Cynthia is gone.

Hyacinth is gone.

But I don't waste tears on them- for I already shed far too many in my lifetime for them to see. we had to escape.

"Mika-" Yuu began, glancing to me.

"Keep walking. Take my car at all costs- Cynthia has all of the information I have ever asked for in it," I ordered instead. This was something for us to speak about at home. Where we were safe.

"Why do you need that?"

I took a second to pause although I kept walking, the security guards oblivious to our passing presences.

"It is living proof that she existed."

It took us five minutes to leave. One minute to get past a security guard, three to get ourselves on our vehicles, and one more to breathe.

"Who did this?" I asked. My voice was no longer strong as I had hoped it to be. It wavered and shook like trees in a storm.

"I don't know," Yuu whispered. "I don't know."

"Can it be Pension? We never hear from her."

"No." He responded without hesitation that time, voice sharp. "Pension is like us. Unwilling. But she has the position to deny jobs. I'm... going to say they did it."

"They are assholes."

"Mika," he said quietly. "They are the ones who threatened all I loved so I could be proven useful. The now use you as leverage against me. Of course they're assholes. But what can we do?"

"Drop off the map. Never be seen again. If Omission could do it so can we," I suggested in panicked words. A long silence ensued after. Rain began to pelt my back and shoulders like bullets. "Pet, when did they threaten to kill me for your obedience?"

"Last month. Olympia was the one to tell me, and also informed me that she's their messenger. Don't think she likes the job all that much-"

"Yuuichiro. What did they say."

"Oh. Uhm. Well, something along the lines of 'We will make sure that not only do you lose your family and friends, but that you will painstakingly and helplessly watch Mikaela Shindo be mutilated into a horrifying creature unknown to you, his beauty slathered in blood'."

"That must have been lovely to imagine."

"Oh, I didn't sleep that night at all. Olympia told me that whoever wrote it was in such a horrible mood that they couldn't even write it correctly. Told me what they said to get Alyssum in the fray. Pretty horrifying if you ask me."

"You bonded with Sombra's program."

"Of course I did. I wanted to understand her technology. And she's technically Pension's. Sombra refuses to return her."

"You're unbelievable."

"Aww, I love you too, babe," he cooed, words genuine although his tone was teasing. That was how he showed affection, I believe.

Now, I can tell you what might have happened that night should Cynthia have stayed. She would have alerted me of any danger, and we would make it home safely. I would have jabbed back at Yuu with an aggressive way of letting him know that I treasured him more than my safety.

But Cynthia was dead.

So I only caught on to the situation as I heard the collision of metal against rubber and my body was sent hurtling through the air. The wind was knocked out of me, body screaming in agony as I rolled down the pavement, turning over and over until my body decided to move no longer.

"Mika!" Yuu cried. "Are you alri-" his voice was cut from the connection, static replacing him. Part of me had to admit that the static was better than his worrying. The other was too busy prying my goggles and helmet off of my face to notice through the rain that seldom slowed for me.

I knew of betrayal before- for it was all I knew. My father betrayed my mother who had forced him to promise that he would take care of me on her death bed. Yuu betrayed me before he even realized it by fighting with the Beast. Hyacinth and Cynthia betrayed my orders to remain.

But God, this kind of betrayal was a bitch.

I didn't know who it was, Yuu still far behind me. All I heard as I rolled to my back were their footsteps above the rain. There was the sound of a sniper rifle, one I had grown to know as a friend on my lonesome missions before this mess began.

It was not them, I knew. They would have done it quickly and silently without Yuu ever knowing I had left. But as they have said numerous times, I was invaluable for now.

It was not Pension. Yuu insisted that she was like us. Which meant that he trusted her. Earning his trust was not something that came easy, just as it was for me. His friends earned it after years together and even then never knew of the things he did at night until now. And on that-

It was not Gemini. Kimizuki had no idea how to shoot a gun, insisting that code was something easier. Yoichi was an info-broker who never had to use a gun against those whom of which opposed him. "Everyone's got dirt on them, Mika," he had told me. "You just have to use it in your favor."

No. It couldn't be.

A foot pressed against my chest, the heel digging into my ribs painfully. My tired eye turned to see who was making the pain worse, hand twitching and yearning for the gun just out of my reach. A gun cocked, just barely drowned from my ears.

What I expected was to see Sombra's masked face staring down at me, a liar going against the words she plead as truth.

Not this. God, I wanted to vomit then and there.

The woman that betrayed me was in fact Sombra, of course. But she wore the smiling face of Emiliana.

I made a choking sound that I assumed to have been her name, her lips turning into a line that gave away no emotions. Her brown eyes were cold and hard, brows furrowed.

She was a hitman. Nothing like me. Bred to care for nothing but the reward. That was either seeing a dead body or the cash. I know not of her reasons.

Only that I was her target from the start. From the moment I carved myself a throne out of corpses- she must have been determined to take it from me.

I counted our breathing that was calm and in time, my eyes sacrificing no tears for my own stupidity.

Two screams erupted around us, one on a building and one so close it hurt. One was Yuu, I knew. The other-

Was Cecil. I could smell the ashes that came with his scream and I cursed my arrogance for allowing him to be dragged into this. And yet I still gave no tears for my friend.

"That is what makes you the Beast, that arrogance of yours," Hyacinth once told me when the world was a crystalline blue. My mother once told me something similar- That my arrogance would take me above and beyond.

Mr. Rogue once told me that my beauty would be the only thing I had in life. I am lying when I say that it was once. It was a daily reminder. I also speak not the truth if I were to say that I didn't believe him at some point. I wondered if he said the same to Cecil long ago. In that moment I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs to that bastard of how I was now worth more than my beauty. That I would soon be rid of his damned contract-

No. I cannot be free of it this way.

Only one thought remained as I watched the silent assassin holding me down as her lax finger resting on the trigger was set in motion.

It was not of my mother, who used to be my regret for doing the things I did as well as my motivation. I made peace with that the moment Cynthia left the world.

No. It was someone so important to me that I would give up my life for him. In which I did. But I did not want to die, as I once would have done so freely. I wanted to fulfill Cynthia's demand that I marry him, the type of person my mother insisted I stay with forever. Once I would have given my life just to know what love was.

Now I didn't want to let go because of it.

God, I didn't want to die.

So I thought the only thing that would come to mind as I struggled to accept my fate, in hopes that it would make amends with him somehow.

Forgive me, Yuu.

And then it all went black.