Follow Your Heart
By YamiHikari
Disclaimer: Don't own GW, probably never will. (sobs) All I own here is my writing and my own original character/characters.
Author's Note: I know it's really "Do as your heart tells you", but "Follow your heart" just sounds better to me. No, this isn't one-shot, I just like to take my time writing, so come and check in a month and I might have another chapter up. Keyword: might. I'll yammer on 'bout other stuff at the end, since I know you're all anxious to be getting this over with.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
She would have to die. She had disgraced her family, her ancestors, her race. Tajima Ryuka, last of the humans, had made up her mind.
She had written a short note to her parents. They would find it far too late, since she would be gone by the time they found it. Her will was with it, not that she had anything to give or friends to give to.
Tajima finished the rites and bowed to the shrine of her ancestors. Then, she raised her arms, placing the blades located midway in the metal armguards on either side of her throat. She closed her eyes, and was about to pull her arms together to end it all when a light took her, and she was gone. [1]
**********
In a room not only lit by ceiling lights, but also by the soft glow of a computer screen, a Chinese youth of about 17 [2] was practicing his swordsmanship. He brought it downwards in a slashing motion, then whipped it around him in a tight circle, narrowly missing an American boy of about the same age.
"Hey, watch the braid, Wu-man!" Duo yelped, moving away from Chang Wufei and his blade.
"My name is Wufei not Wu-man or whatever other ridiculous name that you could come up with," Wufei responded testily. "And if you didn't insist on wearing your hair in that ridiculous manner, you wouldn't have to worry about it."
"He's got a point there."
"Shut up, Trowa, what would you know about hair? Yours is always covering most of your face, so it's not like you can see a damned thing and- Holy." Duo left his sentence unfinished, staring at the shining white light that had suddenly flo0ded the room. He crossed himself nervously.
Everyone else was having a different reaction to the light. Wufei was crouching, sword posed to attack whatever this new thing happened to be. A well-dressed blond was backing away, blue eyes wide. What could be seen of Trowa's face looked faintly surprised but nothing else. Only the youth at the computer did nothing, Prussian blue eyes fixed on the laptop's screen.
The light suddenly disappeared, and left behind a girl of about 16, who dropped to the floor. She sprang up immediately, brushing black hair away from her face. Her gray eyes narrowed.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, settling into a fighter's crouch. The blades on her armguards glinted dangerously in the light. Wufei took this as a signal to attack.
Sparks flew as the girl swiftly parried the blow, then hooked one foot around the Chinese boy's leg and brought him to the floor.
She held the blade on her right armguard to his throat. "Answer me, whatever you are. If I don't get any answers, your friend here dies," she added to the rest of the pilots. She lost her grip on Wufei and was knocked to the floor by a swiftly rolled computer chair.
"I don't need your help, Heero, to fight this weak onna," Wufei snarled.
The dark blue eyes glared at him, then switched their gaze to the girl rising from the floor. "Who are you?"
She laughed bitterly, drawing herself up to her full height. "Shape shifter, I know your kind too well. And I also know that there are no other pure-blood humans other than myself and my family.[3] Now DIE!"
The girl lunged at Heero, only to be brought down by Duo and Trowa.
"You fight one of us, you fight us all," Duo grinned.
Heero stepped forward. "You said that there are no other pure-blood humans. That's not true."
She snarled and broke free of Trowa and Duo, lunging at Heero. Quatre's blue eyes widened, then he tackled the girl. She threw him into a wall, one of her blades gashing a light cut on his face. It began to bleed slowly.
Her eyes flickered around the room. "Five of you? I'm surprised you haven't all ganged up on me and killed me yet. But I'm not fool enough to let that happen. I'll come for you, one by one, and one by one, you will all die."
She burst out the door, running through the streets, and disappeared around a corner. Four of the pilots gathered at the doorway. Duo shook his head.
"Damn. If she comes for us one at a time, we're dead."
Wufei glared. "Speak for yourself."
"Well, Mr. I'm-such-a-kickass-fighter, I didn't see you doin' too well yourself, even with a surprise attack."
Wufei looked like he was ready to strangle Duo with his own braid when the beginnings of a fight were interrupted by Quatre slowly pushing himself up from the floor. The blond groaned and wiped away the small stream of blood on his face.
"I don'.feel so good." he mumbled, then pitched forward and collapsed on the floor.
Trowa knelt by his friend and shook him. "Quatre?" He tilted Quatre's face towards him. The light slash had swollen and turned red.
"Poison. Probably from the girl's blades."
They turned to look at Heero. Duo cocked an eyebrow. "Well, what do we do?"
"We go find her." Heero stepped out the door. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Coming?"
Duo and Wufei wordlessly followed. Trowa shook his head. "Someone should stay here, just in case."
The other three left.
Tajima ran through the streets, shoving past the startled townspeople. 'Maybe they were telling the truth, that there really are more pure-blood humans in this world' she thought, ducking into a dark alley. She paused to process clearly what had just happened.
A voice interrupted her. "Running from someone?"
Recent. And new. It was that one they had called "Heero". Without turning to look at him, she responded, "Heero, isn't it? What do you want?"
"To know what poison you use on your blades."
Thrown, Tajima turned. "How do you know I-" Her mind abruptly flashed back to the fight, the blond youth. Could she have.
Her gaze flicked up to meet his. "If you're looking for me, it's obvious you don't have the cure. And it's also obvious you want me to help, now isn't it?"
Her query was met with a curt "If you're going to help, follow me. If not, then you're safe. I swore I would never kill anyone again, if I could help it." He left.
She paused. '"Never kill anyone again"? What kind of a promise is that!?' she thought irately. Nevertheless, she followed.
By the time they had reached the house, Duo and Wufei had returned, and both were looking worried. Trowa was cursing under his breath. All three looked up when Heero entered, girl following. She pulled out a jar from her low-slung belt, unscrewing the top as she walked. Kneeling down next to where Quatre lay, she smeared some of the substance inside onto his cut.
"He'll be fine," she snapped in answer to their questioning glances. "I don't poison innocents without a reason."
None of them looked comforted by that. 'W-without reason?' Duo thought. 'Does that mean she's actually poisoned innocent people?!' He shuddered involuntarily. Even as a Gundam pilot, the idea of killing the blameless appalled him.
Tajima sighed, suddenly tired. Part of the ritual to kill oneself was over a week of fasting, a.k.a. starving yourself until you're "pure". She rose from the floor and moved towards the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Trowa's voice was cold and harsh. The others looked at him in surprise. His normally expressionless green eyes were hard with barely contained fury. "We don't know if we can trust you yet. You're staying here until we know for sure that you weren't lying when you said you didn't slaughter the innocent without reason."
Her temper flared. "As the last of my race, you can have my word on it. I do not lie to those who do not lie to me." She tilted her head very slightly to one side. A mocking smirk was on her face. "Have you lied to me?" As he opened his mouth to reply with some scathing remark, she interrupted, "I thought not."
A soft voice stopped either of them from saying anymore. "I'm fine, so calm down, Trowa." Quatre's blue eyes fixed on Tajima. He smiled kindly. "You can stay here for the night, if you want, and go to wherever you want tomorrow, in the morning."
Her gaze dropped to the floor. In truth, she didn't even know where she was, never mind where she was going. Mistaking this as a silent plea for more time, Quatre added, "Of course, you're welcome to stay as long as you want."
'Hell, what I want to do is leave right now,' Tajima thought to herself. But not knowing of this new place and going out alone could prove hazardous, so the best thing to do would be to stay. She sighed mentally, outwardly composed and blank. "I'm only staying for tonight. Then I'm leaving."
Exiting the room, she felt her way along the wall of the dark hallway. When she reached a spot where the light of the other room could no longer be seen, she curled against the wall and went to sleep.
"So, who exactly is she?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?!" Wufei snapped. "I'm not the one who found her and thus did NOT have a chance to ask her anything."
"She didn't tell me anything," Heero commented. "Apparently, she thinks we aren't human."
"Did you even ASK?" Duo shut up after Heero glared at him. He grumbled. "Geez, I was just asking."
"There were more pressing matters at hand then just asking someone their name."
Trowa did not look pleased at Quatre's decision to let her stay. "What if she kills us all? She did say that she would come for us, one by one."
"She won't."
This earned Heero a couple of odd looks. "And HOW do you know she won't?" Duo looked doubtful.
"She has a code of honor. Killing us while we're sleeping will undoubtedly break her code, and she's not the kind of person to do that." There was a faint, almost undetectable 'just-how-stupid-are-you?' tone in his voice.
"Well, excuuuuuse me for being a mere mortal!" Duo exclaimed sarcastically, catching the tone.
"A woman having a code of honor?" Wufei asked incredulously. "Not likely."
Quatre was looking from face to face in confusion. "So. what exactly happened?" Then he checked his watch as everyone supplied their own version of the story, which escalated into a heated argument. Rather, Heero and Trowa stood watching as Wufei and Duo argued. He raised his voice slightly. "Hey guys, you can tell me the story later. We should go to sleep."
Wufei and Duo broke off their argument. Duo looked slightly sheepish. "Yeah. shoulda kept track of the time."
Wufei mumbled something. Quatre got up from the floor where he had been sitting for the past ten minutes. "See everyone in the morning."
They all left the room, each pilot to their respective room. None of them noticed the figure on the floor in the dark hallway.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[1]- Doesn't that remind you of Escaflowne? Suicidal girl gets transported to a different world/time period. I don't own that either!
[2]- Yeah, this takes place AFTER Endless Waltz, but for the story's sake, I'll have to change some things. You'll see the changes later.
[3]- Again, the entire different time period thing. She comes from a world were magic rules, and the entire "Only the strongest survive", so her world has been overrun by vamps, shape-shifters, so on, all trying to wipe out the humans. As a result, they don't really even know if there ARE any other humans beside themselves, so it's just an assumption on her part, which also explains the confusion in the alleyway. Ha, put THAT in your pipe and SMOKE IT, Wufei! Women are NOT WEAK!
Author's Note: Heh, that sucked, didn't it? I've written better. I was gonna do it differently, but I didn't know enough about loosing blood and blood transfusions and stuff like that. That threw quite a bit of the story outta whack. Questions? Comments? If there are flames that I think are illogical, then I WILL flame back. I'm warning all flamers now, so don't blame me. If the flame actually DOES have a good point, then I might not delete it or flame back. And I just noticed something. Tajima Ryuka reminds me of Turquoise Draka. Um, that's the main character in Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Great book, incidentally, and great author. And I don't own that either.
Disclaimer: Don't own GW, probably never will. (sobs) All I own here is my writing and my own original character/characters.
Author's Note: I know it's really "Do as your heart tells you", but "Follow your heart" just sounds better to me. No, this isn't one-shot, I just like to take my time writing, so come and check in a month and I might have another chapter up. Keyword: might. I'll yammer on 'bout other stuff at the end, since I know you're all anxious to be getting this over with.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
She would have to die. She had disgraced her family, her ancestors, her race. Tajima Ryuka, last of the humans, had made up her mind.
She had written a short note to her parents. They would find it far too late, since she would be gone by the time they found it. Her will was with it, not that she had anything to give or friends to give to.
Tajima finished the rites and bowed to the shrine of her ancestors. Then, she raised her arms, placing the blades located midway in the metal armguards on either side of her throat. She closed her eyes, and was about to pull her arms together to end it all when a light took her, and she was gone. [1]
**********
In a room not only lit by ceiling lights, but also by the soft glow of a computer screen, a Chinese youth of about 17 [2] was practicing his swordsmanship. He brought it downwards in a slashing motion, then whipped it around him in a tight circle, narrowly missing an American boy of about the same age.
"Hey, watch the braid, Wu-man!" Duo yelped, moving away from Chang Wufei and his blade.
"My name is Wufei not Wu-man or whatever other ridiculous name that you could come up with," Wufei responded testily. "And if you didn't insist on wearing your hair in that ridiculous manner, you wouldn't have to worry about it."
"He's got a point there."
"Shut up, Trowa, what would you know about hair? Yours is always covering most of your face, so it's not like you can see a damned thing and- Holy." Duo left his sentence unfinished, staring at the shining white light that had suddenly flo0ded the room. He crossed himself nervously.
Everyone else was having a different reaction to the light. Wufei was crouching, sword posed to attack whatever this new thing happened to be. A well-dressed blond was backing away, blue eyes wide. What could be seen of Trowa's face looked faintly surprised but nothing else. Only the youth at the computer did nothing, Prussian blue eyes fixed on the laptop's screen.
The light suddenly disappeared, and left behind a girl of about 16, who dropped to the floor. She sprang up immediately, brushing black hair away from her face. Her gray eyes narrowed.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, settling into a fighter's crouch. The blades on her armguards glinted dangerously in the light. Wufei took this as a signal to attack.
Sparks flew as the girl swiftly parried the blow, then hooked one foot around the Chinese boy's leg and brought him to the floor.
She held the blade on her right armguard to his throat. "Answer me, whatever you are. If I don't get any answers, your friend here dies," she added to the rest of the pilots. She lost her grip on Wufei and was knocked to the floor by a swiftly rolled computer chair.
"I don't need your help, Heero, to fight this weak onna," Wufei snarled.
The dark blue eyes glared at him, then switched their gaze to the girl rising from the floor. "Who are you?"
She laughed bitterly, drawing herself up to her full height. "Shape shifter, I know your kind too well. And I also know that there are no other pure-blood humans other than myself and my family.[3] Now DIE!"
The girl lunged at Heero, only to be brought down by Duo and Trowa.
"You fight one of us, you fight us all," Duo grinned.
Heero stepped forward. "You said that there are no other pure-blood humans. That's not true."
She snarled and broke free of Trowa and Duo, lunging at Heero. Quatre's blue eyes widened, then he tackled the girl. She threw him into a wall, one of her blades gashing a light cut on his face. It began to bleed slowly.
Her eyes flickered around the room. "Five of you? I'm surprised you haven't all ganged up on me and killed me yet. But I'm not fool enough to let that happen. I'll come for you, one by one, and one by one, you will all die."
She burst out the door, running through the streets, and disappeared around a corner. Four of the pilots gathered at the doorway. Duo shook his head.
"Damn. If she comes for us one at a time, we're dead."
Wufei glared. "Speak for yourself."
"Well, Mr. I'm-such-a-kickass-fighter, I didn't see you doin' too well yourself, even with a surprise attack."
Wufei looked like he was ready to strangle Duo with his own braid when the beginnings of a fight were interrupted by Quatre slowly pushing himself up from the floor. The blond groaned and wiped away the small stream of blood on his face.
"I don'.feel so good." he mumbled, then pitched forward and collapsed on the floor.
Trowa knelt by his friend and shook him. "Quatre?" He tilted Quatre's face towards him. The light slash had swollen and turned red.
"Poison. Probably from the girl's blades."
They turned to look at Heero. Duo cocked an eyebrow. "Well, what do we do?"
"We go find her." Heero stepped out the door. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Coming?"
Duo and Wufei wordlessly followed. Trowa shook his head. "Someone should stay here, just in case."
The other three left.
Tajima ran through the streets, shoving past the startled townspeople. 'Maybe they were telling the truth, that there really are more pure-blood humans in this world' she thought, ducking into a dark alley. She paused to process clearly what had just happened.
A voice interrupted her. "Running from someone?"
Recent. And new. It was that one they had called "Heero". Without turning to look at him, she responded, "Heero, isn't it? What do you want?"
"To know what poison you use on your blades."
Thrown, Tajima turned. "How do you know I-" Her mind abruptly flashed back to the fight, the blond youth. Could she have.
Her gaze flicked up to meet his. "If you're looking for me, it's obvious you don't have the cure. And it's also obvious you want me to help, now isn't it?"
Her query was met with a curt "If you're going to help, follow me. If not, then you're safe. I swore I would never kill anyone again, if I could help it." He left.
She paused. '"Never kill anyone again"? What kind of a promise is that!?' she thought irately. Nevertheless, she followed.
By the time they had reached the house, Duo and Wufei had returned, and both were looking worried. Trowa was cursing under his breath. All three looked up when Heero entered, girl following. She pulled out a jar from her low-slung belt, unscrewing the top as she walked. Kneeling down next to where Quatre lay, she smeared some of the substance inside onto his cut.
"He'll be fine," she snapped in answer to their questioning glances. "I don't poison innocents without a reason."
None of them looked comforted by that. 'W-without reason?' Duo thought. 'Does that mean she's actually poisoned innocent people?!' He shuddered involuntarily. Even as a Gundam pilot, the idea of killing the blameless appalled him.
Tajima sighed, suddenly tired. Part of the ritual to kill oneself was over a week of fasting, a.k.a. starving yourself until you're "pure". She rose from the floor and moved towards the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Trowa's voice was cold and harsh. The others looked at him in surprise. His normally expressionless green eyes were hard with barely contained fury. "We don't know if we can trust you yet. You're staying here until we know for sure that you weren't lying when you said you didn't slaughter the innocent without reason."
Her temper flared. "As the last of my race, you can have my word on it. I do not lie to those who do not lie to me." She tilted her head very slightly to one side. A mocking smirk was on her face. "Have you lied to me?" As he opened his mouth to reply with some scathing remark, she interrupted, "I thought not."
A soft voice stopped either of them from saying anymore. "I'm fine, so calm down, Trowa." Quatre's blue eyes fixed on Tajima. He smiled kindly. "You can stay here for the night, if you want, and go to wherever you want tomorrow, in the morning."
Her gaze dropped to the floor. In truth, she didn't even know where she was, never mind where she was going. Mistaking this as a silent plea for more time, Quatre added, "Of course, you're welcome to stay as long as you want."
'Hell, what I want to do is leave right now,' Tajima thought to herself. But not knowing of this new place and going out alone could prove hazardous, so the best thing to do would be to stay. She sighed mentally, outwardly composed and blank. "I'm only staying for tonight. Then I'm leaving."
Exiting the room, she felt her way along the wall of the dark hallway. When she reached a spot where the light of the other room could no longer be seen, she curled against the wall and went to sleep.
"So, who exactly is she?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?!" Wufei snapped. "I'm not the one who found her and thus did NOT have a chance to ask her anything."
"She didn't tell me anything," Heero commented. "Apparently, she thinks we aren't human."
"Did you even ASK?" Duo shut up after Heero glared at him. He grumbled. "Geez, I was just asking."
"There were more pressing matters at hand then just asking someone their name."
Trowa did not look pleased at Quatre's decision to let her stay. "What if she kills us all? She did say that she would come for us, one by one."
"She won't."
This earned Heero a couple of odd looks. "And HOW do you know she won't?" Duo looked doubtful.
"She has a code of honor. Killing us while we're sleeping will undoubtedly break her code, and she's not the kind of person to do that." There was a faint, almost undetectable 'just-how-stupid-are-you?' tone in his voice.
"Well, excuuuuuse me for being a mere mortal!" Duo exclaimed sarcastically, catching the tone.
"A woman having a code of honor?" Wufei asked incredulously. "Not likely."
Quatre was looking from face to face in confusion. "So. what exactly happened?" Then he checked his watch as everyone supplied their own version of the story, which escalated into a heated argument. Rather, Heero and Trowa stood watching as Wufei and Duo argued. He raised his voice slightly. "Hey guys, you can tell me the story later. We should go to sleep."
Wufei and Duo broke off their argument. Duo looked slightly sheepish. "Yeah. shoulda kept track of the time."
Wufei mumbled something. Quatre got up from the floor where he had been sitting for the past ten minutes. "See everyone in the morning."
They all left the room, each pilot to their respective room. None of them noticed the figure on the floor in the dark hallway.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[1]- Doesn't that remind you of Escaflowne? Suicidal girl gets transported to a different world/time period. I don't own that either!
[2]- Yeah, this takes place AFTER Endless Waltz, but for the story's sake, I'll have to change some things. You'll see the changes later.
[3]- Again, the entire different time period thing. She comes from a world were magic rules, and the entire "Only the strongest survive", so her world has been overrun by vamps, shape-shifters, so on, all trying to wipe out the humans. As a result, they don't really even know if there ARE any other humans beside themselves, so it's just an assumption on her part, which also explains the confusion in the alleyway. Ha, put THAT in your pipe and SMOKE IT, Wufei! Women are NOT WEAK!
Author's Note: Heh, that sucked, didn't it? I've written better. I was gonna do it differently, but I didn't know enough about loosing blood and blood transfusions and stuff like that. That threw quite a bit of the story outta whack. Questions? Comments? If there are flames that I think are illogical, then I WILL flame back. I'm warning all flamers now, so don't blame me. If the flame actually DOES have a good point, then I might not delete it or flame back. And I just noticed something. Tajima Ryuka reminds me of Turquoise Draka. Um, that's the main character in Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Great book, incidentally, and great author. And I don't own that either.