Thank you for your continued support so far. Part 3 is basically going to be a roller-coaster from start to finish, and Part 4 is basically going to payoff for every chapter you've had to read. Glorious payoff.

That being said, the below is extremely emo. Justifiably emo (well . . . that point can be argued), but . . . still. Emo.


Chapter Fifty: Hurt

At some point, Mom came down to the basement and told me I was safe.

It was a lie. I wasn't safe. If I could be assaulted by a black-ops team in my own home, I wasn't safe. I was never going to be safe again. And neither were my parents or anyone I've ever cared about. We would never be safe again. Not as long as I was here.

But I followed Mom up the stairs to find that Orb military police were all over the house, inspecting the damage and the dead, talking to my father. I saw Stellar, a white blanket draped around her and her torn clothing, an empty, hollow look in her violet eyes. She looked like she wanted to cry and leave reality all at the same time.

I had failed Stellar. I had failed Elle. I had promised them safety and they didn't even have a speck of it.

I handed Elle to Mom. Elle didn't want to let go. "Cagalli, no!"

"Let Mom take care of you. I need to talk to Stellar. It's okay, Elle."

"Cagalli!" Elle was shushed by Mom, who gently carried Elle away, leaving me just to look at Stellar.

It didn't take a genius to tell that Stellar had killed all of the attackers, besides the trooper Mom shot. My parents had been ready for an attacker. Probably ready for years for someone to come for me. They hadn't accounted for an entire squad, however. There was no way Mom and Dad would have been able to stop a squad. If it weren't for Stellar, they'd be dead. Elle would be dead too. And me? Either I'd be in their hands or dead myself. Considering they had shot up the entire house, most likely dead.

Stellar, for her part, had blood all over her and several rips and tears in her clothing. It looked like she hadn't just shot people, she had gotten into knife fights as well. And she had somehow won all of them. It looked like she had a few scratches and bruises on her but she didn't seem to have any injuries that would leave lasting harm.

What kind of girl was she to decimate an entire black-ops squad without serious injury?

I knelt down in front of Stellar, and she did not pay me any attention at all. The smell of blood wafted through my nostrils and I bit back the urge to throw up. I couldn't do that, not in front of Stellar. "Stellar, it's me. Are you all right?"

"You promised me I would be safe."

Her voice, soft, resonant, accusatory, angry, bitter, despairing. All at once. It made replying almost impossible.

"I-I know, Stellar."

"You promised me I would be safe."

Her violet eyes were looking at me now. They wore the look of betrayal. And I felt afraid. I felt afraid that Stellar would do to me that she did to the attackers, that she did to anyone who crossed her.

"S-Stellar . . . please . . ."

I felt pathetic in that instant, as I realized I was on the verge of begging Stellar for my life. I was so afraid. I was nothing but fear in front of Stellar in that moment, believing that this girl would, at any second, attempt to murder me.

"I wanted to be safe," she said then, her voice softer. Some of her aggression was gone, but enough of it was still there that my hairs were still standing on end and I was finding it difficult to breathe. The tension wasn't just audible, it was close to visible.

"I-I know. It's all my fault," I managed. "They were after me, Stellar. Not you."

"You?" Stellar asked.

"They wanted to kill me, Stellar. That's why they came here. They somehow knew where I lived and they wanted me dead. I would not have survived that assault if it weren't for you, Stellar. You saved my life."

"I . . . saved you?" Stellar's eyes and voice both softened, just a little bit.

"Yes, you did," I said. "You saved me. Thank you."

"I saved you." Stellar bit her lip. "I saved you, Cagalli? I really did?"

The chill in my spine faded, just a little. Somehow, telling her that she had saved me had triggered something, and Stellar was calming down, returning to how she normally was. "You fought them for a reason, Stellar, and that was to protect me. Thank you," I said.

"Big sister Cagalli," Stellar said. Her lips trembled and I suddenly saw tears spill from her eyes. She suddenly lurched forward and fell into my arms.

"Big sister Cagalli, big sister Cagalli," Stellar cried softly as she held me tight.

"It's okay, Stellar," I managed. "It's okay. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Now she wasn't an elite super-soldier in training. She was Stellar Louissier again. A fourteen-year-old girl who had clear psychological aliments that she needed to overcome and a supreme athleticism that allowed her to just do things other Naturals couldn't do. Even with the drugs out of her system, Stellar clearly could still be an elite soldier. I could only imagine how terrifying Stellar would be to face under the drugs' influence. I had only seen glimpses of that back on that Blue Cosmos island.

But then again, Stellar was different. She was an Extended, a 'new type of human being'. She had something I could never have, not without Stellar bestowing it upon me. That probably was the deciding factor in that battle, Stellar just knew what her enemies were going to do right before they were going to do it, and that was how she could annihilate a squad of elite soldiers on her own.

"I love you, big sister Cagalli," Stellar moaned.

"Thank you. I love you too," I said. I was surprised that I said that, to be honest. The words had come out of my mouth without me even thinking about it. It felt like the right words to say, to this girl who wanted to be part of my family, who had called me 'big sister' virtually the moment after she came onboard the Archangel.

Eventually, Stellar began calming down, and her grip on me loosened. Her next words were a whisper next to my ear. "What's wrong with me?"

"Stellar?" I asked, completely confused. I hadn't expected Stellar to say something like that at all.

"I . . . why was I crying?" Stellar asked. "I never cried after . . . after . . . k-killing people . . . before . . ."

Stellar hands dug into my back and I bit back a yelp. She was fighting her programming now, fighting her fear of the word 'kill' that triggered her berserk rampages. I could hear it in Stellar's breathing, in her soft moans, her fighting the urge to go right back into the unstoppable killing machine she also was. She was using me as a way to keep herself level, to fight the urge to want to kill everything in sight.

"Is . . .?" Stellar sounded like she was clenching her teeth. "Is . . . it bad to cry . . . after what I've done, Cagalli?"

Her hands stopped digging into my back and I just barely kept my sigh of relief soft. Barely. It took me a few seconds in order to answer after basking in the relief of Stellar no longer maintaining a death grip.

"No," I finally said. "You're not wrong to cry. I've cried a lot after I had to . . . um, end people. That means you're sorry for what you've done, Stellar. You knew you had no choice but you're sad because you didn't want to do it."

It was hard, trying to explain to this girl the concept of being human. Of being moral. Of being a good person, even though she had to kill. Considering Stellar could easily get confused, I wasn't sure if I would accidentally send her the wrong message. I wasn't sure what Stellar was trying to tell me and what I needed to say, so I had to be cxtremely careful.

"I'm not weak?" Stellar asked.

I knew how to answer that one. I had lucked out, huge. "No, you're not weak, Stellar. You're anything but weak."

"So crying . . . isn't weakness?" Stellar asked.

"It can be weakness," I said, "But it's not weakness here. What you're feeling right now . . . is sorrow. This is not because of weakness, Stellar."

"Sorrow." Stellar doesn't say anything for a second. Then . . . "So sorrow is when my heart hurts even though it hasn't been injured."

"Yeah," I said. "That's sorrow."

That's when I saw him.

He was walking in disguise. He clearly didn't want to cause a scene, hiding under a hat and casual clothing. But I saw his face, and there were unmistakable bodyguards following him.

The beard gave it away.

Uzumi Nara Athha, the Prime Minister of Orb and a member of the royal family that controlled the country . . . and also Kira's father.

What was he doing here?

He didn't look at me or even seem to notice me. Perhaps he did and he thought that if he and I looked at each other I would notice him, and by ignoring him I would ignore him too.

It's not like that. I was a political science major. My studies had me virtually drown in politics. I had heard his voice, and seen his face, so many times that I could not forget it even if I wanted to.

And coming out here, in the middle of nowhere, in a disguise, right after a shooting, is not something a Prime Minister of Orb does.

No, something else was going on.

Something big.

My curiosity seized control of me. I had to know what and why he was doing here. The back of my head seized on conspiracy theories and some of them were about me. Again, my mother and the recorder this morning, and the many, many hints that I was not like everyone else . . .

I had to follow. I had to.

"Stellar," I said. "I need to go. Something else is up."

"There . . . there shouldn't be any other danger," Stellar said.

"Yeah, but I still don't like it. I'm going to follow that man," I said. "Stay here."

"Cagalli-"

"Stellar, please stay here. I'll be all right."

But when I got up to follow Uzumi Nara Athha, Stellar followed me anyway.


I stopped trying to shake Stellar off after a while. She seemed to realize right away that I was trying to sneak around and she clammed right up and followed me as quietly as possible. And she was good at being quiet.

What I wound up doing was follow Athha and his bodyguards towards my parents' bedroom and they closed the door behind them. I followed them right to the bedroom door and stopped right outside it, careful to sit down outside without making any noise.

That's when Uzumi Nara Athha spoke and my suspicions were confirmed. "Caridad, Haruma, are you both all right?"

First-name basis with my parents. Holy crap.

Mom's voice. "We're all right, Lord Uzumi. That girl Cagalli brought home, Stellar . . . she's the reason we're still alive. She eliminated virtually the entire enemy squad on her own."

"Yes, the Extended children," Lord Uzumi said, in what sounded like a grave tone. "They seem to have incredible abilities even without the drugs that one of them, Sting Oakley, told us about. Extrasensory perception . . . I did not think it was possible in any shape or form until I met that young man."

Stellar opened her mouth and I made a "shush" motion with my finger and lips. Stellar nodded and kept her mouth shut.

"I didn't grasp what she was until she took them all out," Dad said. "She scares the hell out of me now, but I can't very well turn her away either. We all owe her our lives."

"What have you been able to figure out?" Mom asked. "Were they after Cagalli or Stellar or both?"

"I doubt they had any idea Stellar was there. Otherwise they would have come prepared for her," Lord Uzumi replied. "From what my people have been able to discern, they are Blue Cosmos agents. They came here to kill Cagalli."

Immediately I looked at Stellar and frantically motioned at Stellar to shush. Stellar seemed to be resisting the urge to freak out and finally she covered her ears with her hands to block out the voices.

At least this way she wouldn't accidentally cause a disturbance. She wasn't going to have a clue as to what was going on, though?

"I had a feeling you were right," Mom said. "Haruma and I have hidden guns in the home for a . . . very long time, in the event someone came for Cagalli. But what just happened is beyond anything Haruma and I can do."

"Damn Ulen and his experiments," Haruma growled. "If he hadn't done what he did to Cagalli none of this would be happening!"

My heart almost stopped for a second. My father . . . my birth father . . . actually experimented on me? Was that why . . .?

I almost couldn't function after hearing that. It took concentration just to keep listening.

"We can't change that now," Lord Uzumi said. "Anymore than we can change the journey Kira and Cagalli took on the Archangel."

"I don't think we can hide the truth from Cagalli any longer," Mom said. "She was asking me about her origins this morning, not closely, mind you, but she was. After what just happened she's going to demand to knoweverything. That's how she is."

"I'm still shocked Cagalli didn't realize the truth about Kira and her after two whole months on that ship with him," Dad said.

Truth? My mind raced. What truth with Kira and I? What did Dad mean by that? Was Kira like me, or was he something else?

"I never imagined Kira and Cagalli would ever see each other again," Lord Uzumi said. "Much less spend two whole months together on that ship, working as a team to keep the Archangel safe. I'd almost say it was fate."

What was he talking about? Had I met Kira sometime before, long ago? Maybe when we were little kids? I couldn't remember ever meeting anyone who looked remotely like Kira. Or felt that strange sense of familiarity and trust with anyone else before, either. He had felt like an old friend so quickly after I met him, and . . .

Why?

"Is the truth still being kept from Kira?" Dad asked.

"His past does not have Cagalli's baggage," Lord Uzumi said. "He is a Natural. His father spared him the experiments he subjected Cagalli to."

My mind immediately erupted.

Instantly, I made all of the connections in my mind.

The familiarity I felt with Kira, like I should have known him even though I did not. The 'experiments' dialogue, where it was outright said my own birth father experimented on me and . . . that meant that since Kira was spared . . .

Kira was my brother.

I had spent all that time on that ship, and he was right there. My brother, helping me all along. And I never knew.

"Ulen had no right to do what he did," Mom spat with a viciousness I almost never heard from her. "He subjected my sister to so much pain and torment over what he did! And now his work is finally coming to haunt all of us, including the children he left behind because of his immorality!"

What were they talking about?

I heard a recorded voice playing. It sounded like a woman's voice.

"Give her back to me!" the female voice cried. "Give her back! Don't do this to her, Ulen! You're playing God with our daughter!"

"I've almost cracked it! The last subject was almost perfect! I have to continue in this direction! I must!" the deep, almost-domineering voice of what had to be my birth father replied.

"That poor girl you experimented on will be lucky to make it through more than a decade of life!" the woman's voice said. "I won't let you do this to our daughter! I won't let those bastards use her!"

"That girl is my daughter, Via!" my birth father replied, confirming that the sobbing, crying woman was indeed my birth mother. "I will do with her what I have to do for the sake of the project! Your son is expendable and frankly so are you. Do yourself and your son a favor and not interfere with my work!"

I heard a click and the recording stopped, and I could hear Mom struggling to hold back sobs of her own. "V-Via died over this . . . over what that bastard did to Cagalli, Lord Uzumi. W-What are we supposed to d-do, huh? Before we all end up like Via and Ulen?"

It took me a moment to realize I was beginning to cry myself. My face had heated up and I could feel my eyes moistening and see what seemed to be a layer of mist form over my vision. I was crying.

I . . . I'm an experiment?

Imagine hearing that for the first time. That you're definitely not normal. In fact, you didn't even make it through your mother's womb without being experimented upon! Maybe I wasn't even born inside my mother's womb! My mother . . . my poor mother was screaming over me being taken from her . . . had I been yanked from her womb?

Did that mean I was a child of no one?

I suddenly heard Lord Uzumi's voice, and it was grave. "I believe I hear your daughter crying outside the door. I . . . I think we should decide what to do with her first."

They had heard me. I couldn't keep myself quiet enough to keep from being heard. I barely staggered to my feet in time for the door to open and I found myself staring at Lord Uzumi and my parents.

"Cagalli," Dad said.

"Oh my God," Mom gasped, her hands in front of her mouth.

Seeing them just made more tears spill from my eyes and I couldn't even muster the effort to wipe them away.

"What . . . w-what am I?" I forced out.

"Cagalli, I . . . I'm so sorry," Mom said.

"Mom, what am I?" I shouted.

Lord Uzumi approached me. "Cagalli, what you have heard is out of context. You need to calm down and-"

He seemed to be trying like a kindly old uncle and that terrified me. I took my hands and shoved him away from me. "Stay away from me! Stay away!"

"Cagalli, you need to calm down!" Dad pleaded.

"Calm down?" I screamed. "How can I calm down? I just found out I'm a freak! That's all I am! A freakeveryone's fighting over like I'm some stupid pawn!"

"Cagalli," Mom begged, her voice choked up. "Please."

"Shut up!" I couldn't control myself anymore. All I had was panic and rage and sadness and it was an unstoppable wave of emotion that I could not stop. "Shut up! You're just a liar! All of you and everyone else! You just lie to me!"

"Cagalli," Mom begged again. "Please stop b-backing a-away. W-We love you, Cagalli. P-Please."

Mom's eyes, shaped like my own, crying just as I was, brought the temptation to stay. But it wasn't anywhere close enough to what I needed. In fact, seeing her cry just made me angrier.

"Go to hell you bitch!" I screamed before I could stop myself.

Mom gasped and her eyes widened in shock.

Dad's eyes widened too. Even Uzumi and his bodyguards looked stunned.

It hit me too, what I had said to my mother, my real mother, who I had told that very morning that I loved her.

"Oh . . . I . . ." I couldn't talk anymore, staring at Mom who looked like she was going to completely fall into pieces in front of my eyes.

Mom, who I had just . . . I had just . . .

Dad could still talk. "Cagalli . . . I know you . . ."

I couldn't stay there anymore. I did what kids do when they scream hateful things at their parents.

I ran away.


It felt like miles before I finally collapsed at the side of a river and just sobbed into the grass, my hands pulling out clumps of weeds, grass, and dirt as I wailed at . . . at something. At myself, at my birth parents, at my real parents, at the Prime Minister . . . maybe even at Kira. I didn't know anymore. I just felt like I shouldn't even exist.

I felt like the lowliest piece of scum to ever inhabit the world. Part of me wanted to wither away and die and just be forgotten by everyone and everything. I didn't even want my body to remain after I died. I just wanted be burned into ash and blown away by the wind until I either became food for trees or fish or something so there would be nothing left of me.

The other part of me wanted to run back to my house, to Mom, and cry into her arms and tell her I'm sorry and I didn't mean it. I wanted the warmth I had felt with her that morning, right before all of this had happened. And yet I felt like I no longer deserved such things. I had condemned my own mother, who had given me nothing but love, and this is what I deserved. Being alone.

I was a science experiment. I wasn't even a Coordinator who had gotten modified while I was in the womb! I was physically yanked out of it! Violated by my own birth father!

No wonder I wasn't like everyone else! What right did I have to live? What gave me the right to murder human beings in war when I wasn't like them? I was just the result of my insane birth father's tinkering with things he barely understood!

What was I? A monster? A super-soldier? A time-bomb? Something else?

I crawled my exhausted, aching body over to the river and stared at the reflection of my red, puffy face and bloodshot eyes, and it just made me feel even more disgusted. I cupped my face into my hands and resumed crying. There was nothing else I could do.

I felt like I couldn't go back home and yet I couldn't move on either. I was lost, hopeless, and felt like absolutely nothing.

I was nothing but a science experiment brought to life like Frankenstein's monster. That's all I was.

My world had completely collapsed and there was nothing I could do but cry.

And that's when I heard footsteps.

Someone else was here.

I didn't want whoever it was anywhere near me. I turned towards the figure and I couldn't see who he or she was through my blurred, misty vision. "What the hell do you want, huh? Go away! Leave me alone!"

"I can't do that, Cagalli."

That voice . . . I knew that voice!

"I-It's you? I-I thought . . ." It was someone I could trust, but that person wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Onogoro! Why? What was this person doing here?

"I was. Then I found out I had no choice but to come here."

The person's voice was so hollow, so despairing, like the person had gone past the point of tears and was just going through the motions of life.

And then the person raised something. And then I blinked, and I saw a pistol in the person's hand.

Oh my God. I didn't just feel hopeless anymore. I felt like an ant who was finally going to be squashed underfoot, left to be carried away by its comrades who would also be squashed by the same cruelty that killed me.

"W-Why?" I finally asked. "I-I trusted you."

"I was given no choice," the person said. "If I don't . . . if I don't . . ."

The person sighed. "Never mind. Goodbye, Cagalli."

The person aimed at me and the person's finger began to press on the trigger.

And my life began to flash before my eyes as I waited to die.


Wow, you're still reading after all that emo? Heh, congratulations. :3

Anyway, the next chapter will go up on my birthday (which is the 24th) so this will get resolved quickly. Promise. The chapter's already done and ready to go.