Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death's Promise [Book 1 of 3] ❯ Falling ( Chapter 7 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A/n
- Wo-hoo, we finally get a shounen ai warning for this chapter. (Sort of... you'll see.) Ya'll happy yet? *grins at the double irony of this warning*
-And Wufei makes it into the fic! ..albeit briefly...
-But don't forget: like the previous chapter, this one is graphic-intense. Beware of violence.
-I think I actually like the way this chapter worked out...


Chapter 7: Falling

"Heero Yuy, you have been punished for the murder of innocents without just cause. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The soul stared forward silently, unmoving.

"Heero Yuy, answer the question."

He looked up like a lost child, his eyes black, empty.

Clenching his jaw, the judge asked, "Does Satan-sama hold your tongue now, sinner? Answer Our Lord's question, or get out."

When he finally spoke, the voice was not his. It was quiet, deathly quiet, muted by his thousands of violent acts that had taken place over what felt like years (but what may only have been minutes to the outside world). "Confiteor quia peccavi nimis." He spoke slowly, as if the words were ill-suited to his mouth. "Non confundar in aeternum." He spoke without confidence or arrogance. "Gere curam mei funis."

The silver-haired being nodded once sharply, looked away, and muttered, "Kyrie eleison. You have passed the first of your tasks to becoming cleansed." Reluctantly, he began walking away. "I will give you an hour to 'recover,' then your punishment shall recommence." He opened a knob Heero had not seen him grab and walked through a door that matched the swirling expanse around it. The door closed behind him soundlessly, and the knob vanished with it.

Something told Heero any sort of recovery would take longer than an hour.

Much, much longer.

Heero was left there, alone in the room. He'd never felt so alone. The swirling pure white, tainted pink, and impure red of the floor, the walls, and the ceiling swirled and folded over each other again and again as he watched mindlessly, the end to one color fading, only to become the beginning of another. Heero sat there, unable to do more, unable to heal the emptiness inside of him. He was alone, inside and out. His only companions now were a rickety wooden chair, the heavy weight of a gun that had been used to kill innocents, and his voracious, insatiable guilt.

***

Quatre sat on the very edge of a fountain, his ankles crossed and his arms draped around his knees as he stared up into the endlessly white sky. The conversation with Catherine played over and over in his head as he sat, half listening to Trowa's feeble attempts at conversation.

The shade was sitting in the grey strands of grass, plucking blades and twirling them nervously in his fingers while thinking of what to say next. Was it his fault he wasn't a good conversationalist? Well, what was he supposed to discuss? The weather? Hardly. The politics of Heaven, Hell, and Hephess' strained relationship? No, better not to bring up something that would upset Quatre further. ...And the angel certainly looked upset about something. Trowa watched Quatre's unmoving face profiled by the steadily moving black water of the ornate fountain. Quatre didn't belong here. Maybe that was why he was upset. Hesitantly, Trowa ventured, "Do you want to leave?"

Quatre flinched at the sudden breaking of his thoughts, and he turned his head to look questioningly down at Trowa, "Do you want me to?"

His olive-green eyes widened marginally. "I... No..." He muttered, then looked back at the grass he was still unconsciously ripping up. "I... If you want to." Feeling Quatre's eyes still on him, Trowa continued without looking up. "You looked... upset, is all." Finally, he looked up. "Are you?"

"Upset?" Quatre looked down at the tops of his bare feet. "Not really."

"Homesick?"

Quatre looked at him again, then shrugged delicately. "A bit." After a moment, he elaborated, "I do miss Heaven, but... that's not what's bothering me."

He tried to stifle his curiosity; honestly he did. But Trowa had to ask, even though he was almost dreading the answer. "What is?"

"Well..." He started, then paused, thinking along the same lines he had been for a while now. "About what Catherine said..."

Frowning, "What did she say to you?"

"Trowa," He turned completely from his perch on the fountain, planting both bare feet into the soft grass. "Do you know the saying, 'It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?' "

His frown deepened marginally. "No." He shook his head, then began, "Quatre, what does--"

"I love you." He blurted out.

***

The hour was here and gone too quickly, and the judge returned to the tiny room of Purgatory in which Heero sat. The judge raised a thin eyebrow. "Are we ready to begin again?"

"No," Heero deadpanned. "But go ahead anyway."

The judge rolled his eyes and "hmph"ed, before starting into another speech. "You've killed many people in your lifetime, sinner, but you've accounted for their deaths. However, you have not accounted for another sin: dishonoring the Sabbath day. For this, I will not judge you. Rather, I will allow a slight variation, for I have deemed it appropriate."

Heero's eyes widened. This did not sound good. But he managed to calm himself down with reassurances of, "What could be worse than what you've just done?"

The judge gestured once more with a thin, bony hand and a large group of people appeared. Heero recognized them all immediately. The judge addressed him, "These are a handful of people you've killed, Heero Yuy, and by now, I hope you know them all by name." Heero nodded mutely. Continuing, the man crossed his arms and stood a bit taller. "These 93 individuals have decided on proper punishment for your grievous sin, and they have all agreed that it is fitting." He paused, then addressed Heero darkly, "They've agreed to help you redeem yourself through punishment, sinner." He waited again for Heero to respond.

Honestly, what was the judge waiting for? For Heero to apologize? Or to THANK them for putting him through... whatever it was he was about to endure? He sincerely doubted that thanks were in order. Heero glared at the judge. The winged man glared back, then a woman's voice interrupted. Heero looked over to where the voice had come from. She was a heavyset woman with dark hair, dressed in a flowered dress that was old and weathered. Heero recognized her. Fantelle Travallier: daughter of French peasants, wife of a French peasant, mother of six French peasants. She shouted at Heero in rustic French, her facial expressions wild with anger. "Yes, yes! Retribution for us now, sinner. You killed us. We kill you. The world is balanced again, no?"

Heero missed a few words because of her accent, but he got the general idea of the message. He asked back in broken French, "What must I do for forgiveness?"

The group of people all shouted back answers in the same rural French until the woman, Fantelle, shouted over them. "I will tell you, dog! You will taste your own fire, and you will burn with us." The group shouted agreements.

Heero closed his eyes. God have mercy.

***

Immediately after his confession, Quatre bowed his head and muttered. "I-- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"You... love me?"

Quatre smiled sadly and nodded, then gently peeked his eyes upward through his blonde bangs to gauge Trowa's reaction.

The shade blinked a few times, then asked softly, "Why?"

Raising his head, Quatre asked incredulously, "Why?" He paused for a minute, thinking, the replied equally softly. "I don't really know..." Suddenly realizing how this could be, and probably was being, taken negatively, Quatre continued, "I don't know why, but I do. You... You're like no one I've ever met."

Trowa had been staring at the grass once more, but now looked up suddenly, meeting Quatre's eyes. "Why are you telling me this, angel?" He shook his head once, then asked sharply, "What do you want from me?"

***

One second, Heero was standing in a swirling white, red, and pink room, being glared at by an angry judge and a rather large angry mob. The next second, however, he was standing in a very different room.

It was a church, though the term did not suit the place he was standing in. The walls were stone, mostly, but were crumbling apart. There were no stained-glass windows, no ornate tapestries, no statues, not even a cross hanging anywhere. Instead of pews, there were rows and rows of folding chairs and most of them were sitting just behind dirty people, who stood, singing. Only a few of these people had bibles. The song was unfamiliar to Heero, but it didn't help that there was no music to accompany the often painfully tone-deaf voices. He assumed it was a hymn. In fact, the only way Heero actually deemed this run-down shack to be a church was that in the very front of the small, crowded, putrid, humid room, stood an elderly man in black with a white collar, cradling a large bible, and singing loudly.

A few minutes later, the song ended and, as one, the people sat down. Heero remained standing at the back of the church, straight down the isle that the makeshift pews had formed. Uncomfortable, Heero looked around. There were some empty seats over there; it couldn't hurt. He shuffled over to one and sat down, watching the back of the people's heads before him. The preacher's voice droned on about God and Mercy and Forgiveness. Frankly, Heero had heard enough of that from the judge to last more than one lifetime. Rather than listen, he began scanning the people's faces he could make out. Yes, he recognized them. All of them. They were the French peasants.

***

Quatre shied away slightly. "Want...?" He shook his head, "I don't want anything."

"I don't believe you."

***

A heavy rumbling started, but no one, save Heero, seemed to notice. Heero looked up, then around as the rumbling in his feet grew stronger. An earthquake? ...No. It was too rhythmic... Where had he felt something like this before...? Heero looked around to see what everyone else thought of the noise, but no one moved. It was like they didn't even hear it. ...Or they were ignoring it. Heero suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

As the rumbling continued in steady bursts, a mechanical whining began faintly. As the seconds passed, the whining got louder and louder until it was almost a roar. Then it stopped. Heero looked around, but no one said anything, or even looked away from the sermon. Even when Heero stood up, no one paid him any mind. He glared around the room, trying to find where the noise had come from. Finally, his eyes fell on one dusty window. Just vaguely through the grime, Heero could make out something... it was metallic white against the powder-blue sky, and there was a light... two glowing green lights. Heero would have recognized his beloved monster anywhere, no matter the conditions:

It was Wing.

***

Trowa stood up, brushing the conversation away. "You should probably go home anyway. They're probably worried for you."

Hopping off of the fountain, Quatre stood up and argued back. "You have to believe me." The shade looked away. "...Please, Trowa."

Trowa sighed. "Don't."

"I don't understand." Quatre frowned, balling his fists in frustration. "What did I say wrong?"

Trowa still refused to meet the angel's intense gaze. "Just don't, Quatre."

"If I have to prove I love you, I will."

***

Heero was frantic now. If that were his Gundam outside, and it was, and if he were in a room with 93 people he had killed with said Gundam, and he was...

He shouted, despite the so-called "sanctity of the church," yelling at the people to, "Run! Get out!" even though he knew they could not possibly avoid the coming blast, no matter how fast they ran. Outside, Wing lifted its weapon to eye-level. Heero, seeing this out of the corner of his eye, nearly screamed from his own helplessness. Scanning faces, he shouted, begging them to acknowledge him, to listen to him, anything! After a few more moments of futile shouting, his eyes met with the profile of a young boy: a young boy sitting next to his mother, coloring on a piece of paper in his lap, a young boy with messy brown hair and shining blue eyes. Heero didn't know his name. The boy turned his head, bright cyan eyes matching Heero's own horrified navy. The boy looked at Heero, then at his own lap where his paper lay. He then looked back at Heero innocently and held up the paper he had been coloring on. Only the corners of it were still blank white. The rest was a mass of yellow, orange, and red crayon scribbles. They all looked random; however, there was on thing Heero could make out that was obviously intentional. In the very center of the paper was a word, thick and shining in bold black crayon: "BOOM."

***

"Just forget it." Trowa started walking away. "I'm sorry."

"Trowa." Quatre took a few steps after him. "Please, wait..." The shade, ignoring him, continued walking. Finally, "Trowa, just listen to me!" Quatre ran forward and grabbed Trowa's arm, halting him.

Trowa turned around slowly, staring at the pale hand that still held his wrist. He looked up at Quatre in shock, but said nothing.

Releasing his grip, Quatre took a step back, then looked at the palm of his hand. It was shaking. He bit his lower lip softly, then smiled sadly up at Trowa. "Do you believe me yet?"

***

There was a screaming as the rifle powered up, then a rumble, like thunder, began. Louder, and louder, and louder. The heavy booming became a high-pitched whine, and the dirty windows shattered inward, grey glass shards slicing into naked flesh as they rained downward, sparkling. Heero fell to the ground and covered his head, knowing it was pointless, but unable to resist his instincts. The man in black on the pulpit, continued preaching, telling of God's salvation and the glory of Heaven, even as a wave of fire followed the shattering boom that had broken the windows. The fire swelled and grew, pouring into the empty window frames like lava, crashing through the entire right wall of the small cathedral in a wave of flames. Heero looked up at the intense hissing noise, watching with wide eyes as the flame seemed to slow down, pausing before it slammed into him. His eyes searched around in those few seconds, and focused on the preacher; but what Heero saw made his eyes widen and his chest grow tight. Instead of the old holy man, Duo now stood in his place, Death himself, wearing the preacher's simple black garments, the white collar nestled against his pale neck, the large book pressed into his hands. Eyes flaming with violet light, Duo looked sinister as they locked gazes, motioning for Heero's silence with one thin finger pressed against his grinning lips.

The extended moment ended in a flash, and the fire fell on Heero, slamming him into the ground at the weight of it, burning off his hair, then clothes, then flesh, then muscles, boiling his blood and bursting his veins, all in a single painful instant. The bricks and mortar of the church soon lost their hold and fell inwards, crushing everything, smothering everything in a cloud of white and red powder, extinguishing the bulk of flames and crushing any possible survivors.

Silence was in the valley as a lone Gundam stomped away from the smoking mass, seeking its next target. Nothing moved, save chalky grey powder, which rose and hovered around the rubble in ghostly forms, circling around the still-burning piles of brick, wood and bodies. The area was cleared, all trees had been leveled, all animals killed, and only the crackle of fire mourned over the cathedral's grave. The church was gone forever; only the fires, the smoke, and death remained.

***

"Wufei!" Hilde stood up to greet him, smiling brightly. "Welcome back!" Her smile faltered slightly. "You're back kind of early, Fei. Did you take your shift's souls to Heaven, Hell, and back already?"

The dark boy remained stony-faced as he replied sharply. "Where is Duo-sama?"

Hilde, reading his expression, frowned deeply. "Purgatory, I guess. Or going to Hell, I don't know which. Depends how long..." She trailed off as Wufei glared back over his shoulder in the direction of Purgatory. Hilde whispered, "What's up? What's going on? What happened to your group?"

Wufei clenched his fists, still frowning deeply. "We have a problem."

***

Heero opened his eyes wide with a start, looking around quickly. After a moment, his eyes came back into focus and he saw the judge standing there, looking impassively down at him with dull pink eyes. "Heero Yuy, you have been justly punished for your sin of dishonoring the Sabbath day. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The soul remained staring for a minute, the horrid scene replaying over and over in his eyes before he spoke. "I deserve worse."

"You speak not in Latin. Do you mock me?"

Heero looked up sharply. "What? Of course not." The judge remained staring, waiting, his lips tight with frustration. Finally, realization hit Heero and he sighed. Bowing his head, he whispering the phrases. "Confiteor-- Confeiteor quia peccavi nimis. Non confundar in aeternum." Sighing Heero ran one sticky palm across his clammy forehead, pushing his fingers up through his sweaty bangs in a nervous gesture. Hallucination or not, that was an intense experience. God, what had he done? "Gere curam mei funis."

Reluctantly, the man replied, "Kyrie elei--," but he stood midway through the phrase, staring at Heero with a new suspicion. He reached down and grabbed Heero's arm, then pulled the soul to his feet, glaring at him. "What's this?"

Heero raised an eyebrow, meeting the man's eyes. "What's what?"

Without warning, the judge reached forward and pushed Heero's bangs back, glaring at his forehead. "This." He spoke with a new venom in his voice. "How dare you waste my time, sinner! Had I known of this mark, I would have cast you out immediately! How dare you lie to the Lord, foul child of Darkness!"

"What!" Heero jerked his neck back, forcing the man's hand off his forehead. "What mark? What are you--"

The judge scoffed, turning away from him. "Get out of my sight, sinner. You are to leave this place at once. Take the door behind you." Leave? Why?! He had just gotten here! What was this guy-- Wait a minute; Heero didn't remember any door. He turned, and, to his shock, a door was indeed there, not two feet away from him. He swore that wasn't there a minute ago... Heero turned back to face the judge. "Why? I don't under--"

The winged man spoke again, chopping off Heero's questioning. "I will waste no more time on YOU, demonic slave! Out of my presence." And with that, the man walked quickly away, fading into the swirling pink and red of Purgatory. Heero remained standing there, too confused to move. What had just happened? Had he just undergone all that punishment for-- for nothing?! He-- He'd ki-- He had ki-- And then he'd sat in that church, watched, witnessed those innocents' sk-- skin as it... and their-- the the-- melting... their bones and... the smell... burning... That was for nothing? For nothing! He himself had been boiled to death for G--oh, God, he felt sick. He could smell the noxious fumes of burning flesh again; he could taste the ash on his breath, the cinders in his nostrils, causing his eyes to sting and water. He could feel the heat burrowing like tiny worms into his skin. No, no, no! It wasn't real! Nothing was real! He had to get out of here; he had to get away, outside. He needed air. He needed to see the endless white, that damned endless white, not these vomit-, blood-, fire-colored walls! He needed to see the real Duo, not the twisted interpretation from that... dream. He stumbled forward, grabbed the doorknob, and heaved it, practically falling through the portal into the white mists of Limbo once more.

Outside, he saw Duo sitting, playing some type of solitary card game on the pure white ground. Duo looked up and smiled brightly, but before he could say a word, Heero held up his hand, halting him. "Don't." Duo simply watched curiously as Heero turned where he stood, facing the way he had just come. He stood there while he gathered his thoughts, pushing away the imagery of the burning church for pure hard facts. He was forced out of Purgatory prematurely. Why? Something about being a child of darkness... Something about a mark on his forehead... Heero looked up and glared at the gate he had just come through. The exit to Purgatory was the exact reverse of the entrance, a mirror image. It looked the same, but the writing was backwards.

However, Heero barely noticed this as his attention was focused purely on the mirror in front of him. He glared at it, face to face with his nonexistent reflection. Damn it, now what was he supposed to do? Evidently, there was something horrible on his forehead, and, obviously, he couldn't see his own forehead without a mirror. But he had no reflection, so he couldn't see it even if he HAD one. There was nothing he could do. He was forced out of Purgatory, his last hope at salvation, and he had no idea why. He didn't know how to rectify the situation; hell, he didn't even know if he COULD rectify it. He had the answer on his own damn head and had no way of seeing it, never mind doing anything about it! This was Hell, already, wasn't it? This... this Purgatory really was the beginning of Hell. He was in Hell already, wasn't he? He had to be! This was torture! And what was worse, he couldn't even see his own damn reflection!

Growling, Heero reached back as far as he could, forming a fist and slammed his arm forward, fully intent on shattering the traitorous mirror. To his disgust, his hand went straight through the reverse portal, and he almost fell forward from the sheer momentum. Luckily, he caught himself before falling, but he still managed to look like an idiot in the process. He stood up, then looked down at the white below him, sighing. He shook his head over and over again, trying to get the hundreds of thoughts to just shut up. How had this happened? What was happening? The only thing he was sure of was that it was all his own damn fault. He was such a fucking--

"Heero?" The cards were gone now, and Duo was standing, trying to peer around Heero's back to see the soul's expression. "You okay?"

Heero turned slowly, watching Duo with dead eyes. "Yes," he replied flatly. "I'm fine."

Duo laughed cynically. "Yeah, I throw punches at gates when I'm feeling fine, too." He stepped forward like one approaching a wild animal, asking seriously, "What happened? You're out awfully quick..."

"What happened." Heero was suddenly assaulted by image after image of exactly what had happened. The innocents, the thousands of people he had shot at close range. Their eyes. Their blood. Then the fire, the smoke, the screaming, the running, the crying, the praying... the smell of death. Heero's world started getting darker, fading on the edges. "Nothing." Black spots throbbed in his vision, and suddenly he felt dizzy. "It's nothing."

"What's nothing?" Duo asked skeptically. "Hey, Heero, you really don't look good. Maybe you should sit down or--"

Heero could barely hear Duo talking; the little girl's voice was in his head again, laughing loudly. He was too tired to bother fighting it. Why wouldn't she just leave him the hell alone? "Nothing." He repeated. "I'm fine."

Fine? Yeah, right. He obviously wasn't, and Duo knew it. That damn Purgatory, no one came out of it "fine."

The child knew too. She laughed again hearing him say it; Heero could almost see her pointing at him, tossing her orange hair around as she skipped happily in circles. "Of course you're fine! Ignium aeternam! You're always fine! Immortal Fire! You will always BE fine! Flammium aeternam! Fine! Fine! Fine! Fine! Fi---"

"Shut up! Shut up!"

Duo stared blankly as Heero clutched his head and shouted at himself. He whispered, "I didn't say anything, Heero."

The soul looked up, his eyes wide as he saw Duo staring at him. "I didn't..." Heero muttered again, stumbling forward a bit as he attempted to remain upright despite the dizzying heat he was feeling. "I meant... I jus-- I..." Something was pounding through his head, making everything pulse and spin, making Duo look blurry and sound far away. "I don-- I... I shou--" Then everything flashed like a photograph's negative exposed, and the white of limbo turned black, and Duo's black robes turned white, and Duo's skin turned blue-green, and then it went away, fading to total blackness. "I'm sorry." His world fell apart then, shattering like glass, just as his vision had, as the heat, the dizziness, the dancing spots, and the laughing child's voice collided together in Heero's mind, overwhelming him. His dark blue eyes rolled back, and he fell forward into a heated unconsciousness.

Even in the silence of a forced sleep, demons' voices taunted him, "Ignium aeterna! Everlasting fires! Flammis aeterna! Everlasting flames!"

The cold judge growled, "Unholy creature! Vilest of sinners! Get out of my sight!"

His mind shouted continuously, "Failure! Failure! Failure!"

The little child saw all this and giggled in delight.

And the fire inside him grew brighter.