Hiro awoke to the sound of rhythmic beeps from a heart-rate monitor. Then he saw the blinding white lights and the glossy pristine walls that were so clean, there were a reflective sheen to its surface.

The infirmary, Hiro immediately recognized.

Still drowsy from sleep, Hiro brought his hand to his eyes, hoping to rub the weariness away.

Huh?

Hiro paused, his arm frozen in mid-motion as he inspected it. He had arms. Then he looked at the rest of his body and saw that he had been equipped with new Augmentation legs as well. They looked like his old ones, the basic mass produced Augmentation limbs that most soldiers were equipped with. Appearance-wise, they looked similar. Synthetic material that imitated human skin, layered over intricate machinery and fibers. There were thin gaps on the arm--complex labyrinthine lines of circuitry--where the glow of teal-blue could be seen. He flexed his fingers slowly and noticed it immediately. These limbs were different from his old ones. He could already feel it. There was a much more refined and acute sense of maneuverability to his new limbs.

“Code: 7H14093Q8G3H. You have awakened,” the monotone voice startled Hiro due to his proximity.

Hiro turned his head to the side, looking up at the Augmented engineer who was busy tapping away on a hologram display interface. Luminous goggles with a tint of teal obscured his eyes.

“I’ve gotten new limbs,” Hiro remarked offhandedly.

The Augmented engineer turned away from the display and addressed Hiro. “Yes, I see that you have noticed. I am Buford, Aug-Tech specialist. It is nice to meet you sir.”

Hiro reached out tentatively to shake Buford’s already extended hand. “Hiro, nice to meet you too Buford.”

“I see you’ve already acclimated to your new Aug-Limbs. That is very good sir,” although the man spoke with little emotion, he seemed to speak to Hiro in high regard.

“Sir, you have been re-initialized into a new Augmentation tier. Your Neural Firmware has been updated along with your new installments. You’ve been equipped with our latest Advanced-Grade Augmentation Limbs. They’re far stronger and durable than your previous ones and at the same time, retaining even greater sensitivity and precision. Their performance, I assure you sir, will be supreme,” Buford declared with confidence.

Hiro nodded absentmindedly, still dreary from the sedation.

“Additionally, each limb has an Augmentation Capacity of two. Sir, you can select which auxiliary enhancements you desire later on, but for now you’ve been equipped with the default enhancements which are…” Buford’s technical explanations trailed off as he began listing a multitude of enhancements and functions.

“Oh Hiro!” a familiar voiced intoned nearby. “You’re awake!”

Hiro turned his head slowly to the other side and saw Sarah standing several beds away, tending to one of the many patients in the room.

“Don’t move around too much, you’re still plugged in,” Buford warned quickly as Sarah began making her way to Hiro’s bed.

Hiro looked around him and saw the multitude of thin cables plugged into his body. Then he saw the dozens of Augmented soldiers in deep slumber around him. Their faces, so serene and tranquil, it seemed bizarre. It was almost as if they were dead, Hiro thought.

“How are you doing?” Sarah asked from the end of his bed.

Hiro shrugged instinctively, unsure of what to say. His mind felt sluggish and it felt wierd to suddenly have limbs again.

Buford stepped away from Hiro’s bed, giving the two some privacy.

“You have new Aug-Limbs now! You look much better now,” Sarah smiled. “Apparently you’ve been promoted. Congratulations Hiro!”

Hiro was speechless. He didn’t know if he should feel happy or not. He was confused, his mind a jumbled mess of memories and the languid haze enveloping his mind didn't help. The sedation must not have worn off yet, but slowly his memories became clear.

It wasn’t long ago, that he was treated like a newbie, then an expendable unit sent unwillingly to the frontlines, only to find himself plummeting to his death in his first deployment. His encounter with the dark winged Altered which had torn him apart, came back to him like a nightmare, inducing a bone chilling shudder.

“I-I should be dead…” Hiro mumbled to himself, barely audible.

Ho-how did I survive? Hiro buried his face in his hands as he struggled to sift through the bog of hazy memories in his head.

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Sarah took it as Hiro being overwhelmed by the good news and the the feeling of his new limbs.

“You’re a Second-Tier Augmentation soldier now, an Officer and only one rank below that of a Captain! That’s amazing!” Sarah clapped excitedly as Hiro lifted his face from his hands and proceeded to stare at his hands with a blank expression.

“What was that?” Sarah asked, still smiling.

Then he remembered. It all came back to him in a epiphanic rush. He was saved by an angel. No, Hiro corrected, an Altered. And her name… It was Euna.

And he had turned on her. All she wanted was to save her people. To end the war, but that… that was foolish. Naive. Hiro had called her that and he had even given her a chance to escape. But she had refused in her own folly. She had doomed herself. It wasn’t on Hiro, but why… why did he feel like he had made a mistake? Like he had done something so terribly wrong?

Hiro hung his head, overcome with emotion.

“Are you okay? Is it the limbs? Does something feel off with your neural circuitry?” Sarah asked.

Hiro shook his head. “Just… Just give me a moment Sarah.”

Hiro sighed as Sarah turned away quietly.

There was something that his grandfather--also named Hiro--had always told him, when Hiro was a child. That a hero should never feel remorse, that even a seed of doubt is a sign of a path tread wrong. Hiro remembered his grandfather’s words like a mantra.

Do what you believe is right, Hiro, not what you know is right.

Suddenly Hiro’s heart began pounding against his rib cage as he remembered the gruesome sight of Euna eviscerating one of the soldier’s throat. That could have been him. Euna could have killed Hiro easily at any moment she wanted, but instead she had saved him, and even brought him back to an Augmented Carrier. Then he remembered the bone pulverizing punch that Euna had taken from Captain Armstrung. It was a deadly attackt that Hiro knew would have killed him instantly, even with his reinforced bones. It had sent her flying limply across the hangar, and at that moment, Hiro had thought Euna had died. But she had stood up, fully recovered. Almost as if, she had never been injured in the first place. Then he remembered the breath-taking fight that ensued afterwards between Euna and Captain Armstrung. It was on a level that Hiro knew he could never reach.

It was then that Hiro had blacked out, faceplanting the hard floor with a thud.

Euna… What happened to her?

“How long have I been out?” Hiro called out to Sarah who was several paces away.

Sarah held her wrist up, as hues of blue and green were emitted from a slot, then a hologram display materialized. “Approximately, a hundred-and-seventeen minutes,” she read aloud.

Hiro began yanking cables and tubes out of his body.

“W-wait Sir!” Buford called out from a couple beds away, “You still need minor adjustments for your new limbs and some preliminary and neural compatibility-stress tests!”

Hiro ignored Buford, ripping out another fluid filled cable out of his shoulder. Then he looked up at Sarah, and what she saw startled her.

“Where is Euna?”

----------------------------------------

Silence.

A deathly silence claims this world of white and black.

A breeze. An errant wind, whispering softly, beckoning me. I can hear it. ‘A way,’ it echoes into my mind, over and over again. A distant and foreign voice, and yet I found it familiar.

I don’t understand, but I step forward anyway. I step forward in a world of ashes and ruins. A world shrouded in perpetual darkness.

There are dense black clouds, blanketing the skies, for as far as I can see. A barren desert of bone colored ashes stretching endlessly into a horizon of black.

Where am I? I wonder.

A foolish question. There is nothing here, I realize. Yes, nothing of significance here. Even my presence here is but a fleeting mote of life, a ephemeral moment, waiting to be extinguished by the passage of time.

This is a world devoid of life, except for my singular existence disturbing this unchanging world.

'Beautiful'.

A feeling of awe dwells within me. Strangely, I found myself agreeing with the voice. Yes, this is beautiful indeed.

Perhaps this is the kind of world that should be. A world where there is no conflict, no pain, no suffering. A world where there is only the tranquil silence of peace.

Who am I? I wonder, but that question is quickly put aside by an unbearable pain. A physical pain, that shouldn’t exist in this world.

My naked body is coated in crimson, and yet there are no visible injuries.

‘Cast your body aside,’ the voice urges, but I don’t know how.

The pain continues. Killing me, but at the same time giving me an acute sense of my body.

I am alive, I realize. Alive.

With each step I make, I feel my body being torn apart. My innards being prodded and sliced, repeatedly, senselessly.

But still, I walk, each step more painful than the last. I scream, but nothing is heard in this silent world of ashes. Angered, I break into a run.

There is something that is calling me... Something that defies the logic of this world.

I can feel my organs spilling out as I run.

Then I see from the ledge of a falling slope, at the epicenter of a massive crater, a mountain covered in ashes. Then I feel tremors. The ground - no the mountain was moving, shifting the landscape itself. Ashes fall, then I see the intricate layered scales and the familiar weave of stone-like carapace. Decayed and rusted, a gigantuan caricature of indistinct and bizarre forms. It could have been humanoid, the resemblance was there, but it could have been just my imagination. There were a multitude of jutting precipices that extended from the body like varying shapes of limbs or wings.

A monster. That was what it was.

Suddenly, rocks and ashes shift, a lid opens revealing a massive crimson orb, the size of a moon. It stares at me, unblinking,

A deep moan, or a howl, almost as if the earth is crying.

My name, I realize. It is calling my name.

Euna.

That was my name. How could I forget? A sudden and terrible pain ravages my mind, a storm of cold steel sundering my skull apart.

I grit my teeth as I fall onto my knees, cradling my tender brain.

Finally, I remember everything. That I… I was an Altered, only seventeen-years-old and... dead?

‘No,’ the voice answers.

An obscured figure materializes suddenly and looms over me like a shadow.

“Ascended,” the figure of the Voice corrects me.

‘Who are you?’ I try to ask but realize that it was impossible without a tongue, or was it my throat that I was missing? I couldn’t tell.

The figure seems to take a moment to itself, before extending an obscured and tenebrous hand towards me.

“Let me show you.”