Chapter 5: Understanding Each Other
The night was far from over, though. Rune's arrest and extraction prevented her from seizing control of the Mariage, but Ix was still out there and there were still were almost three dozen Mariage to destroy. For the sake of Subaru, who was risking her life to retrieve Ix, and that of everyone we were trying to protect, I had to give my entire effort. Subaru succeeded in rescuing Ix and was able to escape the ruins with Ix after I opened the way with Starlight Breaker.
After the last of the Mariage had been destroyed, and all that remained was for the fires to be put out, Commander Waltz gathered us together, addressing Erio, Caro, Wendi, Nove, Dieci, Cinque and I.
"Now that things appear to be winding down, I have some good news, everyone," Waltz said. "Nakajima- that is, Subaru- only has minor injuries; she's a lot tougher than she looks. Most of the survivors we've recovered, including Ix, are in stable condition."
Nove breathed a sigh of relief; much like me, she's closer to and more worried about Subaru than she lets on. Cinque, who had come to consider Subaru another younger sister under her protection, simply smiled.
But then Waltz's expression turned uncharacteristically serious, and I immediately knew why.
"Unfortunately, Enforcer Lanster, I think it may be time to worry about yourself," he said. "The preliminary reports have reached the main office about your partner, and they're looking for pretty much everyone who was responsible for Enforcer Magnus getting to her position and sabotaging the Bureau's efforts from the inside- letting the fox in the henhouse, as the saying goes. If someone overlooked something, heads will roll- yours might even be one of them."
This possibility had occurred to me, but it had lain at the back of my mind, compared to the more pressing matters of finding out whether Rune was guilty and resolving this incident. Now, I would likely have to answer many difficult questions about my investigation and whether I was responsible for allowing Rune to obstruct the investigation, but for each question I expected to be asked, there was one more for whcih I hoped to find the answer for my own sake.
With that, Waltz thanked me and dismissed me, telling me to leave the rest to him and the rescue crews. He pointed out that although his and his subordinates' work was far from over, so was mine, although it would have to wait for another day. The only thing I could do until then was rest.
I reached the apartment where I had been staying with Subaru and, for the first time in the while, opened the door to a room that I knew no one but I would occupy for some time. Rune had once had her own hotel room, but now slept in a Bureau detention cell, and Subaru was in the hospital. Feelings of loneliness, all too familiar to me, returned, and my thoughts returned to the case. This was the only outcome that was acceptable under the circumstances, and yet, it was one that I had deeply hoped would not come to be.
However, I could not forget Rune so easily, much like an amputee suffers from phantom pain and the reminder that they can no longer do many things without the lost limb. My hopes for the possibility of an ongoing professional and personal relationship in the future had all vanished, and seemed like distant fantasies, much like my brother's dream to become an enforcer had faded after his failed mission.
But I also remembered that I was no longer alone. I had lost my parents and brother, but I was able to move on with my life, connecting to others. It was a tragedy that Rune did not realize that at any point before she set out to finish Toredia's work, but my life would go on, and I had my own duties and desires.
In the aftermath of the incident, many of the people involved with Runessa, mainly those responsible for enlisting and promoting her, as well as her former superiors and colleagues, were summoned for inquiries. The quality of the background check on her was found to be at fault, and several people in Personnel were forced to resign.
Surprisingly, I avoided official punishment on the grounds that I had been the one to catch Rune and prevent her from causing any more damage. However, I didn't feel as though I was clear of all responsibility, and I suspect neither did the people investigating the case. There were a few occasions when Rune left my sight long enough to place a private phone call, and this was presumably what several of the victims had received before their deaths. It was thus, in retrospect, unwise to accept Subaru's offer, as doing so enabled Rune to spend more time out of my sight. I also wondered if I would have suspected Rune with what I knew had I not been her partner, but I then realized that if that were the case, I might not have learned as much as I did.
I was no good to the Bureau as I was at this point, plagued by doubt and guilt. I decided to take a leave of absence and initially return to service at reduced duties before returning to full time. It was also one of the few times I had time off since the Mariage incident began, and I intended to do some things that I could only do on leave, such as train, study my Enforcer texts, see the Nakajimas and visit my the Lanster family grave.
A few weeks after the case, I called Nanoha-san while she was on break and told her what I was allowed to say regarding the case. I think she understood what I was trying to say, and may even have been able to connect the dots and realize what I did not tell her.
"From what I heard, I'm not sure you could have done anything more with the evidence you had, but I think Fate-chan and Chrono-kun are the experts on being an Enforcer," Nanoha-san said. "Don't let it get you down, though."
"I… haven't given up on being an Enforcer, though," I said. "It's the dream my brother pursued, and now that I am an Enforcer, I've seen that I can make a difference. I just want to learn from my mistakes and come back able to make that difference as best as I can."
"That's good to hear," Nanoha-san said. "You know, Teana, I think you've grown up quite a bit since you first came to Riot Force 6. Back then, you would have thrust yourself into action after making a mistake despite your frustration with yourself, only to make another mistake while trying to make up for your previous one. Now, you seem to be taking a step back, and resolving to come back ready to deal with anything next time."
"Thank you, Nanoha-san. Talking with you has helped me understand quite a few things."
As we exchanged our goodbyes, I realized that perhaps, even with my mistakes, the case was not in vain, as it presented to me an opportunity to learn and improve myself. Indeed, it also showed how much I had changed since I first met Subaru and even from the start of my time in Riot Force 6.
And yet Rune had chosen to remain caught in the past, weighed down by her painful memories, and thus chose to inflict pain on others. She had chosen that road, and now she was no longer willing or able to turn back.
More immediate concerns were in my head in the days after the Marine Garden fire, such as the state of Subaru, whom Ginga-san and I visited in the hospital after giving a report on the case, as well as Rune's last question.
One concept people do not always grasp about our relationship is that Subaru is not always trying to annoy me, and I am not always losing my temper at Subaru. If Subaru is feeling depressed, I will show her appropriate concern, and I often don't have the energy to lose my temper or act in a way reminiscent of what some would call a "Tsundere" if I am depressed, and she reacts accordingly.
Unfortunately, Subaru may sometimes be absent-minded and reckless, but she is not necessarily stupid, and she was perceptive enough to guess that I was not shaking off what had happened as easily as I wanted her to believe.
"Tea, I'm sorry to hear about your partner," Subaru said.
"Sorry that I had to do my job and arrest the killer?" I said. "I had come to terms with the necessity of doing so by the time it came to act."
Subaru and Ginga-san did not doubt that I was entirely sincere, but they correctly suspected that there was more that I was not telling them.
"Still, you spoke quite highly of Runessa-san," Ginga-san said. "Coming to the realization that she had deceived you and that all the qualities you respected never truly existed must have been difficult."
While I was fairly stoic when asked about arresting Rune, Ginga-san's question brought our conversation to the more complex matters about Rune, ones that I had not completely settled. I sighed and paused for a moment to think before answering the question.
"I'm not sure how much she deceived me," I said. "It reminds me of a story Fate-san told me once, about how her brother, Admiral Chrono once had to investigate someone he respected. This person, when confronted, revealed that his motives were better intentioned and more akin to what the person Admiral Chrono knew would do, and even though he was working against Admiral Chrono, he trusted him to do the right thing. In short, perhaps the signs were always there, and apart from her being a criminal rather than an Enforcer, this is not so much out of character for Rune"
"I see what you mean," Subaru said. "However, maybe it's just me, but I can't get my head around how Runessa-san could talk to and work with us all this time, and then turn around and presumably plan on killing us all to let the Mariage continue their rampage."
Subaru's question not only rang true, but spoke from her personal experience. Fighting against Ginga-san, even though she had been brainwashed to no longer act, or even fight, like the sister Subaru once knew, was extremely painful for Subaru, and she said the same thing of the possibility of having to fight any of her friends or family in a life or death battle. And now that some of her enemies from the JS Incident had become her friends, and others her sisters, she said the same would apply for them.
And her reaction was hardly a rare one. It's psychologically easier to kill a stranger than someone you know well, as well as easier to cast a spell from afar that levels an inhabited city block than to look a victim in the eye before performing a fatal blow.
"When I arrested her, she seemed to be surprised, as though she expected me to trust her, and asked me if I had lied to her when I asked her to become my partner; I hadn't," I said. "She had no more reason to lie at this point, now that she'd been exposed, especially not about a matter like this, but why would she confide this to me? And why would my offer mean so much to her if she was not truly on my side?"
"I think there's only one person who knows the answer to that," Subaru said.
Rune sat in her cell, wearing a white prison uniform and handcuffs, while I sat outside, recording her statement. She essentially confessed to all her crimes, no longer seeing any point to hiding her actions now that she was caught and Ix was no longer of use to her. However, there was one other question I had left to ask her, and now that she had nothing left to lose, there was no longer any reason to hide the truth from me.
"Rune, I answered your question by saying that I had in fact meant to make you my partner at the end of the case," I said. "And now, I have a similar one of my own; you have no obligation to answer this, but I would simply like to know the truth. What was I to you, if your intentions were always to deceive us and continue your killings?"
"I suppose it's best expressed by a personal anecdote of mine from Orussia," Runessa said. "One day, I went out to a market that sold goods without regard to who was buying them, even across factions. During that time, I encountered a boy about my age. I knew he was actually a fighter for another faction, but I don't think that he ever guessed my identity. While picking up our respective supplies, we talked about the conflict in general, avoiding identifying our own personal affiliations, and learned that we had more in common than we thought, as two people forced to fight."
I listened intently. "What happened to him?" I said.
"A few days later, fighting broke out in a nearby ward, and my faction was able to seize territory. During the fighting, I shot someone with a mask who was firing on our position, but while he was mortally wounded, one of his comrades tried to evacuate him. One of the bodies recovered after the shootout turned out to be that boy. To this day I'm not sure whether I was the one who shot him dead."
"So what does that mean about our relationship?"
"Simply put, I realized that regardless of the rapport between us, we were enemies all along, and forced into opposition by playing our parts. You, Enforcer Lanster, are bound by law to arrest criminals regardless of their motivations. Before we even met, I had already been responsible for a few murders, which naturally precluded the partnership you hoped for in the future, as the case could only truly end with my arrest, dishonorable discharge and imprisonment, or in a war that you would give your life trying to stop."
"So that's why you had tried to distance yourself from me."
"I suppose that's what I planned to do. However, you kept on reaching out to me, trying to understand me. I thought that you might understand one day why I did what I did, and perhaps understand pain before everyone else did. I knew that things would likely end with either your death or my arrest, but for the time being, your attempts to reach out did have meaning, and I enjoyed our time together, as well as the moments in which we were not acting out our respective opposing roles."
"You hoped I would change my mind?" I said, and Rune nodded. "Unfortunately, for as long as you had been growing up on Orussia, surrounded by violence, hatred and despair, I had been growing up either in the care of my older brother, who was a TSAB officer until he was killed in the line of duty. I've been in the Bureau for a third of my life, and have wanted to join for as long as I can remember. I doubt anything you could have said or could have happened to me would have swayed me."
Rune sighed, admitting defeat on this point.
"That is correct, Enforcer Lanster," Rune said. "Just as your desire for me to become someone who, like you upheld the law and investigated crimes was one that could never come true, my hope that you would understand what I believed was similarly hopeless. However, I still hoped you would come around, because I liked you and hoped we would be able to walk the same path together."
I paused to consider what she had said before continuing. On the one hand, her crimes were severe and she was neither oblivious to that nor remorseful because of it. Lu, by contrast, knew of no other way to revive her mother from her coma, was conditioned by Scaglietti into thinking what she did was justified, and once she realized the truth, regretted what she had done. Similarly, the Numbers cyborgs had largely been conditioned to see the Doctor's work as justified and the Bureau as the enemy, but even within that frame of mind, many saw the conflict as about protecting their sisters.
On the other, while I did not necessarily lead an easy life, I did not have to worry about starving or being shot dead. Nothing justified murder, but perhaps the everyday concerns Mid-Childians faced did come off as trivial to Rune.
And would it be fair to simply abandon Rune, after everything she had felt about me?
"Rune, you killed countless innocent people essentially to prove a point. It pains me to admit it, but there's no question that you belong in prison for that," I said calmly, with a voice that stated the facts without accusing Rune or expressing outrage over her betrayal. Rune solemnly nodded, not out of a belief in the justness of her punishment. She realized that she had staked her life and freedom on this plan, and had to pay the consequences now that she had been defeated, and that everything about her plan went against the values I had as an Enforcer.
"However, I too, do not believe that our meeting was in vain for me, even though I was unable to do anything of value for you" I continued. "Your plan would never have had the effect you desired, but in sharing your experiences, you taught me much about what you went through. I would like to learn more."
"Yes, I would be most grateful," Rune said.
"I'll come back to see you when I have the time," I said, before leaving. I had a dinner appointment with Subaru, who was visiting Ix in the hospital, having heard that she was waking up.
The dinner with Subaru was less than celebratory. Not only had I learned that my partner had been beyond my help all along, but Subaru had just heard that Ix had gone into a coma that could potentially last a millennium. And yet Subaru managed to put a positive spin on it, as to her, it was not about how long she would be in her coma, but when she would come out.
"Even if Ix comes out a thousand years from now, from talking to her, I get the feeling that there won't be another outbreak of Mariage," she said. "She's changed; she has hope for the future. Maybe in a thousand years we'll have a society in which we won't need to fight; that seems like a fantasy, but I know from talking to her that people can change; perhaps one day they'll understand each other well enough to bring about a lasting peace."
"I was just thinking about Rune's plan," I said. "Her ultimate goal was to spread pain so that everyone will know what war feels like."
"But what about her?" Subaru said. "What's she learning through all this? She seems to be stuck in her old mindset of fighting and hurting others before they hurt you. Even if everyone else changes, she'll never grow at all."
"Exactly, but in a sense, she's not too different from me," I said. Subaru looked astounded before I continued. "She suffered a great deal and closed herself off from others, much like I had. Back in the beginning, you'll notice that I didn't really open up to anyone, least of all you. As you'll remember, we called each other by our last names until shortly after I met Ginga-san."
"I was also different back then, pretty clumsy, impulsive and inexperienced," Subaru said. "I don't blame you for thinking I just joined on a whim to follow my parents' footsteps in hopes of preferential treatment, especially compared to what you experienced and how hard you tried, Tea."
"Of course, that wasn't at all true once I got to know you," I said. "But yes, paying my own way through the academy after losing first my parents and my brother, I thought I had it worse than just about anyone and was jealous of those who were more fortunate than I was. In retrospect, that was petty and insensitive in its own way."
"But you have been through a lot, Tea," Subaru said. "Mom may have died, but Dad and Gin-nee are still there for me. You lost not only your mother, but also your father and your brother."
"You never complained about it," I said. "It didn't sink in fully when I met you, but meeting Erio, Caro, Fate-san, Commander Yagami and many of the other people I know put my problems into perspective. I was no longer the only one I knew who had experienced what I had, and not only could form bonds with others, but I also understood what they were going through. I then came to understand that what happened to me was bad, but there was hardly anything unique or special about it, and the sooner I accepted that, the sooner I could do something constructive with my life."
"And you think Runessa-san could have done the same thing if you'd met her earlier?" Subaru asked.
Her question reflected a deep personal hope she had, one that I shared. The main reason why Subaru found it in herself to forgive and befriend the other Combat Cyborgs was the realization that had her mother not rescued her, she might have been brought up like they were, believing that helping her makers' criminal plans was good, and the ones who tried to enforce the law and protect citizens by stopping her were evil. As a result, she believed that if negative influences could have this much effect on people, then perhaps positive influences could lead the other cyborgs back to the right path. While some of the older cyborgs had no desire to reform, in addition to the severe crimes such as murder on their records, the majority of them, when confronted with the truth about their actions, sought rehabilitation. But Rune never saw the error of her ways and never tried to turn back, partly because she did not feel any desire to do so, and partly because she saw no other choice given how far she had come.
"Perhaps," I said. "She could have possibly understood that what's past is prologue, but stories often end very differently than how they begin, especially if we make choices for the good of others. Unfortunately, as you suggested, she had already made several crucial decisions- and the wrong choices, at that- before I had met her. This was the only truly acceptable way her story could end. But I hope to keep on seeing her, increasing my understanding of what she suffered and hopefully meeting, learning from and teaching others."
Subaru paused to consider my words, and her expression became surprisingly hopeful.
"In that case, Tea," she said, "Even considering how things turned out, your meeting her was not in vain."
Life went back to normal in Mid-Childia within weeks, and we eventually returned to our separate assignments. One might say that the time had come to move on, or, more cynically, that the world, apart from those directly affected, had forgotten about the death and pain associated with the Mariage incident. But whatever we may suffer, life goes on, and rather than forget the past or be trapped by it, we should remember the painful lessons we suffered and move forward to create a future that is best for everyone. And whatever we may suffer in life, we should not give in to despair and hurt others, but instead try to understand each other, because at times, coming to understand the experiences of others can lead to insights about our own lives, and because it is easier to treat others decently once you can relate to them. My path and Runessa Magnus' may have diverged, but I hope to keep these lessons with me for as long as I live.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading this story.
The reference to Admiral Graham was back when this story pre-dated "Changing Perception". Originally, it was going to be a passing reference, then I decided to write "Changing Perception," and now, I went back and published this story.
Teana's comment about her and Subaru's relationship was inspired by Episode 8 of Strikers. After the near friendly fire incident, when Teana goes off to train by herself and Subaru offers to come along, Teana politely declines Subaru's offer. She also notes in Sound Stage M3 that if she told Subaru just how much she valued her, she would wonder if something was amiss. Teana indicates in the manga that she is "not the only one having a hard time," which could indicate that she gained some perspective on her plight over time.
I heard on the translation thread on the AnimeSuki forum that some Japanese officials sometimes take a leave of absence as a means of apology. I suspect Teana was not officially punished (Caro's narration says those who acted to stop the incident avoided punishment), but I suspect she felt guilty about her belief that she had taken too long to notice Runessa's treason. The rest is my personal interpretation of where Teana went wrong in Episode 7-9 of StrikerS. She starts off feeling inferior to Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, Vita and Signum, ends up almost hitting Subaru, then decides to work hard on the post-mission cleanup to make up for it. She then struggles to train herself hard in order to compensate for her weaknesses, and after the White Devil Incident, is quite upset over being taken off combat readiness, thinking it's because she's useless. As talented as Teana is, her main flaw is that she initially persisted even when what she was doing was less than optimal, and did not know how to deal with her mistakes apart from trying even harder, both of which she learned to overcome by the end of StrikerS.
As for Teana's conversation with Runessa, I decided to give my own interpretation of what was said between them, since Caro notes that Teana didn't talk about what they discussed, but she did say that Teana continued to visit Runessa in prison. This is one reason why this chapter was much longer than the last chapter of Chrono's story, as well as the other chapters in this fic; Teana has more unanswered questions than Chrono does. These unanswered questions are a large part of why I decided to write the fic, to explore just where Teana and Runessa stand now; Teana must acknowledge Runessa's crimes, but I think that in spite of that, they still care for each other to a certain extent.
Again, thank you for reading this story and for your reviews. My next project is not yet determined, but it will likely be a shorter story of some sort.