Note: I do not own Trigun. I'm not making money off this. Don't prosecute me please.

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And so it went that for six years, Legato was subjected to the physical and mental torture of the Eye's powers, not knowing what replaying his memories like an old record player would do for his realization of his "potential", whatever it may be, nor having any idea what he was supposed to do about it to make it stop. The rage he felt towards the red-haired woman grew each time that he was forced through his memories like a dog on a leash. Even as his life had been short so far, it seemed as if each session brought up new and infinitely more terrible things for him to experience over again. Knives did not come to watch every time, in fact he barely watched at all anymore, but the experience was no less degrading for the blue-haired boy who was rapidly becoming a man.

Today was one of those days that Knives came to watch, or as his teacher called it, an "Interim Evaluation". So far as Legato could tell, nothing had changed since that first day except for his body and the level of hatred contained within him. It would not please the Master for him to do anything to the Eye, and so the hate was bottled inside of him like a ripping intestinal parasite.

Perhaps Knives would kill the Eye himself for her apparent worthlessness. That would have been a wonderful thing.

"Legato, look at me." Nikita's face aroused him from his violent fantasies of her gruesome death. He followed the command and looked up into her eyes, face bland with barely contained wrath masquerading as apathy. The rush of pain had become expected now, and one could say it was a kind of masochistic pleasure for him to rebel against this woman in his mind as she injured him again and again, but it never stopped until she wanted it to stop. That lack of control drove Legato against her with all the willpower he had in him.

A boy kicked Legato in the stomach back in those streets at Renaud, and a brown dog bit him on the left arm when he tried to steal the last bit of meat from the trash can, and why was the house on fire again? He could hear his baby sister screaming in the next room and he wanted to save her but oh god it was so hot (no Nikita those gray eyes won't get me this time) and he couldn't see through the smoke and the boys saw him picking through the wreckage Legato burned the house down he did it he did it he killed his family after he had sex with his mom like a dirty (I don't want this again) whore-boy, now the boy with the red shirt coming up was your mom good Legato I heard her screaming you must be a good hard-

You killed them. Nikita's voice in his mind as he saw his mother's burnt and mummified skeleton, his baby sister's crib black as death, and he woke up in that fire again and ran from the house with no thought to anything but his own survival while Nikita said again and again in his mind, You killed them, you killed your family, how could you do that to them, ungrateful human boy failure nothing more than a incest-bred little brat piece of-

Now a howl of pain forced him from the windstorm of memories, and he realized that the pain had stopped. His eyes blinked once, twice, and then set upon a sight to behold before him.

Nikita, the Eye, the woman who had controlled his life for the last six years of it, was bent backwards at an impossible angle. Her body made contact with the ground only at the top of her skull and the heels of those heavy brown boots, her arms pulled behind her back as if cuffed much too tightly. Her back was a sharp, painful arch, accentuated by the pig-like squealing that emerged from her mouth as she hung in suspended agony, her neck and shoulders straining to keep from crushing her head like a rotten egg. Those dangerous eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth a twisted grimace.

This was what he wanted; this was what he longed for. He felt through his mind for what it was that held this woman in such a painful position, dragging up threads of consciousness that he had never known to exist. A try and a flex, and the arc of her back grew sharper and sharper. A dull crunch reached his ears as her right arm tore from its socket with a bodily yowl from her lungs. Her head almost touched her heels now, just a bit further to go and-

Stop.

And he did. He paused the torment long enough to look at his Master and angel, and Knives looked back at him. The Master did not need to say a word, and Legato turned his face back to the agonized woman, looking rather disappointed. He raised his left hand slightly and murmured, "I live to please you, Master."

Nikita, the Eye, who knew the past and motivation of every Gung-Ho Gun currently employed and could drop them all as puking babies within a glance, fell to the floor as she was released. She lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, before she rolled herself over and struggled to her feet with great difficulty. It was obvious that it pained her, and she was probably injured in more places than her shoulder, but to show weakness before the Master was a terrible idea.

"What do you say?"

Nikita's head jerked towards the perfect creature that was her Master, and she closed one eye, struggling to speak. Now that she was upright, her nose was beginning to bleed. "He has found himself, Master. He will be invaluable to your efforts."

"I expected nothing less."

Legato heard little of it, watching the blood droplet travel from the nostril of the woman, slowly down over the upper lip and into her mouth. He restrained himself, and felt that need again. He had come so close to killing her. He wanted it. She, this human woman, this insignificant beetle, had been hanging within his hands. He could have killed her. Words could not describe the longing he felt to see her torn and ruined body laying in the dust like a rag doll, all because of him. It would have been sweeter than candy, sweeter than anything that his mind could comprehend to see her blood spill down from her broken flesh. To have that power was intoxicating to him.

"You are dismissed."

Nikita turned, trying her best not to stumble and fall as she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Knives let the silence hang in the air for a moment, letting Legato stand and wonder if he would be punished for his insolent, self-indulgent abuse of his teacher, and also to continue to marvel over his newfound power. A minute passed, then two, and finally the angel spoke. "Legato."

"Yes, Master?" Legato looked at him, as was expected when the angel spoke to him. There was no enraged expression to meet him, but a face as blank as a plaster mask.

"The time will come."

And then the Master left him alone in his room with violent fantasies frolicking through his head. He had thought that something had changed, but it seemed that nothing had since that day so long ago.