Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Cult Characteristic ❯ Chapter 5

FIVE

Heero glared at the glass, wishing it would run away from him like everything else. He wanted it gone; wanted everyone gone save one. He wanted to be left alone, with Duo. Of course, he knew that was not likely to happen for days. Even now all he could do was stand and watch as they wheeled Duo away, oblivious to his own fate, tiny and so incredibly pale on a stretcher that seemed suddenly colorful by comparison.

A hand rested lightly on his shoulder. He was not surprised. He had been expecting it.

"He will be alright Heero. He's always alright. It just takes time."

Heero nodded at Trowa, but there was nothing to be said. It takes time, just as Trowa said. But that was time they shouldn't have to spend. If they had just reported him missing, put him together with all those other unsolved cases, maybe they would have solved it. No maybes about it, Heero wouldn't have stopped until Duo was home.

Sighing heavily, Heero forced himself away from the glass panel and made his way to the seats where he knew he was expected to sit quietly and wait. Wait for others to do what he should have done eleven months ago; take care of what he loved.

Quatre was at the nurse's station, head bent over more paper than Heero had ever seen on his work Preventer's desk. Heero wasn't about to complain about his friend footing the bill. While the government would pay for Duo to be rehabilitated, Heero preferred Duo be treated privately, and private costs money.

Trowa was hovering by the small blonde's shoulder, a silent support. It was almost comical to watch them together, but there was also something completely compelling in the figure they made. Something that screamed `one'.

Wufei was still at the cult site, cataloguing every scrap of evidence he could find and no doubt getting a much clearer picture of everything that had taken place. Heero felt a need to join him, to see all the facts, to know all the perpetrators and know justice was being served. But he couldn't leave the hospital. Not now. But later…

There was something bothering Heero. Something that even now would not leave the small edges of the circle in his brain labeled `consciousness'. It just hovered there, a constant fixture, reminding Heero that there had been a price. Somewhere along the line someone had paid for this atrocity with clean bills of paper. The building, the equipment, the blood…it was all funded by someone…some being high up in the political ranks. No matter how many times Heero tried to force his mind to task that single fact itched in his brain, and while it itched Heero knew there would be no rest. Until he discovered who had fitted that bill the world would not be `right'. And Heero Yuy did not accept anything other than right. Nothing less than perfect.

*

Wufei collapsed in the chair, staring at the desk in silent fascination. All those faces and names were now a reality in his mind. He had spoken to them all, seen how they reacted, gouged their devotion to their crimes. They were no longer faces glued to a desk, no longer figures dancing on a television screen. They were real, live human beings who so completely believed in what they had done that it almost seemed like it must be right.

But Wufei knew better. Wufei knew that when they spoke of worshipping Shinigami they meant throwing buckets of blood into a pit; pouring a dead man's cold life force over his friend's body. Wufei knew when the spoke of Shinigami giving them everlasting life they meant stealing that life from Duo; taking the light from his eyes, destroying his spirit and unknowingly destroying the only real immortality captured within that small form. Wufei knew that when they spoke of their prize they spoke of his friend and how they had stolen his life. It was only when Wufei realized he knew these things that he also realized he no longer wanted blood. No, he wanted revenge, and revenge was so much more than blood. Revenge was sweet, and bitter all in one. Revenge was the scythe wielded by Shinigami, and Wufei intended to take it up.

Glaring at the photos, Wufei picked up the tapes once again, as well as a list of names with corresponding times. Putting the video in the player and pressing play, he began clicking through the frames, seeking out particular faces and then pausing the image. He made notes on clothing, of items carried on the person, of strange shadowy shapes under capes and cloaks, of eyes colour and shoe type, companions, and the way eyes moved, watched, hesitated. He noted how hands moved, how feet fell, how hips moved. He studied every frame of image until pages of notes matted the desktop, covering the photo map with a newer, colder and more calculating picture of what they were up against.

When at last Wufei turned off the video player and looked at his handiwork the sun was at high noon. Sunlight filtered through the edges of the thick blinds and fell on golden curls standing at his side.

Wufei sat bolt upright in his chair and stared, bewildered.

"Fiona?" When had she arrived? And why? "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long," a new voice said from the doorway. Wufei looked up and vaguely recognized the man as Fiona's `father'. Taking a closer look Wufei felt justified in his earlier assumption that Fiona was adopted. There were, to put it bluntly, no similarities.

"These two were not there last night," Fiona pointed at two pictures and the ten pages of corresponding notes Wufei had just made.

"I noticed," Wufei replied, curious as to how Fiona had known. How long had she remained at the scene last night? How many of her kidnappers had she seen, watched be arrested, delighted in seeing put away? How many had she not seen?

"What are you doing here?" Wufei asked Fiona's father, reasoning it was impolite and completely out of procedure to address the minor when the adult was present.

"Fiona demanded it," was the simple reply. "She thinks there is much more she can tell you."

"I thought you told us everything you knew?" Wufei asked Fiona directly, suspicious as to her motives for possibly concealing vital information.

"I told you everything I knew about the cult in that building. You didn't ask about anything else."

Wufei sat perfectly still in his chair. That admission was far too familiar for his liking.

"I have a friend who likes to only tell so much. He's very good at hedging questions he doesn't want to answer. He likes to twist things, so he doesn't have to lie, but he doesn't have to tell the truth either…"

"Shinigami," Fiona said knowingly, and Wufei recalled she had called Duo that in the pit as well. Knelt right in front of him and said `hello Shinigami' as if they were old friends. As if they knew each other when it was obvious at the same time that they had never met.

"Fiona, I need you to tell me how you know Duo. I need to know…why you're like him."

"But you already know that…" Fiona's voice trailed off, the eyes going dreamy as she was lost to memory. It was a far too familiar image for Wufei, who looked away and met Fiona's father's gaze.

"We adopted her after the war ended. The L2 government was practically giving children away. We knew as soon as we saw them all that they were special. My wife and I helped find homes for a lot of the children, and we took Fiona in."

Wufei nodded. He had thought as much; that Fiona was an orphan of the war. He had not realized she was from L2. It was too close to home. She may not have met Shinigami, but she would have known of him; Duo was a hero to every L2 street rat. Fiona would have recognized him instantly.

"Have you noticed yet?"

Wufei looked at Fiona in confusion. Noticed what? There was a hell of a lot he had noticed in the last few hours. Like the fact all the cult `leaders' had carried a similar shaped package in their left pocket when entering the building. What exactly was he meant to have noticed?

"I didn't think so," Fiona admonished, leaning over his shoulder and pushing several piles of notes to the side. She started grabbing photos, seemingly at random and putting them in two neat piles. Wufei noticed she was only grabbing the photos of `victims', many of whom had not been found in the cult headquarters.

"These, she held up the first pile, are criminals. You will find them on colony databases. They are the scum of the streets; the murderers, the thugs. They were there last night, in the barrels."

Wufei blanched, remembering the blood in the pit, and the barrels piled high against the wall. He couldn't let his brain process the information. Not yet. It was too horrendous.

"And these?" He asked weakly, pointing to the second stack of photos.

"The ones you did find," Fiona replied firmly. "If you look them up in the files you will discover they were all street rats; all the lower half of society. Their role in society was harmless, but it was not `dignified'. At some point, they were all like me."

Wufei didn't need her to say who else they were like; didn't need her to say they were all just like Duo. But why? Why round up all the evil in the world and slaughter it, only to round up the unfortunate and torture them to an equally final death? It made no sense.

Unless you were a high government official trying to create a perfect, dignified world. Unless you believed all people were not created equal and that those lower than yourself were unworthy of life. How long had L2's lower class been persecuted for just that reason?

It all pointed to one thing; the benefactor. And revenge.