Picking up the pieces
This damn beach...It's so damn dirty...
This world...It's so damn dirty...
Looks like I've gotta be the one to clean this world up.
Bando threw another discarded soft drink can into the bag, gathering quite a collection of humanity's wasteful consumption. Perhaps to the average onlooker walking by the sandy beach of Kamakura, a large bulky man picking up litter might have seemed quite out of the ordinary. And for the S.A.T commando himself, this was not where he imagined himself ten years down the track since he began working for the government's covert para-military squad.
But Bando did of course have a very good reason for cleaning the shore's inorganic articles, and it wasn't to save the Earth – well in a way it was to save the Earth, but from a different threat...A threat unimaginable to most people living and working peacefully in their office chairs or behind counters at shopping malls.
Bando would dedicate his life to guarding this tiny strip of sand, waiting for the inevitable return of that girl...The girl who had humiliated him and nearly took his life...The girl who had been previously locked away in an island facility for a very good reason. Unfortunately for the man left picking up garbage, he had discovered that reason with a very harsh price.
"Tch. My arm's acting up again." Bando felt the sparks ignite in his mechanical right arm. The girl he'd fought on the beach could claim responsibility for that limb, as well as taking his eyes – which had now been replaced with substitute visionary aids. But the loser's in their lab coats and clipboards would nearly try and claim another piece of Bando's manhood as a result of his encounter with the monster girl. Bando chuckled when he remembered the signature gesture he left for that doctor as he was about to perform the surgery.
But the steel warrior had more to protect than just his genitals. He wasn't going to lie down and let these so called 'experts' interfere with the body of a rugged titan who had endured several lifetimes of pain, anguish and grief in his decades of military service. Bando had in fact joined the S.A.T with the assumption that it would be relatively more comfortable than his previous job in the Japanese Military.
During these solitary days and nights by the beach, Bando could reflect on his shattered past. The people who he had befriended and then lost in just one mission; the places around the world where the best and worst of humanity coexisted in a powder-keg which he would often ignite. The towns and villages he had helped create then wipe out the next year.
When Bando first enrolled in the military after graduating from cadet school with 'flying colours', he had entered a world where he felt most at home with himself. Circumstances from his childhood had always left the man with great anger and testosterone, and he believed that by holding a deadly weapon, he could channel that anger for at least some benefit to others.
The first few years weren't too bad, a few small missions here and there, mostly humanitarian stuff – which Bando personally found quite boring. In his naive period he would even grab his commanding officers collar and ask when he got to empty his cartridges on someone.
That kind of attitude would change when about fifteen years ago, he was sent as part of a small squad of elite forces to infiltrate a faraway despot's mansion. Bando had been eagerly awaiting his chance to prove his killing abilities before his superiors, anticipating the day he'd get that ribbon, badge or medal and serve at the top of the food chain. Bando had been given the vital task of capturing the target – dead or alive.
When the commander gave his signal the entire squadron flooded the premises in stealth mode. They functioned like soulless robots, identifying the enemy targets and eliminating them without a seconds doubt. This was a high stakes game of life or death, and Bando was enjoying every adrenaline packed second of it.
That was until he had finally reached the main bedroom where the despot was supposed to be hiding. "Shit where'd he go?" Bando called in to the other squad members as they were making their way around the compound. Suddenly a blast of light had hit him as a spotlight burned his face with immense light. "AHHH! What the?"
The despot was sighted, but he was already hanging by a ladder about to make a maiden escape via his own private helicopter. Bando tried calling for reinforcements but the despot shot and destroyed his intercom device just as he leapt out of the window.
"You son of a..." Bando reached for the window, spraying his bullets across the dark skies in hope that just one of them would hit that bastard.
"Mr. Soldier...Mr. Soldier..." A voice he had not calculated in the mission debrief came from the corner of the room. A young girl neatly dressed but with messy black hair came out of the darkness. "Mr. Soldier, could you please help me?"
"Shit..." Bando cursed to himself as he tried thinking about his situation. The mission was to kill the target, but no-one else – lost alone children, were considered in the mission. He couldn't communicate with his comrades downstairs. He lifted his assault rifle so he could shine the torch and see the girl.
Her eyes were wide as an owls, with great terror and despair resonating from them. On closer inspection Bando noticed much to his horror that the girl's dress was torn down the middle, with something attached around her waist. "Mr Soldier..." She continued crying with a weak voice. "Please, what's this thing on my body?"
Bando roared to his other squad members "EVERYONE EVACUATE! IT'S A TRAP! THERE'S A BOMB! RETREAT!"
The girl started sobbing as she opened her arms out towards this stranger. "Please Mr. Solider...You came to save me didn't you? Please take me away from here and protect me..."
Bando couldn't hold his gun steady, shivering and seething his teeth as he contemplated a vital decision. "S-Stay the fuck back! Don't come near me with that thing."
The girl's eyes diluted with complete devastation. She cocked her head in confusion wondering why this man was not going to save her. "Mr. Soldier...Why won't you set me free?"
Suddenly the device started beeping as a red light began flashing. She started sobbing in the confusion. "I'm scared! I'm scared! I don't wanna die!" She ran towards the giant saviour.
"STAY BACK!"
"WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME!"
K-K-K-KANG! Bando didn't bother counting the number of times he fired, but he knew from the amount of bloody holes dotting that child's body that she was not going to be crying anymore. Bando heaved his shoulders, still trying to catch his breath and realise what he had just done.
The beeping finally stopped on the belt around the girl's chest. Bando crept over and used the barrel of his assault rifle to part the girl's dress. "A fucking fake..." He sighed as he noticed the girl's dead face. Her eyes bulging with sadness as tears kept leaking from her corpse. Her mouth gaping wide as if she were still crying out to that man to save her. Perhaps she was the despot's daughter or simply a child that was kidnapped for slavery or a hostage. But it was to late to find out now.
Bando knelt down and pushed her jaw closed before running two fingers down her eyes so she could appear more respectful in her deceased state.
Finally one of the other squad members arrived by the door with a look of relief. "Holy shit man, we thought you were a goner but it appears the bomb was just a hoax." He called back to the team bade. "#No casualties for our forces...Target has fled...One civilian casualty...#"
When he first met the girl who had saved him from Lucy's torment, he had seen the girl from fifteen years ago in her innocent, helpful and caring eyes. Maybe that was why he felt obliged to owe her a favour in the end. But that incident fifteen years ago would soon be compounded by more deaths and suffering to be inflicted by the end of his gun. Soon the man had hardened his resolve, believing that he could only ever do good through the trigger...That he was only ever truly himself when he grasping the life-snatcher.
Bando noticed another piece of trash buried in the sand. "Tch, what a shit world..."
Yeah I thought I'd create an orignal flashback of the awesome Bando character. I think I've enjoyed writing this one the most out of the others so far. I'll probably only a write a few more of these as I'm itchin to get started on Elfen Lied Season 2 and these sotires are all meant to help connect to the start of the new story. As our Thoughts dwindle to a close, we'll unravel the thoughts of Kouta and Lucy in what may be our final Thoughts.