Chapter Ten

As many nights as Tres spent in the library, he had never felt as tired as he had tonight. He sat at the desk in the center of the library, the book The Fatal Crown in front of him. After talking to Esther, he had felt slightly better. Knowing that someone was going to be there for him reassured him that everything was going to be… okay.

So he got back to reading again. Lady Caterina had asked him to tell her how the book went, and he reminded himself, with much apprehension, that he hadn't been reading it at all for the past month. He wasn't even sure Caterina-sama remembered what she had asked him to do, but he wanted to finish it for himself.

But when the sun began setting, he found he was unable to keep his eyes open. The words blurred in and out of focus. He didn't know why at the moment. He rested his cheek against his palm, closing his eyes…

When he opened them again, he wasn't in the library anymore. There was no book, no desk, no calming room. He was in complete darkness. He couldn't move his legs to walk, and he couldn't speak, but he looked around, trying to see where he was. Had he been ambushed? He reached for his guns, only to find that they weren't there.

He heard footsteps, but he couldn't tell where they were coming from. They echoed around him and they were rushed. Then, a flash of light, of color. There was a person. Running past him. He couldn't see who they were; he only saw a body, their clothes.

Uniforms like the one he had been given when he was first created.

Who was it? Had a Killing Doll other than himself survived? Other than Duo? Was it Unum? Or Septem? He listened to the footsteps as they doubled. There were two? He spun around, looking for any sign of them. His voice still refused to escape his throat.

Then, everything lit up. The black room became blindingly white. All around him were his brothers. Unum and Duo were there as well, but he saw no sign of emotion in their cold amber eyes. "You failed, Tres Iqus." The voice was so familiar… one he hadn't heard in years…

Professor Gepetto Garibaldi.

He turned and, behind his brothers, he saw him. His creator had his eyes narrowed, and Tres felt an unnatural fear run through him. He wanted nothing more than to turn and run but he couldn't. One, he was surrounded, and two, he couldn't move.

"The reason you were created was to help me destroy the Vatican," he continued, his voice cold. "Your brothers died for me and what did you do? You watched them die and did nothing. You accepted the hand of the Iron bitch and became her subject." The rest of the HC series took a step closer to him, tightening the circle.

"She's not," Tres said bravely, finally finding his voice. "She is not a-"

And as suddenly as it came, it was gone. He was back in the darkness again. His brothers and Gepetto were gone once more. And a new scene came once more. He was pressed against the wall, by Duo, Bartholomew. "Pathetic," his brother hissed in his face. "I cannot understand why you hold these memories to the highest security. You're weak, you are not a machine."

And then Duo was gone. Tres fell to his knees, the pressure of his brothers hand still lingering around his neck.

I'm not a machine… machine's know how to follow orders, machines don't have emotions, machines don't feel like this. I'm not human, I've never been human…

What am I?

And then he woke up, feeling something touch his arm. He shot up so fast he fell backwards. He forgot he was still in the library. He fell back painfully, his guns digging into his back. Pain? I don't feel pain… He looked up, seeing Sister Esther standing there, out of breath.

"Father Tres?" He looked out the window, noticing the sun was up. Had he… slept the entire night? "Father Tres, are you okay? You were…"

I was what? He wondered that very thing himself. So many things were happening, and he felt it was much too fast. What was that? A memory? No, it couldn't have been. Gepetto Garibaldi had never had that conversation with him before. His brothers had never surrounded him like that before. And Duo? Yes, that had happened. That was a memory.

Yet, he did not understand. What was that? A loop in his memory banks? Moreover, how had it become day time so quickly? Not even twenty-six hundred seconds had passed since he had closed his eyes.

"You were sleeping and I thought you looked a little distressed…" The rest of Sister Esther's statement caught him off guard. Sleeping? No, sleeping was something humans did, and he was not…

He was not machine, but he was not human either. So… what was he again?

He stood up abruptly, feeling oddly flustered again. "Sleeping, no I couldn't have been…" he mumbled to himself.

Tres was lost once more, not knowing what to say or how to react to the possibility that he had been sleeping of all things. Humans slept, but he wasn't human. Machine's didn't sleep, so that meant he wasn't a machine. So… was he more human than machine now? No, impossible. He understood he looked human, and had a human brain, but everything else within him was substituted with metal parts and wires.

He ignored Sister Esther's questioning looks and left the library abruptly.

After all this, he realized he desperately needed to decipher his creator's notebooks on Duo and Unum. It was the only way he was going to be able to figure out what was going on. If Tres knew anything, it was that Gepetto Garibaldi was very thorough in his notes. It would be there, he knew it.

It would just be a matter of deciphering the code encrypting the information he needed.

A/N: Chapter Ten completed! :D

So, for this fanfic, I'm considering how Tres was created. (Like how he is a machine with a brain and brain stem.) So there are many parts of his mind closed off due to the deactivation of his EPU, which I made up for this fic. Like the parts of his mind that control dreams and emotions.

Next chapter: Tres attempts to decipher his creators notes on Duo and Unum. But as he does, what sort of sick, twisted things will he discover?

Review = love