Anamnesis
DISCLAIMER: I don't own. Maybe I think Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and Sunrise don't DESERVE to own, but I don't own. If you try to sue me, I'll call security on you.
He looks just like her.
The seizure had stopped before things had gotten too bad, thanks to the heavy dose of medication, but the fading hysteria's grip still showed in the slight tremors of his hands. Drained by the flood of emotion that his usually calm mentality had sustained, he slowly sat, gripping the edge of his desk and the back of his chair tightly. First hatred, then terror, shame, fury--and then the unexplainable laughter that he'd done his best to hold back, alarmed and unable to understand it.
He has his mother's face.
He closed his eyes tightly, but he only saw the angry, wary stare, then horror of the boy.
He has his mother's face.
Opening them again, he shook his head just slightly, giving a small sigh of defeat.
Why is fate so cruel...?
He couldn't look at or think of that cursed boy without seeing Katherine Hibiki. He didn't want to remember, and yet he couldn't help it. And that boy was everpresent in his mind.
Don't remember.
Don't think about it.
Don't think.
He sat and stared at the wall, silent, ignoring everything around him; if not for his still-shaking hands, he might have been a sculpted piece of white marble.
Don't think.
---
Where is he!
Yzak Joule tore down the battleship's halls, his red-and-black uniform flying behind him, badly fastened, his crisply bobbed silver hair in disarray, his pale blue eyes plainly worried.
Where did he get to? To have left his mobile suit before I could even get out of mine... what was he thinking? Didn't he consider how concerned we all are? What could've happened out there to make him act like this?
He'd just responded to his commander's distress signal, pulling his half-destroyed mobile suit out of the wreckage of the abandoned Colony Mendel. Even though it was a new model, the suit had been chewed up in the battle--and of course, the ones behind it were the pilots of the Strike and Freedom mobile suits! It drove Yzak crazy just thinking about it. The Strike's pilot had been the one to give him the fine pink scar that traced over his face, between his eyes. He'd sworn to get revenge... and yet, he hadn't been able to do anything while his commander had engaged that very pilot and nearly gotten killed!
Yzak had pulled open the ruined mobile suit's hatch, but his commander, it seemed, had already gotten out...
At times, Yzak's commander, the infamous Rau le Creuset, could drive him as crazy as his situation with the Strike, but the enigmatic masked man was all he had left of the team that had started out with such a bright future--Rusty and Nicol had both been killed, Athrun had deserted to join up with Orb, and even his best friend, Dearka, was no longer fighting for ZAFT. Yzak had nobody left to turn to... and Rau had always seemed to be such an unshakable pillar of strength, an infallible source of inspiration, even when the war took its nastiest turns, when it seemed like the fighting was never going to end.
But now... something was wrong.
And Yzak had to find out what.
Heading to his commander's personal quarters, Yzak slammed his palm into the touchpad that would open the sliding door, charging in with a determined look on his pale face.
What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.
Cowering by the far wall was the "prisoner" his commander had taken quite some time ago, that annoying Natural girl called... what was it... Flay Allster. It still rankled his pride to see her dressed in the dusky forest green of a ZAFT soldier. Her red hair was pulled back into its usual preppy ponytail, and her often vacant gray eyes were round and frightened.
Rau himself was sitting at his desk, turned to face the wall; the neatness of his white commander's uniform should've given him his usual calm and controlled air, but the blankness of his stare instead gave him a detached one. His wavy pale blonde hair was still hazed wildly about his face in the low gravity of the ship; though he gripped the corner of his desk and the back of his chair, he was trembling badly. In contrast to his rational everyday presence, he seemed visibly shaken.
Yzak hesitated for only a moment before running to his commander's side. "Sir! What is it? What's wrong!"
No response. Through the glass eyes of the mask, he couldn't even tell if Rau had heard him.
"Talk to me...! Sir, say something!" Once again, no response. Tense with worry, Yzak glared at Flay. "You! What happened here!"
The girl shook her head, stammering, obviously bewildered. "I-I don't know! When he came in, h-he was just acting so strangely..." As Yzak kept glaring, she continued. "H-he just ran in, and went to his desk... he, um... opened the drawer and went searching through it... he... he wasn't wearing a mask, but... he got one out and put it on..."
Yzak looked from Flay to Rau and back again. Wasn't wearing a mask? So somehow, between getting in a fight with the Strike and Freedom and coming back, he'd lost his? That was just too bizarre for words! Could that be the reason he was behaving so oddly now? "Did you see his face?"
Flay shook her head emphatically.
"I wonder if somebody did... anyway, then what happened? You better tell me everything!"
"He... called the bridge, and told them this ship would be joining the battle... when the captain said something, he got really, really mad... he started yelling..."
Rau, yelling? That was another first. Yzak had never heard his commander raise his voice unless it was absolutely necessary. Flying off the handle? That was too strange.
"And then, he turned to me... but he wasn't angry at all... he was, he was laughing. He told me that... he was going to need my help... and then..." Flay shook her head. "This..."
Losing his mask. Yelling. And now, hysterics. Three more things to add to the list of totally uncharacteristic stuff Rau was doing. Yzak laid his hands on his commander's shoulders, giving them a gentle shake. "Sir, snap out of it! You've gotta tell us what happened in Colony Mendel!" Still no response. "SIR!" Yzak shook his commander more firmly, but still nothing.
Timidly, Flay began to venture towards them. "Is... he... going to be alright...?"
Yzak's temper flared. "Don't act all sympathetic now! If you're too scared to be of any help, then beat it! You stupid, ignorant little Natural... I can take care of him on my own!"
Flay flinched and said nothing, but stayed rooted to the tiled floor.
Yzak went on trying to reach Rau, but no amount of shaking, pleading, cajoling, or shouting seemed to reach him. The blonde's mind was somewhere so far away that even Yzak couldn't reach him there.
Refusing to give in, the silver-haired seventeen-year-old let out a sigh of mixed worry and frustration. Barely even conscious of the motion, he put gentle arms around his commander's still-trembling body and pulled him, unresisting, to rest against his chest.
Was there anything at all he could do?
---
He has his mother's face.
Kira Yamato.
Kira Hibiki.
Kira and Cagalli Hibiki. And Katherine didn't care what her son was supposed to be. She still saw him as a human.
The same way she saw all of us.
Stop thinking about it... stop thinking!
It isn't fair that he should look so much like her. Every time I close my eyes, I will see the shock and horror and revulsion on Katherine's face, not on this Kira Yamato's.
Katherine. Her son cannot be allowed to keep existing, not if he's going to let others know exactly what he is. And yet, I cannot fight an enemy with her face! Not the face of the only one who didn't look at me and call me a freak, a failure. Not the face of the woman who looked at the glass that shattered under my pain and told me that I had a beautiful gift. Not her.
I lived because of her. And her son must die because of me.
STOP THINKING!
Seeing the hate on that boy's face... in Katherine's eyes...
But at the same time, seeing the sympathy in my twin's...
I don't know which is killing me more. I could've stood Mu la Flaga's pity. Pity would make me angry, give me more reason to hate him. But I can't hate--can't believe!--the fact that he looked at me and UNDERSTOOD ME. For a brief moment, he looked less like the man I've come to despise over the war and more like the boy I met, almost eighteen years ago...
No... stop thinking like that... stop thinking!
STOP THINKING...!
---
Flay stood silent and motionless as she watched Yzak fold his arms gently around his commander's unresponsive body.
Stupid, ignorant little Natural...
She couldn't deny that those words were completely true.
Even though she'd volunteered for the Earth Forces after her father's ship had been destroyed, she'd never actually fought or bothered to pay attention to what was going on around her. No, she was too wrapped up in taking petty revenge on Kira, bent on making him pay for his failure.
Living as the child of an Earth Forces representative, Flay Allster had feared and hated Coordinators just for being what they were. She thought that anyone who got their genes fooled around with for no reason had to be out of their mind, because it was against what God intended. Even for a Coordinator, Kira had been okay... but he'd promised her he would save her father, and he'd failed. For that, she'd done her best to make him suffer. Breaking up with her arranged fiancé, Sai Argyle, she'd wormed her way into Kira's heart, become his "girlfriend" in name, even stolen his virginity. Half of her plan had worked--she'd had him wrapped neatly around her little finger. She wanted him to fight and fight until he died.
But it wasn't until Kira himself had gone MIA that Flay realized she'd gained somewhat awkward feelings for him. She'd never meant to care--it was just that he was so oblivious, so kind to her all the time...
When she'd had her moments of self-pity, Kira had held her and made sure that she was alright... not unlike what Yzak was doing now for his commander.
Stupid and ignorant, indeed. Until she'd been taken "prisoner" by Rau, Flay had never even stopped to consider the Coordinators' side of things just once. She'd been expecting all host of unspeakable horrors aboard the Vesalius, but Rau had taken care of her, protected her from the suspicion of the other crew members, explained things to her for the first time. Like her, he was sick and tired of warfare... fed up with humanity itself.
The Coordinators, the monsters of her naive child's nightmares, were just as human as her own native Naturals. Even Yzak, who openly distrusted her and yelled at her for the slightest mistake, had his better side--just look at what he was doing now.
For the first time since her father had died--for the first time in her life--Flay Allster felt completely wretched for what she had done.
She had a lifetime of sin to make up for.
And hopefully, she could absolve some of it now... and repay her debt to Rau le Creuset, the man with her father's voice...
---
It all happened a lifetime ago. Stop thinking about it. You should know better. Thinking about it will only bring more pain, as if physical agony alone isn't enough.
But I just can't stop. He has Katherine Hibiki's face--and as long as this Kira Yamato, who succeeded where I failed, haunts my nightmares, I won't be able to help remembering.
I must destroy him--not only so that humanity may not stoop lower than it already has, but for the sake of my sanity as well...
Slowly, Yzak's voice filtered through the whitewater rapids of his thoughts.
"Sir, please... say something, anything... you're really starting to scare me..."
"U..um... w, we can't help if, if you don't tell us what the matter is..."
And that tremulous soprano belonged to Flay...
Rau felt the tight squeeze of someone's arms around him as they fearfully held him close--an alien feeling, one that he hadn't experienced since--
Don't think.
"Sir!"
Slowly, he released his death grip on the furniture, and gently laid his hands on the arms that encircled his body. "It's all right," he said softly, resignedly. "You can let go."
"Sir...?" Yzak. "Thank God..." The tight embrace loosened, but Rau didn't move, giving in to his subconscious needs and continuing to rest his cheek against Yzak's chest. "Don't flip out on me like that! You seriously had me worried!"
"I apologize for my behavior. Please, you shouldn't worry about me. We'll be joining the attack soon. Concentrate on the battle ahead."
"Yessir." There was still a strain of doubt in Yzak's voice. Rau couldn't blame him. Sighing, the blonde pulled away from the young pilot, leaning back against his chair.
"And we will be returning Miss Allster to the Earth Forces, as well."
Flay started. "Wh...what...?"
Meanwhile, Yzak was staring. "S...sir..."
"What is it?"
"You're bleeding..." Tentatively, Yzak pointed to his left temple.
Nonplussed, Rau touched the side of his face, just below the fastenings of his mask. His gloved hand came away bloody.
Realizing what must have happened, he shook his head. "It was just a graze. I'll get it seen to later. I told you, you mustn't concern yourselves with me. Go on... I'd like to be alone for a while."
Hesitantly, Flay left, peeking over her shoulder as she went. Yzak followed her still more slowly, but paused at the doorframe.
"I've lost everyone else," he said in a low voice. The pain in his eyes told Rau that he'd put two and two together, coming up with the painfully right conclusion. "So, please. No matter what happens... no matter what you've seen, or what other people have seen... don't you leave me alone, too."
And he walked out.
Rau was silent. The biting pain in his chest had returned--and he knew it wasn't from another impending seizure.
Don't put your faith in me, he wanted to warn that silver-haired child. I'll only fail you, too.
Brokenly, he lay down on the military-issue bed, stared at the ceiling, and tried his hardest not to think of the past.
fin
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Title: "Anamnesis" is a special kind of recollection, usually referring to the memories of a past life (as in reincarnation). As Rau constantly tries to distance himself from his past, identifying it as a "different life", I thought the term would be an appropriate title.
Twins: While Rau is indeed the "flawed" and/or "edited" clone of Ariga la Flaga, and is about a month or so younger than Mu, I tend to refer to them as twins because of the psychic connection they have. That kind of bond is usually possessed by pairs of twins, who are able to sense each other's presence or even their emotions, or dangers that one sibling faces. It's a bit of a stretch, but they've got the twin thing going, and if it looks like horse and smells like a horse, well...
Mu: As shown by his little scene with Murrue in the on-ship hospital wing after Phase-45, the incident on Colony Mendel gave Mu a much better understanding of Rau... he's even able to talk sympathetically about him for a while. (Plus 5 affection points for kindness to Rau! ...or so it went in my mind that day...)
Shattered glass: I like to play it that the twin thing and ESP aren't the only psychic things about Rau. But that's just me... (idiot, happy fangirl grin)
Flay: I detest Flay with all my heart and soul, but I tried to be nice to her here for the sake of the readers. It is true that her character definitely improved after her experiences aboard the Vesalius... (but that still doesn't give her the right to hang all over MY Rau! Grrrrr)
Bias: What do you mean, bias? Has it occurred to people that they might actually be the biased ones for not taking Rau's side into account? I'm sure that even Azrael (who I would love to kill, only Murrue and Natarle did that for me) has his own screwed-up reasons for being the person he is...
More One-shots: If you liked this one-shot, go read my other Rau angst pieces (Heaven's Gate and Requiem Suite). They need more reviews. Now, please.
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