if we can. Besides, if nothing else, it'll keep Fumiya occupied. Who knows what else he might do if we left him to his own devices?"

"Feh," muttered Double absently, only half paying attention as he navigated the jagged cliffs. "I suppose. Something stinks bad about this whole thing though, and it's not necessarily Fumiya who I'm talking about."

"You've always got to look on the bad side," said the rebel, tempted to elbow him in the ribs. "Look, we even got a free ticket through Moruki Dana. This path is certainly better than trying to brave government firing lines."

"That's not what I'm talking about," said the assassin. "I've been thinking about what Fumiya said earlier about Yoshiki. Barely anybody knows anything about Toy's impact on this world, so I don't even know if I'm ready to believe what that mercenary says. But what if it's true? What if Yoshiki really is his primary contact on this planet?"

"Point being?"

"I had previously assumed that Toy had been a little more omnipotent in the way he got his information. Up until now, he's always been one step ahead of us, cutting us off at every corner, knowing exactly where we were going. But I'm not quite so sure if that's right anymore."

Double's eyes sharpened and he slowed the hovercraft to a lethargic crawl as he spared a glance at Kouryuu. "Yoshiki may be Toy's main contact on Akuji, but the man sounded like he had never seen us before in his life when we actually met him. Now, if that first assumption is true, then why would he act like that? My immediate answer is that he really hasn't seen us before, that perhaps this was the first time Toy has ever asked him to involve himself in our activities. But then how does that explain all the other times before when Toy seemed to know exactly where we were going?"

"You're thinking that there must be someone else," said Kouryuu beneath her breath, her vision narrowing as she began seeing where her friend was coming from. "But who? Yoshiki's local contacts probably dwarf all of the world governments combined, and that’s not even counting what his deals across this star system. He's the most likely candidate if there was ever a need to keep tabs on someone, but if he claims to have never seen us before..."

"That's what worries me," said the assassin, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "On one hand, there could be an even bigger faction in this game that we simply don't know of. Then again, Fumiya managed to keep tabs without us knowing, and there’s no reason why somebody else couldn't do the same. My main concern is finding out how they're tracking us down. It doesn't help me relax any if the next guy who crosses my path in the market could really be a robotic tracking device beneath a couple hundred pounds of synthetic flesh and muscle."

He paused and bit his lip as he forced himself to pay attention to the curving road once more. There were always too many things to look out for, too many variables that he hadn't noticed until the last minute. No matter how hard he set his mind to the task at hand, something always jumped up from the shadows to ambush him from behind. Maybe it was just part of the paranoia he picked up as an assassin, but he hated surprises. "I just don't like feeling helpless. Maybe we can't keep up with everything that's thrown at us, but I'd feel better if I knew were to look for the answers that aren't there."

"We can't take on the whole world at once," said Kouryuu with a slight smile. "But we can take it down one step at a time. Just look at this next move as an opportunity to get one of our troubles out of the way. You're being so uptight that you're probably just imaging these things. Pressure does that to a person."

"Mmm... I suppose," said Double dismissively, but a sharp fear continued to linger in the back of his head. No matter how many times he tried to rail his companion's words of comfort through his head, the suspicion remained buried in the deepest recesses of his thoughts. It was a cancer deeper than merely skepticism, something that he knew was there but could not prove, an uncertainty that truly solidified his anxiety. But until he retraced his steps and discovered that small clue that he had missed the first time around, he might as well keep his silence within the group. There was no point in raising worry when it was unnecessary.

Still, he could not help but suspect that there was a party imbedded deep within their conflict that he had not yet been able to flesh out, something lying in wait, watching, learning, and biding its time for their most vulnerable moment to finally reveal itself and strike with its deadly venom.

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He could see it, just beyond the mist. Just beyond that light haze that seemed to slow down his every movement, that would not let his feet run forward freely towards that bright love in the distance. Fumiya yearned for that forbidden fruit, and ran as hard as he could through the intangible substance that slowed him down like a viscous sludge until every inch of his body was soaked in the sweat of his efforts. For every step he worked to take forward, the distant jewel only seemed to float farther away. He continued to fight, continued to perspire and tire every muscle until he screamed out from the sheer agony, but there was nobody to hear him, nobody to fear or pity his futility, nobody to show him the compassion of either love or hate. He knew the thing that flew from his arms would though. He knew that if he could reach that power that continued to gently bob off into the distance- no matter how much he bled or hurt- everything would be all right. Yet, all he could do was despair as the thin clouds suddenly grew dark and heavy, obscuring his object of affection until it was completely hidden beneath a drapery of dusk. Tired and defeated, he fell to his knees, his chest heaving in and out beneath his sweat soaked shirt as hopelessness slowly gave way to anger. The moisture burned away as the tips of his clawed hands licked with purple flame, slow at first, but soon crackling high and bright as his entire body consumed itself in the inferno. He knew he should be hurting, but he couldn't even open his mouth to voice a word as he felt himself being burnt to ash. And as his flesh and bone turned black from the fire, as his eyes turned white and devoid of hope, he felt a hand on his shoulder. If he had cared, he might have looked back to inquire who had come to lend his condolence. But he knew it was only the devil, coming to claim him after he had been cast down from the utopia high above.

"Mother…"

...

His father had another opera playing on the old-fashioned record player, but a different kind of music was playing in the young boy's head. It was something dark and loud, its weight bearing down from above like a freight train, the impending doom so much warmer than the life he held now.

Fumiya sat in the dark corner of his room, clutching blankets about his small body to escape the bitter chill of winter. Thin streams of light poked in from beyond the great doors of the child's confines, but he did not wish to be bathed in their false attention. Even the deep shade beneath the eves of the moon outside was better than facing whatever was out there, in the real world, in his father's world. Anything was better.

A deep baritone bass reverberated along the stone walls as the primary vocalist voiced the sorrow of his lost love, the faint echos reaching Fumiya's ears unwanted, and he stubbornly clamped his hands over them in a rigid attempt to severe himself from the cold structure of his home and relieve his soul within his own fantasy. A child's fantasy. But he didn't have that anymore, did he? He no longer had control over his destiny. He simply no longer had the option of choice.

What was his father doing now? The old man enjoyed listening to such musical classics- pre-nuclear age symphony, mostly- whenever he went about matters of personal business. At least, the ones that he considered more as entertainment than profession or duty. Who had shed blood this night for that minor mistake that someone failed to overlook? Who died on these grounds tonight for the sheer purpose of amusing the monster within this cave of stone? Truthfully, he did not wish to find out, and attempted to dig himself deeper into his own sadness by burying his face between his knees.

Finally, Fumiya forced himself to rise, feeling small and alone in the depths of his chambers. Walking beneath the unnecessarily high ceiling of his bedroom, beneath intricate and playful stone carvings decorating each corner in a vain attempt by some long-dead architect to bring joy to his heart, Fumiya gradually shuffled his way towards the massive twenty foot tall windows that overlooked the lush forests and mountains outside his prison, still clutching the blankets tightly about his thin, wrapped in woolen pajamas that failed to bring any warmth to his body. Dark eyes squinted as the reflection of the moon brought light over his face, his gaze falling upon its round body of perfection that seemed to look down on him so protectively. For a brief second, he allowed his tense muscles to relax as he observed the beauty in peace. Something about it seemed so familiar, as though he had experienced the feeling before. Somehow, he knew it would not let him be hurt, neither in body nor soul. A sad smile creased his face when a small patch of clouds finally floated over the globular sphere, and the solace in his stare had already been replaced by cold daggers of hatred by the time the small planet had dimmed to black. He couldn't let anyone see his vulnerability, lest he be taken advantage of. He did it not to protect any sort of weakness, for he no longer cared how much others hurt him. If nothing else, feeling pain would let him know that he was still human rather than the stolid stone that he felt like. No, that wasn't the reason at all. He did it to protect himself, to protect the last bits of childhood that he held within his shivering frame for fear that one day every single bit of it would be consumed by a life of violence and animosity. He did it to keep himself innocent, a desperate measure to hang on to that last bit of gullibility, that last bit of happiness. To keep himself from being molded into the image of the monster, his father, Yoshiki Sang Wu.

And yet, perhaps could the beast have already succeeded? For he now found himself reverting to his face of anger more and more often, unable to resume even a casual smile without an amount of effort. Slowly, even as he denied it, he fell into his father's footsteps, destined to live a life he would always hate as strongly as one man can hate another.

... whatever happened to that light... those... memories?

A different music played in his head, a screaming of guitars and chaos of drum strikes, shouting, crying, destroying, the noise rising violently in his head as the vocalist's voice broke from the strain and the true animal beneath his abhorrent howls finally revealed itself to the world in a horrible roar of anguish.

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Kouryuu watched in disdain as Fumiya tiredly and slowly rose from his thick blanket in the hovercraft, the first of morning's bright rays already peeking through the mountaintops into their small encampment. A couple hours ago, the rebel had opted that they make a brief stop prior to sneaking onto Yoshiki's property, lest they tire themselves out before they even received their chance to assault the gangster's residence. Yoshimi and Iesu seemed to have recovered well enough during the night ride, considering that they did not have the same convenience of merely recharging their energy like the other mecha. However, the newly joined mercenary still seemed to be wrestling with some sort of inner demon that he couldn't shake from his slumber. Even she had to admit that his abrupt drop of arrogance since the resurrection of the angel was a welcome change that helped her communicate with him a bit better. Yet, she sensed there was something deeper that had left the man with only docile compliance, something personal that was so fiercely imbedded in his past that none of them would ever see it. Fumiya had said bitter words about his father, but he seemed to have had the same sentiment as far back as Yujin's attack on the mercenary's headquarters. No, the problem was something else, something that he had done, something that he somehow realized was wrong...

The rebel shook her head and forced herself to look eastward, patrolling the edge of their camp just in case uninvited guests happened to arrive. Most likely, it was completely unnecessary. Yoshiki didn't even know they were coming, let alone would he even waste time keeping track of an area this far from his premises. Still, old habits died hard.

" It can't be helped," she said ruefully, allowing herself a small sigh as she marched back to the others, Double already rallying them about in a small circle as he used a sharp finger to trace rough images in the dirt.

"We're still about twenty kilometers out from Yoshiki's place," said the assassin in low tones as he tapped a spot of ground indicating their location. "But I still don't want to jump into something we don't understand, regardless of how much of an advantage we have. I went ahead and scouted out the edge of their perimeter ahead of time, and it looks like he's got some serious artillery behind the name. A full array of motion detectors on the outside flanked by what looks like computer-controlled heavy automatics and laser weapons. They were hidden pretty well, so I didn't get a close look at the model. Still, he has other ways to keep out unwanted guests. Plenty of guards, groups of five patrolling each inch of the property's edge every two minutes to my count. I didn't see any at first glance, but I'm pretty damn positive that he has mecha under his belt too, probably corazon mecha. And who knows what else. I could only see so much from the outside."

"I still think a nuclear blow from a distance would be the best plan," said Asimov in his hard voice. "If we're just here to raise some hell, we might as well do it in a way that will keep ourselves out of trouble."

"That would be a mistake," said Clef coldly, his eyes never leaving Double's rough diagram as he continued to mull over the mansion's construction. "If the whole point of this excursion is to prevent further pursuance by Toy, exuberant displays of mass destruction are certainly not the way to go about our goal. Yes, I'm sure Terpfen could easily steer a bomb in close enough to demolish the complex, but I'm sure our friend has already made precautions to prevent such an easy victory."

"Most likely," continued Double. "And I have no doubt that he could escape such an attack even if he didn't have the means to prevent it. What we really need is a silent method to penetrate these defenses, something they won't notice until we're already long gone so that tracking our position will be impossible."

Kouryuu stared hard at the picture in the ground, her mind whirling through their options. There certainly weren't many. This complex had the best defensive matrix she had ever seen, plus whatever devices her companion hadn't been able to plainly spot from a distance. Certainly, their opponent was prepared enough for a war if it ever came that he needed such firepower. Yet, would subterfuge work against one who anticipated so well for intruders?

"Did you get a chance to check out the ducts?" she asked, still hoping for an opening that the gangster would be careless enough to ignore. "Even vermin need to air out their lairs once and a while."

"No good," said Double, shaking his head. I only got a glimpse of the air filters, but they're all heavily guarded. Power armor AND soldiers. The guy doesn't take any chances. Even if we did manage to muscle our way in there, I caught a glimpse of light in the shaft itself. Looks like more sensors to me. Maybe more laser weapons and heat arrows, both of which are took big of a risk to take. The way we're going, I don't think sheer force is going to be a match if they manage to find and team up on us all at once."

"The sewers? Power conduits? The roof?" said the rebel with a slight tinge of dying hope.

"No good. The entire building is self-sufficient, drawing from what looks to be like a plasma engine buried deep beneath the place. Nothing comes in or out from what I saw. Even trash is incinerated or recycled. I don't even know how the guy gets food into the place, didn't see anything that could have even remotely resembled a shipping port. The best explanation I can come up with is that he gets all his goods through an underground circuit, something built deep enough to escape detection with an entrance far enough from the main institution to give more than enough time for ample warning should anybody try to break indirectly."

Kouryuu resisted the urge to rub her temples with her fingertips. This had originally been a mission to make their journey a little easier, but the entire plan seemed to be backfiring in their faces as she watched her friend brood over his sketchy diagram drawn in the dirt. After their previous confrontation with Yoshiki, she had originally anticipated that avoiding any further conflicts once inside the complex would be their biggest trouble. Now, she questioned if they could get in the first place. What remained then? Walk away, continue where they left off? No, they had already passed the point of no return. Toy could be tracking them even now. Turning to run so close to one of his contacts could only leave them subject to a surprise attack, something they couldn't afford. Double had said he thought there was someone else. If he was right, a two-pronged assault could certainly be the result of their carelessness, one from Yoshiki, perhaps one from Yujin. Seeing the way they had fared lately, she would prefer to get a chance to recover before going head to head with any of them again. The best thing they could do was go on with their plan and attempt to sever at least one of Toy's links. The big question was how they could break in to do it.

"As I said before," broke in Fumiya suddenly, pushing the others out of the way as he bent over to examine the killer's rough blueprint. "--- my father was never one for change."

Studying the diagram for a brief second, he suddenly traced a small circle on the northern edge of the complex, dragging his finger in the dirt about three inches before stopping and tapping the point with his index digit.

"We can enter here," he said coldly, his eyes frozen on the upturned soil. "There's a slight breach in the sensor systems in this area due to the erratic jump in the altitude. It's very slight, but enough so that it leaves a window in the defense system every once in a while. At first glance the gaps seem completely random, but they actually occur every two hours in seventy-six second intervals, give or take five. If we circle around to the northern perimeter at the edge of the defensive grid, it's a three-hundred meter dash to the inner circle where we'll be out of sensor range. Not especially good conditions, but it's possible."

"And just how do you know all this?" said Asimov, raising a questioning eyebrow.

The mercenary only leered over his shoulder at the golden warrior with a look that would have chilled the devil.

"It was how I escaped," he said bitterly. "What, did you think that my father sent me out the front door with my lunch money and schoolbooks when I left? It wasn't exactly pleasant living there, especially when my only family was hell-bent on killing everybody else."

"Alright, so we have one problem solved," cut in the assassin, making an attempt to avoid a bitter confrontation amidst the planning. "But what about the guards and mecha? I saw the rounds. They keep a pretty tight watch on the premises. I don't think we'd have a problem if it came down to raw strength versus a couple hired guns, but it'd be a dead giveaway if we left a mess behind in our path. Plus, I'm sure any use of our weapons would give off enough of an energy surge to be detectable, something we can't afford in this mission."

"That's not a problem for you or the rebel," said the mercenary, motioning towards Kouryuu with his thumb. "It shouldn't take much more than hand-to-hand to take out most of the perimeter guards. However, it shouldn't have to come to that if we pull this off properly."

"Meaning?" questioned the assassin.

And Fumiya allowed himself a slight grin, his sharp eyes glancing to the red android off to the side.

"The guards won't notice us because they'll be too busy to realize what we're doing in the first place."

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“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Time until activation: 21600 cycles.”

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In the void of the darkness, Edge's arms whirled about him in wide arcs, his fingers pointing straight out and tracing blue streaks of light in their wake. His eyes steeled straight ahead of him, the energy about his body crackled in massive sparks as his fist swooped down from over the top of his head and crashed into the ground in a powerful explosion that sent a tall pillar of force spiraling up from beneath his palm. Not even waiting for the flash to clear, he tirelessly swung up from his deep crouch with a flailing backfist followed by a more solid reverse roundhouse kick at head level, his right hand already drawn back in a stiff claw in preparation for the next stage of his assault. The air exploded around him as the red cyborg drew himself up in a straight, casual stance, his hand swiping about and resting in a pose in front of his face. With the motion completed, the atmosphere momentarily sparked with a flare of electricity before hundreds of invisible black holes rippled through the darkness and consumed the black sky in a field that ravenously devoured every speck of matter in sight. Only when the empty noise finally settled did Edge allow himself a small breath of relief.

"You seem to be a little high-strung lately, my friend."

The young boy only tilted his head back a bit to acknowledge the winged man behind him, his lips still parted from the hard breathing of his exercise.

"I've had a lot on my mind," he said, a distant chill hanging on the end of his words. Lately, he had gone back over all the details that he hadn't had time to see clearly before, and he didn't like how the pieces of the puzzle added up. He could admit that he had acted a bit irrationally in their recent conversations. His frustrations with the mysterious angel that Fumiya released had clouded his judgment enough to keep him from seeing everything quite as clearly as he should have. However, there still remained a haze about the whole issue, questions that were not answered, connections that he did not understand but somehow linked back to himself. Something had happened when that angel died, a power that he himself had released and did not understand but that his opponent apparently recognized quite clearly. That same opponent also knew his teacher, calling him by a name he had never heard before. He knew things that were buried deep in the past, things that could mean something. Things that had an explanation that he himself did not know.

"I haven't kept anything from you," said Adam warmly. "And you've done just fine this far on your own as well."

"But you haven't been telling me the whole truth either," said Edge, turning to face the seraph who was perched on an invisible chair in midair, his legs crossed casually as his wings spread out behind him. "That angel knew who you were. He knew whatever it was I did to him and he called you by a different name. There's something you're not telling me, something you're voluntarily choosing to keep behind your back instead of showing me face to face and I don't like having secrets kept from me."

Even Edge was surprised by how quickly the amiability seemed to slip from Adam's face into a gaze of disapproval. Nothing in his body changed except for a slight twitch at the ends of his lips, yet immediately the air seemed to ice over with a foreboding wind. Perhaps it was simply his own paranoia playing tricks on him. Perhaps it wasn't.

"There is nothing I haven't told you that you needed to hear," said the angel in his usual nonchalant voice, though the tone seemed to carry a removed wave of isolation. "What you heard was only portions of politics that you would not understand. I doubt involving you in their complexities would make your life any easier."

"They may be something that I don't understand, but it seems that I'm already a part of them whether I like it or not," said the young boy warily. "That should give me more than enough reason to know."

Adam simply stared at him long and hard, the silence dragging on for what seemed like hours, cracking open Edge's determination with its frosty precision and almost making him question his own argument from the sheer discomfort of the man's gaze alone. Yet, he refused to give up, refused to back down as he took a deep breath and returned the look with as stern and cold a force as he could manage. He couldn't let these things slip through his grasp simply because he was not strong enough to keep a hold on their tendrils. Maybe Adam was an angel, a creature long forgotten from the human world, a being of immense power thought to have died out years ago. But he had just defeated one of his kin, torn his body to shreds and witnessed his death in a hail of ascending feathers that flew up to the sky above. No matter how much the man before him should be feared, he was not invincible. He could be beaten. He was still bound by ties that could be unraveled by mortal hands, things Edge could pick at and pull until the strings untangled and came loose to reveal the twisted plot within. Now more than ever, he had began to make questions, questions as to why Adam followed him, talked to him, even helped him. Why did he assist in his fights? Why did these people know who he was? Why...?

He was only beginning to sort out who he was and what was important to him. He couldn't loose it all now.

Adam ended up being the one who finally broke down, gently falling from his perch and walking over to look down on his protégé with a face that Edge could not define. He had forgotten how tall the man was as he towered over his head, his shadow seeming to consume the small android before him. It took all of his willpower to keep his confidence outwardly vibrant while his innards began to twist about into an uncomfortable knot.

"Why do you travel like this?" the angel finally asked plainly.

"Eh?" said the young boy, surprised at the question. Certainly he had expected more of a rebuke, a strict lecture, maybe even an answer to his problems.

"Why do you travel the way you do?" he repeated. "For what purpose? What is it that you want?"

Edge stopped for a moment, stunned to silence by the change in pace before he was able to scrape up a coherent answer.

"I travel because... because I want to find the Temple of Ordeal," he said plainly. "I want to know what it's like to be human."

"Mmm," nodded the seraph. "And after you find the Temple, then what? What do you plan to do, want to do? Do you believe you will possess all the answers you will ever need after that point? Will your life hold no more meaning after you have finally accomplished your goal? Surely, you will live longer than any human could ever dream of, possessing a level of power that could easily help you carve out a lifestyle of your choosing. The only question remains as to how you will take advantage of that opportunity."

Edge could say nothing, for he had never really considered a life on his own, a life completely ruled by the hand of his own decisions. Quite honestly, the only real goal he had set for himself was to find that place found only in fairy tales, nothing more. While he did care for those friends he had made, had he ever thought about what he could do for their futures? Each one of them had real, tangible desires, things they fought for, lived for, and were more than willing to die for. A stinging sensation of guilt pierced his being as he tried to find something within that empowered a similar purpose, only to meet an empty void of indecision. Or was it simply ignorance, not even recognizing the merit or lack thereof of his own actions and desires? What had he done thus far that entailed his own sentience? What had he done up until now that firmly constituted his existence in this world? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. He did not know, for he had never stopped to ponder his own future. He felt worse if only because the thought had never even crossed his mind.

"There was a time when I too wished I could know all those secrets to life," breathed Adam, stepping back a bit and resting his palm on the hilt of his sword. "It was one of those times in youth when you think you can do anything, when you formulate incredible desires that defy any sort of logic whatsoever. And as I grew up and learned more about the world and its limitations, that desire slowly lessened, faded, and grew smaller because I could not support it with my childish dreams. But I did not let that hope die out. Rather, I reduced it, finding the things I could still achieve and cherishing them, nurturing them, wishing that one day they would come true. Perhaps it was for the better as well, for what is a man who knows all? Who can do all, who can get anything he wants by the power that he holds? Most humans would call such a creature God and either revere or fear him for the sheer strength that he can hold in a single hand. Yet, omnipotence comes at the price of a stale existence, for everything becomes predictable and mundane. Things that were once treasures become useless because one can indulge oneself in mass, meaningless numbers of infinite quantity, draining the potent rarity from the experience. No, that man is not God, but rather the unhappiest man alive, for life no longer holds meaning to a man who can avert all troubles, who can easily satisfy his own needs no matter how lavish, who no longer possesses an ignorance with which to set his curious mind to explore."

"That doesn't explain why you kept those things from me, nor what they mean," said Edge bluntly as he shook his head, refusing to let the seraph's riddles turn his mind in a different direction.

"No, it doesn't," said Adam, his face still refusing to show any emotion whatsoever. "But it does not matter what I know if you do not even know what you know. Really, does the rest of the world truly mean anything compared to the breadth and fulfillment of your own desires?"

"It does if I and my friends could be affected by them," said the boy. "I've already been affected well enough by your presence in my head. Even though I fully admit that usually your help has been beneficial, that doesn't mean that you may be conducting your own secret plans behind my back that will make me regret accepting your hand of assistance. Who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have even seen most of the trouble we've gone through if I had never met you."

"Perhaps," said the angel, and he allowed himself a slight grin. "Perhaps, perhaps not. And while I do keep your best interests at stake in both my advice and support, there are still things that I have been bound to not reveal to you both for your own sake and the secrecy of politics---" He suddenly seemed to flinch ever so slightly, his hand momentarily making an involuntary snap off the end of his sword as if recoiling from the smack of a reprimanding blow. Adam merely gave the hand an irritated stare before resuming his previous stance of calm serenity, but the fleeting break in his posture was still glaringly noticeable. Unnaturally noticeable. "At any rate, you're still young, untouched by the dark corruption of sin. Your desires are still strong. Following them to your fullest should be easy for someone like you, and I will support you no matter what you chose."

"If it were that easy, I'd already be there," said Edge, resisting the urge to wrap contempt into his bitter words. "All I know is that you could have helped me when I needed it, but you're choosing to keep your secrets. You're choosing to keep your information from me when it might mean life or death for the next time we're attacked, for the next time we see another angel, for whatever the case may be. Maybe your intentions really are good, but I've already seen enough in this life to not believe everything I hear and see. I'm not sure who I can really trust anymore, who I can put faith into, who I can really call upon for my deepest questions. For a moment, I wondered if maybe you were different from all this human taint, the lies and deceit that I've seen among so many of this planet’s people. But I guess you angels are just as bad as they are, never able to come clean, even with the wings. Until you can do that much, don't expect me to take you quite as seriously as before."

Edge turned his back on the seraph, for once being the first to walk off as his body abruptly shimmered in the darkness and fled the black night back into his own reality.

Adam simply sat down again upon his seat in the void once again, crossing his legs and smiling as he stared off in the direction the young boy had left.

"The young are always so eager to grow up, thinking that knowledge will make them stronger... stronger and harder..." he whispered to himself, caressing his own cheek with a long finger. "But become too hard and one only becomes that much more brittle to the touch. What a paradox it is, that only when we finally burden ourselves with responsibility and knowledge that we realize that it was innocence that gave us strength to do the impossible, something we can't reclaim." For a moment, the angel wondered if the boy would make it to the end, made stronger through the forge and fire of human adversity or becoming broken by their falsehood and contradictions. And then he told himself not to worry, for Edge had everything he needed, the thing that he himself did not have so many years ago, the thing he now sought to reclaim for his fractured heart...

What a cruel thing, to show one true happiness... and then take it away, deprive him of its bathing light...

"Isn't that right, [---]?"

...

...

...

"If the pay for this job wasn't so damn good, I'd rather be working the freakin' trash pits."

"Mouth in autopilot, brain not even in the driver’s seat," muttered Keori, hefting her rifle as she tried her best to ignore the empty lament of her partner. She could admit well enough that guard duty was certainly very dull, especially considering their location and employer. However, it didn't help to be reminded every ten minutes just how dreary her occupation really was. "You need to shut up more often, Yun. You knew the risks when you took the job, so live with the consequences. It's not like Yoshiki would ever let you leave this area alive anyways. He doesn't seem to like having those kinds of loose ends floating around. So accept your paycheck and fate happily."

"Ch," muttered Yun, rubbing his unshaved chin as he stared out amongst the forests beneath the brow of his camouflaged helmet. "I didn't think it was going to be so boring either. Geez, you'd think you'd get a lot of action working for a crime lord, but he's so well hidden that we spend most of our time taking walks around the building rather than actually doing what we're paid for."

"Yeah, yeah, keep talking," muttered Keori, bringing her hands up to her face as she casually lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled the nicotine permeated smoke. True, all her training and work did seem to be going to waste. Yet, she made five times more than the average mercenary on the street, and at a far more consistent rate at that. Even if her craft seemed to be holding about as much thrill as a bowl of oatmeal, it had paid off her debts within a year and secured her a fairly sizable savings fund. The thrall of a comfortable, secure retirement kept her satiated in her position for now. Besides, if she ever wanted a real kick, all she had to do was try to escape the grounds themselves. Surely, that would be a most sensational finale if she truly did desire the need for a change of pace.

"Hmm?" she muttered absently as a sharp beep suddenly went off in the earphones concealed on the inside of her helmet. It was a signal for her to check her visuals, that something unnatural had just happened somewhere on the complex. Usually, she never heard the sound except in training sessions. Perhaps they would get some fun today after all.

"Looks like somebody's got balls," grinned Yun to her side, a loud clack ringing off in the air as he dropped a clip of normal ammo to the ground and slapped in a full round of armor-piercers, his visor already slipped over his eyes as he checked the disturbance. She quickly hit a button on her helmet to bring down her own visor, surveying the information splayed over the clear green-tinted mini computer screen that dropped in front of her face.

"Something tripped the sensor on the outer border," she said absently, following the movements of their intruder. "Looks like it might be circling around to see if there's a better way in, doesn't seem to be making any serious moves quite yet though. In another minute, the building's tracking will follow its path and check for any hidden units that we're not picking up, but this looks more like a one-man job than anything else if you ask me."

"Group six says they can cover it, but the big man himself is ordering us to head in for backup," said Yun as he tapped off his comm-link, testing the weight of the firearm in his hand as he stepped off to attend to business.

"As backup?" questioned Keori, her face scrunching up in confusion as she laid a heavy hand on his arm to pull him back. "That doesn't seem right. This thing hasn't done anything but scout the perimeter so far. Group six can see if it's actually a threat before we leave our post."

"Hey, when the boss talks, I jump," said Yun, brushing her off to the side. "If he thinks we should move, I'm not going to argue. I want to keep my head on to enjoy that check I get every month! Besides, even you have to admit that it'd be nice to actually use these damn things for once---" He slapped his heavy gun with a hard fist and a grin. "---rather than just toting them around and just 'playing' soldier."

"Feh," she muttered, moving to follow him with reluctance in motion but a slight tingle of joy within. Sticking to her rounds was one thing, but disobeying someone like Yoshiki would certainly entail a punishment far worse. Besides, Yun had hit the nail right on the head; she hated just standing around. Maybe it was because she was a completist. If someone introduced a gun in a play, someone had better damn well use it.

"You asshole," she added as they ran off to the other end of the structure. "You just know me too damn well."

...

...

...

"They're leaving," said Kouryuu, eyeing the departing guards from beyond the perimeter detectors on the north slope facing the mansion. "And just five minutes before the break in the sensors, if Fumiya's timing is right. Looks like Terpfen's probe did the trick. How convenient." She added a large chunk of sarcasm to her last words. Even she didn't believe that a simple decoy would lure away the guards to the other side of the building from this far away. At least, not that easily.

"Very few people have ever found this complex and fewer have actually tried to assault it," said Fumiya from behind. "Father believes in coverging his forces on an intruder if he actually does find one, to purge the enemy as quickly as possible."

"That doesn't make any sense," muttered Double. "It leaves a huge hole in his defensive grid, completely opens up the target for an attack."

"You must remember that we're the only ones who know about the field break," replied the mercenary coolly. "He always used to love mind games, luring his enemies in with the bait of a clear path before the sensors picked them up and ran them down with the automated cannons. Even if they got into the mansion itself, there are still more than enough fortifications to stop even the best would-be assassins. Besides, it gives all the guards some action when the rare chance occurs. He considers it part of their efficiency pay. Idle killers are never satisfied with mere watchman work anyways."

"I suppose," nodded Kouryuu, satisfied enough with the answer. Logically, it seemed to make sense, both tactically and in accordance with someone of Yoshiki's psyche. Still, she felt as though there was still a hole in their plans that they hadn't yet covered, something that they were neglecting to consider. She doubted it could be any of the obvious things but there was something they were missing, something she had heard earlier...

"So what do we do next?" asked Edge off to side, a bit more somber than normal for the green-haired mech.

"Simple," said Double with a grin and a hearty pat to his companion's back. "We go in and do our job."

...

...

...

I don't need him. I can take care of myself.

Edge felt a sudden pain in the darkness, but he was alone this time, thick barriers of stone keeping out his unwanted guest. Instead of crying out for help, he forced himself to grit his teeth and hold the agony within. He was stronger than Adam thought. He could handle his life his own way. He could do it.

He could do it.

His insides suddenly burst wide open and his mouth gaped wide in an empty scream as metal tubes and wires flew in all directions, his gut exploding in a hail of metal debris. He gasped for air as the rain began to settle, but the cancer continued to remain, hot and throbbing, pulsating strongly within and growing stronger every second. It wasn’t real. It was just an illusion inside his head.

Did Adam think he could punish him for his so-called disobedience? Did he think he could make him regret turning in the other direction? Edge forced a chuckle, though it came out more as a weak hack than anything else. If the angel went to such desperate measures to make him remorse for what he did, then maybe it was better that he had walked away. He had to learn to stand on his own. He could no longer let other people take advantage of him. He had to do it.

Just a little longer...

...

“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Formatting. Scanning for necessary loading space. Time until activation: 1200 cycles.”

...

...

...

...

...

Metal boots clicked hollowly on the hard ceramic tiles of the mansion's floor as the small band trekked beneath the tall eves of the building's outer gates. The dash to the inner circle had been surprisingly easy, made simple with help from Zero's speed and Edge's gravitational powers. A quick lock job on the windows got them inside easily enough, but the atmosphere inside the building seemed to consume the very essence of light itself. Ominous shadows hung over the heads from beneath the chins of towering, stone demons and scowling gargoyles, watching over them with insatiable hunger from the rafters high above. The hallways, despite being lined with magnificent paintings along the walls and an occasional intricate sculpture crafted from the rock of the earth, carried a heavy air of sterility. No sound permeated the stale air save the clicks of their feet against the cold ground, and no one dared pass a spoken word in such a horrible dungeon. Perhaps most frightening of all was the transformation of Fumiya. He had been willing enough to cooperate in the infiltration scheme, but now he walked ahead of the others with his tense hands shaking with anticipation. His eyes darted about to the corner of every room as would a cornered animal in searching for an enemy he knew was there but could not see, his body halfway hunched over as he balanced himself on the balls of his feet, eagerly waiting for the right time to pounce. His gaze alone was fierce and cold enough to frighten anyone. Perhaps he needed it for what they were about to do.

"It's too damn quiet," said Double over his comm-link. "Too damn quiet and I don't like it one bit. There should be SOME noise, servants working, maybe cooks or maids. I'd even be happier knowing that there are some guards around. This stinks bad, real bad."

"What, you don't think Fumiya set us up, do you?" questioned Kouryuu, her hands already edging towards the hilt of her swords just in case she had to use them a bit earlier than planned. She was very thankful that Fumiya couldn't hear their secured signal as she stared at his angular form ahead, the man not even bothering to look back at the androids who followed his lead.

"Normally I wouldn't count that bastard out of doing such a thing," retorted the assassin bitterly. "But he has even less love for Yoshiki than we do. Heck, I'm monitoring him right now. The guy's completely on edge, but his system is pumped, not nervous. He wants blood and I'll be damned if I'm the one to stop him from getting it. It's not him, but we're still walking straight into a trap. Yoshiki knows we're here. I don't know how, but he knows."

Kouryuu grabbed her steel a sheer second before the faintest noise flitted by the left side of her head, and her hopes for pulling off the mission with success were quickly demolished. They had been followed all along and the order to finish them off had just been given. She hadn't wanted to turn this thing into a brawl, but they no choice now but to fight their way out if they even wanted to live.

The answer abruptly smashed into her as her steel flew from its scabbard, why she had felt so suspicious on the way in, why she had felt chills run down her spine even though she knew the guards would not see her, why she had felt as if the whole thing was far too easy to be believable. It was definitely too unbelievable, and that was because they were only being let in so Yoshiki could herd them into a snare of his own liking.

"Goddamnit!" cursed the rebel aloud, her body already in motion. "It's the second contact!!!" she fed through to Double over their private line just before her edge blocked the blade a descending android that had been hiding in the silhouettes high above.

"What?!" replied Double, also realizing that the attack had begun. "You mean---"

"What else could it be?" said Kouryuu, spinning about with her other arm to cleanly lop off the head of her opponent in a hail of sparks and flying metal. The maze of hallways suddenly closed shut as huge metal doors slid shut, trapping them in a single, vast arena, dozens of armed mecha dropping from the towering ceiling with purpose to kill. "Fumiya knew the defensive details down to the last minute article, nobody saw us come in, and this ambush is far too orchestrated to have been planned on the fly. Yoshiki may have known about our plans, but somebody had to have told him first, there has to be someone else feeding Toy his info!"

"Ch!" muttered the killer beneath his breath. "Who did we come into contact with before we left the camp? What, you think one of Fumiya's goons could be the guy we're looking for?"

"Don't worry about that now!" said the rebel, strangling a soldier in one hand with a laser wire while slicing through the belly of another with her other. She regretted not being able to see this before, but she forced herself to push the penitence out of the way. You couldn't change the past, but you could change your path for the future. "We're too deep in this right now! Worry about the who and why once we get out of this mess!"

If they got out of this mess.

...

“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Time until activation: 130 cycles.”

...

...

...

Edge swiped out with his arm at half a dozen assailants, a simple motion that accompanied the shredding of metal as the androids' bodies were forcefully ripped apart by opposing forces. He spared a look back behind him for only a second, catching sight of Yoshime whipping out her rifle and beading an aim on the nearest soldier. He hadn't thought that it would go this far. Double and Kouryuu had said they only wanted to do a quick stealth mission to keep Toy off their backs. He didn't think that this plan would put her in danger… again. If he hadn't thought Yoshime would have been useful in hacking through the building's defenses, he would have asked her to wait outside until the danger passed. Perhaps he should have asked after all. He always seemed to make his decisions too late for them to be of any use, too late for anyone to really care. The same way he had let himself be used by Adam. Who knew how far the angel may have gotten in his personal agenda by now? Who knew how much damage he might have already wrecked? What if Yoshime got hurt, all because of him? What if this was part of his plan? What if 'Adam' was only an illusion who was luring him here to die, could that be why he no longer felt the need to feed him information? Could everything be his fault? Could this all be his fault?

All because he couldn't act in time...

"Gu---!!!" Edge suddenly sputtered, his abdomen feeling as if something was consuming him from within. His mouth opened to speak his suffering, but no words came out. His lips moved without purpose, his hands clutching at his body in a futile attempt to tear forth this thing that caused him so much grief and cleanse himself of its taint. His vision blurred as he looked up, realizing he had fallen to his knees as a soldier bore down on him with an energy blade raised high above his head. It took every ounce of energy he had to lash out at the foe, shredding his body with a thought. But that was all he could do, for the plague quickly rose up once again, higher and higher, the wave coming in to eat him alive.

Was this Adam's sign of vengeance? Or merely a result of his own blind ignorance, of what he unwittingly led himself into?

...

“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Time until activation: 0000 cycles.

Formatting completed. Beginning sequence.”

...

...

...

"Edge!!!" screamed Yoshime, her voice rising above even the clamor of battle.

"Eh?" said Kouryuu, barely having the time to spare a glance toward her comrade. Yet when she did, all she could see was the young girl dropping her weapon in a mad dash towards the falling android, the latter limply descending to the ground like a discarded doll. Both were completely oblivious to the ring of soldiers that had taken the opportunity to surround them with their numbers, Yoshime simply falling to her knees as she desperately tried to hold up the young boy’s heavy frame as though contact with the ground itself would set the body to flames. The only thing that stood between the killers and their disabled prey was Iesu and his wooden cross, the boy already realizing just how far the odds were tilted against him.

"DAMN!!!" she cursed, her elbow shooting backwards with a renewed boost of energy, knocking her previous opponent's head off just before she turned in other direction and ran towards the fallen as fast as she could. There were very few things that she considered more valuable than her mission. Human lives were one of them, especially this one. Especially this one...

She had seen a lot of bloodshed in her days as a rebel and regretted every time she had to make a decision based on tactical practicality that let one of her men die, even if they told her that it was best that way. If she could help it, no one under her watch would ever have to face that fate again. Ever.

"Double!" she shouted over their comm-link. "Edge is down! I'm moving to cover!"

"Shit!!!" cursed the assassin, still occupying himself with deflecting and countering the blows of several opponents at once. "We can't afford a man down! The mission---"

"Screw the mission!" retorted Kouryuu. Her hands moved like lightning as she reached the circle of foes, her blue mane becoming a blur as her tools began to quickly dismantle them to pieces. Stray limbs and heads flew in all directions as her blades sliced through the air in blindingly fast streaks, her desperate rage driving her to limits she had not thought herself able to reach before. However, even she knew that she had already leapt into a situation that was more than she could handle, for her enemy's numbers were more than she could handle at once. Even she knew that they could not go on forever, no matter how many times they told themselves they could.

She winced as an energy weapon slipped past her defenses and sliced open her side, but not before she retaliated with a killing slash of her own in reply. Defensively grabbing her wound as she backed towards the center of the ring for a breather, the reality of the situation slowly dawned on her. The few minions they had managed to kill had easily been replaced with new, fresh bodies. No matter how many they would dispose of, Yoshiki had made sure that there would be more than enough to overpower them if only through sheer force. When she looked closer, she began to realize that each of their opponents had even been tailored to their own abilities, most likely another slip of information that Toy's informant had leaked to give the gangster the advantage. Already, Terpfen was disabled by what appeared to be anti-nuclear fields, Asimov and Zero seemed to have their power drained by what appeared to be modified energy siphoners, and Double was being forced to face his own tactics as he viciously lashed out at several attacking assassin-type mecha. Even for herself, all of her opponents had been close-range swordsmen. While they might not have been able to match her offense, they certainly seemed to have a great deal more ease in defending against her close-range assault. Moreover, their numbers easily made up for where their power and skill failed. They were being systematically dismantled, divided and separated into small fractions that were then attacked and subdued individually. Their enemy had turned out to be the one type of persona that she had always found hardest to match: a tactician. For once, she could think up of no way to slip out of the snare unharmed, but she did know what might be able to keep them alive.

"Surrender...." she muttered beneath her breath. A word she hated to use, a word she loathed almost as much as the government. Would it be her choice, she would fight to the death rather than be forced to admit her weakness before her enemy. Resistance to the bitter end was a far better fate then allowing the opportunity for your adversary to gloat over his victory. Yet, there was more at stake here than simply her petty pride. She had vowed to protect human life if she could help it, and Yoshime did not deserve to face a short existence for this sidestep in their journey that she did not even initiate. It was not something that the rebel liked, but her energy was dropping quickly from her new injury and her teammates didn't seem to be faring any better. They had no other option if they wanted to live until tomorrow.

"Relay a white flag to them," said Kouryuu hesitantly over her link to the others, already doing the same to the soldiers around her and letting her blades fall loosely to the ground with a resounding clash of metal against the hard floor. "We're going to surrender."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" roared Double in response. "This is Yoshiki we're talking about here! He doesn't want to talk. He wants us dea--"

"That isn't your choice to make!" shouted back Kouryuu in response. "It's not your choice and it's not mine because I'm not going to risk a battle in which Yoshime and Iesu may die because we were too stubborn to give up when the pressure kicked in. No, I don't like it, but she doesn't deserve that kind of fate."

"And you don't think he'd do far worse if he got his hands on her alive?" sneered the assassin.

"Look, it boils down to whatever choice might at least give us a chance to get out of here alive and fighting doesn’t look up in our favor at the moment," she said. She let her eyes wander up to her companion's and managed to catch his own stare back for a fraction of a second amongst the confusion. A second was all she needed, for she forced upon him every bit of frozen ice that she could muster, pouring every bit of energy in penetrating the assassin's rock-hard exterior and meeting that rare warmth imbedded deep within. "You're bound to her, just like Edge. You owe her, Double. You owe her this much."

Double spat out something unintelligible over their line, but soon he too backed away from the offensive and relayed a submission to their enemy. Receiving the full consent of resignation, the army of robots began to move in to shackle each one of them in protective dampeners to handicap their abilities, but Kouryuu barely noticed her own imprisonment.

With the din of battle faded away, Yoshime's sobs easily penetrated the tightly packed hallways, the frustration of her tears reverberating off the walls and filling the room with her grief. Again and again she tried to awake Edge from his comatose state, but his ears seemed to have turned deaf to the real world as he motionlessly lay in her arms, reduced to little more than a marionette without strings as his dark eyes stared blankly up to the ceiling, up into a sky that no one else could see. Even as the soldiers bent down to restrain her as well, she stubbornly held on to Edge's still body, shaking it desperately with both hands as though she hoped her sheer anxiety could bring him back once again. The corpse didn't even respond, the strength of his body drained from his limbs, the gaze lost far away in another world.

"Edge! Wake up! Wake up!! EDGE!!!"

...

...

...

...

...

"Edge..."

"Wh- Wha... this... what is this?"

A slow piano piece played in the background, a slow, simple, but beautiful ballad. Every note crisp and clear, heard perfectly through a silent darkness that held its breath for every ringing echo, to listen to every last resounding tone before the essence of nothingness claimed the air once again. But for those few precious moments that were filled by the golden richness, the feeling was pure rapture, and for once he felt as though everything was right with life.

It was wonderful...

...

...

...

...

...

Edge mumbled to himself as he felt his face imbedded in something silky and soft, his body curling up for warmth as the first strings of consciousness began to gather once again in his tired body. Something in the back of his mind kept telling him that he needed to get up, that there was still something out there that needed to be done. Yet that voice was so far and so distant and he was so comfortable and warm, he didn't want to spoil his solace in the moment. He had never felt such satisfaction before. It was as though someone had put to rest all the aches and pains in his head and given them time to heal and rest, finally allowing him some relief over the course of his travels. He was so very tired of fighting and killing, of soldiers and Shiken, of Toy's henchmen and the government. For just a little while, he would like to lay where he was right now and sleep, letting the soft calls of the birds outside lull him to fantasies beyond the breadth of reality...

His eyes abruptly fluttered open as he considered the last thought, his ears perking up as he questioningly tried to confirm what he had just thought. Birds? No, that couldn't be true. How could he desire such a thing in this desolate world? Yet, sure enough, he heard the contented, excited, and sometimes squabbling calls of some sort of avian animal outside his room, despite several attempts to wake himself from what may have only appeared to be his attentive apparition. His mind immediately raced to think up of a logical explanation. Akuji's modified ecosystem after the nuclear cataclysm had made extinct an enormous percentage of animal life due to newfound levels of toxic saturation. Eventually the poisons had died down enough in concentration to allow some breadth of animal and plant life, but by that point humans had already strip mined the planet dry in their desperate attempt to horde away resources should another holocaust arrive. Further paranoia in urban areas led to city-wide automated defensive mechanisms that shot down anything that even remotely appeared to be a spy probe for fear of intruders and invasions, leading to the extinction of perhaps the last avis on the face of the planet. There was no reason that he should be hallucinating the presence of any now. Absolutely none.

Nervously, he reached beneath the downy sheets to pinch himself, one of those things that humans often did to test the validity of what they saw to be real or not. As he felt small hairs prick up from the sensation of touch all along his arm, he suddenly realized that he should have felt cold metal instead of warm flesh, a tense chill running down his spine at the realization that he had unexpectedly lost his qualities of an android. Slowly, he forced himself to take a deep breath before he lifted up the sheets to look at everything with his own eyes. Perhaps this really was an illusion. Maybe he was just imagining himself as a human, as humans sometimes fantasized about themselves while their bodies lay in rest. However, when his eyes finally did cautiously inch down to his own limb, he was met with a normal appendage composed not of metal and circuitry, but of real flesh and bone, warm and full of life.

Tearing back his covers in one swift motion, Edge sat straight up to find himself on a white mattress in the corner of a small but cozy room, rays of sunlight flowing in from a single window near the far wall. Somewhere in the distance, a flock of seagulls called out to one another, a bakery was preparing a fresh batch of pastries with an aroma that hinted at the sweet taste within, and children laughed and shouted wildly in the midst of their fun and games. Children. Playing in the streets without a care in the world. For him, such a notion was unheard of. In the world he knew, children were taught from the beginning to avoid open areas because that's where they were most vulnerable to the cruelty of strangers, stalkers, killers, the insane, the police. In his world, doing such a thing was only welcoming the cold touch of death. But how could he really be sure that this was even his reality at all?

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stretched his arms up into the air, abruptly realizing that he was only clothed in a small pair of underwear-like shorts when a cool draft wafted in from an unseen opening in the wall. The soles of his bare feet touched down on the floor as he stood up to get movement and warmth running through his stiff form once again, his body rippling with a shiver that felt so distantly unfamiliar to him. Everything he did suddenly felt so much lighter, so much freer as he walked over to the window and stood on the ends of his feet to gaze out under its high sill. His sight seemed so much cleaner as he watched the sounds become reality outside, people milling about in a market a field's breadth away from his confines, merchants milling about with their wares and conducting business with their clients, and kids running about at play as they imitated their heroes in the streets, so much like he remembered the people of Akuji but with the heavy drapery of contempt and cynical greed lifted like a veil from the nightmare to reveal a pure image beneath. As he watched the brilliant painting unfold before him, his mind felt liberated from calculations and computations of his computer, the only true thing gathering and processing the thoughts being his own clear whims and suggestions, the spontaneous impressions and desires of his own self rather than the cold strategic justice of a program. Here, he felt so different than how he did on Akuji. Here, he felt... alive.

"What is this?" he mumbled as he looked down and stared at himself. He was no longer tied down by plates of crimson armor, no longer covered by the mechanisms of war that he had grown so familiar with. His fingers slowly waved in the air as he brought his hand before his face for closer examination. He still sent messages to the rest of his body, commanding the actions he wanted to come forth. He could still sense everything around him, from the chill in the room that made his skin prick to the stiffness of the floor beneath him. And for all mechanical purposes, he remained as flexible and mobile as he was before. Yet, it was all so completely different that he could not even begin to comprehend how or why he had come to change. Here, everything he did was broadened, everything he touched felt so much closer, so much stronger. Was this what it was like to be human...?

Turning around to explore the rest of his room, Edge suddenly found himself staring back at a tall, auburn-haired stranger through a small mirror just above the head of his bedpost. Yet, when he moved his arm to investigate the mirage, he found the image mocking his action with a similar one of his own. Confused by the unexpected imitation, he ran his hand through his hair only to find the doppelganger accomplish the same with an equally perplexed look on his face. It was then that he suddenly realized that his hair felt a lot a shorter than normal, his lengthy bangs cut away in favor of shorter strands that stuck out enough to cover his forehead and lend shade over the top of his eyes. With a frantic glance back to the polished glass, he realized that the man in the reflection wore the exact same things he did, made the exact same motions, his face even conveying the exact same thoughts that he pictured as putting forth on his own. What happened to the person he was? What had happened that so unexpectedly threw him into the body of a completely different persona, a human man whom he had never seen nor known before in his life? His eyes whipped back to the window and sounds of the happily bustling community outside as his mind began to slowly add up all the implications these changes had on his life. What had happened to his earth? His friends? His goals and dreams? Had some cosmic being simply dumped them out the window and thrown him into another existence without care or concern as to what precious value he held them in? Who had the right to consider what he thought to be important or not? Who had the right to decide whether or not he was content with his own existence, if he truly desired to find a different kind of lifestyle or live out his current existence in peace? What had happened to the world he had known, the world he had grown used to? What had happened to the familiarity of his own life, his own companions, to everything he had ever come to care for?

"Shizuru!" called out a woman's voice as a pattering of footsteps firmly plodded their way in his direction from the other side of the room's single door. Frozen by the sudden intrusion of this person he did not know, Edge let himself be scared stiff as the door swung back to reveal a handsome woman who entered the room with a bold front, her sparkling eyes framed by a mane of dark green hair that flowed over her shoulders and down her back like a cascade of water. Her boots were spread wide on the ground as she planted her gloved hands on the hips of her thick dress, a long work-apron that reached almost to the foot of her garments worn on top of the sturdy clothes. A short scarf complemented the rest of her outfit, though the pout on her face and the fierce gaze in her eyes easily kept him from staring at her unnatural attire for too long.

"Shizuru!" repeated the woman. "Nice to see you're finally awake. You've been sleeping for hours!"

Edge sheepishly looked around the room in a pointless attempt to find another subject to whom she might be talking to, only to end up back at the beginning as he faced her stare once again. She didn't seem to be embarrassed in any way by the fact that he was nearly naked and he felt himself turn red in the face for having to meet her under such conditions.

"I... uh... um..." he stuttered nervously, unsure of what to say. Coupled with his current apparel and his impulsive and involuntary reaction to the discomfiture, he was too surprised by the deeper tone of maturity imbedded within his voice as well as the lack of an instantaneously calculated response to actually express a coherent thought, though from the woman's continuous stare of playful contempt she seemed very much used to it.

"Rrrgghh..." she seemed to growl out under her breath while still managing to keep a rather pretty if not pouting front. "I let you sleep in and you still make excuses. I even made an effort to make our bed look neat when I woke up and you still manage to make it look as if we had it dragged all across town by sunrise."

Our bed?

Edge turned his head back towards the mattress, abruptly realizing that he had had such a comfortable nap if only for the fact that his bunk was made to fit more than one person, the other obviously being this strange woman standing before him. The abashment on his face suddenly quadrupled at the thought of sharing his sleep with this other, and he desperately tried to keep his eyes from meeting his assailant for fear of how she might react. Yet, sensing that he wouldn't turn back to face her so easily, the woman merely marched up before him and steadied his face before her own with the palms of her hands, her fingers firmly wrapping themselves behind his neck as she held him in place only inches from her knife-like gaze. It did nothing to make his condition any better.

"You're simply impossible," she said, but this time the words came out softer and more gentle compared to her previous stringent tone. With a quick and unexpected smile, she suddenly reached forward and brushed his lips with her own just long enough for him to freeze in complete terror before she pulled away with an almost playful grin, pulling away towards the door while he stood as wide-eyed and motionless as a stone statue.

"Oh, quit the drama," she added as she began to close the door behind her. "You missed breakfast, but if you hurry up you'll find a nice, hot lunch on the table for you. And stop being so tense. You don't have work today!"

Edge simply stared as the door closed behind her, still unsure of what to feel or think. He still had no idea where he was, who these strangers were, or why he had been called by a name he had never heard before in his life. Nothing made sense and no answers seemed to lay anywhere nearby. No computers to rely upon his position, none of his friends to console with, even the omni-present image of the seraph seemed to have been erased from his mind, leaving him with only his own thoughts and a vast blackboard upon which to plot them. He was frightened, scared of this place and life that was not his own, that he certainly did not understand. A part of him screamed to be let loose from this nightmare back to the familiarity of the people he knew, the world he had grown comfortable living in. A part of him desired to drop back into that security of knowing who he was and where he was going. Yet, the other part... the other part...

And Edge slowly reached a shaking hand up to gently touch his lips, still moist from the woman's kiss.

...

...

...

"Where do you want to go in life?"

I'm so tired of fighting.

"What is it that you really want?"

I'm so tired.... of everything.

"Where are you going?"

What is happening to me...?

"Where is your true heart?"

I just need to rest... just... for a little while...

...

...

...

The only clothes Edge had been able to scrounge up in the room were a dark pair of baggy traveler's pants, a long-sleeved but thin shirt with a smaller, short-sleeved counterpart that fit on top, a pair of sturdy leather gloves, and a pair of very worn but rugged boots with metal plate linings about the top collar and around the sole. He had also found what appeared to be a set of armor in a trunk near the door, complete with silver shoulderpads, a thick breastplate, and protective guards for his thighs, all held together by an intricate and strong lacework of leather couplings and belts. Yet, he was only heading out to the other room to see if he could scrounge up a meal for his suddenly protesting stomach in this new world; he saw no need to be fixed for battle in this situation. Then again, with the way that woman had acted, perhaps it might be something he should reconsider.

Finished with his dressing, he hesitated in front of the door before he ventured out beyond his temporary haven. Flexing his hand beneath its leather covering, he let his mind wander as he felt every inch of his flesh work and bend beneath the tough material. The sensation was like nothing he had ever felt before. As an android, his sensors detected such things as pressure, direct contact, and touch recognition, but those were all things measured by chemical reaction and physics. This was something far different, a feeling that he could not possibly explain in words. As a robot, he saw each of those components as separate, mathematical numbers. Now, it seemed as if they had formed a single power through which he reached out to the world, something that made him feel as if he was no longer a separate entity who served his purpose in a foreign land, but rather that he was part of the earth itself, whole and complete.

And as uncertain as he was to reject the change because it came without logic or explanation, there remained a lingering pull within the mystery, something that stayed behind in the back of his head but whose voice called out loud enough to still be heard. This place was something different, something radical and opposite of the life he knew. Yet, there was something wonderful about it, something so calm and peaceful that he wished he could bathe in its serenity forever.

His hand fell upon the silver doorknob and turned the handle smoothly and cleanly despite the fact that he had been used to the convenience of cold, sliding gateways to part at his approach. Rich aromas of garlic and spices immediately hit his nose, and he ducked beneath the low doorway into a single, large room with a wooden dining table in the center. Off to the side lay the kitchen, a small sector detached from the rest of the chamber only by a point on the floor where the smooth, polished wood ended and clear ceramic tiles began. However, from every inch of the ceiling hung whole strings of fresh herbs and food, varying from fresh vegetables to finely aged cheese. Fresh potatoes and onions hung next to a massive spice rack, and below that lay a huge cupboard from which the faint smell of smoked beef wafted out. As he poked his head through the maze, Edge heard a soft humming coming from the woman he had met earlier as she bustled about the tiny cooking area, her strong voice carrying a wonderful strength that warmed his chest. At one point, he simply stopped and stared, watching as her delicate hand gently tossed some meat and vegetables with a spatula, her other holding firm the large, black frying pan she cooked them in. All the while, her face gently smiled, soft strands of dark hair falling about the sides, framing her calm image in a picture of grace. There was something so peaceful about the portrait that he simply wanted to wait there forever, enraptured in its beauty. It had been so long since he had ever gotten the chance to rest, since he had been able to sit down and actually look at this life he lived in. Now, something was happening to him, slowing down the pace of his existence, opening those doors that had flown by too fast for him to glimpse through before.

"Are you going to stand there all day and let this meal go cold too?" said the woman, her smile widening as she looked up at him before heaping the contents of her pan atop a bowl of steaming white rice and settling the package on the table. Edge's hunger nearly made him lunge towards the meal like a starving man, with only his loose sense of etiquette slowing him to a careful walk around the furniture. Even then, his stomach viciously made his empty stomach audible with a low growl, and he felt his face deepen in color in embarrassment.

"You never were very subtle when it came to eating," sighed the woman, putting her hands on his shoulders from behind and giving him a firm squeeze. "But I guess that's one of your more lovable traits, ne?"

Edge managed a weak laugh as she smiled and returned to the small kitchen area to clean up. He apprehensively but resolutely picked up a three-pronged utensil by the bowl's side, slightly unsure of how it functioned, and shoveled a mouthful of the food into his mouth with little concern to the mechanics of actually chewing the substance. But even in his haste, the sheer satisfaction he received from the rich taste as well as the filling of his protesting belly was more than enough to bring a smile to his face.

"Don’t eat so fast. You're going to get sick again!" called out the woman, and Edge unconsciously nodded in her general direction, still in the process of spooning another helping of the dish into his mouth. His instincts temporarily satiated for the moment, he let his eyes wander about the tiny home in exploration. As his gaze lazily wandered about the cluttered but cozy habitat, his attention was suddenly drawn to a small dresser upon which a tiny wooden frame held an old-fashioned black and white photograph, still clear despite its obvious age. Within, he recognized a slightly younger version of his new persona happily holding an accompanying version of the woman who had just served him his delicious lunch, a clear sky hailing in the background, the shade of a tall tree draped over them in protection from the sun's rays. He seemed to be very closely associated with her, perhaps a romantic acquaintance of some sort? It certainly would make sense considering everything he had seen so far. That must have been why she had been so relaxed despite the many situations of abashment he found himself in...

As he looked over the picture, he noticed a note near the bottom of the picture in which was scrawled, "00: 57: 67, Shizuru & Yu-Lan," followed by several small hearts and a border of doodles. He remembered the first entitlement; the woman had called him by 'Shizuru' earlier on when he had first woken up. It must be the name he went by in this different world. It made sense well enough, since his appearance had changed to accompany his transit into this new realm, his identification must have altered as well to fit his new face. So was the name of this other person in the image Yu-Lan?

"Yu-Lan," he whispered to himself, letting the syllables roll of his tongue. It had a very beautiful sound when spoken out loud.

"Mmm? Did you say something, Shizuru?" asked Yu-Lan, poking her head out from the kitchen.

"A... ah, it's nothing!" said Edge quickly, spooning another helping of the rich food into his mouth. He forced his stare into the emptying bowl as he ate, reminding himself that this was a place that was completely foreign, yet people obviously seemed to expect a certain persona from him. He was still suspicious if any of this was even real, but perhaps for now it was better to pretend as if he knew what was going on. If he didn't accuse this alternate reality of actively opposing everything he had once known, maybe this wouldn't turn out nearly as misleading as it first seemed.

"Oh yes, I almost forgot," said Yu-Lan as she sat down on the opposite side of the table with a steaming cup of tea. "You better hurry up with your meal before Sanjuroh realizes that you've just been lazing around all day. You DID promise your son that you'd spend time with him today!"

It took a lot of effort for Edge to keep himself from spewing his current mouthful across the table into Yu-Lan's face, though it still didn't help the wide-eyed expression of disbelief that painted his face with such a horrified manifestation of stark terror and helplessness rolled into a single look. This time, he didn't even care that she lifted her eyebrow with a slightly disapproving frown pointed in his direction. He was simply too stunned to perform any motor functions whatsoever.

"My... son...?"

...

...

...

Beneath gentle rays of sunlight, a young child swung a wooden stick around his head in imitation of a sword, his overalls and shirt already soiled deep with dirt from his play. Loose bangs of chestnut hair flew about his face as he whirled around at an imaginary opponent in the silent air, his arms moving swiftly through the air in a calculated yet unpracticed form. In an open field of lush grass that faced away from the distant noises of society, he diligently practiced a kata taught to him by his own parent, his playful eyes grinning with delight at the mimicry of his father, finding solace in his hard work and refinement. Part of his hard work came from his own personal enjoyment of the sport. The other part came simply from learning the art of his own glorious hero--- the man who had raised him since his day of birth--- and pleasing him with his ardent efforts. And Edge wordlessly watched his play from the doorway of the house, Yu-Lan gently hugging his shoulder as she watched with the boy in the distance.

"He's growing up," she whispered, giving him an affectionate squeeze. And then she shifted and snuggled closer into his back, her face smiling with pride and tenderness as she observed the young boy in his game. "Our son is growing up..."

Edge could say nothing, for he had not words to describe what he felt. Instead, he found himself reaching up to take her hand into his own, cherishing its touch, treasuring its warmth. He understood nothing of what he felt, none of this mysterious emotion, none of this passion. He did not understand these people, this house, this sky, this planet. And yet, he loved it. He loved letting that sentiment wash over him like an ocean and bathing in its cleansing waters, holding close these things, these people who cared for him so, this family. Here, he was in a world not of violence, but of peace. Here, there existed something that was only a fleeting dream--- a mere fairy tale--- in the reality he once knew. Here, there existed a chance for him to claim everything he really wanted.

A child.

His heart jumped with the thought, still wondering if he had as much right to be excited as to be scared if only because of the responsibility he owned for caring for such a person. Yet, the thrill easily overcame that nervous feeling, the feeling of rapture and ecstasy something he could not explain no matter how hard he tried. For every second he watched the young boy, the look of the smile he held on his face and the carefree nature with which he ran up and down the endless emerald grass, he only wanted to make that smile stay there forever. He himself had known nothing but anger and hatred, sadness and death, for his entire life. He had lived in a world of war and violence, a place where poverty and murder was not a travesty but rather a way of life. There, he had no chance but to be just as horrible and sadistic in order to live, in order to protect the innocent against the tainted hands of greed and selfish ambition. Now, someone had given him a chance. Someone had placed him in a world where those kinds of things did not exist, a place where he could sow seeds of harmony and benevolence without the intrusion of rancor and malice. Here, he did not have to render a man apart to create another's happiness. He did not have to spill blood for the sake of the ones he loved. Here, all he had to do lend his hands to his wife and son and be there to lend them his affection, working a normal job for a normal wage and providing food and shelter for his family without the unnecessary obtrusion of an opposing force's hateful desire. Here, his war was not one of guns and swords, but rather a silent touch of compassion, of being there to bring grins and laughs to this woman and this child. Here, there existed a place for him to purge himself of those things he hated so much about himself, of the monster imbedded deep within his soul.

Here, he could finally redeem himself for all the horrible things he had seen and done in the floating vision of sadistic hatred...

"Dad!" called out the boy, suddenly spotting Edge as he stood watching in admiration. And as if in a dream, Edge slowly stepped forward to receive his son in his open arms, his face smiling endlessly as he bent down and swooped the child up into the sky, twirling him about in the air as if they flew above the clouds. For just a moment, he let himself forget all about the mystery, the destiny that he had worried and fought so hard for on the other side of the world. For just a moment, he stopped caring about Yoshiki's mansion, about the illogical way in which he had abruptly found himself in a place that defied every aspect of the truth he once knew. He let himself put those things aside, for now he completely embraced his son and wife and their world, the fresh smell of flora blowing in the wind, the noise of people happily talking, working, playing, and living carrying forth from the nearby town. Perhaps this really was only a dream. Perhaps beyond this mirror of his deepest desires lay the real domain of everything he once knew. But he didn't care. He simply did not care.

And he cried, for he did not want the dream to ever end.

...

...

...

...

...

"Edge... wake up... please, wake up..."

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End "Sleep"