O.K, sorry I had to change the rating, I didn't plan this ending when I started the fic but the one I did plan was rubbish. This chapter completely ignores the game plot and I just left out Sea Mother cos she would have complicated it and got in the way.





Part One, Chapter 6: Indecision


Hesitation/ When I'm standing with my prey/ The indecision of if I should/ Blow him away/ What they were asking was/ More than I could bear/ The realisation of blowing a brother away/ Something in me was gone ~Eagle Eye Cherry



Margarete walks up to the small door of the boat cabin and knocks tentatively, ready to talk to Kawashima. It's night again, all day spent on this tiny boat surrounded by the vast sea. Yuri had been violently seasick within an hour or so of leaving port and Alice had been tending to his every need. She had been gearing herself up to talk to Kawashima since this morning, when she'd made up her mind. She knew what she had to do. Why is it so hard? she thinks. It's only a few words. I've been through much more.

Enter.' Kawashima's voice breaks through the empty silence. Margarete opens the door. The room she enters is small, with boxes on the damp wooden floor. Two small oil lamps glow like malevolant eyes watching from the darkness. The window facing the front of the boat shows impenetrable darkness, made opaque by the salt-tasting thick fog. Kato stands at the wheel, steering, but he leaves the post and faces Margarete when she enters. Kawashima turns round as well, and Margarete looks at her, feeling jumpy and sick with nerves.


Kawashima-'


Yes?' Kawashima sounds distracted, as if she'd been interrupted. Margarete swallows. She feels cold and empty from her hidden fear. But I know what will happen, she reassures herself. I know what I have to do.

Kawashima, I,' she trembles, but, she prays, not visibly. I. . . I can't. . .' She had the perfect words prepared in her head earlier, but now they're gone. They will return later when it's all over, and run through her head over and over, but for now she can't find them, they're lost.

I can't do this mission,' she finally manages to blurt. I'm. . . I'm leaving. Leaving the army.' There. She'd said it. The words had lost any grace and poise they may have had as she planned this conversation, but she'd said them, that was what mattered.


Very well.' Kawashima was calm and unaffected, cold even. As you wish.'


Margarete turns to leave. Kawashima gives a minute gesture to Kato. Kato knows what he is expected to do and freezes, uncertain. Its obviously his first time working with Kawashima, or he would be used to this. Kawashima sighs, almost inaudibly. Her expression silently betrays her thoughts: Do I have to do everything myself? Her hand slips into her pocket and closes around the handle of a gun. She draws it out slowly and points it carefully at the back of Margarete's head.


Margarete knew this was going to happen, and she was ready. She whirls around, both hands clasped around the handle of her own pistol.


Kawashima has never had anyone try to defend themselves before. She was used to her victims not suspecting a thing. But she regains composure quickly. After all, Margarete was a spy, better trained and more quick-witted than the privates.


Kato unwittingly lets out a strangled cry of terror. He isn't here because he's a good soldier, but he comes from an influential family. This brings Alice running to see what's going on. Zhuzhen follows calmly. Yuri moves slowly, bogged down by his nausea.


Alice lets out a piercing shriek when she sees Kawashima and Margarete, guns pointed at each other's faces, staring each other out. Yuri races to protect Alice, all thoughts of sea sickness forgotten. He stops dead in his tracks, unable to believe this.


What the fuck?'

Neither Margarete or Kawashima can afford to let their concentration go for long enough to answer, and neither Zhuzhen or Alice know.


The pair take small careful steps, keeping their guns poised, so they stand outside the cabin, on the deck. Alice stands quaking near to Kawashima and Yuri stands near Margarete. Zhuzhen stands back, keeping out of the way, and Kato is in the cabin doorway, looking pale, as if he can't breathe properly. No-one dares move. It's like an invisible force keeps them rooted to their positions. And the force disappears in an almost visible flash, in an instant.


Kawashima grabs Alice and pulls her in front of her. She still holds her gun in one hand. Alice's mouth hangs open in a silent scream. Yuri yells in anger and launches forwards in Kawashima's direction. His fist flies out and his clawed gloves catch the skin on Kawashima's face. They tear downwards, pulling the flesh out of shape, leaving three deep, long grooves. Ruby drops prick up inside them and soon the cuts are gushing blood. It runs down her face, splashing onto the boards in perfect round drops. Yuri pushes Alice out of the way, and puts one arm around her shoulders, supporting her as her legs have given way.


Margarete's throat tightens. She knows she has to shoot. It is a choice of her or Kawashima. She has to shoot. But her hands have frozen on the gun. It doesn't feel real. This feels like a dream, like a nightmare where you know you'll never wake up. She stares straight ahead. Kawashima has her hands over her eyes, back bent over, blinded by the blood. She can't shoot now. It would be unfair. Unfair? When Kawashima had shot-murdered- so many innocent men, just to make her missions a little easier. Not enemy soldiers, her own men. And she had known something like this was going to happen. She had been prepared to kill. Why can't she do it?




She has to shoot.



There is no other way.

Her finger tightens on the trigger. For an instant she thinks she's lost her nerve.

She pulls her finger down.




The bang is deafening. Time stands still as the bullet hangs in mid air. Kawashima is still oblivious. Oblivious until. . .


Time starts again and the bullet is flying fast, blurring in the air and -
And it hits. Margarete feels like she has completely lost control and in a way she has. She watches, unable to take her eyes away, as Kawashima's head is blown beyond recognition. Blood flies into the air. There is a sickening crack as her skull splinters and breaks, and a dull thud as her corpse hits the wet boards of the deck. Margarete falls to her knees, sickened. One small movement, a twitch of the finger, brought about this. . . Pure red blood seeps across the deck, beginning to congeal. Fragments of wet, grey brains have burst out and landed near her. The same brain that had planned this whole mission. She raises her eyes to the body, trying to confront the results of her actions. Kawashima's carcass is cold and still. Her clothes are sodden with blood. In place of her head. . . Her head has been so destroyed you would hardly know it had ever been human. A mangled neck, and a clot of bone shards, blood so thick it looks black in the foggy night, ash-coloured pulpy brains blown apart. And she had done this. She feels bile rising in the back of her throat and vomits slowly.



She hears voices far away, like she's under water. Someone crying, Alice. Someone's trying to talk to her.


Margarete, Margarete? Are you all right? Margarete?' She can't speak to answer. Another voice says Let her be.' She shuts her eyes tightly and opens them again. She tries to piece together the parts of the scene around her.


Yuri, kneeling beside Alice, trying to stop her fainting.


Kato, slumped in the cabin doorway, stunned by the carnage.


Zhuzhen, standing over him, watching events, sad and remorseful-looking. He lowered his eyes to face Kato and speaks prophetically. It's best it happened now.' What did that mean? She can't think now. The world is blurred, incomprehensible. She is still gripping the gun, knuckles white. Hand trembling, she lets it go, prising her fingers away one by one. Shaking uncontrollably, she attempts to push herself to her feet. Her legs give way and she collapses, dry-heaving. She feels someone stroking her back, comforting her to no avail. She feels dizzy, light-headed, darkness closing in from the edges of her eyesight. . .



Margarete slumps forwards, head down. Yuri bends down beside her, holding his breath. He lifts her wrist to check her pulse and breathes a sigh of releif when he feels blood pumping beneath her cold skin. He lifts her gently, carries her through and lies her carefully on the tiny bunk bed. Her face looks haunted by some unseen dream. She cries out in pain and fear. Yuri and Alice look at each other, unsure whether to wake her. The moon, glowing full and bright behind the layer of fog, lets a silvery, ghostly light through, shining through the doorway onto Margarete's face, lending it the unearthly pallor of death.






So God knows how they're going to handle Li Li. I hope you'll forgive the fact I haven't got a clue what actually happens when someone gets shot, I just had to use my imagination. And for my next story, do you think I should give it what seems like too high a rating for most of the fic or maybe change the rating again? (5/5/03: Heh. That was the unspeakably badly put together collection of random suicide attempts that was the Malice Judgement. And yup, rewrite for that in progress. This time Marianne can have a personality and everything. I just feel I could have done it so much better, even though I have no degree of talent whatsoever.)


Thanks everyone that reviewed that story, especially aegis cos it looks like s/he is following it, and anyone reading it now who's going to review. Oh and Tattered Wings XO! Yuri's not a rapist (long story) and THAT'S NOT FUNNY! It has gone waay to far and I'm going to have to kill you now.