Episode 21: Lament (Love)
Without J's access to the servers of Magnagalia, Giovanni worried at first that he and his companions would not be able to locate the water refinery until it was too late. Fortunately the news helicopters circling overhead coupled with the police barricade of the area and sheer size of the Celestial ship provided welcome landmarks.
He hadn't been able to reload his suit, pressed for time as it was, and so would be relying almost solely on more physical assaults. In his mind as he crashed down the road, scattering pedestrians and clearing the way for his friends on foot, the scenario played itself over and over in his head: they would board, and he would tie his former boss up with his suit's hidden cable, and with his life thus endangered the man would have no choice but to surrender.
It made him laugh. Like life was ever that simple.
"Hey! Stop!" Ah, the ever-vigilant forces of the Magnagalian police, come to deal with the disturbance of the peace. He didn't have time to deal with small fry.
"Miss!" he barked at Kyoko, but Daisuke beat the panting girl to it, firing stun bullets in rapid succession to clear the way. Giovanni shot a quick glance at the pink-haired young woman who had lagged on the draw: her breath was coming in haggard gasps, and her face was flushed from exertion. They'd been running too far, too fast for a girl used to a desk job. He scooped her up onto his machine's shoulder. "That better?"
"Thank you," she breathed, clutching the metal shoulder tightly. "I'm sorry to be a burden."
"Not a problem. Oi, Daisuke? Want a ride?" The Special Unit operative shook his head, reloading as he ran. "Your loss, then. We're going to have all the fun without you." Pushing down on the ignition lever, Giovanni increased his speed. Time to see what this baby could really do.
"That's not fair!" Daisuke called as the machine thundered out of sight. "Aw, damn..." More police arrived to take their indisposed fellows' places. "I'm in a hurry, here!" Shot after shot he fired, never once slowing his pace though his legs had started to burn; but in his hurry he forgot to look at the colors of his bullets and one shot, while fortunately missing the intended officer, exploded a car and blew off a fire hydrant.
Blue-green liquid sprayed everywhere, causing Daisuke to look behind him in shock. "Well, that's...different. Guess we're out of time."
"Not quite." Something landed in front of him, sending up clouds of dust and steam. Through the clearing fog, two tall figures offered him a hand. "A man never gives up. He rolls over his problems and keeps on going." It was not the voice Daisuke had expected.
Nonetheless he took the proffered hand. "Thanks for coming all this way to rescue me, Bro. I'm sure you had better things to do."
Shun smiled as J picked the brothers up and began running again. "Hardly, Daisuke. Now let's finish this quickly, with as little fuss as possible. I have important business to attend to later today."
Daisuke grinned. "Sounds good." He indicated J. "You two work things out?"
"The controls have been destroyed. Daisuke...can you..." He struggled with the words.
"I'm sure you had your reasons. Now get ready. Here it comes." The breach of trust stung, but what good could come of bringing that up? How he responded to his older brother's actions was his own problem.
Shun laughed derisively. "He was right. Just like water."
"Eh?"
"Later, Daisuke. As you said, our destination approaches."
"Lorenzo Leonelli confirmed," J announced, vision zooming in through a window on the Celestial ship. "I will capture him." He launched himself into the air, heading straight for the glass. Daisuke screamed a wordless protest and ducked his head as the window exploded around him, J propelling them straight through. Shun took the abuse stoically.
Straightening, J dropped both Auroras on the ground and they looked up into the terrified eyes of a third. Nona, one hand clutching her amulet in fear, stood with her back pressed up against an enormous cylindrical tank. Leorza smiled as she looked from first her newly arrived sons to their companions, standing helpless off to one side. Every inch of his being radiated victory.
For none of his attackers could do anything while Clair held a gun to Nona's heart.
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Giovanni had seen his young master hold a firearm many times before, sometimes even with the barrel pointed backwards at his own temple, yet never had the sight of a gun in that pale, slender hand so frightened the bodyguard. So this was his decision? To betray everyone he'd worked with for the sake of one man who refused to even treat him like a human being? To just give up? If he pulled that trigger, in Giovanni's mind the young man was no longer Vampire. He was exactly what his father had intended him to be: a puppet, a machine. Programmable. Giovanni refused to serve a machine. Before it was too late, he had to save his friend from himself.
Bluffing, he aimed the empty turret of his own gun at Leorza. "Let him go," he shouted, hoping his voice could be heard from outside the cockpit. Clair flinched, cocking his head to one side, and he realized the boy had his earbud on. Probably loudly, from the face the don was making in his direction. Wait...Clair could make faces at a time like this? What was going on?
"Vampire, I'm an idiot. What's going on?" he muttered as Leorza raised his own voice to address the man inside the machine.
"Giovanni. I'm ashamed of you, turning traitor on those who can help you most. And you won't even come out and meet me face-to-face? You always had such great eyes, Giovanni. Hungry for more, but never to be satisfied. It was for people with eyes like yours that I..."
So he wanted to look him in the eyes, did he? He really wanted to see what the stray he picked up years ago thought of him? "You're wrong, old man." He dismounted from the suit, reached into his jacket for his handgun. Slowly, deliberately, he slid the bullets into it. "I promised to protect Clair from anyone who dared to hurt him. I didn't know then that the biggest threat was always right in front of me." Giovanni kept moving, circling Leorza, letting him watch as one by one, he dropped the pellets into the weapon.
Behind the bodyguard, Nona gave a small whimper as Clair touched the gun to her chest, snaking it under her amulet's chain. The young man's mouth barely moved, but the earbud was on loudly enough for Giovanni to hear him. "Take him out, Giovanni." The voice was a corpse's—devoid of life and hope. "Now."
"You set your own father up?" Giovanni asked in a returning mutter, leveling his gun at Leorza's chest. The man frowned.
"Just do it!" Clair snapped more loudly than he'd intended; Leorza whipped around, catching his son in the act of switching off the bud with his one free hand. "Clair!" he cried. Taking advantage of his enemy's distraction, Giovanni fired.
His aim was wide, bullet sticking into the tank of new blood. Beads of liquid began to peek out from the weak spot. Staring maddened for a moment, Leorza grabbed the gun from Clair's startled hands and, as J knocked Giovanni to the side in anticipation of the enemy's next move, shot the man from the slums to whom he had given new life.
Suddenly out of his left eye Giovanni could only see red; his right eye's vision was obstructed by the android pushing him to the ground. "Thanks a lot, old man," he grunted, hitting the ground and grabbing his left temple. Dammit...just a graze, but still...damn head wounds always bled like hell.
Out of his one good eye he saw Leorza pull the bullet out of the tank and force Clair's head under the stream of liquid pouring out, gun between the young man's shoulderblades. No...he wouldn't let...not Clair...But moving hurt. Moving his head hurt so, so much.
Resting the injured side on the cool metal floor, Giovanni focused on just staying conscious. It didn't work. He was out in seconds.
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"Mother!" While Daisuke and J ran to extract Clair from the spurt of new blood, Shun caught his mother as her knees gave out and she slid to the ground. "Mother, are you..."
"He told me not to be scared," she breathed. "That he wouldn't do it. But I didn't believe him, Shun! I've never believed him!" Bursting into tears, she grabbed onto her son. "Never! And I didn't know it until he made his own son...who does that to their children?"
"Hush. Hush. Mother." He took her by the chin, lifted her head and wiped away her tears with a hand still streaked with Trinity's blood. "It's going to be all right."
"But I helped him! I turned off the..."
"Mother. We all misjudge people. We all make mistakes. But the world keeps turning, and we have to turn with it, accepting what's happened so we can move on." He smoothed out her long blonde hair, hair so like his own. "And sometimes...learning that hurts."
"Shun..." Her arms encircled him. "Shun, am I a bad mother?"
He swallowed. "Yes," he replied. "You are. But that doesn't give me the right to be a bad son. Even though I may...hate you...because you hurt me, there must have been love there for the hurt to set in so deep."
"You still love me, Shun?" Her hand felt something cold and hard hidden in his vest pocket; she drew it out with trembling fingers and breathed in the perfume wafting from it. "Even though I've been a...bad mother?"
The scent reached him too; Phia smiled at him in his mind as he held his mother close. "Yes, Mother. I always have."
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Clair gasped and sputtered under the new blood soaking his black head, making the blue hair dye on his bangs run and drip. Holding the young man's head down, Leorza cursed to himself as the black-coated machine stomped over and pinned him against the tank with one arm. Clair collapsed into Daisuke Aurora's arms, contented smile once more in place as the other young man led him to safety behind the abandoned robotic suit. If nothing else...at least perhaps Leorza had saved his son from this awful world. He had given his child what he would never attain. Wasn't that a parent's duty?
The gun would be ineffectual against the machine trying to subdue him, but Leorza had other tricks. His legs giving out as the machine swung a punch, he wrested his arm free and rolled away as the rest of the tank exploded onto the android, whose systems froze upon the new blood's overstimulating touch. Standing and wincing as his back twinged—really, such acrobatics should have been beyond him at this point—Leorza aimed his gun at the blond young man climbing up onto the suit; the pink-haired woman and his son were already on top of it.
Then the loosed wave of new blood hit him, knocking him off his feet. Falling down into the liquid, he felt the effects almost immediately—he heard again Nona's refusal to come with him when first he had left the Celestials, he felt again his mother's touch—but he forced his eyes to remain on his enemy. He felt the clouds come rolling into his mind to smooth it all out, but he swept them away. He didn't want happiness now! He wanted—he needed--
"Sad, isn't it?" asked Daisuke as Leorza felt himself begin to slip away. "You work so hard to drown the world in that stuff but you don't want it for yourself?"
"I do," he tried to gasp, tried to aim the gun; but aiming a gun was a silly thing to do. Something somewhere had hurt him, and that was bad; but it was much easier to make believe the hurt had never happened than to eliminate the source of the hurt. He would not be hurt anymore...he was happy...
No, he was miserable when he should have been happy! He had a mind and a soul of his own, and he wanted to keep them! He didn't want release forever! Forever was so much longer than he'd thought...
The new blood was receding, spreading out, leaving only a slick on the floor. Nona...Nona would save him. He had done it all so Nona would not hurt him anymore...so if Nona saved him then he would have won...he did not want her to be special, but she was, and some part of him wanted that specialness to stay.
"Nona!" Leorza gasped, but someone else was holding her, keeping her from him. Rage filled him, and he raised the gun again, aimed at the man holding Nona close to him. Eliminate the evil. Blot it out. Be happy. With Nona and his son, his son whom he had saved. Forever.
The shot rang out. The man crumpled to the floor. And Clair, even through the swimming haze of the new blood, screamed until his throat was hoarse.
"Papa!"
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Nona dropped the gun and fell back into Shun's hold; both of them lay together, new blood washing over and through their systems. They had stemmed the tide long enough and now surrendered, knowing when they woke—if they woke—they would have to slog their way through new lives. Yet as they gave in, and as Kyoko and Daisuke gingerly picked their way to J to see if they could start him back up, Clair woke. Blue-green drops still fell from his bangs, still speckled his shirt; but in his heart there was no room for contentment. He dropped down off the suit and fell to his knees at the fallen man's side; next to him, a soaked Giovanni woke and watched, though in his addled state he could not understand.
"Papa.." Brokenly he hauled the old man into his lap. "Papa, I didn't mean for...I never really wanted..."
His father smiled up at him, crimson flowers spreading across his chest. "My...beloved son. You never told me...about my funeral. Did they follow my will?"
"Only the family was there, Papa," Clair reassured him, the words spilling numbly from his lips. "Just like you wanted. It was...it was really beautiful." He smiled weakly. "You should see the tombstone. I picked it myself. With Mauro's help."
"How is Mauro? I missed him..."
"He hasn't changed." This was all wrong. This could not be happening. And, if it were, this was not how it was supposed to be. He stroked the old man's cheek. "Papa...I can't do this again. Don't go...please. I'm not ready. Don't do this. Don't pretend, either. Just...just.." What did he want the man to do? He didn't know. He wasn't thinking. He was just fighting his way through the endless river of dread threatening to close over his head even more than the new blood had. "I'm not ready! You can't do this to me again!"
Thinking over the last time, inspiration struck. He pulled out his last grenade. "You and I, Papa! We'll go together!" A flash of light, and then nothing...that might be nice...he thought his father had wanted something similar, once...some release...
"You're ready." Leorza laid his son's hand over the wound, over the heart beating itself empty. "You have the blood of Vampire in your veins. Put your toys away and live, Clair. Be happy."
Happy? He looked with new eyes at the thing in his hand. Laughter forced its way out of his mouth, but it rang small and pitiful and far away in his ears. "Look, Papa. I brought fireworks to your funeral too. To make it really...really special..." He choked. "Because you were really special too...to everybody...did you see them?"
But the old man wasn't listening any more, wasn't looking at the object his son was waving in front of his wide, staring eyes. Realizing he was only talking to himself, the young man pounded the old one's chest in rage. How dare he stop listening, just when...he'd never get an answer now... "Go to hell, old man!" he cried, throwing the hateful grenade across the room and curling up around the body in his lap. "Go to hell...and leave me alone..."
"Vampire." Warm arms closed around him, dragged him off the body; he clawed like a possessed animal at whoever held him. "Vampire...you're all right...I'm so glad..."
"Let go, Giovanni." He had no energy left with which to back up his statement. "Let go. Papa's gone."
"But you're safe." The man smiled at him through a slick of red down the side of his face. "That's all that matters."
Clair's eyes closed, his head drooped against Giovanni's body. With the onset of his mental shutdown, the new blood continued its spread through his system. Smiling, he settled down and gave in.
"We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of one of Judoh's finest citizens..."
He slouched in the pew, not caring enough to sit upright. On either side of him, Giovanni and Mitchal shared anxious glances over his hair before staring straight ahead the way they had been instructed. Ian fidgeted, also nervous. Clair absorbed himself in a detailed study of the whorls in the wooden pew in front of him. In and out the lines swirled around his brain, making all other life unreal.
"...gathered here, we the few he honored with the title 'family' do him one last honor..."
"One last honor." His lips formed the word around the ring, he thought again of the present in his pocket. No matter where his father had gone, he would be sure to see Clair if the young man made a big enough display. In his father's honor, of course. It was his duty as a son.
"...Lorenzo Leonelli, to whom many of us owe our fortunate lives, the forger of peace and prosperity in Judoh."
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The floor of the Celestial ship was slick to the touch with fluid. Daisuke and Kyoko shared a nervous glance over the fallen bodies of their comrades. It was too early to tell if they'd ingested enough new blood to suffer permanent effects, but for the time being everyone but the two of them had been good as incapacitated, to say nothing of Giovanni's head wound. They had defeated their opponent, but at what cost to themselves?
"I guess we'll bury him in the same coffin as before," Daisuke said, nudging the corpse of the man known for years as Lorenzo Leonelli with his boot. "Clair will probably want that."
"We have a more urgent problem," Kyoko objected.
He turned to her. "What?" She pointed. "...Oh."
In the wake of the battle, he had forgotten that there had been more than one holding tank for the new blood. The snaking cables still pumped gallon after pulsing gallon of the stuff to the unsuspecting citizens of Magnagalia, showing no signs of letting up.
Daisuke clicked his tongue against his teeth and nodded. "That's not good."