Just as the leeward beaches of Oahu have their romantic sunsets, the beaches on the windward side have their lonely sunrises.
Haji headed out during the predawn twilight carrying his beloved instrument with him, and scanned the area for a suitable place to sit.
An abandoned folding lawn chair would do.
He uncased his instrument and began tuning, something that in his youth had required the assistance of a piano or pitch fork, but he had long since developed the impressive skill of doing it by ear.
He didn't bother with any warm up exercises, he simply proceeded to play and with even more passion than usual. He was venting through his instrument, trying to banish this frustration that bordered on bitterness…
It would be an understatement to say that Haji had never liked that man.
His hatred wasn't due to Solomon's feelings for Saya.
No, it was the other way around.
It was Saya's feelings for Solomon. Haji was no fool, he knew there was something there. He had always known.
Unknown to Saya, Haji had actually happened to see her dance in Lycee. It hadn't been intentional though, Haji was tracking the Phantom, and finally discovered him by a window, spying on Saya. The voyeur immediately sensed his presence and ran off, and as Haji moved to follow, he glanced into the ballroom himself. There was no way he couldn't notice his beloved friend dancing. This in itself wouldn't have really bothered him, initially was actually so captivated by the sight of his love waltzing, he forgot all about the Phantom. Seeing her dance brought back fond memories.
He only felt the freezing sting of jealousy when her smiles and blushes betrayed just how much she was enjoying the company of her handsome blonde partner, and how she had just stood there staring at him when the music stopped, clearly in no hurry to leave his arms.
His playing sped up and increased in intensity as he recalled that evening, several decades before, even though it wasn't what was really bothering him.
The thing he had witnessed the other night was weighing heavily on him.
He actually hadn't seen the kiss, nor did he know that it happened.
As he and Freddie flew, he couldn't help but hear that Saya was laughing, and not just any laugh, she was in hysterics.
He glanced down and wondered what Yuki had said that was so funny, only to see that Saya was now sitting with Solomon.
In truth, seeing the kiss would have probably bothered him less, after all, she would eventually have to sleep with the man, and physical intimacy shouldn't have to happen all at once.
That laugh he had heard was so sincere.
The very notion that Solomon might make her happier than he did was eating away at whatever romantic self-confidence he had gained in the last few months.
It was a truly wounding thought.
He frowned fiercely as he played.
How could he truly make her happy? He barely knows her. How would he now that she likes to put her sword to the right of her bed when she sleeps? How would he know that if she has a particular craving for protein (especially eggs), it's an early warning that she hasn't fed enough? How would he know to always keep a handkerchief (not paper tissue, she doesn't like those) in his right pocket, because when she cries, she expects it to be there? How would he know that she likes to drink a glass of warm water while getting a transfusion? How would he know that when she is upset and says that she want's to be alone, she actually means it?
He could never even take care of her, much less make her truly happy.
A string snapped, startling him briefly.
He sat motionless for a moment.
His mind was instantly brought back to an afternoon at the zoo when a similar thing had happened to Saya, just as she was suffering from a fit of resentful envy at his superior musicianship.
His eyes fell shut and he glared at nothing but himself as he realized the parallels between these two incidents.
He had always suspected that his instrument had a personality of it's own, and it seemed fairly clear now that this cello did not like being in the hands of a musician suffering from an attack of bitterness and jealousy.
He came to a realization as he pulled out a spare string from the case.
It is not my place, either as her Chevalier or as her fiancée, to decide what will make her happy.
He came to a resolution as he began the process of replacing the broken one.
It is not enough for me to simply accept her decisions, I must also honor her feelings, regardless of my own. To accept her decisions is nothing more than my obligation as her Chevalier, to honor her feelings shall be my choice as someone who loves her.
The entire group was assembled in the living room, the elder members, such as David, Lewis, Julia having been given the choice seats on the couch, Mao, Dave and Joel sitting on some chairs that had been dragged in from the dining room, Saya, Yuki, Ruka and Akahana either sitting or kneeling on the floor, and the Chevaliers, Solomon, Haji and Freddie standing in the back. Kai stood at the head of the group as he briefed them on what was to come.
Freddie gave an amused snort. "A surprise attack from the air on a US facility in Hawaii – now where have I heard that before?" he said with a snide grin.
"Shut up!" Mao shouted irritably.
"Yes, that really isn't funny," the elder David added sternly.
"I didn't say it was," Freddie said innocently. "Just making an observation."
"Back to business," Kai declared. "So, because of the a.d. towers and auto machine guns, this is going to be a -" Kai paused to swallow his pride, "chiropteran only excursion. I will be acting as head of ground support, but we still need someone to lead the away team. Since only one of you has actually been to the island before, I suggest Solomon."
"Me?" Solomon blurted in surprise.
"Is that a problem for you?"
"Well, no." Solomon paused. "It's just that, at one time, if someone had told me I would someday be leading a Red Shield strike team, I would have thought them to have a very strange sense of humor."
"Don't remind us," muttered David.
"Alright, that's settled." Kai declared. "So, do you think you can infiltrate the facility again?"
Solomon thought for a moment. "Yes. I did get caught last time, but it was due to a careless mistake that I will not make again."
"See that you don't," Dave muttered in the same humorless tone as his father.
"So," Kai continued, "at the moment, the plan is for you to take off ahead of everybody else and sneak in like you did before. Once inside, use the GPS tracker to beep us. Once we receive the signal, the rest of the away team will take off, and then you'll open the front door from the inside. Can you do it?"
"I will not fail you," Solomon said as he glanced toward Saya.
"Kay. So, once the rest of the team arrives, all you have to do is head down a few hallways until you get to the control room and then blow those assholes all to hell."
"Why do I get the feeling that it won't be that easy?" said Joel.
"It wont," Kai retorted, "there'll probably be at least several dozen corpse corps units between the door and the control room, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem – everyone on the away team is a corpse corps killing expert, except for Freddie and Yuki, and with all the training they've been doing, I'm sure they'll do fine."
Yuki smiled at this declaration of good faith.
"Still," Kai continued, his voice becoming gravely serious, "this will be an extremely dangerous mission, but the real danger wont come from the corpse corps, it will come from each other."
Saya furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"
"Julia, you want to take that one?"
Julia stood and began to speak. "Saya, some years ago, we did some tests in which we mixed samples your blood with that of Ruka and Akahana. Each time it resulted in crystallization, it seems that the twins inherited this trait from their mother. In addition to their blood being deadly to each other, their blood is also deadly to you, as yours is to them."
Ruka's face wrinkled in disapproval of the warning. "It's not like were going to be stabbing each other with our blood though."
"Yes, but you must keep in mind that the corpse corps use bladed weapons too. For example, lets just say a corpse corps unit wounded Akahana and then wounded Haji while her blood was still on the blade – it would almost certainly be deadly to Haji. I know that is not a cheerful thought, it's just a worst case scenario, but it is something you will have to be very mindful of."
The room was deathly silent when Saya spoke. "So my blood is poisonous to the twins and Solomon, and their blood is poisonous to Haji and I?"
"Yes."
"What about me?" asked Yuki.
"Well, we have done some tests with your blood, and so far, it appears to be inert. However, you and Freddie will be using arrows tipped with Saya's blood, so you will have to be very careful not to accidentally hit Solomon or either of the twins."
Yuki nodded and Freddie spoke. "Don't worry about that. Even when we don't hit the bull's eye, rarely miss a target completely, let alone hit something we didn't mean to."
"Let us hope so," muttered Dave.
Freddie glared at him. "Oh gee thanks for the vote of confidence."
Kai moved to change the subject. "So," he said with an attention-grabbing clap. "The island hop to Maui leaves at 7:00 am, so I want everyone up and ready to go by 4:00 sharp!"
Everyone in the group expressed at least some degree of displeasure at this thought, except of course, for the Chevaliers.
A full day had passed, and the entire group was assembled on a bit of barren rocky coastline at Makena, just south of Kihei, directly across the channel from Kaho'olawe.
A strong breeze was blowing from the sea, causing a few clouds to roll in across the night sky.
Lewis and Joel were inside the van, fiddling with equipment, Dave, David and Kai hovered over a laptop and Mao, having no practical reason to be there, sat on a folding chair reading, the twins talked quietly amongst themselves, Freddie waxed his bowstrings, and Yuki preened the fletching of some of her arrows.
Saya took it into her head to do some warm up exercises, and began sparring with the air, her sword slashing violently through the night sky, cycling through all the moves she could think of as her two Chevaliers watched quietly. She raised the weapon above her, as if about to behead someone, when the windy weather combined with her erratic movements caused the bun in her hair to come undone. It seemed that all the hairpins in the world couldn't cold the cantaloupe-sized chignon together under such conditions.
The wind immediately proceeded to blow the majority of her knee-length hair into her face.
"Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!"
She dropped her sword and cleared the locks away from her eyes and mouth before groaning loudly.
"Haji, cut my hair!" she ordered in frustration.
"Saya, are you sure?"
"My hair keeps getting in my face, please cut it," she requested impatiently.
By then, most of the party had focused their attention on her.
"What's the big deal?" Ruka said casually, "she could grow it back in like, five seconds, if she wanted to."
Haji stood behind Saya, and pulled out one of his many mysteriously concealed daggers.
"Wait!" Mao interceded. "I think I have some sewing scissors in my purse!"
"Shhh!" Freddie whispered forcefully. "It's much more dramatic with the dagger!"
"How short?" Haji asked softly as he polished the blade on the breast of his suit.
"Short–short, like what you did in Russia."
He nodded as he gently grabbed a lock of hair and began to saw through it.
Both Saya and Haji maintained an absolutely serious expression as the massive clumps of hair fell to the ground. He completed his mission in under a minute.
Saya patted her own head, examining her new fashion. The crude cutting tool had produced nearly the same, choppy style as she had worn early in the early part of the last two centuries.
Freddie walked over to critique Haji's work. "Damn! Not bad! Next time I need a haircut, I'm calling you, Sensei!"
Saya continued to pat her head. "It's funny, I can still almost feel it there."
Freddie put his fist to his chin. "I guess you would call that 'Phantom Hair Syndrome!" he said. As most of the group briefly laughed at his assertion, Solomon discretely slipped one of the discarded locks into his pocket.
"Oh hey! I almost forgot!" Aka exclaimed to her sister.
"Yeah," Ruka said, apparently knowing what her twin was referring to. "Saya, Yuki, we have a present for you."
Aka pulled out a pair of white cardboard boxes, and handed one to Saya and one to Yuki.
"Open it!" the twins demanded in unison.
Saya removed the lid of her box, and pulled out the garment, folded inside.
She smiled. "Oh! It's perfect!" she declared as she unfurled a dark, plum-mauve full-length vinyl trench coat, identical in design to the ones Aka and Ruka were wearing.
Yuki concurrently pulled out a white colored version.
"Kai said you liked pink," Aka said to Saya.
"We weren't sure what color you liked, Yuki, so we got you a white one, to match your name," Ruka said to Yuki.
"OH MY GOD!" Mao gushed. "You all match! That is so adorable!" She paused briefly. "KAI!"
"What?"
"Take a picture of the girls."
He did as his wife had ordered, and whipped out the camera.
The girls stood together, shoulder to shoulder in a row, Aka and Ruka in the center, Saya on the left, and Yuki on the right.
"Smile!" he shouted as the flash nearly blinded them.
"Okay! Okay, lets get the whole away team in there! Haji! Solomon! Freddie! Get your butts over here!"
The three Chevaliers quickly realized what was being asked of them, and placed themselves in view of the camera, Freddie beside Yuki, and Haji beside Saya.
Solomon seemed to be the only one that didn't immediately know where he belonged. After a moment of thought, he stood beside Haji, realizing that this was the closest he was going to get to Saya.
"Smile!"
Saya glanced at her stoic fiancée, and elbowed him playfully, raising her eyebrows, silently reiterating Kai's request for a smile. He mustered a subtle grin.
"Alright! Cool! Now do a pose with your weapons!" Mao ordered enthusiastically as they once again recovered from the flash.
After a moment of hesitation, the members of the away team moved to do as they were told. Aka and Ruka held swords so the blades were pointing back over their shoulders, crossing to form an x, as they stood back to back, making themselves appear to simply be a reflection of the other, as they had done in many previous photographs. Freddie and Yuki pulled out their bows, Freddie holding his weapon above his head, as if he were raising it to the sky in victory, while Yuki knocked an arrow and rested her bow on her foot, as an archer does when not shooting. Saya pulled her sword from its scabbard and held it firmly in front of her, as if preparing to battle an enemy. Haji pulled out a dagger and held it menacingly across his chest.
The Chevalier on the far left wasn't sure how to proceed.
"Don't hold out on us Solomon!"
He gave a slight sigh of resignation as his right hand became a blade and he pointed it at the ground.
"Alright! Now show me your war faces!" Kai said from behind the camera.
The motionless Chiropterans did as they were asked, some looking more intimidating than others.
"Awesome! That one's going the family album!"
The subjects of the photograph broke rank and went back to doing whatever they had been doing.
Solomon glanced at his watch and turned to Kai.
"I should probably get going."
"Yeah, just about that time."
Solomon casually walked behind one of the dark-colored vans, immerging in full Chiropteran form a few seconds later, his clothes neatly folded on the ground.
Saya caught sight of the grotesquely muscular tawny-gray monster and jumped. Her hand instinctively shot out to the side, in a silent signal that she required her sword only to relax a second later, as she looked at the ground.
In his whole long life, Solomon had never been ashamed of his true form until that moment.
"See you in a few, Ojisan!" the twins shouted as he prepared to take off.
Saya forced herself to look at him. "Be careful," she said quietly.
"I will," he said, the melodic tones of his voice just barely audible through the distorted growl.
He appeared to vanish in a blue streak, only to reappear in the sky above, flying over the sea towards the small island in the distance.
"I brought something for you girls, while we wait," Kai announced as he tossed a bundle to Saya. Yuki and the twins came over to investigate. Saya removed the bandana that served as the outer wrapping, to reveal a large plastic bag, with a message crudely written on it.
Saya's eyes watered as she read it.
"Do your best."
Ruka snatched the bundle away while Saya smiled tearfully at Kai.
"Spam onigiri!"
"Thanks Kai!"
"Can't you please call me dad? Just once?"
"Whatever Kai," the twins said in unison.
All four girls reached in the bag to grab a piece.
"I always miss this stuff when we're traveling!"
"Yeah, that's one reason why Hawaii isn't such a bad place to be sent on a long mission – seems to be the only place other than Okinawa where they have Spam onigiri everywhere!" Aka explained to Saya and Yuki.
"Yeah, we nearly went nuts trying to find this stuff in Nevada!" Ruka exclaimed.
"Why were you in Nevada?" Saya asked.
"Guess what they do at 'Area 51!" Ruka groaned as she rolled her eyes.
"Not anymore though!" Aka declared proudly.
Between the four hungry Queens, the huge bag of snacks disappeared quickly.
Over the next half-hour, the mood became considerably more intense. Battle was nearing, and they could all feel it.
Saya, having temporarily removed her new coat, walked over to the rocky cliff's edge, the wind whipping through her hair as she gazed out at the sea. She sensed Haji behind her.
"Haji, do you think it will ever really be over?" She paused. "I mean, I always believed that all this would end after I killed Diva, but here we are, getting ready for another mission to save the world from being over run by chiropterans. Will it ever really be over?"
"I do not know," he answered truthfully. "I have seen enough of the past to know that the future is impossible to predict."
She lowered her head.
"There will always be battles for us," he continued, "everyone has their own battles they must face, it is a natural part of being alive."
This idea might have been depressing to most people, but the idea that she was no different from anyone else was somewhat comforting to Saya.
"Saya, as long as I live, you will never have to face any battle alone."
The clouds parted to reveal the moon, and she gazed up at the silver disc. Just as Haji moved to embrace her, a loud beeping noise came from one of the vans.
"That was quick," Joel commented as he immerged from the vehicle and nodded at Kai.
"It's time," Kai announced.
The twins smiled almost mischievously as they turned to each other.
"Zip me!" Ruka shouted with all the ferocity of a battle cry. Her sister approached her back and pulled on a pair of zippers concealed in the seams of Ruka's coat, creating two parallel, vertical slits in the back of the garment.
"Zip me!" Aka shouted in exactly the same manner as Ruka returned the favor.
What happened next made Saya's jaw drop.
In the blink of an eye, both girls produced a pair of enormous bat-like wings from the slits in their coats, Ruka's a shade of khaki green, Aka's a deep, rusty brown.
Saya watched in astonishment as the two girls slowly flapped and stretched their wings like a pair of newborn butterflies.
"Y-you have wings?!"
"Of course we do!" Ruka exclaimed.
"Yeah, what did you think a full blooded chiropteran Queen can't do everything a Chevalier can? What sense would that make?" said Aka. "Chiroptera means hand wing."
"We could teach you, if you want," Ruka offered.
"I think you'd better not," Freddie butted in. "If she could fly herself, then Haji would loose his precious opportunities to feel her up!"
Yuki and the twins giggled as Saya blushed, and Haji actually struggled to maintain his usual serious expression.
Kai walked over. "You guys ready to go?"
"Just a sec," said Ruka, as she pulled the scrunchie from her pony tale and put it around her wrist. "I like to feel the wind in my hair," she explained.
At the same time, Akahana kicked off her boots, and then tucked them into the black leather belt around her waist.
"Why'd you take off your shoes? Isn't it time to go?" Yuki asked curiously.
"Have you ever felt the wind between your toes? It's awesome!" Akahana declared as she spread her wings.
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