Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Psionic Saga ❯ 23: The truth of shinigami and annual complicity ( Chapter 23 )
Chapter Twenty Three: The truth of Shinigami and Annual Complicity
Review thanks: To Iniquity, DBZVelena, Debs-dragon and TKMaxwell at GW addiction for their positive comments as I worked through this little monster I owe more than I can say. One small smilie says a thousand words. ;-P
To Ella Fa Te, Arithkenshin, Aria and all those others who took five seconds to review at MediaMiner, I owe to you the fact this part is finished now and not in a few months time. The last part will be finished this weekend. Enjoy!
*****
This part is for Sylahn, the best Psionicist I have ever met, and one of my truest friends. Thank you for working through the idea, and for all the time you waste on me. One day I'll make it worth it.
*****
It was cold and Heero didn't like the cold. It reminded him of that place. Of chains and the feeling of warm blood trickling over his skin only to be brushed by the cold air to make his skin even colder. No, Heero did not like the cold at all.
Opening his eyes, Heero screamed. He was there.
It was different. As Heero forced himself to stand, he took it all in. The way the chains were bundled in a broken heap, stained with old blood, the floor washed clean. The way the air seemed cleaner, scentless and ready to act instead of sluggish and out of time. Most of all, he noticed the boy was still there, lying a little way off from the chains, the broken lock still resting by his head.
Heero recognised him instantly. Running over and kneeling by his side, Heero took the boy's head in his lap and ran a soothing hand down the long braid.
"Duo, wake up. It's me, Heero."
Duo's eyes slid open, dazed and foggy, trying to place where they were. It didn't take long. Looking past Heero, it was an easy thing to pick the moment when Duo went from lost and fearful to knowing and terrified.
Heero was shocked when Duo pushed him back, so shocked he let Duo go and watched in sick fascination as Duo scrambled away from him on hands and knees. The lock sat between them, cold, silent, broken.
"Duo?"
Duo was staring at the lock, hate filling his eyes.
"I should never have come here. Should never have listened. Should never have broken it. If I hadn't…we would be in our room, in your bed, asleep and warm."
Heero looked at the lock and couldn't help but wonder if it was true. He could not regret Duo waking him, but he could regret the way they were now. If only he could figure out how that was.
Why were they in his core? And how was Duo wrapped in his internal frequency enough to be trapped there right along with him?
"Duo, why are we here?"
Duo gaped at him, then a slight smile tinged his lips and a dark laugh escaped his throat.
"Why? Because you're mad. Because I'm mad. Because this is where we come to die, Heero." So bitter, yet so determined.
"Do you want to die Duo?" Heero was confused. He had always been able to read Duo's emotions and that wasn't failing him now, but what he read…It wasn't Duo. It was not…right. It was more like…Quatre?
"Of course I don't want to die!" Duo bellowed at him, pushing himself to his feet, swaying violently before crashing to the floor again. Heero winced at the sound of cracking bones, but it was far away, in the real world, and he could not concern himself with it.
"Then why?"
"Because it's the only way!" Duo cried, tears prickling in his eyes.
Heero dared a step toward him. Duo flinched but did not move back. Heero took that as his cue, knowing Duo was not entirely committed to death. This was not his idea. He was simply going through with it in all his stubborn glory.
"Is it? Who told you that Duo? Did you, or is this Quatre's doing?"
Duo stopped, face blank, mouth agape. Heero could almost hear his mind ticking, counting down the seconds between detonation…It was maddening, yet wait was all he could do. Wait for Duo to see, to come to the conclusion, to realise there was an infinite number of outcomes to the situation.
Pieces to a massive puzzle slid into place. Heero saw it happen, saw the moment when it all damned on Duo. Everything that had happened since they argued what felt like years ago but was only a fortnight at most, finally made sense, and Duo understood perhaps more than Heero himself. Because Duo understood life. Because Duo knew what death meant.
"Quatre's idea. He must have left it behind when I booted him," Duo surmised, more to himself than Heero. "Still, it was a good idea…" Duo looked at Heero from under his bangs and his eyes were feral.
"I'm dying Heero, you do know that, don't you? That's why I'm here. My little flicker of life in the core is dead, so I got sent here to die. You understand that, don't you? The Magnokinetics destroys the physical form while the Electrokinetics destroys the Psionic form."
Heero had not known. He had not understood why Duo had attacked Hilde in the way he had, why he wouldn't let go. But if Duo died and took Heero with him…that made sense, somehow. That they die together. But…Heero didn't want to die.
"There is another way, isn't there Duo?"
Duo looked sad and his eyes fell on the lock.
"No!" Heero screeched, more from reflex than anything else. He had spent his whole life without his Psionic gifts, and now he had them he could not imagine life without them. If Duo took that from him, he would die. Duo would die. It was no different to Duo killing himself.
"I can't think of another way!" Duo cried back, a look of desperation on his face. Heero saw that look and stumbled forward, suddenly desperate to touch Duo, as if his touch could change the man's mind. As if it could keep him from death.
Heero suddenly stopped, a genuine smile on his face.
"I can save you Duo. I can reawaken your Psionic life. You aren't going to die."
A brief spark of hope that flickered and died as Duo listened, shaking his head.
"I can't let you live. People will use it for the wrong reasons Heero, and you'll let them because you don't know how to say no."
"I won't let you kill me Duo. I won't let you kill yourself."
"And how do you intend to stop me?" Duo asked sarcastically as the ground began to shake.
To Heero's amazement the chains fell through the floor, snagging on a second floor far below them in a jangle of shifting metal. The white world screeched in protest as Psionic energy that was not its own blasted through, knocking Heero down as a sense of well being filled him.
"What's going on?" Duo demanded to know as new stregth filled his small frame. He could no longer feel pain. No longer sense death's door.
"Sally Po," Heero replied easily, pushing himself to his feet again and walking toward Duo. "She's Geokinetic. She's filling you with earth energy; with the blood of the great mother."
"And because she's doing me, she's doing you too, right?" Duo snapped, finally succeeding in standing.
"Right," Heero agreed, wrapping an arm around Duo's waist to make sure he wouldn't fall. Sally had given him new strength, but Heero was not sure it was enough.
Duo relaxed in his arms, melting against his chest, tears finally trickling down his cheeks.
"I don't want to die Heero…"
"Then live, baka."
"I don't know how."
"Yes you do. You know everything." And as he said it Heero knew it was true. It was what Duo had been trying to explain to them. It was Mechanical Annual Complicity. Man taught the machine, the machine taught the man in an endless cycle. But man had taught the machine the combined intellect of humankind, and the machine had somehow taught the man…Taught Duo…
Duo was laughing, a wild, hysterical laugh only heard by the dying. It made Heero shudder to hear it from those lips. He reached out and touched the silky softness with his finger, delighted by the texture.
"I trust you Duo. I trust you, and I love you."
Duo was silent, staring at him, horrified. Heero knew Duo was afraid of being trusted; it was why he pranked. Heero also knew Duo was terrified of being loved, because to him love meant death and pain. This time though…this time it would be Duo's choice whether that love resulted in death, or whether it could survive…
"Do you really want them to have their gifts?" Heero knew the tone of voice Duo ws using meant this was a very serious question.
"Yes. If I cannot imagine life without my gifts, how can I expect them to?"
Duo nodded, having expected the answer.
"Can you accept that they might live life with only part of their gifts?"
Heero thought hard about this. He did not like Psion bands. They were a weak imitation of what he really was. If this was what Duo meant, then no. He could not accept them having only part of his gift.
"I'm not talking about bands, Heero."
Heero was confused.
"Then what?"
Duo leant in close, pressing their bodies hard against one another, nuzzling his face in Heero's neck, breathing the scent in deeply. Heero controlled himself only because he needed to know what Duo was thinking.
"I can kill all their frequencies, while you keep their core's alive. They will have their Psionic gifts, but they will be too weak to harm anything. Their gifts will be useful, not harmful."
"And what aobut us?"
"I will kill us too, if you save the core's."
Heero nodded. This was better. No machines. No annual complicity. They would decide their own fates. They would make themselves user friendly…He smiled at that, hugging Duo to him, kissing him on the head lightly, tugging once on his braid.
"Do it."
Duo didn't need to be told twice. The floor gave way and Duo slipped from Heero's grasp, falling into the abyss with all the chains, the lock…Pulling the white space apart piece by piece until all tht remained was Heero, a collection of small stars caught firmly in his fist, barely alive.
Heero looked at one particular star, spluttering in dark grey sparks as it struggled to live. Heero surrounded it with love, filled it with all the joy he could muster, but it struggled, winking in and out of existence. The problem, Heero knew, was not on a Psionic level, but a realistic one.
Screaming in rage, Heero forced himself to wake.
Duo's body was dying.
End Chapter 23.