R. A. T. H

Seven

Heavy breaths rang in the room. Her emerald eyes jumped around the place, a dead body, a severed head, no blood, and a Gear in her grip. She released the weapon and threw it aside. Soon, she had crossed the room and the house and thrown herself outside of the shack.

However, a moment later, she was forced to a stop as she glanced around her.

"What. . .where am I. . ."

Lights filled her vision, lights and sounds she had never heard before. There was talking, yelling, clanks of metal, and soon, she was looking up.

It was a giant domed city. A giant domed city of iron, and a film of mana covered its construct. Yet, a brick tower pierced through its roof and into the white clouds above, reaching higher than even she could see. She was on the outskirts of such a city, not even residing within, and all around her were dilapidating shacks made of wood and metal, some like little boxes and others rising high, and then there were humans in mismatched clothing—moving about in daylight through an asphalt road.

The place was beyond crowded.

There was a honk and she turned her head to see the mass of a white truck headed for her. Rose moved her body, quickly jumping out of the way like the rest of the slum-folk along the road and ignoring the curses of the driver of such a motor.

This was a world, a place she did not know.

She quietly settled her mind, shocking herself at the composure the hum of her core brought to her, listening to it reminded her of her own safety, and returned inside of the shack. She had to get a grip first. She entered the workshop, the weapon had disappeared, and she looked to the core and the woman.

A few moments later and she managed to put the thing back into the homunculus. Brown eyes blinked open, took in the room with the dead body then back at the girl in front of her.

"Did you kill him?" The voice of the woman was soft, somewhat unperturbed. There was a tenseness to it but that seemed only due to disbelief, not mercy and grief.

"Yes," Rose told the truth, eyes trailing down.

The woman looked at her and smiled. A smile she thought was one of relief and comfort.

"Please," Maria said, and Rose thought she would cry if their bodies could, "Please. . .kill me too. . ."

The girl's emerald eyes widened and she looked at the woman with narrowed eyes.

"Why?! You're free now!"

"I have 5 years of memories. . .memories I do not want. . .memories I don't want to live with any longer. . ."

"I could reset you!" Rose exclaimed, she felt she could, no, she knew she could. "I could reset your memories and programming!"

She couldn't make her free from restrictions. That would require her core to be re-built from the ground up, and that process would wipe her current self from existence. But it was possible to reset her to an earlier state, a state before she met Lux.

But the homunculus asked her a rather simple question.

"And what then?"

"Wha-what then?. . .what then. . .?" Those words left her mouth, quieting with each instance until there was nothing left.

Maria laughed lightly then pointed to her neck.

"Look at my neck, look at this mark of a Slave Series—a single human that takes a look at me will just order me again, claim me as theirs, and that's that—I'll forever be the same. One look and I'll be captured and sold."