When I opened my eyes on a hospital bed, a medic administrating highly addictive drugs on me while saying how hopeless my future was, my mind went blank, and all I did, thinking in nothing, just existing, as if inside a dream, was stare the window and the movement out there.

Then, I heard the door opening and my foolish little brother coming in, all beaten up, yet his eyes filled with concern about me.

“I’m sorry, Heavy...”, I said and, filling all the despair at once, sniffed, turning almost impossible to hold the tears I hadn’t acknowledged until that moment.

No!

...This is my chance!

“I’m, sorry! I’m, sorry! I- I won’t be able to work, they said! We have no money for a prosthesis, and… And with my face like this, I can’t even get married, there’s no future to me…!”, I continued, crying to the one who I had saved the life, who saw me as a kind big sister and took me as an idol.

“Ah, tha- That 49 guy told me about you!”, he, pointed, but I didn’t really care, that 49 wouldn’t be of any help then.

“But it was you the first and only one to come to visit me”, I smiled to remember him of his admiration for my character. Squeezing his hands and turning my face to the window, hiding the rage stamped on my face while I was thinking in exactly what should I say to make Heavy help me, I continued: “I’m sorry, Heavy. For getting into this situation. The debt of the surgery Is kinda too high, but, I’m sure that you can pay it in five to ten years. Ah, you can look at it as the price for our- no, your and your only new house! I’ll be sure to spend the rest of my money to write a proper inheritance for yo-”

“CAN’T YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?!”, My little brother screamed (even though not as manly as he mus had wanted to). And I knew I knew I had made the right move. “Don’t talk as if you were already dead!”, at that moment, all kinds of memories should be invading his mind. “I’ll do something, okay? I won’t let you just go away and vanish forever. I will gather the money for your prosthesis, and take you home, and we will laugh when you fall from the bed, and take you stupid long breakfasts and talk while walking to work!”

“Heavy… Why would you go this far? I would be nothing more them a dead weight”

“Don’t act like you don’t understand, when you had done the same for me before…!”, he avoided my eye, faced down, and biting his lower lip; a habit that he took from copying me.

“I didn’t save you to make you in debt with me!”, I could stop there, but it just wouldn’t feel natural.

“And I’m not saving you because I feel like owning you”.

Ah, yes.. Finally the payback of all that money and time I spent in making you!

“I’ll save you because, for me, you’re the only thing in this world that have value”

...Somehow, even though he couldn’t even shout like a true man before, he was able to say such words with confidence. And, taking me by surprise, threw me off balance:

“...Heavy, when I saved you back them, when our parents send you to me, I.. I was just feeling lonely. I would do the same to anyone, so your admiration is-”, I saw myself saying before I could tell.

“And anyone else could have saved me, but it was you. Millions die every day, suffering is our currency and looks like no one has more tears to shed, yet, you was there for me. You cried for me.”

“It wasn’t for you, it was for myself”, What am I doing now?! I bit my lower lip, feeling stupid. “There’s no such a thing as real altruism, you know?”, I wished, childishly, to hurt him somehow.

“...Yeah. And I will save you for my own selfishness”

“Fuck...”, I said after my foolish little brother got out of the room. “I got a second chance, so, why? Why do I feel like I lost?”

The hospital was being regularly paid and, even though my body hadn’t been cured, things were going surprisingly smooth.

..But heavy hasn’t come to visit me anymore. What happened? ...If he found a greed woman, she could easily convince him to take responsibility for her and, them, to abandon me: he’s naive, after all. I can only hope that foolish little brother is just too busy with his work… Since when I started to see myself as “Gear”? And “Heavy”, hu? What childish nicknames we chose to each other; I thought, just before listening to the door opening and see Heavy coming in:

“Oh, you came? There’s almost one month since your last visit, so I thought you had finally forgotten about me”, I smiled, but my heart started to beat a bit faster: his expression was so obviously loaded with sadness that I was 100% sure that bad news was coming. So, some bitch got him, hu? What a shame, Heavy, what a shame! I’ll have to teach this woman that there’s space for only me in your already hard life; fuck I bet you’re barely able to keep yourself feed: I won’t just give up and die for a random whore!

“There’s no way I can forget about you, right?”

“That’s a shame”, I saw myself forced to hide my face and turn my eye to the window; my mixed feelings, of disappointment because my foolish little brother was such an easily manipulated idiot, of superiority and proud of my intellect, somehow, crystallizing themselves in the weirdest way possible and burning in my cheeks.

“Why?”

Don’t ask me this kind of thing, man…! It was, for some reason, becoming harder to pretend to care about him.

“Because this means you must be working too hard to take care of me”

“…Actually, no”

“...What do you mean?”, I was totally honest, confused.

“There’s no more point in working hard”

“So, you moved on in the end!”, a cold feeling that I hadn’t felt since I took Heavy to live with me involved my heart when I thought that, even without being manipulated, he was able to abandon me: loneliness.

“Father sold our house and didn’t let me go back home after all. Being paid that misery of salary, there’s no point on keeping working: I would never save enough to take you out of here while having to find another place to live and other expanses”

“Heavy!”, I grabbed my hand. “What did you do...?!”, it can’t be, right? He wouldn’t leave me behind no matter what right…?

If he could do so I… Will do anything necessary to live. Even be the greedy bitch that would use her own body to tie him to me in a way that, no matter what situation he would be in, he wouldn’t even think about left me behind!

Be the nice big sister didn’t work? Save his life didn’t work?!

“...I joined the Last Man Tournament”, Heavy answered. I left his hand go. “Don’t worry, I have a plan, even if I don’t win, you will-”

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER!”, I interrupted him, holding his the clothe covering his back and pressing my forehead on it.

What’ s this? What’s happening? Even I would never imagine that he’s would go this far…! Is he… willing to die for me?

I was just pretending, Heavy…, I sobbed.

“You will die…!”, he stayed quiet. And, somehow, it hurt, for the first time, I felt truly involved by a pure and stronger than the world I lived in love. Just to have it taken from me, forever, at the exact same moment. “You will leave me alone again…! ...Hey, please, give up, okay? Please”

“...There’s no way back now, Gear. I already signed the contract”, Heavy walked away from me.

“Heavy!”, I called, knowing that, once that he crossed that door, he would never come back. “At last… promise to me that you will survive. That you will come back to me”

“I promise, Gear. I will always come back to you”, so, this is why you look so sad: you’re even willing to kill, even though you’re so kind, for me.

“Then, it’s okay”, I wiped my tears; guh, this is so unlike me! But... it’s your fault, Heavy. “Stay. Here, at least today. The tournament starts tomorrow, right? You won't have much time for me after this, and I was feeling lonely after all this time isolated in this hospital bed, so… will you grant one more wish for this selfish sister of yours?”

“...How could I say no, right?”

Inside the tinny room at the hospital, the light; from giant billboards selling useless and false craps, and vehicles that used the human brain as CPUs for fly passing fast; falling on both of us, the open window the only source of light, I had my head against Heavy left arm, eye closed. Breathing his scent.

Even though I was pretending to sleep, I couldn’t avoid my heart the get faster when I became conscious of how his muscles had grown, and that his shirt had been cleaned with a cheap spray that didn’t dissipate completely the smell of sweat. Was I blushing?

Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck!? He is your brother! I said to myself, keep my breathing normal and acting as if sleeping becoming harder and harder. It didn’t help.

...He wold dedicated himself the same way for anyone who showed him sympathy, and, once again, I was calm.

“SYSTEM INVADED”, it was displayed directly thru my closed eyebrows. You should take more care of your Angel, Heavy. Even though I play with you about this, cracking is a real problem, you know? Even tough pretty simple, “perfect memory” programs were expansive, people usually left the memorization for women Workers, who could do this naturally, in the same way that body improvements were expansive and people left male workers to do the physical jobs; it isn’t uncommon to uneducated people say that we were built this way to don’t be a threat to the upper classes (or even God!), but this, of course, is nonsense: not only the upper classes have access to technologies just a step bellow Angelic level, Saint Level, to what any factor was insignificant (even tough they passed all the day, all days, having their dicks sucked in a billion simulations at the same time, don’t giving a shit to what happened between the Workers), it was just a waste of money to be always using only half the potential of your employees; so I couldn’t just see how were his days after the first one he met me here, but there was, still, a lot of things that could be done.

First, the more important things... I started to install the hidden spy program, using only a fraction of his Angel web connection potential so Heavy wouldn’t notice, and, half a second later, once downloaded, I immediately tried to have a peek of what he was looking at; for some reason, my heart got faster again when I imagined what he could be seeing at that moment, but it got back to normal once that the list appeared to me.

The competitors' Numbers. And, of course, there was a name between them. I bit my lower lip. The star of this tournament and, for sure, its sponsor. It wasn’t a surprise my little brother was looking so serious.

At the same time I started to look into matches that “Buy This Products” had participated, I evaluated Heavy’s new skills: they were bad. The shittiest copies I had ever seen besides the “How To” series apps. Only a few ones had been learned and, just by their names anyone could tell their lower quality, and their codes didn’t show different; well, at least he used them a surprisingly amount of time, but… Why didn’t you told me sooner that you would participate in this idiocy?! I would find some good apps for you! Fuck, if necessary, would create original ones, even learn, don’t know, robotics! God, I can only hope you had trained with a super-killing machine or something like that!

And, the matches of the upper class didn’t show any difference: the guy had super-everything, and it was always a massacre. The gray stuff that he showed sometimes felt somewhat strange, but I couldn’t tell why, and, when I searched for “Buy This Products get hurt”, I found only one video where a guy, scared, left his gun fell to the ground, and its shot scratched the upper-class mask (even though it didn’t even take blood from him).

...Will Heavy die? No! I can’t allow this! Let me see, I could write a new program over these ones, but… I just don’t have enough time, and he already learned with these ones... Can I only trust his skills? The programs aren’t everything after all, but...Maybe I could help him during the competition some way? Improbable: upper classes' lives are at risk here, the staff will give it’s best to keep crackers at bay. I don’t think the spy program will be a problem, though, if I program it to activate only after the competition begins, it’ll be confused with just another viewer.

I closed my hand into a fist, holding the sheet tight. My throat burned, tightening into a knot, my eyes getting teary again once that I noticed how useless I was, in what situation my foolish little brother had entered for me. Them, his hand touched, gently, my hair, petting my head as if I was some kind of pet. I didn’t hate it.

Okay, Heavy. I’ll trust you. You promised, right?

Yet, I’ll investigate these suspicious app creators, because, if you die because you were fooled in a scheme, I can’t allow these people to live.

Heavy woke up really soon, but I could say “bye, and good luck”, at the day of the Tournament. When it was about to start, I closed my eyes, feeling the breeze coming from the window, and focused on the transmission of the stupid show.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the 1155th edition of the Last Man Tournament! The show is about to start, but first, a brief summary of the scenery this time-” I muted the criminally handsome androgynous upper class (if he’s working, must be an Executive at best) who was presenting the ugly metallic aberration of a spaceship that would be the battlefield that time.

Who cares about this fucking ship? Everyone (with two brain cells) knows that this is the arena this time because the trillionaire of the time wanted to kill people inside a spaceship.

...But he likes this kind of thing, right? Spaceships, vehicles, and stuff.

Competitors were already jumping out of flying cars into random places in the spaceship, their name being displayed when they did so: people started to find the first weapons when I waited for my brother to show up, then the public went on euphoria with the first death, then the first alliance was formed, then the fortification armor was found, as well as the vehicle of the time, and even the Faith Level weapon (when all the other ones were pre-AI), and he hadn’t shown up yet.

Have something happened?! Did he give up on the idea in the end? I thought, without being sure of how to feel about it anymore. Right before a laggard showed up, displaying a ridiculous black overall with “HEAVY” wrote on it.

“You idiot”, I smiled, starting to follow him and ignoring all the other competitors. “Hu?”, I noticed that, even though he was a laggard, the action had already started and, right after Heavy had come, the star of the time had also shown up, stealing all the attention for himself, there was, incredibly enough, 2 other people watching over my Heavy.

When heavy stopped above a container, my heart was beating so fast that it was as if myself was inside that arena, and when he jumped from it to right before a bastard already armed, it suddenly stopped.

Heavy used the door to gain enough time to run away, my hands holding right the sheet beneath me, just to stumble into another competitor and, when avoiding her too, yet one more guy, this one carrying so many weapons that had difficulties to breathe and just walk. The first competitor appeared again, in a better position with a direct vision to my brother, encircling him. Stop. Stop, please, don’t kill him! I thought, all my muscles straining. Just, just make it stop already…!

Heavy, though, once again, escaped the certain death by fooling both guys.

“Ah! Ah, aaah!” I shouted, failing in expressing my anxiety in words when I noticed that Heavy had been shot.

Kicking open the ventilation duct and pressing his back against its interior walls, he left so much, so much blood behind, and, yet his torture had just begun: a grenade was thrown at him from above. He barely made in time to survive the explosion, the light and heat so intense that I started to sweat, drenched, just by looking.

It’s that bitch’s programmer fault! And my father’s! I will make them both pay, if heavy die, I’ll not just forgive them! I thought, biting my lower lip with such force that blood drip from my chin.

The look in Heavy face’s when he took a glimpse of the poor soul covered in liquid metal was painful to watch.

This is how you are, right? Even though this world wouldn’t think twice in kill you if this meant any profit, you care about them, I remembered the countless hours he used to spend in those fantastic words filled with simulated friends.

But there were almost a hundred persons trying to kill each other for a prize in money, and, soon, Heavy had engaged in combat again: it was clear, it was all over my brother’s face that he didn’t want to fight that man, even tough Heavy was the one being attacked, even though he should already know that only one person would leave that arena alive. The attacker was still holding position, the barrier was coming closer, and everything was torturing to watch, the images, sounds, even the smell being nailed right inside my brain incapable of forgetting. When Heavy said:

“Gear, I’ll definitely save you!”

And the words were nailed inside my brain incapable of forgetting.

Even though I know that you care for everyone, that you just want to connect and anyone would be fine... Heavy, your all the company I need. I’m happy knowing that there’s at least one person out there who looks for me, and I don’t need anyone else. The realization just made things harder to support, and before I knew, I was crying while seeing my little brother running directly to a wall of fire.

I closed my eye, but it served nothing, the images; the same way the words we said weren’t really sounds, but our thoughts, when charged with the right intentions, being directly interpreted by close Angels in the correct tone, the information being passed, this way, almost instantaneously; the program I was watching was transmitted directly to my Angel and it’s information immediately interpreted. I had my left hand’s nails craving into my face, my lower lip already a bloody mess.

When Heavy avoided every single bullet and decapitated his opponent.

Opening and widening my eye, I thought I could be projecting my own wishes in the program, but then the counting number of people watching my little brother went up a little and to 6. Heavy staggered a little and I thought: I knew, he was shot! But, right after it, he recomposed and I comprehended that he had only felt sorry for his victim.

“I can't give up now, right, Gear?” he said, his face pale, covered in a thick layer of sweat, obviously shaken up. But he continued, going to the next floor and running from the barrier that kept getting closer and closer.

“No, you cant..!” I answered, feeling… confused, my uncontrollable fear and pain from just one second ago transformed into unbelievable happiness.

And, then, transformed again in despair: the next floor had 15 people in the way of my little brother, and the barrier was terribly close then.

Heavy didn’t waste a single second, though, and right before everyone starts to shoot him, the easiest target and newcomer, jumped away and immediately returned the hell of fire, defeating two unimportant no ones, using his weapon as a shield and smoke bomb, breaking the neck of enemy C, taking his gun, disintegrating D, and also robbing his weapon, and making the chairs that encircled him fly to the shots coming, protecting himself with one hand while the other pulled the trigger against E’s face, vaporizing him.

The numbers of viewers following Heavy started to grow up again, 50, 80, 120, and kept increasing for each of his deaths, as well as his position in the rank of the tournament; that measured how many have the competitor killed, what weapons he had, how was his healthy and other information; taking him from 90th to 67th and, then, 42nd .

My little brother hadn’t ended yet, though, and, making shield-bitch spin and die, putting a smart-ass who tried to flank between himself and a bullet just before breaking his carbonized corpse and shooting the second attacker; the audience and amount of people looking over Heavy kept rising and rising, 500, 1000, 3000, 50000, by the point he cut open sword-however throat open, almost half of all of the entire stadium was with its eyes on Heavy, and when he jumped from one pillar to another and again, avoiding a deadly laser and smashing someone’s head against the ground, a hundred and twenty thousand people were watching him.

Hundred and twenty thousand?! I looked again to confirm it: more people had begun to watch the show. The comment section was filled with messages that even our almost instantaneous comprehended language failed to keep up with, all the information passing by to fast:

“Who is this guy????”

“You idiots, he’s a Soldier, must be hiding his eyes behind lens!”

“Wait didn’t he died before?”

“How he evaded that shot?!?!?!”

One of the comments, though, had made things, then, clear to me, a few brief words that were almost submerged in one millisecond in the endless sea of surprised people:

“Maybe this time we will see an upper class dying?”

Before I could even get nervous, or the arena area gets too small, everything had ended and Heavy was walking; covered in blood, eyes half-closed in pain even though he hadn’t been hit; stair’s up and to the next floor. At the corner of my eyes, his Number was the second in the rank already, and even after the action had ended there and a big chunk of the viewers changed perspective, he still holds 80 thousand people’s attention. And hopes.

“...Heavy”, he visibly didn’t want to do any of that, if the possibility existed, he would for sure search a peaceful solution. Yet, it made me happy: to see what my little brother was willing to sacrifice for me, to see how much cooler than I thought he was. “No...!”, I bit my lower lip, but only for a moment, the flesh already too much hurt. “This can become a problem” I finally realized what that stupid Tournament could mean, what all those unimportant watchers were starting to project in Heavy, and it wasn’t good:

A hero.