Author's Note: I don't own Gundam Wing, if you happened to miss all my other disclaimers.
~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part 13
By Zero's Wings
Crimson TearsHeero's eyes slowly opened, and he found himself staring out at an incredibly vast carpet of pastel clouds. He had risen above them, and Zero had already touched the atmospheric ceiling. The sun was an incredibly bright orange nexus, from which long, ribbon-like strands of golden light radiated. Heero felt like he was in heaven.
Heero was so entranced by the euphoric haze of the ZERØ system, that he didn't even notice he had put his Gundam into a rapid, unforgiving descent toward the ground below.
*****
Trowa and Duo reached the source of the flare, a makeshift campsite. The moment Quatre and Trowa's eyes met, they both broke into a full run, and embraced amongst the ruin and decay of the former city. Tears were streaming down both of their faces. Then all eyes turned to Wufei, who was slowly stumbling up to greet the rest of the group. He gave everyone a quick smile and a nod, but received only shocked stares in return. The right side of his face was covered with a blood-drenched towel that had been tied down around his head with a knotted piece of Duo's flight suit.
"I'm just fine, so you can all stop staring," Wufei said gruffly. Even he was unsure of this, but his wound wasn't infected, and it didn't seem that his right eye could be salvaged by any amount of treatment anyway. Everyone rushed to help him, comfort him, but he pushed them all away almost as a reflex. In all honesty, though, he was the most frightened of all of them.
Trowa and Quatre collected their supplies and belongings while Duo and Wufei rested. It would be difficult to move quickly on foot with two injured men. Trowa scanned the desolate landscape for some method of transportation, but it was obvious that no machinery had worked in the city for decades.
Collectively, the four of them couldn't help but almost constantly ask: Where the hell was Heero? None of them expressed this vocally, but they were all thinking it, and they were thinking it rather bitterly.
The group pressed on, finding nothing but ruins ahead and behind them. Soon, their pace lagged and it became apparent that they could not continue without rest or food. As the sun slipped into the cusp of two ragged buildings, the group collapsed, exhausted.
Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei cast lean, frightened glances at each other. They all knew: there was no food, and there would be no rest.
Duo let out a disheartened sigh as he dropped to the ground, finally giving a voice to the question that had been twisting in everyone's side. "Where in god's name is Heero?" he yelled to the sky, as if the some divine light would bestow the answer upon him from the heavens. Ironically enough, it did.
The clouds were suddenly driven back in a radial pattern as piercing orange light from the setting sun rushed through the gap. Out of this gaping wound in the atmosphere, a glimmering seraph, wrapped in a brilliant coat of steel, descended to earth. It passed below the scraggly tips of the taller buildings, falling blindly but gracefully. Just as everyone ducked for cover from the impending impact, the metal being seemed to awaken, and it began to turn upward. Against the golden shoots of sunlight, it opened a pair of heavenly, silver wings and curved up into the sky. Its coursing through the air made a perfect bell shape.
"That must be Wing Zero…" Wufei said in awe. None of them had seen anything quite so beautiful in a device born out of the need for destruction. The suit circled the area once and then landed, causing jets of dust to billow up around it.
Everyone rushed to see Heero emerge from the cockpit, and the air was thick with anxiety as the front of the suit slowly opened. Heero stepped out shakily, still wearing his black, form-fitting g-suit. His breaths were labored and erratic. As the other pilots drew near to help him down, they saw a characteristic golden glow in his eyes. "The ZERØ system," Quatre said in a kind of frightened awe, taking a step back.
The glow faded suddenly from Heero's eyes, and everyone shuddered and let out whispering cries. Heero's eyes were full of blood. The ZERØ system had pushed him too far. He closed his eyes and grimaced painfully as a crimson tear formed in each of his eyes and rolled down his face. The two red streaks met at the bottom of his chin and dripped to the ground. Heero's face reminded Trowa of his clown mask.
Heero stumbled forward and seemed to faint in mid-step. He fell, silently, from the platform in the center of his mobile suit. All four of his fellow pilots rushed to grab him, but they knew they wouldn't be able to catch him in time. Everyone winced when his body hit the ground, and his legs tangled together so badly that they all knew he must've broken them.
Trowa was the first to reach the fallen pilot, and felt frantically for a pulse in Heero's wrist. The second he picked up his friend's arm, he felt sick. It flopped about as if it was made out of toothpaste. Trowa breathed out a huge sigh of relief, however, when he found that Heero still had a pulse.
"It's all right," Trowa said. His voice was soft and full of relief, despite his expressionless face. "He's alive."
A moment later, Heero awoke with a shudder. He could see the faces of his fellow pilots now, as all the blood had left his eyes and formed dried, caked splotches on his cheeks. He coughed a bit and asked for some water, to which Duo eagerly extended his canteen. Heero drank voraciously, and water ran from his mouth and formed dew-like droplets in the stubble that lined his face.
"I'm glad you're okay, Heero," Quatre said quietly.
"We all are," Duo chimed in.
"I…I'm sorry I wasn't here to help," Heero replied. "I didn't know the ZERØ system could have such an effect on me after all those years. It clouded my mind. It wants me to die."
"I have just one question," Trowa said. "Why did you turn that system on in the first place?"
"I was just too worried about Relena," Heero admitted. "It was going to get me killed, worrying about losing her. The ZERØ system helped me focus."
"That system is evil," Quatre said. "It will never be of any aid to us. It can only harm us, and the people we care about." He remembered firing upon Trowa, nearly killing the most important person in his life.
"I just didn't want to lose that focus," Heero said. "I was bred for battle. I just can't stand losing that absolute control of myself."
Trowa looked his fellow pilot in the eye sternly. "But you left the battle behind you, just as we all have. You became in touch with your own humanity. Relena helped you do that. That's one of the reasons you love her so much."
"I guess that's true," Heero said. The endless fighting. Living on the edge of a razor. That's what I gave up. That's what…she…helped me give up. Heero's mind was slowly breaking free of the ZERØ system's chains. I can live again, he thought.
Heero began to lift himself up onto his feet, and stopped in a crouch. Something's holding me down, though. What is holding me back? He asked himself in a silent panic. A horrible face entered his thoughts, a face which his mind instantly recognized as a banner of hatred and revulsion. Everyone winced as Heero finally rose to his feet, amidst the crackling noises of joints and bones being popped back into place. At last, his journey, his trial, had presented him with a clear path and a goal. The end was in sight. Heero marched up to his mobile suit, extended the tow cable, and hoisted himself back up to the cockpit.
Heero turned back to his four friends, all wounded and shaken. "Thank you," he called down to them. "This was my fight from the beginning." He took a last look at all of them, and winced especially as he looked upon Wufei's mauled face. "I can ask no more of you. I will call Preventer HQ and have them send out a rescue team. I must take it from here."
"Where are you going?" Quatre called up to him.
"To get my life back, one final time. I'm going to colony Lx- 12110502. My birthplace."
"Why?" Duo asked, confused.
"That's where he'll be. That's where we'll end it. I can feel him, reaching out to me with a kind of twisted prescience…
I'm going to kill Emulat, forever."
End part 13