AN: Please note that this story idea is not mine, I actually don't know the original creator of this idea, but I heard of it floating around and saw different people taking stabs at it, so I thought I'd try as well.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Trigun. Both songs 'Blood to Bleed' and 'To Them These Streets Belong' belong to Rise Against.

Full Summary: It took five years of acting indifferent, but Knives isnt one to give up on his dream, and now his dream has become reality. All of humanity has perished, every last soul. But with Vash hating him and the plant angles not being what he thought they were, perhaps he was too rash in his final decision. Could he really be mourning the loss of humans?


Blood to Bleed
Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening. -Sir Walter Scott

This place rings with echoes of
lives once lived but now are lost
time spent wondering about tomorrow- Blood to Bleed

The double suns shone as bright as any other day, though it was no ordinary day on the planet of Gunsmoke...

Knives couldn't stop laughing. He was doubled over in it, the joy he felt could hardly be described. He lifted his face and out stretched arms to the sky, inhaling a deep breath and releasing it in a sigh. Everything would have been perfect. Perfect, if only Vash's cries had been muffled. Knives didn't let them get the better of him as he strolled the new grass that was growing on this once desert planet.

His dream had become reality. The spiders were finally eliminated. Every last one.

It had taken five long extra years after his "final" battle with his twin. When he had awoken from his faint he was in a bedroom, and the scent of humans had been powerful. Vash rushed to his aid explaining everything as clearly and as slowly as he could. His voice had been obscured for some reason but he had understood.

He lost, Vash won and now Vash suggested he learn to live with the humans. To start a new fresh life with them. Knives hadn't said anything, but to nod obediently. The shock had been too great at that past moment. It wore off days later when Vash's human friends helped to tend to his wounds, and his new feeling had been numbness. Was he truly destined to live such a life? Among creatures he hated? With a brother that had betrayed him?

No.

Vash could see the wheels in his brother's mind begin to turn a year after their last fight. But Knives kept silent, and kept his thoughts locked away. Vash had been worried, Knives certainly wasn't being polite but he was being civil. He used his manners and engaged in conversations if they were directed at him, but aside from that he stayed to himself.

Every morning had been the same. He'd get up, someone would make him a cup of coffee, and then he'd go into the desert, only to return for dinner. Worried that he had been up to no good, Vash followed him one day to see where his brother was going. It was too a cliff edge, and all he did for the entire day was stare out into the sandy dunes, as if in a trance. When the suns started to fall he had stood and walked back to the house.

After the second year, Meryl had suggested to Knives that he get a job. He hadn't responded but his face had been fierce and Meryl had backed away in fear. Vash had approached him that night as he stepped into bed.

"You cant just go off to that cliff and look at the landscape forever."

"Three years," had been his reply, and Vash couldn't make any sense of it.

He had informed the girls of what Knives had said but none of them could find a meaning to it, except that maybe something was going to happen in Knives' third year of being with humanity. The third year came and went in a somewhat tense atmosphere as they all kept a sharper eye on Knives, waiting for him to do something, but that year came and went without any disturbances.

Among many things of change that the planet went through since the discovery of the underwater wells, Knives went through a physical change as well. His short haphazard hair cut grew longer and after it passed his shoulders and hung down his back, Vash offered to cut it, Knives declined the offer. He put it up in high ponytail and let the hair continue to grow.

On the mark of the fifth year it seemed the gates of the Diablo opened. Knives wanted to take a trip around Gunsmoke. The insurance girls and Vash didn't hesitate to agree to it. Knives had been good, and getting out to see different people could only help him. For once he was interested in doing something other than going to that cliff and looking at nothing.

Vash gave him addresses of places he could stay in various towns. "If you ever need anything they can help," he had smiled. "All of them are old friends."

Knives nodded and took the address, bidding a goodbye to his brother. Millie, Meryl and Vash walked him out of town pointing out the best routes for him to travel, as if he didn't know already. He merely nodded at their last minute attempts to be "helpful" and began walking off. Together Millie and Vash smiled and turned to head back into town. Meryl lingered a bit more, still watching Knives head off in the distance.

Even in five years he had gotten close with no one. And just as she had to squint to see him she saw his body turn and, was that a? She hadn't been sure. But she thought she saw the darkest of smiles form on his lips as he turned back before giving a small wave. She didn't think much of it at the time as she proceeded back to the house she shared with Millie and Vash, eyeing the small black cat that darted across the street.

It had taken five years, but Knives had finally grown stronger than his brother and he knew it. While Vash drowned away his strength in donuts, he had been building it, and his mental strength during all those years of "going off to stare into the cliff side landscape". He smirked. As if he would have wasted so many days, weeks, months, years being indifferent.

His dream would be realized, he had thought many times at the cliff.

The genocide had started quickly, eliminating small towns, towns people wouldn't visit for months until the time of deliveries. Then he worked his way to the bigger towns then the cities. It had been utter panic. No one knew what was happening. All he allowed anyone to see, to realize, was that people were being massacred by the hundreds and the thousands all in one flesh swoop. No one knew how, why or most important by what or who. The last town of course was the one that held Vash.

Not having bothered to wash off the blood of from his latest kill, Knives sauntered into the town. Doors were locked and windows were shut tight. The town was at a complete still. He didn't normally slaughter, as it wasn't his preferred style, but this would be the best way for Vash to learn about what he was doing.

When he turned to the main street of the town where Vash was he was at once confronted with his brothers image. The abandoned red coat, a distant memory made him stand out less, but he didn't need the coat, a light was glistening around him. The suns were on his side it seemed. Vash was sitting, on the railing of the towns general store, his silver gun, which was in plain sight, rested on his left thigh, Vash's fingers were curled around the trigger.

"How could you?" Vash asked as he slowly stood on his feet. "How could you do this to me a second time? Why do you always feel the need to kill everything I care about!" Vash's voice was angered but the sadness didn't go unnoticed. "I trusted you to be good when you went of by yourself and this is what you end up doing!"

"What are you going to do? Kill me?" Knives tilted his head to study his brother. "No, you're not a killer Vash, you don't have it in you."

Vash rose his gun to Knives, his hands shaking as he aimed the pistol at his brother. "Should I kill a butterfly to save the spiders?" His voice shook with the rest of his body

Knives couldn't hold in his chuckle. "Don't use my own analogy against me and why are you even bothering to aim that thing at me? It was my present to you, you cant use it against me, besides..."

Vash's gun suddenly dropped from his hand as his body was forced against the outside wall of the general store. His eyes widened in surprise.

"Did you think I'd intend to lose a second time?" Knives shook his head and walked toward his brother, turning to face the town itself when he reached his brother's side. He could feel the hidden eyes of the townspeople on him, and Vash was squirming like a child to be set free.

"Squirming wont loosen the grip, you'll be pinned there for as long as I want it."

"Knives don't do this! I'll never forgive you if you do!" Vash yelled, pleading with his stronger half.

"You don't have to forgive me, you can hold a grudge as long as you want." Knives looked into this brothers eyes. Filled with plead, sadness, and most vividly anger. "You can even hate me, but I know you, and you wont let hatred burn in your heart for very long as it does in mine."

He extended his arm and Vash's eyes widened again. "No! Don't use that!" Vash cried out.

"It's the fastest way," Knives responded, taking aim for the heart of the town. Stopping the aim, his arm began to grow in a series of lights. Knives could hear his brother squirming more against the invisible field that was holding him tight to the wall behind him.

"No, no, no! Stop, stop, STOP!" On his final cry, Knives shot the angel arms incredible power at the town. He turned his head away as the piercing white light struck the town, erupted in an explosion, causing debris and dust to fly everywhere.

While looking away, Knives saw his brothers wide blue eyes were glued on the eruption.

"Are you mad! Do you want to blind yourself! Close your eyes!" Knives yelled over the explosion. Vash didn't seem to hear him so Knives let out an annoyed grunt and held up his hand to his brother, to shield the plant eyes from the deadly light.

When the air was clear enough, Knives turned his eyes back to the, what used to be a, town. There was absolute nothingness now. He smiled. The final town... had been eliminated. Knives released his hold on Vash, and turned to watch his brother crumble on the ground. His tears mixing with the dust as he mumbled out names of the present deceased.

"Meryl... Millie... everyone. I wasn't able to save any of you... not a single one..."

Vash cries grew louder and the tears increased their pace.

"What's the point in crying? It wont bring them back to life." Knives said calmly to his brother who continued sobbing.

"How could you have done this! Especially to Meryl and Millie who helped me take care you! They helped nurse you back to health."

"I know, and that's why I stayed far from them. I didn't want to get attached, it would only make killing them harder."

Vash tears instantly stopped. "What?"

"I wont repeat myself, you heard me."

Vash's fists tightened. "The whole time you stayed with us all you were doing was plotting their deaths?"

Knives didn't get a chance to respond as Vash flew on him, knocking him down. Knives was surprised by the first blow from Vash's fist into his stomach, but his eyes glazed over with a small smile as Vash continued to beat him. Shoving his fists in his brothers face, his stomach, anything within reach.

Knives' face quickly bruised and broke in blood, and after one too many blows to the abdomen he coughed and blood spilled from his mouth. Vash didn't seem to notice or care as he kept up the assault through a tear streaked face. Knives made no move to stop him.

Finally Vash stopped in exhaustion, falling on top of his brother.

"Feel," Knives coughed. "Better?"

Vash pushed himself up and off his brother. "How could that have possibly made me feel better if it didn't bring back those I loved?"


AN: Let me know your thoughts, and no, that's not it, this isnt a one-shot. :)

Yours truly,
Faery Goddyss :)