SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
ACT IV, PART III

 
 
Scene IX: Gifts of the Dragon

 
He didn't venture outside the next day, nor the next. The sun rose and set and the moon cast its glimmering silver light upon the bamboo window slats and the rush mat floor and the days came and went, and still he sat on the floor of the study, or wandered restlessly from room to room, or dipped his brush into the ink pots that sat on the corner of his desk, grasping at the words that would not come.

He had thought the war was over when in actuality it had just begun.

He should have seen this coming, of course. Yuy had hinted that something like this might happen, a long time ago when he had first gotten to know him. He had thought the boy was insane. He now knew that not only was Heero insane, but he was, most of the time, right.

This was one of the times when he wished that was not the case.

The tattered newspaper was still sitting on the corner of his bed, and he reached over, brushed one finger over the carefully lettered characters. It was not a lie. The truth was breaking...the truth was here, and it would sweep him away.

When he came to China after the war ended...he came because it was new. It was a new start, away from it all, away from what he had been. Here he could start again as who he wanted to be, with a new identity, a new life. He had broken all ties with his past.

And yet it still haunted him.

It was an incessant nagging at the back of his mind now, since he had broken free of the crowd at Tiananmen and run, run like he had never run in his life back to the outskirts of the city, where he had caught a stray bus straight back to the village, then run panting the distance to his secluded dwelling in the midst of the trees and the babbling brook. The voice had always been there, but now it was stronger than ever.

Wufei, what have you done?

Wufei, what have you done?

Chang Wufei, what have you done?

Shut up! He would scream at it, pressing his hands to his ears and shaking his head so hard until the blood rushed into his skull and the bone pounded, as if that would silence the past. The people he had killed. The ones he had left behind. The ones he could not save. The nobility he had destroyed in the name of justice. They cried out to him.

He had left...he had left the Peacemillion. For solitude. For penance.

The sun was sinking behind the trees and he stood at the window, fingers fumbling at the bamboo shade, touching the shadow of red light there on the screen as if by doing so, by grasping that intangible echo of blood in his hands, he could resolve himself of guilt.

That's not the way, Wufei. What have you done?

I'm sorry, he whispered silently to the ghosts, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...Meilan. I didn't mean to. Nataku, forgive me!

There was no answer, and he suddenly felt so terribly alone, the void in his heart widening and sucking what was left of his human existence into its black maw.

There were gaps in his memory, entire spaces in which he couldn't remember where he had been or what he had done. He had managed to patch together events from the scenes before and after, but there were still those spaces of blackness in which he knew he had existed only because of the fact that he was still alive now.

It frightened him.

His journey...his journey back from the Peacemillion.

After he left in the shuttle, he had piloted it to a private spaceport, bought a ticket on a passenger liner back to Earth.

That was one of the blank spots, the spots that he couldn't remember. He remembered being confronted by Yuy in the hangar, remembered tensing as the pilot of Wing Zero calmly inquired as to where he was headed. Remembered answering, remembered walking past him, and then...nothing.

The spaceport...there had been a spaceport. He remembered that much. He had been...wet?

He remembered being wet.

There were crying babies on board, old men, loud-mouthed women. No other boys his age. He didn't expect any. They had all been killed in the war.

He didn't remember riding in the liner, but he had remembered voices speaking out of the blankness, so he had assumed that had been the case. So many forgotten memories...

He felt suddenly restless, kicked off his shoes and pulled open the back door of the house, following the sound of running water through the trees until he reached the small brook. Standing on its banks, he followed its tiny twists and turns until it ran into the bushes and out of sight. Out of his sight, though it kept flowing. Flowing, until it joined other brooks, rain run-off, combined into a stream, then a river, a mighty river sweeping through fields where farmers still plowed and hands stood knee-deep in rice patties, rushing down to where the ocean crashed and broke against the rocks.

The ocean.

There was something...something important, about the ocean.

He had put his sword away when he had come here. The stream outside flowed into a river which flowed into the ocean several thousand miles away and when had stepped off the shuttle he had seen the gleaming white ocean shimmering and knew what he had to do.

The sword...that was right. But there was something disjointed about the memory of the beautiful weapon plunging into the glittering depths, out of his sight. Again, always out of sight. There was something more that he could not seem to grasp.

What?

He knelt, dipped one hand into the shallow water, brought it to his lips to taste. It was clear and clean and crisp, just like brook water should be.

Why had he been wet, standing in the spaceport?

He closed his eyes, focused, like he had been taught to long ago by the instructors he'd had in his youth. To focus. To turn one's concentration inwards and find the centerpoint of meditation. To become one with the nature around him.

That day in the hangar. When he had spoken to Yuy. He replayed that scene inside his head. Saw himself enter the hangar. Saw himself walk through the empty, cavernous space. Saw Wing Zero. Saw Deathscythe Hell. Saw Sandrock. Saw Yuy appear out of nowhere and speak to him. Saw him answer, shrug, brush past the other pilot. Saw Heavyarms out of the corner of his eye.

Blank.

"Damn it," he muttered, voice ragged, then blew out a breath. Again.

Sandrock. Yuy. Heavyarms.

Nothing.

Why can't I remember? Meilan...why...I...

She's dead. You killed her, when you could not save her.

"Shut up!" he hissed, for a moment wondering exactly who he was talking to. Replayed the scene again, this time analyzing every small detail that he could remember.

Sandrock. The paint was flaking off all over the Gundam...one could hardly tell it had ever been painted at all. There was a large dent in the right leg, and one of the scythes was missing.

Yuy. Saw the intensity in the blue eyes, and then the almost-flicker of some emotion left unnamed.

He knew the cobalt eyes were watching him, drawing an invisible target on his chest, speaking the silent words inside his own mind, silently, questioning. The war is over. Has the justice you so longed for come to pass?

But instead the other pilot shrugged and stepped aside, motioning him towards the shuttle that stood at the opening of the hangar. "I understand."

Shuttle.

He mentally stopped himself. There had been no shuttle...where was the shuttle? There had been no shuttle in the hangar that day. There were a few usually sitting in there, with engines left on standby, but Sally had taken a crew out to see if they could salvage anything more from the wreck of the Libra, and the shuttle spaces were empty. A memory, to fill the blank space in his mind. There were no shuttles. The picture leapt into his head, large and clear, because there was Heavyarms, and then next to the 03 Gundam, there was...

Shenlong.

He drew in a ragged breath, covering his face with his hands, seeing once again himself seated on the Gundam's shoulder, and Sally trying to reason with him without realizing what she was saying. There was truth to her statements, but at the same time she had no idea who she was speaking to. She thought she knew him. They all did.

Shenlong was there. He had taken Shenlong that day, out of the hangar. There had been no shuttle.

You fool, the voice taunted in his head. You desperate fool.

How had he made the memory of the shuttle? Inside that spot where there had been nothing...he had created it for himself, and called it a memory?

He had piloted Shenlong down to Earth. No one had seen him. There were no radar scans for him, because the war was over and radar was a thing of the horrible past which was better left forgotten, at least for a while. But he could not forget, and that was why he had taken Shenlong. He would...help himself forget, once and for all.

Forever.

Meilan.

Down through the atmosphere. He remembered the burning sensation in his throat and the tears that stung his eyes, created not entirely by the enormous speed of reentry through the atmosphere. They had told him that reentry with all power to engines could permanently damage his Gundam, but that had been the least of his worries. He urged the machine on ever faster, a race against time and something else which he could not name, but which he could feel gaining on him ever so slowly, and if it caught him, he was lost.

He broke through the clouds. It was bright, sunlight, white light sparkling on the crests of the ocean waves, and still he did not slow but simply kept falling. One of the engines had gone out, but it was all right because he did not intend to fly anywhere. This would be Shenlong's last flight.

When he plunged into the ocean, all he felt was a great sense of finality.

He pressed the button of the ejection seat, hurtled out of the cockpit at a speed that would have brought him well away from any explosion in the void of space, but with the drag of the water simply afforded him a view of his Gundam sinking, falling into the murky blue-black of the ocean, and he watched it go.

He was a coward, he knew. He should have self-destructed, if not with himself inside the Gundam, at least he should have destroyed the Gundam itself. Like Heero had done, long ago. That would have ended it all, would have insured that he could never go back. But destroying his Gundam would be like destroying what was left of his heart.

The sword he had left inside the cockpit. He wouldn't need it again.

There was no shuttle. There were no passengers. The rest of the blindfold lifted, and he remembered. He had used the ejection seat as his craft, had landed at the nearest town, which had happened to be a fishing town in Greece. Had taken a bus to Athens. A passenger liner to Beijing.

And there he had forgotten.

Wufei...what have you done?

"I'm a failure," he said into the evening air. The cool breeze drew the tears from the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks, running into the corners of his mouth, but he made no move to wipe them away because they were symbols of his guilt. Salty, like the salt of betrayal.

You're a failure.

"I'm not worthy of them."

You're not worthy of them.

Why do you fight? he had asked Sally. He couldn't remember what her answer had been. It was...too long ago.

"I betrayed you..." he whispered, and brought his hand up, holding it palm towards the setting sun, seeing the last droplets of water drip from it, just as it had when he had stood on the beaches of that small town, looking out towards the sea and the machine which he would never see again.

Because it hadn't been just a machine, after all. It was the only thing he had had to call his own. It was her soul, reincarnated, and instead of winning a victory for her, he had brought only shame upon both their names.

"Nataku." Her name was a desperate prayer on his lips. His hand closed into a fist, and he imagined the self-destruct control sitting cold in his palm, with his thumb on the red switch, and he pushed the button.

"Forgive me."

 
Go to Wufei story Human Touch

 
Scene X: In Control of the Situation

 
There were storm clouds outside the airplane windows, and Sally Po sighed, pulling the window shade shut and settling back her seat. It had been a hard few days at Cliffside, and coming back home to Geneva, to paperwork and the media and Une's temper, was not going to get any easier.

Sally had immediately placed those who had been closest to Duo in protective custody, recognizing that the students would be in danger from the former soldiers of Cliffside. No one was going to react rationally. Helena, Chris and Shinobu had taken it with good grace, concern for their friend mixing with determination for their new mission.

Before he had left with Hilde to retrieve the Gundams, Duo had begged a favor of the three teenagers. "I need you to find Heero Yuy for me," he said.

"Duo, what can they do for you that the Preventers can't?" Sally had demanded sharply, before any of the teens could get a word in edgewise.

"No offense, Sally, but I can trust them, and I can't trust the Preventers- I don't know them. For God sake's, Lady UNE is the one in charge of the operation- you honestly expect me to put something like this in her hands?" Duo asked.

"Une has changed," Sally said firmly. "She's probably more devoted to peace then anyone else on the planet."

Duo snorted, making his opinion quite clear. "Whatever," he said without conviction.

Sally decided to try a different tact. "You trust these... high school students?" she asked, raising an expressive eyebrow in the direction of the unconscious Ilene.

"That's not fair!" Helena burst out.

Duo made a gesture, smiling wearily. "I know them. They're my friends, and if you can't trust your friends, who can you trust?

"Um, Duo..." Helena said hesitantly, twisted a strand of her hair between her fingers.

He turned his bright lavender eyes on her. "Yes?"

"Exactly who IS Heero Yuy, and why are we suppose to look for him?"

Sally blinked a few times. Heero Yuy had been a part of her world-view since the fateful day she had first seen him strapped to the table in the Federation debriefing facility. Heero Yuy... she thought. How do you describe him to someone who has never met him? How do you describe a hero chosen by fate? How do you describe a boy who was the very incarnation of an ideal?

"Heero Yuy is the pilot of Wing Zero, the most dangerous of the Gundams," Duo said briefly, apparently not waxing philosophical the way she was. "He gave Wing Zero to me to hide, and I think it's time for me to return it. Problem is, I honestly don't have a clue where he is."

"That's not true," Hilde replied. "He probably went home."

Duo snorted. "He didn't have a home. None of us did."

"Yes, but he probably returned to the Colonies afterwards. You did, Quatre did, and Trowa returned to his circus- so why wouldn't Heero?"

"He's from L1. It seems like a logical place to begin a search," Sally said.

"I can handle the search on L1," Shinobu volunteered in his native language to Sally. "I have... connections. Some of my family lives there."

Sally frowned as she answered in the same language. "Just because you have family on L1 doesn't mean anything. I have resources as a Preventer, and-"

Shinobu's eyes were fathomless as he spoke in a soft, firm voice, a voice used to command. "Can your Preventers search the Breaks? If someone wants to vanish on L1, that's where they would go."

Sally's brain slowly processed the information. The Breaks were one of the few places that she had been unable to get any good information from without paying ridiculous bribe fees. "I don't have a large enough budget to pay the snitches," she said cautiously.

"You won't need it- I'll handle it. I need a few good pictures of this Heero Yuy, and if he's in the Breaks, I'll know by the end of the week."

There was something hard in the young Japanese man's eyes, and Sally felt her curiosity piqued. So... he wasn't entirely what he seemed. She resolved to do a background check on Matsuura Shinobu. She needed to know exactly what was going on - she had to retain control of the situation, and unknown factors were most certainly not welcome.

Helena and Chris volunteered to use the school's computer to run searches, and Sally had promised them full access to the Preventers' database. She would have to do it on the sly, but the ends would justify the means. It seemed, for a day or two, that everything would be all right, but then something went drastically wrong as Sally was about to leave the campus to return to Preventers' Headquarters.

Ilene Keets disappeared.

Sally hoped that nothing had happened to her, for all sorts of grisly possibilities immediately rose to mind. From what she had learned from Helena Rosenbaum, Ilene was widely viewed as Duo's most likely girlfriend (Hilde's existence wasn't known by many people, which Sally found interesting) and she was undoubtedly in danger from some people who would want to hurt Duo through his friends.

Still, a queasy feeling in her stomach said that wasn't that likely what had happened.

When the girl had regained consciousness, she had been on the verge of madness. Sally had seen the unreasonable look of fury in the chocolate brown eyes and had placed her in a dorm room, making a note to arrange psychiatric counseling. Still, the girl had apparently left her room and had simply disappeared, bypassing all the security guards that had been placed on the campus. Sally had her aide initiate a search, but the girl had broken no laws and was not priority.

Besides, she had to deal with the sudden arrival of the media.

Sally Po would never be able to describe the relief she felt when she realized that Duo Maxwell had managed to escape Cliffside Heights before the public learned who the pilots had been during the war. Te media had descended on the campus like a shark that had smelled blood. The students had been shocked, and it was only the presence of many, many soldiers that kept them from rioting again. Duo Maxwell had betrayed them- betrayed them twice. They wouldn't be forgiving him anytime soon.

Sally had finally settled matters enough to return to Une's side. She would be needed at the Preventers Headquarters, especially now that everyone knew. Besides, as Une's second-in-command, she felt almost obligated to be there. Things were certainly not going to get easier, and they both needed all the strength they could acquire.

The plane hit turbulence, and Sally bit her lip, trying to suppress the nausea she felt.

Her aide handed her a cup of carbonated water, which she sipped at gratefully. She knew she should take some kind of tablet for it, but she loathed taking medicine for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. She'd seen what could happen when people had gotten too dependent on pills to make them feel "normal."

She looked over at the comm, wondering where Brown was in his investigation. It was like shutting the barn door after the horses had escaped, but she had ordered thorough background checks of the four students Duo had been closest to.

A yawn caught her unawares. Timezones are one of the WORST things, she thought without amusement. You meet yourself coming and going. She wanted nothing more then to collapse into bed, but knew from experience that staying awake would be the best way for her body to adjust.

The green light on the screen blinked with an incoming message, and she hit the switch without bothering with an identification check. Anyone who had communication access to her here was probably important. The screen flickered to life, and the well-worn features of General Brown appeared. It was about time.

"Hello, General. Did you do that background check I asked?"

The General nodded slowly. "Of course I did," he said.

"Well?"

"Helena Rosenbaum and Chris Johnsen check out normal. Ilene Keets had a brother who was at Lake Victoria during the war." Brown paused. "He was killed that night Gundam Shenlong attacked the academy."

"I see," Sally said, knowing she should feel some sympathy for the girl, but it was taking most of her self-control to keep her eyes open, and thinking about Ilene was not one of the things she wanted to worry about right now. "And Shinobu?"

"Matsuura Shinobu..." Brown trailed off.

"Yes. Him," Sally prodded. "What about him?"

"You're not going to like it."

"I seldom do," she said with little humor. "Spill it. What is it about Matsuura Shinobu that is going to upset me so much?" It would have to be Shinobu - something about him had placed her on alert.

General Brown stared grimly at her image on the screen. "Sally, I hate to tell you this, but there IS no such person as Matsuura Shinobu."

 :

 
Scene XI: Ninmu Ryoukai

 
Beijing was a beautiful city, like it had been advertised on the covers of travel brochures and magazines. Then again, after the Breaks, anything was beautiful. But there was something about the city that he did not like. The airport smelled of sweat and dust and the roar of the crowd was what hit him first when he stepped off the shuttle, like the sound of a giant wind in his ears. There were people. People everywhere, standing, walking, running, sitting, crossing back and forth in front of his eyes. He felt dizzy. Colors flashed before his eyes, sunlight glinting off glasses and suitcases and rings, and the voices reached out to him, tearing at him, grasping at his skin.

"Wing! Wing! Are you all right?"

He was grasping the railing with cold, clammy hands, and Darkflight's concerned eyes were looking into his. "Do you need to sit down?"

Wing pushed himself away from the railing. "Let's go," he said shortly.

So many people. He couldn't remember when he had last seen this many people. It was overwhelming. The scent of human bodies tugged at him, and he fought down his nausea. A bell was hammering at the back of his brain, out of the blackness that could be called his subconsciousness. People were dangerous. People were killers. People could betray him.

Betray him to what?

He pushed his way through the crowd, almost angrily. They jumped out of the way when they saw him coming. Why shouldn't they? A boy with a vivid scar down his face, dirty, unkempt, fresh off the streets. Strangely, this revelation filled him with no emotion whatsoever. He felt empty. Blank. Dead.

Have you ever heard of a Chang Wufei?

Why did that name send shivers up his spine?

Why did it tighten every muscle in his body?

Why did it knock at the doors of his memory?

Why was he afraid?

Taking deep gulps of air, he broke through the crowds at the front of the huge airport doors, hoisting his small pack onto one shoulder. Waited for Darkflight, who emerged after a minute, panting.

"Damn it, Wing, you can slow down. No one's chasing us, you know?"

Darkflight was wrong. They - he - was being chased. By someone. Something. He had to run, had to run faster, or else he would be caught, pulled back into the inexorable tide of blackness from which he knew he could never escape.

He began to run.

"Wing! Wing! STOP!"

He kept running, not listening to his partner's cries from behind him. The pounding of his footsteps was the pounding of his heart as he tore across the glittering concrete, fleeing from that thing which he knew was just behind him. He had been safe on L1, but he was no longer safe here. They had found him.

"Wing! Damn you!"

Downtown Beijing was a blur. He dove through the densely packed crowds milling about on the walks, the traffic jams of vehicles in the streets. Horns honked and people shook their fists at him. He kept running. If he ran fast enough, he could escape. To a place where there were no more people, no more eyes, no more voices drilling into his brain, no more grasping limbs.

There. A dark alleyway, opening up between two buildings, and he dove into it, breathing hard, dropping to his hands and knees, where he felt the stinging bile gathering in his throat, and with a horrible retching sound he threw up. Threw up again. And again.

"Wing! Fuck, are you all right?"

He saw someone drop to his knees beside him, next to the pool of filthy stench in front of him, and he wiped his mouth with his hand. The hand was shaking violently.

"I-"

Darkflight pushed him against the wall. It was high noon and the alleyway was brighter than he would have preferred it to be, but he couldn't run anymore. He didn't have the strength. He didn't think he could resist Darkflight's grip if he tried, so he simply sat bonelessly, all his thoughts focusing on not curling up into a shivering ball against the concrete.

"What's wrong, Wing?"

He shook his head.

"Come on." Darkflight sat next to him, eyes watching him closely. Darkflight's eyes he didn't mind. It was...the rest of them, that frightened him. "Tell me. Something freaked you out back there. Wing?"

"I..." he said, then shivered. "Too...too many people. I...I can't-"

"Oh." The sound was a breath blown out, carried off by the wind. "Damn." He could hear a note of self-remorse in his partner's voice. "I didn't even think about that...I'm sorry, Wing. Maybe I should have come alone."

"NO!" He moved before he could think, knocking Darkflight to the ground and staring at the other fiercely. "I won't let you!"

"Calm down! You're here now, aren't you? Ouch, leggo!"

His breath came in gasps and he scooted against the cold unyielding brick and concrete, hugging his knees.

"You can't do this without me."

A frown on the dark face. One hand tentatively reached out to touch his shoulder, but he didn't mind Darkflight's touch. It was the others...the touch of people, that bothered him.

"Wing. Something's going on with you, and I want to know what. Now."

He shook his head again. "I can't-"

"Damn it!" Darkflight exploded, jerking his hand away. "I'm sick and tired of seeing you like this! I can't work with a partner who can't get himself together, physically or mentally. And if you won't tell me, I can't help you!"

"Fire me, then." He looked up, meeting the other's eyes. Defiant. He felt something bubbling up from inside him.

Darkflight's voice was startled. "What?"

"Fire me. If you don't need me anymore."

"It's not that I-" Darkflight began, and Wing sprang to his feet.

"It's not? Then what is it? I have my own secrets, like you have yours, and if I don't tell you, it's my own business! Quit digging into my mind, you bastard!"

Darkflight stared at him open mouthed, and Wing felt the energy draining out of him as quickly as it had come. He slumped against the wall, forehead against the cool surface, smashed one fist into it. He knew his knuckles were bleeding now, but he felt no pain.

"Fuck you."

"Wing," Darkflight began quietly, then fell silent. He closed his eyes, hearing his partner get up, expected him to say that it was over. Finished. Waited for the footsteps that would mean Darkflight was walking away from him and never coming back.

Instead, there were hands on his shoulders, pushing him back down to a sitting position, and Darkflight was kneeling there with a curious expression on his face when he opened his eyes.

"I'm going to go check out the streets," he said. "Stay here."

"But I-" Wing struggled up. "I want-"

"You're in no shape to come with me," Darkflight said shortly. He couldn't tell if the dark-skinned boy was still angry or not. Maybe it was a trick and Darkflight really was leaving him. "Stay here. Try to sleep. I'll be back in a few hours."

Darkflight was going to try to gather information about the victim. That was his partner. Always with the job first in his mind.

He wouldn't find anything. Not unless he knew where to look. He took several deep breaths.

"Darkflight."

The other had stood up, looking back down at him with concerned eyes. "Get some rest, Wing. You're not coming with me, and that's that."

"Gundam pilot," he said. The words froze on his lips and he had to force the muscles to move, to get them out.

"What?"

"Chang...Chang Wufei." His arms snaked around his chest and he could feel his heart pounding. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him again, but he choked it back. "Gundam pilot."

There was a moment of silence as several emotions passed over Darkflight's face. Curiosity. Confusion. Hurt. Fear. Finally it settled into a sort of calm wariness. "How do you know?" he said.

"I just do," Wing said faintly. He wasn't sure how he knew, either. "Trust me."

"All right," Darkflight said after a moment. "Well, that's easy, then. His name should be in the newspapers and what not, right?"

Wing shrugged.

Darkflight turned abruptly. "I'll be back."

"Wait!"

"What now?" He sounded faintly exasperated.

"You don't speak Chinese," Wing said, a little desperately.

Darkflight looked startled for a moment, and then he laughed. "Like you do?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Don't go anywhere."

Wing watched him go, heard his footsteps echo back into the alleyway. "Actually," he said to the far wall. "I do."

He didn't know how he had learned Chinese, or how he knew that he knew Chinese. He had never spoken it, in the Breaks. He didn't need to. But the knowledge was there in the back of his mind, that he could read the characters flashing on the neon signs above the buildings, could understand the words being spoken in the hubbub of the rushing crowd. Just like he knew that Chang Wufei was a Gundam pilot.

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He didn't know how long he slept, just that he was being shaken awake in what seemed just a second later, that the red and gold shadows meant the sun was going down, and that he had not dreamed.

"I'm back," Darkflight said.

Somehow in his sleep he had slumped onto the ground, and he pushed himself back up. Darkflight had a pleased expression on his face, and Wing gave him a curious look.

"Did you find anything?"

"Oh yes. Tons." A slight pause. "You were right, you know." As if the words were being forced out, just slightly.

"About what?"

"About Chang Wufei. Being a pilot, I mean." Again that tone of voice, a searching look. He blinked. There was something unnerving about his partner's gaze.

"Quit looking at me like that," Wing said.

Darkflight blinked. "Oh. Sorry." He was carrying a newspaper in one hand, which he dropped to the ground. "I found this."

Tentatively, he reached for the paper. "Is this bad?"

Darkflight shrugged. "I don't know. Chang Wufei is in there, so I thought you might want to have a look."

There was a headline, in bold letters. It was in Chinese. "You can't read Chinese," Wing said.

"No. But I can look at pictures, right? And there was Japanese and English picture captions. Besides, you don't read Chinese either."

GUNDAM PILOT IDENTITIES UNCOVERED, the characters said. He gripped the newspaper tightly. He was not surprised. This would have happened, sooner or later.

"Yes I do," he said softly.

Darkflight blinked. "What?"

"I speak Chinese."

There was a stunned silence.

"Oh."

Wing was already flipping through the paper, past the large picture of the Gundam on the front cover. Apparently, this was week-old news, but it was still important enough to make the front page. The pictures of the pilots were on the third page, after several commentaries on the atrocities of war, which he skimmed over and then dismissed.

Gundam 05 pilot, Chang Wufei

The caption was repeated below in English and Japanese, but he focused on the Chinese paragraph below it. Dangerous and highly unstable, the newspaper said.

He resisted the urge to snort. Chang Wufei was not highly unstable. Or if he was, he was no more unstable than the rest of them.

Where had that thought come from?

His hands were shaking again, but he skimmed up through the pictures. Quatre Raberba Winner. Trowa Barton. Duo Maxwell.

Duo Maxwell?

Heero Yuy.

The newspaper fell to the ground and he jerked away from Darkflight's helping hand angrily. There was a wall inside his conscious memory, a wall which he could not break down, a wall which held all the memories he was missing.

You did it to yourself.

I wanted to, he snarled. I wanted to forget.

"I wanted to forget," he whispered, brokenly, and he could sense Darkflight's confusion from behind him.

Forget what?

"Wing, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing," he snapped, still facing the wall. "Did you find anything else on him?"

"I've got his location." There was none of the usual pride in Darkflight's voice at accomplishing a mission, at successfully digging up the needed information to hit their next victim. "We can move out tonight, if you want. If you're up to it."

"No," he said, after a moment. "No."

"Tomorrow?"

"Sure. Tomorrow." Nothing was making sense tonight. Faces were blurring in his mind, and he felt numb all over. "Whenever."

"This took shorter than I expected," Darkflight was saying. "We could be back on L1 within the week, you know."

Wing nodded, not trusting his voice.

Have you ever heard of a Chang Wufei?

"We're going to kill him," he said.

"Huh?"

"Chang Wufei. We're going to kill him."

"Well of course we are," Darkflight said, after a moment. "That's our job. We're not getting paid to go on a joyride to China."

His hand was a white blur in the shadows, and he closed it into a fist. Opened it. Closed it. "Yes."

"Wing?"

For a moment he wavered, and then his legs wouldn't support him anymore and he fell.

"Wing!"

Arms, catching him and he was staring up at the sky between the buildings, seeing the moon coming out from behind the clouds. A face flashed before his eyes, of a girl with golden hair, reaching her hand out to him. Atsuki? It was not Atsuki.

"Rele-" he murmured, and a cool hand brushed his face, and then there was nothing.

 
Scene XII: The Return of Shinigami

 
It took half the day to remove the various debris that had been hiding the two Gundams, which gave Duo way too much time to think.

Hilde would occasionally steal frightened, confused glances at him, but made no attempt to engage him in conversation, for which he was rather grateful. The messy state his mind was in was unlikely to produce any coherent chain of thought.

His hands shifted through the mental, and now and then he thought he saw dried blood on the twisted wreckage. Blood and warped metal... how fitting.

Whose blood is it? A Federation soldier's? One of the rebels'? One of the orphans'? Father Maxwell's? Sister Helen's?

Or could it be mine?

Slowly they revealed the Gundams, which were covered in the dust of over a year. He wanted to get out a cloth and polish them, return them to their former glory, but recognized that his whimsy had no place here. The machines had to be removed, and had to be removed quickly.

But how to move them?

He had invited Hilde along to pilot one of the machines- she was a damn good pilot, no matter what she thought. Still, he had reservations. No one but a maniac would willingly get into Zero, and he'd come to view Hilde as his more rational side. There was no way she would be able to handle the insanity that was called the Zero System. He wouldn't subject her to it.

Hilde looked up at him, wiping sweat from her brow. "Duo!" she called.

He looked over the Gundam they had uncovered. "Yes, Hilde?"

She clambered over the machine and perched beside him, taking a healthy gulp of water from the canteen on her hip. "I really think we need to decide exactly what we're going to do with these things."

"We're bringing them back to Earth. I have the feeling they'll be needed again."

Hilde's face was smudged with dirt, and she took out a cloth that wasn't much cleaner then her face. She futilely began to wipe at the grime, trying to put herself back into order. "Duo... Earth? What would they fight?"

"Epyon," he said in a flat voice. "Zechs is alive, so Epyon has to be somewhere."

Hilde looked at him. "Epyon? Why would Zechs want to fight you? He's a Preventer now."

"For the moment," Duo said with a snort. "Who knows what side he'll be on in the next hour?"

"You really don't like him much, do you?" Hilde asked as she handed him the water.

Duo swallowed a mouthful before answering, wiping his lips on his sleeve. "No, I don't. Then again, I don't like Relena, either."

Hilde wanted to press him for more information, but they had more vital matters to discuss at the moment. "Duo... how did you get both of them out here?"

"I used a remote on Zero and piloted it from Deathscythe. It really wasn't that hard."

"How come you don't do the same? I mean, why do you need me?"

"I could take them both back, but the Earth has reestablished its surveillance satellites. To get by them will require the full attention of a pilot- besides, if something comes up, I can't control both of them. Not in a crisis."

"So I should take Zero then?" she said, her voice soft with fear. Duo had told her about Zero, and she had seen the nightmares he had had. She had a right to be afraid.

Duo looked over at Wing Zero, longing to tell Hilde that it would be okay for her to fly it, that he would take Deathscythe Hell. He had missed his Gundam, and part of him wanted nothing more to be in the cockpit, to once again become Shinigami, to once again control his own destiny. With his Gundam, he had changed the world.

Still, he wouldn't give into that temptation. Zero was the stuff of nightmares, and he wouldn't condemn anyone to it, especially not the girl he... well, he was pretty sure he loved Hilde. "It's ok, Hilde. I'll fly Zero, you take Deathscythe- just... take good care of him for me, right?"

Hilde was touched at the trust he was showing her. She knew that Deathscythe was an extension of Duo himself, and for him to allow her to be its pilot was a major gesture on his part. She recognized exactly what it cost him to offer that- Zero had been the cause of many of his nightmares. "Duo, are you sure? I mean, do you really want to deal with the Zero system?"

He shrugged. "Only a maniac would WANT to deal with the Zero system, but I will if I have to. But I've been thinking, and I might be able to disable the system. If I can do that, then we won't have any problem."

She nodded, and her eyes brightened like someone had lit a light behind them. "That sounds good!"

"'Course it does! I'm the one who thought of it!"

Hilde playfully cuffed him upside the head. "I'll work on getting Deathscythe ready for take-off while you go dismantle the damn thing," she said, her mood more positive then he remembered seeing it in the past few days.

She quickly disappeared behind Deathscythe, and he could hear her playfully humming a song about coffee and the joys of caffeine- a song she had always liked, and that had driven him ballistic. She was pretty tone deaf, but that never bothered her. He wondered briefly why those with the least musical talent were the ones always most inclined to subject others to their voices.

With a sigh, he manually opened the hatch that would provide him with access to the control keys and datachips. He'd never messed with the programming of a Gundam before, and he was uneasy about it- he was a pilot, not an engineer. He knew enough to make basic repairs, but he'd always taken it to Professor G or Howard when things had gotten truly dire. He knew enough theory to make some alterations and recognized the cards that were the heart of the monster Quatre had installed, but theory meant squat when in came down to the wire if he couldn't put his knowledge into use.

It took fifteen minutes for Duo to figure out the connections since Zero was a weird conglomeration of Zero and Sandrock, and he swore after he finally did. Unlike the time when the Zero system had been installed in Sandrock, Wing Zero was built AROUND it. It would be impossible to dismantle it without reprogramming the Gundam entirely. Quatre might have been able to, since he had built the cursed thing, and Heero probably would have as well. Trowa had been a mechanic, so even the silent pilot would have had better luck. Of all the pilots, Duo was the least suited to the task in front of him, with the possible exception of Wufei.

Duo squirmed out of the cramped space and sat on the Gundam's shoulder, thinking the possibilities through. He could either leave the Gundams where they were (not likely), just take Deathscythe, let Hilde pilot Zero, or pilot it himself.

The decision was obvious.

He leaned into the open hatch and pressed a few buttons, beginning a systems check. Heero and Quatre had mastered the Zero system- could he do any less?

"Duo!"

He moved back to see Hilde's concerned face. "What is it?" he wanted to know.

"Did you manage to disable the Zero system?" she demanded.

He was tempted to lie so as not to worry her, but Hilde needed to know the truth. "No. Wing Zero was designed to operate with the system- I'd have to design a whole new operations program if I was going to remove it."

She paused. "Can you copy Deathscythe's?"

Duo considered her very reasonable suggestion. "I don't think it will work. For one, I'd have to force compatibility- Zero and Deathscythe were designed using different programming languages. I'm not a computers specialist- that was always Heero's line."

She sighed. "So we're back to square one... one of us is going to have to pilot Zero."

"I'll do it- you worry about Deathscythe."

"That's ok." She took a deep breath. "I had a question about Deathscythe's thrusters- they don't look like they're up to 100% operating capacity. Perhaps you could take a look at it, since you're the expert?"

"Sure thing."

Duo hopped off Wing's shoulder and made his way to the ground. When he noticed she hadn't followed him, he looked up at her in puzzlement. "Taking a break?"

Hilde's eyes were sad and slightly frightened as she gazed down at him. "I'm sorry, Duo, but I have to do this."

He wasn't quite able to comprehend what she was saying until she quickly entered the cockpit.

"Hilde!" he yelled, her name ripped from his throat.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit... he thought, the two words tripping over each other in his head.

The hatch came down, locking the petite girl inside it, and Duo backed away involuntarily when Zero's eerie green eyes flared to life.

"No! Don't do this!" he screamed, trying to figure out some way to shut down the Gundam.

Before Duo could do anything, Hilde had launched Wing Zero into the air.

"No, no, no..." he whispered.

Not for me.... please, Hilde.... you don't know what you're doing.

There was only one course of action left for him to take. He looked at the remaining Gundam and sighed. "It's up to us, pal."

Agilely he climbed into the cockpit of Deathscythe Hell, trying to ignore the feeling of homecoming. He switched on the controls hurriedly, listening to the machinery begin to whir as the panels lit up. He knew that he should perform a systems check, but he hadn't the time.

Not while Hilde was out in Zero.

All sorts of scenarios, none of them pleasant, began to dance through his mind. The Zero system was a mind-fuck, and Hilde- his sweet, courageous Hilde- didn't stand a chance in hell against it. Strapping the harness around his body, he shut his eyes for a moment, taking a death breath to calm himself.

"The God of Death is back. I'm coming, Hilde. Be safe," he whispered as he pulled the lever that would allow him to follow in Zero's wake.

 
END SAINAN NO KEKKA ACT IV

Act IV Part II | Act V Part I | Back to Sainan no Kekka