(Somewhere in Shanghai, China)

Jiyo Kael took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then slowly let it out again. He could still feel the adrenaline pumping through his body, even as the tension slowly began to ease. The moment when he would have calmed down, his breathing would flow evenly again and his mind would be able to process the events of the past day, that was the moment he feared the most. He knew the feeling too well. Had it too many times already.

As soon as tiredness set in and his body began to cry out for relaxation, all the hard-pressed feelings that he hadn't been able or didn't want to take the time for in the whirlpool of events would surface again. The images then inexorably caught up with him with a power that made him a defenseless victim of his imagination.

People he had lost, people who had died through his fault, people he had killed himself, they all looked at him, could never be chased away, gradually turning him into an unfeeling monster, the longer it