"Saigo! Saigo! Where are you?" a slightly younger Heiki yelled as shots rained all around him in a wrecked city, seemingly devoid of life except for the reploids all around.

"Heiki!" she cried from a ruined building.

Heiki rushed into the building, pistols blazing as a group of reploids on either side of him fired. Heiki fell to the ground, his pistols sliding as they fell from his grip. Slowly, he looked up as the reploids that were left advanced, their footsteps almost robotic-like, a trait rarely seen in the recent past. Another reploid, apparently smarter than the others, clothed in a black trenchcoat, held a pistol to Saigo's head, sneering slightly.

"Oh, you wanted her?" the reploid asked mockingly.

"Phenom... why?" Heiki asked. "I... I thought."

"That I was your ally?" the reploid laughed. "You should've known better."

"Saigo," Heiki said softly as a tear rolled down a younger Saigo's cheek, "it'll be all right."

"I doubt it," Phenom chuckled.

"Father... I understand now..." Saigo said mystically as, slowly, her eyes glowed with an eery green light.

Heiki's jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he began to crawl away. "S-s-saigo?"

"What in the...?" Phenom said as he tried to look at Saigo.

Saigo broke from Phenom's grip and threw him over her back, fangs slowly emerging over her canines.

"Get her!" Phenom yelled before Heiki covered his mouth.

"No!" Heiki yelled as a burst of rounds fired.

The shots bounced harmlessly off of Saigo as she walked closer, slightly hunched over with a feral glare. She abruptly raised her hand and a spectral bear swirled into existence, its eyes the same glowing green as Saigo's.

"Hisan'na! I command you, as my father before me! Bow down to my wishes and destroy these enemies!" Saigo yelled, smirking slightly.

The bear instantly lunged as another volley of fire was directed towards it. Heiki watched in horror as the bear tore and bashed the reploids apart.

"Phenom," Saigo said as she pointed at Phenom, her voice echoing.

Heiki felt himself ripped violently from Phenom and thrown to a corner of the room with a pile of the reploids. Saigo's gaze shifted to Heiki, worry entering her face.

"Heiki? You okay?"

Heiki shook his head and woke with a start.

"Heiki?" Saigo asked, hovering over him with a concerned expression, wearing a clean batch of clothes. "Are you okay?"

Heiki wiped away some sweat from his forehead and tried to calm himself down as Saigo pulled out a cloth from her pocket.

"Y-yeah. I-I'm fine," he said as Saigo wiped his chin and forehead with the cloth.

"You seemed scared," Saigo said as she sat down next to him. "I've never seen you like that except for when..." She quieted and Heiki nodded.

"I'll never forget that, Saigo. No matter how much I see it, it always haunts me," Heiki said as he shuddered.

"I'm sorry... I kinda lost control..." Saigo said sadly as her head bowed.

"Don't be. You saved your life," Heiki said as he rubbed Saigo's shoulder.

"Hisan'na saved me. I could have done nothing without him," Saigo said and Heiki nodded. "Did you get to...?"

"No," Heiki said quickly, interrupting her. "No, I didn't see it this time."

"That's good," Saigo said as she rubbed her arm. "I... didn't like that scene either..."

Heiki nodded again, trying to shove the memory away. It was the worse he had seen of Saigo's moments of insanity.

"Ready for breakfast?" Heiki asked as he got up and extended his hand to help Saigo up.

"Yes, please," Saigo said with a small, sad smile as she accepted his hand.

Saigo followed Heiki outside into the light of the dawning sun, the ruined buildings' outlines becoming more clear. They walked towards the edge of the city, Heiki clutching his pistols tightly, heading towards a forest, Heiki planning on hunting.

"Wait here," Heiki whispered as he quietly entered the forest and Saigo nodded, crouching behind a tree.

The dew on the leaves slowly soaked through Heiki's boots as he wandered through the forest, checking all along the way for any signs of tracks. He let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. Saigo was probably feeding by herself by now. He tried to get her to eat real food as much as he could, but sometimes nothing ever came. Saigo looked up at the sun and nodded. He had been searching for about an hour.

He followed his own tracks back, warily scanning from side to side as he walked. A thought crept into his mind and he stopped. How old was he? He started walking, figuring out his own age. Umm, about thirty? He nodded, the number sounded about right. The next thought entered quickly. Was there any female counterpart to him? He stopped once again and repeated the question over and over in his mind. He scoffed and shook his head, resuming his pace. There was no way that anyone would be a counterpart to him. Especially in this world. Most reploids that he knew were labeled maverick. A small minority were still sane. He stopped suddenly, disgusted at himself for the next thought. Kill Saigo and he could spend more time sifting through that minority instead of taking care of Saigo. His pace quickened, trying to shake the thought out of his head.

"Saigo?" he whispered as he got to the edge, still trying to rip the thought from his mind. "You there?" He searched around, a small scowl slowly spreading. "Told her to stay here!" he growled silently.

"And I did."

Heiki started but instantly relaxed and walked over to the voice. His nose wrinkled and he hid behind a tree as he saw what Saigo was sitting next to. A dead deer with fang marks in its neck.

"Saigo, you're sick," he muttered.

"Meh. It could be worse," she replied nonchalantly with a shrug.

"Got that right," he said under his breath.

"I heard that."

"Dang it," Heiki said as he walked away.

The thought reentered into his mind and, after what he had just seen, it seemed more feasible. He wouldn't have to deal with these kinds of moments anymore... Heiki stopped as he sensed his pistol being pulled out of its holster. He let out a breath and let the pistol slide back into the holster. These were moments he'd have to deal with while he was with Saigo. He'd have time to find a counterpart when his duty was finished. If Hakai kept his part of the deal, then Heiki could begin to do what he wanted to do. He groaned and put his hand on his forehead. Except for the fact that then he'd have to watch Saigo and the boy to make sure that nothing happens to either one of them. Which would be a wait of at least... ten years? Or longer if the kid they had was to be older than five years old.

"What's next?" Saigo asked as she came up behind him, making him jump.

"I dunno," Heiki said quickly, averting his gaze from her blood covered mouth.

"What? What did I do?" Saigo pleaded.

"Just look at yourself!" Heiki exclaimed, turning back to her with his arms raised. "You're covered in deer blood, there's deer blood on your mouth, and you don't really seem to care!"

"Oh," she said, wiping the blood around her mouth onto her shirt sleeve. "Better?"

"Ugh," Heiki groaned, covering his eyes with his hand. "Let's wash your clothes before they stain."

Saigo sighed. "Fine."

They walked back to the building they had stayed in for the night, Heiki covering his nose along the way from the stench of the blood. Inside, Heiki filled up a tub with water and waited as Saigo entered another room and pushed her clothes underneath the door to him. Heiki nodded as soon as he heard a shower start running. She knew the drill whenever something like this happened.

"Why me?" Heiki asked as he scrubbed the clothes, working the blood out from the fibers.

He sat down next to a wall with a heater next to him, placing the clothes on a mat in front of the heater. He looked at the plug of the heater and opened a compartment on his chest that led to his reactor The heater slowly began to whirr to life once he plugged it in and he watched the clothes, shifting them around when it was needed. Once they seemed to be dry, he unplugged the heater and shoved the clothes back underneath the door.

"Couldn't you do this faster somehow?" Saigo asked. "I always have to wait for you."

"There is no faster way," Heiki said as he closed his chest compartment. "We make do with what we have."

"We're dumping the water into the sewer, right?" Saigo asked, sighing slightly.

"As always," Heiki said as he picked up one end of the tub.

Saigo picked up the other end and they slowly began working their way down the stairs to the bottom level.

Once they reached the middle, Saigo asked, "Do you really think there's a male counterpart for me out there?"

"I don't know, but I try to find him anyway," Heiki said, putting the tub down so that Saigo could rest briefly. She had gotten stronger over the past two years, he noted.

"What'll you do when you're done protecting me?" Saigo asked as she picked up the tub again.

"Well, I'm thinking of trying to find myself a counterpart. Dunno if I'll ever find her in reploid society since it's pretty much broken down to low-level AI reploids that're all mavericks," Heiki replied with a small shrug.

"Is it as hard as my search?" Saigo asked as they neared a sewer drain.

"Probably not. There's more reploids than humans out there," Heiki said as they dumped the water into the drain.

"So our search is close to hopeless," Saigo said sadly as they walked away and towards their building.

Heiki grimaced. He should've anticipated this. He struggled to find comforting words to tell her as they walked up the stairs.

"Well," he began, still trying to form his words, "it may be that way... but I'll help you as much as I can."

"But why?" Saigo asked as they entered their room and set the tub down. "Why would go that far when you have better chances of finding someone than me?"

Heiki sat down on the ground and Saigo sat down next to him. Slowly, Heiki sighed, the thought tugging at him to just finish Saigo off. Slowly, he let out a sigh.

"This is my purpose, Saigo, and I intend to make sure that you're taken care of before I do anything," he said.

"Seems like wasted effort to me, risking life and limb just pursuing something that may not exist," Saigo said, frowning slightly.

Heiki chuckled. "I wouldn't say that."

"Why not?" Saigo asked, readjusting her sitting position.

Heiki shrugged. "I don't know. I guess, in a way, I wanna see the human race continue on. More specifically, I wanna know that you're taken care of."

"Really," Saigo said flatly, making Heiki cringe. "Seemed to me like you were annoyed with me after the little deer 'incident'."

Heiki sighed and got to his feet. "Okay, it's instances like that which don't really improve my opinion of you."

"So why do you do it?" Saigo asked, getting to her feet to face Heiki. "Why do you risk your life just to save me?"

"It's like I just said," Heiki said, a low growl escaping him as he tried to keep his temper under control. "I just wanna see you make it to a happy point in life."

Saigo raised an eyebrow and giggled. "You remind me of father."

"How so?" Heiki asked, leaning against the opposite wall.

"He was always optimistic and looking out for me even if he had other things that needed to get done," Saigo said as she smiled.

Heiki chuckled. "You liked your father, I'm guessing."

"He was my best friend in the world that we were in at the time," Saigo said, her tone drooping.

"In the world that you were in at the time?" Heiki asked.

"Well... like when I'd go to school, I was often among lots of reploids since the human population started to decline due to increasing maverick attacks," Saigo explained.

"Oh." Heiki chuckled. "At first I thought you were other-worldly."

Saigo giggled. "No, but we were slightly shunned since it was rumored that my father had strange dealings. Thus, I kinda took the brunt of these rumors and didn't really have friends. Most of my friends felt sorry for me, but didn't really associate too close to me."

"Because they believed the rumors," Heiki said quietly as he nodded.

"Exactly," Saigo said, nodding sadly. "Then my father pulled me aside one day and said, 'Saigo, I hear that things are happening in school. Anything you wanna talk to me about?' I finally broke down and told him everything." She smiled sadly. "Then he smiled at me and sat me down. 'Saigo, you don't need to listen to anything that those kids say because you're better than any one of them,' he told me. I asked him why and he replied, 'You may be getting persecuted for a rumor, but that rumor is quite true.' I remember looking at him and I think I scooted away from him, but he gently shook his head and said, 'No, Saigo. You don't need to be afraid. I'm just trying to explain things and why you can hold your head up high.'" Saigo smirked slightly and shook her head. "Then he told me about the Shaman lineage of our family and about Hisan'na. He told me that I would be able to call on it and other guardians according to my growing power and needs."

"So you have more than just the bear?" Heiki asked.

"Yep," Saigo said with a small smile. "I have a wolf as well which is an attacker. It was only recently that I've seemed to be able to incorporate the bear's spirit into my own, thus giving me the benefits of the bear without having to summon it into existence." She grimaced. "Unfortunately, I think I slightly lose control of myself whenever I do that."

"Is that what happened with the deer?" Heiki asked coldly, staring at Saigo from under his hood.

"Yeah..." Saigo said as she scratched the back of her head. "I think so. My memory doesn't really work well around the moment that I start using the Soul Integration."

Heiki nodded. "You mind showing me what you can do?"

Saigo cringed. "I probably could, but... I don't want to lose it and kill you."

"Don't worry. I just wanna see if you're actually combat-able. Then I won't have to worry so much."

Saigo stopped leaning against the wall and glanced around warily. "Well..." she began. "Okay, but somewhere where someone won't see us, okay?"

"Of course," Heiki said as he also stopped leaning against the wall.