Pride of Sakura

Chapter 8 – Red Rabbits

AN: Dun dun DUN. Sort of chatty chapter and vaguely short, but the next is the final, which will be long and vaguely epic. But only vaguely. Named after a song because I'm stupid. This time it's Red Rabbits by The Shins, which is a vaguely weird, dreamy, sad song.

Hurled to the center of the Earth again,

The place where it's hot, love,

You know, it hurts to breath in,

And the watershed you balance on is begging it,

Well did he ever know,

Will he ever know?

It's about abortion…but ignore that.

Thanks for sticking with me!

X X X

"Lucy!"

Not for the first time in my life, I awoke in a mist of pain and confusion. My head throbbed wickedly, my eyesight pulsing black and bright in rhythm. I guess when Tylor had said they wanted to make it look authentic, they had went all the way.

The Guardians station was in a state of upheaval, I was later told. Apparently, he had sort of kicked down the door, dumped me there, cackled, and laughed. That explained the bruise on my elbow.

I was in the hospital on the colony now, a place I loathed. Sterile and bland, the place reeked of death. I wrinkled my nose in distaste, reaching to my ear to check Jenna's status.

She wasn't there.

No.

My heart froze, and I scrambled into a sitting position. No, no, no –

"Idiot. You were out nearly a day, again. How many times are you going to nearly die?"

I looked up in alarm. There was a girl leaning against the window to my left. Outside, it was a sunny day on Parum, faintly ringing with the sounds of cars and crowds. The world continues to carry on around me, I thought.

The girl had a long cascade of violet hair, tied at the nape of her neck. She wore a rather extravagant outfit – a red and black one piece skirt with thigh-highs, and an enormous photon bow tied at the back.

The realization of her identity hit me like some sort of rebel beast captain in hoochie pants that eventually hospitalized me after an extreme emotional episode.

"WHAT IN MAIDEN BOMB'S NAME? JE—".

She dived for me, cool hand covering my mouth. "Shh, Mistress Jenna." Her crimson eyes were bright. "I've been loaned this body to assist you."

I nodded, eyes the size of dinner plates, reflecting in her bright eyes. My own eyes were the same sad misty blue, bloodshot, ringed with dark smudges. I was clean at least, though. I took a deep breath, and she pulled up a chair to the bed, to rest her elbows on the edge and gaze up at me.

"Your vitals have stabilized, though your mental state of being is operation at roughly fifty-seven percent." She said solemnly. "Get your wits together. You've not any time for angsting about your hairbrush and ridiculous amount of scary red leg hair."

I glanced at my legs that had not been shaven in three days.

OH, SWEET GOD.

X X X

(Yuu's POV)

I've always hated hospitals. Then again, this wasn't really a hospital, more like a lab. Still though, I was laying on a bed, watching my own vitals on the display screen with disinterest. I had done this too much. Ankh sat on the end of my bed nonchalantly swinging his long legs like a six year old. He, too, had seen this too many times.

I hate the smell, god how I hate it.

The beast's red eyes focused on me. "Y'allright?" He asked. I nodded numbly, sighing.

"A bit cold," I answered, feeling a bit girly. Well, I was. I was shirtless in the icy lab. My arms had been peeled of their artificial skin, a process that, while painless, disgusted me to watch. Ankh found it delightful, but he was the sort of person that delighted in peeling my sunburns and such for me. Don't ask, I actually can be squeamish. I can watch brain matter explode out the back of someone's head without blinking but scabs and sunburns tweak me out beyond reason.

Without the artificial skin on, my arms were a shiny black, with white stripes traveling down the outside. After that, a layer of simulated veins would be placed, and then the skin with the nano-nerves.

I flexed my fingers, watching the lights bounce off the lacquer.

"Arms feeling any better?" Ankh asked. He himself was looking much better, though there still a nasty cluster of red-white blisters near his right ear, around his cheek. It looked terribly painful. He rolled his shoulders. "Wonder how Lucy's doing."

I tried to mask my surprise. His eyes hardened, and he bit his lip. "If she's fully recovered, it's gonna be harder."

"We have no idea where Gray went. We picked up no communications between her and the Guardians. We shall assume she is dead." Came an uppity female voice from my right, along with the swish of a door. Noriko Yanui strutted in, black heels clicking smartly on the floor, white lab coat flaring. "By the way, stop wasting your skin. It's expensive."

"He got blasted by a full ranked Dambarta. Not much he could have done, Dr. Yanui." Ankh growled. She took a step back, her dark eyes wide and afraid for a moment. She didn't like beasts.

"Yes, well—" She hissed, skirting away from Ankh at the end of the bed to stand over me, voice dripping with fake sympathy. "That human brat got lucky, right? Certainly you won't let one of those apes harm you again, Sezaburo-sama?"

I sighed at her, rolling my eyes. "She's a very talented Force. You shouldn't underestimate her because of her race."

She pouted at me. "I just wouldn't like to see one of our most talented members taken from us. Howser would be displeased. It's bad enough you were stuck in Guardians for so long." She ran her long-nailed hands down my arm.

"Bet you missed me, eh, doll?" Ankh cackled from at my feet, reaching across to grab her, his hand wrapping completely around her forearm and then some. She screeched and struggled.

"Let go of me, you nasty, unclean—"!

I sighed yet again and watched them squabble, mind wandering to Lucy. I very much doubted she was dead. Injured yes, but, not dead. I'm sure she had found a way out, she was a resourceful girl. The only thing that bothered me was the lack of Guardians correspondence. I know Ankh had knocked her nano device off her back, but…How did she get out of there?

"By the way, Yuu," Ankh said, tapping me on the leg. "You need to eat more."

I looked down at my wiry chest. "I've always been like this. It's how most of my people are. You should know this."

He blinked, and I sighed. His own body was a solid gold mass of sinew and raw strength. I wouldn't expect him to get it, I guess.

Ass.

X X X

(Lucy, duh!)

Two days had passed since I was out of the hospital. Jenna was back to being tiny, though could switch at the press of a button. Apparently the body was on loan from Maaya. Kind of creepy she had it, but hey.

I spent my first day laying around crying, weaving in and out of bizarre dreams of him and acrid megid bullets in the rain, before Jenna threatened physical harm enough to make me at least get out of bed, walk around, and watch TV. So I polished my toenails and watched TV with my brain half-off. I couldn't focus on my soap, since Latifah had apparently become both genders and a tentacle monster in my absence. Man, you miss just one episode of one of these…

The world continued with or without me. The news was the same as always, with some beast don visiting Parum for fake peace talk, some new virus, some SEED attack…same as ever.

Things were rather unattached and strange, like I was watching my own life on a vidscreen. I vaguely remember desperately wishing for creature comforts such as nail polish and junk food, while crawling broken through the mud in Neudaiz. Now that I grasped them, they seemed lackluster, not filling the desperate maw that was quickly becoming my heart. Often, I found myself staring with vividly dry eyes at my door, imagining him coming through.

The third day, I thought I had lost my mind. I couldn't even bear myself to speak his name, nor think it. "Yuu" became "Him", like some faintly iconoclastic figure I was forbidden to speak of. It sent a strong, sharp ache through my body to do so.

The fourth day I became a bit more active, brushing my hair and putting on clothes. It was then I cleared out my nano device, tapping it so all the items in it spilled out onto the floor of my freshly cleaned room. Something within me was straining, some figurative rubber band whose meaning I could not fathom.

My staves and guns clattered to the ground, along with various articles of clothing. Jenna stared in silence, picking up a pair of boxers the size of my torso.

"I didn't know Yuu's ass was this big. Wow, numan was seriously good at cramming it all in his pants."

"…I think those are Ankh's, Jenna."

She let out a bloodcurdling scream and Foie'd them on the spot, shaking her hands of the ashes and mumbling about STDs. I sighed and rolled my eyes, glad for her company none the less. Having her to cuddle and bother really helped me.

I began to re-fold the clean clothing that had popped out, zoning out a bit. When I reached down for an unfamiliar green garment, Jenna jumped a good foot in the air and used both feet to dropkick me firmly in the ass. I screeched in pain and laughter, nearly stumbling into my storage box.

"That's it! Trashy drama time!" She clapped and the TV flashed on. Hal's voice filled the room, along with grainy footage of paparazzi surrounding President Dallgun.

"…obviously not. The Guardians are ready to take very severe actions against this."

"Awwwww, news." Jenna sighed, and went to change the channel.

"Wait!" I cried, pushing her little hand down and grabbing her around the middle, plopping in the chair with the clothes.

"Is it true the Pride of Sakura assassin has never been caught?"

I focused intently on the reporter, a pretty numan woman. Bitch. "Yes." President Dallgun answered, and there was a cacophony of noise and camera flashes. "However, we have made our every effort to stop this killer."

The rest of the words were drowned out by the rushing sound in my head. Still clutching Jenna, I dove to my vidscreen.

"Jenna, could you bring up the case number for Yuu?"

She sputtered the answer, red eyes looking up at me in confusion, or trying to from under my ridiculous boobs.

"Access denied." Came the robotic voice from my vidscreen. I had tapped into the Guardians network, mind a flutter as I pulled the pieces together. Stupid Guardians! And Laia had given me a misdemeanor for being shot without a permit, by the way.

"Dammit, Laia!" I cried.

"Password accepted. One moment, please."

Silence.

More silence.

Jenna singing a song about twisting off my breasts.

Then bleep, bleep, bling! At least two dozen files began scrolling down my screen. Tentatively, I touched one. My screen immediately flooded with photos, all of them featuring corpses with perfect cherry-blossom shaped marks in their necks or heads.

"That's somewhere past creepy," Jenna stopped singing long enough to interject, then went into a screeching guitar solo.

I scrolled to the topmost one, shaking. Sure enough, the beast ambassador from days before lay strewn across his desk, sakura mark on his neck. His hand was still half-clutching a bottle of booze.

Despite my own fear, I went over a few files. Most were Yuu's work, the perfect, neat scenes. One that I stumbled upon though nearly made me so white I could have been mistaken for a particularly ill-tempered meat bun. Ankh's work, most definitely. The person was…smeared…across the floor. I couldn't even begin to contemplate what race the poor soul was.

"Wow…that's pretty intense." Jenna added, then squinted at me. "If he asks, you're the one who burned his boxers. Okay? Okay."

I sank back into my chair, still trembling. Jenna stood on my thigh, wrapping her arms around my neck and putting her chin on my head.

"There, there meatbag. I'm sure he won't maim you that badly."

I looked down to the green sweater in my hands, and brought it to my nose, inhaling. It was his, after all. When he was someone else.

Would he have to sink back into this now? This unending river of blood and sorrow? Would he be content to?

No, a voice in my head said, no, not at all.

I stared blankly at the vidscreen, then looked back to the array of crap strewn across my floor. The piece of paper caught my eye, and I dived for, dislodging Jenna who screamed obscenities even after I was across the room.

You could save him, the voice said again. You could.

I could never, I argued back in my head. I'll be killed.

Would you like him to die? Are you so sure he won't be ordered to kill you anyway? Would you like to be mutilated? Would you like him to sink back down into that hole? Knowing you could pull him out, both of you, will you put those capable hands in your pockets and turn away? Read your books and catch carry blossoms and tears for the rest of your life, wishing and waiting?

Weakling.

My own mind is abusing me, but that's fine. Maybe I needed it.

I squinted at the paper. Jenna came up behind me. "Maaya knew you would," she said slowly, brushing herself off. "That's why she lent me that body. It won't be easy."

I nodded, biting my lip. Whatever restraint had been holding me back snapped then, flooding through me like I had just pulled my head out of water. I'd rather die then go on living with the guilt and sadness. I really, truly would. Even if I was a bitch with an insane lolibot, I wasn't a cowardly one. I Jenna took the sweater from me carefully, folding it on her little knee. "Are you ready?"

I took a shaky breath. "Probably not, but let's go get shot anyway."

X X X

AN: TO BE CONTINUED. AHHHH! /eats own hand