One thing that couldn't be stopped no matter what was the time.

Days, months, years, passed. The condition of this war was fluctuating along with the gradually changing policy and condition of both sides.

Five years since I met Reana, she got married to a Human man, succeeding in her country as its next leader after the tragedy took her father. She returned safely to her country and now reported to successfully gave birth to her first daughter: Katarina Mellista.

May that girl didn't take after her mother too much.

I haven't met Uriel for that day. But I met with other commanders and sometimes had to clash with them. Up until now, only lucks that got me away in one piece, for I never met Ares or Azrael anymore.

But as days went on, I tried to keep updating myself about their whereabouts or what they were up to this time. Azrael was as usual: he kept launching an unreadable movement that made his victims kept piling up like a sand mountain in the desert. Ares was doing shady research on Hadriah ever since he got married to Latifah. I heard children's sudden appearances and disappearances became something common in that country.

Whilst for Uriel, I couldn't find him anywhere. I tried to find anything about him, to no avail.

The day when Reana shot him with that strange bullets, was the last time I met him.

The battle to overrun this planet was still going on even to this day, more than a decade after my last meeting with Reana. More and more countries fell to our hands. More and more humans turned into Proto-Maha and were designed to be a one-time soldier. The other countries, even the one that initially into neutral faction now armed themselves against us, preparing for yet another wave of incoming war.

I looked at the e-calendar on the wall. We would reach year 72 in Neo Age calendar in a week.

The bar owner in front of me clicked his tongue. "No good news either today, huh?" He ignored the net-screen and mopped his empty breakfast bar. "This world's fate was getting and getting darker each day."

I looked at the scribble on the bar's invisible glass on the front door. All menus for half price, yet no one came. Outside, across the street, a child pickpocketed a young man's wallet, and a woman whimpering on the corner of the dark street, holding her baby that seemed too pale to be alive.

"Are you staying here, Young Man?" Since no one in the bar but me and him, he should be asking me. "Or you just passing by?"

"I'll leave this noon." I left the money on the bar for the water and sandwich I got.

"Wise decision." The man took the money and pointed on my face. "You have a suspicious-looking and men around here wouldn't tolerate your face. You looked similar to those bugs."

I needn't ask what kind of bugs he meant. "They exterminated everyone that had two meters tall?"

"Yes, that's how mad this country is!" The man spat to the floor. "Hadriah has no hope anymore. A country of despair, I heard someone said that. And, no matter how shitty it was, I must admit, he was right. Hope is the same as a fairy tale now."

The man looked across the street and somewhat, his wrinkled face became solemn with sadness and regret.

"You should leave." He said, took my glass and empty plate away. "I hope you won't meet any of those bastards or Ein, Sir. Have a safe trip."

***

Ein, that name echoed within this country. One of several groups that tried to overthrow President Ammar. I heard they became a tough opponent for our troops since they spread like a web inside this country and several more in this continent.

Another problem for humans on this planet. Another route had been closed for humanity to survive.

"Please, Sir." I turned to the left, where a kid piggybacked a smaller kid on his back. He wore a coat that supposed to be fit o his small figures for the next five years. He also wore bigger shoes that seemed too rusty. He handed the man who stood in front of a pharmacy, a bracelet made of gold. "My brother, please help him—

"I don't mean to refuse you, really, kid. But no one gave me enough resources to buy more medicines. I couldn't sell such a thing for medicine. Gold or not." He pointed at the bracelet. "Without threatened my own and my family's life. Sorry, kid."

The man didn't say a word. He closed the door and went inside. He changed the status bar on his pharmacy into "Closed".

The kid turned gloomy. I looked at that kid closely and realized, that kid was a girl. She wore clothes and cut her in a very short cut that similar to boys. Giving in, she walked this way. I kneeled in front of her. Stopping her.

Normally, a girl with her age and size would shriek or showed me cautious movement before even reacted. But this girl didn't. She didn't seem to be bothered by my presence. She didn't seem to be afraid.

"What do you want?" She looked up straight to my eyes. Her icy blue eyes shot me with a cold stare.

That wasn't a look of a kid. I took a breath and realized she smell like gunpowder and blood, combined with rotten men's sweat. Dust and blood that I smell seemed to be covered her oversized coat. That cloth was not even in good shape anymore all those holes and scratches.

"I can treat your brother."

The girl hesitated at first, but in the end, she gave up.

***

They were not blood-related, or at least physically not similar at all.

The little girl brought back the boy on her back after all the treatment done. Her so-called brother was faintly conscious when I treated him but nothing serious about his injury. A bullet hole, but nothing worse than that, so I presumed, his current statement mostly caused by terminal shock.

"Thank you." The girl said simply, once again, with a tone that no different than an android from Union. She leaned her face to one side. "Your name?"

I stood up. "Nathaniel," I said. "And yours?"

Once again, the girl looked at me with her icy blue eyes, the eyes that now reminded me of someone from the past, someone who—strangely—had the same cold icy blue eyes like her. "Arafah."

"Good name" was all I could say as a reply. Her name was indeed a good one: after a sacred place that rumored to be the closest place to God's throne. A place full of hope, in a country named "A hopeless Country". What an irony.

That little girl suddenly turned around and pointed on the direction I was heading. "Are you going there, Sir?"

"Yes." I nodded. "You're coming from there."

"Yes." Arafah nodded. "Bad place." She turned in the opposite direction, right where I was coming from. "That's better."

"Not really." I sighed as I looked upon the horizon where her fingers landed. "That wasn't better."

"Oh" was the only answer coming from her lips. "Then I should keep looking."

This time, we exchanged look once again. Her icy blue eyes didn't seem to be as cold as before. In fact, it was shining like a particular shard of glass, glittering with something that I recognized as the curiosity of a kid.

My mind formed a question. "Looking for what?"

"Hope."

The kid gave me a faint smile before stroke her brother's hair. The kid on her back started to whimper, showing a sign of living for the first time. "Please excuse us, Sir Nathaniel."

I nodded at her and walked in the opposite direction. Before long, she already was gone. I could barely track her scent or hear her footfalls. Right then, I finally recalled where I saw those blue eyes before. The same person that I never met for twelve years.

Suddenly, an explosion hit the ground.

I whipped around, only to witness a building on the other side of the road, the road that I was heading to, set ablaze. Someone screamed and it didn't take a long time to see people running for their lives with bleeding and amputated limbs calling for unanswered help.

"That wasn't better."

That was the direction where the girl coming from.

I turned around to see the other side of the road where people coming right now. Amidst the chaos and crowd, it was impossible to find her. She was completely gone.

My hands turned into fists. The image of her icy blue eyes resurfaced along with the information of shady disappearances of children that happened in this country. The puzzles inside my head connecting things to each other: children disappearances, Ares, and experiment that said to be going under this country. Something was missing, the most important part of all those riddles.

What kind of string that connected those puzzles?

Whatever it was, it must be not up to something good. Because that girl had Raphael's eyes.

What exactly happened behind the shadows?

Someone threatened me with a mere knife from behind. I moved my glance to someone that stood behind me, not even bother to hide his presence since he's been following me.

"You are reckless like usual." That voice said. "Standing in the middle of the street with head-on cloud seven....."

I was distracted by that strange kid.

I sighed and put my hands on the weapon behind my back. Slowly, I turned around, faced a familiar smiling face that I've been searched for years.

"Long time no see," I said. "Uriel."

***

[THE END]