Episode 15: Pieces (Blood)

Upon seeing the yacht for the first time in the dwindling sunlight, all seventeen normally placid Celestials collectively gasped. Kyoko took that to be a bad sign.

"Is something wrong?" she asked the masked, robed figure closest to her; the being shook his (her? its? Kyoko couldn't tell) head.

"Nothing is the matter. We...we were simply not expecting it to be...so small."

"Yes," another agreed. "That is it. Small."

"You crossed the ocean in this? How impressive."

"Were you not quite cramped, all together in this?"

And they'd only seen half of the search-and-rescue party! Kyoko wondered how they were going to stand all living on the ship until whatever "evil pollutant" currently affected their ship had dissipated. Shaking her head, she determined fretting about it wouldn't do anyone a whit of good and climbed aboard, helping the Celestials one by one step onto the vessel. "It's not much, but it'll have to do for now," she said apologetically. "We have some food, but..."

"Look at this!" They had discovered the engine room. "They still use visuals with their radar!"

"They still use radar!"

Feeling vaguely that she should stick up for the craft that got her to Magnagalia in record time but not knowing enough mechanics to put forth a convincing counterargument, Kyoko instead left the Celestials to their amazed, if patronizing, inspection of their new quarters and sidled over to talk to Daisuke. She hadn't been able to speak with him since informing him of Shun's presence somewhere in the city and hoped he was all right. After all, he hadn't come up with an immediate sarcastic rejoinder for her revelation, and in Daisuke Aurora such silence was sure to be a signal of distress.

He didn't look too bad, staring out at the sunset over the ocean with a wistful smile on his features. Unknowingly, he had chosen to survey the view from the very spot on the stern at which her brother had stood to get verbally assaulted by the young secretary. She blushed in remembrance, approaching him.

"Hey, Kyoko. They like it okay?"

"It's a fascinating study in ancient history to them, I think. And you? We're stuck here too, until they leave and..."

"...the others get back?" Daisuke finished, turning to her with a grin. She blushed at being so easily readable. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine." The smile wavered, but only a little. "Damn, but I'm not worth what they're going to put him through!"

"You feel bad about what' s going to happen to Shun in Judoh?" She was confused. "Not angry over his disappearing now?"

Daisuke sighed, but not unhappily. "Bro's too smart to not have figured out what's going to happen when he gets back. The bigwigs upstairs hate him too much to let him get away with something like this, even if no harm was done. For all I know, he's far away by now, already setting up a new life in Magnagalia. Good for him, if it can help him get over the bad hand he thinks he got dealt back home." He tilted his head. "I wonder if he'll meet Mom...she's out and about, apparently..."

Letting his eyes drift across Kyoko lazily, not really looking at her, he suddenly focused again. "Nice pendant, by the way."

She touched the silver bullet lightly with a gloved hand. "What, this?" she asked shyly, playing along. "A friend gave it to me as a souvenir."

"He a good friend of yours?"

"Good enough that I decided I couldn't wait two more years after all." She dared to slide a little closer, debated taking his hand but feared making contact. Once she did, there could be no turning back from admitting her feelings. "Plus he's really, really bad at taking care of himself so I brought him a babysitter."

"Who, J?" He tilted her chin up towards his gently, almost teasingly; she started at his touch but did not pull away.

She shook her head, touching his cheek with the hand that had grazed the bullet. "No, Monica," she replied softly with a tiny impish smile. "She's quite the little captain."

"I'll bet." He pulled her close; she gasped slightly but could not tear her eyes away from his. All she could hear were the waves and his gentle breathing; all she could see was his face, his eyes, coming closer, leaning down, eyes fluttering shut as he moved in to meet her waiting mouth--

"Do you MIND??"

"See?" Kyoko asked, the moment gone, as Daisuke let go and turned to address the "little captain."

"Hey, Monica, it's kind of rude to interrupt people when they're having an important conversation..."

The girl snorted. "For a conversation like that, get a room. In the meantime, come and help J with these crazy people. They want to know about Clair."

"What?" Kyoko frowned. "But they weren't even told--"

"Just come on." Tugging Daisuke by the shirt and Kyoko by the hand (for after all there was not much shirt to tug) she dragged them back to the captain's quarters.

"...but it must have meant something to the founder," insisted one of the Celestials to J, who shook his head impassively.

"No data exists to that end. But that fact is admittedly hardly conclusive."

"What end and what data?" Daisuke sounded almost tired; maybe he wasn't ready to go back to Special Unit jobs after all.

"The meaning behind the name Company Vita," J replied. "The Celestials insist that it means something, but I have checked all available databases and can find no records to support such a conclusion. Still, a man never discounts an unrefuted point."

"And you think I would know this...why?" Daisuke rested his hands behind his head as Kyoko, shocked at his lack of decorum even in the presence of Celestials, bristled in embarrassment. "If you don't, it sure beats the heck out of me, J."

"We merely wish to know what sort of a man runs this organization," a Celestial explained. "The name has a great deal of meaning for us, and its use naturally incites curiosity."

"Vita?" Daisuke frowned. "I hate to tell you people this, but Vita's a criminal organization. What could people like you want with something like that?"

Discontented muttering riffled through the white-robed congregation. "That is a blow," one finally admitted. "It is a shame to see our leader's name profaned."

"Perhaps Rahman's assessment of the city was incomplete. Judoh should be reinspected for further traces of evil."

"And if it is found? What then? Leave it alone."

"Um, excuse me." It felt so disrespectful, interrupting beings she'd been taught since birth to revere, but they certainly hadn't been living up to their reputation so far in Kyoko's eyes and she felt she had a right to make some inquiries of her own. "Someone named Vita is your leader?"

"Was our leader," one corrected almost sadly. "She died over fifty years ago."

"Before the nonaggression pact..."

"Weapons were more readily available..."

"When the eighth city corrupted from within..."

"Section rebelled against section..."

"Vita tried to help, but could not herself escape in time..."

"We shut them down, of course..."

"...then Leorza vanished..."

"...now he's back, pleading for Magnagalia..."

"...we don't know why..."

"Hold it." Daisuke's eyes were closed like he hadn't a care in the world. Kyoko knew that look: the young man was onto something. "This Leorza you mention...who is he?"

"Once a great leader of the Wise..."

"...very loyal, a hard worker..."

"...stood up for Echigo after he vanished..."

"...Vita's only child."

"That explains it, then," Daisuke replied; and when he opened his eyes they flashed like twin peridots in the last rays of sunlight. "Leorza founded Company Vita under the name Lorenzo Leonelli. Problem solved."

Kyoko and Monica turned to him in amazement as he addressed J. "Look up everything anyone's got on Lorenzo Leonelli's early childhood." As the robot processed his request, he explained to the girls, "He revealed himself to me earlier. I guess he thought I wouldn't make it out alive to report a dead man walking around. He's not the only one, either; I still don't know where Usagi came from."

"Hold on. One thing at a time, please." Kyoko tried to reel him in as the Celestials continued to murmur amongst themselves. "Clair's father faked his own death? Why?"

"The earliest records of Lorenzo Leonelli appear when he was twenty-eight years old," J reported. "No school or medical reports of any kind. Prior investigation of this information deficiency attribute it to hackers working for his company."

Daisuke answered Kyoko as if the android had never interrupted. "Who knows? He's city-hopping, it looks like. Stirring up trouble. I didn't want to bring him up until I was sure of the Celestial connection to begin with--it's that unclear."

"That's stupid," Monca objected.

"No, it's called playing it safe," Daisuke replied. "I don't do it often, so I understand your surprise."

"Not you!" She sniffed. "Leonelli! Now he can't get at his own money because everyone thinks he's dead! He wasn't even that old, either..."

"Leorza?" The Celestials sounded surprised. "Young? Leorza was a member of the original expedition team. The longevity of the new blood is with him, even if it is not strong."

"Expedition team?" Kyoko asked.

"The group of three ships that returned here, to our original homeworld, after centuries of interplanetary exploration and the discovery of the new blood," the Celestials responded. "Leorza is well over, by your human reckoning, six hundred years old."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

I'm not human. The thought would not leave his head, no matter how hard he tried to shove it aside or bury it under mounds of silent ironic laughter. He had grown so used to blotting out the unsavory side of his life that the very persistence of this truth enraged and frightened him even more. I'm half---one of them. And I was never Vampire, not for good. Papa was always planning on coming back. He didn't want me to succeed for my sake, but his. Papa doesn't care about me...Papa never loved me...

He had long been aware of the fact; why should it especially plague him now? But no, that was a stupid question. A father thought dead for over a year, a father with whom he had finally believed himself reconciled posthumously, returned and demanded still more from him than he had to give. He had every right to fall apart. No one would blame him. Giovanni would look after him, like before. He could just go numb again...refuse to accept the world that refused to accept him on his own terms for living. He didn't think his criteria for existence were too ambitious—make me stronger and good enough to trample all the idiots and trash on this earth. Make everyone respect and fear me. And, if at all possible, make it fun.

So far, life in general had failed him on all three counts. Had he thought himself master of Judoh after the Echigo Group transaction that had placed the Shop between his fingers? He was playing into another pair of hands, and they snatched away all his accomplishments and claimed them as their own, not his. With his father's return looming, even if far away, nothing he did could ever fully be his own.

Still feigning sleep but finding the charade infinitely more difficult, Clair shook on the tenement floor as the woman and her son finished talking. How could he bring them to his father now, promise or no, knowing his role as pawn in a much greater game? At least before he had believed that the man's harsh treatment of him stemmed from a desire to see him succeed--if not for his own sake then for some greater ideal's, known only hazily to his son as "the family". Well, "the family" was all a joke, wasn't it? "The family" meant "some day when I can return and take what you won for me at your own cost." Just a horrible joke with a pathetic punchline.

Nonetheless he needed to laugh; the urge was suffocating him, but he kept his lips clamped shut. He would not betray himself, would not reveal to them that he was awake. He did not want any more of the woman's pity; he hated the way he craved it, just as he now hated the voice telling him that the story didn't matter, that it didn't change his duty, that he still had to be a good son. Clair knew he had to be a good son. But he felt trapped by the knowledge.

Adjusting his position on the floor in an effort to distract his mind and body, the cord holding the amulet around his neck abraded against his skin. Damn Celestial artifact—it had to be one, didn't it? Thinking back, he remembered seeing a similar bauble on the man he'd kidnapped during the near-crisis the previous year.

The memory only further cemented his father's awful true identity. He wished he could forget everything. Daisuke had been wrong about Celestials after all. He was being forced to live by them, or at least by one of them. He had been forced into existence to live in a fish tank—no, a maze—no, a cage, with bars and windows but no way out. He hated the world outside it, saw with the stranger's eye all that was wrong and hypocritical in the ways of men.

He hated the damn necklace. He hated it! If only his father hadn't been wearing it, he could have reasoned away the silly woman's words. Rage boiled within him; if he did not lash out at something, he would get burned. Forgetting in anger his need to pretend he was asleep, Clair flung his fist down on the jewel in the center with all his might, pounding until it broke and he cut his fist on the shards and the other people in the house looked at him and all he could watch were the lazy rivulets of his own blood, running out and pooling with some funny bluegreen stuff that had somehow spilled out of the jewel onto the floor...

But what was he doing? What was he thinking? That was all behind him, life was fine, life was good. He was happy...

No, no, he wasn't! As the others gathered around to gape and wonder at what he had done, Clair stared at the liquid in horror. He recognized the warm, secure feeling it gave him as the effects of the awful drug his father had forced on him. He recognized the hue of the liquid as belonging to a whole bottle of the stuff his father had kept on the table next to his wine. More, Papa had more of the stuff, and he could trick him any time into having it again! He didn't want that, not if he would eventually wake up from the contented stupor. To live like that forever...maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

"What is that?" Shun in his idiocy could only see colored water leaking from a broken stone. Clair clutched his injured fist to his chest like a child, shivering as Giovanni, startled awake by the pounding, tried to inspect the wound for him. "I don't need your help--" he started through chattering, giddy teeth.

"It's new blood," the woman replied, her tone betraying confusion as to why such a question would even be asked. "We all carry around a capsule to ease our minds."

So that was why the Celestials were so deluded! The laughter burst free at last, and Clair gave it free rein, collapsing exhausted into Giovanni's concerned arms when the fit had passed. The woman shrank back from him in fear; Shun stared at him in obvious repugnance; even Boma seemed alarmed.

Only Giovanni, poor Giovanni, still cared about him. "Vampire, what is it? Do you need something? How can I help?"

"You can't help me, Giovanni," Clair replied, letting himself sag against the taller man's strong body anyway. Not even Giovanni would want to be around him, were he to discover the new emotion flooding his young master's susceptible, unpredictable system. But no, it was not new, merely undisguised. As Leorza's act had been yanked away from him, so too did Clair's gloss over his feelings for the man in his darkest, most torn moments disappear. Go to hell, old man...and the old man had. But he had returned to damn his son instead.

How could he say it? How could he admit to it, when even he himself recoiled from it?

Yet it played on in his head, a paean of independence that would never reach beyond his cage. He would not allow it to escape for fear of what it would do. Oh, he was a dangerous animal, all right. There was nothing more dangerous than betrayal, and here he was, a traitor of the blackest kind—against all that he knew he should care about. But the thought, spiteful demon that it was, still would not go away, just as the truth would not go away. Because it was the truth, it had been the truth for a long, long time—not the whole truth, but always there, watching, waiting. Biding its time to come roiling to the surface, for when he would beat his bloody fists against the walls of his prison, beyond caring about the consequences of what would happen were he to dare acknowledge it.

Clair, closing his eyes, slept at last and dreamed only one sentence, repeating over and over in his head like a satanic mantra.

I hate my father...

o0o0o0o0o0o

Grendel's arms pinning Usagi's behind her back in a way that made her eyes tear in pain and her peaceful sleep elude her, Trinity uncorked the bottle of turquoise liquid and half-wished a bit would come spurting out like champagne. She certainly felt like celebrating, that much was certain.

The girl was such, such a simpleton. All Trinity had had to do was knock on her door and ask to see her, and the fool had come guilelessly. Now they stood in Trinity's lab, Leorza having finally slumped with fatigue in his chair as the sun began to rise.

Sloppily she poured the girl a glass; a brief trickle ran down her hand—and her father tossed the manual away before she'd had a chance to finish assembling the machine—but she steeled herself against both the initial and sedative reactions. "Drink it," she told Usagi, passing over the cup as Grendel freed just the girl's right arm. "The whole thing."

Usagi sniffed it. "Master gives me this," she observed before bringing it to her lips.

Trinity laughed as the glass slowly emptied down the girl's throat. "That's right, darling," she agreed, weaving an arm around Usagi's slim shoulders and cuddling her close, coat open and revealing the bandaged knife wounds. "Because I'm your master now. Not Leorza. Me. You're mine."

The glass slipped from Usagi's fingers and shattered; the last few drops of liquid dribbled down her chin. Trinity cleaned her up with a handkerchief, chuckling the entire time.

The girl's eyes slid shut, and her knees buckled: no vicious bouts for her this time. The fight was waged in her mind, where the voices of those who'd sought to hurt her echoed like shouts in a tunnel—where only in moments like this could she remember the days before the beast masters with their colors and their sounds and their talk of a brother she had to find and kill, no matter what.

"Aren't you a pretty little thing? Hey, you lost? Come with us, honey, and we'll show you the way you really want to go."

"Hey, no running! Girl like you doesn't come into these joints except for one thing. So come here!"

"Get back here, bitch!"

The voices jeered at her as always, but their taunts and gloats were cut short by the slicing of her knife against unsuspecting skin. It thrilled her, intoxicated her, to have caught those who thought they had mastery over her so unsuspecting; soon she had begun to prowl the streets, actively seeking those who deserved just such an awakening for the power their destruction pumped into her waiting veins.

"Excuse me, sir? I can't find my way. Can you help me?"

"What, you some kind of retard? I don't care. I'll take 'em stupid---"

Slice. Two weeks later—hunting time again.

"Excuse me, sir? You dropped this." Ouch! Cuffs around her wrists. Damn!

"Found you! Twelve would-be assailants in two months. My, but you have been a busy child. But don't worry. I have a use for you." A smile twisted by dark glasses and a pointed mustache.

Her only mistake had been to target a beast master. After that, it had been one long stretch of days of conditioning and modifications. They made her faster, they made her stronger, they gave her power she would have killed a thousand more thugs to possess.

Then they wiped her clean, locked that power off from the waking world, intending to use her when they needed her. But Leorza needed her first. And now...now...

She was blank again, and happy to be so. That other girl, the one high on the scent of others' blood, had no place in a happy world. She was insane, but the world was logical and clear. Why, in this world she knew things without even having to figure them out. How much more simple could it get? I am your master now. Not Leorza. Me. Of course! She would gladly agree! You're mine. Mind, body, soul, and past.

"Do you feel all right, Usagi?" The woman's voice warmed with concern.

"Yes, Master." Master wanted her to be all right, so she would be.

"Do you miss hunting?"

"No, Master." She was not aware of the hunt anymore. Was that good or bad? No, no, it did not matter. It simply was.

"Better sharpen your little weapons, anyway." Master smiled and lit a cigarette; Usagi breathed in the smoke happily, feeling like she was sharing in her Master's enjoyment even as it made her cough. "We're going after some very, very big prey. Of celestial proportions."

"Yes, Master."

"Good girl."

Usagi's heart warmed with joy.