Once again, I own nothing, but I shall take MikoNoNyte's advice and not put the blame on Midway.
As for the problem of explaining away Nicolai's death... well, I live and breathe on the fact that they never necessarily SHOW him dying. I mean -thatsquishy soundcould have been someone stepping on an eggshell! Or maybe Karin sneezed!
...or maybe not. Oh well. Let's just pretend.
When the door to the bedroom opened the next day, Nicolai looked better. The color had returned to his pale face, and he sat up in bed, wincing and rubbing the blood back into his arms and wrists. Saki came around the bed as he looked up and acknowledged her presence.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, and he shook his head.
"No… but I suppose it's been a while since I've moved my limbs."
Saki sat on the bed opposite Nicolai's, where a neatly folded pile of white garments lay, and rested a hand on them. Many times before this day she had wondered about them, and how clean and priestly Nicolai appeared when she had found him in the mountain. Whenever she had tried to ask Yuri about it, the angry youth had replied only with disdainful degradations, often too incensed to be coherent or helpful.
"Are you Christian, then?" Saki inquired as she took up the light, metallic golden cross into her palm.
She saw Nicolai start uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye, but didn't look up until he replied.
"Yes, but…" he paused, and then, with a slightly incredulous chuckle, "I'm hardly a holy man."
Saki smiled. "Yes, I know that." Ignoring his look of puzzlement, she continued. "Are you a priest, Sir Conrad?"
Nicolai's expression became twisted with confusion. "How – "
"Shh." Saki put a finger to her lips, still smiling. "Those questions will be answered later. But for now… are you a priest?"
"Cardinal," Nicolai answered warily, and then sighing, "formerly, I suppose."
"Such a meteoric advance at such an age," Saki murmured. "You must have quite a gift."
"Yes," Nicolai replied, nodding, "I am very fortunate, Inugami-ue."
Saki laughed, shaking her head emphatically. "I am called the superior of others, and only within formal situations am I called ue. I want there to be no decorum or reserve between us, so you will call me Saki."
Nicolai inclined his head. "Saki, then."
There was a pause, and then he spoke again.
"Once again I would like to say doumo arigatou, for what you did."
Saki beamed at her patient. "You know Japanese!"
"Only a few words, I'm afraid," Nicolai replied, forced to smile at Saki's enthusiasm, which was not at all hampered by his answer.
"That is fine. A few more days here, and you will learn more."
"But truly," Nicolai interjected quietly, "thank you – if not for you, I would be dead. I owe you my life."
Saki nodded, and then with a smile she formed her lips around an unfamiliar word. "Pa-jal-sta-u. Is that correct?"
Nicolai appeared astonished, but quickly regained his senses, repeating the word with the correct pronunciation and inflection. "Pazhalsta, but yes… how did you know I was Russian?"
Saki laughed lightly and put a finger to her lips once again. Nicolai appeared disconcerted, but he said nothing – uncharacteristic for Yuri's descriptions, which pinned him as a parsimonious and calculating politician with no end to disparaging words.
"You have caused Yuri and his friends a lot of trouble," Saki said softly, her eyes glittering as she watched Nicolai's reaction.
This was similar to closing the shades on a brightly lit room, or perhaps watching a thundercloud roll over a sunny day. His own eyes grew a fraction wider before shadowing dangerously, and his entire expression took on a wary, ill-fated air – even his posture grew rigid. Saki was alarmed at the change, and instantly regretted having said what she did. For a moment Nicolai didn't reply, and with good reason – Saki had, in essence, just told him that she had been lying to him through her benevolence.
He didn't move after the slight shudder in confidence, nor did he show any intention of attacking or fleeing. Instead he took a deep breath and spoke, his words hollow and heavy.
"…who are you really?"
Saki's eyebrows shot up, and she waved her hands in front of her, searching for the right words as she rose from the bedside.
"No, no! It's nothing like that," she said quickly. Then, realizing the absurdity of his assumption, she laughed slightly, and unintentionally threw him off guard with her levity. "I'm not keeping you here so they can come and kill you… goodness, no! Is that what you thought?"
Nicolai was silent, and Saki smiled again. "They don't so much as know you're alive, let alone staying in the house of Inugami! In fact, they were here not an hour ago."
"Here!"
Saki nodded in affirmation. "Yes. They came to exchange farewells… my son Kurando is with them, gods bless his soul… Today they will confront their enemy. They call him Masaji Kato."
Nicolai's face had not lost its shadowed quality. "Kato…"
The set of his face when he spoke the word was vicious and bitter. With an angry sigh he swung his legs over the side of the bed, as if to attempt to stand, and Saki did not move to stop him.
"You can't follow them," she told him as he prepared to rise from the bed. "You are still weak. The demon Astaroth sapped your strength, those months at the Research Lab as well."
She could see Nicolai considering her words and their truth, and realizing the fatigue of his own muscles as he attempted to brace his legs against the floor. But seeing him further determined, Saki added another truth to her argument.
"Should Yuri see you alive," she said softly, "I'm sure he would kill you."
With this final deterrent, Nicolai sank back down to the bed, his gaze turned down.
"The eight of them," he muttered, gritting his teeth, "against Kato and his Apes…"
Saki did not tell him of the anger she saw in his posture and his clenched fists, but rather let his thoughts run their course.
"Who is it you're concerned for?" she asked gently, nearly too quietly to be heard, but Nicolai's back stiffened and she knew he had heard her.
"It's nothing," he replied in little more than a whisper.
Saki sat back and sighed quietly. Whatever small secrets his tone failed to convey were quickly divulged by the overwhelming mood that enveloped the room and nearly forced Saki to read it. The form his psyche took was close indeed to that of her late husband as she or their son came into danger, or of any man closely protective of something he loved, and she needed no second guess to know what he so desired to protect.
"What will you do?" she asked.
"I don't know," Nicolai responded, still not looking at her.
Saki started uncomfortably as an alarming sensation came over her, and she exhaled sharply, emptying her lungs of air. This new sentiment was so potent and so latently powerful that it nearly knocked her backwards – but looking at Nicolai with her physical eyes she saw none of it, and was forced to wonder at his ability to withhold his emotions with such efficiency.
Enraptured, and in awe of the omnipotent sense of stamina that had entered every corner of her body, Saki barely realized that the waves of despondency had been replaced, and soon she witnessed the reason.
With a quick, yet sluggishly dexterous motion, a man whom Saki had thought was unable to stand on his own feet straightened his knees and rose to his full height. He didn't quaver or buckle, and when Saki looked up at him, she was surprised at how tall he was, and how different he appeared – for a moment she swore she could see the man Yuri had described: neither weak nor powerless, driven by something that she couldn't place.
She did see, however, why that pretty redhead admired him so, and how her descriptions, while far removed from Yuri's, had been so much more accurate.
A smile passed Saki's lips as she watched the young man gather his white Cardinal's cassock from the bed. She averted her eyes as he changed, a shuddering sigh enveloping her. She was instilled with an overwhelming sense of pride and strength, and the swelling of her heart was painfully familiar – she recognized it as the very same emotion she felt as she watched her son grow into the great man that he was.
When Nicolai looked up at her, the smile increased. Standing before her was a man impelled in his actions by something just as powerful as influence or money, and if she was unable to read his heart, she would have thought him a power-hungry diplomat with love for no one but himself, as Yuri and his friends undoubtedly did…
But she could see the part of him that he hid with layers of cool equilibrium and frigidity. What else could have filled her empty heart with such passion and fire?
Smiling as he saw her scrutinizing gaze, he nodded his head in appreciation – a silent and eternal vow of thanks – and Saki returned the gesture, looking after him as he left the room without another word.
Closing her eyes, she raised her face upwards once again. Allowing herself a deep sigh, she cleared her heart and offered a silent prayer to the endless sky, entreating the Inugami gods to help Nicolai find whatever it was that he seeked.
Damn it. It's so hard to write him off as a good guy. And, if you tilt your head and squint, and get cloned and recieve mental reconditioning, this could possibly be interpreted as Saki/Nicolai. It was not intentional, I assure you.
The end, hope you enjoyed... thank you, MikoNoNyte, for being my only reviewer.