"Checking out, sir?"

"Yes," he answered quietly.

"Did you enjoy your stay here?"

"It was very refreshing."

"And how will you be paying today, sir?"

"Will you accept credit?"

The lady behind the counter looked up sharply. Very few people offered to pay in credit these days. It seemed that the war, and the threat of even more war, made everyone paranoid; everyone seemed to have a vendetta against someone. "I'll need a last name then, sir," she said in a stern voice.

"Don't you have one of your own?" he asked, trying to lighten the situation.

She looked up at him and frowned. "Hm. Funny," she said, without a hint of a smile.

He sighed. "Seagill," he said resignedly, and handed her a credit slip.

As he walked out of the Galbadia Hotel into the cold night air, Kiros found himself thinking once again about the many nights he had spent there with his friends, over five years ago. Back then, he reflected, he hadn't really thought of their situation as "war" for some reason. He supposed he hadn't taken it very seriously at the time. At least, not until having been thrown off a cliff after being cornered by enemy soldiers. That had a way of changing one's perspective.

He found himself walking through the open door of a junk shop once more, as he did every time he came to Deling City. The man behind the counter smiled at him warily. "Anything I can do for ya?" he asked.

"I doubt it," Kiros said with a small smile, as he reached back into a bag he kept strapped to his shoulders and drew out his two long katal.

"Take what you want!" the man behind the counter suddenly shouted in a shaky voice, and backed away from the register with both hands in the air.

Kiros shook his head sadly. "I just want to know if there is any way in this world, or in any world, that I could possibly even dare to hope that I might get these upgraded to something stronger, or if I should just give up asking once and for all." The man stared at him, not sure if he believed he wasn't in any danger. "In other words, can I remodel?"

The man put his hands down and gestured for Kiros to come closer. "Lemme see," he said, as he took one of the katal from him. "Whaddya have with you?"

"Hm," Kiros said, thinking of the very few items he still carried with him. "Adamentine. Betrayal sword, but only one... some screws. And a Mesmerize blade."

"Well," the man said, looking over both katal with interest, "you already got Mesmerize blades here. You want to remodel, you're gonna want another Betrayal sword, or maybe two of those Tonberry knives. You get those things and bring them to a guy I know in Timber. He's been working on inventing something with Tonberry knives."

"Where would I get those?" Kiros asked, already knowing what his answer was going to be.

"The hell should I know?! From a Tonberry I guess!"

"Thanks," he said in a friendly voice, and took both katal carefully out of the man's hands.

He'd been in the junk shop about five times in the last year, and each time, he'd had nearly the same exact conversation with the man there, complete with his hysterics over seeing the weapons. The last few times he had gone back, he had only done so out of curiosity as to whether or not the conversation would change at all. And he still had never seen a Tonberry. He laughed softly to himself. He really did want to remodel, and he supposed it was time to find out about getting the knives he kept hearing about. Those, he figured, he could take in a battle, if he could manage to find them. As for the remodeling itself, it would have to wait until he could get back to the rest of his money.

Five or so years earlier when he had been in the army, he had been one of the only men in his squadron to keep a small amount of his pay every week, and put it away for emergencies. The last four years, he thought with a touch of humor, had been an emergency. There was very little work for someone whose only useful skills were fighting, backflips, and the ability to laugh at himself.

Kiros slipped the katal back into the long heavy pockets he had made into his backpack, and pulled his black coat tighter around him. It was by far the coldest winter he remembered, and Deling City felt more like Trabia.

He began to walk to the border of the city, where, he decided, he would rent a car and drive to Timber. He had just enough money for the car and fuel, and eating would have to wait until he got his hands on the gil that he had put away.

"Damn this cold," a woman muttered as he passed her on the street. Kiros nodded and walked on. It was better, he'd learned, not to engage in conversation with strangers these days. Passing comments were all people seemed willing to give to one another anymore.

He was just at the border of the town, and could see the neon Car Rental sign, when he heard a girl's shrill scream. It had the breathy quality of someone who had spent most of her voice on screaming already, and there was such hopelessness and sorrow in it, that Kiros could almost feel it himself, as he turned to see who had made the sound.

Looking back toward the street, he saw a tiny figure running out of the darkness between two deserted buildings, in his direction. There were four heavily armed men chasing after her, and they all wore Galbadian army uniforms. He didn't have time to wonder what they could possibly be doing to her, as he reached behind him, grabbed one katal, and slipped it onto his hand. As the little girl ran towards him, he held the katal out to his side, away from her. She saw him, and as he looked quickly into her large wet eyes, he saw more despair and confusion than actual terror.

Now sobbing and out of breath, the child ran to him, and he picked her up easily with one arm. She clung to his neck and he angled himself quickly toward the men who had been chasing her, holding the one katal out in front of him, pointing towards the men, and shielding the little girl. They slowed down to a stop when they saw him.

"Put her down!" one of them ordered him.

The girl held him tighter. She was trying to say something, but he could barely understand her through her sobbing. "I don't want to go with them," she finally managed.

"It's okay," he said. "What do they want with you?"

"To take me away," she whispered sadly.

All four men had their guns drawn and took aim at him. The one who had ordered him to put the girl down had his gun trained on him. Kiros, as a soldier himself, could tell by the man's intensity, and the quietness of his gun hand, that he was a sharpshooter. This one could put a bullet in his head without even grazing the girl.

"What do you want with her?" he asked, hoping to at least buy some time.

"Just put her down!" one of the other men said. This soldier's voice sounded nervous, and he was young, and Kiros knew that in a moment of panic, the man could fire on both of them at any second.

"You have to understand," Kiros said in what he hoped was a clear and reasonable voice, as he still held the one katal toward all four men, "that I can't do that until I know what you want with her."

The sharpshooter relaxed the tiniest bit, but didn't lower his gun. "She ran away from home," he said. "No one here is going to hurt her, we just have to bring her home. Just drop your weapon and put her down. This is none of your business."

The girl took her arms from around his neck and made an attempt to push her dark hair away from her face and wipe her eyes at the same time. "Mommy is gone and I can't find my daddy," she said, as tears ran down her face. "I don't want to go with those men."

"Do they want to hurt you?" he asked her, not taking his eyes off the men.

She started crying again, harder this time, but he felt her shake her head. "But I don't want to go with them," she repeated, making his situation more complicated. He couldn't let these men with guns take a child with them against her will. "They told me that my mommy..." she began, but ended in choked sobs again.

Kiros thought it over, trying to come to a reasonable solution. If all they wanted was to bring her home, he figured that she must have been from some important political or military family. And, he thought, what would soldiers want with a little girl? On the other hand, he told himself, you could never be too sure. People were crazy. "I'll tell you what," he said cautiously to the soldiers. "We can all take her home to her parents. You can keep your guns on me. I keep my weapon. If one of you tries to hurt her, I'll kill you. If I try to hurt her, you can kill me. Try to understand my situation," he said.

The men, all but the sharpshooter, looked nervously at one another, but they didn't open fire on him. This told him that they probably did not mean her any harm, but he still didn't hold with armed soldiers chasing one obviously traumatized little girl.

He saw a man run up behind the soldiers and stop in his tracks when he saw Kiros holding the girl. The man immediately drew his gun and Kiros knew in an instant that there was not going to be any reasoning with this man. "Put her down!" he bellowed.

The girl looked sharply in the direction of the voice. "Daddy!" she wailed, and tried to slide herself out of his grip. Kiros let her down gently. She pushed past the armed soldiers and ran to the man whose face Kiros could not see, but who obviously was her father. The man knelt on the ground as she ran to him, put his gun back in its holster, and caught her in both arms. He could still hear her crying, and he could see by the man's shaking shoulders that he was crying too.

"It's okay, angel," the man said through his tears as he held the little girl.

"I want mommy back," she cried.

"I do, too," Kiros heard the man say.