Author's note: It's been such a long long long long long time since I updated. More than a year to be exact! How I've missed writing fanfics! Firstly, let me apologize for my long absence. I just keep getting caught up in life's little burdens. Ironically, this is still one of the busiest times of my life as I'm moving into a new house by the end of this month so I'm writing in a half-empty room but it's feeling so so so good to be back. Forgive me for this long wait. To my readers and reviewers who are, I'm sure, frustrated that I've taken so long to update, let me say I'm very sorry. I understand the annoyance that comes when you've been following a story closely and then the writer takes a stupendously long time to continue the story. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up reading. I really understand.

But to my other readers and reviewers who have stuck on: let me say a very very very BIG thank you for your unwavering support. For those who private messaged me asking me if I'm alright, I'm very grateful and it was fantastic to hear from you. You've helped to remind me of my love for this fanfic and my love for you dear readers. This chappie is for you guys.

And before we begin, as tradition goes, I always want to thank my reviewers personally for the time you've taken to read and share your thoughts with me, so here goes:

hardcoreGSfan: Haha, yes, Rau does expect them to break in! Rau's a pretty smart guy, I find. Would be a little insulting to him if he didn't realise what Kira and the others were planning so I have no choice. And as for who is lying in wait at the table, you'll just have to read on and find out! I shan't give it away here!

kurie-tibiti: I'm glad the thrilling bits worked! Hope it wasn't too scary! And so sorry for the long update. Hope this chappie is worth the wait though?

HoneyCaramelSwirl: Nah, it's not bad that you're enjoying reading Athrun getting terrified! I should be shot for making him scared! Wasn't really sure if that could work though since Athrun's pretty cool and calm, in my opinion, unless it's someone he cares about that's in danger so… glad it kinda worked out. And yes, I'll be sure to keep up the Athrun and Kira interactions. It's one of the things that I really enjoy exploring. There's more in this chappie and I hope they worked out!

XienRue: Heh, I'm glad the Kira-Athrun clash worked out. They're just so different in this story that I had to make sure they're working together but also not quite working together, get what I mean? And yes, there will come a point where Kira will have to go home so I'm pretty curious thinking about Kira's parents' reactions too. A little spoiler for you hehe: there's a little secret about Kira's parentage and I'm just going into that in this chappie!

sashashana: Hi sashashana, I was very touched to learn that you've been following the story since three years ago. I kinda forgot how long it's been. We've all grown up and changed so I'm glad there's something that you could come back to and enjoy. I hope all is better for you now. I'm so sorry about the long absence. It may seem like I've abandoned this fanfic but actually I haven't. And I never will so hope you'll stick on with me till the end :D

jubulicious: Yep! You've put it very nicely! Two skilled individuals but with very different backgrounds and beliefs. Hope I've played out the dynamics between them nicely. No no, you're right, Shani has green hair but Orga does too. But two different shades of green. I know it can be confusing haha. Maybe I should find a way to make it clearer… hmmm…

buttercup: Thank you for your review. It's very nice to hear you liked the story. No worries about a proper review. What's a proper review anyway? I'm just glad to hear when people have enjoyed reading the story so thank you for letting me know!

Kaoru Hiyama: haha, hope this chappie won't be as intense as the first, although I think it might be… Thank you for writing me the review even though the chappie got you speechless! I appreciate it! I'm glad you enjoyed reading the fanfic.

ChildOfSea: I'm so sorry for the delay. I truly am… :(

And with that, let's move on to this brand new chappie!

Chapter 75:

Do you know what's the strangest thing about dreaming? It's about waking up and knowing full well that you had been dreaming, but not remembering or making any sense of it. Like seeing things through glass covered in fingerprints or scratches. Or like seeing through a droplet of water; everything concave, distant, warped. Weird. She thought, maybe she was dreaming, but she wasn't sure. This looked like one of those instances. One of those dreams. The kind that didn't make sense, that didn't seem clear, that kinda looked weird, the type of dream that she was gonna wake up from and remember nothing about.

Because there was a sun. A bright yellow sun. And then it was blocked out by a figure, silhouetted in the light.

"Stellar… Can you hear me? Stellar?"

She closed her eyes. Opened them again and saw he had a face, two eyes the colour of amethyst stones and dishevelled brown hair. "Stellar, Stellar, can you hear me?" His lips parted but his voice sounded distant, like an echo rolling away. "Stellar…"

She heard the sound of water. Of the waves. And the man's face was floating above hers, his brown hair slicked and wet, the same lips parting, the same voice saying, "It's okay. I've got you." And there was something in her hand, and it was some sort of glass cylinder, with water and emerald green ribbons and little colourful streaks dodging all around. She thought it was leaking; maybe that's why he was drenched. But when she raised her head and looked at him again, she saw that he was dry, brown hair floppy and untamed, one side of his face dark, and the other side lit up by a street lamp behind him. He had a finger pressed to her lips. "He hurt you." His voice was sad. And so were his eyes. She wanted to reach out a hand and smooth the furrow in his brow. Didn't like the crease; it marred his handsome face. "Please, don't do this…" she said to him. Her voice came out like a plea. Don't go. Don't leave. She didn't say the last two, but maybe she should have because she saw his eyes change, his gaze turning hard, distant. She knew that he was going to turn around and walk away, leave her behind. There was someone else he wanted to be with, someone more important than her. And the sight of his turning back was the last thing imprinted on her mind, the last thing she saw, when she was surrounded by strangers in white lab coats who put needles in her arms, laid her in a pod-like bed and closed the shell over her head. The darkness crept in and she tried to fight it. But she was swallowed up in its hungry depths. He just kept walking. Kept walking. Away from her. Until he faded into the darkness and she was all alone. All alone.

"Stellar, wake up." Kira gave her shoulder one more shake but she had closed her eyes again. He put down the torch he was holding and cupped her face in both hands. The orange beam lolled lazily over her inert body. "Stellar, can you hear me?" he said again but it was no use. She had slipped out of consciousness. He ripped off his right glove. Pressed two fingers to her neck. Was thankful to feel her pulse going strong. She was alive. Just drugged, but drugged bad.

In his ear, voices chattered. Athrun updating the others on what they had found. He wrenched the earpiece out of his ear and left it dangling uselessly from its wire around his neck. Stellar was all that mattered. He smoothed back her dishevelled blonde hair and noted her deathly pale face covered in a sheen of sweat. A quick glance over her body to check if she was injured. She was in a black tank and shorts and she looked alright. Except for the line of needle track marks dancing over her bared forearms.

Kira felt a familiar surge of anger eat at him inside. It was impossible to escape. Impossible to get away from Rau Le Creuset. From his scientists. From their needles and experiments and torture devices. They would always be slaves to Le Creuset. Always… but no… he had tried to get away, and he kinda did, though at the cost of Flay's life. And now, Stellar. He had left her behind, left her to this abuse. He touched his forehead to hers. Her cold clammy skin was a reminder of his betrayal.

Athrun Zala, who stood several paces away, averted his gaze. He didn't know what to think, or maybe he didn't dare to. How could anyone make sense of the situation? Of the torture? He pressed a finger into his ear so that the voices emitting through his earpiece sharpened a fraction and distracted him from the poignant scene playing out between the two strangers he barely knew or understood.

"Is she injured?" Lacus' voice, cracking with emotion and anxiety.

"Doesn't look like it," replied Athrun.

"Shoulder-length blonde hair, petite figure?"

A quick glance back at the woman on the table to confirm Lacus' description. "Yes."

"She was there," said Lacus. A pause as she took a deep breath to still her wavering voice. "When I was kidnapped. She's one of Kira's associates. They must have taken their anger out on her because we helped Kira get out of this mess."

"But she was also one of those who broke into the Clyne Mansion," Athrun corrected, "one of those who tried to kill Kira."

"You sure?" Nicol, this time. Astonishment in his voice.

"Yeah."

"I don't like the sound of this. You guys have gotta get the serum and get out."

Athrun didn't respond. He turned his attention onto the room they were in. A small cell, thirteen feet by thirteen feet, a metal cube. Steel walls on three sides, and a floor-to-ceiling glass window on one. The door stood ajar where they had left it. Beyond the glass window, row after row of refrigerators and appliances stretched away. No movement outside, all dark and quiet. Kira had said the serum was unlikely to be kept out there so it had to be somewhere else, but the room they were in was completely empty, save for the metal table to which the blonde woman was tied. No cupboards, no shelves, not even a saline bag hanging from a hook that might indicate the serum was in it. Nothing at all. Where the hell was the damned serum?

A quick motion at the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned round to the table just in time to see the leather strap holding the woman's wrist fall to the side. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"I'm taking her with us." Kira's head was bent over the table as he worked his pocket knife into the strap binding Stellar's other wrist.

Athrun didn't have to say anything because a cacophony of voices exploded in his ear. Then Nicol's voice loud, clear and utterly bewildered, "What?"

Kira had switched off the torch, replaced the night vision goggles over his eyes and the earpiece in his ear but he ignored Nicol's question as if he hadn't heard it. A quick slice of his pocket knife and he freed Stellar from the leather straps that bound her torso to the table. He hooked an arm under her knees and another around her shoulders and lifted her effortlessly. She was completely out of it, her body limp and her head rolling against his shoulder.

Cagalli's distraught voice pushed through the connection. "Kira, pause and think for a moment. You can't just-"

"I'm taking her, whether you like it or not."

"And how're you going to continue the mission with her?"

"She's my problem. You don't have to worry about her. I'll finish the mission but I'm taking her."

"Athrun, say something."

"Okay."

A stunned silence fell over the connection. Kira glanced up, surprised, at Athrun Zala. The detective was watching him steadily but his eyes were unreadable behind the night vision goggles.

"What?" the voice emitting over the connection was scratchy, marred by the static and the disbelief in the speaker's voice. It could have been Lacus, Cagalli or Nicol. Or maybe all of them. And Kira could understand their surprise. He was too.

"I said, 'Okay.' Let's take her with us," Athrun said mildly.

"Guys, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Now it was clear that Nicol was speaking. His harried voice burst through their earpiece, almost deafening, "You're in the midst of breaking into a highly-protected research facility. Illegally. You haven't found the serum. And now you want to carry an unconscious woman with you. Someone who tried to kill you before. Are you out of your minds?"

"We have to, Nicol," replied Athrun. Again, his voice was calm and collected. "We can't leave her behind. One, she needs help and two, if we do leave her here, we'll lose our guide. Kira'll stay behind too."

Silence on the other end. Athrun and Kira exchanged glances and Kira nodded. A slight tip of the head. It surprised Athrun. He hadn't thought the assassin was capable of any appreciation. Or any concern for another human being, especially not after his massacre of the guards outside the storage room. But there was something between him and the blonde woman. Some sort of emotional connection, like the one he had had with Lacus. It didn't seem right to leave the woman behind.

"It's pointless to talk sense into either of you." A sigh of resignation from Nicol. "Just get the hell out of there and keep moving."

"To where?" asked Athrun. He glanced round the room again one more time. "There's nothing in here to keep the serum. Where else could it be? Where else do we go?"

A pause and then Lacus came on. "You're already at the back of the Facility, according to the blueprints. That's it. There's nothing more. The serum's got to be near you. You said yourself there's a storage area outside."

Athrun moved over to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. He stepped through the ajar door and stared out at the aisles of refrigerators and freezers and the racks of test tubes and beakers encased within. Felt a sense of dread. "There must be hundreds of chemicals here. There's no way we can test it all and find the serum. It'll take days."

"Maybe there's a clue. Like a locked cabinet. Something with top security."

Athrun stood rooted to the spot. Where to start? Like finding a needle in a haystack, but what if the needle wasn't even there?

He turned and glanced back into the cell. Was perplexed to see that the brown-haired assassin had replaced the blonde woman on the table and was now running his hands over the metal walls.

"What are you doing?" He stepped back into the room.

Kira kept up his search, didn't turn around to look at him, but said, "there's another room connected to this one. A big space, deep underground. Maybe deeper than the Facility itself."

"What are you talking about?"

"They were injecting something in Stellar."

Athrun glanced at the blonde woman, then back at Kira. Didn't understand what the brown-haired assassin was saying.

Kira continued, uninterrupted. He moved over to another panel of the wall and ran his fingers along the seam between the metal plates. "The needle marks are fresh. Whatever it was they put in her, they've taken it away with them. But we didn't see anyone get out. There were only two idiots guarding the main entrance when we were coming in. They couldn't have vanished into thin air. And listen…" He stopped and cocked his head to the side.

Athrun mimicked Kira. Heard nothing. He pulled the earpiece from his right ear. Listened harder. Nothing, but the hum of silence. Not a sound.

"What am I supposed to hear?"

"The air. It's moving."

Athrun stared at Kira like he was mad.

"There's air circulating in here. It's moving. Something behind these walls is sucking it in, like a vacuum, so it's got to be farther under the ground surface." Kira kept up his search.

For the umpteenth time, Athrun was reminded of how different the assassin was from him and the others. His movements, his senses, all heightened beyond the abilities of a normal human being. A blessing? Maybe. Maybe not. Athrun replaced the earpiece in his ear and stepped up to the wall. He could feel the cold even through his gloved hands. He smoothed his fingers over the panel. Tried to feel for some groove or catch in the even surface. For the next few minutes, there was only silence as he and Kira painstakingly ran over the wall inch by inch.

Moments later, having gone over the same panel for the third time, Athrun stepped back, rolled his aching shoulders and stared hard at the steel wall in front of him. Nothing. There was nothing. Just a smooth expanse of hard solid metal. Was there anything behind it at all? What the hell was all this about the circulating air? He thought to himself bitterly, chewing on his lower lip.

He glanced at Kira, who was kneeling in a corner of the room, trying to work his fingers into the gaps between the walls. Athrun felt silly. They were losing precious time. Again, he ran his eyes over the room, right than left, front than back. Saw nothing except metal walls, and a metal table, and the woman still lying unconscious on it.

Hang on…

Moving briskly, Athrun crossed over to the table and fell to one knee. He gave the table a shove, found that it didn't budge. It was screwed tight to the floor. He slipped his gloved hands under the table, searching blindly with his fingers until he stubbed his right thumb against a bolt behind a table leg. He crouched lower so that he could stick his head underneath the metal bench. The bolt was only half screwed in, its curved thread still visible. Athrun jiggled it, then placed the pad of his thumb flat against its head and pushed. The bolt sank in like a well-oiled piston.

For a second or two, there was no sound, and then there was the clicking and grinding of metal against metal. Athrun slipped out from underneath the table and stared as a single panel of the metal wall disengaged from the others and rolled aside. Instinctively, both men reached for their guns. But no one came through the doorway they had uncovered.

Athrun scrambled to his feet, exchanged a glance with Kira. The brown-haired assassin was hoisting his blonde associate over his shoulder so that his right hand was free to carry the Ruger. They moved silently across the room, and took up position on either side of the open doorway. There they paused, leaning against the wall, listening hard. There was no sound coming from down there. A blue light came through the gap, struggling to penetrate the darkness in the cell. Athrun took a deep breath to still his beating heart, then darted into the open passage, barrel of his Glock snapping up in front of him.

No one there.

Only a metal staircase that descended downwards.

"What the hell is this?" he said, to no one in particular. But the guys caught the strain in his voice and Nicol asked, "what is it?"

"We found a passage. Hidden behind the wall of the cell. Leading down to some sort of basement. Where does that go?"

"Passage?" Lacus' perplexed voice. "We're looking at your cell phone signals. You're standing at the edge of the Le Creuset Corporation, farthest north. Technically, you're facing a wall."

"We were just now, but not anymore."

Only the frantic clicking of a mouse and the rat-a-tat-tat of a keyboard answered him. Then Cagalli. "No use, guys. If we're reading the signals right, you're at the very back of the Facility. Dead end. There's only a wall and thousands of feet of rock and soil and sand in front of you."

"Then this place has got to be separate from the Facility. You cut all the power, didn't you, Nicol?"

"Yes, I'm certain."

"Power's still on down there so there's another generator feeding electricity to it," noted Athrun. He looked at Kira, "Did you know this place existed?"

The assassin said nothing, just shook his head.

"According to the official blueprints, there's nothing underneath the Le Creuset Corporation," Lacus said, confirming their suspicions. Then she asked, "The Facility's already off records. Why's there something else underneath that too?"

Athrun and Kira exchanged glances. There was only one way to find out. They pulled off their night vision goggles and began to descend the steps.

Rau Le Creuset felt good. He felt fresh and alive. There was a tingling in his hands. Adrenalin, he decided. It had been a long time since he had felt so excited. People would say it was thrilling to keep secrets, but Rau le Creuset begged to differ. What was most thrilling was when you finally got to share your secrets. To show others what they didn't know. What they couldn't see. To show them how naïve and foolish they were.

He was in a private elevator that only he used. Behind him, Orga Sabnak, Clotho Buer and Shani Andras stood to attention. A triangle of bodyguards. But not quite. Rau could smell their excitement, their bloodlust. Orga and his team could sometimes be like loose cannons. They were probably more eager to kill than to protect him, but they would suppress their desires if he wanted them to. His desires were more important and he had made certain they understood that after the last time they had thought of betraying him.

"Control yourselves," he said, "I don't need you to go on a killing spree out there."

"Why not?" Shani blurted out. There was anger laced in his voice. It was always Shani who lost it, Rau thought to himself. His emotions were more unstable than his teammates. It would be wise to keep a tighter rein on Shani and he made a note to talk to the trainers and scientists after this whole stint was over. For now, he glanced sideways, just enough for Shani to see the tightening of his jaw and the sharp glint of the light reflecting off the silver mask he wore. The mask hid his eyes, made his expression unreadable and he liked that. It made him more mysterious, more unpredictable.

And it achieved its effect, because Shani fell silent and dropped his eyes, though the sullen expression stayed. Sometimes Rau felt like he was a parent looking after wayward children, or a master reining in his wild dogs.

Trying to break the tension that his subordinate had caused, Orga asked quietly, "Why keep them alive? They're time bombs. Kira's turned and Athrun Zala's a cop. They should have died long ago. Let us kill them and we'll make sure they stay dead; they won't come back again."

Rau recognised Orga's last words. It was a lesson he knew the trainers drilled into their students: take down the threat, fast and hard, so that it doesn't ever return to haunt you. No mistakes. Ever. It was good advice for his assassins. They got things done for sure. But Rau wanted to laugh. If only things were so simple. He liked Kira and Athrun. There was something about both of them that appealed to him. How many people could get so far defying him? He loved the way they challenged him, testing his patience like no one ever had. But maybe now was the time to end their little game. Life was, after all, all about power, hierarchy and order. Time to re-instill order again. Kira had belonged to him and always would. It would be so easy to get him back, and if he could turn Athrun Zala too… happy happy days ahead…

He made a vague dismissing gesture with his right hand. "No," he said to Orga, "I want them alive. I've got plans for them."

"Whatever you say."

Rau could sense Orga's displeasure but it didn't bother him. He knew Orga and Kira had a thing against each other. Some sort of rivalry. Rau didn't care. As long as they listened, he didn't care what they thought or how they felt. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, savoured the thrill and excitement growing in him. The elevator kept descending, down and down and down, and with each passing second, Rau le Creuset couldn't hide the smile on his face.

As they descended farther underground, the pressure piled on in their ears. They moved slowly, Athrun leading the way, gun held ready. Kira followed, the unconscious female assassin still swung over his shoulder. At the bottom of the stairs, Athrun paused and studied their newfound location. They were in some sort of basement, about the size of a small field. The ceiling was low and the fluorescent lights overhead were off. The blue glow that had attracted them at the top of the stairs was bright enough to see by so that they didn't need the night vision goggles, but it gave everything an eerie azure tint. The glow was easy to trace; it came from a mammoth apparatus that occupied the middle of the vault, taking up most of the space.

Curious, Athrun stepped closer. They were pod-like structures, huge glass cocoons large enough to fit a human being. He passed his gloved hand over the glass surface of one. The condensation vanished and water droplets flowed down the curved sides like rain on a window. He pressed his face to the glass, peered in and saw that the inside was lined with what looked like velvet silk sheets. Beds? Athrun frowned. He retreated a step to take in the entire apparatus. The machine was structured like a flower – a core from which branched out three pods like petals on a clover leaf. What the hell was this?

He turned and examined the rest of the space. A row of huge floor-to-ceiling glass tubes lined one wall, filled with some sort of liquid. Like cylindrical aquariums. He moved away from the 'flower' machine and over to one of the tanks. Stared in hard. Nothing living inside. Just tubes and wires, and a steady stream of bubbles rising idly from the bottom to the top.

Same for all the tanks.

He reached the end of the row and came to a podium raised above the ground. Crossing the three steps it took to reach the landing, he found a hoard of computers, monitors and papers scattered across a desk, which was tilted at an angle that overlooked the column of cylindrical tanks. Silently, he rifled the papers with a gloved finger, scanning them quickly and pushing them aside. Saw only mounds of scientific jargon that he couldn't understand.

But then something caught his eye.

A stack of digital photographs thrust underneath a manila file. He eased it from its place. And stared, trying to make sense of it. It was a photograph of the tanks, but they were no longer empty. There was a human being in it. A child. A little girl, curled up in a foetal position like a huge test-tube baby. Her eyes were open underwater, but they looked dazed and glassy. Almost lifeless, and Athrun would have thought she was dead if not for the oxygen mask strapped to her face and the line of bubbles that rose from it. Athrun slid the first photo to the back of the pile. Saw the same thing in the second one, only it was a boy this time. This kid was awake and there was a look of horror on his face. He was spread-eagled, cuffs around his wrists and ankles to hold him in place, same oxygen mask, same line of bubbles, but more frenzied. Athrun dropped the photo on the desk, turned quickly to the next one. Again a boy, thrashing wildly in the water. He dropped that on the desk. The next one, a girl, no oxygen mask, her mouth open in a soundless scream. The next, a boy, same foetal position, same glassy eyes as the girl on the first.

Athrun ran through the pile like a crazed man, not caring that the photos were scattering across the desk and the floor. He felt nauseated; he felt paralysed. He wanted to put down the photos on the desk and overturn the entire bench. But he couldn't stop. Every child, their ordeal caught on camera, frozen in time, demanded for his attention.

Suddenly he stopped, his hand immobilized. He was staring at the last photo in the stack. Just yellowing around the edges. Crinkly, as if it was the most well-thumbed of the lot. A young child. A little boy he remembered as if it had been just yesterday that he had walked through the school gate and up ahead, a blonde girl and her brother with brown hair and bright amethyst eyes. The amethyst eyes didn't look bright anymore in the photo. They were wide, transfixed in absolute terror, staring straight at the camera, out of the photo and into Athrun's soul. Trapped in his glass enclosure, Kira Hibiki was hammering against the glass, bubbles rushing from his open mouth.

For a whole minute, Athrun could do nothing but stare at the photo. He was looking at proof that Kira had been in this godforsaken place. Fifteen years ago, when Kira Hibiki had disappeared on the side of the street, grabbed by masked men, he had been brought to this place, locked in this hell, tortured and damaged, transformed into nothing but a killer. Athrun swallowed, realised his hands were trembling. He gathered the photos strewn across the desk, bent and picked those up on the floor, didn't miss one, and butted them together. Then tucked them into his jacket.

He couldn't leave them behind. He just couldn't.

Turning round, he saw, through the gloom and azure blue radiance, the assassin standing before one of the glass aquariums. He had laid the woman on the ground, propped up against the side of a glass pod. The horrific image of Kira inside the tank flashed through Athrun's mind again. Was Kira seeing the same image? Was he remembering his time here? He got off the podium and drew up beside Kira without a word. The assassin didn't acknowledge his presence. Just kept staring ahead at the still water in the tank.

"Do you remember?" Athrun asked.

Only a deathly silence answered him.

And it was only then that Athrun realised the earpiece in his ear had gone all quiet. He pressed a finger to his ear. "Nicol? Can you hear me?"

Still silence.

"Cagalli? Are you there? Lacus?"

No reply.

Feeling suddenly uneasy, he fished his phone from his pocket. Pressed the button that lit up the screen. The signal bar was down. The connection between them was cut. They had lost their guide and there was no one to warn them. Thrusting his phone back into his pocket, Athrun said, "We have to move. The serum's got to be down here. We have to find it and get out." He turned but stopped when he noticed there was no reaction from Kira.

"Hey." He took Kira's arm.

The assassin whirled round, wrenching his elbow out of reach, stumbling backwards. The next thing Athrun knew he was staring down the barrel of a Ruger held in Kira's shaking hands. "Woah," he said, raising both hands in a placating gesture, "relax, it's me." Behind the gun, there was a shell-shocked expression on Kira's face. Wide amethyst eyes, pale face, brown hair matted with sweat. An expression Athrun had seen on some victims he had encountered before. The kind of look only panic could induce. And very often could result in someone getting hurt.

"Kira?" He said, "it's alright. It's me, Athrun Zala."

There was no change in Kira's demeanour.

"Look, we're trying to get the serum. It's here somewhere. We'll just get it and get out. And we'll take your friend with us too. Stellar. That's her name, right?" Athrun had thought the mention of his associate would snap him out it but there was no reaction in Kira. No flicker of recognition. Just plain fear.

"It's okay. Just put the gun down, Kira. I know this place freaks you out. Trust me, it's doing the same for me. Just put-"

Athrun was cut off mid-sentence by a bullet that whizzed past his face and smashed into the gun in Kira's hand. With a loud clatter, the gun fell to the ground and skidded away. Then a loud explosion of sparks as another slug grazed the machinery beside them, narrowly missing the cylindrical tanks.

Athrun crouched, instincts kicking in. The bullet trajectory had been slanted; the shot had come from a place slightly above ground. The lower they were, the more they could hide behind the apparatuses surrounding them, the smaller the target. He reached back and pulled the Glock from where he had tucked it under his jacket. Knocked back the safety lever and scanned the area.

Saw only Kira still standing, back flushed against the glass surface of one of the tanks, his eyes dark and wide from panic. Athrun cursed. Shit, what the hell was he doing? He was a perfect target for the shooter. The unconscious woman lay on the ground inches away from him. Another explosion of sparks between them. Kira didn't move. He looked like he was paralyzed with fear.

"Get down!" Athrun yelled, gesturing wildly. But some part of him knew Kira was too far gone to hear him.

Cursing through his teeth, he scrambled quickly across the floor, bent low, shoes slipping against the tiles. He threw himself at Kira, pinned him to the floor, raised an arm over their heads as another bullet shot overhead and sparks rained over their bodies.

Grabbing a fistful of Kira's neckline, he dragged the assassin behind a waist-high computer, just as its monitor burst into pieces as two slugs embedded themselves in its face. He ignored the shards of glass flying like shrapnel and snagged the woman's ankles, towing her into their impromptu shelter. He collapsed beside both assassins, shielded his face from the sparks that exploded all around as the computer took a volley of shots from their unknown assailant.

The gunfire was relentless. It didn't stop even for a second; there was no way Athrun could get a shot in. He tried to count the shots coming, tried to figure out when the guy shooting would have to reload, tried to figure out what weapon he was using but he couldn't. There seemed to be more than one person attacking them.

And then, just as he began to worry the computer couldn't sustain the onslaught, the gunfire ceased.

The silence that ensued afterwards was deafening. Athrun's ears were ringing but there was no mistaking the voice that spoke in the oppressive silence.

"Mr. Zala. I've been expecting you."

A voice Athrun recognised instantly. Rau Le Creuset. His voice still as calm and cultured as it had been when he was sitting up there in the conference room, speaking to Dearka and Yzak, denying he knew whatever was going on down here.

"I'm sorry my little welcome was so rowdy. We don't have many guests down here. I'm sure you can understand why. And you've brought my dear boy back too."

Athrun cast a glance at Kira. The assassin sat with his knees drawn to his chest, eyes staring blankly at the wall in front.

"I see you've had a chance to look around my place. How'd you find it? Looks good right?"

Athrun listened hard, could sense Rau le Creuset was standing some ways off, somewhere to the right. He pulled up the image of the basement in his mind, constructed a mental blueprint, decided Rau le Creuset was standing near the podium where he had been just now. He glanced at the Glock, made sure the safety lever was off, then shot up from behind the computer, gun aimed towards where he remembered the podium was and pulled the trigger twice. A double-tap, then he sank to the ground again behind the apparatus.

Just in time too, because a barrage of slugs came blasting at the computer, sending sparks and glass and metal fragments arching through the air.

Athrun thought he had caught a glimpse of Rau le Creuset standing at the base of the podium. Hoped the double-tap had found its mark. But he was disappointed when he heard a calm, "Stop." Rau le Creuset was still alive, sounding still as composed as ever. And there was even amusement in his voice now.

Silence resumed as the gunfire halted.

Then, "Almost got me there, Mr. Zala. I suggest you don't try anything futile. I've got three of my best boys with me. They're very eager to kill you. There used to be four of them in a group, you know. But Kira's taken one of them, ain't that right, Kira?"

No response. Kira didn't say anything. He looked like his mind was somewhere else altogether. Like there was some dark memory killing him inside. Athrun didn't respond either. His mind was racing. They were trapped. Pinned down by shooters he had no idea were standing where. No backup. Two bullets down. What to do? What to do now?

Rau le Creuset continued unperturbed. "Amazing technology we have here, don't you agree? What do you know about memory erasing, Mr. Zala?"

No reply but Rau le Creuset didn't seem to need one.

"The brain's a complicated little thing. Yet, not so complicated either. It stores memories like a file cabinet, classifies them, labels them, puts them away where they belong. And what do you do when you want to get rid of some of these memories? You just find the right file and burn it. Or relocate it, put it where no one else can ever find it. Simple. So we came up with this. A little trip in this glass cocoon and you'll forget all about the fact that your father was a corrupted commissioner who took his brothers down with him in death. Forget all about how the students at the police academy used to call you a fraud. The offspring of a murderer. How about that, Athrun Zala?"

Athrun bit his lower lip hard until he could taste the metallic tang of blood. Rau Le Creuset was pressing his buttons, dealing out secrets that should have stayed hidden. Point was, how did Rau Le Creuset know so much about him? What else did he know?

"So we pop them in, take them out and voila, clean slate. Blank paper. You can twist them, mould them, make them what you want them to be. Then we put them into these glass tanks and we transform them. We've accomplished so many miracles in here. Genetic engineering, for example. We take the DNA of our subjects, mix it up, alter it, turn it into some sort of super gene, and we put it back into our boys and girls. We place them in tanks, fill them up with water, pass a little electricity, trigger the cells in the body to take up the DNA. Then there's the performance-enhancement drugs. We pump our kids full of them. And each one turns out a miracle. But of course, there's only a limit to what nature can do. Sometimes, you need a bit of nurturing. So we train them. Teach them. Show them what they can do."

"Like setting up your own private army, huh?" Athrun couldn't help retorting.

A pause. Rau le Creuset surprised to hear Athrun speak for the first time. Then an amused laugh. "Yes, and no. It's not just for me. It's also for them. I've saved them."

"From what? From their family and friends? From their freedom?" There was no way to hide the scorn dripping from Athrun's voice. He glanced round, felt a sense of helplessness. They were boxed in, three of them sandwiched between a wall and the waist-high apparatus. Only way out was to listen to Rau le Creuset and play his little game, whatever it was.

"Exactly."

Rau Le Creuset's response snagged Athrun's attention back to their conversation. It surprised him, stunned him even. The guy was absolutely crazy.

"Life's complicated," Rau continued, "It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to everyone around you. They want you to do things, they want you to fulfil roles – be a good son or daughter, be a good husband or wife, be a good sibling, be a good co-worker, be a good friend, be a good fellow human being on the planet. Human nature is selfish. We want people to be who we want them to be. All the time. You get it, don't you, Mr. Zala? You, the son of a traitor, a murderer. Now, everyone wants you to be their good police officer. I'll bet Siegel Clyne wants you to be his good son. And how about pretty Miss Yamato? I'm sure she wants you to be her good husband."

Athrun stilled, a sudden fear engulfing him. The maniac knew about Cagalli and him.

"We think we have freedom; we think our life is our own; we think life is worth living. That's the belief of fools and mediocre men. Now, what I'm doing here, what I'm doing for these children, I'm rescuing them. Erase their memories, disconnect their familial ties, then give them new life and new purpose. No more caring about what others think. No more struggling to fulfil roles imposed on them. There's only one thing called survival. The very thing that nature created. Survival of the fittest. For the first time, they're doing things for themselves, to make sure they survive. They obey me because they want to live. They go out there to kill because they don't want to be the ones shot dead." Rau le Creuset's voice had reached a crescendo and it echoed through the space, bouncing off the walls as if it were the voice of a divine being.

What was most frightening, Athrun concluded, was not the madness in Rau le Creuset's words, but the very manner in which he was saying them. He didn't sound like a maniac; his voice was steady, smooth, like a lecturer pointing out the errors in a student's work. Like there was nothing crazy about what he was saying. Athrun glanced round him again, tried to see a way out, to get away from this madness. Sweat poured down his brow, matted his hair. He pressed a finger to ear in desperation, hoping he would hear a burst of static or something, but there was only silence on the other end.

"Are you listening, Athrun Zala?" Rau le Creuset's voice had turned steely.

Somewhere, there was a click, the sound of a gun's safety lever being knocked back.

Athrun drew a deep breath. Keep Rau le Creuset talking. So he tossed an insult over, "Yeah, just trying to process what kind of sick bastard you are."

Another amused laugh. Then a strange whisper, the sound of something skittering across the floor. Athrun spun round and fell to the ground, the barrel of his gun sighted on the edge of the appliance they were hunched behind, ready to shoot, or to thrust his leg and kick away whatever it was coming their way. Blood was pounding in his ears, his heart beating so hard it hurt. Then a square of white came gliding across the vinyl floor and slid to halt just inches away. Athrun blinked back the perspiration stinging his eyes and stared.

"Something you'll be interested to look at, Mr. Zala," Rau Le Creuset called out. There was excitement in his voice. "Go ahead and pick it up."

Athrun didn't move. There was no way to reach it without exposing his arm. A trap? Maybe there were guns pointing in his direction, just waiting for him to take the bait…

"Don't worry, Mr. Zala. My boys won't shoot." As if Rau Le Creuset could read his mind. "It's a promise. They listen to me. Obedience is wired into their system. Pick it up, Mr. Zala."

"What game are you playing at?" Athrun demanded.

"Not a game. Just satisfying your curiosity. Giving you the answer to some questions I'm sure you and your friends are very interested to know. Don't worry, go ahead and pick it up."

Athrun glanced at Kira but the brown-haired assassin was still out of it, still staring into space with a shell-shocked expression. Hadn't moved an inch throughout the conversation between Athrun and Rau le Creuset. Didn't seem to notice the white card either. The blonde woman they had saved lay limp on the ground between them. Athrun turned back, stared at the card that was within reach but could have been miles away. He was on his own now. He thought better of complying but some nagging instinct urged him to reach for it. The answer… promised by Rau le Creuset…

He snatched the white card fast, a quick thrust of his arm outwards, close to the ground, less of a target in case Le Creuset changed his mind, or his goons weren't all that obedient. There was no sickening crunch of bullets striking the ground or his flesh. Only the same laugh from Rau Le Creuset that reverberated around the room.

Athrun sank back on his haunches, the white card pressed safely to his chest. A quick glance left at Kira. No change in his demeanour. Heart pounding, Athrun turned the card over and found it was a photograph. A brunette, kind eyes gazing down, not looking at the camera, as if she had been caught unaware. In her arms, she carried two bundles. Two babies. The left was wrapped in a blue blanket, brown hair peeking from the hem while the child on the right was swathed in pink, pale yellow hair visible. Athrun felt a sense of dread. Were these Kira and Cagalli he was looking at? Or some trick up Rau Le Creuset's sleeve? But some part of him just knew. Just knew this was Kira. This was his best friend, the brother he had never had, the boy who had disappeared fifteen years ago. The murderer who had killed the innocent, who had killed his men, who had scarred Yzak, who had kidnapped Lacus. This was the man who now sat frozen beside him, tormented by memories Athrun didn't even dare to imagine.

There was no doubt about it. The girl was Cagalli and the boy was Kira.

Kira Yamato.

Kira Hibiki.

He was the one they were looking for all this time.

But the woman carrying the babies, she wasn't Caridad Yamato. Athrun stared hard at the woman. Didn't recognise her. Didn't remember seeing her in any of the photo albums at the Yamato house either. She wasn't the blue-haired woman who cried every night, longing for Kira's return. Wasn't the mother who baked her son's favourite cookies every year on the day he disappeared. This wasn't Caridad Yamato, so who was she?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kira move. The assassin seemed to be snapping out of it and Athrun realised why. The brunet was gazing sideways at the photo he held in his hand, the look of horror on his face now replaced by an expression of strange curiosity. The photograph had caught Kira's attention, triggered something in him. Slowly, like a skittish colt, he reached out and Athrun let him take the photo from his hand.

"What do you think?" Rau le Creuset asked, his voice loud and triumphant. "Does it interest you?"

"Well, you've got our attention," Athrun replied snidely. "So what the hell is this about?"

A chuckle from Rau le Creuset, then he said, "You always wanted to know where you came from, don't you, Kira? Stellar told me you're starting to remember some things."

Athrun cast a glance at Kira. The assassin had been smoothing his fingers over the photograph repeatedly, but now he looked up, his attention snared by Rau le Creuset's words.

"So I'll tell you what you want to know. I'll tell you the real story."

Author's note: Ta-da! Cliffhanger! I know you guys are soooo going to kill me now, but I have a special surprise planned for the next chapter so… not sure if it'll be a nice surprise, or a nasty surprise. We'll see… , as usual, (and boy, it's been a long time since I wrote this), let me appeal to my dear readers to leave your reviews. The good, the bad, let me have it all!

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get the next chappie up. I'm working on it. Hope it won't take so long again. And once more, thank you to all my readers for reading and as I have promised before, I won't ever give up on this fanfic. I may be taking long to write, but the next chappie will definitely come into existence. Until then, love you all.