Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death's Promise [Book 1 of 3] ❯ Seeing ( Chapter 8 )

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

A/N:
-Just a reminder that //date// states what time period it is and is used only for flashbacks.
-Wow, I got this chapter out quickly. But it was a short one. Don't expect any more chapters out this fast. :P


Chapter 8: Seeing

The souls that enter Purgatory are riddled with sin. It is embedded into their souls so deeply that it must be torn out, like plucking out hairs: one by agonizing one. This is a long and grueling process. Heero had only been punished for two of his misdeeds, and thus, had not been jailed for any considerable amount of time. The other souls, however, remained engulfed in the abyss of Purgatory, having their sins ripped away while Heero and Duo waited patiently outside.

At least, Duo waited. Duo was leaning back leisurely against one marble pillar of Purgatory's exit gate. He watched the ever-white distance of Limbo without seeing it; there were more important things to see and think of right now. So as he sat there, gazing into the distance, silently reveling in the feeling of Heero's dead weight against his chest, idly toying with the greasy strands of brown hair that made up Heero's bangs, Duo thought. His thoughts were troubled, and they showed on his face, but he said nothing. That is, until someone spoke to him.

Duo turned his head and looked into the mirror next to him. The same image, the corpse with white hair and pale skin, was talking to him, its periwinkle lips moving soundlessly. He whispered back, so as not to disturb the still unconscious soul lying half on top of him. "You're wrong."

It mouthed back, the words only audible to Duo, "Am I?"

"Yes." He stared back into the distance, but could still hear the soft voice in his head, like the crunching of dead leaves.

"Have I led us astray before?"

"Yes, you have. You said the same thing about Wufei."

"No. My memory is far better than yours, and I did not." It corrected in a chiding tone, "Besides, that matter and this will prove completely different anyway."

Duo's attention caught, he turned his head, once more staring at the all-too-familiar reflection. "What do you mean?"

"You know." The catlike eyes shifted from Duo, to Heero, then back, though Duo wasn't watching the reflection as it moved. "You never held Wufei like that."

"Wufei wasn't unconscious when he came out of Purgatory, smart-ass."

The reflection almost sighed at its owner. "That's ri--"

Heero groaned and began moving slightly.

Duo looked back down at the soul in his arms, then muttered, "Look... I'll think about it, okay? Could you just... go away for a little while? Please?" The reflection replied something with a smirk, then it slunk downward. As the top of it reached the ground, a violet light seeped out of the mirror and crept along the floor, finally floating up even with Duo's horse and fading into the animal's already violet eyes. Duo muttered a thanks, then looked down at Heero again. He pushed back the soul's bangs a bit more and glared at the offending mark burned into the skin there. This was why Heero'd left Purgatory so quickly. Duo had been afraid of that... "Just like Wufei," He muttered to himself. To anyone who hadn't seen that mark before, it would look like nothing more that a Celtic knot of sorts. To Death, however, if looked much, much differently. Duo sighed. "I don't understand humans, Heero." He got no response from the still unconscious boy.

When he looked back in the mirror, nothing was there but the blindingly white reflection of the vast Limbo.

***

Hilde finally gave up and shouted at him, "Wufei! Just tell me what happened!" She immediately regretted shouting as Wufei turned and stared at her with confusion.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "You got the list just like the rest of us, Hil." He continued shaking his head as his eyes glazed over in remembrance. "It was a long list this week."

The gatekeeper nodded silently. "There's a war going on. All the shifts are larger than normal; you know that, Fei."

"I certainly thought I knew that." He continued. "But--" He paused, trying to understand the situation himself before explaining. His black eyes met Hilde's cyan. He muttered ominously. "No one was there."

Hilde gaped. "What?"

Wufei continued, still stunned himself. "I collected them all. I brought them to Limbo. By the time I made it to Heaven, though, no one was behind me anymore. I went to every name on that list, Hil, every single name!" He clenched his teeth. "They were all there one minute, I turn my back, and they're gone!" He looked down, still shaking his head, "I don't understand it."

"That's impossible!" She shouted. "They couldn't ALL have gotten lost!"

He scoffed. "Well, they're certainly not in Heaven. The saint verified that much."

Hilde leaned back in her seat, pondering this new revelation. "How is this possible?"

"Something is wrong." Wufei looked off in the direction of Hell. "There's something going on over there that we don't know about."

Biting her lip, the gatekeeper mumbled, "Do you think Duo-sama knows about it, Fei?"

Wufei sighed. "If he doesn't yet," he continued glaring off into the distance. "He will soon."

***

Heero woke up slowly, a now ever-present pounding in his head. He sat up, pressing one arm back against the thick whiteness of Limbo's floor and the other hand rubbing one temple. God, his head hurt. What happened? He looked up to see Duo sitting across from him; Death was once again engaged in a game of solitaire. Heero rubbed his hand across his eyes and suppressed a moan. He'd just murdered thousands of innocent people in a matter of hours, he'd been incinerated by his own Gundam, he'd dealt with that pompous judge, and his traveling companion was a know-it-all god who thought so little of his situation that he could sit there and play cards. And, to top it all off, Heero felt like he had a hangover the size of Wing... without having the previous night of drinking bliss. This was all so fucking wrong. Why wasn't he just dead?

....wait a minute. He WAS dead. Goddamn it!

Duo looked up briefly from his cards, noting Heero's state. Yup. Purgatory was a bitch. He went back to playing cards and began talking softly. "You have it all figured out yet?"

Heero looked up as the drone of Duo's voice drove like a nail into the side of his head. After a moment of closing his eyes to repress the tears of pain, he muttered back, "Figured what out?"

Eyes on the cards, he shrugged. "Everything. Why you're not in Heaven right now. Why you got kicked out of Purgatory. What you're going to do once you get to Hell." He placed another card down. "Things like that."

Heero scoffed. Yeah. He had plenty of questions. Why wouldn't Duo just TELL him the answers? He'd been thinking about them for what felt like years now. Oh, and of course a few more of his own. Like what the hell did he do to deserve this? ...Aside from murdering and sinning and all, of course... And why was he hearing those voices? Who was that little girl that repeatedly showed up in his mind's eye? Was he really going to Hell? What was Hell like? And didn't Duo promise that Heero wasn't going to Hell? And what the HELL was on his damn forehead? He sighed heavily. "I haven't figured anything out."

Duo hummed noncommittally, still watching his cards. "Well," He finally said, "We can't leave until the others get out, so you have plenty of time to think about it." He placed another card down thoughtfully.

"I've been thinking about it since I died." Heero shot back angrily. "It hasn't helped me yet." He leaned back and tossed his arms over his eyes to block out the light. His head continued throbbing. "Why bother."

"Good point." Duo put down another card, his eyes never leaving them as he continued addressing Heero. "Maybe you're thinking to hard." He finally looked over at Heero. "Maybe you should just stop thinking about it." A smirk threatened his lips. "You get more answers than you'd expect that way."

Heero sighed into his arms. Why not. Not thinking sounded like the best possible solution right now. A temporary, well-needed escape from thought. Good idea. He concentrated on the blackness before his closed eyes and nothing else. Eventually, he stopped thinking altogether.

Duo watched as Heero's coiled muscles slowly relaxed. Heero wanted answers, huh? Well... maybe he could supply one or two. The part of his mind inhabited by the age-old Death argued against it, but Duo shrugged. He wouldn't give Heero answers, exactly... Visions were up to the receiver to figure out anyway, right? Death's reflection scoffed at the twisting and half-truths Duo was telling himself. But, what was the reflection going to do? Duo never heeded him until it was too late anyway.

***

There was total darkness for a long, long time. Then, in the corner of Heero's mind, a little purple flame burst and began glowing. It started off to the side, then drew an arch upward, then it came down and flowed back on itself, then arched again, all the while leaving a glowing trail of violet light. The flame continued in this manner until it finally met back up with its origin in the corner. Now, there was a whole picture of glowing violet: an intricate, timeless design. It reminded Heero or a Celtic knot...

Then the violet light flashed, and he was in total darkness once more.

Through the darkness, he saw brief images of people he'd never met. A woman, a brunette, with brown eyes and a cold glare. A girl his age with short dark hair and a wavering smile. A boy around his age with dark hair and a dark, scowling expression. A girl with rich brown hair, like Duo's, and a determined blue light in her eyes. Another girl with long strawberry blonde hair and stunning blue eyes. A tall blonde man whose skin was so pale it blended into the white behind him.

The world turned fiery white, then faded to the softer, blurry white of Limbo. It was definitely Limbo: the nothingness stretched on forever in every direction, save straight ahead. Before Heero stood the blonde girl whose image he'd just seen. He was eye-to-eye with her, and she had her arms casually draped around his neck, her lithe body pressed up against his. Their stare broke as the blonde girl leaned further forward and whispered into Heero's ear, "Come back with me."

He whispered back, "Where?"

She leaned into his neck, kissing his skin openmouthed, though the physically numb soul couldn't feel it. She whispered into his shoulder, "Home."

Then the world faded from white to black, and various images of Duo assailed him: Duo smiling, Duo shouting, Duo looking worried, Duo looking apathetic, Duo screaming, Duo looking betrayed, Duo lying on the ground, staring up, with his eyes rolled back, his hair loose, and his lips tinted blue. Duo unmoving.

Then another flash, this time purple.

Before he realized it, Heero was back in another dreamscape. He was walking down a long corridor. It was stone. Black stone. Smooth, but not shiny. Curious to know what the unidentifiable stone was, he ran three fingers across it as he continued walking. The wall became smooth and clean under his touch, leaving three thin lines along the wall. He removed his hand from it and looked at his fingers, rubbing them together. Soot. Like charcoal. Heero looked up once more to the never-ending corridor and continued walking.

His hands were tingling. It was a mild electric shock running through his palms. It felt like the time he had grabbed Wing's controls when his hands were wet with rainwater. The same feeling. He continued walking.

The room was dark, hardly lit. There were torches occasionally on the walls, but they were dimmed by some purple light. Everything Heero saw looked some shade of purple. It was odd. When he'd looked at his hand before, even, it had looked blindingly purple. Very strange. He continued walking.

Heero didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get there. He was in a rush, but he couldn't understand why. Where was he? What was he doing? Why was he so eager to reach his destination? A flash of red. What was that? Another. There were things moving, like small animals, some the size of deer, off in the distance. As he walked forward, they scurried away. From fear? He continued walking.

He paused. His eyes gently rolled to the right. There. There. His destination. Twin red doors rose up before him. Heavy. Solid. Strong. Heero clenched his fist and the humming vibrations grew stronger. That door. The door was strong. He was stronger. He kicked it. Nothing. He kicked it again. Again, nothing. He had to get in there. Needed to. The shaking of his clenched fist grew even more, and he slammed his shoulder into the door, pushing his full weight into it. The door clattered open with twin resounding bangs. Heero looked up, staring into the purple mist of the new room.

At the far end from where he stood in the doorway was a desk and a high-backed chair. The chair swiveled around. Her. The little girl sat there, her red hair tinted dark burgundy from the violet light. Her. Laughing, the girl pushed a few strands of hair behind her ear. She grinned like a malicious cat. Her. "Hello, Mr. Yuy." Her mouth continued moving, but she said nothing. Heero's eyes were blurred from the violet light too much to read her lips. She laughed again, the noise echoing in Heero's head. "You're late."

The tingling in his hands turned into burning. His shoulder blades flexed, and he suddenly realized there was an uncomfortable weight on his back. Everything faded to deep purple, then back to black.

Then he was in the same room alone, standing before the chair the child had been sitting in, his back to it. The red doors, opening into the black hallway, closed as he stared at them. The purple light was gone and now; instead, everything appeared tinted crimson. As he continued staring at the doors, one opened slowly. Duo stepped in, almost self-consciously. His face was expressionless, perhaps a bit upset. He said to Heero in a clear voice, "I got your peace offering." A smile turned the corner of Duo's pink lips. Heero smirked as the heavy red door behind Duo slammed shut.

Everything flashed bright red, then faded to black.

There was silence as Heero's conscious remained in the darkness. After a few moments, the darkness gave way to the same Celtic knot. As Heero continued examining the strange shape, wondering what it could possibly mean, he heard Duo's voice, just barely. "You see, Heero, I only send visions I get to be in."

His eyes snapped open.

***

Heero, brought reeling back to reality, glared in the direction in which Duo had been playing cards. There was a soul walking there instead. Actually... Heero realized with a start that HE was walking, too. In fact, the small group of souls that had been in Purgatory were all around him, all walking, with Duo at the lead. Heero was walking with them. Strange, he hadn't even remembered standing up... like sleepwalking. But that sure as hell was no dream. He stalked to the front of the group to talk with Duo.

Death was up on his horse, casually trotting it along at a decent pace that would get them to Hell quickly but shouldn't lose anyone along the way. He looked down to his left side when he heard Heero call his name. Duo smiled down brightly. "Hey, Heero. Have a nice rest?" When Heero grumbled, Duo's smirk grew. "So, you figure anything out?"

He thought about that for a moment, then firmly answered, "No. Now I have more questions." Duo sighed, but said nothing, and began scratching the side of his horse's neck lovingly. They walked in silence for a few minutes before Heero broke down and asked, "Who was that girl?"

"What girl?"

Heero glared.

Duo replied, "No, seriously. We don't have that much control on the visions we send. Honestly." He shrugged. "I focused on one thing I wanted to send you, one thing I knew. Anything else you got is kind of like a side effect. That's how visions work." He laughed once. "I know just as much about the future as you do, pal."

"The future?" He hadn't considered that, though it certainly made sense. He hadn't met many of those people, including the blonde... "So you have no idea what I saw?"

"I have the barest hint of an idea, but other than that..." Duo trailed off.

Heero looked down to watch the white ground as he walked. If... If that was the future... The hallway... The room... He was going to meet the little girl that kept plaguing his mind with "visions" and voices.

He glared. Oh, yes. He would kill her.

And assuming she was dead, well... he'd find a way to kill her, even if he died trying.

...Again, that is.

That reminded him, he looked up at Duo and asked, "Can dead things die?"

Duo looked down with a half-smirk. "Sort-of. Depends what kind of 'dead things' we're talking about."

Heero paused, then asked, "Anything."

"Mm..." Duo paused, then began listing them off. "Well, souls can get lost and, if they stay lost long enough, they turn into ghosts. Ghosts that don't seek redemption eventually fade out existence, but if they enter Heaven, Hell, Purg, or Hephess, they turn back to souls.

"Souls can get shredded, which... isn't pretty. You've found out that souls can bleed, well, they can get human injuries, too... like losing a limb or an eye or something." He frowned. "Just like humans, if a soul gets beat up enough where a normal human would die, or worse, then the soul stops existing."

Heero interrupted, "What do you mean by 'stops existing' ?"

Duo shrugged. "I mean what I said. One minute the soul's there, the next it's gone. No one really knows what happens." He laughed. "Some people think souls turn into human shadows. Some say they turn into reflections. Some people say they just hang around in Hephess, but I know that that one's not true. And then you have the people that believe there's life after the after life and that souls get reincarnated in Human, but that has yet to be proven."

He thought this over for a minute. "It's just like on Earth... No one knows what's after death."

"I guess so." He laughed. "Kind of ironic." He shrugged and continued, "Anyway, where was I? Hm... you know angels can fall, and go back to Human, if they do. Shades and demons can't fall, but they can stop existing, just like souls... Anything messy would make them stop existing... think beheading or losing more than one limb. Yuck.

"There are various other creatures wandering around: Phantoms, Lurkers, Spirits, Wraiths, Pixies, Goblins, and things, but they all have their own ways of being killed all over again. Basically, nothing's invincible."

"What about you?"

Duo looked down solemnly at Heero for a moment, "Everything can die, Heero." Then gave him a half-smile, "Even us omnipotent god-types."

***

//AD 1958//

"Treize-sama...?" She whispered gently. "Treize-sama, please answer me."

Treize had been sitting at his desk for an entire day now. No matter what Une had said or done, he refused to be moved. The faithful Gatekeeper had tried everything she could think of, bribing him with everything both Hell and Human had to offer. Nothing worked. The Devil simply refused to be moved. He barely spoke, and when he did, it was either a nonsensical musing, an order, or both.

"It won't last." Treize muttered, still staring into a delicate wine glass that was half-full (and that had been so for some time).

Lady Une sat on the arm of his chair, draping her arms around him in a comforting hug. "What won't, Trieze-sama?" She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and stared sadly up at him.

"Everything." He whispered darkly. "Hell. You. I." He went on with finality. "We are all doomed, My Lady. All because it cannot last. Nothing lasts for all of Eternity, no matter how we delude ourselves into believing so."

She took in a shuttering breath, "I can't stand to see you this way, Treize-sama. Please," She begged, tightening her hold on him and pressing her face into his neck. "Tell me what to do." She whispered against his skin. "You know I'll do anything."

"There is nothing we can do." As a dismal afterthought, he added, "Save wait for the uprising."

"You can't be sure." She argued back feebly for the hundredth time this week. "Your children, we love you, Treize-sama. You can't believe that we would..."

"They will." He cut in. "Soon." With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair, Une releasing her grip to allow him the freedom of that motion. Treize's fiery red eyes glazed over pensively as he stared up at the black stone ceiling of his bedchambers. "I'm getting old anyway."

Kneeling by his chair now, Une shook her head. "You're no older than that evil God or that brat Death."

With a great sigh of frustration, Trieze rose from his chair. "I do not expect you to understand, Lady."

Desperately, she called out, "Explain it to me, then. I'll listen for Eternity and longer, Treize-sama."

He was silent for a moment, then began softly, "I am a rebel, Lady. That is what I am. An alternative. My children are rebels as well." He gazed thoughtfully at a far-off wall. "It is foolish to believe that rebels will obey one man forever. I'm surprised I've lasted this long. I suppose they were simply waiting for a reason." He sighed softly. "Now they have it, thanks to that love-sick, disobedient child."

"Treize-sama..."

He turned back and smiled gently down at her. "Don't worry, Lady. All is for the best. I have full faith in the future of Hell." He paused, the smile fading, then trailed off, "Only..."

"What?" She perked up, attentive instantly. "Only what?"

"My dearest Lady," their eyes met. "Take care of Mariemeia for me."

Une's eyes widened for a moment, then she bowed deeply with a resigned, "Yes, Trieze-sama." She closed her eyes.

"Anything for you."