Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost in the Shell or anything associated with it. I just hope it makes a come back in the near future, its too good an anime and I think increasingly relevant in todays world.

For love and humanity.

"Batou, I want you to put priority on your survival as well," then without so much as a glance behind she rushed off into the night, never to meet again for all I knew.

I sighed and put my hands in my pockets. "So that's it huh?" You know for all the jokes I make about it she's definitely a woman, only a woman could be so infuriating…

Trying to put it out of my mind, I walked out into the night as well and decided to think about my own next step.

Being a wanted man with a capture or kill order made things complicated, I had to not just get out of the city but out of the country. I could arrange transport, grab some supplies and some cash I had hidden away for a rainy day, make my way to just about anywhere in the world really. Maybe find someplace tropical, retire, deal in antique cars, finally find people who can appreciate their beauty. Hell maybe find a girl who was into full body prosthetics and settle down. Someone who doesn't make me want to bash my head against a wall at times.

To be honest, the possibilities were endless. I could go anywhere, reinvent myself, become someone new hell maybe even get a new body…

"I'll just change my body and memoiries as needed."

I grit my teeth as I recalled her saying something like that so causally. Is it really that easy for her? To just discard the memories, the good times and the bad times in the life that she had lived? Just delete and modify your memories, download yourself into a new body. Become someone completely new, hell maybe even someone happier than your original self. That's just…

I engaged my camouflage as I rounded a corner to a crowded street. Making sure I wasn't noticed by any early commuters or cameras as I passed by the mannequins in a store window.

Hell why should I care what she decides to do? For all I know if she changes herself into someone else maybe she'll actually crack a damn smile more often.

But still…

What would I even do anyway? Track her down? Scold her for thinking that she is so malleable? That she can just change who she is on a whim? Deleting years worth of memories good and bad? Change her personality? Discard her individuality, her humanity like just some dead weight?

The more I thought about it the more it pissed me off that she just doesn't seem able to get it through that metal head of hers that there are some things that you just shouldn't let go of. She of all people should know that better than anyone.

Then again I guess it's also easy for her to forget that. I don't know much about her past, she's not exactly the type to open up about, well anything really. If ever there was a riddle wrapped in an enigma written on a tightly bound scroll and placed behind unbreakable firewalls, that would be her. But I suspect she's had a prosthetic body for most of her life, probably since she was a kid. When you're just a piece of brain in a robotic body, or maybe even just a ghost with no human parts left at all, it's probably all too easy to forget the most important things.

Even I still have a few residual organs attached to my brain, not to mention memories of actually being completely flesh and blood, but she doesn't even have an ounce of either of things. How easy is it to lose your gender, your emotions, your identity when you're really nothing but a ghost living inside a metal shell?

I turned into an alley and turned off my camouflage after I made sure it was safe. I leaned up against a wall and looked up at the sky.

"Damn I've got it bad don't I?"

If I were to be completely honest, I think the reason I stayed at Section 9 was mostly because of her. Don't get me wrong I loved the job, on a good day you get the best technology, you put the bad guys away with no politician crawling up your ass screaming about rules and regs, and hell you even save a few lives. It's a good job. But…she's always fascinated me I guess. Maybe in her I see a greater version of my own struggle because at the end of the day, I'm not much more than a ghost in a shell either.

Because of that, in a way I understand her. Well as much as anyone can understand an enigma like the Major. But it's why I know exactly what that watch she left is, it's the exact same thing as the useless weight training gear I buy, it's a reminder that I'm me. An item that we ascribe what little humanity we have left to.

She probably has no shortage of things, trinkets here and there but that watch is probably her only one that really matters, her only external bit of humanity.

Which is why I was about to go and do something that was so completely and utterly stupid to the point of insanity that I hope the rest of the gang, if they survive all this, never ever hear about it.

"I'm gonna need guns."

I walked up the stairs to my stash. It was a little bit later on in the morning, I had to stop and grab some oil and leave it out for the Tachikoma's. It's likely my last parting gift to those guys. I'm glad they at least managed to avoid this whole mess. At least they'll remember me fondly if the worst should happen.

I grabbed a bag of supplies and loaded up a rifle from my old ranger days. Still in perfect working order, I grinned. After loading everything up I exited the room and took in the city bathed in the morning light. It was a damn beautiful day.

I know that this is stupid, hell it's probably suicide. If these guys were half as good as their rep, odds were they already had a lot of Arm Suits guarding her place. I'm good but these guys are the best of the best and packing a hell of a lot more firepower than I've got. The odds weren't exactly great for me.

Diving into the jaws of death itself all to safeguard a woman's only link to her humanity? Hell and they say romance is dead, the guys would all be calling me the biggest idiot to have ever lived and they wouldn't be wrong. It was stupid, insane and you know what? It felt damn human too.

I grinned at the gleaming city.

"Hell, it's my life. How I choose to waste it is my own damn business."

And wasting it to safeguard Motoko Kusanagi's humanity? Well I've heard of worse reasons to throw a life away.

One thing I know for sure, is that I just can't allow her to throw away the things that make her unique, her own individual. There are just some things that you can't throw away, even if it would make things easier. There are always some things that you can't give up no matter what.

I disappeared again into the city, ready to get that watch, or die trying.