Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction ❯ Shinigami Arc #2: "As Ye Sow....." ❯ The Edge of the Scythe ( Chapter 1 )

SHINIGAMI: "AS YE SOW....."
(Shinigami Arc #2)

Chapter 1: The Edge of the Scythe
By Ysabet

*CRACKLE-CRACKLE-fzzzzzz-ZZZ!!-crackkkle......*

"-----day, hello, this is a Mayday...." *crackle-zzzzz-CRACK!-zzzzzzz-sssssscrackle* ".....Hello, hello, hello, dammit, can anybody read me out there? THIS IS A MAYDAY!!! C'mon, guys, somebody's gotta be in range...."

*zzzzzzzzzzzzcrackle-CRACKLE-ssssss! szszsz-pop-BANG!!*

"AAIGH!!!! Well, shit." Duo Maxwell swore as he fanned his blistered fingers in the air before popping the offended digits into his mouth.

His attempt to jury-rig a working transceiver had not gone well; with his uninjured hand he tugged loose the tangle of quickly-assembled circuitry and shoved it to one side, securing it beneath a small clip. *Bunch of low-budget, crappy, lowest-bidder components-----* Come to think of it, this whole mission had been one big goat-rope if he ever saw one.....

The pilot glanced out his Gundam's port. As his craft swung around in its slow turn, he could see Free Colony TRT-LLL4 far, far too near..... Absently he began to plot his trajectory; if he continued on his current course, he should smack down right about there, just where those main dome-joists crossed above that scatter of lights. Not too far from the main spacedocks, either.

*Great. Just great. Hilde should be in a REALLY good position to see my Grand Entrance.* Like he needed another reason to panic.....

Duo shrugged down deeper into his coverall, snugging his long braid tighter around his throat; it was getting cold in the Gundam's cockpit, now that the life support systems had shut down. Absently he noticed just how broad the white streaks in the length of hair had grown over the past decade or so since the ending of the War--- or, as the colonists before him would probably say, the beginning of the Broken Peace. Well, he had earned all those white hairs..... and besides: Hilde said she liked them.

A momentary image of their last night together (she had wrapped herself in his unbound hair, laughing as she draped her skin with his living silk; he hadn't made a move to pull it away but had just lain there, watching.....) made a small smile flash across his face, but the expression was a fleeting one; if he didn't manage to get his ass in gear, she'd just be one more casualty soon..... along with his own august self.

He could feel himself sweating despite the cold.

*C'mon Duo, think, think, THINK! Ah, shit, HOW the hell did you get yourself in this situation, Maxwell? No power, no life support, no goddam communications, and you're now on the way to Turtle Colony with NO working controls, special delivery courtesy of a bunch of scuzzy low-life pirates.*

It was getting cold; he could see his breath beginning to condense and freeze on the port. And the air inside the cockpit wouldn't last forever, either. As the chill began to numb his thoughts, he began to try and figure out the chain of events that had just turned DeathScythe into the solar system's largest bomb.....

************************************************************** *****************************

When the Great War had finally dragged out to a close, no-one with any reasonable excuse for a logical mind would have expected what happened next. Years later a renowned scholar would compare the entity that grew out of the old government's decay as an "insane example of space-bred medieval Italian city-states."

Basically, civilization went a little schizophrenic.

Not that it needed much encouragement by now, after all..... But while the fledgling Earth Sphere United Nations was persuading the homeworld and her daughter colonies into one big happy family, humanity began to move again in the slow diaspora that the war had interrupted. Unremarked upon and unnoticed at first, new colonies began to spring up here and there like mechanized flowers; small and low-budget, they were often no more than a single pre-fab dome on an asteroid or a collection of permanently moored ships. But there they were, usually without even the most basic form of government sanction or paperwork----- sharp little thorns in the new interplanetary government's bureaucratic backside.

How to deal with these little islands of life and technology? Some of them had powerful backers--- businessmen that had survived the war with their interests intact. Should the enclaves be forced to join with the all-encompassing whole, or allowed to develop on their own?

Basically, it came down to the simplest solution (or, as any desk clerk could tell you, the one with the least paperwork):

Leave them alone. Treat them as independent entities..... deal with the larger ones carefully, and the smaller ones casually. Let them grow, and see what would happen. And that was the beginning of what would be called the 'Broken Peace.'

Not 'broken' because it was damaged or ineffective or futile; 'broken' like a dotted line, skipping across the heavens from place to place to place. And 'peace' because, for once, that's what humanity had found..... for a little while.

What began as a scattered collection of tiny, isolated sites grew with astonishing rapidity into a loosely-linked constellation of cities, states, what-have-you, each with their own supporting set of industries and governments. Every variety of self-supporting trade had been attempted among these mushrooms; some had worked, some had failed. Some had failed drastically, leaving a silent, blasted ruin behind when the low-budget machinery had blown.

But many of the new colonies thrived, drawing ever more settlers out from the mother planet. And, like any other new organisms finding their nice little nich in the ecology, they began to catch the interest of predators.

Pirates.

Fast, well-armed, unscrupulous and deadly. Ships that darted in like sharks and disabled their prey, looting and then destroying. The enormous distances that stretched between the tiny specks of life in the solar system lent themselves well to secrecy and concealment----- in fact, more than one base became unwilling 'hosts' for such parasites..... until the base's resources were used up. Then it joined the silent, dead remains of other victims of the new Jolly Roger.

Usually the colonies dealt with small, local threats on their own; it was a rare thing for a large, multi-city colony to be attacked. It was the smaller colonies, single-city places devoted mainly to trace-element ore refinement or research that took the brunt of the damage--- being an independent (or Indy, as they called themselves) had its disadvantages.

But Earth and the Preventors had their own agenda with the pirates; huge amounts of money and resources were tied up in the burgeoning infant industries--- far be it from them to turn a blind eye..... especially with the rest of humanity watching. After all, pirates were dramatic, pirates were interesting..... and pirates were making a number of very rich, very important Earth businessmen very, very nervous.

So the government called on the Gundams. For the Gundam pilots, the war never *quite* ended.

But this time it was a little different; this time there wasn't a base or a main location to obliterate. Instead, a Gundam would just 'show up' in an area with high pirate activity..... and be conspicuous. *Actively* conspicuous. Nothing too brutal or obvious, not really..... maybe a little target practice with some asteroids or possibly a little old space-junk that needed destroying. After a while, the pirates just quietly went away.

Occasionally (and it was happening more frequently now) you'd have a stubborn little piece of space-trash that figured they were tougher than some old Gundam--- sure, they looked intimidating, but how fast could they be?

Heero, Duo and the rest were only *too* happy to show them--- in spades. What was left afterwards was usually too full of holes or too slagged to give much of a clue as to where their living comrades had jetted off to in such a hurry, but sooner or later there would be survivors to take home and interrogate. Until then, though, the majority of the illegal ships managed to scurry away to some well-hidden safe haven.

Where? Now, that was a problem; space is large. And it was Duo's little pet problem, to be precise. If he could only locate their base.....

After the ending of the Great War, the five Gundam pilots found themselves confronting a menace that had, up until that moment, never been a concern. It loomed over them, huge and terrible, shadowing every aspect of every day: the terror of..... Normal Life.

When you've spent several years doing nothing but living, eating and sleeping with a war, learning how to live a Normal Life in peacetime is incredibly difficult. But gradually, each pilot managed to find their own place in the scheme of things.

Quatre had it easy; he had family, friends that had known him since childhood, loyal comrades, places he could go. In the aftermath of the Great War, he had slipped back into his own society like a fish into water. And then there was Trowa, who took his place back with his circus (with the frequent Quatre-visit and Preventor mission to break up things when they got boring, if circus-life could ever be said to get boring).

Wu Fei managed to not-so-politely decline most of the 'pirate detail' requests; in his opinion, they lacked interest. The Chinese pilot was as restless as ever and tended to go on long-range exploratory missions more than any of the others, often accompanied by Sally Po. She seemed to have found a match in her own wanderer's heart in him and the two had been together for more than a decade. Heero, predictably, had remained as Relena's bodyguard..... for a few years. One might think that his job had ended with their abrupt marriage a half a decade in the past--- until you saw his eyes, and the way he guarded his wife and little son. The Perfect Soldier had found his place, all right.

And as for Duo Maxwell and Hilde Schbeiker..... Well, D&H Salvage and Retrieval had been doing bonzo business over the last ten years since he and Hilde had officially started it up. With Professor G's help they had acquired a sweet little ship--- the Blue Horizon, named after the beautiful azure swell of the Earth that you saw when you were dropping into planetary orbit. They were partners; Hilde managed the books and did her share of the piloting, Duo researched contacts and did his own part of the flying, and Professor G sat back as a silent partner and backer for the business. More often than not, the couple both went together on a trip; the business had grown enough that they had two old soldier-buddies of Hilde's working back at Colony HPS-KCH9, where they had their base set up. It was hard to think of the multi-room building and workyard as a 'home'----- for them both, the Horizon was 'home'.

(They had grown close; marriage and children were things that each shied away from for their own individual reasons, but in some ways they had become more devoted than any long-term married couple. Duo and Hilde were each other's work partners, sounding boards, lovers, drinking buddies and best friends..... What had begun as a casual-and-sometimes-carnal friendship had grown into something strong, deep-rooted and solid.)

Large-scale salvage was beyond their capabilities; they specialized in small components, cargo, that sort of thing. The Gundam was strictly off-limits for work--- the government would fund DeathScythe's repairs and fueling only so long as the craft was used for Preventor missions, no negotiation allowed.

But..... Duo was, in all things, an optimist. And when the request had come for him to go and 'show face' in an area with high pirate activity, well..... He had been intelligent. He hadn't tried to get the contract on salvage in the area (say, the leftovers from a battle, maybe?)--- hell no.

He had let Hilde handle that detail--- he knew perfectly well that his mouth would've talked him *right* out of any salvage contracts if he had overdone it.

She had flown ahead in the Horizon to handle the paperwork, and was awaiting his arrival in the main port. The grateful colonists at Turtle Colony (officially 'Free Colony TRT-LLL4', just as their own Free Colony HPS-KCH9 was usually called 'Hopscotch') had been only too eager to sign over all rights for pirate wreckage and cargo in exchange for the willing presence of the God of Death on their doorstep. Turtle Colony wasn't really THAT small, either--- big enough to catch the Preventor's interests (as well as that of the pirates). A good-sized population, too, with a real city and real R&R possibilities for a weary Gundam pilot and his lady post-mission..... Duo had grinned to himself in cheerful bloodthirstiness as he began to plot the trip; *Hey pirates--- c'mon out and fight! I've only played "Swat the Ship" four times this last year; c'mon, I'll be your best friend..... heads or tails?*

But the trip had been peaceful, boringly peaceful, mind-numbingly peaceful; he had been all fired up to do a little damage, kick a little pirate butt--- but nobody wanted to come out and play.....

That was when he got the distress call.

****************************************************************** *************************

*CRZZZZT*

*crackle-crackle-zzzzzzt! Pop! Crackle-ssssssszzzzzz*

".....SOS...SOS...SOS...SOS...SOS...SOS....."< /i> The computerized voice droned on and on until Duo smacked the right toggle with an impatient hand. "ALRIGHT, already--- shut the hell up! I'm here, I'm here...." muttered the pilot, pushing strands of hair from his eyes. He had been dozing a little as DeathScythe cruised towards its destination on autopilot; the nerve-wracking shrilling of the alarms had nearly startled him out of his skin.

Chewing on his lower lip, Duo frowned at the display before him. A distress call, way out here? Of course, if a ship was in trouble closer in it probably would've alerted port authorities, not him. As he stared at the coordinates pinpointing the call's location, he felt a rather sneaky grin creeping across his face; *Man, imagine how whoever-this-is is gonna feel when he sees me instead of some piddly little colony ship--- I'll scare the freaking bejeezus out of 'em! Of course, I'm here to help..... but I'm just gonna love seeing the look on the captain's face; sure hope he has a working vidscreen.....*

And then, as if in answer to his thought, the automated SOS signal that was still flashing on the screen to his right suddenly changed, flashing from the normal virulent alert-green to a bright, dangerous red..... and then to black..... and then disappeared into nothingness altogether.

*What the hell----?..... oh; oh crap. Oh CRAP.* With a sudden coldness in his bones and a sinking heart, Duo recognized the progression of green-red-black from past pirate activity briefings.....

*It's the Widowmaker.*

And all his screens faded to black as DeathScythe's drives wound slowly down into silence.

*************************************************************** ****************************

The Widowmaker was, ironically, an outgrowth of something designed to help, not harm. Originally some bright student at the new Mars branch of M.I.T. had come up with the idea of an SOS beacon that, upon contact with possible aid, scanned the contactee's systems for capabilities and online data--- drive statistics, fuel levels, anything that might prove helpful. That data could then be matched with the problem, thus allowing a greater chance of survival for the beacon's users.

It probably would've worked, too, if a fellow student hadn't decided to take it a level or two further. Code was inserted that would hack into just about any system, bypassing all defenses and immediately clamping down on all accessible data. Maybe if the unknown student's grades had been better or their morals had been sharper they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be hired into piracy; who could say? But a year or two after the student's disappearance, the Widowmaker had raised its ugly head.

Picked up as a distress call, the Widowmaker was a sharp, intangible stiletto that inserted itself via tight-beam contact inextricably into a craft's systems, freezing the engines, the life support, communications, everything in an iron-hard fist of ice. All data was copied and funneled back to the source in a complete and systematic rape of the unlucky ship's computers; nothing was left untouched.

Then, with life support down and engines growing colder and colder, the attacking pirates had no need to waste their ammunition on their prey; they could simply sit back and wait for the air to run out. And then it was time to strip and dump the corpses, disable Widowmaker's clutches via their own carefully-guarded viral keys, and take their new prize back home.

All without a single shot being fired.

The Widowmaker was the ultimate pirate.

**************************************************************** ***************************

So now he was stuck, dead in the water (so to speak). It had only taken a few moments for the pirate ships to come into view--- ships, not just one; Duo grimaced as he stared unhappily out the slowly frosting port. *So that's why no-one could find a base for these bastards* he thought, his hands knotting into fists. *They don't use one--- they just link up into one big flotilla.* The mass of machinery floating still quite a distance away wasn't a solid platform, as one might expect; it was made up of multiple ships, all linked together by bays and tunnels, docking holds and jury-rigged containments that were probably jettisoned whenever the makeshift 'port' disassembled into its component crafts. *Clever bunch of murderers* he thought sourly, twisting the end of his braid in his cold fingers. *Pretty damn bold too, to come after a Gundam--- Hell, if my system could just hold out against their goddamn pet virus they'd soon figure out why I call me and the Big Guy 'Shinigami'.....*

Shinigami..... For the first time, the pilot felt a new, tiny silver thread of fear winding through him, sharp and cold. *Ah, shit; I haven't thought about that for a while---*

*Uh-oh. No way. Nope, nope, nope. That's not gonna happen..... not now, he wasn't talking about now..... was he?!?*

*..... Was he.....? Awwwww, man-----*

The word 'Shinigami' had a new meaning for him now, a private little meaning that Duo had never spoken of..... not to Hilde, not to Heero, not to *anyone.*

--- He remembered a night, less than a year before; a night when, after coming back from a particularly stressful mission, he had found himself at loose ends in a really, really bad mood. He had decided to handle the black funk he had fallen into with a little self-medication, poured from a bottle or two--- not his usual style, but Hilde was away, Heero was off with Relena on some boring governmental whistlestop tour, and the other guys were apparently all off doing their own things too..... so he planned to kill off his bad mood, Duo-like, by drowning it. Something weird had happened to him a day or so earlier--- he had seen something in the docking bay when he had landed, something that had looked like a normal guy but had been as intangible as smoke. A good thing, too; the dumbass whatever-it-was had been standing right in his flightpath..... The whole incident had rattled Duo badly; flying through people and then seeing them blink out into nothingness afterwards just didn't fit into the pilot's view o reality very well, adaptable as he was. It just wasn't right.....

And then, that night, the same guy had turned up in the hanger for a friendly little chat over a couple of bottles of strong whisky. A chat regarding Duo Maxwell's upcoming demise and possible career in the afterlife. A chat regarding the real definition of the name 'shinigami.'

Of course he thought he had lost his mind..... stress, too much flying DeathScythe, cosmic rays, gremlins, WHATever, something had finally taken its toll on his poor brain; sure, that was it. And the following morning, when the fumes of the rotgut he had consumed were burning behind his eyeballs Duo was fairly certain he had hallucinated the whole thing. Except..... there were cigarette ashes and butts all over the hanger floor; he found them when he rather sheepishly sneaked down for a casual look around. NOBODY smoked in a hanger--- few people smoked at all anymore; it was considered old-fashioned and outdated, a nasty little habit that had died out more than three hundred years ago. But there they were, and there was the cellophane-and-paper packet labled 'CAMEL'.....

He had looked it up. The company had been out of business since the owners had been lynched along with all the other tobacco industry types during those ugly mob incidents way back in 2003.

It had taken Duo a week to get over the shakiness that the conversation had inflicted him with; it was nearly a month before he stopped looking over his shoulder and sniffing for cigarette smoke. The notion of his impending death hadn't rattled him NEARLY as much as the idea that he might be able to consider a 'career' afterwards--- death had always been *death,* the end of things as you knew them..... You just didn't go and *plan* on what you'd do next, no matter HOW religious you might be.

Hilde had worried about him; for a time he had been more silent than she had ever known him to be.

He had spent a lot of sleepless nights after that, lying awake and staring at the ceiling. So he was going to die, was he? Well, that happened to *everyone* sooner or later (though Duo would *much* prefer 'later'); but--- and he had the option to join up with a bunch of somethings that were REAL 'shinigami' types, huh? Yeah, right..... Too much whisky, too few nights with Hilde, too much stress, too much *something,* that was for damn sure.

So he tried to forget the whole thing. And he almost managed it, too.

Almost..... Except for those moments when the situation got tight, when he wondered if *this* was Big Red Button time, buy-the-farm time, the day when the God of Death would die-----

Like now.

******************************************************************* ************************

Hilde was working hard on permanently fogging up a viewport.

She leaned on one elbow and stared out into the depths of space, smiling to herself a bit wryly. *It's funny--- you'd think somebody would figure out a way to keep these things from being cold--- I know they're thick enough and all that, they have to be. But they're always cold, and they always fog up when you get too close for too long.* Not that it was important--- it wasn't like she could actually miss what she was watching for.....

She grinned then, rather smugly. *Most people waiting for transport to arrive can't tell if the person they're waiting on is actually onboard or not; I always can.* The spectacle of DeathScythe's arrival was something that she would always try to catch, and (if possible) Hilde did her best to be among the locals in some public viewing place if she could. Duo LOVED hearing about people's reactions; it made his violet-blue eyes gleam with wicked laughter as he plotted his next 'Grand Entrance.'

Last time he had waved at her with an enormous, deadly gundanium hand. That one would be hard to top.....

(Of course, he had gotten a pretty good reaction the time he had "given the finger" to a passing private spaceyacht; there had been complaints, of course, but the owner of that particular yacht had just broken an extravagant number of colony docking regulations. The complaint paperwork had vanished mysteriously somewhere in the depths of the docking office files, and a case of expensive colony-brewed beer had arrived at D&H Salvage as an anonymous gift a week later.)

So here she sat in a rather quiet dockside bar with a good view, waiting for her own personal God of Death to arrive. She checked her watch; still a half hour or so to predicted arrival--- she had time for another beer. She had begun to slip off her stool towards the bar when a painful tug on her hair made her jerk backwards, swearing under her breath. It was caught again, of course; ever since she and Duo had made that late-night bet about whose hair would grow the fastest she had been allowing it to lengthen, uncut. Now it fell to her shoulderblades in a tidy braid, a short black match to Duo's long chestnut glory. It would never even approach the length of his, of course; that was a lifetime's worth, and an exceptional one at that. But he so loved to run his fingers through her hair, cupping the glossy black strands against Hilde's cheeks in his work-roughened palms----

She tugged it loose from the stool-back. *I wonder how long it'll take me to get used to this? It's been short since I was a kid.....* So far *she* was winning in the 'Rapunzel' race, as Quatre had laughingly dubbed it--- Duo claimed that he ought to be given a 2-inch handicap due to massive follicle exhaustion, but she wasn't having any of that.

Besides..... when it was time to measure, she insisted that they each unbraid--- and there was no way Hilde was going to pass up the chance to see her Duo draped in all that glorious hair, loose and just waiting for her to bury her fingers in it... to play with, to wrap around them both in a private, veiling curtain, to feel its weight in her hands so soft and silken-----

The contest sure had its side-benefits. She grinned and felt herself blush more than a little as she leaned against the bar to order another beer.

Huh; no bartender in sight. So what did a girl have to do to get a little service around here? Hilde opened her mouth to make a caustic comment, and then saw that the barkeeper was down near the big vidscreen along with the most of the other patrons..... It had grown unnaturally quiet, too; why hadn't she noticed, and what was the problem?

And then the newscaster's voice filtered faintly through, and she saw the familiar shape on the live satellite broadcast -----

*Duo?!? What the hell are you DOING?!?*

************************************************************** *****************************

"Crap, crap, crap, CRAP!!! What the hell am I gonna DO?!?" Duo clutched at the hair on his head, frantically trying to work out a solution.

Whether or not the pirates had chosen to crash his engines with the Widowmaker so that he would smash into Turtle Colony or not was beside the point. He rather suspected that they had--- it would be so very convenient for the damned parasites to just loot the remains like the vultures they were--- but that was a moot point right now.

Right now the God of Death really needed a plan. And he was desperate. Anything--- anything that would work--- whatever would keep him from killing a colony's worth of innocents, not to mention his own Hilde, who was probably pretty damned aware of the situation by now---

*Shit, shit, shit. Okay, Maxwell, let's go over everything again.....*

*Communications: down.*

*Navigation and control: frigging down.*

*Weapons systems: REALLY frigging down.*

*Life Support: TOTALLY frigging down---- whoa. Hang on a minute.....*

*!!!!!*

He had thought of something-----

Weapons systems. Two days earlier Professor G had disconnected the Gundam's thermal scythe for repairs and renovations; Duo hadn't worried--- granted, it was his favorite weapon and his own personal trademark, but it wasn't like it left him totally defenseless, after all. So he hadn't paid much attention as to whether or not the scythe had been hooked back up or not..... and if it hadn't, then it wouldn't have been included in the Widowmaker's systematic attack.....

*Oh, please----- * Feverishly he unclipped his harness with numb, cold hands; this would require a little crawling around and some flashlight work.

The minutes--- too many of them--- ticked by. At last, wedged into the tiny floor-space with his head under an open console, Duo laughed half-hysterically with triumph. *It wasn't hooked up yet!!! He wasn't finished!!! Oh man, Prof G, I think you just saved a lot of lives by slacking off--- maybe, anyway---*

Okay now--- he couldn't use it as a weapon, not really; that involved being able to maneuver DeathScythe, and the Gundam was past that. But there was another option..... What was a drive but a controlled explosion, after all?

Of course, if he managed to do this, there was this one little problem: he'd die.

*Great. Just..... great. But I did say 'anything,' didn't I?* The pilot closed his eyes for a bare second; the faint lines that he had earned over twenty-nine years of life deepened as he sighed. For a moment he looked much, much older; for a moment he felt much, much older.

He looked out at the unwinking stars; they looked back. "Thanks a lot, God; I kinda hoped you wouldn't be listening quite that well when I said it....." he muttered, his voice breaking slightly towards the end.

But that's how it was, wasn't it? God always read the fine print. Duo had his chance to save Hilde and the colonists and play "Swat the Ship" in a BIG way, one more time..... if he did things right. He wasn't going to get a second chance--- this had to be perfect.

*Right. C'mon, Maxwell, Hilde's down there..... and Heero and the guys would NEVER let you live this down if you took out an entire colony just because of a goddam bunch of lowlife friggin' pirates.* Not that he'd have the chance to live it down..... but he'd be better off not thinking of that right now. He had things to do.

Carefully he selected a tool from the small box lying on his chest. *Now, let's see..... if I disconnect the secondary auxiliary power unit completely from the main system and jury-rig it as a separate source for the scythe, it won't have enough memory-storage left in it to hold the Widowmaker's tags--- hell, a hampster'd have more of a brain! That oughta do for a start --- and then I can---*

The next few minutes were filled with a complicated silence, occasionally broken by the occasional muttered curse or muffled "ouch!" as tools slipped or components dropped onto Duo's face. His breath puffed in clouds in the freezing cockpit, and his face was tight with concentration. This was tricky; the scythe wasn't in working order at all, but if it could be made to overload it could be made to explode.

And then, thought Duo grimly, the pirates would see some acceleration.

Looking good; almost done now.....

*************************************************************** ****************************

Hilde sat frozen, clutching her empty mug. *Duo.....*

The newscaster's voice was hurried, trembling with adrenaline. "-----tumbling out of control on a direct trajectory with Turtle Colony, I repeat: The Gundam usually known as DeathScythe appears to be tumbling out of control on on a direct trajectory with Turtle Colony. Colony officials are unavailable at this time-----"

*That's because they've gone and evacuated their sorry asses* thought Hilde numbly. *Oh Duo-----*

"----- there are definite indications of pirate activity in the area; illegal ships have been sighted, and the conjecture is that they have somehow disabled the Gundam and are using it to damage Turtle Colony before attacking---" The newscaster paused to wipe his forehead; he was pasty white. Behind him Hilde could see stationworkers panicking and trying to fight their way through a door---

Doggedly the reporter continued. "We advise that everyone please remain calm at this time--- all colonists are required to take refuge in one of the public shelters listed here-----" A list of addresses appeared on the screen, but Hilde had stopped paying attention. She simply sat very, very still as the bar exploded into a babble of voices on all sides. Most of the bar's clientele managed to scramble from the area over the next few minutes, but two figures remained: Hilde, clutching her beermug, and the bartender, who leaned slumped onto his bar a few feet away. She looked up at him after a moment, her face hollow-eyed and pale. In a remarkably prosaic voice she spoke: "Aren't you going to run away too?" Her words were simple, almost child-like.

The bartender shrugged. "Where would I go?" he drawled, running a hand through his thinning gray hair. "This is my place. Howzabout you?"

She nodded at the screen. "That's my-- my partner in the Gundam. Duo. He's--- that's Duo in there....."

The bartender studied her, one eyebrow up; the young woman still held her empty beermug in her hands, unconciously turning it around and around. Her face was emotionless, eerily calm. "That's the guy that fought in the war, huh? 'Shinigami'? I remember hearing on the news that he was coming to take care of the pirate problem we've been having." Hilde said nothing, a *loud* enough nothing for the barkeeper to understand perfectly well. After a moment the older man took the mug away and filled it, handing it back. "Guess you won't be going anywhere then, huh?" he said softly, his tired eyes compassionate.

"No" was all she said, and she drank her beer. Her eyes never left the screen or the object tumbling end-over-end on it.

"Duo....." she whispered.

************************************************************* ******************************

Duo regarded his work with a rather sardonic Duo-Maxwell-Special smile. *Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. If it blows like it should--- if I get the trajectory just right---*

*I should be able to show Our Friends The Pirates something really..... special.*

Slowly he climbed back to his feet, stretching one last time before he sat down and buckled himself back in his harness. *---one last time--- Jeeze, what a weird feeling--- Don't know why I'm buckling myself in, it's not like I need to worry about getting hurt, do I?* The pilot grimaced to himself, his eyes fixed on the rotation of the stars. *Let's see..... six minutes per rotation, and I'm about.... two-thirds of the way around. Am I close enough, should I wait? Nahhh--- if I wait too long, it'll be harder to judge the trajectory. This is gonna be flying-by-the-seat-of-the-goddam-pants enough, as it is. So..... about two minutes to ignition, then maybe a half minute or so to impact. Not very long for the rest of a guy's life, is it?*

*This had better work.*

The seconds ticked by like seconds..... much too short, much too long. Duo sat back in his seat, acutely aware of his surroundings: how the sweat was beginning to freeze in his hair, the way his heart seemed to have taken on the sound qualities of a kettle drum, the faint starlight reflecting off the cockpit's metal surfaces in tiny points..... If he squinted his eyes half-closed, all he could see were those points--- it was like resting in a field of stars. He wished he could tell Hilde about it; she'd like that a lot--- she loved the stars. He wished he could tell Heero, too--- just to see that expressionless face manage to keep from cracking one more time.

For one long, strange moment, Duo's thoughts drifted back to the man he had met that night in the hanger, seven months past..... the shinigami. The ghost. He thought of the guy's oddly cheerful promise to keep an eye on him.... to be there at the Gundam pilot's last battle, to be there afterwards. *Oh man..... Not sure if I want that to be true or not... it's kind of a weird thing to hope for, isn't it, if it's true?..... I guess I'll know if it is in a minute or two, huh?*

Duo flexed his hands; they were so cold he could hardly feel them, and his breathing was getting a little short. *Just as well I'm gonna die from the explosion, I guess* he thought, an odd grin flickering across his face. *Who the hell wants to suffocate? At least I'm spared that--- gonna go out in a blaze of glory, anyway----- But God, I wish I could say goodbye to Heero and the guys..... and oh Hilde, I'm so sorry babe----*

Time. He pushed the button.

"Hey, pirates! Say 'hello' to my leetle friend!" His dark laughter filled the cockpit. "SHINIGAMI'S HERE!!"

*****BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!***** The thermal scythe exploded in a blue-white blaze of overload.

************************************************************** *****************************

*OhGod, here we go..... Shinigami, we're earning our name, aren't we, Big Guy? I'm gonna miss you too. Hey, you real shinigamis out there, lookit us! Can you beat this?..... Hilde and Heero and Relena and Quatre and Trowa and WuFei and Noin and Catherine and all the rest of you, take care of yourselves, don't you dare follow me any time soon, Hilde, you especially..... ohMAN, here we go..... Whoooo, what a ride!!!..... getting closer, getting closer, getting CLOSER, WE'RE THERE--- ohmanIhopethisdoesn'thurt----------*

******************************* ************************************************************

The video of DeathScythe's impact on the pirate fleet would be shown throughout the solar system for quite a long time..... Years later, people could still remember where they were when they had first seen the spectacle of the gigantic form, black against the stars but white-hot where a new sun burned in its right hand..... It had moved with a peculiar, rapid grace, as stiff and posed as a dancer and as silent as space itself in its deadly trajectory.

And when it struck the cluster of desperately-disengaging pirate ships, the terrible glory of the multidrive explosion created a light brighter than anything seen outside of the sun itself.

It would burn for three days.

****************************************************************** *************************

Silence hung in the bar. The bartender had been simply going about his business for a while, filling up his lone customer's beermug between bouts of washing glasses and slicing lemons on the work counter just beyond the bartop.

Hilde drank in silence. When the blaze of DeathScythe's thermal weapon momentarily whited out the vidscreen, the glass cracked between her fingers and blood-tinged beer spilled across the bar. Without a word the bartender wrapped her hands gently in a clean dishcloth, brushing fragments of glass from the small, deep cuts.

She sat silent, watching the unspeakable chrysanthemum-bloom of fire as her Shinigami took out the pirate ships, the details mercilessly clear on the screen; the satellite-feed shorted out then, and the picture faded to black. The bartender's hands stopped in their motions. For a long moment everything was still, frozen in silence as clear as crystal; then the woman moved, her hand reaching with swift deliberation for the bartender's knife.

"NO---" he cried---

But before he could make even the beginnings of a motion to stop her, the deed was done; the knife had been drawn against soft, living, giving substance.....

Hilde's black braid dropped silently to the bar floor, followed by the clatter of the knife. Her short, newly-shorn hair wisped around her face as if glad to be free from its confinement.

"DUO....." she whispered, and covered her face with her hands.

Silence, broken by weeping.

**************************************************************** *************************************************************************** **********************************

*---- darkness-----

*

*

*---silence, ringing like a bell, hovering alone and weightless like a shadow without touch without anything just numb and floating forever---*

*

*

*---not forever ---

*----- light?------

**************************************************************** *************************************************************************** **********************************

Slowly, infinitely slowly, Duo became aware of being aware.

He was..... lying down, loose-muscled and limp; not hurting, maybe a little numb though..... just comfortable and calm and relaxed and.....

.....dead?.....

*Whooooo boy.*

*Dreams just don't get crazier than this, do they? Damn, I sure hope not--- I'm just gonna lay here, I'm not gonna open my eyes or anything, I'm just gonna be real still and quiet 'til it ALL goes away....."*

But it was creeping back now, the memory of that last, lost battle; it worked its insidious way into his peace, burning it like tiny flames, burning:

(gonna go out in a blaze of glory anyway----- wish I could say goodbye to Heero and the guys, and oh Hilde, I'm so sorry babe-----)

*Awwwww..... SHIT.*

Duo groaned and opened his eyes.

Well. A darkened sky, stars over him. Familiar ones, too, with a gridline of city-dome struts crossing them in the same old way that he knew so well. Either Hell had colonies in space (not something Duo would dispute, actually), or he was seriously lost..... He could feel the scratchy-soft prickle of grass beneath his shoulder blades, but the sensation was oddly distant, very slightly removed from the norm. Just within his range of vision he could see a solid something without turning his head--- it looked like the edge of a metal park-bench.

He lay very still, staring up unseeing at the stars. *Hilde..... Heero..... and the others..... oh man--- I'm so sorry..... not for doing what I did, not for that, but I've lost you, you've lost me---- what happens now? What happens next? Whatever it is, I don't suppose I'll see any of you for a while..... I'm so sorry, Hilde--- I didn't want to leave you, I'm so sorry babe, but what else could I do?.....* A cold wave of grief and terror washed over Duo, overwhelming him with pain; for a moment it was almost too much to bear. Then, as it slowly subsided, he became more aware of his surroundings.

What was that smell?!? It was faint, but..... Cigarette smoke?!? Well, he supposed they DID smoke in Hell; it made a certain peculiar sort of sense. But--- what, they had parks in Hell? God, what kind?

"Hey, flyboy."

*. . . . . . . . . . . . .*

He--- KNEW that voice. Knew it from a half-remembered midnight conversation over a bottle of particularly strong Redeye; knew it and remembered it despite the hangover that had nearly obliterated his brain the next morning.

That voice had echoed in his dreams ever since, playing back in a loop of excruciating detail. Oh yeah, he remembered that voice, and he was pretty sure what hearing it again meant, too.

*Awww, crap; I really AM dead.*

Half afraid to look, he turned his head. A rather scuffed black boot rested on the ground not too far from his head; Duo craned his head sideways a little, staring at the face that had accompanied the voice in his dreams.

The dark-haired, swarthy young man leaned at his ease against the bench-back, arms sprawling along the top. A thin coil of smoke wisped up from the half-smoked cigarette angling from between his fingers; he crossed his legs cowboy-fashion as he grinned down at the pilot.

"Howya doin', guy?" He surveyed Duo's prone form with an amused dark eye, then drew a long inhalation of smoke from his cigarette; the tip glowed like a jewel.

Duo closed his eyes again and spoke rather bitterly: "Pretty good, I suppose--- for a dead man....."

As the reality of his situation began to sink in, he let out his breath in a long, slow exhalation. "DAMN." The single soft word was sincere and heartfelt.

Without opening his eyes the pilot slowly levered himself up; tilting his head back, he could feel the faint breeze against his closed eyelids. Again, the sensation seemed ever-so-slightly less than it should be, as if his skin had been numbed..... After a moment a light touch on one shoulder made him jump, and he blinked against the glitter of the stars overhead and the single streetlight that shone a few feet away.

The dark-haired man sat looking down at him, and for a fleeting moment an expression of compassion crossed his craggy face, deepening the faint lines there. Drawing another breath of smoke, he looked off into the distance and spoke quietly. "Don't beat yourself up with the idea, man; what's done is done. You remember me, huh?"

"...Yeah..." muttered Duo, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. Why couldn't he feel everything like he should? It was like being wrapped in a cocoon. *This has gotta be a bad dream.....* But it wasn't, and he knew it wasn't.

There was a long moment of silence then; a distant sound of shouting children carried across it, along with the sleepy chirp and flutter of earth-bred, imported birds. Duo let the sounds wash across him, gradually banishing the clamor of battle and the strange, ringing silence that had followed; the sounds soothed his soul like the brush of a gentle hand.

He looked up.

The man--- the shinigami--- was still staring out across the park. His black eyes followed the sweeping flight of the birds, followed them as they sought out a tree to settle in for the evening and covered it like a feathered cloud. Drawing a last puff, he stubbed the cigarette out on the park bench and turned back to the pilot. "Kinda nice out here, isn't it?"

Duo shrugged. "Am I supposed to care?? I'm dead. Why should I care about anything now??" He scowled, staring off into the distance as his fingers tugged absently at the tough grass. The texture of the blades was faint, distant.

The shinigami glanced down at him again; a curious mixture of understanding and impatience flickered in his expressive eyes. When he spoke, however, his voice was light. "You should care, flyboy; if you hadn't done what you did, this place would be a hell of a lot deader than you are right now, y'know."

Off in the distance, the children laughed and shouted in their complicated games.

Beside the pilot the scuffed boots crossed at the ankle as their owner leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. "I 'spose you're feeling pretty strange about now..... don't worry, though; it'll pass. Does anything hurt?"

Duo made a disgusted noise deep in his throat. "You gotta be kidding, man; I just got blown to bits all over local space--- what the hell is left to hurt?" But he tucked his chin in and looked down at himself in a private inventory. Huh..... everything seemed to be there, so far as he could tell at first glance anyway. So if he was dead, and his body was totally trashed, then he guessed this was..... his soul?

Well, at least his soul looked and dressed the same. *Good; why change when you've got a winning combo?* In a gesture that had long, long since become habit he found himself smoothing his braid through his fingers, fiddling with the band that tied it off----- *Hey!! What the---*

"Ummmmm..... I had a lot more white in my hair before, before----- " He couldn't quite make himself say: 'before I died.....'

Above his head the dark-haired man grunted in affirmative. "Yeah..... most people tend to look like they did in the prime of their lives when they're newly dead; it has a lot to do with a person's self-image." He cocked his head to one side and glanced down at the pilot. "You look..... about eighteen or nineteen , I guess. How old were you?"

Duo ran his braid through his fingers again, wondering at the depth of color there; not so faded anymore, glossy brown now with mere threads of white winding through..... "Uhhh--- I'm twenty-nine. I was twenty-nine, anyway." He had never really known his real birthday, so he had chosen one for himself: April the first. It had seemed appropriate. *No more birthdays..... no more late-night 'birthday presents' from Hilde.....*

The bench creaked slightly as the other man leaned forward a little. "Y'know, it occurs to me that I never told you my name when I talked to you last time, did I?" He grinned. "And you were too freaked to ask----- so-----" and he held a hand out.

"The name's Rafe... Rafe Ciccarelli. Here, lemme help you up."

Duo stared at the outstretched hand----- a ghost's hand, the hand of a dead man. *But who the hell am I to be throwing stones?* Gingerly he grasped it; it felt..... well, like a hand. Not cold or anything else abnormal (except there was still that distance, that slight numbness.....) He looked up into its owner's face. The shinigami--- Rafe--- was looking intently at him, the faintest trace of a smile crooking his lips. "Ummmm..... nice to meet you, I guess..... um, I mean---"

Rafe laughed, not unkindly. "It's okay. I'd be pretty damned surprised if you weren't at least a little weirded out at this point."

The pilot pulled himself up to sit on the bench, dusting his backside off a little before taking a seat. Beside him the other man leaned back again in what was evidently a favorite position, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. There was a long silence.

"So..... how was it?"

"Huh?" Duo frowned; he rubbed his fingers together..... *Why are my hands so numb?* "How was what?"

"Dying, flyboy. How was it?" Rafe glanced at him sideways, a sympathetic expression on his swarthy face.

"Uhhhhhhh....." He tried to gather his thoughts. Was this the sort of thing ghosts talked about on their off-time? Well, why not? Sort of like discussing surgery, he supposed. "Well--- it didn't hurt; I guess it was too quick for that, what with explosions, decompression, shock, and being squashed like a bug and all....." The pilot shoved his own hands into his coverall pockets, thinking hard. "You know, I always wondered what it'd feel like to buy the farm--- but it didn't feel like anything. Nothing at all..... Guess I kinda feel a bit cheated." He had to grin a little at that.

The other man snorted. "Count yourself lucky. It sure as hell beats bleeding to death all over the ground with your legs blown half-off----- trust me on that one." The shinigami looked down at his dusty black workboots with a wry expression and uncrossed them, dropping one foot heavily on the ground in emphasis.

Duo winced; "That what happened to you?" He wondered where and when it could've been; Rafe hadn't been too forthcoming in their previous conversation, not about *that* sort of thing. *No wonder.*

Rafe nodded, grimacing. "It was a long time ago, but some things you just don't forget....." His voice trailed off as he stared across the park. With an abrupt grunt of impatience he ran a square-fingered hand through his short, black hair, then shoved himself up onto his feet. "C'mon, flyboy; let's walk. It'll be easier to talk if we're moving." Slowly Duo rose and followed.

He felt..... strange. Not bad, but oddly light on his feet and numb, as if he were just coming out from under an anesthetic. Duo laughed a little to himself at that thought; *God, talk about a 'painkiller'---* His companion's heels rang against the pavement as they reached a sidewalk, but no matter how hard his footsteps fell the pilot's flightboots were silent upon the castcrete. *Weird...* thought Duo, staring downwards. He slowed a little and stamped one foot.

No sound. He stamped the other, harder; nothing. Again--- there! Sound; not very loud, but *there.* Intrigued, he kicked at a pebble in his path, which skipped with all the appropriate skittering noises across the sidewalk. *O...kay.....*

A snicker made him look up; Rafe had turned to watch, his dark eyes crinkled in amusement. "Having fun?" he asked, one eyebrow arched.

Shooting his companion an annoyed look, Duo pointed silently at the ground and waited for an explanation.

The shinigami shrugged. "Well, I can make noise when I walk because I'm really here--- completely in the world, I mean. You aren't--- you're still a ghost. You probably feel a little numb or cold, right?" At the pilot's nod he continued. "You're not totally in the world of the living; most of you is attached..... elsewhere." He tugged his tan jacket around him a little closer. "Shinigami like me are linked to both worlds; we can 'live' in both the lands of the dead and the living. But ghosts, now, even ghosts like you--- well, you can feel this world, feel the wind and the grass, hear sounds, move stuff, that sort of thing--- but it takes effort; if you hadn't tried to kick at that rock, you would've just passed right through it instead of knocking it around. " He tilted his head back and looked up at the stars. "Shinigami are different. We have to be able to affect both worlds; it's what we do. You remember all that stuff we talked about?" He grinned sideways at Duo. "Man, you were pretty plowed--- I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't remember a thing, but you acted pretty jumpy for a while after that....."

The pilot stared. "You mean you were there? I mean, later?" he growled, not liking the idea of being 'haunted' in the least.

"Sure. I've been nearby a *lot* lately. Hey, I told you I'd keep an eye on you, right?" said the other man nonchalantly. He laughed softly. "That Hilde is quite a lady; you were pretty lucky to have her around. Got a head on her shoulders, too....." he trailed off, an appreciative grin creasing his face.

Duo glowered as they began to walk again, one set of footsteps loud, the other silent. A slow burn began somewhere high on his cheekbones; dead or not, he could feel himself flushing as he gritted out "Just..... how closely were you 'keeping an eye on me'---??"

Rafe shot him an exasperated look. "Not that closely, man! Give me credit for some *tact,* willya?" He snorted with laughter and indignation; "It is NOT my style to play voyeur. You two were a pretty tight item, that's all I'm saying; you were lucky to have her with you while you were alive."

"Umm, yeah. Sorry." Duo felt the burn fade, replaced by sadness; hearing his and Hilde's relationship referred to in the past-tense was..... hard. *Almost worse than thinking of myself in the past-tense, really. Shit.*

Distractions, he needed distractions. The sidewalk they were following lead towards a low park gate and exited towards the streets. Shoving his hands in his pockets, the pilot glanced around uneasily. Where were they going, anyway? Where DID the dead go? He cleared his throat; the shinigami saw his questioning look and stopped, one hand one the metal gate-latch.

His dark eyes flashed the starlight back as he nodded at the gate. "You remember when you saw me before--- I talked about 'recruiting' you, right? You still interested?" He chuckled, a rueful look on his face. "I sure hope so; the shit really hit the fan in a big way when the District heard about that----- We're not supposed to tell the living about us unless we absolutely have to. My boss was pretty pissed off--- put me on crap detail for the next few days." He laughed, then turned a little more serious. "Well? You game or not?"

Duo drew a deep breath; he turned a bit, glancing back towards the spot on the ground by the bench where he had woken up dead. "That's it? I just say 'yes' and I turn into some sort of Night-Of-the-Living-Dead social worker?"

Rafe looked hurt. "It's better than being a plain old ordinary ghost, isn't it? Remember what I said about regular ghosts when I was here before? They fade, man, they change; it's a terrible way to go. Even shinigami don't know what happens to a ghost that fades out. You wanna try that? I wouldn't recommend it."

He looked down at the gate again, fiddling with the catch. "Now..... if you want to move on, if you want peace--- I can send you on. God knows you've earned it---" he waved an expansive hand around at the park; "--- none of this would still be here if you didn't die like you did a few days ago....."

The pilot frowned. "A few days ago?" *I've been dead for days....? God, Hilde..... oh babe, I hope you're okay..... and Heero and the guys too.....*

His heart hurt.

The shinigami nodded. "Yeah--- it took you a little while to come back to yourself. It usually does, after a really BIG trauma like an explosion. So....." he quirked one black eyebrow up. "Wanna check things out? Saying 'yes' doesn't make you a shinigami, but I can show you around the District and you can make up your mind there. Maybe the whole deal'll be a little clearer then."

Silence. Duo stood quietly, still looking back down the path. *Hilde..... guys..... I guess I can't do anything for you like this, can I? And..... there's nothing you can do for me now..... not anymore.* Sorrow rose once again, sharp cold teeth biting at his heart. He forced it down, riding the pain until it subsided at last; then he drew a deep breath. *I can't help you--- you can't help me--- but maybe I can help myself, like this. And maybe..... later..... I can make things better for you guys, too.*

*It sounds a hell of a lot better than just sitting around mourning my own death.*

He turned back to face the gate, and Rafe. The old Duo-grin spread itself across the pilot's face--- a little weak, maybe, but back again; he could feel it. "Sure. Why not? It's not like I've got anything better to do with my time....."

Rafe looked at him hard, his eyes searching. Then he nodded, smiling a little, and opened the gate. The two men stepped through.....

In the quiet, starlit park, a gate swung shut at an empty sidewalk. *************************************************************************** ****************

Ysabet's Notes: Hi there..... I hope you enjoyed my little roadtrip into the wilds of Yami No Matsuei and Gundam Wing via a map of the Afterlife. Yeah, I KNOW it's peculiar--- you got a problem with that?!? If you do, then I expect you to WRITE about it in a review, OK? And if you don't, then let me know that too! Chapter titles for this fic will be as follows, so far as I can tell right now:
1 - The Edge of the Scythe
2 - Price of the Harvest
3 - Sheaves
4 - Honing the Blade
5 - Reaper's Season
Things may change--- it might be larger, but it definitely won't be smaller! Too much fun--- how many writers get to kill off their main character in the first chapter, and then KEEP using him? I mean, in non-vampire stories? =^_^=

Part Three of the Arc won't show up until the last chapter of "As Ye Sow..." is finished; oh, do I have plans for THAT one. The whole thing's gonna become more and more Gundam Wing as it goes along, but it is DEFINITELY Yami No Matsuei-based.

Enjoy the ride; a happy Samhain to you all........ Ysabet