Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Purgatory ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

The fluorescent lights above him stung his eyes as Wolfwood’s awareness returned to the booth. His head had apparently lolled back during the trip, if that’s what you called it, and he was looking straight up. Confused and alarmed, he turned to look at Rem.

She was still away with Vash--he could tell. Wolfwood turned to Alex. “What the hell just happened?” he asked quietly, as if he would wake Rem up from a dream if he didn’t whisper.

Alex also looked distressed. “I have no idea. You tell me. Did it work?”

“I guess it worked,” Wolfwood answered. “But we went to Vash, not Milly. That’s who I was trying to see. The big girl.” He felt strangely deprived.

Alex understood. “Rem was right. You couldn’t take her there, I guess. What probably happened was she inadvertently took you to Vash. I guess it was some kind of accidental override. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Wolfwood dismissed the apology. “Just tell me what was going on!” He could still hear the echoes of Vash’s weeping in his head. He felt like he was always going to remember that awful sound.

“I wasn’t there. But you sound very upset…”

“Upset? Upset doesn’t begin to cover it! What’s been happening? Is Milly OK? Meryl? Vash sounded like . . .” he almost said “like his best friend died” and caught himself. Wolfwood knew Vash must have been saddened by his death, probably even blamed himself, but this anguish had been different. It was worse than simple grief. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did.

“Sounded like his world was collapsing around him,” Rem’s gentle voice finished for him.

“Yes…” Wolfwood looked at her, relieved she had returned to them.

“Obviously that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Rem said in a shaky voice. “I’m sorry we didn’t see her.”

“It seemed like you went where you were needed at that time, Rem, it‘s OK,” Wolfwood said. “I sensed that you were helping, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move or interact with anything, couldn’t say anything…”

“We told you it was difficult from here,” Alex reminded him.

Wolfwood thought for a moment. Finally he decided he had nothing to lose by asking. “What happened last night?” he said in an even tone. “I died at least two days ago, right?” He was so consumed with worry for Vash he didn’t realize he had, for the first time, vocalized his situation.

Rem and Alex exchanged a look. It had a familiarity, the glance they shared, and Wolfwood found himself envying what they had found together. In their life before and now, wherever they normally called home. They had each other. They were together. He thought it was a pretty good bet these folks were usually in what he would call heaven, although he figured they were slumming for his benefit this morning.

“I’m not trying to be cryptic,” Rem used his word from earlier, “but this is another opportunity for you to learn something. You can divine what has occurred yourself. It would be easier than me trying to explain.”

“What? Can I see the past? Time travel? See the future too?”

“You have a connection with Vash,” Rem answered. “Use it now, look inside, and you can relive some of his experiences. You can see it. You didn’t realize it, but you have already used this power, when you were with Chapel.”
“It’s the same way we know what you have been doing,” Alex chimed in. “We can experience it, in a sense, by seeing it through your eyes.”
“But,” Rem cautioned, “this is not going to be easy to experience.”

“Yeah, I heard him,” Wolfwood said heavily. “Are you sure you can’t just tell me?”

“We could, of course,” Rem said, and her voice shook a little again.

“Ah, shit, let me just try, I guess,” Wolfwood said. He could tell this was something Rem absolutely didn’t want to discuss, for whatever reason. He probably owed it to Needle Noggin to understand this…tragedy. That’s what he was expecting. A huge freaking tragedy. He didn’t have much direction, but he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and emptied his mind. He tried to recapture the moment in that dark little room with Vash, to see what had caused his friend such pain.

Instead, he heard an ominous voice, low and threatening. “Found you…” it said teasingly.

Immediately Wolfwood’s eyes snapped open and he stood up, ignoring the concern of his new acquaintances, looking around the diner, and not realizing how quickly he had switched into danger mode. He left the table to look out the window, his instincts on red alert and his eyes narrowing against the invisible menace.

Returning to the table, his brain was moving an ile a minute.

“What happened?” Rem asked with genuine concern.

“Legato. That bastard. Somehow he’s…” and then it all fell into place. “Oh man…” Wolfwood sat back down, his heart heavy in his chest.

“Did you see it?” Alex asked.

“No, I didn’t see it. I guess I didn’t have to. I can figure it out now,” Wolfwood replied. “He’s dead too. Vash killed him. He must have. And now Legato’s here.”

“Here? Are you sure?” Rem sounded worried. As well she should, Wolfwood thought. That bastard was bad news in life, probably even nastier in the hereafter.

“I’m positive. I heard him in my head. Doesn’t death get to negate that little annoying habit of his?” Wolfwood sighed.

“You’re right, he’s dead. Vash shot him,” Alex confirmed. “He was forced to choose between Legato or Meryl and Milly. It was a no-win situation.”

Wolfwood smirked. “I call that a win-win situation for everyone. Easy decision. Legato dead is the best thing for the human race all around.” Wolfwood was unable to hide his satisfaction that Legato hadn’t succeeded in harming his friends.

“Don’t you understand?” Rem implored him. “It was a lose-lose situation for Vash. He was forced to take a life. He thought he had no alternative. It has come as close as anything ever has to destroying him.”

Wolfwood understood. The bastard had won after all. So that’s where the cacophony of suffering came from. It was diabolical, even for Legato. “Doesn’t Vash realize he did the right thing? Can’t you reassure him?”

A tear slid down Rem’s cheek. “Everything he believed he had to betray. No one can make him understand there wasn’t another way. Who knows, maybe there was…”

“Damn, you sound just like him,” Wolfwood was exasperated. “Legato is as evil as evil gets. He was human, sure, but just barely. By an accident of birth more than anything inside. He traded any remnants of humanity in exchange for power. He’s as much a devil as Knives is, if you ask me.”

“That may be,” said Alex, “but it’s not as simple as you are making it out.”

The priest considered a minute. Alex was right. Of course Vash couldn’t simply accept the black-and-white solution. Vash was more human than humans were, sometimes. He took things so damn hard--let things get to him. Vash wasn’t happy just saving lives, he was miserable when he failed to save anyone. Even when people didn’t want to be saved.

When the assassins sent to take his life failed, Vash took no revenge, held no grudge. He let his mantra of Love & Peace rule over common sense. That philosophy, Wolfwood always had known, ultimately had flaws. You couldn’t, simply couldn’t live that way all the time. It was a recipe for victimization, for disappointment. People let you down. That’s also part of being human. You got your heart broke, you got kicked in the stomach, you got up from the punches a little older and a little wiser. A little crueler sometimes, Wolfwood admitted to himself, a little worse for the wear.

But Vash never got toughened to the ways of the world. He was the eternal cockeyed optimist, wanting everybody to play nice. He probably had known what Wolfwood was from Day One, yet trusted in the corrupt priest’s innate goodness rather than believing him to be capable of treachery. He could have easily removed Wolfwood as a threat. But he chose not to.

Thinking back, Wolfwood remembered so many times when it was out there, when Vash could have stopped him. Instead they had become friends. Real friends. Drunk as a skunk around the campfire, talking until dawn, going after the bad guys together kind- of-friends. And wonder of wonders, Vash wound up being right about him after all. Wolfwood couldn’t betray the one soul he had come to believe was perhaps the only completely good man he had ever known. When the time came, he had chosen certain death, at the hands of Knives, Legato, or the Gung Ho Guns, over the look of pure sadness in those blue eyes.

“Promise me you’ll never pick up a gun again,” Vash had asked, bargaining with Wolfwood for his life. “Promise me…”

The memory echoed behind his eyes, as Wolfwood finally truly understood what Vash had lost by killing Legato. He’s lost himself, Wolfwood was stunned. He’s completely lost his faith in himself and in others.

The weight of this realization so enraged Wolfwood that he wished that purple-haired bastard was there right at that instant. He would kill him a hundred times for what he had done to Vash. No, six hundred times, each one a little bit slower and just a tad more painful.

His reverie was broken by Rem’s hand on his arm, a concerned look in her eyes. “This is unexpected,” she said.

“Yeah, if Legato is here…I guess I’m in worse shape than I thought!” Wolfwood laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Isn’t he one of those “rocket ship to hell” kind of souls? I didn’t think he would get a second chance…”

“How can we judge?” asked Rem.

“What does God know?” Wolfwood quipped. “Can he judge through such darkness?”

“Aren’t you a priest?” Alex asked in a shocked voice.

“Book of Job, Alex, not my words,” Wolfwood smiled. “And yes, I am most definitely a priest. Some might say not a very good one, but I’ve read the book.”

“Sorry, Father, I mean, Mr. Wolfwood. Sorry,” Alex said.

Ignoring Alex’s discomfort, Wolfwood turned to Rem. “OK, so Legato is here. Leave him to me. I’ll find out what he’s up to and handle it. But I do have some other questions, if you can stomach ‘em.” His confident tone was almost good enough to fool himself, but he had a small ball of fear in the pit of his stomach since he had heard that malevolently seductive voice in his brain.

“Of course,” Rem said.

Not fooling her, Wolfwood thought with a sigh. “Who is this Milly here? The girl I met yesterday? She’s so much like my Milly, but she’s different. I feel…” he paused. “I don’t know what I feel,” he concluded lamely.

For the first time, Rem looked confused. Not a good sign, Wolfwood thought.