Nadesico Fan Fiction ❯ Chasing the Darkness ❯ [13] The Humanity [And the Lack Thereof] ( Chapter 13 )

PART THIRTEEN: The Humanity [And Lack Thereof]

"That's the dumbest formation I've ever seen," Harry blinked twice. "Am I missing something, Captain?"

Ruri also blinked in puzzlement. "No... that is the dumbest formation ever."

Harry and Ruri's search, which had stretched well into Martian territory before becoming too inconsistent to interpret, was complete. However, it did not make any sense.

"They left that whole spot completely deserted," Harry began, tracing the blank space on the 3D model with his finger.

"They left their rear flank completely deserted," Ruri corrected mildly. "The Jovians could wipe them out without even trying." Omoikane brought up the information the JF Council had sent them and overlaid the maps on top of each other. All together, this supplied an almost complete chart of the inner solar system. Ruri pointed to the Jovian fleet, massing above the Red Storm on Jupiter.

"All they'd have to do was navigate the asteroid belt and then blow the Successors out of the sky from the back." Harry exclaimed. "And Mars is on the other side of the solar system, so there's a clear blasting zone to the moon. That's too stupid even for them."

"The Jovian fleet is still two days out..." Ruri murmured to herself. "I wonder..."

"What are they planning?"

"The Successors must be counting on the fact that the Jovians won't get there in time. And according to Aiphis's records, Doomsday starts... in 31 hours."

"But... I thought Doomsday was going to destroy everything."

"And they're so determined to have the A-class jumpers..." Ruri continued, ignoring him.

"Captain?"

"They're going to jump a fleet into the gap," she announced with sudden certainty. "They're going to bring in reinforcements from somewhere." Her mind flew back to the big Nadesico time-mix-up. They had just assumed that all those ships were on their side, but how many of those lost ships only wanted an escape from the limbo they were imprisoned in? If the Successors brought them back, how willingly would they turn on Nergal and the JF? The Jovian vessels certainly owed more loyalty to Aritomo's cause than the JF peace.

"That's Doomsday? A Successor fleet?" Harry asked skeptically. "It seems a little tame, considering how terrified of it Tenkawa Akito is."

"You're right..." Ruri mused, wondering how many subplots and subtwists were involved here. She gently pulled out of Omoikane's operating system. "I'm going to find Ines. You keep track of the Jovians and the JF fleet, okay?"

"Right!" Harry cracked his knuckles, paused for a moment to be thankful that Saburota wasn't on the bridge to pester him, and dug in.

******

"I can't believe it! You actually had the nerve to drug me!"

"He drugged all of us, you know..." Tsukai tried to calm her down, but it only seemed to make things worse.

"He drug us all the way to bed, that darn Mickey," Izumi commented with a pleased snort. "The mouse is dragging the cat, for a change..."

"I don't think Saburota seems like much of a mouse," Tsukai said thoughtfully.

"Ne, Ryoko-chan, but how else would you be so...er, alert if you hadn't gotten some sleep?" Saburota asked plaintively, fending off Ryoko's attempts to impale him with her fist as she backed him down the hallway.

"Don't you 'chan' me, you pervert! And I don't care what the hell your motives were!" Ryoko yelled, the resounding thuds of bone meeting muscle interspersed between the words, "If you ever, ever decide to do something that stupid again, I will cut off your..."

"Watch it, Ryoko-san!" Hikaru jumped up to see over Saburota's shoulder. Ryoko suddenly found her face buried in the Jovian's chest as Saburota jumped forward.

"What the hell..." she spluttered, pushing him aside, only to see Akito sweeping down the hall with slightly glazed, panicky look on his face. "What the hell...?" she repeated, hands dropping to her sides.

The pilots watched Akito practically sprint past them; but he had only gone a few steps before he had a full-on collision with Ines, who was coming the other way.

"Where..."

"Gone!" Ines shook her head curtly, unable to meet his gaze. Even Ryoko shrank back a few steps at the bloody rage in Akito's eyes.

"Damn it!" he yelled, punching the wall so hard the cracking of his bones was audible.

"Akito, calm down--"

"I knew this was going to happen!"

"It won't help to go after her now," Ines grabbed his shaking arm and pulled him back the way she had come. "But there's something else we can do."

"Did we... miss something?" Saburota asked.

"Shut up!" Ryoko hissed, heading swiftly in the direction of the bridge. That seemed to be the only place she was going to get any answers around here.

******

Aritomo stared through the glass as Lapis's prone form. "It's a risky business," he commented. "She's never been tried as the Imaging System, and her mental state is incredibly unstable. At this point her value is limited to being bait. Our only option is to..."

"It seems we have an unexpected arrival," the other man cut him off. "The Sixsome reports that they have just escorted Misumaru Yurika to the jump area."

"What?" Aritomo's eyes widened as they scanned the report on the window that popped up. The one thing he hadn't expected was for Nergal to actually meet his demands.

The laughter grated at his ears. "Maybe you should give her a proper welcome."

In the corner of the room, Admiral Jackht's eyes were narrowed and hard. He turned and left the hall so silently that Aritomo was just as oblivious to his exit as he had been to his entrance.

******

Ameko shuffled her feet nervously, feeling like her daughter Ailen standing in line at the grocery store. Remmy grabbed her shoulders to still her.

"There's still two minutes. But look at it this way-- at least she can't be late."

"I know," she smiled. "You should go now; they'll be looking for you soon."

Remmy sighed and kissed her cheek. "I know," he echoed her resigned tone, and then he was gone. Ameko turned back towards the vacant air in front of her, and began shuffling again unconsciously.

******

"Why do you want me to come with you?" Akito asked tonelessly, the quick tap of his fingers against the table the only visible sign of his agitation.

"Because if you don't come with me you're going to do something rash and stupid and get yourself killed before anyone has a chance to convince you not to. Don't argue with me, you know I'm right."

"I'm not leaving them in the Sixsome's hands."

Ines sighed. "If this works, which I'm not totally sure it will, we'll end up coming back at the same instant we left. The other reason I want you to come is because boson jumping over the course of a few seconds is taxing enough. But we'll be jumping to the very beginnings of time as we know it, when the Artifact was first created. That's bound to put me out of the running for a while unless you're there to help me."

Akito just looked at her. Ines sighed again. He was simply too distracted to think things out as he should. Damn Yurika and all her stupid ideals. This was not worth it. She placed the VR helmet in his hands, ignored their furious trembling, and looked him straight in the eye.

"The VR system is running a program right now. If Yamasaki did everything right, it should bring up a three-dimensional picture of the image we need to visualize. You can go and try your rash and assuredly suicidal rescue plans after we get back. No one will even know we've been gone."

"It's too late for that, Ines-san."

"Ruri!" Ines exclaimed, head snapping in the direction of the voice. The captain had been standing quietly in the doorway, waiting for them to finish.

"Omoikane told me what you've been doing," she explained, coming forward. "I thought you might want to see this."

She pushed a window in the direction of the ruffled scientist. Ines glanced over it.

"Are you sure you aren't missing anything?" she asked in puzzlement. "Their plan can't be that simplistic."

"Simplistic but effective," Ruri corrected. "If they pull a fleet out of the future to help them overthrow the JF, then they will be the ruling body in the future and have a fleet to send back in time to assure their rule."

Ines shook her head. "There's got to be something else..." Her memories of the Doomsday plan involved a lot more than an extended Successor fleet.

"We can't stop what we don't know is happening," Ruri answered.

"That's not what happens," Akito said dully as Ruri and Ines turned in his direction. "No fleet comes. Not in the futures I've seen. There's just a huge surge of energy and that's the end."

"Will you tell us what does happen then?" Ines said a tad impatiently. Akito heard the implications and turned the full force of his anger and worry on her.

"I would tell you if I knew," he snapped. "But every time that energy surge came I was sent back. There's nothing after it to see; I've tried to jump there and couldn't."

Ruri looked at him closely. "Who dies in this future?" she asked quite suddenly. Akito, startled, blinked a few times before answering.

"What?"

"I asked you who dies in this future," Ruri repeated. "You've seen all the possible futures, so you must have seen this one. Who dies?"

Ines frowned slightly, trying to figure out what Ruri was up to. Akito had had enough of thinking and had given up the activity for the time being. "There's a pattern to the way the futures ended up," he said resignedly. "There are certain key events that trigger certain outcomes."

"That's not what I asked," Ruri persisted.

"Either Yurika or Lapis, maybe both, probably the crew of the Lilac," he said mechanically. "There have been some unexpected twists but the end should be the same."

"Unexpected twists?" Ines prompted.

"Yamasaki Yoshio is not at the Successor base, because he's in a Nergal lab on Earth," Akito explained. "I don't know why he's there or what happened to put him there, but that means that Aritomo will be directly overseeing the Doomsday procedure. Who dies depends on who he plans to kill or who happens to piss him off the most."

"You...don't know?" Ruri asked quietly, watching his tired face carefully. Akito shook his head, and her expression hardened. "'Unexpected twists?' Baka," her voice never changed but somehow her words took on more volume. "You only saw what would happen if you made different decisions. You didn't see what would happen when the rest of us acted otherwise."

Akito looked away. "That occurred to me, but it's just wishful thinking. If Yurika gets her way and saves Lapis, she's going to die herself. If she doesn't succeed, both she and Lapis will get killed. And if she helps the Successors, then the rest of us are as good as dead. Those are the only outcomes left."

"How can you be so sure?" Ruri countered. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe you saw the future for a different reason? Maybe there was no possible way to save all of us and still stop Doomsday. But maybe by knowing what was supposedly inevitable, we added another possibility to the mix. You've already said that things you hadn't expected are happening. They're not happening just because they're following a different timeline than the ones you saw. They're happening because you saw all the timelines and thought you could choose which future to follow. "

Akito just stared at her. "That's impossible..."

"Who did you think you were, trying to manipulate time? God? You never used to be so proud," she continued mercilessly. "All you've done is make things more painful for yourself. It's about time someone told you what an idiot you are."

Akito closed his gaping mouth, and they stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then a small smile touched his face, and even though every sane portion of his mind tried to crush them, he allowed some seeds of hope to take root once again. "I guess you're right. You always are, Ruri-chan."

"Not so much lately, Otoosan," she whispered, looking down at her feet.

"Ruri..." he was shocked. She'd never referred to him as a parent even though he and Yurika had asked her to early on.

"Baka," she said again, this time to herself. A slight blush touched her cheeks. "I guess we get stupider as we grow up."

Ines shifted slightly, bringing them both back to the situation at hand. She had sat gratefully to the side while Ruri had brought Akito back in line, but now she had to worry that Akito would begin to believe he could save Yurika and Lapis and go off after them immediately.

Ruri stood to leave; Akito turned back to Ines with an expression that pleaded with her to let him off the hook. Ines knew better. If everything went smoothly, they might not have to make any rescues at all.

"Come on, Mister," she said, handing him a jumper's helmet. "It's time to go."

Akito stared at her for a moment, then glanced up at the door, where Ruri was looking back at him. Her expression never changed, but her head dipped ever so slightly in the nod that was all he needed. Turning back to Ines, he took a shallow breath and jerked the helmet over his spiky hair.

******

Aritomo could not hide his smirk when he saw the famous Captain Misumaru being dragged across the floor with leaden feet, trying desperately to shrink away from the hand that gripped her wrist. Even though Hokushin was dead, the Sixsome still terrified her. He was confused, however, by the fact that she had come alone. They had stated that their demands were non-negotiable. Still, one was all they needed, really.

Yurika saw him and stopped short, all the Sixsome's leader's efforts to move her closer failing miserably. Feeling in a much better mood, Aritomo instead moved to her.

"Misumaru Yurika, it's a pleasure to see you again," he chuckled. Yurika pressed her arms to her sides tightly to suppress the trembling of rage and fear.

"It's Tenkawa Yurika," she corrected shortly. "I've come in exchange for Lapis Lazuli and the crew of the JF Lilac."

"Obviously," he returned. "You understand that we'll have to confiscate your method of transportation, of course."

Yurika stared at him for a moment, then reached up and pulled the TC from its chain around her neck. "Here."

There went Plan A, she thought, but she wasn't really surprised. That's why she had Plans B through F ready to go, and Plans G and H for extreme emergencies.

******

The first thing Ines registered when the blue dots receded from her line of vision was a dark-haired, middle-aged woman clasping the blonde's hands in her own.

"Thank God!" she was saying, and anyone could tell that it wasn't just a figure of speech. "I thought for a moment you wouldn't come!"

"Who are you?" It was rude, yes, but Ines was very confused. If she had truly jumped to the beginnings of time, why was this perfectly normal-looking human being standing there speaking a language identical to her own?

"My name is Ameko. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Ines Fresange."

Ines began to ask another question, but Akito interrupted her by stepping forward.

"I thought we were going to the past, Ines," he commented. "This looks like..."

"It is," Ameko confirmed. "This is the space battleship Nadesico. Well, sort of."

******

"...And get the day crew back on duty-- we're on high alert, here, people!" Erina was ordering as the doors to the bridge opened. Ryoko took one look at the mad rush of crewmen dashing across the already crowded room and raised an eyebrow. There were miscellaneous windows everywhere, Harry was glowing so brightly that many of the technicians directly behind him had adopted shades, people were tripping over each other and jumping over any furniture sitting in their way, and Mayumi was freaking out at the helm. Minato was trying to help her, but she kept having to stop two teenage boys from looking up her skirt. Megumi was talking to someone, practically having to shout to be heard over the noise. And above it all, Erina was smiling brilliantly, in charge for once.

Ryoko scanned the bridge for Ruri, alarmed when she couldn't find her. "Hey, what's the big idea...?" she yelled, but even her most piercing tone couldn't penetrate the din.

"Hello, boys and girls, it's time to get rolling!" an unusually cheerful voice called. Akatsuki appeared from somewhere, taking Ryoko by one arm and Saburota by the other. "We're going to war!"

"Hold on just one damn minute!" Ryoko snapped, pulling away from his grip. She marched over to Erina and turned the woman around. "Now there's something really strange going on and you're going to tell me what the hell it is..."

"Honestly, Ryoko, you should learn to control your... Mayumi!!" The ship lurched hard starboard.

"I'm sorry! I've never driven this thing before!"

"Erina!"

"Not now, Ryoko!"

"Erina, get these two hentai little boys off the bridge!"

"Hey, I'm man enough for you, baby..."

"There should be more respect for commanding officers aboard this ship!" (That from Tsukai.)

"Oh for heaven's sake, will you all just shut up?!" Megumi screamed. "No, no, sir, not you, please don't break the connection..."

"Akatsuki!" Ryoko tried another venue, "You have a lot of explaining to do!"

"True, true, we'll talk on the way, okay?" the chairman seemed much too eager to get to the Aestivallis hangar. Though considering the stress level on the bridge, that wasn't too surprising.

And then, suddenly, the pressure stopped. The noise and the shouting all ceased at once. Ryoko turned around to see what the hell was going on.

******

Ruri surveyed the bridge coolly. "Harry-kun, stop scanning for the moment." she said, voice never rising. The light on the bridge dimmed considerably. "Take over the sysop. Minato-san, take over for Mayumi-san. Mayumi-san, you may take a break. Technicians, please return to your stations and close all unnecessary windows. All other personnel," she fixed her disturbing gaze on the two teenage boys who were now trying to look down Mayumi's shirt, "Please leave the bridge."

"Captain, I...." Ryoko began. Ruri turned towards her apologetically.

"All pilots please report to the Aestivallis hangar," she said. "Don't worry, Ryoko-san, it will all be explained, I promise."

"You heard the captain, Ryoko, let's go." Akatsuki grabbed her arm and dragged her off before anyone could make any more protests.

******

Akito stared at the ground rushing past underneath them as Ameko explained what was going on. The lift they were on was barely big enough for the three of them, but according to Ameko it was the easiest way to get around the ship. The ship itself was nothing more than the raw shell of the Nadesico A-- Omoikane's presence was the only thing keeping the feeble craft operational. It had been placed in permanent dry dock after a catastrophic space battle, but Ameko hadn't seen fit to elaborate on the story much more than to hint that it had become the base of operations for a resistance movement. Right now she was delving into the finer points of some obscure scientific theory.

Ines was soaking it all up in that huge brain of hers, but Akito's mind was reeling and would have been even if he hadn't been distracted by thoughts of Yurika. Apparently they had not jumped to the beginnings of time, but about 30 years in the future. And apparently the solar system had not been destroyed in Doomsday, so at least something good had happened. Though judging from Ameko's sorrowful tones and worried face, she didn't consider it very good fortune. Akito couldn't blame her. He'd rather commit suicide than live in this woman's future; the Martian Successors had apparently been ruling all of known space for a good twenty-five years, and--according to Ameko-- making life hell for everyone opposed to their methods.

Ines was asking questions now. Akito let his mind wander. The one question pressing on his mind-- namely, who was alive and who had died, and where were the Akito and Ines of this time period-- had been swiftly set aside by the blonde scientist herself. "We have all the time in the world to go save people, Akito. Let's see what we can do to help here, okay?"

And she'd continued the interrogation where she'd left off, without bothering to see whether he really thought it was okay or not. Ameko, however, glanced back at him and frowned thoughtfully.

"You've actually hit on something I've thought myself." she said. "Instead of fixing this future, why not just stop it from ever happening? It's a sacrifice I'm willing to accept."

Akito was about to agree wholeheartedly, but Ines interrupted.

"But it's the past!" she said. "We can't change the past-- we can't stop what's already happened!"

"But that's just it!" Ameko threw them all to one side of the car as she lurched around a turn without checking her sped for an instant. "It's your future, and our past. We can't change our past, but maybe you can change your future."

Ines shook her head. "It's impossible. If you've studied the Artifact then you should already know that!"

Ameko's gaze dropped. "I do know. Forgive me. I only hoped that you would tell me that I was wrong." Looking up again through a fringe of dark bangs, she smiled awkwardly. "In this time you are revered as the greatest scientific mind the world had ever known. But the Ines Fresange of this time has been in a coma for thirty years."

"The whole time?" Ines gasped. "What happened to cause a thirty year coma?"

Akito wondered a little morbidly why no one had taken her off life support, if that were the case. He wouldn't want to be a vegetable for thirty years.

Ameko blinked. "Daddy would have known, but he died a few years back. All he would say was that when the Artifact was destroyed, all the boson jumpers fell into unconsciousness and have never woken up."

"All of us?" Akito frowned. The only one who had ever wanted to destroy the Artifact that badly was Yurika.

Ameko nodded. "When Daddy was alive, we would visit you every Sunday," she smiled nostalgically, then shook her head and sighed.

"Wait a minute!" Ines cried. "What do you mean, 'when the Artifact was destroyed?!'"

Akito blinked. Good question.

Ameko was silent for a few moments as the lift settled down in front of what had once been the War Room. "Come with me. Remmy can tell you the rest."

******

"Wake up, sleepy head!" a gentle voice broke through the blackness. Lapis blinked fuzzily, unable to shake the feeling that something was desperately wrong. Slowly the face above her came into focus.

"Yurika?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. She rolled over and reached for the teddy bear the admiral had given her, only to grasp thin air. Instantly, the sentimental dream dissolved into the barren room they had put her in, on the hard table that couldn't really even be deemed a bed. She turned back around. The dream had dissolved, but Yurika had not.

"Are you all right, Lapis?"

Lapis sat up instantly. "They want to bring a fleet from the future and take over everything and Admiral Jackht turned the whole ship over..."

"I know," Yurika stopped her. Suddenly, the guards in the doorway entered her line of vision and Lapis realized how painfully obvious all of that already was. Yurika jerked her head to the side slightly, causing her blue hair to slip over one shoulder. Lapis kept her head very still, but let her eyes flick in the direction Yurika had indicated. Admiral Jackht met her gaze briefly through the viewing window, nodded almost imperceptibly, and then turned away again.

Lapis didn't exactly know what that meant, but it was reassuring all the same.

******

Remmy was an extremely tall, middle-aged man with dark skin and unruly hair. He had deep lines etched into his face, as if he had hardly ever laughed in his life. The way he and Ameko gently interrupted each other in their explanations made Akito positive they had been together for a very long time. And the way Remmy glanced protectively at her made Akito positive that they been married for most of that time as well. He found himself wondering if they had any kids. He would have liked to have had children.

Ines was freaking out. Akito glanced at her passively, then went back to observing Remmy and Ameko. He didn't know why the blonde woman was so upset. The whole thing made perfect sense to him.

Of course the Successors would be foiled in their plans to bring the fleet from the future. It was perfectly natural that Yurika had succeeded in destroying the Artifact. Forget all the paradoxes that caused, of course it was completely plausible. Of course the loss of the Artifact would cause horrendous reactions in the boson jumpers, the comas and the deaths. And it figured that without the advantage of superior boson jump technology to aid them, the JF would eventually fall to the Martian Successors. Of course the known universe would be plunged into a civil war over it; who ever gave up power without a fight? It was all a perfectly reasonable situation, but Ines had always been too concerned with the how and the why of things.

"How is it even possible to destroy the Artifact? If time and space mean nothing to it, then if it is there at all it must always be there," she mused. Remmy shook his head.

"We think that's the problem. It's a matter of fallacies. If it has existed, then it must always exist. But if it is destroyed, then it must not be there at all. Two contradicting statements, both of which are true. The system cannot handle it."

"What happens if the system can't handle it?" Ines asked, somewhat afraid of the answer.

"What has happened. There's an error, and the program starts over."

"Meaning that time itself starts over," Akito muttered. Of course. Yeah, that figured.

"Right. This is the end of time, for all intensive purposes. In a couple of millennia, we'll all be standing here having the same conversation again," Ameko commented mournfully.

"But the Artifact has been destroyed for over 30 years, am I correct?" Ines persisted. "If that's the case and your theories are right, why is the universe ending now instead of with the destruction of the Artifact?"

Remmy shifted. "We've theorized that the Artifact doesn't know it has a fatal error yet, because nothing illegal has been done. All the boson jumpers were put out of commission when the Artifact was destroyed, so no one has attempted a boson jump for 30 years. But by this point, the Successors have built up a new set of A-class jumpers. As near as we can calculate, in a few days they are going to try to jump their fleet to the past. They think that if they manage the jump from this side, they can still make it even though the Successors of the past failed. The second they try to work a boson jump, the Artifact will realize the error in its programming and start over."

There was silence while Ines processed what was going on. Akito sat up a little straighter in his seat. "This all sounds fine to me," he told them, "Except for one thing. If the Artifact is destroyed, exactly how can the Successors jump anywhere?"

Ameko looked at Remmy, whose gaze hung steadily on Ines's face. "Well, in graduate school, Ameko and I found a file of Ines Fressange's unpublished works. We used her findings and her description of the original Artifact to build a new one."

"Really?" Ines looked up with renewed interest. "It actually worked?"

Remmy nodded. "We thought that maybe we could oust the Successors with it, or travel to the past to find out what went on before the Artifact disappears from history. But we found something unexpected when we were reading over the final schematics."

This seemed to be some sort of cue, because Ameko brought up a window and began typing rapidly. After a few seconds, another window appeared, and what seemed to be a recorded message began to play. It was Ameko herself, smiling and talking about nothing in particular.

"We've almost finished building the Artifact now," the recorded Ameko was saying. "It's the greatest scientific breakthrough since the New Order was established, so Remmy decided we should record it." The image smiled cheerily. "Now at first..."

Ameko fast-forwarded the tape. "... so surreal," the video Ameko said when the footage finally stopped again. "We've found a recording buried in the Artifact's program. The exact same recording that I'm making now, but more. There's a lot of talking that's only barely decipherable, like someone left it recording and didn't realize it. I really only got good enough audio to hear one full sentence: 'How many times has this loop happened already?'"

"At this point in the recording, Remmy discovered that I had indeed left the video camera running, so it had recorded us finding the file. That's when we began to wonder if it were possible that time has been repeating itself." Ameko closed the window.

"Our only evidence other than the tape is the fact that this file was not just randomly added to the Artifact somewhere-- it had been integrated into the program itself." Remmy cut in. "Someone consciously decided to program a video conversation into the Martian Artifact."

Suddenly, Akito laughed. "A message from a past life," he finally managed to choke out. No one else laughed, but he didn't seem to care. "How fitting. Of course it's true."

"Akito, snap out of it!" Ines hissed, but she was on the verge of hysterics as well. None of this was working out the way she had hypothesized, and it was seriously ticking her off. The Artifact had been created by a past civilization. It just so happened that the past civilization was also the future one, because apparently time was a circle and no one had thought to let her in on that little secret. She wanted to cry.

Akito stopped laughing abruptly. "I know what happens next," he said, "The Successors confiscated the new Artifact, and now you want the two of us to help you figure out how to stop it from starting time over."

Remmy grimaced. "Something like that."

"But what if this is all there is?" Akito snapped, all semblance of merriment disappearing instantly. "Maybe time is supposed to be a circle and human progression ends here. Do we have the right to mess with the nature of the universe?"

"There is an eternal progression in nature." Remmy said quietly. "It is often circular, yes, but never the same circle. A plant, once dead, does not become the same plant over again. But we are caught in a loop, forced to die the same death, live the same pain, over and over again. We cannot progress, we cannot become anything better than what we are. We are stagnant, doomed to be dead from our births. It is not in human nature to be stagnant. It is human nature to want to live."

"Please." Ameko said suddenly, "Please, you must help us! My little girl-- she'll have her childhood torn away over and over again with no sense of purpose. I have to prevent that at all costs! That's why I asked you here; if anyone could find a way to break this cycle, it would be you."

Akito still looked unconvinced, but deferred to Ines. She was, after all, the scientific mastermind. If it was plausible, then she could find a way.

Ines looked up with bright, feverish eyes. "Tell me your plan."

Remmy looked sheepish. "Well, that's the problem. We haven't exactly got one."

Akito and Ines face faulted.

******

"Harry-kun, prepare to leave Earth's orbit," Ruri sat soundlessly. "We're heading to the Martian front for now, Minato."

"Ne, Captain!" Ryoko's angry face appeared in a window from the hangar, where she was being piled none too gently into her Aestivallis. "What are you doing? I want to know what's going on!"

"I don't know what's happening, Ryoko-san."

"Nani?!" everyone on the bridge turned to look at her. Ruri didn't blink.

"There are so many different reports on what Akito's Doomsday really is, and so many strange things are happening, that I don't know for certain what is happening. We'll just have to trust Yurika on this one: sometimes we have to live for the present, not the future."

"Yeah, but Yurika's gone!" Ryoko protested. "What are we going to do about it? Ruri!"

Ruri looked at the pilot for a moment. Suddenly a memory flew, unwelcome, across her mind. It's Yurika and Akito! They're alive! You can't just leave them there! Ruri!

And for the second time, her answer was, "We'll leave it to him."

******

Ryoko whirled around to face the figure in black behind her.

"Don't worry so much, Ryoko-chan," Akito's mouth twisted under the mask. "Don't worry about things you can't change."

Ryoko glared at him for a stunned moment, then slapped him. "Take that damn mask off," she snapped. "Who are you trying to impress, anyway?" She tore the black scrap from his eyes, expecting the emptiness she had been forced to accept in the past weeks.

Instead, she was rewarded with a genuine smile, of all things. He ignored her anger completely, taking back his mask and slipping it back on his face. "It will only be for a little while longer," he smiled again. "Let's go, Ryoko-chan. It will be like old times."

Ryoko recovered her composure. "Hardly, with that Gekigangar wannabe and that blonde idiot tagging along!"

"Who's tagging?" Saburota asked, suddenly at Ryoko's side. She punched him in the arm. "We're leaving."

"That's just what I wanted to hear!" Akatsuki's distorted voice shouted from his Aestivallis. "Let's go already!"

"That is a very strange man," Tsukai remarked, suiting up.

"No, you think?" Ryoko rolled her eyes.

"Only outside the box," Izumi commented heavily, rapping her knuckles against her Aestivallis.

Home

Previous

Next