Reality

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"Did you think that killing her now would make up for your past betrayal? I truly hope that you did not believe me to be so naïve, Blackwing, for I thought the bonds that held us together were much stronger than that."

Beneath the full moon, the faceless shadows of the Juliannes held the once masked man at his knees, both of his arms pinned back on either side by a guard who knew just how dangerous the one before him was. Upon the wide concrete field, the broken man looked down in defeat at the shadow of the one he once called master, the leader of the gang that he had let go of so as to follow the pain in his heart across the world.

"You misunderstand me, my friend," heaved Blackwing beneath a chest of cracked ribs. "It is not that I came here to kill her, for my goals have not changed since we last met. Rather, I still seek her mercy, and if I could not earn that as her ally, then I will earn it as her foe."

"Truly, you are an interesting man," said the master, turning his silky silhouette about beneath the moonlight. The ends of his long buttoned-up coat trailed in the light breeze as he somehow managed to move about silently within the many straps about his arms and legs. The tails of a white dress shirt hung out about his waist carelessly as he fingered the hilt of a massive square-ended bludgeoning sword held at the back of his hips. He turned his eyes towards the traitor, but no gaze come out from beneath the lengthy, fair colored wisps of hair, for he was the blind man who saw all in the world. The man who saw nothing and everything at once. Jong-Il Lee.

"I think, perhaps, that you are misunderstanding her intentions. After all, she is only trying to set you down the same path that you did to her."

Three dark figures appeared on the edge of town, their black shapes plunging through the night as drops of rain began to fall from the sky above. At their head was Chang-Mi Baek, and behind her came Millena and the lone gunman. For Chang-Mi, memories poured back into her head as the precipitation began to come down in heavy waves, and even as she ignored her soaked clothes and pulled forth a shining blade in each hand, she came to stop before the Juliannes leader as she watched him torture the man who had hurt her so.

"I take it you've come to save your companion?" said Jong-Il with a kind, sincere smile. "We seem to have picked a bad time for our confrontation. The weather is never in agreement when an outdoor excursion is on hand."

"Let him go," she said adamantly. "Let him go and I will let you live."

The gang leader only chuckled jovially as he put up a hand to hold back the seething men around him.

"There's no need to hasten the killing here," he said. "I already understand why you've come, and I would expect nothing any less bold from one like yourself."

"Don't fuck around with me!" roared the girl as she slashed out at the air in frustration. "Let him go or I'll kill you all!"

Several of the Juliannes growled beneath their breath as they brandished various blades of all types, readying themselves for battle as they eyed their prey. Yet, though Chang-Mi had dashed so eagerly into the midst of their battleground, Joon and Millena held back as they watched the woman confront the demons of her past, letting her walk the path alone as they played the parts of silent witnesses to a building tempest.

"Let us kill her," muttered one of the gang members, twirling a curved knife absently in his hand as he hungrily glared their lone enemy. "There's plenty of us and only one of her. It's not like she can take us all on at once."

"You'll die if you fight," said Jong-Il playfully. "She has, after all, defeated the Kuruda already. Isn't that right, Chang-Mi Baek? Klessu Glorii has fallen at your hands. But a challenge is not the reason you've come to us, isn't that right? No, you've come for something much more personal, something that has nothing to do with the gangs, with Juliannes or Kuruda, even with me and my sins. Rather, this is all between you and him, am I right?" And though he could not physically see him, he pointed directly at Blackwing nonetheless with uncanny accuracy. "You've come to save him, but I cannot let you do that for I'm afraid that we still have unfinished business concerning certain deeds that he committed against us in the past. Walk a different path today, my friend, for you will not receive that which you have come seeking today. It's not worth spilling blood needlessly if we can help it."

But Chang-Mi did not move as she steeled her eyes at the shadow of her enemy, and as the wind tossed her long overcoat in the wind like a superhero's cape, she stood tall and spread her arms wide, ready to embrace the reaper's fatal touch.

"I will not change my mind," she said coldly. "Nor will I back down for anyone."

Jong-Il could only shrug, and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he drew forth a long cigarette from a pack of ‘Seven Stars,’ lighting up the end with a heavy sigh.
"Then I'm afraid that I must concede with the words of my colleagues," he said carelessly. "I suppose they'll get a chance to fulfill their bloodlust today after all."

The first of the cancer stick's ashes broke free from the thin cylinder and floated softly to the ground, and beyond the trailing hail of sparks, the Juliannes had already rushed forward to deeply inhale the scent of death. Silver flashed in the air as she slid effortlessly between her first two attackers and slit their throats. Blood was still spraying from their jugulars as she whirled about and plunged her blade through the forehead of another, the distinctive crack of bone filling the air as the gears in her artificial arm drove the metal edge into his cranium so hard that it broke off while still lodged in his brain. A fourth man stepped up to take his place and managed to break the woman's flurry of attacks as forced her into a defensive position with a powerful overhead slash of his katana. A simple flick of the wrist was all it took to parry his sharpened blade aside though, and as blunt, folded end of the broken knife from her right hand flew into his face and broke his nose, Chang-Mi was just as quick in pulling forth a new one from the folds of her overcoat and plunging it through his ribcage with such force that her arm pierced all the way through to his spine and out his back, the entire process happening so quickly that the thug's body was still alive and gasping for breath even after she had emptied out his chest cavity in a furious cascade of blood and metal.

Zettaihakaijin. (The absolute blade of destruction)

[Zenshinsaitou] (The "Thousand God Killer Sword")

The filter of the cigarette slowly dropped from the gang leader's fingertips as he ground the burning end beneath his boot. He had already unlatched his own square-ended blade on the back of his scabbard, and as he stepped between his wary followers and the woman who had dared to defy the world, he rested his right hand comfortingly on the hilt of his sword while his other reached for his soft pack of cancer sticks and pulled one forth from the box of tobacco.

"Would you like one?" he asked casually, pointing the smokes in the direction of the blood-soaked girl before him. "I know they're not good for your lungs, but they do tend to have the uncanny ability to relieve one's stress levels nonetheless."

"I'll pass," said Chang-Mi coldly.

"Pity..." muttered the gang leader, and flicked open a silver zippo lighter to set fire to the crushed leaf. It disappeared amongst his pockets just as quickly, and as he took a long draw from the white monument, he focused his dull gaze on the woman with a simple grin, the look on his face seeming to come more from a brother or best friend rather than from that of a mass murderer.

"Does who I am disgust you?" he asked. "Does knowing that I am your enemy make you hate me and everything I do? Everything I stand for in this world of ours?"

"No," she said firmly. "I do not hate you."

"Does knowing that my cohorts despise the ground you walk upon stir your blood? Does knowing that they would tear you to pieces and rape your dead body with nothing on their conscience make you sick of our kind?"

"No, it does not."

"Has the fact that I am Juliannes brought you here to plunge your knife through my heart?"

"No, it has not," she said, and the gang leader's expression only grew more jovial in intrigued amusement.

"Then why did you come to fight me?" he asked as he spread his arms wide open. "If you have not come because of animosity or hate, then why have you come to take my life away, Chang-Mi Baek?"

"Because now I know the reason why I had to be abandoned in the first place," she replied. "I know why I could not accept Blackwing back when he came to me so willingly, and I finally know why I had to lose this arm and fight for so long to understand. Dreams and love are very much alike, you know. A long time ago I was still a child, and as I child I was weak and believed that if I wished for the things that I wanted with all my heart, they might come true. I naively held faith in fairy tale fantasies, that my love and my burning desire could shine through the darkest of nights. However, I could not have dreams if I was powerless, and wishing alone is not enough to make dreams to come true. People must act to follow their aspirations if they ever hope to achieve them. Otherwise, such lofty wishes are simply hollow ambitions without direction. Truly, I loved Blackwing then, but that was all it was: 'love.' A hollow ambition. That’s why I had to become strong. That was why I could not accept Blackwing's love for me until I was sure that what I held for him was not just a hopeless dream, but something tangible that I could use to show him everything in my soul."

Though she did not smoke, she pulled a pack of "Lucky Strikes" from her jacket pocket and caught the gang leader's lighter in midair as he tossed it her to light up a cigarette.

"Surely, you misunderstand my intentions, Jong-Il, for I have not come to take your life away. I have only come to reclaim the love that the man behind you holds for me and the love that I hold for him in return. You merely happen to be standing in my way."

And the blind man only smiled as he caught the silver trinket upon her returning pass, the air heaving on the eves of death as his blade swung free into the open air. His smile was sincere as he drew one last breath from his smoke and let it fall to the ground to burn free on its own.

"That's the way it should be," he said plainly. "That's the way it should be..."

And the air exploded as they rushed forward to kill one another.

...

"Ningen wa nandodemo umarekawarerunoyo. Nandodemo... dakara ganbarimashou."

("Humans can be reborn countless times. Countless... so let's try our best.")

--- Principal Sakurai, Tooru Fujisawa's "GTO"

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Yujin silently cursed to himself as he stood and waited impatiently nearly a mile back from where they had discovered Edge and his associates to have fled. He detested having to serve as Neon's slave, but he almost hated having to wait to the side as backup even more. Either way, he was being unfairly deprived of the very objective that he had patiently waited and trained so long to achieve, and even as the rebel unit lay so very close to his grasp, he could do nothing to claim the boy ‘s death for his own personal pride.

"I can't believe this is happening," he seethed beneath his breath, his clear, white eyes staring daggers in the direction of his enemy. "If we were ordered to decimate them, the least we could do is carry out that part right!"

Before the assault, Neon had set out the ground rules for the mission very specifically. Edge's companions were only secondary targets whose method of extermination was negligible. However, Toy had ordered the renegade unit itself to be disposed of in a very specific fashion which Neon would deal in the form of a special viral program once they recovered his prone body. But why the elaborate measures? Wouldn't it just be better to drill his body into the ground and smash it to pieces? Wasn't that an honor that he himself should be bathed in rather than a useless slab of junk that should have been disposed of long ago?

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the massive trunk of a nearly tree in frustration, bringing it to the ground as he clenched his fist in one smooth motion and ripped away the fibers with ease.

"That little bastard!" said Yujin as he stared eyes of hatred into the night. "How dare he do this to me!" But even mindless, unthinking automations could make mistakes. And the minute Neon screwed up- even if it was only a minor slip- the general would be there to clean up where he left off.

"I'm waiting for you, Edge," growled the general, his body silently humming with destructive power as the timbers around him bent back from the sheer force of his aura. "And when that son of a bitch trips up, I'll be here to take you for myself. Just you and me..."

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The walls trembled with a roll of distant thunder as a silent ghost passed through their halls with his arms opened wide. The empire's soldiers would rush towards his blood soaked figure as he climbed the luxurious levels of the black castle, and yet their trials were in vain, for their frail bodies were soon torn apart by the very air around them as if demons had spawned in the atmosphere to consume the human world alive. Edge's blurry eyes did not see the carnage as he stumbled up the steps of spiraling staircases and under the chandelier covered ceilings of royal banquet halls. He did not notice the blood curdling screams of his victims or the resulting showers of gore that sprayed across the walls and across himself, for as his body carried itself higher and higher into the reaches of the towers, he knew only that that was where he would find his destiny. That was where this horrible nightmare would reach its end.

"I can hear him," he whispered softly, his footsteps floating up the stairs as he finally reached a wide, grandiose ascent at the end of a dark, concrete hill filled with lavish statues of mythical beasts. He looked up the flight with empty, vacant eyes as he absently studied the massive oak doors that headed the top of the stairs, and as though pulled forward by an invisible hand, his feet moved forward once again, forcing him up into the heavens where oblivion awaited.

"You've been waiting for me this whole time, haven't you? You knew all along what I would be coming for..."

Several heavily armored men brandishing polearms charged down from their places towards the intruder whom had stepped within their midst. Each of them did so without hesitation and without fear, but as soon as the young boy raised his empty gaze to meet theirs, they found themselves hesitating, taken aback by the twisted creature that stood before them. It was more than enough time for Edge to destroy them all.

The air thundered with energy as his power drew them close, the soldiers' bodies flying through the atmosphere against their will. Edge's right fist lashed out against the first man's skull with a cracking sound that reverberated throughout the hall, and before the fragments of his prey's shattered head could hit the ground, a wall of gravitational force slammed into the next man's gut, tearing his body in half. Before the others could even express their horror at the ordeal that unfolded before their very eyes, invisible forces threw their prone forms against the stone walls hard enough to crack the foundation, parting the way for the monster's path of destruction and splattering their brains against the once pristine granite. The young boy walked sullenly through the halls of dripping gore, dragging his feet deliberately up the stairs and past the mutilated bodies until he rested his hand gently on wrought iron of the curved door handles. He tried to be strong as he wrapped his trembling fingers about the smooth surface, but he still found himself wavering on the end of a cliff that he was afraid to jump off of. This was the highest point in the castle and certainly the most rich in decoration. If he was right, then the empire's leader would be behind those doors waiting for him. After so much pain had torn through his heart, he could no longer hold back the brutal, violent desires that ripped through his head. He wanted to kill the one who had caused him and so many others such suffering. He wanted to justify all the death and pointless murder that he had seen by utterly destroying its source so that it could never happen again. But it would happen again, wouldn't it? Power corrupted human minds in ways that even [justice] could not clear, and it would only be a matter of time before the natural order of the universe threw this world into chaos once again. A new terrorist would rise up and take advantage of his position. The weak would crumble beneath his authority. Some would resist and attempt rebellion to preserve their freedom. And it would happen all over once more, recurring time and time again until there were no people left to die. So did killing this one man mean anything at all? Would facing Shin now make any difference to a race of creatures that were already lost?

"I have nowhere left to run," said Edge dully, wrapping his fingers around the door handle. "... but I still want to believe that I do."

He had to walk through that doorway and meet Shin face to face, for if he did not, then he only proved to himself that he would never be able to face the things that he truly feared. He was still new to this world, still new to the concept of being a human being. His confidence was broken, and he was now afraid of the very human life that he had once sought out. He was afraid of life itself, for it seemed like it brought nothing to living creatures but agony and loss. However, while he could recognize these observations within his own mind, he still did not understand the drive behind them, for there were still those who had shown him that a human being could indeed live on without the malice of a killer. Sanjurroh, Yu-Lan... and Yoshime. They were all innocent. They had shown him a reason to keep on living. And now two were dead- killed by man's own hatred for one another- and another was lost in a universe beyond his touch. But he had to understand the mind of the killer, Shin, if he was to reside himself to rotting away in this horrible, desolate place, for as long as hope existed in his heart, then he could not truly be at peace amongst his sins.

The metal creaked on ancient hinges as he turned forth the handle and pushed the door aside, and as he did the light of a thousand suns seemed to plunge forth from the room within and bathe him in a glow unparalleled. The chamber was massive in size, spread out in a gigantic oval with towering, clear windows on all sides that perfectly illuminated the turbulent chaos that roared out upon the battlefield below. A brilliant scarlet flare ran along the floor in intricately woven carpets, though little furniture covered the ground itself save for an occasional but delicately carved wooden chair. Even the ceiling seemed to shine with scintillating excellence, a mural of intricate figures that played high above him in the lofty heights of the rich chamber. And at the end of the elongated room stood a single man wrapped in a purple cape with his back turned towards the door. Glistening blue armor covered his shoulders, the left side jutting up in a large spike in the shape of a vicious animal’s horn. As he turned towards his single guest, blazing red eyes shone out beneath short, fair bangs of hair, his gauntleted hand brushing the cloak aside carelessly as an emotionless smile played out across his face. His rich garments and suit of mail made him look like a god beneath the billowing heavens of the small castle tower, and Edge let the rest of the world melt away as the massive oak doors fell shut behind him, leaving him alone in the room with the horrible murderer who haunted his dreams.

"Shin..." he said clearly, and the man simply nodded knowingly, the empty grin inviting the boy into the assembly of devils.

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...

The forest erupted in throes of violence as bullets tore through the once silent fauna without mercy. The once peaceful ground exploded in a flurry of displaced dirt and moss while various combatants disturbed their resting place with trampling feet. Double had done his best to herd Clef, Iesu, and Yoshime in their center while he held off their assailants, but the overwhelming numbers of the enemy was proving to make that a more difficult task than he had first presumed. The lethal tip of a plasma knife whistled by the left side of his head as he ducked beneath a soldier's arm, hitting the elbow joint with a hard blow upward that bent the limb against its natural turn radius. A swipe with his other arm tore the robot apart at the waist and cut it in two, but before he could even push the remains of his incapacitated attacker back, another one of the sentries was already upon him with an automatic rifle and the crimson assassin barely had enough time to bounce out of the way of the speeding projectiles before they embedded themselves in the earth.

"There's too many of them!" he transmitted to his comrades. "I can't hold my ground with this many attacking me at once. Are any of you faring any better?"

"If we had more energy, we wouldn't have such a problem," said Asimov over the line. "But as is, we're going to be hard pressed to keep this up if there's as many of them as I think there are. Zero seems to be able to tap into other sources for energy, but her body isn't going to be able to maintain the pressure of doing so long enough to get us through this."

"Damnit!!!" said Double aloud, cleanly swiping off the head of a nearby soldier just before tearing through the abdomen of another with the same arm. Half a dozen troops swarmed about him as they toted bladed mechanisms that glowed faintly with destructive energies around the edges, and the killer grimaced to himself as he watched them come in from all sides without pause. Both of his hands sharpened into swords that curved through the air as if they traveled on sacred wings. The speed with which he flew threw their numbers was beyond their capacity to react to, for by the time the crimson assassin braced his feet into the soft earth past their lunging figures, sparks of shattered robotic souls were already pouring out from the fatal wounds that he had dealt their mechanical bodies. However, the effort that he had put into that assault alone already made him feel weary with exhaustion. Unlike a human being, his endurance would not fade in performance the longer he fought upon the battlefield, but with every bit of energy that he utilized defending against their attackers, he drew one step closer to surrendering to a complete system failure. That was the last thing he wanted, for if even one of their group fell, their chances of ever making it to the Kei-Shu would not be far behind.

A sharp and violent feeling tore through his left arm as a plasma axe the size of his entire torso narrowly missed vertically cleaving his upper body in two, ripping through his shoulder instead as it completely severed the limb from his body. The shock that reverberated throughout his frame nearly dropped his mind into stasis, but he managed to hang on by his fingertips as he clenched his jaw and used the momentum from the attack to spin about and kick up into his enemy's vulnerable underarm, cutting cleanly across his chest and through the shoulder blade, utilizing his flying foot with the accuracy of a scalpel.

"Double!!!" called out Kouryuu in alarm as she flew low across the battlefield to his side, the light of her katanas tracing intricate, beautiful shapes in the dark night air.

"Hold your ground!" called out the assassin through clenched teeth as his remaining arm whipped backwards and embedded itself in the face of an oncoming android. "If we break our defensive matrix, we leave a hole open for them to get to Yoshime and the others, and that's something we can't afford!" He barely had time within the heat of battle to spy his severed body part lying on the ground nearby, the arm having melted into a limp puddle of unstable mercury without a main cpu to guide its form. A quick slide to the side brought his foot in contact with the pool of liquid metal, and just as quickly as it had been lopped from his shoulder, the substance quickly reintroduced itself into his system and grew itself out of the empty arm socket once again. "We can only do so much as soldiers now. Our entire survival depends on how well Clef and the others fare from here on."

With their energy levels so low, there was very little chance that they would be able to escape by the abilities of their fighting prowess. Therefore, the assassin had been forced to put all of his faith into the hands of Clef, who had already once accomplished the impossible by breaking them out of their personalized prison cells back in Yoshiki's mansion. It was his meager hope that the mysterious intelligence would find a way to crack through Toy's programming and defenses to somehow disable the waves of attackers that had been sent to bring about their own destruction. But could such a thing even be done? The task in itself seemed as hopeless as the numbers that his blades faced now, if not even more daunting.

"But people like us are just too stubborn to give up, aren't we?" he said to himself aloud, smirking in vain as he ducked beneath a hail of machinegun fire and slid up to tear through a line of infantry that had been flanking him with gunfire. He whirled back about to find himself staring the steel point of a gun barrel pushing into his nose, but before the shot could ever go off, he saw the faint glow of blue slice through the air as the gun was ripped from the soldier's grip by the rebel's laser wire.

"Watch it, you're getting careless!" warned Kouryuu over their line. "We've made it this far, and I'm not about give up until they beat us into the ground."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," snickered the killer, his arm crashing into his attackers head as he rounded about to the endless armies without fear. Yes, she was right, wasn't she? They wouldn't fall until their enemies rendered their bodies asunder, and even then, the bastards would be hard pressed to contain the limitless desires that were held within their metal bodies. It did not matter what Toy or Yoshiki or the government considered them to be. They were soldiers, and like all real soldiers, they would continue to fight on without ever looking backwards. No matter what.

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"You..." said Edge softly, his shaky voice resonating throughout the high ceiling of the chamber as he spoke. “Why... why have you done all of this?"

The swish of the man's long cape seemed to turn the air throughout the room as Shin walked forward upon the red carpets towards his single guest, a gentle but harsh smile inviting the young boy into his world of endless forever.

"You should know the answer to that better than I do," he said in a rich, illustrious voice. "It is you who has already walked through the fields of war to see that which I have spread out my hands to claim as my own. I would have thought that you would have come to understand my motives by now."

"No!!!" shouted Edge with a ferocity that threatened to shatter the rows of glass that lined the walls to the outside world. "I refuse to believe that you can simply justify everything you have done for the sake of the places and lands that I have traveled through. You don't even treasure the lives of the people who populate those lands, for you slaughter them heartlessly on the battlefield as easily as one might slaughter cattle. I can never forgive you for the things that you have done, both to me and to others, but I want to know the real reason why you can treat us all with such careless brutality. I want to know how you can continue to turn your head away so easily to all the crimes you’ve carelessly committed."

But the emperor merely chuckled, amused by a humor that did not touch the young boy before him.

"Did you think that there was a deeper meaning behind the actions of one who is classified by his victims as a 'tyrant?'" he asked. "Did you think that there was some great and fantastic secret behind my motives that can explain the extent to which I am willing to deal cruelty and injustice upon the people of this earth? No, you are incorrect in your presumptions my young friend. The correct response to your conjecture is simply that you have incorrectly evaluated the essence of human nature. I once heard a tainted man of the cloth speak a wonderful and horrible truth about human beings, that, 'When God created them, he granted them a tremendous power called [desire]. Nothing is beyond man's ambition... even the desire to usurp God's power.' It is so true, is it not? For as long man can aspire to reach beyond what he already has, he will continue to find ways to rebel against His doctrine in his quest for that which he yearns for, even the death of his brothers and sisters. The thirst for power is nothing new. I am not the first to fall beneath its lure, nor will I be the last. As long as man aspires for greatness, there will be those who are willing to take drastic needs to fulfill their desires. This cycle will continue on well into the future, long after you and I are gone, and it will never end until this ambitious monstrosity that dwells within our hearts is destroyed by complete and utter extinction."

Edge did not even flinch this time when he heard the man's cold words. Instead, he only continued to stare with cold, dead eyes at the dark lord whose sterile smile pierced even the blackest of evils.

"And this is how you justify the lives that you have destroyed? How about my wife? My son?" He paused as he remembered looking out over the blood encrusted battlefield littered with bodies of bone and steel broken across the plains. He looked out over the teaming numbers of men accepting their fate and waiting to die, and he remembered how strong his friend had managed to look even as she had forced herself to stand despite the gaping hole that opened up where her innards used to be. "... and Mikaeru?"

"The guilt that you believe I should feel is merely a self-induced delusion erected by your own mind's weaknesses," said Shin with a dismissive wave of his hand, and he walked towards the massive windows to look down upon the raging war that continued on down below. "Men die every single day of our lives. Every minute, every second, the grim reaper claims countless individuals through the course of murder, sickness, and old age. But you cannot possibly claim that you are able to sympathize with every single one of those people, can you? Can you even say that you grieved for any single individual outside of those specifics that you have already mentioned to me?"

Edge did not answer, and he could only watch the man as the lord smiled amiably and slowly paced back towards the center of the room.

"In your lifetime alone, countless thousands must have met their end, both through natural methods as well as those that were less than desirable. Death is not some horrible crime that we inflict upon one another. It is simply another natural stage in life. In some aspects, we can accept this, and we move on. In others, we find ourselves grieving for those who we have grown close attachment to, and this is simply a byproduct of man's behavior. You see, while you say that it is I who am in the wrong for simply speeding up these cycles, it is actually you who has been inflicted with a sickness that comes from your own mind. You are able to accept the demise of your other comrades in stride, and yet you are compelled to drop to your knees for the loss of a select few. These few are the exception through which man usually views the concept of death itself and it ends up tainting an otherwise reasonable view of the subject itself through unnecessary emotional attachment. It is merely an imperfection that exists within your philosophy, so perhaps you have improperly calculated the way in which you should be perceiving the existence of life around you."

"What right do you have to talk about life?" seethed the young boy angrily. "Have you even lived it? Have ever treasured it like I have?"

"And therein lies your problem by presuming that life has any value at all when that is only a self-definition by man himself," said the emperor. "Nothing has been preordained by some greater creature in this world, though we as human beings sometimes find it more comforting to think of things that way. All of your values, your principles, everything is simply an illusion that was spawned to give yourself direction and there is nothing to say that said direction is any greater or wiser than mine." He reached out his armored hand towards a nearby wooden table where a small and intricately painted tea set rested on a silver tray. Without a single word, one of the half-filled cups rose up into the air and gently flew over to settle itself in the palm of his hand, the frothy liquid growing comfortably warm in mid-flight to suit its master's tastes. "Perhaps a better question to ask would be to yourself and why you have chosen to come this far to meet me."

Edge found himself catching an uneasy breath in his throat before it could escape into the room, but his eyes were not able to hide the apprehension that grasped his chest as the warlord questioned the motives behind his fruitless journey.

"You have no right to say anything about me," he said in low tones.

"Do I?" asked Shin with a raised eyebrow, the smile continuing to calmly play out on his face almost mockingly. "You question my motives and attempt to decry me as something evil, and you say I have no right to analyze the life you have lived in return? I beg to differ in that respect. Perhaps you do indeed believe yourself to be aiding the side of justice, but isn't that only a single perspective coming from a single human being? The thing that you have forgotten about war is that every faction will always believe itself to be following that same, just path, no matter what their methods or ideologies may be. Man creates values to create meaning for the meaningless, and this is no different. Nobody wins in war, my friend, for while the strongest side may come out victorious, everybody receives a loss. There are no good guys or bad guys. To me, you are just as much a villain as I must be to you. And in the end, you have come to kill me, and you are no better or worse off than I am, for you have still bet your soul in a fight for those personal, selfish beliefs that you hold close to your heart."

Edge could look at the man no longer as he averted his eyes to the crimson carpets, but despair had already tightened its grip about his broken body. Why had he come this far anyways? After he had lost Sanjurroh, he knew that these people would most likely not leave his wife alive either, and yet he had continued to trudge on no matter how hopeless it seemed. For him, Yu-Lan and his son were everything. They defined the very happiness that he had thought he yearned for all of his life. He clung to their stained memories even now long after they had already given themselves over to the world of the dead. Why? Why did he continue to grasp at that which he could no longer have? Maybe he just wanted a reason to keep on fighting, to keep on going in this life that he had hoped so badly would bring him everything he had ever wanted. Maybe he wanted to wake up from this nightmare to discover that it was all just a bad dream and that he could still go on living a perfectly normal life in his family's small house out in the grassy fields of the countryside.

....no.

He keep going because he wanted to believe that this was not the human life that he had imagined to be his utopia. He waited over and over again for something beautiful and wonderful to rise up and show him that his entire quest to discover the secrets behind human sadness and joy were not in vain, but he could find nothing. Man was simply a monster, a beast that could not be contained neither by his peers nor by the gods he believed in. If he had been on Shin's side, would he have seen things exactly the same way as he had while standing by the rebels? Would Falcoon be a violent upstart who was trying to destabilize a peaceful nation with unnecessary rebellion, and Mikaeru an evil witch who delved into the forbidden powers of black magic to deliver punishment upon her foes? Perhaps there simply could not be exceptions to the brutality that this race of creatures inflicted upon itself... perhaps... perhaps even Yoshime's true face would have shown itself to him had he waited long enough to see her fall into the darkness from which she was spawned...

"Do you see my position?" said the emperor after a while, his cape softly rustling on the edges of an invisible wind.

"I understand... but I wanted to hope that there was something more," said Edge reluctantly, keeping his eyes to the floor. "At least now I know the truth. At least now I know how empty a thing the human soul truly is." He looked up with a grin of lost faith on his face as he stared up to the ceiling in a dizzying haze. In his head, he whispered softly to somebody, though he could not tell who it was. The words still echoed clearly throughout his head though, and he felt somehow sad and liberated at the same time as he gently told them that they would be in one another's arms soon.

"And now I can meet my end in peace... after I destroy you."

Shin merely chuckled at the prospect and spread his arms wide as an invitation of amiability to his guest.

"Surely, I thought you wouldn't have thought a battle to be necessary at this point," he said. "Can't you see that killing one another will mean virtually nothing in the long run?"

"Oh, I can see that clearly enough," said Edge, and looked at the man with eyes that were filled with sorrow. "But I will take this last selfish action of mine for what you have done to my family and to me, for if we are all monsters, then it is only natural for I to meet my end giving in to my primal lusts, surrendering myself to the very beast which I had yearned for so badly."

And though Shin did not laugh this time, he continued smiling nonetheless even as the chamber began to trembled beneath the weight of the power he held in his small, mortal body.

"As you wish, Edge," he said, white flames dancing within his dark eyes as the world turned red with blood. "Come, and I will show you the world you have lusted for with all your heart and soul..."

...

...

...

Kouryuu's blades tore through the air without stopping as she ripped through the endless numbers of Toy's minions, but no matter how many bodies she left lying in the dirt, there were always more for her hungry blades. After several minutes of relentless combat, the once peaceful ground which they stood upon had been opened up into a small grove of destruction amidst the forest's lust growth, the earth having been uprooted from its foundation beneath the power of the charging combatants. With every passing second, the rebel watched her energy levels tick lower and lower, already passing below the ten percent marker as she struggled to make every graceful move beneath the moonlit night count. But she too had her limits, and if her system did not have the power necessary to function properly, then she too would fall beneath the mercy of her enemy, helpless beneath their blades and bullets.

Her body crouched low as she slashed out the legs from beneath an oncoming soldier, and as the shards of broken metal were still flying through the air, her edge flew skywards and cleanly lopped the soldier's head off before spinning in midair and sinking its tip in a second attacker's chest. She rolled off of her momentum as she pulled her weapon free in a hail of sparks and immediately held up the base of her blade to block the oncoming knife of a third robot. The impact pushed her down from the sheer strength of the android's blow, but she smoothly rolled with that too as she swung about her second sword and tore through her foe vertically with such force that it cut it in two cleanly down the center of its sterile facemask. A fearsome roar shook the ground and loosened the soil from its resting place, and a quick glance out of the corner of her eye brought in the fiery vision of Zero's Demoness bathing an entire legion in an explosion of hellfire that easily ripped their bodies apart. Surely, they would not have been able to get as far as they had without her assistance, but she would not be able to hold all of them off alone either. Something was going to need to give if either side hoped to gain the advantage in this standoff, and she sincerely hoped that it would not end up being them.

"Clef, please tell me some good news," said Kouryuu over her comm-link. "We're not going to last too much longer out here without a little bit of help. Is there anything you can do for us?"

"Every program can be cracked, but it takes time proportional to the complexity of the security," replied the child's deep voice blandly, though an almost invisible hint of irritation tainted the ends of his words. "I expected nothing less but excellence from Toy's programming abilities, and it's only reasonable to believe that this will take a little more time than you're hoping for. You'll have to be patient if you want me to do this correctly because there really is no alternative at this point."

The rebel's hopes fell a little lower as she cut the line short and instead focused on threading the throat of her newest opponent on the end of her blade.

"Asimov?" she asked hopefully. "Do you have any bright ideas?"

"I do have one, but I'm wondering if our nuclear-based friend has enough energy to pull it off," said the golden warrior hesitantly, the sounds of his own frenzied battle echoing over their conversation.

"Go ahead and shoot," said Kouryuu. "We've run out of options at this point, so I'm willing to try anything."

"Well, at the moment our enemy has effectively circled us in a manner that leaves no room for escape," said Asimov. "I've scanned the statistics of our movement against the numbers of troops that we've had to defend against, and they must be massing in huge numbers in a perfect ring around is to be able to keep up such a frantic rush without giving us the time to poke a hole in their defenses. With this in mind, all we need to do is place a strategic mass-destruction attack right in their center and we may just open up the hole we're looking for to make a run for it."

"If you're thinking that we can take out a huge chunk of their line in one blow with Terpfen's nukes, I would otherwise say that you've got a good idea on hand," she said. "But that's still a lot of area to cover, and when you add up the amount of energy that it's going to take him to create those nukes, teleport them into our enemy's armies, and erect the fields necessary to ensure that we ourselves don't also fall victim to the explosions, I don't think it’s a very feasible plan."

"Only if it was Terpfen on his own."

Kouryuu's brown creased in confusion as she twisted around a string of machine gun fire, twin wires shooting out from both wrists as they wrapped themselves about the mobile infantry and drew them close to taste her killing edge.

"Elaborate."

"Zero's abilities will more than suffice for the transportation problem," said Asimov. "Her propensity to scan and locate energy sources will give us the accuracy we need. If Terpfen can create the bombs, I've already approximated the positions of our enemy for her to teleport them to, giving us a quick and effective surgical strike that they probably won't expect."

"What about the containment fields?" questioned the rebel. "We still need something to protect us from the blast and eliminate the nuclear fallout, lest we put the more human of our companions in danger."

"We're... still close enough so that I can 'feel' Terpfen's aura, and since we've already been in contact for so long, it wouldn't take much time for me to synchronize my abilities with his on cue," said the warrior hesitantly. "I should be able to imitate the protective barriers without too much of a problem to make up for any lack of resources he might have."

The rebel raised an eyebrow at her companion's words even as she pushed the battle axe of an oncoming android back to give herself some breathing room, her following roundhouse kick catching it squarely in the chest with enough force to send it flying off into the trees and out of range.

"You don't sound too confident about that last bit," she said curtly.

"My body was not built to maintain the stress of holding those barriers," he said simply. "At full power, it wouldn't be a problem, but I'm sure you can understand that the situation is a little more questionable as it currently stands."

"I don't want to put us at an unnecessary risk," said the rebel. "We can't afford to lose anything at this point."

"If this doesn't work, then we'll lose everything at once regardless," said Asimov bluntly. "But we're already at the breaking point with nowhere left to run. Right now, we can't gain anything without taking a gamble, and our foe is far more adept at playing the waiting game than we are. This might give us the chance we need if I'm correct. One shot might be all it takes to get us out of this alive."

Silence followed as Kouryuu twisted both blades independently of each other, knocking away a high-powered rifle from one attacker while severing the arm of another. Neither offensive halted their onslaught though, and she was forced to grit her teeth and take a step back as they both swung about with powerful kicks towards her face and chest. A quick parry with the hilts of her sword twisted the attacks away, but she had already succumbed to the pressure that her enemy put on her, and she was forced to take yet another step back into the circle as she tried to decide the best way to break her foe's defense. The longer they stayed out here, the bigger chance they ran of never making it to Kei-Shu. Every passing second gave Toy and Yoshiki more time to amass re-enforcements, and by the time they were able to topple the battalions that were already here, a new legion of killers would have risen up from behind the metallic corpses to take their place. Clef was making progress, but it would all be in vain if the results came after their deaths. Standing their ground was no longer a viable option, but she was still hesitant to put her faith in a plan that could kill them all in seconds.

"Kouryuu," said Asimov over their line.

"Yes?"

"I won't let you down," he said, his voice adamant in its conviction. "If I hit standby holding on to that barrier, then so be it. But I have no intentions of letting any of you die because of my failure."

"I know you won't," said the rebel above the noise of her blades. There had never been any doubt in her mind of that much. "Tell Terpfen to do it. There’s no time left. We need that breather as soon as possible."

"Will do," said Asimov, and the line cut off as Kouryuu found herself alone in the dark once again. Surely, what her companion proposed was a great risk that would take only one wrong move to go bad. Yet, she knew that the man would pull through even though the odds were against him. That was simply the type of person that he was.

Moments later, she watched as flashes of crimson sparked amongst the forest shadows and for a fraction of a second, her attackers found themselves distracted by the new threat that had blossomed in front of their very eyes. A bright flash of light spread up before her optical sensors seconds before the explosion, and as the rebel found herself surrounded by the brilliant glow of Terpfen's scintillating barriers, the forest raged on outside in a cacophony of random devastation.

A few scattered soldiers had been trapped outside the barrier that came from the golden warrior's hands, but Kouryuu wasted no time in cutting them down as they stood in what seemed to be shock of the destruction of their respective units. They outnumbered her threefold, but she made every move count as her swords cleanly whipped through their necks and cut their powerful bodies loose from their computers. Sheer seconds passed since their plan had gone into action, but all three of her enemy were motionless by the time it was over, and she looked up towards the sparkling sky with pride as the shield held itself without fail. There had been no doubt of her faith in Asimov. He was one of them now.

She spared a quick glance over to her companions now that her side had been cleared and found them busy cleaning up the remainder of the few who had managed to stay outside the nuke's range. Asimov himself was holding the barrier at maximum capacity, but it seemed to be causing him a considerable amount of effort as well. With both legs planted firmly in the ground, his body heaved up and down with heavy breaths as he outstretched both of his trembling hands towards the wall, strings of golden energy trailing off of his clawed fingertips. It was clear that he was straining hard from the exertion of creating the shield, but a second look at the shimmering blue barrier showed that it had no signs of weakness whatsoever, and Kouryuu simply nodded to herself as a motion towards her friend's efforts.

Just as she thought that they were in the clear, one of the armored soldiers broke free from the other groups and dashed just before the golden warrior with the muzzle of his automatic rifle pointing directly between the man's eyes with a promise of armor-piercing rain to follow. Kouryuu didn't even realize that her sword was in her hand until she had already flung it towards her foe, and as her friend's eyes widened in despair from the reality of his situation, the danger passed just as quickly as the tip of the rebel’s edge pushed itself through the side of the robot's head and brought it tumbling to the ground, pulling itself into the open wound all the way to the hilt. Asimov did not turn his head as he continued to concentrate on the task at hand, but the expression on his face softened into a hard grin as he absently nodded to his unseen benefactor, knowing exactly who had pulled back the darkness at the last possible second.

"I owe you one, Kouryuu," he said wearily, but the rebel would have none of it.

"You owe me nothing," she said simply. "We're all in this together, and I know that you wouldn't let me down any more than I would to you." He would pull through no matter what it took. She knew that because she would have done the same thing, even if it meant throwing her life to the winds.

As the deafening boom slowly faded out into the night, the blue wall fell away in a hail of white flash and Asimov fell to his knees, his outstretched hands the only thing keeping him from falling face-first into the dirt as he reeled from the strain that racked his body. Kouryuu kept him in the corner of her eye, but the majority of her attention remained on the shadows that were still being cast from the massive clouds of smoke that had been overturned by the force of the explosion. The nuclear detonators had done a fair share of damage and managed to completely clear out the area around them in a wide circle of flattened earth, but there was still a decent chance that there were others waiting amongst the bent trunks of the remaining flora beyond the range of the energy walls, and the rebel kept her sharp vision pinned on the battlefield so that she would be ready if and when the enemy's armies decided that the time had come for a second offensive.

"Terpfen's blast appears to have taken care of them for now, but there might be more than we bargained for," said Kouryuu over her comm-link. "Asimov? How are you doing?"

"I barely made it, but I'm still alive," he said gruffly, though the fatigue in his voice was easily apparent. "I'm down to 3.2% on my energy scale though, and I’m not going to be able to take on anything else at this rate."

"Hopefully, you won't have to," said the rebel, turning her attention to the others. "Double? Do you see anything out there that I don't?"

"Nothing that's not right before our eyes already," said the assassin. "That plan worked out pretty well. I don't see a lot of activity around us at all. If there are any more of them remaining, they must be keeping pretty damn still because I'm not detecting anything on my scanners."

"Good," said Kouryuu, glancing at Yoshime, Iesu, and Clef over her shoulder to make sure they were still safe. "Everybody's accounted for and we just got ourselves a ticket out of here. Let's run before they're able to regroup and figure out what happened. We can figure out a further course of action on the way. Double, I want you to---"

"Wait," said the killer suddenly, the conviction in his voice so strong that Kouryuu immediately froze in mid-sentence. Seconds passed in tense silence as she waited for him to say something further, but when he did not, she shot him an irritated look of reproach over her shoulder.

"We don't have time for this right now!" she seethed vehemently, but when she saw the feverish look in his eyes, she realized that there must be something out there pretty big to scare him this much.

"I know we're running low on power right now, but if you open up your tracking systems all the way, you'll feel it," he said in low tones. "There are a couple scattered troops out there, but not a lot, less than a dozen I'd say. There's something else out there too though, and it's pretty damn big..."

Kouryuu followed his advice as she rerouted energy to her computer, and as her radar began to open up to all spectrums across the board, her jaw visibly hung open in the air at the hulking object that she sensed slowly lumbering in their direction from the north.

"What the hell is that thing...?" she breathed as she began to run a closer analysis. "It's got an energy output that's off the charts... is it Yujin?!"

"The levels are up there, but the patterns are different," said Double hesitantly. "It's speeding up though, and even though that monster isn’t approaching terribly fast at the moment, we're in no shape to pick a fight with it at all, even if we were at full power."

"Do you have any suggestions?" she asked hopefully, looking at her companion as she spoke. However, this time Double did not move as he continued to stare north with loss in his eyes, a sense of emptiness penetrating his soul deeper than she had ever seen before.

"... I don't know," he finally said wearily, and Kouryuu could not blame him for the things that crept up so hopelessly from his throat. "I don't know..."

The forest erupted in a thunderous crash as the tilted redwoods from the northern edge of the clearing blew apart in a fearsome explosion that sent them flying high into the stars in trails of dust and smoke, and the planet itself trembled as a monstrous war machine over ten feet tall marched onto the field of battle. A small horde of the remaining android force swarmed around it with their rifles brought up to the shoulder and ready to fire, but the small party's eyes could not be pulled from the gigantic behemoth before them, its cold hide feeling nothing as it fearlessly and emotionlessly continued its heartless march to trample out the lives of its designated foes. And as the weakened rebel watched the robotic creature known as Neon walk forward and shake the ground with each step of its enormous steel-wrought boots, she felt true, real fear grip her heart like a vise, and it took a conscious effort of every fiber in his body to keep herself from falling to her knees in complete and utter defeat.

They had been so close.

To lose all hope now before this indomitable monolith of cruelty...

She despaired.

...

...

...

"You've already fared so well against my men. Why have you chosen to stop your crusade now? Or have you simply lost the will to fight?"

Edge tried to ignore Shin's mocking words as he turned and skidded just around a volley of fireballs that singed the carpet in his place, instead concentrating on his own offensive as he reached out his hand and let loose with a lightning bolt that streaked through the air like an arrow towards the man's head. However, at the last possible second, it seemed to fold up and dissolve, twisting in upon itself and fizzling out in the raging atmosphere, and the dark emperor simply chucked in amusement.

"Your power is astonishing in its ability," he said. "However, you also lack the proper skill with which to wield it properly, and that has made you weak in your carelessness."

Edge felt whiplash shock his body like a blow to the head as his feet suddenly rooted themselves to the ground against as his will, and as he vainly tried to free himself from the invisible shackles, the air outside began to thunder with the coming of a new storm. A quick bust of gravitational power broke apart the molecules of rock that attached him to the castle's floor, and just as he threw himself out of the way, the ceiling broke apart with a mighty crash as a massive bolt of electricity shot down from the heavens and thundered into the place where he had been standing only seconds ago. Without even waiting for the next attack to come, Edge swooped in low over the blood-red carpets and flew directly up into Shin's face with a reverse side kick aimed directly at his jaw. Yet, just as he was about to connect, the man calmly held up the palm of his hand towards the flying limb and tapped it lightly with his fingertips. The force with which the young boy's leg flew backwards was so powerful and sudden that he could hear the joints in his knee crack and dislocate as his calf bent unnaturally backwards. He could not hold back the cry of pain that welled up in his throat no matter how hard he tried to.

"What did you hope to find here?" said Shin absently, raising his hand before Edge's eyes. "What did you hope to achieve by coming to me after all that you have seen?"

The world flashed in shades of black and white as something smashed into Edge's face so hard that he was sent flying into the far wall near the entrance of the room, a neat, globular crevice opening up behind his skull as it sank into the rock like a stone in water. He could feel himself teetering on the edge of consciousness as he pulled himself from the bulwark, small pebbles and stone dust sticking to his bloody body as the life fluids spilled forth from his wounds. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming again as he put pressure on his right leg only to painfully remember that it had been dislocated, and the only thing that kept him from falling to the ground was a burst of gravitational energy that managed to hold him in midair just as he realized that he wasn't going to be able to stand on his own.

"I came here to take back everything you stole from me," breathed the young boy, and he winced in agony as his power forced his leg back into place, the limb spasming ferociously as an invisible force pulled the bone back into its socket with a painful snap. "I came here to kill you."

"So its vengeance you seek," said the emperor in understanding, nodding to himself. "But isn't that all a little pointless? Don't you have better things to do with yourself?"

"Don't you dare talk about my family and friends like that!!!" roared Edge, and he thrust both hands forward as a wall of gravitational force tore across the chamber destroying everything in its path. The carpet shredded to pieces underneath the sheer pressure of the contained force and the windows split apart in a hail of glass as the moving vacuum fractured their surfaces and ripped them apart like paper. Yet, when the wall came to the sole man standing alone in the center of the room, it stopped dead in its tracks at his very feet, the breadth of its destruction continuing to rip voraciously at anything it could reach as it hungrily spat pieces of stone into the air from the floor beneath it.

"I think you're misconstruing my sentiments," said Shin, and with a wave of his hand, the wall of gravity seemed to split itself down the middle and part on either side of him, plowing through pieces of scattered furniture before splitting the massive windows at the far end of the hall with a blast that shook the entire tower in its foundation. "What I said was not meant to directly poke fun at those that your mind has latched itself on to. Rather, I meant to ask why you fling yourself so willingly into the pit of the dead for those who have already passed on?"

Edge said nothing as more lightning bolts streaked towards his enemy from his fingertips, his body already running through the chaos to follow up his assault with another barrage of blows.

"They deserve to be remembered," he said vehemently. "I won't let any of them die in vain!"

"Incorrect," stated his opponent, swatting away the electricity with ease. "Your wife, son, and Mikaeru have already died. No matter what you do from here on, you cannot change that portion of history, and thus this delusion that you are fighting for their sake exists quite pointlessly in the depths of your own mind."

"Shut up!!!" shouted the young boy, swinging out wildly with his right arm at the man's jaw and connecting with a solid blow that echoed throughout the room. However, Shin did not seem to be affected by it in the least as he continued to blandly smile at Edge, his right arm shooting out and gripping him tightly around the neck as he pulled the shorter figure away and held him safely at arm's reach.

"Human beings fight for many things," he said coolly. "They fight for materialistic objects, for people, and for beliefs. They fight to establish them and protect them, and also to save them from utter destruction. However, once those things are destroyed, what left is there to fight for? There is nothing, and those who are smart will realize this and move on to fight for something new and tangible. But to continue proclaiming yourself for that which is already lost is merely a pointless endeavor, for even should you win the fight, you still gain nothing in the end. Even if you kill me, Edge, what will you have? What do you expect to gain?"

Edge did not answer as he grit his teeth and swung up to kick his opponent in the head, but Shin was far quicker as he flung his prey to the ground and kicked him cruelly in the side of the ribs.

"Do you know why you cannot hurt me?" he said as he towered over the young boy. "It is because while you are fighting for the sake of ghosts, I still have everything before me to protect for my future. When you are gone, I will still have my empire and all of its people, and killing you this day will allow me to continue the life that I have aspired to maintain for all these years. I still have a reason to continue forward. However, once you are through here today, it does not matter whether you live or die because you will still be a lost child regardless. Whoever said that those with nothing left fight the hardest was a fool, because it is those who still have everything who truly have reason to protect the things that they enjoy in life."

The floor rumbled as traces of heat began to emerge from the cracks in the hard rock, and without warning a white hurricane of twisting fire filled the room with a fervor unparalleled. Edge was thrown into the air as he felt his body bathed in the unholy fires, and though they did not seem to physically scathe his flesh in the least, his mortal frame was tormented with an agony far worse as the bright flames penetrated all the way down to the bone, leaving no inch of his entrails and organs untouched as they filtered through him like a fog and turning everything they touched to ash. He fell to the floor in a broken heap as the last of the pyre melted into the air, and though his eyes were wide open and his pupils frantically stared out into the world before him, his body would not listen to his calls no matter how hard he tried, and he could not bring himself to his feet no matter how strongly he pressed into the ground with his quivering hands.

He was helpless...

"I will prevail today, my friend," said Shin, a low hum filling the room as he spread his arms wide to gather invisible waves of magic into his body, the dark forces gently shaking the room as the lord welcomed their very essence into his mind. "And as long as you continue to lose yourself within the maze of the past, you will always have nothing. You will be forever empty without the power to push into the future."

"No..." whispered Edge so softly that only he could hear it, but he still could not bring himself to look up towards the sky again. No matter how hard he tried.

"That's not true... that's... not... not true..."

And the crimson storm overtook him once more.

...

...

...

"Move it! Move it!!!" shouted Double frantically as he faced off against the metal giant alone, trying to buy some time while the others got Yoshime, Iesu, and Clef back to a safe position. The standard soldiers were not as huge of a problem before. They could at least stand their ground against those units. However, if one were to try to classify this grotesque creature within the world of mecha, it would probably be an armored tank while he himself was nothing more than a small sized car. Or perhaps a motorcycle. The comparison between the two was so staggeringly extreme that the visualization of them standing off against one another was almost pathetic. This thing had been built for the sole purpose of heavy combat, a machine created to withstand the heaviest damage from the modern day battlefield and dish it back out. He would need time to find a way to crack its armor with his limited resources. But right now, more than anything, they needed to run.

Neon's fist cocked back and shot forward far faster than something of its size should have been able to do, and Double's body barely managed to register the alarm in his eyes as he desperately flew himself to the side, the sheer force with which the hammer smashed into the ground sending him into the air as he narrowly escaped being smashed to pieces.

"How are we doing, Kouryuu?" he said as he landed and rolled to his feet, keeping his eyes on the lumbering giant as it yanked its fist from the ground, sending shards of rock and soil into the air. "Tell me a little bit of good news, because I could sure use some right now."

"Asimov is leading the others deeper into the woods as I speak and we'll be following as fast as we can," she said, bits of static filtering into her signal as the assassin's energy supply dropped lower and lower. "You should hurry up too. Zero has the best chance out of all of us of standing up to that abomination at the moment, so she'll pick up for you and cover our rear. We just have to hope that we can somehow loose them in the trees once we get going."

"I agree that she's probably the best off out of all of us right now, but I don't think that's saying a whole lot at the moment," said Double, and his attention quickly shot back to his opponent as he realized that the creature had suddenly stopped moving. Spreading its tree-trunk legs wide and bracing them into the ground, it brought both of its gigantic arms straight before it as wisps of steam abruptly shot out of its shoulders like a cannon ready to fire. Almost as though the beast had read his mind, the clearing was suddenly dominated by a monstrous thunder as both of its forearms shot forward like rockets, the sheer blast nearly toppling the giant itself to the ground from the recoil. The crimson assassin swore that he watched the entire scene in slow motion as the dislocated limbs turned into a shining, spiraling projectiles that were easily the size of a house, the fearsome things rumbling straight in his direction. However, though the natural instincts in his body told him to run, the weight in his heavy feet seemed to increase tenfold as he stumbled back stupidly as if wadding through a lake of tar. The assault was far, far faster than he had expected, and it would only be a few more seconds until the monster's spinning fists ripped his fragile frame into pieces...

He momentarily thought that he was loosing consciousness as his field of vision was filled with a violent, red blur, but when he straightened himself up and forced his eyes to focus once again, he discovered that it was just Zero that had leapt in his path, her body crackling with the remnants of an ancient sorcery long forbidden. The Demoness said nothing as she calmly whipped her hand up and caught the spinning towers in her well-worn palms, but her return alone was not enough to stop them from churning in midair, and even as the relentless pistons increased their furious ascent, the pigtailed girl was forced to brace her small body against the breaking ground below her feet, the ripping soil exploding in a scarlet maze of arcane symbols that gave her the power to stand her ground.

"You need to be more careful," she said quietly, her usually bubbly voice seeming eerily out of place as it spoke in cold, deadpan tones. "It won't be much longer before my body gives out, so we need to take this one down as soon as possible."

Double absently nodded behind her as he moved to the side, and just as quickly as she had rushed forth to protect him, her right fist cockedbackwards and smacked the projectile with a blow hard enough to send it rocketing sideways into the woods, an entire line of ancient trees finding an end to their once peaceful existence as their trunks were uprooted from the ground. The red emblems continued to burn themselves in unholy configuration for a while, and they soon faded away as the Demoness quickly found fatigue washing over her like bucket of cold water. It was clear to see that she did not want others to notice as she continued to maintain her posture, but Double could still see that she was reaching her limit, the plates in the side of her armor hissing from exertion as they lifted themselves out to cool off her overheated engine.

"You're definitely right about one thing," he said, watching out of the corner of his eye as the behemoth's forearms calmly floated back through the night air and reattach themselves to its stubby limbs. "We need to take this thing out as soon as possible." He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder to which she flinched at like a wounded animal, though her reaction did not go far beyond eyeing him with a suspiciously hungry glare. "Thanks," he said. "I got careless."

"... just watch your back," said Zero as she shrugged his hand off coldly, but it was clear enough that she had accepted his grace. And that was all he asked for.

"Terpfen," said Double over his line. "Do you think you have enough juice in you for one last nuke?"

"Will I be receiving assistance from Asimov and Zero like the previous encounter?" asked the nuclear device, his voice perfectly level amidst the confusion.

"I think that's a negative on that one," said Double with a quick glance in Zero's direction. Even though she would probably never admit it, there was very little chance that she would be able to stand another blow like the one she just took. Asimov's condition was also critical as a result of his aid in clearing out the forests, so there was no luck there either. Terpfen was going to have to do this on his own to make it count. He just prayed that the guy had it left in him for one last blow. "I'm sending you the coordinates now. We only need one nuke on this target, I'm sure you can already see his signature on your radar. Do you think you can do it?"

A few seconds passed as the mechanism processed the information, and each one ate away at Double's hopes as he watched the giant straighten itself in the darkness and continue its lumbering migration in their direction.

"Accomplishing this task will reduce my energy reserves to 3.242 percent. This amount is not sufficient for us to escape to the designated area of Kei-Shu under the current conditions. Shall I proceed regardless?"

"If we don't live, it won't matter how much energy we have left!" said Double, watching his enemy with a gleam in his eyes. "Do it!"

"Affirmative."

The earth around the base of Toy’s war machine suddenly flared blue as several layers of azure shielding surrounded it in an impenetrable field of energy. The giant turned about in confusion at its new surroundings, but the familiar glow of death quickly grew forth from within the chamber of destruction and the air thundered out once again with the power of Terpfen's nuclear force as a fearsome explosion detonated within. The storm raged fiercely as swirls of white devastation erupted over and over behind the protective barrier's calm face, and though the explosion seemed to echo in the atmosphere for hours, it was really only a matter of seconds before the raging fire met an end and the walls had filtered the harmful radioactive elements into the earth's upper thermosphere. The protection finally collapsed to the ground in a flash of light, and Double allowed himself a quick sigh of relief as he watched the remaining smoke seep out across the scarred battlefield like a fog of serenity. Toy must have meant real business if he had sent something that big to finish the job, though it was a bit of a wonder as to why he hadn't employed his usual set of henchmen to clean up the mess. Regardless, it was a relief to know that they had been able to make it this far. Now all they needed to think about was getting their pace back up to speed before further reinforcements discovered what had happened.

"Watch it," said Zero suddenly, breaking his peaceful train of thought. "It's not dead yet."

"What?!" exclaimed Double, his eyes whipping about towards the dense fog. His sensors tried to peer past the smoke to little avail, and at first nothing solid seemed to be left in the space that had been torn to shreds. Yet, impossibly enough, an enormous, solid boot pushed its way through the thick, soupy substance and smashed down into the earth with a mighty groan, and after that the behemoth's massive, armored hand reached out to thrust back the haze and pull itself up upon the field of death to finish the job it had come to accomplish.

"Double!" exclaimed Kouryuu over the comm-link. "What's going on out there? Is everything okay?"

But the killer could only watch in awe and stupefied dismay as the mechanical beast shook off the blast like it had been nothing more than an insect bite, its joints spewing scalding air out in jets of steam as it flushed out its system to prepare for its next assault.

"... run," he said absently, half to Kouryuu and half to himself. "Just run."

...

...

...

Edge's spine smashed into the hard wall as he spat blood and bile onto the floor, his body violently rebelling against the abuse that it was taking at the hands of the emperor. He tried to quickly stumble to his feet in order to evade the magician's next attack, but found himself more than a little late as thin blades of air swiped out at his joints and brought him tumbling to the ground in a bloody heap. With nowhere left to run but the cold, small confines of his own mind, he began to realize how sorely overpowered he was. He did not know what kind of person to expect when he had come to meet Shin, and he certainly had not anticipated that the man would be more than capable of defending himself. The young boy was already weak, having fought a hundred battles and stopping to rest for none of them. At this rate, he would not be able to win. He would die high above the war that he thought would lead him to his fantasy paradise. But perhaps he had been looking for death all along and had been too much of a coward to deal it upon himself when all was lost. With a smile, he thought that maybe he was closer now to gaining what he had always wanted than he had ever been before.

"Have you lost the will to fight, Edge?"

Pain exploded all over his body as the cleansing fires of heaven spilled over and flushed across his broken flesh and bones. He tried to scream, but the liquid flame overflowed into his mouth as well, choking off his cries of agony.

"Have you finally accepted how useless you are in this world that holds no inherent meaning whatsoever?"

It hurt to touch anything, but Edge forced his hands to push against the sharp, broken shards of rocky debris anyways as he pushed himself to his feet and turned around to look his enemy in the eye. Shin still stood tall and confident, the soft smile on his face still beaming with pride at the empire he had erected as a monument to human sin. And for everything that he himself had aspired for, Edge stood shaken, broken, his blood flowing freely and staining the frayed carpets that he stood upon, his spirit twisted and shattered from a faith betrayed by truth.

"I know you must be tired," said Shin, outstretching his slender hand in the young boy's direction. "I have seen the things that you have experienced, the trials, the disappointment, the pain. I can not blame you for how you feel now, for a weaker man would have already buckled beneath the pressure of anguish."

Edge said nothing as he looked up with dead eyes to the warlord, struggling to keep his head above the sea of darkness that threatened to consume him whole. The caped figure before his shattered soul faded in and out of blackness as lights of flame and brimstone lit up far beyond his figure, the war's rage continuing on as the rebels tirelessly fought on for the glory of their dreams. And though he knew that it should not have been possible, he watched as a soft hail of pristine, white feathers- angel feathers- began to rain down from the heavens above, blessing the children of god in his mercy for the horrible things that he had done. Was this what it felt like to lose all hope? Was this what human beings saw when they were about to die...?

"People fight so hard and hurt so much for the things that they think will make them happy," said the emperor as he glanced out the window towards the battle below. "But don't we all want the same thing in the end? Don't we all seek peace and comfort? Isn't it easier to find that without all the suffering?"

He tried to call for the power of gravity to come to his bloodied hands once more for one last attack, for one last blow of justice to go out with a bang even if he had always been destined to lose this battle. But no matter how hard he tried, the strings were always just a little too far for him to reach, and though he raised his hand towards his enemy to unleash a final blast to take them both away, nothing would come forth, and the tears flowed freely down his cheeks upon realization of his own impotence.

"You have had a long journey, my friend, but don't feel that you must burn yourself out to the very end for the sake of something that is no longer attainable. I can end it now for you, quickly and painlessly. You've fought a long, hard battle, and for at least that much, you should be commended. You deserve your peace. So it's okay to rest now, Edge, we can take care of things from here on."

Through the fog, he still saw the man's hand outstretched towards him in a bid to grant him mercy, and through the smothering tears he weakly reached out with his own hand to grasp it and accept his end. He was so tired of fighting for something that would never come. He was so tired of losing friends and hope over and over again. For once, he wished that he could just lie down and sleep. He wanted to see real dreams, not nightmares that plagued him in his waking hours. For once, he wanted to run away without ever having to look back at all the horrible things that he had seen, and now, as he stood on the edge of darkness, he reached out to take that chance, even if it meant giving up life itself.

"It's okay to rest now. We can take care of things from here on."

And he wanted to believe those words so much as he peered past the blood and tears and reached into the void...

"It's okay... Edge... to give up..."

...

... and something primal welled up within his chest, something ancient and powerful, something that would not let him die no matter what...

...

His eyes abruptly opened wide in huge bloodshot circles as consciousness hit his body like a hammer to the back of the head. The world became crystal clear as he became painfully aware of how he was teetering like a newborn baby over the broken ground, the blood that had began to dry all over his face and armor, his dirty fingers that were only centimeters away from grasping the emperor's offer of mercy. And all at once, the anger rose up and overflowed, anger at the death of his family, anger at the war, the bloodthirsty generals, the empire and Shin, and... himself.

And for the first time in which he could remember, he found that he wanted to live. Not for Yu-Lan or Sanjurroh. Not for Mikaeru. Not for Falcoon or the rebels. He had to live for himself, because he knew that the anger would not fade away until he could prove himself to his own, weak heart...

The smile never left Shin's face as his fist plowed into the man's skull like a missile, and as the emperor's features slowly distorted into a hollow mockery of the proud dictator that had once stood so strong, Edge realized that he was screaming, his crazed, shrieking cries shaking the world with a fury that he could neither identify nor deny.

The force of the blow sent Shin through the far wall, completely decimating half the structure and ceiling as the morning sun climbed high into the sky beyond the falling rubble and crumbling rock. Shards of stone flew up into the air as the caped figure leapt up through the debris and climbed into the atmosphere, but Edge was already upon him, his eyes burning with white anger as he wrapped his fingers about the man's neck and flung him back to the ground, the man's frail body leaving trails across the solid rock where he was thrown.

"You..." coughed the man as he propped himself on one knee, forcing himself to lift up before his skidding body had even come to stop, crimson openly flowing from his mouth and temple as he looked up to the young boy. "You are not ready to go quite yet, are you?" But he received no answer as his foe flung himself through the air and brought a rolling roundhouse kick into his jaw so hard that Shin flew back and rebounded off the far wall like a doll, his frame bouncing several feet along the ground before the broken wreckage was finally able to drag his body to a halt.

"Stand up," said Edge, towering directly over his enemy's head as he looked down with horrible, bloodthirsty eyes. "Stand up and kill me like you said you would. Show me how empty my life is and take me into the depths of hell."

"Heh. As you wish then, boy," laughed Shin amiably, and as his head whipped up from the ground, the air exploded in a glory of light as a globe of white brilliance expanded outwards from the sorcerer's body and enveloped them both in its holy darkness. The ball of energy rapidly increased in size as it quickly came to encompass the entire chamber itself, and when it seemed as if it could take no more, everything within its touch burst in upon itself in an implosion that ripped entire objects inside out and tore them to pieces. Matter simply disappeared as perfect, arching curves cut themselves into the rock where the edges of the light ended, and nearly every object in the room that hadn’t been tied down found itself sucked into the black hole to nowhere and consumed by its voracious hunger. It took several minutes before the light slowly spiraled back in upon itself, shrinking and curving in as it sank back into the emperor's body, the only thing left that marked its existence being the flawlessly curved craters that were forever imprinted in upon the walls and floors of the tower. Yet, even as the dust began to clear, Shin looked up to find that Edge was still standing before him no worse off than he had been before, his cold stare continuing the glare down expectantly at the man below him. Shin no longer smiled then.

"Is that it?" asked the young boy, but he didn't wait for an answer. "Then let me show you the power... of my pride."

His body didn't move a muscle, but the invisible force that smashed into Shin's body sent him sprawling nonetheless. A second wall of gravity connected from his rear and sent him tumbling back towards his attacker, but he had no time to react as Edge wheeled about and landed a right hook in the man's face that sent him soaring all the way to the open edge of the tower's end with only a few scattered pieces of stone keeping him from toppling over into the battlefield below. The emperor tried to scamper to his feet as he lay sprawled amongst the fresh ruins, but when he attempted to prop himself up again, a sickening crack filled the air as his bones finally gave way to the ferocious pressure that he had exerted on them throughout the battle, and he was forced to reside against the cold ground as he watched his opponent approach in cool, calculated strides across the floor.

"I see that... I have misjudged you," he said, and Edge said nothing as he stopped in his tracks and absently glanced to the side at an enormous piece of granite that had fallen from the broken ceiling.

"No, you did not misjudge me," said Edge as he walked over and easily lifted the giant rock above his head, continuing his steady pace in his foe's direction with the large boulder in hand. "Everything you said was true. Everything you told me was correct and I had pulled a curtain in front of my eyes to hide myself from the pain of it all."

"Hah," laughed Shin, the grin spreading out on his face once more as the young boy loomed over his broken body, the car-sized boulder carefully balanced in the palm of Edge’s hand as he brought it up for the final blow. "Then I truly have underestimated you if you can realize that much. And what now? I suppose I have already lost this battle, seeing as how I'm in no position to fight any longer. Take what you deserve, Edge. Take my life and fill up the emptiness in your heart with my blood. That's what you came to do after all, isn't it? That's why you came to see me."

"Indeed, it is," said Edge coldly, looking down at the emperor with bloodthirsty eyes. "It was." He did not throw the killing strike. He simply waited, watching as Shin's grin slowly fell from his face upon realizing that the boy would not deal the finishing blow. "But as much as I wanted to give in, I couldn't. Something deep inside me wouldn't let me. And I know that in the end, it was just telling me what I really wanted behind all the screaming and shouting from the outside world. It told me that I still had a chance, and that chance would always lie outside of the horrible, terrible things that happen in this world before me."

Shin no longer smiled as Edge lightly tossed the boulder to the side and took a couple steps back, the hard stare melting away from his eyes as a look of painful determination crossed his face.

"I have no proof to disprove any of the things you said. I can no longer defend human beings as being as wonderful and special as I once thought them to be. But I am still myself, and regardless of who or what I am, I do not have to go down the same path as everybody else. Maybe the world is not everything I wanted it to be, neither this one nor the one I ran away from. However, that doesn't mean that the people in it are forever destined to be confined within its walls either. I think that perhaps I let myself be trapped willingly because I didn't know where else to go. We all have our own will and desires though, and when I finally realized that for myself, I saw that I didn't have to listen to the things you said. I still have a choice, and as long as I realize that much, I still have a chance to guide myself into the future no matter how far I fall."

With nothing left for him in the black tower of the empire, he quietly turned to walk away. He no longer knew where his path would lead him. He no longer had his wife, son, or friends to comfort him when he was down. But somehow he knew that they were still all there watching over him, wanting him to continue walking forward no matter how much he despaired. Perhaps he had been wrong to let himself be overwhelmed for so long. Perhaps he had been wrong to give himself up to the world before he even tried to walk on his own.

A sudden scraping sound from behind stopped him in his tracks, and he wearily glanced back over his shoulder to see that Shin was desperately trying to crawl to his feet, leaning against the rubble for support as he struggled to hold up his broken body.

"I don't understand," said Shin slowly. "Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this what you wished for?"

"What are you talking about?" said Edge incredulously. "How could I want a war like this? How could I want so many people dead for nothing? Weren't you the one who oppressed this land in the first place? Shouldn't you at least take a little responsibility for all the things that you've done?"

"I think you do not fully understand the conditions in which I exist," said the emperor as he stood up, nursing his broken leg. "It was not I who willed those people to die, nor for your wife and child to be killed."

"Shut up!!!" shouted Edge, whirling about in anger. "How dare you try to clear yourself of any of the crimes you committed! You- a common murderer- have no right to say any those things, no right at all!"

"I did not create this war, those rebels, not even this empire," he continued. Slowly, he stopped balancing his weight on his remaining leg and touched the fractured limb down to the floor again. It was then that the young boy realized that the man expressed no pain whatsoever as he began to walk towards him with completely normal strides. It was if the leg had never been rendered asunder in the first place. "I did not create your wife, your son, Mikaeru, Falcoon, Kannuki, or Shinnuki. I did not create the things that you saw. I did not even create the image of myself that you see before you now."

"You..." whispered Edge. "What are you talking about? If you're saying that you didn't 'create' any of this, then who did? What are you trying to say?"

And Shin stopped in mid-stride, staring Edge straight in the face as he spoke two, simple words that chilled him to the bone.

"You did."

...

...

...

Cold, forest air met Double's face as he raced through the tall trees at a sprint. He could slowly feel his body losing the will to run as he strained the last reserves of energy left in his dying body for every drop he could get, but the incessant crashing of falling timbers behind him drove him on harder than he ever would have imagined. Brute force was not going to be the way to win this battle. Their previous confrontation had easily proved that much. But how could they fight something this massive as they were now? How could they possibly hope to escape from something this strong?

His sensors peaked as a massive rise of heat built up behind him, and just as Kouryuu and the others came into view just ahead, he threw himself to the ground in a desperate move to save himself.

"Get down!" he shouted, his eyes rushing up to meet the ground as he watched his frantic companions do the same. Half a second later, a searing blue beam of light slashed over his head and ripped through the tree trunks like a hot knife through butter, its devastating length continuing on for miles into the dark forests as it toppled entire acres of land all at once. Double rolled across the dirt to avoid getting smashed by the falling timbers, and as he stood up amongst the clearing dust, it was with a cold splash of fear that he suddenly realized that their enemy had just cut down their only hiding place in a matter of seconds.

"Ch!" he cursed as he whirled back to find the behemoth and the remaining infantrymen closing in on them with uncanny speed. This monster was simply too powerful for them to run away. Their hopes of making it out of this alive were dwindling every second they tried to escape. Perhaps they never had a chance in the first place. But if he was going to die this day, then he would at least do it fighting down to his last breath. If nothing else, that was the way he had always fantasized his end to be...

"I'm going in!" he said as he leapt towards his enemies without hesitation. "If we can't run from them, then the only chance we have is to take them out while we still can!"

"No!!!" shouted Kouryuu out loud behind him. "Don't---!"

But he had already thrown himself deep into the abyss as his body bristled with blades, a roar of pride welling deep within his throat. The soldiers launched a volley of bullets in his direction, but he wound about them like a snake and threw his weakened body in their midst to cut them down with his flailing swords. Close range energy weapons were brandished, but he knocked them free before they could fully leave their scabbards and let his blades drink heavily from the severed bodies of his foes. He could feel his energy draining as it took more and more effort to push himself at his top performance, but if he could make a difference for the others, so be it. That was the least he could do for them now.

He instinctively leapt to the right as the enormous mechanism's arm crashed down in the place where he had just been standing and almost lost his balance as the ground exploded up from the impact. Still, he managed to hold his balance and braced himself against the trembling earth just before he leapt up onto the beast's limb itself to initiate his next assault. The creature was far more massive up close than he had imagined, but he forcefully pushed his doubts aside as he ran up its forearm with both arms spread wide, his hand spearing towards his opponent's face as he leapt forward without any regrets in his heart.

And it was with great disappointment that his blade merely met sparks as it contacted with the creature's mechanical eye, the needle tip screeching off to the side as it ran up against an invisible layer of shielding that protected its vision.

"Heh," laughed the assassin almost regrettably, and the monster reached out with its free hand and took his small head in its palm, lifting him high into the air to verify the execution to the rest of its prey. However, Double still regretted nothing. He had no reason to feel as if he had failed in any way at all, for he had simply done his best, and that was all that had ever been asked of him.

No regrets. As long as he had no regrets, he would be okay.

A floating sensation overtook his frame for a moment as he realized that the behemoth had dropped him in midair, and sheer milliseconds later its free hand launched into him with a punch that sent him flying, his limp body careening off the ground for several meters before it finally skidded to a stop in the dirt. He was surprised that he didn't lose conscious immediately, and it was then that he realized that only his shields had been completely drained, the rest of his body left surprisingly intact considering the force of the blow. Perhaps he had been able to instinctively allow his free form to adapt to the shock. Perhaps it was just luck. Still, it mattered little now, for his energy was so low that it was quickly consolidating itself in the areas of his system required to keep him alive. And as he sifted into a deep, peaceful sleep, he found himself still hoping that they could still get out of this alive. He still hoped that they would be able to pull through in the end. And most of all, he hoped that the power of absolute desire was stronger than he had ever understood it to be...

...

...

...

"... what?" said Edge in confusion, taking a step back as he tried to understand the emperor's words. "I... I created all of this? That's impossible. That simply doesn't make sense."

"In the sense of what you might call reality, probably not," said Shin, his crooked body no longer seeming to feel the ails of battle as he walked forth to comfort the young boy. "However, I am actually a program designed to facilitate and manage your consciousness during your time of stasis in the real world. Everything you see before you exists within the confines of your mind, something that you and only you can see and feel. However, because I have been able to completely uplink myself to your internal system, the illusion of actuality becomes apparent to your physical sensory system, despite the fact that it is simply a construct that lies outside of the existence that you are familiar with."

"That's what Clef said," breathed the young boy, remembering the man's last words before he had faded out of the world completely. "But why reveal all of this to me now? Why tell me everything after all that I've already been through?"

"It has become obvious to me at the present time that you are not content in this place that you have created, despite your determination to follow the path this far. It seems that I have miscalculated your mind in an attempt to synchronize with your desires. Therefore, it is in my best interest to break the walls down between our past relationship in order to understand what it is that you truly want."

"Stop toying with me!" shouted the young boy, swiping his arm through the air in frustration and pointing towards the raging war down below with an accusing finger. "Who the hell would want this kind of world? Who would want to live with such pain and suffering? If you are the program itself, then aren't you the one who created all of this? Aren't you the one who made all those people suffer and die a useless death?"

"Incorrect," stated Shin. "My existence here is not to create the world, but merely to manage it in a manner that suits the subject's objectives and desires. In a sense, my duty is to fulfill your dreams and give you the most content lifestyle that you can imagine. Everything that you have seen before you is a product of your own mind, images reflected from the feelings and beliefs that you carried over from your life on Akuji. However, in the end it seems that I have miscalculated what your true aspirations really are, for while I thought I had correctly computed the actions that would bring you peace, death did not appear to be the answer through which you would gain solace. I have therefore broken the image of this reality to speak with you up close so that I may properly ascertain what it is that can bring you happiness."

Edge took another step back as cold fear wrapped itself around his throat, and he found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he tried to choke the words forth into the bloody air.

"I made all this?" he whispered slowly. "I... this is... these are my... desires?"

Almost as if he had come to realize the horrible cacophony of paints that he had slashed across the canvas, the cries of bloodshed began to fade away into the distance, and as he looked out over the battlefield, the piles of corpses slowly began to disappear, leaving a clean field of tall grass behind that blew in the calm morning wind.

"The primary problem that arose during the simulation was a conflict of existing knowledge with your current wishes. As I am only a program of management that possesses no library of knowledge myself, I was forced to work solely from the resources in your own mind in order to create the world you see before you."

"I wished that I could live life as a human being," breathed Edge.

"Correct. Therefore, I utilized your current experiences and contacts with human beings to create a fantasy that I thought would lead you to peace. Up until just recently, it seemed to show you a path that would bring you the desired effect, but an unexpected error occurred. A conflict arose within your own interests and at the last minute you denied the road that I tried to guide you down. Seeing as how your sense of desire has changed, I have decided that perhaps my ability to judge your psyche may be mixed with more possible error and rather than make a mistake a second time, it would be more convenient and efficient for me to confront you face to face."

"My current experiences..." repeated Edge to himself, looking off to the side as he watched the room slowly reconstruct itself from the rubble, broken pieces of stone, metal, and glass bending back into their original shape as they floated back to the walls and ceiling they had fallen from to rejoin the original structure once more. "I created all of this...... is this... what I really think the human being to be like? Do I truly associate happiness with pain?"

"I thought that perhaps I had originally made a mistake once I saw your suffering, but then I realized that you fed off of it almost as much as you fed off of your hope to fix everything to be the way it once was. It was leading you in the direction of suicide, but it seemed to be what you desired at the time and I was forced to comply with your requests. All I have attempted to do is fulfill your wishes. This place is simply the product of your own mind."

"I wanted to be human..." said Edge absently. "I wanted to be human because I associated it with the peace and happiness that I desire. But maybe I don't even know what those things are yet, do I?"

"Logically, it is difficult for one to dream for things that he has neither experienced nor seen," said Shin.

"Can something like [happiness] exist on somewhere like Akuji though?" questioned Edge as he looked back towards the emperor for an answer. "Can someone like me ever even hope to feel peace, or was it a hopeless trail all along?" And he stared out the window as the sky flashed red, the violence erupting upon the field once again as doubt gripped his young heart. "How can I find something that I can't even recognize? How can I be happy when this is all I know...?"

...

...

...

"Double!!!" cried out Kouryuu as she watched him sail through the air, his body landing off to the side in a motionless heap. Her immediate reaction was to rush to his side to check on his condition, but she was forced to grit her teeth and hold back as she took notice of the troops dashing in her direction, her blades twirling about in mid-air as she did her best to deflect the bullets away from her friends. She tried to figure out how she could move to the assassin's aid as she counted up the number of fresh opponents, but to her relief, a red streak sailed through the air and reached the killer before she even had to move.

"He's okay," said Zero over the line. "He took a bad blow and hit standby, but his system is still intact enough to recover by itself. Given a few days, he'll be back to normal again."

The rebel breathed a sigh of relief as she leapt forward and speared the first of her enemies on the end of her sword, a swipe with her other arm quickly clearing its head from its shoulder before it could become a viable threat.

"So we have Double and Edge down," she said. "How are the others doing?"

"Asimov is taking care of Yoshime, Iesu, and Clef," replied the Demoness as her body warmed up and spewed tongues of flame towards her nearby attackers. "He's in no condition to fight either right now, so he’ll be best suited for keeping an eye on them. Terpfen is still toting Edge around- Asimov isn't strong enough to do so at this point- but he's volunteered to give us some gun support from the rear."

"That's good, but I don't think it's going to be enough," said Kouryuu doubtfully as she glanced up at the metallic monster that continued to stomp through the clearing unchallenged. "Unless there's a way in which we can take that thing down, we're not going to get out of here alive. It already took one of Terp's nukes point blank, so I seriously doubt that there's anything that I can do that's going to hurt it. Do you have any bright ideas?"

"There's nothing in the range of my current energy levels that I can effectively perform," said Zero doubtfully. "I've already pushed myself further than my body should have been able to take. If I do much more, it's more likely that I'll fall apart at the seems before I become of any use."

"Damnit!" cursed the rebel, knocking a nearby soldier's laser knife back in frustration and slicing off its arm. Without energy or numbers, they were quickly losing options. If they stayed here much longer, the only possible result was their demise at the hands of Toy's legions, and this time no amount of hope would be able to save them from destruction. Surely this creature they faced was strong, but even the strongest of warriors had to have a weakness. Something had to be able to pierce its armor, if not by force then by cunning or skill, for if something could be created by the hands of a living creature, then it must be able to be dissembled as well. They just needed to figure out what made this thing tick before it killed them all.

"The enemy appears to have focused its attention on a new target," came Zero's voice suddenly, and as Kouryuu looked on in horror, the massive robot turned its direction towards Terpfen and Edge, the nuclear weapon's machinegun fire bouncing off of the thing's thick hide in a mockery of an offensive.

"No!" she shouted, quickly kicking away her current attacker as she began to run towards her companions. "Terpfen! Put Edge down and do your best to hold your position until we can get there to back you up! You're not going to be able to run with extra baggage at this point, so do your best to defend yourself for now. Zero! Give me as much support as you can! If you can, try to get Edge out of the way so that we don't have to worry about him getting hurt in this mess."

Her system strained itself as far as it would go as she twisted through the maze of tree stumps, leaping over their stubby ends as she tried to cover the ground between her and the young boy as fast as she could. Zero easily made it there before she did, and she tried to feel a twinge of hope as she watched her haul the green haired android up on her shoulder and prepare to blast off into the shadows. However, before the pigtailed girl could even step forward, one of the war machine's fists rocketed through the air and caught her squarely in the back, forcing her to drop her quarry as it carried her limp form deep into the surrounding woods with a bellowing crash. The forearm rocketed back to its base seconds later even as the behemoth continued to stomp forward, and with one mighty slap of its left hand it sent Terpfen flying into the air, his stiff body thundering down to the ground with tremors that shook the earth. The only thing left was Edge, and as the young boy continued his eternal slumber, the towering giant stepped forth to finish off his prey.

"It's not after us," breathed Kouryuu, increasing her speed as she suddenly realized the peril of the situation. "It's after Edge! It's going to kill him!!!"

But before she could even reach the beast, she saw a single, small figure dash out from the forest trees, her dirty yellow dress billowing in the wind as she raced out in front of the young boy's figure and stood her ground between him and the monster with only her rifle in hand. And the rebel's eyes widened in alarm as she watched her stare down the unstoppable monster, a rain of useless ammo streaming from her weapon as she stood determined to help her friend.

"YOSHIME~!!!" cried out Kouryuu, her legs racing over the ground in a blur. She saw her precious energy level plummet as she streaked towards the girl, but she did not care. Yoshime would not hold her own against something that strong. She had to get there before it did. She must.

The ground exploded as the last of the enemy infantry peppered her with bullets, and Kouryuu was forced to fling herself to the side to keep from getting dismembered. She rolled quickly and tried to scamper back to her feet, but the troops were already upon her four at a time with weapons blazing, and it wasn't long before her swords were fully occupied with keeping them at bay to save her own hide. But beyond all the confusion, beyond her own battle, she watched as the metallic creature inched closer and closer to the young girl and the young boy, its cold eyes holding no mercy for the children who lie before it. And in that distant picture that seemed so far beyond the sparks that flew from her blade, she watched as the girl showed [yuuki] (courage) for what she thought was right with no regard to her impending doom.

"Yoshime!" shouted Kouryuu, and she was drowned out by the knives and flying bullets that pealed around her to take her life away. "Yoshime~!!!"

...

...

...

"I thought I knew," said Edge as he watched the castle disappear beneath his feet, the ground spreading out in a lush, green field beneath a sparkling night sky that opened out above. "But I never did... I never realized any of it. I guess I just thought I could find something- anything- by moving forward. I guess it takes more than just that."

"You defeated me because you believed you could," said Shin, the wind tossing his cape gently in the air. "And though you have brought change upon yourself, I continue to exist and serve my purpose for your desires. You can have anything you want here, Edge. You need only to imagine it and it will be granted."

"... anything...?" said Edge, and the emperor nodded.

"I can bring back the things you've lost, the things you aspired to attain in the world you envisioned," he said, and almost as if on cue, an old wooden cottage like the one the young boy had woken up in grew up from the ground, his wife and son stepping out of the door with happy smiles upon their face.

"...anything..." repeated Edge, watching their jovial faces longingly and reaching out towards them with an outstretched hand.

"I can give you back your friends," said Shin. "I can make it as if this war had never happened at all."

Edge turned around, and suddenly Falcoon and Mikaeru waited several feet away with the thousands of rebels who had accompanied him to the end of the world. Even though they were reborn from a place without war or violence, they let up a shout of victory regardless, and the air was filled with their smiles and cries of joy as he watched them in stunned silence.

"They are waiting for you, my friend. And if it is not them that you desire, there are endless other possibilities that can be yours. You just have to tell me. Tell me, and you shall receive your utopia."

The young boy turned about as he watched it all, the cheering people and familiar faces, the smiles of the ones he loved and wished to protect. Several days ago in this maddening place, he would have leapt forth into their open arms without hesitation. He would have accepted it all without questioning it in the slightest. However, as he tried to will his body forward to accept that which would fulfill his every desire, he realized that he no longer could because he knew that this was not the place for him to be anymore.

"... this isn't right," he said softly, and as if the thousands of people had also realized the doubts that he held in his heavy heart, they quietly turned around and faded out of existence, walking off into nothingness, leaving him and the emperor alone on the field once again. "If everything you've said is true, then I cannot live out my life here. This is all derived from myself, and there's still an enormous world waiting for me out there that I haven't seen yet."

"You would never have to know that," said Shin. "I have access to your memory banks as well, and it would be easy to take that information out of your head so that you may live on in ignorance. Is it really worth going back to a place of uncertainty just for that when I can give you everything you want here without any worry whatsoever? Is a 'fake' world so fake if you don't know that it is? We can do everything correctly this time, and you will never need to let yourself hurt ever again."

"... no, it still can't be this way," said Edge, looking up longingly at the sky. "As much as it hurt, I have to go back. I have to go back to Akuji to live out my life."

Shin just looked at him as a soft wind bent back the top of the grass, and a look of confusion crossed his face as he stood perplexed at the young boy who stood before him.

"I don't understand," he said. "I can give you everything here, anything you ever wanted. You can finally achieve your peace in a utopia of your own design. Why do you still yearn to return to the world that hurt and will continue to hurt you so badly? You can be here forever and be content with yourself. Why do you want to risk it all away?"

And as if he knew the right answer down to the last word, Edge smiled warmly, the first real smile that he had given since he had set off on his long journey of war and loss.

"In a world where people must hurt every day of their lives, there is nothing left to do but risk simply to live," said Edge distantly. "That is Akuji, and I have at least come to understand that much. Those who choose not to risk will die because they have lost the will to fight for themselves and ones they hold close. I must do the same so that I can figure out what it is like to be human."

"But can you not already see that here in a safe environment? Why venture into unknown territory just to discover that simple question? Using the correct parameters, I can even reverse the current philosophy that you hold on human beings to become something more appealing, something that will bring you what you wish for. There is nothing that I cannot do, but I cannot give you anything if you chose to leave."

"... but you cannot be like Yoshime," said Edge, and for once, Shin had no reply to the things he said. "Even if I hold such horrid ideas about human beings and the beasts that hide within them, she was never like that. She was always brave, always caring, and even when I had already given up, she always had more than enough courage to carry us on." He looked at the emperor longingly, and almost as if saying goodbye, he outstretched his hand to his, waiting for him to lead him out of the chasm of lies. "She holds something special, something that I could never explain even if I tried. Even if the rest of humanity is forever trapped in a circle of hatred, she will always be there. She is the proof that within the countless sea of animosity, something pure and wonderful can exist. And it is for her that I must return to my world, for if I don't, then I will simply die here, alone and forgotten."

"... are you sure you will be okay?" asked Shin apprehensively, and Edge nodded without hesitation. "Are you sure that this is what you want?"

"It's what I must do," he said. "For if I leave myself to this place, no matter how real it is, there will always be something in me desiring something more, and eventually I will have to break out anyways if I ever want to truly be free. That is... the true nature of the human being, right? I think you probably already know much better than I ever will..."

Shin could only laugh, a slow chuckle that gradually grew and filled the open sky with peals of his broad voice, carrying away higher and higher up to the heavens above.

"Then I hope you find what you're looking for, Edge," he said, and reached out to take the young boy's hand in his. "Somebody like you deserves to find their dreams, no matter how hard they have to climb. Be careful now. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

Edge could only smile sincerely, and as he grasped hold of the man's hand, the world slowly faded away into light, his consciousness floating off to the world far away that he knew only as home.

"Shin," he said, and watched as even the great emperor began to disappear, leaving him to the reaches of reality high above. "... thank you."

"Good luck... my friend..."

...

And deep within the forests of Moruki Dana inside the body of a green haired android, the faint smell of burning silicon drifted off into the winds, its poignant scent marking the death of a universe...

....

...

...

Though Neon towered over Yoshime as he reached down to cast her fragile body aside, the young girl still did not move, determined to stand between her enemy and her friend to protect the one she cared for. Her ammo had long since run out, but she had simply cast the weapon aside and stood with her arms spread wide against the beast as if her presence alone would fend it off. Edge had already protected her for so long, and now he was trapped somewhere beyond her reach, pulled away by something that they couldn't even explain. Now it was her turn to step up and help out him out, for if she could not, then she had no right to even call him her friend.

"Leave him alone!" she shouted out as she adamantly stood her ground to the monster, and as if it did not listen or care, it continued to reach down to render her body asunder so that it could reach its true prey. And though she was afraid and closed her eyes tightly against her own impending doom, she still would not move, for although she still feared and cried like any other normal human being, she refused to abandon those close to her... nobody in the world deserved to be abandoned like that... nobody.

...

"Edge... I will protect you... no matter what."

...

"Yoshime---!!!"

...

...

...

A foreign scream pierced the sky as the young girl felt a powerful wind rise up and toss her skirts into the air, the giant's hand never quite reaching her as she waited for it to crush her head as easily as a tender piece of fruit. She hesitantly opened her eyes, afraid that the reaper would be there to take her away, but when she finally did, she realized that the monster was no longer looming overhead. Instead, it was flying through the heavens headfirst towards the ground several meters away, and even as her eyes followed its descent back down to earth and the soil erupted in a cloud of dust from the impact of the beast, she watched as Edge stood before her, bent over and heaving like a wild animal, his eyes bathing the clearing in a glow of pure, wonderful light.

"Edge," she whispered, and the young boy reared back and roared a cry of anger as it leapt into the air at its target as it tried to climb to its feet.

Sensing the approach of its enemy, Neon quickly propped itself up on its left arm and braced hard against the ground as it launched a rocket fist directly at its enemy. However, just as the massive projectile was about to crash into Edge's body, the air sparked with electricity and the fist rebounded erratically to the side, careening into the forests beyond. The boy's flight was not slowed in the least as he fell hungrily upon the war machine with a howl of joy and plunged his hand deep into its chest, piercing through countless layers of thick armor in seconds and wrenching forth cylindrical engine parts with a clawed hand. The behemoth nearly toppled over as it stumbled up with its attacker still attached to its front and wildly swung its other arm in his direction to swat him away. However, the air sparkled once again as Edge simply reached out and grabbed the speeding limb with one hand out of midair, staring the monster in the eye without any fear at all. And then, with his teeth bared and a mighty growl welling deep within his gut, he yanked the arm straight and plunged his mouth into the gears of the giant's right shoulder and pulled back with all his might, yanking the massive limb free in a hail of flying bolts and circuitry, a brutal cry tearing through the air as he screamed his victory to the world.

"The main attacking unit requires assistance," hummed Neon as he stumbled backwards awkwardly, his stubby appendages flailing helplessly in midair as Edge landed clear and spat the enormous piece of wreckage to the side, his body curving low as he prepared for his next assault. "All available units please respond."

The last dozen infantry members quickly surrounded the young boy as they brandished whatever weapons remained on their bodies. Without asking any questions, they hastily rushed in for the kill on all sides without hesitation, but their rush did not last long as Edge pulled the strings of gravity and let the air itself quake with his power. A field of opposing forces abruptly surrounded his body, and within seconds of the assisting attack, the soldiers' bodies had been ripped to shreds with only a few pieces of flying metal left floating in the air to commemorate their demise. Edge himself said nothing, his eyes continuing to burn bright as he flung himself across the ground like a rocket and slammed his fist into Neon's abdomen so hard that it cleaved directly through to the other side. The behemoth quaked violently as the small figure hefted him into the air like a paper doll, and before the creature could even twist his body around to react to the blow, a simple mental thought wrapped a ball of indomitable force around his head and smashed his cpu to pieces, a small crumpled lump being all that was left of the powerful machine as its once animated frame grew cold and silent. With his quarry destroyed, Edge flung the carcass high into the air, away from himself and away from the people whom he had sworn to protect. However, it never hit the ground, for as it started to descend on the far end of the clearing, a dark form suddenly came into shape and caught the enormous frame with a single hand as angry, white eyes stared at the young boy with undeniable hatred.

"I knew he would screw up," breathed Yujin, his cape floating high as his body churned up waves of energy that seemed to physically emanate from his gigantic body. "It was only a matter of time before I got my chance to kill you for myself. But first..." The general let the body fall towards the ground, and before it had a chance to hit the dirt he reared back and slammed his fist directly into the deceased android's chest, the force of the collision rippling across the land as he swiped his hand upwards from the wreckage and tore the robot's entire upper torso off in one quick motion. "You got what you deserved, you son of a bitch. I should have killed you a long time ago." An explosion rocked the air as he infused the wreckage with a blast of energy that cover the entire sky in white for a brief moment, and when the searing light finally cleared itself there was nothing left of the beast but a few trails of dust that still hung loosely in the air.

"But enough of him," breathed the general, turning his attention back to the green haired android with a growl. "I've waited long and hard for this. You belong to me, Edge. You've always belonged to me and nobody deserves to end your life more than I do!!!" He leapt forward in a mighty bound that rent up clouds of dust up into the air, and though Edge was well aware of the new threat that was quickly growing near, he continued to hold his ground stubbornly, watching with narrow, white eyes as his enemy dashed forward for the kill.

"PLAYTIME IS OVER!!!" screamed Yujin, a look of pure insanity crossing his twisted face. "YOU'RE ALL MINE NOW, EDGE!!! MINE~!!!"

However, though the young boy made no move of his own, the mighty general abruptly fell in mid-air and collapsed to his knees in pain as an invisible hand pried into his mind. Yujin's fingers clawed at his head in throes of anguish as his mouth opened in a silent scream of agony, his body shivering furiously as if were trying to purge it of a foreign cancer. Edge could only watch in confusion as he unconsciously let the light in his eyes slowly dim back to the small, fearful child, and even as he watched his feral body slowly revert back to his normal self as the last of his rage seeped out of his small frame, realizing that he no longer needed to hold on to the fury to escape with his life, the general let out a roar of fury and rage, screaming to the heavens as he clutched his skull in throes of agony..

"...nnnngg... nnno! Toy-sama!!!" cried out Yujin as his body was suddenly surrounded by a pillar of blue light that dropped out of the sky, bathing him in a calm sea that covered his quaking body in a quiet serenity. "Please! This is what you wanted, isn't it?! I'm just continuing the mission! Neon failed! I’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!!!" The man's gigantic fingers ripped into the earth as he tried to hold himself down, but even he could not defy the power of his master, an invisible force tearing at very molecular structure of his body as the general began to unwillingly surrender to the power of a god. "I can still kill him. All you need to do is let me go to finish my work! There's no need to--- aaaaaAAAAGGGHHH~~!!!" The general's cries continued to cut through the air like a knife as his body slowly faded away, carried off to some distant place as the light lifted up and rocketed out into the clear night sky. Soon there was nothing left but the tired compatriots and a weak but comforting victory, the land growing still as the throbbing ebbs of violence grew calm beneath the cool night sky above.

Edge teetered briefly on his wobbling feet after Yujin departed, but it wasn't long before he collapsed in a heap upon the ground, exhausted from the ordeals that he had been through. Yoshime quickly ran up to meet him, and as she knelt down and propped his head up limply in her lap, she couldn't help but smile and cry a little that her friend was still there, alive and well. And after all they had been through, that was what mattered most, right? As long as they were all together, everything would be okay.

"Are you all right?" she asked between a few embarrassed sniffles, stroking the android's ruffled hair with her hand. "Are you going to be okay?"

Edge simply looked up at her and smiled somewhat sadly, and even as his eyes slowly began to close and fade out into standby from sheer exhaustion, he pushed through the words cleanly and clearly, making sure that she heard every one of them.

"I'm so sorry, Yoshime," he whispered. "I'm sorry for making you worry about me..."

His body grew heavy as his computers shut themselves down to recharge, and in that quiet, broken grove, Edge finally let himself lie down to rest. But even though he could not hear her, Yoshime still continued to stroke the young boy's hair, holding him up in her arms as a mother would to a newborn babe. She would always be there to take care of him. After all, that was the very least that she could do to repay him for everything that he'd done.

"It's okay, Edge," she said softly, and held him close. "Everything's going to be okay."

...

...

...

...

...

Jong-Il Lee spat blood as he nursed his right side tenderly, a fellow Juliannes already using his leather belt to apply a tourniquet just below his shoulder where the flesh grew red with the flow of life fluids. His severed limb lie on the crusted battlefield before him amongst the bodies of his enemies and blood flowed freely from the fresh stump that his opponent had rendered apart. Yet, he still managed to smile, and as he sprawled himself down on the ground, legs lazily folding beneath his body before he could hit the ground, and fished a cigarette out with his free hand, the gunman was already upon him before he could find his zippo, the young man's own silver held up in hand.

"Danke," he said, and lit his smoke on the end of the small flame. His breath rose as he inhaled the poison fumes and slowly floated back down as he looked out absently over the carnage that had rained across the concrete fields. "You know, you could have stopped me. They would still be alive if you had simply intervened."

Beneath the pouring rain, Joon Ho looked towards the bodies of his companions- the lifeless, still corpses of Chang-Mi Baek and Blackwing- as they lie silently in a pool of blood and muck. Through the woman's chest was the gang leader's square-tipped blade, and yet she rested peacefully upon the earth with a soft smile upon her face as if she finally stepped forth from her last battle on earth victorious. In many ways, she had.

"Perhaps I could have stopped you, but surely I could not have stopped her," laughed the gunman as he slid the lighter back in his coat pocket and politely refused Jong-Il's kind offer of a smoke. "Besides, I came here today as a spectator, not a participant."

Jong-Il just chuckled as he shooed away the other Juliannes and crawled to his feet.

"Then you knew that she would die, didn't you? Doesn't that make you feel a little bit guilty?"

"Not especially," he replied. "She chose her path today, and she walked through it all on her own. If I had stepped in between her and her goal, I only would have been a bother... she would have hated me for it." He turned his head towards the sky and let the large drops endlessly pelt him in the face, grinning like a fool as he watched the gray clouds above. "I think that's why she's so happy now. I can see her smiling with Blackwing up there already." He nodded towards the bodies with his chin as he lowered his head from the heavens above. "Aren't you going to get your sword?"

However, the gang leader only brushed the notion away with the back of his hand, watching as his loyal men slowly packed up and prepared to leave.

"It's okay. It's not like I'm going to have a use for something that big in my current condition anyways," and he motioned to his useless stub. He took a long drag before turning to the final shadow who still lingered on the edge of the battlefield. He would have offered her a cigarette, but she was already smoking her own. "And what about you? You once called me an enemy as well, invincible killer. Have you come to fight me as well?"

But Millena only shook her head, holding her mace loosely at her side.

"Like Joon, I did not come here to fight Chang-Mi's battle," she said. "My time with her was short, but I learned many important things from the path that she walked. I always presumed her to be weak in the beginning because she had abandoned the Kuruda, and when I myself came to take her life away for the honor of our gang, I was surprised and amazed to see how strong she truly was. I realized then that the positions that I had presumed us to be in were actually the opposite of what I had thought, and the strength that this legendary traitor possessed was driven by the indomitable desires that had always been present in her heart. They once called me the 'invincible killer,' but that was a falsity, for I could only be capable as a machine of war and nothing more. I had been content to be a slave, and that was why I would have never been able to call myself powerful in the life I left behind. But people are not limited to a constant! We can change, and I too desire to walk a path where I will one day die fighting for the things I love. That was the life that Chang-Mi Baek found, and even now as she watches us from heaven, I know that she regretted none of what she did in this sad, poor world because it made her life spectacular beyond our wildest understanding..."

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End "Reality"