A/N: The holidays may have passed, but still- there's always time to show off the cute Santa Karia drawing MangaStoryFan made a while back! His other art is in his artbook on his account, he's always drawing neat characters there!

Last chapter, Commander Erucid harshly criticized Prósopsi for his choice in letting Ontarus continue with the infiltration mission alone. This led to Erucid not wanting to associate as a friend with Prósopsi anymore, which left the Head Commander conflicted and made him question the decisions he made.

A few hours later...

Kodan's P.O.V.

"Hello Kodan." I hear Restroid say, which wakes me up from my nap as he walks into my room. Well not really a nap, more so reflecting I guess- like I used to do in the old days. I convinced King to leave me alone for a while after he made sure my room was "safe"- he forgot about one of the guns we brought into the motel though.

"Guess I'll say my goodbyes to him... oh! Maybe I can ask him to watch over King too. That would be good. ...Oh shit. Wait." I think to myself with a frown, as Restroid walks towards my bed with a mug and bowl on a tray.

"Hey. I wanted to ask you something."

"Of course. I will answer you after you eat and drink. King Metallica was telling me that you didn't have enough for dinner today." Restroid says as he hands me the tray as I'm lying in bed.

I push it away though, "Nah- I'm fine. But look. I don't think I'm going to be here much longer, so I'm not afraid to ask you this, even if it's just a hunch. We weren't THAT close either, so I'm not too scared of you not liking me anymore either. But... I noticed that as the day of our shitty revolution got closer, you "went out" way more often. I didn't think too much of it, until you left the base right before the revolution was gonna happen. And even worse you always disagreed with our plans, AND Laya wouldn't be able to detect your loyalty. So tell me. Was this you? Did you rat us ou-"

"Of course not. Kodan I have always been dedicated to you. I can understand your suspicion however: even if it does hurt my feelings to hear. I had to charge myself after my body got augmented: remember? That is why I was "disappearing". Now please: eat and drink." Restroid says as he puts the tray on top of my covered lap this time.

"Didn't you tell me before that you don't have feelings? Also what augmentations?" I ask, which makes him start to fidget. Then suddenly he grabs the silver cup of water on my tray, and uses his other hand to shove my head onto my pillow.

"I'm sorr- mm?!" I call out, then cough as he pours the drink right into my mouth midsentence.

"Poison- probably." I think to myself as I notice a nasty taste, but swallow anyways. I deserve this. Let's just hope he'll be kind enough to give me some answers before I pass.

"Why? Why didn't you just kill me instead of everyone else? You know how easy it would've been? I sleep like a log after like one drink. You're nothing like Metallica- zero fucking empathy. I may have been a bad person and leader, but you're just a monster." I spit as I grit my teeth, but Restroid keeps quiet.

...

"I let you kill me. Can you at least answer my question?" I ask... wait. I have one of those old school walkie-talkie things that King bought me, maybe I could warn everyone. ...No. If I reached for it, Restroid would just kill me faster.

Anyways, the robot finally speaks as he stares at me with his blank orbs for eyes, "I do love you Kodan. You are and will always be my master: but to fufill your dreams: we needed new plans. Plans which you did not want to follow: and that no one in the base did either. You were too charasmatic to be stopped by death alone: your plans were engraved into our misled groups minds. I will start our group anew: and rest assured I will take care of King Metallica."

"If you ever hurt King, I swear I'll haunt you so damn much that you'll end up destroying yoursel-" I stop midsentence to start coughing like a bitch. I don't have a right to complain though. I've caused so much pain in the past few days, and even in the past few years. All of that was way worse than dying from poison.

"I do not plan on hurting King Metallica: as I need him for my plans. If he does not cooperate however I will. Goodbye: Kodan. I will say: you were the closest thing to make me feel 'human'." Restroid says as he turns around and starts to walk away towards my rooms door. I'm tempted to scream and swear at him, but at the same time, my crappy plans and methods are what turned him evil in the first place...

Fuck. Hopefully when I'm dead I won't have to think about this anymore. Then again I'm probably going to Hell. Definitely am then...

"Kodan! Please, if you're there we need you- some see through army girl found and started attacking us, but we can't hit her! We're thinking you could since you mastered that soul power stu- AH!" I hear a girl call out from my walkie talkie across the room, which makes my eyes open wide. There's no way the army could've found them this quick, the survivors were far out in the adandoned parts of the continent.

Damn it Restroid AGAIN?!

I grit my teeth and kick myself out of bed. But just as I do, Restroid runs across the room and punches me in the throat, slamming my head against the wall behind me as my legs slam into the dresser next to my bed.

"Can still breathe, shitty form." I think to myself as my vision starts to blur- and Restroid grabs me and throws me to the ground at the same time. He's pinning me- probably learned that from watching my fights.

Every bone in my body is telling me to give up, but my morals are screaming at me even louder. And so I take a painfully deep breath and close my eyes. I take another breath, but Restroid realizes what I'm doing so he covers my mouth. Too late though, I open my eyes and can already see those shining, yeah those shining particles in the air again.

And so I grab Restroid's right arm and waist, and just barely pull- then push him off of me with all of my strength, which sends him flying off of me.

I cry out in pain as I stand back up- to see Restroid blocking off my room's door now.

"Kodan. Stop this. They should not die: I only-" I interrupt his bullshit as I take a few deep breaths, and run around my bed like a bull as I hold my arms up in front of my face.

*CRACK!*

I charge into Restroid- and slam him through my room's wooden door. I fall down with him though as I start to choke on something- ah shit, probably blood.

I throw up a second later as I try to stand up,

"Least he's down for the count, now move! I may not have my armor but I can still fight without it- hopefully." I think to myself as I stand up slower this time, to confirm that Restroid's lying against the hallway's wall that I slammed him into. He's flinching like crazy as his head shakes...

"No time to finish him." I think to myself- I don't know if I'd have it in me to kill- no, turn him off regardless. And so I start to jog down the motels hallway as I drag my hand across the wall for balance. But I see a guy, who I think is about my height standing in my way... shit. Must've heard us. Looks angry.

"..M-" I try to scare the guy off, but before I can he starts to run away on his own.

"Guess I've got wanted posters up now, huh?" I smile for a second feeling confident- but of course I frown as I realize my whole purpose was to have citizens look up to me... hah.

I start to run again as my entire chest starts to throb- gotta hurry!

A few minutes later...

I hear screaming as I slam my fist against my chest like an idiot, for the small chance that it'll let me breathe better. "How am I not dead yet? Wonder if the experiments the army did on me made me resistant to this stuff. Maybe I'll be able to put up a half decent fight in that case." I think to myself with a grunt as I carefully walk into the open, abandoned, and cracked building we left the survivors at on Kallinsons Street.

Right off the bat I can see that the tiled floor of the spacey building got torn up somehow, and more importantly there's a bunch of my people lying weakly on the ground. Some aren't moving, but some others just look like they have almost no energy at all. Barely any of them are bleeding though, and the person who did this isn't even here.

"The woman must be upstairs..." I think to myself, no way am I gonna be able to climb up more than two flights of steps.

"HEY! Get your ass down here and leave my people alone, I've got a sweet little girl here who I'd love to torture as a hostage! Better hurry! ...What, are you scared of me!?" I shout in the most intimidating voice I can- maybe my voice sounding raspy now actually helped with that. Hope my reputation is as bad as I thought to let her believe my bullshit tho-

*CRACK!*

Suddenly I get my ass blasted across the room from behind, with the ground beneath me shattering from the blow- and I only stop rolling after slamming into a wall back first.

"Damn- I should've been watching the door... I can't fight like this- need to bluff more." I think to myself as I push myself up as quickly as I can, which makes my head spin and chest ache. Regardless I lean against the wall next to me, and take a look at the girl who's confidently walking into the building now. Long, tallish- and fuck she is a ghost, I think. I can see right through her, looks like she's made of blue glass. The girl is holding a weapon too I think... a pole? No- sword. Whatever, time to scare,

"You know how I was able to move my Hesalo armor around? I can control every single soul of this universe. That includes yours, missy. So if you're... you're..." I try to say, but the words can't come out of my mouth...

"This isn't the poison- nah, I feel tired in a different way now. That must be her Blessing, and what she did to everyon-" I get interrupted as she swings her sword at me from a distance, and I jump to the side to just barely dodge her invisible attack which tears up the ground. But damn it I stumble to the ground right when I land.

"Deep breaths." I think to myself as she swings her sword again- and I use my gravity manipulation to slide myself across the floor to dodge. Then I struggle to lift myself into the air like a plank, and painfully use my powers to spin myself around- and fall to the ground feet first.

"You said I was scared? Ha- says the lowlife who's barely dodging my hits, while I'm just standing still. You sure you're a leader- oop." The chick starts laughing her ass off after I hunch over and start having a coughing fit.

"The girl's got pride, just need to make fun of that to distract her." I think to myself as I stand up straight and look her in the eye. I can barely see now... damn it.

"If I weren't already half-dead, your soul would've been fucked by now. But I bet I can still manage to make you beg for your life before I pas-" My banter gets interrupted as the girl swings her sword at me again, perfect- I slide left across the floor to dodge the hit, then use my gravity manipulation to slide me towards the girl at a wild speed as I lean forwards and extend my fist.

But just as I'm about to hit her see through face- she just disappears. I get surprised, causing my gravity manipulation to stop which makes me fall on my face towards the ground.

"Ha. HAHAHA! You kidding?! Yeah, should've expected that- oh man you should've seen your face before you ran away." I laugh and lie as I'm lying on the ground, yeah I'm pretty well blind at this point- I do bet she was scared shitless though.

"I pray there's some fire-exit or window the other survivors can leave through in this place. That chick may come back again." I think to myself as I stare at the wide open entrance to the building that I came in through. I can also see that some of the people around us who were unconcious before- are moving around a bit now.

"Great. But they've gotta play dead for now... gotta tell them." I think to myself as I barely manage to get myself sitting on my knees.

"Guys, you need to play dead." I say with my raspy voice which stings my throat, I don't know if they even heard me though...

"Shit." I think to myself as I can see a purple and dark blur walk into the doorway.

"No way am I standing up again, I need to stall for the people in here..." I think to myself- and come to the only conclusion I can as I take more deep breaths to calm myself down.

I jolt into action the second I hear a gunshot, and use my powers to slide on my knees like a maniac towards the doorway. I can feel my knees getting cut open on the jagged floor which makes me cry out in pain, but who cares- I'll be dead in a second anyways.

...

Surprisingly the blur walks back as I slide out of the building, and so I stop. I look up to see a blue blur standing above me now, the ghost girl again.

"Ah-" I gasp as something grabs me from the, the inside of my chest? I look down and see a skinny blue blur stabbing my chest, but before I can react anymore I get swung down towards the floor.

"Did she just... stab my soul?" I try to think to myself, but I can't think much right now...

"Spirit of Sariel: Rend that is Divine." I hear the girl call out, and a second later the area around me turns completely white, the ground gets fucked- and I apparently get crushed into the ground as I can hear my bones crack.

...

...

"Shit that may have been overkill. Hey, you alive? If you are, I have a deal I want to make with you." The girl snaps me out of my daze... I open my eyes- and well shit I'm fully blind now.

"My Blessing lets me take the soul of someone I kill, and use their powers as my own. But only if I make a deal with them, where I have to grant whatever wish they ask of me before a certain amount of time runs out. Are you up for it?"

"..." My confusion aside, I think to myself for a bit. There's no reason for why she'd bullshit the soul part- I don't think. She could be lying about the wish part though... whatever. If this girl will help at least SOME people with my soul as an army member, it can be worth it.

"The people in that building... leave them alone. Leave the rest of the Red Fists alone. I'm going to hell anyways, so if you can promise me that- my soul is yours, I guess."

"Wait what- I mean ok. Yeah, yeah sure. I'll spare them. Wait... well... I'll leave your group alone for now. But if they become a big problem again in the future, I'll probably have to try and take them out. Do we still have a deal?"

"..."

"Hey- wake up!" I hear as I feel a hand slap my face.

"Hrm- yeah yeah sure- deal. You'd better keep that ego in check though miss, otherwise you'll be dead before you know it. Also-"

"Shut up, I don't need to hear that from a bastard like you. Any last words?" The chick says as I cough... well she may be cocky but at least she has some spunk...

"This was probably covered up, so just letting you know... the Red Fists were massacred. We were like a- a big happy city. Kids, teens, adults, gramps and grannies- we had everyone. Not just fighters. And Ontarus he, the guy wiped everyone out. Even the army prisoners we had." I talk slowly with the last bit of strength I have left.

"What? I mean... I'll think about if I believe you after. Gotta do the soul stuff now though. If you see a guy named Sariel after this- tell him that I'm so sorry, and that I love and will avenge him," The girl says as I feel a hand touch my chest, "Carry Me On." She finishes. Must be the name of her Blessing.

"Least I may have some company with that Sariel dude. And- whoa..." I think to myself as I start to feel a bunch of pain, then suddenly feel all floaty...-

Karia's P.O.V.

I jolt as Kodan's soul gets sucked into me- and the information about his powers fill my head.

I snicker at his Blessing- yeah I can see why he never used it now. Least his legs would've never got tired if he could create chairs all the time.

Luckily though, it seems like I'll be able to use his punches and kicks instead of his Blessing. So I guess that means I may be able to use his "soul of the universe" stuff? Speaking of which,

"Spirit of Kodan: Strike!" I call out as I punch the air, which causes a giant red see-through fist to fly out in front of me.

My eyes open wide and I smile at that. Finally I won't have to use Sariel's Blessing anymore until I kill that disgusting spearman.

I take a deep sigh of relief, then think to myself, "That was close. I'm surprised Kodan even lived that long with all of those injuries. He may have been a scumbag and lost to me, but he sure was tough." I think to myself as I look at his battered corpse inside of the crater I made. His bearded face is exposed and covered in scars, his chest is covered in cuts and bruises- his arms are bending at weird angles. And worst of all his legs have such deep gashes in them that I can see bone. And metal actually... guess he had cybernetics. Anyways, the only thing that's left untouched is his long blonde hair.

"His wish being for me to spare his people was nice too, I guess. Goes to show criminals can still have some good attributes. On that note- I should probably look into what he told me. He could've been lying but, if Ontarus really did commit a genocide there- that's pretty terrible." I think to myself, starting to feel a bit uncomfortable as I glance around to make sure no one's following me. Finally I start walking away.

A/N: And thus, Kodan's rule of the Red Fists was over. However- his soul lives on in the Hopian Officer Karia, for better or for worse.

Next chapter will return to the present day!

Thank you all for your support, and see you next time!