David felt along the priest's robes, looking at his hands, and then out to the snow as he stood on the deck of the shrine's administration building. When the plce wasn't burning down, when monsters weren't attacking, and people weren't bustling all over the place, he found it rather peaceful. It reminded him of an old rental cabin at Tahoe, just before ski season.

Was he right to do this? He had left the note a few hours before, asking Priestess Hino to meet him when she had a moment. He had finished his duties hours before, but he wasn't concerned about his performance. The question, rather, was something that had been looming for a long time.

Leaning against the railing, hunched over as he peered along the edge of the land, he was more cowboy than monk. He never was much of a holy man, even with the proper training. It was a question of style, of his approach in life. When it came to problems, monks and priests would reflect on wisdom, while cowboys would go out and do something about it.

No, he was nothing like a monk, but was that the reason he thought about leaving?

Rei approached David, her footfalls quiet in the cold air as her steps seemed to glide with the snow. The Priestess was as graceful as she ever was, the tired look that she once had day in and day out drastically lessened from where it used to be. She takes a spot a few feet away leaning on the rail as she looks out at the shrine which was for the moment tranquil.

"The kami of this shrine have blessed us especially this day." she says calmly, referring to the spirits that the Shinto faith believed to be in everything. She looks out with a soft smile as she admires the scenery in the mutual quiet before she spoke once more.

"I can tell you've been troubled David. I am here to help in any capacity that I can. It is my duty both as a priestess to help any souls who call for it, and as a person who believes that you are one of the few who can change the world for the better and remove the evil that has infested it." she says, exhibiting a confidence in David that might not have been witnessed as openly before.

In truth, Rei for a long time was conflicted with the idea of the senshi and the knights, uncertain of where they tied in with Shinto practices. The confusion was such that even her faith in the spirits began to waver. But in the aftermath of the red crystal youma's defeat along with what she's observed, she's come to believe in the importance of the guardians. Where, or if they even had a place in Shinto teachings was less than obvious, but as far as Rei was concerned they were chosen to be greater than even they can know.

"You are uncertain of your path, yes? I can see the doubt in your eyes and your actions. What do you doubt so much that it causes such discord?"

"We had a Holocaust survivor come to our school once, when I was a kid," David answered slowly. "Oh, I had read the textbooks, debated the use of the bomb on Hiroshima, discussed Stalin's purges, and Japan's atrocities in the Philippines. It was always academic to me, though, even when the survivor spoke about the ovens, the showers, the mass graves, and those who doubted the Holocaust ever happened." He paused, trying to find the right words. How was any of this going to make sense to a woman who had devoted her life to the goodness of people?

"The part that never made sense to me... the hardest part was to understand how other prisoners, other victims could so easily turn against each other for the most miniscule chance of survival. It never made sense... until I wound up in the Camps when the war started." Turning his head, his cold, gray eyes vacant. "Four year old kids trying to shank me for a few crumbs of bread, or a crippled mother beating me with a rock to take my clothes." He let the thoughts hang in the heavy, winter air. It would never be summer again, even if the Covenant left. There would always be... scars.

"The team is being so optimistic, so naive. Killing the Covenant isn't hard. It's killing the people behind them, the collaborators, the sympathizers, the people who don't think they have a choice." He rubbed absently at his left side, the wound still aching after his encounter with the salaryman.

"I could have blown that guy's head off, right in front of Setsumi, everyone in the middle of Juuban, and you know what? I wouldn't care. It didn't matter his family was taken to make him... compliant. He put the gun in his hand, and he brought the fight to Setsumi's work. It would have been easier just to kill 'em all, torch the building, and save them suffering in the Camps, anyway."

The wound started to repoen, a slight trace of crimson staining the pure robes.

"And now... the team wants to play nice, work around the people who want us dead, convert the Covenant goons to happy, sociable men about town, the whole bit. The Covenant will conquer Japan, just like everywhere else, and everything that makes us human... oh, the irony of it is... we'll be the ones to strip it away, killing each other for table scraps."

The young man's eyes aged, the flicker of blue cutting across the weary, cloudy gray irises.

"People indeed can lose their sense of humanity when put in the direst of situations. However it is only because of the work of evil that people were pushed to be that way. Few people could endure such conditions and retain to their sense of self easily. But there is also strength, there are stories of people who banded together to escape enemy confinement. I'm sure if those people were freed and survived they would feel horrible about the things that they have done. If we survive this invasion, then I believe people will learn lessons one way or another." Rei says calmly to Yinko's first statements. She looks out at the weather with a small shrug.

"They are optimistic because they have hope. Hope is what keeps people from turning into that desperate state which you describe. Hope for a better future and a better world. It sounds cliche, flowery, and many other things that are making your eyes roll in the back of your head, but it's true." Rei says as she walks a few steps away, down the stairs to a small flat below. She rolls it up and packs it tightly, looking at Yinko.

"If a small amount of hope spreads to others and gains momentum, it grows in power and potential.." she says as she rolls it down a decline of a hill, the snowball getting gradually bigger as it rolls. "The actions of you and the others inspire people, even if they aren't publicly accepted, the people notice, they see things, their lives are saved regularly by your group." she says as she looks down at the woods.

"You can argue that there are those who should die, but I believe that other options are always available, even if they aren't the easiest. You don't really believe that killing the bystanders and burning down someone's place of business is the right option do you? You speak as if the war is already lost." she says, approaching a brazier and holding her hands out in front of it to feel the heat go into her hands.

"Even I lost hope in things becoming better, that a long time friend whom had made stupid decisions could be turned around. In fact, I probably would have been closer to your way of thinking before, that killing him is the more direct, easy path. I made much sacrifice over the years to keep him contained, cursing my lack of power. But then your group came and performed a miracle, saving his soul from the darkness and even strengthening your cause. It reminded me that there is still a place for the good in the world...even if it's not easy." she says.

At this point she notices the slight blood stain growing slowly. She walks over to David and pulls out a cloth from one of the pockets of her robe, gently leaning in to press the cloth against him that he can soak the blood on it.

"Is it so bad that they want to save who they can? There will be plenty of lives lost yet, but I've seen a vision...a vision that makes me believe that the spring will come again if the group stays firm to their principles." she says as she smiles at David softly.

"Don't give up yet...do what you can to help them and support them. They are young and need your experience to guide them in combat. Maybe they won't all listen right away, but have you ever seen any group of people seemingly randomly put together have perfect cohesion immediately?" she says calmly as she looks back at the fire.

"Perhaps I can find a way to express this vision to you...why don't you come inside to the brazier that I use for my readings and we will see what the flames have to say." she says calmly as she begins to walk in the direction of one of the ceremony buildings.

"Oh, David. I don't want you to think that I believe you've not had a difficult life. You have, and you are fundamentally cautious as a result. But why don't you try opening your heart instead of hardening it when things don't immediately?" she says calmly.

Rei was a priestess through and through, her words having worldly wisdom. Her views are of course slanted more toward the spreading of good and wisdom than realism that Yinko may be more accustomed to, but was that such a bad thing? The priestess' steps seemed to glide across the stone and snow until she opens the door to the ceremony room in question where the unlit brazier was kept, she approaches it and kneels down to where the tinder and other supplies were as she begins the process of lighting the fire. When Yinko follows, Rei nods to him to a mat in front of the flame.

"Just take a seat and meditate, try to open your mind to the spirits around you to receive their wisdom and blessings, and with luck you will see what I have seen."

He stood and listened. That was all he really could do lately. Everyone, Nazo, Sophia, Setsumi, all of them had to give him advice. Now it was Rei's turn, he guessed. David knew he asked for it, but maybe it was in the delivery, the message she was sending him, that he didn't want to hear.

People had to be vicious, to get neck-deep in the filth to win this war, and those who shied away from that reality were fools. Still, watching the snowball, listening to her words, maybe it chiseled away the rough edges. Yinko sighed. Too soft... he was getting too soft, and everyone around him could tell.

How to react to it all? The feeling of Priestess Hino's hand against his side, trying to squelch the bleeding, the words, the pleas to listen to her visions, to observe, they were clouding his judgment. A flash of blue cut across his face, then died, sinking into the winter night.

Lumbering to the brazier, he followed his employer, grunting slightly in pain as he sat on the floor, calves tucked under his legs. His inflexible, immobile form went stiff, right hand clasping the handkerchief against his side, while the other clenched and released in a nervous tick. Instinctively, he closed his eyes.

For the longest time, there was nothing. Just the sound of the burning, crackling embers of the fire, followed by the soft glow through his eyelids digging into his retinas. He wasn't the meditating sort. At least, that's what he told himself.

Then, a slight flicker in the distance caught his eye. The black shape was a blurry speck in the recesses of his vision, followed by others. The pattern danced slowly, a few fragments of thoughts at a time. Slowly, the sound of the burning fire drifted away, replaced by a soft, roaring sound, like the ocean.

No, not an ocean, he realized. The black specks and shapes grew, forming a mass. The roar intensified, stabbing at his brain. The fingers of his left hand clenched tighter. Eyebrows furrowed, David Rhodes coughed, trying to shake a foul stench from his nose. It wasn't the smell of the fire, or the crisp, clean air. It was an all too familiar stink. He didn't want to think about it.

His lips curled as he tried to shake his head, turning it from the fire.

Rei could tell Yinko wasn't really buying what she was selling. It was to be expected: she knew a little bit of his past and seeing David's pessimistic but determined attitude it would take far more than her words to sway his heart. Hopefully the words would at least make him think and gradually come to a conclusion on his own.

Shortly after David's memories start to haunt him, a warmth would wash over his mind. Gradually it would attempt to ease him into a state of calm as a vision of the final battle at the Citadel of the Covenant would play through his mind.

Man and machine stand against the armies of the evil Covenant, defiantly pushing them back inch by inch within the main citadel. High speed bombers drop explosive ordinance empowered by an unknown substance in a brilliant, luminescent explosion that drastically weakens their numbers within moments. Technologies that seemed futuristic would aid the armies of mankind as walking war-machines and energy weapons would be in wide-spread use.

Within the citadel, the senshi and knights whom were still alive and active would push forward against a bodiless mass of chaos and evil, having fought through the Citadel proper. After a tiresome battle, the guardians of the Sol System unleash their full powers and destroy this mass, as a red haired woman falls to the ground, slain afterward.

The vision then changes to when the Obelisks begin to glow and turn white. Worldwide, they begin to resonate and launch a silver beam into the sky, creating an 'energy storm' of a sort that begins to rain silver upon the world. The Covenant that were still surviving rapidly begin to lose their powers and some even outright disappear from existence as the Obelisks all begin to crumble, falling into inert stone. The Earth itself would seemingly come back to life as unnatural power begins to melt the snows, and the flora and fauna seemingly begin to reappear, revived by incredible powers.

The world would be reborn, and while humanity would have to rebuild what was lost, they would survive, carrying the lessons of the Covenant war forward. People would actually improve, begin to care for one another more. Governments would be less corrupt and more genuine, and in spite of the massive casualties to get to this point, there was hope that maybe the world would be better for it.