Disclaimer: All characters and locations (and the song below) belong to their respective owners.

A/N: I've been playing the Mega Man games on an SNES emulator and reading up on the Wikia lately when I got this idea. There are a couple references in this little drabble - one from a novel trilogy, and two others from two anime; it's something I did for fun. See if you can guess where they are from (first one's obvious, second one's easy; the third and last might prove a tad tricky).

KARMA: Meaning of Birth

He's in the center of zero gravity, exerting labored breaths and internal failures. His repair systems are at optimal conditions, but at they refuse to heal his wounds, and so he believes them to have been damaged. The space station Ragnarok falls apart all around, either turning into flaming debris or disintegrating from the intense heat and pressure.

He sits on one knee upon the crumbling foundation, his forehead rested against the pommel of his saber. He listens to his body's numerous functions – the way his mechanical clock is stuck and clicking; the way the coolant inside him is slowing down and cooling; the way the gears and wires exposed to the airless vacuum stumble and spark; the way his processors hesitate to compute with the motherboard in his chest and the chips in his cortex. Those are the only sounds he hear, the only way he can tell he's still alive.

His audio receptors are eerily silent, but in spite of this (and the environment he's in) he finds he is profoundly calm and at peace. After all, nothing feels better than destroying a mad scientist intent on wiping all lands but Neo Arcadia cleaned of Humans and Reploids.

At the very least, everyone is safe: Colbor, Faucon, Hibou, Hirondelle, Menart, Perroquiet, Alouette, Rouge and Jaune, Cerveau, Neige, Ciel….

He feels himself exhale, feels his wounded body shiver as if it is enduring a horrendous earthquake. He is aware and yet not aware of the pieces of red armor breaking and clattering to the floor and evaporating into cosmic dust. He notices but doesn't notice the grip on the Z-Saber loosening, slipping toward the hilt, sliding onto the guard. He knows but doesn't know his vision is doubling, tripling, blurring.

Everything is slowing down, coming to an unhesitant halt.

He closes his eyes, sucks in a deep breath, holds it in, holds it, lets it out.

All is quiet.

All is right.

"It's just what we've always wanted," he says breathlessly. Weary blue irises open and his head rises from the pommel, inch by aching inch, and lay his chin upon it. "After so long…it's finally come. You would have been proud." Somehow the thought makes him laugh, and when he does laughs it is clear and fresh and relieved; and though he can't hear it he can feel it, and it's the best feeling he's had in his life.

He shakes again, and mixed in his joy is the pain. But it doesn't bother him, not at all. Nothing does, anymore.

A smirk captures his lips, a rivulet of black coolant trickling down the side of his mouth. "What am I saying? Of course you're proud. It's what we've been fighting for. And now that's it over…."

Now that it's over….

His gaze fixes onto the blackness veiled behind a fiery curtain and suspending debris. It is peppered in silvery stars shaped like diamonds and frozen condensation. One by one they twinkle, as if they are whispering or trading secrets their residing planets pass on like an intergalactic river. Perhaps they are spreading word to their neighbor of this penultimate moment, regaling the warrior who fought for Man and Reploid and overthrew the tyrant in an epic struggle amidst the heavens.

It's a silly notion, but what would they say when, generations from now, they were told the Legend of the Crimson Soldier? What sort of audience would it garner? How would they see him in light of two different lives he had led – once as a Maverick Hunter from ages past, and once as a rebel from recent years?

Ragnarok breaches deeper into the Earth's atmosphere, completely engulfed and atomically deconstructing; warning systems are blaring incessantly, but he pays them no heed. What matters most are the stars; those infinite, spacious, lustrous stars. They are so beautiful, so picture perfect. It is something born from a dream, from an eternal wish, cast into the dark to spread its warmth and soothing touch upon the surface of a tranquil sea.

They are beautiful.

"I can rest at ease."

And there was peace.

"Garasudama hitotsu otosareta oikakete mou hitotsu okkochita
Hitotsubun no hidamari ni hitotsu dake nokotteru

Shinzou ga hajimatta toki iya demo hito ha bashou wo toru
Ubawarenai you ni mamoritsudzuketeru

Yogosazu ni tamotte kita te demo yogorete mieta
Kioku wo utagau mae ni kioku ni utagawareteru

Kanarazu bokura ha deau darou
Onaji kodou no oto wo mejirushi ni shite
Koko ni iru yo itsudatte yonderu kara
Kutabireta riyuu ga
Kasanatte yureru toki
Umareta imi wo shiru."

- "Karma", BUMP OF CHICKEN