They both stayed quiet and sat up in their seats as the teacher walked in for the first period. They went on with their day at school, soon the second period came and then lunch and then last period. The whole time, they didn’t talk about it for the rest of the time at school. At the end of the day, Makoto walked to his shoe lock by the entrance, taking off his school shoes and putting on his regular shoes to go home in. And as fate would have it, both of Makoto and Asami’s shoe lockers were close together too. Not next to each other, but close enough to where if they were at their lockers at the same time, they’d be in close proximity to one another. After Makoto put on his regular shoes, he waited for Asami closer to the entrance as he usually did. Only when they were walking back from school together did they bring up what happened that morning.

“I’m sorry I hit you to wake you up this morning..” Asami said with her head to the side to avoid looking at Makoto.
“That’s a bit weird, she’s apologizing on her own.” Makoto thought to himself. “Normally I’d have to call her out when she’s being mean to me.” 
“No, no. It's ok, I needed that wake up call, I was deep asleep this morning.” Makoto said, smiling a bit, to which he turned to Asami and found her turned away. “Hey, are you o-okay? You seem upset today..” 
“.....I’m fine, Makoto......no need to worry about me..” Asami said with her head turned away still. “Why can’t he just leave me alone? I already said I’m fine,” she thought to herself.
“I can tell when something is wrong you know..you’re not normally like this......oh wait..does it have to do with what I said this morning?” Makoto asked with his worries growing more. “That would make sense, the pressure of having people tell rumors that we’re a....couple..” At this thought, Makoto stopped thinking and started to imagine. “I guess I never really thought about it..”
“.......No, it’s not that......” Asami said, slowly turning her head back to start to look at Makoto, only to be met with his eyes looking right at her.

Time froze. Even their footsteps stopped as they both stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like hours. However, soon enough, Asami snapped out of it and in a short burst of anger, pushed Makoto away from her.

    “W-WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT FOR?” Asami yelled at him as she swiftly turned her head away from him.
    “oh.....I’m sorry, I thought.....never mind..” Makoto said shyly as he stood up with his head down. “Forget I said anything..”
    “....it was nice I guess....” Asami said as she looked back at Makoto, feeling upset at herself for pushing him. “..I guess I don’t hear those words often....thanks.."

*            *            *            *            *

“Are you sure the PeaceMaker project is really finished?”
    “Yes, I’ve made sure of it, I’ve run through all of the standard diagnostics according to procedure.”
    “Very well, then, we will test its capabilities first thing tomorrow. I expect great things from you, Yamamoto.”
    “Yes, of course, it won’t fail.”
​
    “Good."

After meeting with the head of diagnostics, Yamamoto decided to head back down to see his creation before coming back in the morning.

“Tomorrow morning, they’re going to test what you can do.” Yamamoto said to the PeaceMaker as he began to pack up his belongings to head home. “They’ll see how wonderful you are.”

 “I see. But what is so wonderful about being a soldier?”
 “What do you mean?”
 “That is what I’m made to be, is it not?”
 “Well yes, but-”
 “That means I’ll have to hurt people, right? And why would they need to be hurt?”
 “It’s hard to explain, just, don’t worry about it, you’ll find out soon enough.”
 “Very well, goodnight, Mr. Yamamoto”

 “Goodnight."

That night, the PeaceMaker decided to research what it was made for. The night went on and on as it gathered information throughout the web and government databases, data from over 100 years ago. World War II, Hiroshima, Adolf Hitler, Vietnam, Human Experimentation, Death.

“All of this horror, all made by humans....”

Atticus Villanueva