My first ever Trigun fic. Inspiration just hit me as I was listening to Legato's lines in episode 22. Truth be told, I don't really get what I did. My hand just wrote everything down and I guess it more or less just flowed together. So... Enjoy, I guess...! ~Kagetsuya

italics :: lines from the ep

Human

I will make Vash the Stampede suffer eternal pain.

'The Ones who live outside of Time.'

So strange, how different the two of you are. And yet the same. How can it be? Are you not as different as you seem to be? Or are you so opposite from each other that you are so much alike?

Are you like me? Are we the same?

We live, we die. We laugh, we cry. We get angry, we feel remorse.

That is human.

Long, long ago... we should have died the instant we fell upon this land... without pain, without sorrow.

He believes himself superior. Not a human. Maybe it's true. But you have cried for those who died when you were involved. You blamed yourself for their deaths. You felt guilty, you thought it your fault. You got angry because you didn't do all you could to save them.

And you have felt happiness. When nobody knows your name, they invite you into their lives--there is the truth to that cliche, "Ignorance is bliss.". You laugh at the best of their jokes, you laugh at the worst, at their follies and at yours, at those little quirks of everyday life.

You have felt pain. The scars on your body attest to that. The constant agony that tears at your heart, at your soul, attests to that.

Am I human?

I feel nothing. Your bullets pass through me like nothing. Is it supposed to hurt? Am I supposed to feel pain?

I feel...

Nothing.

Not even human.

"Do you hate me? I suppose you do..."

"...It's enough to dry up your tears forever."

Go on. Shoot me. Kill me. It is oblivion that I feel... And yet, it is oblivion that I seek.

An egotistical being like myself can't be allowed to live.

Give me my destiny, Vash the Stampede. Give me oblivion.

Give me nothingness. Give me death.

I can see it in you eyes. I can see your mind scrambling, stumbling, fumbling for a way to save everyone. I can see you, wanting to save me.

Go on. Do it. Shoot me.

Why do you stare at me so? Why do you search my gaze as if you could find something there? Can you see my soul? Can you see how gray it is, how empty? You must be hallucinating. I have no soul.

I'm not human.

Think of your friends. Think of the townspeople. Think of me, and what I'll do if you don't end this now. Why do you hesitate? Must I exert myself some more, goad you until I get the desired reaction?

"You faith in humanity is as obstinate as it gets... to embrace every worthless ideal that woman taught you."

How's this? Is this satisfactory? Must I go on?

"Rem Saverem... a woman who could only pretend her logic made sense."

Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me. Give me the death I so crave. Free me from this world. Free me from being "human."

"A worthless human being..."

Your last barrier. Your last reserve. It will break under my parting words.

"...just like me, but unlike you."

One shot, to send me to my so desired oblivion.

Must I have done this? Of course.

I know, my master.

After all...

I will make him suffer.

We are just...

I will make Vash the Stampede suffer eternal pain.

Human.