I'm so $#&ing happy. My last chapter put me over the top – sorry Zioncross, but now Desperate Lies has more reviews than any other Elfen Lied Fiction! (sniff) There are so many people I want to thank for this. (sniff) I want to thank the many reviewers who made this possible; I want to thank the creators of Elfen Lied for…
Oh, what am I getting worked up over? There are barely 20 Elfen Lied fics written in English. :p But it really makes me excited, knowing that I'm kind of still in the introduction of everything, that I've still got so much more to go and I already have this many people reading it. You guys rock. You rock hard!
Disclaimer – I don't own it, k?
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All this blood on her head, this must be where she is hurt the most…Kouta took in a sharp breath when he pushed the matted locks of Lucy's hair away; it was a ghastly sight. Where her horns had once been there were two uneven plateaus –stumps that were seeping red liquid from sickeningly wide cracks. Tiny, jagged shards of her horns that had managed to hang on protruded every which way out of her scalp and were stained to the point where they looked like pottery pieces. Everything was raw and bits of leaves and twigs were actually in the wounds - there was almost no chance of this not being infected. From the looks of things, this had been exposed for a long time…Kouta felt lightheaded just looking at it.
I need to cover this…but I need to wash it first…but should I apply pressure to stop the bleeding? Or will that just make it worse? Kouta didn't really know anything about first aid, so he felt a little conflicted on what to do about something as serious as this. His knowledge of wound treating was restricted to the area of paper-cuts and knee-scrapes; injuries that required anything more than a band-aid were a mystery to him.
Finally deciding that anything was better than keeping this wound exposed, Kouta bit into the soft cloth of his right sleeve and jerked back with enough force to tear a strip away. Folding it into a thick pad, he ripped another piece from his left sleeve, hurting both his teeth and neck a little bit in the process. Once he had both bits of cloth wadded up, he gently dabbed away at the dribbles of blood and wiped around the area, cleaning it best as he could before flipping the pads over and pressing down on the two sputtering stumps with wary force.
It was like this that Yuka found Kouta – sitting down cross-legged, with a ripped up shirt and concentrated expression, sweating, and, of course, he had a…a…thing in his lap. It was long and thin, red and crusty, looked almost…human in size? From the angle Yuka was looking, she couldn't even guess at what the strange object was. Kouta even had his hands busy doing something to it… he was so focused on his work, he didn't notice his cousin; he just kept his eyes glued to the thing lying on his legs.
"Kouta…?" Yuka let out, not knowing what else to say. With that one word, she hoped to convey all the surprised questions she had – What are you doing? What is that? Why were you yelling? Are you alright?
Hearing the familiar voice had the same effect that a cold bucket of water might have had – Kouta snapped his head up and blinked a bit, like he had woken up from a trance. It actually took the young man a second to reacquaint himself with his surroundings and find the source of the interruption; when he did, he was at a loss at what to say. Yuka had the strangest expression on her face; she looked undeniably baffled and her eyes were running over Lucy like she was some kind of alien creature. Kouta wondered if he appeared the same way.
"Yuka…" He wanted to make things clear to his cousin, but he needed details as well; he was about as in the dark as she was. "She's hurt…"
"She's…" The color drained from Yuka's face and she nearly fainted. She? This is a person? This is a person! All of this red…! How is it possible…? Would Kouta joke about something like this?
"She's bleeding badly…" Kouta said, stating the obvious. "From her head…" He looked back down at his cloth pads and found that they were already soaked through.
Yuka raised a hand to her face to stifle a gasp, if this was a person…what had happened to her? Why had she decided to come knocking on Maple Inn's gate? Why hadn't Kouta called anybody yet? Questions, questions, questions popped up, many of the same ones that Kouta had struggled with not two minutes ago.
"My God…" Yuka took a few steps back, this thing was horrible to behold. She knew she needed to do something, but more than anything, she felt a very strong need to get away from it. It scared her. "I'll…I'll go get the phone – call the hospital!"
"No!" Kouta said with surprising strength. "You can't call anybody!" If somebody examined her wounds…they would certainly question the two strange lumps on her head…
"Wha-What are you saying?" Yuka stammered, "We have to get an ambulance here!"
"We can't, Yuka!" Kouta knew he had to get Yuka to understand, but he didn't know if telling her he had Nyuu in his hands would be the best course of action right now. It would take a lot of time to explain, and she might not comprehend why that would cut away the hospital as a reasonable course of action. And he couldn't try and clarify his reasons to her – every second was important, and that meant that the fewer questions Yuka asked, the better Nyuu's chances were. "…I don't think she's going to make it through a ride to the hospital. It's miles away!" At least Kouta didn't have to lie. At this rate, Lucy probably wouldn't survive the horrendously long trek to the nearest clinic.
"Well; what else are we supposed to do?" Yuka was breathing erratically, panic was beginning to set in. One of her girls mysteriously lost it, and now, suddenly, there was a life in her hands – it was enough to make anybody unnerved.
"I don't know!" Kouta admitted, with extreme anxiety. "I've been pressing down on her wounds, will that stop the bleeding?"
"It should help…" Yuka had a few classes dealing with medicine and human anatomy under her belt, so she wasn't quite as clueless as Kouta in the area of treating wounds. "We need to dress it as well…"
"Do we have anything?" Kouta pressed down his cloths a little harder, now that somebody had told him it could help. "I don't remember – do we have any bandages big enough for something like this?"
"I..I think we might have a roll of gauze in one of our bathrooms…"
"What about how she's laying? Should she be flat or…"
"Um, uh…"
"Yuka?"
"You have her head elevated just a bit, that's how you're supposed to do it, I think…"
"Should I take her inside somewhere? Or should I move her at all?"
"I…I don't…" Yuka was really getting stressed, having all of these questions pelted at her – it was an enormous pressure. She was by no means an expert and her panicked mind was having trouble finding the information she needed. The mixture of tension and the sweltering sun was making her perspire to the highest degree. "I don't know, Kouta! It doesn't matter how far away it is, we really need to call 911!" Yukanearly up and ran away from the scene,almost hysterical from it all.
"Please Yuka, calm down!" Kouta could see that Yuka was getting frenzied, he was immediately sorry for throwing so much on his cousin at once. If we don't both have a level head, then we're just going to run around in circles…"Listen to me for a second!" His calls were effective, Yuka tried a few deep breaths and looked directly at Kouta; trying her best to keep the red girl out of her field of vision.
"I…I'm sorry Kouta, I just don't know!"
"It's okay, it's alright. We don't need to worry about that." Kouta said, trying his best to keep his voice level and tranquil. "The most important thing is that we stay calm. We won't be of any help if we don't."
"Yes, but what if we aren't acting fast enough? What if she's already dead, Kouta? What are we going to do?" A few of her questions slipped out of her mouth like squirming fish out of nervous and clumsy hands.
"Don't worry, Yuka. She's alive." Kouta assured her. "Her pulse is weak, but it's there. And I don't think it's as bad as it looks…" Kouta lifted the cloths away from Lucy's head and saw that, to his pleasant surprise, most of the crimson stuff had stopped flowing. "..her bleeding has already slowed down, look!" Yuka couldn't, she knew she might spit up the noodles Nana had worked so hard to make if she examined this gory sight too closely. "All we have to do now is dress this, like you said, and maybe clean her up a little bit…"
Yuka knew her cousin was making light of the situation for her benefit, but Kouta's voice was very soothing and it steadied her jittering nerves nonetheless. It reassured her by a small degree just to hear him speak coolly: if he wasn't too worried, then it would be okay in the end. The young woman was still unbelievably befuddled, but she knew that the most important thing now was getting this situation under control.
"We probably shouldn't move her, now that I think about it." Kouta continued. "In her condition, it would probably be much better to leave her still."
"It is really hot out here, though. I think you might want to move her into some shade, at least." Yuka offered, now thinking clearly.
"Yeah…"
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"I can't hear what they're saying…"
"…"
"Look; they're moving that, uh, red thing into the shade, what do you think that means?"
"…"
"Nana…?" Mayu glanced over at her friend's face; the horned girl didn't seem to be paying any attention to what she had to say. In fact, she looked very serious and concentrated on what was happening in the front lawn.
The two girls had decided that just following Yuka would be a mistake; they would be seen for sure. Instead they had opted to just find a window that overlooked the area. Unfortunately, the only one they found was mostly smudged and cloudy, no one had gotten around to cleaning it yet; and it couldn't be opened by either of them because of the lock being too high up. The thick glass barrier between the girls and the scene made words muffled and unintelligible. Everything was also happening a good distance away from the window, making everything even harder to see and hear. The only thing that Mayu had been able to figure out about the situation was that a good-sized ruby-colored object was probably the cause of everything.
Nana, however, had a small and relatively transparent view, a nice idea as to what the center of attention was, and a knack for reading lips. Chained against a wall for hours on end, Nana had turned her attention to the men behind the glass; she hadn't been able to hear them at all, but she had eventually learned to read what they were saying anyway – It wasn't like she had anything else to do much of the time. It had taken her quite awhile to determine how each sound would make a mouth move; she had to make the sound over and over again herself and try and get a feel for it at times; but it was a hobby of sorts that Nana had come up with. It could be worked on anytime and anyplace, and it served a purpose; before Nana had been sent on that mission for her Papa, she had been able to tell what everybody was saying about her as they shot, stung, and experimented
Luckily for the juvenile diclonius, both Kouta and Yuka's mouths were visible from her angle and she had been able to discern most of what they were saying. From what she had 'heard', her assumptions had been correct…
That thing sitting under that tree has to be the same thing that brought the second heartbeat into my chest…What else could have possibly come close enough… Nana was almost positive that her guardians were stooping over Lucy; there was no other explanation. But what happened to her…? She looks like she has been really hurt, and her heartbeat at this rate…she must be unconscious. Should I go out there and take care of her now, while she's defenseless? I don't want to give her a chance to hurt anyone…
"Nana, should we go out there?" Mayu tapped on the girl's shoulder in an attempt to bring her out of la-la land; it didn't work.
No, I can't just kill her…I don't know what she wants…I don't think I could make myself anyway. Especially not in front of those two; what would they think of me if I ran out and…
"Nana…come on Nana, we should probably get away from here before they see us." Mayu gave her friend a little shake this time, demanding her attention. Nana finally shook out of her stupor; she turned to Mayu and gave a feeble grin.
"Sorry, I was zoned-out." A tiny, forced laugh followed.
"That's alright…um, what do you think we should do?" Mayu asked. "Just go back to the dining room? I couldn't make heads or tails of things out there."
"Well I think we should…'heads or tails of things'?" Nana suddenly inquired. "What do you mean by that?" She had never heard anybody say anything like that before.
"Sorry, it's just an expression – a figure of speech." Mayu explained.
"…Oh." A what? Nana still didn't understand, but she would just have to remember to ask Mayu about it later. There were more pressing matters to attend to now, that was just another thing she had never heard of; nobody had ever used any 'figures of speech' around the test subject.
"So? What should we do Nana?" Mayu pressed, trying vainly to see out of the window again. It really wasn't any use; no amount of squinting, head tilting, or glass rubbing made her guardians or the strange crimson object any less blurry.
Nana looked at her companion and opened her mouth to answer…only to find that she didn't have one. What should we do? Nana was conflicted, Lucy could be the undoing of everything Nana had attained so far: her family, her home, all of the wonderful foods she had helped create; everything could be destroyed in the blink of an eye.
But…I have to be sure. I would be a horrible person if I jumped to conclusions - I have to at least wait until she's conscious. Then, maybe I can find a way to get her alone; try and find out what she wants…Nana gave an exasperated sigh. Lucy wouldn't be in any shape to hurt anybody anytime soon, so it was probably best to just have her woken up. And from what Yuka had said, it looked like Lucy needed something…something that Nana had never heard of before.
"…Mayu…do you know if we have any, uh, 'gauze' in one of our bathrooms?"
"Um, I guess we might." Mayu said, turning away from the window. "Yeah, I think we have a first aid kit in the bathroom by the back yard. Why?"
"Let's go get it." Nana took her puzzled partner by the hand and ran off down the hall; she had decided that Lucy had to be roused now, while the second heartbeat was still weak.
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Well everybody, "The Man" has added a "review-reply" feature to its repertoire! It's cool and all, but now my shout out list isn't allowed anymore. (sigh…and it really added to my word count too…) Oh well. I'll be slipping a little something in every single one of y'all's inboxes from now on – provided you review, of course! Cool, huh? The only down side is that anonymous reviewers like Elfen Lied fanatic and A still dedicated reviewer are going to be left comment-less…If any of you guys give me your E-mail address, I will happily send you replies with each review you leave; but if you would rather withhold that information, I'm afraid I can't answer your feedback. :(
Oh, and I'm leaving the state for Thanksgiving tomorrow so… the next update probably won't be as fast as this one was.