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. I don't know why, but hey! Plus, I like the song "Intuition" by Jewel, and one of the lines is "Just follow your heart, baby". Hahaha... no, this is not based on that song... I just felt like redoing this and I heard that song recently and really really liked it. Okay, I'm done rambling. ... well? Scroll down and read! Um, please. Thank you. Don't mind my little rants.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
She had no more reason to live. There was nothing here to live for. Life is a chain that will only drag you down, and you die anyway. There's not much difference between now and just a little later.
No one would mourn. No one there cared for Tajima Ryuka, last of the humans, loathed by vampires, loup-garou[1], and shape-shifters alike. They'd be pleased by her death. She stood in the center of a locked room, her face, that would be almost delicately pretty in the way of the Easterners[2] but for the gray eyes that could freeze you on the spot if they met yours, blank, devoid of any emotion. Shutting those frigid gray eyes, her arms, sheathed in metal armguards almost as hard as her eyes, rising to place the blades on the guards to either side of her neck. Clenching her teeth, she was about take one last breath and end it all, when a light took her. After it faded, the room was empty.
**********
In a room not only lit by ceiling lights, but also by the soft glow of a computer screen, a Chinese youth of about 18 [3] 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 of about the same age.
"Hey, watch it! I don't know about everyone else, but I would like to keep my blood under my skin, thank you very much," Duo Maxwell commented as he edged away from Chang Wufei and his blade.
"Are you saying that I don't know how to use a sword?" Wufei demanded, irate.
"No, I'm just saying to wa-" he left his sentence unfinished as light flooded the room, causing him to shield blue-violet eyes. "What the hell is that!?"
Wufei squinted, trying to see what was being concealed by the light. A tall 20 year-old[4] stayed by the wall where he had been prior to the light, emerald eyes narrowed. A shorter blond, about 18 years of age like the other two, took a step back, arm over aquamarine eyes. 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 17, who took a step back and surveyed them like they were the intruders.
"Who the hell are you? Where is this!?" They stared at her, silent. "Tell me!" she shouted, settling into a fighter's crouch. Wufei took this as a signal to attack.
Sparks flew as the girl swiftly parried the sword blade, then hooked one foot around the Chinese boy's leg and brought him to the floor. She drew a knife from a low-slung belt, but was knocked to the floor by a computer chair rolled with considerable force. Heero Yuy stood in the space that had been previously occupied by it, expression unreadable.
"I don't need your help, Heero, to fight this weak onna," Wufei snarled, the menacing effect lost as he lay on the floor making sure nothing was broken.
The dark blue eyes glared at him, then switched their gaze to the girl rising from the floor. "Who are you?"
Standing, her face a set mask to match his own, she suddenly smiled humorlessly. "Spare me the pleasantries. You are dead."
The girl lunged at Heero, only to be brought down by Duo.
"You fight one of us, you fight us all," he grinned.
Heero stepped forward. "Let her go, Duo. I can handle my own fights."
The American looked doubtful. "If you say s- HEY!"
They had abruptly switched positions. Duo was now the one who was pinned on the floor, and a punch to his solar plexus[5] ensured that he would stay there. He wheezed on the floor, trying to catch his breath, as she lunged at Heero, roughly elbowing Quatre out of the way, slicing him in the shoulder with an armguard blade as she did so. A fist came up and out into her stomach, and she hit the ground and rolled, gasping. Trowa drew his arm back, and waited for another attack. A quiet, ominous click caught her attention as she rose again.
"You're fast. But tell me, what's faster, a bullet or you?"
"I am." She had him feeling like he was pinned to the wall with her cold, level gaze.
He fired.
She didn't blink as the bullet whistled past her ear and buried itself in the wall behind her.
Without any known means of communication, the young men in the room formed a loose ring around her, Quatre holding his left shoulder tightly to try and staunch the flow of blood. Part of his shirt was already soaked in the precious fluid.
Abruptly, the blade disappeared into the armguard with the ring on metal on metal[6].
Tajima didn't know why, but she was loath to kill any one of them. There was something clear at her back, something that let the scant daylight filter into the room. It appeared delicate, and she took note of the frames that supported each square of the clear material. Backing up, as if retreating, she suddenly clenched her right hand around the slender metal rod that ran over her palm, causing the blade to spring out again, and sliced the window into quarters diagonally. Pushing off from the floor with her left foot, she slammed into and out the window, hitting it with her shoulder and fell out in a glittering shower that caught the last light of the dying sun, and a few choice pieces gleamed with the wet shine of fresh blood.
Hand still clenched and weapon still out, she jammed the blade into the trunk of a nearby tree to stop or at least slow her plunge. An abrupt flare of pain that shot up her arm from her shoulder informed her that it hadn't been the most intelligent move in the world, but it had been an effective one. The keen edge cut through the wood quickly, but with some resistance, which did slow her down, and she would have fewer injuries than anticipated.
Bleeding from shallow cuts on the right side of her face and neck, she looked down, then kicked off the trunk of the tree. There was the short yet exhilarating sensation of free-fall, then the solid feeling of an abrupt landing. Without looking behind her, Tajima ran.
"Lady, some crazy person just tried to break into the house and we got someone hurt real bad here. ... That long? Damn... just tell'em to hurry, 'kay? ... Location is the Winner residence... yah, I know you know where that is, every blockhead in town knows where it is! Just send the ambulance already!" Duo slammed the phone down, on edge from worry for his friend and with impatience to go out and do something about what had happened.
"Five minutes, guys. You think he can hang on that long?"
"I think I can," Quatre insisted softly. He clenched his shoulder harder and winced, though he didn't let go. The bleeding had to stop.
"Move him downstairs. It'll be faster that way." Trowa stooped, and began to lift the blond gently.
As Duo and Wufei moved to help, the American stopped, and turn to Heero, standing alone in front of the broken window, staring into the space where the glass had been.
"Hey."
"I've seen her eyes before," was all that the pilot of Wing Zero said before walking away from the window and assisting the others in moving Quatre downstairs where access to the front door and the ambulance that would soon arrive would be quick and easy.
She ran on, the approaching darkness and cold, her bewilderment at being in a strange place, and low energy level acting together to make her visually impaired and clumsy. After just barely avoiding further injuries by running into branches or tripping over roots about five times, she stopped, breathing hard, and finally looked back.
She swore under her breath. Footprints. Why didn't she think of that earlier. Footprints! Damn it all. Leaning against the hard, rough bark of a tree, Tajima berated herself. FOOTPRINTS.
Two more minutes. Quatre spoke up suddenly, his voice tired and soft. "After the ambulance comes, I want you to look for her."
"Hell, no," Duo snapped, finally able to express the stress he was feeling in some small way.
"Our land is too large." The head of the Winner household paused for a labored breath. "She can't get out unless she gets extremely lucky, which I doubt. Even if I die, I want to prevent others from doing so if there is a way to stop it."
"What if we die while looking for her? She could just sneak up behind us and slit our throats, you know!" Duo argued, not giving up.
Quatre smiled, eyes closed. "I trust..."
"What's that supposed to mean?! Hey, are you listening to me!? Dammit, don't you think of dying before the ambulance gets here! Hey! HEY! QUATRE, ANSWER ME, YOU LITTLE-"
"Duo."
"NOW WHAT?!" he nearly screamed in response.
"Shut up and go answer the door. The paramedics are here," Wufei replied caustically.
Hands clinging desperately to the rough bark, Tajima refused to give in to the gentle, seductive call of sleep. If she fell, it would be over. Even if there was some way to survive, there would still be serious wounds, and it wouldn't be easy to recover out in this forest.
The cold winds blew around her, higher up and more vulnerable. They leeched the warmth from her body, sapped her strength. Trying so hard to ignore them, Tajima tensed, then sprang from the branch to another tree, latching onto a branch, then pulling herself up and perching precariously on it.
It would be so much better if she could just close her eyes for an instant, the treacherous winds whispered. Just for one second.
She tried. She tried to resist their call. But despite herself, her eyes closed and she fell.
Not feeling anything, just a sense of peace and weightlessness, her body slammed into a tree branch, snapping it off. As if in retaliation, it gouged strips out of the vulnerable back, and another branch nearly embedded itself into her arm. But there was no pain. Even when she landed with a sickening thud on the hard, cold ground, there was no pain.
Armed with flashlights and numerous weapons, the search party spread out into the forest. Duo was still grousing.
"What if we get lost? Then what's the point of even looking?! How did I get into this?" "Duo."
"That's the second time in four minutes that someone's said my name. What, are you going to tell me to shut up too?"
"Go that way," a beam of light briefly indicated the direction, "and don't forget to use the trail markers."
"Aye aye, captain," he mumbled before trudging off.
Heero directed the others in a similar way before going off in his own direction. There was no moon, and there were no stars.
Somewhere in the forest, a lone wolf called.
Somewhere in the forest, blood seeped into the dirt.
Up in the sky, snow began to fall.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1] Loup-garou is another term for werewolves that I got out of Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause.
[2] By Easterners, I mean Asians, so Tajima looks Asian.
[3] This story happens after Endless Waltz, like around two years, so that's why they're all different ages than what you may be used to.
[4] On a couple sites I've seen, Trowa is older than the other pilots by about a year or two.
[5] When hit on the solar plexus, around right above your stomach, you get the wind knocked out of you and it feels like you can't breathe, and it is not fun.
[6] I redesigned the armor, and especially the weapons, after I read Jing: King of Bandits, written and illustrated by Yuichi Kumakura. (I love it, I love it, I love it!) Jing's "sword" is in reality a blade that slides out whenever he needs it, and it is part of an almost an armguard, but more like an archer's armguard that the one that I have designed, a.k.a. it only covers the top part of his arm, but not the underside. It kind of straps on, but I wanted Tajima's to be metal that circled around entire forearm. Well, it allows movement, but I can't really explain it without pictures or a really good dictionary and a lot of time. Still cool though. And I think that I will keep them poisoned.
Author's Note- Um, not much to say. Hehe... hmm... I'll just repeat what I said before about Tajima reminding me of Turquoise in Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Oh yeah, and I find it amusing that if you changed one letter in her name (Tajima's, I mean), it becomes part of Relena's seiyuu's name, or Yajima. Strange, no? But highly amusing.
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. I don't know why, but hey! Plus, I like the song "Intuition" by Jewel, and one of the lines is "Just follow your heart, baby". Hahaha... no, this is not based on that song... I just felt like redoing this and I heard that song recently and really really liked it. Okay, I'm done rambling. ... well? Scroll down and read! Um, please. Thank you. Don't mind my little rants.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
She had no more reason to live. There was nothing here to live for. Life is a chain that will only drag you down, and you die anyway. There's not much difference between now and just a little later.
No one would mourn. No one there cared for Tajima Ryuka, last of the humans, loathed by vampires, loup-garou[1], and shape-shifters alike. They'd be pleased by her death. She stood in the center of a locked room, her face, that would be almost delicately pretty in the way of the Easterners[2] but for the gray eyes that could freeze you on the spot if they met yours, blank, devoid of any emotion. Shutting those frigid gray eyes, her arms, sheathed in metal armguards almost as hard as her eyes, rising to place the blades on the guards to either side of her neck. Clenching her teeth, she was about take one last breath and end it all, when a light took her. After it faded, the room was empty.
**********
In a room not only lit by ceiling lights, but also by the soft glow of a computer screen, a Chinese youth of about 18 [3] 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 of about the same age.
"Hey, watch it! I don't know about everyone else, but I would like to keep my blood under my skin, thank you very much," Duo Maxwell commented as he edged away from Chang Wufei and his blade.
"Are you saying that I don't know how to use a sword?" Wufei demanded, irate.
"No, I'm just saying to wa-" he left his sentence unfinished as light flooded the room, causing him to shield blue-violet eyes. "What the hell is that!?"
Wufei squinted, trying to see what was being concealed by the light. A tall 20 year-old[4] stayed by the wall where he had been prior to the light, emerald eyes narrowed. A shorter blond, about 18 years of age like the other two, took a step back, arm over aquamarine eyes. 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 17, who took a step back and surveyed them like they were the intruders.
"Who the hell are you? Where is this!?" They stared at her, silent. "Tell me!" she shouted, settling into a fighter's crouch. Wufei took this as a signal to attack.
Sparks flew as the girl swiftly parried the sword blade, then hooked one foot around the Chinese boy's leg and brought him to the floor. She drew a knife from a low-slung belt, but was knocked to the floor by a computer chair rolled with considerable force. Heero Yuy stood in the space that had been previously occupied by it, expression unreadable.
"I don't need your help, Heero, to fight this weak onna," Wufei snarled, the menacing effect lost as he lay on the floor making sure nothing was broken.
The dark blue eyes glared at him, then switched their gaze to the girl rising from the floor. "Who are you?"
Standing, her face a set mask to match his own, she suddenly smiled humorlessly. "Spare me the pleasantries. You are dead."
The girl lunged at Heero, only to be brought down by Duo.
"You fight one of us, you fight us all," he grinned.
Heero stepped forward. "Let her go, Duo. I can handle my own fights."
The American looked doubtful. "If you say s- HEY!"
They had abruptly switched positions. Duo was now the one who was pinned on the floor, and a punch to his solar plexus[5] ensured that he would stay there. He wheezed on the floor, trying to catch his breath, as she lunged at Heero, roughly elbowing Quatre out of the way, slicing him in the shoulder with an armguard blade as she did so. A fist came up and out into her stomach, and she hit the ground and rolled, gasping. Trowa drew his arm back, and waited for another attack. A quiet, ominous click caught her attention as she rose again.
"You're fast. But tell me, what's faster, a bullet or you?"
"I am." She had him feeling like he was pinned to the wall with her cold, level gaze.
He fired.
She didn't blink as the bullet whistled past her ear and buried itself in the wall behind her.
Without any known means of communication, the young men in the room formed a loose ring around her, Quatre holding his left shoulder tightly to try and staunch the flow of blood. Part of his shirt was already soaked in the precious fluid.
Abruptly, the blade disappeared into the armguard with the ring on metal on metal[6].
Tajima didn't know why, but she was loath to kill any one of them. There was something clear at her back, something that let the scant daylight filter into the room. It appeared delicate, and she took note of the frames that supported each square of the clear material. Backing up, as if retreating, she suddenly clenched her right hand around the slender metal rod that ran over her palm, causing the blade to spring out again, and sliced the window into quarters diagonally. Pushing off from the floor with her left foot, she slammed into and out the window, hitting it with her shoulder and fell out in a glittering shower that caught the last light of the dying sun, and a few choice pieces gleamed with the wet shine of fresh blood.
Hand still clenched and weapon still out, she jammed the blade into the trunk of a nearby tree to stop or at least slow her plunge. An abrupt flare of pain that shot up her arm from her shoulder informed her that it hadn't been the most intelligent move in the world, but it had been an effective one. The keen edge cut through the wood quickly, but with some resistance, which did slow her down, and she would have fewer injuries than anticipated.
Bleeding from shallow cuts on the right side of her face and neck, she looked down, then kicked off the trunk of the tree. There was the short yet exhilarating sensation of free-fall, then the solid feeling of an abrupt landing. Without looking behind her, Tajima ran.
"Lady, some crazy person just tried to break into the house and we got someone hurt real bad here. ... That long? Damn... just tell'em to hurry, 'kay? ... Location is the Winner residence... yah, I know you know where that is, every blockhead in town knows where it is! Just send the ambulance already!" Duo slammed the phone down, on edge from worry for his friend and with impatience to go out and do something about what had happened.
"Five minutes, guys. You think he can hang on that long?"
"I think I can," Quatre insisted softly. He clenched his shoulder harder and winced, though he didn't let go. The bleeding had to stop.
"Move him downstairs. It'll be faster that way." Trowa stooped, and began to lift the blond gently.
As Duo and Wufei moved to help, the American stopped, and turn to Heero, standing alone in front of the broken window, staring into the space where the glass had been.
"Hey."
"I've seen her eyes before," was all that the pilot of Wing Zero said before walking away from the window and assisting the others in moving Quatre downstairs where access to the front door and the ambulance that would soon arrive would be quick and easy.
She ran on, the approaching darkness and cold, her bewilderment at being in a strange place, and low energy level acting together to make her visually impaired and clumsy. After just barely avoiding further injuries by running into branches or tripping over roots about five times, she stopped, breathing hard, and finally looked back.
She swore under her breath. Footprints. Why didn't she think of that earlier. Footprints! Damn it all. Leaning against the hard, rough bark of a tree, Tajima berated herself. FOOTPRINTS.
Two more minutes. Quatre spoke up suddenly, his voice tired and soft. "After the ambulance comes, I want you to look for her."
"Hell, no," Duo snapped, finally able to express the stress he was feeling in some small way.
"Our land is too large." The head of the Winner household paused for a labored breath. "She can't get out unless she gets extremely lucky, which I doubt. Even if I die, I want to prevent others from doing so if there is a way to stop it."
"What if we die while looking for her? She could just sneak up behind us and slit our throats, you know!" Duo argued, not giving up.
Quatre smiled, eyes closed. "I trust..."
"What's that supposed to mean?! Hey, are you listening to me!? Dammit, don't you think of dying before the ambulance gets here! Hey! HEY! QUATRE, ANSWER ME, YOU LITTLE-"
"Duo."
"NOW WHAT?!" he nearly screamed in response.
"Shut up and go answer the door. The paramedics are here," Wufei replied caustically.
Hands clinging desperately to the rough bark, Tajima refused to give in to the gentle, seductive call of sleep. If she fell, it would be over. Even if there was some way to survive, there would still be serious wounds, and it wouldn't be easy to recover out in this forest.
The cold winds blew around her, higher up and more vulnerable. They leeched the warmth from her body, sapped her strength. Trying so hard to ignore them, Tajima tensed, then sprang from the branch to another tree, latching onto a branch, then pulling herself up and perching precariously on it.
It would be so much better if she could just close her eyes for an instant, the treacherous winds whispered. Just for one second.
She tried. She tried to resist their call. But despite herself, her eyes closed and she fell.
Not feeling anything, just a sense of peace and weightlessness, her body slammed into a tree branch, snapping it off. As if in retaliation, it gouged strips out of the vulnerable back, and another branch nearly embedded itself into her arm. But there was no pain. Even when she landed with a sickening thud on the hard, cold ground, there was no pain.
Armed with flashlights and numerous weapons, the search party spread out into the forest. Duo was still grousing.
"What if we get lost? Then what's the point of even looking?! How did I get into this?" "Duo."
"That's the second time in four minutes that someone's said my name. What, are you going to tell me to shut up too?"
"Go that way," a beam of light briefly indicated the direction, "and don't forget to use the trail markers."
"Aye aye, captain," he mumbled before trudging off.
Heero directed the others in a similar way before going off in his own direction. There was no moon, and there were no stars.
Somewhere in the forest, a lone wolf called.
Somewhere in the forest, blood seeped into the dirt.
Up in the sky, snow began to fall.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1] Loup-garou is another term for werewolves that I got out of Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause.
[2] By Easterners, I mean Asians, so Tajima looks Asian.
[3] This story happens after Endless Waltz, like around two years, so that's why they're all different ages than what you may be used to.
[4] On a couple sites I've seen, Trowa is older than the other pilots by about a year or two.
[5] When hit on the solar plexus, around right above your stomach, you get the wind knocked out of you and it feels like you can't breathe, and it is not fun.
[6] I redesigned the armor, and especially the weapons, after I read Jing: King of Bandits, written and illustrated by Yuichi Kumakura. (I love it, I love it, I love it!) Jing's "sword" is in reality a blade that slides out whenever he needs it, and it is part of an almost an armguard, but more like an archer's armguard that the one that I have designed, a.k.a. it only covers the top part of his arm, but not the underside. It kind of straps on, but I wanted Tajima's to be metal that circled around entire forearm. Well, it allows movement, but I can't really explain it without pictures or a really good dictionary and a lot of time. Still cool though. And I think that I will keep them poisoned.
Author's Note- Um, not much to say. Hehe... hmm... I'll just repeat what I said before about Tajima reminding me of Turquoise in Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Oh yeah, and I find it amusing that if you changed one letter in her name (Tajima's, I mean), it becomes part of Relena's seiyuu's name, or Yajima. Strange, no? But highly amusing.
