After burying her, Slady heard hurried footsteps coming toward him, and he turned...
"Goodbye, Slady."
It was Roger, wielding his dagger and preparing to stab him. But Slady acted faster, firing the energy into the man's chest, sending him hurtling toward a building in Libretanhya.
The windows shattered, an alarm sounded, and Roger slammed into a table. When he looked up, he was already there, his expression more somber than the darkness surrounding them.
Roger stood up, holding both daggers and wiping the blood from his face with his fist. The two began to pace in circles, never taking their eyes off each other.
"You know, Slady, facing him here, tonight, will be something I'll never forget."
"You won't be alive to remember it."
Then Roger advanced toward Slady, and Slady advanced toward Roger. The investigator kicks out, but the assassin defends himself, grabbing his leg and slamming him against the ground, sending them both tumbling to another floor.
When Roger gets back up... Slady slams his mechanical hand into his head. Grabbing him by the hair, the hand begins to heat up and reaches for his face... but Roger stabs him in the stomach with the dagger.
As he falls, Roger straddles him and tries to pierce his head, but Slady dodges, revealing a bomb placed nearby...
BOOM!
The building—where the police had surrounded due to the alarm—explodes, sending everything flying. The two fall into a stream of sewage underground—Slady was regenerating due to the effects of the syringes; Roger, as a resilient man, survives, but owes his disfigured body—they are both taken to a large "basin," which is filled with high temperatures and other cleaning agents...
***
With a slap to his face, Roger awakens. He was in a dark room, a mirror in front of him, revealing the state of his naked body.
He was... unrecognizable, as if his skin had been ripped off, or melted away; it was hard to believe anyone could live in that state.
At the back of the room, without his eye and mechanical arm, solving everything with his only remaining hand, stood Slady, injecting himself with another dose of bandage.
"You know, Roger, it's terrible to be weak. I'm not like you, so strong."
He turned toward him, his empty eye socket staring at him in the darkness. Roger felt immensely uncomfortable at the sight, but the constant pain prevented him from thinking too much.
"What are you going to do now, you sick psychopath?! Are you going to torture me for killing your friend?! For finding out?!"
"No. I'm just going to get the answers I want. After all, you don't have much time left. Enjoy your last seconds." (He sat across from him, staring at him, without anger, without hatred.)
Realizing the inevitability of his fate, Roger lowered his head, simply trying to summon his last energy to speak.
"...Slady. About a year ago, I stopped feeling things I once did. I loved my family, perhaps even had feelings for Rin Yuang. But overnight, I felt nothing anymore. Slady, if you'll allow me one last request, I want YOU to visit my home and tell my family how much I loved them..."
Thus, with his head bowed and a short but mysterious smile, Roger finally died.
Slady stood up, walked toward the body, and placed her hand on his head, seeming to think about many things. Her gaze fell to the moon; the rain had already ended, and the night would soon meet the same fate.
"Like my last murder, you've become memorable. But I hate that I sympathize with you, Roger. I hate that I think that one day... I was like you... but if your last request is that your family not be shaken by your death, I'll do my best to fulfill it."
He walked toward the window, watching the moon sink into the horizon, his gaze turning melancholic, feeling an emptiness begin to fill his chest.
"Another body to bury..."
Not too early for the sun to rise, not too late for the moon to set, Slady sat at a table, studying the brain of the one who had recently died...
"Shit..."
With his tweezers, Slady removed a region of the brain (the one that processes emotions and feelings), observing a certain wound...
"... It was the day I erased your memories... that was... all my fault." (He realized the huge mistake he'd made)
***
The next day, the news reported that a building had been destroyed for unknown reasons. There was no evidence to point to anyone responsible.
Aurora walked to work while sipping a nice cup of coffee. Her gaze fell on her friend Rin Yuang's house, and she started toward it.
"She seems tired lately. I should invite her to come with me."
She arrived at the door, knocking... no answer. She went to the window, seeing the empty house.
"I think I should ask Roger if he knows where she is..."
***
In front of Roger's house, Slady swallowed hard. He covered his eye socket with the eye patch, knocking on the door with his normal arm.
...
...
No answers. So he decided to use his voice.
"Miss Trager and Mr. Trager?!" (Knocking again)
No answers. He put his ear to the door to try to listen for a sound... but only smelled... rotten.
"I recognize that smell..."
He ran to an open window, entering one of the bedrooms. The smell grew stronger, and the darkness of that room seemed to make him more apprehensive than he would have liked.
"Don't tell me you did this, Roger..."
Arriving in the living room... he knelt down and He vomited on the floor at the sight he'd witnessed: his mother, father, and younger sister, all brutally killed and positioned in such a way as to create a certain "context" for the scene. Just like Slady himself did.
He walked over to the bodies, blood seeping through his clothes. He held the little girl, who had several cuts on her small, fragile body, making it clear that Roger himself had done it.
But given the method used, he also blamed the "Theatrical Killer."
Tears of despair and guilt began to flow from his eyes, a sense of failure taking over his spirit.
He hugged the little girl's body, trying to escape that agonizing feeling, but it was impossible.
"They all died because of me! I failed at everything! If I had never shaped Roger's memories, none of this would have happened!"
"...I failed my last mission!"