Part III: Epilogue

"Good evening all colonies in the Earth Sphere. I'm Julie Avaya, and this is ESNews. On the L2 colony, a double homicide occurred yesterday morning at 10:32. One homicide as a man killed his girlfriend, and one suicide as that same man then took his own life.

No witnesses were present, but a close friend of the man did arrive minutes after the deaths, having been called by the man about medical problems his girlfriend was having. Michael Wardley interviewed the young man later that day; here's a clip."

"What is your name and how do you know Duo Maxwell?"

A brown haired young man, apparently in his early twenties, flashed across the screen, face grave. "My name is Heero Yuy, and Duo and Hilde both were my...friends. Who the hell are you?"

The reporter, a balding man of about 45, frowned, pursing his pudgy lips. "Ah, I'm Michael Wardley, from ESNews. The reporter you agreed to--" The man visibly gulped as Heero pointed a gun down his nose, Prussian blue eyes flickering dangerously.

"I do not associate with reporters."

A jostling of the camera ensued, and soon they were showing footage of a table leg while a frantic voice was picked up over the microphone yelling, "He has a gun! Didn't you see it!?"

A pair of yellow and white tennis shoes strode quickly past the view as a single sound was uttered from their owner. "Hn."

Suddenly, the clip was engulfed in static and soon the screen was showing a very confused Julie Avaya sitting at her desk, eyebrow raised. Noticing she was on the air, she cleared her throat and shuffled her papers, then straightened her glasses before continuing.

"Ah, looks like there were some problems with the camera, but there weren't any with the cameras at the crime scene!" She glanced off set, face fixed in an ever-present false smile, and waited.

Nothing happened.

Eyebrows furrowing slightly, she repeated her last statement loudly. "But there weren't any problems with the cameras at the crime scene!"

She scowled, receiving some sort of indication there was a problem at the crime scene, and looked straight at the camera, face fixed in a blank stare. Sighing, she flipped forward a few pages in her notes and scanned over them quickly before continuing her report, a picture of the young, dead pair appearing in the top right corner of the screen. "The couple you see here is Duo Maxwell and Hilde Schbeiker, both famous Oz rebels. Brought together by fate, their friends say...but torn apart by a small PP7 with a silencer that Maxwell apparently kept in his house for safety reasons unbeknownst by many, as the Earth Sphere is without weapons. Duo, described by close friend Quatre Winner (who, by the way, did not assault the reporters when questioned), was no murderer, always smiling, always happy...he worshipped Hilde Schbeiker, says Mr. Winner, smiling and shaking his head."

Another reporter in the room, the weather forecaster, added, "And what a cute boy he is, too! Simply adorable!"

Julie nodded, chuckling to herself. "Mr. Winner continued to comment on the couple's situation with, `We all knew it was just a matter of time before he proposed.' But, the proposal never came, and apparently, Maxwell's love for Schbeiker faded as he decided to end her life after what investigators say was a struggled sex scene after returning home during a thunderstorm." Julie paused, bringing a hand to her ear, and a huge smile lit up her face, and she began speaking again. "It seems that the cameras are working at the crime scene again. We will take you there. Warning: The following content may not be suitable for young children, viewer discretion is advised."

The woman's voice was cut off to reveal an eerily silent apartment room covered in police tape that marked off the areas of investigation. The scene suddenly changed into that of a bedroom with the door ajar, and just past it, two bodies, one male, the other female, thought almost unrecognizable with all of the blood spattered across its milky white skin. The male, identified as Duo Maxwell, had a gun in his limp hand, which also had crimson life dripping off of it and seeping into the carpet, staining it beyond repair. Duo was laying across Hilde's legs, face down and blood mingling with hers. Half of the back of his head seemed to be missing, and that chestnut brown hair he was known for looked black and tattered, no longer smooth and shiny as it lay nonchalantly across the hole the bullet had made after entering through the roof of his mouth, killing him instantly.

Hilde looked even worse, bruises covering her almost naked body, accompanied by cuts and scrapes across her shoulders after being slammed into the wall by Duo earlier. She showed three bullet holes; one in her chest, next to her left breast; one in her head between her once shimmering blue eyes; and one in her stomach, to the right and below her navel. Only two people ever knew why Duo shot her in the stomach first...

That was the only deliberate shot, the other two were brought on by the screaming that tore from Hilde's throat as she clutched at her profusely bleeding stomach, shouting obscenities at the murderer of her child...

Its father.

The screen clicked off, television static popping quietly as the appliance cooled down, and the viewer sighed. Hilde was dead. The baby...also dead. He had gotten what he wanted, didn't he?

Didn't he?

He rose slowly from his seat, dropping the remote on the couch cushion, and made his way to towards the door of the hotel room, running a hand through his unruly and still slightly bloody bangs. Turning off the light, he grasped the handle of the door and pulled it open, gazing out quickly for sign of other hotel guests. Seeing none, he donned his black trench coat and strode off down the hallways, braid swinging back and forth behind him...