Shion was a busy and intelligent young woman. She buried herself in work she loved and didn't care to be distracted by any frivolous pursuits. She had had a boyfriend at one point, but unfortunately, that hadn't ended well. Her parents were dead and her brother was annoying, so she moved away from him to a small apartment next to her workplace. After the day of work was done, she usually stayed overtime instead of going back to her new home. After all, there was nobody there to come back to. And no, she didn't feel lonely. Not at all.

When she first met chaos, she was unimpressed. While he was younger than her and a polite, good-natured boy, the events that followed him were so crazy that it didn't even occur to her to think of him as a guy at first. She ignored that detail just like she ignored the same fact about Allen. And ignoring someone's gender usually meant that Shion wasn't interested.

That said; chaos did manage to impress her eventually, but in a different manner. In a valiant attempt to defend Cherenkov, he caused a Gnosis that had wandered into their ship to die by touch. Shion just stared. She stared and stared, having been left speechless. It was clear that chaos wasn't a regular human, but if that was the case, then who was he? He replied to her probing question so evasively that she knew it was pointless to pry. Besides, they had more pressing concerns, and a display of inhuman power was almost forgotten in the terrible mess that hectic day was.

Elsa happened to come under attack after the captain decided to pick up a half-cyborg man and a little girl from space. Apparently, helping people these days was risky business: the enemies of the duo followed them into the ship and breached it. To Shion's surprise, chaos joined her and KOS-MOS along the way to fight them off and make sure that the two strangers made it on their ship whole, rather than in small, bloody pieces. She briefly wondered why he cared enough to help, since everybody else on their team was fine with whatever happened to the pair, but she didn't give it all that much thought.

However, everything changed for her when the battles started. Usually, chaos wasn't very chatty, but in battles, he would express his thoughts in short lines to enemies. Soon, Shion understood why. She heard something unusual coming from his mouth, highly unusual for fights. He'd offer enemies a chance to surrender so that needless violence could be avoided. He'd wish for their souls to be reincarnated again, and he'd occasionally apologize for hitting them.

Shion couldn't quite grasp what had happened, but when they finally made it to the two strangers, her heart was pounding for reasons other than fighting. She could feel a vaguely familiar and pleasant feeling in her chest. She'd already enjoyed the experience of this emotion some time ago, but she didn't want it anymore! This young boy from the ship she'd soon leave and never see again, of all people? That was bad timing. That was stupid and couldn't last. At least, that's what Shion told herself and pointedly ignored chaos from then on.

In fact, she tried so hard that chaos noticed something wasn't right. He was puzzled but couldn't quite put his finger on why Shion was looking anywhere but at him, even when he was directly addressing her. He assumed she was tired, tense, or even just rude, but neither of those explanations rang true. It looked to him as if he had done something that unsettled Shion.

At the moment, they were stopped for a healing session, and while everyone was using med kits, Shion tried to figure out why chaos had captured her attention. She didn't really want to accept it, but perhaps she missed something in her life that she saw in him. Could it be that she missed kindness and care?

She sighed quietly. It sounded true enough, but being true made it look even more stupid. She'd eventually find someone kind and caring; there was no need to fall for a random stranger she'd never see again…

Although she thought so to herself, Shion realized that she didn't really believe that she'd find someone kind and caring in the future. She feared that realistically, she would not. People were egoistic creatures, and she was just like everybody else, but chaos was different...

"Stop," Shion thought, "Stop now. This stream of thought needs to stop!"

Some time passed, but the association of two Vector employees, Shion and Allen, with the Elsa crew, continued. Currently, they were docked for repairs and in search of Cherenkov who had wandered off somewhere without telling anybody.

To Shion's surprise and joy, chaos volunteered to go search for him along with her. That he was worried about a man who was pretty much a stranger to him pulled at her heartstrings. Was she reading too much into chaos, or did kind human beings actually exist? Shion was starting to feel paranoid. Maybe chaos merely wanted to breathe some fresh air and used the idea of helping Cherenkov as an excuse to go out. That would explain a lot. People tend to lie to look better to others.

"Hey, chaos," she called out to him amiably. "Why do you care for Cherenkov? You don't know him."

"He could get in trouble here," Chaos simply said, as if that explained his motivation. "He's wearing a military uniform, and people here hate the military…"

"I know," Shion interrupted, "but that's not what I'm asking. Why do you care what happens to him in the first place?"

"Don't you?"

"You're trying to evade the question," Shion accused him. "It doesn't matter what my motivation is, tell me about yours. Nobody else from the Elsa's crew gives a damn about him."

"And because I'm a part of the Elsa's crew, I should feel like the rest of them?" chaos shrugged. "We're all different, and I happen to care."

He glanced at her thoughtfully as they were walking, and Shion realized that he was picking up on the reasons behind her interrogation. Indeed, from her questions alone it would be obvious to an observant person that she didn't consider people to be naturally kind and harbored a lot of mistrust for their 'benevolent' intentions. Perhaps Shion was letting chaos know too much about her without intending to.

Shion felt embarrassed that someone could see so deep into her soul. She didn't want anybody to know her little insecurities. That felt unsafe, as if chaos could later use his knowledge in order to hurt her.

"Besides, you're mistaken about the Elsa crew," chaos said with a smile. "Hammer went outside to look for Cherenkov as well."

Shion felt stupid. Apparently, she didn't pay enough attention to notice Hammer going out. Naturally. Back then, her thoughts were overcome with someone else, specifically with someone who was currently strolling along…

"Hammer…" she started to say to distract herself.

As if on cue, Hammer suddenly appeared in front of them and stuttered something unintelligible about Cherenkov. He was shaking. It was obvious he'd found him and in some sort of emergency. Shion and chaos shared an eloquent glance and sprinted after Hammer.

More time passed, and still the two, Shion and chaos, weren't getting separated by destiny. Shion would marvel at that alone, if only she weren't too preoccupied to dwell on it now. They were currently fighting none other than Cherenkov who had transformed into a Gnosis.

After the fight was over, Shion felt weak in her knees. Tears ran down her face, and she slid to the ground, sobbing. There was something inherently wrong in killing a human being who was transformed into a monster against his own will. She could feel his loneliness at the moment of his death, almost like it was her own. Or maybe it really was hers? Shion couldn't tell any longer if she was crying for Cherenkov or herself.

Someone's hands touched her shoulders and Shion lifted her head just a bit. Chaos was lightly hugging her in a comforting way. Realizing that suddenly intensified the stream of her tears. She was touched and surprised and immensely grateful. She took one of his hands and squeezed it as if she was clinging to the only hope left in the world. She sensed more tears stream down her face, and this time some of them were tears of gratitude.

Everybody else stood around them silently, and Shion found that completely unbelievable. Did nobody else care for Cherenkov's fate? They just had to kill someone they were travelling with and they behave like nothing happened?

In Shion's mind, she was witnessing the callousness of people's hearts, but she knew she was the same as them. She only cared for Cherenkov because she saw herself in him.