They came at night. Queerats, hundreds of them surrounding the hut and setting up machinery in dead silence. They opened the door and stuck a tube inside, the slightly rusted hinges making a soft screech. Mamoru, ever the anxious one noticed something was off and woke, he sat up suddenly and shouted to Maria, only to find he had no voice. Looking down an arrow protruded from his throat, followed by three more in his chest. Gurgling as he choked on his own blood, the gas from the tube filled the room, sending him to his final sleep.

The Queerats retrieved the baby first, making off with it as quick as their legs would take them. Unable to wake from the gas, Maria had her hands and legs bound, her mouth gagged, blindfolded and a sack thrown over head before being carried away.

Five days passed, waking and sleeping in a haze Maria finally became truly conscious and looking around found herself in a prison cell guarded by Queerats.

"Where am I? Where's Mamoru? Where's my baby? What have you done?" Maria demanded of the guards, but they remained silent, stoic.

"Where are you? I wonder." Came a voice from the darkness. "You are in my jail, and as for what I've done? Well it's more a matter of what I will do." Footsteps echoed of the concrete walls and slowly Yakomaru walked into view.

"And just what is that?"

"I'm going to make you into my slave, no, worse than that, you will be nothing more than a doll, a perfect little doll that can merely follow my orders." Maria tried to burst down the cell door, to set Yakomaru on fire, anything. But nothing happened. "I believe you'll find your Cantus has no power here, human. You've been drugged and hypnotised for days. You couldn't even make a spark.

You are going to be my soldier, my trump card, and I'll have you slaughter humans by the thouands and we, the Queerats, will become the dominat species on Earth! We will enslave the few humans we spare, and turn each and every one into a weapon of mass destruction for our gain."

"Never! You can't make me do that! Even if I agreed I would die immediately from death feedback."

"Death feedback? Do you really think we would have gone to these lengths if we didn't know how to counteract that? You will be made into a mindless beast, you will be drugged beyond your mental capabilities until your subconscious is unable to think. You will become a pseudo-Fiend. As for you agreeing? We never asked you, you do not have a choice. You may even now be thinking of escape, perhaps by only pretending to eat the drugs until its worn off enough for you to use your Cantus? A clever plan, but predictable. I recommend you follow my every command if you want to see your baby alive."

"You have her? You have Maddie? What about Mamoru? Where are they?"

"Mamoru is dead, he tried to stop us taking you and was disposed of. A shame, we could've used him too. I can assure you however your baby is safe, for now. If you so much as step a toe out of line however, the slightest hint of rebellion, and, well, I can no longer vouch for her safety."

Maria slumped against the wall, her eyes tearing up. She tried one last time to use her Cantus, grief powering her, but to no avail. She wept, she wept for Mamoru, she wept for her baby, she wept for the villages, and she wept for her own helplessness. The guards entered the cell and dragged her away to a different room.

The next few weeks Maria spent being drugged, only waking to be hypnotised, fed and drugged again. Occasionally she was conscious enough to make out the sounds of her captors, and once she saw Yakomaru consulting with a False Minoshiro. By the end of the process her eyes had gone glassy, her mouth hung slightly agape and her movement were almost robotics. She was the perfect doll. Her memories and thoughts blocked from her, the only thoughts she was permitted were 'kill humans' and 'obey the Queerats'.

Yakomaru observed his creation and smiled evilly, stepping up to the council he announced, "Let us go to war."

Saki froze up. Moments after flinging herself and Satoru from the boat they lay on the path, reeds blocking the view of the fiend. The trick was successful but they were unlucky, the reeds parted were Saki's head lay and now the fiend was staring straight at her. The full moon emerged from behind a cloud and the ground was lit up as a stray wind blew back the fiends' hood. Saki's breath caught in her throat. The ground she lay on was cold but Maria's stare was colder than ice, their eyes locked and Saki began to cry. Through the tears there was one thing she noticed, as Maria stared at her, her right eye twitched violently. After what seemed like an eternity, Maria, no that was Maria no longer, Fiend Maria put her hand to her head and turned away, returning to whence she came.

Saki and Satoru sat in the darkness of the tunnel. Their plan had failed. She thought the death of Kiroumaru by Maria's hands would activate the death feedback and save them, but nothing had happened. Kiroumaru's corpse lay there, staining the ground with his blood while Maria stood still and Yakomaru smiled sinisterly next to her.

"Saki, come on we have to run, there's nothing more we can do!" Satoru pleaded.

"Shun... you lied to me." Saki whispered hollowly. His voice came to her once more. No, it is true she is no fiend, you know this, it's something else. Try to remember back to the night where you saw each other. As he said those words the memory seemed to flash in front of her eyes. Of course, it was so obvious and she was too stupid to see it.

"Saki! Let's Go!" Satoru shouted desperately once more.

"Satoru, there is one more thing I can do. I can still save this, but I need to do it alone. Run if you must but please let me do this, please trust me. I understand her now."

Satoru stared down at the floor. "F-fine, do what you must. I'll stay here but if anything happens I'm coming for you, even if I have to kill her myself and suffer the consequence of death feedback I won't let you die here."

"Thank you, Satoru."

Saki began to walk toward Maria, once she came into view Maria let out a scream that stopped her in her tracks. This wasn't a scream of anger, nor of hate, this was a cry, a warning, for Saki to run, to not come closer. Composing herself, Saki continued forward and Maria's scream grew in intensity, vicious winds whipped up sending Queerats flying, dashing them against the rocks, walls, and ground. Yakomaru was slammed against a wall and fell unconscious.

As Saki mounted the steps up to Maria, Maria fell to her knees. Saki stopped in front of her, and, tears in her eyes, knelt down and embraced Maria. With this the winds fell and everything went silent. Maria's eyes filled and both her and Saki began to leak waterfalls of tears as her cry filled the room again. Though this cry was not of anger, hate, nor warning, this was a cry of grief, of sorrow, as she came back to herself and all the evil deeds she had done hit her at once. They remained this way for over an hour before Maria fell into a deep sleep. Taking her and binding Yakomaru, Saki and Satoru headed back home.

"Your trial is in three days." Said Saki. She and Satoru stood in front of Yakomaru's cell. "You will be killed or worse, and it will still not be enough. That being said, what have you to say for yourself. I just want to know why, why would you do this?"

"We are not your slaves, we are as intelligent as you, and being treated as beasts is unacceptable just because you have access to Cantus and we don't. You want to know why? Because we are humans too! We deserve equality! We are the product of your pride and fear."

"What are you saying? Just saying that alone is more than enough for eternal damnation!" Satoru shouted.

Yakomaru looked up at him. "The False Minoshiro told us a great many things, I may die here but my kind will live on, and it's only a matter of time before another will rise to bring you all down."

Disgusted, Satoru turned and left, followed by Saki. Disturbed by his words Saki was able to calm Satoru down and enlisted his help in a study.

The day of the trial. The three judges seat stood tall, though only two were filled. The center by the head judge, and to her right the head of the Department of Ethics, Saki. The third member had not come, deeming it below him to pass judgement on a Queerat. Laughter echoed across the hall as Yakomaru, no, Squealer as he wished to be called, vouched for his humanity. But it died out as Saki rose suddenly.

"Silence! He speaks truthfully!" She cried.

The head judge turned to her, "You would defend this beast? Perhaps you should be put on trial with him!"

"Defend him? No, I, more than anyone else, want to see him suffer for his crimes, but this is a court of law and he is sworn to speak truthfully, more than that, I have concrete proof that he is not lying.

A collective gasp was heard throughout the courtroom. "Using my rights as head of the Department of Ethics I interviewed Squealer some days ago, and from his words conducted private research wherein I discovered that Queerats where not bred from naked mole rats being modified with human genes. It was the other way around, they were human! Humans infused with naked mole rat DNA, just enough to mutate them from humans so that we could kill them without consequence. When we first created the names for these creatures two important names stand out above the rest, the first which stands out due to it being used, is Queerats, the second bears a striking resemblance to the scientific name of humans. It is Homocephalus Glaber. Homo meaning human."

Chaos broke out in the court. In the ensuing anger and chaos of the people Squealer was killed. Two factions formed, those willing to believe in Saki and reform society, and those against it. Years passed until these conflicts were resolved, but they were resolved for the better. The Robber Fly clans had been wiped out to a man, and the False Minoshiro recovered. Maria undertook therapy and finally came back to herself before marrying Saki and living together with her and her child. Through this therapy they discovered a way to heal those her became Fiends, though research was still ongoing as to how to save Karma Demons. Saki sat heavily on the bed with Maria, who was playing with their child, rescued from the Queerats.

"It's finally over, we won." Saki said with a heavy sigh. Maria and Maddie embraced Saki as she stared out the window into the night sky.

The changes would be slow, and there would be many difficulties, but hopefully perhaps a thousand years from now, the world would be a better place.

Author Notes:

I reworked the way the court system works for this a bit in order to make it work sorry. Also I gave Marias child a name. Maddie seemed to fit, it made sense at least. I skipped over the scene where Saki and Satoru found out Queerats were originally human as well as many other scenes but that's because I didn't feel a need to change them. I hope you enjoyed this I put some decent effort into it. Though im still kind bad at writing dialogue lolol.