Guardian Angel
By Tasogare Ookami Konyo
Author's Notes: ^_^ Yay! Enjoy the show! Inspiration from song "Drinking For Eleven" by Mad Caddies. Not a songfic. o_o; Takes place before Balmung is all happy with Kite. Uh... The pairing? ...BlackRose/Balmung. Well, not really offline, as that would be wrong and horrible, but online. ^_^ Whoo!
Check out his ranting. Balmung should not be left alone. :3 Ages: Balmung, 23; BlackRose, 16. Only 7 years age difference! ...I deserve to die. XD;
(Glass elevator! IT'S THE FUTURE!)
^*^
A boy no older then 14 lay in a bed, limp in its feathery cradle; his eyes were translucent and wide open in a state of perpetual terror, providing seamless reflections of the speckled hospital ceiling tiles in their glassy depths. Terror--the only word that a man, clad in a gray business suit and lingering in his early twenties could possibly elicit from the recesses of his fully-educated mind. He shuffled around the coma victim, arctic eyes a requiem of emotions--apprehension, confusion, and at the core, horror. All sparked by the stony silence in the hospital room; the mundane imagery, accompanied by the Azure Sky's reflections upon his failures, did not aide his weary state.
"Dammit," the Azure Sky cursed with a breed of exhaustion, running a hand through his white-blonde hair. He paced some more, leer boring large holes in the uncolored walls, before pivoting sharply to point an accusing figure at the comatose figure. "This is your fault, Orca. All of it," he said.
Delusional. Not to be impolite, but it was like talking to a vegetable. He continued nonetheless, caught in his anguished tirade.
"Why then!? Why there!? Why did you have to invite your little friend on the one day some infected thing was running around!?" Instinctively, he was prepared to shoot his hands out and catch the boy in some kind of stranglehold--but thought better of it just as immediately and inhaled sharply.
---
The elevator opened, slowly and menacingly, as either part of the glass door separated; a few people escaped its prison, with its whimsical music and the faint smell of shoes. One entered--a sophomore, a high school girl still in her sailor fuku. She mumbled hasty greetings and excuses as she forcefully nudged aside a few people to make room for herself.
Her eyes, round and a startling shade of burgundy, scrutinized the elevator buttons--the floor she was to arrive at was already selected by another listless patron. With that, Akira retreated to a more obscure corner of the elevator and watched the digitized number move upwards, one at a time, glimmering somewhere near the ceiling.
1st floor... ... ... 2nd floor... ... ...
A solitary ding.
This would take longer then she thought.
---
"I hate the boy, you know," he informed Yasuhiko, clasping his hands behind his back and staring out the window. The metropolis bustled below, innocently unaware of an online hero's lamentations.
(And his slow descent into madness. Damn The World.)
The blondish man cast his eyes on Yasuhiko, who offered moral comfort but little support in his current state. "And now I find my partner is young enough to be my son..." He paused and contemplated this notion, then added as an afterthought, "Relatively speaking, of course." "Balmung" ran a hand through his matted hair again--the visage of the very angel he represented on the internet, lacking the paladin armor and the feathery appendages on his shoulders.
"It's too much," he testified at last, folding his arms and sneering at his reflection, cast faintly by the recently-polished windowpane.
"It also bothers me that--whatever power he has--was given to him. Him. A...well...'newbie'." He didn't usually utilize such offhanded terms.
But the situation called for an informality.
The World was sinking into a state of turmoil, and inevitably, oblivion. Balmung of the Azure Sky was badgered constantly by other players, who seemed to think that he--not even a system operator, much less administrator, but just a hero--had any conceptual grasp of the goings-on and the comas. The newbies (Orca's protégés, no doubt) also wondered what had happened to their mentor, the olive-skinned Blademaster who assisted them when they barely knew how to draw their weapons...well, that Balmung knew. And, even maintaining the cold and monotonous front he assumed as a safety measure on The World, he didn't have the heart to tell them.
His mind drifted to the Twin Blade, scarcely worth a second glance in his opinion--but whose part in the play he had not fully analyzed yet. "What is the bracelet?" he asked softly, hoping against hope for a response. "What is its purpose in The World?"
The elevator opened, making a humdrum *wheesh* as its clean twin doors slid open to allow its passengers to exit as they pleased. A schoolgirl, fiddling with the red ribbon around her neck (it made her feel like a house pet), stepped into the seemingly infinite corridor.
Footsteps. Balmung the Blademaster would have spun around to meet the intruder halfway. The businessman remained stiff, waiting for the sound to pass. They did not pass; they halted, but he paid them little heed as he spoke of his troubles to the only one who would listen.
"And what does your friend...Kite...intend to do with the bracelet?
"I bet he's going to abuse its power. That's what he's going to do; am I right? I know people like him... Reckless..."
"He can't hear you, and if you knew that, you would at least close the door." The pale-haired man blinked a few times and craned his neck around to catch a view of the tanned girl who lingered in the entrance, with the audacity to confront him about his one-sided interrogations. She had just gotten out of school, from the looks of it; the customary ribbon had vanished from its place beneath the collar.
"Hm," he grunted disinterestedly, turning around to glower at her, eyes an eclectic blend of ice and sky. "What're you doing here? Making fun of visitors? Where are your parents?" He fired one question after another. (Maybe it'd scare her off.)
"What're you gonna do, tell my mom?" she said flatly. "I'm visiting my brother; you were annoying me; I'm here alone."
"I hope your brother gets better," he responded desolately before returning to the window and what entertainment it had to give. "If you don't mind, young miss, I'd like to be alone with this kid. I hope you have a nice day...life." One glance at the mirror-like surface of the glass sheet, encrusted with the evening dew, and "Balmung" immediately discerned that she was not going to leave any time soon.
"Who is that?" she inquired, boldly stepping into the hospital room (the courage in her actions absent in the somber tone of her query).
He was quiet for a few seconds, mulling over the possible consequences of telling and not. His feet shifted, and his eyes fumbled about for a chair before dragging one next to the bed and lowering himself into it. "This is...a friend of mine," the Azure Sky said slowly. He looked at her, awaiting confirmation as to whether or not she wanted a name. She nodded slowly, resolute eyes urging him to continue; he gnawed on his bottom lip, lacking the will to speak to anyone but Orca at the moment. "His name's Yasuhiko...he's in the 8th grade... I'm visiting..."
"Yasuhiko..." Her eyes widened fractionally in recognition. She studied his features--the matted, pointed hair; the eyes. A faint smile played on her lips, lightly traced with gloss. "I think I know you," the teenager affirmed, tucking her hands in her pockets and squinting so as to further assist her assumption.
He blinked and quirked a brow. He felt the corners of his lips arc languidly, intertwining his fingers beneath his chin. "And who are you?" he countered, interest piqued by her observance.
She strode over to him and jutted out her hand with a cocky grin. "Hayami Akira. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Balmung. I've heard a lot about you."
Moving his hand and resting his chin on one fist, his hand swallowed Akira's slender fingers and shook them weakly. "Are you a fan?" he asked somewhat smugly. His eyes illuminated, an ode to the manner in which stars "appear" in the evening, glimmering in their insignificant beauty. She retracted her hand and scoffed indignantly, folding her arms and allowing her gaze to flicker to Yasuhiko.
"As if," Akira snorted derisively. She struck a pose, jewel-like eyes sparkling in a happy-go-lucky girlish sort of way. "But you can barely go to any Root Town without some girl screaming 'BALMUNG-SAMA! IF YOU'RE HERE, I LOVE YOU~!' How the hell do you get away from them, anyway?" After the businessman hesitated to respond (amused yet frazzled), she continued almost accusingly, "I bet you go to some obscenely high-level area and hide at the Gott Statue and PK anyone who--"
He interrupted, chuckling in a low sort of way as if afraid to awaken the unconscious boy. "Alright, that's enough, Miss Hayami." Akira glared at the entity known as Balmung before stopping her rant and plopping into a chair of her own. "What's your username? I'd be interested in leveling up with you sometime."
And that's a privilege not offered to many, his eyes said, slightly arrogant in that aspect.
"I don't give that kind of information to strangers," Akira retorted, sticking her tongue out at him and crossing her legs. From the thigh down were light blue stockings, as customary of the female Japanese school uniforms; it was then "Balmung" realized that she wasn't wearing the standard-issue five-inch-long skirt (at least that seemed the length to him--or maybe he was getting old), but rather a pair of boy's shorts of a similar length.
"I'm no stranger, considering the fact you just strode up to me and told me my name," he said at last, quirking a blonde eyebrow.
(Most girl players of The World would leap at the opportunity to meet Balmung, real life or no. This was a newer prospect.)
"I'll e-mail you sometime, then. Anyways, I'm going to see my brother. Later, Balmung." Hayami Akira rose from her seat, patting the hospital bed and murmuring a short "get well, Orca" under her breath. She ambled lazily to the door and curled her hand around the doorknob, offering him privacy.
A thought struck him. "Wait."
She waited impassively.
"How do you know Yasuhiko?"
She tilted her head around, gifting him with a piercing stare out of the corner of her eye. "Let's meet again sometime," she said softly. "First floor, this hospital, next Saturday?" She was somber. Very unlike the girl who accused him of possessing ulterior motives only minutes before she had decided to continue on her way.
"I..." He trailed off, having no real argument to present. So he nodded. "I'd like that." And she left.
A character, that Hayami.