Edges of the Mind by jmi
Chapter 7 ~ The Finale
**Disclaimer** Gundam Wing characters are owned by Sotsu/Sunrise.
Her consciousness was returning slowly. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted it to. Was it some sick dream, the whole thing a delusion? Heero killing her family and friends? Duo back from death only to send Trowa in his place? 'Please, if there is a God, let me have just suffered a nervous breakdown,' Relena prayed.
She opened her eyes only to find, to her horror, she was greeted by the same glittering Prussian blue and violet eyes she had left.
"Well welcome back to the land of the living; for a while anyway," Duo grinned as he sat her up.
"D.. D.. Duo?" her shaking distorting her voice. "B.. but how.. you...."
"Died? Oh yeah, well that was just an Oscar winning performance on our parts," he slung an arm around Heero. "We wanted to make sure that whoever was left thought they had Heero all to themselves."
"But Duo why? All of your friends? Hilde?" she could not fathom the radical shift in the young man who had so vehemently guarded her life this evening.
"Yeah Hilde...." Was that sadness she glanced in his face? Maybe he wasn't gone after all.
"Hilde was an accident. Somebody got carried away at the hospital," he glared at his insane counterpart.
"She surprised me," Heero simply shrugged.
"Surprised you?" Duo shook his head in exasperation. As he did the maniacal grin reasserted itself. "Well what's done is done, and we still have more to do," his violet gaze fixed on her. Relena panicked at this. She had to keep them talking.
"Duo I don't understand. What's happened to you? You tried to kill Heero just a little while ago."
"Oh come on Lena, I already said that was an act. Geez I hate to repeat myself," he stood and hopped up so he was sitting on the edge of the stage.
"But.. why?" she tried to scoot further back against the wall. The amused glare she was getting from the seated Heero was causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.
Duo sighed. "You know Wu was right, women do talk too much. But, since you're gonna die anyway, you should die happy. You see Hee-chan wasn't the only one of us on the modified Zero System that day. I talked him into installing it on the Deathscythe Hell too.
If it was even possible Relena's eyes widened more. "But... the system drove Heero crazy. Why didn't it affect you?"
"Well who said it didn't beautiful?" he flashed his old lopsided grin. "But since I was never quite right to begin with, no one seemed to notice. Now Hee-chan on the other hand...."
"Hey I don't like being called Hee-chan," Heero pouted on the floor.
"Well damn it what do you want me to call you?" Duo glared.
"Shinigami," he beamed.
"Bastard, that's my name," Duo cursed. Heero stuck his tongue out and resumed staring at Relena.
"Duo, this doesn't explain why you've done this tonight."
"Humph. Well you all deserved what you got." Duo's knife reappeared in his hand as he gestured at Relena. "You locked Heero away. Never visited him. Never really tried to help him. You were gonna leave him in that padded room to rot!" Relena could see the anger overtaking Duo's emotions as he slid off the stage. "I wasn't about to let that happen to my buddy. I wanted Heero out, but I knew you and the others would never let us go. Some shit I'm sure about how we're a danger to ourselves and others," he waved his hand dismissively. "So I waited for an opportunity when I could have everyone in the same place and then," he drew his knife across his throat. "Now there's just you Lena. The only hurtle left," he grinned as he stalked towards her.
Relena felt the breath crush out of her as Heero crashed onto her lap. "No, mine!" he squeezed any remaining air from her lungs.
"Now Heero... we talked about this," Duo's tone like a parent trying to reason with a child. "If you don't want to go back to the padded room, we can't leave anyone behind."
"Don't care," he grunted as he absentmindedly stroked her hair.
"Enough of this shit," Duo grabbed for Relena, but found his arm caught in a crushing grip.
"I said mine," a low growl escaped Heero's throat.
"Sorry buddy this is for your own good," Duo landed a punch to Heero's jaw. Heero didn't release his grip on Duo and pulled the insane Deathscythe pilot down with him. A truer version of the previous fight ensued as both struggled between possession of the knife and who could inflict the most physical blows.
Relena backed away from the fight when something skidded across the floor from the shadows and struck her hand. She jumped in surprise when she realized it was one of the guns. "Where..." she looked for the source of the weapon but only saw the maniacs continuing to struggle on the floor.
A hard shove from Heero sent Duo crashing into the side of the stage. The jar brought one of the stage lights crashing down; lighting the room momentarily in sparks. Some of the sparks began smoldering in the stage's velvet curtain, and quickly set the old fabric ablaze. The fiery light set the shadows of the room dancing. Duo delivered a slicing blow to Heero's stomach as they fell towards the pulsing darkness. Heero growled ferally and shoved Duo back.
"It could've been fun, buddy," the deranged Shinigami turned the knife in his hand. "I always told you that girl would be the end of you." Heero laughed darkly when a shadow behind Duo jerked him by the braid and quickly wrapped the hair around his throat. The sudden motion caused Duo to lose the knife, which Heero quickly retrieved. He smiled calmly as he watched the flickering fire reveal the panic in Duo's eyes and the shock of hair and furious green eye of his assailant.
"All tonight's tragedies can be traced to you," Trowa whispered hoarsely in the boy's ear as his grip tightened. "The others are waiting in the next world for you, and you have much to answer for." Duo could feel himself fading, and actually smiled that after all these years, Shinigami was finally coming for him.
Heero found his attention waning and glanced at the bloody knife in his hand. Holding a hand over his own fatal wounds he turned to Relena. "Relenaaaaa..." the spreading fire highlighting the deadly intentions in his eyes. She processed suddenly his earlier claims of 'mine' were likely that she was his to kill.
"Heero don't make me do this," she shakingly held the gun in front of her.
"Ai Shiteru, Relena," he hissed and charged her, knife raised. She closed her eyes and winced when the explosion of the bullet leaving its chamber echoed in her ears. The bones in her legs melted as she opened her eyes. Heero was only a few feet from her; a spreading circle of red engulfing his shirt and the floor beneath him. An almost serene expression had replaced the snarl on his face. The gun fell away from her trembling hands as she collapsed. She barely noticed the strong arms that pulled her from the room as the fire spread across the ceiling.
The two broken souls sat on the lawn and watched somberly as the house became a funeral pyre for their loved ones.
"How did you survive Trowa?" Relena's gaze did not leave the burning structure.
"Heero wasn't the only one trained on how to control the body's autonomic functions," he stated simply.
"How could this have ever happened to them. We knew them Trowa. Heero and Duo weren't those deranged monsters we saw tonight," she leaned against the stoic young man sobbing.
"There are dark parts in all of us Relena. They conceal themselves at the edges of the mind and wait for an opportunity, one unguarded moment, when they can assert themselves. Heero's and Duo's demons found that opportunity. All we can do is try to remember our friends as they were." He found that he too was now leaning on her for support as the rising sun diminished the hellish glow before them.