Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Crazy Sunday Mornings ❯ Meet Humanity's Self-Appointed Savior ( Chapter 7 )

Now, for the moment, allow yourself to leave the company of a befuddled Yohji and his companions (neither of whom are physically present outside his head) and watch a recollection of seemingly trivial yet truly pivotal events. The date was March 5, a Saturday morning, the start of the month of Yohji's troubles. It started out like some of their Saturdays- with a brainstorm session in the Mission Room that doubled as Aya's Room Away From the Others, Yohji's Secret Smoking Room, Omi's Quiet Project Spot, and Ken's Big Screen T.V. For Big Games Room. It is purely coincidental that none of them ever met there coincidentally.

 

“Look, man, we don't even need to brainstorm for this. We go in, we kill the guy, and the job's done.” Yohji said with a tone of finality and irritation, pounding his fist once on the table for added emphasis. Aya gave him a look of pure disdain. Yohji met it with his own, “What, what? You want a piece of me, fearless leader?” he baited, but Aya wasn't taking it. He sighed theatrically and flopped down on the sofa, managing to hit Aya on the head with a seemingly accidental flailing arm. Aya stared on, but one can see the veins coming out. Then Aya turned to Omi, who sat to his left and accidentally elbowed Yohji on his side. Of course, it being Aya's elbow, it considerably hurt a lot.

 

“OW.” Yohji cried out angrily.

 

Aya turned to him and smiled without humor, akin to the mirthless smiles animals do when they're threatening rivals with the baring of very sharp teeth. Then he put his hand on his chest and showed a face of mock concern. “Oh, did I hurt you? Pardon me, I didn't know.” Yohji narrowed his eyes and fumed silently. He heard the last words of sentence as if Aya shouted it out (though Aya did no such thing, but Yohji knows) which were “[…I didn't know] you were such a pathetic weakling. Had I known I would have lessened my jab, all the way down to `sissies and flower-shorted pansies level'.” They continued the staring match until Yohji's face became a look of indignant shock when he saw the really, really mud-in-your-face-haha smug smile Aya flashed him.

 

“Oh, oh, hah, it's on!” Yohji cried in the manner of all people gone competitive in a game- the jeering, taunting kind of expressions like “that all you got?” or “Who's your daddy, huh, who's.your.DADDY?!”

 

But that is not the pivotal event that you are supposed to be told of. Yohji is on the edge and wanting to pick a fight that morning because it's a Saturday and they have to stay in the house to plan and afterwards kill somebody. And this somebody wasn't even an anybody, to Yohji's opinion. He felt degraded at having to take out trash like that. Why does Kritiker think they have to send their very best on a goddamned Saturday (for crying out loud!- Yohji) to take out some guy who works in a rented out basement in the backwoods and who doesn't even have the proper idiotic henchmen for them to hack away at? The man was a loon. That was all there is. And damned if Yohji was going to stay with the rest of the group concocting some plan they don't even need to take out the most inconsequential pseudo-villain (I mean, come on, he doesn't even have the signature evil cackle in his entire puny body! What's a villain without his signature evil cackle? - Yohji) they were ever tasked to kill. Why waste time for a supposedly “evil genius” who couldn't even afford the proper henchmen and who doesn't have the evil villain laugh? Let the loony bin take care of loons out and about, that's what Yohji thinks. So he got up, left in a huff to smoke outside, and appeared only until the appointed time for their clockwork precision job, decidedly missing out every single detail discussed about their target that could've saved him his troubles in the future.

 

* * *

 

When you look at Jacques Jeumans, you get the idea that the man had been, in his youth, an athletic and good-looking person. He stood a respective 6”1 height, and in all manners looked like a gentleman save for the slight stoop. Just overlook the crumpled slept-in lab coat that is now significantly grayish instead of the nondescript white it started out being. And never mind the curious colors and textures of stains the lab coat has. His brown silken hair of youth now was an unkempt and somewhat greasy overgrowth. His once clear blue-grey eyes, now hid behind glasses, turned bleary. The once smiling lips now in an indefinite frown, brows continuously locked and cheeks a bit sunken. Even his hands are stained, nails forgotten. All for the love of science. ALWAYS for the love of science.

 

Jacques was a respected scientist working for laboratory experiments concerning biology, human anatomy and the DNA. He had come to Japan to work for a grant under the Prime Minister's son, a study of genetics and possibilities of manipulating the DNA. It started out harmlessly enough, the extensive studies about the human gene. He was provided for excellently. His boss (the Prime Minister's son) regarded him highly and his colleagues, far from being petty jealous rivals (they were scientists of course, everyone was doing it for the love of science), did so to. But there was something missing, Jacques knew in his heart of hearts. His dream is not here, he thought.

 

Then a year after, the changes began. Jacques hardly noticed it anyway, too consumed in his own world of DNA strands and large possibilities to notice his colleagues one by one failing to come to work, or the others who threw off their white lab coats muttering lines akin to “this is madness!” or “I will not voluntarily cause the destruction of mankind.” His boss had announced the real intention of the research, and he remembered the nervous flutter of his heart of hearts. Yes, his dream, he thought, he dreams the same dream my heart does.

 

He stopped his hands and stood without moving for a while. He remembered that summer in his youth, when he has yet to meet his life's mistress (science, who else?), and the first time he encountered the Myth. The myth was this: humans want to live forever. It was simple as that. But there were many details. His brows met shortly, as he tried to remember whether he wanted this immortality or not. He shook his head, this was trivial, whether he wanted it for himself or not, he wanted it for all Mankind. Yes, that was his Dream: the perfection of man to prepare for their immortality. He smiled a guileless smile. He was running off with his thoughts again, he warned himself. He must return to his work immediately.

 

And there, beneath his worktable, lay a corpse.

 

* * *

 

It was certainly not his day, Yohji thought, as he moved on all fours in the bewilderingly tall green things that grew on the lawn of the abandoned building where their target lived in.

 

“Who knows what kind of shit grows in here?” he said, a bit loudly, into his intercom. The electric buzz came before Omi's exasperated voice. “Just do your part, Balinese, and QUIETLY, please?” “Well,” he replied, not about to give up, “YOU can say that, sitting in the van all comfy and…” The sharp sound that came into his ear made him wince a little, and he heard Aya's voice cut in. “Balinese. Shut. Up.” Yohji rolled his eyes and made a dour face, sure that even Aya wasn't that omnipotent to see him somewhere in the thick overgrowth. The intercom hissed in his ear, and Ken's voice, heard by all four, softly said “Siberian in position.” The four Assassins, as if on cue, nodded.

 

* * *

 

Yes, he crowed, it's working! Perfection at last! Jacques Jeumans, after undergoing his own experiment four hours ago, felt it taking effect. He could see his skin fast becoming so white as to seem transparent, veins mapping out his arm as he watched it with silent joy. He walked towards the back of the laboratory, when he heard the voice.

 

Where are you going?

 

He looked up, turned about, trying to see the owner of the voice. “Who… who are you?” The voice seemed vaguely familiar. As if, it was the same voice of his thoughts, only more… sinister. He shivered. He whipped round and his eyes fell on a body that was still moving, bound hands and feet, voice muffled by a gag. Then he remembered what he was going to do. The body, as if regaining consciousness, writhed nervously, and tried to scream when the doctor came close to it. Jacques Jeumans bent down, and trailed a caressing finger over the now wet cheek. “Relax… I'm not going to hurt you…” His voice was soothing, as if he was talking to a child, and for a moment, the person- a girl of eighteen years- stopped moving about, forgetting what she had seen him do to the other girls before her. She cried uncontrollably now, trying to talk to the doctor, convince him to let her go. The good doctor clucked. “Poor child, why are you so frightened?” Then he took off the gag, and almost immediately, the girl sobbed in between pleading.

 

“Oh, please… please let me go… oh… I promise! I promise I won't… tell… please… sir….”

 

Jeumans' eyes narrowed slightly, and he fought to stop himself from slapping the gibbering girl across the mouth. `There is nothing to tell!' He screamed in his head, `Nothing! Nothing! These… these good-for-nothings! Ingrat fille! Sale mortel*! They cower from me as if I was a villain, a thug, a good-for-nothing! Can they not comprehend the gift I bestow upon them? I, Jacques Jeumans, Saviour of Mankind?' He stopped. He shouldn't be angry. Angry was what mortals' do, to cope with their mortality. An immortal like him, angry? No, it is unheard of! He smiled again. The girl's eyes widened even more. She was shaking with fear. This was how the man looked, before he… before he… her eyes darted quickly to the bodies hurriedly stashed underneath the worktable, and she closed her eyes immediately.

 

“Please…” she whispered, sobbing soundlessly.

 

The caressing hand became a firm grip on her chin, forcing her to look up into what she would last remember- the eyes of a lunatic.

 

“Relax, child, I will not hurt you…” His face calmed into the face of a doting father, but his eyes remained the same. The girl couldn't look away. “I have finished with the testing, perfection has come! Now, do not fear, hush little one, hush. Immortalité**, child, it has come! The perfection of the human body! No longer should man cower and fear death!” He stopped, lost his smile, felt the trembling face held in his vice-like grip.

 

Well…

 

“Well…” The doctor repeated, unconsciously, what the sinister voice said.

 

For some, the fear remains…

 

“For some, the fear remains…” The girl, now perfectly helpless, tries fruitlessly to push farther back, away from the looming doctor's face.

 

…for you see, child…

 

“…for you see, child…” he smiled, and the girl froze, like a deer before the wolf.

 

… gods require blood…

 

“…gods require blood…” he closed in, closer, closer, until only a hair's breadth away from the youth's arched neck. She could not scream, his eyes held her mind in a complete hold.

 

…because they cannot bleed.***

 

“…because they cannot bleed.” He finished, completely consumed by the other, by the voice, as he descended upon her. Her hands, gripping, clenching and unclenching erratically, slowed. And after a moment, the moving stopped, the hands lay, limply, bound together behind her back. And as he walked away, wiping his mouth on the back of his coat's sleeve, the girl's body slumped, completely lifeless.

 

Another life taken for the love of science and the salvation of Man. Always for that.

 

Yes, Jacques, for the love of science.

 

And Jacques found himself nodding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Ungrateful girl! Filthy mortal!

** Obviously, immortality

***taken from the animated movie, “The Road to El Dorado” (you know, the part where that Tzekelkan guy found out Tulio and Miguel weren't gods? Cool line. Delivered quite less ominous though, to my opinion. It had the potential for a full-blooded shiver)

 

I have nothing against science. I do not know what I was writing down about the laboratory stuff. Search me- I'm no scientist. Not all scientists are lunatics, mind you. This one's just a bit over the edge. Like that son of Takatori. Jacques Jeumans' boss. A friend suggested the name to me. We intended it to be more comical, I intended for the character to be more comical, but it turned a bit… serious. Oh well. I guess you can guess what the experiment's about. Easily. (sigh) I just can't write suspense that well. By the way, DO NOT trust my French. Anyone who would like to correct me, please do so.

 

Oh, and the “hearts of hearts” thing? Gosh, I've been reading it from so many books (I think from “The Death of Che Guevarra” to some children's book to a Sandman issue) I don't know who to credit. Guess it's a universal thing. Tell me; if you know, and I'll happily credit it to them (Don't want to be plagiarizing without a disclaimer now).

 

For some strange reason, I can't read the reviews posted (hah! It was just one new review, but hey, reviews make the author grow better).