Far Gone
See disclaimer in the Prologue
I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So I'm breaking the habit tonight...
Linkin Park, "Breaking the Habit"
"It's simple. Hand Makenshi over... if you want to live."
"He's not going anywhere," Cid yelled, helping Knave lift the Comodeen's heavy gatling gun and point it at the flirtatious Deathlord.
"Ah? Death alone isn't enough for you?" Herba smirked. "Then how would you like it if I spilled some of your dirty little secrets to everyone else?"
"We have nothing to worry about!" Knave sniffed, grabbing for the gatling gun's firing mechanism.
"Is that so, Mr. Coward?" The leader of the Comodeen froze. "Always such a macho tough guy as long as he's got his troops around him, but with an absolute terror of death... and frogs." Knave purpled and choked out bits and pieces of obscenities while Herba turned towards the next unlikely victim. "And you, Little Miss Tough Girl... always so brave, at least up until it comes to a little thing called love. You're too afraid to even tell him you like him..."
"Shut up," Miles snapped, crimson-faced, shaking a fist at Herba. "Oh, I oughtta..."
"ESPECIALLY ironic," the Deathlord continued, raising her voice, "because he's the exact same way about you!"
Next to Knave, Cid slapped himself.
"And what about whiny little brats who spend all night crying for their Mommy and Daddy? So tragic... especially when you consider the fact that a certain OTHER little brat is too busy worrying about her BOYFRIEND to even consider her parents!"
"What boyfriend?" Ai snapped while Yu blushed and ducked his head.
"Leave them alone," Lisa yelled, her voice going shrill with irritation. "What right do you have to broadcast others' personal secrets like this?"
"Hey, cutie," Herba replied. "You shouldn't waste your life pining away and being jealous when the one you care about is never going to notice you... with your powers, I'm sure that there would always be a spot open at Gaudium for you... that is, if you feel like it."
Lisa blinked and stared at the Deathlord with a bizarre look on her face, as did almost everyone else (with the exception of Kumo, who was just confused).
"Did she just proposition Lisa!" Ai managed.
Herba shrugged. "Suit yourself..." She turned to Kumo, who still didn't seem to get what was going on. "My, you're getting quite a record, Makenshi-chan, aren't you? First your own brother, then His Excellency, and now my Magun baby. Although... we should really expect as much from a little slut like you."
Kumo's eyes went huge, and as the tears of shame began to fall, he turned and started to run. As he passed Lisa, her hand closed around his wrist in a vicelike grip.
"Don't run away from your problems," she said in a low voice. "Stand up to them."
"Let me go," the swordsman cried, struggling to break her hold. "Let go!"
"There isn't much use in running," Herba cooed, playing with her blossom-shaped parasol. "You can never get away from His Excellency, no matter how far or fast you go. You can't possibly have forgotten that you're his property... and besides, I have this little place surrounded. If you think you're going to fly, there's a storm on the way. You'd never make it to safety... you'd just get hit by lightning." A mass of Herba's plant beasts began to rise from the earth around her, forming a circle around her and cutting the little party off completely from the submarine. "You belong to His Excellency the Earl, and if you don't go back to him now... well, let's just say that Wonderland won't really miss this pathetic imitation of a rebellion."
There was a sharp crack, and Herba flipped up her parasol to deflect the bullet Kaze had fired.
"Whoa there, don't you think you're being a little too hasty? If he doesn't come with me, all of you will die... is that what you want?"
"White Cloud... Shiroi Kumo... belongs to no one," Kaze said firmly, not moving so much as an inch, perfectly ready to fire off another round.
Kumo stopped trying to break free of Lisa's grip and looked over his shoulder at the gunner, half-surprised and half-hopeful.
"Are you really sure you should be defending that man?" Herba asked him, a cruel smile on her face and coldness in her eyes. "After all... he won't stay true to you. It's just in his nature. He can't even stay true to the one he really loves... can you, Makenshi-chan?" Kumo flinched. "All those pretty little oaths you swore... but when your body tells you 'yes', your mind can tune them out, can't it? Or else how could you sit so still and behave so well when His Excellency fucked you? Or, for that matter... how else could you even so much as think of sleeping with my Magun baby?"
As one by one the Comodeen turned to stare at him, Kumo sank to the ground, crimson-faced with shame, looking like he wanted to cry.
"I don't think you should forget that his so-called true love is his own brother, either," Herba went on, unholy pleasure on her face. "Just think about it. Wanting a life-bonding with his own flesh and blood... and he's still not over it, is he? Every single night at Gaudiumthat is, when he wasn't busy getting steamy with His Excellencyall you'd hear is that pathetic screaming... 'Niisama, Niisama'... It makes me absolutely sick."
Kaze narrowed his eyes and fired a second shot, making everyone jerk in surprise. "Leave or die," he spat, glaring at the Deathlord.
"Your funeral," Herba said with a shrug, and snapped her fingers. "Except for the little prostitute, that is... he's coming with me. His Excellency wants his little toy back."
The wave of flowers and cacti advanced. Kaze, scowling, blasted holes in the ranks while the Comodeen shot poisoned darts at nearby targets. Lisa gathered up Ai, Yu, and Chobi, and stood protectively in front of them and Kumo, who was still curled into a shaking ball of white in the sand.
From far off, there was a rumble of thunder.
"Go take care of em, Mister!" Ai shouted as drops of rain began to fall.
"Kaze!" Yu cried at the same time.
As if in response, a chill breeze blew back Kaze's cloak, exposing the heavy gold cylinder on his right forearm as the green jewel embedded in its side began to glow.
The gunner looked down at his ultimate weapon, eyes wide in surprise. "It has moved...!" Getting an expression that can only be described as evil, he swung his arm up in front of him as black blades and a spiraling drill exploded from the cylinder's side. "Soil is my power!"
Lisa bit her lip. Not long ago, she had learned that this weapon, Kaze's seemingly all-powerful Magun, was surprisingly temperamental and no longer responded to his urgings for the triple-barrelled gun to take form. In times of danger, it sometimes went off by itself... but only sometimes. Kumo had told Kaze that the gun was broken, disempowered, and that the gunner could no longer use it of his own free will... but then who was controlling the weapon of destruction? It was a mystery she had still to figure out.
"Well, now!" Herba smiled devilishly. "You've finally decided to break out the Magun! This should certainly be interesting..."
Kaze ignored her, pulling three bullets filled with the magical substance known as Soil from his belt. "Sharp Gray... Water Blue... and Crusher White." Apparently, he didn't feel like going through his Soil spiel at the moment. Cramming the bullets into the gun, he leveled it at the horde of plant monsters. "Roar! I summon you... Bismarck!"
And the gun went off in a flash of blinding light.
When the smoke and brilliance cleared, a huge wave was curling around the submarine's ranks, blowing monsters away by the dozen. Cresting its peak was the form of a glowing white whale...
The water died down again. Only a few of the monsters remained.
"You...!" Herba twitched, her hands balling into fists. "Not again! You're ruining my little home-grown babies again!"
Through the rain, which was beginning to turn into a downpour, Kaze glowered at her. "You're next," he said with a snarl, and stabbed a judgemental finger at her. "The Soil charge triad to use on you has been decided!" He pulled out another three bullets, these ones different colors. "Dark Green... Ice Blue... and Virgin White..." Slipping them after the first set, he raised the summoning gun again and pulled the trigger. "Shine! I summon you... Shiva!"
Another blast of smoke and light, through which an icy form flew straight for Herba. Looking bored, the Deathlord held up her parasol, which absorbed the impact, froze solid, and shattered as the Summon vanished.
"Do you really think that's going to work on me twice?" she asked. "You're even stupider than I thought if you do." Her hand moved too quickly for the others to see, and suddenly, Kaze let out a cry of anger and pain, ripping something from his arm.
Lisa frowned further. It looked... almost like the spiral darts filled with deadly poison that had been used in Japan, long centuries ago... but... what purpose would something like that...?
Kaze let out another cry, this one more anguished than the first, and dropped to his knees, shaking. Both Lisa and Kumo were suddenly at his sides, before anyone could see how they'd gotten there.
Kaze's right arm... the arm that supported the Magun... was convulsing violently.
The gunner's face had gone deathly white, sweat was beginning to drench his skin, and his entire body was shaking with his effort to hold his arm still. His normally expressionless face was contorted in agony, and his teeth were gritted tightly while he tried not to cry out.
"KAZE!" Kumo and Lisa screamed as one.
"Ice! Someone get me some ice!" Lisa wailed. "HURRY! It's some kind of strange poison that I've never seen before!"
"Detox is a race against time," Kumo cried, his face matching his hair. "PLEASE!"
Herba laughed. "No matter what you do, it's already too late. I've spent years perfecting my selection of poisons, and that's the deadliest of them all. You'll never be able to save him. He's got about thirty minutes before he dies."
"What's the antidote?" Lisa demanded, her voice going shrill. "WHAT IS IT?"
"Something you'll never get your hands on," Herba taunted. "It's my own blood."
As Lisa tried desperately to soothe Kaze, Kumo stood silently, his head bowed.
"Oooh, what's this?" Herba laughed, planting hands on her hips. "A last-ditch attempt to save his life? You'll never be able to attack me in this storm. The rain will make your Mist instantly dissipate!"
Kumo's long thin blade, the Maken, flipped from its place at the back of its belt, forming a perfectly vertical line above him. Though he did not look up, he pulled two glass bottles of Mist from the longer belt slung at an angle across his thin hips.
"Listen to the eternal instrumental duo," he said in a soft, controlled voice, which rose to a shout as he tossed them both into the air. "Duet of the Arctic Night!"
In a crescent flash, both bottles had been sliced in two, and a pair of long serpentine dragons erupted from their shells, snarling.
"Bring them on," Herba said boredly. "I'm not afraid of you."
Kumo traced the air with one finger, stroking a pattern in the wind like a graceful conductor.
The dragons hissed in acquiescence, and formed a circular pattern just beneath Herba, who still hovered in midair. As they curled together in a perfect sphere, a twisted symbol, some inverted form of arcana, formed in the space between them. The Deathlord let out a cry as her body straightened, rigid and unable to move.
"Wha... what's going on!" she screamed, her boredom quickly becoming terror. "Makenshi! Let me go...! Don't forget where your loyalties lie! You belong with us!"
" 'Makenshi' isn't here right now," Kumo said in a low, feral voice that couldn't possibly belong to him. He gripped the Maken's hilt, flipped the blade into its more powerful broadsword form, and slowly rose to the seal, coming to a stop right before her, then raised his head. His warm and gentle jadeine eyes had hardened, and were glowing in terrible power. "I believe there is something you owe me..." He placed the razor edge of his sword to the side of Herba's throat.
"No... NO!" the Deathlord wailed, her eyes huge in wild fear. "Anything... anything... no...!"
Kumo, deaf to her pleas, made a careful incision right at the vital vein in her throat.
Blood gushed forth into the open palm of his hand, which he closed, gesturing in the air and letting the seal loose.
"The concerto played by my Mist seduces you even now," he whispered, and pointed the blade of his Maken at the twin dragons, who twined together sinuously. "Konzert of the Drawn Sword!" A second arcana, this one white, appeared, and the two creatures fused into one. "Destroy them," Kumo said carelessly, and his creation threaded through the remaining monsters, turning them to bits of dust and pollen that melded with the wet sand. As the dragon disappeared into a fine mist, he touched down and walked smoothly over to Kaze.
Lisa drew back, but Kumo spoke softly to her in the gentle voice she recognized. "Show me his arm." Kaze had passed out not long after Kumo had completed his first summon, though his arm was still gripped with convulsions that were starting to spread to the rest of his body. Lisa pulled back and exposed Kaze's Magun and forearm while the white-clad swordsman knelt and opened his closed hand, letting his fistful of Herba's blood spill over the wound from the spiral dart.
Standing, he looked down at the gunner, who almost instantly went limp, relaxed, the muscle spasms in his arm fading. Lisa peeked timidly up at him, and saw that his eyes were back to normal as well. His face was wet with the rainor was it something else?and his white hair clung to his forehead, cheeks, and the nape of his neck. "He should be alright now," he said softly, his sorrow-filled eyes closing.
And without warning, he collapsed in the wet sand.
"It's just exhaustion," the doctor said with a sigh of relief, removing his hand from Kumo's forehead. "He should stay in bed for the next day or so just in casehe got soaked, and his clothes are pretty thin, so he might get a cold if he doesn't rest upbut he should be fine."
Knave nodded. "There's no doubt that all of us owe him our lives," he said softly. "And no question any more. He stays with us... for as long as he wants. For now, we should set out again. The Earl only has two Deathlords now, and he'll be preoccupied with this mess for quite a while. We should set out while we can... we've stayed here for too long anyway."
Lisa sighed. So Kumo would be able to stay with them now... she no longer had to worry for his safety... and yet, the side of him she had seen that day frightened her deeply. It was completely alien to what made up the white swordsman's personality... such violence... it was hard to believe such a gentle person could contain such hate.
At the very least, thanks to his efforts, Kaze was still alive. The gunner was lying in the bed next to his swordsman companion, ice packs laid on his forehead and all around his arm, just in case.
Sighing, she headed off. Ai and Yu would need to know about this... and she would have to allay any fears they might have about Kumo's unsettling outburst of violence.
What awoke everyone was the screaming.
Long, drawn-out, half-sobbing, terrible screams of pain and heartbreak.
Lisa was the first one there, her heart racing in uneven beats, flipping on the lights as she launched into the room, grinding short as the flourescence revealed to her eyes the horrific sight awaiting her.
Kaze, sitting up, was also staring, frozen by shock.
Cid, Miles, Knave, Ai and Yu, even Fungo the little thief boyall of them were soon gathered behind her, staring stricken at the same thing she and Kaze were.
Kumo was sitting up in bed, covers thrown off his shaking body, eyes huge with mingled grief and horror and impending madness, tears coursing openly down his face, his hands held before him, covered in the dark blood he had shed when he had ripped open the insides of his arms and his own chest, tormented by his dreams, his breath ragged, his body covered in black-red blood, his sheets streaked with the same, dark skin and blood beneath his nails.
The screams had been his.
"With my own hands... my own hands..." he whispered. His voice shook so badly that he was hard to understand. "Again... again... I've shed the blood of another again... again... again...!" The word twisted into a wail on the last time, and Kumo clenched his fists, curling and hiding his face behind them, starting to sob raggedly.
For a moment, Lisa was afraid that his mind was already gone, but she knew she still had to try.
She walked steadily towards him, her movements slow, her hands palms up before her. As she approached, he shrank away, his wails taking the form of words again.
"No... no... no...!"
"It's alright," Lisa said softly, trying to get comfort into her words. "It's over now, it's over, it's okay now, okay..."
Still speaking, she gently gripped his wrists and pulled his hands away from his face, transferring his right wrist to her left handhis wrists were slender enough for her to cover them both with one hand, making her job much easieras she reached out and tilted his chin up, making him look straight into her eyes. "Kumo. What do you see?"
His eyes traced over her face as he trembled and panted and cried. "Lisa," he said softly, uncertainly.
"That's right," she told him, stroking his cheek and pushing errant strands of white hair from his eyes, making soothing sounds. "That's exactly right. Just look at me now. Me and nobody else. Try to hold on... do your best to hold on. You need to come back. I know it's scary and painful and you don't want to, but if you go away from us now you'll never be able to find your way back to us. Come back, little Kumo, little one, little love, it's okay, we're here, we're all here for you..."
Slowly, Kumo's trembling abated, and the flicker of insanity left his eyes. "Lisa... I..." Fresh tears began to trace down his cheeks. "I killed again... I took life away with these hands, my own hands... dear Gaedrian... what... what have I done...?"
"There was no other way," Lisa told him gently. "It's painful, but you did what you had to, and you saved Kaze's life. Your hands didn't just take life away, they gave it too... it's so sad that the world must work this way, that life has been so cruel to you, but little one, you did what you had to, and you saved someone. The wrong is balanced by the right you did."
"I'm a murderer," Kumo cried, leaning into Lisa's embrace. "I've... taken life with my own hands more than once... I can't... nothing can excuse this...! Niisama... Niisama... what's happening to me...?"
As blood and tears soaked through her dress, Lisa made soft soothing noises, pressing her lips to Kumo's silken hair. "Just cry, baby, just cry... get it out of you... let it leave you... look it in the face and let it go... let go and live..."
The watchers looked on, respectfully silent, still slightly in shock. All of them could plainly see that Lisa was in her element hereshe held Kumo in a firm and warm embrace and spoke to him like a mother to her child, holding his trembling body as though she was all that held him together.
I wonder if Kumo wants his mom and dad as much as I wish I had mine, Yu thought to himself, feeling his heart twist. Looking to his sister, he saw that she was thinking the exact same thing, and gripped her hand. At least Sis and I have each other...
"I'll go get the doctor," Knave said quietly. "Those scratches will need treatment..."
Kaze stood, his heart in his eyes, and walked over to Kumo's bed, placing a hand on Lisa's shoulder. As the black-haired woman pulled back, he sat and coaxed Kumo towards him, catching the swordsman's lips with his own, giving him a long, soft, tender kiss.
Although the sight of it caused something to jerk unpleasantly in Lisa's heart, she rubbed Kumo's shoulder consolingly when Kaze withdrew.
Drawing and releasing one long, shaking breath, Kumo looked at himself. "What happened?" he asked in a small voice. "What happened to me...?"
"Your pain was too great for you, even in your sleep," Lisa said gently. "You've scratched yourself while you were having nightmares before, but this was the first time it happened like this. We need to get these cleaned and bandaged, and... Kumo, if it's alright with you, for the next few nights I think we should bandage your hands... that way, you won't be able to cut yourself like this."
Kumo nodded, subdued. His sobs had quieted, his breathing was back to normal with the occasional hitch, and his shaking had almost stopped. It was hard to believe that he had been teetering on the brink of insanity barely a few minutes ago.
"No matter what you have done," Kaze said softly, leaning in so that his lips brushed Kumo's cheek, "I will always love you."
"You mean that?" Kumo asked him in a tiny voice.
"I always have loved you. I loved you when I awakened, and you were all I could remember. I loved you while I thought I hated you. I loved you even when I believed that you were responsible for the death of my sister. I loved you when I saw you hurt and alone, afraid of me. I loved you when you shed the blood of another to save my life. I loved you when I thought you had gone mad with grief. I love you now, and will love you always. Always and forever."
Curling between Kaze and Lisa, Kumo sighed, looking tired, and closed his eyes, relinquishing consciousness for the dreamless sleep of absolute exhaustion. Lisa let out a sigh of pure relief, and Kaze looked down at his charge with obvious affection.
And the submarine moved on, bringing the little party closer and closer to its destination.
(TBC)