The lines get longer and longer and his revulsion grows with them. While the Purge will get him to where he needs to go, there's a part of him (a part of him left from when he was a child growing up in Eden) that wants to believe the Sanctum would never do something like this.

And then there's the major part of him (the part that remembers what it felt like when they pried Dajh away) that isn't surprised at all.

What he doesn't expect, however, is to see Guardian Corps. This is PSICOM all the way (which surprises him even less than the Sanctum involvement), but there she is, walking proud and fast with grim determination in the set of her jaw.

"I want to be Purged," she tells a nearby PSICOM, quiet enough that others won't hear over the panic.

But he's listening and he hears.

She's like him, she's gotta be. Here not because she has to be, but because there's something more important. Some reason.

Chocobo gives a wark and Sazh nods once. "Here we go," he murmurs and follows her into line. For the first time since his wife died, there's hope.

And that, at least, is something.

He quickly discovers that she's nuts. What else do you call someone who goes running into the thick of danger against beasts the size of buildings wielding only a tiny little gunblade?

It's like she doesn't realize she's only human. She analyzes the situation with the harsh, sweeping gaze of a sharpshooter, but then goes charging in with the ferocity of a sword-wielding thug.

Sazh is pretty sure that constitutes insanity... Or sheer stupidity. After all, what sort of person analyzes the danger and then throws themselves into it?

"What's your angle?" he asks and, for a moment, she just looks at him, face hard.

It takes all of his control not to step back. He remembers soldiers with faces like that, remembers what that entailed when he was young. But he doesn't take a step back, he matches her gaze. She turns away from him. "The Pulse Fal'Cie. Still glad you tagged along?"

Bingo. She might be crazy, but she's the sort of crazy that might help him save Dajh. The pink-haired soldier goes charging off, not even glancing to see if he's following, and oh boy is he following.

For his son, he can afford a little stupidity and maybe a little crazy, too.

Lightning's fist collides with Snow's face and the goes down, anger like ice burning in his eyes. Again, he gets to his feet; again, Lightning strikes him down, shaking.

"Open your eyes and face reality! It's over!"

And he knows, oh does he know what this is, what this feels like. The biting anger coursing through your veins, the blood pounding in your ears drowning out reason. The rage because no one understands your loss, the need to lash out and make others understand.

The soldier's scrambling to deal with sadness, and anger's as good a substitute as anything else, especially when you're young.

—
"You got a problem?" he'd asked, and the PSICOM soldier just looked at him from behind the mask and the barrel of his gun. "Well? You planning on shooting me or just taking a picture?"

"Sazh, shut up," his sister whispered, clinging to his hand.

The PSICOM soldier snorted. "Rats. Not even worth killing." And he holstered his gun and walked away like he owned the street.

Of course, in Eden, he practically did.
—

Sazh can recognize her anger, but he's older now. Knows there's nothing you can get through anger that you can't get through sadness. Except with anger, you burn more bridges than can be counted.

The lines in his face deepen as they leave Snow behind. Regret, he's found, burns longer and deeper than anger, and Chocobo trills.

"Yeah, yeah," he murmurs. "We'll figure this all out."

Somehow, he wishes he could believe that. As though it senses his thoughts, the brand on his chest pulses making a shudder run through him.

At first, he'd thought she was different. Thought that because of her sister, because she was a Pulse L'Cie, just like they were, that she was different.

She felt—anger, anger, and... Well, more anger. But it was something.

Sazh had thought she'd understood. Understood pain and loss, understood what it meant to be human because her sister was so painfully human (or had been, until the crystal had settled over her skin).

"We don't have your stamina," he says, because him and Vanille and Hope, poor lost angry Hope, are all panting and sweaty and exhausted. "We need to rest," he says, because it's the truth.

Her expression hardens again, to frustration, to impatience. "You've got enough stamina to complain, don't you?"

And she continues forward, like that's that. Leaving them behind. Guardian Corps, the military for the people abandons them to their fate. Cold-hearted soldier all the way through.

It's familiar, if nothing else, but as Hope runs after her, footsteps haphazard from exhaustion, Sazh shakes his head—dammit, he'd expected better.

And he should have known better. Soldiers are all the same.