There is no other immortality:

in the cold spring, the purple violets open.

And yet, the heart is black,

there is its violence frankly exposed.

Or is it not the heart at the center

but some other word?

- from "Hyacinth", L.G.

The health office was cold and ill-lit. It was designed for the comfort of the patients, since the automatons which staffed the building were indifferent to the visible spectrum of light, but Shion remembered the glare of bright lights from his childhood checkups, and the cheerful countenance of the nurses; in contrast, the shadowplay struck him as something illicit or dirty. The movements of the doctor-automaton were barely visible in the half-light, but occasionally its skin would gleam, bringing him out of his reverie; the touch of its appendages were icy, and raised goosebumps on the exposed parts of his body. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to let his thoughts wander too far lest he begin to sweat or his heartbeat pick up.

"You're doing quite well, sir." Its voice was programmed to be soothing, but the underlying hum of electronic gears, soft as it was, still disquieted Shion. "You have not been ill all this past year, is that correct?"

Not physically. "Yes."

"Nothing less is expected from one with your superior genetic makeup." There were more whirring noises and a final soft ping as the automaton updated its own information and sent it off to the database. "You have been cleared for travel outside of Midas."

Shion sat up slowly. One of the attending automatons brought him his clothing and helped him dress. As he pulled on his boots, the doctor-automaton, which had politely stationed itself against a wall and reduced its power consumption while he prepared to leave, straightened up again, its ocular implants glowing.

"I have received a message from the Bureau of Foreign Travel," it explained, in a passing fair imitation of an apologetic tone. "Sir, they are requesting a confirmation of your stated itinerary."

"Patch me through to someone flesh, please."

The holograph image projected from the doctor-automaton's speech module was sub-par, but it would do. The man on the other end of the line – a brunette – looked startled when the connection was established, and immediately straightened up, his expression one of deep chagrin. Shion waved off the stuttered apology that he suspected was coming. "You needed confirmation from me?"

"Sir, I – " The man looked like he wanted to disappear into his console. "It was a routine request from the computer, sir. I only put it through. I deeply apologize – "

"There's no need for apologies." Shion hoped his tone would put the man at ease, but it only seemed to make him more stricken. "I wanted to save all of us the time and energy of a drawn-out exchange. What seems to be the issue?" When the man consulted his screen and then hesitated, Shion gestured for him to continue.

"It says further explanation of your intent is being requested."

"As I stated in my original application, I have purchased a number of artifacts that I would like to examine before they are brought into Midas. Moreover, since none of the dealers have been able to bring me satisfactory individuals, I intend to visit a number of them in person, to see if their stock is perhaps better at the source." He finished lacing up his boot and paused, looking up again.

Taking comfort in the chance to interact with the technology at his disposal, the man was absorbed in his console. When Shion fell silent, he confirmed, "Yes, sir. I have all of your documentation here."

"And the problem is...?"

"It's quite dangerous this time of year, sir. Those in the lower parts of No. 6 have no respect for an elite such as yourself. The Mother is concerned for your safety. Perhaps, if you went to Midas' border, you could accomplish your objectives, and still remain within her protection."

"With all due honor to our Mother, this is a trip which I have been delaying for a year now. I intend to go. I will bring a guard-force with me."

The man was typing furiously to update the file. "Automatons will not be adequate – "

"And two flesh guards as well."

There was a soft series of clicks from over the connection, and finally the man seemed to relax. "That seems to take care of it, sir. Provided the flesh companions are assigned to you."

"Fine. Thank you." The connection was dissolved, and Shion felt the darkness of the examination room close in upon him again. He rose and took his leave, and whether its programming had been thrown off by Shion's unusual request, or whether it was simply an old model, the automaton did not bother to wish him farewell.

Outside it was overcast, a chill in the air. As he stepped into the private car which would conduct him to his estate, his thoughts drifted idly back to the man he had spoken with via hologram. An utterly nondescript sort of person, a cast-off of society, and plainly terrified of him. He had not even bothered to learn the man's name, and yet –

It was probably the only human interaction he would have all week.

Shion caught his reflection in tinted glass of the window and studied it dispassionately. Most of the elite preferred to keep their light hair long, thereby symbollicaly enhancing their perceived status, but Shion's was cropped an inch or so above the nape of his neck. Self-consciously he touched the place on his cheek where the serpentine scar used to mark him. It was all but faded now, a shallow, colorless ridge in its place. This was by government mandate, but his eyes had reverted back to their old color on their own. He was a clumsy patchwork of his old and new selves, and he found it intolerable.

You've become the thing you swore you'd never become.

A pampered zoo animal.

"I haven't," he protested hollowly, to no one. "I'm not."

His memories mocked him. Oh yes, you have.

Everyone he'd known had died or disappeared on the Day of Sorrow, more than a year past. Those with a natural genetic immunity – the so-called 'elite' – had merely suffered, strange wounds twisting around their bodies, their hair turning silver or white, grey or blond; but the others had died. A great number of people had died.

A light rain began to fall, and it seemed as if tears were tracing their way down Shion's reflected countenance. He rested his head on the window and closed his eyes.

"Shion. Don't do it." Nezumi's voice was like so much static forcing its way through a radio broadcast. Meanwhile the security guard he'd shot blubbered for his life at the muzzle of Shion's gun, mucus and saliva and tears mingling over the lower half of his face. The gunshots which had hit Nezumi bloomed over and over again in Shion's narrowed and dimmed field of vision. The rage was like poison; it begged to be purged...

"Shion!"

He fired.

When he came to his senses, seconds later, the stench of blood was unbearable. It coated his fingers, his sleeve, his legs. His gaze wavered and then focused on the security guard, a mess of blood and guts. For a moment he thought he would be sick; he thought he would scream, but the moment passed and then he felt curiously empty and light.

Then the corpse in front of him turned black and collapsed in on itself.

For a moment he thought he was still possessed with the terrifying demon of revenge, but the gun he held was still. He let his gun hand drop to his side, confused. The security guard's body was rotting in front of his eyes. He risked a glance at the other guards, who moments before had been moaning and writhing on the floor, and saw how terribly still and black they were.

No.

Nezumi was babbling something incoherent, and he was – Shion could not have imagined it – he was weeping, struggling to rise on his wounded leg. Something about fault and guilt and regret, but Shion felt strangely calm. Slowly he turned to face the other boy, and brought his gun to bear.

"Get out of here."

The weeping stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Tears shone dully on his dirty cheeks, but Nezumi did not speak as his gaze met Shion's. The expression of betrayal; of raw, naked emotion that Nezumi had guarded so well for so long, laid bare on his sweat- and blood-stained face was more than Shion thought he could bear, but that moment passed, too, and his hand did not waver.

"Leave. Now. It's have to get out."

"I won't..."

Won't what? Shion did not give him enough time to finish. He leveled the gun more carefully and tightened his grip on the trigger.

"I will."

Nezumi flinched as if he had been struck. It could not have been very long – a handful of seconds, a dozen at best – but it felt as if the interval stretched over the entire amount of time they had known one another, and when Shion blinked sweat from his eyes, Nezumi's face had changed. For a moment fear gripped Shion's heart in its icy fist as he mistook the expression for the horror of a victim of the parasite bees, and he thought his legs would fail him. Then Nezumi rose on his good leg, holding Shion's gaze, and he breathed again. But the eyes that Nezumi turned toward him then – those he could never forget.

There was no hate, no disappointment, no anger there. Just a simple, curious, flat nothing. Pitiless and indifferent as the clouds that herald a thunderstorm, Nezumi's countenance was the very picture of deadened calm. It was not as if they had become strangers, or enemies. It was as if he had ceased to see Shion standing there; as if his existence had simply gone out like a guttering candle in a night which stretches on endlessly toward oblivion. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his back on Shion and limped toward the door.

He knew it then. That he would never see Nezumi again.

Those seconds before Nezumi disappeared from his sight forever were the most painful of his young life. Or so he had thought, but when he recalled the event it was not that moment, but the memory of how Nezumi's face had changed in the sights of his gun that truly agonized him; that woke him screaming from his sleep in the night, that possessed him to send queries with Nezumi's specifications to every dealer he knew, the licensed and illicit, holding on to the spare hope that he would find him one day again. He had been presented with dozens of boys (and some girls too), raven-haired, grey-eyed, sullen, lanky. They regarded him suspiciously, or hopefully, lustfully or indifferently, but none of them were Nezumi.

His mother had died on the Day of Sorrow. Identifying corpses had been difficult, but Shion recognized her earrings, her scarf, her apron. She was the only woman in her bakery shop at the time. He burned her body on the terrace, watching the smoke rise and join the choking clouds that had gathered over No. 6. Everywhere people were burning their dead, looting, and raping. Some lived, but many more died. He never did find out what happened to Inukashi and Rikiga. If they had not perished, they could have escaped, but to where Shion could not imagine. The reconstruction effort happened relatively quickly after the Day of Sorrow, and the slums outside No. 6 had already been reduced to rubble in the first cleansing – they burned quickly, and the purged lands were incorporated into the outer ring of the city, dubbed Ceres for the fields that were plowed there among the ruins.

And Safu...

Shion was startled out of his reverie as the car swerved sharply, a deviation from its normal course. Looking through the front windshield, he could see no reason for the aberration, but his view was occluded by the falling rain. He hit the override panel, and it skidded to a stop on the side of the road.

The highway was eerily quiet and devoid of cars. Shion opened his door and stepped out, straining to see through the rain.

There, in the middle of the road, was a dog. The car would have automatically detected its presence and re-routed to avoid it. Shion knelt and whistled, but the dog did not move. Its head faced toward him, but he could make out nothing else in the gloom. He whistled again, and clapped his hands together, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the rain. The stillness of the dog on the rainy road in the night struck him as uncanny, and for a moment a boy's irrational fear gripped him.

Finally it lowered its head and loped off into the gathering dusk, leaving Shion with rain streaming down his face and uncertainty weighing heavy on his heart. In the distance, the Moon Drop sounded mournfully, and another howl – the dog's? – joined its cry.

Steeling himself for the rest of the lonely drive home, Shion got back into the car and let it pull him further into the black heart of the night.