Disclaimer: I do not own any of the King of Fighters characters or locations used in this work of non-profit fanfiction. Even if you do sue me, all you're getting is a few random pens and some sketchbooks. However, I do own Cricket, her classmates, and her professors and most of the locations used. You steal, I sue you for a pretty penny, capiche?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Authornotes: FSK: Okay...now tell them, Ash!

Ash: Um...yeah. Zis is Cricket's little sociological experiment-a-majigger...-cough-

FSK: Kyo...

Kyo: Um...and no Ash, Kyo, or random object was harmed in the making of this fic...other than the broken chopstick that is lodged in Cricket's boot.

FSK: Beni...

Beni: Um...uh...Read and review. Cricket thrives on reviews.

FSK: There. You three may go now...Um...the name of the prologue is derived from something I read in one of my Sociology textbooks. Some of the stuff was a total reference and homage to it. There. I said it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prologue: Cipher in the Ice

It started with a finding on an icy cold January afternoon. I was reading my sociology textbook as I did most ordinary afternoons while resting in my dormitory. The wind blew freezing rain against my window and I could hear footsteps down below on the sidewalk that suddenly stopped, which I thought was odd, and I was curious as I had ran downstairs to see what it was. A young man collapsed against the door, shifted, and slid down into the snowbank that had been at the door for a while. I pried open the door and reached for him. His alabaster skin was pale even against the snow and ice surrounding him, but I could still feel a pulse.

"Wake up?" I whispered, shaking him slightly.

Another girl gave me a strange look as she started walking up the sidewalk, but I didn't register it at first. "Get a doctor, quick, Mina!"

"You sure? He looks dead." Mina looked down at the young man's still form. "He never even said a thing to me when we walked near each other. Just smiled at me weakly and said real quiet, 'I'm sorry...am I in your way, Madamoiselle?' That's all. So polite and apologizinglike..."

Once inside the building, the quiet, shuffling, lonely noise seemed to echo. I could see the pale face of the young man regaining more color as we moved to the elevator, then down the hall to my dorm. I passed a group of the athlete girls. "Who is it? Who are you carrying?" I heard one of the girls ask me.

"Don't know his name. I found him in the snowbank outside the door," was my reply.

After we got to the solitude of my room, I removed the man's jacket and pants, leaving his underpants and his black turtleneck on, I didn't want him to catch hypothermia; I then wrapped a blanket around him and let him lie in my bed. He was eerily quiet, but strangely strong-willed to live. I almost asked myself "Why Me?" as I sat and reflected, but something in me told me not to. Soon, I could hear the sound of a body stirring and a slight whimper. I turned back to see him sitting up, wrapped tightly in the blanket as though he were shielding himself.

The small dorm room was messy and chilly. I blurted out the news of my finding him somehow. He reached blindly for the footboard. "I do not remembair anyzing about collapsing."

I blinked, then pushed my chemistry book aside. "Now wait..." The young man whispered softly. "Vous do not 'ave to do zat on mon account...Zere is not a zing zat vous can do now for me anyway. If I were not so weak, I'd have not dropped in front of zis building..."

Intrigued, I turned bleakly to my computer and asked him to tell me about himself. He told me meager scraps here and there, but would avoid speaking about his recent past, except slight small snippets. The name Mukai kept coming up, which worried me. This Mukai figure couldn't be good.

How does one go about making a young man into a zero? Hearing the past of the young man whose name was Ash showed me. Before he had known Mukai, he was joyous, happy, and innocent as a child. Then his mentions of Mukai opened up the attack. He'd said that Mukai called him "a worthless being with no true soul. Foolish. Unable to redeem." Soon, the other members of the organization Ash had belonged to followed suit with such words as "weak and spineless"; "slow-witted"; "a true idiotic human." His strength now was like that of a child. But his strength in his past, according to him, had been above average. That strength didn't go down until he met Mukai. Even happy, innocent youths have resilience. It takes a long time to break them.

I typed furiously and wrote a harsh learning file pointing out what the organization which Mukai had headed had done to Ash Crimson. I sent a copy to Jay Harley, my sociology professor, and put another on my USB key. I shoved my laptop and slammed my drawers and crashed my door shut, but I didn't feel much better. The frail young man followed behind me: a small, rail-thin blond boy with a pallid alabaster face; a thin body in crimson slacks; and big, shimmering blue eyes that had looked for a long time but became veiled.

I could guess how many times he'd been chosen last to help in a mission, how many whispered adult conversations that had excluded him, how many times he'd not been asked. I could see and hear the faces and voices that said over and over, "You're weak, you're dumb. You're nothing, Ash Crimson."

A human is a believing creature. Ash undoubtedly believed them. Suddenly, things became clear to me: When he thought that there was nothing left for him, he collapsed in front of my dorm building to await his fate. Had I not saved him, he would be dead, and that changed my mind.

I wasn't about to let Ash be alone and forgotten. He would be my challenge day after day, minute after minute. I glanced into his eyes carefully that day, looking for a semblance of a smile. "Look, Ash," I said to myself, "I may not do anything else for you, but you're not going to leave my side a nobody. I'll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and this organization you say you came from, but I won't have you leaving me thinking you're a zero."

This time--yes, this time, unlike every other time--I was confident to succeed.