author's note
I would like to take this brief moment to thank my readers and my beta for all the help, support, and motivation they have provided. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my take on her early fratello years, and a special thanks to SeraphJewel's "Vita e Morte" for inspiring this all.
Last of all, thanks to Yu Aida for conceiving this fabulous manga series in the first place. Without Yu, there would be no Elsa, no Lauro, and no wonderful story line to go off of.
N U O V A V I T A — N E W L I F E
act X
I am furious. I am unhappy. I am sad.
On the journey back to Rome, Lauro berates me for my behavior in Siena. He tells me what an idiot I am, how useless I've become, tells me that I'll have to focus and work harder, or there will be more company on my missions from now on.
No.
I cannot deal with that. I cannot continue to exist knowing Lauro hates me so irrevocably so, and I will not stand to have a tagalong on my endeavors.
Is there a way to fix this? I muse, staring out the window. We are almost home.
The side-mirror catches my eye again. I can see that horrific girl and her handler, laughing together in the car behind us. My eyes narrow into merely green slits and I look away, gazing at my supervisor.
"Mr. Lauro," I intone, clearly not endorsing the polite attachment. Not anymore.
"What?"
"I have something very important to show you tonight. It's at the park. Will you take me there?"
He glances at me, apprehensively. "Alright."
He then sighs irritably, as if I am a nuisance.
"This better be worth it."
Trust me, Lauro. It is. I must find something out for myself, something that may in fact dictate my future with you, it is that staggering.
I spend the rest of the day in my dormitory, polishing my pistol with precise care, neglecting to eat in the mess hall with everybody else. I sigh, running the cloth along the P229's obsidian barrel, and stare at the gun that has aided me so well during my service. Lauro chose this gun.
I rehearse my goals inside my mind for possibly the sixtieth time. If he truly hates me, he will not remember. If he believes I am worthless and disposable, then I have failed. Utterly, failed. What happens beyond that mid-point, I don't know. But I am afraid. There is a looming feeling in my stomach at the thought of returning to that place, that place where I had received my name.
"Elsa...deSica," I murmur, removing my hand from the barrel and flexing it in front of my face. "Who was I once, and what will I become...?"
With these words spoken, I turn to my window. It is becoming sunset; soon, the deciding moment will draw near. I take a clip out of my violin case and stand up, and stroll over to the mirror set on my dresser. I load my pistol with a sharp snap! sound as I stare at my reflection defiantly, and she staring back at me, grim.
I know the cyborg's weakness. It is the eyes — my own pair of green, unextraordinary eyes. Who would have thought that they would end up being the only possible way to kill me? Of course, a bullet to the eye is a bullet to the brain, and a bullet to the brain will kill you. It is quite elementary. I wonder if the other cyborgs would've figured it out, had they not been told.
Probably not.
With another sigh, I place the gun in my hand on the table and wander over to the chair next to my window without it, sitting down. I rest my head upon the windowsill, and am greeted by none other than my supervisor's eye, watching me. I tilt the frame facedown and avert my gaze.
For the remaining hours, I am merely contemplative, until the clock strikes ten PM. A knock sounds from my door and I answer it, and am accosted by the man my feelings are so undoubtedly mixed on. He gazes downwards at me, slouching, hands in his pockets.
"Hurry up, let's go."
I nod and shut the door a second time. Lauro, it seemed, was consistently in a hurry to get things done; I pondered this while I picked up my P229 and strategically hooked it onto the back of my skirt, and covered it with my coat. I do not know at the time what possessed me to take my pistol along, but I did.
I neglect my hat and scarf and open the door a second time. We set off wordlessly down the corridor. Lauro waves to Giuseppe as he passes.
We scarcely converse whatsoever when we reach his Jeep. I tell him the specifics on how to get to our destination, and am quietly worried for the outcome of tonight as I sit down and click my seatbelt on.
"So what were you going to show me?" Lauro inquires halfway there, one arm casually slung over the steering wheel.
"I'll show you when we arrive, Mr. Lauro," I reply, staring ferociously ahead of me.
"...Like I said, it better be worth it."
I think about responding to his statement with a question of why he's so concerned, but decide not to. We will correspond as much as needed when we get there.
The park is not far from a shopping district; I remember, albeit faintly, coming there with Lauro when I first met him. Clear recollections alluded me often these days, for what reasons I do not know.
He stops the car and parks it, and we walk the remaining distance there, he in front of me, walking indolently. My Lauro; not a man of real effort, it appears. I wonder why this hadn't been clarion to me from the beginning.
Or perhaps it was, I merely decided to ignore it in favor of his more positive attributes.
A dark, seemingly sinister section of my mind related this particular night to Judgment Day; the day when God judges the morale of individual humans or the entire race as whole. I shudder and attempt to push the concept out of my mind, to focus on more vital things.
"So what do you want?" Lauro asks me, his tone reminiscent of a bored child.
"Mr. Lauro," I begin, noting that we have arrived to the very square in the center of the park where he gave me my name, the benches and trashcans sitting nearby. "Do you...remember this park?"
He freezes and turns around to look at me. "Huh?"
"My name. You gave me my name here. Elsa deSica."
He scratches his head thoughtfully. "Oh, I did? How do you remember that?"
I narrow my eyes.
"It was very important to me, so I never forgot it." I hoped that perhaps my words would speak some semblance of conveyed meaning to my momentarily dense supervisor.
We stand in the middle of the square. I hear crickets chirping all around me. It is not too late, I think — surely, he will recall that day to me in a moment... Surely...
"Is that it?" he says, sounding somewhat miffed as he moves to leave. "Let's go back. We have to wake up early tomorrow."
I don't move a muscle.
"I received my name here," I murmured, so quiet he probably didn't even hear.
This is what I was searching for, all my life, I realize. I have been searching for acceptance, appreciation for my effort, trying to please my supervisor to the best of my abilities. I've made this my life goal... Because he gave me this very life back to me. I received the blood in my veins, the function of my mind, the beating of my heart, all from a single sole individual, and he...
He doesn't care.
I clench my fists as I hear his voice again.
"Elsa, what are you doing? This is the second time you've acted like this," he says, mild irritation setting into his pitch. "Now hurry up."
He waits. Slowly, I turn around on the spot, and notice he has his back turned, hands in his pockets.
"Give me a moment," I tell him, shakily lifting my coat and taking my pistol in my hand.
As I stare at it, my eyes wide, my mind is protesting at my thoughts by this point. It is screaming at me, loudly, yet simultaneously speaking consoling words of comfort that things can go on like this, that I can make things different.
I can make things different, I muse, raising the gun upward with both of my hands, aiming at the back of Lauro's head. I can only do it in a different way.
My finger closes in on the trigger. I try, I try so hard, not to think about what I'm about to do, for it feels more unspeakable than any murders I have ever committed beforehand.
I pull the trigger.
The gun sends off a thunderous bam, followed not too shortly by the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground.
"I'm sorry, Lauro..." I whisper. It is somehow more audible than anything else at this time — and then I realize the sound of the gun scared off the insects that were once conversing to each other.
I didn't truly endorse those words, but inside my mind, I felt them. It is like a separate part of me, one that knows not what I have been feeling as of late. It is a voice that is perpetually stuck in a time before now; I have only neglected to acknowledge its presence, though it is too late.
I open my eyes, almost terrified of what I will see.
My entire form begins to tremble and miniscule tears cloud my vision of Lauro's dead body, a pool of his blood forming around the back of his head. My breathing is hitched and I find it takes considerable effort to continue receiving air into my lungs.
I blink. A slow and uneasy teardrop rolls down my reddened cheek. Soon, more follow after it, as I stand, still pointing the gun where my supervisor stood, incapable once again of grasping control of my motor functions while I cry and smile; a curious mix.
But the sense of weakness I am supposed to experience is not present. As if I have completely and totally abandoned that portion of my brain with the single shot of a pistol. I am whole once more, but there is no purpose for it. I have nothing left. I will probably die soon by the Agency's own hands, deemed useless without a handler.
More useless than I was at this moment.
"Un'altra nuova vita, sprecata," I whisper with a long, shaky exhalation of breath, lowering the pugnacious gun in my hands, still staring, transfixed, at Lauro's dead body, the smile gone from my face.
My eyes dart downwards at the pistol.
The image of that bellboy I killed only yesterday suddenly reappeared in my mind's eye.
I bring the gun slowly, slowly to my face, and stare down the barrel.
I have never known what it is like, to be at the mere trigger pull of death. It is a very unusual prospect. But now... Will I know?
It is a morbid scene, I would imagine. A purely innocent-looking girl standing in the park, the dead body of her father or her brother lying feet from her. And her, pointing the same gun she'd used to kill that man, at her right eye.
Minutes away from suicide.
My stomach feels sick, either from the scent of the blood, or the realization of what I was doing finally got to me. My hands are tight around the P229, my finger lingering dangerously by the trigger.
Two days ago, I would have never guessed that this might be my future, nor that my death would come so soon.
My finger is closer.
I would love to see how they resurrect me this time.
Closer...
"Io mi chiamo..." I murmur softly.
My finger twitches on the trigger.
Bang.