Author's Note: Hello Lads and Ladies

Took me long enough I guess.

Hug your friends close people. You can never tell how much time you have with em. No one died before you ask. But work has been eating me alive and to realize that I do have friends makes me glad I have them. However fleeting or short-lived a friendship might be. Celebrate the time you did have with them and even when a goodbye is bitter, be happy for the time you got.

Song Rec: Seek and Destroy by Metallica

(in case anyone has anything to say for a cliche, I'd like to remind you that you are reading the rewrite of a furry Netflix show. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the show bud.)

When Yajuu reaches Omnivora: Poland by Lush Crayon

Edited by: SuperAverageFoxyboy, The Dude who likes Tanks

Enjoy!

-Portal

The illusion of safety was so great that they didn't need much force to break down the doors of the rich and powerful. With the police preoccupied with the flaming building on the horizon, no help was coming even when some managed to make it to their phones.

Though Melon felt nothing, there was no smile, no joy, no savage want for murder. However, it wasn't even the dry normality of routine. This was nothing but senseless violence and death spread about by his vigorless cause. His men enjoyed themselves as they mowed them down. They laughed, they mocked and they ransacked to their heart's content. Seemed like the animals he had recruited in his core were simply murder-hungry savages waiting for their strings to be cut loose.

Melon stepped through the shattered sliding door to the backyard. They had knocked it down and the screaming was a nuisance that ended quickly, solved by wonderful firepower. Melon stood in the backyard and looked across the plentiful neighborhood. He was spent, spent of all things to do and all things to feel. This whole thing's purpose had been eradicated. What else was there to do?

Melon looked out at the city that had completely exempted him from any proper way of living and forced him to hide himself and his fellow kin in the dark, drowning in their literal feces. They were lower than dirt, lower than insects, and lower than plagues. They were excrement. A waste product of civilization growing closer together, bridging the gap between carnivores and herbivores. They wanted them to be close but they did not want them to intermingle. Everybody had to be neatly stacked against each other in a great big sorting board, aside but not with another.

The clinic was their waste disposal. And if the world saw him as less than a plague, as the excrement of society itself then he wanted to show them that he was a waste product. He was a viral infection. And he was immune to their medication. If the state was the body then he was going to kill it.

It would take more than a waste disposal to get rid of him.

When they got into their truck Tokugawa started the car and started driving while Melon's car was already out of sight.

"Where are we going?" Legosi asked.

"The clinic, nothing else makes any sense," Tokugawa answered with razor-sharp focus.

"You better be right," Bill said as he tried to keep himself level.

"You ok Bill?" Legosi asked, completely unaware. They didn't have time to touch base.

"I'm fine." His eyes were full of tears and his voice was having trouble staying stable.

The car rocked and Bill eyed the tranq gun.

"Use a real gun."

Legosi looked at Bill in surprise.

"If he dies he's a martyr to the rest of the hybrids. That'll-" Louis's interjection was broken off by Bill's increasing anger.

"Use a real gun. Don't aim for the vitals. I want it to hurt."

"What if he'll bleed-"

"He won't. He's a dominant carnivore genes hybrid. He'll survive a few shots." Tokugawa answered the half-spoken question from Legosi. His tone was equally cold and abrasive as Bill's had been.

The car rolled on and Legosi laid his tranq gun down.

"Check the bag." Tokugawa handed a bag back in between them and when Legosi opened the zipper it was filled to the brim with firearms. Bill grabbed a pistol and shoved it into Legosi's hands.

"Use this one." Bill's eyes were full of hurt and Legosi began to question even more so why that was.

"Where's Gouhin?" Juno's question hammered the nail down. The realization sank in for everyone who had followed Melon.

"How?" Legosi felt tears rushing down his cheeks. Bill looked back through similarly wet eyes. He remained entirely silent and adverted his gaze, grasping at his face.

"Richard tossed him out the window," Tokugawa answered coldly and everyone grieved.

Louis looked like he got shot, gritting his teeth in pain and closing his eyes. Legosi and Juno mourned silently while tears were streaming down Bill's eyes. The only two untouched by pure sorrow were Yajuu and Carol, though both shared in the mourning.

"What happened to Richard?" Carol asked while clutching her gun, lines of anger pulling into her face.

"We threw him out the window too," Tokugawa said, not a single emotion leaving him. On another day the dry delivery would be funny perhaps. Today it was devastating.

"Ok..." Legosi pulled the slide back on his pistol, chambering a round. He looked around.

"Let's end this."

Melon's caravan of rebels rolled over the road and stopped at the top of the hill. Many cars stood parked and many hybrids and Omnivora men stood holding their weapons. Eyes wandered to the car and remained affixed as their leader left the car.

"Is he dead?" The facial expression of the inquirer was one of hate-filled curiosity.

"Richard threw him out the window." Melon forced himself to smirk.

The men cheered and Melon's world drowned out completely. The cradle of suffering lay bare under the sun. The tyrant was dead, but the people that powered him. The people that gave him life blood were still alive. The few families they had killed today would never be enough. They needed every hybrid they could go crazy and execute their revenge.

"Listen up." The entire crowd fell silent.

"No matter who or what shows up, I want you to know what's important now." They were all listening, for their prophet to lay down his holy message.

"They made their stance clear so we make ours clear. Kill all citizens of all castes, shapes, and sizes. Government officials get priority..." Melon was lost in thought for a second.

He thought of the many families sitting in perfect silence, waiting for the storm to carry onward beyond the city limits. Waiting for the saving hand of the military to swoop in and save them. Knowing just how much time they had until the military would check in on dead signals from the capitol, but so far the radars had been clean. No Helicopters and no vehicles out on the high roads. The air was silent and so would it become their tomb.

"Kill all you can get your hands on. Now let's get down there and release the army. Every man gets a rifle and a pistol. Heavy weapons specialists get the explosives. Let's go." And the savage beasts that had once searched for a better life descended the hill towards the valley of suffering. Animals of good intentions no more, now simply creatures of destruction.

The first unfortunate enough to experience the newly stoked fire of pure hybrid hatred was a raccoon nurse on break. He turned to look over at the currently unoccupied gate as the guard had gone to use the restroom. He didn't even recognize the raised barrel of the gun on the other side of the gatehouse. The glass shattered and the state-of-the-art alarm turned itself on.

"No more hiding. No more tunnels. NO MORE BEING OUT OF SIGHT!" Melon opened fire on the security annex.

He knew Strightman was upstairs, waiting for the command. And as by magic, the moment the cheetah upstairs heard gunfire and the shouting of guards, so did every single door in the entire facility unlock.

They overran the security annex like a flood taking down entire cities with it. They didn't even have a chance. As soon as they started shooting from one side as soon did windows shatter and more bullets hailed down on the carnivores and herbivores alike from the other side.

The animal that led the charge was a Lantellope, with crooked horns standing tall as he walked through the groups of guards that fell over like dominos. The hybrid was no more, only a force of nature. Yet in his mind, the great Melon found all of this violence without much purpose at all.

"We are at the hybrid clinic behind Mount Edo. We need backup as soon as your search is finished. I repeat once: bomb searches still got priority." Tokugawa laid the radio back in its cradle and braced himself. He grabbed for the bag and took two Uzis which he put into his holster harness he was wearing underneath his suit jacket. He recalled vague memories of the shooting range when he was young.

He looked at the passenger seat and opened the long thin box lying on top of it.

"The fanged family crest is my gospel, my honor, my life. My work will once be my son's so that he may give his work onto his own son. An endless circle, the flow of life." He grabbed the blade with its scabbard and tied it to his waist.

The black market king left his car armed to the teeth, beheld in the eyes of the younging around him as a pure white spirit of grace... and death.

"Dr. Carol. You are the leading scientist at this facility. So now I may humbly ask you to give me your key card." Tokugawa held his hand open and a second later he held the reindeer doe's card in his hand.

"Double-check corners. The security block is their main point of occupation I can only imagine. Our main goal is to get everyone in there that's still alive, out."

"For Gouhin," Bill said under his breath and began to approach the facility. Tokugawa followed as the others had their last breaths before joining the line in going towards the clinic.

As they stepped inside of the side entrance the dead quiet enveloped them entirely. It was that strange and eerie quiet that begged to be filled with some form of noise no matter from whom. It was a hiding place for horrible things, harboring nothing but the violent ear-ripping bang of whatever lurked out there. In youth, it was the scream of a monster and the uncertainty of how much the shadows you saw were real or not that made the fear real. Here it was the knowledge that from any and all corners hybrids holding automatic weaponry could emerge.

Bill was the first to leave the safety of the door and crouch walked over to the first turn, peeking along the inside. The others followed suit in formation, Carol holding out the rear with one of Gouhin's rifles. Peeking around the corner revealed a patient common area, guards, and nursing staff lying dead in pools of blood. Bulletholes drew shapes along the walls and carved their victims as though they were torn apart by claws rather than guns.

Carol and Louis became nauseous at the smell of blood while the carnivores of the group smelled the individual lives here. They smelled the nurses and the familiar smell of disinfectant. They smelled faint traces of gunpowder, a faint yet acrid afterthought of taking a life. They also smelled the blood of the guards, the smell of blood pumping out on the floor.

"Wait." Legosi smelled the air again and noticed the strength of the blood. This wasn't the smell of walking past a bloody piece of meat in the black market, this was the smell of a deep wound, the type of horrible smell that biologically demanded a watering mouth while the more civilized parts of yourself felt sympathy for whomever just got hurt.

"Somebody's still alive."

Legosi walked ahead, carefully peeking into the open hallways, and began to look among the many bleeding bodies on the floor. He gently felt for pulse and when he felt nothing but a lukewarm dead hand he moved on. There were eight guards and four members of the nursing staff here. A table had been moved to block the hallway, trying to make something of a safe spot. Many of the guards had died by the blockade, the wood not stopping continuous machine gun fire.

Legosi moved across the room somewhere between a crouch and a crawl. His ears turned around like a radar. He moved from body to body, turning them in order to face him. The stinging smell caused bare feelings of hunger in the pit of his stomach.

"uh..." Legosi's ear flicked towards the makeshift barricade.

He moved over and started moving the bodies on their backs until an owl guard spat blood on the floor as Legosi nudged him over.

"Damn it..." The guard said meekly and looked up at Legosi. His whole look was bracing himself for the killing blow, but the squinting eyes eased up as soon as they laid eyes on the Cerberus body armor.

"They overran us... all doors opened, the unruly ones attacked us, and the armed ones-" a coughing fit broke him off, more blood landing on the floor.

"-the tables were a bad idea... we would've been better off just running."

"Don't worry, we'll get you out of here." Legosi tried to hoist him off the ground, yet the bulky owl shook its head.

"Unless you're wheeling me off to surgery in the next room I'm about to drown to my own blood... seems like you came too late kiddo."

Legosi looked over the guards and held onto the owl.

"Is there anyone else? What do you want us to do?"

"We got a backup system... calls the national defense force... we've been having connecting issues for weeks now..." His breathing was shallow and his voice was little more than a croak.

"We finally regained connection via a landline that we jacked into... called the defense force up north directly... I'd advise you to get your backup and wait for the rest of the state boys rolling in as we speak."

Legosi felt his heart sink.

They'll come in tanks. Loaded with enough firepower to turn this entire hospital into one big pile of rubble...

Legosi hushed over to the others in a hurry.

"They called the defense force, we have very little time to get this under control or they'll bury us in this building."

"Rex, damnit." Tokugawa looked across to the guard and walked over standing straight.

"Careful, Mr Tokugawa." Legosi shouted after him yet the mob boss walked tall.

"Every medical facility has a public announcement system. Besides the security block where is an access point."

The owl coughed and wiped his mouth.

"You won't change their minds. their set." After croaking out the sentence Tokugawa grabbed hold of the sides of the owl.

"Of all the things you can say right now, the only thing which might save some of the people still alive in this facility it's where the damn PA system is."

The owl looked weakly at him, shook his head weakly, and then pointed down a corridor.

"Central doctor's office should have one. Hope at least someone... makes... it... ouuuuhh..." The owl's eyes rolled back into his skull and he went limp.

"Time is of the essence!" Tokugawa began sprinting down the hallway and without much choice for hesitation, the rest followed in a mad dash down the numerous corridors.

They only stopped at turns to see along the hallways for any omnivora men. They were all clutching guns. Tokugawa at the helm with Uzis held pointed up while he was sprinting. Behind him Bill and Legosi holding automatic rifles, and Juno wielding a pistol that Legosi had forced her to take. Carol was wielding a hunting rifle given to her by Gouhin, the gun feeling heavy with grief now. Behind her was Yajuu who was unarmed as he had refused to take one. The last in order was Louis, wielding the pistol Melon had given him.

They came to a stop at a corner, the sound of gunfire and bodies hitting the floor halting them.

"How do we do this?" Legosi whispered, yet the facade that had become Tokugawa answered with action, not with words.

He spun around the corner and dispatched both soldiers standing over another researcher's body with shots to the legs. As they fell to the floor they let loose the bullets in their magazines but their ability to aim was mitigated greatly by their hurting thighs.

A swift quick sent one rifle to the side and another followed too quick for them to react.

"You should be grateful I didn't kill you." Tokugawa slid them over to the others that were approaching, some with shock others with adrenaline-fueled seriousness.

"Tie 'em up." Tokugawa's command was followed by Bill who had looted handcuffs from the guards, their corpses lining the hallways in plentiful abundance.

"Get your hands off me you little AARGH." Bill had wedged his finger into the leg wound of the rowdy Omnivora operative.

"You're done, shut the fuck up. You caused enough shit."

They entered the central doctor's office and approached the central console.

"The microphone is over there." Carol pointed across the computers beside the lighting control panels. A single microphone stood upright like a soldier.

"It's likely he won't take us seriously," Legosi said and everyone beside Tokugawa glanced at him.

"What do you propose then? That we let them mow them down?" Bill flashed his teeth as he spoke.

"We should be ready. If he doesn't take it well they'll come running in order to kill us." Bill waved Legosi over, leaning over to move a table to the door.

"Wait," Tokugawa spoke and they all stopped.

"How much faith do we have he's going to listen to us?" He looked around the room, but no one answered.

"One warning and we go out for an ambush. How many PA accesses are there?"

"Three. This one here, one upstairs in the therapy block, and one in the security annex." Said Carol.

"Ready your weapons and prepare yourselves." Tokugawa approached the microphone and held on for a minute. He observed everyone with a gun readying themselves.

"Alright." Tokugawa reached out to the button and stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Let me speak." Yajuu's voice was unusually childlike for an animal of his age. But Tokugawa understood in his endless clarity immediately that the only person even remotely likely to reach Melon emotionally was his longest-standing friend. So he stepped aside.

"They're coming Melon. Once the Japan Self Defence Force arrives they will flatten this building and turn it into a memorial for hybridkinds undying brutality. Yahya will win and the world at large will view you as a great villain. You either give up today or you undo all the things you hoped to achieve."

After the voice boomed down the hallways the group darted off down the hallways.

Yajuu had always been a coward, someone who hid away before things got uncomfortable. After Mother had been disposed of Melon got into fight after fight. Sick of being the receiver of torment. While he punched noses bloody and cracked bones one after another Yajuu stood on the sidelines.

Melon became an agent of fear while Yajuu was left alone simply because he was the only friend of the violent little monster who knew how to really hurt you. Yajuu was basked in security simply in association with him. And although Melon always thought it was cowardly he could accept it. Yajuu was a talker and a mediator. When Melon's rage got the better of him Yajuu was there to talk him out of it.

But he never, not once not ever, preached about his pacifistic ways. He was a paragon of clarity and wisdom but he was no preacher to false ideals.

All that broken for a few fucking wolves, a couple of cats, a cervid politician, and a goddamn pureblood girlfriend. Suddenly peace was the right thing to do, suddenly violence was no longer necessary. Now he had to preach it, that violence done in self-defense was foolish.

"GET EM." He ran with his men, the hate brigade trampling the floor beneath.

Melon had been living in a country of animals that believed in reptilian gods while killing the offspring between the most beautiful connections of any kind. The bridging of the species gap, carnivore and herbivore becoming one unifying thing. No more disparity if everyone had fangs. But herbivores liked to feel morally superior and carnivores liked to be physically superior. And both parties deserved to be taught a lesson.

They rounded a corner and in the center of a junction stood the traitorous coward. Made up of blue wolf fur with sharp carnivorous antlers on his head. A being that lived in the luxury of the acceptance of one single pure breed female reindeer.

Love makes you blind.

He watched his traitor's eyes widen and then dash off to the side as he pushed down the trigger of his rifle. Bullets streamed down the hallway and as he dashed out of the way there was a dash of red and a second later there was this strong smell in the air. A yen coin on your lips, a minor cut from someone in the vicinity. Enough biological fuel to kickstart a party, the primal days of the hunt.

Get Back HERE

"hnnngh. GO." between barred teeth and feeling his own sense of self slip back further and further beyond the engine of rage that made the world a plateau that was tipped to one side.

Unjust, unfair. I'll show you.

He rounded the corner and he heard gunshots before he even saw the wolf and that reindeer bitch. He pressed his trigger but the only contact made was with the shiny black armor of the young Beastar.

"A TYRANTS ARMOR BEASTAR LEGOSI." He ran after them, turning the corner, his men had trouble staying on him.

It was another junction and as he turned left to follow shots came from behind. He swerved around and opened fire. He stood in the center of a storm and all he felt was his heart beating.

His men stormed in with firing weapons of their own but the cats had already run away.

"Stay with me, after Yajuu!" Melon turned around and continued running.

"B-" More gunfire from another hallway. Melon lazily whipped his gun in the direction and pressed the trigger a second too early, the henchman on his left grasping at their bleeding leg.

The adrenaline subsided for a moment and he grabbed onto his hurt compatriot.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

He felt pain in his chest and looked down. Bulletholes lodged sporadically upset the order of his shirt and tactical pants.

I have to keep going before I lose consciousness.

"Get more people out here, I want the fuckers down there flushed out." He motioned towards where the cats and the damned deer had come from.

"I'm so sorry." He lowered his wounded brother to the ground, turned, and ran after Yajuu.

"STOP HIDING." This place was a maze. Neverending hallways and junctions. Hundreds of patient rooms.

"Come on." The adrenaline was wearing off bit by bit and more and more he became aware of the burning bulletholes across his front. His carnivore genes had made his muscles harder to penetrate and he was glad to find no exit wounds nor had he any trouble breathing or moving. But he knew that as soon as the adrenaline was gone it was unknown how long he would stay standing.

"Boss what are the orders." His radio sounded.

"Don't come to me like little children. The cats and Louis, they shot at us down there. Kill them!" He shouted into the radio and then put it back into his pocket and continued blindly searching.

The scent of blood was growing stronger when suddenly the only thing he smelled was biting rubbing alcohol.

"Fuckers." He ran forward.

"You can't be far, you're panicking."

Melon knocked open door after door, continued on blindly, and whenever he found the smell gain intensity there was rubbing alcohol in the air. This game of prolonged cat and mouse continued until he saw a shadow flash past his peripheral. He sprinted forward, grabbed onto the door frame, and arced his run through the common room. The shadow was the young beastar, spry and alive. The dynamic new thing one that's about to breed the crossness out of himself. At least to the eye of the state.

"GOT YOU." The bullets hit the armor and the young Beastar tripped.

The engine of rage drove along on invisible tracks. Although his body was one of lithe and lean proportions muscles strutted forth under the pelt and under the skin. He was a juggernaut, a rule, a force of nature.

The wolf slipped around the corner into another hallway and Melon followed quickly. The barrel of his gun led into the room and as his body passed the door the young wolf had kicked at his gun. His iron grip did not relent.

"Hyeeaaaaargh." He violently shoved the gun over as strong as he could yet the young Beastars grip was equally strong. In the depth of his moment-based being, he heard steps from behind him.

He rammed an elbow backward, feeling the fleshy hit, and then grabbed onto the rifle stronger and pulled it towards him. He felt Legosi's feet standing on his midsection and pulled with full force.

Melon looked at the door frame and began swinging Legosi at the wall, but before it connected he lost grip on his gun and legosi fell backwards to the floor. Melon jumped forward for the gun and landed on top of Legosi.

"You never knew what hiding feels like. You lived up top like the rest of em. When I look into those eyes I see a tainted hybrid that thinks he's one of the purebloods." Speaking through gritted teeth made it hard to understand, but these words really weren't meant to be heard but felt. He grabbed the gun hard and tugged harder, the steps coming up from behind him once more.

"STAY DOWN." Melon jammed his finger into the trigger guard and as the salve began firing he yanked the gun towards him in an ark and the brown wolfess in the hallway behind them crumbled to the floor.

"JUN-" "NO!" He jammed the weapon up against Legosi's throat and leaned his body weight onto it.

"You don't know shit... nothing at all. When you suffocate on this gun you still won't know what we felt like. Every breath nothing but the shit from the topsiders... topsiders... like you." Rage boiled to the surface of the wolf's face but it was a small housefire to the inferno that burned within Melon.

"I hope it hurts you, little traitor... I hope- hurgh." Melon felt the punch on the back of his head and rolled off of Legosi in a daze. And while the young beastar grasped for breaths he looked into the eyes of his oldest friend.

Melon watched in a daze as his fist came down holding a bundle of things and when he felt the pricks in his chest Yajuu had already hammered down the plungers.

"NO!" Melon pushed him off and tried to get to his feet. The sluggishness came immediately and the daze just wasn't wearing off right.

"You killed ussss..." he slurred and yanked at the syringes sticking out of his chest. He didn't recognize the noises as the plastic tubes hit the floor.

He watched the world spin and his muscles releasing hold, his chest felt wet and warm. He felt cozy like he was enveloped in water and when he looked up he saw her, standing over the bathtub. Naked and tall, ready to defile her only son.

"Fuh... yuh..." Melon's head lolled backward and he passed out.

Yajuu looked down on his oldest friend who a few weeks ago was his only friend. And like clockwork, the familiar feeling of guilt befell him. If only he would've gotten a chance at a normal life.

"I'm sorry..."

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Carol was standing there with her rifle.

"He would've killed him had you not intervened."

Yajuu looked over to the young armored wolf choking on air and began walking up to him. He was only pointing down the hall.

"She-" he coughed violently. "-got shot."

"I got him, you check on her." He said to Carol who ran along to care for Juno immediately.

"He-" more coughing. "shot her."

Legosi leaned his head back.

"She will be fine. I am sure of it." Yajuu looked over his shoulder down at Carol who was helping Juno up, readying pincers to extract the rogue bullet in the side of her abdomen.

Legosi tried to brace himself up and continued coughing his lungs out.

"Easy, easy, take a moment." Yajuu grabbed his shoulder just as his legs gave out.

"The others." was the only thing Yajuu could make out from between his coughs.

"The others can-"

"THIS IS THE JAPAN SELF DEFENCE GROUND FORCE, LEAVE THE BUILDING WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED OR WE WILL ENTER WITH LETHAL FORCE." The droning voice reverberated through the distance. They had arrived, Yahya's last laugh.

Yajuu's heart skipped a beat and Legosi's eyes widened the same. They looked over to the girls and both now looked at them with panic in their features.

And in the depths of his heart, Yajuu saw a small and afraid weindeer sitting among the rubble of a collapsed building, the firing of tank canons having shattered the entire clinic. And underneath the debris was the little palve, buried with the legacy of not only his oldest friend but the new generation too. His younger self within him scared of the world without any power to change anything at all.

Never again.

"Carol." Yajuu dashed over to her. She nodded through her shock.

"Get them both out, I need to make them see reason." Yajuu turned around and approached the unconscious body of his oldest friend.

"How?" Carol asked while her partner picked up the Lanttelope.

"I'll show them what happened to their leader." The words were everything that was left behind as he started running down the hallway, his oldest friend in his arms.

Tokugawa brought his blade down and saw a small wound gushing on the thigh of the omnivora fighter. He looked up in anger as Tokugawa delivered a swift kick to the side of his head, knocking him out cold.

He, Bill, and Louis had become a formidable trio in dispatching the omnivora men that poured forth into the rest of the facility. Bill boxing them with titanium and real fist alike, Louis the sharpshooter who delivered hits to legs and shoulders, and lastly Tokugawa who wielded his Family's Weapon like a master of bygone ages.

They had held the position for a long while ever since Melon had stormed off after the other half of the team when the voice of the outside world came and knocked on the door.

"THIS IS THE JAPAN SELF-DEFENCE GROUND FORCE, LEAVE THE BUILDING WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED OR WE WILL ENTER WITH LETHAL FORCE."

As soon as the voice stopped sounding the three looked at each other and all realized soon this was going to be over. They all deliberated on what to do next for a moment in silence when Tokugawa took a step forward.

"YOU HEARD THEM. DO YOU WANT YOUR LEGACY TO BE A HORDE OF SAVAGES THAT YAHYA DESTROYED RIGHTEOUSLY? YOU WANT TO BE NOTHING BUT A FOOTNOTE IN HIS MIGHTY CONQUEST FOR SNUFFING YOU OUT? DON'T LET HIM WIN!" After shouting at the top of his lungs he took a step back and leaned towards Bill and Louis.

"Five minutes on the clock. If they don't give up we must leave them behind. None of us are of much use killed in the crossfire."

He took a step forward.

"WHAT'S YOUR ANSWER? IS ERADICATION INTO POINTLESSNESS REALLY THE THING YOU FOUGHT FOR?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU BOUGIE BITCH!" Another fighter jumped out from the corner ready to fire his rifle. Tokugawa's blade was quicker.

"Aaaah." Tokugawa swiped the gun to the side with the flat side of his blade, swiping along the inside of his torso and sending the gun flying with a resolute kick. He held the blade up to the fighter's neck.

"Think for more than the moment! Your ideals mean nothing if all of you are crime statistics."

"You know jack shit." The fighter spat. Tokugawa averted his blade feigning a strike and grabbed onto the fighter instead, hurling him towards Bill who dispatched him with a punch.

"I'M ON YOUR SIDE. STOP FIGHTING!" Louis screamed after them. Angry shouting was the only answer.

They approached gingerly and retreated behind a wall when gunfire rang out. There they remained as the angry shouting did not subside. A tragic realization spread out among the trio.

"They will all die," said Bill and for the first time Louis had no comment to add. They were severely screwed.

Running sounds came from the left and Louis raised his rifle before lowering it as he recognized the weindeer carrying the leader of Omnivora knocked out in his arms.

"They aren't remaining steadfast. they have no plan of retreating..." Tokugawa kept his blade raised but his spirit had lowered.

Hope was a fragile good that they were simply running out of.

"Let me try," Yajuu said and approached the hallway, Melon in his arms.

"They'll massacre you." Tokugawa held onto his shoulder and he in response looked into his eyes.

Tokugawa relinquished his grip. There was true seeing in those eyes, behind the tears were eyes that had seen and lived evil for many years. On some inner level, he was sure any tenant of the livestock tower held a similar gaze. He knew that Louis had.

"This is worth dying for." Were his parting words and he stepped out in front of the remaining men of Omnivora.

Yajuu's heart was racing but only partially out of fear. There was this real and gigantic feeling of hope in his chest. He felt like back when he was a child and walked the many streets, hoping for a friend. Hoping for relief. Hoping that tomorrow might be better than today. Pushing onwards even if today was terrifying and hard to live through. He hoped that tomorrow he might have reason to be happy to be alive.

Now he knew that was possible. Now he knew that he could go on. Now he had the things he had wished back then to have. And now his only dream was to let the other lost ones know that being found was possible. Belonging was not a dream but a reality, one that you could hope for and reach for. You just had to keep on going.

They lowered their guns when they recognized him. He was a friend to their leader. Although they were all amped up and ready to fight it gave a moment of stopping as they laid eyes on their unconscious leader in his arms.

"He fought us... we wanted to let him know we were on his side... Yahya knew about the bombs, it was all he wanted you to do. Lashing out is exactly what he wanted all of you to do. When you fight back with violence it's exactly what they wanted you to be... I had to knock him out, make him see reason.

I knew him long before all of this when he was a child. Back when he could hope. None of you deserve what happened to you, none of you. Please..." Tears overflowed his eyes as the men looked at him in stunned anger.

"Let us help you. There's still time to beat Yahya. If you all cooperate we can prove that we aren't dangerous. We all fight for the same thing... please... don't let Yahya win."

He lowered Melon to the ground and cried a few more tears.

"You are his family... and every leader can have a lapse of judgment... It's your choice what your place in history will be... but I know that Melon would want to be among you no matter what you choose... Brothers are like that... even if they think you are making a mistake... they still love you."

Yajuu stood up and looked around.

"I love all of you... you are my brothers and although I don't know you as well as Melon did I still love you all the same... I only ask that you won't force me to mourn your deaths..."

With that Yajuu turned around and walked back down the hallway. His words had been said. He reached the others by the corner and smiled.

"Let's go home. I think this day's been long enough."

Battered and bruised the Sublime Beastar pulled himself off the ground. He coughed up blood and phlegm and then felt along his body, flinching ever so slightly when he touched the broken bones under his skin. A sudden gust of wind made him look up, the window was wide open, the corners a jagged row of glass teeth.

He was standing in the beast's maw, though this beast was the state. The beast that you didn't reckon with.

He raised himself to his feet slowly and painfully, barely standing on his legs. He hobbled over to the center of the room and watched the skyline. Smoke plumes pulled themselves from a few buildings. Although he was perturbed to see that the hospital was still standing he was happy to see the commercial district a smoking pile of rubble and ash.

There was enough destruction to justify wiping the slate clean.

A single tear rolled down Yahya's cheek. He had no idea why and the inkling that he had was smothered when he brushed it away.

The door opened and he looked dully at the soldiers on the other side.

"Sublime Beastar Yahya! You're still alive!" The medics rushed in as the commanding officers gushed in admiration of the resilience he was demonstrating.

"Took you all long enough. Patch me up as quick as you can, and get Toshiro in here." A devious smile danced over his lips.

"I want to look my best in front of the press."