…Yeah. Last chapter I promised not to feel too guilty if I don't update for a while, so I think I'll try to take myself up on that. (I'm biting back a deluge of apologies because honestly, they don't really have any meaning anymore….) Here is the next installment.
……Okay, and sheer anger mode, because my scene-separators have all been deleted!!!!! What?! Why?! Now it looks like lousy writing, running from one scene to another with no discernable difference! This is annoying bordering on obscene… Okay, so if there's nothing to separate scenes in this chapter, please understand that I put them there and they are just… randomly… gone.
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If Pai was going to take matters to such extremes, then Tart could not work with him anymore. If Tart could not work with Pai, then he was abandoning the mission. If Tart abandoned the mission, then his people would be left to die. If Tart left his people to die, then he was a traitor, the sort who would go down throughout history in disgrace—assuming his people survived as a species for long enough to record any more pieces of their history.
No good choice, no good solutions. Pai would most certainly use the mew aqua to destroy all the humans—that included Pudding. Tart no longer had any trouble admitting it to himself; he was fond of the young mew mew, fond enough that all of humanity was beginning to grow on him. All of humanity…
But there was a solution. Briefly, guiltily, the young alien remembered Kish; shredded and abused, obviously delirious, in the midst of terrible suffering. It would have been good to get him back up to the ship for healing, Tart thought, but he knew that he could not waste time cajoling and pleading, convincing his friend to come back on the ship. In that state, Kish wouldn't listen—Tart knew his friend well enough to say that for certain. And he couldn't waste time if he planned to hijack the ship.
Maybe it wasn't the most ethical of plans, but it was certainly the quickest and the one that would lead to the fewest casualties. If he could get the ship under his control and take it back to their world, surely they could use the Blue Knight's power to save their adopted planet. Kish had always sworn they could adapt the power to their purposes—and maybe Aoyama would even cooperate when he realized that sacrificing himself would save his precious Ichigo.
Maybe once Tart would have laughed at the boy for such stupid devotion, but he had the sneaking suspicion that if he had had the opportunity, he would have sacrificed himself to spare Pudding from her torment.
Quietly, he edged towards the controls, typing the password into the system. The ship was told to stay locked in place above Earth, stationary, cloaked, a much quicker—and less draining—place to teleport than back to the home world. "Override," he whispered, pressing the button. He lurched as the ship moved for the first time in months; Pai would kill him, but now it was too late.
They were going home.
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Kish stumbled over to look at Pudding, his tired eyes blurry; his torn eyelid could barely be considered adequate protection for the organ—he could feel it drying, growing increasingly painful as time passed. "She's been healed," he pronounced, aghast to hear the slur of his words, his vowels running together in a drunken-sounding mutter. "See how red her hands are? Affects… affects of the healing chamber." The alien sat suddenly, plunking to the concrete with surprising force. Now that the rush of adrenaline accompanied by his escape had dissipated, he could fully appreciate just how weak, how pained and drained he was. "Heh. Guess Pai got mad that I got hurt. REALLY mad to have to heal her. Must have used the torture chamber, normally he's all talk—"
"Shut up and stand up." Ryou shifted Pudding to his shoulder, extending his hand and roughly hauling Kish to his feet. "You're delirious and don't know what you're talking about."
"Yeah, I do," Kish muttered, following the human into the café in a daze. "She was injured. Now she's been healed—I can tell these things." If his head would please stop spinning? "That's why Tart left. That's the only reason he'd have ever left our people to die—it's obvious he's head over heels for her. Heh." Vaguely, he wondered about the purpose of the back room to which Ryou led him. "Tell the truth, I'd've done—"
"You talk way too much," Ryou groused, pushing Kish down flat on a large, wheeled trolley. "This is the closest we have to a gurney. Stay while I get some fluids and antiseptic. If I get back and you're gone, I'm leaving you to die."
"Got it," Kish muttered, leaning back against the cold, slightly scratched steel. "Just wish…" he sighed, closing his eyes—his eye. He was disturbed to notice that he could still see from the other eye—something he had not realized when he was up and moving. Was his eyelid torn that badly? It felt like a cut—how had it ripped with no damage to his eyeball?
It didn't matter.
Maybe he just imagined that the door to the café slammed open. Maybe he only heard Ichigo's voice, hysterical, shrill, and so typical of his kitten, in his head. The alien smiled anyways, turning his head slightly towards the noise. "Kitten's home," he muttered drowsily, raising his head slightly as though to get up, then letting it flop back on the makeshift bed. He could probably stand, yes, but it would take an increasingly incomprehensible amount of effort that he couldn't be bothered putting forth. "Who knows… maybe…" she'll come see me, he finished in his head. His vision blurred; with a sigh, Kish stopped thinking, stopped attempting to comprehend his surroundings. His last coherent thought was to wonder why it was taking Shirogane so long to procure medical equipment to treat his wounds.
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Because I am just a twisted being, I'm leaving it there—well, okay, I also need to figure out exactly what happens from here. I want to take a poll: how many people would be upset if I killed Masaya, how many would not care, and how many would start dancing from sheer joy? Thank you for your answers.
