[8]

"What?" Edward growled as he tapped his smartwatch.

"No need to be rude." A man cooed, his voice thick with a Chinese accent. "I take care of your problem, so I call you."

"Good." Edward leveled his tone with a sigh. "And the others?"

"Shot. Lynched. Burned, so on." The man reported.

"Even better." Edward smiled." That's all then. It's been a pleasure. Your money has already been transferred."

"Yes, yes. I know." The man chucked. "I saw. However, it's a shame. You good customer and a good friend. Is there no other way?"

"Cao Hu," Edward stated. "You have been the same. It's been fort years. A lot has happened, as you know. I have no other reason to be here, anymore. I'd rather leave the world in ruins before I left."

"Yes, yes." Hu sighed. "Dramatic as always, Old Dragon. You have not changed."

"On the contrary, I have." Edward scoffed. "They've lived this long, haven't they?"

"Very true," Hu said. "I thank your girls for that. Give me money for my retirement."

"Di--" Edward was cut off by the man.

"I mean no offense," Hu said. "Girls always change boys. Its simple, and I think, they changed you for the better. You lived this long. I expected you to die sooner with how you acted."

Edward did not reply to that.

"I miss them too," Hu went on. "I understand, for our loved ones paid for our sins."

"They did." Edward said.

"I loved Cyril like my own daughter. Its a shame I will have to lose you too, but such is the way of life, yes?" Hu said.

"Mhm." Edward agreed. "Death comes for us all, but I chose to go out on my own terms, and it's getting late. Is everything finished?"

"Yes yes." He answered. "Their deeds will come out in the morning. News bribed already."

"Good... Then I guess this is our goodbye, old friend." Edward chuckled solemnly.

"Edward Bailey, the Dragon of America," Hu said. "It has been a pleasure to be your friend. Maybe in a different life, we could have been better friends. Goodbye, Old Dragon."

The phone jingled, notifying that the man had hung up. Edward's mood fell lower afterward. Cao Hu had been an assassin for hire. Well known among the underground and quite the expensive one at that. Yet, they had been, at one point, enemies. Locked in a vicious game of cat and mouse. Eventually, by an odd twist of fate, they had come to respect each other after an ambush had forced them to work together.

Since then, Cao Hu had elected not to take any contracts on Edward. In turn, Edward always supplied him with work. Over the long years, Edward no longer gave him those kinds of jobs; choosing to higher him as Chief of Security in his company. They had been at odds, yet, they remained close friends. Cao Hu had even been one of the few people Edward trusted with Cyril... Cyril had even come to call him Uncle.

He lamented on how their fates had taken such odd turns.

A renown assassin eventually becomes a trusted friend. Then, Chief of Security. Then, a friend to his family. The strangeness of it all wasn't lost on him. Had it been a different life, Edward was sure they'd be too bickering old men on the porch. Growing old, and watching their families play. Life had an odd way of repaying karma though, and both the men had lost their families.

With a sigh, Edward tapped on the server's screen. It lit up and displayed the Administrative Login Screen. He pulled a keyboard from under the screen and locked it into place. He then logged into the server, and it displayed a menu. With a few taps, he found what he was looking for. His daughter's avatar.

Beautiful, mature, and vibrant. This avatar hadn't changed much over the years. Aside from the whole "I'm an adult!" phase she went through at fifteen.

He chuckled fondly at the memory. Cyril had played a child's character. A mirror image of her before. Puberty hadn't done much for her ill body, unable to grow normally. Her real body had become decrepit, sickly, and... Ugly... He had to admit, her real body had become ghoulish. Even he didn't think it'd ever be healthy if she was cured of her ailments... As harsh as he had been on Jax for his "mistake", Cyril had faced a plethora of health issues stemming from her long coma.

Eventually... When he thought of his daughter, he thought of this white-haired maiden on the screen. Bright-eyed and pure. She was the definition of an ideal woman, but it wasn't her real body.

Then again, it was.

He felt his thoughts slipping away into the philosophical side of things. Thus, he simply dove into her character's bio. The one thing he'd never done before. It really had been an act of courtesy. As a girl who's whole life revolved around numbers and codes, nearly everything she did had been monitored; until the last year or so of her life. When she had given up.

He looked down the long and depressing back story that was her character. The adventurers she had written down. A good portion of it was childish and nonsensical; all of which brought him to tears in laughter at the pureness of it all. Then, slowly, he could tell were things began to change. When the weight of her situation began to weigh on her. Slowly, it became darker and darker. The story slowly veered away from her character, and into the world.

It wasn't the anguish you'd see from an emotional teenager going through puberty; it was the anguish of a trapped bird. Eventually, he reached the end - when she had given up. Left with a small note.

["I'm a trapped bird, strung up in a tree on a sunny afternoon. Everyone around me visits. When they're done, they fly away. They spread their wings and fly away into the open sky. But not me. I sit here in this cage, watching. Waiting. Left behind. Will they come back? Will someone save me? Do I matter...? Am I real...? It doesn't matter. This is the cage I will die in, and when I'm gone, no one will remember me."]

He stared at it. Unsure of what to do. He knew she felt this way, but to actually see it jolted down. It hurt. He stared at the screen for a few minutes. Then, he deleted it all and wrote in one final entry in its place. In a matter of minutes, he had left one final wish for his departed daughter. Once done, he entered it into the system.

"For you, I'll shoulder any sin if it meant your peace," Edward whispered. "Should I need to destroy this world or the next - I'd do it all for you."

With that, Edward plucked three stuffed toys off the bed on his right. A white dragon, a white wolf, and an elf. Three of her favorite toys, who'd gone on to become her companions in her little world. He resettled them on top of the screen and left them as he walked away. He'd no longer defile this small heaven with his bloodied hands. It was a grave as much as the one by tree outside. Or, the one within that server.

Three graves, and no real home... His heart died at that thought.

He stopped in the doorway and looked back at the server. Her avatar still smiled back at him, as if sending him on his way.

"It was a blessing to have you, Cyril." In a raspy voice, Edward muttered his final words. "If you'd have me, I'd love to be your father again. To do it right. Take you to school. Fight with you when you become a teen, and hand you off to your husband..."

All those things he had dreamt to do as a father. A rather romanticized list of what he'd do as her dad.

"You take care of yourself, you hear?" Edward said as he lifted his chin with a smile. "I love you."

He slowly closed the door on the machine. His feet softly thumped down the hall, and the screen remained unchanged.

Then, the house roared to life as fire tore through it. The office was obliterated with the foyer. Wood, tile, floorboards, and memories were consumed within a blink of an eye. Pictures of a smiling child, unmarred by the world glowed orange for a moment then disappeared. Edward and Maddin's wedding photo, cake smudged across both their faces. The fire consumed it all as it rushed past Edward, killing him instantly as it raced toward's Cyril's empty room.

The server's lights began to flicker as if sensing the rush of destruction coming its way. Yellow, green and red as cycled before each light turned a brilliant gold. The screen began to glow, and as the fire reached out for it, the server had cycled one more time.

["Be free of these thoughts - Spread your wings and live. I will always love you, my precious star."]