Chapter Thirty: The Assassin Meets the Swordsman
Chase stormed down the street in blind rage. Her best friend's husband had just been killed for the second time. How was she going to take it? Not well, the smaller girl imagined. Not well at all. Though she might not get the pleasure of killing Trowa Barton. Chase had a feeling that if she met Trowa faced to face again, it would be his end, no matter what former relationship they had had. He was now a traitor. He had killed Duo.
"Chase."
Chase turned around, grabbing for her gun as she did so. Her light brown eyes met the reflective blue ones of the swordsman she had come back to the world with. "Ryu."
Suddenly Chase rushed forward and embraced him. Ryuujin held her close as he heard her sob into his shirt. She looked up at him sadly. "I never thought he'd kill one of his own..."
"The man is a traitor, Chase," Ryuujin said sternly. "It's best that you forget any feelings you had for him."
"All ready done," Chase answered darkly. "He's a dead man walking as far as I am concerned."
Ryuujin noticed the change of the young woman's tone. Just like the old days. Still the assassin girl he had met when he was seventeen.
The blue-haired swordsman cupped the small woman's face in his hands and smiled. "Come on. Let's go back to the apartment."
"We've got to find Heero. He's hurt and he..."
"Is right here," a voice said from behind her.
"Heero!" she backed away from Ryuujin's embrace, blushing a deep crimson.
Heero just smirked. "You heard about Duo."
"Hai."
"Is there any question in your mind about him now?"
"Iie."
Heero smiled sadly at her as he put a protective arm around her shoulder. "C'mon, Chase-chan. Let's go home for now. We'll take the traitor down soon enough."
Chase nodded.
As they walked along the sidewalk, Heero glared back at Ryuujin, telling himself that Chase was simply upset about her best friend's husband's death. The embrace had meant nothing, right?
He looked down at Chase and her vacant brown eyes that were fixed on the pavement. It meant nothing, right?
Chase sat curled up on the sofa with a hot mug of tea in her hands. The cold winter winds whipped outside as she looked out the window. The snow had begun to fall around fifteen minutes before. It had started in small flakes and had progressed in the last few minutes into a near blizzard.
She looked up when she felt Heero's arms encircle her shoulders. "How are you doing, love?" he asked.
"Better. I'm not sure if it's more how worried I am about Anna-chan or if it's mostly just the loss of a friend. Anna's like a sister to me, so that makes Duo like a brother." A sad look crossed her face as a single tear slipped down her cheeks that had turned rosy from the cold air. "How about you, Heero? Ryu-kun said that you saw the whole thing."
"I'm fine," he answered distantly. "Chase, how did you and Ryuujin meet?"
Chase blushed. She had known he had seen her embrace Ryuujin, but she wasn't sure what his reaction would be, if any. "I've told you, haven't I?"
"I know I haven't heard it," Quatre said as he entered the room with a cup of coffee for Heero and a cup of tea for himself. "It might prove interesting."
Chase looked back towards the room Ryuujin had disappeared into a few minutes before. "It's a long story."
"We've got time," Heero persisted as he sat down with his coffee.
Chase took a deep breath.
"Ryuujin and I met when I was fifteen and he was seventeen. It was during the time when I disappeared for two months in the war. I was in a town in Japan, wandering, mostly, because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I couldn't go home. I'd be needed soon, and I wasn't sure if I could ever get back...
*flashback *
Chase walked along the streets, deep in thought. Her senses jumped to life as the aura of a soldier flooded them. She looked at the man she was passing, taking note of the sword that hung from his belt. `In broad day light?' she thought.
He was tall, with blue hair and eyes. Her dark emerald eyes followed him until he disappeared into the crowd. She shrugged it off and continued on. There was no reason to go looking for trouble if it did not come her way.
The young pilot found a room in a hotel down the street and settled in for the first good night's sleep she had had in a week. Or so she thought.
When the clock struck midnight, she was awakened by the sound of gunshots outside her window. Her mind automatically came out of the fog of sleep as she leapt from her bed and over to the window, grabbing her gun as she went. Peering out, she saw the blue eyed man from before. He stood in the street, sword held in a protective stance between his opponent and himself, ready for the man to shoot again.
Chase looked at the blue haired man's opponent. He was a smaller man than the other one. His sandy blond hair was pulled into a small ponytail in the back and his gun was cocked and ready. He wore the tattered uniform of a soldier from Rockafellor and the symbol of OZ on his left shoulder. The young Gundam pilot slipped on a sweatshirt and her shoes, rushing out towards them.
The first one to notice her was the man with the sword. His eyes flickered toward her, as if warning her to stay back from the battle. Chase paid him no heed as she cocked her own gun. "An OZ soldier out here? I figured they wouldn't care about a little town like this."
"And who are you?" the sandy haired man asked as he looked between her and his opponent. "What do you want?"
Chase smirked. "For this war to be over and for the people of earth to live in peace," she answered. "But I doubt you really care, ne?"
The man sent a shot off towards the swordsman to distract him as he rushed towards the green-eyed pilot. Chase jumped back, dodging the swinging fist. She dropped to the ground, leg swinging out and catching the man about the ankle and tripping him up. He fell with a thud to the ground and was up a half a second after Chase had reached her feet.
She stopped as she found herself starring down the barrel of his gun. "Now this is an interesting predicament."
"Who are you?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, boyo?" Chase sneered.
"Fine. Be that way, brat," the man said as he pulled the trigger.
Chase dodged the bullet easily, but didn't see the knee that came up and caught her in the stomach. She skidded slightly across the pavement and coughed, landing on her rear, looking up. "Kuso," she muttered.
The man smirked, but suddenly stopped as a sword sliced through him. Fear didn't have time to set in before he fell dead to the ground.
"He should have kept his mind on his original opponent."
Chase looked up to see the blue haired man. She blinked once and then he was gone. "What the heck?" she wondered out loud. Chase stood up and walked back to her hotel room, baffled by the young man she had encountered. She curled back up and slept the rest of the night without a trouble.
Chase grabbed her bag and gun the next morning, leaving the hotel after checking out. She walked into the teashop and sat down. "Sleep depravation is never a good thing," she muttered. "Blasted OZ soldiers."
She leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, thinking. When she looked up she saw the man from the night before sitting with his eyes cast downward to the table. She lost her balance and fell backwards. "Itaii," she muttered as she picked herself up.
"So who are you?" the swordsman asked.
"Chase. You?"
The man looked up and Chase got the first good look at his reflective blue eyes. They held her own for a moment and she blushed.
"Ryuujin."
Ryuujin leaned on the table and glanced to the side. "That OZ soldier was looking for someone last night when I found him. Now there are two more sitting over there, on the lookout for that same someone. Guess who I found in both of those places?"
"Yourself?"
"Cute. You."
"Watashi?" Chase asked innocently. "Doshite watashi?" She leaned back in her chair again and took a sip of her tea.
"Why are they after you?"
"How should I know? Maybe I ticked them off at one time."
Ryuujin glared. "They are looking for a pilot, is what they have been saying."
"Good for them."
"Look to your left."
Chase did so and saw two uniformed men sitting and glancing at her every few moments. "Just great," she muttered under her breath. "I try to get away from the war and it follows me."
"You're a Gundam pilot."
"Question or statement?"
"Statement."
"Correct statement. It appears you've been entangled in my mess though," she said as she stood. "They've seen you with me twice. They'll think we're friends."
Ryuujin looked at her as she placed enough money on the table for her drink and walked towards the door. He also watched the soldiers get up after her.
One reached out and grabbed Chase's hand. "Hello there, 06. You've been avoiding us for a few days now. Maybe you are as good as your reputation."
"Perhaps. Do you want to settle this away from innocent people?"
"Now if we do that, I won't have the edge, now will I?"
"But you will be dead," Ryuujin said from behind. "The girl's under my protection. Let her go."
Chase felt her face heat up with anger. Protection indeed!
"And as for you," Ryuujin continued, now speaking to the man coming up behind him, "please also leave this young lady alone. I wouldn't want to stir up trouble with the authorities, ne?"
The first soldier felt the cold steel of Ryuujin's sword against his back. "Let's go."
"But sir!"
"I said let's go, Latinate."
Chase and Ryuujin watched as the two soldiers disappeared out of the teashop and out of site. The petite girl turned towards the tall man. "I need no protection," she hissed. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Shouldn't we talk about this outside?"
Chase looked back at the crowd who was staring oddly at them. "Hai," she whispered.
They walked outside and back into an alley. She stopped and whirled to face him. "I don't need any help from you. I'm an assassin by profession, Ryuujin-san. I don't need a baby-sitter."
Ryuujin reached out a gloved hand and cupped the young teen's cheek. The green-eyed girl felt her face heat up in a blush as her heart beat faster. "You don't want my help, Chase?"
Chase took a shaky breath. "I doubt you're going to same way as me."
"And where would that be?" Silence. "What are you running from, Chase?"
The pilot stopped suddenly. "Running?"
"That's what I said."
"I'm not running from anything!"
Ryuujin smirked. "Then why get so angry about the question?"
"The nerve of you thinking I would run from anything," she growled. "I'm a Gundam pilot. I-" She stopped when his eyes met hers. Her breath seemed to be harder to push through her lungs as she looked at him.
"Pretty confident, ne?" he asked.
What was it about him? "I have to be. If I don't have any confidence in my skills then I'm dead. I have to rely on them and never anyone else's. I-" She stopped once more, but this time for a different reason. Ryuujin reached down and kissed her. Chase's eyes flew open as wide as they would go. Her mind raced. She had been in this position with Heero just a week before and had rejected him, and she had known Heero much longer than this man who had saved her the night before, but somehow, this seemed right. She relaxed as his arms wrapped around her shoulders.
When the kiss ended, Chase's emerald orbs fluttered open. "How did you know I was running?" she whispered as she lay her head against his chest.
"You don't seem like the type to distant yourself from people."
Chase looked up at him and smiled. "So, Ryuujin, which way are you going?"
*end flashback *
Chase took a deep breath as she looked at Heero and Quatre who had sat listening intently to every words she spoke. "I traveled with him where he went. I loved him."
"Do you still love him?" Heero asked just slightly above a whisper.
Chase thought a moment. "Yes. And until Trowa did what he did, I thought I loved him too, but not anymore. I couldn't love someone that would kill his own friends. His own comrades.
Heero nodded as he stood and started for the door.
"But I love you, Heero. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I love you or Ryuujin any more or any less than the other, but I chose to be with you."
"If he had been around you more as I had, would you have chosen him over me?"
"I don't know. I was never in that position. All I know is that I chose you."
Quatre took his cue to leave and slipped upstairs quietly.
Heero walked back to the young woman who sat on the couch. "I died, Chase. We aren't married any longer. You could... always go back to him."
Chase sat in shock at his words as he disappeared to the loft to work on the computer. A single tear slid down her cheek as she watched after him.
"Chase?"
The young woman looked at the blue haired man as he stopped at the door.
"Why does this all have to come crashing down at once?" she whispered before allowing the deluge of tears to fall from her eyes.
Ryuujin sat down next to her and held her in his arms. "What did he say to make you cry like this?" he asked her quietly.
Chase stormed down the street in blind rage. Her best friend's husband had just been killed for the second time. How was she going to take it? Not well, the smaller girl imagined. Not well at all. Though she might not get the pleasure of killing Trowa Barton. Chase had a feeling that if she met Trowa faced to face again, it would be his end, no matter what former relationship they had had. He was now a traitor. He had killed Duo.
"Chase."
Chase turned around, grabbing for her gun as she did so. Her light brown eyes met the reflective blue ones of the swordsman she had come back to the world with. "Ryu."
Suddenly Chase rushed forward and embraced him. Ryuujin held her close as he heard her sob into his shirt. She looked up at him sadly. "I never thought he'd kill one of his own..."
"The man is a traitor, Chase," Ryuujin said sternly. "It's best that you forget any feelings you had for him."
"All ready done," Chase answered darkly. "He's a dead man walking as far as I am concerned."
Ryuujin noticed the change of the young woman's tone. Just like the old days. Still the assassin girl he had met when he was seventeen.
The blue-haired swordsman cupped the small woman's face in his hands and smiled. "Come on. Let's go back to the apartment."
"We've got to find Heero. He's hurt and he..."
"Is right here," a voice said from behind her.
"Heero!" she backed away from Ryuujin's embrace, blushing a deep crimson.
Heero just smirked. "You heard about Duo."
"Hai."
"Is there any question in your mind about him now?"
"Iie."
Heero smiled sadly at her as he put a protective arm around her shoulder. "C'mon, Chase-chan. Let's go home for now. We'll take the traitor down soon enough."
Chase nodded.
As they walked along the sidewalk, Heero glared back at Ryuujin, telling himself that Chase was simply upset about her best friend's husband's death. The embrace had meant nothing, right?
He looked down at Chase and her vacant brown eyes that were fixed on the pavement. It meant nothing, right?
Chase sat curled up on the sofa with a hot mug of tea in her hands. The cold winter winds whipped outside as she looked out the window. The snow had begun to fall around fifteen minutes before. It had started in small flakes and had progressed in the last few minutes into a near blizzard.
She looked up when she felt Heero's arms encircle her shoulders. "How are you doing, love?" he asked.
"Better. I'm not sure if it's more how worried I am about Anna-chan or if it's mostly just the loss of a friend. Anna's like a sister to me, so that makes Duo like a brother." A sad look crossed her face as a single tear slipped down her cheeks that had turned rosy from the cold air. "How about you, Heero? Ryu-kun said that you saw the whole thing."
"I'm fine," he answered distantly. "Chase, how did you and Ryuujin meet?"
Chase blushed. She had known he had seen her embrace Ryuujin, but she wasn't sure what his reaction would be, if any. "I've told you, haven't I?"
"I know I haven't heard it," Quatre said as he entered the room with a cup of coffee for Heero and a cup of tea for himself. "It might prove interesting."
Chase looked back towards the room Ryuujin had disappeared into a few minutes before. "It's a long story."
"We've got time," Heero persisted as he sat down with his coffee.
Chase took a deep breath.
"Ryuujin and I met when I was fifteen and he was seventeen. It was during the time when I disappeared for two months in the war. I was in a town in Japan, wandering, mostly, because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I couldn't go home. I'd be needed soon, and I wasn't sure if I could ever get back...
*flashback *
Chase walked along the streets, deep in thought. Her senses jumped to life as the aura of a soldier flooded them. She looked at the man she was passing, taking note of the sword that hung from his belt. `In broad day light?' she thought.
He was tall, with blue hair and eyes. Her dark emerald eyes followed him until he disappeared into the crowd. She shrugged it off and continued on. There was no reason to go looking for trouble if it did not come her way.
The young pilot found a room in a hotel down the street and settled in for the first good night's sleep she had had in a week. Or so she thought.
When the clock struck midnight, she was awakened by the sound of gunshots outside her window. Her mind automatically came out of the fog of sleep as she leapt from her bed and over to the window, grabbing her gun as she went. Peering out, she saw the blue eyed man from before. He stood in the street, sword held in a protective stance between his opponent and himself, ready for the man to shoot again.
Chase looked at the blue haired man's opponent. He was a smaller man than the other one. His sandy blond hair was pulled into a small ponytail in the back and his gun was cocked and ready. He wore the tattered uniform of a soldier from Rockafellor and the symbol of OZ on his left shoulder. The young Gundam pilot slipped on a sweatshirt and her shoes, rushing out towards them.
The first one to notice her was the man with the sword. His eyes flickered toward her, as if warning her to stay back from the battle. Chase paid him no heed as she cocked her own gun. "An OZ soldier out here? I figured they wouldn't care about a little town like this."
"And who are you?" the sandy haired man asked as he looked between her and his opponent. "What do you want?"
Chase smirked. "For this war to be over and for the people of earth to live in peace," she answered. "But I doubt you really care, ne?"
The man sent a shot off towards the swordsman to distract him as he rushed towards the green-eyed pilot. Chase jumped back, dodging the swinging fist. She dropped to the ground, leg swinging out and catching the man about the ankle and tripping him up. He fell with a thud to the ground and was up a half a second after Chase had reached her feet.
She stopped as she found herself starring down the barrel of his gun. "Now this is an interesting predicament."
"Who are you?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, boyo?" Chase sneered.
"Fine. Be that way, brat," the man said as he pulled the trigger.
Chase dodged the bullet easily, but didn't see the knee that came up and caught her in the stomach. She skidded slightly across the pavement and coughed, landing on her rear, looking up. "Kuso," she muttered.
The man smirked, but suddenly stopped as a sword sliced through him. Fear didn't have time to set in before he fell dead to the ground.
"He should have kept his mind on his original opponent."
Chase looked up to see the blue haired man. She blinked once and then he was gone. "What the heck?" she wondered out loud. Chase stood up and walked back to her hotel room, baffled by the young man she had encountered. She curled back up and slept the rest of the night without a trouble.
Chase grabbed her bag and gun the next morning, leaving the hotel after checking out. She walked into the teashop and sat down. "Sleep depravation is never a good thing," she muttered. "Blasted OZ soldiers."
She leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, thinking. When she looked up she saw the man from the night before sitting with his eyes cast downward to the table. She lost her balance and fell backwards. "Itaii," she muttered as she picked herself up.
"So who are you?" the swordsman asked.
"Chase. You?"
The man looked up and Chase got the first good look at his reflective blue eyes. They held her own for a moment and she blushed.
"Ryuujin."
Ryuujin leaned on the table and glanced to the side. "That OZ soldier was looking for someone last night when I found him. Now there are two more sitting over there, on the lookout for that same someone. Guess who I found in both of those places?"
"Yourself?"
"Cute. You."
"Watashi?" Chase asked innocently. "Doshite watashi?" She leaned back in her chair again and took a sip of her tea.
"Why are they after you?"
"How should I know? Maybe I ticked them off at one time."
Ryuujin glared. "They are looking for a pilot, is what they have been saying."
"Good for them."
"Look to your left."
Chase did so and saw two uniformed men sitting and glancing at her every few moments. "Just great," she muttered under her breath. "I try to get away from the war and it follows me."
"You're a Gundam pilot."
"Question or statement?"
"Statement."
"Correct statement. It appears you've been entangled in my mess though," she said as she stood. "They've seen you with me twice. They'll think we're friends."
Ryuujin looked at her as she placed enough money on the table for her drink and walked towards the door. He also watched the soldiers get up after her.
One reached out and grabbed Chase's hand. "Hello there, 06. You've been avoiding us for a few days now. Maybe you are as good as your reputation."
"Perhaps. Do you want to settle this away from innocent people?"
"Now if we do that, I won't have the edge, now will I?"
"But you will be dead," Ryuujin said from behind. "The girl's under my protection. Let her go."
Chase felt her face heat up with anger. Protection indeed!
"And as for you," Ryuujin continued, now speaking to the man coming up behind him, "please also leave this young lady alone. I wouldn't want to stir up trouble with the authorities, ne?"
The first soldier felt the cold steel of Ryuujin's sword against his back. "Let's go."
"But sir!"
"I said let's go, Latinate."
Chase and Ryuujin watched as the two soldiers disappeared out of the teashop and out of site. The petite girl turned towards the tall man. "I need no protection," she hissed. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Shouldn't we talk about this outside?"
Chase looked back at the crowd who was staring oddly at them. "Hai," she whispered.
They walked outside and back into an alley. She stopped and whirled to face him. "I don't need any help from you. I'm an assassin by profession, Ryuujin-san. I don't need a baby-sitter."
Ryuujin reached out a gloved hand and cupped the young teen's cheek. The green-eyed girl felt her face heat up in a blush as her heart beat faster. "You don't want my help, Chase?"
Chase took a shaky breath. "I doubt you're going to same way as me."
"And where would that be?" Silence. "What are you running from, Chase?"
The pilot stopped suddenly. "Running?"
"That's what I said."
"I'm not running from anything!"
Ryuujin smirked. "Then why get so angry about the question?"
"The nerve of you thinking I would run from anything," she growled. "I'm a Gundam pilot. I-" She stopped when his eyes met hers. Her breath seemed to be harder to push through her lungs as she looked at him.
"Pretty confident, ne?" he asked.
What was it about him? "I have to be. If I don't have any confidence in my skills then I'm dead. I have to rely on them and never anyone else's. I-" She stopped once more, but this time for a different reason. Ryuujin reached down and kissed her. Chase's eyes flew open as wide as they would go. Her mind raced. She had been in this position with Heero just a week before and had rejected him, and she had known Heero much longer than this man who had saved her the night before, but somehow, this seemed right. She relaxed as his arms wrapped around her shoulders.
When the kiss ended, Chase's emerald orbs fluttered open. "How did you know I was running?" she whispered as she lay her head against his chest.
"You don't seem like the type to distant yourself from people."
Chase looked up at him and smiled. "So, Ryuujin, which way are you going?"
*end flashback *
Chase took a deep breath as she looked at Heero and Quatre who had sat listening intently to every words she spoke. "I traveled with him where he went. I loved him."
"Do you still love him?" Heero asked just slightly above a whisper.
Chase thought a moment. "Yes. And until Trowa did what he did, I thought I loved him too, but not anymore. I couldn't love someone that would kill his own friends. His own comrades.
Heero nodded as he stood and started for the door.
"But I love you, Heero. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I love you or Ryuujin any more or any less than the other, but I chose to be with you."
"If he had been around you more as I had, would you have chosen him over me?"
"I don't know. I was never in that position. All I know is that I chose you."
Quatre took his cue to leave and slipped upstairs quietly.
Heero walked back to the young woman who sat on the couch. "I died, Chase. We aren't married any longer. You could... always go back to him."
Chase sat in shock at his words as he disappeared to the loft to work on the computer. A single tear slid down her cheek as she watched after him.
"Chase?"
The young woman looked at the blue haired man as he stopped at the door.
"Why does this all have to come crashing down at once?" she whispered before allowing the deluge of tears to fall from her eyes.
Ryuujin sat down next to her and held her in his arms. "What did he say to make you cry like this?" he asked her quietly.
