Huzzah! Quite a lengthy update, but it felt safer than breaking the chapter into multiples! There's a lot going on (most of it angsty), but we're also getting into the darker underbelly of Saya's issues (more and more pronounced as the fic progresses). Also exploring the weird and wacky world of Chiropteran biology. A few concepts are filched from Blood# - the rest are my own crazy theories. Let me know how I do, as I am not a science person (...although if you have a class-action lawsuit against a doctor, I could probably represent you).
Also! I've worked out an outline for the fic. Breaking it into three Acts, with a total chapter count of somewhere around 40 (more or less, depending on how it progresses). Hang on to your hats, sweet readers. It will be An Ordeal - but hopefully an enjoyable one! :)
Review, pretty please! Your comments are my sweet, savory sustenance!
At the crest of the dawn, Haji finds her in the solarium.
The sky outside is still greyed with storm-clouds. A sing-sing of rainfall patters across the glass. Once in a while a flashbulb of lightning goes off, showing up each droplet like shards of melted starlight, their downpour sheeting the walls and ceiling in translucent swirls.
Inside, the greenery spools out with a misty-hazy mystery. The humid air smells heavily of roses.
Saya kneels at the flowerbed. She is still in her nightgown; its hem is smudged with soil. Half-concealed by early-blooming flowers, her shape seems almost a part of the storm, the silky rustle of water and leaves.
A beautiful feral thing—built for wild living and wilder dreams.
"Saya?"
His Queen doesn't answer. She is mulching a pot with cacao shells. Her face is dewed with sweat, long hair scraped into a sloppy braid. So intent, yet so far away, her eyes fixed on the spongelike soil yet on someplace else entirely. She doesn't react when he steps up behind her.
"Saya, are you all right?"
She exhales a vague Mm.
"Sayumi and Sayuri have been looking for you everywhere. What are you doing out here?"
"Just... thinking."
Thinking, or brooding? She says one, and he hears the other.
Carefully, he edges closer. "Dr. Julia called earlier. She has requested a medical exam for you in the afternoon."
"I'm not hurt, Haji."
"It is only a precaution."
"For me, or against me?"
"Saya—"
Rising, she wipes her dirt-rimmed hands on her gown. "What about those men?"
"They will live." In a matter of semantics. "Red Shield wishes to know... if you want the police involved."
He hopes she'll say No. Not because it will get her tangled up in paperwork, yellow tape and suspicion, but because, in Haji's lights, she'd done the right thing. Protected herself—and by proxy others. He and Saya have existed outside of time for decades. Outside, too, of human laws. Why abide by them now?
Then Saya shakes her head. "It's too late for the police. Or the hospital." She swallows. "Those men will never be okay, will they?"
Haji hesitates, his clockwork conscience at war with something beastlier, more expedient, which asks, Does it matter? He makes himself retreat from the brink.
"They are alive." Gently, "You did not go berserk, Saya. You could have killed them. Yet you stayed in control."
"Control?" An exhale of disgust. "If I'd kept my head in the first place, they wouldn't be hurt!"
"They attacked you."
He thinks about her frantic eyes and the blood and gooseflesh on her breasts. Wishes for the hundredth time he'd been there to rescue her. Even if it meant spilling human blood, as he'd done when their carriage was attacked after the Bordeaux Sunday. He wishes he'd hurt each of those men the same way. Hurt them fatally enough to spare anyone else the abuse they'd intended for Saya.
Then Saya glances around. Her eyes are swollen and red-edged from weeping. The look wrenches at Haji. Fills him with rage at being unable to do the violence for her, at being unable to stop her from doing the violence herself. Bitterness, too, at the fact that it is already done, and that his part ought to be comforting her, holding her.
Except he fails even there.
Shamed, he whispers, "I am so sorry, Saya. That should not have happened, and not to you. I should have been there to stop it."
"It wasn't your fault."
"It was my fault for letting us split up."
"Haji..."
"If those men had not set you off—"
"It wasn't them that... set me off."
"What?"
She shivers. "Just before... it... happened, I was with Dee at the Bar Junket. And I had the strangest feeling. Like there was a threat nearby, and I had to move, fast, or I'd die."
"A flashback?"
"I don't know." Her breath catches. "I sensed something."
This rouses strategic as well as primal concern. "Was it a Chiropteran?"
"I thought so, at first. But—" She plays with the end of her long braid. There is a tremor in her small fingers. It disquiets him: Saya's hands are always steady as a soldier's. Even if the rest of her comes unglued, her sword-grip never wavers.
He nearly reaches out to clasp her trembling hands in his. Then Saya whispers, "It wasn't an ordinary Chiropteran."
"What?"
Tears glitter at the rims of her eyes. She squeezes them shut, as if rejecting a vision too gruesome to contemplate. "I saw it. Just before those men showed up, I was alone in the alley. And I saw something. A—A phantasm, a hallucination. I have no idea. But it looked like Diva. It felt like her."
Diva?
Haji's heart skips once, sharply, before resuming its steady baseline.
"Saya... Diva is dead."
"I know that."
"But then how—"
"I don't know!" Her eyes open, rawly red. "All I know is what I saw. Like she was right there with me."
Haji hesitates. He doesn't want to write this off as overwrought nerves. Doesn't want to imagine that Saya has developed a long overdue case of delirium tremens—seeing snakes darting between the shadows, hearing strange voices at the edges of her consciousness. But—God. What if it's true? He has known his share of veterans who whipped out their guns whenever someone banged the kitchen crockery or tread too loudly on the floorboards. And Saya has already taken more abuse than an entire battalion of soldiers.
What if this is her breaking point?
Slowly, he shakes his head. "Saya, that is impossible. You carry a remnant of Diva with you."
"Wh-what?"
"That rock. Isn't it proof enough that she is gone?"
At this, Saya's whole body trembles: a walking hair-trigger.
Decency dictates that he not interfere in her private affairs this way. And if Saya were showing more convincing signs of recovery, he'd never interfere at all.
But Saya isn't healing. She is haunted.
Quietly, he says: "This is not the first time you have seen things."
She nods, barely. "I know."
Haji hesitates again. Then, in a measured motion that is easy to see coming, reaches out to enfold her hands in his. The storm washes everything to a dreamlike blue, and he squeezes her little fingers, and marvels, Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
Except he can feel the subdermal shaking of her nerves. Not a squall, but a gathering tempest.
"Do you know what sets it off?" he asks. "These—visions, lapses?"
"I don't know. It's so often lately, I've lost track."
The confession makes the hairs on his neck prickle. He has practice in smoothing his face to stone. But with Saya in his eyes, he can conceal nothing; even his voice grates with stoppered concern. "Julia... when I was on the phone with her, she mentioned a colleague in Naha. Perhaps you should schedule a few sessions with her."
"Sessions?"
"For a psychiatric evaluation."
The word drops like a stone into Saya's body. The water levels of understanding rise in her eyes, darkening them in familiar anger. "...You think I should be medicated."
"Please do not think of it that way. We only want to help you—"
She wrenches away. "Help me how? By poisoning my body with pills?"
"Saya—"
"What then? Electrotherapy? Water treatments? A goddamn rest cure?"
"Those are not done anymo—"
"But you think I need something along those lines." Her fury manifests itself in tiny tremors in her shoulders and arms, in the hands that transform into fierce war-fists. "What next? Will you lock me up in a tower, too? Oh, she's already as crazy as Diva. Might as well—"
"Saya—No."
Stricken by the accusation in her eyes, Haji catches her face between his hands. She stiffens, but doesn't struggle. Her nerves are drawn so tight; it is palpable in her entire face, the strain snapping them one by one. A few more moments, and she comes unstrung. Tears boil up in her eyes. A ragged sob breaks loose from her chest, then another, and another. Haji snatches her up before she crumples to the floor.
"Saya—"
"You want to—to lock me up—!"
"No. Not that. Never that."
"You do! I'm going unhinged. I'm scaring you. I'm scaring myself."
"Saya, no. You are fine. You always will be."
Always, because she is the strongest person he's ever known. The strongest—but also the most tormented.
Gently, he carries her to the narrow workroom that takes up one corner of the greenhouse. Here it is cool and dusty, crowded with sacks of blood-and-bonemeal and the heavy iron clutter of pruners. Settling on a wooden bench, Haji gathers her into his lap. She doesn't resist; her body is a wrung-out rag against him, her words clotted with sobs.
"I'm not fine. I'm not fine. I'm not I'm not..."
"Sssh. You think that now. But it will not always be like this. You will find your way soon. Your family and I will help you."
"I don't need help." It's not petulance, but near-despair. "I—I know I'm crazy. I'm trying to be better. But doctors—pills—that can't help—"
"Saya, you are not 'crazy'." He feels the burn of agonized anger under his words. "There is no time-limit for when you feel like yourself again. But you need to speak to someone. It does not have to be a doctor. There are a hundred alternatives."
She hiccups, "Isha-hanbun, Yuta-hanbun?"
"What?"
"It's something—Dad used to say. To figure out what's ailing someone, you need to consult—both the doctor and the shaman."
Haji circles her in closer. "We can try anything you wish. Anything at all."
"What if—nothing works?"
"Saya—"
But she is still talking, her voice a wild wet smudge that matches the color of her eyes. "Time isn't the same for me as it is for regular people. Wh-what if the problem isn't how much time I've got—but the fact that I'm all wrong in myself? I barely know what I am anymore. It's like everything is—flowing along. And I'm outside the tide. I-I can't explain it."
"Please try."
It is evident that she wants to. Especially if she's worked out an entire metaphor for it.
"It's just that I can't tell if—I'm getting better or worse. Some days I feel better. Like I'm healing and thinking. Other times—I feel like I'm cut off from my self. My real self—who was hunting Diva. I'll look around, and think, How did this happen? It will be a hundred-and-fifty-four years since I set her free—next Sunday."
It dispirits Haji to hear her calendaring her life from that horrific Sunday, as if nothing worthwhile existed before. "Do not think of it that way."
"What way?"
He strains for a midpoint between gentleness and firmness. "That Sunday was a single terrible day. It will not repeat itself."
"You can't know that."
"None of us can anticipate the future. But please remember. Whatever disasters have happened to you are not who you are. They will not define your life forever."
A sob bubbles out of her; negation, futility. She crosses her arms around herself, as if to force the sound back inside. The haze of misery hanging over her is nearly as powerful as the rolling stormclouds above the solarium: harsh downpour and jags of lightning. It claws at Haji. He can't focus on anything except the shape of her in his arms, her trembling and tears.
Circling her closer, he kisses her mussed hair. "Forgive me, Saya. I only want to help you. I cannot stand by and let you suffer."
Stunned, she lifts her moist eyes to his. "You're not—standing by. You're where you've always been. Watching out for me."
"I fear I am not enough."
To keep you happy. Keep you whole.
He can't bring himself to say that. But Saya, being Saya, catches his meaning anyway.
"That's not your fault," she whispers. "You can't fix me."
"I would not presume to 'fix' you. But I wish... I could at least make it easier for you."
Sniffling, she shakes her head—not at his words so much as at him. Her tiny smile is all melting sweetness. But he can see the pain behind it. Because it's still a reflex for Saya, even with him, to force a smile than to deal with guilt of being unfixable.
"You do make it easier," she says. "Always."
If only it were true.
He wants, beyond anything else, for things to get better for her. But he is coming to understand that the role he occupies is precarious and complicated: a new lover's protectiveness warring with an old servant's solicitude. He wants to let her make her own choices; he wants to steady the potential shipwreck of her psyche. But what if he is the wrong man to support her in either endeavor?
As a Chevalier, he'd kept her alive, but never unhurt. As a friend, he'd kept her stable but never complete.
Saya would beg to differ, he knows. But she is hardly impartial. They've known each other so long it's impossible to judge if he's on her wavelength or if the years have tailored him to suit her needs. If a man already knows that a lady's favorite part of Bach's Cello Suites are the allemande, that she takes her tea with lemon and honey, how to renounce the patriarchy by handing her the steering-wheel and the checkbook, her preferred brand of toothpaste and tampons, whether I'm fine means Hold me or Leave me alone, the exact sweetspot on her nape where she likes to be kissed, it is difficult to distinguish suitability from familiarity.
And of course he loves her. Loves her enough to deny her nothing, forgive her everything. But also enough to understand that his feelings, which expand by the hour, are outmatched by the death-wish still residing in her eyes. A death-wish that may last as long as Saya does.
What if nothing he does ever erases it?
Sighing, he squeezes her tighter; she nestles her heavy head into the crook of his neck. Tearstained and subdued now, the vast sadness having passed her like the monsoon. Except that monsoon is inside her, trapped in the delicate curve of skull, spilling out without symptom or warning.
Gently, he strokes her head, her soft hair filling his palm beneath the hard crown of bone. Such a sweet skein of contradictions: fragile, sturdy, reckless, wise, selfish, selfless. The complex lynchpin of his entire existence.
"I have a favor to ask," he whispers.
"A favor?"
"Yes. But please do not be upset."
This rouses her. She lifts her eyes to his. "What?"
"You do not... have to see a doctor. Not yet. Give yourself some weeks. A month or two. And if you still feel... displaced, then your family must step in to help you."
"Help me how?"
"However you need. New schedule, new surroundings, new lifestyle." A beat. "New partners, if required."
"If you really want me to go berserk, Haji, all you have to do is kiss another girl."
"I meant for you."
Disturbed, she searches his face. "Why would I do that?"
"Healing takes time. But time also... changes things." He tries to choose his words with care. To stay neutral, tender. Even if he could never stand to let her go that way. Even he knows he would, if necessary, and that it would hurt like a hundred spikes to the ribcage. Worse. "One day, you might decide you have outgrown me. You might move on to someone who can make you happier."
"Is that what this is about? You want to send me off because—I'm too unhinged for you?"
Stricken, he shakes his head. "No, Saya. Never. You—you know that all I think of is you. How to take care of you."
"And I told you that you didn't need to take care of me. That we're partners."
"Partners, yes. But—"
How to explain it to her? She is so old yet so young. A bitter, life-bitten woman in some ways, an utter innocent in others. She's never lived a life that wasn't stretched beyond the extremities of suffering. Never had the chance to spread her sexual wings. Her existence has shaped itself to the unique outline of their partnership. But that doesn't mean it's meant to last forever.
It certainly doesn't mean he deserves to keep her.
He whispers: "I worry—that I'm doing wrong, always reminding you of your past. Perhaps if you were with someone new—"
He cannot finish. Saya folds herself around him and kisses him. Hard and hot, communicating her fury, her mouth saying, You're an idiot, and Haji answering, Yes, probably, a hundred other things passing between them without words, the hothouse flowers exhaling around them and the storm raging outside, so he can taste the earthy grit and electricity on their tongues.
They break on gasps. Their gazes meet and know one another, a private dialogue entangled in the heartbeats between their bodies.
Exclusively theirs.
"Favor denied," Saya says, "Don't bring it up again."
"But—"
"If you think I'd leave you for someone new, you're even crazier than I am."
He tries not to let this—confession? avowal?—distract him from what he means to say. "I only want to help you recover."
"You can't fix me, Haji. I've told you already." Her eyes soften. "That's not why I'm with you."
"Why then?"
She lays a hand on his chest. It is warm and familiar, transmitting a pulse as necessary as oxygen into the chambers of his heart. Reminding him, too, that he is hers, before she is his, and that he couldn't let her go if he tried.
The choice to leave or stay is solely her own.
She whispers, "I'm with you because I never want to leave you. Because I can't imagine being with anyone but you. Not because you're my Chevalier—but because you're what I want. I think, somehow, you always have been."
"Saya—"
"No, it's true. You worry that you can't fix me. But that's not your responsibility, whatever you think." She presses closer, fitting her head under his chin. "What matters is that you give me space... to fix myself."
This stuns the words out of him. He wasn't expecting to be claimed this way, and so fiercely. But even as he gathers her in, he wonders, What if it's not enough?
Maybe that is the point. Maybe Enough is a labor not of being, but of becoming.
Saya nuzzles his neck. Under her breath she begins to sing Clair de Lune—"Light of the Moon"—an old lullaby from their Zoo days. Her voice, high and hauntingly sweet, takes him back to their childhood, when they'd sit together on the settee by the fireplace, and she'd lull him to sleep like a puppy in her arms.
Except he isn't a puppy. He's grown into her watchdog, silent and sharp-toothed. And he must keep her safe.
So let her have her space. But let it also be space divided and shared. He refuses to let her drift into despair the way she'd done in the war, carrying burdens that he'd gladly have taken on, if she'd only asked.
The time for asking is past. He's fought for her cause in a century-long war. Now it is time to fight for her.
I cannot lose her again.
The days bleed by and the rain is unchanged, so heavy that it becomes its own dimension: a gray-noise that is first unnerving, then mysteriously comforting.
Saya has no hallucinations again. But from time to time, in her dreams, the snake slides in, a deceptively commonplace figment in an otherwise nightmarish spectrum of slaughter: cracked skulls, flaming corpses, the air shot through with the reek of blood.
Sometimes she dreams of her rampage in Vietnam. Other nights, the same rampage is transposed to Okinawa, her own family dying by her sword.
She screams and screams in those dreams, until she awakes to find she isn't screaming at all, but sobbing, the pillowcase wet with her tears. Some nights she'll slip out of bed and go to Haji's room, fitting herself against his cool body until her shakes ease. Other nights, he will be right there with her, perched at the edge of the bed, his words a gentling lullaby until she drifts to sleep again.
They haven't made love since the disaster in the alleyway. She has the impression he'd like to, but is holding back: caution, consideration. She is grateful for his restraint—but not for the reasons he thinks.
She broods about the men she nearly killed. She frets over another descent into madness. She worries about Adam, his recovery slow and painstaking, a reminder of how human bodies can be altered. She wonders if his attacker was a Chiropteran—and if what she'd sensed in Sakurazaka Street was real.
But Red Shield keeps up a steady sweep around the island, to no results.
Whatever she'd sensed has faded away, like blood in the rain.
In a fortnight, the storms ease off. New sunlight washes over the villa and fills the air with silence, a pure fresh aroma almost like possibility. Saya is still morose and jittery, and though it doesn't disappear, she feels more up to her usual energy.
Since the incident, Haji's calm alertness has shaded into a new breed of hypervigilance. He accompanies her wherever she goes around the villa's thirty-mile radius. Indoors, no matter where she is, he pops his head into the room to check up on her. Most nights, he even shares her bed, folding himself around her with the possessive indolence of a cat, soothing her with palm-strokes along her spine until she drops off.
He talks to her more too, unprompted: everyday chitchat, but also communication. Showing her spots he likes to visit, or foods the twins taught him to make, or books he's found interesting. Taciturn as he is, this is astonishing. Since being brought to the Zoo, he's always occupied himself pragmatically with the moment, his past (four-fifths of his self?) locked so tightly into a box as to be forgotten entirely.
But now, bit-by-bit, he is sharing with her intimacies that Saya senses are from his deepest recesses, twilight mysteries of a mind that he's protected by long habit. It is an interesting mind: half-logical, half-intuitive, with the meticulous creativity of a child prodigy and the shrewd expedience of a child soldier. He has a secret gift for picking locks and people's pockets. He has a fondness for Fibonacci sequences, and intricate pocketknives, and peppers in a colorful spectrum of spiciness.
Most days, Saya will listen to him talk, like hearing a melody unfurl from an instrument she's rediscovered after long neglect. In the war, they've had small-talk and big-talk. But never full-on disclosures. Most of their exchanges were the private language of old marrieds as much as mistress and servant: good-mornings, goodnights, strategy, swords, sleep. Or lately, the low-key charms of flirtation: shades of old camaraderie woven into the pure joy of play.
She supposes the deeper intimacy is something you grow into. Like learning a different dialect.
She tries to meet him halfway. But she can't yet open up about her dreams.
Or about Diva.
Fortunately, Haji is ready to let her work through it... not in her own space, exactly... but at her own pace.
Each evening, he shadows her diligently as she walks the city, re-learning its lineaments. The scale of Naha has expanded crazily since her Long Sleep. The crowds overwhelm her sometimes. The technology, inside and outside, is a shock to the system. There are days when she finds herself in her old schoolgirl haunts, the shapes and scents all wrong. Other days when she can't find anything familiar at all, and her mind buzzes with restlessness.
Okinawa has changed. Time exerts its flow in the cracks across the sidewalks, in some buildings gone like rotted teeth and others sprung up like columns in a bar graph. Her family has changed with it: at once bigger and narrower.
She doesn't comprehend the extent of it, until Adam is discharged from the hospital, and everyone gets together a week later for an impromptu dinner at Omoro.
"That's Monique," David says, flicking through pictures on his phone. "The girl who used to live with Gray. You remember Gray, right?"
Saya nods, and he continues, "After Gray passed, she started a career in social work. She and her wife run their own foundation now. Shelters for kids in conflict-zones. Her top doctor is Nahabi. You won't believe it. But the kid's become a pediatrician. The AAP recently gave him the Nutrition Award for his research."
"Really? What about—?" What was the birthday-girl's name? The cute one Saya gave the teddybear to? "What about Javier?"
"Javier... Let me think. She became a Shield after her twenty-first birthday. Her unit is in Special Tactics. Last I heard, they'd been posted to South Sudan."
"I...I see."
"You should meet her when she gets back. Nice girl. Strong as hell. She single-handedly beat Ezra last time at arm-wrestling."
"Dad," Ezra hisses.
"Ezra's always been more of a scholar," Julia pacifies. "More into test-tubes than triathlons."
"Test-tubes, huh?" Dee pretends to muse. "I knew there was a reason his head was shaped funny."
"Deidra. Please."
"That—or he spawned from a petri dish. Like bacteria. That'd explain the smell."
"Says the woman who recycles her socks for a week straight," Ezra mutters. "Is that how you kill Chiropterans? A whiff of Athlete's foot?"
"Ah, screw you," Dee says amiably.
"No fighting, you two."
David's tone is good-naturedly rote: he seems accustomed to the bickering. Omoro's mood-lighting turns his eyes into the blue of acai berries, the skin around them radiating lines of age. He's lived in Okinawa long enough to acquire a deep tan; his brightly-patterned kariyushi shirt is the color of Jell-O shots and his sun-bleached white hair is clipped short in a style that is more surfer than soldier.
Yet his quintessence remains unchanged. The tensile strength of pure steel.
Perched next to Saya on the bar-stool, he thumbs through a collection of snaps. Places traveled, people met, old faces cycling in between the new.
Julia sits adjacent to him, long legs crossed, sipping from the straw of her drink. Like David, she's aged gracefully. Her hair is a different shade, more champagne than honey. Her white linen dress, set off by her suntanned skin, gives her a bronze goddess vibe; Aphrodite matured into Athena.
"Be sure to tell Saya about Lulu, and how well she's doing," she says to David.
Saya's eyes widen. "Lulu?"
David nods. "Julia worked hard to develop a cure for the Thorn. Ten years after your Sleep, she created an anti-serum." He glances at his wife, his features softening with rueful pride. "After four weeks of barely sleeping, and living only on coffee and cigarettes."
"Those were the days when I could get away with it," Julia sighs. "But it was worth it. Lulu was able to walk in sunlight, and have a normal life."
"Lewis adopted her a year afterward," David tells Saya. "They work together in information brokerage. Right now they're in Shanghai."
He swipes through his screen until he finds a good photo. Lulu and Lewis, toasting multicolored cocktails on a terrace overlooking the sunny cityscape. The little Schiff has matured to her late teens in appearance. Her hair is still neon-purple, but she's shed her old resemblance to a baby fruit-bat, and grown into those outsized ears and eyes.
Hugged up with Lewis—who is virtually unchanged in bulk or the brightness of his grin—she is all tipsy exuberance.
Tracing her fingertips across the screen, Saya smiles, "She looks so happy. Her and Lewis both."
"You should visit them," Ezra says. A geeky-gangly version of David, but with his mother's mild grey eyes, he keeps slinking shy looks Saya's way. Despite reading Joel's Diary (maybe because of it?) he seems quite taken with her. "You'd like Shanghai, Otonashi-san. Fast-paced, but lots of spots to relax too. Gardens, museums, and great tea-gardens where you can Zen out. I could show you in the spring if you want."
"Oooooh. Are you asking her on a date?" Dee sniggers. "Bold play, Ezzy. And Haji only twenty feet away."
Ezra jitters into redness. "That's not what I meant!"
"I'm impressed. Years of my questioning your manly prowess, and you go for the deadliest woman in Red Shield."
"I was only suggesting—"
"Oh, look," Julia says pleasantly. "Vicente and Sachi are playing a different kind of Shanghai."
Their table glances around. At the corner of the cozily-darkened pub, Yumi, Yuri and their Chevaliers are treating Adam to a game of darts. The teenager is a bulkier version of David, his tall body roped with thick muscle. His face is David's too, but more jockish: blond hair shorn in a buzz-cut, forehead peppered with acne. At his throat is a swaddling of white gauze.
Heavy stitches are his only souvenirs from the attack at the Bar Junket. Fortunate—except he's retained no memories of the night, either.
"Who did this to you?" Saya asked him, after he awoke at the hospital. "Do you remember?"
"I dunno," he croaked. "I just remember taking a pi—taking a leak in the back-alley. Then everything went black."
"What about your friends? Did they see anyone?"
"Not so you'd notice." A grimace of embarrassment. "We were pretty plastered."
Not plastered now. Adam sips from his bottle of shikuwasa juice—the zestiest drink he's been allowed. Like the others, his eyes are fixed on the two players dueling at the dartboard.
Sachi and V have accrued the highest scores. Now they are vying for first place. It starts off playful, then grows serious: a clash of immovable object versus irresistible force. Sachi takes his turn with a cool eye and a sharpshooter's grace; a flick of his wrist landing his dart right where he wants it. Vicente tosses his own like a grenade across enemy lines: blunt accuracy that carries both fanfare and focus.
One by one they fling their darts, each hitting the numbers in play. Each one earning exactly the same points, the scores rising higher and higher. The final throw is a triple; if either of them misses, he loses the game.
Smiling, Saya watches Sayumi and Sayuri cheer like punters at a horse race.
"C'mon, Sachi! Don't let your guard down!"
"Slaughter him, V!"
David shakes his head. "Figures they'd enjoy a match between their Chevaliers. Those girls are competitive about everything under the sun."
"It's a peacock display, David," Julia says. "The boys are proving themselves to the Queens as much as to each other."
"Queens, plural?"
Julia hums. The familiar sound of a scientist whose intellectual curiosity is engaged as much as her womanly wisdom. "They'll be of age soon. It's only a matter of time."
A matter of time until what? Saya wonders—then feels foolish. Babies. Of course. Cross-fertilization between the girls and their Chevaliers is the only way to start families. Everyone in the room knows that.
Saya's own chance has come and gone. Thank God for that. Diva's Chevaliers were as crazy as she was. They'd all wanted her dead—except poor Solomon. Any children sired by them would've been war-babies, conceived by force and for ill-gotten gain.
It is different for Sayumi and Sayuri. With them, Saya can't convince herself it is wrong. It just seems natural. Like sharing resources.
Like surviving.
"How does it work?" she asks Julia. "Why do we—why do Queens only conceive with their sister's Chevalier? I could never figure it out."
This gets Julia's musing attention. "Honestly, Saya, there's a lot we still haven't learned. But from the data we've gathered, it's clear there's an elaborate biochemical mechanism at play. A way to avoid homozygous mutation."
"That's inbreeding in simple terms," Ezra supplies helpfully.
"Right," Julia smiles, but then the smile fades. "But it's not as straightforward as that. After all, one would think, as Chevaliers of twin sisters, there would be similar genes across the board, allowing any recessive abnormalities to be passed on more easily and expressed more visibly in their offspring. But that's not the case with Chiropteran Queens."
Saya frowns. "What do you mean?"
Julia doles out a maternal glance to Ezra, who excitedly takes up the explanation, "Our team made a breakthrough, two years before your Awakening, Otonashi-san. We discovered that, despite being twins, the chromosome counts of Queens and their respective Chevaliers do not match evenly! Or rather, the number is the same. But not every gene is in order." He smiles, "The Blue Queen's genetics are subtly different from the red's. As a result, when they mate with each other's Chevaliers, they're not inbreeding so much as interbreeding. The Chevaliers of the Red Queens carry an allele we've termed the S-factor. Er, S-for-Saya—if you don't mind?"
She shakes her head, and he continues. "The Blue Queens' Chevaliers carry their own alleles. Ones we've dubbed the D-factor. For successful conception to occur, both these alleles must be present. It's why Queens always have twin girls, not boys. As with other species that interbreed, it's the females who are typically fertile. This is necessary for them to go on and have viable offspring of their own."
Julia adds, "Honestly, it's a fascinating look at evolution's tool kit. It's evident that Queens at one point were able to reproduce with their own Chevaliers. But, over time, their offspring may have suffered from inbreeding depression. These come in many forms: diminishing fitness, loss of immune system function, elevated risk of recessive genetic disorders..."
"So now something in the Queens' bodies impedes it," Ezra finishes. "A method of Cryptic Female Choice."
Saya frowns bemusedly between Ezra and Julia. "What?"
David nearly smiles around a sip of his drink. "You both are so damn pedantic."
"Occupational hazard," Julia sighs. To Saya: "At its best, CFC is a female using physical or chemical mechanisms to control which male fertilizes her eggs. This can occur pre-or-post copulation. In Chiropteran Queens, we've observed it in the way they conceive. Contrary to belief, Queens do not become pregnant right away. Instead, their bodies delay fertilization by storing the seed in a reproductive tract in their bodies. That's why they don't begin showing signs of pregnancy until the year is out."
The statement tugs at memories of Riku and Diva—a trauma whose roots can never entirely be ripped out. With effort, Saya asks, "Why do their bodies delay it?"
"Our best bet is evolutionary pragmatism, " Julia says. "Queens may have avoided birthing in dangerous times. Like long winters. It's also possible they mated with multiple Chevaliers. Theirs, and their sister's. So this mechanism maximized reproductive benefits. A Queen could reject her Chevalier's seed—while retaining her sister's Chevalier's."
"It also makes evolutionary sense," Ezra adds. "Genetic diversity is necessary for the continued growth of a species. Given that Chiropteran Queens have blood that is toxic to one another, this mating strategy may have developed as a means of establishing cohesion between both units. Pragmatic capital-sharing. It also means that they'd have to create new Chevaliers, thus ensuring that more Queens were born."
Saya shakes her head. "If it's such a clever strategy... why aren't there more of us? Where did the rest of the Queens go?"
Ezra droops. "That, we're not sure of. There's a possibility that external factors—weather, famine—reduced the mating groups of Queens to small numbers. Maybe they became endangered and went extinct. Or maybe..."
"Yes?"
He rubs the back of his neck. "Maybe they became embroiled in warfare. Not too different from your war with Diva. Maybe they died of inter-fighting as much as any population bottleneck."
Saya's heart beats with a sick, self-flagellant force. "I—"
Across the room, shrieks ring out.
"God-fucking-dammit, V!"
"Sachi! Oh nooooo!"
Both Sachi and V have missed their targets. Cooing in comfort, Yuri twines around Sachi. Yumi slugs V, berating him as if he's missed an easy catch dangling right before his eyes.
David shoots Julia a dry glance. "Sometimes pity works as well as peacock displays."
"Mmm." Julia's smile is half-sweet, half-saucy. "Reminds me of our courtship."
"Mom. Dad." Dee cringes. "Please stop flirting."
Thwock. Thwock. Thwock.
Three darts fly at the board. One lands in the single, the second in the triple, the third in the double. Shanghai in one inning.
Saya glances with the others to where Haji has entered, soundless as smoke risen up from the ground. He doesn't smile. But he has an oblique way of showing amusement in his eyes while his face remains aloof and unconcerned.
"Dinner is ready," he says.
"And the table won't set itself!" Kai gripes from the kitchen. "Yumi. Yuri. Get over here. And bring those Stormtroopers with you!"
"Why Stormtroopers?" Dee wonders.
"Because they can't aim to save their lives," Ezra snarks, happy to finally get a dig in. "Jeez, Dee. Brush up on some pop culture between firefights."
"You're such a dork, Ezra."
"Better than a dumbass."
"I'm not the one macking on Otonashi."
"I wasn't—"
Saya smiles, the voices a comforting wash-in, wash-out. New faces mixing with old ones, the golden lamplight and kitcheny noises melting together to stir up a different era. Sitting in the same spot she'd occupied years ago with her family, she can almost hear George and Riku's laughter in her ear...
Her cell phone rings as the others begin moving to the wide dining table. An unfamiliar number. The area code says Paris, France. She answers warily.
"...Hello?"
"Miss Otonashi." Joel's sonorous voice is unchanged by time. "Saya."
"Sir!"
Across the room, the others glance at her. She mouths Joel, and there are widespread smiles. She guesses that Joel keeps in frequent touch with them. But why wouldn't he? As much as any of them are older, different, distant, the war has made them into a family.
Including Saya—no matter how daunting the difference of thirty years seems.
"I received a message from my secretary," says Joel. "You'd placed inquiries about my health."
"I-I did." There is a twinge of guilt. She'd forgotten about her message not long after sending it. Life was caught up in an upswing of craziness. "Haji told me... you hadn't been well."
"Oh. It's not as bad as they've made it sound," Joel says. "CVD is part and parcel of my age." And condition, she thinks, the guilt burrowing deeper into her ribcage. "However, the doctors say I should make a full recovery after my surgery."
"I-I'm glad to hear that. Red Shield wouldn't be the same without you."
"Me?" He laughs, that charming, sophisticated laugh. "Without you, Saya. You are the foundation upon which Red Shield rests. Please do not forget that."
Some days I wish I could.
"How have you been?" Joel asks then.
"I'm—" Adrift. Disoriented. Happy one moment, sad the next. Wondering where I go from here. "I'm fine."
"Mm. And keeping eloquently to words of one syllable."
It is gentle, but she recognizes the tease. Her half-smile becomes a full one. "I am fine. Just re-orienting myself."
"Well. Perhaps soon you will have time to visit Bordeaux. We have renovated the Zoo."
"The Zoo?"
"Yes. It was left in ruins, as you know. To serve as a reminder of that tragic Sunday. But with our mission completed, it was time for a face-lift."
"A face-lift?" She isn't sure how to take that. "Are you, um, living there now?"
"Oh no. But every weary traveler does." A wry pause. "It's been converted to a hotel."
"A hotel?"
"Yes. The original château was largely intact. So we restored it. It now has an outdoor swimming pool, a spa center and soundproofed accommodations. Not to mention free Wi-Fi." He chuckles. "The first Joel is probably rolling in his grave. But I felt it necessary to move on. Air out old ghosts, so to speak."
"Mm." Saya swallows. If only it other ghosts were as easy to dispel. "Is it, um, very busy this time of year?"
"Rather. We attract an international crowd. But quality-wise, we're only four-star. There's a rat problem that refuses to go away."
This surprises a giggle out of her. "It was like that before, too. The rats get in from the vineyard."
"Ah yes. Speaking of which. We've had excellent wines this year. I promise to ship you a crate."
"Oh! Th-there's no need—"
"You have my word it isn't contaminated. Like, say, Chateau Duel." There is a playful fizz in his tone, like Chardonnay uncorked. Ouch, she thinks, and giggles again. "It is running joke with my family," Joel adds. "My grandchildren find it horrifying, given that Cinq Flèches' old winery is in such close quarters to ours."
"Your grandchildren?"
"Oh yes! Three of them. From my own two daughters, no less."
"I'm ... surprised."
"I imagine most people are. Especially considering they were begotten the, er, usual way. Rare, but not improbable, I assure you. Franz was first. Emile and Alice soon followed. My Célia is rather a spitfire—but she is a wonderful mother."
His words well up warmly in her ear, full of pride. She smiles, sinking down from her dislocation to inhabit the wistful happiness that is coming to define her life lately. "I'm happy. That the Goldschmidt line is running strong."
"I pray it does so, as long as you live, Saya."
She doesn't know what to say to that.
"I've told the children so much about you," Joel continues. "You're the family mascot, of sorts."
Not the skeleton in the closet? The madwoman in the attic?
No, Diva says in her ear.
That was me.
"I hope you will meet them soon," Joel says. "None of us would be here if not for your courage."
"Our courage," she corrects quietly. "We all made it possible."
"But none more than you. Do not forget that." She can almost see the solemn kindness of his expression. She can even picture his desk in Red Shield's ship, the papers piled next to the cut-crystal decanter. The image is burned permanently in her mind, the snapshot of a place and time that is no more. "Do not forget, either, that you owe yourself the happiness you've earned. All the joys you were deprived of, during your war with Diva."
"Mm."
Her heartbeat only falters once. But across the room, Haji's head snaps up. The others have already settled around the table in a haphazard, cheerful fashion. They are passing around mismatched silverware and steaming plates piled high with champuru.
Only Haji stays at the sidelines: leaning against the wall bearing the family's Hinukan shrine. He's tied his hair back, to keep it from swinging into his face while helping Kai in the kitchen. The austere aspect, a replica of the war, is the same as his quietly assessing gaze. Are you all right?
She manages a smile. Just fine.
In her ear, Joel murmurs, "I imagine—no, pardon me, I cannot imagine—how jarring it must be for you. To awaken to something so different. But with time, I hope this peaceful future will become your cherished present."
"I hope so too."
It's just the 'becoming' that's hard.
"Please don't worry. Your wonderful family will ease the transition. Haji. Kai. Your nieces. Do give my love to Sayumi and Sayuri. Since my ...lapse, I have not seen them in almost a year." He pauses, as if cognizant of the conversation growing too heavy. His tone lightens. "In the early days, my wife and I would fly to Okinawa to stay at your villa. We made a few renovations along the way. The solarium, specifically. Call it a 'Welcome Home' present for you."
Gratitude surges. She finds a better smile for him, though Joel can't see it. "It's perfect. All of it. I can't thank you enough. For everything you and Red Shield have done for me. Every step of the way."
"We are, and always will be your shield, Saya. Now, if need be, we will also be your shelter." The phone connection is so clear that she can hear the muted swallow of his throat. Fondness concealed beneath the trademark Goldschmidt equanimity. "You must visit France after my surgery. You must come to Bordeaux. We cordon off certain wings of the manor for exclusive Red Shield use. Our best room is the Soliel Suite. Top-ranking Shields often stay there."
"Oh—I-I couldn't possibly—"
"Please. Think of it as a perk. One of the few for a lifetime of sacrifice. Hopefully while you are there, we can take a turn through the Zoo's grounds together."
"I look forward to it." She hesitates. "Is, um—"
"Yes?"
"Is Diva's tower still there?"
There is a moment of static. Then Joel says, "Funny you should mention it. I wanted to discuss that."
"Discuss what?"
"Demolishing the tower. It's off-limits at the moment. The whole thing is crumbling to pieces. It looks positively haunted. Célia calls it a Gothic nightmare."
Something stumbles in Saya's chest. She doesn't want to think of Diva's tower. Yet it rises up in her memory as if conjured by Joel's words—a fairytale ruin that is half-splendor, half-gloom. It is imprinted with Diva's essence, the same way Saya is. If Red Shield had demolished it, thirty years ago, she wouldn't have lifted a finger in opposition.
But now...
"Maybe, um, hold off on it? Until—"
"Until you've had a think?" Joel offers, incisively kind as always.
"Mm."
"Very well. I will table the groundskeeper's request. Until you see it in person."
"Th-thank you."
"Not at all. The Zoo is your heritage as much as mine. Hopefully, when we meet, we can also discuss—" He hesitates. "Succession must be decided soon, Saya. My son Franz is next in line. But I fear he may not be cut out for how ruthless The Family Business is. I have another candidate, in case Franz declines. A brilliant younger cousin named August. Should Red Shield's board disagree..."
"Why would they disagree?"
"August is, how shall I put it? Unconventional. At least by the board's standards. Many would prefer to see their own picks leading Red Shield." He exhales. "It has been thirty long years, Saya. It saddens me that many of my cohorts have forgotten the dangers of the war. They've grown complacent, and callous. But if their egos begin eclipsing the mission, all hope is lost."
"You've kept them in line so far," she says. "Red Shield will be fine as long as you are."
"I try my best. And will continue to. But once I am gone... I hope you will support August. Offer guidance, and strength. It is what Red Shield needs."
The stumbling in her chest becomes a pinwheel: erratic and queasy-making. "Sir, please don't talk that way."
"What way?"
"Like you're already in the past-tense. You'll be fine. Your doctors said so themselves." Right? she nearly asks.
"Yes. Yes, of course." He clears his throat. "Simply planning ahead. Time can be our enemy, or our ally. But it remains the one force we have no dominion over. You understand, of course."
"I... I do."
"We will speak again, Saya. Hopefully in person. Give my regards to your family until then."
"Mm."
They say their goodbyes. Stowing away her phone, Saya is left vaguely unsettled. Her memory summons another time, another place, a different Joel measuring the shadow of his mortality to a pocketwatch's ticking cadence...
Forcibly, she tries to banish the feeling. Yet it clings to her skin, a strangeness she can't shake off.
You can't forget everything that easily, Diva whispers in her ear.
Behind her, at the dining table, her family have begun heaping food into their plates. Kai, clinking a spoon against his glass like a dinner bell, calls out, "Yo Saya! Get a move on. My bones are turning to dust!"
She jerks. "S-Sorry! I was just—catching up with Joel." Pitching her voice to the entire table: "He, um, says hello to everyone!"
"Hello back," Kai grumbles. "I'll call him later tonight. Now are you eating or what?"
"Be right there!"
Hurrying to the enclosed utility sink, she splashes her face with cold water. Staring at the mirror, she almost expects to see Diva smiling back at her. But, pale and haunted, she sees only herself.
I need to snap out of it, she thinks.
For Haji. For Kai and the girls and everyone.
She would be well on her way if she knew how.
A cool touch on her arm. She swivels to find Haji leaning over her.
"Are you all right?"
He always asks her that lately. Always orbiting her like a satellite, tuned in to every change in her internal atmosphere. She's coming to understand that—paramour or Chevalier—this is how he shows his love. The love of a practical, protective man with one straightforward goal: to keep her alive.
Then his palm cups her elbow, sliding down until their wrists align, fingers twining together. Familiar touch, unfamiliar gesture—respect wedded to intimacy.
All at once, something in Saya relaxes and it is just good. Good to be here, in Omoro, with Haji's fingers meshed with hers, her family waiting at the table heaped with piping-hot food, and the Okinawan dusk slipping into nightfall.
Good to be safe, and alive, and home.
"I-I'm fine," she manages. "I just—"
Her breath hitches when Haji long-arms the door to the space shut with a quiet click. His other hand, knotted with hers, lures her closer. In the room's sulfurous light, his skin is the smooth white of peppermint, the eyes like licks of blue phosphorescence under heavy lids. Their colors twist something through her, and when he skims his knuckles along her jawline, palming her face, she melts into the touch without hesitation.
"Saya…"
It is the prelude to a sentence. But his tone changes halfway from tentative to tender. Her lashes flutter as he slides both cool hands up to cup her face, thumbs stroking the temples—a flirting caress, a grounding into stillness.
Then he kisses her.
His mouth is cool on hers. But the touch is hot, electrified, exquisite. She gasps, and he times it to a furl of his tongue, eating up her breath, flaring dormant nerves to life. It shocks her. Without sense, she presses closer, as if trying to climb his body. His arms encircle her tighter, the sixty-watt bulb flickering above, their breaths sawing in the silence. The kiss goes on until it loosens her mind and the rest of her muscles, a languorous heat that seeps in like drunkenness. She slurs little love notes into his mouth.
Unexpectedly, he eases away.
"Ha-Haji—"
She teeters in his arms. Her body burns with a shockiness like coming awake. She is shaking in places: lips, fingers, elbows, knees.
"What—" She jitters out a breath. "What was that for?"
Haji strokes her hair. His features are smooth as a Sphynx. But his pupils are dilated, the cheekbones pinked with heat. Tiny tells of desire that only Saya can read.
"That was overdue," he whispers.
"Overdue?"
"I promised myself, when we began, that I would kiss you at least once each day… if not more. It occurs to me I have not kept that promise."
"I…"
Saya is aware of her slowing heartbeat. Vertigo—the aftermath of pleasure—still pulses through her blood.
He detaches, gently. His look is hard to parse: half-longing, half-concern. "I will not apologize for kissing you. But I will for startling you. I meant to see if you were all right. Not to—"
"Get sidetracked?" She smiles, an unsteady epiphany. "Maybe … it's just as well that you did."
Outside, Kai's voice clamors: "Saya? Haji? Where are you guys at?"
Haji glances away with patent guilt, as if remembering their surroundings. When he speaks, it is quietly courteous. "You should join the others for dinner."
"Mm." She smooths her dress down. The tension inside her, a needle climbing to red, has diffused. In its place is something else—a shimmery tactile spark. She is lit up inside, in a way she hasn't been since…
"Haji?"
"Hm?"
Going up on tiptoe, she takes his face in both hands to kiss him again. He shivers, and opens for her with a little sigh. The kiss is short, but gratifyingly sweet. When it breaks, she stays close, warming his cool lips with hers. Her pulse wavers, but for once the effort isn't in repressing the agitation of the past weeks.
"I think you're right," she whispers.
"What?"
"It was overdue. Like... a lot of other stuff."
"Saya—"
"Ssh." She lifts a fingertip to his mouth. Then it becomes a caress, her thumb gently traversing his lower-lip. "We'll talk about it later."
At the villa.
Haji's eyes are soft with affection on hers. Gazing into them, something steadies inside her, an off-kilter globe sliding on its axis to spin again. And while Saya has that, she isn't afraid. Not of the dark specters of the past ... or the darker shadows of strangeness trapped within.
Creeping like a blood moon over a rising tide.
Next chapter: smut.
Also Tórir stirring up shit.
In that order.
Saya will probably meet him by chapter 14 or so, but the real disaster won't hit until nearabout chapter 22. Hope you guys are enjoying the fic so far - and please let me know if there's aspects that could be tweaked/improved. Your feedback means a lot to me! :)