Disclaimer: Nope, don't I own Megami Kouhosei, nor do I make any money off of it. Believe me, you'd know if I did… =o)

Author's Note: #eyes bulge as she reads all the lovely reviews# Wow! Talk about a receptive audience, eh? I didn't think my little piece of work was anything much, but I posted it anyway, and, whoa, low and behold, you actually liked it! =o) Awesome! I'd like to thank the Academy--oops, wrong speech. What I meant to say was: I'd like to thank Kaylee, Marie, Li Kayun, Wildfirefriendship, RcA, Kichigai, Sandy, Beck, Karyx, Dark Mousey, Jaden, Lilas, and Trial-By-Red-Eyes for their delightful and insightful feedback--so…thanks! #group hug# Okay then; I'd like to mention that I wrote this chapter rather hurriedly so I could get it out quickly, so there might be a few errors, etc. in the text. Feel free to point them out (I'll stop being so lazy and, at some time or another, sign in to correct them =o).  Read and Enjoy!

Sometimes I feel a prickling sensation creep over me.

It dances across my shoulder blades and runs down my spine, and I feel a peculiar tingling sensation overtake my form.

It's the kind of feeling a person gets when he's being watched.

I find myself turning around, and always…always you are there.

Looking at me.

Staring at me.

Scaring the living daylights out of me.

I honestly don't know what to think.

What game are you playing, Hiead?

Do you do it to make me fear you?

If so, then stop it; it's worked.

No one has ever disarmed me like this…so completely…

It's uncanny, really, the way you make my heart stop for one terrifying instant as your eyes bore a hole into my soul.

There's a searing heat in those wine-colored eyes, hidden just beneath a flimsy layer of calm, and it burns me, Hiead.

It burns me like a bath in molten lava might.

I melt away, but that's alright, because you make it so.

I don't make any sense at all, do I?

That's okay. It's only me in here, dwelling inside my head; the mind is the only real place of truth…or, more precisely, a person's own variations and perceptions of the truth as it appears to be.

Do you see what you're doing to me, Hiead?

Do you?

I'd never felt so very frightened yet elated all in the same instant until our gazes locked for the first time.

I wasn't sure if you wanted to kill me…or kiss me.

Sometimes I wonder which option I'd choose, if given a choice.

But one look at your face, your beautiful face, and I find that I already know the answer.

It's just too bad for me that you're the competition.

It's unfortunate that you also happen to be a boy.

But I've found that the greatest detrimental factor to changing our hostile relationship (is that what we have, Hiead; a relationship?) to something wonderful is the fact that you scare me senseless.

I think you'd gladly kill me just to see how long it takes… and you would, wouldn't you?

It seems I have a knack at making you simply stop trying to hold your rage at bay; I've unwittingly become, to you, a thing to hurt and hate.

Why is it that you only let your guard down the instant before you raise your fist to strike?

I think I may very well be the only person to have gotten such a peak inside your mind, and I'm probably the last as well.

That's somehow…empowering. Even flattering.

It's like a lover's gift, a metaphorical virginity of the soul, and it's mine, all mine…forever.

I'm the closest thing to a comrade…or something more…that you've got, and you don't like that, do you?

I have the control now, you see; you know that one day my tumultuous feelings toward you could change to simple apathy, and then you'd be all alone.

Not even you could bear that for long, Hiead.

I know I couldn't…

But perhaps I'm just being fanciful.

I like to think of you as being more fragile than you appear; it makes you seem more human, with human feelings and imperfections, like me.

It distances you from the silver boy, that sensuous creature with scorching orbs who'd gladly stab me in the back during my finest hour.

That really isn't you, is it, Hiead?

No--it couldn't be.

I don't believe that.

My…my mother…always chose to see the best in people, and that is what I shall do as well.

God, do I even have the right to act like her when I'm really so different, so undeserving of the affection that she gave me so freely?

I can't even remember her face, her voice, the words to the lullabies she used to sing to me at night when I was small and afraid of the dark…I'm forgetting the past that brought me here.

What is it about this place that makes everything else secondary and unimportant?

Why is it that with every new day we all seem to be less like ourselves and more like two-dimensional tools of war?

I try to remember a time before G.O.A--before training--before you--but it's so hard.

It's so damn hard to remember my former home and life and neighbors; sometimes I think that it was all just a dream, a vague, dull hallucination, and I've really been in this place all my life, watching a planet twirl outside my window.

When I try to remember anything otherwise, I feel a dull throbbing in my head, and I get the distinct impression that those memories I've lost will never return.

This is a thing I do not welcome; I don't want the numbness of unfathomable space to gather me up and change me--manipulate me--into that unhappy warrior of Zion, the joyless defender; a person like you.

The more I mature, the more I realize that I don't like leaving the warmth of childhood--it was foolish and naïve of me to ever want to in the first place.

No one ever told me that adulthood would be so depressing.

And isn't that where I am, or at least where I'm going?

I feel colder already.

Is this how you feel, too?

Sometimes I ask myself that, but I cannot answer, and you would never tell me, anyway.

I hear the shrill wailing of the morning buzzer, and I know that it's time to bury all these thoughts of mine until tonight.

I'm not sure whether I should feel relieved or disgusted at the fact that I can't face these thoughts in the day as well.

Is it cowardice?

Perhaps.

Probably.

It's just that I feel my thoughts might destroy me if I don't push them away…surely I'm entitled to some small bit of happiness, right?

And that's all I'm really looking for--all any of us are looking for.

That's why I used to frequent my colony's church so often after my now-faceless mother passed away; I wanted to understand and to accept and to be content, but I found none of these things there.

Still I hope that, some day, my peace of mind will come.

Maybe you aren't supposed to be happy until you die, could that be it?

Was Ernest at peace when he died?

Was he secure in the knowledge that he was doing an all-encompassing Good Deed, and did this please him?

I don't know.

I just don't know.

I glance up and there you are, looking at me as you don your uniform, but not really seeing me. You're just…there. Thinking? Plotting? Dreaming? I wish I knew.

Maybe--maybe one day, we could be happy together.

It'll probably never happen…but it's nice to fantasize about.

Hell, you're just plain nice to fantasize about, period…I think I may be blushing, so I turn away and finish dressing.

I walk into the corridor and try to push away my dark thoughts.

Yes, it is perhaps a despicable act of spinelessness, but I'll make up for that by being twice as good and brave as everyone else during practice.

I allow myself one last backward glance at you, and then a vivid remembrance is upon me of a stained-glass window from long ago, set high in the old church walls, whereby the Virgin Mother cried tears of blood for her dead son.

Yes, cry for us, Hiead. We need it.

Alleluia.