The female wing of the compound looked similar to the male, the only difference being the longer length of the opaque glass doors. Oni wasn't sure why he expected it to be somewhat decorated. It wasn't.

It was clean though, and therefore, the blood stood out.

A massive crowd gathered, but no one moved towards the two staggering girls clutching their sides.

Shock stole much of the onlookers' ability to react. Others, head cadets in particular, looked impressed if not entertained.

Five of the seven sisters stood with the crowd, blubbering like babies. In the center, Mercy huffed and puffed but it was Pleasant who drew the focus of all eyes.

She was also the one Sen rushed to but paused. Oni broke through the onlookers. He wished he hadn't. Blood gushed from Pleasant's temple. Slash marks lined her arms, but the way she clutched her gut was a bigger concern.

A head cadet defrosted from holding her arms out, keeping her own crew from interfering, and rushed to explain, "They haven't authorization for a life-line. And their crew leader ignored all distress calls. We could—"

"Only watched them for entertainment purposes." Sen swiveled his head to face her. The shame in her eyes didn't dull his disgust as he scanned the crowd. "It is like that for you lot, isn't it? We just chop each other up for protocol. Then we take part in that chopping indirectly as spectators, all safe in the knowledge that it's all excusable."

No one moved. He geared up to say more but Pleasant swooned and her sisters rushed her.

Mercy's gaze directed their way made them freeze.

Oni blinked himself awake.

In this instance, he realized something he'd been too stupid to notice all this time. Pleasant wasn't in charge.

From the way Sen stared her down, perhaps he knew.

It was the briefest of instances that Oni had seen some humanity in Sen, when the boy glanced down at his matrix, Oni prayed that wouldn't dull.

Otherwise....

Pleasant still managed to stay on her feet but she wouldn't for long.

Oni debated if he'd help her. It wasn't that he didn't want to. He simply didn't know how. Other than a few field dressings, medicine was never his forte. Still, he could make some good stitches but would that be enough?

As he considered just what his options would be, Sen stepped past.

He hooked his matrix to his hip. "Can you walk?"

Oni's jaw dropped at the absurdity. Of course she couldn't.

Pleasant gave him a nod and he told the crowd, "Or are you lot looking to see what a dead body looks like?"

The head cadet to approach him debated responding.

"Get back to your damn rooms!" Sen's bellow left the halls humming.

One by one they left, then faster. The crowd dissipated, leaving Mercy and her minions.

Sen stared her down. Mercy glanced past him to her sister. Her eyes were on Sen again, however, when she sauntered to Pleasant, hacked and spat before walking on.

The five sisters lingered until Mercy turned to yell at them to follow.

For the first time, they hesitated as a collective.

Pleasant, still clutching her stomach, nodded. It was brief, but it was enough for the girls to follow the de facto leader.

In minutes, the hallway was deserted. Sen didn't move with the same urgency as he'd come with. He seethed.

The anger coming off him in waves sent Oni into an equally panicked state.

"You allow this...."

Pleasant swayed in her effort to remain standing. "I don't need your help."

Ludicrous.

As the idiots simply remained standing there, Oni's eyes drifted to the red seeping from the girl's weak hold.

They weren't taking it seriously but he was. "I can stitch her up. But not if we don't move quicker." He hesitated only once then whispered to Sen, "The razor's still in her!"

Sen's expression changed but he didn't move.

Oni couldn't believe this nonsense. "Sir!"

In the middle of Oni's readied cursing, Sen shot towards Pleasant and swooped her up. He hefted her in his arms then spun in all directions.

"The med bay is this way," Oni said, relieved he could be of that much help.

Sen stared where he pointed. After a short inner debate, he turned and hurried into the opposite direction.

Pleasant hung in his embrace. Sen hefted her close as he picked up speed.

"We can't go to the med bay," Sen said, nearly breaking into a run despite the girl in his arms. Is there blood still trailing?"

Oni tried to keep up. "Not much."

Until now, Oni'd questioned many things about Sen but never his intelligence. He concluded there was a first time for everything once that dark hallway and heavy doors loomed.

"Move my eye patch," Sen ordered.

Oni didn't want to but utilized two fingers for the grim task.

Sen pressed his face to the security pad and the doors lurched apart.

It was the slowest ten seconds of Oni's life. Sen didn't wait for them to be fully apart before he slipped in.

"Washout," he called.

The way he looked back meant he intended for Oni to wait here.

After a short pause, Sen said, "You don't have to come." In his arms, Pleasant no longer moved. Despite her sorry state, Sen sounded like the one wounded. "But I'd appreciate it."

Oni glanced beyond him to the black of the halls then back again.

Turning back was what he truly wanted but it wasn't even an option. At least Sen meant to mount a rescue. Oni was useless in most things but why did it feel like Sen himself needed that rescue as well?

Without saying another word, Oni rushed in. The doors slammed shut.

Black reached every corner of his vision. Sen called out to him and Oni ran forward, praying he wouldn't connect into anything, whether debris or monster.

He expected the hall to lead to other rooms. That wasn't the case. It led to two more thick doors, illuminated only by the security pad which Sen put his face against to open.

And beyond the two doors, Oni found hell.

A bare bed of plastic rested behind a desk and Sen deposited Pleasant onto it. The dim lights from above made the circular room ominous.

Sen ran along the walls. "Brother!"

Hiss. Crack.

Oni whipped around to find the noise. Relief filled him when a part of the wall lit up and Sento opened his eyes.

He stepped out. "Brother." His eyes drifted from Sen, who continued in his journey along the wall while tapping several dials, to the new patient. "Stab wound—"

"We know that. Help me revive her."

Sento asked, "Does she have a life-line?"

Sen froze. He pivoted from his task so quickly Oni flinched.

In seconds, he met Sento face to face. "Say that again," he challenged.

The blue eyes to blink at him, did so out of sequence. "That is—"

"Don't you repeat that," Sen said. "We have life. We are alive. Preservation of life is normal. Risking it, throwing it away for sport, glory, or protocol is perverse. Compute my argument!"

"He need not compute it."

Oni's scream rivaled any girl. He spun around in time to see a naked Sen step from yet another panel on the wall. He looked younger.

"It is what we are tasked," the new Sen said.

Sen, fists clenched, told him, "Go back to sleep."

But no one moved. The standoff ended when Sento met Sen's gaze and said, "He's the newest one. He won't listen to me. I've given him your arguments."

"Father says not to take any more orders from you," the newest clone insisted.

Sen closed his eyes, let out a slow breath, then turned to address him. "Is Father here?"

Both Sento and the new Sen traded a glance then answered in unison, "No."

"And if any of us stopped working tomorrow, would Father care?"

This surprised the detractor.

"Look at me," Sen said. "I'm fighting for us. I'm fighting for us to be more than stuck in the pod. And I don't want to override you, influence you, or bully you. I want you to think about that little pit in your stomach you feel each time you're out of that chamber. And that little pit in your stomach you feel at the thought of dying. And then I want you to look over to that bed and think of her as one of us and how much bigger that fear must be as she slips away. And she'd do it all with us being able to help her."

At the silence, Oni pulse raced.

"Sengo."

At Sen's words, the clone picked his head up.

"Let us be happy. Doing good things helps that pit go away." Sen promised, "It will make us happy."

Sengo glanced from both incarnations of himself then made his way to the bed. "Multiple wounds."

"I know." Sen went back to his previous task of searching the walls. "Where are all the—" Sen stopped moving and stood to his full height. "Father...."

Sento said, "We can remove the shards and stop the bleeding but why haven't you taken her to the med bay?"

"Yes," Sengo agreed. "This isn't really a place for...mending."

With a sigh, Sen turned and told them. "Fine. Do what you can." He glanced at Oni out of the corner of his eye then explained, "We can stitch her."

What unfolded next was something Oni was sure to remember for the rest of his life, not for the speed with which the clones moved—and they were exceptional—but for the size of the shard of broken glass they removed from Pleasant's leg.

Oni took little comfort in knowing he was right about the razor in her stomach.

Sen's scowl deepened as they worked.

In no time, it was Oni's turn. He thought to argue that the clones must have been more equipped to do a better job than he ever could, but Sen cut him off.

"You'd make them look neater," he explained, refusing to meet eyes with him. "We're not used to repairing things. That's not our function."

Oni made no arguments. Instead, he went to work. Judging from the scars Oni encountered, it seemed foolish to think she'd care. The other ones were deep and rough enough for him to guess she'd just allowed them to heal without any attempt to sew them shut.

She did not lose too much blood at least.

"Make sure she'll sleep until we get back to the med bay," Sen instructed.

Oni finished the last of the stitches. Something concerned him as he looked from Sento's patchwork body to the pristine figure of Sengo who stood at attention.

Upon comparing them, Oni met Sen's gaze.

He didn't have to ask. Sen preemptively answered, "I was not designed to heal. We just look alike."

Somehow, Oni doubted that.

"You have the capacity to store all our knowledge," Sengo disputed.

"Perhaps," Sen admitted. "But I'm saving that space for something else." He let out a sigh and said, "Now...about that short-term memory."