Sometimes to Save...
Notes: Trigun, sadly, does not belong to lil' ol' me. Excuse me while I break down. As you may notice, this chapter will be largely in Knives' viewpoint as he contemplates Vash and thinks over how flawed his brother is in his mind. Oh, I'll love you forever if you review. Vash will love you too...
A soft, intermittent indigo glow framed Knives' sharp features in cold light as the door hissed open, permitting his entrance. The living silence in the room was shattered by his clacking footsteps as he walked across the gray-tiled floor. No outside light penetrated this sanctuary. Along the walls, rows of monitors blinked lazily, providing most of the illumination in the darkened room.
Knives closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on turning the lights on. The gentle light that came through his eyelids told him he'd succeeded, and he nodded with a smile. He'd long ago found that he could communicate with the Plants here, even control them. Working the technology in this ship was often as simple as thinking it. He looked back to the open door and sighed as he looked at his brother. Vash still had much to learn. Knives cast his brother a cursory glance and waited with practiced tolerance. "Come on in, Vash. The door won't stay open forever."
"Yeah," Vash murmured, leaning against the wall outside. "Sorry, I'm still feeling really dizzy, though. I mean..." He laughed. "Unless the ceiling's supposed to trade places with the floor every once in a while." He offered his brother a weak smile, but Knives, too deep in thought, did not respond to the joke. Vash sighed and stood up. Knives glanced sideways as Vash's feet stumbled over each other. Both of his brother's hands clasped the wall for support. Vash's pallor threw Knives off for a moment.
And he'd said he was fine.
He was not fine. He'd not been fine for a long time. Not since that Saverem woman had twisted him. Why did Vash not realize how these humans had hurt him? Was a superior being raised and tainted by such slime still superior? Did that lowly affiliation take something away?
I don't understand you, Vash... Maybe I never did...
Vash stumbled into the bright room and fell against the wall. The door whispered shut beside him. His skin was even paler that before, bordering on bloodless white, and his blue-streaked turquoise eyes wavered in the distant and roundabout way that preceded unconsciousness. Vash blinked hard and shook his head, as if to clear it. He continued to lean against the wall, taking in a couple shallow breaths before speaking. "Heh...Knives, this really sucks."
Knives nodded as he tapped at the keyboard of a computer, replying absently, "Yes, it does take a while to adjust to the surge of power, doesn't it? Even our sisters have breakers to check the energy flow. For us, it's something we must learn to control. You're doing surprisingly well, to be honest." Much better than Knives had done, both in terms of condition and in the extension of his abilities in such a short amount of time.
He remembered his first time experiencing the after-effects of using his abilities without the pistol to channel them. It had been a lot worse than this. He'd hardly been able to move for the weakness, and had become very well-aquainted with the floor of this little place. Of course, Vash had always been stubbornly defiant. It was just like him to keep moving. Knives smirked into the computer's soft display. Vash was only able to use his abilities that way because of their link to his emotions. The stronger his emotions, the stronger the reaction. It was sheer luck. Vash did not appreciate or understand the power he wielded, and therefore could not wield it correctly.
Knives made sure that the security on the ship was tight. After all, Vash's resilience could be his downfall. Knives didn't want Vash leaving too soon. There was much to teach him, so much to do... And Vash was so stubborn. He had always been that way, devoted to his ideals to the point of blindness.
Knives' own words echoed in his mind, sending a shiver through him.
To save something, sometimes...sometimes you must kill it.
Knives shook his head. No. It wouldn't come to that. Sometimes to save something you needed only to cage it and...teach it.
One day they would share an Eden...
But Vash was so tainted by those spiders. The poor butterfly's wings had been plucked and he had been wandering among the arachnids as if he were one of them. In pain, in turmoil, plagued by mental anguish, and damaged irreparably by their attacks.
I wonder if I'll ever be able to extract their venom from your mind...
Knives recalled the memories he'd experienced when he'd tried to enter his brother's thoughts. Though it had been months ago, the memories were still clear and painful, and so vivid that they could have been his own. He remembered the complete hopelessness he'd felt through Vash. It echoed through his soul, leaving an empty feeling that Knives was unaccustomed to. It hurt him to think that it was the feeling he always saw in Vash's eyes.
Maybe killing something so tainted would not be a sin. Maybe it would be mercy. Maybe allowing something so beautiful to be tainted and torn by beings not worthy of its attention was the injustice. Since he would not change, allowing him to go would mean allowing his brother to keep feeling the pain he tried to deny.
The thoughts lingered for too long in his mind, and he was disgusted with himself. He forced them away. I won't do that to you, dear brother. Not yet. There's still a chance. Still a chance that I can save you. I can still make you what you were back then, before they stole your mind from you.
He had thought about this a lot. He would save Vash...somehow.
The sharp sound of an alarm echoed from the console, and a camera's view of the outside popped up on the slim monitor in front of him. Knives frowned, banishing all thought from his mind as he stared into the sand-swept vision in front of him and spotted the cause of the alarm.
"We have intruders," he murmured. "Outside."
The main entrance of the ship opened slowly, and Knives immediately threw an arm in front of his face to shield from the battering of sand that swirled up through the bottom. Vash followed suit. He'd regained a lot of his strength, and found it no problem to stand anymore. His reflexes weren't quite back to what they were, but anything was better than what it had been like before.
Sand clattered across the tiles from the open door, making a wispy dune-colored blanket. The wind picked up, throwing dust from the ground and swirling it in a furious circle outside the ship. Knives' features were set into a cold frown. "What the hell are people doing here?"
His eyes caught on a jeep whose tranquil green color reminded Vash of a Geo Plant. Two people curled up together inside of it, and he prayed that they were not the Insurance Girls while at the same time stifling hope that he could see them again.
He wasn't sure how to feel when the wind abated for a moment to reveal a slim woman and an older man huddling together in the front seat. Not Meryl... The woman stared at the SEEDs ship with frightened fascination as her long, brown hair batted over her eyes. The man, in the seat beside her, had his back turned to everything.
The woman's eyes rested on Knives, and a mixture of emotions played across her face. "Uh...hello?" She called, lifting her head from the man's tight embrace. "We need a place to stay. I'm afraid that we're very far from the nearest town, and we'll never make it in this storm. Please let us come in."
Her plea was met with silence.
Vash hurried from the ship's entrance, clasping barely parted fingers over his eyes so he could see. His hair swirled around him haphazardly, whipping at his face. 'Knives, we need to offer them shelter! This storm will only get worse.'
Knives stepped closer to the car, and Vash continued to walk, as well. Finally near enough, he realized that the girl was much younger than the man, who looked to be in his thirties or forties, with gray speckling the sides of his crew-cut hair. This was a father and daughter. The father's large arms cradled the girl almost completely. His head was turned away from hers as he coughed in the dusty air.
Knives was unaffected. 'So they should not have started driving in the first place. I won't allow spiders to creep around and disgrace my home, brother. You should know that.'
Turning his cold, blue attention to the little family, he said, "You'll find no shelter here, spiders."
'Knives...they'll die.'
'Would it surprise you to know that I don't care?'
The girl gripped her father tightly before letting him go. She straightened and moved back. The wind blew her loose clothes tightly against a slim and feminine form still gangly and at odds with itself. The girl's face was long and striking without quite being beautiful. Her lips were too thin and her eyes too large to be conventionally considered pretty. She couldn't have been older than sixteen, but the look in her big mahogany eyes spoke of many more years than she'd lived. Her sharp gaze was a challenge, and Knives met it head-on with his own."My father is sick!" the girl continued, voice stained with fear and anger. "He has an illness of his lungs, and he needs help. How can you turn us away? It's inhuman!"
Inhuman... Knives stepped back as if he'd been hit. "How dare you compare me..."
In that moment, Vash felt his brother's emotion, felt Knives' energy growing. He was going to kill. Vash was several steps behind Knives, but he saw the small blade form effortlessly in his hand. Without thinking, Vash ran forward. He caught Knives by surprise, forcing him roughly to the ground, and held him there with his prosthetic arm. The blade fell from Knives'grip and scattered into dusty oblivion. Knives growled and grabbed at the hand holding him down, trying to loosen its hold on him.
'Courtesy of you, Knives, nothing you do to this arm will hurt.'
Vash looked up at the girl, whose eyes were wide, more questioning than afraid. "Get out of here!" he cried.
The girl hesitated. It was going to cost her. "But..."
Sensing the perfect moment when Vash was off-guard, Knives turned abruptly, pushing his brother away from him.
"Go!" Vash screamed. Beside him, Knives stood to his feet.
She finally looked away and slammed her foot down on the acceleration pedal. The car disappeared into the curtain of violently swirling sand, and both Vash and Knives stared after it, one in relief and the other in shock and disgust.
Knives spun on Vash. The look in his eyes said traitor just as loudly as if he had spoken it.
He rubbed a finger across his lips gingerly, and it came away tinted scarlet. "Look what you've done, Vash." He rubbed at the blood trail with his thumb until it had smeared across his skin.
"I won't let you hurt people, Knives."
Knives shook his head, disgusted. He stalked back into the ship and closed the door, glancing disdainfully at the coating of dust and sand on the floor. He stepped around it. Vash walked straight through it and quickened his step. "Knives..."
Knives slammed his hand onto a scanner and waited impatiently while it was analyzed. The door finally opened, and Knives walked in. Vash followed, but was surprised when Knives suddenly turned around to face him.
"Brother, why? Why are you so stupid? Why do you let those vermin go and allow your own to be murdered? You betray us all, Vash. You betray yourself. If you want to save the spiders and allow them to continue their reign of destruction, then you will have to kill the butterflies. You'll have to allow the spiders to consume them. Is that what you want? Do you detest your power so much that you'd let those like you be killed?"
Vash stopped in his tracks, eyebrows furrowing over stormy eyes. "No...it's not like that! We can both live here! I know...I know scientists who are searching for alternate energy forms! They're learning to use the elements for power. The sun, Knives, and the wind. We have a lot of both, and one day these people will learn to use them! They're creatures of trial and error, Knives. They will change."
Knives stepped forward, only inches away from Vash. "Even if they do," he whispered, "it will be too late for so many. So do what you've always done, dear brother."
Knives stepped even closer. "Kill the butterfly. Kill me, Vash."
Author's Notes: Yay! This was actually going to be a lot longer, but I realized that if I did go as far as I meant to, this chapter would end up being six or seven thousand words, or at least four thousand. So I decided to divide it. Next chapter up soon! What do you guys think about Knives and his thoughts in the beginning? Because of some of his actions in the anime and manga, I've started thinking that he'll do anything to save his brother from the humans, even if it means taking Vash's life. Hmm... (is feeling evil) Nah, kidding. Or maybe not... Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts!