Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Warrior Children ❯ Heartbreak ( Chapter 21 )

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

Chapter 21: Heartbreak

Shin-

Naaza screamed.

In the middle of the forest, with the OZ warehouse in sight, Naaza suddenly grabbed his chest over his heart and fell to his knees screaming in agony. It sounded as if someone was ripping his heart out while he was still alive. The piercing, heart-breaking sound ripped through the otherwise silent night.

Trowa, with a gun ready, immediately looked around to see if any of the enemy had heard and were coming to investigate the noise. It had been Trowa's doing that they were all dressed up in black to better hide them in the night. As soon as Naaza screamed, Trowa had pulled out his gun and went on the defensive against enemies. They'd come so close to where Quatre was being kept it would be shameful if they were to be captured here or, worse, killed.

Touma moaned softly, biting his lip, and he closed his eyes. He wasn't so badly affected as Naaza was, but he did wrap his arms around himself clearly affected by whatever was bothering Naaza. Touma swayed where he stood and almost fell, but Trowa managed to catch him, holding him steady.

"What's wrong?" Shin knelt next to Naaza and wrapped his arms around the older man, almost instinctively, to comfort him. "What happened?" He knew that something was terribly wrong. Shin could feel a sudden numbness in his mind, like there was something missing, but the block the Ma-Sho had put on his mind blocked everything else out.

Naaza couldn't answer. He sobbed wildly, letting large, pink stained tears run down his face as he continued to scream. One of the tears fell on Shin's thigh, and Shin could hear a soft sizzling sound. Then a sharp sting when the poison of Naaza's tears touched his skin under the clothes. Shin gasped, but didn't pull away from Naaza. Instead, he just shifted slightly so the tears wouldn't fall on him.

"Sh'ten's dead." Touma said in a lifeless voice. Touma had opened his eyes but he was looking into the distance and didn't seem to notice that Trowa was holding him upright. "He's dead." Touma started to tremble and then got a hold of himself. "He's missing. In my mind, I can feel that he's gone. His place is just...empty."

Shin could feel it, but not so clearly as Touma apparently could. It was like he was just feeling a shadow of the loss. Touma himself could probably only feel a shadow of what Naaza and the other Ma-Sho must be feeling. Shin couldn't imagine the pain they were in.

Naaza was near to having hysterics, he was shaking uncontrollably. Fortunately, he'd stopped screaming, but was still crying loudly.

Shin hugged Naaza tightly and fought to control his anger. 'How dare they?' Shin thought furiously. 'First Quatre and now poor Sh'ten! Why won't everyone just leave us alone?' Shin had to fight the anger, though. He was not an easy person to make angry, but when he did all Hell tended to break loose.

Trowa, still half-supporting Touma, said coolly, "We must go quickly, if we want to save Quatre."

This seemed to shake Touma out of his daze and he pulled away from Trowa. "Don't be so cold." He muttered under his breath, angry that Trowa didn't seem to feel anything for Sh'ten's death. Though Touma wasn't so well connected to Sh'ten as Naaza was, he still felt the loss of someone irreplaceable. But, he wasn't going to let his brother suffer, either.

Naaza stared numbly ahead, not moving and not even crying anymore.

"Come on," Shin said encouragingly to Naaza. "We need you." Shin took Naaza's hands and tried to pull him to his feet. "Quatre might die without you."

Naaza snatched his hands away from Shin. "Why should I care what happens to a ningen boy?" He hissed bitterly. "Let him die like Sh'ten! That brat has no right to live if Sh'ten can't!"

Touma glared and opened his mouth to say something, but a look from Shin silenced him. Touma backed away and stood closer to the silent Trowa. He didn't have to like it, but Touma would let Shin have his way.

Placing his hands on Naaza's knees, Shin looked him right in the reptilian eyes. For the first time, Shin saw how truly inhuman Naaza was. His eyes were not human eyes, but were overly large and the pupils were narrow slits. His eyes were edged in a faint line of scales that faded into green tainted skin. Shin didn't flinch away from Naaza and, in fact, moved in closer to the older man's face.

"I know you're hurting." Shin said softly, almost whispering. "I know you must want to curl up and die. Please, believe me, I do understand."

Naaza let his long forked tongue dart out of his mouth, passed his inch long fangs. He was trying to scare Shin and Shin knew it. Naaza wanted Shin to realize exactly what he was. Still, Shin didn't even blink and just looked at him steadily. "How can you possibly know? You're not apart of our circle. You can't even feel the shadow pain as he can." Naaza indicated Touma. "How dare you say you know what I'm feeling?!" Naaza was getting angrier by the minute and the tears started down his face again.

Shin looked at him steadily. "I know because my parents died when I was four years old and I don't even remember them. I know because when I was ten, my best friend died when he was caught in a hit and run. I know because my fist love was murdered two years ago for no better reason than the money in her purse. I do know pain."

Naaza stopped fighting against Shin and just sat there.

"I would do anything to end your pain. I would move the sun if it would bring Sh'ten back to life. But it won't. I can't bring Sh'ten back and I am so sorry that I can't do anything for you. Please, don't let Quatre die. I know you aren't so unfeeling that you'd let an innocent boy die."

"You don't know anything about me." Naaza hissed, though not so volatile as he had before. "I'm not human, so why shouldn't I let him die? He's nothing to me." Naaza tried to pull away, again, but Shin was stronger than he looked and held him tightly.

"You ARE human, you're just a little different. If you weren't human, you wouldn't be crying over the death of your loved one." He ran a hand through Naaza's hair.

Naaza didn't move away from Shin's touch and reached up to touch his still wet face. "I don't cry. I can't. It's just poison leaking out when I don't control myself." His voice sounded distant, like he wasn't really thinking about what he'd just said.

In the distance, they heard a trampling of feet. Voices were talking to each other, "I think it came from over here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Mayers told us to kill anyone but him who comes out here."

There must have been at least a half a dozen voices and they were coming closer. Shin leaned in closer to Naaza and whispered, "Help us. Please."

Naaza's eyes narrowed and he bared his fangs' showing them dripping venom. With a hard shove, Naaza pushed Shin away, making Shin land on his fanny. Naaza stood quickly, ignoring Touma rushing to Shin's side. Naaza no longer cared about concealment and replaced the black clothes Trowa had suggested with his yoroi with a thought. He was, once again, the fierce demonic warrior.

Before anyone could do anything, Naaza pulled two of his six swords out of the sheaths at his waist. Naaza hung them in midair in front of him, suspended by nothing. Then he pulled out a second pain and put them next to the first and finally, the last two swords. When all his swords were out, Naaza grabbed the hilt of one sword and pulled, as if to bring it away from the other five. Instead, the other swords followed, like some invisible chain connected them.

The swords moved like a whip in Naaza's hands with deadly accuracy.

With a mighty leap, far greater than normal person could, Naaza jumped into the air, making himself a target for the guards surrounding the complex. Naaza screamed, still waving his sword-whip, "JA GA KEN! (SNAKE FANG STRIKE!)" In one slash of his whip, every one of the armed men was killed.

Touma realized that it was foolish to try and hide now, so he called his yoroi to him and the yoroi appeared on him, complete with the bow on his back. Unfortunately, he still had no idea how to use any of his newly acquired power. Well, at least it should protect him from any flying bullets.

Trowa-

Naaza used his fury to destroy every enemy they encountered, having no mercy for the guards who stood in their path. Soon, the Alliance warehouse, a huge concrete building, loomed in the darkness, black against the night's dark purple sky. Trowa had been hoping for a subtle entrance, but Naaza was in no mood for stopping. The green haired warrior used his sure kill to slice through the wall, sending chunks of concrete and metal beams flying through the air.

'He's foolhardy.' Trowa thought, looking after Naaza. 'Too confident, by far, and too much power for someone who enjoys using it to much.'

Trowa didn't much care for Shin's new associates. These Ma-Sho, as they called themselves, were too powerful for normal people. Of course, at that moment Naaza was blinded by grief and his power was unstoppable. It was possible that he was a competent fighter under normal circumstances, but now he acted like a madman. Trowa wondered if one day he'd be forced to fight Naaza to protect humanity. Did that mean he'd have to fight Shin, too?

Inside the warehouse there was a short battle. Naaza and Touma had to attack hand to hand the guards they'd found, while Trowa used his gun. The building was too confined to use Naaza's Ja Ga Ken and Touma didn't even know what the his 'sure kill' (as Naaza called the devastating attacks) was. Shin stayed in the background and helped as much as he could.

Surprisingly, Shin pulled out several daggers from his clothes and started throwing them at the guards with a deadly aim. Touma thought that living with a professional knife thrower like Catherine must have rubbed off on Shin.

The guards were soon all dead, and Shin was looking rather green. He'd never killed before and hadn't even seen any dead bodies. Trowa had killed far too often for his own comfort, but the bodies no longer sickened him as it did Shin. Naaza, obviously, was an experience warrior so he was also not affected by the death. Even Touma had seen the hard side of life that Shin had been sheltered from.

Shin groaned with a hand to his mouth as he stepped gingerly over a body, the eyes of the corpse staring lifelessly up at him. "Are you all right?" Trowa asked, looking at Shin, worried.

Shin swallowed hard and nodded. "I'll be fine. Let's just find Quatre and get out of here." Shin looked like he wanted to cry, but he didn't. Trowa moved to stand closer to Shin, but Touma was faster and was next to Shin before Trowa could take two steps.

"Don't worry." Touma told him, taking Shin's hand. "I'll be right here."

Trowa, realizing that Touma would take care of Shin, should he need it, went in search of Quatre. "He must be here." Trowa told them. "We just have to search until we find him."

Naaza, still not seeming to care what happened to Quatre, wandered listlessly off, muttering to himself, "Oh, my Oni. My sweet red topped child."

Shin went with Touma. Touma and Trowa had exchanged a look that clearly said that neither of them wanted Shin to go off on his own. Trowa went by himself.

For a warehouse, the building was surprisingly well lit and the search was simple as there appeared to be nothing stored in this warehouse. It was completely empty. Naaza's attacks had drawn out nearly all the guards, it seemed. Those who hadn't come out to fight him must have run away for the warehouse was clearly deserted. Trowa contemplated raiding the place for information to use for his future missions, but disregarded the idea. He was there to search for Quatre, not intelligence.

After only about twenty minutes searching, Trowa came to a room with a locked door. The lock was not simple to unlock and Trowa had to at least give the Alliance credit for quality security. In the room behind the door Trowa for his target.

On the floor, stripped half-naked and horribly tortured, was a young boy from the computer image he'd seen earlier. Trowa went over to the boy and knelt next to him. There was a faint pulse and ragged breathing, but the boy was alive.

"Beautiful." Trowa said to himself. Even so close to death, Quatre was like a porcelain angel. Delicate and pale with hair of spun gold, Trowa couldn't imagine a more perfect creature on Earth or beyond. He reached out to touch Quatre's face, almost afraid to touch him.

"Hey! You found him!"

Trowa jerked his hand away from Quatre's face and sat back, distancing himself from Quatre at the sound of Touma's voice. Touma and Shin were standing in the doorway and Touma ran in, so happy to find his beloved brother.

"Kitty!" Touma started to fuss over Quatre, but there was so little that they could do. Quatre had lost so much blood and there were bits of...him...all over the room. Whoever had done this had taken pleasure in mutilating poor Quatre. "Oh, God." Touma muttered to a deity that he'd long ago stopped believing in. Several of Quatre's fingers had been cut off along with his penis. There were marks showing that he'd been whipped and general bruising of many beatings. Several tendons in his legs had been cut and...and...the damage just went on and on.

"I don't think there is anything we can do." Trowa told Touma honestly. "There is no hospital for many miles and simple first aid won't do anything to help him at this point." While Trowa was very good at field surgery, he knew there was nothing he could do at that point. If anything, they'd only extend Quatre's suffering and the boy would die as they trekked back through the forest trying to get him to a hospital. It would be better, kinder, to let Quatre die here.

Touma gave him a look that could kill. What did he expect Trowa to do? Come up with some miracle? They'd known how badly Quatre was hurt when they'd seen the computer threat. As far as Trowa was concerned, it would have been lucky if they managed to save Quatre, but he'd only expected this to be a body recovery. Still, his heart ached that the world was losing something so precious.

"A pity Seiji isn't here. He could heal Quatre almost instantly." Shin said softly, still in the doorway of the room, thinking of how easily Seiji had healed him.

Naaza-

Naaza stood behind the small Shin, so fragile looking for a boy destined to be a warrior, and watched the scene. Naaza couldn't really say that he was moved by it, really. He didn't know this Quatre that everyone's so worried about, so he didn't care about him. As far as Naaza was concerned, Quatre could lay here and die. But, Shin looked like he would cry and Naaza didn't want to see that.

"I can heal him." Naaza said, stepping passed Shin and into the room.

"What?" Touma turned quickly. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"You didn't ask. Besides, it'll hurt him."

"Kitty's dying in front of us." Touma said. "What's a little pain compared to death?"

Naaza had to smile at the boy's innocence. Give him a few centuries and he wouldn't have to ask such a foolish question. Often death was far preferable to pain. "It's your choice, as his brother." Naaza told him. "I can heal him now and he will survive, but he might not be happy about it."

"Do it." Trowa said from where he knelt at Quatre's side. "His pulse is weak and the bleeding isn't slowing." Trowa gave orders as if he expected to be obeyed...no...that's not right. He just says the obvious and expects everyone to see the simple solution as he does.

"He's a hemophiliac, he won't stop bleeding until he bleeds to death unless we get him to a hospital," Touma looked at Naaza, scared of losing his brother, and Naaza could tell that Touma doesn't like others to see such weakness in him. "Or healed in another way. Do it."

Naaza wasn't going to do anything for Trowa or Quatre. They meant nothing to him, they were only humans and they were just like all the others. Heartless, unthinking creatures. He wasn't even doing this for Touma who is now apart of Naaza's family. 'I'll do this for Shin, who didn't turn away from me, even when I showed him what I really am. Shin...no one outside my family has been able to look at me for so many centuries. Shin looks at me just like Sh'ten, without fear.'

"Very wise." Naaza said, putting aside thoughts of his dearest 'Ten-chan. "Just don't interfere. Once I've started, any distractions might kill him." Naaza knelt next to Quatre and started to pull off the boy's remaining tattered clothes. Naaza carefully examined the wounds, probing them with a finger, causing Quatre to involuntary groan with pain and twitch, though he didn't wake up.

Naaza leaned over one of the deeper gnashes on Quatre's chest and slid his long narrow tongue out of his mouth and lapped at the blood, tasting it. Tasting the blood helped Naaza decide how to best help someone who was injured. He wasn't sure why or how it worked, all he knew was that it worked.

After studying the boy's blood enough to make sure the cure would react properly to Quatre's body, Naaza moved to Quatre's throat and started to suck on it.

"What are you doing?" Shin asked, but Touma elbowed him, telling him to hush. Naaza had to shut out the world around him to concentrate on making his body create the correct serums and chemicals to heal, instead of kill. When Naaza knew he had sucked enough to bring the veins to the surface of Quatre's skin, he extended his fangs and bit deeply.

Slowly, Naaza started to rub the palms of his hands over the deeper wounds that affected Quatre's vital organs. He moved his hands, which were excreting a clear slime-like substance, to Quatre's face and head. This slime was a burning acidic agent, able to burn the wounds to seal them and encourage the boy's own body to heal. Even Naaza, concentrating so fully on the healing that he barely knew what was going on around him, could smell the cauterizing burning of flesh.

While Naaza's hands were doing this, he was using my fangs to pump a different, more potent, healing liquid into Quatre's veins.

Under Naaza's painfully healing touch Quatre moaned, tossing his head slightly. Quatre's eyes flickered open for a second, then closed again. They were so closely connected right now that Naaza could feel Quatre waking up and used another chemical to put him into a deeper sleep. It would not be a good idea for the boy to be awake while Naaza was doing this.

When Naaza had finally detached himself from Quatre's throat, he moved to one of the more serious, though not life-threatening injuries, Quarte's mutilated body parts. The fingers were fairly easy, the slime from Naaza's hands to reattach them and then biting the fingers to get his chemicals closer to the wounds. They would heal just fine. Then it was onto the tricky part.

Quatre's crotch.

It wasn't exactly hard to heal, but Naaza was an admitted prude. He had to admit that Sh'ten and, later, Rajura and Anubisu, were the only people he'd ever even looked at when they were naked. Naaza had to try very hard not to flinch when he picked up Quatre's severed penis.

Naaza had to bite Quatre again, as he had with Quatre's fingers, but he couldn't bring himself to actually bite Quatre's...well...Naaza bit Quatre's upper thigh. It was as close to the, er, injury as Naaza was going to get. Naaza let his hands ooze over Quatre's manhood, to reattach it to the stump left behind and tried real hard not to think about what he was doing.

It took longer than Naaza had thought it would, perhaps an hour, but in the end, Quatre was whole and would wake up soon. When Naaza backed away from him, sitting on his knees, Trowa and Touma went to Quatre to check on him. 'Hmph! You'd think they didn't trust me!' Naaza looked at Quatre's still body and smile. A fine bit of work, even if he did say so himself! Quatre was scarred and covered in burns, but he'd live.

"Thank you."

Naaza didn't look up at him, but knew that Shin was standing next to him, smiling.

Shin-

Shin carried Quatre out of the ruined building, trying to step over the bodies. Touma and Naaza were both armed with the yoroi and Trowa wanted to be able to use his gun if he had to. Unfortunately, Shin was pretty much useless when it comes to fighting, so they decided to let him carry Quatre.

Shin saw, when he and Touma had walked in to find Trowa and Quatre, that Trowa had a strange look on his face. He'd never seen Trowa look like that before. Sort of...stunned. His mouth had been slightly open and his eyes wide with one hand reaching out to touch Quatre's face.

It must be love.

There was another thing that bothered Shin. He couldn't get his mind off Naaza and how he healed. Granted, Shin hadn't been awake when Seiji had healed him, but Shin was pretty sure it wasn't anything like what Naaza had just done. Shin had been blushing through the entire healing process. It had been a very...erotic sight. Naaza crawling all over a naked Quatre, licking and biting. He sucked on Quatre's neck and fingers, for goodness sakes!

'Then again, what if Seiji HAD done that to me? What if everyone was just too polite to tell me that Seiji had been crawling all over me? Seiji's long cool hands and soft looking mouth...'

"Hey, Shin, are you okay? You're all red?" Touma asked Shin and Shin shook his head vigorously.

"I'm fine. It's just Quatre's heavier than I thought he'd be." Shin heaved Quatre up, making a show of how heavy he was and tried to get his mind off Seiji. It wasn’t a lie, anyway. Quatre couldn't have been much bigger than Shin was, but he was heavier. He had more muscles that Shin would have thought, even though he was so delicate looking.

They were almost out of the building and Shin was trying very hard not to look at the bodies. Trowa had shot them as if he'd done it a thousand times before. What had changed him from the guy Shin knew who used to juggle with Shin in the circus? Touma had used his heavily armored hands to bash anyone between him and his brother. This, Shin had expected. Touma was very protective of Quatre and would do anything to save him. Shin hadn't really expected Touma to kill, but none of the people he'd attacked were moving.

Shin looked over at Naaza when he heard a soft squishing sound. Naaza stepped on a body and kept moving as if it hadn't been there. Naaza was a mystery. He cried like a child when his friend died, but all these people didn't bother him at all. He'd killed them and then moved on.

They were outside when Naaza stepped on another body and his heavy yoroi made the stomach of the corpse cave in. Naaza's foot came out of the crushed stomach covered in blood and other gore. Naaza didn't even both to look down and kept walking.

Shin gagged and wanted to throw up.

Naaza looked back at Shin, obviously hearing the gag. "What's wrong?" He asked, stopping. Shin just stared at him. How could he be so unfeeling? Naaza stepped back through the body and came toward Shin. "Are you all right?"

Naaza's foot was covered in more gore now, making soft squishing sounds as he walked. Shin seriously wanted to faint. But, if he did, Quatre would get hurt in the fall. Shin was wondering what to say to Naaza when he looked back at the body Naaza had stepped in and saw something new. Shin's dagger was in the dead man's throat.

"I killed him." Shin muttered. Naaza had only damaged the shell; the empty husk left behind after Shin had taken the man's life. "I killed him."

Touma put an arm around Shin. "It's all right. You did it to help Kitty and they were doing horrible things to him. You did a good thing."

"I killed him." Shin started to cry and while Touma tried to comfort him, Trowa took Quatre from Shin. Probably a good thing, Shin might have dropped him at this point. Naaza just looked on confused and Shin knew he didn't understand the problem. "I killed him! I killed him!" The chant was getting hysterical, louder and louder, but Shin couldn't stop himself.

Shin had never killed anyone before and that man wasn't the only one. How many of his knives had he used tonight? Shin knew his aim was almost as good as Cathy's and he wouldn't have missed. How many had he killed?

Shin put his hands up to cover his face, but he couldn't stop seeing the bodies. They were everywhere and they all seemed to have knives in their throats. Shin leaned against Touma and slowly slid to the ground with Touma hugging him.

"Please, don't." Touma kissed my cheek. "Please. Please, it'll be okay. I'll find some way to make it okay."

"How?" Shin asked, still crying and not daring to look at him.

Touma didn't have an answer.

A drop of ran hit the top of Shin’s head. This'll never be all right. 'Nothing will ever fix the fact that I'm a killer. I'm as bad as any murderer. I killed all these people. It doesn't matter that it was for Quatre, I still killed them.' The rain started to fall heavier, turning quickly into a downpour. The water gave no comfort as it usually did, only making Shin colder. Shin didn't want to be like this. ‘I don't want…’

"We are under attack."

Shin had to look up at Trowa's normally calm voice. He stood in the rain with Quatre held tightly against his chest and he was looking up into the night sky. The rain had blotted out the stars and the moon, but there were many dots on light in the distance moving quickly toward us. "The warehouse must have had an alarm and we triggered it when we attacked."

"Why would anyone want to guard an empty warehouse?" Trowa asked.

Naaza answered, "They didn't. They were guarding him." He gestured to Quatre and then back at the large mechanical robots. "What are they?"

"Mobile suits." Trowa answered. "I can't tell what kind from this distance, but it really doesn't matter. I don't think that we can fight them like this. Even your attack might not be effective against so many of them."

Naaza looked slightly offended and reached for his swords.

"Wait." Touma stood up and stepped away from Shin, a strange gleam in his eyes. "Let me. I think I can do this."

Naaza let his hand drop away from his swords when Touma reached onto his back and pulled the collapsible bow off his back. The bow automatically unfolded in his hands. "You know your sure kill?" Naaza asked, even as the mobile suits landed, surrounding them.

From out of the quiver on his back, Touma pulled a golden arrow and notched it in the bow. "I believe so." Touma pulled back the arrow, concentrated for a moment on one of the mobile suits nearest to him.

One of them raised its gun at us and fired a warning shot. Touma answered by letting loose his arrow with a cry of, "SHIN KUU HA! (SUPER SHOT HEAVY VACCUME WAVE!)" The mobile suit was easily destroyed. The arrow traveled like a comet with a long tail of brilliant light. When it struck the mobile suit, the mobile suit was engulfed in the light and when the light dimmed, there was nothing left but a few scraps of metal.

Naaza nodded his approval. "Very nice."

The other mobile suits started attacking, firing their immense guns at them. Trowa covered Quatre with his own body to protect him while Naaza and Touma jumped in to fight. Naaza had no hesitation using his sure kill on the giant robots and Touma fired his arrows quickly, though sometimes he missed.

Shin sat on his knees in the mud, letting the rain run down his face and he just couldn't stand it. 'I don't want anyone to die. I just want to go home and have everyone safe. Why don't they just leave us alone? They must see that Naaza and Touma are far stronger than they are. Why don't they run away and leave us alone?'

One of the robots manages to backhand Touma like an insect and he goes flying back, bashing into and through a tree.

‘That’s it!’

"BUSSO SUIKO!" Shin screamed and the yoroi came to him quickly as if it had been waiting for him to call. It was exactly as Shin remembered seeing in his dreams and in the sea. At last, he'd finally given in to it.

Shin glared at the robots and swung his yari (trident) around so it was pointed at the mobile suits. 'Maybe I am soft, but they're hurting MY Touma!' "CHOURYUU HA! (SUPER SHOT HEAVY SUPER FLOW SMASH!)" From out of the yari a tidal wave bursts out.

A moment later the mobile suits are twisted ruins of what they were glistening wet, even in the darkness with soggy puddles around them. "I did it again." Shin said softly. It wasn't even hard. Shin wasn't even winded and he'd destroyed those things and all the people in them. He couldn't stop himself.

"Of course you did." Naaza answered easily. "You did very well. I didn't think that Suiko would be so powerful."

Touma stood closer to Shin and looked at Naaza defiantly. "That's not helping. Can't you see how bad he feels?"

"We are warriors. Destined to be warriors since before we were born. The very nature of a warrior is to kill." Naaza said simply. "You may as well get used to it."

"These aren't normal mobile suits." Trowa called, making everyone all looked at him. Shin hadn't realized that Trowa had put Quatre down and gone over to the wreckage and now seemed to be sifting through it. "They're unmanned."

"Mobile dolls." Touma said. "I read about that, somewhere. The Alliance was developing the idea to take humans out of war and only use automated dolls to fight. These dolls are supposed to be able to make most fighting decisions on their own with orders coming from officers hiding somewhere safe. Supposedly it would be more effective to fight and cost fewer lives."

Trowa gave him a narrow look. "How do you know that? The Alliance does not give away information on their new prototypes."

Touma actually blushed slightly. "I do a little hacking in my spare time. Besides, I was taking an entrance exam to get into the Alliance so I learned at bit of extra stuff." He looked down at Quatre. "I don't think I'll be doing that anymore. The Alliance isn't quite what I expected it to be."

'Well, I guess that makes me feel a little better.' Shin thought. 'At least I didn't kill anyone in those mobile doll things. I only killed a few people. Was I supposed to feel better?'

Naaza reached out to touch Shin's forehead. "I'm going to remove the block put on your link. You'll have the full connection, now." It was just a light touch with his fingertips and then...Wham!

It stuck Shin light a thunderbolt. Touma smiled at Shin when Shin looked at him and Shin knew without any doubt that this was how it was supposed to be. Whether or not Shin liked the yoroi or the fighting or the killing, this was where he belonged. The minds and hearts of Ryou, Seiji, Xiu, and Touma surrounded him, dancing around my mind. It felt like he'd come home for the first time.

Wufei-

Nasty and Wufei sped down the road, taking back road short cuts whenever possible, and Nasty gave Wufei directions with a tap of her hand. She would tap his right shoulder if he were to go right and the same with the left. 'I can't believe I'm going to save Alliance officers.' It went against everything Wufei have been raised to do, but he couldn't deny the evidence in front of him. The doctors who'd trained Wufei and the other pilots had betrayed them and innocent people would die if Wufei didn't do something.

There was a vibration at his hip and Wufei scowled at the small cell phone. There was no time for phone calls! Wufei reached down and turned the phone off so he could concentrate better and dropped it into the saddlebag of the motorcycle. Whatever it was couldn't be that important.

Mama Fan-

Mama Fan looked sadly down at the phone in her hand. There was no answer and then the person on the other end had hung up for some reason. Mama Fan's hand shook as she put the phone down. She didn't know what to do. All her years trying to be strong for her family and it was all falling apart. Her babies were vanishing before her eyes. First the attack on A0206 and now Xiu had gone missing.

'Oh, baby. Where are you?' Mama Fan thought to herself. Her apartment, once too small for her large family, now seemed big and empty. Only Lai was left, cooing happily in her mama's arms. 'I need you, Xiu. How can I do this alone?' Mama Fan held Lai closer. 'I want my babies. I want you all home.'

There was so no laugher in her home, lately. No sounds of squabbling or the TV blaring too loudly or even Xiu's heavy footsteps when he ran through the apartment. Mama Fan had never, in her wildest dreams, thought that Xiu would run away. But he was a good fighter so it was unlikely that he was kidnapped. He must have just walked away.

Now she couldn't even find Wufei. Mama Fan had hoped that he might know where Xiu was, but he'd vanished, too. Mama Fan held Lai closer to her chest, protectively. "I can't live without my family. I just can't." If anything happened to Lai, Mama Fan didn't know what she'd do.

Noin-

"He was here tonight." Noin told her two friends.

"You're sure it was him?" Zechs asked.

"Of course I'm sure. He was definitely that boy Seiji healed in the hospital. You must not have gotten a good look at him at the party because of those other two, Sh'ten and Anubisu, but I saw him plain as day. There was something going on between him and Seiji, too. They know each other and I think I know how. Heero, that's the kid's name, acts very much like Seiji did when he first came home. Anubisu gave me the clues to find the guy who took Seiji and he said he saw Heero there when he met this guy. Heero and Seiji must have been kidnapped together."

"So," Trieze spoke up for the first time. "Do you think he's a threat to us?"

Noin thought back on what little she knew about Heero. "If he decides to fight us, yes. I think he might be very dangerous. He looks like a child, like Seiji, but he's more than he seems."

It happened so suddenly. Trieze gasped and then fell, with none of his usual grace, hitting the floor face down.

"Trieze!" Zechs jumped to him, pulling Trieze into his lap. Trieze didn't just faint, he had never fainted before and there was no reason to it. His eyes had simply rolled back into his head and he fell.

It was then that they saw the dart, one of those with the red feathers in the end, like one would use to sedate animals, sticking out of the back of Trieze's neck. "What the...?" Zechs pulled the tranquilizer dart out. Trieze seemed to be fast asleep and wouldn't respond to anything at all.

Noin snarled and reached for her gun. 'How dare someone attack my home? My friends?!' But before she could do anything, a burning pain made her drop the gun and clutch her bleeding hand. She'd been shot!

"Just relax, Noin." A familiar voice said. "It won't do any good to fight, your house is surrounded."

Noin almost had a heat attack when she saw the woman who held the gun walk into the house.

"Lady Une?" Zechs said in disbelief. "What are you doing?"

The spectacled woman gave him a sardonic smile. "I should have thought that would be obvious, at this point, even for you, fruit loop." Behind Lady Une several other armed men walked in holding rifles aimed at them. They weren't soldiers, but they had death in their eyes. They were there to kill.

"Don't you think Trieze's allies might object when you kill him?" Noin asked. It was rather obvious what was going on and Noin was not happy about the betrayal. "His men are very loyal and they will not serve someone who murdered their commander." She knew very well that if word got out that Trieze was murdered, at the very least, there would be open rebellion.

Une shook her head. "But, my dear, you just don't understand. I'm not going to kill Trieze. I'm going to kill you," She tapped Noin's nose with the tip of her gun. "And you." She shifted the gun over to Zechs. "Trieze will wake up with the bodies of his two beloved friends, cold next to him. For added shock value, I might just lay Zechs on top of Trieze so our dear Mr. Kushranada can wake to find himself covered in blood. Yes, that might drive him over the edge." Une held two guns in her hands, one holding the tranquilizer darts and another ordinary one for killing.

Noin couldn't take her eyes off Une, Trieze's 'supposedly' trusted aide and swallowed hard. They were going to die. Her gun was five feet from her hands and she knew very well how sharp Une's reflexes were. One of the reasons she was Trieze's aide was because of her abilities as a bodyguard.

Zechs still had his gun, but there were too many. Even if they managed to kill Lady Une, the other gunmen would kill them anyway and probably Trieze, too.

This was the end. They were going to die.

Une brought her gun to Noin's face and pulled back on the trigger.

Continued...