Amandi’s distress begins to subside. A look of epiphany covers his face, and then he smiles.

“Do not fret, everyone,” Amandi says, “I’m a doctor. I won’t allow everyone to die here.”

“B-But what are you going to do?” Mei asks, “There’s no way you can reverse-engineer an antidote that fast!”

“Can’t we at least get Sunny out?” Juanli asks, “Won’t someone just think of Sunny?”

“You’re just trying to keep the antidotes for yourself,” Fujisaki says, “If you had a solution, you would be more forthcoming with it.”

“I have a plan,” Amandi explains, “That will let more than two people walk free. But we must hurry. Time is of the essence.”

“Well then spit it out already,” Taikong shouts, “What’s your plan?”

Amandi confidently raises a fist.

“With your assistance, I can overcome death itself…”

---

"... We know it is possible now, thanks to Yin." Amethyst said, trying to find some reasonable explanation for why she knew the procedure would work. She shakily stood up and wiped some cold sweat from her brow. "If it will help us save more than two people, we need to do it. So let's go. We don't have time to waste."

"Do you even have time for such a thing?" Fujisaki grumbles. "None of this puts me at ease, to say the least."

"Indeed, Amethyst. It's our only chance!" Dr. Uwem said as he looks at the others. "But why did I know of the operation that I did before...? Unless...." His eyes widen in surprise.

"The Morphogenetic Field! I never thought that this game would allows me to access the Morphogenetic Field!" He was grinning like a happy child, knowing that he was able to access the Morphogenetic Field. "In a different timeline, a different Dr. Amandi Uwem have done this operation and transmitted this information to the Morphogenetic Field.... And when I accessed the Field, I gained the knowledge of the operation!"

"I don't even know what to say about this... am I even good enough for this?" Mei commented incredulously, "How do we even make the things? How long does it take? Are people's consciousnesses even going to be intact?"

"Oh, trust me, Mei. I know it sounds crazy, but it'll work." Dr. Uwem replied. "Now, Mei, we need to take the cures before we can help the others."

"Is... is that okay?" Mei says, looking to everyone else for confirmation. She doesn't sound very sure about it.

"We're left with no other choice," Sun Taikong replied painfully. "You and Dr Uwem are the only ones with the medical knowledge for... whatever it is you're about to do. It's either that or just let all but two of us die. At the very least, whoever lives can get better homunculi once they're out there, right? Like the one in Snake's room."

"I mean... true, but most of this is just so fucking ridicolous that..." Mei cut herself off, sighing, "Just get the battle over with..."

X can't help but continue laughing throughout the doctor's explanation. Her hair falls all down her face and arms as she buries her head in her hands, giggling like a maniac. "In the end, my corpse will become someone else's. That's fitting. And my thinking will become someone else's as well. In the end humans are content with returning to oblivion if it means a slim chance at a legacy."

"Christ... Well, I've cheated death once already. I suppose I can try and do it again", Benedict muttered. "Fine, doc, let's see how your plan goes." He gritted his teeth, not looking particularly pleased about the whole thing.

---

Amethyst enters the research lab and gets to work. The others stay behind, watching from a distance. Very few of them entirely understood what was going on, but they were willing to go along with it.

One Hour Passes…

The group reconvenes at the research lab. Due to taking care to avoid the Meridian Gates, they each have only one CDP left after they head inside.

Everyone’s head is bandaged on opposing sides, due to wounds caused by the primitive data collection device. However, they’re ready to begin the battle. Everyone, including Mei and Amandi, climbs into a sleeping pod.

The room falls silent, but it feels far less grim. Burning inside those pods is humanity’s will for survival, and it’s stronger than the hottest inferno.



Quarterfinals

This time, nothing out of the ordinary happens. The battles continue as one would expect.

Thirty minutes pass…

Juanli loses interest and exits her sleeping pod early. Her opponent is dead, after all.

Next, X and Suyin’s pods open. X climbs out, landing firmly on her feet, but Suyin remains in the pod, struggling to breathe.

Monk and Amethyst’s pods open shortly afterward. Amethyst seems to be withering away in the pod. Monk takes off his hat as he stands and holds it over his heart.

Fujisaki exits his sleeping pod last. Taikong’s pod never opens.

Semifinals

“It seems the round is over,” Amandi remarks grimly. “Fortunately, everyone is up against their own teammates, so we can save time. You all should decide amongst yourselves who will—”

“Forfeit,” Fujisaki interjects.

Amandi pauses for a bit, taken aback by Fujisaki's interjection.

“That settles that, then,” he says, "So…Juanli and Monk. Which of you will face X for the Fire Key?”

[Only the person I’ve spoken to may actually face X. Everyone else may post and react and vibe. Suyin and Amethyst can act out their deaths if they want.]

---

"I can do the honours", Benedict spoke up immediately. "Juanli, you don't mind forfeiting for me, right?" He put his hat on, looking quite grim. "I can face X. Let's just get this over with as fast as possible."

---

"Just over an hour ago, it felt like we were off the rails of the Cat's game. Now I can see that we haven't strayed from Cat's path at all," X's crooked smile appears again at her lips as she turns her head towards Monk. "So, Pig, you have chosen that we meet this end. Was the possibility of us both surviving a little too much for you?" she cackles with a dire sort of madness.

Juanli looked slowly up at the others, her skin pallid and clammy. "Please...I'll forfeit...but no more distractions...I don't know how much time we've got before I can get Sunny out. I just want to...hold him...one last time...should this all go south...Doctor." she heaved over and wretched behind a pod.

With a shaking hand she reached into her handbag and dabbed at her mouth with some red paper before straightening up. "Let's just...wrap this up." she said tucking the paper away in her handbag again as she tried to hold herself upright in a dignified posture.

---

Mei looks to Fujisaki and then to Taikong's pod, realizing what must've happened. She looks at it longingly for a few seconds and, deciding it's not yet the time to burst into tears, she averts her forlorn gaze towards the floor.

Dr. Uwem was silent as he watched the others. He wanted them to hurry up as he doesn't want to waste any precious time. After all, the most important work was after the Battle for Fire, and the doctor know that.

“So, Monk versus X, then?” Amandi asks, “Alright, come with me. I looked over the rules again, and it seems that a special room has been designated for the final match.”

“That’s funny,” Monk says, “I don’t remember reading anything about that.”

“I’ll admit, I skimmed over the file a bit when I read it out loud. The room should be back here.”

Amandi steps over to the far wall and leans against one of the pods. He finds a handle tucked into the wall and pulls on it. This opens a small hidden door in the research lab.

On the other side, the group sees a room nestled in the rubble. At its center is a table with a Go board resting on top of it. Two chairs sit across from each other with cuffs attached to the left arms. Tubes trail from the cuffs and beneath the table.

Wasting no time, X and Monk sit down. They stare at each other and then begin the game.

Finals

The others linger in the research lab, watching it play out.

Monk makes the first move with his black stones, while X responds with her white stones. The game continues at a rapid pace…

---

The atmosphere in the room was tense as the two played. Benedict made his moves carefully but at a relatively swift pace. He looked at X solemnly as she made her moves in return. Finally, moments of silence later, he decided to clear his throat.

"How long is this facade going to last?" He asked her, out of the blue. "You can't expect me to believe this is the real you."

---

X places down stones quickly, making moves without any clear strategy. She rests her face in a bandaged palm, and her expression is unknowable.

She doesn't acknowledge Monk's question for a second or two, "This is the real me. I would think that anyone listening to me could tell that this is my nature. But you say that with some degree of familiarity, so you are blinded by some emotional response to my form." She sighs heavily as if she hadn't been breathing. "You are somebody who uses a façade, not me."

Benedict seemed frustrated by her answer, but kept on playing. "You act as if you don't know me at all. Do you truly not know who I am? Or are you doing this out of spite, or some strange form of revenge?" He sighed. "Either would make sense with how you're acting right now. Like you said, I've been under a façade myself for years now. But I've come out, so..."

"Do you want an apology? Is that it?" He asked, moving his pieces. His palms were sweaty, and his face seemed weary. He didn't seem focused on an actual strategy either, as he made a rookie mistake that would allow X to capture a good few of his stones.

---

"You are truly nothing to me," X says gravely, placing another piece on the board and capturing a few of Monk's pieces. "You are a stranger. An apology coming from you would be as meaningless as any other piece of small talk we might have."

"I assume by the way you are acting that you see your wife sitting across from you. You said a little about her earlier, and Dr. Uwem made a conjecture saying as much," X analyzes coldly, as if commenting on the match. "What have you done to her?"

"...You truly don't know me, then." Benedict groaned, shaking his head as he placed a piece on the board. "Yes, you are her. My wife, Li An...", he murmured wistfully. "I didn't ever "do" anything to you, which in its own way was the problem. After my sun- our son- was kidnapped, something about you changed entirely. It was like you'd lost your mind..."

He moved a piece, capturing a couple of X's stones, though he didn't seem particularly happy about it. "I can't blame you for being stressed about the whole thing, but I was doing my best considering I had my hands tied. Then you started to blame me for the kidnapping, you started to talking to Sunny as if he was still with us... You'd even go missing from the house, for days at a time. God knows where, but..."

He looked back at X, clearly fatigued. "Is any of this ringing a bell at all, or am I just talking to a brick wall here?"

---

X leans far over the board, as if studying the game very closely, but than as she pulls back she snaps down a stone in an unexpected location. She lifts her head so Monk can see her, and speaks very deliberately "If you simply wish to share a memory with someone, then I cannot fit the role that you have crafted. If you wish to feed me lines, I can say them."

"Feed you lines..? I-" Benedict paused, caught quite off-guard both by X's move and her statement. "Do you think I want you to say something in that voice?" He flinched. "No, it would be quite hollow now. You clearly don't remember a thing about me... Not when we met in that bar, when we talked about music together, when you told me you were pregnant, when you gave birth to Sunny and we took care of him together, and when we- You get the picture", he sighed, cutting himself short. "Either way, it would feel robotic. Insincere. I should've spoken to you about this before now, but..."

Looking back down at the board, he placed a piece in a place where he could capture one of X's pieces. However he was also leaving himself vulnerable in another area, which he didn't seem to notice.

Turning back to X, he grimaced. "All this time, I was too afraid to approach you. I ran away years ago, and I knew I didn't deserve to see you again after everything. But... on New Year's Eve, I decided to pay our home one more visit, even if it was my last. You sadly weren't there, so I simply sat in our old room and played, just like in the good old days. That was when our catty friend got hold of me. I don't know how they knew I would come there that night, but... There was one reason I wanted to pay you that visit."

He looked her in the eye. "I'm sorry. I know it means nothing to you anymore, especially at this point, but I'm sorry. Maybe if I had worked up the courage to approach you after my "death", I could have put a stop to this. This war, you getting hospitalised... I could've even found out where Sunny was, but I didn't. I've told everybody that I was just a wanderer, but I'm just a runaway. A coward."

"...Of course, I should've told you all this earlier, huh. Back when you still had your memory, back when we still knew each other." He looked down solemnly. "I suppose now, we've both changed entirely. Everything I just said must be just as hollow to you as you saying anything for me." He let out a laugh, despite it all, but it was quite forced. "I can tell you feel nothing about this... right, X?"

---

X takes a stone, and hovers over the opening that Monk has left in his defense. Looking down at the board, it looks like the attack would be indefensible and would likely lead to the end of the game.

She doesn't move her hand with the stone, "I don't remember anything. I don't want to remember anything. I have no feeling of emptiness or subtle pull of nostalgia. In all my knowledge I was never that woman, and I have no reason to care about you. Out of respect for the time you're spending telling me this, I am performing exercises in my mind to put myself in the place of the woman and drum up some sort of emotion, but it is starkly and deeply impossible," each word comes tumbling forth from X with more cold realism than the last. "Unfortunately, you are apologizing to someone who isn't simply dead but rather someone who doesn't exist at all."

She lets her words hang in the air, even though she has already thought through her next words, "In that sense, there is nothing to apologize for. Let your guilt be brought to the nothing your wife became."

X places her stone, but it takes a second for Monk to realize that she has placed it in the corner of the table, nowhere near her attack, and frankly, in a place so useless that it must have been on purpose.

Benedict stayed silent as X spoke. As she finished and made his move, his eyes lit up. "No way... You really..."

He looked at the woman, a strange look on his face. "I really can't tell what's the truth anymore, but..."

He set his piece where he planned to, capturing X's stone. Now the tables had turned, and it looked as if he was going to win.

"If you want me to survive, then I shall follow your wishes." He nodded. "Thank you for this opportunity... X."

---

As the game continues, Benedict seems to be closing in on victory.

Meanwhile…

The rest of the group stands in the research lab, waiting for the showdown to end. Suyin and Amethyst lie unmoving in their cells. Strangely enough, the toxin has left their corpses in a state that can almost be described as peaceful.

Taikong’s closed pod sits by the corner of the room, seeming to taunt the group.

---

Mei could no longer hold back her morbid curiosity. With wary and heavy steps, she makes her way to Taikong's pod to open it.

A display next to the pod’s clasp reads “Unlocked.” It shines brightly in green. Mei presses the button to open it.

The lid of the pod slowly rises.

“Oh…Oh my God!” Mei turns away and heaves in the corner of the room.

Taikong lies in the pod, a look of panic on his face. Blood leaks from a cut on his neck. His hand rests over his chest, an ornamental dagger clutched in it. Faint bruises mar his knuckles.

“Wh-What happened?” Juanli says, slowly rising to her feet. “Did someone…kill him?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Amandi says, “These pods were meant to remain locked during the battle. Only those inside could open them, as long as their owners were alive, of course. I believe we were informed as much before our individual games.”

“Then…” Fujisaki replies, “You’re saying that the one who killed Taikong is…”

Taikong’s eyes stare blankly toward the ceiling. In his army fatigues, it looks as if he’s being displayed for a 21-gun salute.

Mei slams the top of the pod shut. She collapses across its opaque surface…

---

Dr. Uwem watched as the intense game of Go unfolds between Monk and X. At some point, he overhear Benedict refers to X by her real name.

"Huh... Li An... So, that's X's real name..." Dr. Uwem mumbled to himself. "And she started talking to Sunny as if he was still with them... Hmm... Seems like X is a complicated puzzle to figure out, huh..." He seems to be thinking really hard about something.

"Why?! You said we'd talk again!" Mei shouts into the nothingness as she throws a futile punch at the pod's opaque glass, sobbing in despair, "Why does it always have to end like this!"

The nurse slumps over the pod as she cries and cries, her two balled up fists propping her up on the glass, as if she were desperately trying to look inside.

Some other words would escape her mouth, but the sobbing would drown them out.

Fujisaki stood a few steps away from the pod, clenching his fist. "This is..."

"...I've never been good during moments like these. Never known what to say." He hangs his head slightly, but makes no further movements.

"Where'd Taikong get his hand on the ornamental knife?" Dr. Uwem asked. "Why'd he commit suicide at a point like this? He must have a reason to do this."

"One would assume as much." Fujisaki sighed. "Unfortunately, we'll never know now."

Mei doesn't look like she has the energy to move or even raise her head. She remains wallowing in self-pity, slumped over the pod.

"I only am doing what I want to do," X responds to Monk, sitting across from him. "There is no reason to thank someone for going after their preferred outcome."

She continues to place her stones in a fruitless manner.

"The Ambassador is wrong. I've seen her before."

Juanli coughed up something unpleasant again as she attempts to wander towards the exit. "In better health for sure, nearly unrecognisable but Mrs Li approached Sunny in a park once. I saw her myself and she told him she was his mother." She paused to rest on the door frame a second, still determined to find the secret access to her son's room before she died. "It was a strange encounter. She didn't seem interested in claiming Sunny and I had no idea who she was so we left her quickly."

---

There’s no time left, and there are no answers to be found.

Juanli leans against the wall. She stares at Sunny’s picture on the tiny monitor. The young boy looks confused and afraid.

“Just…make sure I…see him again,” she says.

She slides to the floor and collapses sideways. She lets out her last breath.

“Wh-What happened?” Sunny shouts, “Is Mama…dead?”

“I-I can’t watch this,” Mei says, striding quickly out of the room.

Fujisaki casts a glance at Amandi, who’s watching him warily. He leaves the room as well, strolling out into the foyer. He spots Mei lying on the sofa and turns to the fireplace in the corner, crouching beside it.

Time ticks by, and yet still he remains, staring into the flames.

Mei pushes herself off of the couch and eyes him.

“The fuck?” she asks, “Shouldn’t you be dead?”

Fujisaki turns to the nurse and smiles wryly.

“I have strong convictions.”

—————

“Pass.”

Benedict puts down another stone, claiming more territory.

“…Pass.” X says, “Well, it appears you’ve won.”

The game is over. The top of the Go board slides open, revealing a compartment inside the table. Benedict peers inside and spots a bottle with a rag hanging out of the top: a crude Molotov cocktail.

“Huh. So that’s the Fire key, huh?” he laughs, “Interesting.”

“Making us use a weapon of war to escape this conflict,” X says, “The purpose of Cat’s argument is…unclear.”

With a prick, X is injected with a fatal dose of the poison. She lets out a dry laugh. The two of them were only a minute away from death anyway.

The two lock eyes. Then Benedict and X collapse from their chairs with a thump.

Benedict and X crawl to the far wall. They sit down with their back against it and stare at the Go table.

“Looks like this is it, then,” Benedict says, taking in exhausted breaths as he leans against the wall. “I guess we’re not going to remember any of this.”

“You get quite used to forgetting things after a while,” X says.

Benedict spots his erhu lying on the floor. He reaches over and lifts it with a weary hand and places it in his lap.

“One last song?” X asks, “I don’t know why humans would prefer listening to music as they die. How is it better than perishing in silence?”

“Just humor me for a moment,” Benedict replies, handing the erhu to X. “Play me a song.”

X laughs as the instrument falls into her hands.

“I don’t know how to play,” she says, waving the bow in front of her like a baton. “I’ve never even seen this instrument before.”

“You’re thinking too…analytically, X,” Benedict says, “Music is felt in your soul…in your bones. If she’s still in there, you can play.”

Benedict slowly reaches over. He grabs X’s left hand and places her fingers over the instrument’s strings in just the right spot.

“Pull the bow across the string,” he says, “And imagine rain running down the window of an old wooden cottage.”

X laughs doubtfully but follows Benedict’s lead. She pulls the bow across the string, playing the first note.

And she keeps playing. One bowstroke leads into the next, creating a seamless melody. X’s face morphs from confusion to satisfaction. She pours her soul into the song as if she’d rehearsed it hundreds of times.

Benedict stares at the woman running the bow across the strings. In the back of his mind, he sees his wife sitting on a bed, playing the haunting tune. He hears his son enthusiastically cheering on the performance. He smells the faint scent of rain on the evening air.

For a moment, his soul is in that other world—before his life was blown apart. When he could see the rainbow behind the rain.

He smiles and collapses against X, closing his eyes.

“Just like…she used to play it.”

X lets the bow fall from the strings before the song is finished.

“I don’t understand…how I did that,” she mumbles, “And I will not live to find out…Truly a waste.”

The neck of the erhu slips from her hands. It tips away from X and clatters onto the stone floor, its song still lingering in the air.

-----------------------

“Welcome back, Monk,” Amandi’s voice says, “Or perhaps I should call you Benedict?”

Benedict slowly awakes in the Armory’s sleeping pod with cloth bandages wrapped over his face. He reaches up with his finger and pulls them apart.

He sees Amandi standing over him, along with Mei. Fujisaki lingers in the corner of the room.

Benedict reaches out with his new hands and grasps the side of the pod. He slowly raises himself to a seated position.

“You may feel a little strange,” Amandi says, “It could take some time to adjust to the proportions of your new body. I recommend being careful—”

“I don’t feel any different,” Benedict replies, “Other than the face, this…feels just like my body.”

“Really?” Amandi says, “Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.”

Benedict scans his gaze across the room.

“Where’s Sunny? You got him out, right?”

Mei nods her head.

“He’s waiting right outside,” she says, turning toward the door. “Come on in, Sunny. He’s awake.”

The young boy cautiously steps into the room and toward the mummified ghost of his father...

[This is the last scene of the timeline. I’ll post the ending once it’s finished.]

---

As Benedict dusted himself off, the memories of what happened before he passed out returned to him. He gave a wistful smile. His suspicions had been confirmed after all. Somewhere, behind that cold, robotic exterior... Li An's soul remained. Though she was no longer alive now, it gave him some peace of mind to have had that resolution. He sighed contentedly.

Looking around, he nodded in Mei's direction as a thanks for the help she gave him four years ago that allowed him to be here with the group today. Seeing Fujisaki, he seemed surprised but not unhappy. "Glad to see you still here", he chuckled. The animosity he initially had towards the man had seemingly faded since they had found common ground over their shared hatred towards Mao. He didn't question how the man had still survived, perhaps because it would feel a bit hypocritical for him to ask.

Seeing Sunny enter the room, he froze, not sure how to respond to the child. This was the first time in over five years that the two were finally together in the same room, and much had changed since then. Benedict felt many emotions in his heart, but stayed silent. As much as he wanted to embrace him, he didn't want to over-impose on the boy, who had just lost his mother (in more ways than one, even). And now, his dirty hobo of a father had returned, only to be rebirthed into a new body. It was understandable if he was reluctant about the whole meeting. He couldn't possibly fathom what was going through his head right now at all.

And so he continued to sit in his pod quietly, waiting to see how Sunny was feeling first.

---