A metal-plated hallway was illuminated by a line of blue-surge lights glinting above. Ashihei walks past several doors down the corridor and stops in front of a door with a white outline.

He scratches the back of his hair and takes a deep breath, reaching for the door panel but stops midway, clenching his hand into a fist.

"Such a foolish girl… Why can't she just accept things as they are?" Ashihei whispers while leaning his hand against the door in front of him.

His wide lenses glisten on the silvery surface as he sighs and presses a few buttons on the panel to his left.

"… Hello again, Dr. Yamauchi."

Ashihei looks to his left at Miya, making her way down the hall. He leans up and wipes his face, putting on a soft smile.

"Good to see you up and robust, Miya. You had us all worried for a moment."

Miya tilts her head to the side with a smile. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm a lot better now. Do you think we could talk for a bit?"

Ashihei nods and inputs the last button on the panel, causing the silver door to shoot up into the wall allowing entry.

Once dim, the room lights up upon his entry, but barely enough to see the surroundings giving it a cavern-like atmosphere. The dark-blue walls were covered by papers, documents, and long scribbles of equations, all cramped together. The surrounding floor was also crowded with books, mainly on different sciences, maths, and anthologies. Still, enough to space to make a passage to the hovering black desk at the corner of the room and a small gray futon now acting as a couch.

A white hologram blinks on, creating a globe interface in the middle of the room. Despite being shrouded by books, it gave shape to a revolving replicate of Earth, with half of its body frozen with blue ice.

"Ah, sorry about the clutter…" Ashihei remarks while moving a few piles of books off a blue-quilted bed. "Vivi tried to clean it once, but the task just became exorbitant at some point, haha…"

Ashihei then turns around and sits in a hovering white office chair behind his desk, looking up at the hologram of Earth. Miya plops down on the bed and swings her legs back and forth while looking around. A picture frame of Ashihei on the wall catches her attention.

"Who's that in the picture with you?"

Ashihei looks behind him at his wall of various diplomas, medals, and pictures in straightened lines. He takes the picture down and looks at it with a sigh. The man in the picture had black hair and was about his age, though they were pretty young and wore white lab coats in a medicinal setting.

"An old friend… One that I can never get back due to some of my past mistakes…"

Miya stands up and walks in front of him. "Well, I know him."

Ashihei looks up from the picture with a confused expression. "What do you mean…? He passed several years ago when the Ya'valt first came to Earth."

Miya puts a finger onto her holster, and the metal hold unlocks with a puff of smoke. She then takes her XMS pistol and twists it in her hand. In an instant, the gun turns from a red pistol with sharp edges and an elongated nozzle to an all-black sub-machine gun with no holster and trigger, giving off an orange-neon heat signature.

Miya then sits on the desk in front of Ashihei. His fingers tremble as he reaches for the weapon, but he whips his hand back with a shake of his head.

"N-no… That can't be possible…."

"I should clarify; I know of him from his work. I've read some of his manuscripts on foreign Xeno technology and how he strove for cognitive function to be enveloped into different weaponries. He was very ahead of his time."

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Ashihei places the picture frame flat on his desk, tapping the man standing beside him with a sigh. "Why would you bring him up, exactly?"

Miya smiles with a shrug of her shoulders. "I just thought it was interesting, is all. Your name is on a good number of his papers, I didn't think it to be true, but when I saw that picture, it just had to be you."

"You're not making any sense of the matter. Stop playing around and get to the point, young lady."

Miya giggles and leans over his desk, placing her index finger on the man in the picture while looking Ashihei directly in the eyes.

"Remember when you told me that you humans didn't do anything wrong. That's very untrue and you know it."

Ashihei balls his hands into fists below the desk.

"You were apart of Sirius, a restricted research branch of Stellar Security for your country. The direct line to the Ya'valt and all of their external partners. Does your 'family' know of your prior involvement?"

Ashihei's head tilts down. "… They dont."

"Ah! How generous of you to keep it from them? I mean, I would too if I were in your shoes, right? You and your avarice caused the annihilation of your entire race."

Ashihei jumps from his seat and slams his fists onto the table with a glare. "Don't blame us for the mistake of one man! Dr. Heitmann was an upstanding neuroscientist before the invasion! He was on the verge of something big, when his family got killed! Then he-"

"Then he took something he wasn't suppose too. In your language, what is it? Opening Pandora's Box, hm? You're just thieves who got a taste of foreign advanced technology and tried to wage war with people who're out of your league. Do you sleep soundly knowing you and your constituents caused the eradication of billions, and the enslavement of millions?"

"Enough of this, you don't have any idea-"

Miya grabs the loose red tie on his neck and brings his face down, so they are only a few inches apart. She then stares into his eyes, Ashihei's pupils dilating as he gazes into the dark-red tint hiding behind her brown pupils.

"I can see it, welling inside you. The pain, the deterioration of a man who just wanted to help. You must be paying for your sins, every minute you sleep and every second you're awake."

Ashihei audibly gulps while nodding his head. His eyes widen with drops of water forming at the sides of his eyes.

"I-I didn't know what they were planning… I just wanted to help others, they were the enemy but we got to careless. I should've warned him, I should've been there for him and told him to stop… To stop putting his frustration and anger into his work, then maybe… Maybe he'd still be-"

"But he isn't, and he'll never come back."

Ashihei keeps his mouth open with a distant gaze. He then collapses back into his chair, his eyes staring forward with a look of dejection. He leans onto his desk and rubs his face with his hands.

Miya walks over to his chair and steps behind him, wrapping her hands around his shoulders. She then leans beside his ear, her right eye giving off a faint crimson glow.

"The decisions you made back then have already shaped this future, you're living in the corse of your own ingenuity."

Ashihei slouches his shoulders. "I can't bare to look at my wife or daughter… The other children, without seeing the monster reflected in their eyes. They think they can trust me, but I can't even trust myself… What must I do… What can I do to atone?"

"The truth of the matter is, is that he's still alive." Miya whispers.

Ashihei whips his head up and turns to the side. "W-what? Where…? How…!”

"In the form of uploaded intelligence at the A1 space hub. He was given a position their by the Federation before your planet's invasion." Miya guides her fingers down his arm and rests them on his hand. "If you help me out, I could let you speak with him. Maybe you could get some closure, perhaps settle somethings with one another that no other two people could comprehend."

Ashihei lets out a deep breath and lowers his neck. "What… What do you want from me?"

Miya's lips curl into a smile. She then drags his hand and places it onto her pistol. "I want you to come and work for the Federation."

“W-what…? The Federation…?” Ashihei stammers.

"Despite your background in astrophysics, you have quite the mind for matter manipulation and cognitive spacing. If you agree, we'll be the best of friends, and I'll give you all sorts of gifts."

"… Gifts?" Ashihei repeats.

"Yes, gifts! I'll give you a place to stay and financial courtesies during your transition. You're out of your depth, if you think you can survive the cosmos without having those things. It's not like you can just find a new planet to go to; Without the proper information you might get shot down for intrusion on private property. Or worse, captured by space pirates!"

"I don't… I don't know… I'd have to talk it over with Vivi and-"

"I'll make finding Adalae's missing family and you a new home planet a top priority. You're family will be secure and safe while at A1, and all you'll be doing is tinkering around with my gun to make it better than it is now."

Ashihei searches the table while clenching his hands together. Miya sighs and grabs onto the sides of his arms.

"Don't make the same mistake, and kill your family twice, Dr. Yamauchi."

Ashihei jolts within her grasp. She feels his muscles tighten and starts to massage his shoulder joints, then rolls down to his biceps.

"You could've saved your friend based on a bad decision, right? Well, I'm giving you the right decision to make, the only decision. Come with me, and your suffering will be appeased."