Kashi and Lunette stared at each other, shock and confusion in their eyes. Kashi recovered first, panic in his eyes as he asked, "You know my father!? Why did you call him Rai-Sensei?"

"Father?" Lunette muttered in disbelief. "Rai-Sensei is your father? How can that be?" Her eyes widened as realization struck. "Wait... then, it can't be; you're Su?"

Boom!

Kashi stumbled backward like a thunderbolt had struck him. Memories of a bespectacled man with a charming smile flooded his brain. He could feel the man's warm hands as he patted Suzuki's head. He heard his pride-filled voice.

"Don't cry, Su. A man's tears are sacred." "That's my boy." "Hey, Su, what do you think about skydiving?" "Hehe... only my boy Su can beat me at this game."

Kashi grimaced as he recalled Suzuki's father's favorite phrase. The phrase Suzuki had heard ad-nauseum, to the point he could recite it from memory.

"Very soon, Su... I'll be finished with this project soon, and we'll have all the time in the world to ourselves."

Kashi recalled how much Suzuki hated that project. It was always that damned project with his father. It was that project that pulled him away from his family, resulting in Suzuki's mom suffering a mental breakdown. However, instead of helping her, he left Suzuki to endure the mess, always claiming that the project would fix everything.

Everything came back to that project. If Suzuki's father had not spent so much time on it, he might not have been so exhausted while driving to the tournament finals. If he had not been exhausted, he might have been more alert and reacted quicker when dodging that deer. They might not have crashed.

That would not have happened. Suzuki would not have been forced to make the biggest mistake of his life.

Everything came back to that damned project.

'Ugh,' Kashi winced as he clutched his chest. A searing heat had begun to rise as Suzuki's rising rage began to spill over.

"Kashi?" Lunette asked in a worried tone as she rushed over to him. "Are you—"

"Stay Back!" screamed Kashi as he glared at the songstress with a hate-filled, loathful gaze.

"Sis, stand back," Shadow warned as he grabbed Lunette and pulled her behind him. The assassin's eyes wavered as he stood between his sister and the man he admired most in all worlds. "Kashi... are you alright?"

Kashi let out a sarcastic laugh as he said, "I wonder... Would you be if you were me?"

Shadow's gaze fell. "I... Rai-sensei is important to us. He gave us life. We did not know he is your father."

"Was..." corrected Lunette, her eyes wet with grief and pain. "Was, Shadow. Kashi's father already passed away."

"Rai-Sensei is dead?" Shadow murmured in a hollow voice. With an empty gaze, he said, "So, the reason we were in standby for so long..."

Lunette solemnly nodded as she confirmed, "Yes... he must have passed away."

Thud!

Shadow collapsed to his knees, immense sorrow and guilt reflected in his eyes as he stared at his hands. "All those things I said... The years I cursed him... What have I been doing?"

"I'm sorry, Shadow." Lunette cried as she knelt and hugged her brother from behind. "I'm so sorry."

Kashi watched the crying siblings with increasing hatred and hostility. By this point, it was impossible to tell where Suzuki's anger began, and Kashi's ended. It took all he had to prevent himself from attacking.

"It must be nice, being able to mourn him. You all must have been close." Kashi, or was it, Suzuki, mocked with a sarcastic smile. "I barely knew my father. I can't even feel grief... All I have of him is this anger that won't go away."

"Anger?" Vanzuela interrupted with a pleased chuckle. "It's too early to feel angry. Wait till you hear the whole story."

Kashi gritted his teeth and glared at the hovering Adjudicator. He so badly wanted to tear that smug look off Vanzuela's face. But at the same time, he wanted to know more about Suzuki's father. Even just a little...

Vanzuela grinned upon noticing Kashi's pained expression. He now knew he had the daeben hooked for sure. All that was left to do was reel him in. "Kashi... or rather, Suzuki Mato. Do you know the story of your birth?" Kashi's gaze hardened, but Vanzuela only clapped his hands and then continued unperturbed, "I read your father's company files, as well as the report on his history. It turns out, your mother was the daughter of some rich conglomerate, while your father was a high-school genius. The love-birds fell in love in high school and made plans for their future. Your mother planned to be a model while your father wanted to use science to change the world."

Vanzuela laughed as he stated, "They had their entire lives planned ahead of them... until you came and destroyed everything." The adjudicator clapped his hands, eyes wide as he praised, "You're a real miracle baby, you know that? Your mother religiously took birth control pills, and your father, Mr. Perfection-I-need-a-plan, always used protection to ensure no accidents occurred that could derail his life... But somehow, you tenaciously survived and got your poor mother pregnant."

"Your mother refused to get an abortion. Because of this, she was disowned and excommunicated by her family." Vanzuela sighed and shook his head. "Imagine that. Falling from a rich ojou-sama with the ability to spend hundreds of thousands of Yen in a day, to a nobody who needs to budget a few hundred yen each day. Imagine the toll it takes on a young high school girl." The Adjudicator revealed a mocking grin as he then said, "Then Ryumaki, that insufferable paragon of responsibility married your mother. He lost his scholarship, and since he did not have anyone to rely on, he quit school to take care of both you and your mom."

Vanzuela chuckled as he recalled the story within Ryumaki's personnel files. The scientist had taken multiple therapy sessions within the company. The records were supposed to be classified, but it was quite easy for Justin to convince the therapist to unseal the files—mainly since they belonged to a dead man.

"Ryumaki didn't have any qualifications, so he had to take any random coding job he could get his hands on," revealed Vanzuela. "Sometimes, he would do several weeks worth of coding for a day's worth of pay. But this meant poor Ruri-chan had to go several days without seeing her husband." The adjudicator shrugged. "Now, I guess somewhere in that messed up brain of hers, Ruri-chan probably recognized why Ryumaki had to work that hard. But that's the thing with the mentally ill..." Vanzuela laughed as he tapped his head. "Logic doesn't apply, does it?"

"Shut up," Kashi warned, glaring at Vanzuela with open hostility. "Do not talk about my mother."

"Or what? Su-kun?" Vanzuela teased as he opened his arms wide. "Attack me if you dare. Give me the justification I need. Or are you a coward, like your pathetic, insane mother."

Snap!

The last thread of reason within Kashi suddenly snapped. A diabolical aura filled with death and destruction burst out of the daeben as he muttered... "As you wish."

BOOM!

Before Kashi could move, rocks suddenly burst out of the ground and swallowed him up to his head. The daeben snarled as he smashed out of the stones, but Shoko suddenly appeared in front of him. In his rage, Kashi didn't hold back and punched out with his full might.

Shokō's brows narrowed, and she did not dare take this lightly. Summoning, all her strength, she slashed at Kashi's fist.

BOOM!

The resulting explosion sent everyone flying. Kashi stood in place while Shokō slid several meters backward. She pinned her blade into the ground to stop her momentum, and then looked up at the daeben in shock and horror. This monster. Just how strong was he?a swordsman's base strength doubled at the very least when swinging a sword. Kashi had met that force with his bare fist. He was not even dragonified yet.

Luckily, despite losing the bout, Shokō's mission could be considered complete, as it bought enough time for the Maggots to surround Kashi and hold him down.

Kashi glared at Absalon, Syèl, Jade, Miote, and Leila, still unable to think through his rage. "Let me go."

"Sorry, man," Syèl replied with a half-smile. "No can do. I've been where you are right now. You do not want to make decisions based on anger. You'll regret it."

Kashi looked at Syèl and spat, "I do not know how to feel regret."

"Lucky you," cheered Syèl, but then added in a grave tone. "Don't learn." Those words seemed to calm Kashi down finally. Syèl thus took the opportunity to speak to the Adjudicator. "Oi! Chicken Deluxe! Is there a point to all this? Or are you just tearing up old wounds cause you're a sore loser?"

Vanzuela's brows twitched, but he managed to restrain himself, feeling secure in the knowledge he had. "Well, of course, there's a point. I want Suzuki here to know the truth about the kind of man his father was. That's all."

"Well, are you done!?"

"Not quite," replied Vanzuela. "This is the main point. Ryumaki, the naïve bastard, thought that if he became a millionaire, he could give his wife the life she deserved. So, while doing his odd jobs, he began working on a brand new project. One which would change the landscape of the world as we know it..." Glancing at Lunette and Shadow, he said, "Truly conscious, living, A.I. As long as he completed that project, forget being a millionaire, he could become as big as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Jedidiah Kaguya Minako."

Leila glanced at the silent Shadow and Lunette "...He succeeded, right? How come we haven't heard of him?"

Vanzuela burst out laughing as he answered, "Because Ryumaki was a naïve idiot. Bigshots at Genaco somehow found out about his little project and agreed to finance his research. He was showered with more money than 95% of the current workforce and given his department and resources to play with as he pleased. I don't know if the money got to his head, but he signed an agreement to keep his name out of the list of researchers."

"Impossible." Shokō harshly refuted. "Genaco would never rip off a worker like that."

"It wasn't a ripoff," Vanzuela corrected. "He still got paid a head researcher's salary and would have been given the appropriate shares when the A.Is hit the public market. He didn't want the fame. He claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his days with his 'real' family."

Kashi's eyes twitched. "'Real' Family? What does that mean?"

Vanzuela's eyes shone with a cruel light. It was clear that this piece of information was what he had been building up to this entire time. Pointing at Lunette and Shadow, he said, "All this time you've been hanging out with them. Have you never felt any similarity from those two?"

"...What?" Kashi's voice choked in his throat, unwilling to accept the truth being laid out before him. But then, he recalled the first time he heard Lunette's voice in Kerta. The song she'd sang then, and then later to him; Sleepsong. His mother's favorite song. Was it a coincidence that they both knew that song?

"No..." Leila covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Since she had known him, she had never seen Suzuki, Razznik, or Kashi look so lost. So fragile like he would crumble at the slightest touch.

"Haha! There! That's it! That's the expression I want to see!" Vanzuela burst out in animated laughter, thoroughly enjoying the pain and disbelief in Kashi's eyes. "That's the truth, child. Your father, to cure his loneliness while at work, modeled the first A.Is after you and your mother. You were replaced by an A.I child! Hahaha... how useless can you be!? Ryumaki had to go as far as telling the A.Is his name was Rai, so he did not forget his real family."

Vanzuela's gaze narrowed as he taunted, "Want to know a funny truth? The first case of Parallel was one Mato Ryumaki who spent so much time in the virtual world with A.Is; he began to forget which world was real. He had two families, two realities that existed, but he felt should never meet... Parallel. Don't you think your father was quite poetic in naming his disease?"

"He... he replaced us... Mother... He replaced her," Kashi said... no Suzuki said... no Kashi said... No, Suzuki... KashiSuzukiKashiSuzukiKASBLIdyhfoqva—

Leila's heart leaped into her throat as he saw Kashi's eyes begin to lose focus. "Kashi! Kashi!" She grabbed the daeben's shoulders and smacked him hard across the face, but it did not elicit a response.

Noticing her panic, Absalon asked, "What's wrong with him?"

"No time to explain!" Leila shouted as she frantically searched around for something. "We'll lose him at this rate! Kashi! Wake up!" Suddenly, she spotted Lunette and happily whispered, "Anchor." Her eyes widened as she then screamed, "Lunette! Lune! Get over here now!"

Lunette listlessly looked over to Leila, but then immediately ran over upon seeing Kashi's state. "What's wrong with him?"

Leila shook her head, sweat pooling on her forehead as she said, "No time to explain. You need to call out to him. Now! Or we'll lose him for good. Hurry up!"

Lunette panicked as she had never seen Leila this flustered at anything. She immediately grabbed Kashi and called out, "Kashi! Can you hear me? Kashi! Wake up! Kashi! It's me. Wake up." She called out multiple times, but to no avail. It seemed the daeben had utterly shut down.

"No. Not like this," Leila muttered, worry etched on her face as she wiped tears from her eyes. "Not again. He won't forgive himself." She looked at Lunette with panicked hope. "Please. You have to get him back. You have to get Kashi back... For both their sakes."

Lunette could not understand what Leila meant, but she knew enough to know that the situation had turned dire. It appeared that, somehow, Kashi's life was in real danger if she did not wake him up.

Lunette wiped her tears and then wrapped her hands around Kashi's waist. She rested her head against his chest, smiling as she listened to his familiar heartbeat. "Kashi... Hey, can you hear me? I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I never knew Rai-sensei, no Ryu-sensei was your father... No, that's not quite right. I did know Ryu-sensei had a family. He would always talk to us about his son Su, and his wife, Ruri. Did you know? Ryu-sensei liked to call Ruri-san his favorite magical Rune... That's how I got my name. He always said Su was as quiet as a shadow and had a habit of popping out of nowhere. That's how Shadow got his name. Heh, I guess you got your father's interesting naming sense."

"...I'm sorry, Kashi," Lunette apologized as she wept into his chest. "I was having so much fun with Ryu-sensei. I never stopped to think about his real family. I never considered how lonely you must have felt, never getting to meet your father. I'm so sorry!" She tightened her grip around his waist as she looked up into his unfocused eyes. "Please... You can hate me all you want. You can choose not to talk to me ever again... but please come back. Please, Kashi..." Her voice cracked, and she could barely manage a whisper as she begged, "...Don't go."

Pa!

Lunette tensed as she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. "Kashi!" She joyfully raised her head, but then her heart fell to the pits of her stomach as she looked into Kashi's familiar, yet alien eyes. In all her life, she had never seen a pair of eyes so cold and unfeeling. It felt like they were about to suck her into an endless black hole of despair. "...Kashi?"

A/N: This is fun... Check the previous chapter for a video I added, depicting the song Lunette sang to the crowd...

Now... What the hell just happened to Kashi/Suzuki? What does Leila know that we don't?

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