#1: Love of Pain

Vash and Knives sat facing each other, neither saying a word. Their stern faces, however, announced their thoughts loudly. Vash searched for some way to convince Knives that killing people was wrong, while Knives considered how to make Vash see the error of his ways. No, not his ways. It wasn't his fault he was so soft on people. No, it was that woman, Rem. If he could just make Vash see she was wrong, they could wipe out everyone and finally create their paradise. Vash spoke first.

"Isn't anyone's life but your own worth anything to you, Knives?"

Knives smirked. "You mean the Gung-Ho Guns? Hmph! Garbage, just like the rest of them. The only redeming quality in any of them is that they realized just how worthless they were compared to us."

Vash leaned forward. "They were your comrades!"

"They were my slaves. They gave their lives and their very souls to my purpose. Those fools were no better than dogs! Tell me, brother, why did you put such value on their lives when even they did not? When they were the embodiments of everything you claim to fight? They were murderers, Vash, yet you spared them, knowing they would only kill more so-called innocent people. They were spiders, preying on your precious butterflies."

"Don't start on that again! Everyone can be saved! I know they can! Rem said..."

"What Rem said only applies to insects. When the spider is a homicidal lunatic and the butterfly is a town, one of those two will die. You remember, don't you, Vash? 'We have to make the smallest sacrfice we can think of at the time.' If you refuse to judge quality of lives, then at least judge quantity! Merely one person has to die to save a hundred. And you obviously want to save that hundred, don't you?"

Vash knew where Knives was leading him. He was after an admission of a loophole in his way of life. He wanted Vash to start thinking of the sanctity of life as relative, rather than absolute. From there, he would surely try to convince him that all lives were guilty and deserving of an end at his hand. He was trying to undo everything he'd been through to forgive himself for the...the of Legato.