This takes place between episodes 25 - Live Through and 26 - Under the Sky so Blue.
Can I choose to remain a human?
It's a strange thing to ask. I'm not human, although I appear to be. But I've tried to live as one, act as one, my whole life. For more than a century.
I don't regret it.
Perhaps I should, given how I've been treated. But they have such potential, such capacity for good, for co-operation, for creation, for life.
If only they could realise it.
And we could help them, if they'd only listen...
But why should they? All we've ever brought them is pain and death.
The cross is heavy on my shoulder. He said it was heavy because it was so full of mercy: to me, it feels like the weight of all the lives I've destroyed.
You have ended countless lives.
Legato was right. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I am responsible for those deaths. By not doing what Knives wanted, by not remaining with him, I have been the cause of death and destruction. But what if I had stayed with him?
He wanted to destroy the 'human garbage', as he called them. To make an Eden for us and our imprisoned siblings. I wanted to save them. To save the butterflies and the spiders. But he never listened to me. He was always the stronger.
But...
If I had stayed with him, helped him, no matter how reluctantly, between us we could have changed the world by now. Created that Eden. And there would be no humans left on the face of the planet.
So which is the lesser sin? Destroying all, or, by disobeying, allowing some to survive?
And what now? He's been waiting for me for all this time. He's allowed me to immerse myself in human life while making sure I see the worst side of it. He's getting impatient now. But does he want to try one last time to convince me to join him, to help him clear the world, or does he just want the satisfaction of killing me himself?
Wolfwood, what am I supposed to do when I see him?
Wolfwood...
We are the ones who live outside of time. Brad - yet another life I'm responsible for ending - said five years was no more than the blink of an eye for me, and he was right. The years pass without my noticing: being timeless, I'm not wholly aware of time passing for myself - only for those around me. Yet, somehow, the tiny, tiny space of time that he and I were together is more precious than anything in all the rest of my life.
He taught me what it is to love.
Long, long ago, I'd told Rem that I loved her - and I did, in a young and unformed way, not really knowing what love was - and she'd laughed it off. It should have hurt, but I worshipped her. She could do no wrong, and therefore I must have been in the wrong. But with Wolfwood... We never voiced it, but it was there, a powerful force, part hunger, part rock. He - knew me. As I thought I knew him. I've never felt so safe, so protected, so loved, so happy.
And I'd killed him.
Holding Wolfwood in my arms, feeling the life leave his body, part of me died with him. There has been pain in the passing of all those I've allowed close over the long years, but this was different. This was an agony that burned, that filled me and overflowed. I wanted to turn back time, just a little, just enough that I could be there to prevent his death.
To go to his aid instead of sitting feeling guilty for failing to save another's life. Grieving for Caine - and allowing my Wolfwood to die...
You're the one who killed Wolfwood.
How can I bear this pain?
Give me the gift of nothingness. Give me death...
At the end he opened his mind to me. I saw his hopeless adoration for Knives, the way he'd welcomed everything my brother had ever done to him as some sort of favour. Pain and worship intertwined until he couldn't tell which was which. Even when Knives had forced him to cut off his own arm and endure having mine attached to the stump: although it had almost killed him, still he venerated my brother. And hated me, for not doing the same. And because he was human, and Knives despised and reviled humans. Legato he tolerated, because of my arm, and because it meant he didn't have to sully himself dealing with his human agents. And Legato hated me for that, too.
Eternal pain and suffering for Vash the Stampede.
At the end, he opened his mind to me. And the pain and hatred was overwhelming, and I pulled the trigger, almost in reflex. And in the second before he died he smiled, and thanked me. Bitterly.
If he hadn't distracted me, would I have been able to find another way, one that meant he hadn't needed to die? Could I have knocked him unconscious? Would that have taken away his mental control over the men who threatened the insurance girls? I don't know. I'll never know. But I should have tried...
What have I become?
I woke, and I remembered all of it.
I wished they'd left me to die.
But then I'd never have had the chance to atone.
Everyone deserves a future...
In that moment the insurance girl became Rem. Perhaps she was Rem, reincarnated. And in that moment she put herself forever beyond my reach. Though I would always be grateful to her, for her devotion, for saving my life, for the words that made me realise what I have to do, I could never be close to her, never be what I think she wanted me to be.
It's time to stop the fighting... It's up to us to stop the cycle of hatred...
As long as a person realises their mistake, it's possible to make it right again.
I'll save Knives.
I have to show Knives his mistake. I have to take care of him. And I have to make him change his mind. To put things right.
It's the only thing I can do to make amends for all the harm we've caused.
He was always the stronger of the two of us - until now.
I will vow once again not to kill, not to betray, but to find happiness. To talk about my dreams - because the ticket to the future is always blank.
There was much unspoken between Wolfwood and I. He accused me of being a hopeless dreamer - but at the end he understood, I think. He shared my vision of what it truly is to be human.
This man knows how to live like a decent human being.
If she saw it, then perhaps I succeeded, after all. Perhaps there is still hope.
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