Black Heaven, Zanzibar.
He wished he never found out. He ran down the dimly lit hallway, trying to figure out where to go. His heart was beating erratically, and sweat was dripping down his brow, blinding him. He used to work for The Messengers as one of the technichians who taught Lilith how to use a Metal Gear. Now, he wished he never had. He clutched the briefcase, knowing that, somehow, he had to get it to a safe place. He had copied off the main terminal of Metal Gear ADAM and found out exactly what the Messengers Of Truth were all about, what they wanted, what their goals were.
He suddenly walked into an intersection. He hated this. He hated being blind, being thrust into the dark with no clue of where to go.
"Trying to find a way out, Mr. Starnes?", a soft, calm voice with a tint of repressed madness spoke, reverberating inside his head.
Mr. Starnes froze like a deer in the headlights, trying to find where the voice came from.
"Who are you?", he nervously asked.
"Who am I? That's a good question. I guess you could call me... your sin."
"My sin?", he questioned.
"Yes. Tell me... did your wife really deserve all that?", the voice-Sin- questioned.
Mr. Starnes started running, refusing to believe what Sin had asked.
No, no, no, no, no-
"No one was supposed to know about this? Do you really believe that?", Sin asked.
"No! How do you know?!", Mr. Starnes screamed, still running.
Suddenly, the voice of his wife echoed in his head.
"Please... please...don't kill me...", his wife's voice pleaded.
Mr. Starnes dropped to his knees, dropped the briefcase, and looked at his hands in horror.
"You killed her. You cheated on her because you needed a little 'variety'... then when she found out and demanded a divorce... you were afraid your parents, your relatives, everyone that respected and looked up to you would find out, so... you killed her."
"How...H-how do you know?", Mr. Starnes whispered.
"I have told you... I am Sin. Every sin that has been done, I know about it. I know everything you've done.", Sin whispered back, softly.
"I tried to forget it... I tried to ask for forgiveness...", he begged.
"God does forgive, but only if you pray with all your heart and soul. Your heart was never in it every time you prayed. You prayed with your mouth, but not with your full soul and heart. Deep inside, you lusted for another woman while praying. God will not forgive you.", Sin spoke, the last five words hitting him like a sledgehammer.
This time, Mr. Starnes looked up at the ceiling, and let out a guttural scream of anguished sadness.
***
He opened his completely black eyes, feeling disappointed. Sin, slumped in a reclining chair, was skinny and pale, his arms bound in a straightjacket, his face covered with a copper metal muzzle, his hair cut close to the skull, and his eyes eerily black. He sighed, feeling as if he wasted his time.
It only took one tap for the man's psyche to shatter. He wanted a challenge.
"What's wrong?", someone inquired.
Sin looked up, seeing a tired, haggard man with shaggy hair and a disheveled goatee, with weary eyes. He had a PGS-1 sniper rifle slung across his back. The man sat down on a chair in front of him.
"What do you want, old man?", Sin asked.
"What were you doing?", Redemption spoke, his voice cracking with weariness, the bags under his eyes showing just how old, tired, and haggard he was.
"Driving a man crazy.", Sin replied, his calm voice tinted with madness, one eyebrow twitching.
"Does it give you pleasure when you kill in that fashion?", Redemption asked.
Sin let out a startled chuckle.
"You shouldn't ask a man named Sin, that. For the record, yes, it does. What about you, doesn't it please you to kill people with that rifle of yours?", Sin asked.
"No. It only suppresses the urge for a short time."
"You have an urge to kill? Yet, you don't feel happy each time you do it? Strange..."
"Not so. The urge is too tempting to ignore and I must quench it somehow."
"I know what you mean. Though in your case, it seems much worse.", Sin mused, referring to how tired Redemption looked.
"What I do is hard on me. I hate the guilt so much, I would welcome death if it came to me, no matter how painful it would be.", Redemption replied.
"Interesting… in all of my victims, none of them really wanted death... but you..."
"You know?", Redemption asked.
"Not really. I cannot completely look back into a person's past, you know. I can, however, know all the sins that person committed.", Sin said.
"How is it possible to do that?", Redemption inquired.
"When I invade a person's mind, I can only access what sins the person committed, what good things they have done, who they are, what they are thinking... but I cannot look fully at a person's past, it drains me. I use the fact that I can go in a mind and know his sins to drive a person to madness…"
"It seems we don't know much about each other...", Redemption mused.
"Yes, I'd like to know more…"
"Come... let us talk more over a cup of coffee."
With that, the two men got up and left.
The island of Zanzibar.
The Cybernetic Ninja raced towards the Fox-Hound buildings at an amazingly fast pace, zipping to and fro and around the huge trees of the island of Zanzibar.
The Ninja thought about the good times that it had a long time ago. Then, while running effortlessly, The Ninja shook its head.
Now was not a good time to think about the past. The past was the past. The future was laid out before it, and The Ninja would snatch the future with both hands.
Nevertheless, feelings of guilt and sadness threatened to overtake it.
It shook its head once again, and sped up, nearing the immense Fox-Hound buildings.
***
Snake followed the sprinting agile young man, noticing that the man kept darting his eyes around nervously, as if he was just sent on his first mission.
Snake frowned.
Campbell did always choose the greenhorns for the hardest missions.
Snake saw the man suddenly halt, staring towards something out of Snake's range of view. Snake stopped also, watching the man intently.
The man was behind a balaclava-sporting soldier, clutching his machine gun and watching straight ahead.
Oh, this should be good... Snake thought grimly as he watched the man nervously sneak up to the soldier.
Snake then saw how the man acted as he slowly crawled up to the soldier, and frowned again.
Didn't Campbell send guys who were rigorously trained in VR missions?
As Snake watched on, the man tensely brought his hands up in a choking position, leveling them towards the lone soldier's neck.
Oh no…
The man leaped forward and swathed his arms around the soldier's neck. In response, the soldier yelled out and shot out his left elbow onto the man's head. The man let go instantly, allowing the soldier to escape.
Snake's hand flew to his utility belt, and clutched onto a gun handle. Snake whipped out the only weapon that Otacon had supplied him with, and brought it up to the head of the fleeing soldier, who was sure to find cover and radio for help. With one tug of the trigger, the soldier went down. Snake then put away the M9 tranquilizer quickly.
The man looked at Snake as if he were a deer caught in the headlights. Then he ran.
"Hey! Freeze! Stop right there!", Snake barked after the man.
The man probably heard him, but gave no indication that he was going to listen. Sighing, Snake trudged on, forgetting the man for a moment.
Gray Fox stopped running for the moment, his chest wracking with shuddering breaths. He looked behind him, making sure the strange man wasn't following him. The man had been dressed in apparel like those of the enemy soldiers, but he wasn't wearing a balaclava like the soldiers did, he instead had a faded gray bandanna wrapped around his forehead.
Probably a higher-ranking soldier…
Gray Fox then cursed himself for not snapping the soldier's neck quickly. He couldn't do it because he suddenly realized that the soldier's life was in his hands, and he could take it away with one twist.
But wasn't that what he was aiming for, anyway?
He berated himself again, then promised that the next time he met up with a soldier, he would not hesitate.
Gray Fox continued on.
Untouchables50, to answer your guestion...
I felt that the chapter was too short and took it off to r evamp it.
Aren't you glad I did?
Sparkly stuff to Okatu Tess for all her help and corrections on my story.
Please read and review, flames are welcome, constructive comments are needed.
And...
If you're in need for a good laugh, or you're just bored, go read Random Goofiness, posted up by Otaku Tess. Thanks!