Disclaimer: I make no claim to the series, ideas, or characters of Full Metal Panic.
Defining Normalcy
Chapter 19: For What is Lost
By Adam Lakewood
Why was this happening?
That was the question that went through Sousuke Sagara's mind as he, his future wife, and his unborn child plummeted toward the snow-slush covered and ice-tacked sidewalk below.
It had taken him so long, but he finally had everything he could have ever wanted out of life. So... why was it going to be taken away from him?
He just found out earlier that he had the family he always wanted. Jin had finally told him that she accepted him as the brother she never had. He and Kalinin finally understood each other on a deeper level than ever before; he had said in an indirect way that he felt like a father to him. To top it all off, thanks to Kaname… and himself as she had pointed out… he had a second chance at being a father: a chance he thought for sure he would never have again.
He was even going to buy Kaname a ring tomorrow. An engagement ring. He would taker her to dinner, give her the ring, and ask her to marry him. It would play out that simple. She would thensay 'yes.' She had to; he loved her more than life itself… she had to say 'yes.' … They had a kid on the way. He would completely leave Mithril, buy a small beachside house somewhere in Japan and would assist in the construction himself so he could make sure everything was perfect: the perfect house for the perfect family. He would then live with his wife and child… maybe even another a few years down the road… for the rest of his life. He had and would continue tohave everythingIndeed, it was that simple.
But, soon… he would have nothing. Everything he had would be lost again, right before his eyes, and caused by him as well. Just like before.
He immediately regretted making the brash decision he did. But, as soon as the three men had charged into the room, he knew they were after Kaname. For a split second which felt like it lasted half a day, the only thing he could see during that time of those few seconds in the motel room was the image of the red-haired Whispered girl he had saved those few years back which seemed like an eternity ago. He saw what they had done to her, and he knew that anything would be better than that happening to Kaname… even death.
Death. In the split moment it took for that word to make its way into his track of reasoning, thousands of images of the mentioned flashed through his mind.
He saw Jahah and his entire family burning in a black cloud of smoke. The team he went back to Afghanistan with to stop Gauron… he saw them too. He saw Gauron's horrifically burned face in his mind's eye laughing at him. He saw the faces of every Old Republic soldier he had shot, stabbed, burned, or mutilated. He saw several faces of his fallen fellow soldiers of the past. He saw who he was sure was his mother and father.
Nothing.
On the sidewalk below, he saw himself and Kaname lying together, holding each other in a lover's embrace while being surrounded by an ever expanding pool of blood.
Nothing.
He heard the cry of a child.
… His child.
His child would never get to see a single, waking hour.
Sousuke's eyes widened as he saw the ground rushing up to meet him and heard Kaname screaming as they rapidly descended.
The final things he had seen and heard in his head scared him beyond words. Wars, Gauron, the Old Republic of China… in terms of terror, they didn't hold a candle to what he had just perceived in the briefest of glimpses. Perhaps it wasn't even for a split second, but it was long enough for him to know that what he saw in his mind's eye scared him more than anything else ever had. For the first time in his life, he was completely terrified, and he knew he could and would not allow the future he had foreseen to happen.
With a quick glimpse around him, he took in every aspect and detail of his surroundings as peoples, places, things, events, and stages of his entire life literally flashed before his eyes. He knew that there was no more than a very slim if not nonexistent chance he was going to make it out of this ordeal alive, but he would be damneda thousand times over before he allowed his future wife and child to die with him.
Again, as if to do nothing more than solidify his resolve, the images and sounds that terrified him so came to him again, and he heard a single beat of his heart sound off with the thunder of a colossal drum as time seemed to almost slow to a complete halt for him in his moment when time was needed most. The image lingered strongly in his mind and did not disappear until he fully acknowledged the horrid reality of the presented outcome, and in that instant, he felt as if his whole world had crumbled around him.
No! Never! It would not happen!
Sousuke gripped Kaname closer to him and she curled up as much as she could in his arms, trying in vain to find safety in his arms like she hoped she could. With a harsh twist of his waist, he was falling with his back facing down and Kaname on top of him. He thrust both legs out as hard as he could and braced… hoped for impact. The lower part of both legs smacked against another balcony's concrete railing on the way down with a harsh thud. He yelled in pain despite his relief as his body flipped from the force of the blow, and his legs felt like they were crushed against the railing. His legs flew up and his head came around as he fell another level.
6.
He looked around in time to see the concrete railing of the fifth story's balcony, but he had no time to react without possibly harming Kaname in the process. His face hit directly and solidly with the flat concrete railing, probably leaving a part of it behind as his face was dragged across it during his marginally slowed descent.
5.
He was dazed horribly from the blow to the head, but he didn't have to see to know what he was going to do next. It was his head that hit the level above, but it did slow the descent just a little; thus, in the end, it was worth it.
Sousuke threw his free arm out in hopes of catching the railing of the forth story, but he was almost too late. His hand missed the top of the railing, but it ended up working for the better when his arm got caught in one of the ornamental cut-outs of the concrete railing. It caught in every loop on the way down and was roughly jerked out each time, leaving a good part of his flesh behind with each slip, but it slowed his descent significantly. Unfortunately, the last loop his arm caught in resulted in a crack that sent a sharp pain through his arm and the entirety of his spine. He let out another yell of pain as he was certain he had snapped a tendon or maybe even a bone. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he let his raw arm drag across the very bottom of the balcony in hopes of slowing his descent a bit more.
4.
On the third level balcony, his grip proved true when he managed to grab firmly to the slab of concrete balcony, completely putting an end to their freefall. However, as was made painfully obvious to him, he had not accounted for both his and Kaname's weight. He winced in pain when a loud pop sounded from his arm as it was jerked out of socket; his hand gave way and they plummeted toward the ground again. He twisted around to where he was lying flat on his back in midair and Kaname was directly on top of him, facing upwards. He kept both arms wrapped tightly around Kaname as they fell for the last time.
3.
2.
1.
In just a few short seconds, the fall that seemed like it had lasted for hours finally ended. A couple of people who were present on their way to work screamed in surprise as they watched the man and woman land on the sidewalk; thus, seeing a sight that surely didn't occur every day. Sousuke landed hard on his back first with Kaname perfectly positioned on top of him so he could make sure that neither she nor his child would be hurt. Unfortunately, while trying his best to ensure the safety of Kaname and their unborn child he had forgotten to account for his own safety.
Sousuke's head slapped against the concrete with a sickening crack that could have possibly been heard by all within earshot.The breath was knocked out of Kaname when they hit, and she felt a few pops under her back that didn't come from her as she sunk for what felt like a few feet into Sousuke.
She lay there for a moment in complete shock as she watched the cold rain fall from the sky, tinted with gray from the feeble rays of a not yet risen sun. Despite the normally uncomfortable cold of the rain and ice mixture, there was nothing in the world that could have felt any better to her. It was time she showed a little bit of long overdue respect and appreciation to nature.
She couldn't believe she was alive; she had been certain she was going to die. Again, Sousuke had managed to bring them through an impossible ordeal alive. Really, she was a fool for ever thinking that Sousuke would do something to put her and the baby in jeopardy. After a short moment, she got up off of Sousuke and let out a sigh when she caught her breath again.
"Are you alright, Sousuke?" she asked as she turned around to look at Sousuke, who she knew hadto be feeling leasta little bit of pain in his indestructible self.
The first thing she saw before Sousuke was a few people who were staring wide-eyed with their hands covering their mouths. One old lady had tears in her eyes. Kaname then looked down at Sousuke to see him staring up at the sky breathing heavily.
"Breath knocked out of you, Sousuke?" she questioned with a light laugh, mind still fuzzy as to what was going on. "I'd say so! I bet that even you felt that!"
Sousuke continued to look up at the sky and breathe heavily. That's when Kaname remembered exactly everything that had happened, as well as all of the hard knocks Sousuke had taken on the way down.
She leaned over further to look him directly in the face. His eyes were staring directly at the sky, but they looked… empty. It was like anything in his eyes that was a part of Sousuke Sagara had left them. A lot of blood was coming from him. It looked like he had almost no skin left on his right arm, and pieces of broken glass were stuck all in his bare chest and arms. She noticed that they both had a lot of cuts on them from ramming through the glass door.
Sousuke stopped breathing as heavily and sounded a bit more relaxed. If only quickly at first, Kaname was glad he stopped breathing so heavily, but then the horrible truth occurred to her.
He had stopped breathing.
"Sousuke?" Kaname called out to him.
He lay there unmoving from his spot. He continued to stare up at the sky, unblinking, and he let out a final deep breath. People around them immediately started panicking, and Kaname noted the large amount of blood seeping from the back of Sousuke's head.
"No!" she cried as she quickly scurried her way around behind Sousuke and took his head in her lap. "Sousuke?"
Kaname looked around for a moment with tears forming in her eyes, trying to collect her thoughts. She looked back down at Sousuke and nervously covered the back of his head with the lower part of her pajama shirt as best as she could without completely removing it. After a few seconds she felt the warm liquid seep through her shirt and onto her hand. She shook him gently, her mind still slightly confused and disoriented from the fall.
"Come on, Sousuke. You better get up. Those guys will probably be here any minute; you still have to protect me and our baby. You saved us, so you… can do it again, right?" she said with a bit of a sob, not completely sure what she was crying for. Sousuke couldn't die. He was indestructible; he had proven that many times.
She looked down at him for a moment and gently shook him again.
"You saved me, Sousuke. You saved our baby too. Remember, you save and give lives, right? I bet it's a boy, Sousuke." Her words came out in chaotic fashion, speaking the first thing that came to mind. She shook sporadically yet harshly when she did, her body slowly being overcome with silent sobs as she reluctantly came to realize that what she had seen as impossible could very well become reality when she got no reaction out of Sousuke.
"You probably want to raise a boy, don't you? Bring him up to be… an otaku… just like his dad," she said with a weak laugh. "But, we have to get married first, right? You said so yourself! Remember? You haven't asked me to marry you yet! You have to go with Jin tomorrow to get… a… a…"
Kaname leaned over and buried her face in Sousuke's shoulder, tears rolling down her face and pooling onto his chest.
As her mind started to become a bit clearer after the disorientation, she slowly began to acknowledge the possibility of a horrible truth she didn't want to and a possible future she didn't want to have to live with. A future without the one she loved.
At that same moment, a large, black car came to a screeching halt behind her, and the three men that were in her and Sousuke's room came bursting out the front door of the motel like devils free from perdition. They all stood stunned for a moment, taking in the scene before them. After getting over the initial shock, they all pointed their guns at Kaname.
"Stay right there!" one of them commanded unnecessarily and took a few steps forward toward the sobbing girl.
Without any sort of warning, the rear tinted windows of the car behind Kaname shattered outward as many bullets ripped through it from the inside in full sprays of automatic fire. The three men didn't even get to react before their bodies were riddled with bullet holes. Everyone that had been in the streets took off running in all directions screaming.
Kaname screamed and pulled Sousuke tightly to her as if to protect him. She jerked in surprise with almost every bullet that was fired. She became even more scared when she noticed that Sousuke still didn't make an effort to move in the slightest. The only movement that came from him was when the hand that was on his chest flopped off and landed on her bare foot. She looked at him with a glint of hope in her eyes, but it was immediately lost when she realized that she had been shaking bad enough to make his arm slide down.
"Get in the car!" a voice yelled from the car.
Kaname looked up as if she didn't have a clue as to what was going on as the back door of the car opened. Then, she saw a face she recognized and immediately felt somewhat relieved. He would definitely get help for Sousuke.
"Sousuke's hurt, Shin! We need to-"
Shin leaned part of the way out of the car and quickly pulled Kaname to her feet and into the car.
"Wait!" she yelled desperately. "We have to help So-"
"Come on! We'll all go get some help!" he said in a hurried voice as he pulled Kaname into the car with what he found to be surprisingly little resistance.
The car quickly sped off with screeching tires as Shin reached over Kaname to shut the door. All of the doors automatically locked once they were speeding down the road. Kaname looked around the car and counted five people in the car and saw that she knew the most of them which made her spinning mind feel a little bit more at ease. Seeing all of the weapons lying around in the car would have made her feel very uneasy if she wasn't already concerned with something much more important.
"We should have brought Sousuke with us, Shin. He's the one that's hurt."
"He'll be alright, Kaname. Dev… Sousuke will be fine; he's a tough guy," he said, realizing that Kaname was obviously still shaken up from the fall and what had happened after.
He sighed and shook his head in remembrance of what he saw; he could understand completely why the poor girl was in shock. He saw the entire thing from across the road when he heard a gunshot come from the motel. After seeing Kaname and Sousuke leap from nearly ten stories up, it took him a while to issue an order after seeing such a heart-stopping scene. He wasn't one to believe in anything divine, but it was definitely a miracle that she was still alive and seemingly unharmed save for a few deep cuts and scratches.
A Chinese woman in the front seat handed him a prepared syringe with a small dose of the tranquilizer in it. Kaname looked in the front seat of the car to see a Chinese man and woman that she didn't recognize. But, she did recognize Jin.
She turned a confused look at Jin who was unconscious in the floorboard of the car with a blanket covering her.
"What's Jin doing here? Is she alright? I thought she was with… Mr. Kalinin. Were they… did you…" she said, still having trouble organizing her thoughts as they flooded to her.
"They ran into some trouble as well; luckily we were able to help them," Shin lied.
Kaname found something to be odd about the situation, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. Who were these people with Shin? Why were these people with Shin? Why was Jin lying unconscious in the floorboard of his car? Why were they armed? Was Sousuke alright? The questions rushed through her head one after the other without giving her the time to even try to find an answer. The answers seemed obvious, but for some reason, she couldn't focus in on any single details; she just knew that something was wrong. It made her head hurt every time it seemed her mind was drawing up an answer to any of her hundreds of questions, so her mind instinctively focused on the most obvious of things instead.
She looked around the car again and settled her gaze on the bleach-blonde haired Japanese boy in the back seat of the car typing away quickly on a laptop computer. She looked at him strangely once she remembered who he was. The last time she saw that jerk was at the airport; why was he here now? She figured it would be easier to just have her questions answered rather than trying to figure them out herself at the risk of having her brain split in two.
"Why are you here, Miru? I thought you were at the airport in Japan?"
Miru turned around and gave her a solemn look before going back to the computer.
"Hello, Ms. Chidori. I just arrived yesterday. I'm glad to see that you're… alright," he said solemnly and gave her a forced smile.
"Really? That's when we got here! Shin came here with us too. Wait, you and Shin met at the airport too, right? I thought you didn't like him, so why are you with- Ouch!" she yelled as she felt something pinch her arm.
Kaname looked down to see Shin removing a needle from her arm. She looked around wanting to say something, but her surroundings were spinning too quickly and she felt like she was going to be sick. Shin reached out and stopped her from completely falling into the floorboard of the car when they hit a large bump in the road. He gently leaned her back against the seat. He took an extra blanket out from under the seat and tucked it around the shivering girl.
"Get some sleep, Kaname," she heard Shin's muffled voice call out to her. "We're going back to get… Sousuke," he said with a moment's hesitation, having difficulty recalling the new name he had been presented with.
Kaname smiled in response to his comforting comment. She leaned back in the seat and rested her head against the door, shivered, and wrapped her arms around her as the whipping cold air blew in through the broken window of the car. She closed her eyes and felt as if she could sleep forever.
"Just wake me up when we get-"
She was out like a light; the extra-strong dose had made sure of that. Shin sighed and rubbed his throbbing head.
A light chuckle sounded from the Chinese driver.
"You handle things too delicately, Shin. You can get the same outcome by sticking a gun in their faces and telling them to keep quiet and not try anything," he said with a bit of humored laugh.
"Well, maybe that's your way of doing things, Quon; it's not mine. These two girls aren't things; they're people. They bleed the same color you do. She was already confused out her mind, and she seemed to find a little bit of comfort when she saw a couple of familiar faces," he said, turning around to face Kaname with a guilty look on his face. "The last thing that needed to happen to the poor girl was to see a friend pull a gun on her," he explained as he slouched back in the seat to where the car's heater was putting out right in front of his face.
Quon chuckled again.
"So, now you're a friend? You're aware that you were only playing a role by pretending to be their friend, right?"
With that, Ling, the Chinese girl in the passenger seat, cast him a hateful glare.
"Who do you think you are all of a sudden, Quon?" she snapped. "Shin doesn't need to be reminded of his part anymore than you do. But, since obviously you think he does need reminded, I suppose I'll go ahead and remind you of who you are." She paused a moment to point a finger toward the backseat at Shin. "You're his subordinate, remember? We all are. You know why?"
"Because he's… the best," Quon said, sounding as if he was having to strain out the words.
"Yes. That's right. Showing him that kind of disrespect, he has every right and authority to put a bullet in you and leave you on side of-"
"Enough, Ling," Shin commanded, not wanting to hear the two go at it again. "And, Quon… look at me," he commanded.
Shin looked into the rear view mirror to where he could make eye contact with Quon through the reflection. He continued once Quon looked at him nervously through the same mirror.
"If you ever again comment negatively about my allegiance to Master Huang, I don't care if you're joking or not, I can and will tear out your spine, you aborted fuck! Do you understand?" he said, raising his voice gradually as he spoke.
Quon looked at Shin momentarily in the rearview mirror of the car again. The glare he saw coming from the younger man even from his reflection made him feel as if he was going to stare a hole completely through him with those unnatural eyes of his.
Quon always considered himself to be a very brave man, afraid of nothing. But, he actually found that his breathing had shallowed, and he was beginning to sweat slightly. It was an outrageous threat, but he knew Shin wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. Also, he didn't know Shin, but he knew of him well enough to know that the younger man could very well do what he threatened. He swallowed hard before breaking the complete silence in the car with his meek reply.
"Yes… Mr. Chang,"
As quick as his mood had changed, it changed completely once more. The inferno of a look that was in his gaze was gone in an instant and he was smiling the way he usually did. His charismatic and genial demeanor completely replaced his malicious nature almost instantly.
"Mr. Chang? Hey now, that sounds way too proper! Remember? I'm Shin, no special title needed. We're all friends here, right Quon?" he asked as he leaned back further in his seat and pulled his coat tighter around him.
"Yeah… right?" he said, nodding nervously.
"Right guys?" he questioned as he held up his hands and looked around the car at the other two occupants.
All three quickly voiced their agreement.
Shin leaned forward slightly, rubbed his hands together, exhaled his warm breath on them, and held them out in front of the vent.
"Stop at the next overpass, alright? We have got to patch up that window. It's too blasted cold, and I can't stand the cold at all. Everyone will have to excuse me; unlike you all, I'm a total wimp," he said with a laugh, trying to ease the tension he knew he had surely been the cause of.
He acknowledged that he had succeeded in his humor when the three of them laughed on their own accord. More than anything else he was capable of, he prided himself on his ability to alleviate peoples' moods. He was naturally good with people, and he was thankful. He loved people.
He turned to Miru who was still typing on his laptop. Miru was an expert with computers, and he dared not try to even act like he knew what Miru was doing. He was just as good with computers and electronics as Ling was with a weapon; he knew that the best thing to do with a specialist was to trust them to do their job. His entire team was specialists, so he trusted each one to do what they were assigned. Not wanting to disturb Miru from what he was doing, he decided he would just give him the essential things to do. Everything else, he could do or find out later. But, some things held top priority to him at the moment.
"Send a secure message to Mr. Huang. Tell him that we have the two Whispered he requested and should have them to him in the next four or five days, depending on what difficulties we do or do not run into," he told him. "Also, I want absolutely anything you can find on Andrey Kalinin. I have a feeling if Devin Letrus was not who records said he was, Mr. Kalinin is probably the same way."
"Shin?" Miru questioned, not sure he understood the reasoning behind the request.
Shin sighed and turned a glance toward the two whispered girls in the car. Things seemed so easy, and he wanted to know why. Looking at the two Whispered girls, he realized how close in age they really were to him. The one word that stood out to him most was 'young.' Too young. Just as young as him and everyone else in the car. He was the special case, he knew exactly why and the justification of why he was there, but he did not know why the two young Whispered or anyone else in his team was there. They all had lives to live; he… did not. His was a life of complete servitude owed to his lord, Chan Do Huang. He trusted his lord and his cause… even if he didn't entirely understand it. However… he couldn't help but wonder sometimes if he was really doing the right thing.
"Other than running into another group that was after the same two people, everything went off without much trouble. As a matter of fact, everything went off too easy for my liking. Everyone was conveniently separated at such an early hour, it seemed as if Kalinin completely and oh-so-conveniently left himself and Jin Lain open, and we had absolutely no opposition from Illi-" He stopped to correct himself. "Devin," he concluded explaining what was on his mind.
Shin took a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket, put one in his mouth, and lit it with a zippo lighter that had a pewter unicorn welded onto it. Miru had already stopped what he was doing in order to give him his full attention. Ling turned around in her seat to look at him, and Quon looked at him through the rearview mirror. They all looked to him, wanting to know what his point was to all of his logically analyzed coincidences.
He took a deep draw off of the cigarette and exhaled the smoke toward the broken window, and pursed it between his lips at the corner of his mouth. He exhaled the smoke again as he stared out the window, making it seem as if the answer to his questions was floating by on the wind.
"I believe Andrey Kalinin was helping us."
TO BE CONTINUED