"Heero..." Duo began, trailing off, unsure of how to say what was in his mind, the dangers he sensed everywhere, but mostly from within Heero towards the short haired youth. Duo was Shinigami, but the complete darkness unnerved even him, touching him and warning him of a depth even he didn't dare stay long in. His aura, normally a rich, full black, (to not-quite-human eyes) now appeared to be an almost blinding white, illuminating a small area beyond him. For the first time in a long time, the icy grip of fear touched him, and he felt insecure about who and what he was. "What's up with this place?" he asked, moving closer to Heero, trying to find something familiar in the bleak landscape. Subconsciously he wanted to feel Heero's comfort, the sense of knowing he was there, ready for anything. Even gods needed someone else every once in a while.
"Don't you mean what's up with us?" Zechs asked, motioning to all of them with a glowing hand. "In case you haven't noticed, Duo, we're glowing." The light around Zechs was as pure as Duo's, untainted by whatever had touched Heero and changed him into the deep, unchanging gray. "I MIGHT be able to understand if I was the only one glowing white and you were glowing black, or even that gray your boyfriend seems to have attached to him, but you're SHINIGAMI, and you're WHITE. You're not supposed to have WHITE as a color!" Zechs reminded Duo rather irritably, his icy eyes searching for a way out of the Darkness they'd surrounded themselves in. Darkness was a force that was very detrimental to Guardians of Life, and Zechs' patience was running thin very quickly.
"Let's go," Heero motioned for them to follow him almost impatiently, his prussian blue eyes scanning the strange dark world around them. A sense of ferocious urgency gripped his slowly aching heart as he surveyed the darkness for a sign of the one he desperately sought for answers he could never find on his own. The midnight echoed around him, taunting him with memories and elusive clues, dancing around his mind as if sent by a demon of psychological torment, whispering words only he could hear in the prison of his mind he could not escape.
You know what we hide within our depths...
You know where to look to find what
you seek...
You know how to run from our whispers...
You know how to find our hidden secrets...
But we will always come to you while
you slumber...
In the deep of the night, beware,
Heero Yuy...
"We have to find him before it's too late and the way closes. If he's lost this time, he'll never return, and it will be our fault. You two can stay here, but I have to find out something," Heero warned Duo and Zechs, trying to ignore the voices only he could hear. They would always touch the corners of his mind, one of the few things which had never quite faded in his mind from Quatre's games. Another deep, dark secret, another hidden, gilded lie. Where would it all end? Heero didn't know, but he knew he had to keep going until he found the end of the road he'd been given to travel. If he could only find him, it would be over for now. For now.
Zechs almost protested about the obvious
insanity of wandering into total darkness without so much as a guide or
a set destination, but Duo caught his eyes just before his mouth opened,
warning and pleading with the same gaze. Duo trusted Heero and silently
asked Zechs to trust in him. They all needed to trust each other in order
to get out of this mess alive. The blonde sighed in defeat, knowing the
two would leave him if he decided to stay, and the trio set off in search
of...whoever.
WuFei blinked. Duo had been standing against the wall right there, he'd stake his not-quite-immortal life on it. He'd seen him there just a moment ago. So where in the name of hell had the braided, idiotic god gotten to? "Onna, where is Duo?" he asked, not turning to face Sally. She didn't respond immediately, and WuFei sensed her searching for Duo a bit more frantically than he had been. She always seemed to over react to things, and he almost regretted asking her.
"Shinigami-sama must have had other business," Sally replied, both trying to reassure WuFei and herself, ignoring the obvious lie in her response. Somehow things never turned out as they were supposed to, especially when WuFei happened to be around, and she decided it had to be his fault in some way. After all, the asian always seemed to have a knack for knowing what was wrong with everything. Therefore, he had to be connected to the god's disappearance in one way or another. "What did you do now?" she hissed, her eyes still searching for the god she served.
"I did nothing, Onna!" WuFei replied indignantly, trying to cover up his nervousness at the scene before them. Things seemed almost too sequential, as if some higher power was orchestrating this intricate pattern of which he was ignorant. There was something so familiar about this, giving him the feeling this happened before, in another time and place, in another land. Where it had been he couldn't say, nor did he know what would be the next strange thing to happen, but he did know he'd been involved with something akin to this once, long ago. "Besides, we have other things to deal with," WuFei added, his eyes finding Dorothy and Une both lying on the ground. "Are we allowed to finish those two off?" he asked, unsure of their job description in this.
Sally remained silent for a moment, contemplating what lay before them, both figuratively and literally. She'd never encountered anything like this before, and she wasn't quite sure how to deal with the situation, but she wasn't about to let WuFei find that out. He would never let her hear the end of how an "onna" shouldn't be allowed to assist in an operation. "I don't see why we shouldn't go ahead with this, after all, it is part of our work. The world's better off without them anyway, we both know that, but we should ask Shinigami-sama--"
"Who isn't here right now. We need to make our own decision."
Sally glared at her partner, debating whether or not it was worth the time and energy to try to get him to be less infuriating for a moment so she could think about what to do. She decided he wasn't worth the headache which would inevitably follow getting into an argument with him, especially since she knew in her heart he was right. "We wait and watch."
WuFei inwardly sighed. He knew she was right about waiting, he'd come to the conclusion long before she had, but he hated the fact he let her make the decision on what they should do. Something inside of him forced him to tear his thoughts away from the obnoxious Sally, and onto the scene progressing near the refreshment table between the girl with the two braids and one of the bodyguards who had just returned to the hall.
"Where the hell were you?" the more-than-slightly drunk girl asked the guard who simply glanced at her out of his sunglasses. "You're supposed to take care of things like this! You're not supposed to let this happen, you f*cking bastard," she whined, her voice that of a little girl, but her words strictly not. "Are you listening to me?" she screeched as she noticed the guard was no longer looking at her. "I'm the Crown Princess of the Sanc Kingdom! You have to listen to me!" she yelled, her eyes wild.
The guard, by the name of Abdul, inwardly wondered why Master Quatre had asked for this brat's appearance at his party. She was obviously an idiot, a psychopath, and a bad drunk on top of it all. Perhaps Master Quatre had plans for this girl, but Abdul was the one who had to suffer through Relena's comments. He'd been assigned to watch her and not interfere with anything that could get her killed, but he still wanted her to shut up.
"Oh, I get it. You're just being quiet because you're only a f*cking bastard who serves that damn sh*t hole whose--"
That was as far as she got. Abdul turned
to her and drew his katana, finally losing patience as she insulted Master
Quatre. No one insulted Master Quatre and lived, that was part of the code
the bodyguards had created for themselves, so he didn't feel very bad as
the sword slid through her ribs, the blood-soaked point appearing from
her back. Nor did he feel any remorse as she fell to the ground, shock
and anger gracing the features of the late Crown Princess of Sanc.
Heero stopped finally, frustrated with the lack of progress they seemed to be making. Where in the hell of the damned was he? Surely he didn't see *them* as a threat. They were coming to *help*. A light shone in the distance, and he made his way towards it gratefully, recognizing the soft glow. Apparently it had stood through the time he'd not been here, living in another place. "We're almost there," he informed the two following him. Although their eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, Duo and Zechs still stumbled around the featureless landscape.
"Almost where?" Duo asked, still wondering if this was a good idea. He had the bad feeling it wasn't a good idea, but it was a bit too late to turn back now. Oh well. Duo didn't really care where Heero was leading him, as long as Heero didn't leave. Hell, he'd follow him to Heaven and back, no matter the fact that the sight of the golden palace of light would destroy him. Heero was his world, and he'd do anything Heero asked for. Shinigami felt so strongly about this mortal, and it scared him a bit, scared him that something would happen to Heero, something that would separate them for eternity. Gods who loved mortals were doomed to eternal sadness, but Shinigami didn't care.
Heero turned to face them, a look of mild surprise and amusement gracing his face, two emotions which seldom were allowed to show. "To my house, of course," he responded with a bit of secrecy. The other two stared at him, unsure of whether or not he was joking. Zechs had the sinking feeling Heero wasn't jesting about this, and he bit back a groan as he looked at Duo following Heero without question. Things just NEVER were what they seemed when Shinigami was involved. What happened to the EASY jobs? He knew he'd known easy things once...if only he could remember when.
The trio entered the large metal structure looking more like a prison than a house, Zechs shuddering slightly as he entered. A great evil lurked within Heero's 'house', but he had the feeling it no longer mattered enough to speak of it. Too many things were repetitive, as they once were, and he could only hope things wouldn't turn out the way they had last time. It was hard enough the first time to watch as *he* died of his own free will to be with the one *he* loved. It was harder still to look upon the face of *him* as he awoke and remembered nothing of his love or the gentle caring they shared. Zechs didn't think he could go through it again.
The Guardian motioned to Shinigami as Heero moved towards a staircase. "Make yourselves comfortable," Heero called back. He walked upstairs, his mind already searching.
"Shinigami, this isn't going to turn out the way it did last time...right?" the Guardian asked, his eyes frosty and dangerous. The white around him flared, as if to warn Shinigami against repeating time by showing him what could happen. "Last time was bad enough, and I swore I'd never let you take another life in that way, Shinigami, no matter what happened. I'm not about to let you make me break that vow just because of a whim."
"A whim?" Shinigami asked, his midnight eyes having a touch of Duo Maxwell's deep blue, turning them to the deepest violet. "Is that all you really think this is, Guardian?" he laughed, his voice ancient and deadly. "If that's all this was, we wouldn't be here now, Guardian. It's time you realized what really's going on here. I'm not doing anything but claiming what's already mine, what has been mine since the beginning of time. You and the other Guardian's were created only to keep me from what's mine, and that is why I fight you. Heero will choose, and his choice shall be eternal. Once he decides, the other shall know, and then I shall leave this world, Guardian. You know this."
"And if I choose to stop you, Shinigami?"
"Would you really stop me, Guardian? Could you actually stop me?" Shinigami looked deep into the Guardian's eyes, seeking and judging the tall blonde before him, and finding him greatly lacking. "You still care for Duo Maxwell, and that is why you won't stop me, Guardian. Don't you understand yet? You are the Last Guardian, and that is the reason you will never be able to win. Alone you stand no chance against my powers. However, I'm going to forget your part in keeping me from what I desire because Duo Maxwell cared for you."
"And if I decide to warn Heero of this?" the Last Guardian asked as a last attempt to gain the upper hand over Shinigami.
"Then he learns of his choice sooner.
You cannot win, Guardian. I won't let you," Shinigami warned, his dark
eyes intensely boring into the Last Guardian's gaze until the blonde was
forced to look away. "Tonight is the end of everything, Guardian. You'd
do well to remember that."
Quatre sat before his mirror, gazing deeply at his reflection, pleading with him, calling him to face the lies which lay within himself. "Not yet..." he whispered, his knuckles turning white from the force of his grip upon the edge of the table, almost feeling the metal crushing under the intensity of his fist. "Not now, damn it..." Sweat trickled down his face as he closed his gemstone eyes in an attempt to keep his emotions under control. He needed to be perfectly stable in order to carry it out, and if /he/ interfered, things could fall apart before his eyes.
It had been too long since he'd faced the one within him and won. Too long, and now he dared to rise again. _Damn you to the bowels of hell, why won't you leave?!_ he screamed within his mind at the invader, the one who threatened everything he'd worked for, everything he'd joined together. He'd lived with the intruder for so long, it seemed as though he'd never leave. _Why won't you just leave me alone?!_
The voice of the hated one rose out of the depths of his mind, startling him. _Please don't do this. You know it's not what you should do. You know how to end this all!_ pleaded the voice, attempting to grasp at the fragments of the conscience Quatre once held. The voice was soft and tired, sobbing with the amount of energy it took to say even those few words. _You have to stop hurting them!_
"And if I don't?" Quatre asked the mirror, speaking aloud. How could he attempt to ruin everything? He had no right to lay claim to those two. "I'll do with them what I like. You should leave now, before I do something else!
He looked into the mirror and surveyed
the one who mocked him, his eyes turning wild with anger. How DARE he attempt
to break out of his prison NOW? Time was of essence to his plot, and the
small blonde knew this. There was only one way to silence the pleas to
stop what had to be done, what should be done. He raised his hand and smashed
the mirror before him to pieces, ignoring the sobs within his mind, ignoring
the deep red blood trickling down his hand, staining the vanilla carpet
beneath his feet. Now the intruder would keep quiet, now he had no way
to taunt him. All would go as planned.
Heero's mind wandered, searching for the only one who could end the crisis before them, the only one who could stop the pain and suffering Quatre was inflicting on everyone. _Come,_ he called, his mind echoing throughout the darkness. _Come, and we can finish this,_ he repeated, reaching out to find the flicker he sought. Why wouldn't he respond? Heero knew his mind came here to rest. So where was he? _Come. I need your help in this._
_Why?_ the silent question struck at Heero, the pure bitterness in the tone almost knocking Heero off his mental feet. Heero remained quiet, unsure of how to answer the question which shocked him. There needed to be a why explained? He'd thought it was obvious why. Quatre was a threat to everyone, and the only way to stop him was to stop what he'd put into motion. Couldn't Trowa see this? _Why should I come to help you destroy my Master?_
_He's hurt you. I know. He hurt so many others. Come and we can end the pain,_ Heero responded, trying to convince the other he knew what he was talking about, trying to convince himself he knew what he was talking about. The deep, heart-wrenching sadness concealed beyond the bitter facade the other held sunk into Heero's soul, forcing him to realize and remember just how alone he'd been while he lived with Quatre, how alone he'd been before he'd met Duo that night, so long ago. _Let's end this here, now, before someone else gets hurt, Trowa. Just tell me what he's planning, and I'll stop him. He won't get hurt, and the only thing that'll be ruined is his plans._
_You just don't understand, Yuy. I will NOT help you to harm the Master in any way,_ the crushing response came, pushing Heero's mind back, away from him as if his idea was painful and tempting at the same time. The sheer intensity of the emerald-eyed boy's purpose startled Heero, and he allowed himself to rethink his plan. Obviously Trowa didn't want to hurt Quatre, but why? Quatre was the one who'd hurt him. "Why" was the real question.
_What don't I understand, Trowa? Tell me. I used to know why people shouldn't hurt each other, shouldn't cause each other pain and suffering, but I've forgotten. Remind me,_ Heero responded, his voice quiet and thoughtful.
A hand placed itself on Heero's shoulder, and he turned slowly, trying to find the person who'd startled him. His eyes dimly made out the outline of a person, but the darkness emitting from Trowa came dangerously close to the darkness of the world outside. "Trowa," Heero started, but stopped. The black aura seemed different than anything else Heero had ever seen, and he wasn't about to let Trowa know that.
"I will not let you harm the Master," Trowa repeated, his facial expression calm as ever, but his forest eyes wild in the midnight around him. The darkness around him pulsed with his life force, shrinking away from the lighter color of Heero's aura. "I thought you would understand why I tell you that, but you say you don't."
"Why don't you tell me, Trowa?"
"You love that Duo, don't you?" Trowa asked, his eyes flat and demanding as his question shot through the air. If Heero was to understand, he'd have to answer truthfully, and Trowa wasn't sure if he was ready to forgive Duo yet. Something had happened here, and he wanted to know what it was, almost as much as he was afraid to find out what happened. Heero remained silent for a moment, slowly nodding after contemplating all which happened. "How much do you love him?" Trowa shot, his voice a carefully aimed barb at Heero's heart.
Heero looked at the darkness out the window, reviewing all he knew about Duo. "He's lied to me since I've known him, but I've lied to him as well. I think it makes us even," he whispered, trying to understand what Trowa was asking him, trying to understand the complexities of his own feelings. "But, beyond the lies...I love him. I love him more than anything."
Silence greeted Heero's response, and Heero thought for a moment Trowa left. The youth with the intensely emerald eyes finally spoke, his words soft and full of loneliness. It seemed as though no one would, nor could, understand why he felt the way he did. "Then why don't you understand, Heero? I would go through a million tortures, just so he wouldn't feel one ounce of pain. I'd die as many times as needed, just so he could have eternal life. I'd protect him at any cost, and you ask me to betray him?" Trowa's eyes caught Heero's, and forced Heero to see the truth which lay before them. "I love him. I've loved him since the day I first saw him. I will NEVER betray him."
"I'm glad you feel that way, Trowa," the golden-haired youth's voice cut through the air, shocking both Heero and Trowa as they slowly turned to face him. "Because I need your help."
