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Chapter 45 - The Death Zone

WARNING: mild-explicit moments ahead.

Relena POV

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"…Trowa?"

The tall, green-eyed man tossed Lucrezia Noin's body aside, then ran up to Relena, who slumped over onto the floor. He kneeled at her, grasped her shoulders gently and brushed her hair out of her face. There was a mixture of anxiety and relief in his eyes, obscured by long, hazelnut bangs. "Relena! Are you all right...? You're all covered in blood-"

Relena stared back at her Evergreen friend, still unsure if it was really him or if her stressed mind was playing tricks on her.

"It's… not mine..." a shaky voice eventually left Relena's mouth as she quickly and imperceptibly hid the vial in the pocket of her hospital gown before Trowa could notice it. "Dear God, Trowa... What are you doing here? You came all the way from Evergreen…?"

"We've come here with Quatre-" he started, but then suddenly stopped short, as if he wanted to avoid saying one word out of line. "It's so good that we found you-"

"Relena!"

Hearing the familiar voice, Relena looked up to notice Quatre running to them from the direction of the corridor leading to the stairwell. She felt her heart pound faster with emotion and relief at the sight of her beloved friend. Reaching Relena, the blonde man touched his boyfriend's shoulder briefly and knowingly, then knelt at her side and hugged her - just like that. His clothes smelled of smoke and gasoline. He was breathing heavily as if he was running here on last legs, and his chest was pulsating, his heart almost popping out of his chest. "Relena! Thank God, you're all right!"

"…Quatre!" Relena whispered as she returned his hug, trying hard to hold back her tears, but it was in vain. The feeling of helplessness, long-lasting stress and fear of her prolonged, uneven battle for survival started pouring out of her when she finally felt safe in the boys' presence. Even if her pride wanted her to stay tough, the will to let herself a moment of weakness and vulnerability, share the grief and sadness that pierced her body, ultimately prevailed. Everything that happened during that day was already too much to bear, unbearably painful. So Relena nestled her crying face in Quatre's chest; she wanted to speak so badly, but her voice kept cracking. "Oh, God, Quatre... Heero- Heero is... he had been-"

"…Relena, I'm so sorry," he sighed comfortingly, hugging her tightly and stroking the back of her head commiseratively. Relena realized that he seemed to be guessing what happened to Heero, he didn't need any more words, which was a relief for her. Quatre Raberba Winner simply cradled her in his embrace, and that was everything she needed at that moment.

Then Relena heard Trowa's silent but urging voice. "We have to get you out of here. This whole wing is on fire. It will reach this lab soon."

Without arguing, Relena nodded silently, bucking up and quitting her sobbing, but as soon as Quatre pulled back… she noticed something that made her heart stop.

She reached out and gripped the barrel of the shotgun that was slung over the blonde man's arm.

"-where did you get it from?" she asked in a trembling voice.

An awkward silence fell in the room, while Trowa and Quatre looked at each other with unreadable glances.

"It's Heero's shotgun-!" Relena continued. "Where did you get it from?"

"Relena, this isn't the time..." Quatre began in a confident voice, but for some reason, he struggled hard to not look at her. "Come on, we need to run-"

The blonde man tugged at Relena's arm to help her get up, but Relena wrenched her arm away from his grip. She narrowed her eyes with distrust at both men who, for some inexplicable reason, apparently refused to say anything that made sense.

"Stop deceiving me! Tell me, where did you get that shotgun from!"

When they still didn't reply a single word but exchanged apparently stressed glances, Relena felt conflicting emotions welling up inside her heart like two opposing ocean currents: first of her senses that already acknowledged Heero's death, and second of some intangible intuition that would never allow her to fully accept it. Her hands began to tremble as she hardly resisted the urge to fling herself at the men and screw the truth out of their throats with her own hands. And though she realized that the presence of this shotgun could mean so many different things... only one of the possibilities was true to her.

"Where is he...?" Relena asked again, barely controlling her voice.

"He is dying."

Everyone faced the direction from which came this cold, low voice.

In the threshold of the entrance to the laboratories stood a tall, handsome man with long, fair hair and fixed eyes. He was panting as if he just finished an exhausting run but appeared so imperceptibly as if he flew here with the back smoke, not betraying himself with his footsteps. His broad chest was quickly rising and falling, a chain with a silver nocturnal insect floated dangling on his neck, glowing in the white, laboratory light.

"Milliardo-" Relena gasped, standing up on her feet, but when his words reached her, she staggered, feeling faint…

Zechs Merquise stood still, his gaze locked at the raven-haired doctor's body that was lying in the pool of blood on the laboratory's floor of lino tiles. Though he held no weapon in his hands, Quatre and Trowa immediately shielded Relena with their own bodies and aimed their guns at the man, but Relena walked from behind them and neared her brother. Zechs glanced at Quatre, as f he remembered him, but didn't say anything.

"Milliardo," Relena addressed him again, stepping forward, quickly gathering strength and courage to face any truth that her brother had about Heero. There was no point in looking in her fearless and determined posture for the broken, despairing woman she had been in Quatre's arms only a few moments ago. Now she could hardly control the frantic, warlike pounding of her own heart, beating so fast as if it suddenly remembered that still had something to live for. She needed to know the truth… whatever it was.

"Where's he…? Where's Heero?"

The man with pale blue eyes didn't answer right away, and each passing second of uncertainty was leaving her breathless. Instead, Zechs Merquise lowered his head, his regretful eyes still locked at Lucrezia Noin's lifeless body. Watching him, Relena realized that something about his posture and expression was changing. His hands were stained with blood and clenched into fists. His eyes lost their luster, seemed dimmed, as if all life had escaped from them. His face was gray as if he had aged several decades...

"He's here," he eventually muttered, "but he's not himself anymore."

Relena held her breath; she needed no more words to understand what had happened.

For the shortest moment, the flaring hope in her shuddered like a flame of a candle suddenly brought into the raging snowstorm. Nothing, however, was able to completely snuff it. Relena clung to that hope like a drowning person to a drifting piece of wood - if she had let go, she would have drowned…

"Where is he…?" she asked again, but when nothing but silence answered her, her voice cracked. "Milliardo, please…! Tell me where I can find him…!"

Zechs didn't even look up at her, and every second of quiet on his part felt like the most calculated and sophisticated torture. Once again, regret welled up in Relena's heart as she realized that Milliardo Peacecraft had indeed ceased to exist and that only the ruthless and devoid of humanity, self-proclaimed messiah Zechs Merquise was left in this body.

The one she shouldn't seek any help from.

Meanwhile, the fire raging in the hospital reached the main corridor and was about to attack the stairwell leading down. They could already hear the sounds of glass cracking at high temperatures and distant explosions.

"You should get out of here," Zechs eventually said with an indifferent voice, without even looking at his sister. "There're no Fireflies here anymore. No one will stop you."

Relena lowered her head and felt Quatre tugging at her hand. "Relena, we have to go…"

Surrendering, Relena allowed him to led her past the motionless Milliardo when the tall man suddenly reached out to her, gripping her hand. Quatre and Trowa immediately reacted, almost shooting him at sight, but he just pressed something inside Relena's palm.

When she looked down, she realized that it was a tiny silver key.

"He's in the administrative wing," Milliardo whispered as he finally looked up at her.

The siblings' eyes met, in each of them a mixture of hatred, longing, regret, and pleas for forgiveness. It was at this point that Relena saw, for the first time in twenty years, in fixed Zechs' Merquise eyes, the familiar glow of her brother's kind and protective gaze. That he looked similar to their father at this age, but his eyes were always like their mother's. There was something intangible between them that only the two of them knew about, and despite so many years of separation, they could still understand each other without words.

That moment, when Milliardo sent her this hard look, the content of Relena's shirt pocket felt heavy like a volcanic granite.

The fire finally crawled into the corridor, its yellow flames spilling over the lab rooms like lava tongues, and black, toxic smoke filled the air. Without taking her eyes off her brother, Relena felt Quatre drag her toward the exit once again. He and Trowa kept talking something to her in nervous voices, but she heard them like through the fog.

Her brother's face was calm; she realized he was staying here.

"Go now," Milliardo urged them. "Take care, little sister."

Feeling Quatre's sharp tug pulling her towards the exit, Relena reached out and, for the last time, touched her brother's shoulder thoughtfully and whispered:

"Goodbye, Milliardo."

Anything else they could tell each other had to be left unspoken. This was the price for the choices each of them made. But the last glances they exchanged were full of peace. And only peace.

Relena, Quatre, and Trowa ran into the stairwell at the last second before it got engulfed by the fire. At that moment, there was no other way out of this floor.

The last man knelt by the body of the black-haired woman and took her cold hand.

"Just you two," he whispered as the fire began to digest the flammable substances stored inside the lab, and the room filled with the ominous sound of exploding glass, "stubbornly kept calling me by my real name."

x

"No. I won't leave him like that."

"But you can't help him anymore," Trowa insisted. "There's nothing you can do."

Relena swallowed these words but said nothing in reply, fixing her eyes on the floor and clenching her fists at her sides. They were arguing like that for several long minutes already, standing next to the skywalk to the administration wing. Thankfully, the spreading fire almost didn't reach this part of the building.

Behind that door was Heero, and knowing that, Relena wouldn't move even an inch away from this place of her own free will. In the meantime, Quatre and Trowa were slowly running out of arguments to make her run with them.

"I'm begging you, Relena," Quatre continued tirelessly. "We need to go. We promised Heero that we would get you safely out of here. He confided you to us. You want us to disappoint this trust?"

Hearing Quatre's words, Relena sighed on the outside, though cursed with uncontrollable anger in her soul. It was so much his style... He had done the same thing in Evergreen: he had handed her over to safe hands like a valuable item, in case he didn't come back.

This time, unlike in Evergreen, she wasn't going to let go though she felt more and more desperate. How in the world could I explain it to them…? "Quatre, I can't leave without seeing him again..."

Quatre opened his mouth to protest once more, but then Relena walked over and took his hands in hers in a begging gesture. "That's the only thing I'm asking you... just let me go to him."

Quatre shook his head and breathed heavily, eying her with a tired, but sincerely heartbroken gaze.

"Relena. I'll repeat that as many times as I have to: he was bitten in the morning, it's already evening, the sun is about to set. There's no chance that he would still be conscious-"

"I don't care if he's conscious," Relena interrupted him, barely controlling her voice from cracking up, then looked at Trowa as well. "I'm begging you both. Go downstairs and get the horses ready. I'll come down to you, just…" she trailed off, "let me say goodbye."

She watched their expressions change as they hesitated. Yes, she thought, sensing the weight of her not yet committed sin already prick on her conscience, you would never understand me... if you only knew... you would have never forgiven me.

…And maybe rightly so.

"I can't get infected… if he bites me, I'll survive this," Relena continued with a silent voice. "But if I leave this place with you now, knowing that in those final moments he's out there alone, slowly turning into one of these things... this I won't survive. Do you understand me?"

After a moment of silence, they ultimately surrendered.

Trowa grasped his gun, cocked it, and after a short reflection, pressed it into Relena's hands. "If you'd want to end it quick… Aim at the head."

Relena took the gun in her trembling hand, then nodded. "I know what to do. I'll be all right."

"You must be very careful, Relena… He's-" Trowa continued, "not human anymore."

"…I know."

Though her voice was silent and hollow, Relena didn't lower her eyes even for a moment, eying both men with a glare. She knew that looking down would be a sign of weakness for which those two were waiting for, and after which, they wouldn't let her go there.

"When you're done…" Quatre continued, "go down these stairs. We're waiting for you. But if you won't come in half an hour-"

"Quatre-" she interrupted him, with the last of her strength keeping her voice and expression composed. "Please... Go."

When they eventually walked down the staircase and left her alone, Relena breathed deeply, then turned to face the wide doors to the administrative wing. She stood for another long moment in the middle of the destroyed corridor, where the smoke of the burnt hospital floors was still lingering, listening to the receding footsteps on the stairs.

When silence and stillness surrounded her, Relena hid Trowa's gun into the pocket of her hospital gown and used the key that she received from Milliardo, unlocking the wide wooden door. The old lock snapped open with a loud crash that echoed in the hallway, and the heavy door creaked on its rusty hinges.

That moment a disturbing and severe chill pierced her body as if she opened the door to the death zone; it struck her that once she walked through, there would be no turning back.

"Before we go… could you at least tell us your name?"

"Heero Yuy."

Seeing the memories from the past flashing right before her eyes, and almost hearing Heero's distant voice in her head, Relena stepped confidently into the skywalk to the administration wing. Before she continued, she locked the door behind her with the same key, making sure nobody would follow her and then walked straight ahead.

With every step, she felt fear, not knowing what's awaiting her.

Passing subsequent doors that were left half-open, she entered the spacious, screened open space, crammed with overturned working desks, metal boxes, rubbish, and broken glass. The room was bathed with the dim, blood-red light of the setting sun, which made each object cast a long, frightening shadow, and the air was filled with the intermittent sound of heavy, hurried breaths...

Her eyes quickly followed the wafting sound, and finally… Relena noticed him.

Her heart stopped at the macabre view, her hand flew up to cover her mouth and mute her horrified gasp.

He was standing with his back to her, doubled over, straddling on slightly bent legs. His right leg was bandaged where it had been nailed to the wall, right above the knee. His long shirt was torn in pieces, and he was wearing only a black tank top that exposed his mutilated and wounded body. There was hardly any place on his skin that wasn't pierced, bruised, blood-stained, or glistening with sweat... A white band of untied bandage hung from his neck - his left arm should have probably been held on a sling, but that moment that arm was hanging utterly inert at his side, like a mourning banderole, dripping with blood oozing from his wounds.

He wasn't moving the fingers of that hand…

"I'm nobody special, Relena. Nobody worth talking about."

Scattered memories of his words from the months they spent together kept coming back, as if trying to falsify the reality, against all the odds. But with every passing second, Relena realized that Milliardo was right. Heero Yuy's body was still alive, but he wasn't himself anymore.

Relena swallowed, feeling her whole body chill with overwhelming terror, and clenched her fists as she slowly, noiselessly approached him from the side, sensing that the worst was yet for her to see...

She couldn't see his face as it was hidden behind a curtain of his bangs, matted with sweat and blood. Heero's right hand was swollen and convulsed like a claw, and he kept nervously, sharply scratching the top of his head, as if he was trying to dig a hole in his skull... He was doing it so hard that his fingers were already covered in blood. His tense shoulders trembled in repetitive convulsions, and he kept letting out loud grunts and groans in pain.

"Stay away from me… One more step…

and I will kill you."

The hellish sounds that kept coming out from the inside of his body chilled the blood in her veins.

"Heero..."

Her broken whisper was so soft and silent that it dissolved into the air filled with his tormented groans. He couldn't have heard her.

Relena swallowed hard, trying to control the trembling of her hands. It hurt her just to look at him as if she was going through the same painful transformation, and her brain was overrun with a bloodthirsty fungus, too... She unclenched and clenched both fists, keeping her hands close to her body, and took a few more steps closer to his side.

"You asked me about my good memories… I don't have many. But this will be the first in years."

As she stood at the arm's length from him, she felt her heart tremble with terror and despair even more. From there, she saw in full detail how the terrible wounds he had suffered during the torture and fight... she looked for a moment in silence at his slim, strong, fit body that protected her and made love to her during these last months... now battered, shattered, suffering…

Her heart sobbed as she looked at the extent of the pain he had went… and was still going through.

"Heero," she called him by his name again, louder this time, and he finally reacted. His body froze still as if petrified, but Relena found the courage and strength to whisper: "...It's me."

Another rigor shook his body, he let out a guttural roar as if he choked, and he turned around abruptly.

Relena was left breathless and frightened as he faced her.

It was almost impossible to recognize him, practically unthinkable to distinguish anything human in this horrific face... His features were distorted with pain, his eyes were rolled back, blood and saliva streamed from his mouth and nose…

"My life… only makes sense if it serves to protect you."

And then... all of a sudden… he attacked.

At the speed of light, he aggressively lunged at her, reaching for her throat. The fierceness and rapidity of his movements caused her to stumble back until she felt the resistance of the wall behind her back. Hitting with her back against the pillar, Relena let out a broken cry and lifted her arms over her head in a defensive gesture.

She dodged, somehow moving out from his reach for a split of a second; Heero's hand slipped from her neck, his nails leaving red scratch marks on the skin of her chest and ripping her cowries pendant.

Breathing heavily with terror, with her eyes shut, Relena stood in place, cringed, keeping her arms up over her head, expecting another immediate assault from him...

But he stopped.

Relena opened her eyes and gazed at Heero again, lowering her arms. Watching his form, as he stood only a few meters from her, Relena realized that maybe he was still

there

The infected never let it go at the first attack.

Heero held his head low, the broken pendant he had given her was hanging sadly, hooked between his crooked, trembling, blood-soaked fingers. Then another long, nightmarish rigor shook his body. His strained, shuddering shoulders rose and fell with frantic panting that kept dangerously accelerating. He doubled over, uttering prolonged, guttural grunts...

Then a tormented cry left his throat…

He was suffering…

"I would gladly give my life for you… you would be better off without me."

Relena felt helpless and painful despair overwhelm her at the sound of his cries.

The stubborn voice of reason told her to grab the object in her pocket and end Heerp's suffering once and for all... because counting on hope seemed way too exaggerated here. The marks of his nails left on her chest burned her painfully, just a harbinger of what he was capable of doing to her…

"It's okay," she whispered, her voice perfectly calm and gentle, as she confidently took a step in his direction. "I'm right here, Heero…"

Her voice triggered a shock that tossed his body. He threw himself in her direction again, but then stopped precipitously and let out a long groan of pain - as if his moves were directed by some invisible strings… as if he was only a disobedient theatrical puppet, jiggled by his master.

It was clear that any resistance on his part was futile, and he would soon succumb. But at that moment, Relena stopped being afraid of him.

What she was about to do filled her with fear.

She sucked air into her lungs, feeling her entire body tremble with almost the same force.

"…the hell is wrong with you!?" she whispered with remorse and grief, but then her voice gradually turned louder. "You were always the only one to never give up! Why did you give up now?!"

Another jerk of strings… the bloodthirsty puppet made of Heero's body thrashed around, as if resisting the urge to get closer to her, and moaned like a broken toy, and it seemed to Relena that the sound had something of a protest to it.

"You should live! You should live a long life by my side so that I can love you... You should live to see a child who will love you back purely, unconditionally...!" her voice broke, but she caught her breath. "You have so much loving yet to feel…! This is not how it should be-"

But then that was it.

Every puppet has to give up at last to the will of the puppet master, and eventually, Heero went violently at her again, like a wild animal.

This time he got her immediately and forcefully, covering her with his body.

Her knees buckled under his weight, and Relena slipped to the floor, hitting the pillar with her back again. Though he attacked her with only one hand, he had superhuman strength, and his grip hurt as if he could break her bones.

With a sharp tug, he blindly ripped the neckline of her hospital gown, pressed his fingers into her arm to hold her in place, and then… Relena felt a sudden, acute pain as his teeth dug into the exposed flesh just below her left clavicle.

The dizzyingly intense pain shocked and blinded her, her body fiercely shuddered, and she was left out of breath. She felt him ripping and tearing her skin and flesh apart with his teeth, her hot blood flowing down her chest... Letting out a loud cry, she instinctively braced her hands on his shoulders, futilely trying to push him away and groaned in pain when he dug deeper and deeper into her with each passing second.

He was devouring her.

"Heero-"

Blood boiled inside her, pulsed in her temples, blew out her skull from the inside out. She had never felt such excruciating pain in her life. Her whole body and consciousness, along with her instincts, screamed for her to run away... to defend herself against a bloodthirsty beast that wasn't her Heero anymore... But instead of trying to push a voracious beast away and struggle to run, she wrapped her arm around his neck as if he was a long-lost lover.

Then, with her other hand, she reached to her pocket. Time seemed to slow down. She could barely control the tremor in her hands… but the cold object fitted perfectly in the palm of her hand…

"I'll never leave you alone again."

"I love you-" she whined with a weak voice, lifting the object in her hand to the back of his head.

God, forgive me, she prayed in her thoughts but knew there was no forgiveness for her.

…

Time stopped.

Suddenly all the chaos ceased, and the room had fallen back into an ominous silence.

A few moments later, Heero's body tightened all the way before turning deathly limp. His jaw loosened its pressure on her skin, and he slumped with his head onto her lap. His right arm, clenched painfully around her shoulders a second earlier, eased and slid off her, hitting the floor with a dull thud, then his whole body dropped off her lap and crashed to the floor right next to her.

Relena breathed hard, stunned, too afraid to look down on him.

She reached and gently stroked his head with her trembling fingers...

…

He didn't move.

Tears started to run down her cheeks.

She brushed his hair nervously, stroked his temples and neck, his cheeks and shoulders... The light of the setting sun left red streaks in his hair and his still, finally peaceful face; it was hard to tell if it was just light or blood… his or hers.

More and more tears kept coming, running down her neck and through the wound in her chest that started pinching painfully from the salty taste.

Weeping loudly, she leaned over him and cradled his head to her heart. "I'm so sorry…!"

The sleeping sun painted the room in apocalyptic red light, and the air trembled, reverberating her sorrowful cry.

.

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…could such a deed be ever forgiven?

What choice did Relena make? Was it the right choice? Whom does she ask for forgiveness?

Did she kill Heero?

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To be continued… and to be ended… in the next chapter.

"The Life That Will Always Go On."