A/N
Sorry about the title… I'm pretty sure the Romaji is wrong, but I'm finding it harder and harder to write in Romaji these days…
Anyways, to the point—I was bored and this is what came out! I'm trying really hard to work to make oneshots lately 'cause there are these oneshot competitions all the time—not online, but it real life—that I want so badly to enter, but I never can because I have so much trouble writing oneshots! So, I count this as a practice shot
About the story, I'm not entirely sure where this topic came from. I think I was reading a fic that mentioned Vietnam or something… I don't remember! And… the reason this is rated M: the torture and merciless murder scene. I think you can infer on everything on there ^^ Blame my watching the movie "Brothers" recently
And, since this isn't a story prewritten on the computer, I've been writing it in a spiral notebook just like all my original book drafts ^^' The only reason it's being posted now; I can look back on it. Typed it at midnight when my mom wasn't on the computer *celebration dance* So, there are probably little errors dotted throughout the whole thing 'cause I'm not used to this keyboard and all… Frustration with typos equals more typos and lack of attention to details '
My being on my mother's computer is also the reason the title isn't written in kanji. Her stupid dinosaur doesn't even register their existence! Just replaces 'em with a box! So, me mad about that, but what can I do? Use Romaji which I've recently found myself to suck at using—that's what!
EDIT 8/9/2010
Okay, this one typo in here's been itching at me from the moment I discovered it... the day I posted it. So! I've finally just decided to go through and fix that stupid typo and edit the whole thing while I was at it ^^
Mezamete Kudasai
I only wanted to see your smile…
How many years had it been now? Too many, that was for sure.
The loneliness was crushing. Day in, day out, nothing seemed to be of any importance.
Killing Chiropterans became a way to pass the time, and his efficiency only decreased the amount of time it took to destroy them. Slowly, but surely, he was changing his MO to a slower, more leisurely pace. More often, he'd receive painful blows which drew massive amounts of blood from his already lacking body, if only to distract from the agony of loneliness. Every kill took more time, drew more blood, induced more fervor to kill yet more time. All in vain, though. It wasn't like he could simply kill Chiropterans every moment of every day for thirty years, after all. Most of the time actually went towards simply hunting them down—which was a slow, thoughtful process all too overwhelmed with memories of Saya. If anything, the actual hunt seemed to stimulate his loneliness, which he later took out on the Chiropteran, only to be left with nothing to do once more.
Distractions were futile to one who had forever.
Many a time, he'd resorted to playing his cello in an attempt to lose himself to the music. It used to be such a wonderful reprieve. No more, however. He had already spent ninety years just killing time on the instrument. Now, it offered no reprieve. He'd make it halfway through Prélude before just lowering the bow, pale fingers resting limp atop the body. His head would hang, black locks draping an ominous shadow over those dying eyes. The song he'd played so many a time before, was only torture, now. The same fingerings. The same bowings. Vibrato here and there, a shift every other note, a crossing of strings to add flavor. The flavor was now that of dust; cobwebs and time. The melody did naught but stimulate memories of Saya even more than the hunt for a Chiropteran, and in every memory of her, he only noticed her absence tenfold.
It was this way when she first went to sleep, too.
This constant lack of… reason. Nothing to do, mind always with gears spinning, memories glowing. Day in, day out. Night after night. Never any relief.
Would sleep offer a reprieve? Dreams without the knowledge that he wasn't right beside her? At least an hour, maybe two—no, even a minute and he'd be on cloud nine.
Either way, he was a Chevalier, and Chevalier do not sleep. When they collapse from starvation or blood loss, although the body may be unconscious, the mind isn't. If anything, it goes into overdrive like when he plays his cello or hunts down Chiropterans. Only further torment with no hope for escape.
Thirty years. That's all it was.
Just thirty years and she'd awake once more. His loneliness would evanesce, and no longer would this shredded mind be tormented second after second. That lack of purpose would be nonexistent, for as long as Saya existed, so could he. Only… during these thirty years, it was almost as though she didn't. He couldn't even look at her, brush onyx locks from those stunning chocolate eyes. No, all he could do was stare at that dratted coffin and listen to her heartbeats. That reprieve of thoughtlessness he'd once been able to tap into was gone; after a little over a decade, the ability had begun to fade and had never once returned again. Thirty years. That's all it was. Just thirty years and she'd awake once more. Then why did the minutes always seem to pass by slower? Why was ever minute more akin to a decade?
Was it really only thirty years? Felt more like an eternity.
An eternity without purpose. Without reason. Without... Saya.
Why was it this way? Why? He just didn't understand it.
It didn't make much sense to him why she had to sleep three decades after only three years of activity. So much sleep for so little consciousness? He cherished every moment when she was awake—no matter how harshly she'd begun to treat him with each Awakening. He understood even then that she was just frustrated.
And it was during these years that he was frustrated.
Saya thought the war was never ending. He wasn't as oppositional to that idea. The longer the war pervaded, the more she'd awaken and he'd be there to greet her.
These thirty years were surely torture, but they only made him appreciate her Awakenings that much more—once she'd Awakened. All the years preceding the event were nothing short of Hell, that was for sure.
A trial, perhaps? To test his loyalty? Could even Fate be that cruel? Either way, Fate was of no consequence to her, and therefore him. One's own actions decide the outcome, not some mystical power bewitching the realm of reality with its mysterious ways.
It was a given that he'd wait for her—that was out of the question—but even he was once human. Even he held emotions of his own, yearnings and wants he daren't reveal.
However, holding all these feelings back was like damming the Colorado. No matter how strong the dam, it was doomed to crack with time. Sure, technicians and engineers patched up the cracks, but these thirty years were always like thirty years without these men. Without anyone to repair the dam. It had been over ninety years, now, that this dam had been suffering the brutality of reality. Even the greatest of structures are doomed to fall when suffering such neglect.
All it'd take to break this long-held dam was a flood. A flood of massive scale, despite the long term damage, but a flood nonetheless. Ninety years ago, when he was young, an even smaller one would've broken it. He'd been young and naïve, concrete still drying. After that first Long Sleep, his defenses had hardened, the dam near indestructible, all the cracks and fissures repaired with Saya's Awakening. However, those had been only cosmetic. Three years weren't nearly enough to fix everything, especially not in the face of thirty years' damage. Now, these fissures had taken their toll. They'd even gone so far as to creep onto the surface.
His temper had shortened dramatically. One bad word directed towards the sleeping Saya and he'd seethe, fists clenched as he pictured their necks to be between his fingers instead of empty air. However, he was still Saya's stoic pillar of support, even while enduring such strong emotions of anger, and would disappear in a gust of wind before bringing any harm towards the bastards. This action revealed that he'd heard their every word, and they'd smile at one another, work their hardest to get a reaction out of him. These constant attempts on his temper for these past two decades were very trying, even more him.
They thinned his already fading self control.
The despair of loneliness was so all-consuming. The constant lack of purpose, prodding from the Red Shield agents, and very lack of Saya's presence at least somewhere near. They all added up, building up a brood of frustrations.
There was one Shield agent he didn't despise, though. A descendent of David, of all people.
David was a practical man. He wasn't as quick to judge as everyone else just off a psych analysis paper or observations in a biased man's journal. He preferred to actually get to know his comrades. He was still a young man, only in his mid twenties—although the war had hardened him enough to make him appear closer to thirty.
And, unlike pretty much every other Shield agent, he actually respected the Chevalier.
"You've been out on the battlefield longer than anyone else, here," David had once told him. "Any man who suffers for that long is well deserving of—" He'd been unable to finish that maxim, though, for Joel had walked in, eying the Chevalier suspiciously as usual.
It seemed they all suspected him of treason. They were constantly questioning him where he went and why. Accused him of being in league with Diva. Such blasphemy, yet it was unfathomably real in their eyes.
David did not stand against this treatment—no one did—but at least he didn't contribute. At least he didn't give the old Chevalier scathing glares and spit of how he was a traitor who deserved nothing short of a slow, agonizing death. He was already suffering this, ironically, but never gave in to their taunts or responded with paradoxical truth. Perhaps that was why. David already knew the Chevalier was slowly dying from the inside out. That his dam was cracking and fissuring, the flood threatening up in the mountains with a heavy winter of grief.
Winter of grief. That was certainly true during the years of Saya's Long Sleep. He was always cold. Their glares threw daggers of ice, and there was never a moment in their presence he didn't receive them. It was like being caught in a blizzard with nowhere to seek refuge or warmth. No wood to start a fire. No cave to seek shelter from the blistering wind. Sometimes, he'd actually find goosebumps on his arms. All this brought on by the loneliness, taken advantage of by the Shield agents.
Every day was more lonesome than the last. Nights unbearably long and silent.
He was surrounded by a sea of people, yet felt as though in the middle of the Gobi Desert, slowly dying of frostbite and isolation.
Each scathing glare was another gust of icy wind. Every word, dripping with enmity, another hailstone pelting pale skin.
A great freeze for thirty years, then a sudden, massive melt when Saya Awakened. Melt and freeze. Melt and freeze. Melt and freeze. This exact process tore highways to shreds—why not further the crevices creeping through an already deteriorating structure?
A flood. That's all that was necessary.
Necessary for what? What would truly happen when the dam broke and the river of emotion flooded the canyon…?
…
"You're the only one he'll even talk to! You're the one who has to do it!"
"But, sir! You don't understand how much damage has already been done—"
"To a monster? Don't tell me you're actually sympathizing with him."
"…"
"Diva has been located—we can't miss this chance. Only Saya can kill her, and only Haji can wake Saya. Convince him, or we'll miss this chance, and who knows how much longer the fighting will go on!" Joel cried vehemently.
A direct order from the head of Red Shield. David couldn't disobey.
Joel had a point, though. Diva had been located in Vietnam—alongside a massive Chiropteran infestation, to boot. Whether or not Saya was awakened, Haji would be shipped off to Vietnam to slay the Chiropterans.
David had known the Chevalier for nearly a decade, now. He'd come to realize that destroying Chiropterans was one of few distractions.
In Joel's Diary, there were enough records to make it seem significant that Haji used to play his cello all the time. Not once had David ever seen him actually remove the instrument from its case for anything other than caring for it. He'd never heard the bow drawn across the strings even once, yet it was recorded that the Chevalier was capable of creating a truly wondrous song—that he used to play all the time. It was most often noted during the short periods of Saya's consciousness; something David had never experienced. It was blatantly obvious to David that the instrument was some sort of symbol. All he had to do was look at Haji—and if anyone else had bothered paying attention—to see that he was suffering. No happy person would be so anti-social, would always remain so expressionless and indifferent to anything and everything around them, would seem to isolated even when surrounded by a sea of people. No, Haji was suffering, and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who cared enough to pay attention.
David had also noted something else about the ancient Chevalier: he didn't like clocks or calendars. It had seemed odd when he'd first noticed it, for wouldn't such things be of great importance to someone who was always closely following a countdown? After a bit of thought, he'd come to realize something, though. Wouldn't such reminders of how much time's left be something closer to torture? And then Joel was always reminding him of how much time was left, too. "You will do as I tell you until Saya Awakens! You're not hers for another twenty years!" he'd scream bitterly, droplets of saliva connecting with a pale, stoic face to receive the expected lack of response. After these instances, he'd just go on like normal, but David had noticed that Haji seemed to grip the strap of his cello case a bit tighter than usual.
All of this just seemed to add up to one thing: Haji was lonely.
He didn't speak unless spoken to. Like a servant, or because he didn't want to? True, Haji was a servant to Red Shield, and "Joel's Diary" showed he had been to the Goldschmidt family—Saya specifically—even when he was human. However, it didn't seem like that was the reasoning behind it. How polite he was to everyone didn't, either. It simply seemed to be his way; how he interacted. That was exactly it, too! He seemed to attempt to avoid interaction.
With everyone but Saya.
And Joel was right. They couldn't miss this chance. Were they to do it now, Diva would die that much sooner and this bloody war would end. It was every Red Shield agents' dream, David being no exception.
Were they to wake her now, Haji wouldn't be so alone anymore, lost in a sea of mortals who hated him. He could be with his Queen.
Diva would die, and war would end.
It was a happy ending for not only Red Shield.
David's eyes narrowed with determination. "Yes, Director." He spoke stiffly, voice devoid of emotion.
Were Joel to find out his reasoning differed, he'd most certainly be outraged. The guy was a raving egotist, after all. An egotist who knew how to strategize, and was a highly capable leader of this cohort organization. No one disobeyed him besides Haji for a reason. And Haji had suffered for his disobedience several times before, too… Those stories were the exact reason everyone else remained so obedient. David didn't exactly hope to suffer the same punishment, therefore deciding to keep his true reasoning to himself.
It didn't matter, anyways. So long as it got the job done, the means didn't truly matter. Especially when they were so beneficial to both sides—fulfilling the Common Good.
Yes, this would work. It had to.
He spun around on his heel, departing the Director's presence with firm determination evident in his stiff shoulders and clenched fists.
The exact words to convince the stoic Chevalier were already at the tip of his tongue…
…
"Just admit it," Joel spat foully. His eyes were narrow and flaming with rage.
His only response was an indifferent silence.
The Director snapped his fingers, a signal to the other man in the room to commence with his duty.
A searing, glowing brand was pulled from the flames; it sang with heat, a couple licks still clinging to the superheated steel. Blue-gray eyes faded to gray, carefully watching as the brand was brought closer… and closer…
The putrid scent of burning flesh invaded Joel's nostrils; his expression remained static.
A curl of smoke swirled up, lonely and pale. Heavy panting, sweat dripping alongside blood. Skin turned ash floated lazily to the stone floor below. Black tendrils of hair shadowed a pale face, droplets of perspiration running along his jaw line.
Hazy sight, dizzy with pain.
Yet, no screams; no cries nor grunts.
"Come on, Haji. The sooner you admit to it, the sooner it ends."
The picture fuzzed over and flickered for a moment before clearing once more. Men circling a small television watched in stunned silence, immersed in the gruesome "movie". One man was even munching on a granola bar, caught halfway between mouth and wrapper.
"You think he'll finally admit to it?"
"No, no. Did you not see that? Didn't even cry out!"
"Chiropteran or not, he'll give in sooner or later. What's in it for him if he doesn't? Absolutely nothing, that's what."
An exchanging of money.
At the sound of the director's voice, they all stopped and spun around back to the television.
"John." There were no specific directions, but the torturer knew what it was Joel was requesting. "Go right on ahead."
The brand was replaced in its fiery vat as "John", as he was called, reached for another tool: pliers.
His torturee, Haji, was held fast by reinforced steel shackles and straps warped just for him. One curled around the neck; on each wrist which were perpendicular with his body, stretched as far as his arms could reach; another straight across the chest; the last two at the ankles, which were held half a foot apart.
Even under such torture, the Chevalier expelled no weakness. No sign that he held any plans of giving in, despite this being the ninth consecutive hour enduring such afflictions.
It had started off with a torch held against his pale skin. Then, a hammer to his joints. Stakes to the hands. Bamboo under the fingernails. Nails to the eyes. Body drenched in sulfuric acid.
Every man had lost count—Haji included.
With each blow, the wound healed as blood pooled between slabs of stone, staining the mortar scarlet.
A dungeon was the most befitting location to perform this, David mused as he struggled not to flinch with every blow delivered to the silent man. After WWII, Red Shield had claimed a German castle, and set up camp there. The locals kept away because of rumors about the place being haunted; the government was too scared to approach for fear of persecution from the French government; it was set deep in a pine forest with a seemingly limitless supply of kindling for the roaring fires in every room. It was the perfect location both strategically and esthetically. And here was Saya's Chevalier being tortured just like medieval times in the dungeon. The man was a gypsy, and he'd have suffered the exact same treatment had he entered the Bastille in olden times. He would've been treated like horseshit whether he was in Germany or France for nothing other than his origins: exactly the reason he endured this current predicament. This time, it was not for being a Roma, but a Chiropteran.
"Where's Haji?" David had asked in bewilderment just the day before.
Joel had nonchalantly replied, "We've received evidence of his being in league with Diva, and have taken him into questioning."
It had obviously been a setup with just that single sentence. If evidence had actually been found, Joel would've been steaming, fuming, screaming at inanimate objects. No, this had nothing to do with "being in league with Diva", at all.
But, David knew. Oh, how he knew! This was not a questioning. Haji would reveal nothing because there was nothing to reveal. Joel obviously didn't expect him to actually admit to anything. No, it was something else entirely. This was punishment; nothing more, nothing less.
Punishment for disobedience.
David had been there to watch Haji disobey the Director.
Joel had ordered him to a small village in Saudi Arabia. A small unit of Red Shield agents went with—David included—and when they arrived, there were Chiropterans. Two, in fact. They were caged up like animals, the villagers throwing rocks at the beasts as they roared and ripped at the chains and bars, teeth bared. They had been Chiropterans, yet it was still so cruel… Just like the bear slaughters in the English courts. So unjust, so inhumane to kill a helpless animal for the sheer enjoyment of watching it die suffering. To kill the things actually would've been labeled a mercy kill, they were so pathetic at this point. They had that Holocaust shape to their bodies in how ribs jutted out sharply and golden eyes rested in hollow sockets. Suffering constant bloodshed and then going without blood to recover? They were starving children with a silver platter piled high with their favorite foods before them, yet just out of reach as they were taunted over the fact they couldn't grasp it.
"Go to this village and leave not a single soul breathing."
Everyone had assumed Joel had been speaking of the Chiropterans, and that the village had been overrun, not a single human left alive.
That had not been the case at all.
Children scampered across the packed sand, playing unknown games and laughing joyously. Mothers nursed their babies, faces hidden behind black veils. All the men were off searching for food and water; their cache had run low, so they'd all been shipped off and wouldn't be back for at least a week.
"Leave not a single soul breathing." Joel's words echoed in their minds.
The man wasn't good with metaphors, and he didn't skitter around the point. When he said something, he meant it as literally as humanly possible.
"Leave not a single soul breathing."
Half the agents had pulled out their machine guns, aiming them at a group of children playing some sort of game with a pile of sandstone pebbles, cocking them threateningly. Wide, confused eyes had turned, veils swishing and caps falling to the sand. Bullets had rained down upon them, blood arcing in a lustrous fountain in return. Another agent grabbed a woman by the hair, dragging her inside a random hut. Her screams were clearly audible.
To kill innocent women and children, the agents had taken out these orders without hesitation, eager expressions donning their faces.
It went sharply against the Chevalier's beliefs.
Eyes narrow, he'd grabbed one agent's gun, ripping it out of his grasp before effortlessly crushing the thing in a pale fist. "Hey-!" the man had called out indignantly, an imperious frown warping his features.
The others had turned to see what the commotion was, one whacking Haji in the gut with the butt of his gun. No response. Fear crept in. Guns were turned.
Again, without any effort, Haji had broken every sadistic man's weapon, tossing the scraps in a pile, before killing the two Chiropterans and stalking off towards the helicopter.
Such actions would not go unpunished.
The moment they'd returned to Headquarters—the German castle—the men had gone straight to Joel, and the rest was history.
Haji had blatantly disobeyed Joel's orders. He'd saved most of the villagers and broken his "comrades'" weapons without any grief. Sure, the Chiropterans were dispelled of, but that didn't matter. That had never even been the point.
The whole thing had been a political move: Joel wanted the Americans to war with the Saudi Arabians. The war would produce more Chiropterans and the alliance would be strengthened. The slaughter of that village of innocents would've been the framing of the American military—because each man had held a standard American military machine gun—and tensions would've risen so high, Saudi Arabia'd've outright declared war on the economic power. With only a few dead, it wasn't enough call for the government to do so. War had been prevented. The alliance remained weak.
"It's all that bastard Chevalier's fault!" Joel had seethed, fists clenched and pounding on his oak desk. "He'll pay… he'll pay…"
Thus, a torturing session over false charges. The men who had been there, who had witnessed the carnage in Saudi Arabia knew that the charges were a lie, but everyone else believed them.
Haji was a Chevalier. He was a Chiropteran. He was an enemy.
"Why do we have to work with him?" they always snapped when assigned on a team with the guy (Joel refused to let him work on his own).
They hated him. He was a Chiropteran just like the monsters that had killed their friend or their wife or their children blah, blah, blah.
It only made sense to the unknowing agents that the Chevalier was "in league with Diva". She was his Queen's twin sister, was she not? She was "one of his own kind". She was the enemy, a Chiropteran. He was a Chiropteran, so therefore he must be the enemy, too.
"Chiropteran" and "adversary" were synonyms in their minds.
"It's about time," one woman had frowned upon hearing the "news". That one had really stung David.
Haji was being tortured because he'd stood up for innocents, refused to let them be mercilessly murdered and raped over nothing more than politics.
If anything, Red Shield was the monster and he the human.
David included himself in the Red Shield category.
Even as he'd witnessed those horrors, he'd done nothing but stand and stare. As children had lain crumpled and bloody in the sand, as babies were torn from their mother's teats and shaken 'til they finally stopped crying—he'd done nothing. Just shakily held his pistol, silver glinting in the light.
This whole thing was a witch hunt.
Witches didn't exist, yet for centuries, innocents had been accused, tortured 'til they "admitted" it, and then mercilessly murdered—or given a prolonged death via lynching. Every last one had been innocent. Every last one hadn't survived.
Only difference was, Haji wouldn't "admit" to it. Were he to lie just to end the pain, he'd be murdered just like the other innocents. He couldn't die like them, however. Should he die, Saya would awaken with amnesia, aimless and forever doomed. Joel knew Haji wouldn't be stupid enough to do so—the guy's entire existence revolved around Saya's, after all—and therefore tortured him just for the hell of it. To punish him. To set an example.
"Disobey me and this is what'll happen." That's what it said.
…
As David traversed the well-lit corridors of the ancient castle, he pondered this.
Haji lived by Saya's morals. It was obvious in how he revolved his entire existence around the girl and worked to accommodate her every wish no matter the cost to himself. That was one reason he'd been forced to endure being tortured like that—broadcasted live before the rest of Red Shield, at that. Constantly, he was punished for being loyal to not the Shield, but Saya. It wasn't any wonder, though.
Just because he wouldn't stand for innocents being mercilessly slaughtered, he was tortured and humiliated before all his comrades over a crime he obviously didn't commit.
With Saya, it couldn't have been that way.
There was very little data on how they acted towards one another when left to their own devices, but David had doubts as to its being as severe as this. Haji grew up with a far more playful, childish Saya than the war-hardened girl most recently recorded in the Diary. It was impossible to totally dispel of one's past, and David would bet she still thought of Haji as her best friend and protector, rather than a treacherous servant.
Compared with that treatment, this…
David couldn't even imagine how much the Chevalier missed his Queen. He felt lonely himself just thinking about it!
But, this was a win-win situation. Were he to convince Haji to Awaken Saya, he would no longer be alone, plus Red Shield would finally be able to kill Diva. Finally, he'd be released of his obligations to the now corrupt organization, and no longer be alone in the most absolute sense of the word.
The agent already knew where the Chevalier was: the roof.
It was a beautiful night, so how could he blame him? The waxing crescent moon shone a ghostly shade of silver, a gem resting in a sky of velvet and diamond shards. All around were the silhouettes of the pine forest, each looming form tinted green.
Settling down on the cool stone beside the stoic Chevalier, David took a deep breath.
A/N
Yeah, so there's the first part… This'll be a two piece escapade, apparently. Next chapter—which is halfway written in my trusty spiral—will be David's convincing Haji and, finally, Saya's Awakening Something I've been wanting to write for Time of Dying for so long, but considering that I'm only on the Second Story and Vietnam is still, oh, four or five Stories away… So, I'm just writin' this as a oneshot ^^! … Or, two-shot. Whichever you prefer lol. It was originally intended to be a oneshot, by the way…
Either way! Here's my treat to you all for putting up with the ever looming gap in overall posts. It might stretch on a month, for all I know… Can't tell, at this point O.o But, I'll be back to regular updates on all my other stories as soon as I buy a new computer—preferably this shiny $350 Toshiba *dreamy eyes*