Duo's Pain
Chapter 2
Shin appered in the middle of a large room that was filled with other people, most of which had wings or other odities. He let his true form take over as he quickly headed to the double doors at the end of the room.
'This is not good. I've never stayed this long in a host before. I don't know if it's even possible to seperate at the stage of the game.' he thought as he walked through the doors and entered a room futher down the hall.
"Uncle, can I talk to you for a mintue?" he called into the dark room and then followed that soft voice that told him to come closer and sit down.
"What is it, my young niefue?" The question came from a tall, willowy man with black hair and green eyes. He would have almost appered normal except for his exceptional beauty and the huge black, feathered wings that were folded behind him.
"I have stayed in this body for so long, we're starting to merge. But this human is still in danger and I don't want to abandon him right now. What can I do?" Shin said as he sat down in a leather bound chair in front of his uncle.
"I know you do child, but you don't have to abandon him totaly. You can either take a human form of your own and stay with him to protect him, or you can inhabit someone close to him to keep an eye on him."
"I can't inhabit anyone close to him at the moment becouse at the moment his friend that helped run his first slavage yard won't talk to him and the guys who he worked in the war with, well there was some trouble with them a year ago and now, my host won't let them near him."
"That still leaves the creating your own body. But a warning, don't stay like that for to ong at a time or you will start to become human." Shin's uncel said in a serious voice and Shin nodded in understanding.
"Thanks for you help, Uncle Tobias. I need to get out of him soon, or I'll be stuck here." Shin said with a smile as he stood up.
"Before you go, what is the name of the person you have inhabitied?" Tobias asked quietly.
"Duo. Duo Maxwell. He looks almost exactly like I do."
"Duo Maxwell?!"
At the strangled sounding exclaimation, Shin turned back to his Uncel, who was suddenly looking very pale. "Uncel? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. I'll tell you another time." Tobias said in dismissal and Shin nodded and disappered in his usual puff of green smoke.
Tobias stared at the spot he had been standing and sighed. 'It was so long ago that I first heard that name, and saw that small boy with the violet eyes and long chestnut hair. That was when I had been a Shinigami, before I had made a name for myself.'
FLASHBACK
"Are you ready to go now?" Tobias, then know as Shinigami, asked as he knelt next to the small boy known as Solo. He was currently on assinment on colonie L2. A plague was sweeping the colonie and he was very busy aeperating the souls from their bodies.
"But what about Duo?" Solo gasped as he looked towards a small boy with long brown hair and huge violet eyes.
"I will come for him when his time comes. Untill then, he will live, but your time is over, I'm afraid." Tobias said regretfully. He wasn't like other Shinigamis, who enjoyed their work. He hated it, because sometimes, like this boy, they had others who depended on them and were reluctant to leave them behind.
"Don't worry, Solo. I'm sure this man will look after you, where ever you go." Duo said quietly as he started to cry.
Tobias looked at the small boy in surprise. The kid was no where near his death, and yet he could clearly see him. This was unheard of because no one was supossed to be able to see him unless they were dieing, and here was this six year old kid with haunted violet eyes and enough hair to make up a couple wigs, looking right at him.
"I'll miss you, Solo. Sorry. It's all my fault that your dieing. If I had only been faster, then you would've had this medican and you could have lived." Duo said guiltily and Solo just shook his head.
"Not your fault, Duo..." he trailed off with a sigh as Tobias reached down and freed the older boy from his body.
Look down at the small boy, Tobias sighed and vanished with the recently departed, the boy watching them with eyes to old for his young face.
END FLASH BACK
'I can't seem to escape from that kid, even after all these years.' Tobias thought as he stood up and went over to a small cabinate. Opening it, he took out a bottle of brandy and a glass. After downing a glass and pouring himself a refill, Tobias sank back into his chair and though back to another time that he had seen Duo.
They had met many times already as other friends of his and people he had considered family slowly died around him, all the while that he never came close to dieing himself. No matter what, even if everyone else around him died, he survived somehow. Like at the Maxwell Church Massacur...
FLASHBACK
Tobias was busy moving around the church ground releasing the deads' souls during the fight between the Alliance and rebel soliers that had taken refuge in the Maxwell Curch. They had fired on the Alliance and the Alliance had open fire back, killing both the soldiers and the people who lived in the church.
The church was a home for Father Maxwell, Sister Helen and the war orphans that they helped untill they could be adopted. Now, the church was ruble that was scattered around and the minister and the nun were dying as they vainly tried to protect the few remaining childern with the only thing that could, their own bodies.
Tobias sighed as Father Maxwell was shot in the back of the head as he crouched over a small girl with blond hair and green eyes and a little chinese boy that could only have been about three. The two children struggled out from beneth him and were also shot before they got more than a couple steps away.
Turning towards the last group of survivers, Tobias noticed a young boy arounf nine with long brown hair and violet eyes watching him from under a small pile of debre that was pinning him from the waist down to the ground.
"I see you are here again. Do you follow me around, waiting for the others to die?" Duo asked as Sister Helen tried to get the ruble off so that they could get away.
"Who are you talking to, Duo?" Sister Helen asked as she tried to shoved a piece of wood that had once been part of piller that supported the roof of the chapel, off of him.
"The Shinigami that keeps showing up. This is the tenth time that I've seen him." Duo said quietly and Sister Helen paused for a second to stare at him unbelivingly, then went back to work digging him out.
"I don't follow you around and you shouldn't even be able to see me, unless you were about to die and then, I would send you to the after life." Tobias said as he watched the nun pull the boy to his feet after she had uncovered him enough, and then dragged him behind her as she rushed towards an overhang with the other children just behind them.
Suddenly, one of the smaller kids tripped and fell, quickly being left behind as the others just rushed on, not even relising that the little girl wasn't with them. Just as they reached the overhang, Duo relised that she wasn't with them and saw her curled up infront of a mobil suit that was about to step on her.
"Stay here Sister Helen." Duo gasped as he darted back out to get her. As the oldest one there, he had always tried to help the younger ones, and this time was no exception. But by the time he got there, the MS had already stepped on the little girl and was taking aim at the overhang, thinking that there were rebel soldiers hiding there.
"No, stop. Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!" Duo screamed as the MS opened fire and the over hang collapsed on the scared goup of children, none older than six years old, and the resigned nun that was holding onto them.
Tobias watched silently as Duo rushed back to where the others had been only a moment earlier and started digging at the mound with his bare hands, startling the Alliance soldiers that saw him as he threw chunks of rock and wood away with almost superhuman strength that came from panic.
Duo soon uncovered Sister Helen, who was still barely alive. He held her gently as she gasped for breath enough to speak. "D...uo. Live...like you...have no...worries...and enjoy...life. Remember...there is always...someone with...you." Finally she closed he eyes and slipped gently away into death, where Tobias sent her ahead to heaven, or reincarnation, which ever God chose.
END FLASHBACK
'That kid didn't cry at all. He just stood there and watched as they loaded up the nun and all the others in those body bags with that empty look in his eyes. He never really forgave himself for not being able to help them that day or when any of the others died.' Tobias thought then closed eyes and hoped that his neifue would be able to help the young man with the uncanny talent to see other worldly beings and the troubled soul.
(Author's note: Time in the other world is diffrent, An hour there is about two days in the really world. Now back to the story!)
Shin reappered in one of the safe houses on Earth that the Gundam pilots used if they ever needed to get away from something, like if the press or someone else was after them, they could go there to recuperate and have some peace.
He had stopped by Duo's aprtment first and grabbed some clothes for the both of them after he had made his own body. After all, he would have no clothes unless he materialized tham and he hated to do that right after doing something as hard as seperation himself from Duo would be, and Duo certianly couldn't go around in the clothes he had been given in jail.
Settling down on the bed in one of the bedrooms, he began to concentrate on seperating himself from the mind and body of Duo. But he was unaware of the four guys that were approching the safe house to sleep for the night before going back to their normal lives again.
"I just wish that we knew what had happened to Duo. Why would those people kidnapp him from prison? It just doesn't make any sense, and I worried about him." Quatre said as he pushed open the door to the safe house. It was almost eleven o'clock at night and the entire group was tired from the long shuttle ride back to earth. They had decided to stay at the safe house untill morning, then go their seperate ways, Heero back to the Preventers HQ, Wufie back to the dojo he ran, Trowa back to the circus and Quatre back to his companies.
"I agree. Duo wouldn't go with them and the only people who would break him out of jail that way would be someone that wanted him as a prisoner for themselves." Trowa said and Heero and Wufie nodded in agreement.
"I wonder where he is right now." Heero said softly and left before the others could say anything else. Going up the stairs, he had a feeling that something was no quiet right and it only increased as he got closer to his room.
Opening the door, he stopped in shock as he caught sight of the figure that was laying on the bed. It was to dark in the room to see clearly so he flicked on the light and gasped loudly as he saw the long braid of brown hair that was laying across the chest of the person who mattered the most to him in all the world. "Oh my god... Duo!"
Quatre, Trowa and Wufie's heads all jerked up at the startled shout that came from upstairs. They had just been preparing to go to their own rooms when they heard the ex-Wing Zero pilot call out.
Rushing up they stairs, they piled in to Heero's room and stopped in shock as they saw Heero kneeling next to the bed, holding the hand of the missing long haired pilot that they had just been discussing.
They could all see the bruises on his face and they wondered about what had happened to him. Just as Quatre was about to ask Heero if Duo was alright, Duo opened his eyes, which were black, and sat up, pulling his hand from Heero's.
"You four need to leave for now. I need to concentrate and both Duo's and my exsistance depends on it." Shin said to the shock of the others in the room. He had felt heero pick up Duo's hand just as he had started the seperation. It had taken a minute to come back enough to stop the distraction before something happened and he messed up. If one thing went wrong, he could be stuck in Duo forever.
"What?" Heero said confused. Shin could see it in his eyes and sighed. He had wanted to advoid telling the others untill after the seperation had happened and everything was resolved with New Oz.
"Let me explain a few things. I am not Duo. I am Shinigami, but just call me Shin." he said with a quick grin as he transformed in to his true form. He basicly looked excatly the same, just a little bit older with the black bat wings and black eyes that seemed to bottomless.
Heero, Trowa, and Wufie just staired at him in shock, and Quatre fainted into Trowa's arms. "Wake him up and I'll explain everthing that you can understand." Shin said and leaned against the head board as Trowa tried to revive his lover.
After a couple minutes, Quatre woke up with a started and turned fearful eyes at the winged wonder sitting on the bed, grinning at him.
"Are you ready to listen to me now?"
Everyone nodded and Shin sighed as he began to explain a few things. "Before I tell you anything, let me tell you that Duo has been through more than all of you put together. He has a better grip on reality than any of you, even you, Perfect Soldier." he said with a grim smile at the surprised group.
"What do you mean?" Wufie demanded but Shin just shook his head.
"I'm not going to answer that. If he wants you to know, he will tell you himself." he looked at each of the faces in front of him before continuing. All four looked like they wanted to press the issue but wanted to find out what was going on more.
"I ment Duo about eight and a half years ago, right after I began active Shinigami duty after I had taken over my uncle's place. I had went to L2 to release the souls from some victems of a shoot out between the Alliance and some rebels. Some innocents had gotten in btween the groups and had gotten killed. Duo had been trying to save this one girl's life but stopped as soon as I showed up..."
FLASHBACK
"Hold on Mell. I'll take care of you." Duo said as he tried to stem the flow of blood from a gunshot wound on the girl's chest.
"It's to late, Duo." Mell said as she smiled up at the eleven year old crouched above her.
"No! You can't die too!" he said but suddenly looked up and stared at the older boy that had appered above them. He had to have been twenty and had long brown hair that fraimed his heart shaped face, which had bottomless black orbs for eyes. But what caught his attenchen, was the big black bat wings that were folded behind him and the glowing green scyth in his hands.
"I suppose that you are here to take her. What happened to the one with the black hair and green eyes? He's usually the one that showes up." Duo said bitterly and Shin just stared at him in shock since he knew full well that people who weren't about to die shouldn't be able to see him unless he willed them to.
Not waiting for the new Shinigami to answer, Duo turned back to the girl on the ground and smiled a small, bitter smile at her. "I guess it's time for you to go." he said and stood up to face the newcomer. "Hurry up and take her. You have more to release."
"How can you see me? You're not about to die." Shin said, surprised, and the boy chuckled humorlessly at him.
"I've been able to see your kind for years. What do you do, follow me around?"
"No, this is my first job." Shin said numbly.
Duo didn't say anything but just turned around and walked away.
END FLASHBACK
"After that, we met a couple more times and then he was taken in by Professer G for training and I didn't see him for a while untill I arrived to release a soul and found that it was his."
FLASHBACK
Shin appered in his customary green puff of smoke and immeditaly say the thin figure laying on the floor as doctors tried to get him breathing again. As with all the others that he release, he immditaly knew what was killing him.
The doctors had been building up his strength, endurance, and immunity to variouse drugs and dieses. One of the doctors had given him to much of some drug and Duo had a bad reaction to it and had stopped breathing. He was still concunce and was stareing at Shin as he approched. He wasn't scared. He had a calm accptance, like he was glad that his time had finally come.
"Will he live?" G asked from a little ways away.
"At the way things are going, he doesn't have a chance." one of the doctors said as he pumped the boys chest while another did CPR to him.
"You want to die, don't you?" Shin said softly to the boy, who nodded slightly, as he started to pass out from oxygen depletion.
"Well, you can do so much more for others alive." Shin said firmly and entered Duo's body.
The doctors were shocked as he suddenly took a huge gasp of air and sat up and pushed the doctors away. Shin was currently in control, though the men surrounding him didn't relise this, and had scanned only enough information from the uncontance Duo's mind to know what had been going on.
"Continue the tests." Shin said and G nodded.
"After the doctors do some tests to make sure you are able to."
"Fine."
END FLASHBACK
"We've been together ever since then and I've been able to get him out of some tight spaces, like that thing with New Oz trying to kidknapp him." Shin said and the others stared at him in shock, relising that the pilot that they had thought they had known was even more mysterious then they could have thought. It was almost impossible to think that Duo had been hiding this from them for so long.
"Now you know, will you four leave? I can't have any distractions or I might just end up stuck here forever." Shin said and the others nodded as they headed for the door.
Heero paused before leaveing and gently touched the hand the person on the bed. "Does he really hate us?" he asked quietly and Shin shook his head.
"He is hurt and angrey, but he doesn't hate you, he can't. He cares to much for you." he said then motioned for Heero to leave and to close the door behind him.
After he was alone, Shin sighed quietly to himself as he lay back on the bed. 'I hope you don't get to angrey that I told them some of your past.' he thought as he closed his eyes and began the task once more of seperating himself completely from Duo.
Shin was going to miss being able to hear everything that Duo thought and he knew that Duo would miss his presence within him because he hadn't truely been alone since he had been a kid.
Now, he would be.
"Do you think he's going to be ok?" Quatre asked the others as they sat on the couches in the living room.
"I hope so. But I can't believe that Duo kept that a Shinigami was with him for so long." Quatre said softly as he leaned against Trowa, who nodded as he wrapped his arm around the smaller pilot.
"Well, he always did clame to be Shinigami, even with his moto about never telling a lie." he said and Wufie snorted.
"I'm not sure I believe this." he said and the others looked at him in surprise.
"But you saw him transform and you heard the story, who could you not?" Quatre demanded.
"The transformation could have been a hologram and he could have broken his rule about lieing." Wufie said as he leaned back in the arm chair he was sitting in.
Heero, who had been silent until now said, "He was real. I touched his hand while he was changed and it was real, though I did get a strange feeling, almost as it he was both Duo and something from another world."
"Well that makes sense. He is a God of Death." Trowa said quietly and Quatre nodded.
"Well, we'll just have to wait to see if Shinigami is real, won't we?" Wufie said and closed his eyes, preparing himself to wait.
Chapter 2
Shin appered in the middle of a large room that was filled with other people, most of which had wings or other odities. He let his true form take over as he quickly headed to the double doors at the end of the room.
'This is not good. I've never stayed this long in a host before. I don't know if it's even possible to seperate at the stage of the game.' he thought as he walked through the doors and entered a room futher down the hall.
"Uncle, can I talk to you for a mintue?" he called into the dark room and then followed that soft voice that told him to come closer and sit down.
"What is it, my young niefue?" The question came from a tall, willowy man with black hair and green eyes. He would have almost appered normal except for his exceptional beauty and the huge black, feathered wings that were folded behind him.
"I have stayed in this body for so long, we're starting to merge. But this human is still in danger and I don't want to abandon him right now. What can I do?" Shin said as he sat down in a leather bound chair in front of his uncle.
"I know you do child, but you don't have to abandon him totaly. You can either take a human form of your own and stay with him to protect him, or you can inhabit someone close to him to keep an eye on him."
"I can't inhabit anyone close to him at the moment becouse at the moment his friend that helped run his first slavage yard won't talk to him and the guys who he worked in the war with, well there was some trouble with them a year ago and now, my host won't let them near him."
"That still leaves the creating your own body. But a warning, don't stay like that for to ong at a time or you will start to become human." Shin's uncel said in a serious voice and Shin nodded in understanding.
"Thanks for you help, Uncle Tobias. I need to get out of him soon, or I'll be stuck here." Shin said with a smile as he stood up.
"Before you go, what is the name of the person you have inhabitied?" Tobias asked quietly.
"Duo. Duo Maxwell. He looks almost exactly like I do."
"Duo Maxwell?!"
At the strangled sounding exclaimation, Shin turned back to his Uncel, who was suddenly looking very pale. "Uncel? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. I'll tell you another time." Tobias said in dismissal and Shin nodded and disappered in his usual puff of green smoke.
Tobias stared at the spot he had been standing and sighed. 'It was so long ago that I first heard that name, and saw that small boy with the violet eyes and long chestnut hair. That was when I had been a Shinigami, before I had made a name for myself.'
FLASHBACK
"Are you ready to go now?" Tobias, then know as Shinigami, asked as he knelt next to the small boy known as Solo. He was currently on assinment on colonie L2. A plague was sweeping the colonie and he was very busy aeperating the souls from their bodies.
"But what about Duo?" Solo gasped as he looked towards a small boy with long brown hair and huge violet eyes.
"I will come for him when his time comes. Untill then, he will live, but your time is over, I'm afraid." Tobias said regretfully. He wasn't like other Shinigamis, who enjoyed their work. He hated it, because sometimes, like this boy, they had others who depended on them and were reluctant to leave them behind.
"Don't worry, Solo. I'm sure this man will look after you, where ever you go." Duo said quietly as he started to cry.
Tobias looked at the small boy in surprise. The kid was no where near his death, and yet he could clearly see him. This was unheard of because no one was supossed to be able to see him unless they were dieing, and here was this six year old kid with haunted violet eyes and enough hair to make up a couple wigs, looking right at him.
"I'll miss you, Solo. Sorry. It's all my fault that your dieing. If I had only been faster, then you would've had this medican and you could have lived." Duo said guiltily and Solo just shook his head.
"Not your fault, Duo..." he trailed off with a sigh as Tobias reached down and freed the older boy from his body.
Look down at the small boy, Tobias sighed and vanished with the recently departed, the boy watching them with eyes to old for his young face.
END FLASH BACK
'I can't seem to escape from that kid, even after all these years.' Tobias thought as he stood up and went over to a small cabinate. Opening it, he took out a bottle of brandy and a glass. After downing a glass and pouring himself a refill, Tobias sank back into his chair and though back to another time that he had seen Duo.
They had met many times already as other friends of his and people he had considered family slowly died around him, all the while that he never came close to dieing himself. No matter what, even if everyone else around him died, he survived somehow. Like at the Maxwell Church Massacur...
FLASHBACK
Tobias was busy moving around the church ground releasing the deads' souls during the fight between the Alliance and rebel soliers that had taken refuge in the Maxwell Curch. They had fired on the Alliance and the Alliance had open fire back, killing both the soldiers and the people who lived in the church.
The church was a home for Father Maxwell, Sister Helen and the war orphans that they helped untill they could be adopted. Now, the church was ruble that was scattered around and the minister and the nun were dying as they vainly tried to protect the few remaining childern with the only thing that could, their own bodies.
Tobias sighed as Father Maxwell was shot in the back of the head as he crouched over a small girl with blond hair and green eyes and a little chinese boy that could only have been about three. The two children struggled out from beneth him and were also shot before they got more than a couple steps away.
Turning towards the last group of survivers, Tobias noticed a young boy arounf nine with long brown hair and violet eyes watching him from under a small pile of debre that was pinning him from the waist down to the ground.
"I see you are here again. Do you follow me around, waiting for the others to die?" Duo asked as Sister Helen tried to get the ruble off so that they could get away.
"Who are you talking to, Duo?" Sister Helen asked as she tried to shoved a piece of wood that had once been part of piller that supported the roof of the chapel, off of him.
"The Shinigami that keeps showing up. This is the tenth time that I've seen him." Duo said quietly and Sister Helen paused for a second to stare at him unbelivingly, then went back to work digging him out.
"I don't follow you around and you shouldn't even be able to see me, unless you were about to die and then, I would send you to the after life." Tobias said as he watched the nun pull the boy to his feet after she had uncovered him enough, and then dragged him behind her as she rushed towards an overhang with the other children just behind them.
Suddenly, one of the smaller kids tripped and fell, quickly being left behind as the others just rushed on, not even relising that the little girl wasn't with them. Just as they reached the overhang, Duo relised that she wasn't with them and saw her curled up infront of a mobil suit that was about to step on her.
"Stay here Sister Helen." Duo gasped as he darted back out to get her. As the oldest one there, he had always tried to help the younger ones, and this time was no exception. But by the time he got there, the MS had already stepped on the little girl and was taking aim at the overhang, thinking that there were rebel soldiers hiding there.
"No, stop. Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!" Duo screamed as the MS opened fire and the over hang collapsed on the scared goup of children, none older than six years old, and the resigned nun that was holding onto them.
Tobias watched silently as Duo rushed back to where the others had been only a moment earlier and started digging at the mound with his bare hands, startling the Alliance soldiers that saw him as he threw chunks of rock and wood away with almost superhuman strength that came from panic.
Duo soon uncovered Sister Helen, who was still barely alive. He held her gently as she gasped for breath enough to speak. "D...uo. Live...like you...have no...worries...and enjoy...life. Remember...there is always...someone with...you." Finally she closed he eyes and slipped gently away into death, where Tobias sent her ahead to heaven, or reincarnation, which ever God chose.
END FLASHBACK
'That kid didn't cry at all. He just stood there and watched as they loaded up the nun and all the others in those body bags with that empty look in his eyes. He never really forgave himself for not being able to help them that day or when any of the others died.' Tobias thought then closed eyes and hoped that his neifue would be able to help the young man with the uncanny talent to see other worldly beings and the troubled soul.
(Author's note: Time in the other world is diffrent, An hour there is about two days in the really world. Now back to the story!)
Shin reappered in one of the safe houses on Earth that the Gundam pilots used if they ever needed to get away from something, like if the press or someone else was after them, they could go there to recuperate and have some peace.
He had stopped by Duo's aprtment first and grabbed some clothes for the both of them after he had made his own body. After all, he would have no clothes unless he materialized tham and he hated to do that right after doing something as hard as seperation himself from Duo would be, and Duo certianly couldn't go around in the clothes he had been given in jail.
Settling down on the bed in one of the bedrooms, he began to concentrate on seperating himself from the mind and body of Duo. But he was unaware of the four guys that were approching the safe house to sleep for the night before going back to their normal lives again.
"I just wish that we knew what had happened to Duo. Why would those people kidnapp him from prison? It just doesn't make any sense, and I worried about him." Quatre said as he pushed open the door to the safe house. It was almost eleven o'clock at night and the entire group was tired from the long shuttle ride back to earth. They had decided to stay at the safe house untill morning, then go their seperate ways, Heero back to the Preventers HQ, Wufie back to the dojo he ran, Trowa back to the circus and Quatre back to his companies.
"I agree. Duo wouldn't go with them and the only people who would break him out of jail that way would be someone that wanted him as a prisoner for themselves." Trowa said and Heero and Wufie nodded in agreement.
"I wonder where he is right now." Heero said softly and left before the others could say anything else. Going up the stairs, he had a feeling that something was no quiet right and it only increased as he got closer to his room.
Opening the door, he stopped in shock as he caught sight of the figure that was laying on the bed. It was to dark in the room to see clearly so he flicked on the light and gasped loudly as he saw the long braid of brown hair that was laying across the chest of the person who mattered the most to him in all the world. "Oh my god... Duo!"
Quatre, Trowa and Wufie's heads all jerked up at the startled shout that came from upstairs. They had just been preparing to go to their own rooms when they heard the ex-Wing Zero pilot call out.
Rushing up they stairs, they piled in to Heero's room and stopped in shock as they saw Heero kneeling next to the bed, holding the hand of the missing long haired pilot that they had just been discussing.
They could all see the bruises on his face and they wondered about what had happened to him. Just as Quatre was about to ask Heero if Duo was alright, Duo opened his eyes, which were black, and sat up, pulling his hand from Heero's.
"You four need to leave for now. I need to concentrate and both Duo's and my exsistance depends on it." Shin said to the shock of the others in the room. He had felt heero pick up Duo's hand just as he had started the seperation. It had taken a minute to come back enough to stop the distraction before something happened and he messed up. If one thing went wrong, he could be stuck in Duo forever.
"What?" Heero said confused. Shin could see it in his eyes and sighed. He had wanted to advoid telling the others untill after the seperation had happened and everything was resolved with New Oz.
"Let me explain a few things. I am not Duo. I am Shinigami, but just call me Shin." he said with a quick grin as he transformed in to his true form. He basicly looked excatly the same, just a little bit older with the black bat wings and black eyes that seemed to bottomless.
Heero, Trowa, and Wufie just staired at him in shock, and Quatre fainted into Trowa's arms. "Wake him up and I'll explain everthing that you can understand." Shin said and leaned against the head board as Trowa tried to revive his lover.
After a couple minutes, Quatre woke up with a started and turned fearful eyes at the winged wonder sitting on the bed, grinning at him.
"Are you ready to listen to me now?"
Everyone nodded and Shin sighed as he began to explain a few things. "Before I tell you anything, let me tell you that Duo has been through more than all of you put together. He has a better grip on reality than any of you, even you, Perfect Soldier." he said with a grim smile at the surprised group.
"What do you mean?" Wufie demanded but Shin just shook his head.
"I'm not going to answer that. If he wants you to know, he will tell you himself." he looked at each of the faces in front of him before continuing. All four looked like they wanted to press the issue but wanted to find out what was going on more.
"I ment Duo about eight and a half years ago, right after I began active Shinigami duty after I had taken over my uncle's place. I had went to L2 to release the souls from some victems of a shoot out between the Alliance and some rebels. Some innocents had gotten in btween the groups and had gotten killed. Duo had been trying to save this one girl's life but stopped as soon as I showed up..."
FLASHBACK
"Hold on Mell. I'll take care of you." Duo said as he tried to stem the flow of blood from a gunshot wound on the girl's chest.
"It's to late, Duo." Mell said as she smiled up at the eleven year old crouched above her.
"No! You can't die too!" he said but suddenly looked up and stared at the older boy that had appered above them. He had to have been twenty and had long brown hair that fraimed his heart shaped face, which had bottomless black orbs for eyes. But what caught his attenchen, was the big black bat wings that were folded behind him and the glowing green scyth in his hands.
"I suppose that you are here to take her. What happened to the one with the black hair and green eyes? He's usually the one that showes up." Duo said bitterly and Shin just stared at him in shock since he knew full well that people who weren't about to die shouldn't be able to see him unless he willed them to.
Not waiting for the new Shinigami to answer, Duo turned back to the girl on the ground and smiled a small, bitter smile at her. "I guess it's time for you to go." he said and stood up to face the newcomer. "Hurry up and take her. You have more to release."
"How can you see me? You're not about to die." Shin said, surprised, and the boy chuckled humorlessly at him.
"I've been able to see your kind for years. What do you do, follow me around?"
"No, this is my first job." Shin said numbly.
Duo didn't say anything but just turned around and walked away.
END FLASHBACK
"After that, we met a couple more times and then he was taken in by Professer G for training and I didn't see him for a while untill I arrived to release a soul and found that it was his."
FLASHBACK
Shin appered in his customary green puff of smoke and immeditaly say the thin figure laying on the floor as doctors tried to get him breathing again. As with all the others that he release, he immditaly knew what was killing him.
The doctors had been building up his strength, endurance, and immunity to variouse drugs and dieses. One of the doctors had given him to much of some drug and Duo had a bad reaction to it and had stopped breathing. He was still concunce and was stareing at Shin as he approched. He wasn't scared. He had a calm accptance, like he was glad that his time had finally come.
"Will he live?" G asked from a little ways away.
"At the way things are going, he doesn't have a chance." one of the doctors said as he pumped the boys chest while another did CPR to him.
"You want to die, don't you?" Shin said softly to the boy, who nodded slightly, as he started to pass out from oxygen depletion.
"Well, you can do so much more for others alive." Shin said firmly and entered Duo's body.
The doctors were shocked as he suddenly took a huge gasp of air and sat up and pushed the doctors away. Shin was currently in control, though the men surrounding him didn't relise this, and had scanned only enough information from the uncontance Duo's mind to know what had been going on.
"Continue the tests." Shin said and G nodded.
"After the doctors do some tests to make sure you are able to."
"Fine."
END FLASHBACK
"We've been together ever since then and I've been able to get him out of some tight spaces, like that thing with New Oz trying to kidknapp him." Shin said and the others stared at him in shock, relising that the pilot that they had thought they had known was even more mysterious then they could have thought. It was almost impossible to think that Duo had been hiding this from them for so long.
"Now you know, will you four leave? I can't have any distractions or I might just end up stuck here forever." Shin said and the others nodded as they headed for the door.
Heero paused before leaveing and gently touched the hand the person on the bed. "Does he really hate us?" he asked quietly and Shin shook his head.
"He is hurt and angrey, but he doesn't hate you, he can't. He cares to much for you." he said then motioned for Heero to leave and to close the door behind him.
After he was alone, Shin sighed quietly to himself as he lay back on the bed. 'I hope you don't get to angrey that I told them some of your past.' he thought as he closed his eyes and began the task once more of seperating himself completely from Duo.
Shin was going to miss being able to hear everything that Duo thought and he knew that Duo would miss his presence within him because he hadn't truely been alone since he had been a kid.
Now, he would be.
"Do you think he's going to be ok?" Quatre asked the others as they sat on the couches in the living room.
"I hope so. But I can't believe that Duo kept that a Shinigami was with him for so long." Quatre said softly as he leaned against Trowa, who nodded as he wrapped his arm around the smaller pilot.
"Well, he always did clame to be Shinigami, even with his moto about never telling a lie." he said and Wufie snorted.
"I'm not sure I believe this." he said and the others looked at him in surprise.
"But you saw him transform and you heard the story, who could you not?" Quatre demanded.
"The transformation could have been a hologram and he could have broken his rule about lieing." Wufie said as he leaned back in the arm chair he was sitting in.
Heero, who had been silent until now said, "He was real. I touched his hand while he was changed and it was real, though I did get a strange feeling, almost as it he was both Duo and something from another world."
"Well that makes sense. He is a God of Death." Trowa said quietly and Quatre nodded.
"Well, we'll just have to wait to see if Shinigami is real, won't we?" Wufie said and closed his eyes, preparing himself to wait.