Chapter 11: Can't say I blame you, little guy.

So. These are the Celestial Lands.

Rossiu attempted a mirthless laugh, but could only materialize a croak. That was at least fitting, he figured, considering his dour personality; laughter had become an emotional expression all but alien to the devout adolescent. He felt that he should be pounding this damned and dessicated soil for all he was worth, to tear the garments signifying his faith and shriek to the heavens in anguish at their lies. Yet Rossiu's countenance remained as inexpressive as ever.

A paucity of feeling was not to blame for this inhuman tranquility, Rossiu knew. His subdued, low-key temperament had once been the cornerstone of his somber devotion to the gods. Now it served a far more immediate, visceral - and, now that he could be honest with himself, legitimate - purpose.

"Hey, hey, Darry! I found another new rock!"

"Oh, wow! What color is it, Gimmy?"

"This one's yellow, but it's real sparkly this time. I've never seen anything like it."

"It must be a gift from the gods, Gimmy! Don't you think so, Rossiu?"

"I..." Rossiu's voice caught in his throat as the two kids' conversation put him on the spot. In an amazing bit of irony, the twins had remained blissfully ignorant of their dire situation, despite it being the direct result of their exile from Adai Village. When Ucom's wife unexpectedly gave birth to triplets, bringing Adai's total population to two over the maximum of 50, it seemed to Rossiu to be a curious bit of convenience that the two orphans furthest removed from the rest of the village would be the ones to ascend to the Celestial Lands. Not only would their eternal bliss be assured, but it would also mean the smallest amount of disruption for the village as a whole.

But that did not mean that it would mean the smallest amount of disruption for Rossiu. The acolyte had taken it upon himself to serve as the unofficial caretaker for Gimmy and Darry, spending night and day making sure that they learned and were cared for when they would otherwise be neglected by the city as a whole. He remembered what it meant to be an orphan, what it felt like after his mother had ascended to the Celestial Lands, before Father Magin had taken him under his wing.

And so it was in a fit of pique that Rossiu, reading the Rite of Ascension from the sacred holy book as Gimmy and Darry crossed through the portal to the Celestial Lands, found himself following right behind them. The rash impulsiveness was so unlike the typically level-headed acolyte that, even now, he had trouble explaining it to himself.

But when I did it, he reflected, I thought I saw my mother.

A wave of guilt and shame washed over Rossiu as he realized what he had done. He had ascended without being chosen. He had taken the holy book of the tribe along with him. Those emotions soon shifted, replaced by anger and betrayal as the acolyte realized the truth of what had happened. The portal was sealed behind the three, leaving them with the cruel reality of what these 'Celestial Lands' really were.

Desolate. Barren. Dead.

No eternal happiness awaited them here. Only a slow, meaningless death, the kind that would serve no good save that of the villagers who had cast them out.

The death of my mother. Just his knowledge that his mother had assuredly died out here, wasting away with no one to comfort her, made Rossiu want to unshackle his emotions and curse those who had exiled him with his rage. Instead, he remained numb. No matter his despair, there was one thing Rossiu still held onto: the knowledge of those who still relied on his reassuring calm.

"Yes indeed, Darry," Rossiu finally spoke, nodding at the shiny rock the little girl was holding up to the newly-discovered sky. "It truly is a gift from the gods."

"Two more Gunmen hostiles, dead ahead!" Dayakka bellowed from the depths of his blue and tank-like personal Gunman, now christened the Dayakkaiser.

Kittan pivoted from his position on the Dayakkaiser's flank to a nearby building still under construction. Clambering up a nearby steel beam to get a better vantage point of the attackers, he could see the outlines of two enemy Gunmen. One looked to be roughly the shape of an ape, ferocious and almost feral in its appearance. The other...

"...that's the one I want," Kittan said over his comm-link as he pointed to the second Gunman in the distance, a fixture of enormous spikes with a metal carapace that shone like a crimson beacon in the rising sun. "That's a star. Just like me!"

"Well, someone's certainly been primping their self-esteem," Leeron's voice replied snarkily over the comm.

"Eh, I don't care what you think," Kittan said. "Needs a coat of yellow, but that's the Gunman for me. No doubt about it!"

The leader of the Black Siblings reached into a satchel for a handful of explosives, only to be met with a chiding interruption from Leeron. "Hey, slow down, chicken-hair. We want to hijack the Gunmen, not blow them up. Weren't you paying attention during the briefing?"

"What briefing-" Kittan started incredulously before he stopped and dove behind a wall of debris for cover as a fusillade of missiles was launched at his position. It appeared that he and Dayakka had been spotted.

"Just follow my lead!" Dayakka said, blunting most of the explosions with his Dayakkaiser's armor before pushing forward toward the hostiles, firing his main cannon ahead to cover his allies.

"I swear, working with you boys is like herding cats," Leeron moaned as he rested his head on his console in the main operations tower. "Thank goodness you've got your looks, I guess." The mechanic cycled to the next feed at the central defense zone. "Leeron here. Everything holding up on you fellas' ends? Rear and otherwise..."

"Uh... Iraak here," a slightly confused male answered. "Einzer is providing artillery support while Lagann Gurren is keeping the main Gunmen force occupied..."

"With Yoko!" an irritated female voice interrupted.

"Sorry, yeah, with Yoko. We should be mopping up the rest of them in no time."

"Mmm, good," Leeron said, nodding his head. "By any chance, is Lagann Gurren..."

"No, unfortunately. It's barely even moving," Iraak said. "Enough for it to draw the Beastmen's fire, but it's not going to be much help besides that, it looks like."

"Can't be helped, I guess," Leeron sighed. "Yoko, dear, if you can spare a moment?"

"Yeah?" Yoko's voice crackled through over a din of crossfire.

"Our cute little greenhorn could use a little help with you-know-what."

"Fine," Yoko said, swiveling her sniper's nest to sight down a new target.

Back in the war-torn streets of Gurren City, Kittan found himself pinned down in a narrow alley by the star-shaped Gunman. Just a block ahead the Dayakkaiser was engaging with the other ape-like Gunman, unable to get off a clean shot with its cannon in the close quarters as the two tussled from rooftop to rooftop.

"I can't get any closer," Kittan griped, narrowing his profile as much as he could manage in the cramped quarters. "How are we supposed to take over these things when we can't even get near 'em!?"

"You're supposed to do it at a distance."

Yoko's admonition and the sound of her gunshot alike reverberated through Kittan's ears as he witnessed a high-caliber round tear through a location on the Gunman ahead, just below dead-center on its face. The star-shaped mecha staggered under the impact, its firing coming to a halt as its face began to creak open to reveal the cockpit within.

"Oh, nice one, Yoko," Dayakka said as the Dayakkaiser hopped up away from its opponent with another wild cannon shot. "Go for it, Kittan!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" With his heart pounding so hard he felt it might burst from his chest, Kittan slid out of cover and made a dash for the now-exposed Gunman.

Just one block to go. Just one more block, Kittan repeated over and over in his head, but under the bombardment of the surrounding Gunmen his destination felt as if it were miles away. He felt his muscles strain as he alternately vaulted over rubble and slid under wreckage. His vision blurred as acrid smoke billowed from seemingly every direction around him. Yet Kittan pressed on in the face of all these impediments, undeterred until at last he was confronted with an obstacle he could not ignore: the ape-like Gunman crashing down in front of him to block his path.

"Crap!" Kittan shouted as he stared up at the hostile mecha looming over him. He was a sitting duck in this position, and as the Gunman swiveled to reorient itself and spotted the lone human exposed in the street, he could tell it knew the same thing.

"Don't stop, Kittan!" Hearing the command echoed in his ear, the hot-headed blonde turned his panic to determination as best he could and broke into a full sprint. The hunched Gunman ahead was ready and waiting for him, and raised a clenched fist to crush the human underhand- before that fist was obliterated in the wake of a spectacular shot courtesy of the Dayakkaiser's cannon.

Kittan left the now hand-less Gunman and its furious howling pilot behind him as he finally reached the target. Kicking off the Gunman's foot, he soared up with a magnificent leap to the mouth of its massive face and landed with a gracefully limber pose.

One second later, a knobby fist knocked into Kittan's jaw and took him straight off his feet.

Damn, right, the PILOT, Kittan cursed to himself as he tried to evade the follow-up of his attacker. He could tell that it was some kind of green and stout Beastman, built like a boar, with ferocity and tenacity to match its appearance.

"I won't let you take my Gunman like you did the others!" it roared with a snort, charging to gore Kittan with its curved tusks. Unable to maneuver in the cramped surroundings, the young man was forced to brace himself on his heels and grabbed ahold of the tusks as they lunged toward him. He was barely able to keep the pointed tips from impaling his chest, but even as he grunted and pushed back against the Beastman's assault Kittan could feel his hands bleeding profusely from contact with the surprisingly sharp exterior of the tusks. This was a struggle the human knew he could not win.

"I look forward to dining on your bones, human...!" the Beastman taunted, practically salivating at this point.

"Oh, yeah?" Kittan said as he released one of his hands to reach back into his satchel. "Well, try snacking on this first!"

Drawing out a handful of black orbs, Kittan shoved his hand down the gaping jaw of the stunned Beastman. He crammed as many explosives as he could fit into the gullet of the monstrous enemy, before finally releasing his grip to duck for cover. The porcine foe squealed in shock as a second later Kittan's payload detonated within its body, blowing its head to bits and sending its body toppling out of the cockpit.

"Gross," Kittan said with a wince. "I bet we'll have to clean this thing for days after this."

"You mean you'll have to clean it," Leeron interjected sternly. "I'm not touching any rotten Beastman bits."

"Fine, fine." Kittan rolled his eyes as he slid into the seat and gripped the handles of the controls, feeling unbidden intuition flowing into him as his fighting spirit took hold of the now fully hijacked Gunman. "I've got a battle to get back to, anyway!"

"He says, as the battle's almost over," Leeron muttered.

"Alright, then! A star is born!" Kittan exulted as he pulled the mecha back up to its feet, swinging its arms uproariously as he launched back into the fray. "King Kittan, engage!"

"So that's how that new guy, Kittan, got his Gunman. Iraak's brother, I think his name's Kid, he was able to hijack the other Gunman shortly after that. Pretty good all in all, today."

"I see. Counting the previous Gunmen taken by Dayakka, Iraak, and those twins, then-"

"Jorgun and Balinbow."

"Yes. That would make five Gunmen acquired in total."

"Not counting Lagann Gurren."

"Yes... not counting that," Viral concurred with Yoko, his face a mask at the mention of Team Gurren's flagship mecha.

The female human crossed her hands across her flame-print bra as she appraised the captive Beastman skeptically. "I'm still not sure if I should be talking to you about this stuff," she said.

"There is not much I can do with anything you tell me as a captive, is there?"

"Well... no, I guess."

"Besides, this is the reason you have me here, yes? To assist you with intelligence?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Yoko reluctantly agreed. She had to admit, ever since she had gained the Beastman's confidence things had really picked up for Team Gurren as an effective fighting force. It was Viral who had given Team Gurren the information on the power conduits that regulated the hatches on Gunmen cockpits. That was a revelation that not only greatly aided in the humans' Gunmen hijacking, it also gave them the knowledge to defend against the same tactic in the event that it were ever used against them. His knowledge of Beastmen raid schedules was similarly invaluable, and his extensive familiarity with the various Gunmen types was downright scary.

As it stood, while Yoko had initially been loathe to share the slightest bit of information with Viral, she found herself confiding more and more with her captive through dint of the sheer magnitude of insight he was able to share with her - and by extension, the rest of humanity.

"I still don't know why you're doing this, though," the teenage girl spoke again, crouching down and biting her lip. These days she sat very close to Viral, far too close to ensure her own safety. It didn't scare her.

"I told you before," Viral said. "I just want the fighting to end. No more conflict. No more suffering."

"Yeah, but-"

"Didn't you say you felt the same way?" the Beastman asked rhetorically. He spoke the truth, there. In her frustration and despair Yoko had found herself confessing her deepest emotions to their captive. She found it surprising that he actually listened. She found it even more surprising that he empathized with her in kind.

Did she trust Viral? The question was almost an affront to the warrior who had spent as long as she could remember fighting off the predations of the Beastmen. But the fact that she was asking the question at all spoke volumes.

"How are your Gunmen functioning?" Viral continued, not waiting for an answer to his last question.

"Oh, they're doing good, more or less. Lagann Gurren's still a problem, but it contributes where it counts."

Viral leaned over as much as his bindings would allow, tracing Yoko's curved posture with catlike eyes as he made a reassuring Cheshire grin.

"Tell me about Lagann Gurren."

I did everything right that time, Kamina reflected as he sat slumped over in the cold embrace of the nearly pitch dark cockpit. I know I did.

Kamina knew what it took to pilot Gurren. It was a heavy lift for him - almost cripplingly so - but he had learned very well what the small mecha required from its pilot as a result. The clarity of purpose and fighting spirit were something that he had not always been able to hold onto, especially in the wake of recent events.

But he had it today. Lagann Gurren should have worked. It was working. As the Gunmen raid for the day approached, Kamina had executed a perfect spin-on with the core drill. He felt his consciousness and determination course through the titan; he felt himself reaching the promise of tomorrow through the victory of today.

And then like a circuit feeding back upon itself, it was over. Kamina's control was ripped from him. Not lost control like Kamina had experienced in the past, a sensation of slowly losing grip on the extremities of the mecha until he slipped back into himself. But a painful jolt of being shut down at his very core.

Lagann was fine. The problem was Gurren. The mecha was fighting the will of its master, retracting its drill from the composite Gunman it had been tasked to operate.

"Ha ha ha," Kamina laughed, scraping against the unyielding metal interior with cracked fingertips. "You won't forgive me for what I did to Simon either, will you? Can't say I blame you, little guy."

Leeron tried to ignore the feed to Lagann Gurren's cockpit as he continued to brief Kinon and Leyte, a surly blonde woman, on the various interfaces of Gurren City's Operations Tower. Normally he was guardedly jealous of his technological innovations, but the two females were proving to have a remarkable aptitude for all things mechanical.

"Now then, girls, here you'll see the various readouts for all the Gunmen we have in Team Gurren," Leeron said, pointing to each screen with a flourish of his finger. "The power levels are also displayed, which can fluctuate very wildly depending on the pilot or changing circumstances on the ground."

"Huh. Pretty ingenious, Ron," Leyte commented as she idly chewed on a cigarette wedged in her mouth. "I think I might be able to help clean up a bit of the layout, if you want."

"Please do," Leeron said, looking around the cluttered space and scrunching his nose. "This place needs as much tidying as possible."

"Why aren't the power outputs stable?" Kinon piped up.

"That's an excellent question. No idea," Leeron answered. "For what it's worth, Beastmen-piloted Gunmen seem to have a fairly stable power output. It's only when humans enter the equation that things become volatile."

"That's interesting," Leyte said. "Wonder if we can use that, somehow."

"How about those readouts on that big screen there?" Kinon said, continuing her questions.

"That's a map of the area, with Gurren City at the center," the lead mechanic explained. "The smaller arrows represent possible vectors of Gunmen raids that our scouts have identified. Except for the big one to the west. That's a signal for a recall point that we've found embedded in all the Gunmen we've captured up to now. Our best guess is that it's the Beastmen's home base."

"Huh. If that's the case though, then why...?"

"Why what?" Leeron asked, raising an immaculately threaded eyebrow at Kinon's query.

"Why is it getting closer?"

"I'm so thirsty, Darry," Gimmy wheezed.

"Here, take my last sip of water," Darry whispered to her twin brother. She passed him the flask of the precious liquid, ignoring her own parched throat with a smile as she watched him happily sip at the remaining drops of water.

Rossiu had long relinquished the last of his water to the two children in his care, and it showed on his weathered features. Cradling each of their light bodies in his arms he forced himself to take yet another step across the seemingly endless wastes they had all been condemned to die upon.

Hope had long left the young man. The comforting level-headed thinking that had sustained him beneath the surface now served as a curse, a blight upon his senses that left him with no other conclusion other than that he would die. After he watched these two helpless children waste away. It was a horror that he could barely comprehend, but perhaps a penance which he deserved. How many deaths like these had he been complicit in?

Mother... I'm sorry, Rossiu thought waveringly as his eyes began to close, surely to never reopen again after being taken by the cold embrace of the grave.

For a moment there was nothing but stillness, and Rossiu idly wondered if the end had already come for him. Then the ground shook with the force of a terrible quake, and Rossiu's eyes fluttered open once more.

"W, what!?" The former acolyte of Adai let out a cry of disbelief as he gazed out toward the horizon. It was too preposterous to be a hallucination, but he could not comprehend the sight all the same - a mighty crimson mountain of metal, likewise extending perpendicularly from its center like a massive horizontal pillar. It shattered the earth with every step it took, and at its apex Rossiu could just make out one more distinctive feature: a sight that shook him to his very core.

A face god!?

Sluggishly Rossiu dragged himself around, shuffling toward the moving mountain's trajectory as quickly as his barely standing legs would allow. His two wards were already unconscious, he saw, so he would have to hurry. He did not know if he would be able to reach this face god. Or even, considering everything he had been through up to now, if the titanic deity would bring anything besides more hostility for the three wandering exiles.

There was one thing Rossiu was sure of, however. It can't be any worse than here.