Resting Grounds

"Hino, I'm sorry." She looks towards Hino sitting on her left and kneels down, looking at her carving knife.

"For what are you sorry?" His confusion was definitely warranted in this situation.

The next moment, K4 stands up and walks over to Hino, giving a sharp jab at his shoulder. He looks down at his shoulder a bit confused until he sees the carving knife stabbed into his shoulder. The next moment, he stares up at K4, who has a yellow lens glare down onto him. In an instinct, he gets up and takes his bow, struggling to aim it at K4.

"I wasn't expecting it, but I should've known better, huh?" The bow, shaky from the stab wound, immediately pointed at K4.

"It is for the best for everyone; you should understand that, Hino!" That playful voice, that unfamiliar stance, the leaning almost like a child – it was definitely not the K4 he knew.

"You're sick, you know. We were going to finally end the suffering that K4 had to deal with, and now what? You're going to continue it!"

"That's right, Hino, it will be continued, no matter what happens, no matter what you do, no matter how much you fight, which is why you get a choice."

"A choice"

"Precisely, I can kill you just like those dreams she had all this time or perhaps let you blow up!"

"Death is guaranteed, but I'd rather go out with a way K4 prefers." He fires the arrow towards K4; it goes without effort; however, it was dodged; just a mere step towards the left messed up the shot, and his injury prevented power from appearing.

"Everything from those dreams, down to every detail, was made from me. It worked wonders; that seed of doubt, the tiniest urge to rewind, was all I needed."

Hino takes a defensive stance with his blade drawn. "That's how you took over the body? using that little urge to rewind?"

"Exactly, you catch on fast." K4 takes small steps towards Hino, casual, without any sort of danger imminent.

The next moment Hino sees a rushing K4 towards him, a swift underarm dodge behind Hino, taking his arm and pulling it back until breaking, the crack echoes across the wastelands, filling the quietness with a sense of pain.

"Argh!" he grunts.

K4 laughs, "Maybe playing back your death a couple of times would be fun!" The next moment, he receives a massive blow to his stomach, making him fall to the ground, full of pain.

"You won't get away with this; K4 will find a way to stop you either way!" The declaration was massive, his hope for K4's return never vanishing, and the trust in a companion

"Maybe so, but I doubt she will have the will to. I put her through so much in those dreams, every day just seeing you die every night; it was easy to give her an urge to rewind."

He tries getting up just to collapse under his own weight. "What did you do to her?"

"You don't seem very carefree about her compared to your own life; explain it," the monotone voice demanded an explanation. Why would a human on the brink of death care about another?

Hino laughs. "Even if I die, then another me will replace me. Even if I die, then you will have to deal with me later. If K4 lives, then my life will remain."

"Interesting, since she is a part of me and I'm a part of her; you are correct!" The playful voice returning gives a chill down his spine.

"Then just kill me already." He looks up towards K4 into those bright yellow eyes, just waiting for his time to come; the clock was ticking, and K4 would have to make the decision now or never.

'Like that would ever happen,' someone calls out from within.

"Seems your robotic friend still can communicate somehow." She enters back into the mind space, looking behind towards the chained K4 suddenly; it felt almost surreal.

She phases through it all like they were never there, like the chains posed no threat, no harm or any effect.

"How did you...?" Pandemonium prepares more chains from above, raining down at K4; they phase through her; they do nothing of any effect; it was impossible.

K4 looks at pandemonium with a grin. "How can you affect someone you can't control?" she laughs out loud.

"How? Explain!" the panicked voice said. She instantly started hurling cubes, chains, and pillars; nothing could work. It was almost like K4 became something greater.

K4 leans in on pandemonium. "Guess what the most human emotion is?"

"Love something we can't feel or replicate, the one thing that we can't do." Pandemonium grins in shock; it was exhausting to deal with such an anomaly; it hurt her core.

"Vengeance, the idea that no matter what happens, you will be killed by me, just me, that's what satisfies me, risking my life just for this one goal. Could you understand such a concept?"

"That's—" before she could finish her words, K4 interrupts.

"illogical, exactly against robotic protocols"

"You became human, so human that nothing robotic can affect you. This mindspace, everything I create, is just robotic, fake and illusionary to you."

K4 grabs pandemonium. "One thing that isn't fake is you." K4 throws pandemonium across the mindspace, taking the control panel and clicking various panels, getting her control back, that glaring lens towards Hino turning down to their usual gentle tone.

"What..." Hino stares at K4's body, freezing. He grabs back his bow and arrow, loading it, making sure to have a perfect shot.

K4 taking back control looks at Hino aiming straight at her: "End it, Hino." With the orders given, Hino fires the arrow towards the neck, causing it to detach from the body; it flies down onto the ground before starting to lose power slowly, giving her a final moment to speak.

The mindspace within starting to collapse on itself begins; it slowly shrank and shrank until it became but the tiniest speck, causing pandemonium within K4's mindspace to just slowly join the corruption of the mindspace due to the loss of power within K4.

"Thank you, Hino." K4S's body powers off, causing it to fall down onto the coarse dirt; it was the end of her journey, the end of her suffering, and despite the sadness, Hino also felt happy that he could end the torturing cycle of K4S's rewind.

He sits down on the dirt, next to K4's dead body, watching out into the distance as his end approaches; the sun beams down on him from above, his pain muffled from the adrenaline rush. He sits in silence, waiting for his time.

Minutes pass by as he sees the missile form above about to impact the earth's surface.

'Even if it wasn't her first time, it was mine. Living with a time-rewinding robot gave me a life beyond anything I could achieve myself.' His right eye tears down; Hino didn't even notice it; it just felt natural.

He turns towards the silo in the distance as the blinding light erupts across the wastelands. He watches intently, instantly consumed by a flash of light; it hurt, but it begged to end his life, and it was peaceful at the same time.

He didn't scream or beg for death; he just took the burning sensation, the melting of his body, as a sign of rebirth into a greater place. He couldn't tell what was around him or what happened to anything other than knowing it got destroyed just like himself.

His memories flood, from the beginning of the revolt to the dirt he is dying on and the people he met. Ox, Vila, Jumper and K4, and finally all the peace and hardships he endured, he became one with them all now, not separated by distance or time.

'See you soon, everyone.'