Episode 19: Guardian (Kiss)
Leorza had just left his eighth message for Trinity on her cell phone when Usagi opened the door, pushed Nona in, and left again. Where else did she have to go? To retrieve the other Celestials, as he requested? Was Nona not with them, then?
"She did not treat you harshly?" he asked Nona, who was busy smoothing out her windswept hair but keeping her eyes leveled at him.
She shook her head. "She was not gentle, but...no, she didn't hurt me."
"I am glad to hear it." He wandered nonchalantly over to Usagi's room, opened the door a crack and peered in: Clair was still fast asleep on the bed. Nodding to himself, he shut the door again and locked it, just to be safe. His son would not be interfering.
Returning, he smiled pleasantly at her. "May I offer you a seat? Some food? Drink?"
"Stop, Leorza," she said in a low, nearly choked voice; but she took the proffered chair. He sat opposite her, watching her every slight movement with rapt attention. How she had changed from even the last time he had seen her mere days ago! A new gravity bore her down. Had something finally managed to penetrate her joyful isolationist cloud? He was both relieved and let down—so even those in whom the new blood was strong could, under the right impulses from the harsh outside world, become confused and pained. Would this affect his plans?...no, no, to feel the effects of another's passion, another must first feel the flames.
He opened his mouth to attempt another go at polite conversation, but she would not have it. "Leorza, I know all about it. I know why you wanted Magnagalia to stay alive. You wanted them in your debt, didn't you? For the future you dreamed of? I told you you were crazy..."
"The only thing separating the mad from the sane is that the mad refuse to accept the world in which they live. By that definition, to which I fervently cling, you and all our people are insane, and not just I." He brushed a speck of dust off of his deep red armchair. "Continuing to operate under that premise, your eldest son is crazed as well, I believe."
"You always do this, even when you're trying to be kind. Do you always have to try and hurt me?"
"You can be hurt?" He looked up in mock surprise. "Your famed sensitivity extends to those of your own kind? What a failure, Nona. What a horrible failure."
"Leorza." She blinked hard; he glimpsed the tears she was trying to hide, the emotions she smothered to maintain her peace of mind. "You don't have to lord yourself. I give up. I surrender. Whatever it is you want of me...whatever you've always wanted...you win. I don't care what happens to me, just tell me why you've always singled me out...I have a right to know...and your son! How could you, to your own son?..."
"Why, in short, do I cause others to suffer now so none will have to suffer in the future? Why do I persist in my human hypocrisy? Are you, who never seeks to understand and only to be, asking me for justification?" He stood, walked away; she followed. "I looked after you once Echigo left because it was my duty to my friend to look after his much younger sister, since your parents had remained behind. You needed a guardian, and I took on the task with alacrity. But Nona..." He took her hands and pulled her near, made her look into his brilliant eyes. "The new blood is weak in me, as you know; this is both my greatest boon and my greatest torment. How could I, who saw all to which you chose to remain blind, help but to look at you in disdain? And yet...how could I not envy you, even admire you?"
She shook her head and tried to break free, but he held her tight, hands beginning to grow brittle from age retaining a sinewy strength nonetheless. "Yet now you dare ask me why. You, who until I returned to plague your peaceful life, cared about no one's feelings but your own."
"I care. But...I thought everyone was happy except you. I don't know why they aren't...and if I know why you are, then..."
Her lips stopped moving as his closed over them, pressed against hers as he looped his arms around her back and pulled her up against him. She struggled in surprise but soon went limp in his hold, unable to break loose of his embrace and so giving in, though she refused to kiss him back.
Finally he let her go, pulling himself off of her mouth with the same sudden violence as he had descended. She stumbled backwards, still dazed; her side bumped a table and she leaned on it, staring up at him in starry doelike fear.
Heaving a single breath to regain his composure, Leorza smoothed out his pristine white hair, then dropped his hands. He cast her a single glance. "That's why, Nona. So no one ever has to feel what I felt again. Better bland contentment than unresolved passion.
"I asked you to come with me when I fled for a reason. But I respected you too much, and still do, to force you to follow me against your will. Once I believed you might have returned...what I felt but feared you could not comprehend. After Marius I knew you comprehended, but could not return."
"I would have," she whimpered. "Once, long ago...before Marius..."
He smiled humorlessly. "But you could not understand until Marius showed you. Then it was too late for me. I understood that. And so I accepted the task Echigo set before me when the time came...but that does not enter into the current scenario. Nona..."
The way he said her name made her heart ache and recoil at the same time. Faintly she became aware that somehow she was being blamed for the plots he had hatched in his long decades among humanity, that without trying she had led him to think that the humans would all benefit from the new blood. Some fickle beast in their minds made them prize feeling pain if it meant all their other connections to each other could remain, and so the return expedition had judged that the humans must be treated as children, but their values respected. "What do you want me to do?" she whispered in fright, her lips still feeling phantoms against them. "Just don't make me feel that again, Leorza..."
His arms encircled hers again, but this time with gentleness. "My beloved child. You need not do anything. Simply aid me in moving the Celestial ship to where we can link it to the high-end systems. You can do that, can't you? So no one will ever be sad again?"
"I don't want you to be sad, Leorza," she admitted, resting her head against him as she had leaned on Shun for comfort. "Because you're sad, you hurt other people. I don't want other people to be hurt." A thought occurred to her. "But if you...to me...then your wife?"
He shrugged. "I needed an heir. The woman I married needed me. Things worked out."
"Not for your son!"
"My son does not factor into this. My son shall deal with yours, and none of them will be hurt. Trust me, Nona."
"I can't..."
"Nona, for our children, if you insist on dragging them into this. You've seen how they suffer. For Shun and Daisuke and Clair; won't you give them a chance to be happy?"
"Shun is upset with me...I don't know why..."
"He won't be. I promise."
"Shun will be happy...?" She smiled.
"And you promised to help. It is your duty, Nona. Remember what my mother always used to speak of? Remember Vita?"
"You miss your mother, don't you?" she asked, the first glimmers of true understanding planting themselves in her mind.
"Terribly."
"For everyone whose parents hurt them, then..." she mused, feeling invisible chains bear her down at last, "I'll help you. But Leorza!"
Carefully he helped her lie down on the sofa, arranged her hair so it billowed out around her head, and covered her with a blanket. "You just lie there and get yourself ready, Nona. My son has these same fits from time to time when he hears unpleasant things. They are necessary, Nona. Before we all descend into insanity forever, we must for one crystal moment become tragically sane."
o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Trinity thumbed through the messages on her cell phone with a wry smile. Something had Leorza worried, and his anxiety amused her greatly. Did he suspect her already? What a clever boy! Oh, well. It had to happen sometime...and her men should already be on the way to deal with him...they had all balked at the notion initially, but she had reminded them that with Usagi under her control, he was nothing more than a scheming old man with millions in a dead person's bank account in two other cities. Totally harmless. That's what he got for hurting her.
Someone knocked; she buttoned her lab coat and let them in. The guards shooed into the room a tall young man, and Trinity whistled. Good taste, Usagi... she thought, seeing the knife clutched in one of the man's pale hands. They make them nice in Judoh, don't they?
"Where is Leorza?" the man demanded, pale green eyes icy behind his eyeglasses. "What is this?"
Oh, dear. "Whatever do you mean?" Trinity asked, sitting on her table and patting the space next to her for the man to do likewise; he refused the offer. "Don't tell me you weren't informed. Usagi changed Masters. I'm Baroness of the Magnagalian syndicate and her new puppeteer. And you are...?"
He pushed his glasses up his nose. "Shun Aurora."
"My, I'm honored!" She lit a cigarette. "We've heard of you even here. Smoke?" He shook his head, irritation plain on his cold features. Trinity laughed in his face. "Let me guess. You saw Usagi and thought she wanted to take you to Leorza. My apologies. I can send you there; do you wish to go? You do understand that I'll have to take the knife first, of course. And without it as identification...well, my boys get a little confused from time to time. Do you see?"
He sighed. "It doesn't matter. I can tell you just as easily as him. I want to join up with you."
She blinked. "Oh, really..."
"You have a great deal of power, Baroness. You understand its importance and necessity for achieving goals in this world of conflicting, foolish wills, do you not?"
"Of course." Thrusting a hand into her coat pocket, she pressed a few buttons on her phone. Grendel, shut down in the corner, revved to life. She had a new message; with one ear she listened to one of her operatives report that Leorza's apartment was abandoned, but she could not respond with the man from Judoh in the room. No, she had to focus on one thing at a time. "But you can't expect me to give you that. What are you after?"
"Peace of mind. I cannot return to Judoh, and I cannot face my mother's people. I promised my younger brother something that I simply cannot give. Therefore, I ask for protection and a place to stay." She thought she detected a waver of fear in his voice, in the way his eyebrows drew together almost quizzically. "Be it in Leorza's ideal Magnagalia or in the city as it is now...either will rid me of my problems."
"Running away?"
"Perhaps." His thin line of a mouth pressed even tighter. "Perhaps merely acknowledging defeat."
"How hard did you try to fulfill this promise, may I ask?" Give Grendel time to warm up, keep stalling. Really, she hadn't had such a diversion in the longest time! It almost made the frustrating news about Leorza seem less of a snag. "After all, from what I know of him your little brother Daisuke seems accepting enough. Nice boy. Very good fighter. Quite profitable."
"Do you enjoy toying with people in such a way?" Shun slid his hands into his own pockets and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.
So he thought himself on level ground, eh? Best teach him. "Watch your tone. I'm quite fickle, as anyone in this city can tell you." She gestured to Grendel. "And my friend Grendel here almost always wakes up in a bad mood..." The machine grunted in agreement.
"Enough small talk," Shun snapped tersely. "To business, Baroness. I am willing to pay for your protection, and by 'protection' I mean the very machine to which you refer. Yours is stronger than the one I have to offer you, but my machine I think should provide you with more amusement."
"Give up Grendel just when both he and Usagi are mine?" She frowned, but the pieces were clicking together in her brain. "How do you think you can suggest such a thing? Let's see this machine of yours. What's it called? What's its specialty?"
"You'll see." Shun pulled a flat rectangular device from his pocket, spoke into it. "J. Come to me immediately."
o0oo0o0o0o0
Running out on deck and slinging a pack of bullets onto his back, Daisuke knocked on the captain's cabin. "J? J! Are you there, J?"
The machine answered the door. "I am here, Daisuke. What is wrong?"
"Bro's gone," Daisuke replied grimly. "He left with Usagi. We're going after him."
"Technically, he left after speaking with Usagi," Boma put in. "I misspoke earlier. The one who left with Usagi was..."
"What's all the noise about?" Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, Monica came up on deck.
Kyoko followed not far behind. "Daisuke, your mother's gone."
"...Nona," finished Boma, seeming not to care about the interruption.
"Damn!" Daisuke slammed his fist on the yacht's railing. "And let me guess—Giovanni went after Clair anyway!"
"What about Vampire?" The bodyguard anxiously joined them.
"Oh, nothing," Daisuke replied, scowling darkly at his reflection in the water. His mother and his brother stared back at him from the rippling face below, and he did not want to see them. "Go back to bed, everyone. We don't want to wake the Celestials..."
"Hey, kid! You hiding something?" Giovanni grabbed Daisuke by the shirt and spun him around. "You aren't wearing a gun for nothing!"
"Easy, that's the only shirt I've got." Daisuke extracted himself from the man's grip. Kyoko, seeing the look on the blond man's face, ducked back down the stairs and reappeared soon after in her black leather.
"Excuse me! Is there another gun in the storeroom? Mine got broken..."
"Take one of mine. They don't match my suit." Giovanni handed it over; he slept with them on? Daisuke wondered for a moment before realizing what was going on.
"Whoa, hold on, we aren't all..."
"My Usagi. I must defeat my Usagi." Boma leapt off the ship and landed on the pavement. "Come, Daisuke."
"Hey, hey, just a minute!" Daisuke grabbed Kyoko's arm as she began to climb out of the boat. "What do you think you're doing?"
"We left you alone for a year," Kyoko pointed out, winking, "and look how well that turned out."
"A real man offers a helping hand." J smiled at Kyoko. "Or a real woman."
As Daisuke considered relenting, Boma's head jerked up; his human mask faded and his long black ears swiveled around. "Enemies are coming," he reported, jumping back on the boat as the first hail of gunfire peppered the side. Startled, Kyoko yelped and threw herself down on the deck, covering her head with her hands.
"What the hell--" Daisuke fell down next to her, his own weapon at the ready. "J!"
"Analyzing," reported the android as more shots rang out; bullets bounced off his broad chest. Giovanni scooped Monica up and deposited her in the stairwell, then drew his remaining handgun and began returning fire from behind the cabin. "There are thirteen of them. They are on the Magnagalian wanted list as members of the crime syndicate."
"Thanks, Trinity." Daisuke rolled his eyes. "Jeez, you piss a lady off..." All joking aside, the attack was supremely poorly timed for his purposes. There was no way he could catch up to Shun—or his mother—if he had to fight his way out.
"Excuse me!" Kyoko peeped her head out and fired several shots. "Why are you attacking us?" Bullets answered her question; she ducked down again. "Well, they're rude!"
"Surrender the Celestials!" someone on land called. "And maybe we'll let you li--" He fell silent suddenly.
Grabbing Daisuke's ammunition bag, Giovanni reloaded. "I don't trust guys who say 'maybe.'"
"Where are the Celestials?" Daisuke asked J.
"Below deck. They are in no danger unless those men board or..." J's voice trailed off; his head rose, as if listening to something far in the distance. Then, with a mighty push, he launched himself off the yacht and dashed down the road, knocking gunmen out of his way.
Daisuke grabbed onto the railing as the boat rocked back and forth from the force of J's liftoff. The first few Celestial faces poked out of the stairwell; he furiously gestured for them to go back inside. "J!" he yelled. "J! What's wrong?"
"Not again, old man..." Giovanni ran an agitated hand through his black hair. "I thought you'd gotten over that."
"Gotten over what? Daisuke, bullets please."
He slid the pack over to Kyoko as the bodyguard explained himself. "Looks like Big Brother's up to his old tricks, eh? Damn, and this arm just got better."
"You don't know that! Don't accuse Shun!" Daisuke's aim was off from distraction: two of his shots went awry, and he got a shower of lead from his targets in return. He wondered how long the side of the boat could take such abuse, or how long the enemy could keep missing. But at the moment, he was too angry at Giovanni to care about either other problem."Especially after what your Vampire pulled!"
"Don't you dare lump him in with your traitor family! Where's your mother, anyway? Damn flighty broad..."
"Both of you, stop this!" Kyoko's bright eyes flashed in anger as she shot a glare at first Giovanni, then Daisuke. Her reproaching tone carried even over the sound of the syndicate's weapons. "We can't fight those other people if we kill each other first!"
"Daisuke, do you want me to take care of the things here?" Boma's voice was suddenly close to his ear; the man materialized next to him on the deck. "Head for the Barony Hotel. I found you there. It's a good place to start."
The young operative nodded. "Thanks, Boma. Good luck. Giovanni? Sorry, man."
"Yeah, whatever..." the man grumbled, apparently still upset. "Be right back." He ducked into the cabin area, shoving Celestials out of his way rudely. Running, he felt in his pocket for something and drew it out.
"Little lady!!" He pounded on Monica's door; she opened it grumpily.
"Haven't you taken care of whoever's out there yet?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be just down here listening??"
He shoved what had been in his pocket into her hands. "We're leaving you the Celestials. Don't let anything happen to them. The stuff for using the gun turrets is in the storage areas next to the regular ammo if you need it. But only in emergencies."
"So fire it now!!"
"What, and let the whole world know we've really got the Celestials? No thanks! That's what they're after. They said so themselves. If we just take care of this bunch the normal way, they may just dismiss it as self-defense."
"They're not that stupid!"
"That's what those are for." He pointed at his gift to her. "But they're a loan only. Later!" Ruffling her hair, he ran off for the deck.
"Sorry, Vampire," he muttered under his breath, remembering the way the little girl had closed her hand around the pair of purple dice just like the young man had over a year ago. "But she needs the luck more. And Mitchal would have liked her too. Another active lady, you know?"
He allowed himself a small grin before heading to the storeroom for his suit. Time to party.
o0o0o0o0o0o
The android barreled into Trinity's lab, steam billowing in his wake and howling as it escaped his pipes. She stepped back in impressed surprise, and Shun smiled grimly. The police had thought all his controls for the machine had been confiscated and destroyed. They hadn't bet on his having an extra prepared for just such an emergency, an extra he kept on his person at all times after the original had been taken from him. They hadn't found the spare when they cleaned out his apartment. Lucky him.
Many times over the past year he'd debated getting rid of even the extra controller, feeling that were he truly to try to let go of his bitterness he should begin by robbing himself of his greatest defense, but he had never been able to relinquish his last-resort plan. And he was being rewarded now.
Oh, but the lie had been so hard to manage! Shun had wanted to speak with Leorza himself, to ask him about the plan that admittedly intrigued a mind seeking after a year of failed self-correction any balm for its wounds. When confronted with this Baroness instead, the woman who had imprisoned his brother, he had invented the first excuse for his presence he could think of. No, he was done running away. The woman had his back against the wall, and there was only one way out of her trap. It was time to fight again, but Shun Aurora had never learned to fight fair.
"Very nice!" The woman had seen J before, he knew from what Daisuke had said of the rescue, but this was her first opportunity to examine him up close. Controls held tightly in Shun's grip, the machine stood stoically as the woman flitted around him, appraising. "And the AI is definitely years ahead of what we have now...this could be even more useful than the new blood..."
"Leorza let you have new blood?" He was surprised the ever-cautious Lorenzo Leonelli would have made such a dangerous gamble despite his preoccupation with his new plan.
"For Grendel's fuel and use in sedative drugs...he held back about it for a long time." Ah, good. She was starting to trust him. "Well, I'll give him a trial run. What do you say? You get to hide with Grendel until I'm done analyzing this one's AI. If I like what I see, the trade sticks. Deal?"
"I will have to reset the voice recognition software." Shun made a show of pressing buttons on his controller.
"Grendel's purely manual." Confident and eager for her new toy, she handed over the small control box before being given J's, brushing her fingers against his slowly as she placed it into his hand. Shun smiled.
"Thank you, Baroness. Grendel..." He typed. "Don't move. And J..." He spoke into the other device. "Kill her."