Episode 13: Memory (Mother)
Upon reporting that she had indeed delivered her Master's son to his former companions but that she had lost his amulet (to say nothing of the earbud!) to that same son, Usagi had fully expected to be struck for her ineptitude. After all, Master had lent it to her, and she had not taken care of it as was her duty. She deserved—almost wanted—to be punished.
But instead of the cuff across the cheek she had expected, she found herself pouring him a drink and answering still more questions.
"Who exactly was with him?" her Master asked, barely touching his wine. She sat up more stiffly in her chair to report.
"Three men, two dark-haired and one blond. Master..." Uncertain how to phrase her question, she paused.
"Yes, Usagi?" He crossed his legs, folded his hands across his lap as he sat back in his armchair.
"First I must make a confession. I was almost captured by one of the dark-haired men." His eyebrows rose. "This is not the first time he has been aware of me before anyone should be. This man...should we meet again, I fear he will defeat me." She looked down, unwilling to divulge her true question though it waited eagerly just behind her lips. "And already I have failed you."
"What, the necklace?" He waved the loss away with a graceful hand. "My son cannot use it. I regret its loss, but in his possession it is at best a balm for sore wounds. As for this mysterious dark-haired man...you have not told me all, have you, Usagi?"
"No, Master. I believe I...something tells me that I should recognize this man. I have tried to see him elsewhere in my memory, but every time I only remember the beast masters' faces and not his."
"Think nothing of it, Usagi." His glass was empty at last; she moved to refill it but he picked it up first, filling it instead with the bluegreen liquid in the other decanter. "I need to be alone for a while to think things through. Will you do something for me?"
"Of course, Master." She stood, ready for her orders.
"Do you remember the boy you saved from prison?"
"Daisuke Aurora," she replied promptly. "Yes, I remember."
"That's good." He stirred the contents of his glass. "Kill him."
"Yes, Master." Bowing, she faded into the shadows. He waited until he was certain she had gone before downing the glass in a single go, throwing his white head back and settling into his chair. What did the new blood think he needed to forget in order to be happy? Were he to discover that, it might give him some clue as to what troubled him still.
As usual, the new blood was prompt. He felt the world blurring and sliding away almost immediately after the liquid passed through his lips, relaxed and let it take him where it would. He was Wise, after all. He could disconnect whenever he chose.
O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
"Somehow I knew it would be you." His old friend stepped out of the forest to greet him, lowering a gun. "Thank you for accepting my invitation."
"You've done quite well for yourself, Echigo," he replied, climbing out of his boat and refusing to acknowledge the gratitude. "Don't you have scavenger troubles, though?"
The platinum-haired man gestured to the young woman standing behind him. "That's what she is for."
"Machine?"
"Only the best."
"Echigo, you indulge yourself in human destructiveness too much." Together they began the winding trek back to the mansion, the maid-machine following close behind. "If you aren't careful, such tendencies will bring you sorrow."
Echigo snorted what might have been a laugh. "Still her son, eh? Duty and responsibility always. Well, I'm doing my duty, even though I'm a lowly Loah. That city can't run without me and it knows it. But you! You seem to be seeking a similar foothold."
"I haven't gotten very far." The same could be said of the walk back; already he felt his breath coming harder. Though he still had many centuries left to live, he was still getting old. Already his hair had whitened. The new blood was weaker in him than in most, he knew, and the constant reminders were a tad annoying. "True, my assistant is invaluable in establishing connections, but aside from that I am just one small enterprise threatened on all sides."
His friend nodded. "I understand. Fortunately the grace of our people is with you. Already I hear talk of great things to come from 'Lorenzo Leonelli', should he get more followers. They see you as a threat, but also as a desired ally because of your potential."
"Which is where I was hoping you would come in," he replied daringly. "Being already so firmly entrenched in the lives of everyone in Judoh, your support would most likely triple my holdings at least."
Smiling, his friend kicked at a passing vine. "I see. Thus the reason for the name?"
"Not to draw out you specifically, but any of our people thought 'dead' but really only in hiding." The very same purpose, he almost said, as yours for naming your own conglomerate after yourself.
"Company Vita." Echigo laughed. "She's going to hate it, should she ever find out. Her name on an establishment intended entirely for personal gain."
He frowned sharply. "Don't jump to conclusions. And Echigo...my mother is dead."
His friend stumbled; the android caught him and helped him find his feet again. "Dead? Vita? But that's impossible. She hasn't aged a day, and no one would--"
"Human weapons don't care who they blow up. A bomb drops on a building, people are going to die."
"I see." At last they reached the mansion. "You're all right?"
"False concern, Echigo?"
"Manners."
"Whatever you call it, it's wasted on me. We weren't connected, you know that. My devotion to her was as befitted my position as her son." He tilted his head upwards, let the rustling of the trees and the sunlight beaming down on him stream through his body. "I'm happy."
"Well, I'm not," Echigo replied darkly. "But you might be able to help in that regard. If I make you great—really the top of your chosen career—what's in it for me?"
He explained. It took the better part of an hour, but he didn't really notice. The plan had been forming in his head for months, ever since the eighth city had been shut down, ever since he had closed the casket over his mother's broken body. In his mind, he believed that he held no feelings of filial affection for his mother. Unlooked-at and unwanted in his heart lay the truth.
In the course of his explanation they had migrated to a sitting room in Echigo's expansive villa; upon hearing the plan's completion, the owner of the house sat back heavily in his high-backed chair. "Well," he said finally. "No one may ever accuse you of not dreaming big enough."
"But will you help me? Save your opinions of my ambition for someone who won't call you on your hypocrisy."
"Point taken. But Leorza..."
They talked long into the night, making plans and reminiscing. More than once Echigo asked after the little sister he had left behind; more than once the question was deferred. Leorza had never failed in his responsibilities to anyone, except once: after his best friend's supposed death, care of said friend's smaller sibling had fallen to him. And he had forsaken her.
In his mind, they were all dead, every last one of his Celestial brethren, now that his mother had fallen and their crusading unity dissolved. He never expected to see Nona again.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Feeling his mother's arms tighten around him, Shun's insides bubbled in smothered hatred—not of the woman, not of her alone, but of the cruel, sadistic irony of his situation. He had sacrificed his chance to help in Daisuke's rescue for fear of encountering her kind and found himself instead in her embrace. Though his own arms moved almost of their own accord to encircle the woman, he grappled with the urge to push her away, to pick up his dropped weapon and fire, to run—anything but stay in her grasp. What right had she to claim him as her son now? If she'd missed him so damn much, why had she never returned?
He wasn't ready for this yet, wasn't strong enough. Phia's touch lingered in his mother's feel against his skin, telling him to forgive the woman, to save himself by learning to let go; and Daisuke, too, looked out at him through her brimming eyes. But he had clung to the old hatred for eighteen years; it was all that had kept him going at times. His addiction to hate had propelled his life down the careening course it had taken; it was not uncommon, he thought. Why else would he have been treated with such sadistic disdain for the past year? He did not blame the people of Judoh for hating, only for making it more difficult for him to quit the drug himself .
Why didn't he just let go? It would be so simple. Drop his arms, break free; she could not possibly hold him without his consent. So he must have consented. Why?
His head rested on hers the way she had nestled against him to comfort him as a small child. Mother, Mother, it was so cold after Father died, I wanted you to hold me like this but you weren't there. How dare you leave us like that! How dare you leave me to a year alone, with no one but my own nightmares for company. You can't possibly understand how long that is, not you perfect blessed "Celestials" with your health and your beauty and your perfect, selfish happiness. You're a race of cowards! You ignore what you can't stand! I tried to change it, Mother. I saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them. I confronted what I hated. I didn't run away. Not until I was faced with seeing you again. I caved. I ran. So how dare you come now, now of all times, and undo everything I sacrificed my integrity for! How dare you hold me like nothing's happened...
"Father's dead, Mother," he said through stiff lips. "Your brother killed him."
She pulled away at last, but did not let go. "I know," she whispered, almost afraid. She would not meet his eyes. "I heard. And I heard who killed Echigo. Shun, I don't understand."
"You wouldn't," he replied coldly, shrugging off her hands as she tried to press close again. "You can't understand a thing. Because you weren't there."
Clair, either on purpose or just with supremely bad timing, coughed. Remembering their audience and eager for a distraction, Nona looked up; Shun let her go bitterly. Yes, Mother, he thought, trying to compose himself once more. Run away again.
"Oh, I forgot...he's my son, I haven't seen him in so long, that's why...but who are you? That's Leorza's...why do you have it?" She reached out to take the amulet from Clair, who hunched away from her, backing up to put Giovanni between him and the Celestial.
"It's my father's," he growled; Nona blinked in surprise, then rushed to him despite the gun Giovanni drew on her. Now Clair found himself in those long, pale arms. "You must be Leorza's...oh, you poor, poor thing..." She touched his bruises with her own amulet, pulling it out from where she'd kept it tucked under her dress; in its light the blotches shrank and disappeared. "Whatever has he put you through?"
"Let me go," Clair ordered, squirming as he tried to get at his own gun; Giovanni grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her off the young don. Shun felt a hot stab of anger as he watched the bodyguard handle his mother roughly. How dare they...but why should he, Shun, care? Let the criminals do with the woman as they wished. It was her own fault for not knowing her place.
For her part, Nona didn't seem the least offended at the pair's treatment of her. "I didn't believe him at first, but...where is he? Where's Leorza?"
"My father's name is Lorenzo Leonelli." Clair flung the words, sulkily, in her face. Her eyebrows rose; Shun retrieved his handgun and went to reload it, just to have something to distract his mind with, but he hadn't fired a single bullet yet. Maybe he could slip away while she was still distracted, ask for directions to the harbor, and get to Daisuke just as the others ran with him from the Celestial ship...
"You mean you don't know? He didn't tell you? Shun." Oh, damn. "I don't understand. None of you know? I thought you at least would know, after what he told me. I thought you'd spoken..."
"Spoken with who?" He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice by force of habit. "Lorenzo Leonelli? Mother, I only just found out he was still alive." It was hard to look at her; she'd changed so little. Best to stick to business, keep personal feelings out of the equation. After all, given time to think, she could prove to be of use. "But what are you doing here, now? Do you know about Daisuke?"
"Something's happened to Daisuke?" All this new information seemed to threaten her mind with overload. "Where is he? Why are you in Magnagalia? And with Leorza's son..."
"That's not Papa's name!" Pulling out his last remaining grenade, Clair yanked the pin out with his teeth and spat it at her feet. Holding the near-ready explosive over his head and trying to keep Giovanni from taking it away from him, he threatened her with it. "Stop calling him that!"
"Vampire, don't...not now..." The bodyguard finally pried the grenade free. "Sorry about that, lady."
"Vampire?...oh, he gave you the title, too. I'm so sorry..."
"Don't be sorry for me! You don't even know me! Giovanni, give me that!"
"It's not personal. She barely even knows her own sons." Shun couldn't help it; the words slipped free. Nona ignored them, as expected. A few pedestrians wandering by the alley stuck their heads in to see the source of the commotion; Boma, up till then silent, drew his sword and they hastily ran. Satisfied, the werewolf posted himself as guard in the front of the alley until his friends had finished their conversation; he was not a part of it, and had his own problems.
For their part, his friends hardly noticed. "Don't be scared of me," Nona pleaded with Clair. "Please. I know your father well. We were on the same inspection team before he..."
Giving up on the grenade, Clair pulled his gun. "Shut up! My father is not a Celestial!" To his astonishment, Shun found his own gun pointed at Clair's head. Why would he have...?
"Drop it, Dictator." Giovanni went for his own pair of weapons. "Don't even try."
"I wasn't going to," he replied, lowering his arm. "I don't know..." Wait. Lorenzo Leonelli was a Celestial? Then his connection with Echigo was because--
"Echigo funded Company Vita, didn't he?" Shun asked his mother. "From the very beginning." She nodded; he cursed himself. Of course. Of course. It all made sense. Of course every person on the planet who hurt him was a Celestial. He should have expected something similar from the moment he discovered Echigo's identity. Of course they all had to be beyond his reach...but Echigo hadn't been, had he? He had paid...
"They worked together to 'help' the people of Judoh from within," his mother explained to Clair, a strange wryness twisting her voice. "Neither approved of lording themselves impersonally the way the inspection teams did, though I don't understand why they considered themselves different..."
Clair's eyes were wide; his hands went to his ears. "Stop..." he nearly begged. "I don't want to hear it..."
"...but Leorza was always talking about his plans to have a son and found an empire..."
"...I don't want to..."
"Lady, Vampire told you to stop. Knock it off." Giovanni seemed reluctant, for once, to stand up for his employer. Shun also found himself wanting her to continue.
"...except now I'm frightened and have to find him, because he's the only one who understands what's going on and why all these horrible things have happened; he told me about you, too, Shun, and I'm sure he knows about whatever's going on with Daisuke..."
"You want to see my Papa?" Clair asked haggardly, his hands dropping from his ears but his gun still held tight in pale fingers. "I can do that. I can take you to him...I have to...I have to take all of you...he made me p-p-promise..." He grabbed the amulet with the hand not holding the weapon, squeezed it tight. "Come with me. All of you. Now." A strange light gleamed in his violet eyes.
"Vampire..."
Clair fired; the bullet barely missed Giovanni's ear. "No protesting," he breathed slowly as the bodyguard, stupefied, stared at the smoking barrel. "I promised him." He began to laugh, heaving gasps wracking his body. "I'm a g-g-good son..."
Nona shrank against Shun, who resented being her pillar of strength when she had left him without one for so long. Wide-eyed, she tugged on his sleeve. "Let's go, Shun." Her voice broke. "Whatever has he done...to his own child..."
"Oh, nothing," Shun replied caustically. "Just abandoned him to fend for himself in a horrible world and then suddenly returned, expecting everything to be just as it was before." Empathy for Clair Leonelli? From him? What was the world coming to, that he could sympathize with such a...such a thing? "Let's go, Mother."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Nervous rumblings rippled through the conference room; letting them wash right over him, Daisuke leaned back in his chair and tried to relax despite the uncomfortable blindfold. Trinity had finally wised up and actually tied his hands behind his back with something—it felt like a ribbon, but damn was it tight; he couldn't get it to budge—so he couldn't sit back too far. Apparently noticing his smile, she stabbed his foot with her heel from where she sat next to him. The captive was plainly not supposed to enjoy being barter material, especially when the actual bartering wasn't going so well.
"But when can you expect this Nona to come back? Because my little friend Grendel here, he doesn't like the boy too much. There's no telling what he'll do. Why, he might even tear off an arm like he accidentally did to your pal back there."
"Evil one! We will never bow to your demands!" someone cried hotly; another, graver voice placated him.
"It is as much our fault this happened as it is theirs. We allowed them to contaminate this ship, and we are suffering for it. We must remain calm and treat with the evil ones in civility."
"We should never have listened to Leorza," another chimed in. "This city cannot be saved."
Trinity laughed. "Oh, but he's such a pretty speaker, I can't blame you for believing him. Certainly he thinks he can save the world, doesn't he?"
Were they talking about the same Leorza? They had to be, but...from what Daisuke knew about the man's goals during his incognito stay in Judoh, "save the world" had hardly topped his priority list. Unless something more was going on...the Special Unit operative in him sensed a plot. Too bad he was unarmed, partnerless, and about to die. This looked like it might have been a fun case. Lots of surprises.
As if responding to his thoughts, a crash resounded suddenly through the room: someone breaking through the door? Daisuke wondered. The sound had come from the right direction. Commotion erupted as Celestials ran for cover and Trinity, dumbfounded and angry, leapt up, hauling Daisuke to his feet as well and cramming the gun against his head once more. Jeez, she was going to leave a mark on that temple. Daisuke hoped that at least it wouldn't bruise.
"Oh, boy," Grendel said behind him, joints creaking and whirring as he presumably limbered up. "A contender at last."
A what? wondered Daisuke, but his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar, gravelly voice and the almost howling sound of twin valves letting off steam.
"Daisuke Aurora confirmed. I will rescue him."
"J!" Daisuke yelled as Grendel thundered forth to battle. "Look out!" Lowering his voice and grinning, he added cheekily, "What, you aren't going to call me 'cute' or 'angel'?"
"That's my line, actually," a saucy voice informed him next to his ear, and the blindfold slipped away. Turquoise eyes beamed into his own, bobbed pink hair swung around a relieved girlish face. Kyoko winked as, her gun still pointed at Trinity, she helped Daisuke stand. "It's been a year, Daisuke. No friendly greeting?"
"Yeah, you're rude!" Monica yelled from the doorway, ducking out of sight as Grendel and J, interlocked in combat, crashed into the wall next to her head. Safe behind the wall, she added, "We went all this way for you! The least you could do is thank us!"
"Hey, hey, give me time," Daisuke chided, twisting his head to see if there was any way to free his hands. There wasn't. Next to him, Trinity's eyes darted from her escaping captive to the young woman holding her at gunpoint, unsure of who to threaten. The Celestials in the room had run the first chance they'd gotten; it was just her, Daisuke, Kyoko, and the still-wrestling Grendel and J in the room. Not too many options open, were there? Daisuke chuckled, feeling a little guilty about taking pleasure from the woman's apparent helplessness but unable to stop himself.
"Guess you should've kept me in the arena," he told her ruefully. "That way you might have made some money off of this."
She smirked. "Just wait," she predicted grimly, jerking her head towards the two machines and finally making a decision: shooting Kyoko's gun out of the startled young woman's hands with practiced accuracy, she grabbed Daisuke and, forcing him back into his chair, sat on top of him with the gun up against his chest. She knew from his arena fights that he wore no bulletproof vest. "It's not over yet."
Kyoko, rattled, picked up her weapon; her face fell upon the discovery that Trinity's shot had punctured it. "What kind of gun do you have?" she asked incredulously.
"I made it myself," Trinity replied lazily, adjusting her weight in Daisuke's lap; he flamed bright red, as did Kyoko. "And I'm very, very good at what I do."
"I'll say, ma'am." She turned the broken weapon over in her hands. "I've squandered the citizens' tax money with my ineptitude..."
"The world will go on," Daisuke assured the distraught secretary over Trinity's shoulder.
"Holy—what are you doing to Daisuke, you slut???" Monica's head popped back through the doorway, closely followed by the rest of her. "Get off him right now!"
"Grendel, nab the kid," Trinity ordered in an almost bored tone, picking at a loose thread in her fishnets. "That'll give them something to think about."
"Class A murder technology detected," J reported as Grendel's body stiffened at the order, then seemed to almost bulk in artificial muscle. "I will capture it."
"Just try!" One fist to the cheek sent the Special Unit machine staggering backwards, unprepared; three clanking steps, and Monica was in Grendel's metal clutches. Screaming, she beat at him with her fists and tried to get him to put her down, but instead he turned and ran down the hall, Monica held tightly around the waist by both of his hands. "Catch me, android!" he taunted the pursuing J. "I dare you!"
J lowered his head, held onto his hat. Steam shot out of his sleeves and collar as he tore down the hallway at near-top speed; a resounding crunch signaled that he had caught his quarry rather sooner than the victim had anticipated. Kyoko backed away from Trinity, mind obviously blanking on what to do in the face of these new complications, but she stopped in her tracks as a blade pressed itself against her neck.
"I am going to kill Daisuke Aurora," Usagi informed them all, her murderous sleep finally reclaimed. "If you wish to remain alive, please do not attempt to stop me."