It was hours before they were done grilling me, well after dark, and I think they would have been content to keep going for another few weeks, probably, but for Cosette and Tem showing up and waving laws and handbooks in their faces, Cosette screaming about appropriate conduct and daring them to charge me with something, and Tem just echoing her, screaming in general.

Even then it took a while before I was let out of the sterile interrogation room where the two of them flanked me like if I were left alone, I'd be snatched out of the hallway and thrown back in another room, both of them growling at the guard on duty like it was his choice keeping me locked in there.

"--nerve of these assholes, when everything you said was recorded, and everything you did was plain as day through the window! Dozens of eyewitnesses, including the generals ordering this interrogation...and do they interrogate them? Oh no, we don't need eyewitness accounts, we want to debrief the one who went in. Debriefing isn't supposed to be punitive! These goddamn buzzards!"

"Goddamn buzzards!" Tem echoed.

"And then tell me I've overstepping my bounds? I can read the fucking manual, thank you very much. Being my superior in rank does not give you the right to run my squad. Weeks of this bullshit, I've put up with. Weeks!"

"Weeks!"

"And you!" Cosette said, turning on me in the middle of the hall. I swallowed hard. I sort of knew it was only a matter of time before I put myself in her crosshairs while this whole sequence of events was wearing her down to a hair trigger. "You...you did fine," she sighed more than said. "I hope those goddamn self-preening fuckers had their ears open when you commended me. Probably too busy jerking off on their medals. You could stand to compliment me to my face too, you know!"

"To her face!"

"That's enough Tem," I sighed. "Sorry. I know...you're really caught up in this mess, and it's all my fault."

"You bet it is."

"And I really am sorry. And I do think you're amazing...I'd have...killed someone by now, if I were in your shoes."

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm in this dogshit, because you seem to think that killing people is the only way to fix things up. All the world's problems are just a few knocked heads away from disappearing. Sometimes, Chariot, killing people fucks everything up. You realize that?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes killing people makes more work for your superior. Makes the fucking brass breathe down her neck. Puts her under such scrutiny, she's got to dress to code every day. Do you see this? Do you see this?" she asked, pointing at her entirely zipped-up zipper.

"Yes," I nodded along. It was a zipper, come on.

"I don't think you do, Chariot. This is my life now. I thought I'd be cool and relaxed and let you guys get shit done at your own pace, but now look at me. So fucking wound up I'm not even allowed to dress myself. All this uniform is missing is a place for them to clip the goddamn leash. Do you get me?"

"I said I'm sorry."

She seemed about ready to yell at me again but stopped, and instead let out a deep breath through her nose very slowly.

"It's fine. It's them, not us. They're the fuckwits. I said you're doing fine and I meant it. I'm actually glad you went in there, saved me more fucking hours of listening to three generals and all their fucking aides sitting inside central like they'd ever set a damn foot in there before. In my control room! And then they think they have the fucking right--"

I kept us walking through the halls, the odd stationed guard looking at her with mild alarm as she screamed her way past, yelling about the generals and brass and their inferior genital size all the way until we got outside.

It was still warm even after dark, but I knew from growing up in LA that the desert nights could get cold fast. It'd just slap you in the face with a shiver out of nowhere, and next thing you knew, you'd be wishing you had a sweatshirt. The emergence from the XPCA facility seemed to bring Cosette back down to earth, at least enough for her to stop her ranting.

"I should go. I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on," she said apologetically after a minute.

"Do you need help or anything?"

"No, I'll be fine. You just...keep doing you. Keep your nose clean...or if you're gonna dirty it, run it by me first. You're a good kid, Chariot."

"You're a good boss, Cosette."

"Hah! I'm the worst. Yelling out my frustrations on my subordinates. I know I said to compliment me to my face more but that's not what I meant by dirtying your nose. I'll see you next op, it won't be long."

"See you then," I said.

"S-s-see you, then!" Tem echoed, and with a lazy wave, Cosette disappeared back inside. She really only had come out here to save me from being interrogated, I guess. Even with all the shit she was dealing with, even with much of it...most of it even, my fault...she was still looking out for me.

I sighed and turned back around. I'd wanted to get back out to Vegas tonight and catch up with how AEGIS was doing, but it was already starting to get late and I had no transit scheduled. I could find a taxi or something, but that was an awful lot of money to drive that far, and I'd just nuked my savings on chartering the flight to get AEGIS. Probably best just to bed down in the barracks here if there was space and try to arrange a transport tomorrow, if anything was headed out that way.

I'd just turned towards the barracks when I saw a lone figure sitting on a rock in the spartan rock garden near the front door, almost masked in shadow. A woman with a shaved head. She looked profoundly alone and from what I could see of them from the sliver of light on her profile, both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sad.

"Hello? Are you okay?" I asked her, approaching slowly. It wasn't until I was within a few feet that I recognized her. It was Karu, in plain street clothes, her athletic body drowning in a baggy tee and pants, her green eyes downcast onto the gravel which filled the plaza, and her head shaved neatly, her familiar mane of hair replaced with a short layer of blonde bristles.

"Hello Ashton," she said as though the words were hard to bear.

"Karu? Have...you been waiting here this whole time? It's been hours."

"Has it? It is hard to tell sometimes."

"Well...the sun went down. Come on, you're butt's gotta be totally asleep. Let's walk some."

She didn't respond but stood up and fell in slightly behind me like a larger more visible version of Tem. I felt kind of weird having both of them trailing me, but no matter how I slowed or maneuvered, she didn't seem interested in being side-by-side.

"I uh, like your hair," I said.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It is...normal," she replied.

"I mean, not normal for you. It's new for you. It looks good on you."

"Does it? I did it because it was practical. I do not think I care how it looks."

"Karu, can you tell me what's wrong?"

I stopped and she bumped into me before falling back a few steps. She stood there, idly rubbing her wrist through her baggy sleeves, slouching, not even facing me. Her green eyes seemed dim and unfocused. It wasn't Karu at all.

"I am thinking...of quitting," she said.

"Quitting what?"

"Hunting."

"Why would you do that?"

"I do not know. I do not know why...why I am a hunter anymore, to be honest."

"You told me it was to protect people. To make sure people didn't have to suffer the way you had. To find evil and destroy it in holy purifying light and be the chosen of God all that."

"Did I?" she snorted. "My, that sounds arrogant."

"I mean...yeah, it does but...you were those things. It's not arrogance if you actually do it, right? Then it's confidence."

As I said it, I realized that was what had gone out of her, that was the spark that no longer flickered in her eyes. There was no confidence in this woman, a woman I'd always known defined by such. It was such a pillar of who she was that...well, I looked at her and saw her completely transformed.

I mean, the baggy clothes weren't helping but still.

"Mmh. I wonder," she said wistfully like her voice was drifting to me from somewhere very far and very lost.

"Karu...what happened to you? Why are you being like this? I'm sure it's my fault, but...is it because I chose AEGIS in New Eden? Are you...heartbroken? Is that why you've been avoiding me?"

"Were I avoiding you, would I have waited these hours for you now?"

"I don't know. After you broke up with me, I felt like I never wanted to see you again because it would hurt too much...but every time I saw someone in the corner of my eye or got a message on my mobile, I hoped it was you anyway. It's a complicated thing."

"Well, rest yourself assured that lovesickness is not what troubles me. My issues run far deeper than such a foolish, selfish notion as that."

"Then what the heck are they, Karu?"

She glanced at me for a moment with those dead eyes before fixing on a spot at my feet. "I am not so easy to mend that a few teary words and a heartfelt confession would fix me, Ashton. I did not wait here for you so that I could have you put me back together."

"You don't know that unless--"

"I came to say goodbye, Ashton. I cannot do this any longer."

"Do what? Hunting?"

"Any of this. This lifestyle. The madness of the XPCA. The world and these lives upon our shoulders. You."

I knelt on the jagged gravel underfoot and tried to force my face into her line of sight but she just turned further away. "What are you saying, Karu?"

"I am saying...I am not who I thought I was. I never was. And I was foolish to ever think I might be. To protect people. To change the world. To be righteous. What a cruel jest."

"But you have protected people, you have changed the world, and you're one of the most righteous people I know!"

"You don't know me!" she suddenly screamed, her fist slashing through the air as she rose to her feet. "You don't know me," she whispered, suddenly again, very far away.

"Then tell me who you are! Let me help you!" I moved towards her, held her hands, tried to get her to look at me, but the dead eyes stayed fixed on the ground. "Karu, please. Let me help you. I just want...you're one of my best friends, and this flies in the face of everything I've ever known you to be. I just want you to go back to being yourself again."

"This is myself, Ashton, I was just too arrogant and stupid to see it."

"You're wrong. You're not this. This is just...a funk or something. You're a hunter! How long do you think this will work, Karu? How long can you lie to yourself like this? What happens when you see people getting hurt that you could have protected?"

"People are hurt every day, Ashton."

"And you're just going to give up? Give up your wings? And do what? Get a job stocking shelves? Or selling donuts? You can't do that, you'd go insane. You started doing all of this because you couldn't just sit by and do nothing, and now you're saying that's all you can do? That's bullshit!"

"I will remain here for the time being until I...figure something out. There are many paths for those who accomplish nothing with their lives, I will...find one."

"You already have one, Karu, you're helping people already."

"No, Ashton, I am not. Stop yelling at me. You can't just say the right words and fix me, okay? I am not, and have never been...you, okay? Just...just be silent and leave me alone!"

As she lashed out at me again, tears spilled from the corners of her eyes down her reddened face. She turned away, I thought to hide them from me, but after a moment, she bolted, wailing like a little girl as she ran alone into the night.

Except she wasn't alone. I wouldn't let Karu disappear from my life like this...a pathetic goodbye and screaming at me and crying, and then vanishing forever into a beige life of impotence? It wasn't her, and I'd be damned if I left her believing it was.

I ran after her, and while she might have been faster than me normally, her choking sobs and the trail of tears she fed to the still-hot cement held her back, and I refused to let her go. Down endless sidewalks she ran, sneakers slapping on the pavement as she screamed for me to go away and leave her alone as the lights of the town flew past us in the night.

But I didn't go away, I didn't leave her alone. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs were heavy and still I ran. She was my friend and she was in pain. I would never stop running after her.

I was almost on her, blocks and miles later, with nothing but unfamiliar buildings watching us, and she turned and saw me there, her teeth clenched, her eyes wide and red and puffy. She started to yell at me again, but missed half a stride and I could only watch as she started, stumbled, and rolled to a painful stop on the sidewalk.

I tripped over her, kicking her in the process of trying to get over and fell myself, and fell to the ground near her, losing some skin on both palms and swearing as I held my bloody hands to my pained shin and the elbow I'd slammed on the pavement.

We laid there, both panting and gasping and moaning over our injuries for a few minutes. She was the first to rise, and I sat up at once, afraid she was going to get away again.

But she just walked over to me and crouched next to me, bleeding through a new tear in her pants at the knee as she held her shoulder.

"I cannot escape you, can I?" she whispered between heaving breaths.

In response, I just tilted my chin up and pointed a finger towards the collar of my uniform. There, just visible was the choker she gave me, around my neck every day since the day she gave it to me.

She sat down next to me and just breathed, holding her wounds. Waiting for whatever came next.

"I am a bad person, Ashton."

"If you want to quit everything...me especially, I understand," I said.

There was a self-storage lot across the street with a sign once bright and framed with colorful lights. Half of them had gone out now, the sign had faded in the sun from what looked like many, many years, and I wondered how many of those units were used? How many relics from lives long abandoned were people holding onto in there, and why did they keep them...why could they not let go?

"But not like this, and not now. You told me once when I was...at risk of checking out...that it wasn't permitted. That we still had a duel, and I wasn't going anywhere until we'd had it."

I looked at her and remembered our fights back in the old days. It seemed so long ago when she'd just show up and randomly ruin my day. I almost starved once or twice because she'd wasted a day I could have spent fishing or foraging. It was enough to make me grin, and I shot her my best one, given the circumstances.

"So the same applies to you. No leaving until we've had our final duel, at least. Got it?"

I'd thought that might put some fire back in her eyes. Even if...even if we were going to part, if whatever was in Karu now was overwhelming her and she couldn't take this lifestyle anymore, we could end it the way she would have wanted it. Simple. Brutal. No holds barred, just two old friends trying with all of their might to kill each other.

If she was mad at me about AEGIS, she could take it out on me. If she was frustrated or scared, here was her chance for a slice of normalcy. If she felt like her life was falling out of her hands, it was a situation where she was the master.

She rose to her feet, leaned forward and pulled me up to stand beside her, finally looking me in the eye again.

"The duel is off. I absolve you of your commitment," she said. She turned to go.

"Karu, I'm not going to let you go like that," I called to her.

"I understand. I will make no effort to escape. Feel free to waste as much time as you desire attempting to fix me until you are completely satisfied." She turned to go, her baggy clothes concealing her back. "But you will fail. I am irredeemable."

She walked off back the way we came, holding her shoulder and with a slight limp and I didn't know what to do but watch her go. It wasn't more than a couple of blocks before she was amidst a group of other people, and for the first time since I'd met her, I could no longer pick Karu out from the crowd.