"Domon…" Rain hesitantly began.
He turned. "Yes?"
"Are you going to enter the tournament?"
He sighed and his shoulders slumped. "I wish I didn't have to."
"But it's more than that." Rain guessed.
"Yeah." Domon looked out the porthole of Han's ship. "I feel like…" he struggled to put his feelings into words as he looked out the sea. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet Rain could hardly hear him. "I feel like it puts the lie to everything we fought for on the Neo- Japanese colony. It makes me feel like everything we did there… was for nothing. Like Kyoji's death-" his eyes began to water- "all that pain, the horrible reality of having to kill my own brother- like it was all in vain. I thought when we defeated the Dark Gundam, we wouldn't have to fight anymore. I was hoping we could live peacefully until the next tournament, and that that one wouldn't be so difficult, since we'd defeated the Dark Gundam. I feel the same way I did when we went to the Guyana Highlands to try to find a peaceful solution. And all we got out of that was having Chibodee injured and more problems." His fist struck the wooden wall. "I'm so sick of all these problems that keep cropping up! Why the hell does all this keep happening?"
"Life's complicated." Rain offered, her soothing voice a quiet contrast to Domon's impassioned shout. "There will always be problems. I don't know why you and I keep stumbling onto the big ones, but we'll work our way through them, Domon, together. When you came and rescued me-" her voice hitched, and Domon turned quickly to look at her- "you saved me from more than the Dark Gundam. You saved me from my fear of having to go through life alone, from my doubts… so even if you feel like it was in vain, it wasn't."
"Rain." He crossed the room and took her in his arms and held her against him, against his heart, for a long time.
*
"What is he doing?" Kaiyun whispered to Zuisen. They'd snuck up on their young charge, who was currently dangling upside down from a tree, looking at something. "What is he looking at?"
"I think- I think it's a picture." Zuisen told him, craning his neck.
Kaiyun frowned in disapproval. Moving together, the monks split and made a wide circle around Sai Saici. When they were directly in front of him, both cleared their throats loudly.
"YAAAAH!" Sai yelled, impressively monkeying in midair to avoid landing on his head. (A/N: I took monkeying- a word my spell checker says doesn't exist, idiot thing- to mean what anime characters do when they're falling.)
The monks, experts from years of practice, faced each other, clasping their hands prayerfully and tears welling up in their eyes.
"Zuisen!"
"Kaiyun!"
They spoke together. "I fear Sai Saici will never win a tournament! He never practices, as he surely would if he wanted to win! I fear our dreams of a revival of the Shaolin Temple are doomed to come to nothing!" They fell into each other's arms, sobbing loudly.
"Fine! I'll practice, okay?" Sai said, irked, surreptitiously slipping the picture of Cecil back in his shirt. He'd have to find some way of getting some plastic around it or something, it was getting worn…
The monks sprang apart and marched him to their training area.
*
George de Sand gingerly poked his head around the corner and scanned the hallway for the Princess Marie Louise. She'd been seeking him out a lot lately, and he had feelings around- and for- her that he wasn't comfortable with. Especially in her presence. Bad enough that she was on his mind even when she wasn't near him…
He sighed in relief at finding the hall clear.
"George!" a hearty voice greeted from behind. "Just the man I wanted to see!"
He leapt a good foot into the air and whirled to face his antagonizer, a short, solidly built man. "Your Majesty!" George greeted, with as much dignity as he could muster at the moment.
Marie- Louise stepped out from behind her father. "George!"
Damn. George kissed her hand like a gentleman. "Hello, Miss Marie- Louise."
"Dear, leave us for now." King Phillip (A/N: Isn't Phillip his name? If it isn't- sorry.) told his daughter, who was flying high from having her prince kiss her hand. This good mood prevented the sulking an order to leave usually sparked, and so Marie- Louise gave them a perfect, courtly goodbye and (to George's eyes, and the king's) floated down the hall in the opposite direction.
King Phillip led George to a private meeting room. "You're entering this newest tournament, aren't you, George?"
George hesitated. "It seems unsporting for me to automatically be selected again as the national Gundam fighter."
The king waved off George's misgivings. "Nonsense. You can try out for the next regularly scheduled tournament after this. Think of this as a do- over of the Thirteenth Tournament, without things blowing up and going wrong left and right. Look at it as a chance to see what a Gundam tournament is really like, without having to deal with that Dark Gundam besides." Phillip eyed the fighter in front of him, making George have a sudden urge (relentlessly suppressed) to fidget. "Marie- Louise told me of your actions in taking down the Dark Gundam. I'm very proud of you, George." he admitted.
"Your Majesty… you give me too much credit. Domon Kasshu was responsible for the destruction of the Dark Gundam."
"He wouldn't have been able to do so, however, without your aid." the king pointed out. "I'm going to give you the Croix de Guerre, with palms."
George was almost overwhelmed. "Your Majesty… you give me too much credit." he weakly protested, again.
"Nonsense. Let me do this for you, George. You deserve it." the king said warmly, and George's respect for both the king himself and his position would not permit a third refusal.
"Thank you." he said simply, gratefully inclining his head.
"You'll be our representative for this Gundam tournament, won't you, George?" the king asked slyly.
"Yes, your Majesty." George replied.
"Good."
"I will do my best to uphold our nation's honor, fight honorably and well, and to be a worthy representative of the great nation of Neo- France, on my honor as a knight." George pledged.
The king rose from his seat and accompanied George from the room. "I know you will." The boy was a little odd, with that knight thing, but the stress George subsequently placed on honor was good. For himself, the nation of Neo- France, and, of course, Marie- Louise…
*
"Argo." Nastasha barked. "We'll be leaving for Earth to fight in the Gundam tournament in six weeks. Be sure you're ready by then."
The big man merely nodded.
"I believe your friends from the Shuffle Alliance will be there, as well." Nastasha glanced at him. She'd learned to read him well enough that she could tell a difference in his stoic demeanor at the mention of his friends. Separated from his pirate crew in prison, the interaction with the other members of the Shuffle Alliance had provided four very welcome friends. Even if he showed it in actions instead of words, Argo's friends- all of them- meant the world to him, and the chance to see them again- especially coming from his usual prison environment- was an unexpected treat that Argo would look forward to. "I expect you to train before we get there."
Again, a nod of acknowledgement.
Nastasha gave her signal, and the lower- ranking soldiers took him away. She looked out the window into the barren landscape. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she, too, was anticipating the tournament with something like serene eagerness, if such a thing existed. And, more deeply, Nastasha also privately realized that she was hoping that the intimacy she and Argo had shared in the last tournament would characterize this one as well…
A/N: Next chapter will probably be short. Virtual cookies to everyone who's reading, and a pan of them to anyone who's reviewed!
Jeeves said that the Croix with palms was the highest French military honor (I can't help but think of that as an oxymoron… sorry, fans of things French.) so I decided to award George with the Croix. I thought about formally knighting him, but that little quirk is too cute. J