"The sword has long been superseded by the gun as the warrior's weapon. Swordsmen have been reduced into anachronisms. Stubborn holdovers from an era long dead. A quaint but endangered species. Dinosaurs. All but extinct.
"Which is why I trained you as a swordsman." The man gave his student a conspiratorial smile. "It's nice to prove everyone wrong once in a while."
The boy grinned back. "It is."
Gunslinger Girl
Life Goes On
Disclaimer:
Gunslinger Girl, Noir, Metal Slug and Full
Metal Panic: The Second Raid are not mine. The original
characters in my story are my creations (don't worry; I'll kill
off most of them before this chapter is done). Certain lines adapted
from The Light Before We Land (Gunslinger Girl OP theme). Also
featured is the song Life Goes On from Gundam Seed Destiny.
Chronology:
This story is set after the first season of Gunslinger Girl,
several years after Noir and an unspecified time in TSR.
Inspiration:
Inspired by Nachtsider's various Gunslinger Girl fan
fiction and Deathra's Daddy's Girl. The Noir
element is courtesy Sho Tsuzuku and propelled by Soldat
#75664 and Barbie's interest. A little dash of a Metal
Slug. Some TSR. And I'll be damned if I don't
acknowledge Triangle Hearts as inspiration for my OC's
battle scene. However, this story is still Gunslinger Girl.
Enjoy.
Seventh
Il Ragazzo
(Young Boy)
The
boy's eyes were closed, the better to block out the world. His
thoughts dwelt on better days. Days when things were still beautiful,
not bland. Days when he was free to be whoever he wanted to be. When
life still felt like– no, when it was real.
And when I feel like I can feel once again: please. Please let me stay in it awhile… soak it in for a while. Because… because if I can hold on, then maybe… just maybe, I can fix what's wrong with me. So please… buy me a little time… for this head of mine… haven for me…
Electronic crackling cut into his reverie. Hearing his name spoken, he answered. His voice was soft and gentle, unsuited for the task at hand.
"Yes?"
"They're coming."
No need elaborating on who 'they' were. Only what he needed to know. Two commando squads, ten men total. His unseen commander relayed locations, speed and paths of both enemy forces.
"What are my orders?"
His question was rhetoric, purely for display. To show everyone listening in who was in charge and who was the weapon.
"Search and destroy. Eliminate all opposition."
He sighed. Dark blue pupils sought out the last vestiges of bright warmth in the waking dusk of a faded world. Found none. Felt cold. Shook it off and steadied his breathing. A hand rose to brush back a stray frond of black hair.
"Roger."
His left hand– he was ambidextrous by nature– found his main weapon's walnut handle. He fingered the familiar decorative embossments and incisions on that black ivory hilt. The action soothed his mind and soul. His senses hadn't departed him yet. He was still there. He was still alive.
Enough of extraneous thoughts and feelings. He didn't need the brief check. He knew he was prepared.
Today, though, he had an audience.
Inside
the dark bowels of the unfinished communal apartment, Lieutenant
Paolo Forelli gestured for Second Squad, First Platoon to
methodically the area for the enemy.
They found none.
Lucky break for the bad guys. They get to live just a little longer.
First Platoon was half of Section One's anti-terrorist commando force. Its troopers were veterans drawn from the Italian armed forces' special operation units, the Carabinieri and occasionally the regular police force. Like any special ops unit, they considered themselves to be the best. This was especially the case when comparisons with their sister organization arose. We may not be bulletproof like Section One's dolls, First Platoon's commanders reiterated day after day, but we're a damned sight better.
Today's mission was relatively easy. Intelligence tracked a small group of Padania terrorists to a government-funded construction area in Naples. For once the explanation was simple and obvious. Padania was up to its usual "North versus South" racket, planning for a big bang to underline their verbal filibusters.
Section One would put a quick end to their nonsense.
Aggressively scouting ahead was Lieutenant Milo D'Agosta's First Squad. Typical of the former Marine and avid boxer. Forelli was ex-Carabinieri, hence his more cautious approach. But both men were good, their teams top notch. They all geared up for bear. Bulletproof vests, helmets, night vision gear, silenced M-16A2 automatic rifles and MP-5 SD2 submachine guns, plus fragmentation and flash bang grenades. Their prey: men.
Everyone was in high spirits. Section One routinely crossed paths with Padania. And always won.
"An exercise," D'Agosta brashly announced that morning briefing. He was the Platoon commander's 'personal pet', was never wrong.
Fifteen minutes into the 'exercise', things began to go wrong.
The
first kill was the easiest. Always was. Crouched upon an overhead
support girder, just another shadow, he waited until the first enemy
squad passed him. Until his chosen target, Tail End Charlie– a
morbid term for the last man in a formation–, slowed just a bit to
check their six, intentionally lagging behind and out of sight of his
team.
He struck. Black monofilament quickly looped around the commando's neck. It took only a slight tensing of his fingers and wrists to tighten it, only a moment for the doomed man to notice something was amiss. Then, gripping the wires tight, the boy soundlessly dropped from his perch opposite the bigger man, pulling down hard even as his feet hit the ground.
His falling weight and sudden motion jerked the soldier upwards a foot or so, instantly snapping the man's neck, the wire lightly cutting into skin and muscle and a scream. The boy braced himself, yanked harder, didn't release until the body on the other end went completely still. Only then did he let it slump to the ground.
The boy sighed.
One down. Four more to go.
Gathering himself, he exploded into a noiseless run. The main enemy group wasn't that far off, was just now turning back to check on their missing teammate. He'd use that slight bafflement to get in close. To stealthily take down at least one more target before finally engaging them outright.
Hunter was now hunted.
"Alpha,
this is Bravo. Come in. Alpha, come in. Alpha? Milo? Can you hear me?
Someone, come in! Come in, damn it!"
No one answered. The lines were still jammed.
Lieutenant Forelli cursed.
Instincts told him it was a trap. Training and procedure called for a pull-out and reassessment of the situation. First Squad was probably gone, anyway.
But he couldn't leave his fellow commandos behind. Not while there was a chance someone in First Squad was still alive. Not while they were still alive.
No one gets left behind.
Not for the first time, Forelli wished for his old partner back in the Carabinieri. Good man in a storm. Too bad Giuseppe chose to join the dollhouse instead. For such a man to die in a car accident– but that was a month ago. No time for that.
"We'll continue the mission."
The
boy dwelt within self-inflicted darkness, his breathing relaxed,
meditating upon his next steps.
He had just destroyed an entire squad of well-trained and heavily-armed soldiers. It wasn't as difficult as his sensei had feared. He even had time to leave a surprise message for the police clean-up teams. His mission was good as done.
But the situation had changed. Against established protocol, the second enemy squad doubled back, following the path of the first squad. The enemy leader merited attention. His elimination took top priority.
Now things got harder. The opposition was alerted to his presence now. But they were built to fight an enemy similar in composition and organization to their own. They did not know, nor were ready for, the likes of him. He'd play on that uncertainty soon enough. For now, he waited.
The
troopers of Second Squad were good soldiers. No one questioned their
new orders. None betrayed outward signs of fear and confusion.
Instead, they dwelt upon their self-proclaimed invincibility for
reassurance.
We're prepared. Whatever happened to First Squad, it won't happen to us.
They happened on the first body soon enough. Gleaming metal wires hung taut from an overhead girder. The razor lengths were still wrapped tight around their unlucky victim. Forelli's previous training as a policeman went into action. Though the wires were deep into the man's neck, it wasn't strangulation or blood loss that caused his death, but a broken neck.
From then on, someone always checked the ceiling.
Not far from the first, another corpse sprawled upon a still-expanding pool of blood. Half a dozen stab wounds perforated his back. Judging by the spent casings and bullet marks decorated the area, Forelli deduced that the man managed to fire his weapon, but didn't hit anything. The discharge would have warned the rest of First Squad. For all the good that did.
Undeterred by the violence they witnessed, furious at the enemy and at their own helplessness, Second Squad cautiously moved on. Agonizingly slow minutes later, they entered the final killing ground that was the first floor lobby.
The scene was straight out of a bad horror movie. Three bodies littered the place. The nearest was another knife victim, a slim throwing stiletto still buried in his throat. His companion was messier. Somehow the Kevlar-reinforced fiberglass/steel helmet had been split wide open. Brain oozed out of that ragged gash. Next to the dead man was an M-16. Or rather, two pieces of what had been an M-16, chopped cleanly in half.
"My God," someone groaned.
Turning to chastise the offender, Forelli choked on a gasp himself.
Milo D'Agosta splayed against a rusting wall. The big man was shorter by a head, which was set upon his chest, held in place by lifeless hands. Both eyes were open, his pupils dilated. His mouth was frozen in a silent scream.
Forelli could see it all now. The killer initially chose to pick off his targets one by one. Once First Squad wised up to him, he abruptly switched tactics. Attacked head-on. Won. 'Arranged' D'Agosta's body. Disappeared– or hid.
Had been waiting ever since.
This massacre was the work of a single man. Not a single gunshot wound on the bodies indicated a preference for bladed weapons. Knives and swords. That a single person armed with such archaic weaponry decimated an entire five-man fire team, even given superior tactics and home terrain, spoke volumes. The M-16 sliced in half pointed to yet another terrible possibility, one Forelli refused to consider until he'd seen it with his own eyes. And he didn't plan to stay long enough to do so.
Simply put, Second Squad was out of their league. Looking at his men, Forelli realized his fatal mistake. He'd brought his team this far only for them to die.
"Team, pull out. Now!"
It was too little, too late.
The
boy waited until the enemy began to retreat. Strapped to his right
arm was a six-shot needle launcher device. The darts were half as
long as a pencil and much thinner, their black length laced with a
fast-acting muscle-stopping poison. Its range topped out at six
meters, was good for only one shot. But the launcher offered many
advantages: a stealthy, easy to conceal ranged weapon that didn't
give out telltale flashes or noise when firing; relatively good
accuracy; was near impossible to jam; and could engage several
dispersed targets simultaneously. He saved it for this specific
occasion.
First up: a barrage out of the blue. Then he'd rush the shocked survivors. Not especially elegant, but in the ever-fluid battlefield forward simplicity was often best. This was no honorable tourney between pennant-bearing knights, but a down-and-dirty brawl where anything went and the only condition was to win.
His blade was out now. He placed his forearm perpendicular to the enemy squad's position, taking care to make sure that at least two commandos were in his line of fire. Slowly, silently, he pulled back on the device's twine 'trigger'. A slight aiming correction at the last moment, and then he released.
Half a dozen needles silently sliced through the air– and through three commandos.
Two died almost instantly, the first's heart stopped by a poisoned needle.
One.
A second followed closely, his right lung pierced, his yelp of alarm tapering off abruptly as he stopped breathing.
Two.
The last dart only grazed the right arm of the third commando, the team leader. He dropped to his knees with a grunt. So did his M-16A2. Bullets ricocheted off concrete.
Not quite 'three'. It'll do. Save him for last.
The remaining two commandos vainly sought out their attacker. One saw something moving in the dark. An MP-5 SD2 opened up, the muzzle flash blinding, the gunfire itself much subdued.
He quickly closed the distance. Crouched low into a loping run to present a minimal target profile, he made less noise than the silenced gun aimed his way. Bullets whizzed over his head, missed again and again.
The Nepalese kukri was one of the best, most effective and feared melee weapons ever made. His customized blade was twenty inches in length and weighed almost four pounds, much larger than usual. Despite its size, it could be perfectly balanced on a finger. Like his darts and stilettos, the kukri's blade was anodized black for night action, its killing edge the only shiny betrayal of its presence. That was what the commando saw: a thin silver hook borne by a living shadow, the deadly gleam sweeping upwards.
The heavy knife cleanly gutted him open from the groin and up across the belly, biting deep into the right side of his rib cage, and then exiting his body. The man screamed.
Without breaking a sweat, the boy arrested his upwards slash, twisted his wrist to reverse his grip and brought the kukri down.
Three.
Almost simultaneously his left hand snapped out. The farther commando toppled backwards, finger still holding down the trigger of his gun, the black-bladed stiletto making itself quite at home in an eye.
And four.
Four men in just a little over ten seconds. Even his sensei had to approve of that.
One enemy left. The squad leader, the one he'd disabled earlier.
He tugged his kukri free of its grisly chopping block. Turned to stare down a pistol barrel.
Inwardly
Forelli cursed. The lopsided battle took all of maybe fifteen
seconds.
His right arm was numb, useless. His team was gone, his troopers all dead. And their killer, a boy of thirteen or fourteen, approached with grim intent.
But he still had his left hand– and an M9 Beretta.
The ex-Carabinieri resisted the impulse to fire wildly. Instead he deliberately took time to bracket the approaching monster in his sights.
No helmet. No flak jacket. No armor. He wore somewhat ordinary black clothes, a sweater with loosely long sleeves and matching pants, nothing fancy. No wonder he moved so fast. Nothing to weigh him down. But that meant he couldn't take hits. Not at this range. Not with a leftie expert pistol shot.
Forelli fired.
The boy didn't make any move to dodge. Instead, his left arm blurred–
What the fuck, thought the commando, still firing…
–the blocking arm jerked and rung with every hit. He didn't bleed. Didn't scream. Only kept walking forward.
The Beretta clicked on empty. It slipped from nerveless fingers, clattered loudly upon the floor, as its owner stared.
The boy ripped off his tattered left sleeve to reveal a dented ceramic forearm guard. Not one shot had gotten through that protective aegis.
He caught all my shots…
"You're a mechanical body!"
Relentless, an unstoppable juggernaut, the boy moved into the shaft of light. The kukri came up.
Forelli exhaled upon seeing the youthful face of his executioner.
Giuseppe…
"Mission
complete."
"Excellent. Proceed to the pre-assigned exit point."
"Roger."
The video feed ended.
The conference host could have been mistaken for a girl, what with his flowing silver hair and soft features. But the eyes regarding his diverse collection of guests were intelligent and pragmatic. "Well?"
"Impressive." The Russian was definitely awed. "Very impressive."
"Indeed," agreed his Frenchman seatmate.
"That he was outnumbered ten to one," noted one of three Arabs present, "And used bladed weapons instead of guns, but still won…"
"How many of them do you have?" the single American, and lone woman, of the group asked.
"Currently we have a single operational unit. The prototype, if you will. You have just witnessed him in action. We are slowly bringing a second trial unit online. Afterwards, we can go into limited mass production based on order placements."
"One thing." The lone Brit looked thoughtful. "This exercise of yours was staged against Section One, right? Don't they have their own mechanical bodies?"
"Section Two is the cyborg division, not Section One. And their units are inferior to ours. After all," the handsome young man pointed out with a menacingly winsome smile, flanked as he was by two hulking figures too big to be human, "They're not Black Technology. None of them are Whispered."
The
boy remained quiet throughout the trip home. That struck his driver
as troublesome.
"Problems?"
"That last man I killed. Sensei, he called me by name."
"Do you recognize him?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm using the special conditioning. Remember?"
"You are. I remember."
His chauffeur was also his sensei, his master and mentor. Also a Whispered, whatever that meant. And his best friend, the only one he had in Amalgam.
"If he knows you, but you don't recognize him… Hmmm. Only explanation I can think of is that you reminded him of someone he knew."
"Or maybe I've forgotten."
"Don't belittle yourself so. You've a better memory than me. By the way," the man added, "Elena-chan sent you a message over SMS." He returned the boy's cell phone.
"Thank you, Darren-sensei."
"You're welcome."
In need of a pleasant distraction for the both of them, the man played one of his favorite CDs. The song was Japanese with a sprinkling of accented English in the refrain. The boy didn't understand much of it, not having done very well in his Japanese language classes. He didn't mind. He found the gibberish soothing, preferred its innocent twaddle to the rational cruelty of the world and of people. He read his sister's message.
Hi,
big brother. I hope you're okay. They told me you were working
again. Don't tire yourself too much, and be careful, okay? Me,
well, I'm okay here. The doctors say I'm doing great. Pretty
soon, I can go with you wherever you go, too. I can't wait!
Love you. Elena. ♥
Giuseppe
smiled. He started working on a reply.
Life
Goes On moeagaru
Inochi ga aru kagiri
Shinjitsu no jibun sae miushinaisou soredemo
Life Goes On mamoritakute
Kokoro wa kudakarete
Hontou no kanashimi wo shitta hitomi wa
Ai ni afurete
Life
Goes On passionately.
As long as I am alive
Even if I were to lose sight of my real self,
Life Goes On; I want to protect it.
My heart was broken,
And in those eyes that have seen true sorrow,
Love overflows…
Over
tea and biscuits, hoeing soil and planting seeds, certain souls
slowly draw closer and closer into conflict– or resolution. Next on
Life Goes On: Bivio (Crossroad)
