Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Echo ❯ Chapter VII ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter Seven

Knives shook his head, hitting Vash in the shoulder to make him snap out of his paralyzed state. "You wouldn't let me finish. You can get your memories right now, but it will require...some cooperation."

Legato's grin faded, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean cooperation?"

"It is a little difficult to explain. You see, I had to take your eye to be able to get them in the first place, so Vash here is going to go over and put this disk in into a little slit on the side of your mechanical one."

Everyone seemed to gasp a little, Legato's one exposed eye enlarging in disbelief. He slowly lifted the hand with the gun in the palm, running the back of his thumb against the left side of his face underneath his one large lock of blue hair. To his surprise, as he tried to poke himself in the eye, he felt nothing but a cold, glassy surface with a little ridge on the side. He knew this couldn't be right and quickly took his hand away, his eyes narrowing once more.

"Fine. As long as it will give me my memories."

"Send over the guns with her as well," Knives said, Legato hesitating for a moment but soon unarming the one in his hand, emptying out the cartridge and putting his other hand on the back of her neck to let her take it. He did the same with Ebony which had been holstered at his side, placing the other in her hands and waiting for a responds.

Vash began to trudge across the cracked, hot ground and felt like it was the longest walk he had ever taken. The journey to July didn't even compare to this, because at least then he didn't have to stare into the face of his enemy constantly. But as he got closer and closer the face of his enemy...didn't seem like the face he remembered from so long ago. He remembered it being a wicked one, a cold and unfeeling creature whose eyes were more hollow than the deepest crevasse. For some reason Vash had been too blind by fury to notice that his soul was not the same--this was not the Legato Bluesummers he once knew. Though his acts were relatively the same, his words now seemed just as empty as his soul had been before, without real meaning or will to back up his threats. In fact, his eyes were actually hopeful, rather than heinous orbs that stared right through a person. He wasn't quite sure why, but as he thought of it he knew where this appearance in him might not have been so strange. He recalled the screen in Dimitri, where he had gazed upon images of Legato's past and saw the same exact look of hope.

What was even more puzzling was when he glanced at Katyenka. She seemed so collected, even when he forced a gun closer to her head. It was as if she knew all along that he was going to do this, and in a brief but very vital second he knew that she was expecting it. She glanced so slightly up at him in excitement, a twitch of a smile occurring on the side of her lips that no one else would have been able to notice it. In this he knew exactly what was happening, and felt a rush of relief because of it. Legato was never intending on shooting her, but they were actually helping each other. She was helping him get his memories back, for she had seen the same hope and joy that he was seeing now. He wasn't exactly sure why, but Vash was getting the hint that Legato had treated her quite well while she was here and that he had been sincere when promising to let her go unharmed as long as she helped him. That was the only conclusion he could come up with, and luckily it was the best one.

He stood up on the platform and faced them both, his face suddenly turning into a smile. "Well I hope you enjoyed your stay, Katyenka, but I guess it's time to go home now!" he spoke happily, her eyes beginning to narrow in worry. Legato let her go, Katyenka pausing for a moment before she ran off behind Vash, stepping off the platform. She lingered a while longer, though, slowly walking backwards as she watched as Legato lifted up the hair covering the left side of his face.

His face was normal, he even had his eyelid and lashes normally placed, but his left eyeball...It was a solid light gray shape behind his lid with a clear glass bubble in the center protecting a black spot in the middle behind it. With a small vertical slit on the right side of that glass bubble, Vash assumed that that was where the disk needed to go.

"Are you ready?" he asked with a straight face.

"Just get it over with," Legato replied.

Vash put his free hand on Legato's forehead to lift his eyelid, taking the disk between his forefinger and thumb and slipping it in. Legato's eyes widened as a drop of sweat ran down the side of his face and to his chin, beginning to fall as his vision was taken over by the sight of his memories....

~*~*~*~*~

All was dark for a time, blinking as he opened his eyes to find a bottle in his hands, reflecting his tired face in its brown glass. He felt his head move on its own as he looked up, seeing a man's mouth move but with no sound coming from it. From his surroundings he could gather that he was in a bar, the man whose mouth moved apparently the bartender. There was only one other man there, half passed out with a bottle of whisky in hand as he sat at the other side of the room. It wasn't too any surprise why there weren't many people there--the floor was old and rusty, the main bar table itself beginning to rot away.

He watched as his own hand placed the bottle in front of him in a bag, tossing it behind the counter and walking out. The door opened with a quick jab of the shoulder, seeing it swing and hit hard behind him but still without any sound. It was as if he were in one of those ancient silent movies he had read about long ago, without sound and characters in jittery motions. He couldn't even hear his own footsteps as he put his hands in his pockets, walking down a street that was barely lit by a light on the other side. One thing he noticed, though, was that he felt cold, not enough to make one worry but enough to know that it would become even colder in the later hours.

As he passed an alleyway in between the bar and another building, he caught something in the corner of his eye, luckily looking down it. There wasn't much there; just a few crates and rotting boxes. What interested him, though, was the pair of wrapped feet sticking out into the middle, the top of a head wrapped in a burlap shawl leaning against the brick wall behind it. He gazed on in question, concern, strangely enough, striking him as he slowly made his way down that route. In a few moments something suddenly struck him, seeming to remember something.

'Bad luck' was a word that came up as he thought, the words just seeming to come to him as he laid eyes on the woman sitting there. He knew who she was, or at least by reputation. Supposedly she had been living with her grandmother for a few years before she died, and she couldn't pay the rent so the house was taken from her. She wandered around town looking for a job, but it seemed that no one would hire her because everyone she was around usually ended up dying. Supposedly her mother, father, and then even her grandmother died on her, leaving her alone and with no one to ask for help. People in town called her bad luck and were afraid to even speak to her, so it wasn't a surprise why no one would hire her.

That, however, didn't apply to him. He didn't believe in bad luck and just talking to her wasn't going to change that. Curiosity got to him as he tapped her leg with his foot, wondering if she was dead by her gangly appearance and a motionless effort to even glace up at him.

His lips moved, but this time a small whisper came from it, so soft that he could barely hear it.

"Hey, are you alright?" he heard himself say, the woman slightly moving her head. The problem with this was that he could not see her face. Not that it was covered, but that it was blurred out, as it always was when he looked at her..."Hey, if you're awake, say something."

The woman didn't move, but only spoke in the same barely audible whisper. "Leave me alone...I don't have any money to give you..."

"But I don't want your money. I just asked if you were okay."

It was odd to hear those words come from his own mouth, and yet he could feel something, deep down in his heart telling him that he was like that once, gracious and full of worry. Maybe he still had some of this trait, somewhere in his soul somewhere that could be revived again. He found it unlikely, but it was...nice to see that he at least once had it.

"No one ever asks that. No one ever cares. I'm bad luck, you know," the woman sulked, still refusing to move.

"Well, for one thing, there's a first time for everything. Secondly, I don't believe in bad luck, and you know what? You still haven't answered my question." His voice was becoming irritated in the abundance of side tracking from the subject. He laughed deep within himself, finding it funny that that little part of him carried on through the years.

"Yes, I'm fine," she replied, lifting her head up finally to look up at him. But still, her face was completely blotched out.

"Alright then, that's all I wanted to know," he chuckled a reply, standing up once more. He couldn't help but notice how cold it was getting, staring down at her weary state and thinking for a moment. He could have just left her there, alone, probably to freeze to death with the rags she wore or at least die from the illness she would contract from staying out. But in good conscience he just couldn't do that, and smiled as he continued.

"Say, do you have any place to stay?" He noticed how weird that sounded and corrected, "Um, I mean, I heard it was suppose to be freezing tonight and that no one should be out past ten."

Although he could not see her face, somehow he felt a warmth inside, knowing that she had smiled to this.

"You seem like a very honest person and if you are offering a roof over my head then I would be happy to go, but..." She turned her head to the direction of her feet. "See, I sold my shoes off a while ago, so I've been walking barefoot for quite some time. Today they started to bleed, so I went to the hospital and luckily this wrap was free. I tried walking a few blocks but they started to bleed again, so I've been here since noon I think. In other words, I would go, but I still can't move."

"Why didn't you just stay at the hospital?" he asked.

"I knew I could never pay them off. Plus the patients were getting a bit antsy with bad luck girl around." She laughed half-heartedly with the last part.

He paused for a moment, holding out a hand. "Well, what if I helped you?"

"Helped...me...? You would do that?"

He could feel a smile spreading across his lips. "Of course! Why wouldn't I? And Don't go saying 'bad luck' either."

She took his hand, being helped up and walking along as he put an arm around her waist put her arm over his shoulder. Time seemed to speed up then, watching as they made their way through town and to the outskirts to, presumably, his old home. It was a small old thing, with a broken porch and tin walls and roof. There was at least a wooden door and whole glass in the windows, and the wooden floor inside was at least well maintained. He noticed, though, that their was only a sink, an iron stove, a green hammock on the other side of the room, a table with two chairs, and two doors. One of those doors lead to a bathroom, because the door was open to expose it, but the other was a mystery to where it could lead to.

For a while on the way there they had talked about her life up until then because when time slowed again he could remember it all. He remembered her telling him about how she got branded the name of bad luck, and how sometimes it was a bad and good thing. He wondered how it could have been a good thing, and she just replied that 'it kept the muggers and killers at bay'. This was a very good thing, but it came with the price of no one ever speaking to her. In face, she had in formed him that he had been the first person to carry on a conversation with her since her grandmother died. It made him happy to see her smile then, and if only he knew then what he knew now to keep that happiness for longer than he would.

Eventually they went into the house, and, without saying a thing, the woman just pointed to a spot on the floor with a wide grin on her face and spoke.

"So, this is where I sleep then?"

He raised an eyebrow, laughing as he shook his head. "No, no! You don't have to sleep on the floor! That's what the hammock is for! For guests!"

"Oh...Are you sure? I don't want to be a bother-"

"Nonsense! I wouldn't have invited you here if I thought you would be." He made his way to the other side of the room, putting a hand on the unopened door's door handle. "Now, if you need anything, I'll be in the next room."

He felt the warmth inside of him again and knew she smiled. "Thank you again...Umm, you know, I never asked your name. My, that's strange."

He grinned. "It's Legato. Legato Bluesummers. And you know, I didn't get your name either."

This was it, the one thing he wanted to know the most out of all of his memories. He didn't even care if he ever got to see her face. All he wanted to just to know her name, to know the woman who had brought him so much happiness so long ago. But the name would never come in that scene, for time speeded up to where he found himself in the next room. Shockingly enough, he found himself sitting in a closet, hearing himself think that he didn't want to make the wrong impression on her and make her assume he was some kind of creep. A reasonable explanation, but did he really have to go as far as sleeping in a closet?

When darkness came and faded into light again, he found himself sitting in one of the chairs next to the table. The bright light filled his eyes with a silhouetted image reflecting in his gaze, soon coming to form. It was the back of the woman from before, a tattered old apron tied around her waist as she stood in front of the sink and did dishes. He heard a quiet laugh come from her without turning from her work.

"You know, it's been a week now and I had no idea that you had been sleeping in a closet!"

He felt himself grin. "You know about that, huh?" he asked.

"I do now. I looked inside when you were at work." She paused for a moment, wiping her hand on her apron and scratching her head. "You know, you could have told me."

"Yes...But I didn't want to look like a creep."

"A creep?! This is your house, after all, so I should be the one considered a creep for staying so long without actually asking you."

"Well, too late now. Besides, my house hasn't been this clean since...ever! You really don't have to do all this, but I appreciate it."

"After all your hospitality? It would be a crime for me to just sit around and not help you at all!"

"I wouldn't say a crime..."

"Then it's my contribution to your kindness."

He smiled, the whispers dying down as time sped up again. In watching all these images fly by, he felt a light headedness coming on, but he would soon come to find it was not because of these images. He could feel a knot in his stomach every time he saw himself talking to the woman, a longing for something taking its place every time he was away. There was no end to this vicious cycle of anxiety and loneliness, and he felt that indeed the woman would leave his dream of happiness because of it. But she remained, always being there when he came home from his work, always giving a warm feeling to his heart when he knew she smiled. In these feeling came a light in his heart, a candle as it were, that brightened every time she was near. He couldn't quite figure out what this light meant or to what relevance it had, but in time he began to see it in her blurred eyes as well. It gave off such a beautiful radiance, though, that it didn't matter what relevance it had, just that it had one. It made him so...so happy to see it, no matter how briefly exhausted he seemed when traveling home.

As so many images past and his heart felt like it was catching fire, he saw himself leave work in such a weary state that it was hard to believe he was excited about something. To what he saw before that time, he knew nothing of what was to become of his former self. But as he climbed the out-skirted slopes to his rundown home he opened the door and saw the woman asleep in the hammock, the brilliance in his eyes beaming so greatly that he questioned how he could still see. Calmly he put his work tools on the table, this time equipment that was meant for welding. He had seen himself switch jobs in the past few scenes, and although it was longer and harder labor it paid much better than the last. Apparently he found it his duty to feed two now, for after all, it had been over eight months since she came into his world. Quietly walking over to her and kneeling down by her head, he put a hand on her forehead and gazed at her slumbering face. He felt it hard to speak at that time, even though there was no one conscious to hear him.

"If only I could say it when you were awake," he thought to himself, sighing lightly. "If only I could tell you...how much I..." He laughed deep in his throat. "I'm so afraid that you're going to leave, but how can I be afraid of losing something...I've never really had, right? I know it's stupid of me...But I don't want you to go, I don't want you to leave me and only have my misery to catch up with me again."

Although he could feel a smile on his lips, he began to taste a hint of salt on his tongue, his vision becoming blurrier than he knew it should have. Finally his throat began to close, shutting his eyes as he heard a whisper coming from his mouth.

"I don't want you to go...because I love you."

The last three words rippled through his mind, echoing on until his thoughts came to a sudden halt, letting those words seep in and hit rock bottom like a ton of bricks. That was the feeling he had; that wonderful, radiant feeling burning through the back of his eyes. Love. He knew he had felt it before, but he hadn't quite know what it had felt like. He understood now why he had missed everything he had had, why he was so unwilling to let it just fade away with a quick hit of a bullet...

It was why he came to hate humans so.

And in time, with the passing of more images, he knew how it came to be. Years had past and he never quite got the stomach to tell her out of her slumber. But she did do the one thing he could only hope she would do, and that was to stay. She would be happy there for some odd reason, though he knew she could have better. He wanted to give her something more than just a cracked dry piece of desert to look out to, a house bigger and made of something better than just tin and rotting wood. He wanted to give her a bouquet of flowers every time he came home, (white roses, if possible, for she had told him once that they were her favorite). All these things...and yet he would never be able to afford them. He knew he wouldn't, not with the jobs he was able to get, and even if he asked her to get one no one would hire her. Not even if he worked three would he be able to get enough money for these things. He wanted to give her the world, but all he had to show for it was a few bread crumbs.

As time past, though, he was given an opportunity. It wasn't legal, it wasn't safe, but it was a way to set things right. He thought they were legit, that they would give him time to pay off his debts. They worked with him after all, so why couldn't he trust him? Then again to what he knew then to what he knew now...he was a complete fool for it.

But for a time, life was better than ever. One day didn't start out so good, for he slept in late that morning and got a kink in his neck from sleeping on the floor wrong, (of course, this happened most of the time anyways). As he found that she was nowhere to be seen, he lifted up a floorboard with the pile of one hundred thousand double-dollars and took half, stuffing it in his pockets and grabbing his things without saying a word. As he opened the door, however, he found her sitting there to his surprise, standing up quickly and dusting herself off.

"Have a nice nap?" she asked him, finding himself without words and blinking slowly.

"What are you doing out?" he questioned, knowing that that wasn't the politest thing to say at the moment.

"I woke up early this morning to watch the sun rise. I noticed haven't been out in the sunlight lately, so I decided to stay out here." She jumped off the porch and caused dust to rise up from the ground, twirling around with her arms wide spread. "Isn't it just beautiful? The sky just seems to go on forever..."

"Just like your eyes," he slipped, seeing her stop and a hint of red appear underneath the blur. "Uh, I mean, besides for the fact that they're green...uh..."

An awkward pause descended upon them until she walked up to him slowly, staring up at him for a time. Suddenly she wrapped her arms around his mid-section, hugging him tightly as he breathed in shock, putting a hand on her head and inch-by-inch looking down to make sure it wasn't a dream.

"Have a good day, okay, Legato?" she whispered, pulling away and running into the house.

For a time, all he could do was gaze down at his feet, disbelief sweeping over him. He knew she had felt something for him--she had even said so herself! It shouldn't have been so hard to swallow after the many time she spoke of how she was glad she had met him and joyful that she could be around him. It shouldn't have been so hard when he heard those words from her own mind...But somehow it was so hard for him to believe it was true. How could anyone, anyone feel something for a creature like himself?

Yes, he had forgotten about his little secret, the one he kept from the rest of society. He wanted them to see him as a normal human being, not the something that he knew he was. He had a power that no man possessed, a power to read a person's inner thoughts and to even control them. All this time he had been afraid of this power, to what people might think after they knew of it. So, willingly he kept it bottled up inside, away from the normal world. But he couldn't keep it in him forever. He would slip, just as he had that morning, and when he did would she still see him as he was now? Would she still see him as Legato and not a freak of nature?

He could only hope that day as he took his scheduled break from work, going throughout town and buying the things he knew she would like most. Maybe this would convince her that he was still himself, the same kindhearted person he had always been when he revealed his power to her. This, however, was not the only thing on his mind that worried him. He knew he would tell her today; tell her that he loved her and give her the most expensive ring he could buy along with it. He was told once, though, that money couldn't buy love, but it sure wouldn't hurt.

He went home that day, just as the sun was going down upon the horizon and a warm glow came from his own house. Once it had been a dark, empty void he returned to, but now it seemed so bright and welcoming. The woman inside also seemed so bright and welcoming and he figured that must have been what was causing the effect.

He hid his arm holding the flowers behind his back as he slipped through the door, the woman at the stove cooking something that filled the air with a delightful sent. As he set his things down, however, he brought them out with her back still turned, coming up behind as she spoke.

"I'll have dinner ready in a second, alright?" she said gleefully, gasping suddenly as the bouquet of white roses appeared before her. "Legato...T-these are..."

"White roses. And they're real too, just smell them!"

She turned to face him, smiling all the while. "These aren't really mine, are they? Or, they're one of those prank flowers that squirt water? Or...or..." She tried coming up with so many reasons why they shouldn't have belonged to her, but every reason was wrong as he pulled out a single rose to prove it to her.

"They're real, and they really are for you." He could see her come to tears, his own smile beginning to fade. "You don't like them, do you?"

"These aren't mine...they can't be mine...T-they're meant for your girlfriend, you're special someone. Not for me..."

He had heard of this 'girlfriend' of his from her mind many times, and every time it was mentioned she would sigh in a depressed way. She just couldn't believe that someone would care about her again, that she would live alone and unloved until the end of her days. This was not so. He, too, had no one who cared about him, but at least now she had someone who thought dearly about her.

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders to comfort her, the woman crying into his shirt. "Yes, I do have a special someone," he confessed, "and although I have not shown it much, that someone is standing in my arms."

She shook her head, stepping away from him. "No, y-you're lying. I don't mean anything to you, I don't!"

"What are you talking about?" he inquired worriedly.

"I don't mean anything to anyone!" she shouted, shaking her head as she tried backing up more. Though he disliked doing it, he stared into her eyes, stepping into her mind and seeing what she was thinking.

"Please don't care, please! I don't want you to die...I don't want to see someone else to suffer!" He heard these thoughts and his stomach turned in pain, thinking of the right words to say. At last he found them, taking her hand without any protest surprisingly.

"I told you, I don't believe in bad luck, if that's what you're thinking. I won't suffer just because I care about you, trust me. The only real way I could suffer is that...if I tell you this...it means nothing..." In this he got down on one knee, reaching into his pocket. "Good or bad, anything will be better than nothing." Her tearful eyes widened as she saw the small golden band in the palm of his hand, Legato's expression stern. "The truth is, I do care about you, more than I've cared about anything in my life before. All I wish to know is if you care about me too, even the tiniest bit. If not then that is fine, so long as I know your answer. But no matter what your reply I want you to have this, to know that at least I will always care about you..." He reached up and placed the ring in her hand, clasping her fingers around it as he smiled. "May you always know that you are loved."

In this he felt tears land on his fingers wrapped around her hand, staring up but still unable to see her face. Suddenly she became eyelevel, falling to her knees and reaching forward as she put her arms around his neck. He dropped his other knee and sat on the floor, cradling her in his arms as he felt his shirt become wet with tears, but no sounds coming from her throat. Indeed, he was not hear nothing further, but knew she said something more. His eyes shut as a release came to his heart, the flame no longer planning to burn itself out but rather calmed to a steady glow. As he put a hand on her head he could feel the same within her mind, smiling softly as he set his back against a wall. Time sped once more, and he kept his groggy eyes open as he sat there and watched her fall asleep. The fire on the stove had burned itself out without being nurtured and fed more wood, so he needn't get up and disturb her slumber. Instead, his eyes became heavy, and in it fell into darkness once more.

His heart, or what heart he had left, began tearing into pieces again as he knew what was to come. He didn't want to watch any more; he didn't want to see his hatred flare up once more and his life being torn away for a second time. Once had been enough to send him into insanity, but to see it again...All he could hope for was that time would speed through it, grant him mercy in the inability to do anything about watching it.

He saw his dreams, too, as he slept, one so vivid and real that he once hadn't been able to admit it being anything more than a dream. Legato could see himself looking at a clock as the hands pointed to a quarter past five, the time he got out of work, and seeing the date on the calendar nearby. He watched as he traveled home, worried somehow, and seeing a mob in front of his house. They were all the people he knew from town, but they were no longer happy. Instead they were angry and spiteful, holding guns and surrounding something close to the porch. He listened as they shouted, moving past them with no mind and finding her lying there, surrounded by a puddle of blood. The rest was blocked out as time came back to the real world, his past self concerned but moving on with his life, his own mine dreading when that event was to be so.

He saw his life so joyful and carefree, spending every waking moment he could with her. She wore the ring around her thumb, only because it was far to big for her other fingers, but in it he knew that she was his world and he was hers. But then he saw his life on the dark side, where over and over he wouldn't have quite enough money to pay back the men at work. Although he would have enough for the next week, they would always say he owed something more with a wicked glint in their eyes. He even wondered once if he had done the right thing, but if it would make her life all the better he would deal with his wrong doings, if that were the case.

Yes, in these images he even saw the dance scene he had experienced with Katyenka when he was hallucinating. Katyenka...He had completely forgotten about her at that point, but for some reason now he couldn't stop worrying if she was safe in the hands of Vash or not. Why, why did he worry about her now, of all times? Maybe he just wanted to get his mind off from something he knew would come, but he couldn't ignore his past for long. He saw himself have the same dream but while he was awake, his vision splitting as he fell back and hit his head on the stove. She rushed out the door despite his dazed protests, running after her as soon as he regained some rational thought. He grabbed her wrists before she made it very far from the porch.

"Wait, don't go get a doctor. I'm fine, see? I'm standing just fine!" he said with a grin, Katyenka slipping her hand away.

"Why do you do this?" she asked suddenly, Legato shaking his head.

"What do you mean?"

"W-why do you buy me all these things and yet you won't even spend money on a doctor to help you! You've been passing out so much lately it's starting to scare me, Legato. Don't you know, I don't need any of these things to be happy. These things are just...things, not nearly as important as you. Yes, I'll have all these items, but what good are they when the price is for you to suffer? You said yourself once that nothing is worse than saying nothing, but what's even worse is when no one listens..." She stepped away, putting a hand on her head as her eyes became watery. He reached for her and put his hand on her shoulder, gathering her up into his arms. "I don't want you to die, Legato. Please don't leave me here to be lost and alone again..."

"I'm not going anywhere, I promise you." He hesitated for a moment, but turned her around, his face serious but his eyes a bit nervous. "But I ask that you must promise me something. Promise me that in two day you will leave the house and that you will stay away until sundown. Come visit me at work, shop for new clothes, anything but come back here."

"But why...?" she asked in puzzlement.

"Just promise me!" he shouted in a sudden tone of fear, the woman becoming frightened.

"...Yes, alright," she complied, soon hugging him. She stared up at him with a smile, though, continuing, "But you better keep your promise now!" He laughed contently, nodding his head as they made their way back into the house.

The promise was made, and he believed that all would be right with the world because of it. He had no worries that day, not even feeling like he needed to get her up to say goodbye but rather only kissed her on the forehead and left. When at work, he could look up at the clock when it was time to leave without worry, knowing that she would be there. He could look at the calendar and laugh, knowing that he had defied his vision and let his life live on. As he walked home, he did find it a bit quiet, but it didn't worry him at all. He just kept on going with a smile on his face, up the slopes and to his home that he knew would be empty.

But it wasn't empty. Instead, hateful eyes glared down at something they surrounded, turning back as they heard his gasp.

"There he is!" one of them shouted.

"He comes home to find his wicked bride dead! Serves you right for ever getting mixed up in these things, kid!" the bartender from his last job was heard saying, but Legato didn't care. She wasn't dead, it couldn't have been her! She hadn't been home then!

He made his way through the crowd, however, and saw that she was there, lying the same exact way in his dream in a gathering pool of blood. All he could do was run to her, unable to wince away and keep the pain he felt then from returning. He sat to her side and lifted her head, his chest becoming radically heavier and making it harder to breathe.

"Wake up...Please wake up..." he cried in a whisper, a hand of hers reaching up and setting on his face.

"I'm so sorry, Legato...I left to go to town this morning, but I went back to get my ring. I had forgotten to put it back on after doing dishes...I'm sorry I let you down..."

"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who's sorry. I should have been there..."

Her gaze, he could tell, became blank, Legato looking to the wound on her side. "Why did they do this...?"

He could feel the glares on the back of his head but paid no mind to them. "I don't know why all of them did this-"

"It's cuz she put a bad luck hex on us all!" another shouted, an uproar from the mob following.

"Our crops haven't been growing!"

"Our children are gettin' sick!"

"Our lives are becoming worse off than they were ever since she came around!"

Again and again did they come up with things that weren't true, or at least weren't caused by her. There was no such thing as bad luck, and to the very end he would believe that to be so. He could only see her lips curl into a frown of sadness, Legato shaking his head.

"You...you think I believe them...?"

"What else can you believe?...One woman...against a whole town...?"

"You didn't do this..."

"Of course not. I...I have no more power than any of these people do...when causing bad luck...if it really does exist..."

He held her close to him, stroking her hair. "Then that is what I believe."

Slowly her frown became a smile, weakly lifting her hands and pulling the ring off of her thumb. She searched for his hand and found one that was on her shoulder, taking it and placing the ring in his palm. Finally, she opened her mouth to say her last words he thought she would ever say. "Take this ring...and know that you will always be loved at least by me...I love you, Legato Bluesummers..."

"And I love you...Katyenka Buskus..."

His heart shattered then, in his past and in the present, once and for all hearing the name he was not soon to forget. Katyenka Buskus was his whole world, the world he thought had died a long, long time ago. Yet, he knew now that she lived...She had lived...

But in that moment, as he drew her back and saw her pale, softly smiling face gaze up at him with bright green eyes of sadness, he thought his life would end then and there. Her eyelids closed, her hand falling limp and her head falling back hard onto the dirt. All that should have been real to him didn't anymore, all that was sane in life no longer making sense. They had killed her out of cold blood and he was still unsure why, why they would do this to her, why they would do this to him.

"What have you done...?" he began in an eerily calm voice, the villagers backing off slightly in seeing his rage rising. The flame in his heart was finally blown out by a quiet but deadly wind, his soul becoming hollow.

"We got rid of a menace plaguing are town!"

"Yes, in fact, the men you worked with told us this! They told us she was plotting to kill off the rest of us!"

That struck something then, a fine line within his subconscious that held him back. Those men that he had trusted...they had betrayed him to the fullest extent. They were the fiends in this world, who wanted to see him suffer so greatly, and so were these people who stood before him. They killed her for believing something they said, not actually witnessing her doing anything wrong. They had killed her for being a good person and letting people live their lives in peace...

He had never told her about the powers he had, what he was capable of. In fact, he hadn't told anyone of his powers, but these people would know before they left there. And that would be the last thing they would ever know.

"You killed her...You killed her in cold blood...You had seen nothing of the person she was, nothing of the kind hearted, loving woman that she had been all because you went on lies and superstition instead...You killed an innocent woman and your hands are too far bathed in blood to believe that you can just get on with your happy, little, pathetic lives..." He could hear the guns arm and the villagers beginning to gasp as they realized that their hands were moving on their own. "If my world ends so does yours."

Shutting his eyes, he let go of everything he had, everything that was once his life as he heard the screams echo in the sound of bullets. Eventually they stopped, the scent of gunpowder and blood filling the air. He didn't bother to stare out at the mass of corpses for very long, looking down at the thought to be lifeless body of his beloved, bending down and taking her into his arms. He gazed up over the horizon to the sunset backing away from the approaching night. It was beautiful, though, and he only imagined what her face would be like now if she were there to see it.

"Look, Katyenka. A sunset...to go with the sunrise you saw..." he said with a choked voice, a tear falling down the side of his face. This was the last heartfelt emotion he would ever show, he knew, and he was sure of it.

Time sped up again, seeing himself take her to the hospital to have them do a burial right. He would feel abashed if he had to bury her in the same ground that the creatures had soaked their blood into, and he felt enough shame to deem it unfit to watch her be laid to rest. He had failed to protect her even when he knew what was to be, and for that he could never forgive himself. He loathed himself just as much as he loathed them, and in it he realized that he hated all of mankind. They were self-centered, arrogant, egotistical trash that would always suffer and that would always cause suffering. An endless cycle, he supposed, that would only end if they did.

Time slowed again as he saw himself sitting on the porch, smelling the rotting flesh that baked in the sun. No one seemed to bother to come up and drag them away, figuring that they were too afraid to do so. Of course, he cared nothing for them, and would do nothing for them, not even bury them. He knew in the pit of his soul he had done something wrong, but shoved it away to forget about it later.

For the longest time he was in a daze, staring off into the distance with no hopes and no plans for what else he was going to do in his life. All of the sudden, however, out the emptiness he was in he could feel a presence nearby, a voice to follow. He didn't bother to look up, though, for if the voice belonged to a hostile being than so be it. He just didn't care anymore.

"Well, now, seems you're kind of in a rut. How about I make you a proposition to get you out of it, huh?"

He hadn't known this voice then, but it was soon a voice he wouldn't forget. It still haunted him, but at least he was no longer a slave to it.

"I would rather be dead," he proclaimed.

"Now what's the fun in that?" the voice laughed, becoming somber again. "Do you pray for them?"

The voice knew he had been praying earlier, and it was a surprise to him that he knew this. "Not for these useless scum, but for the one they took away from me..." The chain around the pieces of his heart began squeezing what life they had in them. "Why...? Why did they take her from me...?"

The voice became aggravated, a bit unnerved for some reason. But it faded into an echoing laugh, "So you hate humans, just as I then?"

"Yes, humans...I want them all to die!" he shouted up into the air, unable to control his rage.

"Then take my proposition. Come with me and I'll show you that this world will be paradise without them."

"How can it be paradise...? Paradise was when she was here..."

The voice growled, Legato feeling a sharp pain in the back of his neck as he fell forward, hitting his head on the ground. "You will help me achieve my paradise, a world free of the human race!"

His world fell into darkness with a cold and evil laugh, an echo of her voice ringing through his head that was telling him not to leave, but unable to stay. It was just one more thing, he realized, that he had failed her.

When all was in a dark glaze, he could hear Knives's voice speak in the distance.

"So what other information did you retrieve?"

"I am sorry, sir," another voice said, this seeming to be automated. "We could only find segments with both of them talking in it, but no vital information on his powers. However, there is still some incentive to this, if you ever want to use it in a means of blackmailing."

"Very well. Store it in the computer with the rest of his memories."

"But, master, there is one more thing you should know about her-"

"All I asked was if her memories were sufficient! Now get back to work, I want that eye working by tomorrow."

"Yes, master..."

Time no longer slowed, but it past through all of the events he already knew of. It was as if he were a puppet within a puppet at this point, doing the things he knew were wrong but having no ability to stop himself, as if his soul was begging to become free but his body no longer responding. He witnessed everything he did over the years, remembering the things he did to keep others from being happy. If he couldn't be happy, then no one would was his deep down motivation, especially with the suffering of Vash. Everything had gone so well for Vash the Stampede to what Knives had told him, and he, most of all, had no right to be so proud and jovial. He would know, just as the rest of mankind, about the pain in living.

But by the end of his long and painful memories, it was not only the weight of sin on his shoulders that made him want to die so badly, but that in the pit of his soul where he had shoved all his hidden secrets he knew it was also the weight of disappointment. Katyenka had adored the world and the happy lives that were out there and he knew that taking so many, purposefully or not, would have made her unbearably upset. He could just see her crying, and to what little spec of emotion he had left he could no longer take it. By then he didn't know in his conscious mind what was making him so weak, and he couldn't just die and not know the reason. So he lived on, but his memories written on a small disk ended.

But in it did her memories begin, not from the way he had viewed them, however, but from a video camera's perspective. He saw almost everything that had happened, still in fast motion, but in no way, shape, or form showing that she wanted to hurt anyone. Everything, without a doubt, had been a lie, but in the dimmest of these images he could see her staring down an alleyway from a dark corner, listening to a conversation taking place. It was between a large, bald man in gray overcoat and the two men at his work. They spoke of someone to turn on, and to his guess it could have only been him. However, the two men were paid off quite handsomely as the large man said one last thing.

"Knives isn't one to take procrastination lightly, so don't screw around. Spread the rumors and have her killed as soon as possible."

Knives...The name made his blood boil until he felt like it was seeping from his pores. He was the one who had taken her away, and yet he had been so blind to see it, like a sheep being lead to the slaughter. He supposed those years he spent as a puppet were punishment for this, and really he had no excuses apposing it.

And yet, as he saw himself setting her down onto an empty hospital bed from a camera lens, he rushed out of there so quickly that he hadn't seen her reach for him, her throat so tight she was unable to speak. He saw tears well up in her eyes, nurses and doctors realizing she was alive and began treating the wound. For some reason none of them ran after him, but he supposed he had stricken fear into their hearts for the blood stains, not caused by her wound, on his shirt. Light faded again to a dim blur, a buzz coming from his hearing. Words were being exchanged between a figure in the corner and the woman lying on the hospital bed, the woman explaining everything to the figure in a daze. He could see it motioning back and forth to a screen it held in front of itself, the figure suddenly coming forward and slipping a pill into her mouth. She swallowed without thought, not realizing as it told her she had just taken an amnesia pill and she would no longer recollect the events that had happened within the past two and a half years. A sly trick, he supposed, to make sure she didn't come back to try and find him. But nothing more was seen as the camera images faded into static and then black. He was hoping it would end there, for he no longer wished to view his life, no matter how many different forms there might have been.

Then, for some reason, he could see another woman's face, her expression ridden with joy and big, bright brown eyes smiling down. Time did not slow then either, but he was able to hear voices in normal speech as images of this woman and two blond headed boys past by. He knew these lines somehow, but at that time he didn't know where from.

"A life is a life..."

"Don't you get it, I wanted to save them both?!"

"Luck and persistence won't last forever..."

"Always keep your vision clear..."

"Even if a mistake is made, as long as a person realizes their mistake it's possible to make it right again, and if you keep your vision clear you will see the future..."

~*~*~*~*~

Legato could feel that drop of sweat land on his foot finally, his eyes coming into focus to the real world once more. To this shock, though, Vash was still standing in front of him, his eyes widened in some sort of horrific manor. He understood his look, however, when he realized that Vash's hand was still pressed against his forehead to keep his eyelid open...