Episode 17: Return (Sacrifice)
"Where were you?" Leorza asked Usagi sharply as, feet dragging, the girl entered the apartment and closed the door behind her, humming softly to herself. "Did Trinity go home?"
"I followed her back," she replied, "and made sure she was not doing anything you would not want her to, Master. Then I began to return to your side, but I found you a present instead."
"And what might that be?" The girl was acting very strangely; normally she would have waited for instructions before attempting such a stunt. Instantly he was on his guard, though he carefully concealed his uneasiness. "This present of yours?"
She reopened the door and a young, dark-haired man walked in, a guarded smile teasing his lips and a hand shoved into his pocket. "I'm back, Papa. Miss me?"
The boy should have known better than to use such a tone with him. Something was definitely wrong...and where was his amulet? Usagi had earlier reported that his son had stolen his amulet from her. Yet he did not have it on. The muscles in Leorza's face stiffened.
"Where are your companions?" he asked, mindful of appearances and the task he had laid to his son despite his apprehension. "My beloved son, I gave you a specific task. Did you fail to follow through?"
Clair shrugged and shut the door. "I couldn't get them to come. They all hate me anyway. What's it matter? Vampire can't waste his time worrying about little things."
"My beloved son, nothing is too little for Vampire to notice. Often the enemy only gives the tiniest of hints as to their intentions, and you must be prepared to spot such things."
"That's what advisors are for." Clair sat down; Usagi backed into the bathroom again, but Leorza waved her back out. For some inexplicable reason, he wanted her around to keep an eye on his son. Assuming, of course, that whatever his instincts sensed to be amiss wasn't centered around her as well...
"Then why, my beloved son, have you returned if your task is unfulfilled?"
Clair looked away, dark lashes hiding his violet eyes from view. "I'm confused, Papa," he said in a weak voice. "I don't understand. Why did you leave me? I..." On his knees, his hands curled into fists. "You were right. I wasn't ready. I'm a failure. Why did you leave when I wasn't ready?"
Leorza sighed. He should have seen this coming. Now he had a decision to make he'd earlier hoped to avoid, caught as it were in his own cleverness. Given what he knew of his son's temperament, the boy would likely react poorly to hearing his father's true plans, plans he had never divulged in full to anyone before save Echigo only. Yet on the other hand...what other choice did he have? To lie? No other explanations for his behavior he invented seemed sufficient. And certainly he could not kill the boy; that would ruin everything.
Even caution had not been enough, then. He would have to take another leap of faith and do something to which he'd never committed before: he would have to trust his unworthy son.
"Very well," he replied, and with the words he felt his entire body buckle and fade. "Listen carefully, my beloved son. I shall not repeat myself later..."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Daisuke!!"
The blonde woman ran ahead of the group, tired feet forgotten as she rushed to her youngest son's arms. For his part, the young man aboard the yacht blinked in surprise; then his face broke into a wide smile and he too hurried forth to her embrace. On board the yacht, Kyoko and J watched, smiling; Monica raised her camera to her eye and snapped a picture as their bodies met. Clustered at the bow, the Celestials also watched with interest.
Boma leapt onto the boat, startling the white-robed passengers. Those left standing on solid ground observed the reunion with bittersweet expressions upon their faces. Shun managed a smile, but his wistful, almost jealous eyes lent the gesture a perhaps unfair falseness. Giovanni's mind was plainly elsewhere, wandering along distant frantic clouds...then, suddenly, jolted back to the moment.
"I'm going in," the voice in his ear murmured. "Get ready."
"Giovanni, what are you waiting for?" Monica called as Shun climbed onto the yacht, carefully avoiding the gazes of both his family and the other Celestials. "Come on!"
"Not now, little lady," he replied, hand pressed against his budded ear to amplify the volume. "Vampire's made it."
"What is he talking about?" Kyoko asked Boma, though Shun was closer to her; the slight did not go unnoticed, but he made no reply and instead retired silently to his cabin, saying nothing to even Daisuke. Briefly, the werewolf explained.
Daisuke raised an eyebrow. "Fill me in later. Bro!" He dashed off after Shun, Nona following both of her sons in bemused confusion.
"Give me the apparatus," J told Giovanni as the man clambered onto the vessel, still listening intently. He looked up at the machine blankly, so the android explained. "If I put it into my ear, I can project what is happening on the other side, and make a recording if need be."
Giovanni considered the offer, then yanked the small device out. "All yours, old man. I'll take you up on the recording too."
"Very well." Accepting the earbud, J inserted it into his own ear. After a few clicks and whirrs, his mouth opened and he began to speak, but the voice was not his own.
"...when I wasn't ready?" Clair's broken voice asked plaintively.
Monica smiled in approval. "That's really cool!"
"Hush," Kyoko told her, a finger to her lips and her eyes on Giovanni. "This is important." The Celestials, too, came closer and gathered around the android to hear better.
"Listen carefully, my beloved son," said another speaker. "I shall not repeat myself later. We Celestials are not, as the humans think, an entirely different race. Rather, we began as humans like yourselves, but we are humans who have been forever altered. For we have become transformed by a substance we know only as 'new blood...'"
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Clair let the words slide over his mind, the bud weighing heavily in his right ear. He almost wished he hadn't asked Giovanni to make a recording of his father's words. Although he doubted that he would ever forget them, he never wanted to hear them again.
"I am a member of the third generation of a team of explorers from the human planet who launched an expedition to search for habitable other worlds, the original world having been ravaged by the rages of a war which ended in the creation of a great Overstate governing the entire globe. The admittedly radical political shift was regarded as a step towards world peace at last, and as the population had dwindled significantly due to wartime casualties and purges the human race was deemed governable once and for all. But the planet itself, due to projected expenditures of resources and pollution, was running out of time. So the explorers were sent to a distant system to examine and perhaps colonize another world, even if the journey would be far too long for a single generation to make. On their immense transport, the current astronauts grew their own food and raised their successors with care, those who would at last set foot on alien soil. My mother was one of the youngest, being only twenty-five when the habitable planet at last was reached. Her name was Vita."
No, no, he didn't want to hear this. He didn't care about his family history; he wanted that final push, some hateful outrageous confession that would give him the incentive at last to draw his gun and pull the trigger. His father had lied to him every day of his life, had pretended up till the very "last" breath. And he hated pretenders more than any other scum that walked the earth.
The man known to him as Lorenzo Leonelli had to die today, die for his crimes as was his due. And who better to kill him than the son who had suffered the most...but who also the least prepared to strike the blow? Clair reminded himself he wasn't frightened, that he hated his father, that he had wanted this day to come without knowing it. He forced himself to remember the coffin lowered into the ground, the cold hands that had in reality belonged to a manikin machine, the shining gold plate marked only "Vampire" and littered with flowers as the first few clods of dirt were tossed into the grave. These were the reasons, the proof that the man had to die. "My beloved son, eliminate your enemies with cleverness but without mercy." See, even his father himself agreed...
"The expedition explored their new surroundings with marked interest for many long hours, ecstatic to have at last arrived at the destination for which their parents had prepared them. Finally, tired from their first experiences with real earth and sunlight, three members of the party decided to cool off by bathing in one of the many pools littering the landscape, mistaking the liquid within for water after quick preliminary tests. But when they emerged, they had been changed. They saw the world through infantile eyes, though their mental capacities had increased tremendously; they could connect to nature and the animals around them, but interpersonal relationships were beyond their ken. Of the three, only Wise could remember his past, but even to him it did not seem so important. For the first time in their cooped-up, pigeonholed lives, they had found true happiness."
What did Celestial history matter, that far back? Clair fidgeted in his chair, antsy with mounting anger and stifled fear. Hate surged through him again, hate at the man for making him wait as he had waited all his life—for nothing, it had turned out. The title of Vampire held no inherent meaning or transformative power; it did not bestow godhood like he had imagined. And even what little glory he could attain, in light of what the woman had said, would only pave the way for the man's return. Not even his own accomplishments could he claim. He owned nothing, had nothing, was nothing, but had spent all of his life wanting to be so vividly that some days it hurt. He wanted the world to know he existed, that he held power over them—but he did not, he could not, hidden in his father's shadow. He had sought to explode from beneath that stifling darkness in the immediate aftermath of his father's supposed death, and had nearly self-destructed instead. No, he would destroy the darkness and not merely escape it this time. He would not make the same mistakes again. Hate had always empowered Clair more than any other emotion, helped him find the strength to act by trampling and scorching his self-doubt. So he relied on his hate to keep him listening, seeking fuel, waiting for the moment to channel the heat and in a brilliant flash conflagrate his one and only true enemy.
"It was the temptation of the enhanced intelligence, I believe, that led most of the others to bathe in what became known as 'new blood', each believing that they could somehow control the rest of the transfiguration. They met with mixed success, but all eventually succumbed to the allurement of the blissful, optimistic, unchanging lives of their new-blooded brethren—for those who had bathed or drank enough of the new blood did not fall ill or age as quickly—and so humanity's first truly utopian community was formed, light-years from their true home.
"My mother, though, could never quite forget the plight under which the rest of the world supposedly suffered, and this troubled her. Finally she succeeded in convincing a group of her fellows—for there were many of us by then, the community having flourished and multiplied—that we had a sacred, solemn duty to bring our new knowledge and blood back to the poor, helpless creatures slowly destroying themselves with their passions on the world she had never seen.
"For the most marvelous thing about the new blood was that, in severing the connection between individuals, no one could feel hate or inflict emotional hurt. Friendships existed if personalities were compatible, especially among those with whom the new blood was weak, and loyalty ran strong, but no pure 'human' emotions remained. Any thought of distressing subjects and situations was immediately dismissed. The idea of war was altogether foreign, as was the concept of pain. Only a memory, coupled with fear, remained.
That memory was enough, however, to propel the easily swayed hearts of our people to action. The new blood by then had been experimented on by those whose curiosity was strongest, the Rahman, and proven to be not merely a liquid but a rapidly expanding organism of its own, which fused to cells should they be exposed long enough—hence the physical and mental effects. Since it expanded on its own, were we to use it sparingly as a fuel we could still have enough left over upon returning to our original home to use in a variety of ways. A life-changer, a sedative, a nearly inexhaustible battery fluid: the possibilities were endless.
"Thus armed, we set off in three ships, representatives of the three groups into which we had naturally become divided according to the new blood's effects on us mixing and mingling on each. And we arrived at our destination much more quickly than had our ancestors, superior intelligence and technology propelling us at speeds unheard-of by the common man.
"Paradise on earth had indeed crumbled into hell; the Overstate had collapsed onto itself. The rest of the general history you know—how we arrived five hundred years ago, how we reorganized what was left of the human race into eight great cities, and how one rebelled. My mother tried to convince them to stop fighting, to end all their meaningless strife. They ended hers instead by dropping a bomb on the building in which she was staying. So the other Celestials, unable to comprehend what they were truly doing, killed the entire city.
"That was when I understood, my beloved son. Those of the new blood and those of the old, fiery blood could never mix and mingle in harmony. I was, in a way, living proof: the new blood is weak in me. I feel in ways they cannot feel, I think in ways they cannot think, and I...I love in ways they cannot love."
Lies. Papa couldn't love. Maybe it was all lies, like every other time they'd spoken. Maybe he should just end the lies now. Clair slid a hand into his pocket and began stroking the barrel of the gun concealed within anxiously. He'd loaded it, hadn't he? He was prepared. And the girl who'd found him, the fanged rabbit, she would be too thunderstruck to do anything. Two bullets for Papa, two bullets for Bunny...two bullets left for whatever came next; he couldn't think that far ahead.
"My old friend Echigo had already disappeared into the human world; I resolved to do so as well. Before leaving, I asked another to come with me. She refused without even hearing my entire plan, being Celestial and thus unwilling to hear anything remotely resembling troublesome. More's the pity."
"But what was...your plan, Papa?" He fought to keep his voice from cracking. Go on, old man. Spill it all, so I can spill in return. Or are you going to stall until I burst? Is that how you're going to get rid of me? No, Papa. I won't go down so easily.
"Patience, my beloved son. Clair...I cannot expect you to understand, being human. But at least try. I sought to gain influence in all seven remaining cities, so that sections of each would rise and aid me in using the new blood on all of humanity. I had to choose between mankind and the Celestials they had the potential to become, and I chose the more heavenly. Because until not a single person on this planet can comprehend the true power negative emotions produce, until no one can connect with another sentient being, war and corruption will always spread. Happiness cannot exist in human hearts. They are polluted from the start."
"Why should you care?" It was coming, it was building, he was ready. "Why don't you just drink the stuff until you can't feel sorry for us anymore?" You already can't care for me; would it be so hard to not hate me, too? If you hate hate...oh, you hypocrite. You're crazy! Why didn't I see that before? You're crazy. And we're all crazy for following you, Papa. I must be crazy...that's funny. That's really funny...no, no! I can't lose focus now!
"Because the human part of me will not allow it, Clair." How dare he, after twenty years, only resort to addressing his own son directly now! "The connection I still feel to the people of this world will not allow itself to be severed until at last I am certain no one else can feel the sadness I have, watching you humans burn yourselves out."
"I'll end your sadness for you, Papa," Clair gasped, unable to take it any longer, and , standing, pulled his gun and pointed it at the old man's head. Grinning and shaking, he stared down the barrel at those still-calm eyes and heaved a strangled, angry sob. "Y-you think that because you claim to care you can make what you did to me go away? If you l-love humanity, why couldn't you at least treat me like a person?"
"My beloved son, there are sacrifices I decided..."
"I hate sacrifices!" Clair screamed, firing; the shot went awry. Usagi wordlessly watched the bullet stick into the ceiling. "I won't be yours! Not any more! I'm Vampire now, and I—I--"
"Then kill me." Leorza rose, spread his arms. "If that is your decision, my beloved son...kill me. Kill me now, before my mad idealism spreads. Leave Magnagalia without her last hope of negotiating between the syndicate and the Celestials. It's not your city. If all that matters is your own foolish heart, kill me."
"That can't move me, old man," Clair panted, his vision beginning to blur. "Vampire only thinks of himself and what's best for the company. And having the founder return from the dead would be very, very bad...hard to explain...so for the family...I won't shame the family...I have to...I have to...because I hate—I hate--"
"Then kill. Use your privilege as a human. Kill what you hate."
Clair fired.