Hmm, so I may have fibbed a bit. This ended up slightly longer than I anticipated and I am having problems pruning it, so now there will be another part after this. Cramming the ending would have felt too much like I just attached it, and those scenes do not deserve to be squished. Good news, though, I want this done before Episode 41, so tra la la. Just a note - I never expect the series to be this dark, I just prefer exploring angst and dark themes. I might have to up the rating for the violence but it's good violence, if that is possible. Slight MarveLuka.
Le Ossa
II.
An overcast afternoon has the crew milling about inside, restless; there has not been a fight in days. Marvelous is sprawled over his chair in a deep sleep, like the lord of a kingdom, his legs dangling over the armrest and fingers brushing the wooden floor. Doc pops in and out of the kitchen, preparing a hearty lunch for his mates while Luka dogs his heels, arms waving as she rants and raves about her malfunctioning Mobirate. Joe is silent in his corner, seemingly intent on his push-ups but every now and then casting a glance at the silent Ahim. Curled in the corner of the sofa, her legs are tucked neatly underneath her, and her tea grows colder with each passing minute. She is uncharacteristically silent.
"I did that, Doc," Luka whines, thumbs jabbing relentlessly at her cellular phone. She sees the double doors swinging in and out, and stomps over to them to follow him back into the kitchen. As she is about to pass through them, Doc emerges holding a tray laden with food; they nearly collide, but he spins around her with a terrified cry as the plates slide. She pivots and follows directly behind him again as he walks to the table.
"You need to look at this, Doc, I'm not kidding; I need this to work!" she demands, finally standing in the middle of the main deck, hands on her hips. Don sighs and holds up one finger, wait a moment, and jogs back into the kitchen.
Luka purses her lips, eyes narrowed; Marvelous stirs and lets out a deep snore. She rolls her eyes with gusto but is suddenly distracted.
"Ahim!"
Ahim slowly raises her eyes to Luka's, attempting a sweet smile. "Yes, Luka-san?"
"Your tea. Why aren't you drinking it? Is something wrong?" she inquires. Ahim's smile falters. Without waiting for an answer, the brunette continues. "Come to think of it, you've been quiet since . . ." she trails off, but recovers. "What's wrong, Ahim?"
"Oh, no, there is nothing wrong at all," she responds earnestly. Her arm has not truly recovered but the sling has long been discarded, and she reaches for the teacup.
"You're not being honest," Luka says stoutly.
"There is nothing," Ahim repeats, beginning to shake her head.
Luka folds her arms. "Out with it."
"I cannot—"
"So there is something bothering you?"
"I do not want to concern you." The girl in pink seems distressed and abashed, not daring to be defiant. Joe stops in the middle of a push-up, holding himself up on his arms, silent.
"You need to tell me—"
"Luka-san, please!" Her voice pitches, heavy red flooding her cheeks.
Now Luka begins to raise her voice, and its indignation reaches the rafters with ease: "Ahim!"
"Oy! Woman!" Marvelous had awoken, still sprawled awkwardly on his pirate throne; with a half-grin, he groans as he sits upright and continues, "Your captain is trying to sleep. Quiet."
Doc freezes as he steps into the dangerously silent room, mouth falling open; the doors swing blithely behind him, in and out, in and out on their hinges. Ahim presses her knuckles to her lips as Luka slowly, deliberately turns her head over her shoulder to fix her deadly gaze upon her captain. Marvelous raises an eyebrow. Joe keeps his expression neutral as he looks between them and resumes his push-ups nonchalantly, wondering vaguely if he should intervene.
The brunette sharply pivots, slamming her booted foot on the deck as she snaps, "Just who do you think you are, anyway?"
"Only your captain," Marvelous says lightly, pretending to dust off his sleeves and straighten his collar. "Who would like a good nap sometime this week."
"You've had plenty of time to sleep you lazy—"
"Ah, ah, now," he warns mockingly, grinning from ear to ear and ignoring her murderous glare. "Anyway, that was the only way to get your attention."
"Calling me 'woman'?"
"Well you are one, right? I would hope you knew by now."
"Why don't you say that again to my fist?" she snarls, punching her closed right fist into her left palm.
As they squabble, Ahim takes the opportunity to rise from the sofa; a fleeting glance at the clock and the corners of her mouth fall, leaving her lips in a thin and grim line. Eyes darting from one crewmate to the next, she spreads her fingers to smooth the folds in her dress and mutters quietly, "Oh! I have forgotten to purchase something while I was out earlier."
Only Joe hears: Doc is still transfixed by the crackling, almost tangible tension between his captain and Luka, who are now interrupting one another without consideration. Ahim's steps are steady as she walks to the door, and then she stops in front of Joe, still facing away. He stops his routine again and eyes her up and down: Her chosen footwear is heavier today, thicker boots. Less frills on her dress. What surprises him is her hair, which has been left down, undone and unadorned. No ribbons.
"Joe-san."
And that is all she says.
"Are you leaving, Ahim?" Don calls across the room, and temporarily the squabble is suspended as they all look at her, confused. She does not acknowledge the question, instead staring straight ahead, gaze focused on some invisible point in space – or perhaps time. Her cheeks are still red.
Joe finally rises to his feet. Without speaking she begins to walk away, dark waves of hair bouncing on her shoulders. It beckons him to follow, as if her voice had not been enough. So intriguing are her mannerisms, the unbending posture and her steps, heavier than usual. For no reason at all, it bothers him.
He wordlessly falls into step behind her, trailing her out the door.
"Ehh? What just happened?" Luka spoke to no one in particular.
Marvelous grins for the umpteenth time, raising his arm above his head dramatically; a whirl of the arm and a snap of the wrist with the sound-effect to match:
"Whipped."
Her pace is quick. Dust rises in clouds and her footsteps are hasty. Jaw set and stern, protruding oddly on one side as if her tongue were clenched between teeth. The Galleon is quickly fading in the distance – they have anchored on the outskirts of a lush forest and a mountain reign, which snakes ominously toward the horizon. Seemingly, she is heading toward the trees, but he does not know why.
His longer legs can keep the pace, though every now and then when the distance grows, he breaks into an easy jog to stay abreast. Her silence is desolate and ominous.
Finally, he relents. "You said you had something you forgot to buy."
No response. A thought crosses his mind: Malfunctioning mobirates?
He should check his, but why? It was nothing Doc could not fix.
"Not exactly," she answers, minutes later. Her preoccupation is just one of many behaviors that indicate distress.
Irritated, he noticeably huffs; his strides quicken. Reaching for her shoulder, he intends to speak and see her face –
She halts in her tracks, jerking her barely-healed shoulder out of his grasp. Joe curses under his breath at his lack of foresight, and then firmly grabs her coat; she cries out. "Something's wrong."
"The details . . . are not important, Joe-san." A wavering note creeps into her voice; he wonders if he can glean any answers without upsetting her, for once. When she turns around to face him, he regrets pushing the matter at all.
In her eyes, fires burn. Tumbling towers collapse stone by stone. She wraps her fingers around his arm, the arm that roots her to the spot, and her dark eyes glitter. They play a grotesque film in which she is running, running, and all around lies decimation. Bodies are thrown from topless towers, and the smallest children are ruthlessly crushed beneath an army of one-hundred-one feet. The shrill screams of clashing swords echo; the thundering advance sends rumbling tremors which will forever invade her sleep. Lost in smoke and in despair, she runs for miles and yet never finds a resting place.
She has always known the sound of bones.
Comforting words would be prudent, but he cannot break this moment, not now. He can see the unshed tears she holds back, always, the sorrows of every person of her kingdom. Their stories have been lost to blithe winds – none of them were granted the dignity of tears.
"Talk," he says quietly. "Talk to Luka, talk to someone." Talk to me.
The silence is almost painful. He feels her begin to pull away, avoiding his eyes completely. She is torn: Her fingers are wound around his sleeve but her limbs are tense, taut, and ready to flee at the slightest provocation. Eyes drifting over her shoulder, she waits poised for something that even Joe cannot see. She recoils; he does not budge.
The forest rumbles quietly. Ominously.
After a moment of silent struggle, she relents and turns to him, her tiny foot stamping in the dust as she says, "When you needed to do something alone, I let you!"
Her outburst is just enough.
She's right, and he knows. He shakes his head irritably, responding with an awkward clearing of the throat. Looking away, he realizes he is being unreasonable. He begins to turn away without letting her see his expression; he is almost embarrassed that it has come to this.
Ahim takes him by the arm, forcing him to turn back around. Raising herself on tiptoes, she studies his face carefully, deliberately, and they are face-to-face and silent. Dark eyes drink him in, a gaunt reflection of fire and failure still burning without end.
And in a second, her lips are against his.
It is a chaste act, and he remembers the pressure leaving almost immediately – just a quick press of the lips that still makes time grind to a ruthless halt. Heat sears through his mouth and dashes across his cheekbones, painting them a brilliant red without remorse. Vision distorted. Air is stolen from his lungs, ripped from his chest and it dissipates into nothing, promptly abandoning him. It is ridiculous, gorgeous. Mind blank and useless, he lurches forward and closes his fingers into a fist, grasping nothing but emptiness.
As if he has stumbled out of a dream, sounds return in one fell swoop. Birds' chirps echo close by and the sound of his breathing is ragged, gasping. He is here, blushing and angry and terribly pathetic while his eyes dart around, searching. In spite of himself he touches his fingers to his lips, feeling like an absolute idiot.
How did – where – damn it.
Ahim's dress whips around the trunk of a tree with a snap, the crack of a whip in Joe's keen ears. An unintelligible, furious sound vibrates within his throat and eventually tumbles from his lips, and he kicks the ground without rhyme or reason in frustration.
He follows; as if he has a choice?
He has speed and size on her, but she has a decent head start. Her boots are stalwart and thick, pounding over coiling roots of trees and kicking up dirt, dust, and leaves. The trees are closer together now as she continues to fly, a tiny white blur, through the forest of trunks. Despite her weapons swinging from her belt, they feel light, a part of her.
She grasps a low-hanging branch and kicks up her feet, landing upright but still delicately in a crouch. Every muscle frozen, she listens.
A twig snaps.
He is flying as well, still feeling dizzy and furious at his lapse in composure. Some pirate he was, falling apart over a simple kiss. And letting her slip from his grasp to do something dangerous?
Even his mind's voice is deadpan: Chalk up a win for Joe.
Thump. Thump.
He leaps, feet assaulting the tree branches as he travels high above the ground. Tiny leaves are ripped from their stems as he whips through the fragile capillaries of branches that criss-cross, intertwined in his path.
In his peripheral vision, a flash of ivory surfaces then vanishes almost instantly. At the speed he is traveling, it could have been anything. Throwing his weight to the left, he misses the next foothold only to fall to the leaf-strewn ground, catlike, somersaulting a few times before ending up on his feet.
There is a rumble approaching, a force moving toward the forest at a fairly rapid rate. The tiniest pebbles and clumps of arid, hard dirt tap-dance upon withered leaves. Ahim would be running right into an enemy. She is barely healed, and he is still frustrated about her first injury; her dark eyes had communicated unmatched pain and terror. Her body flinching and succumbing to shakes, every limb falling limp in his arms.
Not again.
A barrage of gunshots echoes in his ears, sounding far too close and all too familiar for his liking. Calm birds are ruffled and frightened from their nests, and the sound of swooping wings erupts as they take flight as one entity. Black shadows against the pinks, yellows, and purples of a sky near dusk, they warn others with screeches. His mind is caught in the whirlwind of sounds, but his legs propel him forward in search of the commotion.
In search of her.
The colored lights of sunset bend through the crooked trees, and he feels the rumbling beneath his feet growing stronger, the vibrations more frequent and intense. The ground begins to slope upward and the foliage thins. His arm finds its natural place in the curve of his back as the miniscule hairs on his sword arm stand straight to attention. He is running, running, and as the forest disappears behind him, the ground plateaus. The sky opens.
Ahim is in her fighting stance, the end of her gun smoking. Her other hand holds her small cutlass, but no debris or conflict has graced the blade yet – it shines brilliantly, reflecting the sunlight. She turns her head to look at Joe over her shoulder without expression. She looks vulnerable and petite as she stands at the edge, overlooking a sprawling field; the edge is too sharp and steep to see what lies below. The only way down is a steep slope of arid dirt and dust, and there are no footholds to assist.
"Why did you want me to follow you all this way?" Joe asks quietly, taking slow and careful steps toward her.
She turns to face him, pushing the edge of her sword into the broken ground until it stands straight on its own. She whispers, "Because I trust you."
"Have you been fighting?" he asks brusquely, walking past her to gaze off the edge of the plateau.
His eyes widen as he takes in the standing army, the source of the rumbling and noise. Twenty, fifty, hundreds of little metal soldiers are hiking up the slope, and there is no question where they plan to go.
"They would have attacked us during dinner," she whispers, suddenly at Joe's side. "How cowardly."
His hand is already dialing the crew when Ahim places her hand over the keypad and fixes him with a sorrowful but determined stare. Another revelation occurs, ludicrous and dizzying, and he is shocked enough that he lets her quietly shut the flip-phone and cover his fingers once more.
"Please." Her plead is little more than a faint breath.
He knows that if she has come this far, there is nothing to discuss. Any argument he can formulate loses all rhyme and reason when he stares into her eyes; she is at her wit's end with nightmares and terrors. Running into the worst odds is not her usual plan of attack, but normality has been lost on her for so long now. No interference is what her eyes command and he cannot ask her to reconsider. He had not, either. Her desire is to be the last one standing, the last survivor beyond luck. The song in her head must cease.
This is the cruelest dance of déjà vu.
Without pretense he unsheathes his sword, the metal cacophony like violent music to his ears. Without words, he presses it into her hand; it is heavy, but hits harder. She weighs it in her hand, adjusting to her favored reverse grip style, handling it reasonably well despite her weakened shoulder. Pain can never stand in the way of an emotion as potent as fear.
"I don't like this." His voice would almost seem casual, but Ahim hears the frustrated bite in the syllable's close.
Eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed, she opens her mouth, perhaps to protest – his eyes dare her to say a word. She seems to reconsider and nods just once before turning away.
"You said you wanted to do this alone, yet your face told me to follow," Joe snaps. He angrily jerks his head toward the advancing enemies, and the edge of his angled hair whips against his lips, where the faintest, glossy tint remains. "Why them, why now?"
Ahim steps to the edge, watching the army push forward, roaring to the heavens in blind hatred and duty.
Again her voice is a faint breath, a flutter, the sigh of a windswept leaf. "I don't know."
She leaps.
Gunshots ring out and cries erupt – her presence sends waves of confusion and chaos rippling through the crowd of soldiers. As she descends, she braces for impact on the steep slope of dirt, her aim precise and deadly as she steadies her shooting arm upon the other.
Skidding, tripping slightly, she reaches flat ground and charges without pretense, a whirlwind of white and weaponry-grace. Only the necessary amount of energy is expended to force them down to the ground. They surround her and cannot be quantified, a blur of silver and blue, and an eruption of clings, clangs, and grinding metal echoes. A strangled cry cuts through the air as one of the Goumin's weapons connects with the hand with the gun, crushing her fingers between unrelenting metal.
Skating down the steep slope, Joe knows he should not be following or watching this. He can barely stand watching her push through one enemy after the other with no one to watch her back. He curses himself for listening and letting her run into her own destruction. Another loud cry of unintelligible emotion reaches his ears. He watches her swing the weapon with all the strength she can muster, and a line of soldiers crumble at the knees. Stepping on them to gain height, she takes another flying leap into a harried group of enemies and swings in reverse grip; scrap metal piles upon more of the same in a stilted, harrowing cadence.
She spins and there are more of them at her back. Kicking backward, she points her gun over her shoulder without bothering to aim, and falls again into a graceful display of martial arts. There is no brute strength, just frighteningly precise punches and twists, well-placed elbows and heels and of course, the extra force embodied in the sword that is not hers.
Unfortunately that boost is short-lived: a weapon comes down on her arm for the second time, forcing the heavy sword down. Pain loosens her grip and it clatters to the ground, immediately kicked out of her reach. Through a curtain of dark, wavy locks, she spies it lying ten feet away and presses her hand into the ground, raising herself up on her knees-
Crunch, there goes the song again. A metal boot roughly grinds her fingers into the dirt, stretching and tearing the skin of her knuckles. Seething, her other arm swings around to point the gun at her captor, and its metal face gazes down at her, staring down the barrel. She pulls the trigger.
The metal soldier collapses heavily as shrapnel rains down, catching in her tangled hair. She is already on the move, ignoring her throbbing and stinging knuckles as she flips forward, grabbing the sword when her hands hit the ground. Tucking into a ball, she avoids injury and easily gets to her feet, whirling around to face the onslaught, both weapons in her grip. The mindless army marches over its own fallen brothers, and by now they have located the only threat. No element of surprise can aid her now; she swallows noticeably and adopts her natural fight stance, staring down the rest. Held by her two smallest fingers is her Mobirate. Despite the pain twisting knots around her shoulder joint, her gun arm is straight and her finger, poised on the trigger.
Joe hangs back at the battle's fringes, fingers curled into shaking fists but held at his sides; his restraint is breaking. Of all that he finds wrong with this – the tears in her white dress, the scratches decorating her calves which threaten to bleed – there is something about seeing the singed ends of her hair, grey and frayed, that leaves him guilty.
Quickly, she forces the key into the lock, yelling, "Gokai Change!"
She transforms in front of him, masking her injuries and expressions; he finds it disconcerting. As the light fades his keen eyes search for her, for he can follow her more easily in the bright pink suit, track her movements amid the sea of silver and blue. Already back in the fray, she is little more than a blur spurred on by adrenaline and perhaps, for the first time in her life, anger. The disturbing song of metal on metal is an inescapable din with no end in sight.
Her ruthless aim picks them off, and not one at a time. Every bullet embraces its target with gusto and lands as a crippling blow so when they are down, they stay. Though she is not so fast, her light limbs twist easily away from danger – except one hit can leave her a broken mess. One bullet that misses its mark could result in disaster. She trusts those bullets as if they have lives and lungs of their own; she lets them fly and is already two rounds ahead, four or five soldiers past. Finally, the throng is being thinned. One Goumin connects, nearly yanking her off the ground by a fistful of hair. She flips the sword for a better grip and deftly slides it against her waist, forcing it behind her with a jerk to spear her temporary captor in half. She yanks the weapon forward, delivering a backward kick to the slumping corpse to free her blade.
Shoulder throbbing, she winces for a fraction of a second—
A staff whips Ahim across the face, across her helmet with a loud 'crack' and the sword goes flying as she lands heavily in the dust. On her side, she lies motionless, and Joe's weapon skips across the dust, as a rock would in a pond, and comes to rest at his feet. He lifts it with his boot and tosses it into his ready hand, giving it a satisfying and violent swing as furious red floods his vision. Watching this battle leaves him pumped and energized, furious without an outlet, and he fixes his gaze on her back, willing her to show a sign of life. No movement.
He takes off at a run with his arm finding its place in his back's natural crook. Nearing the last of them, only a handful of lost and raging enemies without a leader, and he is so close he inhales the metallic taste of the war-torn air—
And a bullet whistles within a centimeter of his ear.
"Joe-san!"
He fights the urge to turn around and instead concentrates on remaining still. An impending storm or perhaps the sound of a disturbed apiary, and he stands in the center as the bullets flow around him like smooth liquid, curving around him in slow motion. At least, this is how it seems, but reality falls upon his ears as they find their mark.
Goumin collapse around him, each with a gaping, jagged opening where her deadly shot has ripped them apart. As if she had been practicing, each had landed within the figurative ten ring – a killing shot.
He releases a tightly held breath.
"You're done," he immediately says, turning on his heel. He is taken aback, for she is standing again and though her shoulder is held gingerly, her stare burns through her dark visor.
"There is one more," she responds, breathing heavily.
On cue the swordsman pivots to see one last hulking figure emerging in the still-settling dust. A human form it sorely lacks; crimson and convoluted limbs seem to be cobbled together in a semblance of a biped, but one thing is obvious. This unnamable creature will not easily succumb. The fading dusk casts malformed shadows and in them, Ahim can see the horrid film play again. Crumbling towers and crushed bodies. The sound of bones.
Joe's mind barely registers the gentle brush of her arm.
She stands as tall as she can muster, now with a pistol in each hand. Tiny fingers poised on the triggers and twitching, the monstrous enemy lets out what sounds like its equivalent of a chuckle. Though it carries no weapons, its presence alone chokes the air and the tension spirals out of control. Ahim's chest does not rise nor fall – she cannot breathe, or chooses not to do so.
A step forward and the creature raises an arm, mockingly slow and careless, preparing for a fight it does not believe will last. A low growl escapes:
"Famille."
She goes.
It parries her easily, brushing her off like an irritating gnat. Bullets embed themselves in his armored arms but do not reach his face, or what would be the closest resemblance to it. Again her lithe limbs enable her to avoid being hit directly, but what little strength she still possessed is beginning to drain away, leaving her with the dregs.
Luckily those dregs have a touch of revenge.
"Ahim!" Joe roars. He wants her to step down, relent. Still, he is a soldier and she had laid down the command not to interfere. The moment she had stood in front of him and said his name, she sealed her fate and he was a part of it. Even if it led to death.
All she has to do is say the word.
The clangs echo louder and the hand-to-hand blows come faster, the cacophony of bullets like the unending song of metallic rain. She dives to one side, somersaulting, but not without unloading a hellish barrage into his torso and neck; the jutting ends make a line from the bottom of his ribcage, curving around to halt at the base of the skull. There is a weak spot somewhere that she cannot find, and time is ticking down to mere seconds. Keeping her distance, she parries once more but it quickly delivers a strike to her bad shoulder, forcing her to her knees with a strangled cry.
In one swift movement it has her by the neck, one hand sufficiently enclosing it. Vision swimming and fading to black, she sees the spot to hit.
It rumbles more like a machine than a man, almost the sound of a lagging engine. As the creature lifts her as easily as a rag doll, a sick, deformed chuckle echoes hollowly through its body. In delight.
Joe is on his feet now regardless of his idiotic promises, sprinting toward the fray yet again. Fear rises in his throat as he watches Ahim's limbs stiffen in panic and the continuing lack of oxygen. From far away he can hear himself yelling unintelligible and senseless things, and they hardly matter anyway.
But before he can reach her, everything erupts.
An explosion blinds him so quickly he cannot decipher direction: The air is nothing but dust and a rushing, roaring din. Echoing metal. The sound of tearing and another, terrible rumble. The sounds of Ahim's pistol. He is blind; both she and the creature are drowning in the copper-gold storm. He dares not swing blindly in case she manages to escape or is near him, but sounds have been swallowed in the chaos. Joe strains to listen, to catch any movement or sound or whimper amid the ringing in his ears.
Her scream wrenches the sky apart.