Sake

Now that Naoto was free from captivity, the mercenaries began storming the vicinity of the underground gallery. Zack retreated to the third floor and utilized his gadgets to sync with their sound frequencies. The trio discussed their presumed exit route, consisting of a dive into a manhole to escape from Lucia's mercenaries. Zack attuned to their voices and heard them retreating down into the manhole, prompting him to move accordingly towards the edge of the gallery's rooftop.

He had found himself above the docking station where Lucia's mercenaries transferred the Melody Dragon. Knowing full well that Lucia and the dragon were present below, Zack made sure to exercise caution to never reveal his face in the event that he was discovered. He summoned his silver-sheen motorcycle with the push of a button and placed it near a shrouded corner away from the gallery's docking station in case of emergency. He patiently waited, until he caught the splurging sound of blood, following with a mercenary's bloodcurdling scream.

"You are all so useless..." Zack caught Lucia's voice straight away in the depths of the gallery's underground hangar.

Zack nearly fell ill at Lucia's hostile voice encroaching the three from a distance. He continued listening, believing that she would unveil the Melody Dragon to annihilate the three for good. He ran through a list of possible plans that would benefit both him and Lucia to end the destruction of Aries. One possible plan was to stop Lucia, but doing so with such a broken and troubled heart would prove useless. The one escape route was a dream, and the only one that could fix her was one who had already dipped her toes inside.

As Zack continued eavesdropping on their conversation, his communications suddenly shut down from interference. An unknown signal jammer brought static towards the sensors inside the art gallery, bringing his spying to a complete halt. He frustratingly tossed his nanosuit's earpiece away, realizing that the Melody Dragon relayed the jamming signal after its activation sequence. Its presence and energy proved to be almighty by gathering too much power from nearby sources, effectively shutting down nearby communications and power sources.

He pressed his ears against the cold rooftops and heard muffled incoherent voices that were too intelligible to decipher. He gazed to the distance and planned to descend to stop their confrontation altogether. However, a large vehicle, much like the one he had seen at the Virgo Factory after battling Ryo, pulled up near the docking station with the intent to ram through. Zack looked further, witnessing Natia, his previous combatant, toss a lethal grenade that she had stolen from his possession.

The explosion rattled Zack's balance as he dove back against the rooftops. Natia drove the vehicle further inside, and Zack couldn't get a single grasp of the situation any longer. He descended the rooftops using his Hookshot gadget and pounced on his motorcycle. After several seconds, the massive van that Natia drove escaped through the explosion's fumes. Zack witnessed as Lucia's laser-eyed drones took chase, leaving their escape route unfulfilled.

Zack revved his motorcycle's engine and pressed his wrists against the gas, diving forward at full speed as his tires skidded and marked against the gravel pavement. With his helmet visor on to shroud his identity, he maintained a clear distance from the large van as a means to not interfere. He knew Lucia was watching every move, and interference meant betrayal. Still, he could not help but notice how bloodthirsty Lucia was in wanting her enemies dead to cover up her plans, especially from people that wanted to lend a hand in helping her change.

The van paved a short way for Zack to avoid incoming traffic on the opposite side of the road. He followed a sharp drifting turn that led towards a residential area. The area eventually intersected with a bustling night shopping district throughout Bellastraza, and civilians dove towards the sidelines to avoid being hit in the incoming traffic. Zack kept the chase and watched as the van slammed straight through a glass window of a massive shopping mall. Zack swayed his motorcycle up a short slope and entered the second floor of the mall, zooming past through while keeping an eye on the drones firing the moving van.

"I need to stay on their trail," Zack spoke to himself as he pedaled forward. "They won't be able to shake them for long."

As they collided into the opposite side of the mall, more glass shattered and left the van on the move from the drones. To avoid close contact, Zack followed through a slippery sloped road down another mile until he noticed one of the sides of the van's doors melting at a hefty pace. They were eastbound for a set of bridges underneath an ocean, and if they had planned an escape, Zack was clueless on how they were to plan it in such a coordinated amount of time.

"What the fuck?" Zack muttered as he kept pace with their vehicles.

Zack's concentration was interrupted as soon as the doors blasted open with the Sunlight members strapped on with their backs supported by the front of the doors. Zack held his breath and drifted his motorcycle to the side after being startled by the sudden escape tactic. Lucia's drones chased the van for several seconds until they realized their targets had escaped to the oceans below. Zack watched as the drones split apart from their formation with laser-precise crimson sensors scanning a wide range amongst their surroundings.

While propping up his motorcycle towards the edge of the bridge, Zack caught the Sunlight members, along with Sumire, fleeing to a local Bellastraza shoreline pier. He slicked his spiky silver hair back with a single stroke of his palm and slanted his right eyebrow down in pure astonishment.

"What are these fools doing…?" Zack muttered to himself once more, crossing his arms in amazement. "They foiled her plans with such minimal effort… all for what? To prove her a nonexistent point that even I cannot comprehend?"

He watched Sumire reconcile and debrief their plans with Ryo, Natia, and Naoto. Focusing his attentive eyes on Sumire, Zack shook his head in denial.

"It's you, isn't it?" Zack spoke once more, studying Sumire's judgment. "The mere thought of you disappearing would worry her," He revved up his motorcycle's engine once more after propping up the stand with his boots. "Because deep down, you mean something to her, regardless of who you are… and perhaps you can end this cycle of mistrust. The cycle of hate, stemming from the olden days..."

With his mind peaked in interest, Zack drove across the bridge until he was a few meters away from the Bellastraza local pier. He eavesdropped on the late conversation that resulted in Sumire and Naoto dispersing away from each other. Zack watched as Ryo and Natia spoke to each other in a hushed tone. His eyes trailed away towards Naoto chasing Sumire across a stone bridge. Zack remained out of sight and scurried closer to their position.

He found a perfect spot to eavesdrop near a dimly lit alleyway with a half-working lantern supported by wires above his head. Zack laid low and listened closely to Sumire and Naoto's conversation. He wanted to know the full extent of her intentions, even if it meant risking his discovery.

"As I said, I just don't know what to do anymore." Sumire began as her voice trailed off into the distance. The breeze was making it tough to listen to her every word. Zack approached closer to the exit of the alleyway.

"I'll bet he and Natia were both confused over why you wanted to help Lucia, and why you mentioned Sophie and her friend. To be honest, I am a bit too. I mean, someone like her? She's caused more destruction more than anyone we've ever dealt with back in Sunlight." Naoto replied.

"I want to save her because she reminds me of myself…" Sumire said with hesitation.

"What?" Zack whispered, wondering how she considered herself and Lucia as equals. He observed Sumire carefully and noticed that she was crying uncontrollably with her breath held back. The moment that one cries is a sign of weakness, but Zack never understood those rules. Crying for him indicated that someone truly cared about whatever it is they were fighting for, and Sumire held nothing back.

He heard Sumire's confession about her father and how useless she felt. With his concentration fully on her, Zack couldn't help but sympathize with her troubled past. However, while fixated on her mindless pain, an unidentified flash of red light swept past his pupils in a millisecond. The flash redirected itself in the form of a small dot over to Sumire and Naoto's heads. In an instant after Zack discovered it, they vanished out of sight.

"Shit." Zack mouthed as he returned into the darkened alleyway. He ascended the building with his claw gadget and remained low underneath a portion of the building housing the electric generators for power. He brushed his cheek aside the building's walls and scooted out to scan the surroundings. Without his nanosuit, he was unable to view long distances. But during the nighttime in Bellastraza, Zack was able to pinpoint flashing lights that never belonged to the city in the first place.

"Lucia... could this be your doing?" Zack mumbled. "But that's impossible. Getting here without any means of transportation..."

He surveyed the area and noticed tall skyscrapers from the opposite side of the Bellastraza streets. Zack's eyes lit up in immediate warning, realizing the danger that the Sunlight members were in. Another flash of light appeared near the Sunlight members, with Ryo and Natia included. Zack held in his breath and dashed towards the edge of the building with his throat about to burst.

"Come on, let's move!" Sumire called, grabbing Ryo's hand and pulling him across the stone bridge. "We don't have time!"

"Get down!" Zack yelled at the top of his lungs, ordering the Sunlight members. A flash of light covered Ryo's forehead as Sumire suddenly reacted to Zack's voice by pushing herself in front of her brother. The swift whizzing sound of a thin air blast came into their view as a sniper bullet struck Sumire in the right shoulder, incapacitating her instantaneously. Natia, who noticed the blood spurting from the exit wound of Sumire's right shoulder, snatched Ryo and Naoto and dove into cover immediately.

Witnessing Sumire, one of the only individuals who came out as a boorish outlander and outcast to the society of Aries rendered in an incapacitated or even deathly state after showing deep care and passion for his mentor's future made him incomprehensibly sluggish and weak. It was an extremely uncommon occurrence, perhaps even more uncommon than lightning striking the same area twice. With this in mind, Zack did not hesitate. He slipped his right foot forward and tossed the last of his distortion grenades to generate a massive field of Lucia's 8-bit drawings and smoke to shroud the surrounding area.

More sniper bullets whizzed past through the smoke as the red-dot from the unknown marksman's weapon began to mark itself easily for Zack to identify. Using his extreme tactical abilities, Zack realized that the marksman was positioned on one of the darkened floors of a skyscraper's hotel room, and he immediately realized that Sumire was not their true target.

"Sumire! Sumire!" Ryo roared amidst the ensuing chaos from the distortion grenade and the sniper bullets continuously whizzing past their heads. He dragged his arms out after witnessing his sister bleed on the pavement. Natia yanked him down once more next to Naoto, understanding the size of the situation. "Let go of me, damn it!"

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Natia hissed. "Do you want to be next? There's a fucking sniper out there! There's nothing we can do!"

"No…" Ryo's voice trailed off after concentrating on Sumire's closed and unresponsive eyes from a distance. However, as he focused on her face, two boots touched down on the pavement next to her that startled his surroundings. The unknown man, whom he could barely make out amongst the lingering grenade blast, bravely stood adeptly to face the sniper head-on.

Zack stepped forward from the smoke and pulled out a silenced pistol from his hip pouch. With an impudent glare that showed the utmost disregard and hatred for the marksman, wrinkles surfaced on his forehead and cheeks before he fired a single bullet towards the hotel room's window. The bullet penetrated the window from far away, but he could not tell if it was a confirmed hit on the marksman.

The sniper bullets ceased their crossfire. Zack placed his pistol away and lifted Sumire from the ground while turning his head away from Ryo and the others. Blood soaked Zack's left hand as Sumire's wound continued dripping through her shoulder. Ryo lifted his hand into the air in an attempt to reach for Zack's legs, but Natia pulled him back once more.

"What the hell is he doing!?" Naoto yelled, dashing forward without Natia's protection. "Let her go, goddamn it!"

"Naoto, you idiot!" Natia cried.

Zack ignored Naoto's assault by delivering a forceful kick towards his stomach without turning his head. However, Naoto's distraction was enough for the unknown marksman to fire another bullet directly through the impeding smoke, grazing Zack in the left shoulder. Clenching his teeth in pain and at the mere thought of him drawing blood, Zack disregarded the wound and marched towards his motorcycle with the chance he still had.

Zack evaded oncoming traffic as vehicles began to pile up near the site of the ensuing chaos. Innocent civilians from Bellastraza began entering the fray to clear up the smoke and search for survivors. Ryo, Natia, and Naoto immediately dashed out as the sniper ceased its fire, for it did not want to take innocent casualties for potentially more traction.

"Hey, stop! Are you okay?" A short middle-aged female asked Ryo as she delicately edged her hand on his arm.

"Wait, stop!" A turquoise-colored alien attempted to seize Ryo into safety.

Ryo dashed out of the distortion grenade's blast site. Multiple civilians began bumping into his shoulders and grabbing his arms to take care of him, but Ryo denied their requests. His breathing began to increase rapidly as he searched for Sumire ahead. Not only did she defend Ryo from facing certain death, but there was a possibility of her dying in the situation. Now someone was attempting to kidnap her without warning.

As he fully cleared the blast site, Ryo witnessed the unknown man placing Sumire on the back of his silver motorcycle. Without a nanosuit, Ryo couldn't chase after them. The unknown man ignited the motorcycle's engine and escaped from the scene, leaving Ryo breathless and without his sister.

"Motherfucker!" Ryo roared at the top of his lungs as he lashed his hands out towards the air for his sister. He wished he could have been there for her before she was struck. "Stop!"

A trail of smoke left the trio alone in the midnight scene. Naoto passed Ryo and continued chasing after the motorcycle, but his efforts were left to no fruition. By the time he passed Ryo, the motorcycle was gone from sight as it swerved through traffic. "Son of a bitch!" Naoto cried as tears began surfacing below his eyes. "You bastard! Give her back, damn it! You coward!"

As more civilians both human and alien alike began to crowd the crime scene, Ryo was left hopeless after pouring his efforts into Sunlight's cause. As the defeated man amongst the other two, Ryo failed to think logically to get his sister back. Natia, however, approached him from behind and placed her hand on his shoulder with logic in mind.

"We're sitting ducks here," Natia stated. "We can't do anything by standing here. We have to get back to headquarters."

"First April… and now my sister?" Ryo callously questioned his forbearance. "Why does everyone I care about have to die right in front of me? Goddamn it!"

"Hey!" Natia slapped Ryo directly across the cheek. Naoto watched from afar still teary-eyed. Ryo's mouth was wide open in shock as his cheek began to blemish into light red color. "Pull your act together, you immature fuck. Do you think the world revolves around you? Things happen. Anything can happen, and look at what happens when things don't go your way. Now are you going to find a way to get her back, or are you going to just stand here and sulk?"

Without another word, Ryo shook his head once before storming off towards the direction of where the headquarters were. Natia sighed, believing her words were incapable of doing anything for Ryo. When it came to him, she couldn't find it in any position to use logic to convince him. Naoto followed along with Ryo as Natia began calling Claude for reinforcements.

"I lost April right in front of me. But this time, it's different. I swear!" Ryo shouted aloud as he sprinted down the road with his mind enraged to the point of no return. He still remembered the day Sumire confessed the truth about them being siblings, and now he couldn't help but realize he had lost even that. Yet he could not blame anyone but himself and the ones responsible. He felt that everyone was out to get him, and his closest friends and family had been taking the blow for him.

April, Sumire, his mother and father, and even Ash.

"I won't let you die. I won't let you die!" Ryo repeated over and over again. An impasse was made, and a held-back emotion shattered inside Ryo's heart. Bloodlust began pouring out, as he wanted to do anything it took to get them back and to face the ones responsible.

***

While the night was still present, the vast gorges, open forests, and brimming archipelagos were camouflaged amongst the moonlight. In a widespread grassy field, Zack's motorcycle stormed down the road to exit the Libra district. His communications were off to prevent Lucia or anyone from contacting him. It was just him, his motorcycle, and Sumire behind him storming down a single endless road paved by several streetlights.

Zack turned his head back to face Sumire. While she still remained lifeless, he wanted to do his best to make things right for both her and Lucia. And he knew exactly how to do that. He placed his trust into her, knowing all her connections were right as rain.

Perhaps there still is hope left in this world. Preferably, our world. But for God's sake, please let her live...