Ailee fidgeted in her seat. She was early to school that Monday, and her thoughts kept flying back to Saturday.

Her classmates slowly trickled into the room. She bit her lip.

Steps drifted towards her. She peeked through her lashes, making sure to keep her head down: Sunggyu.

“Morning, Ailee,” he greeted, his smile wide. Her insides knotted.

“Morning,” she croaked.

“Have you seen Mia?” he asked. It was either he did not notice her uneasiness or he did but left it alone. "I went by their classroom, but she wasn't there."

“She went back home for a bit; her father was asking for her,” she replied. “She should be back before the week is over. Setsuna went with her.”

“Ah, they’re really close, aren’t they?” he commented.

"They're getting married," she deadpanned.

"I know some people who are either getting married or who have gotten married that aren't so happy to be together," he told her bitterly.

"I thought arranged marriages only happen on tv," she said.

"It might not be as arranged as it used to be, but the pressures of choosing the right person to present to your parents and to other people...it's not exactly as pretty as it seems to be. Although it's not as ugly as media makes it out to be," he shrugged.

"You sound like you talk from experience. Pessimistic experience," noted Ailee.

He cocked a brow at her. "My sister is in one, you know. She married someone that our parents approved of. But even then, some things don't work properly." He shrugged.

"And you're okay with that?"

"I don't have a say with my sister's life," he admitted. "Though I wish I did. But because of that, I realize what I want to be."

"Which is?" she prompted.

"Be a good husband to whomever I'm going to get married to; it's the least I could do," he smiled, then shrugged. "I'm already Dr. Katagiri's student. What else is there to ask for?"

Such simple dreams, Ailee mused. But, she realized, they're the hardest to achieve. Especially when it's the one thing that life has placed far from you.

The teacher walked briskly into the room, cutting off their little chat. He checked the attendance, ticking the names off one by one.

"Jang Dongwoo," he called, and no one responded. "Jang Dongwoo?"

Sunggyu raised his hand. "Sir, I'm afraid Dongwoo needs to be at home today."

"Is he all right?" the teacher asked reflexively.

Sunggyu nodded. "Yes, but he called me to say that there are things his father wants him to prepare for today."

"I see," he responded, scribbling the word absent beside Dongwoo's name. Then, he moved down the rest of the list.

The day was bland, passing without much event. When Ailee dragged herself into the house after a tiresome day of meeting with the members of the student council and trying to answer questions with answers she did not have (not the ones that any of the boys should hear anyway), she found herself staring into the fiery depths of Tieria's blazing maroon eyes. His trademark scowl marred the statue-esque beauty of his features.

He greeted her as he normally did, a brief, you-can-hardly-call-it-a-greeting sort of hello. She wasn't one to complain, however, as it seemed he treated everyone as offhandedly as that.

"What are you doing here?" she asked as she deposited her backpack on the table and moving about the kitchen to get a glass of cold water.

"You did not bring your key, or so Marie tells me," he replied.

"And Marie?"

"She is with everyone else preparing for our little trip," he replied, eyeing her. "I suppose they've already told you?"

Ailee cast her eyes to the floor and softly said, "No, they haven't told me anything yet."

"But you do understand what you've put the other meisters through?" he asked, peering at her through his round spectacles.

"I'm the reason why Mia is dead," she choked.

"That is barely even sufficient as a passive reason," he commented dryly. "Do you have any idea what Celestial Being, as an organization, has lost?"

"I should have  shot myself, then,"  she spat.

He sighed. "I only have so much patience, Ailee," he warned, effectively causing her to stop spouting nonsense. "Don't you understand? It's not only meisters that the organization needs, Ailee. I'm not saying that her death has caused is irrepairable harm; I'm saying that you need to get your act together and make ammends. Mia knew who you were, but you didn't know it was her."

"Since the beginning?" she asked, shocked.

Tieria nodded. "She told me about it but asked me not to dwell much on it. However, all of her reports slowly turned to desperate as time went by. Because you weren't effective in your activities and she was worried you would be the downfall of Celestial Being."

"And threatening to kill me was the way for it?"

"Without knowing, it may be that way. But I found out what her last thoughts were," he explained.

Ailee gaped.  "H-how-?"

"Come and I'll show you," he commanded, leading her down to the basement.

Ailee hadn't gone down the basement in quite a while, but what she found there was not what she expected. On a long, wooden table lay the figure of Mia. She was dressed in her black-themed meister's uniform, a morbidly fitting colour for someone who had passed on. Ailee stopped short of the table, held in place by shock and disbelief.

Tieria walked over to the computer which they connected to their own private system away from Veda. As he went through different documents and other files, the other meisters walked into the room. Setsuna still had that unapproachable air to him, now stronger than ever, but Ailee couldn't blame him.

Allelujah took his place beside Setsuna, who seemed to be studiously avoiding looking at Mia's corpse. "What was it that you needed to show us?" he asked.

"Mia's reports," Tieria replied. "But to be more specific, her memories."

"Memories?" Lockon asked as he and Marie emerged from the stairs (they'd finished putting away all the other  things).

"Mia was a cyborg, created by transforming a living, breathing human, born to a clone, into a machine with the intention of producing a new set of soldiers that even the hardiest human veterans won't be able to stand against," Tieria explained. "From North Korea."

The air tensed, and jaws dropped in shock.

"But they haven't been used in combat," Allelujah stated, half-asking.

"No, they haven't. It turns out that clones aren't very viable, but they're great loopholes. Clones technically aren't born, they're made. They don't exist in public records, and anything that comes from their gene pool wouldn't be recognized as legitimate humans, either," he explained.

"But how was she conceived? I mean, any person needs a mother and a father to exist; just a father, even if he is a clone, isn't enough," Lockon noted.

"Clones aren't viable, but altering one's genes... It's quite possible," Tieria commented, hands dancing over the keyboard. "Once the original gene code was manually altered, she wouldn't be a clone, but the child  of the clone, 'the flesh of my flesh', in many ways."

"And Mia knew this?" Marie asked quietly. Even the things she and Allelujah went through to become Super Soldiers did not sound as cruel as this.

"Yes. And now, so do we," he replied. "Though her body was altered shortly after puberty, they altered her mind early; and every detail, every emotion she ever felt was bared to whoever could have access to her memories."

Ailee wrapped her hands around the lower half of her face, trying to control herself.

"And her earliest memories were of her father, the people who altered her, and the royal children she served all her childhood--you and your brother, Ailee," Tieria explained, hitting a button. On the screen appeared the image of three children--the prince, Ailee, and Mia. "I'm not going to share these with you, they're not quite important for us to look at. But about a year after, she and her father leave, along with the other children, many of whom were taken from orphanages or forcibly from their homes, and they arrive in Krugis where she is trained by her father and meet Setsuna."

Setsuna's eyes widened in shock. "Even  those memories are there?"

Tieria nodded. "Thankfully, Rau, her father, knew about this alteration to her system, and secured all of her memories of you. No one knew you existed--had they, they surely would have taken you as well. And right here, I think that the memory that's most important for your eyes to see."

It's so bright, Mia's mental voice murmured as she opened her eyes. It's so cold.

Her breathing slowly went faster as the edges of fear gripped her consciousness. Her heart, however, thumped placidly. She thought about moving her hand.

So cold...

In and out of consciousness and darkness. But every now and then, she could see--they could all see--people coming in and out of the room. They were wearing white lab gowns and distinctly spoke in Korean.

There was one time she woke, a profound sense of shame washed over her. She could feel the cool air skimming over her bare skin, and an unshakable feeling that someone was watching her overcame her. It was so powerful that she had the urge to cry. But before the tears could come, she out.

Mia's eyes fluttered open once more, and this time, she could feel the comforting press of her clothes on her body as well as those of warm blankets. As her vision was filled with the sight of the things around her, the image of her father looming over her, like a worried hen clucking over its chicks greeted her. The tears that brimmed in his eyes chained her to reality.

"Dad," she choked, an overwhelming sense of relief flooding her.

He smiled gently at her and wrapped his arms around her. As he pulled her up, stabbing pains went through her body, causing her to hiss in pain.

"I'm sorry," he said, gently settling her back down onto the sheets and only then, when the blankets lay crumpled by her waist did the image register to her--she wasn't wearing normal clothes. It was more like underwear, and she was wrapped all around like a mummy. The realization hit her like a thundering heard of buffaloes.

"Dad..." she began, but she could not muster the words out loud, but she knew them in her head: Cyborg.

Another set of memories began playing on the screen, and this time, there were many people on the scene. Unfortunately, a lot of them were faces that Ailee held near and dear.

"Experiment 12, Your Highness," one of them said. Mia was wearing a beautiful hanbok as she sat kneeling in front of a man who had a lofty expression on his face.

"A lovely woman," his Highness commented. "But are you certain she is mine?"

"Anything you wish, Your Highness, you may do with her," he said.

The man stood and walked over to her, looking her over as one would a dog. He forced her chin up with a hand, but she kept her eyes downcast. At the back of her mind, she still remembered the pain of the beatings she'd endured when she gazed at a 'superior' with her fiery eyes.

"What say you, my son?" he asked. "A beautiful toy, is she not?"

"She is father. Very," he agreed.

Before anyone could say anything more, her eyes shot wide as the king ripped off her clothes, leaving her in her underwear. She'd tried not to jerk, having anticipated his move when his hand moved. But the feeling of being exposed to people, it was horrible. She wanted to pull the clothes he'd torn off over herself, but she knew that doing so would attract more attention. It would attract punishment.

"Cut this off," Setsuna hissed.

"You can always choose not to watch, Setsuna," Tieria replied. His voice was calm, but the tension in his muscles told a different story. "But Ailee needs to see."

"Why? So Mia can be humiliated all over again? Once more?" he asked.

Tieria shook his head. "Ailee will not understand otherwise. Because Mia had thrown a lot away-" he said, as an image replayed on the screen: Mia recalled her father's words. She held onto his gentleness and love. She reminded herself of his instruction: "Even if it seems you can't take it anymore, please swallow it. Endure the pain, the humiliation, and the disgrace, if not for your loyalty, then for that little girl that you once played with as a child. She is still in there, and I'm sure she still needs a friend. If you're by her side, even if you can't be her friend again, I'm sure it would make her life better. Princess Ailee needs a friend even if she doesn't know it."

"And the things she had to endure before she was thrown away," Tieria continued, as a violent image of a young man taking advantage of Mia flashed onto the screen. Her terror and hate bubbled up, but she held it down even if she could have crushed his chest without much effort. Because he was the prince. "Ailee, she fought to go back to your side. But you threw her away. Not once, not twice, but over and over again."

A young Ailee stood passively, watching as another child--Mia--was whipped in her place. She'd caused the mischief, but it was the other that took the punishment.

A Mia that still had the aches and pains of recent surgeries she'd undergone tried to be as still as she could. But hearing that Ailee did not want her--it ripped her apart. She never asked to be anything more than a human. She'd never asked to have anything more than a quiet life with her father but everything was thrown out because she was created for that purpose!

Mia's anger bubbled when she found out that Ailee called her a when she never did want anything to do with the people in Ailee's life.

But it was only when Mia's father was accused of kidnapping the princess when she had asked to go out did Mia truly began to learn to loathe the princess and her family.

"I never knew," Ailee mewled pitifully.

"That's why we're telling you," Tieria replied. "Understand, Ailee, that it wasn't really vengeance that drove her to challenge you."

Before her very eyes, Rau was beaten, bloody and blue. Yet she could do nothing to ease his pain. She was chained to a wall, and he, overwhelmed by his captors. Tears ran down her eyes as she begged and pleaded for them to stop!

When they've had their fill of tormenting her father and her, they left them in a cell, and all Mia could do was hold her bleeding father close to her and try to stop him from bleeding to death. But she had nothing to stop the blood, and even with his dying breath, he reminded her of her duties and loyalties. And that although they were never really people in the same sense as others, they could still love and hope. With his last breath, he reminded her of his love to her. She was his child, even if they weren't family in the same sense as all the others.

Setsuna's hand clenched. It was one thing to have been told about a familiar face's death and another to experience it vividly through memories.

"I didn't know," Ailee muttered, tears threatening to fall.

"And that doesn't matter," Setsuna said, squaring his shoulders. He spoke sternly, evenly. "What matters is what you do from here, Ailee. Now that  you have the truth, what will you do? It can set you free, but only if you allow it to."

Ailee looked away indecisively.

Tieria assessed the situation for a few moments before saying, "Well, whatever the case, tomorrow, we begin anew. Tomorrow, we head out on our next mission on a mountain in Japan."

The others nodded and filed out. But before Ailee could leave, Tieria told her, "Make sure you choose wisely. There are those of us that know the  pain of betrayal, Ailee. It's not easily overlooked."

She nodded mutely and went to her room to prepare for the next day.

Oh, God, what have I done?