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Chapter 8
But she didn't try to approach him after that and suddenly the battles were becoming more and more deadly with a further edge to them. And for the first time, he was really trying to stay alive, trying against every odd thrown at him, to live. The Commander Le Creuset was encouraging, he never said being the last redcoat left , and he never tried to imply that his days were numbered, and Yzak believed in the commander more than ever because really, there was very little left to believe in.
Some time after Nicol had died, ORB, a neutral nation which had neither obligations to EA or ZAFT, brought Athrun Zala back to the Vesalius. Athrun Zala would return to PLANT to recuperate for a while, or so he heard from one of the bridge officers, and he had been awarded a medal for taking down the Strike, something Yzak had meant to do.
And he waited outside for Athrun Zala to arrive, and he knew the sun was setting. Half of him was swathed in blood reds and coral pinks and oranges that blinded him, but he ignored the dazzling array of colours when he saw Athrun Zala step out, his arm securely put in a sling and his emerald eyes somehow wiser but sadder than ever.
'What happened?' he thought suddenly, and then Yzak saw flashes of his life skimming like little pieces of lost dreams everywhere. He recalled the sting of the slap whenhis mother's palm had connected with his cheek, the fierce emotion of longing when he saw her laugh and praise the other children, and then remembered Shiho's melancholic face and her beautiful eyes and felt like a wounded animal.
But Athrun paused in front of him now, and Yzak stared at him, seeing pain his friend felt through the windows of is emerald eyes. He didn't bother asking if Athrun had recovered, it wasn't much of his style too.
Instead, Yzak remained in the position, half-leaning, half-standing against the wall with one leg bent to prop himself up against it with his arms crossed in a stand-offish position.
And they looked at each other in silence, and Yzak saw anguish in the eyes that reminded him of the way Shiho had looked at him, and he was silent. But then he managed to speak up and break the awkward silence that had enveloped them just minutes ago.
"I will beat you once and for all," he declared, and he put his unwavering gaze on Athrun Zala, who in the past, would have remained silent but shown an edge of competitiveness in his eyes.
But now, he merely smiled, and his smile was brief and very sad, and Yzak was reminded of Nicol's song he had played for Shiho. And h was filled to the brim with bitterness, but the wisdom and knowledge of something in the smile he now saw filled him with something else, something less dominant next to his bitterness, but something more detectable- disconcertment.
Then Athrun Zala offered his hand and he shook it firmly, wondering what had made Athrun become so inflicted with pain and wisdom all at once.
Much later, he saw the last member of the Atha clan and understood, but at that point in time when he didn't know who the person who had a strange gift to break through Athrun Zala's barriers was, he was filled with wonder at the strange wisdom in Athrun Zala's eyes.
So while Athrun left, going back for PLANT, Yzak stayed on the Vesalius with Shiho.
She didn't say very much either, and they didn't meet enough for him to attempt conversations with her, but he knew she was growing weaker and weaker every day, as if the core of steel in her was being worn down by forces he couldn't identify or even begin to fight. But then sometimes, he understood that it was the war that had made both of them like that.
And sometimes, he thought he knew that she pined for Nicol, or that was what he had thought, since on one random day, he had been in the Duel reprogramming some key elements when she had darted in like a little shadow, perhaps helped by the fact that the gravity pull in the grounds weren't stable, and he looked, startled when he heard a swishing sound her hair made as she came in, and before he knew it, she had suddenly thrown her arms around him.
He didn't know what to do then even though he had promised her that he would be a substitute for Nicol for as long as she wanted, because the arms around his neck poured an insane jealousy and possessiveness in him,and at the same time, it filled him with something very startlingly gentle and loving he didn't know he was able to feel in the first place. He could have chosen to push her away and tell her the deal was off, but the stakes were high and he wanted to continue playing the game, simply because he wanted her to be with him.
And when they heard noises from below the cockpit, probably the other mechanics had arrived for work; he had to break the silent embrace and looked carefully at her face. But he saw something that looked like pain and lost hope there, and he knew his face mirrored the same, and she pushed off, using the seat as a spring board and making a quick getaway.
But he sprung into action, using the desk as a wall the way she had similarly used the desk and captured her hand in his, absently pushing the button that shut and locked the cockpit the way he always did when they needed to make a sortie. Do the door slid with a mechanical 'whoosh' sound, and then nothing could be heard from outside.
She didn't struggled get away, but she was looking at him with her violet eyes wide with apprehension and something he vaguely recognised as longing, and his heart stopped for a minute, but then he remembered something in the nick of time and said ruefully while placing his hands on her shoulders, "I suppose you missed Nicol."
"I did,' she said softly, allowing him to brush her longhair out of her face without flinching, he was surprisingly gentle even though his voice was brusque, "But I miss Nicol everyday."
"I know you do," he interrupted bitterly, but he kept his movements clean and made them as smooth as possible, because something told him that Shiho would bolt if he suddenly made any jerk action, "But I suppose it gets beyond a point and you remembered there's always someone for a rebound."
Then Yzak immediately regretted his words, but then he had a sick sensation of triumph quite akin to the way he had eliminated soldiers from other frontiers one by one and watched them explode while trapped in their mobile weapons. And he was infinitely sure that she had somehow managed to make him blur the line concerning love and hatred, and now he loved and hated her, he wanted to protect and hurt her all at once.
She was silent, ignoring his barb at her, and he suddenly realised she was thinking and thinking very deeply. Then something moved in her eyes and she said firmly, but strangely emotionlessly, "Nicol was a friend, possibly my best friend, but then he wasn't anything more."
"You liar," he whispered, closing his eyes and suddenly feeling the pain of the scar across his face, almost as if the Strike had only just slashed across the flesh, "You don't have to pretend, because even if you do, I still will be a substitute willingly."
"Why?' she asked flatly, pushing his hand away from her cheek and glaring up at him while he stared back at her.
"I want to keep you with me," he said just as firmly as before, and something was hurting in a very faraway, numb place within his chest, but he ignored the little pain and concentrated at looking at Shiho. Then to spite her, he added swiftly, "I like winning."
She was hurt, he could tell, because Shiho was biting her lips and they turned a pale, ashy colour and her eyes were cold, but she remained close to him, almost as if she remembered she still wanted to use him for comfort since Nicol wasn't around.
"You like winning," she echoed softly, and she was remembering the way she had hidden in a corner and watched Yzak leaping time and again at Athrun Zala and tring to win him during the sparring duels with knives. He was vicious with everyone, he made cynical remarks and lost his temper as easily as the wind could blow, but she knew he carried wounds and the edge in him was a little less sharp and a little less harsh when she was there.
"I do," he said harshly, pulling her closer to him, "And I believe this war will be over very soon and the Coordinators will win once and for all."
"I don't really care about the war," she said slowly, considering what he had declared, "I never really did."
"I know you don't," he said flatly, "You don't really care much about anything other than those machines and Nicol."
Shiho knew he wanted to hurt her, but if he wanted to, she'd let him for a bit, because if he felt better after hurting someone else, she would be satisfied to know she had been hurt to take away a little of the pain he was carrying somewhere too, even if both of them didn't want to admit it. So she didn't argue with him or try to tell him again that she didn't love Nicol the way she loved him, and she pursed her lips together.
"The Freedom's been stolen,' he said abruptly, changing the topic because he was tired of thinking and tired of knowing that he was playing a game with nearly all his cards open to the world whereby he lost much and gained little or no affection from the very person who mattered to him more than anything .
"And Lacus Clyne is a traitor. What do you make of all of that now?" he continued abruptly, and he slowly wrenched his hands form her shoulders and threw himself into the pilot's seat, looking stubbornly at the screens with the status of all the parts of the Duel and not bothering to look at Shiho.
"I've never met her," Shiho replied emotionlessly, still standing where he had left her, "I wouldn't know what she's capable of."
"So you mean that if you meet a person, you know what they're capable of there and then?" he scoffed, keying in some code into the system for lack of better option.
"Yes," she answered, and he knew that she had came up from behind and was standing directly behind him.
He considered what she had said and placed a hand over his face and closed his eyes, then he said in a muffled tone, "What did you think I was capable of doing when I met you when we were children?"
"I knew you were the type who got into fights faster than anyone else," she replied in a low voice, "I knew you were capable of hurting people and hurting yourself even when we were children."
"All that negative stuff" he snorted, turning slightly so he could se her standing there with her head low and bowed, "Nothing nice?"
"I knew," she continued as if she didn't hear the sarcasm or the word she spoke for that matter even, "that you were capable of winning because you had a streak of pride somewhere and wouldn't give up so easily."
And he thought of the way he had woken up in the infirmary with tubes sticking out everywhere and the doctors telling him that he could have died if he hadn't had a fighting spirit so strong that he withstood a full-out assault from the Strike, although the scar running across his face was testimony to the fact that he hadn't been unscathed either.
Then he realised that he had been staring absently at her for a long time and Yzak instantly realized that his cheeks were flaming for no reason at all, except that she was still not looking at him but tilting her head slightly so that her eyes were well focused on a spot in the cockpit.
He could have liked her innocently like the way most were entitled to loved her the way teenagers often had crazy, wild emotions and had crushes and that sort of thing they had talked about it school. But he wasn't in school anymore, he was fighting a war, and by Coordinator standards, he was an adult, and he had killed more than a few already. How could he love her as simply as what it was ought to be?
"This war will be ending soon," he interrupted his thoughts determinedly, training his blue eyes on hers, "And the N-jammer prototype is with us, so the next few battles will be a breeze."
"It will be a breeze," she repeated mechanically, not looking at him still, but looking past him.
"And when this war is over," he said, surprising himself by the gentleness his own voice held, "and if we're both still alive, and if you want help, I'll give it to you."
"I suppose you want the engagement to still hold?" she whispered, snapping her eyes up briefly to meet his before they dropped again.
"No," he muttered, "No strings attached whatsoever."
"If we're still alive when this war's over," she said quietly, and then her voice grew louder and more confident, "I want to be friends with you."
"Weren't we always friends?" he said brokenly, but then he offered a smile although his stomach was clenching and unclenching itself. Then he looked at her and saw that she was smiling too, and he felt a little less nauseous when she said softly, "We always will be then."
It was terribly strange, Yzak reflected later, his friends were either dead or MIA, save for Athrun back in PLANT. And he didn't even know if Athrun had the heart to remain in the war fighting for the Coordinators. That left Shiho and him. And there he was, willing to put so much at stake for a single person while knowing that he would be a substitute at best for Nicol Amalfi.
But he didn't mind, because believing in something was better than having nothing to believe in at all.
And Shiho Hahenfuss was a little more than a child at times, lost and innocent with the ways of the world, she could kill, every soldier in ZAFT was trained to, let alone a redcoat, but then he was sure she hadn't killed before. And then he was doubtful whether he deserved to try and make her feel for him they way he did for her because of his hands that were stained with so much blood.
"We will always be friends," he repeated very steadily, looking up at her from where he was sitting, and he stood up and pulled her towards him, noting the easy manner she slid into his embrace almost like she was made to fit there. Then he kissed her fiercely and roughly brushed away the tears that had unwittingly gathered at the ends of her eyes and hung of her eyelashes like pearls.
"Now go," he said, but not unkindly, "And stay alive."
"And you?" she replied softly, extracting herself from his arms and gulping a little.
"I'll try to stay alive too," he said ruefully, "And my mother will be waiting for me, although she's probably busy with all that blasting on the radio as Chairman Zala's top supporter. Probably trying to locate where Lacus Clyneis doing her own broadcasts,"
He didn't know whether he approved or not, just that he wanted to kill anyone who hurt people he wanted to protect, and that included the Naturals who had hurt his mother a long time ago.
Yzak Joule had a general disdain for Naturals that had deepened into hatred over time, coupled with his volatile nature and unforgiving ruthlessness at times, he was brought into a killer and was aided and abetted by Rau Le Creuset, although he didn't know it at that time. But he was only a pawn in the war, and pawns didn't know they were being manipulated until it was too late.
So now he watched as Shiho moved out of the cockpit and didn't bother looking back. Her ship would be leaving soon, and then he'd probably never see her again unless they both landed back in PLANT, and they'd promised to be friends if they ever had a chance to meet again. He didn't want to be her friend, he wanted to be more than that, but now wasn't' the time. He had some Naturals to kill.
But that was what he thought, and when the time came to fight during the Battle of Porta, he was unable to kill once the enemies were rendered helpless with the N-jammers.
So he watched from an elevated position in his mobile weapon and saw the soldiers being brought out and made to kneel, their hands behind their back, their heads bowed in their last prayers, as a single officer, whoever the damned one was, went down a line and shot each and everyone of the helpless pilots through their heads or between their eyes.
The blood splattered everywhere, and the smell of rust and something else that sickened him was apparent everywhere when he alighted from his own weapon.
'It could have been me," was all he thought that day and he recalled the terrible grief and fear in the eyes of those who had died without a chance to fight for themselves that day.
Yzak Joule, for all his rage and hatred for those against the Coordinators, wasn't without his pride and honour, and it sickened him now to realise that the world wasn't as simple as black-and-white wars with clear winners and sides that won or lost fair and square.
The last time he would see Shiho for the present, that is, he thought wryly, I there even was a future when they made it out of the mess the world was in, was during the flight with all the soldiers to the grounds where Shiho would follow her ship back and they'd go their separate ways.
The Commander had been strange as of lately, he would have an expression of intense pain sometimes, and that was strange considering how most of his face was masked. And once, Yzak caught him swallowing pills that he had never seen before, and he didn't suppose those were for a headache or anything of that sort.
And there was a girl who had joined them on board the Vesalius, Fllay something, since he had heard the commander addressing her.
It had been his duty to stand next to the Commander on the flight back even while the other soldiers were seated while he had to stand there when he was of a higher rank. Nothing in this world made sense anymore.
And he barked at the girl, "Sit!" the way he would have addressed a dog, since she was a creature of pitiful countenance, a Natural, quite obviously. It was clear she was quite frightened of Coordinators and had an edgy look in her eyes when she obeyed him instantly.
Yzak got a good look at her when she sat next to the Commander, she had very striking features with long silky red hair and grey eyes, and she was quite beautiful, really. But he didn't care much for her, he didn't even know why she was there, and he couldn't be bothered to find out either.
But from what he observed, the girl was quite dependent on the commander; she leaned close to him during the turbulence and was very keen to stay near him as if he was the only person she wasn't afraid of. But Yzak could see that something in her was unstable, very unpredictable and very wild. So he avoided her.
But he knew she was staring at him, perhaps wondering where he had gotten his scar or how pale his colouring was. He didn't even bother feeling self-conscious because he didn't really have to prove anything to a Natural. She kept eyeing him as if she wanted to try and make a conversation, but he didn't bother trying to speak to her at all, and she eventually gave up before she even started.
She was strange, he decided while standing there with his hands behind him in the customary position when asked to be at ease, she was timid but obviously, she had been used to getting her way, he could tell that somehow. And she was woefully displaced, in a ship filled with Coordinators and the only Natural amongst their midst.
Nearby in another seat at the back, Shiho watched a red-haired girl staring at Yzak and wondered what she was up to. A Natural on board the Vesalius? That was strange. But she had seen Yzak snap at the girl and felt sorry for her because Yzak wasn't trying to be mean or anything, he was just like that.
And Shiho briefly wondered why she had allowed herself to become so attached to him and so needy of a person at all. She had annulled the engagement back then because she had been filled with pride and anger at being subject to someone else's will but her own, and she didn't want to marry him just for the sake of following instructions.
When she had returned to Aprilius after her father died, Ezalia had sent for her, and something told Shiho that nobody else knew of the fact that she was back in Aprilius One.
Ezalia, still beautiful but with the edge in her quite similar to Yzak had asked concernedly enough, "How are you feeling, my dear?"
Her own father had called her that once, but she hadn't liked it and asked him not to. And now, a complete stranger was addressing her by the same term of endearment, and Shiho had to fight the nausea and grief that rushed over her. And she had to fight the ruge to scream in rage, "How would you be feeling if your own father just died?"
"Fine," she said politely even though a wave of pain had swept over her.
"You know," Ezalia had begun tactfully, "Your father mentioned the engagement before he passed on, didn't he?"
"Yes," Shiho had said with a slight pause, "He said I was engaged to your son."
"Now," Ezalia said, her tone suddenly brisk and business-like, "I am in all favour of that arrangement, after all, I made it myself, but I need your consent since your father cannot approve and finalise it. "
"May I ask something?" she had whispered painfully.
"Go ahead," Ezalia had said cautiously, realising this could be the start of unwanted complications, and she had been quite right because Shiho had looked at her and asked softly, "Why would you allow your son to take a wife like me? There are plenty of other girls with better credentials than I can ever begin to imagine."
And Ezalia had sighed, but she eventually turned around and said, "It's not the matter of credentials, and I'm not so ruthless as to pick a girl based on her credentials, as crude as that sounds by itself. You're asking me why I approached Steiner Hahenfuss and offered this the first day I met his daughter? I cannot tell you now because the time isn't ripe nor right. One day you will know why I asked specifically for Shiho Hahenfuss for my son."
And that insecurity was enough to drive Shiho insane in her anguish and she had said fiercely, "I'm annulling the engagement as of this moment; I don't need the help you're offering if I agree to the engagement."
Ezalia Joule had remained rooted firmly in her seat, not saying anything to try and convince Shiho otherwise, but then Shiho caught a glimpse of her face before she marched out, and she saw that the beautiful azure eyes, presumably once sparkling and bright, were dulled with grief and pain.
She knew Yzak Joule didn't particularly like her and she didn't want him to like her either, but that had been in the past. When she realised that she had nowhere that truly belonged to her, she had enlisted and met him again, and then slowly, she had gotten used to him. And now he was saying he didn't mind her, and she was filled with a naive happiness but knew everything was confusion.
Her words couldn't make him understand anything, so she tried to ot her arms around him, but he didn't understand either. And if they made it through the war, alive, they'd be friends. Shiho was fine with that, and she sighed involuntarily and watched the Natural girl glance almost sneakily at Yzak.
And when the ship landed and she caught a final glimpse of Yzak moving off in another direction as opposed to the one she was moving in, she felt a dull ache and wanted to cry, but then she clenched her jaw tightly and promised herself that she'd be glad if he even made it through this alive.
