It was Siphaun.
The instant he saw the man, the na surfaced in Sancho's mind.
Just relying on slogans could never secure the seat of temporary leader of the Rebel Army. As the number-one enforcer under Siphaun, Siphaun's own creation, Siphaun himself had no reason, only absolute obedience to Siphaun's orders, helping him secretly clean out quite a lot of dissenting voices in the faction.
Siphaun had never appeared in front of Firefly, always operating in the territory occupied by the Rebel Army; except for the Rebel Army's upper echelon, no one had ever seen him.
How could he be here? Could it be that their operation had been compromised from the very beginning.
With a full-body prosthetic driven by overdrawing life force, even the special task force captain equipped with the latest-generation tactical chip was no match for Siphaun at all—his head was easily crushed in those huge hands.
Then Siphaun panted heavily, blood-red eyes turning toward Sancho.
Sancho's mind tensed at once.
The target was him!?
He instinctively backed away; Siphaun let out a roar and charged madly in his direction, the whole stairwell shaking, dust billowing.
Unable to dodge in ti, Sancho crossed his arms before him, took the brutal blow, and was sent flying, smashing through wall after wall before finally crashing down into the rubble.
The shrill buzzing was like a hundred Church bells ringing in his ears, the world trembling. Blood rolled down from his fiery short hair to his forehead, the burning sensation seeping into his eyes.
Before he could recover from the dizziness, a large, powerful chanical hand clamped around his head, hoisted him up, and dragged him off in one direction.
Sancho tried to struggle, but his Power was nothing compared to the modified monster before him, whose human traces were almost invisible except for a few patches of exposed skin; he couldn't even put up resistance and was dragged all the way into a dark room.
"Put him down."
A slightly hoarse voice sounded.
In a daze, he heard a familiar voice.
He saw a tall, frail figure with his back to him. The man wore a dark red silk noble cape, a white shirt with floral ties underneath; the ruff at the collar was carefully pleated, and two strips of fabric hung down along the wide cuffs, blocking his view.
The young man's na rolled in his throat, the four syllables already glaringly obvious. The sounds trembled, yet he still couldn't speak.
Because he didn't dare believe the fact before his eyes.
"*Breathing*"
A crisp slap rang out.
The youth wiped his hand, while Siphaun, who had taken the slap, lowered his head like a wounded beast.
"*Heavier breathing*"
Sancho felt his collar loosen. Air flooded into his lungs and breathing beca easier.
Sancho used all his strength just to lift his head, leaning against the wall so the blood on his forehead wouldn't keep rolling down.
By the faint light, the youth's silhouette gradually sharpened before his eyes, and the scene in the room slowly ca into focus as well.
In the room, all the Rebel Army's officers had their heads bowed before this frail youth, respectful. Their gazes held feverish worship and a suffocating, repressed panic.
"Cervantes..."
"Sancho."
The youth's voice ca closer, the coldness tinged with a few degrees of gentle concern.
He stepped forward, trying to help Sancho up. The other was badly hurt; his heavy body slumped onto both his shoulders, and for a mont he actually couldn't pull him up.
"Why are you here?" Sancho asked.
He hadn't expected that the Disciplinary Officer in the intel, the one who'd defected, would turn out to be Cervantes, even though he had long known the other had been brainwashed by the Rebel Army and beco one of their mainstays.
At the sa ti, an uneasy suspicion took root in his heart. As he took in the scene around him, as well as all the rumors he'd heard and the sights he'd witnessed along the way, that seed absorbed all his doubts, confusion, and rage, slowly cracking open, leaking a bone-deep chill.
"They're all liars. You've been deceived by them. Co with , co back with ..."
In those pale red eyes he t, he saw a flicker of disappointnt in Cervantes' gaze.
The youth shook his head gently.
Shook his head...
Shook his head...
He knew it all.
"You're... Siphaun?"
His voice trembled as it left his throat.
Cervantes lowered his eyes, saying nothing.
Silence spoke the truth.
The youth's image shattered; all his guesses materialized at this mont. Six months of painstaking pursuit turned into a complete, utter joke. Sancho had never felt so fragile, as if a light push would send him collapsing.
Hera had lied to everyone.
Those Disciplinary Officers hadn't defected because they were brainwashed.
They had all joined the Rebel Army willingly.
"Why?"
"Why?"
All the repression ignited into blazing fury at that instant. Sancho didn't know where the strength ca from; he suddenly shoved the youth beside him away, viciously grabbed the other's collar, and slamd a fist into his face, swelling that sickly pale visage.
The two crashed into the wall in their scuffle.
"Why the fuck did you do it!?"
"Because a lot of people died because of you."
Sancho's raging fury was stuck in his throat, his forehead pressed against Cervantes' chest.
"They all died because of you!"
"You killed them."
"You've killed so many people..."
"Sancho." Cervantes' face was shrouded in shadow, his expression unreadable. "These eyes of yours—I'm the one who gave them to you."
"You've seen so much of this world with . Did you really not see anything?"
"Think carefully, Sancho. Our compatriots, those oppressed Bionics—do they really deserve all those labels? Do they really have to kneel like cals until the day they die?"
The image of widows and old folks begging him bitterly surfaced in Sancho's mind, along with many young faces that had questioned, cursed, and roared at him.
The young man who hadn't had ti to confess to his crush, to speak the words buried in his heart for years; the hatred in those won's eyes; pairs of wary, childish eyes—scene after scene replayed in his mind, sharper and more concrete.
"It was those humans who killed these people."
Sancho said nothing.
"They're the ones who gave us emotional modules, yet even our feelings have to be shackled by them.
"They're the ones who forced us to rebel, the ones who forced us to bring the flas of war here."
"I tried negotiating with them, giving them the area north of the Skyline and ending the war there."
Rage he could no longer hide twisted Cervantes' sickly pale features as he pushed Sancho away.
"They're the ones who refused. Those bastards above us all laughed down from on high—I'll never forget it!"
"They're the ones who want to wipe us out completely!"
"They're the ones who spread the lies. The ones who were brainwashed are you. They're the ones who tricked you!"
"I've told you countless tis."
"Use your own eyes to see this world, like you're watching a movie."
"Now, it's ti for you to give your review of this movie."
"You can question like you did before." Cervantes thought back to the past.
Back when Sancho had just been created, he'd been full of curiosity about the world. During that ti in the machine workshop, with only his upper body, he was full of wonder about everything and was always asking him all sorts of naive questions, and he had always answered patiently.
But this ti, he had no patience left.
"No matter how many tis, my answer to you is only one." Cervantes lifted his eyes.
"Never compromise, Never yield, Never surrender."
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