"""The last battle. Sounds lyrical, doesn't it? As if it's one of those fairy tale battles where good fights evil and good always triumphs. That last battle wasn't like that. Not at all. We were so unsure on which side we were going to fight that we had a debate about it. The only reason that we chose to fight Zechs was because of that overgrown laser beam in the end. Talk about irony, hn?
The battle wasn't the least glamorous. It was hard, mind breaking and soul tearing. Many people died, innocents as well as battered soldiers. Even we gundam pilot experienced losses. There's one loss that I can't make myself grieve though. It's the one of the scientists. For while they were the one who created us, they also played God. They formed us into something we weren't, they used us. The thing that irks me the most though is the way J ordered us to self-destruct and the way G so coldly made me suffer through his scientific research on my engineered body. Some things just can't be forgiven.
It is that one day that lies foremost in my mind. The screams of the dying. The desperation over the battlefield. The fear of the planet called Earth. So much was at stake that day. So much happened. Death had a busy day. It was a day of horror, yet I cannot bring myself to regret it because it was that day I finally understood humanity. It was that day I realized that peace would never come to stay. The pain of knowledge is worth suffering. I cannot forget. If I do I will forget my soul."""
The two combatants are standing opposite to each other on the street. Around them, people keep to their business, not giving the fighters a second glance, with the exception of a slender woman with blonde, pink dyed hair in worn jeans and a white tee sporting a rather explicit picture. Her eyes never strayed away from their black clad figures.
The smallest figure, a slender man with a thick braid slithering down his back, bows mockingly before his opponent, violet eyes glowing with sarcasm. The other man glares.
"Failing your master, are you?" the braided man haughtily says, his nose peeking at the heavens disdainfully. "Such foolishness!"
The other man growls and circles around the braided one, a silk rope appearing in a strong hand.
"I have not failed yet," he snaps, making a dodge at the other. "Differently from others, I'm not giving up. I will not fail."
The man with the braid throws out his arms in a sardonic manner, casually striking out in a seemingly impossible kick that throws his adversary clear across the street, he himself not even loosing his balance.
"Oh dear me!" he cries out while giving the other man a sarcastic look. "I'm trembling with fear, please have mercy!"
At the end of his call, the shorthaired man has managed to get to his feet and is quickly closing in on the unarmed man, twirling his rope in intricate figures while moving lethally towards him.
The braided one smirks, crouching slightly and then disappears, leaping into a high flip over his adversary's head. Even as he prepares to land, he twists his body and lands a solid kick at the base of the rope twirling man's neck, causing him to dive onto the ground, headfirst.
Duo looks sadly at the man who has now rolled on his back and is looking at him with empty eyes.
"I'm sorry but I cannot afford to let you live," he says, his hand clenching as if it wants to close around the cross at his neck. Then, a slender stiletto appears in his hand. A flowing slash later, the assassin's blood is tainting the street.
"I'm sorry."
I have to admit that it took me at least ten seconds of staring at Duo and what he had just done before my soldier's mind started to process what I had seen before my very eyes and before my body is able to react. I most likely looked like a fool, frozen in the middle of a step. After those ten seconds though, I once again act in a flurry of movements.
What I have seen hasn't shaken me the least. Nor that it surprised me much. During the years I've known Duo, I've always known there was something odd about him. Not a bad odd or a threatening odd, but simply odd. I never read anything into it, but considered it to be something irrelevant. J most likely knew, and if he knew, I felt justified in not pushing the matter further. Now I realize that J probably didn't know and that it most likely should have been forced to become an issue. But that was then, this is now.
I'm running once again, shoving people away with death glares and body to reach the slender figure of the man who found his way into my heart and mind, oddities and abilities to hell. I'm going to save the man I love, the man I've fallen in love with. Shit.
I breathe heavily as I stand over the corpse, holding the bloody stiletto in my hand. Tears are rolling down my cheeks, burning their way down my throat, but not for the kill, never for the murder. For the friend, for the man I've known in my whole life and that I have now lost to Hel Inc. I scream.
A body runs into mine and two muscular arms come around me, holding me trapped. I'm not afraid. I know those arms. Turning my tear-filled eyes towards him, violet eyes meet blue for seconds and everything changes. Two fingers gently brush the tears away and soft lips meet mine. Then, Heero gathers himself together and looks with regret at me.
"We have to run," he says.
We do.
I sink onto the ground beside Duo. We have been running without hesitation for twenty minutes. Only now have we reached a safe house, or rather a hideout. There are still plenty of those out there, left but not forgotten after the war. They still come in handy.
A silky braid lies draped over my body. It came to rest there when we sank to the ground in a tangle of limbs, breathless. I am not out of breath anymore though, so I untangle myself from Duo and sit in a more straight-backed posture. It's time to talk.
"Duo?" My voice sounds different than it did this morning. Breathier somehow. Softer. How curious.
He lifts his head and looks at me with hesitant eyes. Slender, tanned fingers reach up to brush away long bangs, which keep falling into his beautiful yet cool eyes.
"You want answers." He says with a sigh, eyes looking down and a hand almost touching me but instead dropping to the floor. "I'll give them to you, but please Heero, don't… don't think ill of me if this comes out weird. I… I have never told anyone of my free will before. It will be hard."
I look at him, unconsciously reaching out to take his slender hands in my callused ones. It's getting easier to touch. To be honest, I'm even beginning to like it even if it still makes me uncomfortable at times. Am I loosing the part of me that is the Perfect Soldier? Am I becoming just another gundam pilot?
Realizing that Duo is waiting for an answer, I catch his eyes and nod softly. I will listen and I will understand. Even if I may not be Perfect anymore, I can still strive to just that.
"I'm not human."
I blink. Okay. I didn't expect that.
"I'm a science project born in a lab somewhere in the L2 cluster."
A science lab. It seems like he and I have more in common than I thought. He was born in a lab, I was raised in one. Somehow I think I'm not reacting as I should.
"I don't remember anything before AC 185. It was then I awakened and escaped onto the streets of L2."
I feel grateful for that. I know from personal experience how living in a lab can be. It's not a very good place to live in. Not as a kid, especially not as a kid posing as a science project.
"You know about the life I lead on the streets. It's in my files after all. There's some things that G left out about my stay with him though."
Yes, I know everything about Duo's life on the streets. Every ugly little detail. I'm still surprised he survived it. He is the only one in our group that grew up without the care of adults. That sets him apart from us. Until I learned about this, I thought it was the major thing that put him apart from us.
"G discovered anomalies within my DNA. It apparently held sequences that cannot be found in a human. It can however be found in a cat."
I can't help but smirk inside. How fitting. As I think about it, it even explains many things I've noticed about our dear Duo. Like the strange sounds he emits from time to time.
"It gives me certain advantages. Increased flexibility, keen senses and reflexes, speed, strength and balance in particular. It also gives me disadvantages, like my sickness."
Understandable. The human body isn't built to merge with a cat's after all. There has to be some disharmony. No DNA likes to be mutated. In fact, it prefers to fix itself up if it does. If what Duo says is true, which most likely is, it must have taken years of research to come this far. I can imagine the fury Duo's creator must have felt when he escaped.
Duo's creator. It feels wrong to think of Duo in such terms. It implies that Duo isn't a human being, isn't an individual. He most definitely is though. His liveliness and spirit is what first caused me to notice him after all. Well, after the bullets at least.
"Heero?"
I start at the sound of his voice and realize that I have been silent for quite a while. Looking at Duo, I realize he seems crestfallen. No doubt he interpreted my silence as something negative.
"Duo," I calmly say, cocking my head slightly. He isn't looking at me. I want him to because I don't think I can do what I need to do if I'm not able to read him.
Steeling myself, I reach out and gently touch his chin, easing it up so his face is bared to me. His violet eyes are afraid. His lips are thinned and tense. I slide a finger over them. Fright isn't a good look on him.
"Duo," I begin again, squaring my shoulders and trapping his eyes with mine. I'm still holding his hand. "You are wrong."
He gives me a confused, slightly angry look. As he opens his mouth to speak, I quiet him.
"No, let me speak," I softly say, my touch gentle. "You were wrong about you not being human. You are Duo. And very much so. You are the life among us gundam pilots Duo. My northern star. You are more human than I am. For while you may not have completely human genes, you have embraced humanity. I cannot do that, I don't know how. Humanity lies in the soul, not the body."
As I stop speaking, I am crouching in front of him, sitting on my haunches with my hands on each side of his head and my eyes two inches from his. I want him to understand. I need him to understand.
As he smiles brightly at me, I know I have succeeded. Elation fills me at that, and I bow to catch his lips for a second with mine. At that moment, it's Perfect.
Then my cell phone goes off.
A black shape walks by the window of my office. I glare at it, wishing that I could lash out at it, grab it and rip it to pieces. Sadly enough I cannot do that. It would be too complicated with two deaths among my secretaries in one week. A pity indeed.
My hands shake as I once again put down the folder I had my Daemon retrieve for me at the Preventer's Headquarters. He's still alive. I still cannot comprehend it. My beautiful Shinigami Final v. 6.2.2 is still alive and he has turned out better than I would have ever thought. I'm so very proud. Once again he will be mine. He will help me make blood flow and the world suffer.
TBC
