Control the Storm Collection
Story 2
Title: Dirty
Author: Catherine Grissom
Rating: Still T.
Summary: Little girl, can you tell just who made you so very god damned holy?
Warnings: Nothing much. Amon gets a bit blasphemous, but it's Amon...
Disclaimer: I still don't own WHR. Sunrise and Bandai still do. Song is property of Hurt.
Inspired by Hurt's 'Dirty'
Robin hummed. Amon couldn't quite decide whether it should bother him or not. On one hand, if she was humming, she wasn't asking him questions that he wouldn't, or couldn't, answer. On the other hand…
She only hummed hymns. While the Doxology might be soothing for her, for him it brought back memories he'd rather leave forgotten, picked at wounds that had scabbed over.
He'd practically been raised by SOLOMON following his mother's passing (a euphemism if there ever was one) which had meant that he'd learned the scriptures, the hymns. He'd been young then, naïve, willing to believe that what he was being trained to do was God's Will.
God's Will, man's will, it didn't matter anymore: he was a killer. He'd killed mothers, sons, sisters, uncles: whoever they'd told him needed to die. He didn't try to justify it as the will of some invisible, omniscient god.
SOLOMON had a way of twisting scriptures, he'd noticed. "Thou shalt not kill – unless it's a witch." "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live – unless they work for you, and even then, keep an eye out." It had bothered him once, long ago. Then he'd shrugged it off. Of course, their logic was flawed, man was flawed, he was flawed.
Witches were dangerous, he'd seen that much with his own eyes. Sure, there were ones like Karasuma, ones who couldn't, or wouldn't, use their Craft to harm others. However, for every one like Karasuma, an untold number could, and would. SOLOMON monitored them. SOLOMON decided if they had become a danger. He took care of it.
'Ours not to reason why' and all that.
Until now.
Amon spared a glance at the small form to his left.
Robin was humming again, some piece of a Requiem that he could barely remember.
The order for her Hunt had come down from Headquarters, from Father Juliano himself. She had killed, he'd seen that himself, and had every capability to do it again. Not only that, she had, taking down the best Hunters SOLOMON could send. And yet…
He remembered the first time he'd killed, the split-second of revulsion, followed by a vague sense of relief, of pride.
He remembered the look on Karasuma's face when she'd first killed, an instant of uncertainty, then resolve. She'd done right by the organization, that was enough.
Sakaki, Doujima, they'd arrived after the switch to Orbo. They hadn't had to kill, simply incapacitate.
Robin, though…The youngest out of all of them and the one deemed most dangerous. There had been no uncertainty when she'd killed, but no relief either, and most certainly no pride. Cornello, Sastre, 'The Professor', Masuda Shirou, all of them had died by her Craft. Any one of them should have been enough for him to kill her. Should have been, but weren't.
He'd told her that it had been Juliano's letter that had caused him to help her, to interfere. In a way, he hadn't lied: the letter had persuaded him to interfere with what he'd believed to be Headquarters' attack on her. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it also wasn't entirely the truth.
Robin had wept. It was as simple as that. In killing Masuda, she had not only followed orders, but saved his life. She'd had every right to feel proud, or at the very least justified, and yet she'd wept.
Robin wasn't a Witch to him. Robin might never be a Witch to him. How could he put a bullet in her heart when half the time he felt he should be asking her for forgiveness, for absolution?
Amon closed his eyes for a second, then reopened them, resolved. He would protect the woman-child beside him. Her sins would become his own. He was damned already: he accepted it. Robin, though… Robin would stay pure: the sole saint of his own personal religion.
Who knew, maybe one day he would finally complete his penance.