“What are you doin here, newbie?” A voice asked from behind.

Ten quickly turned around. It was Ikara. She smiled back at him with a faint sadness.

“I’m sorry… I don’t think we’ve officially introduced ourselves… My name is Ikara… a proud member of Humanistic’s fourth branch…”

“Y-you were there… at the lab… with me and Kal… and also… earlier… they dragged you into the hideout…”

“Ah yes… when we were fighting Katrina… and after I got my ass beat by the Abnormal…” she sadly chuckled.

“That device you were using…”

“Oh this thing?” She pulled a pistol out from her back holster. Spinning it around her finger. She fires a quick laser that barely grazes Ten’s ear, causing him to collapse to the ground screaming.

“WHAT ARE YOU-”

“Sorry, I wanted to shoot it one last time!” She apologized while laughing. Ambiguous tears began streamlining down her glowing face.

Ten got up looking flustered. “Your last shot?”

“This is the end for me… today was the day… my journey with Humanistic’s ends…” Her wet eyes were now sunken. Drowning in an ocean of sadness.

Ten looked down in conflict. “I have no right to speak after all of the trouble I’ve put everyone through…”

“I know…” Ikara said, pointing past Ten.

“I’ve seen your memories…”

Ten slowly turned around. The plane of nothingness had transformed into a rippling mirage of previous events, along with recollections of his past life in Elysion.

“What is this place…” Ten’s eye’s widened.

“Must be your inscription…”

“My… inscription?”

“It’s the names of the powers we use in this world… like my sound altering inscription… Dreya’s teleportation inscription… Wolf’s barrier inscription…”

Ten nodded slowly. They were the unique powers that individuals were blessed with in this world.

“Seems like a plane of consciousness… I’ve never seen anything like this before…”

Ten continued to look around with a faint glimmer in his eyes.

“heard of special inscriptions that can manipulate or switch consciousness with others… but this… this is different…”

More ripples began filling up the darkness of the void.

“A syncing of consciousness perhaps… which means…” Ikara turns around, seeing ripples of her own memories floating across the black plane.

***

Ikara, short for Ikari Karasuma, was a young girl who attended Hoshinaga Middle School. Ever since her enrollment, her overly kind nature caught the attention of many boys in her class, stirring a mix of jealousy and anger. The girls of the class inevitably decided to team up and bully her into submission. During these cruel sessions, she would simply ignore them and put her hands around her ears to drown out the noise.

When she came home, the torment only intensified. Living in a home with parents constantly fighting, she continued to leave her hands cupped over her ears. Pretending not to hear the curse words and vile slurs that were being flung all around her.

Ikari’s habit of drowning out noise eventually took a fatal toll when one day, she was walking home from a tiring day of school. Unable to get any sleep the night before, due to her parents' relentless fighting which dragged out until dawn. She was barely in the right state, constantly zoning out everything around her. Completely missing the sound of a horn and screeching tires as a white truck came speeding down the road.

Normally, people would scream when they were in these sorts of situations, but Ikari just smiled. Signifying that she had accepted fate and was about to finally leave this depressing world behind.

All of a sudden, a young boy comes lunging in and saving Ikari just in time.

“O-OH MY GOD… A-ARE YOU OKAY?!” The boy asked in a fluster.

It was a clichéd scene you would see in any old romance flick, but nonetheless, it was love at first sight.

As the two spent more time together, their innocent feelings for each other only multiplied. Until one eventful night, during a fireworks festival, Ikari finally manages to confess her love. But moments before they could share their intimate first kiss, a loud firework explosion breaks Ikara’s world apart, causing her to wake up in a dark and dank room.

An unfamiliar person walked into the room, coldly informing Ikara of her new reality. Over the next several weeks she endured endless torment and harsh training to increase her neural potential. She finds out that she had been rescued by the Biologicals. The strongest faction in the entire AA, known for their torturous regimen in order to produce the strongest and most disciplined freedom warriors.

She couldn’t handle it anymore. Her suffering only continued to intensify. The moment she had finally found true happiness, it had been stripped away from her in the blink of an eye. The comfortable world she once knew was now replaced by a hellish new reality.

As more time passed, the once kind girl had turned into an emotionless robot. Devoid of any feelings, she became a cold and distant person. Executing her missions with precision and efficiency.

But one day, that all changed during a massive joint operation conducted between the five factions of the AA. They had infiltrated an important facility that carried the latest technology and pharmaceuticals in increasing an individual’s neural potential. During the raid, she had been abandoned by her team when members of BANE’s Six Sentiments came to intercept them. Near the brink of death, she managed to barely escape thanks to the help of a blonde haired man in a fedora who called himself the Vice Captain of Humanistic’s Fourth Branch.

When things finally died down, something inside of her broke and she began to cry uncontrollably. Pleading for the man to bring her back to the battlefield so she could finally end her suffering once and for all. But the man refused. He introduces himself as Q and invites Ikara to join the Fourth Branch. A place that was very different from Biologicals.

Initially reluctant, her decision to abandon Biologicals and join the Fourth Branch would later become her best decision yet.

As time passed, her heart began opening up to the fourth and its eccentric members. Especially Naomi, whose innocence was a source of light for her darkened soul. And Dreya, her short tempered best friend who she rarely got along with. She was even feeling some type of way towards Q, but that may have just been chalked up to his inscription which allowed him to make his targets fall in love with him. Nonetheless, this group of strange misfits slowly transformed into a beloved family, something that Ikara was always missing from her life.

The scene suddenly jumps to Ikara’s final fight against the Abnormal. It was an intense confrontation and she had fought a valiant battle trying to keep up with the monstrous being. But it wasn’t enough. One by one, her comrades began to fall around her. Even Q was having a difficult time. The Abnormal suddenly launches a surprise attack as soon as he let his guard down. Almost on instinct, Ikara lunges at Q in hopes of saving him, just as the boy from her past had done for her. But things were unfortunately different this time around. A piercing pain ripped through her lower abdomen as a fountain of blood erupted. She let out a painful scream.

Q shouted at her to get a grip, but her vision was slowly fading away. He curses and gets up in a flaming rage as his neural potential temporarily began skyrocketing.

In this world, neural potential is not a static number, but rather a state of constant fluctuation. Things like intense emotions play a significant factor in altering a person’s neural levels.

This rise allowed Q to go all out and land several successful attacks on the Abnormal, wounding it enough so that Wolf, Dreya and Zena could successfully take it down later.

But the deed had been done. Ikara had taken a fatal blow and it wouldn’t be long until she bidded her final farewell.

***

Tears began streaming down Ten’s eyes. The memories of Ikara’s past felt so powerful, it was almost as if he was physically there to witness them himself. She came from a world very different from his own, but he understood the commonalities of love and suffering. Concepts that were not bound to any specific universe.

“Looks like you saw… my protocol… my past… everything…” Ikara gently smiles sadly.

“Isn’t there anything… Anything I can do?” Ten asked in pain.

“There’s nothing… it’s too late…”

A sudden beam of light began to shine down on Ikara’s face.

“Looks like it’s time…” She sadly looked up, closing her eyes and accepting her fate.

“Funny how everytime I was able to finally find something to cherish… it gets taken away from me just like that… God is too cru-”

Ten lunges at Ikara pushing her away from the beaming light.

“Y-YOU CAN’T I know I’m in no position to speak… it’s only been my first day in this hellish reality… and I know I’ve only been a nuisance to everyone after the things I’ve done… BUT STILL!”

Ten’s voice began to crack.

“You’re an important person to the Fourth Branch… if you go now…”

Ikara began to laugh softly.

“Why are you doing all this… we barely even know each other… you haven’t even introduced yourself to me earlier.”

“I… Sorry…”

“I’m just messing with you… Lord Tenebris Aurelius Valemont…” she chuckled.

Ten’s eyes widened at the familiar recall of his former self.

“That name’s way too long… Tenebris… Tenshi… Ten...”

“Tenshi?”

“In my old world… it meant angel…” she said looking up weakly.

The glimmering light was now shining down on the two of them, casting a mystical backlight on Ten’s figure as he looked down at Ikara’s slightly fading form.

“An angel…” Ikara murmured as the glow in her eyes began to slightly fade.

Ten’s heart began to turn as more tears welled up in his eyes.

“Can you do me a favor Tenshi?”

Ten nodded silently.

“I know your relationship with the Fourth Branch has just begun and it’s already hit a few snags… it seems you still have a long ways to go before opening up and putting your full trust in them…”

“Please… give them a chance… that’s all that I ask… can you do that?”

Ten nodded again in silence, accepting that there was nothing left he could do to save Ikara.

“Thank…you…” Ikara said as she faded into the glimmering beam of light, leaving Ten all alone in a dark and empty plane of nothingness.

Ten began to sob empathetically as Ikara’s memories began to replay in his head. He cried and cried until he could no longer hear his own sobs.

***

All of a sudden he snaps out of the black plane and finds himself back in the hideout near the door to Ikara’s room. Dreya had bumped into him as she was making her exit from the drama she caused earlier.

Her mouth moved as she gave him a cold harsh look. But no sound came out. Rather, Ten didn’t hear her. As she walked away menacingly, Wolf followed up and put a hand around Ten’s shoulder. He nodded and stopped to say something too, as he continued in the opposite direction of Dreya. Ten couldn’t quite catch what either one of them had said. 

Something was definitely wrong. He had become completely deaf.