I had already connected with the door lock, just a second from opening it and go to those son of a bitches houses, destroy everything they once loved, burn their stuff to ashes, kill everyone important to them (if those scum even had someone like this) and make the world forget they even existed, when my little brother found his way out of that torture.

Right after I came back from all the upper class show, Heavy had just killed the fourth place and was all injured, the viewers following him already in the hundreds of thousands, people making bets on the special function for it on the chat, if he had or hadn’t a chance against Advertisement, people trying to discover his past and identity (and coming with all kind of lies and theories). Then, the pair showed up.

When those two immobilized Heavy on the ground, crucifying him with knives and started to torture him, the number of people watching over my little brother didn’t stop to fall, phrases like “ah, this is it, the fun ended!”, “LOL this guy never had a chance!” and “Oh, yeah~~! Best boys are heeeeeree!” pooping all the time.

When they started to peel off the skin of his feet, I reopened my lower lip wound and jumped out of the bed, leaning against the wall and hopping my way to the door with one leg only.

Tears coming to my eyes while I, slowly, made my way to the exit of the room and the walkway beyond, seeing myself just unable to turn off the transmission, fearing that I would never again see my little brother again, I started to search for those guys information, quickly discovering their motives to be there; the Tournament requiring it’s competitors to say it in hope of finding an easy drama to profit on, displaying a video with actors playing the past of those who died for those who were watching them; and that they had a massive debt with a beer company, and that they left their work on the day of the competition, and from there, easily tracking their address and contact. Preparing my revenge; messages filled with viruses to send them if one of them, for a miracle came to win the Tournament, schemes to pretend to be the beer company charging the said money to just steal all the competition’s prize, and even cracking into their doors, electric, air, and water systems to kill the bastards if they ever came back to their homes; at the small scream at the corner of my eyes, I saw Heavy striking back. When they talked about me.

They spend entire minutes torturing him, physically and psychologically, but it took only a few seconds to my awesome little brother brutally decimate the pair of sons of bitches, screaming that they didn’t deserve o talk about me.

“You…! You…! You idiot!” I leaned against the closest wall, tears dropping from my eyes to the ground. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the water fogging my eyes didn’t block my vision of the transmission, and I could see clearly Heavy standing still, alive, encircled by dead bodies, his left arm reduced to a black thing from where his sharpened broken bones came out, his feet red blood dripping things, bruises and scratches all around his body. “Care a little more about yourself, can't you?!”, my feelings were almost as messed as his silhouette, impossible to me to tell if I was relieved and happy or horrified and in deep sadness.

The number people watching my little brother fighting went up again and, soon, everyone was telling how they never had lost their faith in him, just to, in the next second, say that then he was ended for, that he had no choice of winning against Advertisement at that state. I wanted to destroy all those people, but I couldn’t stop pointing that I was as hopeless as they were just a minute ago, and was once again at that exact moment, thinking, in the end, the same as they were.

“No!”, I said to myself, seating on the end of the bed and felling the place where, only a few hours ago he was too. “Heavy already proved, again and again, that he is capable of overcoming even the most hopeless situations!” I couldn’t avoid but to blush just a little adding, smiling: “and he did all of this for me”.

“...Here we have, ladies and gentlemen”, I listened to the narrator, turning on his voice after seeing all that people praising (even if predicting his death soon after) my little brother and failing to refrain myself to feel a bit proud. I wanted to see him being even more praise; just wait, after all this end, I will praise you too, by myself. ‘You did well’, I will say. ‘You was so cool’! And... ‘thank you… Heavy’ .

“Here we have the two stars of this 1155th edition of the Last Man Tournament, the two last brave warriors who made their bloody way to this point: here, already waiting for his opponent, arms crossed in an imposing pose, at the top of the tower, we have Buy This Products, the number one in the kill score, responsible of 32 of all the 96 deaths in the game to this point, a former winner and recurrent competitor, a mysterious figure who never revealed his face before, but have a taste for action, a true man!”, the narrator showed all the combats that Advertisement had fought and his massacre from the beginning of the Tournament to that point. “And, here, walking (his literally bloody path, God!) we have 812316346, or 46 to short. We can see that, from the beginning, he didn’t have much luck, but with persistence and endeavor, he not only survived but won all of his confrontations, becoming the second place in the board, with 19 confirmed direct kills!”, he did the same with Heavy, but with a lot fewer screams once that more than half of his victims fell in less than one minute and in the same battlefield. “The second and first place, ladies and gentlemen, it’s not a common happening, I’m getting excited! But, who will win, be the Last Man, aside, we can say already that they are already both winners, as everyone that fought here today was: with their own feet, they came here and showed us their value... And! Once that we’re a model company, we can’t, of course, just ignore the effort of these people, right? While, unfortunately, we can’t congratulate all the competitors, we prepare a comfort prize for the second place of a hundred thousand Benevolences, that is delivered to a person of their will”.

Oh, yeah, there is this thing too… I knew already, from analyzing the previous matches that Advertisement had participated.

And my smile died and the color in my checks vanished, leaving a sick whiteness behind when I repeated and finally realized what my little brother was planing from the beginning:

“He did all of this for me...”

I opened the door and continued my way out of the room, jumping down the hall and leaning against the wall, my confused feelings crystallizing into complete and absolute despair; faster! I need to go faster, damn, stupid leg! This… This is your fault! If You hadn’t want away, Heavy wouldn't...! Stupid… leg...!; the transmission, the way of my little brother through the blazing ruined ship’s corridors and the piano music, like he had already died, weren’t affected by the tears rolling down my cheeks, but my vision, the perception of my surroundings, was, and, soon, I saw myself tripping and falling with my face straight on the ground.

“Care a little more about yourself, cant you”, I said, sniffing and feeling a keen pain in my nose, blood dripping from the organ then in a strange position.

“Ah, you can’t leave your room, you know?”, I heard the medic from before, the one who was taking care of me since the beginning. “There are fees for going out during hospitalization, and fees for end the hospitalization sooner, so, if you don’t go back to your bed, I’ll be forced to use this stun gun on you”, the “Bzz” of the pistol that he was holding echoed.

Fuck, I don’t have time to deal with you, piece of shit! I thought, craving my teeth into my lower lips, the blood that came from it mixing with the one from my broken nose.

“Ah, you see, I just couldn’t wait anymore for the next dose of that medicine from before!”, I said, looking up, sitting, and smiling.

Impassive, the medic replied after a few instants staring my blood and tears mess of a face:

“So, the effect finally kicked, hu?” referred to the extreme addictive effect that all the drugs they were feeding me with contained and the same effects that were a pain to program myself to avoid. “Okay, its normal use is in the hospitalization price already, but for recreational use it’s 33 Benevolences, but buying directly with me you have 5% off, so it comes to 31,35”

“Yes, sir!” I replied, saluting while wearing a bad serious face. The transaction window appeared and, while it was tempting to crack it, it wasn’t the account of a random Leader working as a medic that we were talking about, but of an entire organization that popped up, with a billion protective layers: if I tried anything, I would get into troubles immediately, so I just paid for the drug.

“I was already going to apply it into you, so I already have the medicine here”, the doctor explained, taking the syringe from inside his white coat and putting the stun gum inside it again; you made me pay for nothing, man?! “So, I’ll just apply a double dose: extend your arm”

“Okay~!”, I did as he instructed, showing him my veins.

Should I ask for his address and send him a virus? No, if he has that gun, he must have some kind of train about how to use it, and lead with patients with caution, what means that just attack him randomly won't work too; he not only probably can defend himself, but could contact other hospital’s employees…

But, because he must know how to deal with addicts and the insane, doesn’t mean he will know what to do when facing a military movement, even a shitty copy. I thought, and so executed on of the moves I copied from Heavy’s Angel, grabbing the doctor’s pulse, pulling it and taking him off balance, and immobilizing the medic in a way that my left thumb ended just bellow the man’s eye and inside his eye sock. Before he could say anything, I explained in a whisper:

“I’m already connected to you, so if you plan to send anyone a message, I’ll tear off you fucking eye and pierce your brain, do you hear me?” Of course, I couldn’t know if he was sending someone a message or not, it’s not like I had access granted to this kind of personal information granted by him, but he snorted in agreement anyway. “Good. Now, I’ll send you a message, that you will open and download its content, did you understood me?”, again, he agreed, and, this done, then I had control over a good portion of his Angel. “If you don’t want me to trigger a fucking Sin and see your head explode, you will take me off the list of patients, call a taxi and transfer all your money to my account. Then, you take me to the taxi and say goodbye for another satisfied and good patient”

“I- I- already did! I already called the taxi and put you as ‘completely cured’!”, said the covered in sweat and shacking medic, while I saw the numbers of my benevolences increasing in… almost nothing. Is he kidding me?! I checked his money account, but that was it: ‘0,00 B’, he had done as I instructed him.

This isn’t even near enough to buy the stadium ticket! I thought, punching the ground floor and tastings my own blood again, my lower lip hurting even more than my broken nose already.

“Thi- This is all I have, I swear! A family member died recently, I got my hands on my the share of the inheritance, went a bit overboard with the commemoration and, when I woke up, I had already spent more than I should!”

“Whatever! ...Just take me to the entrance, the taxi must be almost here”, and I don’t have much more time…

Being carried across the hospital, the medic’s face as pale as mine just a few moments before, I put my head to work and search for a source of money, something that could complete the difference between what I had and what I needed to buy the ticket to watch the Tournament from the grandstand, the window with the ingress minimized so I could pay for it as soon as I put my hands on the right amount of money. Should I keep cracking? No, the bank of the region would start to suspect if a bunch of strangers started to make transfers to me.

Heavy was already crossing an open field on the surface of the ship, walking to the base and entrance of the tower.

“Oh, she’s going already?”, Commented the clerk, just failing in take her eyes off my bleeding nose and lower lip.

“She’s good enough”

“But she can’t walk on her own and… Don’t you want to take a look at these wounds first, miss?”, asked the clerk, her nose and mouth twitching in disgust and discomfort. Why don’t you take care of your own life, bitch?! I thought, almost losing my cool.

“Yeah, thank you for you your kindness, but I’m poor as hell, you see? This is the best state my money can afford to treat me in”, I answered.

Her face sparkling, an enormous smile going from one ear to another appearing on her expression, she replied, spirit rediscovered, jumping out of her balcony and putting herself in my way:

“Then, we have the perfect plans for you! There’s the special discount for face surgeries; believe me, you can turn unrecognizable; and we just sealed a partnership with the bank that allows a loan of even...”

Ignoring the cackler, I looked, smiling, yet with cold eyes, to the doctor lending me a shoulder, and sent him a message saying that, if he didn’t take me out off that hospital in ten seconds, I would just explode his head and start to use the girl as my new slave. He quickly acted, pushing the clerk aside and saying:

“Fuck, didn’t you heard me when I said she was good enough?!”, His eyes widening when he saw the car waiting for us, he hurried to call it: “Taxi! Here, here!”

“Thanks, doc”, I said while he helped me to enter the vehicle. Pulling his head closer, I whispered: “I will release you after only 30 days. If you even think in fuck with me, ‘BUM!’ Do you understand me?”

“Ye- Yes... master!”

“Good”, I let him go. “Bye then!”

“...To where?”, Asked the driver, disinterested, the fact that he was running some narcotic app as clear as the day in his red eyes.

“The Last Man Tournament’s stadium”, I answered, resting my back at the padded seat and turning to focus on how I would get the money to buy the entrance; Heavy was already inside the tower, going upstairs while the barrier closed slowly at his back (the Tournament organizers wouldn’t just let things end in a so an anticlimactic way like he being frozen by the energy field before facing Advertisement, of course).

Where, where, where can I find the money?! Should I take a loan, like that bitch from before said? No, play with the bank is the same as asking for becoming their slave… But does this really matter? Heavy will die if get to him too late! ...The problem is, will the bank lend money for a disabled that probably will die soon? I opened the window with a giant option that covered my vision with coins falling all around and messages of prosperity slowly crossing this image; “wow, so much money!”, “I can buy everything I always wanted now!”, “it’s as good as if a close family member had died!”

...Inheritance. Life insurance…

Father, I realized, immediately sending him a message saying that I died and Heavy too and that he had money to transfer for his account. As soon as the text reached him, father fell for it.

“You dammit bitch!”, he recognized me faster than I thought he would when I triggered pain in his brain.

“Hi, dad, killing another wife?”, I asked thru the voice chat, like he was doing, talking without moving my mouth.

“This is not of your business… But I should have killed you when I had the chanc-!”, I made him suffer again. “What do you want? Me to say I’m sorry to that ridiculous son?!” had dad messed with Heavy…?!.

“I want the same as you, of course: money. Now, you will transfer all the money you have to my account-”

“Or what? Will you make my head explode? Oh, yeah, this is impossible. Will you, then, activate pain in my brain once again? Too bad I’m already running the counter-program: don’t get this cocky, you bitch, I taught you everything you know”.

I rested my elbows on my knees, the dripping blood that stained the carpet visibly annoying the driver. Father was right. Neither us were pro in cracking, but it was him the one who taught me how to make those small schemes, I had no chance against him when it came to invading each other’s Angel.

Yet you fell for such a simple virus… I couldn’t even bite my lip anymore, but just lightly touched it, the flesh shaking and pulsing.

“Hu? Have you gone complete senile? If you don’t do as I’m saying you to right now, I will kill you, old man”, I said out loud, the driver wiggling, uncomfortable on his seat, looking away.

From my father, for a long moment, during what I couldn’t just close my eye, silence. Then:

“...I’m almost proud, you know?”, dad said while the numbers in my account went up. “You grew an excellent adult, unlike that brother of yours”

“Shut up. I’m not like you, and Heavy much better than your opinion”, I bought the virtual ticket.

“No, you are like me: a survivor, someone great, someone who can step on the corpses of millions without even blinking, a special existence… I mean, weren’t you the one who killed that ‘Lucky’ guy to take his place?”

“YOU…!” I screamed, all my body shaking. Restraining myself, I concluded: “You’re wrong. This kind of existence… isn’t special. This world is filled with people who wouldn’t blink when climbing a corpse ladder”, then, ended the voice chat.

Wait for me, Heavy. I’ll, definitely save you!