Episode 20: Water (Flood)
"U-Usagi!" The guard ran up to her as she entered the Barony, his face white. "I-in the lab—someone's broken into the lab--"
"And you did not go see what is happening?" she asked, sending the man even deeper into his nervous fit.
"It's some kind of a monster—it howls and it clangs and--"
"Enough." With her one remaining knife, she slashed his face; he stumbled backwards, clutching the wound with both hands. "You cannot even guard yourself. Leave." Not waiting to see if he obeyed her command, she pushed past him and into the elevator that, if she pressed the right combination of buttons, would not take her up but down. She punched in the code and closed her eyes. Already her tranquility was being once again interrupted. It was her solemn duty, both to herself and to her Master, to maintain that tranquility by any means possible.
The elevator doors slid open onto the underground hallway; she exited and headed for the lab, knife at the ready. Approaching the open door, she heard the frantic breaths of a frightened woman and quickened her pace.
The tall man in black whom she had seen on the Celestial ship stood over the fallen, bruised form of her Master, his eyes glowing red yet his muscular body seemingly frozen. "I refuse," he said to himself. "I cannot execute this command." Grendel, too, stood by and did nothing. In the corner, the man to whom she had given her other knife held it in one hand and a small flat device in the other. She ignored him. He was of no consequence. He was not the threat.
Usagi's eyes closed again; she felt the floor drop from beneath her feet as sleep descended on her. Her body knew what to do from here. The fight would happen in her dream, and when she stopped dreaming the evil would be gone. That was how it always had been, ever since she could remember. The beast masters had blessed her when they gave her this ability. To eliminate her problems without cognizance of the event—there was the true happiness. She need not worry about anything at all. Never had she considered the fact that, while sleeping, she could literally not control her actions. Never did she think that she might someday wake up to a worse nightmare than that she sought to cut away.
Thus it was that her body, freed from all constraints, fell into the enhanced, graceful patterns of combat her own tenure as a huntress and the later patrons of her mind had etched deep within the very core of her being. Seeking first to eliminate the greatest threat, she leapt at the tall stocky man, but against his metallic frame her knife scraped and finally snapped. Her intended target himself ignored her, caught up as it were with his own struggles as his fist slowly, shaking, rose over Usagi's Master's head.
She discarded the broken hilt almost carelessly, tossing it aside and snatching her other knife from the blond man. Whirling back to the attack, she circled him like a lioness assessing the afternoon's prey, seeking somewhere, anywhere where her blade might stick and bite.
Her eyes turned upwards to the convulsing black-coated man, she did not notice the obstacle on the floor until she stumbled over it and fell. Momentarily angered, she slashed the bundle repeatedly, memory of a similar event flitting briefly across her mind before disappearing into the haze of sleep into which she had plunged her consciousness. No, the obstacle did not matter. It had been duly punished for interfering. She focused once more on the man.
"J, that's enough. Let's go. Grendel, stop her!" the blond man ordered, now moved somewhere behind her where the obstacle lay; the dark-skinned machine rumbled to life and grabbed for Usagi's arm; she dodged, jumping up onto the table and from there down onto him, stabbing at the vulnerable areas around the machine's eye sockets. Gouging, her knife found an opening in the metal plating at last, and as strong arms grabbed her and lifted her off of him she ripped free an optical processor, wires dangling from her fist as the android, maddened by the act, slammed her against the wall. Her head knocked the cement surface hard, startling her awake.
A splitting headache greeted her as her eyes opened onto the waking world; the smell of blood seeped into her sensitive, enhanced nose. Starry-eyed from the jolt, she crumpled to the ground as Grendel let her go. Something was sticking into her palm; she opened it and out dropped the machine's eye. It stared up at her almost accusingly; she met its insolent gaze in bafflement until her own eyes landed on the spectacle on the floor.
Her Master lay in a pool of spreading, seeping crimson, breathing shallowly. Crisscrossing the scarring cuts along her body, longer and deeper gashes slowly leaked her life onto the floor. Gasping, the woman stared almost pleadingly at Usagi. "Bitch..." she spat voicelessly. "Leorza's still...aren't you?"
"No," Usagi protested, taking the woman in her arms heedless of the blood staining her clothes. "No, Master. I didn't...I couldn't..." She hadn't. She would never attack her Master. Such a thing could not happen, not in this world where all was perfect. The new blood roiled within her, caused the newly-made Celestial's brain to shut down. "It wasn't me. It was..." But the room had been abandoned. She was alone, save for the machine behind her standing dumbly by. Grendel had always been lost without orders. He was like Usagi in that respect.
The woman tried to laugh but choked instead; spit bubbled on her colored lips. "Go away, Usagi. Do you need someone to blame? Nona...Nona killed me, then. Nona killed me long ago...I never stood a chance, did I, Father? And you knew it...so you cried at the end..." A single tear, streaked with mascara, trickled an ashy stream down her cheek; her eyes fluttered closed. Her chest, open and exposed by the ripped-apart lab coat, sunk and remained collapsed.
Her head lolled in Usagi's hold, and the girl screamed.
o0o0o0o0o0o
"Nona...Nona killed me, then."
Mind clotted with pain, she could barely understand what she herself was saying, certainly couldn't figure out why she wasn't conserving her breath. Was she really so fond of her own voice that she would expend her last few seconds by squandering meaningless speech?...no, not meaningless. She would never see her enemy's defeat, for the blonde woman had won from the beginning. "Nona killed me long ago."
"I cannot expect one such as you to understand my reasoning, Trinity." Leorza's voice had dripped with scorn. "Not one who ignores her responsibilities, who sought dominance through brutality."
Again with that! Oh, why had she ever let herself get drunk in the presence of this man? Why had she ever told him—boasted, even—of the use for which she'd employed her very first machine? "You're doing it all for a woman? What, you think you'll get her attention only if you rule the world? That's pathetic, Leorza. I didn't expect you to be a sap."
"Rule the world?...oh, believe that of me if you will." He smiled. "What of the weapon you can give me?"
Nona, Nona...she'd never even met the woman, yet in seeking to take her place Trinity had lost everything else. The syndicate had frowned on the favors she bestowed on the white-haired gentleman she had seemingly adopted, muttered when they thought she couldn't hear about the unfair influence the newcomer held. But it could hardly be helped. In a strange way, she felt sorry for his child, poor loser sap that he no doubt was. Something about his father's manner made her long to impress him in a way no one else could. Perhaps it was because nothing was ever good enough...that if she could maybe someday attain that pinnacle, what she had done would have been worth it...
"I never stood a chance, did I, Father? And you knew it..."
"What do you mean I don't get the syndicate??" Her voice cracked like a boy's; her whole body rankled with anger. "What have I ever done?"
"You're too easily distracted, Trinity. You're too selfish." The old man stroked his still-black beard; as a child, she had played with that black curtain. Now she wanted to yank it out by the roots. "All this machine nonsense...you'll never stand a chance. Besides, you're a woman."
"Father!!" Behind her, the automaton she'd constructed on the sly balled its steel hands into fists. "Aren't I bright enough? Clever enough? I'm popular, Father! They like me! And they hate you!!"
"Oh, really? How much?"
"...so you cried at the end..."
She smiled cruelly, wildly. "Enough that I got the go-ahead to do this." Pulling the gun out from her new lab coat, she shot him twice in the chest; as he fell backwards in his chair, her machine was already baring down on him, metal fingers grabbing him by the throat and twisting. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at him as his neck snapped; his eyes met hers with his dying breath and tears beaded on his lids. Then came the crack, and silence.
Now she wanted to go back and undo that quiet, feeling that somehow by erasing that one moment she could escape the light-headedness swimming across her own addled senses, but it was too late. Unable to hold their own any longer, her eyes closed; she felt something sticky and salty gumming them up.
The last thing her father had heard was her own cry of laughter. The last thing Trinity heard was Usagi's scream.
O0o0o0o0o0o
Standing before one of the massive new blood tanks on the Celestial ship, Clair debated trying to blow it up with the one grenade remaining in his possession but soon decided such an action would help the situation little. Already his father and Shun's mother—he could not, for some reason, think of her as Daisuke's mother as well—were connecting the tanks to the main water pipes of Magnagalia. He himself had aided them, using some of the Blue Tabs in his belt-bandolier to dispose of the water plant workers. Every drop of water in the city flowed from the oceanside refinery, which itself was helped along by the high-end system powering it. All too soon, the system would cut out briefly, the water would be replaced with new blood, and his father's Celestial paradise on earth would begin.
What had happened on this ship? In some places, there was dried blood on the walls. Clair's lip curled at the sight in distaste, and he rubbed at his mouth irritably: he'd gotten so used to the lip ring that not having it in made him feel almost incomplete. His demands for its return had fallen upon ears of stone, for all he could tell. Leorza—his father—had ignored him completely when he brought the subject up.
Upon seeing the ship moving, the news teams of Magnagalia had sent out investigative helicopters; the buzzing of their propellers echoed in Clair's ears as he leaned listlessly against the tank. He had, by his reckoning, three hours tops to figure out some way to keep the new blood from replacing water all over taps in Magnagalia, but could not think of a solution that didn't involve his father dying. Pragmatically, if Clair wanted to continue living life with a mind of his own, free to feel as he wished, the man was too dangerous to be kept alive; but the young don had already failed to kill his father once and in his mind that cemented the outcome of any future attempts.
Idly he considered contacting Giovanni and seeing if the others had any ideas yet—at the very least they deserved to be notified of the immediate peril—but feared his father discovering the earbud now safely replaced on the right side of his head. He craned his neck down the hallway: no one around. Better sooner than later.
He flicked the bud on. "Giovanni?" he asked, determined not to sound cowed or ashamed despite his juvenile behavior when last he and his bodyguard had spoken. Vampire did not apologize, even if he had been in the wrong. Vampire merely moved on.
"Cl-Clair!!" The voice on the other end sounded nearly panicked. "Clair, not now!" A familiar sound echoed in the background: a machine gun, firing repeatedly and strewing shells about.
"Where are you?" Clair hissed, trying to balance being heard on the other end and not being heard by his companions, wherever they might be.
"Dancing at the Barony. And you?" Giovanni had regained his cool. The young don was glad of the fact. Bad enough that he had totally lost all composure earlier. For his employee to suffer a similar breakdown...well, as Mauro would say, it would embarrass the family. And...and he didn't want to think about Giovanni as being weak.
"The Barony??" What, that hotel Boma had thought Daisuke was at earlier? "Giovanni, the problem's at the Celestial ship! Get over here, now!"
"Ah, no can do, Vampire. In the middle of something...Dictator's betrayed us. Big surprise."
"What?" He clapped a hand over his ear. "How?" Why now? Why now, of all times? Could that idiot man have picked a worse time to finally snap? Clair felt himself fill with hate for a world that could arrange such horribly-timed catastrophes.
"He left with Usagi, and then the old man ran off. Do the math."
Clair knocked his head against the new blood tank in frustration; gunfire resounded through the earbud, coupled with Giovanni's heavy, intense breathing. "This is an order," the young man said sternly. "Kill him, when you find him. I don't care who hates me for it. I'm not happy."
"Hey, I ain't thrilled either." A beeping sound, and a curse: Giovanni's "suit", a man-operated giant android vehicle, had run out of bullets.
"Watch your tone, Giovanni." Clair smiled wryly. "Wrap that up as fast as you can, then get over to the water refinery. Otherwise this whole city's going to get a very, very unwanted transfusion."
"Clair!" His father's voice calling for him drowned out Giovanni's reply. He switched off the bud hurriedly and ran towards the sound.
"Coming, Papa." His father was waiting for him at the end of the hallway; he had to climb over several thick cables to get to them. "It's all set up, then?" He tried to sound subservient, even eager. In reality, he could feel himself chafing; with the return of his old irritability came also a bit more of his confidence. Merely the knowledge that he'd made contact with the others strengthened him. Now the fate of Magnagalia was Giovanni's problem, not his. He just had to stall as long as possible to buy his friends more time.
"It is, indeed," Leorza acknowledged. "Nona has gone to shut off the high-end system so the water will stop flowing and the switch can be made." His father had never been this familiar with him before. It upset Clair. "My beloved son...I will give you an opportunity to make amends to me. You may open the new blood tanks when the time comes."
"Thank you, Papa." He kept his eyes low. Like hell he would be the one to pull that lever, or whatever he needed to do! But he could not say that, could not disobey. The creature could only rattle the bars of its cage and wait for someone to come along with a key.
Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, once again he was reminded of the grenade hidden in his pocket. That was a key of sorts...but it wasn't the right fit. Yet he wanted to use it so badly, and he'd never been good at resisting temptation...
Stall, then. Stall for time to distract both his father and himself. "You never would have let me earlier...I'm honored, Papa." Look at me! I'm the good son! I'm the good son you've declawed and beaten...I have no self-respect, I'm totally powerless against my enemy, but I'm the good son you always wanted! Is that enough?
"Ah, Clair." His father slid an arm around him, and his skin prickled. This was all wrong. This was horribly wrong. His father never touched him except in blind fits of rage. His father never tried to befriend or honor him. This was some other, humane being. This was not his father. "I thought about what you said earlier. Your failures as Vampire are my fault in addition to yours. Was it not my responsibility to prepare you? As well as...I have never been a father to you, my beloved son."
Angry, Clair shrugged off Leorza's arm. "Why start now, then? It's not like I'll hold it against you once you force...once I drink enough new blood."
Realizing his error, Clair cursed himself for slipping up. Leorza's brows drew together and he opened his mouth to reply. "Clair--"
A beeping sound interrupted the man: the cell phone in his jacket. Pulling it out, he smirked at the number displayed. "Finally, she calls." He flipped open the phone and put it to his ear. "Trinity? Your men have us surrounded. I assume there's an explanation and..."
What? Clair looked out the window, and felt his heart sink down to his black slip-on shoes. No less than forty men stood or crouched on the dock, weapons all poised at the Celestial ship. None made a move to fire, though: were they afraid of something? Waiting to be certain those they sought were on board? No, they had a sign propped up on—oh, perfect, up on a tank. "Surrender Nona or we fire at the new hour." Clair's lonely grenade began to look a bit measly in comparison to the opposition. And he would have killed for a watch to check the time.
Next to him, his father started. "Who are—oh, I see. It's been a while, hasn't it? I trust they treated you well after your surrender. Where is Trinity? I see." His shoulders sagged. "The fool. Even after being warned once...what? Indeed. Well, feel free to join your mother...hello? Hello?" Frowning even more violently, he switched his phone off. "Fool!" From his mouth, the minor insult sounded like the blackest curse. "Both of them!"
"What's wrong, Papa?" Clair asked, not having to feign concern.
His father sighed. "The blockade outside isn't going to like this. Their leader is dead. That was Shun Aurora on her phone. He stole it from her dying body."
o0o0o0o0o0o
Running down the hall, Boma was pleased to hear no footsteps trailing him. So everyone else was still busy upstairs, fighting for access to the underground levels, and the enemy had failed to notice a single figure slipping through to the elevator. After receiving Clair's message, Boma's friends had concluded that attacking the hotel had been a fruitless venture and sought to beat a rather embarrassed and shameful retreat to where they were truly needed; yet Boma's senses told him all was not yet right in the hotel. It had been a simple matter to inform Daisuke that he would take care of the situation, and simpler still to slip into the elevator and punch in the code he had seen on his first self-guided tour of the syndicate's headquarters. The tricky part, he figured, was coming up. Ahead of him, he smelled blood.
Reaching a doorway, he turned in and stopped. Before him on the floor, hugging a corpse close to herself and rocking back and forth as she cried with wide eyes, was...
"Usagi!" He pried the dead woman's mangled body from her fingers, took her by the shoulders and stared deep into her blank gaze. "Usagi! Can you hear me?"
She shook her head, whimpering. "I didn't...it wasn't me..." The blood on her hands and her weapon, lying next to her, betrayed the lie. Behind her, the dark-skinned machine swayed back and forth, wires hanging out of one empty eye socket; not trusting the android, Boma jammed his sword through the opening and punctured the central chips, already damaged by the eye's removal.
The steel giant toppled, nearly missing Usagi as Boma scooped her up out of harm's way. She grabbed onto his cloak and buried her face. "It wasn't me...it wasn't me..."
He understood. "Usagi. You cannot hide from reality forever. You will only hurt yourself." Smoothing back her matted blue hair, he twitched his mouth into a smile. "I hurt my only friend, too. But I made new ones. There is always another chance."
"A chance...to be happy?" She stared up at him like a child. "To make it go away?"
"No, Usagi. Never to go away. But to remember, and move on."
"Who are you?" she asked. "I know you...we fought...and I asked Master..."
"Boma," he replied simply. "I'll be your brother from now on."
"Boma..." She buried her face in his chest; he patted her back awkwardly, not entirely certain what to do next. From what Giovanni had yelled to the others, the most urgent situation existed over at the water refinery, of all places. Daisuke had surmised the particulars of the emergency, and off they'd gone, leaving Boma to pick up whatever pieces might be necessary at what was otherwise an accident. It was only fair; after all, he had suggested the Barony as a likely place to look for Shun.
Glancing around the room, his gaze narrowed on a black hat lying discarded in a corner. Shifting Usagi's weight in his arms, he bent over and picked it up. Yes, he recognized it. So his instincts hadn't been wrong after all.
"Usagi, where did the big man in the black coat go?" he asked her, showing her the hat. "The one who owns this?"
She shook her head. "I don't know...I don't want to know...I was supposed to hunt him but..."
"My Usagi." Bringing a booted foot down on her final knife, he broke the weapon in half. "You don't have to hunt anymore. You don't have to be scared. I will protect you."
A clamor in the hallway was followed by an errant gunshot; booted feet pounded down the corridor. Quickly Boma assessed the situation: a woman of obviously some importance dead on the floor of her own laboratory with her greatest machine sharing a similar fate by her side, and the blood-streaked murderer remaining at the scene of the crime. Remaining in his arms.
Setting the girl down in a corner and wrapping her in his cloak, Boma dropped his mask and drew his sword as the syndicate's men arrived. "Baroness!" they cried in horror and shock; then their fury directed itself to the lupine-faced man standing over the fallen woman and was fueled by recognition. "Werewolf!"
Boma leveled his sword as they readied their guns. In the corner, the small Celestial shook, knowing despite her protests that it was she the men should be attacking. But she could not escape the fact, no matter how much she wished it away; she dared not sleep any more.
"Usagi," Boma repeated to himself, marveling at the turn of events his life had taken as the battle began but as firm in his resolve as ever. "I must protect my Usagi."
o0o0o0o0o0o
Nona emerged from the darkness of the Celestial Road into the great cavern containing the whirling golden high-end system machines and took in a deep breath. Around the generators, the air was fresh and pure, not like the stinking reek of death that had stained the tunnels from the four convict corpses still strewn within. The great contraptions whirred away, freshly reinvigorated from the ceremony—had it truly been a week or less since they had granted the temporary pardon to buy more time with which to speak to Leorza? Yet here she was, ready to retract the blessing, if only for a while. Once the machines were shut off, the city's water supply would stop flowing for a brief time, then restart without first undergoing purification. During that brief interlude, Leorza and his poor son would have to pump in the new blood instead. The Celestial ship had had all the necessary materials for massive new blood transportation on board already, lest one of the machines they inspected need extra help. She had never anticipated having to use it in such a fashion.
It wasn't too late to turn back, she reminded herself. She could still run, free as she was for the time being from Leorza's scrutiny. She'd gotten what she wanted from him; he had no way of guaranteeing that she keep her end of the bargain. Certainly, should the plan fail, she did not want to be looked upon as one of those at fault. Nona had spent most of her long life running from responsibilities and was too overwhelmed by the sudden onset of blame flooding her perception of the world to wish to actively add to the deluge.
But what did it matter if Leorza's plan succeeded or failed? He promised that if it went off well, her sons would be happy. Didn't that mean...she had to help? For them? She had promised as much. Of what importance were promises?
She was thinking too much, and it bothered her. She had come here to do something; to go back without that thing accomplished would just be silly. Nona lifted her amulet high, felt the new blood in its three capsules pulse and live to the beat of the world around her, to the tempo set by the spinning machines. The new blood in the machines called to her amulet, set the new blood within to glowing in response. Around her, she felt the air whip her hair, called as it were to the power of the connection she sought to establish.
"Stop!" she called in a bright, clear voice, feeding the impulse from her heart and mind down her arm and into the token she held, and from there to the great dynamo before her. Shuddering, the golden towers slowed, then ground to a halt. Around Nona, the lights illuminating the room died; she could see only by the greenish light her own body, emanating the new blood's influence from its every pore, emitted as she further connected. There. It was done.
She let the amulet fall, dreading the long dark walk back to the ship and the plant. Yet some...the Master Celestial had the power to use the new blood to take him from place to place, did he not? Could she not attempt the same thing?
Closing her eyes and drawing on the massive stores of power now lying unused in the dormant machine, Nona tried to will herself back to Leorza's side. She pictured him in her mind, could see him standing on the bridge of the ship overlooking his grand scheme as it came alive at last. She could see his son, standing off to the side in uneasy compliance; she could feel the tanks of new blood pumping, pumping...calling her to them, to the connection...
She materialized by the great bluegreen tank just as Clair, his face drawn, pushed with all his might against the great wheel to open the tanks of new blood. But the look on his face negated any happiness or self-pride she might have felt upon her successful transportation.
If this was all to make those like him happy...why did his eyes then contain such pain?
O0o0o0o0o0o
"Feel free to join your mother..." the voice on the other end had said, and the stolen phone had slipped from Shun's fingers to clatter onto the bathroom floor. He and J, having made good their escape from the lowest levels of the Barony, had forced their way into one of the rooms on the twentieth floor or so and were currently barricaded in the restroom, Shun figuring no one would figure to look in the actual legal part of the building itself. People were so stupid about some things. Determined not to be outsmarted, even the simplest ruses could throw them off.
Well, the same thing had just happened to him, hadn't it? Determined to get out and get to Leorza at all costs, bent on meeting with the man face-to-face and so maybe finding the solution to all of his problems, he had overlooked the fact that the messenger who had sent him to Baroness had also wanted to meet his mother. Of course she was playing both sides. How could he have not seen it? She was too omnipresent to be anything but a double agent...
So his mother had joined Leorza in his plans? Why? She had never shown anything but unusual disapproval of the man. So why go over to the side her colleagues so condemned?
Oh, what did it matter to him? He was done for anyway. Again he saw the blades slicing through air and skin, and the bile rose again only to be choked back down. The dirty work of last year's revolution had been left to other men. Shun himself, aside from a rather clean murder perpetrated by his own hands, had only borne witness to heartless violence once...but that one time had been enough to send him to a mental hospital for a year, and that other clean murder had snapped something within his mind.
He could still see the light from the attack that had claimed his father's life and sent his own spiraling downwards, were he to close his eyes and cast his mind back. But now, layered on top of the explosion in his mind was that whirling knife, the knife he himself had held mere seconds before it had ripped the woman's life from her.
Trapped as it were by the situation, he had ordered J to kill the woman called Baroness because he felt himself out of options. He wanted out, and so used the only way he could see, perhaps reveling a bit in the deception. Then the girl had arrived, and he had panicked. He had maintained only enough sense to grab the dying woman's cell to contact Leorza afterwards, but even then his brain had been numb. Now it was tingling back to life, and he wasn't sure if he wanted that just yet.
Sitting on the lip of the bathtub, Shun removed his glasses and buried his head in his hands. Below he heard faint sounds, as if people were fighting and firing guns. What was he doing?...Why had he jumped at Leorza's plan that eagerly? He had been behaving like a fool ever since arriving in Magnagalia. And why? Why all the running around, all the errant decisions made with uncharacteristic, uncomfortable quickness? What did he want, anyway?
He didn't know. He didn't know what he wanted, what he had come for. That was his problem. At first, he had sought only to rescue Daisuke and save his own sense of self-worth, but his plans and goals had been jolted horribly off-track by the advent of his mother back into his life. She had rushed to him, held him close...and he had held her in return. For one brief moment, he had forgotten the past eighteen years, and that moment had lodged in his mind but gotten mixed up with the bitterness that had become a part of him. Could he disentangle it, examine it for what it really was? He had dismissed it at the time as an impulse generated by a mind unable to process information at the speed it was being fed. He felt himself be embraced; he embraced in return. He felt himself be abandoned by his mother; he abandoned all memories but the last in return. Action, reaction. The emotions of man, governed by physics.
So how explain this thing inside of him now, making him hide when he didn't even know if he would be pursued? How to define the demon that had latched itself to a world with no logic, no science, just the judgmental thoughtless innocence of those who knew they were good? How to justify himself to the man standing in the corner, the machine he had tried to force murder on yet again? J was only a tool, Shun knew, but a tool with a mind of his own...how to appease that mind?
"Here." He handed J the voice-control device, wanting to be rid of the evidence. "Keep that."
"I feel it is my duty to inform you that I will have to arrest you once we return to Judoh for attempted murder," J replied, but he accepted the offering. "As of now, I do not have the authority to act, being outside the jurisdiction of the City Safety Management Agency."
"Don't quote me the rules, I wrote them..." Shun dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and rotated them slowly, trying to clear his head. Where was his precious self-discipline now?
"What's wrong with me?" he muttered aloud.
"You are distressed and tense. You have been so ever since we set off to rescue Daisuke."
"That's right. Daisuke..." His fist slammed down on the tub. "What is so wonderful about Daisuke?" If it hadn't been for Daisuke, he would never have met his mother again. He never would have had to confront whatever was currently devouring him, as it never would have taken hold. It was all Daisuke's fault.
"Daisuke," replied J, "does not allow himself to be hindered by little things, and accepts people without needing to understand them first. To put it figuratively, as many humans like to do when describing people, Daisuke is like water."
"Water." Now even the android had gone mad.
"Yes, water. He rolls over obstacles and continues going, always finding a way to press on in his course. He lets slights go and does not cling to one place for long. A man cannot let the opinions and actions of others dictate his own life. He is not responsible for the world, but only for himself. And Daisuke understands that. In reaching this understanding, he is able to do more for the world than those convinced of their selflessness."
"Water." The word had taken on a more literal bent in his mind: he had realized that Baroness's cell phone had had some of her blood on it, and now his palm was smeared with red. He tried wiping the smear off on a towel but met with precious little success. Turning, Shun made a grab for the faucet but halted as the lights switched off suddenly.
"Was that you?" he asked J apprehensively.
"It was not. Someone has turned off the high-end systems. Water will return in approximately two minutes, but it will not have been purified."
"I don't care." He groped for the faucet and turned it on in preparation. As soon as he heard liquid splashing against the sink, he stuck his hand in.
Daisuke's small curly head in front of his blocked part of his vision; his father stood outside of the car. Receding on the horizon, he could barely make out the small dot that was his mother on the departing ship. Daisuke watched in confusion but without trepidation, being at three years of age unable to imagine a life without Mother. Shun understood what his brother could not; he knew she would not return, and it made him feel...
He yanked his hand out like the fluid had burned him as the first wisps of sedating warmth coursed up his arm. Clouds began to knot in his mind, bringing with them a sense of contentment, but he forced them back with painful self-control. What had that been?
"That is not water," J reported, looking at the liquid still gushing from the tap. "Analysis produces the same sort of aura as the Celestials emanate."
"New blood..." Shun frowned at a drop on his cuff. "Leorza's on the move, then." He wondered if the others knew; had they remained on the boat waiting for Clair, most likely not. Yet if they had chased after him—what's more, if they chased after J...they themselves could fall victim without knowing it. In the dark, no one would know the difference, as his own blunder had proved.
Blunder? He frowned, pondering why he'd thought of the action as such. There had been nothing inherently foolish about the action, so why that word?
And why that memory? He avoided thinking about that day if at all possible, the mere idea of recalling it stirring up the resentment deep within him. Yes, his mother was on his mind; how could she not be? After leaving for so long, to return under such a situation?
Again he remembered the brief moment in her arms, again he wondered about it, but this time in connection to the day she had left. The new blood had brought the taboo recollection to the fore, so he might as well pick the hated thing apart and be done with it. He had always told himself that he had been angry from the beginning, but that was not the truth. That day he had felt...he had been...well, he was hurt. From the hurt had come the anger. So whence had come the hurt?
"Phia, do you love me?" He took the gun from her fingers, held them gingerly in his own and waited for her reply. He had her close enough to fire, he knew; it would be cruel to stop her if her answer was positive; but he could not help himself. He had to know...
"Yes," she whispered, tears glittering in her eyes. He fired. She fell. He did not let anything register on his face, but very calmly stooped to check her vital signs. His hand had jerked upon pulling the trigger. If he got her immediate care, she would live. He had let her live, even after she had betrayed him. What a strange turn of events...
"News reports speak of the Celestial ship having moved and a group of syndicate members laying siege to it," J announced, having time while Shun thought to check the online news. "And this very building was attacked by Daisuke and the others."
"What?" His head jerked up from the memory, the first to come to mind despite it not featuring his mother at all. "Are they still here?"
"They are gone. The telemeter is heading for the Celestial ship."
"So they know and are going to fight it..." He sighed. "What to do with you, my brother? Phia...what to do?"
"Can I forgive others?" his own voice echoed in reply: more ghosts from the past year. "Can others forgive me?"
"Does it matter?" he asked the ghosts. "If I run to help them now, they may live. Yet the deed has already been done. The new blood is spreading."
"The blockade is moving away," said J. "The reason is not yet known. But Daisuke and the others will be able to get on board."
He had not originally been angry at his mother, but hurt. He had let Phia live. Daisuke was like water...but water had been replaced in Magnagalia. Shun looked at the faucet. Could he stand to live in a world where everyone was like his mother, where no one realized how much other people depended on each other? Where no one knew they...
"You're always so worried about Daisuke," said Phia with an impish smile, out of place on her elegant face. "But you don't want to show it."
He drew Phia's gun and looked at it hard; her perfume wafted up to him. And gradually, as the Celestial ship of eighteen years ago set sail again in his mind, Shun Aurora, ex-dictator of Judoh, began to comprehend his duty to the people of the world.