Disclaimer: Dogs belongs to Shirow Miwa
-Disharmonious Currents-
She is smooth skin against black leather and shiny steel.
Haine takes a moment to just breathe. He takes time to sigh and pretend, for the tiniest fraction of a heartbeat, that he is going with the flow. He is not fighting the current (the system, the universe).
The adrenaline rush after the fight leaves him feeling like his nerves have been sizzling. Maybe his nerve endings really are sizzling from how quickly his body is already healing itself.
"It is already over, you know." Her voice is blasé. She's trying hard to hide her own uncertainty and how shaken she is as well.
He appreciates it, and in a moment of weakness he decides to fall to his knees. He finally lets his fingers loosen on the triggers of his gun. He sighs again.
Haine glances down at his hands to notice fading lines on his hands where his gloves have dug into his skin.
Naoto is standing next to him and her sword is held loosely. Her eyes are far away and she looks a little lost. Like the little lamb that wandered too far from the clean, fresh meadow.
They're staring at the rubble side by side and feeling the aftershocks of the explosion cradle the train station (the city, the world). They're together as they face the gapping hole that leads to the sky.
Naoto slips her sword back into its sheath and taps him on the shoulder.
"Let's go." She holds out her hand and he takes it without a second thought.
Her hands feel warm even through the layers of leather between the palms of their hands. She pulls him up and lets go quickly but he's left with the feeling like her hand is still in his.
She walks ahead of him, back towards the hole in the wall where the survivors had been hiding in and are now crawling out of. Naoto's back is straight, and though there is weariness about the way she walks she is still holding herself with a quiet dignity.
She looked like she was going to finish whatever had to be done.
He follows her at a slower pace, matching his steps to her as he falls in step a little behind her. Haine glances back at the patch of sky the shattered concrete revealed and thinks that he doesn't need wings to get to heaven.
He probably wouldn't be able get into heaven anyway. He'd just as well stay in hell and finish what had to be done with the woman who wielded the sword as well as he fired a gun.
Who needs wings when you have cool metal and broken leather to be your guiding light?