Hear My Cries

Disclaimer / Notes: Hey, novel idea! I really, really don't own Trigun, or anything in it, so I'll stop it with these silly disclaimers and save this for notes and...whatever. Sorry for such a cruel cliffhanger last chapter! As a writer, keeping people in suspense makes me feel all fuzzy, but being left hanging like that just sucks as a reader, so I wanted to get this chapter up as quickly as I could. Now, on with the story! (evil laugh)

Something smooth and very sharp caught the skin on the back of Meryl's neck. Each frantic breath she took made it stick even more, and she felt warm liquid well up around the burning skin.

"If you move, it will only cut deeper. Do you remember what I told you?"

Gasping, she didn't reply. Tears pricked at her eyes. The pain in her neck got stronger with each breath, as if Knives was intentionally pressing it just hard enough that the skin cut deeper, her body betraying her to the blade each time her chest rose and fell. Trickles of blood made running rivers over the back of her neck and rolled under her ears until they moved onto her lips and nose, and dripped from her chin.

"Do you remember?"

Meryl opened her mouth, but her own blood trickled in and choked out the words, causing her to spit.

"Answer me," Knives said.

Meryl nodded before realizing that it was a good idea. She cried out from pain as the blade seemed to plunge into the back of her neck. "Yes...yes, I remember." A gasp of breath sucked her own blood into her lungs, and Meryl coughed. Knives withdrew the blade just a bit.

"We wouldn't want you to die just yet, but a lesson is in order. Can you believe that for a moment I thought that you humans were reasonable enough to do, just once, what was good for you? It's laughable, but in any case I should make sure that this doesn't happen again." He stood back. "Get up. Get away from Vash."

Meryl lifted her hands, wanting to stem the flow of blood from her neck, but too afraid to cup the long slice. Her fingers brushed the open edge of the wound, her body reacting to the gentle touch. It felt like every nerve had been electrified.

Vash...Vash, help...

"Did you hear me? Move." Knives grabbed Meryl by the bloody collar of her shirt and threw her against the opposite wall. He looked at the blood on his hand and shook it, wiping the tainted liquid onto his clothes. He stepped toward Meryl. "I'm curious, little spider. What led you to come in here despite your fear? I know that you fear me. It's a horrible stench about you that is impossible to miss. Why? What is it about your species that just doesn't give up?"

"I...I wanted..." Meryl coughed and wiped blood from her lips. The grime on the wall ground into the cut on her neck. Blood still flowed freely around her shirt, falling down her back and shoulders now that she was upright. "I wanted to see Vash."

Knives shook his head and snorted. "Despite the fact you knew that you could have been killed? How illogical. He can't help you. I can feel that he feels you, though. Can you believe that he wants me to stop? It's rather annoying." Knives glanced at Vash, who moved fervidly as if trying to escape a nightmare.

The calm Meryl had seen on his face last night was long gone, replaced with a look of helplessness and agony.

"You're hurting him!" Meryl yelled.

"No. You see, it's you who's causing him this pain. If you had not come in here, he would be fine, as would you. You humans..." He threw a blade that pinned Meryl's left shoulder to the wall, "...need to stop..." Another blade, through her right shoulder this time, punctuating Knives' words with cries of pain. "...your useless, illogical meddling."

When he was done, he stood back, calm as he had always been. Meryl reached up a hand to touch the knives that pinned her shoulders, but her fist was not strong enough to hold the grip. Her hand fell back to her side. Her eyes darted from Vash's frantic movements to Knives' starkly contrasting stillness and silence. Meryl dropped her head and let it hang.

Oh God I'm gonna die. He's going to kill me...

She knew, she knew that she should have tucked a Derringer away.

"Stop, don't hurt Sempai!"

The door swung open and Millie stood in it. Meryl would have laughed if she could spare any breath. Her friend's clothes were wrinkled, auburn hair mussed, tangled all over her head. Millie's eyes were anything but tired, though.

Complete silence filled the room. Millie's eyes traveled along the floor, stopping on each spattered mark of Meryl's blood. She took a breath that was more like a sob and then turned her huge stun-gun resolutely on Knives. "Don't hurt her! I will shoot." She shuddered when she saw Knives' arm. The transformation was minimal, but the skin up his forearm did not look human. "Don't..." Millie murmured. "Please stop."

"How shocking; another one of you. Do none of you listen to what you're told?" Knives caressed another blade between his fingers. "I can't stand this. Do you know that you'd be dead for this insolence if the circumstances were any different? As it is..." Knives sighed, and addressed Vash without turning around. "Why do you do this to me, brother?" He shook his head and turned on Millie. "Leave me now or I will have to make you leave. Injuring you humans further will regrettably do no good for my brother, so I ask that you go now."

"I—I'm not leaving Sempai! She needs help." Millie looked to Vash and then to Meryl.

Meryl tried to give her friend a reassuring gaze, but every time she tried to look up, her vision swam and darkened as if she'd been plunged into a black sea. "'Sss fine, Millie. I'll be okay." Did she mean that? Did she really believe it? She shifted just a bit and her soaked shirt clung to her back. With all the blood that already rested on the floor, she wondered briefly how much was left. How much blood was in a single body?

Millie saw the fear in Meryl's eyes, and made up her mind. "I'm not leaving without her."

"Okay, then. I'm sure my dear brother is strong enough to hold out while I kill you, too."

Millie's finger squeezed the trigger.

Knives drew his wrist in and flicked it out, holding yet another blade.

"Knives, don't."

Meryl's head snapped up at the soft, familiar voice. Her eyes tried to focus. "Vash?"

He sat up in the bed, simple white shirt sagging around his thin frame. His usually sharp turquoise gaze seemed a bit hazy but still far too bright, the look you see in the eyes of a person burning with fever. He seemed confused but at the same time alert. His eyes caught on the blood that had dripped from Meryl's neck and onto the covers, and he jumped. He followed the blood to Meryl, pinned against the wall by a knife in each shoulder.

She saw the look on Vash's face that had always scared her, that look of controlled rage that made her insides feel as if they'd been turned to ice.

"Knives, what the hell have you done?"

Vash got out of the bed shakily. Pain and rage etched tense lines into his normally tranquil expression.

"Don't strain yourself, dear brother. This does not concern you."

"Everything you do concerns me. Knives, don't you dare touch the girls."

Vash tried to take a step forward, but his legs didn't seem willing to hold him after weeks of disuse. He backed up and grabbed the bed for balance, breaths coming in shallow gasps. He shook his head and looked up at Knives. His eyes went around her and to Millie. She gave him a weak smile.

His brother stared back down to him. "What can you do to keep me from doing it, and why do you care? These things are just flawed examples of an ultimately fatally flawed race."

"It depends on what you see as a flaw! Hope and love and determination aren't flaws, Knives."

The blond man turned around, still contemplating the blade in his hands. "Determination is futile. They're a virus, and they destroy everything they touch. Their instinct to survive surpasses things like morality and justice...even their own humanity. You'd think that they'd learn from their mistakes, but they don't, and they destroy themselves over and over and over again. It's about time someone stopped them forever. Look at what they've done to you, Vash. All the pain they have caused you... Don't tell me you don't feel it. Even I feel it."

Vash was silent for a long time. "They can change. There are good people, Knives. There are people who risk their lives to help others and expect no personal gain. I won't let you kill Meryl and Millie. I won't."

"Vash, you are weak. My powers are much more developed that yours will ever be. You do not want to fight me again."

Vash shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

"M—Mr. Vash!"

Millie took that opportunity, when Knives' attention was occupied elsewhere, to fire her stun-gun at Knives. The sound of it going off was like an explosion in the silence.

Knives dodged the shot, standing upright once the dust had cleared. "How stupid," he said. Without any hesitation, he spun and hurled the knife at Millie, straight at her throat.

Vash remembered his dreams. He remembered a little girl who'd spoken to him so long ago. He remembered her cries for help echoing in his own mind. He had been too weak to lift himself from his own nightmares then, and save the girl from hers. He was still too weak. Too weak to help. "Knives, no!"

Everything was ice cold and hot at once, painful yet peaceful, and silence reigned. Vash did not dare look up, too afraid that if he did, he would find another testament to his weakness...another person he was not able to save.

What he saw was anything but what he had expected. There was no blood, only...white? The knife did not reach Millie. Vash waited for his vision to clear. The white was feathers. He looked around for their source. It was him. He had done it. "Wha—Knives...I can't do that. What just happened? I threw our guns away."

Knives didn't seem too disappointed that the knife had not reached Millie. He turned to Vash, smiling. "And that was a stupid thing to do. Since you have not had the sense to explore your abilities, I'll tell you, Vash. I knew this would happen some time. Those guns just channeled and regulated our power. We can do so much more than that. You see, the guns only yielded 13 percent of their possible power, and they only channeled it in a particular way. Did you really think that those guns were the extent of the possibilities for us? Just as the energy of a Plant sister can be adjusted to produce almost anything, we, too, can channel our power in different ways...even healing. Now...you finally know the beginning of the things you can do. I will teach you, Vash. I'll teach you how to hone those abilities. I'll show to you how much better we are than this filth."

Vash watched breathlessly as the feathers withdrew themselves. The momentary warmth faded, replaced by a nauseating emptiness. Blackness took over his vision, and before he knew it, he was falling again...falling into the dark.

Millie watched as the feathers withdrew. Vash stood still for a moment. Too still. The awareness in his eyes faded and his eyes rolled back, feet giving way beneath him. Millie ran forward, past Knives, and grabbed his shoulders to keep him up. Knives reached Vash at the same time and glared at Millie.

She looked straight back at him, eyes speaking the words that her mouth would not. She would not back down.

They both lifted Vash back up onto the bed, then Millie turned and went to Meryl, kneeling down next to her friend. "Sempai?" Millie lifted Meryl's chin and spoke in a whisper. "Wake up, Sempai."

Wincing, she pulled the knives from Meryl's shoulders. She winced more than Meryl did as she pried the blades from the wall behind her. The small body fell in Millie's arms, and she lifted Meryl up, cradling her like a child. She took her shawl off and pressed it to the oozing wounds. "It'll be okay, Sempai." She soothed. "Hold on, okay? You'll be fine. I'll make some of your soup for you."

Millie bit her lip. She looked down on the pale, still face of her friend, and her eyes traveled to the lengthening puddle of blood on the floor, and the dripping rivulets that slipped down the wall.

She looks so pale...kind of like Mr. Priest did.

Author's Notes: Does this suck? I'll bet this sucks. Ohhh man! I hope it doesn't. Is it getting too cliche? I haven't read many Trigun fics yet. Blegh. (Beats head against wall) I really, honestly plan on bringing this story to a natural conclusion some time in the future, and I will hopefully have regular updates up. I hate reading fics only to find that they're unfinished and may never be finished, so I will try my best not to do that to my wonderfully kind readers. Thank you all, and don't hesitate to tell me if I make any big mistakes or start getting all cliche on you. Also, you probably noticed, but this story is quite a bit manga inspired in terms of Plants' abilities. Anyway...um...REVIEW! Please?