Typical hell once again. Kazuki sat silently in the shuttles, 4923, a year before the rebellion. The lights briefly glimpsed through the slits and windows, illuminating his dead face.

Memories brushed by, flickering in shattered forms.

Each spark sent another memory through him, he could see everything that led to this very moment. His parents stood over him, glaring down with expectations upon the entry test results.

The boredom of boarding school. Meeting everyone, then losing everything.

The darkness of Anagora engulfed Kazuki's view through the shuttle windows.

That stopped the flow of memories.

Yet there was this one to deal with. Another memory... Yet, critical indeed. Outside, Kazuki saw a whole flotilla of shuttles. Clandestine was moving in. In force. Kazuki glanced across the command shuttle.

He wasn't the commander. Nor was he the Project Leader. Right now, Kazuki was just a specialist... Codename: Arbiter. Lazarus sat across from him, Claire's frown was clear for him to see. "We shouldn't be doing this," she said.

"Yet, here we are," Kazuki replied.

Articho, Heimfall's original commander, leaned over. He frowned as well but patted Claire on the shoulder. "It's just a job, alright?"

"It doesn't make it any less wrong."

Articho sighed, looking over to Kazuki. Kazuki wore black markers along his armour, unmarked and dangerous. "Hey, kid, you sure you want to be here?" he asked. "It's... gonna be hard, at the very least. I don't want to put more guns down than I need to."

"It's fine," Kazuki replied. Dammit... Kazuki just wanted to go back to HQ and deal with all this later. The year was 4923, and Kazuki had his own commitments... Eliza, first of all. 'Archius. Sato. What do you guys have?'

'Not much, Arbiter,' Sato chimed in. 'Communication towers are down for the most part. We'll just have to go based on the understanding that... they might all be dead.'

Shit. Kazuki grunted, looking around the shuttle. It was a collage of commanders from the different units sent in. Purple, white, silver, blue, yellow and red. Lilly was taking a long puff of her cigarette with Quinn, Riharia and Kiri in tow.

'Let's not be so negative, alright?' Archius interjected. 'Hell, it'll be good overtime if there's no real trouble and they brought us out here for nothing! Get paid for having a quick puff on the shuttle, isn't that good?!'

A dozen chuckles rose from the people in the shuttles. But now, they were getting close. The darkness and neon lights of the Sub-Levels gave way to a large burning sub-district... Kazuki stared, unflinching at the sight. "Holy shit..." Václavos said, looking out the window whilst squeezing by Kazuki to see.

"I haven't seen something this bad since we got you out of that fight with the two mercs," Claire noted, awkwardly looking past them. "If only we had Director Marc there..."

Kazuki doubted that Director Marc could have stopped what happened back then... Kazuki could see the devastation vividly, even as one of his eyes was torn out. Death... blood. So many fires and eruptions across a district. Compared to that, this mere razing seemed almost tame.

Tame. That was it, Kazuki thought, it was all he could ever think.

Touching down, everything was tame... too tame. Kazuki thought about his codename: Arbiter. What justice was there to be here? The heat in the Sub-Levels was boiling. It was winter, after all, and to cool the surface, all that heat had to go somewhere. Some operatives were already boiling with sweat as they hit the dirt.

Buildings and streets were ransacked, and burning. "Shit." Kazuki looked around. Operatives and engineers set up a FOB, though many teams fanned out.

"Not good?" Articho asked. "Trust me... you haven't seen shit, kiddo." He gave a hoarse chuckle. "You want to go on the first patrol? I'll deal with things here, I think it'll help Claire to... find some of the wounded, ease her mind if you know what I mean."

Kazuki nodded, whistling for Claire and a few others to come with him. Claire, Amyé, Václavos, Nihara and Cyrus. A small team, yes, but one he could rely on. With them in marching order, Kazuki led them out, towards the faint sound of flames, eruptions and gunfire blanketing the Sub-Level district.

A sense of guilt rushed over Kazuki's mind. This... Leading from the front, Kazuki felt his uplink blink. The channel change. Archius. A private communication with him? At this time? Ugh... 'What is it?'

'Hmm? Oh, I only thought you'd be wallowing in how you caused all of this,' Archius commented. A moment passed. 'Wait... I'm right, aren't I?'

Kazuki grunted. 'Go fuck yourself.'

'Do it yourself!' Archius laughed back. 'Anyways... It's all for the mission, all for that light at the end of the warp lane, isn't that what you said?'

'Ah yes...' Twisting Kazuki's words as always, he thought. 'I also mentioned that light was an enemy fleet.'

'Awh, you're so optimistic, we'll smash that fleet and hang Jessica's head by the flagpole, how about it? Well, depends if blow her up with a twenty-inch AA gun.' Archius scoffed and chuckled. Kazuki found it hard to hide a hoarse snigger.

The idea of executing someone with a twenty-inch flak cannon was... humorous, strangely. The violent thought was nice. Continuing through the streets, the squadron was eventually isolated, alone... "See anything?" Kazuki turned to the two snipers on the team.

Both had their recon scanners online, slapped cheaply over their helm masks. Amyé shrugged. "I'm not hammered enough to start seeing double, ain't working, Arbiter."

"Uh... yeah, nothing," Václavos meekly answered back. "Are you sure we can't just... sit this one out?" He turned back to the rest. "Come on, we're not even gonna get paid for this, right?"

Claire sighed. "Do you want the Seekers to find us slouching around?" Claire groaned as she passed an energy stim over to Václavos, shooting it into his armourport. "There, feeling any better?"

"Huh?" Václavos stopped, looking down at his boots. "The... fuck...." Václavos was pretending to faint. Nihara immediately slammed him on the exoskeleton. Václavos bellowed with a loud screech. "FUCK!"

Nihara nodded, giving a thumbs up to Claire. "Hit me. It works." Claire shot over a new batch of energy stims to help fight the exhaustion of their duty. Kazuki felt that something was wrong... very wrong. Maybe Václavos' screech was... Kazuki paused. The streets were quiet, too quiet.

He held his fist out. Kazuki's senses were firing off in all directions. Kazuki could faintly feel a muzzle pointed through a window. 'Ambush.' Kazuki weaved backwards, avoiding a stream of machine gun bolts.

Everyone ducked into cover, firing in all directions. Gunfire streamed in from all sides! 'Archius!' Kazuki shouted. 'Drones. Now!'

'On it, on it!' Archius grumbled.

Kazuki propped his shield up, deflecting a dozen bolts before kicking himself down into cover. He couldn't get a good look at the shooters... Shit! It was a complete and utter shitshow. Bolts were exchanged haphazardly, destroying and wrecking concrete and stone around them.

'ARCHIUS!' Kazuki growled.

'I'M HERE YOU IMPATIENT SHIT!' Archius shouted back as a dozen drones flew by overhead. Their scanners lit up, connecting to the helm-masks of the operatives. Instantly, readings were given, figures in the buildings, up and around them all.

A string of explosive bolts covered the operatives as they rose from cover, expending no spare second to gun the criminals down. One magazine. That was all it took to eliminate the threats. Claire breathed a sigh of relief, stepping out of cover.

"How many splattered brains will it take for them to learn that high explosive bolts beat piss-quality plasma?" Kazuki scoffed as he scanned around.

"When the last fucker on this planet's dead, I suppose!" Václavos called back.

Just then, another hostility lit up in Kazuki's senses. He wheeled around, firing into a door. It crumpled open, with a criminal dropping flat on the pavement with a shriek.

'You know what we have to do, Arbiter.' Archius sighed. Kazuki nodded, stepping over to the criminal.

Nihara took a good look at them, before grumbling. "Are these really the type to throw up arms against us?" she asked.

"You want to ask that after this mess?" Václavos gestured around them, at the carnage and dead around the street. Kazuki glared down at them.

"Where are the rest of you?" Kazuki asked. Claire gave a troubled glance, worried that Kazuki would actually torture the guy. Evidently, Kazuki did not. He needed Claire's support as Heimfall's 2iC.

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The criminal shuffled backwards, looking up at Kazuki before getting comfortable against the broken-down wall. "Go to hell!"

"We're already here," Kazuki replied. He knelt down, grabbing a radio uplink the criminal had. Despite that label, the man looked average... Marine tattoos as well. Hmm. Kazuki sighed. This wasn't a criminal, just someone wanting to protect his home. Still, they are criminals nonetheless, ordained by bureaucrats who've never bled a day in their lives. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way." Kazuki took a knife out and gestured to the man's crotch. "Think carefully."

The criminal sighed and grunted. "The old community centre... before you fucks let it go to waste!" The man growled again. "I wouldn't go there if I were you, we had uh... whatever scout teams you sent in earlier there... Pah... Come on, kill me, do as your benevolent overlords demand!"

Kazuki kicked the man's gun away, across the street. Then, Kazuki turned and left. Claire heaved a small sigh of relief. "Thank fuck for that..." she said, tapping the rest to go on. "The old community centre... guess things are the same everywhere else."

"Hmm?" Amyé raised an eyebrow.

"This," Kazuki interjected. "Run down. Rampant with crime. Rioting... The only thing stopping a total rebellion is the fact that people are fed... and people are entertained." It was the core of the Empire's strategy, and it was the crux of whatever the Republic had now.

Turning through the alleys and streets, the team made their way towards the old community centre. 'Archius, get your eyes up and here, tell us if you find something.'

'On it, Arbiter,' Archius said. It still felt weird to be called that by him...

Now, Kazuki was left alone with his thoughts. A cog. A machine. A tool in this beleaguered system of suffering. Arbiter. Justice, isn't that what he's supposed to be? Well... To hell with that. That guy will probably live. Kazuki could only hope that he'll learn his lesson and haul his ass halfway across the galaxy.

"We're judicial troopers," Claire said. "Why are we... doing this? Weren't it the scout teams that caused all of this?"

"Do you think the Directors, the police or whomever else cares?" snorted Václavos. "Huscarl, you think they'd care?"

Cyrus' answer was obvious: "Fuck no."

"What about you, Berserker?"

Nihara gave a shrug, apathetic as always.

"We'll find out soon enough," Kazuki said, stopping at the exit of an alley. 'This is Arbiter. We've found the enemy headquarters, permission to engage?'

Sato chimed in before Archius could, 'You sure it's their headquarters, Arbiter? Hold up... Overwatch to Directorship, permission to engage?'

Oh. Great. Bureaucracy and red tape. Amazing, even in a situation where people could be bleeding out and dying! Kazuki rolled his eyes as he stepped forward. Fuck authorisation. He'll do justice, whatever that meant now.

"HEY!" Claire murmured loudly. "Arbiter?!"

"Lazarus, you and Artillerist can stay out of this." Kazuki can survive a slap on the wrist. These people cannot. "Testify against me if you're pressured. I don't care."

The investment of trust won them over, as they walked out of cover, slinking across the street with Kazuki. 'Archius, you got guns in the sky?'

'Mhm.' Drones were hovering around, hiding in the shadows between the neon lights on the Sub-Level ceiling and the raging inferno below. 'I'll keep you guys covered until Sato can uh... yeah, get some troops over to you.'

Kazuki nodded, stacking up against the community centre's main door. The dingy atmosphere was made worse by the damp air, somehow filtering through their masks. It was... rancid. Disgusting. Kazuki gave the signal as Amyé and Václavos rappelled up to vantage points around the centre.

Nihara attached the charge, and Claire restocked everyone's stimulants. Cyrus was the frontman, lugging a machine gun. Clicky click. The doors erupted. They swung off their hinges, smoke rising up as they flooded into the community centre.

Breaching through the smoke, Kazuki was surprised as... not a single round was thrown at them? Kazuki paused as he entered, the squad emerging from the smoke. It was... a hospital? A dozen or so people turned to face them.

"Oh shit..." One of them looked towards a rifle across the room.

"Don't try it!" Kazuki bellowed. "What's faster? This gun or your feet?"

Oh, shit indeed. "You'll just shoot us, gun us all down..." They turned around, looking at the dozens of people sheltered there. "I'm guessing we might... have enough of us to overpower you guys."

Kazuki raised a wrist, showing his ICAPAD. 'Artillerist, Hawki, call it off, get down here... No... evident hostiles here.' Speaking loudly, seemed to have eased the tension in the room. Still, Kazuki was confused.

A dozen random people lay on stretchers across the community centre's derelict floor, a few of them were operatives, though they were tied up. "We're not fucking monsters, not like you..."

"Hostages..." Kazuki trailed off. Kazuki looked at their injuries. Most were... non-fatal, probably because these people treated them. "We came here without a proper picture. That was intentional." He needed to know. "Tell me."

The one Kazuki presumed to be their leader stepped forward. "Your scouts came here... they started demanding more taxes, security protection... Tch. They tried to... get frisky with the butcher's daughter."

Claire gave a sympathetic glance over to Kazuki. Kazuki waved his hand down as Václavos and Amyé entered the room. Everyone lowered their guns, and slowly they all placed them in their holsters and slings. "Reasonable," Kazuki said. "Who was it?"

"Didn't know... black armour trim, like yours..." he said. "Their bodies are... still burning, I think. These ones... they tried to break up the fight."

"High Guard and Seekers... Tch, pathetic bunch," Cyrus grumbled. "Hosea's the only good one amongst them." Cyrus wasn't wrong. The Seekers and Clandestine High Guard were paid more - given more liberties... In exchange, they were the true contractors, the enforcers of the Directorate's will.

If any of the slaves get out of line... well, they're sent in to deal with it.

Kazuki slid his pistol into his holster, taking a step forward. "You mind?" he asked, gesturing to the operatives lying close by.

The other man nodded. Kazuki stepped forward, seeing that it was Johanna's unit, their orange trim made that known. Strange... Kazuki thought that Johanna's unit was supposed to be with Director Chizuru. Perhaps this was a calculated move to eliminate one of the Directors?

'Archius...?' Kazuki asked.

'Not me,' he replied with a moan. 'Seriously... this isn't me.' He then let off a small chuckle. 'Good assets, don't you think?' From what Kaz knew, Director Chizuru was the amicable one, the only Director with any semblance of humanity left in them.

Whatever was going on, Kazuki simply knew that time was slowly running out. "Johanna, you awake?" Kazuki asked, slapping her across the face.

Her light purple hair covered her face as she grumbled, shaking awake. "Huh?" she gasped. "Oh... Arbiter? Shit... Arbiter, they—"

"—I know." Kazuki placed a finger to her lips. "Rest up." Kazuki turned back to the so-called insurrectionists, criminals, whom he was sent here to kill. An injustice led to justice, which led to injustice.

A never-ending cycle of ouroboros - awful. Kazuki knew what must be done. Still, Kazuki didn't care. These people were wronged in the past, and what would he be if not an Arbiter. As such, Kazuki arbitrated. "Go," Kazuki said. "Take your men and women, wounded, unwounded. Leave."

An ultimatum. If they refused, then Kazuki must... correct their mistake.

"We're not leaving!"

"Then you'll die..." At that utterance, Kazuki's face grew cold and his golden eyes lit up. Instantly, gunfire reigned through the ceiling and walls, gunning all the unarmed people down. The walls were blown up as a dozen Seekers clambered through. The wounded scrambled, but explosive rounds quickly turned their whole body into scraps of limbs and organs across the floor.

'Johanna's team has been secured,' Kazuki called it in. 'Hostiles eliminated.' Glancing down at the dead, Kazuki held a sour taste on his tongue. Claire grumbled, before focusing on treating the wounded. "Deal with this... I need fresh air." Operatives swarmed to secure the area as Kazuki left.

Outside, Kazuki stared off into the distance. That was a mess. Ugh... Kazuki looked down at his armour. Blood. For once, it was not his blood and not blood he spilt. A shuttle was nearing, but Kazuki ignored it. If it was hostile, it'd be gunned down immediately.

As it landed, a figure stepped out. Two members of the High Guard followed a pair of tall, slender figures, cloaked and armoured in coat and plate. "Kazuki," one called out in a hoarse voice. Their name was none other than James Frio-Janstein.

Ally... Traitor... Saviour. Kazuki's memories flickered at his sight, along with his brother Svenn. "That wasn't necessary," Kazuki commented. "You could have taken them in."

"And what good would that be?" Svenn asked, harshly. "They knew what would happen... it's a tough galaxy, kid, I know."

True. After everything Kazuki went through, Kazuki knew it was true, but it still tasted sour this injustice. What good was power if he couldn't use a spark of it to do good? "You named me Arbiter. Is that not what you want?"

"Justice..." James waved his High Guards away, face-palming whilst stepping closer. Sitting down on the sidewalk, he took out a cigar. "Svenn, you go in there and deal with them..."

Svenn nodded before walking away. Kazuki took his helm-mask off before Svenn ruffled his hair, entering into the community centre. Kazuki looked down at James, sitting tall. "Then what am I?" Kazuki asked.

James shrugged. "That's for you to decide. Arbiter? Contractor? Mercenary? Criminal? Saviour? It's all up to you... I know you and Archius are up to something... Is that what you've decided?"

Kazuki shot back a glare, instantly placing a hand on his holstered pistol. "Careful, Director." A hint of his wrath shone through the apathetic, golden glare.

James chuckled. "I promised your father and mother... I've got your back kid." Standing up, James took a long puff of his cigar. The memory shattered into the mirrors, and once more... Kazuki is alone.

Falling through the shifting tithes of his mind, Kazuki's mind recollected the memories of the moment of his victory... Director Decimus was dead... Cantari-4... 4924, the eve of the new year. Kazuki was gasping for air... Blood, bullets and plasma casings were all around the battleground.

Memories shattered to show what happened…

Looking to his side, he saw Director James. A hole was through his chest. "Shit..." Kazuki thought about trying to revive James, but... Kazuki realised it was too late. Director Decimus and the High Guard were dead. So this was it... "You shouldn't have saved me."

The corpse said nothing, only bleeding out whatever remained within it.

He glanced over to Decimus' corpse, the cannon attached to his exoskeleton had been sliced in half. Who was Kazuki? He knew not... Saviour? What a joke.

All this time, he couldn't even save a damn thing. Kazuki faltered for a moment as his exospine's overclock ran its course. Contractor? Mercenary? Prince? In this single moment, none of it mattered. A goal was laid out, a goal Kazuki straddled towards, picking up his rifle.

Kazuki marched off to the beat of the explosions, rippling across the Citadel... The steel heart knew not what he was, only that it was true. Real. Real enough to act, and to kill.

Then, more. Kazuki felt his body scraped across the burning steel and coals along the Sub-Level floor. The She-Wolf hung over him; then the eruptions across the shuttle. The theatre walls were lined with blood. Kazuki and Archius walked down the aisles, gunning whoever survived; the sight of the autumn sky and Eliza then eclipsed Kazuki's memories.

Everything was shattering around him until his mind collapsed back to the present. Kazuki was walking down a single hallway.

4925, the Ball Palace. Kazuki stood alone now, but a signal highlighted his attention. His ICAPAD was flowing, blowing up with life. Archius? Kazuki scornfully glared at the signal locator.

Another bout of problems? Kazuki clenched his fists in thought. It'll be more than enough for him, far more.

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