Monetary Payment
Disclaimer: Black Lagoon and its characters © Rei Hiroe
Disgusting. Despicable. Deplorable.
Those words alone only described a mere iota of the hell hole of a city that was called Roanapur. It was a dwelling place for the wicked. It was the residence of demons. It was the home of the walking dead.
Fuck, it might as well have had a sign that read "Hell's Waiting Room" over the noose dangling above the bridge.
How the C. I. A. managed to get involved with the wretched Rip-Off Church, she would never fully understand. A proud organization associating itself with the likes of scum that was found on the bottom of shoes that had trudged through the gutter, it was shameful. Yet here she was, playing dress-up in a habit with a polished Glock at her side, a crucifix hanging about her neck in a twisted irony.
The image of a damned nun.
She was never much of a religious woman, but she never considered herself a heathen either. She had a strong sense of honor, a strong sense of dignity, a strong sense of morality before she was sent to Hell's Boundary Line in return for monetary payment for her organization's dealings with "Sister" Yolanda.
Her honor remained. Her dignity was unshattered.
She had heard it was a place of shadows, a place of darkness, a place of evil. She had dismissed it all as nonsense, a rumor created by bored agents and gangsters. She wouldn't fall for such a childish notion.
Her morality slowly crumbled.
The shadows, the darkness, the evil; it was all true. It was a presence that clung to the air like a suffocating smog cloud and consumed everything within.
She observed those who resided within the city. It wasn't the drugs, the prostitution, the murder, the immorality that shook her.
It was their eyes.
She had seen eyes like those before. They were the eyes of a corpse, a body without a soul. There was no life, no light within. There was nothing but death and darkness. The city had consumed them.
She didn't wear her sunglasses for vanity's sake.
They were a disguise. Her eyes were not like those of the demons who wandered about.
Her eyes still had light.
The sunglasses were a guard, a shield against the walking dead. She needed something to obscure the light from the darkness, to keep the villains from detecting the presence of one who was not from the gutters, one whose body still had a soul.
She observed the nature of the dead very well. A loud, obnoxious monster of a woman, caring for nothing but money and material possessions, lowering human beings to the value of a few baht; her camouflage, her ruse.
The light was fading.
It was when her hotel room scheme involving the Ramsap Inn failed for the very first time that she realized her act was slowly becoming a reality. She had been pissed that her plan had not succeeded, a few thousand American dollars out the window, not caring about the life that was lost in the process. It was her epiphany. The greed, the lust, the need for bloodshed; it was becoming less and less of a charade and becoming more of a part of her.
And she couldn't escape it.
She found herself relying more and more on the protection of her sunglasses. Now not just as a shield keeping those around her from detecting the light, but to also keep the darkness from completely devouring it. She did not want to become another demonic presence. She did not want to lose her light.
She did not want to become the walking dead.
Before she went to bed, she looked at herself in the mirror, without the pink shades. For every day that passed, for every day that she lived, for every day that she remained in that city, bit by bit, she could see the light fading.
Her soul was disappearing.
There were so many days she cried out to God for help and received no answer. There were so many days that she would look upon the life-sized crucifix mounted in the chapel, wondering how He could allow a wretched city like Roanapur to exist. There were so many days she looked upon the image of Christ, desecrating the "holy" sanctuary with her constant cussing and consumption of hard liquor. There were so many days she looked upon the Blessed Son and wanted to take her Glock and empty the magazine and destroy His face, destroy His body, destroy Him. There were so many days she wanted to obliterate all the images of God and reduce them all to rubble. There were so many days she wanted to burn that damned Church to the ground and spit on its ashes, wildly shooting into the air and laughing as she danced on the ruins.
She never did burn the Church to the ground or destroyed its "relics." She knew if she ever performed the sacrilegious act she desperately wanted, desired, that would be the very day, the very hour, the very moment that her light, her soul, was completely diminished; devoured by the shadows. Any sense of honor, dignity, morality, traits that made her human would vanish. It would be the equivalent to a demeaning surrender, an act that would lower her to the street trash and gutter mud that were not even fit for maggots to feast upon.
She could not... would not allow that to happen.
She continued to carry out her act as a damned nun, never revealing her fading light. She continued to serve her organization, her morality deteriorating and struggling to keep her dignity and honor intact. She continued, she went on...
The Church of Violence hosted Eda in return for monetary payments.
Yet, there were some times she wondered if the price was too high.
THE END
A/N: I noticed something odd about Eda's eyes near the end of episode 18. Usually, when a character in Black Lagoon stops to make a little speech before pulling the trigger, their eyes are faded and don't reflect any light. Their eyes are dull. Yet when Eda had her sunglasses off and was about to put a bullet into "Groovy Guy" Russell's head, her eyes were different. They reflected light.
Admittedly, I personally like the scheming, binge drinkin', Bible misquoting nun side of Eda more, but I also think she has a serious side to her as well.
Cheers.