Disclaimer: Gundam Seed Destiny is the intellectual property of Mitsuo Fukuda, and Chiaki Morosawa, and they're welcome to it.
I awoke from my dream due to the insistent buzz of my alarm. I mentally sighed. It was such a good dream too, a lot better than the cesspool that is my life. Resisting the urge to hit the snooze button, I hauled my sorry self out of the king sized bed.
As usual she has already gotten up, probably hours before me. I wasn't worried. I knew where she had gone.
Switching off the alarm, I pulled off the loose T-shirt, and shorts that I normally slept in. Grabbing yesterday's well-worn-in clothes off the floor, and a robe, I moved over to the washroom, which was connected to the bedroom.
I commenced with my daily morning ritual, which in all honesty consists of two steps, a cold shower, and brushing my teeth. After toweling off and dressing, I headed down downstairs and into the kitchen.
Turning on the countertop TV, I surfed though the channels and stopped on the early morning news. It was the same old routine. The various colonies that mankind had settled on were all involved in resource disputes, including my own. Things were getting very heated, and I was predicting that hostilities would break out again. I sincerely hoped I was wrong. I wouldn't be surprised though if I wasn't. Typical humans, civilization as we knew it had ended, and we still continued to bicker. We would probably still be fighting when the stars themselves burned out. Assuming we last that long.
I just hope that when it does happen, my ashes will have already been scattered across the Earth's barren surface.
Opening the refrigerator, I grab the basic necessities of the traditional Shinn Asuka style breakfast.
With practiced ease I simultaneously crack open four eggs and whisk them, as I watch the depressing, and inane news. As I go about my business, I glance outside towards the gazebo that I built a few months ago. There she was, in the same place, starring at the artificial sky, just like everyday for the last six years.
After frying the eggs, and dumping the pan in the sink along with last night's dirty dishes, I cut up an assortment of fruit, and make some toast. Grabbing the plates of food, and a pitcher of Orange Juice, I step outside and walk over to the gazebo.
Sitting down, I greet her, and pass over a plate of food, "Luna, Good Morning."
She turns her head, looking down at the plate, before accepting it. She gives me a dumb nod, and turns back to her sky watching. She starts eating without saying so much as a word.
Big surprise. Nothing had changed, and Luna was still the way she's been for six years, the six longest years of my life.
Exactly 2235 days ago the war ended. But it didn't end like the war of CE 70. Lord Djibril had retreated to his sanctuary on the moon. Of course, in the name of peace, we pursued him there, in order to finish what the Chairman started. In a final act of desperation he used his last resort, the Requiem Cannon. He annihilated half of the fleet, including the Minerva and the Archangel, with the first shot. Djibril could've easily finished us off, but like any crazed fanatic he thought himself invincible. He ignored us, and proceeded to use the Cannon to destroy half of the PLANTs before finishing us off. The funny thing is he was invincible. He had borrowed, and improved upon, an idea from Patrick Zala and used some sort of improved Phase Shift Armour to protect the thing.
The Chairman couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything. Not even Freedom, the reborn Legend itself, could do anything. The funny thing is in the end Requiem exploded after firing half a dozen shots. Near as the engineering team that poked around the wreckage after could figure there was a critical design flaw in the reactor that had been overlooked. In the end it was dumb luck, and incompetence that won through for us.
If it had ended then I would've counted myself lucky. Unfortunately, several rogue elements of Logos, and Blue Cosmos continued fighting on, "For a Pure and Blue World." They harassed us with hit and run attacks for a month before the Chairman formulated a new plan.
It was simple. A ZAFT Special Forces team was to seize control of the GENESIS Alpha site that had been entrusted to the Junk Guild, and forcibly evict the junkers. Said Team would then threaten to fire the cannon in the direction of Earth, if the remaining Logos forces didn't cease their attacks. Never mind the fact that the thing wasn't even wired to do that. We were the Coordinaters, we could rewire it. Such arrogance.
In either case, the Logos forces stepped down soon afterwards. Unfortunately the Special Forces team went rogue, and decided to fire the cannon regardless. I guess they were still angry over the fact that over a full quarter of the Coordinater population died only a month ago. The Logos forces didn't take that lying down, and they attacked us.
Of course we were ordered to defend GENESIS Alpha, it was the only way we could strong arm Logos into surrendering again. And like the diligent soldier I was, I did just that. Of course I had my misgivings, the lunatics that had control of the cannon were going to use it annihilate all life on Earth. Only they couldn't, I'm not sure why, but I think the Junkers had managed to sabotage the cannon before they were so unceremoniously given the boot. With only one recourse left, the Special Forces team decided to plow GENESIS Alpha into the Earth.
I don't know how or when I realized it, but somehow I came to the conclusion that this was wrong. Wow Shinn, great realization there. I tried to stop it. Using my FAITH authority, I cleared myself a path to the cannon. Luna, loyal to the end followed me there, intent on covering my flank. Through some twist of fate, the very last opponent I would ever face in mobile suit combat, wasn't some faceless Logos soldier, or the Freedom, but my best friend.
Rey loyal to the very end, to the Chairman that is, was intent on protecting the canon even if he had to fight me to do it. I fought him, and destroyed most of his DRAGOONs,and came close to rendering the Legend inoperable. Of course I took too long doing it. By the time I glanced at GENESIS Alpha, it was almost too late. Leaving Luna behind to cover my back, I flew to intercept the falling super weapon. Even with Destiny's speed, I barely made it in time.
Blowing a hole in the super structure, I flew inside and navigated my way to the power core. As I was making my way there, I heard Luna screaming in pain over the open comm, I couldn't turn back though. Seconds later, I destroyed the power core. Athrun Zala, I owe you one. But I was too late. GENESIS Alpha blew up just as it was entering the atmosphere. The resulting explosion showered the Earth with Nuclear Radiation, pieces of debris the size of houses, and one large piece that was as big as a mall. Half of the Earth's population was killed. Enough dust was kicked up by the resulting collision to blanket the Earth in a thick cloud of dust. Of those that survived, half would die in the coming weeks, before a plan was formulating to evacuate the Earth.
Monstrous, and it was all caused by Coordinaters like me. I've never bought into the seemingly inbreed sense of superiority that many Coordinaters have. I know that the average Coordinater has more potential than the average natural, but looking at what they did, I can't help but think how much we failed to live up to that potential.
I was baffled by what I found later. Impulse was intact. Legend had been stabbed in the cockpit with an Anti-Ship sword and was floating nearby. Luna had prevailed, but when I pulled her out, she seemed almost catatonic. She could still perform the basics, eat, walk, but she couldn't talk. And her eyes. They just weren't right. Luna as always filled with life, and her eyes reflected this, but what I say was something alien to me. I never found out what happened that day, and in truth it didn't matter to me. All I knew was the one person that I had left in the world was as good as dead. Dr. Coast used the words, "Mental Vegetable"and offered his condolences.
After that the will to fight petered out. The remaining Naturals and Coordinaters just stopped, and decided to focus on saving the rest of the people on Earth. Over the next few months, what ships that could enter into the Earth's atmosphere, and escape from it, ran continuous missions ferrying as many people as possible. Every available ship was refitted to do so. In the end two million people were saved. I suppose that's an impressive feat, but for every person saved, five died. And I can't help but think that I didn't do everything I could've have done.
Of course it wasn't over, the Junk Guild erected over a dozen new Colonies in record time, five years, and humanity had a new home.
Of course I didn't do much at all. I did what I could, I helped to refit some ships, but in the end I was bumped aside. After about 6months, I was declared a war hero, and moved to December City with Luna. Her affliction was termed non-critical and she was released into my custody. I would've taken her back to her family, if they hadn't already died.
We were given a nice plot of artificial turf, a home, and enough medals to wallpaper the kitchen in said home. The new government gives us a very generous sum of money every month, more than we need, and for the most part we're left to our own devices.
And that brings us back to the present. I finish off my breakfast rather quickly, and I wait patiently for Luna to do the same. I take the plate from her hands, as she finishes. As usual she doesn't seem to notice.
Walking back into the kitchen, I place all of the dishes into the dishwasher, and let the contraption do its work. Since it is technically the end of Summer at this moment in time, the planned weather forecast calls for Sun, and temperatures that can be described as warm. I decide to bring a jacket.
The wall mounted lock tells me that it is, 7:30. Time to do my rounds. As I exit the house, I walk back to the gazebo.
"Luna, I'm heading out to now. I'll be back later." She turns her head briefly and gives me another dumb look, before resuming her watching. That's something different usually she doesn't even acknowledge me.
The first thing I need to do is meet up with Kira. I board a rapid transit train from the nearby station. As usual people greet me. I greet them back. A few people try to strike up a conversation with me. They're worried that we might go to war with some of the other colonies. I play my part, and reassure them all that I'll protect them. The truth is I won't be able to do a thing, even if I head out back there. But they don't want to hear that. Everyone needs hope in these times, and the best place to look is the hero figure. What a crock.
I get off five stations later. Kira is waiting for me under the Maple Tree outside the station. He looks about as haggard as he always does.
"Kira."
"Shinn."
This is about as much as we say to each other. I guess the fact that neither one of us is very talkative has a bit to do with it. It's funny, I tried to kill him so many times, and now we're friends, sort of.
I fall into step beside him, and we make our way to the Tea and Coffee House that we frequent every day. We take our usual places. We get our drinks the moment we walk up to the counter. I've heard that the place has set their clock by when we arrive. We both over-tip, the pretty young girl at the counter blushes, and tries to give us our money back. Of course we refuse. She flusters again, before accepting it.
I blow some of the steam off of my Cappuccino before taking a sip. Kira sets his non-fat, double shot, extra foam, Jumbo Latte down, and waits for it to cool.
We both sit in a comfortable silence. The weird thing is we never say anything to each other. We've been doing this for five years, and I don't even know where he was born. Everything I know about him comes second hand from other people. But yet, I somehow feel a sort of kinship to this man. I know he feels the same way too. We've both lost so much, so I suppose we can take some comfort in each other's company.
Kira picks his drink up and sips at it. He relaxes noticeably. I continue to drink in silence, both of us wrapped in the comfort of our mutual atmosphere.
I down the rest of my drink and get up.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Kira merely nods. I'm halfway to the door when he speaks up.
"Wait a minute." Surprised, I walk back to him.
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever think about…" he trails off.
"About what?" He struggles for a moment, trying to find the right words.
"Do you ever think about ending it all?"
"Every night, for the last six years." I pause.
"Me too," He whispers. "What stops you?"
"Luna does. She needs me. And everyone else too. They need us just as much, if not more. You noticed, right?"
He nods. "I guess we have a responsibility to them."
I nod back.
"Thank you."
"Don't worry about. That's what friends are for." I turn to leave.
"Until tomorrow then."
"Yeah, ok."
Weird. I wonder why he decided to open up today. I wonder why I even bothered telling him how I felt. I guess we're about ready to take our friendship to the next level. We are so slow.
My legs take me to my next destination, the hardware store. As I make my way there, I think about Kira. He's just about as unlucky as me. He lost everything in the last war. The sad thing is I'm the only friend he has. I've talked to some of his co-workers. All he does is sit at his desk all day long typing code. He goes back to his empty home at exactly 5:00 p.m. He meets me, at 8:00 the next morning, and an hour later he repeats the process again. One of these days we need to meet up for lunch. It would be a nice change of pace for the both of us. And really it might help us from going insane eventually. Unfortunately, I still need to care for Luna, if I didn't, she would never eat, or do much else. Well there goes that idea.
I often wonder who is luckier, Kira who's lost everything, but doesn't have to watch his loved ones locked in a state of living death, or me who occupies that oh so enviable position.
I can't help but conclude that it's Kira. Luna is the only thing I've got left, and it kills me to see her like this, alive but dead. Dr. Coast did tell me not to keep my hopes up. He said that the chances of her recovering are slim to none. Sometimes I believe him. But sometimes, like today, when she half acknowledged me, I have a hope, just a little, but it's enough to go on. I'm talking one level below the Stellar-situation-type anguish here. Yeah, it's that bad.
I just can't help but resenting her sometimes for ending up like this, illogical as it may sound. I could be doing other things right now, but I'm locked in this regimented routine because she can't care for herself.
And God forgive me, I almost ended it three years ago. And no I didn't try killing myself. I stopped myself in time though, and after that I threw away every last drop of alcohol in the house. Every since that night I haven't touched it all, not even for recreational drinking.
I step inside the hardware store and am immediately bombarded by more well wishers. I go through the usual motions. Someone asks me how, "That cute redhead is," and I very nearly take his head off. Well I want to at least, but instead I give him my usual curt reply. He merely nods and goes about his business. I buy a new faucet, for a change of décor, and some pipes so I can repair the gummed up works under the kitchen sink.
I know that I could easily afford to pay a plumber, but there's no need, I've become quite the handy Jack of All Trades in the last six years. Just living up to all that potential I suppose, or that's what I tell myself. My routine doesn't really take up much time, and I can barely get through it everyday because of the monotony, the rest of the time I'm just at home, and I really need to find things to take up my time.
Paying for my purchases I leave and head for my next destination, the combination grocery store/butcher shop. Thankfully it's mostly empty. The owner, who is an ex-Earth Alliance MS pilot, waves me over.
He pulls a fat unlit cigar out of his mouth and greets me, "Heya Shinn. Just got a new shipment today, you want the usual?"
"Yeah, that'd be good." He nods, and gestures at the kid that works for him. He practically runs into the back of the store.
"So…same old, same old, right?"
"Yes."
"Better this way doncha ya think?" I shrug.
"Yeah, that's what I like about you Shinn, ya roll with the times as they come." Again I shrug.
He offers me a cigar, "Can I tempt you?"
"No thanks."
"Bah, living the clean life, are ya?"
"Yeah, I guess."
The boy comes back with several bags, and a slab of meat wrapped in paper. I hand him the money, and turn to leave.
"Thanks, I'll see you next week."
"Yeah, we'll be waiting."
I leave, and turn myself in the direction of home, and get lunch ready. As I round a corner, I'm accosted by a silver haired man. I remember seeing him in those last days before the end. I remember he was a pilot like me. I remember those two soldiers that followed him around like shadows. Predictably enough, the brown haired woman is with him. I've never asked him what happened to the tanned man.
"Heh, there you are Asuka. Looks like you were right, eh?" The woman merely tilts her head, in response to the second statement. Dammit, I never bothered with remembering his name. Isaac, or something? I stay silent, not willing to make a fool of myself.
"So Asuka, can we expect to see you tonight?" He is of course referring to the weekly meeting down at the War Veteran's Hall. I've only gone to one myself, and found it to be depressing as Athrun usually was. For starters, most of the 'veterans' were about my age, and almost every one of them was depressed, and broken, well except for the Mr. Isaac Silverlocks, that man could probably watch his mother being killed, and he wouldn't even bat an eye. Secondly, drinks are free, and I don't want the temptation.
"No." He snorts.
"Oh?"
"I'm busy." He remains silent.
"Maybe another time."
"Feh, fine do whatever you want, you know where we'll be." He leaves. The woman lingers for a few seconds, before running after him.
"Yzak wait up!" Out of the corner of my eye I see her throw me a knowing look. Damn, she's good.
The rest of my trip home is uneventful. Expectedly nothing has changed. Luna is still out in the Gazebo, and the kitchen is just as I left it. Placing the hardware goods on the floor, and out of the way, I place all of the groceries into the refrigerator before considering what to cook for lunch.
After a moment of pondering, I decide that the usual Pasta is a good idea. But before I get to that, it's time for Luna's early afternoon/late morning cup of tea. I plug the electric kettle into a wall socket, and turn on the TV again so I can watch the noon news.
Oh no. This can't be happening. I turn up the volume slightly. It looks like New Orb, and Atlantis City are going to war. I can't believe it. Less than six hours, and the situation degraded that far? I just hope those bastards leave the rest of the colonies out of their little private war.
This is so stupid. Six years of rebuilding, and now it looks like it's going to come crashing down again. The sheer stupidity, and short-sightedness of these people astound me, and that's saying a lot. If I still had Destiny, I'd seriously consider hoping in, and swinging by New Orb, and Atlantis City, so I can show them how far my short-sightedness extends.
I'm snapped out of my bitter reverie by the whistling of the kettle. Shit. I left it going for too long. Whatever, I doubt she'll notice. I pour the hot water into a large mug, after I dump a tea bag into it. I walk outside and place the mug on the gazebo table.
Luna glances at the mug before picking it up, and taking a cursory sip, and turning to face me.
"Shinn…too hot."
What? Did I just hear that? Glancing over, I notice that she's extended her arm, and is in the motions of handing the mug back to me.
Oh my.
I don't really remember what followed immediately after. I suppose I'm just a little too frantic. I actually spill some of the tea on my hand as I rush back into the kitchen. Ow, that smarts.
Boiling up a new cup seems to take forever, maybe it's because I checked three times to make sure that the temperature is just right. I'm so nervous I spill hot water on my hand a few times. But it doesn't really matter to me. The old accelerated Coordinater healing will take care of the burns. I'm so anxious that by the time I run back out to the Gazebo, I'm panting in anticipation.
I offer Luna the new mug of tea. Gingerly she accepts and takes a sip. It passes. She gives me a look of, what I'm going to interpret as appreciation. I smile back. Wow, it's been a while since I did that.
"Luna, I'm going to cook lunch now, ok? I'll be back soon."
She nods, and replies, "Ok." Four words, and suddenly the last six years of wallowing in self pity has become insignificant. Hell, I'd wait another 6 just to hear another word pass through those lips.
Walking back into the kitchen, I put the box of died pasta back in the pantry. I'm not sure why, but today the usual just won't do.
Author's Notes:
So here is my first attempt at writing something angsty, and maybe a little dark, as well. I hope I succeeded. Please review now that you're at the bottom of the page.