The Guilty Burrow

Beep!

"Phase 3 has been completed. The indicated contender has been eliminated."

A particular group of three looked at each other with confusion. "Already?"

One male held a familiar lance over his shoulder, looking off into the distance. "These people are strong… That wasn't even ten minutes!"

"It is the last 25 contenders after all, well… 24 now, I guess. I wonder why they made the Phase's objective to eliminate that guy?" The other male disengaged his weapon. It consisted of a rotary of metallic cybernetic parts that wrapped around both his arms. The right one was equipped with a mini shield and a grapple hook that could reach up to 25 meters. The left was designed to fire chargeable energy shots, but also contained a thick blade that could puncture flesh without difficulty.

"Gotta say, you're looking a lot like a robot, Jarrett."

He laughed back. "I'm not as physically capable as the rest of you, Suto. I gotta keep up to par somehow."

Zika across the two smirked at the thought. She hung her sniper, the Eye of Minerva, around her back with a body strap. In her left holster she kept a sleek poisonous knife equipped. This was the Queen Cobra.

"Axel…" Her soft voice whispered.

Suto was quickly brought to her attention. "I know Zika, we'll find him. I'm sure he's here."

To this, Jarrett bore a somewhat concerned look on his face. "If he is, it probably means the other Sins are too. Even if it's the final 25 contenders, we still need to be careful."

"We've been nothing but careful. I'm impressed by the fact alone that we haven't engaged in any battles since the start of this tournament."

"Well, you wouldn't want to anyways, right Suto?"

He shook his head. "I could never turn my lance on the people I've sworn to protect."

"Even if they're out to get us? I can guarantee you that if anyone recognized us as some of the Virtues, we'd be targeted immediately. But then again, it's been a long time since then. We might've been forgotten by now."

"Nonetheless," Suto slid a mask over his mouth. "I say we keep these on to conceal our identities just in case. I don't want to bring attention to ourselves, not while we're trying to seek out Axel among a crowd of killers."

Jarrett and Zika slid their own masks up to their noses. "Don't worry, we'll get by. If we can just continue to survive as the contender count lessens, maybe we can find Axel then. I know he's strong enough to stay alive."

"But even so, we need to find him before he encounters a Sin. We need to ensure his safety."

Jarrett agreed with Suto. He sighed with frustration. "If only we had overlord communications as we'd planned during this tournament, it would have been easier. I didn't know they'd forbid electrical communications like that."

Earlier, before the tournament, Jarrett, Suto, and Zika all had to dispose of their ear-pieces that Hugo would have communicated to them with. He now sat back at Cardinal Nexus HQ, unknowing of their states or whereabouts.

"What the hell happened to communicating to me during the game?" Hugo sighed in his seat. "Did something happen…?"

Back within Metatron's boundaries, the three Virtues continued to seek out their friend who may or may not have been there. Their presence there was only due to the single clue given by the rumors surrounding the possibility of the Seven Sins attending the tournament.

"If we happen to run into any of the Sins while looking for Axel, we can kill two birds with one stone while we're at it."

"You think we're ready for that? Even with just the three of us?" Suto asked.

Jarrett disengaged the safety mode on his arm-attached weapon, releasing its disarray of cybernetic attachments to unfold. "Don't underestimate the technology I've developed. Our weapons and intellect will get us through anything."

Suto smiled, gripping his lance tightly. "You're right. I have hope."

Zika smiled too. In the distance, her eyes reflected the glow of a dimming sun. An orange glow stretched the sky far and wide. "Night…"

"I know, night's coming." Jarrett sighed. "We'll have to find a secure hiding spot before the sun strikes red again."

Suto grumbled. "What a nuisance. It's honestly so wrong that the tournament would do something like that."

"Like what?"

"Making everyone establish themselves as an irregularity if they want to avoid the midnight sleep inducement."

Jarrett shook his head. "We won't abide by that. Not when we're part of protecting the law. Doesn't matter if we'll be at a disadvantage, we'll find a spot to sleep just like the first night."

"Gotta make sure it's secure though… Those who are able to avoid it, the irregularities, could easily kill us in our sleep."

"We'll find a secure and protective place, don't worry."

As the three ventured past the plains and into a crowded woods as the night fell, the sun slowly saturated to a nearing red glow.

"Here," Jarrett pointed. They'd found a deep burrow that was out of the midnight sun's glow. "We should be able to stay hidden within this darkness."

"Hurry," Zika said, noticing that the sun nearly struck midnight.

The three laid themselves into the burrow, securing comfortable positions to sleep in before the familiar noise resonated the floors.

Bzzzzzzzzz.

The vibrating noise descended in tone, ringing the eardrums of everyone that listened. Those that established themselves as an irregularity were completely unaffected. It was nothing more than an odd noise that played in the back of their heads. But for those that had not yet gone against the Cardinal Nexus law were immediately put into a descending deep sleep.

"Huhhh…" Jarrett began snoring softly. Next to him, Zika's eyes had rolled up. Suto at the very end had his eyelids closed. All three had fallen deep into a slumber that would not awaken until the yellow sun at 9:00 am.

~

It was nearing 1:00 am when noise intruded on the quietness. Something shuffled in place within the burrow.

"Tsk…" Suto's eyes opened. "I can't sleep… again…"

This was an abnormal occurrence. Any civilian that abided by the law was under the docile state to be put to sleep by the midnight noise. Just like Jarrett and Zika, who were deep into their dormant states, Suto should have fallen under the same impression. Only irregularities could avoid the uncontrollable desire to sleep once listening to that low descending tone.

But that's the thing, Suto was an irregularity.

"Agh…" He sighed heavily. Running through his mind were little glimmers of guilt. "Am I really an irregularity…?"

Suto wondered if there was any exception to avoiding the noise's impact other than being an irregularity. But he couldn't reject the truth. He knew what he did.

~

It had been just three months after the Jenzaya Extinction, and Suto was doing his weekly checkup on Wardell's coma state with the doctor.

"Still in a coma…?"

"He isn't coming out."

Suto sighed hearing this. But under his breath was a tiny emission of frustration. A malicious thought plagued his mind, "Is there even a point in keeping him alive anymore?" He quickly brushed away the thought, though this was one that frequently made itself apparent ever since Axel had mentioned it. He rejected the notion at first, but a similar feeling grew into him.

"He's well overdue," the doctor said. "He's unlike any other patient I've ever had."

The doctor's words went over Suto's head. In the moment, all he could think of was his anger towards Wardell. The jealousy he'd had pent up for months since the squad's initial formation had been taking form, producing an envious trait. "You stole the spotlight from me, Wardell. In the end, you ended up being nothing but a burden."

During Suto's time in the military, after working alongside Jasper on one occasion, he'd taken admiration after him. To him, Jasper was an influential role model.

"I want to be like him," he'd always told himself. So when the time came that he was to be placed in the same squad as Jasper, he was nothing but excited. Finally the time came where he could be a teammate of Jasper's, and have Jasper recognize him directly.

But this attention was stolen away by an impatient burly man.

During the months of development with Squad Zero, Suto could see that all of Jasper's attention went to Wardell and his wavering attitude.

"Why is Jasper wasting his time on someone that's disrespected him on numerous occasions…?"

Suto could do nothing but watch as Wardell stole the limelight, garnering the training, attention, and recognition he'd always wanted from the courageous Jasper. Envy clawed away at his heart day by day as he watched the two grow together in relationship, stripping away his desires in a slow and painful manner.

"Now look at you," Suto stared down at the unconscious Wardell. "All this time he'd spent on you and you end up like this…? And he ends up dead?!" He took a deep breath. He needed to maintain his calm image in front of the doctor, even if his mind spoke the complete opposite.

"I'll continue to keep him on life support."

The doctor's words brought Suto's head to tensen. "Oh… okay…"

His sinister emotion had been getting a hold of him for too long now. He decided that now was the time to do something about it. He could barely care about morals anymore, not while the world he pledged to protect was burning at its own foolishness.

Suto sighed with sorrow. "Can I have a moment with him, doctor…?"

He nodded back. "Of course you can. I'll leave you to it."

The doctor left the room and closed the door behind him. With the two of them now left alone, Suto could release his irregular thoughts.

"Maybe if Jasper hadn't wasted his time on you he wouldn't be dead right now…" He held a tight grip on his resentment towards the man. "I fully blame you for my his death, Wardell… You should have been the dead man instead. You've been nothing but a burden for our team since the very start, and now look where it's led us…"

Suto eyed the electrical socket in which Wardell's life-support machine was plugged into. "Even while unconscious you've still been nothing but a burden. It's time to put you out of your misery, our misery."

Suto unplugged his life support.

~

"Tsk!" He shuffled around in the burrow, gripping his head tightly with stress. "I wasn't right in the head at the time. That's my excuse!" Suto looked at Jarrett and Zika who lay dormant next to him. "There's no way you two haven't ever had irregular thoughts as well… I know at least one of you is awake! Wake up! Wake up!!!"

The burrow remained silent.

"Urgh!" Suto clenched his teeth. "I'm an irregularity after all…"

He laid on his stomach, pressing his face into the dirt beneath. "It wasn't my fault…"

The burrow wept with tears that night.