A/N: Here's where it's going to start slowing down, folks. That's the problem when you've got lots of ideas and no real plan on how to string them together into something coherent. I'll try to piece things together as they come. Oh well, we'll see.

"Heaven knows its time; the bullet has its billet."
-Sir Walter Scott

Bullet Never Lies

January 19, 1720 hours, West Pacific Standard Time (0720 hours, Greenwich Mean Time)
Pacific Ocean, 37 miles southwest of Meridia Island, Depth: 309 meters
Tuatha de Danaan, Deck 1, Port Lifeboat Deck

Garon watched the bridge crew appear from the corridor and head immediately for the lifeboats. He recognized the helmsman, and of course there was Mardukas at the back of the group. But no Teletha. He frowned, stepped forward, and grabbed the executive officer by the shoulder. "Where is she?"

Mardukas looked back, but could not see her coming down the corridor. "She remained behind to lock in her last commands," he answered. "She should be right behind us."

The pilot had to bite back the urge to swear, violently. "Right. I'll head back and make sure she gets here safely."

This time, it was Mardukas' turn to grab his shoulder. "She'll be along," he said. "If you don't get off this ship now it may sink before you get back here."

"Then I'll swim," Garon said, pulling his arm from the older man's grasp.

He ran through the badly-angled corridors as fast as the angle of tilt would allow, pushing off from walls to ensure that he remained in the center of them. As he passed an intersection that led to the stairs down to deck two, he heard rushing water, which meant that the second deck was flooding fast. He cursed and picked up the pace, now using the projections from the wall to grab hold of and propel himself along.

Fortunately, it was not far to the bridge. He stopped just outside the door and, knowing it would not admit him because he was not authorized to enter the bridge, he placed his ear against the metal. He could hear the alarms, and something else. Furrowing his brow, he covered his other ear with his hand and listened harder.

It was muffled sobbing. She was in there. She might have been injured.

"Tessa!" he shouted, hammering his fist on the door. The metal rang with his blows. "Are you hurt!? Have Dana open the door!"

On the other side, Teletha turned her chair toward the commotion, and her heart soared as she heard Garon's voice calling out to her. She hiccuped, then covered her mouth with her hand, stood up, and walked over to the door. "Dana, mute bridge and entry corridor alarms," she ordered.

The alarms cut out at the same time the AI reported, "Task complete, Madam Captain."

She took a deep breath. "Garon, please get back to the lifeboat deck and abandon ship," she said, loud enough for her voice to carry through the door.

"Open the door, Tessa, please." The desperate plea made her heart hurt. She reached up and clenched the fabric of her shirt over the center of her chest. "You don't have to die here. Don't do this to us."

"So many people have died," she whispered. "I caused many people to die today. My ship. The Danaan..."

"Many people did die today," he agreed. "But they died to let all the rest of us continue living. They gave their lives for the hope of a brighter future. Do you remember what Kurz said? 'If I don't do everything I can, then I won't be able to face them.' Yes, people died to let you escape today. How could you face them if you give up and die here?"

"Please, Garon... Get out of here. Go, survive, live your life, find someone else, be-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Teletha Testarossa!" he shouted, and the range of emotions in his voice startled her. Aside from the obvious rage, she sensed hurt, mostly. Her depression-mired mind couldn't connect anything else. "Don't you dare tell me to find some other girl and be happy with her. You're the one I've chosen. And come Hell, cos the high water's already here, I will not give you up without a fight."

She was silent at this, and her tears flowed once more, causing her to press her hand tightly over her mouth to prevent herself from sobbing outright. "I'm...sorry..."

"Tessa, please open the door. If you're not going to leave, then neither am I. Let me at least die with the girl I love in my arms."

She sobbed again, and was barely able to get the words out to order Dana to open the door. It slid open without a vocal confirmation from Dana, and as she had been leaning heavily against it, she fell forward, right into Garon's arms. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

"Hello, beautiful," he said with a smirk.

She blushed and buried her head in his chest, clinging tightly to him. She pulled herself across the deck to sit closer to him, then shifted her position to rest her head on his shoulder. "You're about to pick me up and carry me out of here, aren't you?" she asked dryly.

"You Whispered are a clever lot," he said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. "I'm not going to let my girl just throw her life away like this."

Nodding slowly, she sighed and sat up. She felt completely emotionally drained. "We should probably hurry, then. The self-destruct sequence should-"

"All predetermined parameters have been met. Auto-destruct sequence is now activated. Fifteen minutes remain until destruction."

She nodded, her mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Yep, there it is."

He stood up, then gently pulled her to her feet and wrapped his left arm around her. "Deny the ship from Amalgam's recovery teams. Clever girl. What were the 'predetermined parameters'?"

"Escape of all crew that were able to get to the lifeboats," she answered as they began to make their way down the steeply-angled corridors.

"So that means all the lifeboats are probably gone," he mused, turning at a corridor intersection and struggling against the unnatural tilt of the corridor. "We'll have to get creative, then."

Fear momentarily seized her, the turn away from the direction she was expecting dredging up the memory of the two Amalgam infiltrators who had almost captured her, and were intent on raping her as well, had Garon not arrived. She calmed herself swiftly, remembering just who it was that held her under his arm. "The lifeboat decks aren't this way," she pointed out in a deadpan.

"No, they're not. We're going to the hangar."

She was confused. There would be no way to escape from the hangar. Sure, if the Danaan was sinking from the surface, they'd be able to open the flight deck doors and leave, but failsafes within the AI programming prevented the flight deck doors from opening underwater. "Why the hangar?"

"Desperation is the mother of inventiveness," he answered.

She smiled faintly. "I think you mean 'Necessity is the mother of innovation,'" she corrected.

"Same thing." He pushed the hangar door open, pulled her in behind him, and then leaned against the door to shut it again. The angle of the deck was severe enough that he could almost sit on the door. This chance at escape would only be open so much longer.

"Auto-destruct will complete in twelve minutes."

Scowling up in the general direction of the ceiling, he moved over to where the only two Arm Slaves they had recovered from Meridia Island, Kurz's default M9 and Closeau's black M9, were located. "Tessa, can you override the pilot authorization sequence and unlock these M9s for me to move?"

It still caused her to blush when he called her Tessa. She felt her face heat up as he climbed onto Kurz's Arm Slave and triggered the cockpit to open. "Yes, I can." She thought about how he had asked about using both units, and took a stab at trying to figure out his plan. "But even if we could get the flight deck doors open, I don't know how to pilot an M9."

"Close, but that's not my plan," he said waving her up to join him. She did, climbing as swiftly as she could while not losing her balance, and leaned into the cockpit, keying in her authorization override into the unit. He tried not to stare at her backside on display in front of him.

"Auto-destruct will complete in eleven minutes."

She looked back over her shoulder at him, her ponytail swinging almost playfully behind her head. "What do you need me to do, then?"

He tapped a finger against his chin. "About how long does it take for an Arm Slave to reach from the catapult to the location of the doors when they're launching?" he asked, thinking. "Is it two seconds or three?"

"An Arm Slave travels the length of the launch catapult in two and a half seconds," she answered automatically, the stats of her submarine engraved in her memory.

"Okay, then set the self-detonation device for... one minute four seconds. Should give me the time to move back and seal the other unit."

She paled. The detonation of an Arm Slave inside the hangar would blow out the walls. That would.... Oh, she wanted to smack her forehead. That was his plan. He knew that the bay doors could not be opened underwater, so he'd use the blast of one Arm Slave to destroy the doors, and then escape to safety in the other.

She smiled and nodded, then began setting the device. "Yes, of course. Then I'll remove the pilot recognition protocols on both Arm Slaves, and disable the automatic securing of the pilot harness in Lieutenant Closeau's unit." Another blush tinged her cheeks as she said that. M9 Gernsback units had absolutely no space to squeeze in a passenger. The only way they'd both be able to ride inside it would be to block the harness from automatically closing around the pilot, that way she could squeeze into the harness with him, ending up almost literally sitting in his lap. It was a good thing she was small.

"Auto-destruct will complete in ten minutes."

As soon as she had finished with Kurz's M9, she moved to the other unit and Garon slipped down into the cockpit and into the master control seat. Without bothering to seal the cockpit, he stood the Arm Slave up and marched it toward the elevator to take it up to the flight deck. When it was in place, he came back and climbed up into the black M9, leaving the hatch open again so that Teletha didn't have to sit in the control seat with him yet. She sat on the shoulder of the control seat and held tightly to his arm so she wouldn't be jarred loose.

When the black M9 was in place, she called out, "Dana, bring elevator three up to the flight deck, please."

"Aye, ma'am. Auto-destruct will complete in nine minutes."

While the elevator was rising, he climbed out of the black M9 and got back into the other unit. Once the elevator had locked into place, he marched the unit to the catapult and maneuvered its feet into position. Teletha called out, "Override catapult safety failsafes. Disengage locks on the catapult system, prepare side one for launch."

No vocal confirmation was given, but the clamps used to hold the M9's feet to the deck while it launched snapped into place. A lever grip swung up from the deck, and he locked the M9's right hand to it. Then he entered the final command keycode to activate the suit's self-detonation device. A countdown timer that read "00:01:04" appeared in the center screen and began to count down.

He leapt from the crouched Arm Slave and ran for all he was worth back to the black M9, counting seconds in his head. Scrambling up the machine's leg, he settled into the master control seat, then looked over to Tessa. "I apologize in advance if I just happen to have a reaction to having my girl pressed up against me in the cockpit of an Arm Slave. We have thirty seconds."

She blushed again, then obligingly slid into the small space that remained between him and the front of the pilot harness. With nowhere to put her hands, she laid them over the top of the arm wados, then situated herself in a manner as comfortable as possible for herself and him. He sealed the cockpit hatch, then waited.

"Auto-destruct will complete in eight minutes."

The twenty-five seconds that passed were the longest in his life. Teletha's small frame naturally meant that she would be very light in weight, but with the miniscule amount of space available to them in the control seat harness, she had ended up pressed against him in a number of locations. He couldn't see the central screen for her head without moving his to one side or the other, and it was a good thing that they weren't going into combat. Despite everything that had happened, she still smelled strongly of freshly-cut apples. It was a scent that made his mouth water, whether for her or for the apples was truly debatable.

"There's a risk that the force of the Arm Slave exploding within the pressurized sub may kill us," he said, though it was nothing she didn't already knew. "I've heard a lot of stories about your lack of luck in the romance department. And in case the risk happens to come to pass, I don't want you to die without hearing someone say it to you. I love you, Tessa."

Her face burned like an engine in the middle of a flameout. She knew that was how he felt toward her already, and she herself felt the same, but how forward! Still, in this kind of situation, it's mostly what one came to expect. She smiled, and traced idle patterns on the exposed parts of his arms inside the control wados. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "I.. I love you, too." She fidgeted. "You can...you can call me Tel'ika now, if you want."

He smiled and rested his forehead against the back of her head. "Since I've gotten used to saying it, I'll call you 'Tessa' around everyone else," he said. "Tel'ika will be my private name for you."

She giggled and nodded, then looked over to the countdown display in the corner of the central screen. They had five seconds left. "Dana! Launch catapult one!"

"Launching."

As the catapult launch system hurled Kurz's M9 toward its destiny of allowing Garon and Teletha to escape, he turned the black M9 to present its backside toward the inevitable explosion and knelt down, pressing its hands to the deck for added stability. Inside, Garon shifted his body to put as much of himself between the explosion and Teletha as he could, despite knowing that it wouldn't help buffer her at all any more than the Arm Slave already would. It was an instinct more base than breathing, than shooting a man before he shoots you.

Protect your sweetheart.

Even Orar knew of that instinct, despite being a second-generation AI.

"Auto-destruct will complete in seven minutes."

The sound of the M9 slamming into the sealed hangar doors reverberated loudly throughout the flight deck, and Garon, under a fleeting intuition, swiftly reached over and turned off the external audio sensors. Even despite this, the roar of the M9's explosion within the narrow confines of the enclosed flight deck was deafening. Their M9 rocked violently, the only thing keeping it from collapsing was the fact that it was already on hands and knees.

"And now, water," he muttered, switching the air filters over to submerged mode.

The air filters of an M9 were capable of scrubbing chemical toxins and nerve gas from a nuclear/biological/chemical-contaminated land environment, allowing the machine to still function in an area where chemical or biological weapons had been used. Standard M9E Gernsback units weren't radiation-shielded and couldn't operate in a fallout zone; the specialized M9R (R for radiation) Blackjack was required for such environments.

M9E units' air filters also featured an underwater mode, in which they'd function like a combination of a fish's gills and the photosynthetic cells of plants. They would filter oxygen out of water, and in the process use the waste hydrogen as a backup fuel source for the palladium reactor, and also use a mechanically-recreated version of photosynthesis to turn the occupants' carbon dioxide waste gases into breathable oxygen.

Water flooded through the hangar almost instantly. Garon threw the M9 to its feet and shot out the right hand, gripping onto the reinforced piping and bending the unit's knees. "Hold on," he whispered to Teletha in as soothing a voice he could manage. He knew it wasn't easy for her. Being a submariner, drowning had to be one of her greatest fears. And with a veritable wall of water rushing toward them, that fear had to be nearly paralyzing her.

He could hear her quietly whispering something as she held tightly to the arm wados. Barely audible over the noise of the rushing water, it sounded like she was praying. He wished her results. He wasn't on good terms with the higher powers.

The blow of the rushing water struck the M9 like a hammering fist, staggering it back, but not ripping it away from its handhold. Metal shrieked and groaned as the force of the impact dented the torso armor. But it didn't wash them away, and after just a few seconds, the pressure faded as the flight deck was completely flooded.

"Auto-destruct will complete in six minutes."

"Now comes the hard part," Garon muttered, engaging the M9's thrusters and directing it out of the shattered hole in the front of the flight deck. "I hope we can find an island somewhere nearby that hasn't been affected by the fallout..."

Teletha said nothing. She wanted to hug him, but couldn't turn around in the confined space, and so to appease her almost burning need for some kind of physical contact, she ran her fingers over his elbow where the arm wados didn't cover his arm.

He could sense how badly she needed the contact. She wasn't the captain of a multi-billion dollar submarine with the responsibility and well-being of hundreds of crew and personnel on her shoulders right now. She was just a twenty-year old young woman whose entire world had been ripped out from underneath her, whose chances of survival at the moment could generously be called low, and the only thing she had going for her right now was the fact that she was still alive and that she had someone who loved her. He could almost hear her heart crying out for reassurance.

He leaned his head down and softly kissed the back of her neck. She reacted to that, craning her head back at the ticklish sensation. He wanted to do more, to kiss away her fears, but his position controlling the Arm Slave prevented him. "Lean back," he whispered into her ear. "Lean on me. It's part of the job description, after all."

She laughed softly, a sound more pleasant to him than the singing of an angelic chorus, and leaned her back onto his chest, leaning her head back against his shoulder. He couldn't focus on her face without going cross-eyed, but he did anyway, and did his best to kiss her because she looked so damn kissable in the position she was in. Their positioning was a detriment, and so he only managed to kiss the corner of her mouth, but she smiled anyway and treated his effort with a light-hearted giggle.

It was hard to remember that they were still in the middle of a life-or-death situation when these moments managed to sneak in on them, and that's what made them all the more precious. During these small moments, regardless of whether they came in the cockpit of an Arm Slave or in the lull of a pitched battle, they were allowed to momentarily forget that they were a mercenary Arm Slave pilot and a naval captain fighting a losing war against a technologically-superior foe. These moments allowed them to be nothing more than a young couple enjoying their new relationship.

They both knew that they would come to depend on these quiet moments to preserve their sanity in the months ahead.

---

January 19, 1925 hours, West Pacific Standard Time
Pacific Ocean, 186 miles east of Meridia Island, Surface
CVN-79 USS Arizona

The Sikorsky-built CH-53K Sea Stallion heavy transport helicopters settled down onto the flight deck of the supercarrier USS Arizona, carrying the former occupants of three of the Tuatha de Danaan's lifeboats. Beleaguered personnel, directed by the flight crew of the Sea Stallion, disembarked into the waiting care of the Arizona's medical staff.

Captain Vincent Blake, a long-time navy man who had joined up with Mithril and been given command of the Arizona carrier battlegroup following his retirement from the United States Navy, stood outside the diameter of the whirling helicopter blades, looking calm and unflappable in the heavy wind generated by the downwash of the rotors. As Richard Mardukas approached and saluted, Blake returned the salute and started walking toward the command island.

"My apologies for having to recover your men from such a distance, Commander Mardukas," he shouted over the noise of the flight deck. "We had to recover survivors of the Reagan battlegroup first, and then wait around because we knew Amalgam had eyes in the area. We couldn't be seen to rescue the personnel of the Danaan and still be able to keep convincing them that we're not the rest of the Pacific Fleet. As soon as we knew that their reconnaissance vehicles had left to refuel, we rushed in to recover your people."

Mardukas gave him a confused look. "Survivors of the Reagan? What happened to them?"

Blake's expression soured. "Amalgam hit them with a Behemoth in retaliation for the help they gave you guys at Meridia Island," he answered. "It was...hard to watch that happen to another carrier."

"So they're so arrogant as to presume that they can openly provoke the United States that way?" Mardukas shook his head.

"The US has nothing that can combat the Lambda Driver, and everyone involved knows it." The island was relatively soundproofed against the noise of the flight deck, at least allowing them to stop shouting to each other. "In any case, we've scattered the wreckage of several lifeboats in the area the Danaan went down. With the rest of the debris in that area, hopefully they'll assume that she went down with all hands aboard."

"They'll get nothing from searching," Mardukas said calmly. "The Danaan's self-destruct system is very thorough." He paused. "You recovered all of our AS pilots?"

"Closeau, Mao, Weber, and Yang." Blake nodded. "Got all four of them."

"Put them to use as you see... Wait. There should have been five pilots. Did you not recover Crayson?"

"Not unless he was on the Sea Stallion that you came in on. Since you're asking about him, I'd assume he wasn't."

"No. And what of the captain?"

"We...Captain Testarossa was not among the personnel we recovered from the lifeboats."

Mardukas halted in his tracks. He stared at the welded metal deckplates. "You're certain of this?"

"We're Mithril also, Commander, not the US Navy." Blake was trying to break the tension with levity. It wasn't working. "We know what our personnel look like. I am sorry, Commander, but to the best of our knowledge, Captain Testarossa did not get off the Tuatha de Danaan before she self-detonated."

---

January 21, 1321 hours, Japan Standard Time
Tama, Tokyo, Japan
Tama City Central Hospital, Recovery Ward, Room 3

He could hear faint beeping sounds. His foggy mind connected it with the beeping of a targeting system acquiring a lock on an enemy vehicle. Then his overactive imagination added voices to the white haze filling his mind. ...anyone out there...seven...any sign of...negative...lost him...Sousuke!

It was her voice screaming his name amongst all the other voices from past missions that snapped some switch in his mind, brought him directly to consciousness. His eyes snapped open, blinding him with the brilliance of overhead ceiling lights. It was that flinch that prevented him from suffering a full-body flinch, which would have ripped the intravenous lines that he was just now beginning to notice out of his arm.

Steadying himself, he turned his head to regard the bank of medical devices set to monitor his heart rate, blood pressure, deliver nutrients and fluids via the IV drip. Some of the machines he recognized, some he didn't. He turned his head back toward his left, and the heart rate monitor made a an audible recognition of his surprise when, through his hazy vision, he saw that familiar blue hair sitting in the chair beside his bed.

"Kana-"

"Wrong."

His vision cleared, and it was a black-haired woman sitting in the chair, not the blue-haired one he had hallucinated. The heart monitor's pace dropped, and he felt as though he'd had the rug pulled out from beneath him. "Oh."

"Yeah." Wraith glanced over to the sophisticated medical equipment, then made a face. "Don't you even want to know?"

"Will it matter?"

The Intelligence operative shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't. Then I'll come right to the point. We're moving you out tonight."

He turned back to look at her, then looked pointedly at the large amount of medical equipment. "That seems a tall order," he said bitterly.

"It'll work out, somehow." She sounded tired. Tired and crushed. "If you stay, you die."

"It would seem that the medical professionals did their job superbly."

"Assassins, you ignorant asshole," she spat. "I've already had two attempts on me. We have to move you to a secure location before they find out where you are."

At the mention of the assassination attempts, he looked over and scrutinized her carefully. He could see there was dried blood on her hands. It looked old. He nodded toward it. "You've got some red on you."

She raised her hands, inspecting the blood stains for a moment. She chuckled. "Assassin last night. This is the result of two days of stress and a bad mood after having one's life destroyed. It took him three hours to die."

He wasn't disturbed. He could probably do worse. He turned and looked over at her. There was a distant look in her eyes, as though she were reliving the killing of the assassin, and wasn't liking what she saw.

"Do you think God will forgive us for what we've done?" she asked quietly.

"I don't believe in God."

"...If you did."

"No."

"I thought not."

"Two days?"

"You've been in the hospital for two days," she answered with a nod. "The surgery went well, and the second bullet missed your lung. Barely. You'll recover fine."

"Kyoko?"

Wraith's mouth reduced to a thin line. "She was in a bad spot when I brought her in. Shrapnel damage to nearly every vital organ. It was touch and go for a long time, but she managed to pull through intact, minus a few pieces she can live without. Kidney, spleen. You can live with one of the first and without the other. She'll be in the hospital for quite a while, unfortunately."

He scowled. "She was hurt because of us."

Wraith moved so fast that at first he couldn't be sure that she had moved. But the stinging pain in his right cheek, and the sight of the Intelligence operative drawing back her hand and sitting down again were proof enough. "She was hurt because of Amalgam, you son of a bitch," she snapped. "Just like Kaname is gone because of Amalgam."

His heart lurched at the mention of her name, and a violent pain seized his stomach. "Gone..."

Wraith had him by the front of his hospital gown in an instant. "Don't you lose yourself on me, Sergeant," she hissed. "I know you, Sagara. You've got a caged hound in you. A wild animal whose mate has been stolen. The plan from here on out is simple, Sagara. You are going to heal up. Should take less than a week. You've got a hell of a healing system. Helps that the bullet missed all your vital organs. Anyway. We are going to set you loose. Then they are going to regret that they ever looked in Kaname's direction."

---

January 22, 0342 hours, Japan Standard Time
Hinohara, Tokyo, Japan
Unspecified Safe House

In the darkest recesses of the night, Sousuke sat on the edge of the bed that he had been moved to several hours earlier. It had been far easier than he had expected; the heart monitors and other equipment had been a mere formality, as all he truly needed at this point was rest and the replenishment of fluids from the IV drips, which had been easy enough to bring along. The traditionally-built home he'd been brought into was small, but it served its purpose well enough.

A half-consumed bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the nightstand, along with his Glock 17. He hated that he was conscious. No, scratch that. He hated that he was alive. His failure to protect her lashed him mercilessly like the bosun's whip when he was awake, and whispered the harsh reality in his ears as he slept. The worst part was that the whispers came in her voice.

She trusted you, the voice whispered from the darkness. She loved you, and you failed her.

He took her away from you, and you let him do it.

She's his, now. You have no place in her life.

Scowling, he reached over toward the bottle, his reflexes and spatial judgment ruined by half the bottle's contents already being down his throat. His hand smacked into the neck of the bottle and knocked it over, dribbling some of its contents on the floor. Swearing, he grabbed the neck of the bottle and jerked it upright, listening to the liquid slosh inside. He reached for the shot glass, missed, and knocked it off the table. He scowled as he listened to it shatter on the wooden floor. Grumbling, he simply raised the bottle to his lips and took a long pull from it.

He felt cold suddenly. A shiver coursed through his body, almost jerking the bottle out of his fingers. He kept a death grip on it to keep it from falling. Why couldn't you hold onto her hand that hard? Keep that damn robot from walking her out of your life? He grunted and slammed the bottle back onto the nightstand, then picked up the Glock. Despite his drunkenness, his handling of the weapon was steady and sure. No less could be expected of a specialist.

Specialist. Hah. Fat lot of good that did. Being a specialist must not be worth much, if you got walked all over by a spoiled brat in a shiny new toy.

He scowled again and grabbed the slide of the Glock, ripping it backwards in anger. The weapon ejected the unused bullet that had been in the chamber, and he positioned his hand beneath the falling round. His timing was shot due to the alcohol. He didn't even begin to close his hand until the 9mm round had already rolled out of it. It made a faint, melodious clinking sound as it struck the wooden floor and rolled away.

He frowned and pulled the slide back again. Another unspent bullet flew out of the chamber, reached the apex of its climb, and came back down. This time, Sousuke's positioning was off. The bullet barely touched his middle finger on its downward path, sending it into an end-over-end spin before it joined its comrade on the floor.

How far the mighty have fallen. You can't even catch a bullet anymore.

He repeated the process again, seeking to prove the voice and its nagging doubts wrong. Even though it sounded like her, he knew it couldn't be Kaname. She had never been so cruel to him. Another bullet flew. Another failed catch. The voice struck him again with its verbal lash. What pathetic instincts. How is it that you were Mithril's top pilot?

But regardless of his bad timing, he could still count. His Glock 17 came with a ten-round magazine, and that meant there were seven more shots left in it. He jerked on the slide again. He didn't even get his hand into its flight path. I can see why you could never manage to master the power of the Lambda Driver. Even she used it far better than you ever could.

Maybe more alcohol would drown out the voice. He grabbed the whiskey bottle and chugged. It was down to a quarter of its original contents when he dropped it back onto the table. He wished he could develop alcohol poisoning from downing the entire contents of the bottle, but despite it being eighty proof, he'd need a lot more than what he had on him. If only Mao were around. She seemed to be a bottomless source of alcohol.

He lifted the Glock and pulled back the slide again. He lost sight of the bullet's brass casing as it flew up into the darkness of his room, dimly hearing it clatter to the ground somewhere behind him. Too bad, so sad, Sergeant Somber. You're not getting rid of me that easily.

Five shots. Or was it four? No, it was five. There were only five left in the Glock. He pulled the slide back. Another bullet shot into the air, coming down directly centered on his waiting fingers and bouncing back up. He snapped his fist shut, a brief feeling of success rising within him. Take that, voice. It all came crashing down when the bullet hit his closed fingers on its return from the bounce, and rolled onto the floor. Jumped the gun on that one, pardon the pun. Just like when you jumped the gun on taking on his Arm Slave. Look where that got you.

A low growl escaped his throat. If the voice had a physical presence, he'd shoot it in an instant. Even if it took on Kaname's form. She was not as cruel as the voice was. At least, he didn't think she was. Was she? It was hard to remember, now. The alcohol was badly fuzzing his train of thought. He pulled back the slide. Another failure. He didn't wait for the voice to taunt him again. He pulled it back two more times in rapid succession. Two more failed attempts to catch the flying bullets.

How utterly worthless. You're pathetic, Sagara. You failed to protect a friend from harm. You failed to defeat his Arm Slave. He's a far better man than you. He deserves her, not you. She's forgotten all about you by now. He's the new man in her life. You're not even a memory.

It was his head. His head was the source of that damned voice, and all of his problems. Good. He now had a clear enemy. With trembling, numbed fingers, he pulled the bottle of whiskey from the table, and emptied its contents in one long pull. His throat burning from the alcohol, he turned the Glock in his hand and disengaged the safety. She's better off without you.

With neither hesitation nor remorse, he set the barrel of the Glock against his temple and pulled the trigger.

It took him exactly three seconds to puzzle through and understand that he hadn't blown his brains all over the bed and the wall behind him. He was still breathing, his vision was still cloudy from alcohol, and his heart still felt as though a steel clamp had been placed around it and squeezed. Slowly, he moved the Glock to the center of his vision, expecting to see the slide locked back because he'd miscounted and had ejected all the bullets already.

But no, there had been a bullet in the chamber. It was blocking the slide from coming back, wedged into the tiny space there. The round had misfired. Poor seating? A dimple on the primer? Any number of things could have caused it. He reached up and pulled the slide back, and the mechanism ejected the bullet with less gusto than it had the others.

He caught this bullet easily. He turned it over in his fingers, setting the Glock down on the table beside the empty bottle of whiskey. Aside from a slight triangular dent in the casing caused when the slide had pinched it, the bullet was unremarkable, no different than any other. If he reloaded it and tried again, he'd probably succeed at killing himself. Then he'd be out of his misery.

Promise me!

He jerked involuntarily, nearly losing the bullet, and clenched his fist around it to keep from dropping it. That had been Kaname's voice again, but it wasn't the venomous taunt that had been mercilessly beating him ever since he'd awakened. It had been her real voice, her real words, the last words she had said to him before she'd been taken away from him.

A cool shiver worked its way down his body and he closed his eyes, squeezing the bullet tightly in his fist. He had promised to rescue her, because she'd told him that she loved him and wanted to marry him, and he'd nearly thrown it all away in a bout of drunken depression. It would be one thing if he got killed in his one-man-army attempt to rescue her. He would've died fighting, fighting for her. But to die a broken man in an alcohol-blurred downer would have marred everything that they had built, everything they had suffered through to get to the point in their relationship where they were.

He opened his eyes and turned the bullet in his fingers, regarding it in a new light. Wraith's words came back to him, then: Do you think God will forgive us for what we've done?

No. He didn't believe it then, and he didn't believe it now. God, if there was one, did not spare him from the bullet because he deserved it. With the lives he had taken, there was no way he deserved that mercy. But then, he had always believed that he didn't deserve Kaname Chidori's affections, but she loved him just the same and assured him that he did deserve her whenever she detected those thoughts.

He wasn't saved for mercy. He would much rather believe that God had saved him, because God had a different role in store for him. This bullet, one way or another, would be part of it.