[ Vash listens as his other self speaks, fingers clumsy with exhaustion working each buckle of his boots in turn. The other Vash is right – if he leaves, Wolfwood will follow, and the end of that story is a bad one. But will it really end better if they're both together? Knives is a force of nature at this point, fueled on rage and the life energy of every plant on the planet. Will having one man at his side really be enough to turn that tide?

He has to hope. He wants to trust that it's possible, that he can stop Knives, that with Wolfwood they can stop him cleanly. But the fear is so hard to shake.

You're always better together, yes, that's true. They always have been, up until this last fight. If he could wipe December from his mind, forget what Wolfwood looked like with Chapel's Punisher lodged in his chest, forget Livio's ruined face, then maybe he could believe that together they'd succeed.

There's a scrap of something colorful that catches his eyes in the cuff of his coat, and Vash picks the fragment of bright confetti out and lets it drift to the floor. He can't forget something like that, and how can he move forward with that weight? ]

You can't come with me. [ That, at least, he can be certain of. He snaps the final buckle and looks up to finally see that the other Vash shaking, and without thinking, he reaches out a hand for the other to take. Is he frightened for Vash, for Wolfwood, or is it something else? He can't tell. ] I wouldn't ask that of you, friend. This isn't your fight. It's mine.

[ Stop finding ways to break each other. Is that really what he's been doing? ]

You were with him awhile, before I arrived?