Ga’zeith stood upon the edge of the battlefield, as he always did. One might say that the battlefield was his home. For he never rested if there were still enemies to kill.

He looked down upon himself. His black leather armour and cloak covered in blood and mud. His mask, which had become his symbol, was damaged. When was the last time he took it off? He didn't know. Aeons had gone by since then.

He remembered the time when he had begun his fight as if it had been yesterday. He remembered the horror. The dread. The guilt of killing people who just did their job. He remembered fighting his way through an army to Kaede, who had been left behind in their desperate attempts to prevent a full blown war.

He had torn his way through the enemy like a tornado of steel and blood. Kaede Tamika... She was long since dead. Lost to time. He remembered the look on her face when he came to her. When he finally got her out of the horrors she had been left in. It wasn't a look of happiness, joy, or contempt. It was of utter disbelief and horror. She could not understand how he could kill people that easily.

"How? How can you take lives without any remorse?", she had asked him as he took her away. He had stopped. There had been a long moment of silence. "You got it backwards, Kid. It's not that I don't have any guilt, but that I long to survive. Every time I kill someone, every time I deliver someone to Altis... It breaks me. More and more. But I need to move on. If I start questioning my decisions I'll get dead very fast. Why do you think I wear this mask? It’s so that my enemies never have to see my face, never have to witness death personally…"

That had been his explanation. It had always felt superficial, almost like an excuse. And maybe it was. He had long since thought about the exchange a great many times, and even to this day he had no good answer. And he hated himself for it. It felt like running away.

Ever since that day Kaede has looked at him with different eyes. She had lost her happy attitude. Her energy. Her will to be the sunshine in his life. She had become a very serious and grounded person, more hell bent than ever to help the people. Such an innocent girl. It broke his heart when he first saw her kill someone. The kill had been out of self defence, a necessity, but she had never been the same afterwards. It had shattered him in more ways than any other thing could ever do.

He had always been so careful to keep her away from all this death. Kaede had never been the same since the incident. More than once he had needed to stop her from crying. More than once he had needed to stop her from hurting herself. Those wounds had never healed.

He had always hoped that maybe someday, once she got away from him, she would find the time to deal with her latent issues. That someday she might find her sunshine back, that she could bring hope to those who truly needed it, if only she could leave his life once and for all. But it was not to be. No, it had come so far worse than anything he had ever expected.

He remembered the day he had come home and found her body. She had ate her gun. The weapon she hated so much. The weapon she only owned because of him. The weapon that much more than anything was anathema to her, so against her being that even seeing her having it hurt him more than anything in the world.

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He knew that he was the reason she had to carry it. He was the one that brought danger into her life. He was the one that they wanted. Yet she was the one to pay the price.

There was no letter. No note. Not even a final message. Nothing. Ga’zeith de Thal, the warrior who stood against the world, the first nightmare to be spread, the god who had been elected to deal with all the troubles the cosmos had to offer... Had broken down. He had wept for the first time in millenia. There were no excuses for what had happened. He had felt the makers displeasure with him. It was like an anvil on his head, crushing all his attempts to explain himself. He was the one that had ultimately killed her and it would be his sin to carry for the remainder of existence, onwards ‘til the end of time.

Kaede Tamika. She had been a good hearted girl, someone who was struck by the good of people and wanted to spread it, a role model for all those who wanted to make the cosmos a better place. She had never once complained about her lot in life, a slave girl when he met her, yet she had still been the one to comfort him after he freed her. She had asked him for forgiveness in the criminals stead, had asked for a second chance as she felt that everyone deserved it. She had been the one that had made sure that Earth had become a better place. She had been the one to leave behind a legacy that no god could ever rival.

She had been nothing more but a mere mortal, a nobody, a slave girl with nothing but her honest will to her name. It was for her goals that he fought. Every day. Every god damn day he would go out there to keep the void at bay. He shuttered thinking about it. Thinking about the fact that he had let her down. That he had been her downfall. It hurt in ways he had no words to explain.

But no matter how often he thought about all this. No matter how many times the guilt threatened to overwhelm him, he found resolve in his daughter Schatten. Schatten and Kaede had been quick friends, both girls being so energetic and upbeat. However, Schatten came after her father. She would not be pleased without a blade in her hand.

Schatten was one of his best. Right up until that... Thing... appeared to bring doom to an entire realm. Ga’zeith de Thal did not fear many things. He really didn't. But whatever it was that summoned oblivion onto earth... Was it worth it to continue fighting, knowing that something like this would be out there? Knowing he couldn't protect anyone in front of that unholy creation?

Ga’zeith stood upon the edge of the battlefield, as he always did. Not for the first time since the creation of time did he seriously doubt himself. Himself and the ability to put an end to all this. But for the first time since the creation of time did he contemplate ending it all. The endless struggle, the unfairness of it all.

If the maker ever granted him one wish... He would ask to see Kaede and Schatten one last time. To witness their energy and endless enthusiasm for reality just for one final time.

Taking off his mask he looked at it. Nobody had seen his face since there had been people to record it all.

He didn't care. He didn't care what people would see, say, or think. The mask was old. Very old. It had quite a lot of dings in it. "Perhaps...", he said quietly, "Perhaps it’s time for Dotexe to make me a new one."

Ga’zeith stood upon the edge of the battlefield, as he always did. The mask lay beside him. A relic of time’s long past. Looking at it, he was struck by how long he had been doing this job, by how long he had been the protector of reality. With a swift movement of his hands his twelve blades detached from his belts. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to finally hand that mantle onto someone else. Someone much younger and much more skilled.

Ga’zeith stood upon the edge of the battlefield, as he always did. And for the first time since the creation of all things, did he allow himself to breathe.