Episode 18: Acceleration (Traitor)

"Bro!"

Shun turned at the entrance to his cabin and acknowledged his little brother with a nod. "Daisuke."

The younger man ran up to the older. "Thanks for coming after me."

Shun snorted. "Hardly. 'Coming after you' entails making it onto the Celestial ship. Which, as I'm sure you noticed, I failed in doing."

"Don't worry about--"

"Daisuke, Shun!"

"Not now, Mother," Shun insisted irritably, turning the doorknob and retreating into his cabin. The woman had left him for almost two decades and now she wanted to talk? Now, when he was having enough trouble dealing with his brother? Daisuke certainly, as anticipated, didn't seem to hold Shun's cowardice against him. But that didn't keep Shun from blaming himself anyway. If he'd stayed on the original rescue team, he would have really proven how much he cared for his brother. If he'd stayed and saved Daisuke, he would not be dealing with his mother at all. Very likely, they'd all be headed back to Judoh, Clair having no reason to return to his father if he had not overheard that late-night conversation. No, he had made the wrong decision, and he was paying bitterly for it. As always. Forgiveness? Mercy? Hah! The world didn't work that way.

"No, Shun." She grabbed the door and yanked it open, revealing his surprised face. "I want to talk to my sons. Both of my sons. I never thought I would see you again and now...you can't just ignore me!"

The cries of an indignant child. He didn't have time for this. His prior actions against Echigo and their results had proved to him that killing the woman would solve none of his problems, but for a moment he envied Clair's resolve, far away, ready to commit parricide for the sake of his own vindication.

"Bro..." Daisuke joined his mother at the door. "You promised. You said you'd try. Here's your chance."

"Why should I give others the grace they won't give me?" Shun asked coldly, trying unsuccessfully to close the door despite the nagging word coward again dancing in the back of his mind. "You weren't there either, Daisuke. You haven't seen how I've been treated."

"Treated?" Nona looked from Daisuke to Shun, troubled. "I don't understand."

Daisuke, sighing, put an arm around his mother's shoulders with a wry grin. "I guess we all have a lot of catching up to do, eh? Move over, Bro. Here's as good a place as any."

"Daisuke, no," Shun protested, but his little brother pushed past him regardless, half-dragging their mother with him. "This is not the time."

"No time like the present." Daisuke flopped down on the bed, stared at his mother and broke out in an even wider smile. "I still don't really believe this..."

"Neither do I," Shun muttered to himself, closing the door. Turning to face them, he forced the City Safety Management Agency Special Unit General Manager back into place, all smoothness and practicality. "Let me do the talking, Daisuke."

"Whatever, Bro."

So Shun, stomping his personal emotions about the last nineteen years to the pit of his stomach where they belonged, started his report.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

No. This was not happy. This was not perfect. Usagi did not know what to do in a situation like this. Master had not anticipated this...but that was impossible! Master knew everything.

She had been told she needed to return to Leorza's side so he would not know she had switched Masters yet, and upon finding the man's son wandering around had discovered her perfect alibi for being absent. Indeed, she had been rather proud of her little 'present' despite not particularly caring for its recipient any more. But this...oh, no. This was horrible. This was awful.

Usagi turned around and placed her hands over her ears, seeking a connection with anything but her fellow humans. The new blood surged through her system, warmed her, reminded her that the old life of pain had ended and a new one of joy had begun. But the world, apparently, had other plans.

She wanted to sleep, but dared not. She feared the shadows that came when her eyes closed. So she pretended they did not exist. Nothing existed but her, and Master, and what Master wanted. To be a good girl, she had to stay despite the evil in the room with her. For it had to be evil. Anything she did not like simply had to be evil.

Behind her, the young man gave a sob; she refused to turn around and see him again. He was evil. There was no room in her life for evil.

A knife was in her hands before she knew it, and she clutched it tight, feeling her strength return. Yes, yes...if it continued, she could just as easily make the evil go away.

o0o0o0o0o0o0

Well, this certainly all was very sudden. What had happened to the group who had gone to look for Clair, that they had returned with Daisuke's mother and a message like—like this?

Kyoko jumped as the gunshot rang across the deck; the Celestials recoiled, their first reaction during the entire exchange, which she found odd. To hear their entire history relayed in such a fashion—and to such an end! But if they truly could not feel...she wasn't sure if she wholly believed that or not. Daisuke's mother certainly had seemed to feel for her son, upon seeing him again. Yet she had also left them for her own selfish reasons nineteen years ago.

Giovanni sat down heavily, ashen-faced; Monica ran to him and looped her arm through his. "Hey, you gonna be okay?" she asked in concern; he didn't seem to hear her. "He really..." he began. "He actually..."

"My beloved son." The bodyguard's head snapped up at the old man's voice, still strong and hale. "Do you not see?"

"I...I can't...I just can't..." Gasping, panting, a thud as the gun presumably fell to the floor. "I...I keep coming back to the cage..."

"And why is that?"

A muffled sound scraped across the earbud, followed by the faint sounds of a heart beating: Clair had collapsed against his father. "I...I love you, Papa..."

Giovanni swore, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. "Damn it, Clair...don't do this to yourself..."

"What do you want him to do, anyway?" Monica asked saucily, despite her arm around his waist to comfort him. "First you don't want him to shoot, then you do..."

"Monica..." Kyoko warned, and the small girl once more fell silent.

"I hate what you're doing...but...game over for me, huh?" He tried to laugh but couldn't. All the energy had left his voice.

"And this, my beloved son, is what I wanted you to understand. This is why I want what I want for this world. Contrary to what most people think, it is so much harder for a heart that truly trusts to betray another than a heart that truly fears. Do you now see where you failed as Vampire?"

"I...won't let you down again, Papa..."

"I'll kill him, then!" Giovanni drew his guns. "I'll take care of the bastard...if he thinks he can just..."

"Good. Go lie down in Usagi's room, Clair. Rest up awhile, and regain your composure. Vampire should not allow himself to become so volatilely emotional."

"Yes, Papa." The sound of staggered footsteps, then the old man's voice again, fainter.

"My beloved son...I'm proud of you."

o0o0o0o0o0o0

At least one thing left in Clair's life was working in his favor: due to Usagi's extremely impressionable nature while asleep, his father had soundproofed her room. Absently he was grateful for even this small blessing as he lay on her bed, clothes still sodden from being caught in the storm earlier and feeling like he could never stand again.

"Can you still hear me, Giovanni?" he mumbled into the pillows. "Are you there?"

"Clair!" The sounds of a minor scuffle. "Give me that back, old man!...Yeah, I'm here. I heard. Clair, I'm coming for you. Don't worry."

"No, don't." He didn't want to see the man. Didn't want to see anyone. He was ashamed of himself. "I'm not giving up again, Giovanni. I'll beat him. But I can't...I can't..."

"I know, Clair. I understand. No one's asking you to."

"Stay away, Giovanni. I don't want you to get hurt. I'll stop him myself."

"But you..."

"I'm not a baby, Giovanni!" he managed to shout, anger filling him again and providing him strength. "I know how to take care of myself! Don't give me that!"

"I know, Clair." The kindness in the man's voice nauseated him. What right did he have to be understanding? What right had he ever had? As far back as he could remember...

"All you ever give me is pity! You can't help me!" He had to scream at someone, but could not take the strain of directing his anger inwards where it truly deserved to be flung. So he hurled it across the miles, seeking to hurt as he had been hurt, to betray as he had been betrayed. "I hate you!" Pulling out the earbud, he threw it across the room and pounded his fists in the pillows until he truly could no longer move. Finally he lay cold and sweaty in the blankets, barely breathing. "Giovanni...Giovanni, I'm sorry..."

But his friend could not hear him. No one could.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

"Put the knife down, Usagi," Leorza said wearily, glancing at the graze wound on his shoulder and cursing Trinity for walking off in all his bandages. "He's not going to hurt anyone anymore."

"Yes...Master." That pause was odd. Something still felt wrong about the situation.

"You are free to go, Usagi. Find...find the other Celestials for me. I think I shall need to speak to them again soon. In particular...find Nona."

"Yes, Master." She left silently.

Gritting his teeth, Leorza pulled the bullet out of his armchair and turned it over in his fingers, ignoring the shoulder wound for the time being. Perhaps he had been the one to make an error, after all; perhaps he had failed in his responsibilities. He had felt sorry for Usagi from the beginning, so he had treated her with kindness; in return, she gave him a loyalty so undying it shocked him at times. But he had never treated Clair as anything but a necessary step in his plans. Had he overlooked the duty a "human" father owed to his son? He had raised the boy to follow instructions. Was it not then his fault that, freed of others' commands, his son had self-destructed? Perhaps it was for the best Clair had returned. Now that the boy had purged all rebellion from his system, it would be much simpler to reestablish connections with Judoh. He could manage Company Vita personally, giving his son instructions for dealing with any potentially tricky situations. There would be no more tankers of napalm exploding on their way to the middle of the city, that much was certain. There would be no more tankers of napalm at all. No more games.

On to the next stage, then: perhaps all caution was backfiring on him. He had all the necessary elements where he needed them—a city in turmoil, a connection with the syndicate (assuming Trinity hadn't decided to defect on their agreement after the mix-up with Usagi), and (most importantly) a ship full of new blood idling in the harbor. How simple would it be, then, to test one section of his grand scheme before the rest had been fully realized? No one would suspect anything...

His fellow Celestials, though: they would never agree to help him. He had once offhandedly mentioned new-blooding the entire planet to a colleague, who had laughed at him and said not to be so extreme. Plus, the humans were weak. Some might not survive the first step of the transformation, as all the bad memories resurfaced to be washed away. Leorza figured his son would probably be one of those unfortunate victims. As he had earlier said, sacrifices needed to be made.

No, he had to decide once and for all how to treat Clair. Was he a son worthy of love and affection, ensuring further loyalty, or was he a horrible mistake to be eliminated as quickly and painlessly as possible? Leorza decided on the former. Vita could not be run by a new-blooded boy, especially if it grew strong within him. What a joke, if it did! The father whose connection was too weak, spawning a son who conceded all too easily...it had addled him in its diluted form...

But if he truly loved his son, he would end his pain. Certainly Clair suffered. The difficulty was: how to deal with it?

Oh, he didn't really have to deal with this presently. The boy was likely out cold from his breakdown; he had a good two hours, at least, to worry about other things. Usagi was bringing the other Celestials; that was taken care of. The people from Judoh were impossible to trace whilce Usagi was otherwise occupied. Trinity, then: the next missing piece was Trinity.

Pulling out his cell phone to dial her number, something else fell out of his pocket: Clair's lip ring, taken from his son at their last meeting. His own lower lip curling, Leorza picked up the small object and dropped it without ceremony into the wastebasket. Its owner wouldn't be needing it in the future.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

Another evening fell. The police remained baffled as to the whereabouts of those responsible for assaulting the Celestials and finally worked up the courage to board the ship itself. But aside from the bodies of two of the heavenly creatures, one whose arm had been ripped off horribly by some monster of terrible strength, neither assailants nor the beings themselves could be found. Panicked, they sent the media away, saying more details would be released as was appropriate. They did not want the city to learn how badly they had erred until the problem had been solved. Squads were sent out in secret to locate the missing visitors.

Unknowingly, their wounded prides saved those they most desperately hunted: the Vita boat remained untouched and undiscovered in their hurry, figuring the back ports of Magnagalia, surrounded as they were by the blackest parts of town, would be avoided by the purity-loving Celestials at all costs. All, at least on shore, remained quiet. On the yacht itself, however, a thunderstorm fiercer than those recently plaguing the city brewed.

Monica hammered on Giovanni's door to no avail, the man having locked himself away to think after receiving Clair's last message; Nona clapped her hands over her ears and screamed "I don't want to hear it!" as Shun, impassively, described the coup of Judoh he had orchestrated while masquerading as her brother; Daisuke, listening, squirmed uncomfortably for both parties involved and began to wish he hadn't rushed such confessions; J set about transferring the audio data he had recorded from the earbud conversation onto audio disc, noting with interest as he simultaneously combed news sites online that violent crime in the city had sparked as syndicate members tore through town looking for something; and Kyoko, fed up with her guests at last, sat them down for some full-scale confessionals.

"How long have you known he was doing this??" she asked, meaning Leorza. They shook their heads.

"He only ever mentioned it once..."

"We thought him dead until recently, as we did Echigo."

"Nona never believed. She left to find her brother."

"Yes, but Nona's a strange one."

Kyoko tried a different question. "Is everything he said true? About Celestial history?"

Assorted deflections of the query followed. She gleaned only that just those among the Celestials labeled "Wise", like Leorza, retained enough memory of the times before to know for certain, and anyway Leorza was old enough to be practically considered an original member of the crew, as they had at first asserted him to be. 'The past gets jumbled...so much is unpleasant.."

"Is it not hurtful, remembering the past?" one asked her. "Is what Leorza plans really so abominable to those who can feel pain? Though we consider it unwise, does it not tempt those such as yourself?"

"Of course not!" Kyoko returned angrily. "Changing us all without giving us a choice...I can't judge what you all decided, but there's too much good in knowing how to form relationships with other people to cast it aside just because you want to be happy all the time!" She clutched the silver bullet as she spoke. "I live for the people I care about!"

"We care for the world. We live for the world."

"But it's not the same!" Giving up, she turned away. "Sorry to have wasted your time. I'm sure you all want to talk this over as well."

"There is nothing to discuss."

"No, until he is ready to reclaim all the new blood we have growing in storage we do not need to worry about it."

They were hopeless. Kyoko stalked off to go tell Daisuke what was going on.

She'd forgotten that also meant telling Nona and Shun.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

Trinity watched the news in her lab, a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in her mouth. Juggling the two got to be a bit difficult, so she drained the wine just as Usagi returned.

"That took awhile. Does he suspect anything?" Trinity lay down on her own experimentation table, puffing smoke at the ceiling as harried news reporters babbled in the background about the unusually aggressive tactics the syndicate had suddenly adopted, and how the police seemed strangely already stretched to their limits.

"He is distracted. I returned his son to him."

"Good girl...wait." She sat up, putting a hand to her head as her alcohol-addled brain swam from the sudden movement. "His son is here?"

"Clair Leonelli. Twenty years old. He tried to kill his father but could not."

"I'll bet not. Well, well, Leorza..." She smiled. "This just keeps getting more difficult. But you shouldn't leave yourself so open. What if something happened to your little baby?"

"He would not care, I do not think."

Trinity switched off the television. If any of her men died, she'd be the first to know anyway. Someone would call her. Oh, no, damn. Never mind. She'd left her phone in her room in the hotel. She'd check her messages, then. "All right, then. New plan. He's probably going to go looking for his son's friends, who very likely are the same group that gave me trouble on the ship."

"Those were different people from Judoh. But when I first captured Clair, they were all together."

"You really should tell Master these things, Usagi." She flicked ashes off the end of her cigarette and continued thinking aloud. "Anyway. Wouldn't it be helpful to get the Judoh sect on our side for once...even if they aren't good for anything...and I miss Daisuke...do me a favor, will you? I want at least one Judoh child to come here. Can you do that?"

"I will." Usagi vanished, and Trinity swore. She hated it when the girl did that. Gave her the creeps, every time. Like that damn werewolf everyone was up in arms about a few years ago, the one she'd first hired the beast master to hunt down. He'd failed, of course. She sent him to Judoh to finish the job when some of her boys continued to complain about how she'd let the furry bastard get away. And the master had failed again. Government help didn't come cheap, either; even after whipping the man, she'd had to pay him off. Damn complicated life. Why'd she ever wanted the lousy syndicate, anyway?...

But that was over and done with. Usagi was like the Wolf because she was Wolf's Prize, bait, the sniveling hypnotist's next brilliant idea for snaring his elusive prey. And Usagi, as the gashes across Trinity's own body paid testament, was damn useful.

Yawning, she laid down again. What time was it? She'd had a busy day, inciting her entire crime conglomerate to riot and stealing her benefactor's best pawn from him...surely Magnagalia could go to the dogs (or the wolves, ha ha) without her for a few hours...

Her eyes closed; the cigarette slipped from her fingers and burned itself out on the concrete floor. Outside, far above her, a police siren wailed as backdrop to gunfire. The city would not sleep this night. It was under siege from within.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

Daisuke couldn't sleep that night, so he talked to Boma. The werewolf had stood stolidly, as was his wont, all through J's projection of Clair's attempted assassination of his father, but Daisuke figured he knew enough about what Leorza was plotting from his own experience and what Kyoko had told him. So they talked about Usagi instead.

"I know she is not the real Usagi. I never met the real Usagi; she is dead." Boma sat on the bow of the ship, watching the stars turn overhead with his sword by his side. "But this one has to have been intended for me, for she has defeated me. She is, therefore, my Usagi."

"I can't say I followed that," Daisuke admitted, slicing an apple from the pantry into pieces with a knife from the kitchen, "but what are you going to do about her, then?"

"I do not know." Boma accepted a piece of apple and chewed. It was the first time Daisuke had ever seen him eat. "But I feel for her. She is following orders without knowing why. I want to save her. But I also want to defeat her."

"Maybe if you defeat her, then you can talk." Daisuke shoved an apple segment into his mouth. "She can tell you what the deal is."

"Perhaps." They ate in silence for a while until the dark-haired man broke the stillness much to his fairer companion's surprise. "How did your brother and your mother react?"

"To the Leorza thing? Well, we were all floored. Mom didn't want to listen to half of it and ran out crying. Bro just kind of took it, but I can tell he was thinking really hard about it. Probably because, by continuing the Echigo charade, he kind of helped Leorza along without knowing it. As long as Vampire has the Shop's backing, he can't be stopped. You know?"

"Did he say anything?"

"Not really. He just wondered if all becoming Celestials was a bad thing. Bro's like that. Why? You two bond on the way over or something?" Daisuke smiled, but a spark in his eyes betrayed the turning gears in his mind. "Is something wrong?"

"He left again. Not half an hour ago. With...with my Usagi. I debated stopping them, but decided against it when her eyes met mine. I knew she knew me, and I could not bring myself to draw my sword. I am sorry, Daisuke. If your brother comes to harm, it is my fault."

But Daisuke had already run off to get a gun.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

Usagi, even through the haze of contentment the new blood washed over her mind, was getting tired of being the messenger girl. She had found the Judoh group around midnight and, poking around the cabins, had been startled to find a gun leveled at her head.

"You're Usagi," the long-haired man had accused; she had conceded the point and explained her reasons for coming: "Master wishes to speak with you. It concerns Master's plans."

"Oh, I've heard all your Master's plans," the man had replied with a dangerously pleasant smile. "I wouldn't mind an encounter either."

Which made her job almost inanely easy, but unfinished. After giving him instructions as to how to reach the Barony, to maintain appearances for her former Master she knew she also had to find the woman called Nona. "Do you know her?" she had asked.

The man had laughed out loud. "I should think so. She's my mother. The blonde-haired woman asleep on the floor in the next room. Do as you please."

Well, that was surprisingly easy! Usagi smiled to herself: yes, the world was indeed a very happy, good place in which to live. Things always worked out so well.

Now she nearly flew along Magnagalia's skyline, blue hair streaming and luminous behind her in the moonlight as she led the blonde-haired woman by the hand. "Leorza...you work for Leorza?" her prisoner asked for the seventh time, but to Usagi it felt like the seven thousandth.

"I am taking you to Leorza," she replied, keeping her eyes riveted on her goal. She had to trust that the man from Judoh would find her Master without running into difficulties along the way. She had given him one of her knives as a token to show the men guarding the secret entrance to the area below the Barony and hoped that would be sufficient. Surely the guards would not think the long-haired man had killed her. Even Usagi, sliding through life without much to call a self, was aware of her near-indestructibility.

"Here is the woman you requested, Master," she called, flinging the woman through Leorza's door and fading immediately to return to her true leader. Everything would work out well. She believed it with her entire being. And whatever dared interfere with the workings of her world...she would eliminate.

Usagi was, as both her masters would call her, a very, very good girl.