A/N: A thousand thanks to my betas, xXLiquidSugarXx and sarahannmarie.

~1~

The star filled sky was the first image Yuri saw as he awoke with a start. The full moon's light bothered his sleep ridden eyes as he glanced around the campsite. Repede was lying next to him, but Clay was nowhere to be found. Repede had awoken with him, and his intelligent eye was focused on Yuri. Something was wrong.

Clay did have a habit of wandering off, but his absence tonight left a cold feeling in Yuri's gut. Repede let out a quiet bark, bumping his head against Yuri's hand. Yuri looked down and saw a red scarf lying on the ground. An envelope and Clay's bodhi blastia were wrapped inside of it. Yuri felt his blood run cold at the sight. Clay never went anywhere without his blastia or his scarf.

Yuri reached down and picked the envelope up. It was too dark to read, so he got to work getting the fire started again. Repede went to lay down by the dead fire, staring at Yuri intensely. Once a fire blazed in the pit Clay had made only a couple of hours earlier, Yuri hastily sat down and ripped open the letter. Clay's handwriting was shaky.

Yuri,

Over the past couple of years I have trained you in every arte I knew and have helped you hone your swordsman skills. You have progressed beyond my imagination, yet I know that you will only continue to grow as the years pass. I deeply regret I will not be able to see such fantastic progress.

I have told you of my duty, a duty that was forged through a bitter anger with my own brother. I have told you about my scarf, a symbol of my pledge to taint my own hands with guilty blood so that I may save innocents.

I have decided that my hands have been tainted enough. I am going to turn myself in. By tomorrow morning, my life will be forfeit.

Do not despair, Yuri. I know that you are angry with me, but I have to do this. I am tired of the life that I lead. My hunger for justice has been long quenched. I can no longer sleep at night, for the faces of the men I've murdered haunt me. I am not that old, yet I feel ancient and so very tired.

I have already said goodbye to Repede. He has allowed me to leave, and I know that he will stay by your side. For this, I am truly grateful.

I know you may never forgive me, but there is nothing else I can do.

I give you my blastia so that you may find some use for it, and I give you my scarf. I know that soon you will move past this and begin to rage at the many injustices in this world again. Use what I have taught you and wear this scarf with pride. Your actions will instill fear in the unjust and give hope to the downtrodden.

You have an inner fire I never had, and I believe you will never become as tired as I am now. You will never give up, and that is why you are the greatest man I've ever known, Yuri Lowell.

-Clay

Yuri's hands were shaking. He sloppily folded the pages of the letter up and shoved them into his pocket with barely restrained calm.

"How could you let him leave?!" he yelled at the dog sitting on the other side of the fire. Repede did not give any sign of response. "We have to stop him! He can't do this!"

Yuri stood up and was pacing back and forth, his arms waving wildly as he spoke. Repede stood up and walked toward him before letting out a loud and angry bark. Yuri stopped pacing and slowly sunk to the ground.

"Dammit!" he exclaimed in anguish as his whole body began shaking. He hit his fists against the ground before digging his fingers into the grass.

Repede drew closer to Yuri and rested his nose on the young man's shoulder. Silent tears streamed down Yuri's face as he mourned the loss of a man that had truly been like an older brother to him.

~1~

Days past and Yuri was stagnant. He stayed at the camp for so long that he had to fight off monsters after the repellent wore off. He didn't care. In fact, killing the weaker monsters that hung around his hometown was therapeutic. He didn't dare go into the city and watch the execution. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and he knew he'd end up trying to save Clay. He'd only get himself arrested and maybe even be executed himself for trying to interfere. He barely ate or slept for those days, and it eventually fell to Repede to defend the small campsite.

Yuri was sitting in front of the blackened fire pit, his eyes distant. Repede wandered back into the camp and was panting from fighting off another group of monsters. The dog settled down next to Yuri and barked.

It took Yuri a moment to reply, "What?"

Repede barked again and got up before biting down on Yuri's sleeve and tugging on it.

Yuri sighed. "Repede, if you want to go into the city then I won't stop you. Just let me stay here."

Repede started whining and kept insistently tugging on Yuri's sleeve.

"If I go back into the city, I'll have to face Flynn."

Repede let go of Yuri's sleeve and let out a gruff bark.

"I know he misses me. It's just that I'm not going to be able to hide this state I'm in from him. What am I supposed to tell him? That I've been an accomplice to a murderer for two years, and now I'm sad because said murderer got executed. Flynn will probably arrest me."

Repede latched onto Yuri's arm, though he didn't bite down hard enough to break the skin. He started tugging Yuri towards the imposing form of Zaphias on the horizon.

"Were you even listening to what I just said?" Yuri asked in exasperation.

Repede didn't stop, and so Yuri was forced to move unless he wanted to fall over. "Alright, dammit! I'm getting up."

Yuri got to his feet as Repede let go of his arm. The dog barked triumphantly, and Yuri scowled at him. Repede started to nudge Yuri's bag with his nose, and so Yuri begrudgingly went to pick it up and throw it over his shoulder.

"Are you happy now?"

Repede barked and sped off toward the city while Yuri followed at a much more sedate pace. Yuri got into the line outside of the main gate. He had fake papers with him that would let him easily pass into the city. After two years, Yuri doubted that the knights were still actively looking for him. His own desertion and Terrence Pavone's suicide was old news. When Yuri got to the front of the line he was greeted by two of the ugliest knights he had ever seen. One was short and incredibly fat while the other was tall and had ridiculously huge lips.

"Your papers, traveler!" the short one said in an incredibly dramatic tone. Yuri wondered if the knights had turned into a circus troupe in his absence.

He gave the fat knight his papers. The taller one was watching Yuri with narrowed eyes. "You seem familiar."

Yuri would have remembered meeting these two idiots. He shrugged. "I have one of those faces."

The large lipped knight's eyes narrowed completely into slits. Thankfully, Yuri got his papers back before anyone could recall the watch that had been put out on him two years previously.

Walking through the cobbled streets of the city was surreal. He had spent years wandering these streets, and they were almost as he remembered them. The small changes were jarring, in a way. Shops had changed their names, buildings had been remodeled, and the decrees and propaganda posters had morphed to fit the issues of a different year.

What Yuri wanted more than anything was a drink, and so he slipped into the Lower Quarter. He had been completely anonymous in the Public Quarter, but in the Lower Quarter, people whispered as he walked passed. They were a close knit community, and Yuri knew that word of his return would probably reach Flynn's ears within an hour.

He really needed that drink.

~1~

Flynn never came. Yuri spent a month wandering around the Lower Quarter, hopping from bar to bar. He and Repede took up residence in an inn room. The owner was willing to let them stay there for dirt cheap after Yuri saved the man's daughter from some overly friendly knights. Everyone in the Quarter worried for him, and they were also curious as to where he'd disappeared to for two years. Yuri helped them when he could with the decent amount of funds he'd gathered over the years, though he was quickly running low as he continued to binge on drinks. Yuri was completely resigned to the idea becoming another Lower Quarter drunk. He certainly didn't have a desire to do anything else.

Yuri was sitting in a bar in the Lower Quarter, nursing a glass of some sort of alcohol whose name he couldn't pronounce. He wasn't drunk yet and wasn't planning on getting drunk. He just didn't have anything better to do. He felt so incredibly listless.

The door of the rather empty bar opened, and in walked a young blond knight in immaculate blue and white armor. A frown marred his face. When his eyes fell on the scruffy looking Yuri, his eyebrows drew together in obvious concern. It looked like Flynn had finally decided to show up.

"Yuri," he said quietly as he went to stand next to his childhood friend. "I heard that you were back in town. It's been years since we last spoke. I was beginning to think I'd never see you again!" His voice had taken on an angry edge at the end of his sentence.

Yuri didn't even acknowledge Flynn's presence. He simply took a sip of his drink and stared forward with the same tired and bored expression. A part of him couldn't even believe that Flynn was standing there, and another part didn't know how to react.

"Yuri," Flynn repeated. The anger was still in his voice, but it was obvious he was trying to control it. "Please talk to me. All I've gotten from you are a few vague letters. You told me you were going after that man with red hair, and then you disappeared! Until I got that first letter from you, I thought you'd been killed!"

Yuri closed his eyes. It was good to hear Flynn's voice. He just wished it didn't make him feel so guilty.

"What's the matter with you? You're drinking like some old man and acting like the world has ended!" Flynn roughly put a hand on Yuri's shoulder.

Yuri set his drink down on the counter with a soft thunk. He turned his head towards the blond, and his dark violet eyes stared right into Flynn's own bright blue.

"I'm sorry, Flynn," Yuri said tiredly.

Flynn's annoyed expression softened, and he let go of Yuri's shoulder. "What happened to you?"

"I left, and I saw the world. Now I'm back."

Flynn sat down on the barstool next to Yuri. "I meant what made you like this. I know you can be a broody pain in the ass sometimes, but this is a little different."

Yuri couldn't tell Flynn about Clay in detail, and he certainly wasn't going to talk about his thoughts on continuing what Clay had been doing. Yuri couldn't just leave Flynn hanging, though.

"I met a guy when I was traveling." Flynn raised his eyebrows, and Yuri had to backpedal, "I don't mean it like that. He was a friend of mine. He was a little older than us, and he taught me some things."

"You keep saying was."

Yuri shifted his gaze away from Flynn and onto his drink. "He died. That's why I came back. Well actually, I came back because Repede dragged me, but you get the idea."

Flynn put his hand on Yuri's shoulder again, except this time it was a much gentler gesture. "I'm glad Repede did."

"I missed your smug bastard face, you know. I thought you hated me since you never came by."

"Sorry about that. I was sent out of the city on a mission. I just got back into town, and I should have some time off now." Flynn gave Yuri a smile and squeezed his shoulder before letting it go.

"That armor you have on is pretty fancy. You're an officer now, right? Please tell me you're a higher rank than that bastard Terrence was." Yuri turned his head to face Flynn and returned the smile with a small one of his own.

"Three ranks higher and steadily rising."

"Good. The Empire will be a shining example in no time."

Flynn chuckled before becoming more serious. "You know, it was a good thing you left. I was wrong about our superiors. Within a day they'd cancelled the watch on that redheaded suspect and called out a full scale search for you. A Duke was assassinated the night you disappeared, and they were trying to blame you for that, too."

Yuri closed his eyes. He had been right after all. Now if only he could go back in time and tell himself this to avoid all of those sleepless and guilt-ridden nights.

"You need to lay low, Yuri," Flynn knocked Yuri out of his thoughts. "Things might have died down, but they could easily get stirred up again."

Clay had turned himself in, but Yuri didn't know if the man had admitted to every crime he'd ever committed. Yuri would have to play it safe, just in case. He didn't want to be hung for a murder he didn't commit.

"I know, I know. You don't have to be such a nag."

Flynn huffed before getting up from his barstool. "Unfortunately, being an officer means filing out a lot of paper work. I have to go get started on it before my Captain has a fit." Flynn gave Yuri another smile. "I'll see you later. Try not to drink too much."

"I would never."

Flynn shook his head. "Don't go running off on another adventure without telling me first, alright?"

"Sure, mom."

Flynn burst out laughing before giving Yuri a wave of farewell and leaving the bar. Yuri had missed that laugh more than he'd like to admit.