Part Two
Standard Disclaimers
Thanks to JP for betaing
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When he woke it was to the sight of Lisa by his side.
"Good morning Kaze."
He blinked.
"You've slept a long time. It's now the afternoon."
"Is it?" He said weakly. Kaze went to sit up, then realised he was naked under the sheets. He blushed.
"I brought you your breakfast." She smiled. "And your clothing has been washed and dried. I'll leave you to get dressed." Lisa got up and left the room.
Kaze ate his porridge; he took full advantage of the med bays showers, not to mention hair dryer. He dressed in his now clean clothing.
"So our starving heroes risen. Where are you going?" Asked the doctor, coming in to check on his patient.
Kaze paused. Where was he going?
Where did he come from?
"If it's not too important, I'd like to do a few scans of you. There's an awful lot odd about your body."
"Like this?" Kaze patted the Magun.
"Cid would like to see too. Do you know how it works?" The doctor paused, "and functions in your body?"
Kaze shook his head.
"I think it's in your interest if I get to know your special needs as much as possible."
Kaze slumped. "Nothing too intimate."
"I won't do anything to you or your equipment without your permission." He turned to the speaking tube. "I'll call Cid then."
Kaze began to pull his T-shirt off again.
"By the way, you do know that according to your urine test you are dead? You've got a lot of metals in your system."
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Cid and the doctor were busy with their new victim all day. Kaze put up with it. He had a feeling he would need the Comadeen as much as they would need him in the future.
He learnt a lot about his body.
Kaze was just another mechaorganic thing.
The heart in his chest was mechanical. His veins and arteries were also artificial. There were odd boxes attached to his liver and kidneys.
Not to mention his brain...
Kaze was very thin; the doctor proposed putting him on special rations. Kaze agreed. He did not like the thought of endless bowls of mashed potatoes. Kaze normally ate whatever he could find. But he had a particular liking for fatty meats.
The Magun used up most of his fuel. Like his time with Bahamut. His master got the meat and the slave waited patiently to be tossed scraps.
Kaze didn't mind a few scraps...Particularly if they included a human sized and adapted Magun...
Nav came in at the end of the day. "How are you?"
"Fine." Kaze was getting bored. He had been informed his ordeal was over. Kaze had dressed, taking time with arranging his black cloak, a garment which though practical was an absolute pig to get to sit straight.
"I'm sorry if Cid and my medic are being a pain, it's all in your own interest. Everyone here gets regular medical attention. It's one of the benefits I try to offer the Comadeen. I hope to be able to extend it to everyone some day."
Kaze nodded. He stood up, flexing his long legs; he didn't feel like an ideology talk just today.
Kaze had only one goal in life and he was content with that.
Killing Makenshi...And Chaos.
Cid shut down his laptop. "I'll show you round my Jane."
Kaze gave him the blank look he found so useful.
Cid apologised, "you weren't to know. Jane is my submarine." He gestured around him.
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Kaze had been given a very through tour of Cid's creation. The too proud inventor had showed him everything .
In excruciating detail.
Kaze let it go in one ear and out the other. He didn't understand much of it, nor was he interested.
Cid had not noticed his companions wandering attention, or if he had, he wasn't concerned. After two hours of non stop technicalities he led Kaze back up to the main deck.
"I hope you appreciated the finer details of my Jane, its not every day I find such a thoughtful ear." Cid ended his lecture.
Kaze idly wondered if Cid had noticed he wasn't interested?
The Demon gunner now had yet another gauntlet to run.
"Mister Warrior!" Came a shrill voice.
Kaze turned. It was Ai. She was poking her head round a girder. Yu's and Chobi's followed.
"Kaze!"
"Good evening Kaze."
Kaze turned back, Lisa was stood behind him.
It looked like he was in one of those social situations he tried so hard to avoid.
At least he could trust this lot not to hug him.
Idly he wondered where Lou Lupus was.
Kaze was pretty sure she was not on board the submarine. He hadn't been hugged yet.
Kaze was thankful for that. Human contact caused him so much pain.
One of his few memories of his previous life was of being hugged.
Not just Aura, but a strange white creature whose name he could not quite recollect.
And Kumo.
Kaze shuddered.
"Thanks for saving us!" Yu said politely.
"Are you going to save us again?" Said his bad sister, not so politely.
Lisa gave that lying smile of hers, the one that Kaze hated. "We saved you this time around." She told him. She waved her smile at him again. "Aren't you going to thank Cid? It was he who pulled you out of the water."
"He's been in sickbay with Cid all day, Lisa," Yu tactfully reproached, "I'm sure he thanked him then."
Ai gave Kaze her evil look, "Knowing Mister I'm sure he forgot."
Yu laid a hand on her shoulder.
Kaze decided to react. He pulled his concealing cloak down with his free hand and blasted all three with his smile.
And Kaze's smile was always authentic.
"Misters smiling at us!" Crowed Ai in unholy triumph.
"Why not? He's happy to be safe and with us." Yu added thoughtfully.
The twins smiled happily in reply, even Lisa's expression softened and became truth for a second.
They moved off, pleased at having got their sullen hero to react.
Kaze felt drained after all that socialising. Was he unused to it! And now he was trapped on a submarine...
Mentally sighing, Kaze sat down by the girder.
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At the end of the watch, Lisa got up, "Time to climb the wooden hill, Kids" she said.
Ai yawned and said rather pedantically "it's downstairs to our cabin, Lisa."
"And the steps are metal." Yu added, getting up, Chobi ruffling his feathers.
Miles got up from her station. She looked at Kaze who had been happily ignoring everything and everybody. "Have they sorted you out accommodation yet?"
Kaze looked at her as if to say he found this spot on the deck just right.
"Evidently not, come on, I'll find you a cabin."
Kaze decided to play along. He needed to sleep sometimes but what was wrong with a bedroll behind some crates like they had provided him with on their old base?
Besides being too soft?
The Comadeen seamstress turned gunner led gunner turned salvage down to the accommodation level.
She opened a door, seemingly at random.
Kaze looked in.
Miles gestured him into the cabin. "Do you like it?"
The cabin was small and neat, with a bunk along one wall (no doubt too short for Kaze's tall frame) and cupboards opposite. "Though that doors the toilet. If you want anything, tell me."
Kaze sat down upon the bunk as if to stake his claim.
After she left. Kaze got up and walked out.
He was going to find a place that offered better privacy than this. Kaze had an idea.
He stalked on down two levels to the hold and found a quiet corner in a storeroom.
He settled down upon the pleasantly unyielding floor, cloak wrapped around him, head pillowed upon Magun.
Kaze fell asleep, lulled by the comforting sound of the soil engines.
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Lisa and the twins were kind in their own way; if they had food and water, and he didn't, they always shared it with their pet demon gunner.
He remembered a time he had met them in a desert. Kaze had been sat in the shade of a dune, waiting for them to catch up with him, as usual. (He had parted and refound Lisa and her charges so many times he had lost count; he assumed the Magun had a liking for them, though he had no idea why.)
"Here's Mister Warrior!" Called Ai.
Kaze gave them his sullen look.
Lisa stepped up. "Have you been waiting long?"
"Found water?" Asked Ai penetratingly.
Yu eyed his hero up. "I don't think Kaze has."
Lisa got a canteen out of her rucksack. She handed it to him. "Here's water. I have no doubt you are very thirsty."
Kaze drank, he was indeed thirsty. His own canteen had been exhausted long before, and this desert was completely barren.
"You didn't say thank you." Ai gave him her malicious look. "I bet Misters been drinking his own piss."
"Kaze's not that stupid." Yu tried to quell her.
Kaze ignored them. What could he say?
The Demon Gunner could generally find food and water...Not that it was always the best sort. Nor was he really sure where his knowledge of food finding came from. He suspected Bahamut who no doubt would take secret delight in seeing him eat yucky things.
As if the Twins did not. It was always delightfully horrified Kaze ate this, and Mister ate that with them.
(If it wasn't for him, they would have had to rely upon Chobi's feeding habits, which were yucky, that or yet more candy from Poshepocket.)
Kaze ignored this. He had drunk from muddy pools and dug up roots for liquid with an indescribable taste
Lisa and her charges were often shocked by what he ate, such as the time they happened upon a termite mound.
Kaze was pleased. A termite mound was a dinner gong to him. It meant juicy fungi...And fat fleshy termites.
Lisa had given him one of her looks, the sort she gave him when she caught him eating his own lice.
(They had gotten fat off of him...Why couldn't he have his revenge by eating them? He wasn't as dirty as she made out, he washed his hand whenever he could, and lice hunted regularly. Some people had to have a chocobo do it for them.)
Kaze had given her one of his looks back, and continued his termite chomping.
The twins had given the smug looks of those who know that their protector is going to make a fire and cook their tea for them.
And Lisa had.
She and the twins snacked on roast termite and fungi whilst giving superior looks at their less refined guardian.
The twins were delighted when he rooted up a honey ant nest though. Kaze magnanimously let them eat up all the sweet tasting insects.
Even Lisa had eaten some, when she realised how good they tasted.
Kaze sighed in contentment. No more trekking about the wilds.
The Comadeen now provided a home for his wards. The Twins could now play, (and quarrel) they were fed, clothed, housed and looked after, and were getting probably the best education that the Inner world could offer.
Kaze had done very well for them. He smiled behind his black cloak.
And he had done well for himself.
Though the Ocean puzzle held terrors of it own, there was no hunger, no cold, no sleepless nights waiting for danger that always came, no pain of untreated wounds, no loneliness.
No wondering where Makenshi was...
Kaze frowned. Why had Makenshi saved him?
Was it because he had once called Kaze Big Brother?
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Now Kaze was setting his lines. It got him out of the base. Kaze was by nature a solitary wanderer and not used to the sedentary lifestyle of shipboard.
He put on weight, though that was a good thing, given his pitiful thinness.
But on base he could explore the countryside...Also the sea.
The sun was going down; Kaze sat up. He hauled up the anchor and picking up the oar, began to scull home.
It had been Yu who had taught his hero how to scull. The Comadeen had never heard of the practice, and had laughed at the very idea.
But they never borrowed Kaze's boat, which had no rowlocks or pintles.
He arrived at the dock, jumped ashore and tied the lines. One of the Comadeen who were always hanging round helped him by lifting out his basket. Together they carried it inside to the kitchens.
Mireth Miles, the Comadeen gunner was inside, making lists of something or other.
When she praised him for his catch, he ignored her entirely.
But she was used to that. Even when she made him new jeans, she never got any reaction from the Black wind
Kaze retired to his lair in the base cellars.
There were several Comadeen in the corridors, but they ignored him. They had long ago got used to the Demon Gunner and his secretive ways.
Kaze had a room of his own now, Dark and bare, just like the home he had in his head.
Kaze hung up his cloak and lay back upon his bedroll, Magun cradled on his chest.
He rubbed the glass sensor thoughtfully with his free hand.
So much of his being had gone into this diabolical weapon. Would it consume him completely in the end?
But he had not fired off the Magun since that fight on Telos.
The one that had almost killed him.
It was only thanks to the Comadeen doctor that he was alive. Kaze slipped his hand under his T-shirt to feel the scars.
And Makenshi. Kaze frowned.
Why had his arch enemy saved his life?
Why?
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