[Accessing memory]

Memory Block 1:

Sequence 13: Moment of Truth

[Commencing memory]

Remember when I compared to Kanon's to a broken vase? Now, in order to see how Kanon felt, imagine that same pile of shattered pieces... and someone (let's just say Madonna Solari) stomping on them, breaking them off into a million more pieces. And with Solari's next comment, you had to visualize her spitting into the broken shards.

"What do you mean she went with him?" Kanon asked to know, not remembering that "he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," "Didn't Cesare take her away!"

"Yes," she replied, "He took her away... But she chose to go with him. She always had dreams of escaping this place, and now that someone who could take her away appeared, she took it. She didn't need you anymore."

"What?" Kanon felt depression overwhelming him, but he had to know what she meant, "What do you mean she didn't need me?"

Solari smirked as she spoke, knowing that it would absolutely devastate Kanon if he heard this, "She never loved you."

Kanon always wondered what it felt like to be on the other side of a blade... He had hoped that he never would, but right now, at this very moment, he felt himself being stabbed in the gut, with the murder weapon being her words. "Explain yourself!" Kanon shouted, not remembering that there could very well be dozens of guards headed this way.

"She only was interested in you because she believed that you could take her away from here," she explained, "She always wanted to leave this place but had no means in order to do so! You think you were the first to catch her attention? No, there had been many others."

Kanon wanted to close his eyes and shake his head as if the whole thing would go away as if it was a nightmare, but it wasn't one... It was something worst: Reality. Kanon felt Thomas's hand on his shoulder, beckoning them to go.

"Our time is running short!" he warned, as Crystal stared outside the window, seeing a group of armed men running towards the building.

"Then I'll make it quick," he muttered as he leapt into action: Brandishing his Hidden Blade, he held Solari by the throat with the blade touching her neck. Since Kanon always properly took care of his weapons, the knife was so sharp that just a mere touch had left a cut on her, but seeing as what Kanon is intending to do...

Solari, unlike Santino, didn't budge. She knew he wasn't going to do it, and she called his bluff. "You won't kill me," she said with a cruel smile on her face.

"I have killed many others..." Kanon shot back, trying to keep her from distracting him. Crystal and Thomas both stood besides the door as the men came in. The first two to walk in were lucky: Their throats were slit in a blink of an eye, allowing them a quick passage to their death. The others weren't going to be so lucky, especially since two men were taken from them before they even walked into the room.

Crystal went into a deadlock with one of the guards by clashing her blade at his, but Thomas had to try to snap Kanon out of his daze. "Kanon, you can't kill her!" He didn't apply that same train of thought to the guards, as he quickly stabbed a dagger through the man's unguarded neck, piercing his jaw, causing him to slowly bleed out instead of an instant death.

"You seem to forget Thomas," Kanon shouted back without looking at him, "About our Creed. That NOTHING is true, and that EVERYTHING is permitted!" With the emphasis on "everything," Kanon raised his blade away from her neck, poising his position to stab her in the chest.

"But you won't kill me..." Solari kept telling him, staring deep into his soul, "I can see it in your eyes. You won't kill me because-"

"Because of what!" Kanon foolishly interrupted, as she would've told him anyway.

"Because you're simply too weak." Feelings of insecurity dwelled inside of Kanon, lying dormant, until her comment raised them from their resting spot, summoning them. Kanon's grip on her neck started to loosen, and his energy was fading fast. Am I too weak, he wondered...?

"You're not a man," Solari mocked, as Kanon stepped back, away from her. "You're not even a male. You're a childish, little girl. And yet you believed that Fiora was in love with you? No... She faked her love so that you could take her away. But Cesare... Cesare was a man of money AND power. So of course she'd dump you. Any woman would."

"Shut up!" Kanon tried to get her to stop, but the thoughts were already transplanted in his head. Kanon hated Cesare because he was of the Borgia bloodline, an enemy of the Assassins. But now that he was hearing that Cesare had taken Fiora away...

"Kanon!" Crystal shouted as she kicked the guard in the stomach, leaving him open for a direct stab in the spine, "We gotta get out of here! There's too many of them!" Even Thomas, who was one of the more promising recruits, had shown how weary he was: The ten bodies that lay in his feet proved that he had no stamina to spare.

Kanon had to put his feelings aside for now. His friends were in danger, and he had to think of them before his own. Going into his pouch pocket, he pulled out a smoke bomb, a tiny ball filled with chemicals that would explode into a cloud of smoke when thrown, and slammed it into the ground. The Assassins, sans Thomas, shielded their eyes from the burning sensation of the smoke, but the guards, unaware of what's going on, felt the full intensity of the effects, and cried out in pain.

The trio jumped through the window under the guise of the smoke. Crystal left first, with Thomas bringing up the rear. Kanon left last, as he stayed behind for a moment to look at Solari once more. She stared back, with blood dripping from her neck. Kanon avoided staring into her eyes, as he felt like he would only find pain, and closed them, offering a prayer of the men slain.

"Remember the choices you made in life, for what goes around comes back around. May you all find peace." Kanon opened his eyes to the cruel smile of Solari, but he only said one thing to her.

"You'll get yours."

With that, he jumped out of the window, chasing after his companions. Solari merely stood there, unfazed by his cryptic words. Blood dripped down her neck, and she realized that the more she attempted to wipe it off, the more it smeared across her neck...