SHIELD Agent Rhapsodos: A Part That Remains

:: Degrade ::

This was the twentieth 'unexpected' visit Genesis paid the old man to.

As much as he could have ignored the elder man's glares, the former 1st Class SOLDIER couldn't ignore the man's deteriorating appearance and health. To sum it up, his now sleeping form reminded Genesis like a wilting flower that was starting to cripple brown. Even the room he had numerous times used as a hiding space didn't have a nice atmosphere to it. It was painted white plain and bare, with no gifts or letters or even signs of relations with other people. Plainly put, the room was outright depressing.

Genesis had later found out the place that served as his hiding base: a hospice. It was a place where people with incurable diseases stayed until they die—not very surprising that the gangsters had stopped pursuing him altogether by now. Between feeling jealous and pity, Genesis wasn't sure what to feel at first. Unlike him and what he went through his degradation, the place was a much hospitable place to die in than left in the wastes to rot. Yet it seemed the old man either had no one left or he pushed everyone away from him. The now teen guessed with the latter, as he noted the old timer never called on the nurses the numerous times Genesis barged into the room.

How foolish, Genesis thought. Well, he didn't blame the old man. Even the bravest people could be afraid of dying, and it wasn't that you had a decision on how to die. Well, unless one committed suicide, but some people just didn't have the choice to whether it could be a quick and painless death.

Watching the old sickly man doing things on his own and refusing any sort of help, reminded Genesis back to the worst times he suffered from his degradation. He could deny all the help, keep up a strong façade in front of other people, but he wouldn't entirely erase the fear of dying alone. It was probably the reason why back on Gaia all those years ago... he called upon Zack to fight him at the Banora Underground. Even without his SOLDIER pride and honor restored, he figured, at least, he didn't die alone—even if it meant he'd die by Angeal's Buster sword as a monster.

When the old man's heart rate readings on the machines beeped with alarms, Genesis did the sanest thing he could do. To hell with the old man's stubbornness!

He called for help.