Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 103
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.
Kira and Lacus cautiously approached the squad of mobile suits which now surrounded their mansion. The pilots were ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Three of the pilots exited their machines and approached them. "You're Kira Yamato, aren't you?"
"Yes." Kira snarled. "And you are a dumbass."
The soldier ignored the insult and made a signal to one of his squadmates, and the squadmate nodded and went on the com, saying something Kira couldn't make out at this distance.
The soldier then looked back at Kira. "You're coming with us."
"He will not!" Lacus yelled.
The soldier aimed his gun at Lacus. "You have no say in this."
"Yes, I do!" Lacus shrieked. "Kira doesn't deserve whatever you're going to do to him!"
The soldier sighed. "I don't want to kill you, Lacus Clyne. Your survival complicates things for ZAFT and the imposter they're using."
Kira was shocked. "You know that there's an imposter Lacus?"
"Of course I do. I have excellent intel on the subject." The soldier said. "And that's exactly why I don't want to shoot your girlfriend unless she forces the issue. She makes things much more dangerous for ZAFT, which is useful for our purposes."
"So you people are OMNI Enforcers." Kira growled.
"What tipped you off? Who else is still fighting ZAFT but us? Now look, give yourself up, Kira Yamato, or I will shoot Lacus Clyne, and capture you anyway. You know there's no way out of this."
Kira ground his teeth. The battle had to have triggered some alarm, but there was no way of knowing how long it would be before Orb mobile suits would get here. Kira decided to play that tactic anyway. "You know that the longer I stall, the more likely it'll be that Orb will do something about this."
"You'd be right, Kira Yamato, if it weren't for the fact that we used an EMP before deploying. All electronics, including communications, have been fried in a mile-long radius. A good thing too, or our pretty teacher here would have raised the alarm."
Kira raised his hands. "Fine, then."
"Kira, wait!" Lacus cried.
"Lacus, there's no choice. The children are the future, remember?"
Lacus looked away. "They're going to make you kill."
"I know that. I have to deal with it." Kira wished he was a quarter as confident as he sounded. His brave mask was precisely that, a mask, trying to cover up all of his fear and trepidation over what was going to happen to him.
Kira stepped forward, and the soldier immediately restrained him with the handcuffs, just like the ZAFT commando had.
"Good." The soldier said. "I don't like killing kids."
He quickly pushed Kira along, and the amethyst-eyed man couldn't bear to look back at Lacus. After all of her efforts, after killing so many people to save him, it had all been for nothing. All he could hope for now was for Lacus to stay strong.
The soldier got on the radio. "Our operation is a success. Tell that to the commander."
'They know I'm not okay and they're still going to use me for something. What the hell is wrong with these guys?' Kira thought. 'Why do they want to use me? Are they gong to use me as a weapon?'
In the end, the Ultimate Coordinator, to the Earth Alliance, was not a person. Just a weapon to be aimed. Kira only hoped that there would be enough of himself left so that he wouldn't be a monster. He didn't want to become what he had seen in his nightmares. He wouldn't be able to bear it.
"I'm only trying to help my country. Our country." Unato Sieran nervously spoke, even as Cagalli Yula Athha stood a few feet in front of him, wielding a pistol in her right hand and a taser in her left. "We sold the Destroy Gundam to the Earth Alliance for precisely that reason. Nobody in Orb wants to fight this war. But the Earth Alliance we're dealing with is much more ruthless, and more under the thumb of Blue Cosmos, than the Earth Alliance of the previous two wars. That was a huge miscalculation on all of our parts."
"Who did you speak to?" Cagalli asked.
"It was a man named Lord Djibril. He's a higher-up, if not the higher-up of Blue Cosmos. I don't know why he's so interested in a Coordinator, but...he wanted your brother, even though your brother isn't exactly combat-capable right now."
"Don't play dumb with me. You know as well as I do that the asshole named; Djibril, will just break Kira until he's nothing but a mindless puppet flying that monster we built."
Unato swallowed again. "Yes."
"And you handed Kira to him anyway?" Cagalli growled.
Unato's mouth quivered. "Yes."
"You handed my brother over to a man who will be manipulating Kira's abilities, and taking advantage of his mental state, to make him a genocidal monster."
Now Unato's palms were starting to shake. "Yes."
There was silence for a second. Even Yuna, who was shaking violently, like a boiling egg about to split open, didn't dare to speak.
Unato began talking again. "I did not want to become known as the man who took Orb into an all-out war. Our conscripts would be greatly demoralized before they'd ever see a battlefield, and no amount of motivation will make them remotely willing to fight. The anti-war culture of our society is so ingrained in everyone that if I did introduce conscription there would be mass riots, assassination attempts, and possibly even governmental paralysis. Most everyone will never consider fighting unless it was in the explicit defense of our country." Unato sighed, and he looked towards the ground. "I just want to keep the government running the way it should. I thought that your brother was a small price to pay. But that's not just it."
"What?" Cagalli asked.
"The Destroy is a weapon conceptualized to be something so terrible that it will end war, once and for all. If Kira, this 'Ultimate Coordinator', were to fly it...the war could be over in a matter of weeks. ZAFT would be defeated, and then there would be no more rivalry, and no more war. Giving up your brother may have shortened this war by months, even years. Certainly, ZAFT will be taking heavy casualities, but Orb will be safe, and so will the Earth. I think, again, your brother is a small price to pay by this logic."
For the first time, Cagalli's right hand, holding the silenced pistol, trembled slightly. And then Cagalli spoke.
"Realpolitik, huh?" She finally said.
"Yes. Now you see." Unato said.
"I can compromise my ideals. But I will never descend into realpolitik. Realpolitik is merely the desire to stay in power and nothing more. All calculation, no emotion, no personal feelings, no remorse."
She took a deep breath. "There is no honor, no love, no nothing inside you."
Unato's eyes widened softly. "Cagalli, wait-"
There as a loud pop. Blood erupted from Unato Sieran's forehead for a brief instant, and his body slumped forward on his stomach, dead before he hit the floor. No one moved. It was like everyone, and everything, had frozen in time except for Unato Sieran's collapsing body.
It was only when Unato's body laid completely motionless that Yuna finally sprung back to life, and he was close to blubbering now. "L-L-Look, please don't kill me! I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you say! Just don't kill me!"
"I told you not to beg for your life." Cagalli replied, her voice devoid of emotion.
Yuna's eyes widened to the point where they nearly fell from their sockets. "Oh shit!"
Another loud pop, and Yuna collapsed to the ground, falling backwards. Blood sprayed into the air, much of it landing on Cagalli and her clothes. Finally, Cagalli put the Taser down, and calmly switched on the safety of her pistol. She bent down and put the pistol in Yuna's right hand, making sure to get his fingerprints all over the gun, including the trigger.
Cagalli took a quivering, deep breath, and exhaled. "T-Take my radio, and call Hope. Tell her that the presidental office needs to be cleaned. Y-You will find that...that the communications are no longer jammed. I...I just switched it...off. Do it...do it now, A-Athrun."
Athrun walked over. "Cagalli, it's okay."
"N-No, it's not. It'll never be okay. It'll never be okay." Cagalli said as she fell to her knees and began sobbing violently into her hands. Athrun bent down and put his hands on her shoulders, and she wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in her chest as she wailed."Kira!" She cried. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!"
'I didn't make it in time. Now Cagalli has to live with this.' Athrun thought. He wished that he could have stopped this. There could have been a better way. There should have been a better way.
"Athrun!" Cagalli sobbed, and she looked into his eyes, tears pouring from her own. "Don't let me fall. Don't let me become like them. I'm all Orb has left. Don't let me fall."
"I won't." Athrun said softly.
Cagalli just began crying again, and Athrun let her rest on her shoulder. The call could wait for a few more minutes.
The office had been cleaned immediately. Eight days after Cagalli had killed both Unato and Yuna, they had been given their state funerals and buried in the ground. Cagalli had seemed to have turned off all of her emotions. It was like she couldn't bear to feel anything, lest she feel more pain.
Seeing Cagalli like this was honestly depressing. Athrun knew there was have been a better way to stop Unato and Yuna Sieran. But now they were both dead, and Cagalli had to live the rest of her life knowing she was their killer.
"You really think I'm going to fly this piece of shit!" Kira Yamato yelled, even as he gestured at the massive Destroy Gundam which stood before him in the hanger of the OMNI Enforcer Archangel-class warship Hades. The amethyst-eyed man was clearly pissed off.
"You will, unless you want your children to die." The captain answered. "I can give them both instant heart failure with a press of a button...unless you do as I say."
"You wouldn't do it." Kira said.
"Try me. You're deploying right now! You're needed at the Suez Canal. Your mission is to obliterate the ZAFT convoy trying to break through there. Complete your mission...and your children will survive until the next mission. Rinse and repeat until you are no longer needed. Now give me your answer."
They just wanted him to kill because he was the Ultimate Coordinator. They wanted him to kill until there was nothing left of his kind. That was the price he was going to have to pay in order to protect his children. Two lives compared to thousands of people he did not know. Potentially millions...potentially even the entire ZAFT population.
Kira's hands trembled at the controls. The Operation System was actually operable for him right now, he could actually use it. And now he was the pilot of a monster. He was going to become a monster. The monster in his nightmares.
The Gundam he had always flown never appeared so imposing, so demonic, so evil, like this behemoth. Tears streamed down Kira's face. It seemed he had two choices, but the truth was he didn't have any choice at all. He made the only decision he could make.
On the warship Katsuragi, one of the bridge lieutenants, who was normally on break at this time, charged onto the bridge. "Captain Katsuragi! Captian Zala! The ZAFT supply convoy is under attack!"
"What? By who?" Misato asked.
"I have video here. Let me bring it up." The lieutenant replied, and a moment later, the main screen came to life and everyone on the bridge saw a monster.
"What in God's name is that thing?" Misato asked, speaking the question on everyone's mind.
"I don't know!" The lieutenant shouted. "It's a massacre! Look at it!"
Neon green beams shot up at every conceivable angle, and Athrun could see little pyres erupt from the ocean.
"How can that thing even fly?" Misato asked.
"I just want to know what that thing is. Is it a new Gundam? Or what?"
Meyrin had her own thoughts, and she quickly turned and began to run off the bridge.
Athrun grabbed her arm. "Ensign Hawke! You're not going out there!"
"That thing is going to kill everyone out there!" Meyrin yelled.
"And it will kill you too, if you try to fight it!" Athrun instantly replied.
Misato spoke the honest truth again. "Fight it? More like being in front of a firing squad blindfolded. I say we stay out of this. I assume that's an OMNI Enforcer machine."
"You assume?" Athrun asked.
"Who else could be annihilating ZAFT? Orb isn't operating in this theater right now."
"You're right." Athrun said. He let go of Meyrin's arm, and Meyrin made a growling noise.
"You don't understand." Meyrin replied. "That thing isn't a war machine. It's flying genocide."
"As long as we don't get in its way; I don't really care!" Misato said, her voice raised.
"That's a heartless thing to say!" Meyrin cried.
"And that's our only option!" Misato roared. "You really want us to intervene? With all of those guns, we could easily become targeted along with the ZAFT forces!"
The lieutenant interrupted everyone again. "My sensors indicate a significant number of the ZAFT vessels are scattering in random directions. Most of them are coming right towards us. Some are sending us digital images of a white flag."
"Then take them into custody, and tell the crew to treat the ZAFT soldiers and pilots humanely." Misato said firmly. "Those who don't surrender, we shoot at until they do."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Athrun watched as the video continued to play. Even though it was broad daylight, the monstrous machine was so vast that it took up the entire background of the video, almost as if the scene was playing out at night.
One of the senior officers came on the communicatons line, and Hope looked up at the screen. "It's been confirmed. Athens has been...wiped out. The Destroy Gundam is now advancing across the Aegean Sea, attacking any military unit crossing its path. It does not matter whether it is from the Earth Alliance, Celestial Being or ZAFT. It just kills everything that gets in its way."
"I see." Hope sighed. "Tell all of our forces to hunker down and remain out of sight if at all possible. Let the Earth Alliance stop their own mistake. Maybe we'll even be able use this as a distraction to sneak our remaining forces out of the Aegean Sea and towards South America. The Alliance navy will likely be devastated even if they do shoot the Destroy down."
Suddenly, the Destroy was hit. Multiple beam shots struck the hand, and it exploded. The Destroy staggered, lurched to its left, and fired wildly in every direction. By the sound of the engines, it sounded like mobile suits.
"Good shot, Karen! Everyone, keep Formation Echo. Stay loose and keep shooting!" Athrun Zala yelled.
Karen Walsh and Athrun Zala had managed to remove the Destroy's right hand in two shots, and now every mobile suit in Athrun's squadron had opened fire upon the Destroy. The Destroy staggered and turned towards the Orb squadron, and Athrun's eyes widened.
"Evasive manuevers!" Athrun shouted. He moved away, and his squadron attempted to scatter. But there was too much firepower. Athrun had been able to move out of the way, but half of his Murasame group had gotten hit, and five of the six were kill shots. The sixth merely lost all of its right leg and a small portion of the torso.
'Even the Murasame isn't fast enough to get out of the way.' Athrun thought, before once more speaking to his wingmate. "Karen, you still with me?"
"Yes, sir."
"Clear out of the area. Create a perimeter around here. No one passes. Leave this to myself and Lacus." Athrun said.
"Understood, sir." Karen answered as the Murasames blasted away, leaving just the Infinite Justice and the Chimera against the hulking Destroy.
'All right, we did some damage. That'll hopefully wake Kira up. He has to know he's not invincible anymore.' Athrun thought to himself, before once again speaking through the communications channel. "Lacus, get on the line, talk to Kira. We don't have a lot of time. Karen won't be able to keep people away for long."
"Yes." Lacus said. She immediately got on the open channel. "Kira? Can you hear me? Kira, this is Lacus. Please answer me." For a long moment, only silence came back.
"Kira, I know you can hear me. It's Lacus. Athrun's here too. We're here to help you Kira."
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a soft voice answered. "No one can help me."
'That's Kira.' Athrun thought. Up to that point, Athrun had allowed himself to have one tiny hope that it wasn't Kira inside the cockpit, that it was merely an illusion, that it had not happened...and it was gone.
"Don't say that, Kira. This isn't like you. You're not like this." Lacus replied.
"I said no one can help me!" Kira roared.
The Destroy fired at the Infinite Justice with its mouth cannon, not at the Chimera. Athrun saw the shots coming and barely managed to get out of the way.
'Okay, he's willing to shoot at me, but not Lacus. Am I supposed to think that's a good thing?' Athrun thought for a moment. 'Well, he could have shot at Lacus instead. That would've been much worse.'
"Kira, please don't do that." Lacus begged.
"Shut up, Lacus." Kira snarled.
"Kira, please stop!" Lacus sobbed. "I'm trying to help you! You don't have to do this!"
"All you do is lie to me!"
"I've never lied to you, Kira!"
"All you've ever told me are lies!"
"I know you can get better, Kira! I know it! Kira, please-"
"Stay away from me."
"Kira-" Lacus started.
"Stay away!" Kira screamed as he fired at Lacus.
Athrun did the only thing he could do to save Lacus. Since he had been carrying the METEOR, he ejected it and sent it straight in front of the Chimera, where the METEOR absorbed all of the shots before exploding. The Chimera backed away, and Athrun could tell Lacus was stunned just by the jerky way her mobile suit was moving.
"He shot at me." Lacus whimpered in disbelief.
"I know, Lacus." Athrun said.
"He shot at me."
"Lacus, calm-"
"He shot at me. He-he shot at me."
'Damn it.' Athrun thought. 'I lost my best offensive weapon, got five pilots killed, and now Lacus is shutting down.'
Athrun turned towards the Destroy and sighed. "I guess that I don't have much of a choice, do I?" He never thought that he would ever have to fight Kira again. He thought it had been over with thousands of years ago. The last thing he wanted was to kill his best friend.
After fighting so hard with him for the past few millenia. After everything they had gone through. This was the end result?
Kira came on the line. "Athrun. I know you're listening. Go away. Stop trying to save me. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it."
Athrun took a breath. "Kira, you don't understand."
"I do understand. All you people ever do is tell me lies to make me feel better. But I've finally seen through all of the lies. Everyone just lies. No one is real anymore. It's all fake. False. Nothing exists because no one is real, just lies. I'm going to break it, Athrun. I'm going to obliterate this false existence.
'Did they drug Kira up?' Athrun thought. He shook off the thought. 'No, something must have happened. Something drove him over the edge.'
Lacus spoke again, clearly struggling to form words. Her sobs were garbling her voice. "Kira...please, I've always loved you...just let me help. Kira, I'll help you."
"Stop lying to me!" Kira shouted, and his weapons powered up. Athrun got ready to shoot, this time for real. He turned on the HiMAT targeting system, and locked on to as many weapons as he could, but he still couldn't lock onto them all.
'Even the best targeting system on the planet can't fully stop this machine.' Athrun thought in amazement.
But Kira did not fire, instead, his weapons powered back down.
"Everything is fake. It's not real. I'm not really killing anybody, am I? This is just some sick simulation. I'm running a test. They're testing me. I'm going to wake up someday and it'll be in an entirely different world." Kira ranted. "Nobody's real, so it doesn't matter if I kill everyone. Maybe if I kill everyone I'll finally wake up."
"I'm real!" Lacus wailed. "Kira, do you think every night we spent together isn't real? You can't seriously believe that!"
"Then prove it to me! Kill me!" Kira shrieked.
"I won't kill you, Kira!" Lacus drew a shaky breath. "If I kill you, it means I've failed you. I can't...I can't accept that."
Kira just laughed. "That's what I expected! You want me to believe your love crap! You're just a masochist or something, aren't you? You just like to get hurt!"
"Kira, no-" Lacus sobbed.
"Just admit it!" Kira laughed. "I've hurt you way too much for you to stay! But you stay anyway! You have to be a masochist!"
Athrun decided it was time to interject. "Or maybe she really loves you, Kira. And she stays by you because she loves you."
"Everyone tells me they love me. Everyone tells me they'll be there for me. Nobody's ever there. Nobody wants me. They just lie and pretend to love me when they just want to use me. Including the both of you! Lacus, you don't want me to get better, you just want me to keep hurting you! And I know you want me to fly the Divinity again, Athrun! You would have me fight forever!"
'Does he even believe what he's saying? Or is he just begging us to kill him in some subtle way?' Athrun thought, although he couldn't tell either way.
Kira laughed again. "Well, how about this, Lacus? I get to hurt you one more time!"
'Damn it!' Athrun thought as he raised his beam rifle. Even without visual, Athrun could visualize the stunned, tearful expression on Lacus' face. "Kira, wait-"
Kira fired. Athrun fired an instant later.
Two of Kira's shots blasted off the Chimera's legs, while a third slammed into the its side, sending it spiraling away. Lacus screamed in terror as she lost control and toppled towards a nearby island. She crashed into a group of trees, and other than some smoke there was no sign of her.
Athrun's shots uselessly slammed into the Destroy's positron reflector shields. Kira had activated them just in time to allow only one of the backpack cannons to be blasted out of existence. Everything else, frustratingly, stayed intact.
"Lacus? Lacus, can you hear me? Lacus!" Athrun shouted.
Kira made some odd noises, like he was laughing and crying at the same time. "How'd that feel, Lacus? That felt good, didn't it? Come on, answer me!"
Lacus wasn't answering. Images shot through Athrun's head, of her body being twisted or impaled or burned or far worse. Athrun violently shook his head and blocked them out. He had to believe she was okay. She had to be. That hadn't been a kill shot.
That meant that even if she needed medical attention, if Athrun finished Kira off fast enough, he'd be able to help her in time. Athrun was stunned at that realization. He was really going to have to do it. He was going to kill Kira. In order to protect Lacus, and everyone else, he was going to have to kill his best friend. He had never wanted to believe it could come to this. Murdering his best friend.
Did he want to believe that Kira was too far gone to save? He could not plead to Kira the way Lacus could. What could have happened to do this to Kira? He's not making sense even by insanity standards.
"Kira, last chance." Athrun warned. "You can still stop."
"There's no stopping me now, Athrun. I shot Lacus down. Even if she did love me she has to hate me now. There's no one for me."
"Are you sure about the choice you are making?" Athrun sighed.
"I want the loneliness. I want the pain. I want the suffering." Kira laughed. "I want to die in the most painful way possible, Athrun. Give it to me."
"You accuse Lacus of being a masochist, but it seems that you are the real masochist, Kira." Athrun said.
Kira fired at Athrun wildly, and it was all Athrun could do to dodge it all. "About time you figured it out! I just wanted Lacus to feel what I feel! I want her to be in pain just like me! I want her to hate me!"
"Why?" Athrun asked. "Why do you want this?"
Kira just laughed through obvious tears. "I'm a war criminal, Athrun. No matter what I do or where I go, I'll be put in front of a tribunal and then in front of a firing squad. I'm dead no matter what I do. So, I'm going to give this world a service. I want everyone to know exactly how I feel. There's no going back for me, and I certianly don't deserve the love of anyone else. There's no way Lacus will love me now, and I want it that way! Unless, of course, she really has become a masochist."
Athrun readied the HiMAT system. He was going to fire everything he had, and while the Destroy was staggering he would kill Kira by skewering him in the cockpit with the twin beam sabers. It would be an instant death. Cagalli would never forgive him for doing this, but Athrun knew there was no reasoning left in Kira.
"I'm sorry." Athrun saw the seed. "You've given me no choice."
But before the seed could shatter, Athrun heard a familiar voice that surprised him so much he lost sight of the seed.
"Stop your whining already, Kira!" A familiar voice called.
Athrun's radar beeped, and he was surprised to see a new contact charge towards him and then by him, before finally settling into a position in front of him.
It was a golden mobile suit; the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam. The Akatsuki's pilot spoke again. "You want someone to feel your pain, Kira? Try me. Tell me how much you feel."
'It can't be.' Athrun thought. 'How could she even get here so fast?'
But the voice was unmistakable. No one could impersonate the pilot's husky yet youthful voice. The Akatsuki's pilot was none other than Cagalli Yula Athha.