The Death Of The Butterfly

Kei turned around, finding Kyle behind him

in the tower's control room.

"Hello Kei!"

"Kyle! What are you doing here?"

"I just came to see how your plan was progressing, why?"

"What do you mean, why?

I thought I made it clear, you were to stay in the periphery and lead the revolt from the inside!"

"Well, I'm a free man now right?

I have the right to decide whether to follow your orders or not.

Or do you think you have become some kind of dictator who frees others and then commands them, K-111?"

"K-111?...Sophie back off, there's something wrong with this guy.

How did you get here?

The barrier was deactivated a few minutes ago, it's impossible in such a short time you got in and even climbed the tower."

"I can get in and out of here at will."

"Now I understand! You bastard, you are..."

The man removed his ski mask, finally showing his face, which from the nose down was indeed disfigured and unrecognizable.

While the upper part, to Kei, was all too familiar.

"That's right, I am C.C.

Aka K-110."

Master and student were meeting again.

"How is that possible? Your voice is different from this one."

"You have never heard my real voice, boy.

The mask I usually use distorts it enough to make it unrecognizable."

"This makes no sense, why did you wait until now to show yourself?

What was the point of stealing the chip and then having you chased?"

"You see boy, unfortunately I'm not perfect either.

You and I are the same, we are two Ks and we both possess dual personalities.

I had suppressed my weak personality, but the idea that I had lost you, or that you had rebelled against me, sent me over the edge, and that inept was able to get out and take control.

After he found you he wanted to challenge you to test your skill, but he failed miserably.

After that guy changed the code of my Machine Heart, K-110 lost all memories, and after a few hours I was able to regain control and reach you."

"I would have a split personality? You are the psychopath here, not me!"

"The voice in your head wasn't caused by Machine Heart overheating, but is the natural growth process of people like us."

"That voice in my head was only the manifestation of Machine Heart's control, you are the one who created it!"

"Here again you are wrong.

Do you want to know something interesting?

Unlike what you have believed until today, you were not born as a killer."

"What do you mean I wasn't born as a killer? But 'K' stands for killer."

"No.

K stands for Kaos.

You are the Machine Man KAOS-111.

That is, a system error.

When the Machine Men code was made, a small error remained within it, this sometimes causes the algorithm to malfunction, which creates absurd abilities like yours or mine.

You don't have a passion for knives.

You have a passion for pain, yours and others'.

Do you remember the feeling of pleasure you got from slaughtering people?

How happy you felt ripping the heart out of that man's chest just because you were jealous that you didn't own a real one?

Have you forgotten that you made that cut on your lip on purpose?"

"YOU ARE LYING.

The person you are talking about is dead, I killed him."

"What was the name of the person you killed?"

"K-111".

"VERY GOOD!

And your name is now Kei, right?"

"That's right."

"WRONG.

YOUR NAME IS C.C."

"What?"

"You killed the sadist's personality and made your own prevail.

So did I and so did my predecessor, the old C.C."

"You're crazy, you're just spouting a bunch of bullshit!"

"Bullshit?

No, you're the one who refuses to understand.

C.C. stands for Chaos Children.

If the person you killed in your mind bore the name K-111, you are undoubtedly the Chaos Children!

This also means that all the murders you have committed from the time you got free until now have all been intentional".

Kei looked really confused, this guy must have been completely crazy, all these names, personalities killed, mistaken identities, chaotic abilities.

There was actually something that didn't add up, though.

"Wait, that means if I'm not a killer, neither are you."

"Exactly.

My skill is control.

I love controlling people.

The only thing that makes me feel good is knowing that others do what I say and that I am always superior to them.

I am not like you dirty Machine Men, I can control you all simply with a snap of my fingers!

Have you ever noticed that I'm the only one who can give you precise orders? Not even a Citizen has this level of power.

BUT YOU TOOK IT AWAY FROM ME.

WITHOUT THAT DAMN CODE IN THE MACHINE HEART I AM NO LONGER ABLE TO CONTROL ANYONE.

YOU HAVE TAKEN AWAY MY FREEDOM!"

Kei was too busy talking to C.C. to realize what was happening around him in the meantime.

It was Sophie who called him to attention.

"Kei, we've got problems!"

"What is it now?!"

"The Machine Men… They haven't arrived!"

"What do you mean they haven't arrived? What's going on?"

C.C. interrupted them.

"I'll explain it to you boy.

My alter-ego warned you that this could happen.

You think you are a liberator but you don't know people's desires at all.

You felt the desire to run away from your crimes, and the girl felt the desire to follow you because she loves you.

They, on the other hand, have no desire to change their destiny; they are fine as they are.

What reason do they have to fight? They do what they are best at and what most reflects their interests."

"But those interests are fake!

They are not in their nature!"

"Even so, they have lived with their beliefs for years, you came from nowhere and arrogated t the right to tell them that they were not okay like that, who do you think you are, boy?

And then it also applies to you, I know your real desires.

You wanted me to be your father, to stand by you and help you.

That's why you had no qualms about murdering people found guilty of crimes that were never tried or proven, with the knowledge that you weren't doing it for justice, but to satisfy me."

The boy was shocked by the man's words.

He didn't know how to contradict him, didn't know what to say, didn't know what to think, but then.

"KEI!

DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!

That's not you, that's just the will of the Machine Heart! You are no longer a killer.

You're a hero, plus you're also… You're also MY boyfriend!"

Kei came back to reality, with a small smile on his face.

"She's right, C.C.

Even if the Machine Men don't rebel, they can think for themselves from now on, and that's why I consider my mission over.

Plus I also have something interesting to show you this time."

Kei turned around, removing his sweatshirt and T-shirt, showing the mark that man had carved on him, erased by a large X.

"I don't belong to you anymore.

I belong only to Sophie and to no one else in the world.

This is my freedom."

C.C. looked intently at Kei's back.

He hunched over, his eyes widened, beginning to tremble.

He literally gasped, his hands began to sweat, and his breathing became loud and labored.

He looked like a hyena whose carcass had just been taken away.

"Not only have you made my power unusable.

Not only did you change the code of my Machine Heart.

You even betrayed me....

It's all your fault…IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, STUPID SLUT!"

Looking closer, Kei noticed that C.C. was clutching something in his hand.

But what was it? Yet it looked familiar.

Wait, what now?

Where had that thing gone? He had it in his hand until a second ago.

He turned to look at Sophie.

That's what it was, her old knife.

He had left it in C.C.'s apartment the last time.

He never expected to find it in the heart of the person he had fallen in love with, though.

It was a matter of the blink of an eye; he had not been paying attention.

Time resumed for Kei, as if he had been in a trance for a few seconds.

His girlfriend now lay on the ground in a pool of blood, no longer moving.

She was not speaking, not saying anything.

But it was as he looked at her beautiful green eyes, now dark and dull, that the strongest feeling he had ever felt ignited in him.

Nostalgia.

He would no longer be able to hold her hand.

No longer would he be able to feel her lips on him.

No longer would he have felt her warm embrace.

He would no longer have any light to follow.

This feeling soon turned into another.

Sadness.

The sadness of not rescuing her.

The sadness of being left alone.

The sadness of having sacrificed the life of his beloved for nothing.

But then came the final stage of the realization of Sophie's death.

The anger.

It was his fault.

C.C. had killed her.

He had taken her away from him forever, taken away his last chance to find freedom.

He drew his old butterfly knife, soaked with blood from the girl's heart, and with it, he gouged out his right eye cleanly, leaving the orbit empty.

He took one of Sophie's eyes, and connected his optic nerve with it, giving it life again.

A part of her lived in him now.

C.C. laughed loudly, bumping into the boy's thoughts.

The anger only increased, but he knew well that in his present condition he would never beat him.

By now he knew his Machine Heart and knew how long he could hold out.

He also knew that on his own he could not push himself beyond a certain level.

He gripped the other butterfly knife, the one Ziegler had given him, and then pressed the red button.

The target was not C.C.

But himself.

He pierced his heart, to look more like her.

And to allow the virus to penetrate.

It spread rapidly through his body, making his blood boil, but he knew he could control it.

He brought the temperature to the limit, one more degree and he would literally explode.

He opened his arms, with the two butterfly knives in his hands, simulating his wings.

That was the Butterfly Mode.

Kei himself had become the butterfly, whose flap of wings would change the fate of the city.

And he decided to fly against C.C. now completely mad.

His great master, didn't stand a chance against him; his body was literally torn to shreds by a big X, which permanently wiped him off the face of the earth.

But the butterfly has definitely bigger effects.

The butterfly, melted the small control panel with its scorching wings.

Who would have thought, that this would mark the end of the word humanity for good.

The storm began to envelop everything.

Mercilessly its lightning flashed over the metropolis, destroying and electrocuting everything it encountered.

A yellow, blue and red hell now stood before the butterfly's eyes.

Now all humans were truly equal.

They were all running from the same death, both Citizen and Machine Men.

The butterfly flew.

The most beautiful butterflies have short lives, and this the butterfly knew well.

That is why with all its energy it hovered in the sky, from that immense height, flying over hell, and then landing in it.

But the butterfly wanted to descend even deeper.

More specifically to the basement of an old company, where the ruins of a laboratory, hid perhaps, the butterfly's nest.

Its wings crumbled and so it became a caterpillar.

The caterpillar moved to its birthplace.

The laboratory room.

And there he found his real father.

"At last you have arrived boy."

"..."

"I see you can no longer speak, but I already know why you came here.

Come, follow me.

Ah right, you must be wondering why I'm still alive I guess.

Well, I'm not so clueless actually, Sophie was right about the traps, then again I wouldn't let a fool like C.C. kill me."

The caterpillar and the scientist reached the end of a corridor with a door.

"You sought freedom as a butterfly, and you came crawling back here as a caterpillar.

Didn't it suit you to be human?

Yet I thought you were intelligent.

There is no prison; you are the one who created it.

The Machine Heart is nothing but an armor that slows your heartbeats, your hearts are made of flesh and blood like ours.

How else do you explain the blood on your knife?

The Machine Men have always been free, but they never wanted to fight back.

No one can stop you from thinking what you want, not even by sticking a syringe in your brain.

Yet you remain a lousy psychopathic murderer, even now that you are a caterpillar I don't feel sorry for you.

I will give you your freedom."

Dexter stood up from his wheelchair and threw open the door.

They must have been at least 5,000 meters high.

A huge pillar of earth held up the city.

And below a wild, dark ocean.

"Is this what you wanted right? Oh, forgive me, you can't answer me, but I suppose it's a yes."

The scientist picked up the caterpillar, now unable to move, and threw it into the sea.

An unrecognizable, limbless corpse, began its descent into the vast ocean of freedom.

The butterfly died.