Take On Me
by Rain Man
---
A tall stranger moved through the crowd, a sliver of black cutting
through the daylight, boot heels striking the concrete without sound.
Sliding through the gaps here and there, he whispered by with the barest
touch unfelt by that businessman rushing one way, by the housewives on
their way home from shopping, by the horde of everydays that passed by
without noticing.
But she noticed.
Where was he going, that stranger with those intense dark eyes?
Without knowing why, without acknowledging the tingle that went
down to her toes, the young girl followed him.
She blushed when she realized that she was - what would he think?
She was never this forward, she was proper and conservative and the
daughter of a respected -
But she hurried after him when he turned the corner (he was so
handsome, she said to herself without listening). She took one more step
and when he turned to look at her, oh those eyes they -
"Akane, wake up!"
She almost leaped out of her seat, very nearly smashed the
intruder's face in, cheeks burning as she yelped, "Don't do that, Yuka!"
"Akane, you're always reading those comics. Come on, it's sunny
outside, let's go shopping or watch a movie or - "
"But, but..." She was already looking at the next panel, where the
tall stranger in the leather coat realized he was being followed and -
"Come ON, Akane, you promised you'd let us take you out today!"
She let them drag her out of her room, down the stairs and past the
hallway.
"Bye, Akane-chan! Have a nice time today!" Kasumi smiled as she
always did, wondrous and quiet and calm.
"Quit dragging your feet, girl!" Sayuri said, pushing Akane as Yuka
pulled.
Akane smiled and laughed, "Okay, okay, you win. Where are we going
again?"
"There's that new store in Akihabara - they've got the cutest
looking little bags, Akane, we've gotta get some!"
"And there's that new movie out about this alien who - "
Akane smiled and nodded, pushed back the thick locks of her long
black hair. It swayed from side to side as she walked, the slightest
sway of her hair along her back accentuating the steadiness of her stride
and the way she centered herself from the ground up, a martial artist's
stride and a woman's.
"So did you let Sato kiss you last night, Sayuri-chan?" Akane said.
She grinned at the way her friend couldn't quite look her in the
eye as she replied, "OfcoursenotAkane whyever would you think that I mean
we're just friends..."
So they walked in the sun, and laughed and giggled and chatted, but
as soon as they were in full swing, swapping stories about their friends
and the minutiae of the daily rumors about who was dating whom and who
had been dumped for whom or about who had cheated on what test, Akane's
mind was back in her room, with her heart, lying on her bed, open to page
sixteen.
Sometimes, when Akane was sad and was having a day that was, well,
not very good (she remembered this movie her mother used to love, and the
heroine of that movie sometimes had those days, too, and she called them
"The Mean Reds") she thought about how little happened everyday, how
boring it all was. So much so that she hated the steady boring chatter
of her friends whom she loved so much, hated the numbing everydayness of
school, and wanted something more, something to get her blood pumping.
Akane liked that movie quite a bit. Only she didn't think that those
days really had a color, or at least it wasn't red. Red was vibrant,
alive, maybe sometimes it hurt with an edge, but it also maybe sometimes
lifted you up like a fire in the sky. No, those days were, if anything,
colorless. As if red was less red, and the blue of the blue skies was
less blue, and everything was industrial gray and ugly and boring and
nothing...
(The stillness of death, the way the color was gone from her
mother's face at the end, and she couldn't admit to herself how glad she
was when the cremation was over because it wasn't her mother anymore it
was just some dead thing and it was horrible that it looked even a little
like her, but without the spark, without the life that filled the eyes
and made Akane smile.)
"Akane, you're daydreaming again," Sayuri sighed.
"Sorry!" And she was, because she didn't like disappointing them,
they tried so hard to be good friends.
And Akane sighed, too, because she just wanted to go back to those
wondrous pages, where everyone was more alive than alive, and the colors
were always bright, and the heroes were handsome and the villains were
dastardly and the worlds were brimming over with excitement to spare.
Well, one hero was handsome anyway.
"... and in that issue he saves this schoolbus being hijacked by
terrorists who - "
"Akane, jeez, it's just comics, y'know. What you need, girlfriend,
is a real man."
"Humph!" Akane said. "All the boys at school are just boys!" And
boys were annoying. They kept on staring at her chest now that she was
starting to get one while trying to seem like they weren't, and they kept
on showing off, trying to impress her with how smart or charming or
strong they were. Akane was as good a student as she cared to be, with
grades nominally high kept there by a minimum of studying, and as fine an
athlete as she cared to be, easily defeating most of the boys in sports
except for the ones who were obsessive and didn't do anything else anyway
(hence not bothering her with their presence). And their version of
charming was, well, crude as only high school boys newly introduced to
their own rocketing hormone levels could be crude.
"Yeah, Akane, but at least they're, you know, in 3D. You're in
love with pictures on paper!"
"Hah, just because you finally let Sato kiss you, you're turning on
your unattached friends!" She stuck her tongue out and giggled to let
her know it was alright. Because the last boy that had made a crack
about Akane's comics had been hospitalized. Twice.
She didn't mind that her friends just didn't get her fascination
with that character. 'Coz that way, it made it easier to pretend that he
belonged to her and her alone. Oh, sure, this comic hero had princesses
and heirs to fortunes throwing themselves at him and being saved by him,
but he was never interested in them at all, afterwards, though he was
always a gentleman and polite. In those episodes when a girl he rescued
would ask him to stay for a little while (in some of the racier issues,
they'd ask him to stay the night!), he'd always say that he already had a
love, and he'd get this lost, faraway look in his eyes.
"She's doing it again," Yuka sighed. "Akane, no man in real life
could be anything like that Ranma character in your comics."
"I'm not thinking 'bout that, really I'm not." And Akane sighed,
too.
I really want to remember today, she thought. I want to live a
real life today, with bright colors brighter than bright, and... and I
will be a good friend, and good company.
She hooked her arms through theirs and said, smiling again, "Let's
go to that club Sato works at tonight, maybe he can get us in!"
"That's the spirit!" Sayuri cheered.
Whisper of doors closing behind them, whisper of the electric
motors spinning up to drive the wheels, whisper of the a computerized
voice informing them to please take their seats or hold on to an
appropriate handle. The train is departing, continues the bodiless,
soulless, colorless voice. Rays of light, shining glass in shining metal
doors. Carpeted floors, clean, unworn by the feet of countless commuters
who commuted there no longer.
All these things, these emptinesses, they pulled at memories in
Akane she did not want to have, and as their pull increased, so did her
need to hang on to her friends.
I want to stay with you, please stay with me, Akane thought. The
sound of the train rattling on its tracks, the way the floor shook under
her feet, and she was filled, for just a moment, with the desperate need
to hold on to something, someone.
"Akane, um, that kinda hurts," Sayuri said, softly.
"Sorry." And she loosened her grip at her friend's elbow,
chagrined at the loss of control, but relieved that her friend didn't
pull away.
Behind these glass windows, in this shiny metal beast, we are
alone, almost in another world. Outside, there are all these strangers,
and on some days they smile at you and on some days they frown, and on
others they are faceless. There are no mannequins here, just you and me,
and the sound of our little world moving through a bigger one, itself
just one city in an ever larger set of circles and worlds... floating,
alone in the blackness.
Blackness...
Akane swallowed and looked around them.
Anything, find anything, look around, look here, look at her, look
at him, look at them, look at my reflection in the glass, the telephone
poles sliding by. At the reflections of her friends, bent into narrow
lines on the shiny metal poles they hung on to, at -
Who is that?
She didn't notice him when they had gotten on.
He was sitting all the way in the back, a slender young boy - maybe
he was her age, maybe younger? It was hard to tell, he looked smaller
the way he was sitting, scrunching himself up to look smaller than
himself, eyes looking at nothing.
He looks small. And he looks skinny. And he looks weak, Akane
decided finally. His hair was cut like a simple black bowl inverted
onto his head, his clothes looked as plain as a school uniform. Little
plug-in earphones at his ears, the wires leading to a little black box in
his hands, and Akane could hear the words, if she listened closely
enough. English was her best class.
"... so you think you could tell... heaven from hell, blue skies
from pain..."
It sounded familiar... and so far away. He must have been
listening to it really loud, she thought, for her to hear it. Slow
guitar strings, so soft to her, must be echoing, roaring in his ears, and
that soft voice a scream.
"... how I wish... how I wish you were here - we're just two lost
souls living in a fish bowl..."
"... year after year..."
"... Running over the same old ground..."
"... how we found..."
"... the same old fears..."
It was the strangest moment, when he looked up and his dark eyes
caught hers.
Dark eyes, Akane thought...
"... wish you were here..."
Sayuri tugged Yuka, and whispered loudly, "Praise be, Akane is
staring at a real boy!"
"I am not!" She bonked them lightly on the shoulder, relieved
that, when she glanced out of the corner of her eye, the boy was looking
away. He couldn't possibly hear them anyway, not over his music.
"Think he's cute, Akane?"
"No! I hate boys! Um. I mean - " her eyes slid back for another
moment. "He just looks so alone."
There was a sound then, like the curiously weak sound made by a car
crash - from the movies, you always expect something larger, explosions,
flames, smoke, but in real life, most of the energy of the impact goes
into deforming those metal frames, and it's never as loud as you expect.
Unless, of course, you are the one in the accident, and then the sound
can be louder than life itself, louder than pain, louder than movies and
comics. That's when they were thrown forward, and the train ground to a
screeching halt.
Akane had known the right way to fall since she was old enough to
train... which was since she was old enough to walk. Before she had time
to think about it, she had tucked her chin in towards her chest, curled
herself just enough to protect her head, with her neck the only part of
her body not limp. She bounced off the metal door at the end of the car,
was bruised here and there, mostly her back and shoulder blades, but that
was all. Akane was used to bruises.
When she recovered her breath and picked herself up, she needed to
close her eyes for a moment to calm herself.
Yuka was moaning terribly, and her left forearm was bent backwards
on the elbow. Sayuri was fine, like Akane, just bruised, but she was
groggy, and the bump on her forehead made Akane hope she didn't have a
concussion.
The boy knew how to fall, too. He was the only other one standing
straight, and as he gazed out the window, Akane caught something in his
eyes that was strange, and perhaps frightening.
Akane took off her coat, the vest beneath it. Sky blue, charcoal
gray. Crouched beside her friend.
"Give me your spare clothes an' stuff," she said to Sayuri. "Hurry
up!"
"Yuka, you'll be fine, okay?"
She started screaming when she saw her arm.
"Stop it! Stop moving! Don't look at it! Sayuri, give me a
hand!" Carefully, carefully she kept her friend immobilized, held her
down but not too roughly.
Sayuri was too dazed, was sort of half-crawling, half-stumbling
over. Her eyes were wide open, saucers, surprise and fear and blankness.
"Yuka, Yuka, it's going to be fine, look at my eyes, okay?"
"Akane... it huuuurts..."
"I'll help." The boy said.
His white shirt came off, and Akane was relieved to see that he
knew what she had been doing. He folded cloth, over and over, tied it
with a belt to make it hold the correct shape, did it again to her coat.
There was nothing on the car to use as sticks for a splint, and this was
the best they could do.
"This'll hurt, Yuka, but I gotta do it," Akane said. "Just look at
my eyes, okay? Don't look at it. Squeeze my arm with your good hand
when it really hurts."
She straightened the arm, and as her friend was screaming, she and
the boy put their improvised, cushioned splints alongside the broken
joint, and tied it around with Akane's vest, torn in half.
Yuka's cries faded to soft moaning.
"That's better, right, Yuka? Now, just stay awake, okay? Don't
close your eyes. I gotta check on Sayuri."
The boy was already there. "She's fine. Just dazed." He was
standing again, and looking out the window.
"What happened? The power's out, there's no lights on the train
and - "
The boy pointed, and she looked.
Billowing smoke was rising over the horizon, and finally, Akane
could hear the sirens.
"..."
"Oh."
It didn't take them long to force a door open. Standing on the
tracks, they saw that a chunk of metal the size of a car had destroyed
the elevated rail just in front of the train. An amorphous mass that had
smashed halfway through the rails, deep into the concrete beams beneath.
The emergency brakes had cut in barely in time, there were only inches
before they would have smashed into it, the passenger cars sent flying
off.
"That's a bullet from an Eva rail cannon; must've ricocheted off
and just landed here by accident," he said absently.
It didn't take them long to check the other cars. There were not
many passengers on the trains anymore, and today, early on a Sunday, they
had been the only ones. The control system was automated, there was no
engineer up front.
"We shouldn't move her. We'll have to stay until someone gets us,"
Akane said. Well, that, and it was a long way down...
She was a little mad at how distant he seemed, at how he was just
looking at the smoke.
"Hey, what's up with you anyway?"
At his sides, his long, slender fingers twitched. His eyes were
down, looking beneath his little feet in their little black shoes. He
was maybe the same height as her, maybe half an inch shorter.
"I have to go."
"What? But - "
"..." he just looked at her. Through her.
She looked at him. He was not quite as skinny as he'd looked under
his shirt - just starting to become wiry, as though he'd recently had to
begin some kind of martial arts or maybe track and field or something.
His eyes - she could not look at them. It made her feel cold. It made
her remember her mother's eyes, just as the life left them.
"I'm sorry about your friend."
He ran, backtracking along the railway until he reached a ladder to
climb down. And then he was gone.
"Jerk," Akane muttered.
She climbed back into the car, and sat by her friends.
"'mso sleepy," Sayuri murmured, sitting, hunched over by Yuka.
Akane sighed. "Nope, no sleep allowed." She tried to smile at
them.
"... Shouldn't have gone out today, huh, 'kane?" Yuka murmured.
"Sorry. My idea."
"Oh, don't be that way. We'll be fine. And I read in the paper
that a train car is the third safest place to get stranded in during an
Angel attack," she lied.
"Mmm, 'kane, tell us a story," Yuka said.
"A story?"
"Yeah, Akane, how's that comic start again?" Sayuri said. Softly,
she stroked Yuka's shoulder. She linked hands with Akane, as they sat by
Yuka, lying between them.
Akane closed her eyes for a long, long time before she opened them.
For the first time in years, it had been difficult to think about the
stories, and the handsome hero who somehow, someway, always won,
throughout whatever trials and suffering. It was hard not to think about
dark eyes, and how cold they looked, and behind that iciness, something
wild and dangerous.
"There's... um. There's these guys."
"The bad guys," Sayuri prompted.
"Right. They're called the Nine Men, they've got... number
nines... tattooed on them all, somewhere."
"Are they spies, 'kane?" Yuka's voice was only a little slurred.
And her fingers felt okay, they weren't getting colder. That was good,
right? Akane tried to remember the first aid she'd learned just from all
the injuries she got, training.
"Yes. Spies. And they've been trained in the nine best ways to
kill by the nine worst killers of all time, and they started out as
teenagers, and when they were 18, they killed their first president...
They... get hired, by everybody, by governments, by Mafia families and
Yakuza and Tong, by corporations and, every once in a while, by the
police, too. The world was a dark place, ruled by terror and money." It
was getting easier, she thought with relief. "But this boy, he was the
son of a general, who was disgraced and - "
Yes, it was getting easier. In her head, the colors were still
brighter than bright. But as the orphaned boy began to face the first of
the trials that would make him a hero, all Akane could think about was
the look in the stranger's face, as his hands had twitched at his sides,
and she had felt for sure he was going to kill someone. For a moment,
she thought it would've been her.
Akane had no illusions about her martial arts. She was the
district champion, in her weight class, and in the unlimited weight
class. And she knew she'd have a good shot at getting to the Olympic
qualifier. But somewhere in his eyes, the boy was a killer. There were
times when she knew skill and advantages just didn't matter. There are
times when a smaller man, unskilled, never been in a fight before, has
fought a bigger man, with more reach, with experience and skill, and won.
There are times when a woman, kicked and bruised and abused and whipped
and broken, will find something past the pain of her bones under her
bruised flesh, and her lost beauty, and unleash rage upon a man who was
supposed to be her husband. There are times when the smaller female
lion, bony and hungry, will rip open the large male stealing her kill, or
to protect her cub.
Akane had thought that fighting the stranger, while his eyes were
dead like that, would have been one of those times. A part of her, she
had been terrified to realize, had been ready to die, serene in the face
of something monstrous.
As she continued the story, her eyes settled on the boy's black
box, in the corner. It had gotten stuck in a loop, and the faint
background to her story were the words, 'Did you exchange... a walk-on
part in the war, for a lead role in a cage?'
That night, she could not fall asleep. One hour passed by. She
thought perhaps if she exhausted herself physically, then maybe she could
pass out. So she worked out, ran a couple of miles, lifted weights for
twenty minutes, did katas for forty, lifted weights some more. After the
stress of that day, after the hour (or was it hours?) of her telling the
stories of the handsome gentleman spy, after so much talking that she was
losing her voice, after the men came for them and she and a patched-up
Yuka stood by Sayuri's bed, saying, "You'll be fine, Sayuri. They said
they just needed to keep you here tonight for observation, right? So
nothing's wrong, the scans said so."
Akane had heard of people who'd been struck in the head, smiled
afterwards and walked away. And died from the blood pooling here and
there in their brains an hour later. She and Yuka worried for hours
convincing themselves that Sayuri's concussion was okay, that she had the
best of care. They stayed with her until visiting hours were over.
Yuka's broken arm was simple, and just needed a cast and a few pins.
And then having to deal with her father, crying, crying, needing
her and both her sisters to get him to calm down, as he cried about how
he had been afraid the Angel had taken Akane in the attack...
Akane still lay there in bed, eyes open, closed, open, closed. She
was exhausted. She had only been this exhausted once before; she never
visited that memory.
Another hour passed like this.
The SDAT was in her hands, she didn't know since when. The phones
were in her ears, the music was on her mind. A little fiddling had
gotten it playing again. There was classical, violins and cellos and
horns and thunder, there was jazz of the blaring saxophone type, there
was Grover Washington, Earl Klugh, George Benson, and the rock of Ray
Charles, Pink Floyd, The Pencils and the Rolling Stones, and Chage and
Aska and Soft Cell, Depeche Mode and INXS.
She did not notice when she fell asleep, only when she woke up and
the sun was in her eyes and the music was still playing.
'Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.'
The music made her think of his eyes.
'There is no pain you are receiving...'
'You are only coming through in waves.'
'Your lips move, but I can't hear what you say.'
Turned in her bed, buried herself in her sheets.
'I have become comfortably numb.'
When she turned it off, the silence was so loud she wanted to
scream to fill it up, to bring colors to life again.
Outside her door, the phone was ringing, and the sound was such a
welcome intrusion Akane almost wept.
"Akane? It's Yuka. Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, I'm going to visit
Sayuri later, wanna come with me?"
Oh yes, it was morning again. Why was that so surprising?
"Good, I'm glad you can come. Right, Akane. Yeah... And, um,
thanks for taking care of me an' stuff. I'll see you there?"
But she didn't want to go, she hated hospitals. Last night had
been different, had been too fast for her to make any decisions about
like or not like, want or not want - today, she did not want to visit a
hospital and smell the stale aseptic clean smells and see the overly
soft, soothing hue on the walls. Why had she said yes?
There was some time before she needed to get dressed. Maybe she
could escape for a while.
In volume 16, Ranma had discovered hints that he had a long lost
brother, a twin. But the leads had dried up, and villains appeared that
needed destroying, corporations that needed to be exposed. Akane had
just started reading volume 20, yesterday, before Yuka and Sayuri had
shown at her door. Ranma had found a message under his door, and he
knew, somehow, that it was from him. Directions to a safe, behind a
painting, behind a cabinet, in an old motel that had been condemned in
the heart of the Dark City.
But someone had been following him...
Who was that girl? He was reaching into his coat pocket. He hated
guns, but he needed them. He hated to kill, but he'd do it, and faster
than you could blink. Ranma did a lot of things he had to do, but hated,
and it was in the hating that made him human, the remorse that made him a
hero rather than just another spy in the bleak world of the Nine Men.
He ducked into an alleyway.
"Who are you?"
A gun was pressed into a back, someone was terrified, and then
shots rang out -
Akane looked out the window. Even after the Angel had been
destroyed, it had taken the Tokyo-3 fire department the entire night to
control the fires that had burned out of control in that district of the
city. On the news, they said that it had been an Angel of Fire, and that
it had taken NERV two hours and sixteen minutes to neutralize it. There
were conflicting reports, that it had been fought by one Eva at first,
that it had been fought by two, by three, that the Angel itself had
looked like an Eva, that perhaps it was not an Angel at all.
There was still smoke rising in the distance - it was mostly steam
from the lake that had formed from the superheated crater left by the
Angel's destruction, and the broken water mains underneath that part of
the city.
Some said that there was radiation from that explosion, that
everyone in the city was contaminated, would die slow deaths from cancer.
NERV officials deny that any harmful radiation had been released, deny
that there are any toxic chemicals released from the use of depleted
uranium rounds used in the new Eva rail cannon.
"These magnetically accelerated rounds are the most effective way
we have for dealing with the Angel's AT field - the energy involved in
the impact of each round is comparable to the initial pressure wave at
ground zero from N2 mine detonation, but is far more controlled.
Extensive lab testing has shown minimal disintegration of the round into
gaseous form or an airborne dust - it is effective, and the safest
alternative existing in terms of weapon usage."
What about the positron gun used before?
"Japan's power grid is already stressed to its limits due to the
heat wave this summer. Japan does not have the necessary surplus to
power the tactical energy weapon in any meaningful way. The Eva rail
cannon is very nearly as powerful, but uses up far less energy."
There have been rumors that the Eva pilots are actually mere
children, that they are not specially trained agents from the UN special
forces, as mentioned in the official press release. What does NERV -
"Those rumors are incorrect. We would never risk the safety of the
world in such a manner, nor the safety of children. And even now, NERV
research is moving towards the full automation of the Eva units, so that
pilots' lives need not be risked in these missions. Since the full
operation of the Evas commenced five years ago in the war with the
Angels, there have only been three fatal NERV personnel casualties.
Considering the scale of the war we have been fighting, the UN is very
grateful to us for keeping the risk of life to such a small level."
She just couldn't get into the story today. It didn't help that
Nabiki was in the next room, and that she always had the TV or the radio
on CNN.
"Sorry, Ranma. Guess I'll have to save you for later tonight,"
Akane said. She closed the book, returned it to her carefully organized
collection.
Outside, the wind was blowing, the sun was shining, the sky was
blue. The white pillar of steam in the distance could have as easily
been a gigantic cake, rising into this perfect blue shade, a child's
dream tower of sugar frosting and white butter candy flowers. Thoughts
wandering, wandering like Alice falling down the hole, but would there be
a Wonderland at the end?
She turned the corner, feet moving her without moving, as though
she floated along, not even touching the ground with footsteps. It was
the music, it kept on going in her head even though the headphones were
in their neat little case, beside the neat little box of the SDAT, inside
her neat little lavender purse.
"Ikari," she whispered as she walked and the music rang in her
ears. It was the name on the back. "Shinji."
There was no address, no phone.
She wondered how she would get it back to him. Maybe he went to
her high school? Maybe. Maybe she could ask the registrar if there was
an Ikari Shinji there, or maybe at another school nearby. Maybe she
could convince them that she was doing it for a school project or
something.
Maybe the boys at school would stop bugging her if she stripped off
her clothes and danced the lambada all the way to class.
"Akane! I was starting to wonder if you'd fallen asleep - "
Akane giggled then, and laughed harder when Yuka asked why. How
was she going to explain about the registrar and dancing the lambada nude
in the same sentence?
"Don't ask. Hey, we should pass by that little flower shop with
the tulips - she'd like those. We'll celebrate her being able to come
home."
Sayuri needed to stay in observation for a few more days.
"What? But why?"
"Are you family?"
Doctor in a white coat. They were always white coats. Couldn't
they pick a friendlier color? Even when they had friendly smiles and
kind looking hands, Akane had never been able to get over the white
coats, the sick shade of blue-green on their scrubs beneath.
"No, but..."
"Can't really tell you, sorry. Look, she's going to be fine.
Don't worry about it."
Akane knew the news was bad when she saw Sayuri's mom, eyes so very
red, and lower lip trembling.
"Akane..." she hugged her close.
"What's wrong with her?" Akane found herself whispering. Her
throat was closing up, and she kept seeing her mother's eyes.
"The bump was nothing, just a little bruise. But when they did the
exams and tests, they found something..."
"..."
"There's a... mass. A tumor. They don't know if it's cancer
yet..."
And she sobbed and sobbed, and didn't protest when Akane hoisted
her up easily in her arms, and carried her over to the couch when her
knees gave way. Akane couldn't remember when she had gotten taller than
Sayuri's mother - could still remember when she'd play with her as a
child, and it was Akane who'd get lifted into the air and hugged when she
tripped and scraped her knee and cried.
"They... they haven't told her yet, Akane... They're asking if I
want to be the one to tell her, or if I want them to tell her... I don't
know what to do!"
The colors faded from the room, from the sky, from everyone's
faces. Everything was in black and white and slate gray, granite gray,
tombstone gray, so many shades of gray.
Doors opened in front of her, closed behind her.
The music was louder than ever in Akane's ears.
"What did her Mom say," Yuka asked.
"..."
"Well?"
Akane said, "Sayuri's going to be - she's going to be fine."
She'd always wanted to be an actor, had never realized how it would
feel to be a liar. Not with something like this. She walked, Yuka
followed, every once in a while scratching her cast, wishing it was
possible to scratch under the cast. Through the hallway, down some
steps, out into the lobby.
There was a boy - it was Sato, walking forlornly back and forth.
His clothes were rumpled, and the look in his eyes told Akane the story
of how he had dressed quickly as he could, rushed all the way to the
hospital as soon as he'd heard.
"They won't let me in to see her. Why not? There's still five
minutes left for visiting hours, right? Right, Akane? I wanted to give
her these... I would've gotten tulips, I know she liked them, but
they're really expensive right now, do you think she'll like them, Akane?
Do you think they'd send them up to her room afterwards if I left them at
the desk?"
"I'm sure she'll love them, Sato. And she's just having a few more
tests done to be sure. You'll see, tomorrow, you can visit her and
she'll be holding some of your flowers to herself like they're the most
important thing in the world, nevermind that they're not tulips." It was
getting easier, this lying thing. Maybe, Akane decided, she had a talent
for this. "Yeah, leave them at the desk."
If she'd looked in the mirror, Akane would have noticed her eyes
looked exactly like the boy's eyes, from yesterday, when he told her he
needed to leave.
She opened her copy of volume 20 as soon as she was alone.
Need to get away from here, need to, she thought. Ranma, let's get
out of here. There's Nine Men's men out there. I'll help you to escape.
I always do, right? You can count on me, like I can count on you.
Akane was the girl with the gun pressed to her back, and she said,
babbled, more like, "Sorry, sorry! I don't know anything! I just, I
just thought you were cute!"
And that's when the gunshots went off - he had been followed after
all. Nine Men's men were there, they had set off his danger sense.
"Sorry 'bout this!" Ranma yelled as he shoved her, hard, sending
her flying into an open garbage bin. "Stay down!"
His pistol was out, he was shooting back, Akane wished she could
peek out, but bullets were ricocheting off the metal siding she was
hiding behind, and she did not think she'd like to get shot.
Then a hand came in overhead, and before she could decide what to
do, Ranma had pulled her out, pulled her with him into a run. There were
two men in black on the ground, there was blood pooling under their
heads.
"See that bus? We're getting on!"
She was glad that she wasn't being a burden. She could run just as
fast as him, and when he saw her keeping up with him, he smiled at her,
and she very nearly blushed ('It's not the time for that girl, sheesh!
You're getting shot at!' she yelled at herself, but he was oh-so-cute).
When they got on the bus, he whispered to her, "Just pretend you're
my girlfriend or something, okay?"
And he slumped heavily against her when they finally sat down.
Something warm trickled onto Akane's hand.
"You're shot!"
"You shoulda seen... the other... guy..." he grinned at her. And
passed out onto her shoulder.
Akane put her hand under his coat, closed her eyes when she felt
the steady ooze of blood. She pulled him closer, put pressure against
the wound in his side with the heel of her palm. He moaned softly then,
and when other passengers looked at them curiously, Akane would give them
such menacing looks that they'd quickly turn away. She supposed they
couldn't help it, it was sort of incriminating, the way he was
practically draped against her and the way her hands were under his coat,
the way he was groaning, their disheveled clothes. She blushed a little,
muttered to herself, "Pervert," wondering if she meant herself, the
spectators, or maybe him, he didn't have to be leaning against her quite
so much. Okay, maybe he was shot, but really!
"Miss? Miss, it's the end of the line. Did you miss your stop?"
She started, opened her eyes. "What the?"
Somewhere, between then and now, everything had faded to black. It
happened to her, every once in a while, but it usually just meant that
she had fallen asleep. Sometimes, on a summer morning, she'd be lying
under a tree, seemingly only for minutes, only to wake up at sunset,
still there under the tree.
Somewhere, between then and now, Akane had actually gotten on a
bus, the line that they would have taken, had Ranma and her actually run
out of that alley behind the old red brick office building on the corner
of 11th and 8th.
"Oh Miss! Are you hurt? What happened?"
She stared at her trembling hands.
Somewhere, between then and now, she had gotten blood on her hands.
Two weeks ago, the beginning of summer. They had celebrated, the
three of them, by going to the grand opening of The Armageddon Cats, a
club started by Sato's eccentric (and rather wealthy) parents. "Why
worry? You might die tomorrow, let's party and feel alive while we're
alive!" or something like that was its tag line (Akane wasn't too sure
after a while - Sato had also gotten the bartender to serve them
alcoholic drinks even though they were underage). Even though the city
was slowly being deserted out of fear, there were enough people
remaining, desperate for some happiness, to pack all the night clubs and
discotheques.
Akane was just a little tipsy, off of a Cosmopolitan and a White
Russian. Yuka was off somewhere, dancing in another part of the club,
and Sato was working behind one of the bars. Sayuri though, had just
finished her fourth Sex on the Beach.
She had never had anything alcoholic before.
"Come on, Akane, let's dance!"
Oh, she was smiling - Sayuri's smile was beautiful, infectious,
more alive than alive, her lips a lovely, inviting red. Sayuri's smile
was usually small, reserved, she held most of herself back from her
smile, but that night, with more alcohol in her system than her little
body could handle, she put everything of herself into that smile. It was
like she was giving herself away, totally and completely, to each person
who looked at her smile.
Akane hated dancing, usually. It did not seem odd to her at all
that, despite her extensive martial arts training, even in dance-like
martial arts like some of the showier styles of Kung Fu, she had trouble
following the rhythm in music, did not feel comfortable moving her body
in that way. Self-conscious, a little awkward, because the fighting
forms that she trained her body to move in were all about planned,
strategic moves that were practiced until they were instinctual. When
she saw others dancing, she was alarmed at the seeming loss of control
they had over their bodies, the way their muscles tensed and flexed, the
way their shoulders and hips swayed or jerked spontaneously,
unpredictable to the beat of the music and the swirling, blinking,
refracting, staccato-tap-strobing lights. Controlled seizures, almost,
but sometimes they did seem like more, seemed almost as lovely to watch
as the controlled motions of her martial arts, and those were the times
she was envious and wished she could dance like that.
"Okay, I'll dance," Akane said, because she couldn't stop looking
at Sayuri.
She let herself move her feet, shift her shoulders, sway her hips a
little. She let herself go, wasn't watching herself moving, because she
was watching Sayuri's smile, Sayuri's dance. Her heartbeat was wild, too
fast, faster than if she'd run a marathon.
Without her inhibitions, Sayuri changed from being a cute, normal
teenager to being beautiful, a strange creature in loose, oh-so-thin
layers of cloth that hung and clung to her slender, vibrant self. She
was magnetic, other people around them were turning towards them, towards
Sayuri, and a few of the brave ones went close to her and danced next to
her, caught in the field she radiated before they were exhausted by the
energy and wandered off, but always looking back.
Look, Yuka, look, Akane thought. I'm dancing! I'm dancing with
Sayuri - isn't she pretty? Everyone's looking at her.
Seeing you like this, Sayuri, I think I see the part of you that
Sato is really in love with, underneath the manners and proper shell that
you clothe yourself in during the mundane light of day. Your naked
personality, the smile you're giving everyone, it makes me just want to
stop and step outside the world and just stay here in this moment with
you, where everything is perfect so long as you are smiling like that and
you can make me forget the part of myself that wants to forget.
I want to look like this to someone one day, I want to be magnetic
like that, and loose, and honest with myself, with a smile that makes it
so that people can't look at anything else. I want someone to fall in
love with me the way Sato is in love with you. I don't let on much, but
I guess I'm jealous - and at the same time, I'm so relieved that you make
time for me and Yuka, even though when Sato and you are in the same
place, everyone and everything else disappears for the two of you. I
want to trust someone and lose all of my self-consciousness towards him,
show the real me, the real smile, the part that lives in the moment that
exists only with that other person.
You claimed not to remember much the next day about it, said that
you had gotten drunk. You blushed and said you could never be like that,
you could never stand being on a stage, the center of attention. But I
remember. I wish Yuka could have seen it... I wish... I hope that...
that she'll have the chance to, and that this thing inside your head
isn't cancer.
I want to go to this club with you again, and with Sato and Yuka,
and we'd get you just a little bit drunk, so you'd be like this and
totally absorbed in the wonder of the moment.
No matter what happens, this is how I will remember you, the naked
self and happiness of your honest smile, the way your dress moved on you
as you moved, the way you were so alive that we all felt more alive just
by seeing you.
And Akane cried then, because she was already saying goodbye.
Did I do something like that just now? How did I get on this bus?
Whose blood is this on my hands? I was just dreaming, that's all - or
was I? Did I get drunk like you did, Sayuri? I don't remember, so now
maybe I believe you when you said that you didn't remember how you acted
that night.
I'm a little scared, not so much because of the blood, but because,
what if I had shown the totality of myself in the moment like you had
that night, but didn't remember it, and had no one to tell me? I wanted
to save that part of me for someone to love...
I do wish Ranma was real, so I'd have someone worthwhile to fall
for.
What a coward I am, for starting to say goodbye to you, in my
heart. I should be cheering you on, I should let you know that I know,
that I'm fighting with you. That even if you might lose, there are times
when the fight itself is worth it to stay, even for just a few minutes
longer.
I'm a coward, because when you die, I want to be ready for it, the
way everyone else was ready when Mama died, except for me. I don't want
to hurt when it comes all at once, the grayness, the emptiness. If I do
it a little at a time... say goodbye a little everyday, then maybe the
last one won't hurt quite so much.
She got off the bus, and spent the rest of the day walking home.
The sun moved through the sky, the shadows cast by the skyscrapers
shifted along the ground, and Akane was always looking behind her, not
quite shaking the feeling that there were others watching her.
"Hi, Akane. How's Sayuri doing?"
"... Fine, 'nee-chan. Just fine."
"A boy came by looking for you. He looked kind of cute, a little
awkward, asked if you lived here. Is he someone from school?"
What boy?
"I asked him what his name was, and he laughed a little bit and
said, 'Tell her I'm a spy and thanks for keeping something of mine safe
for me. I'll just come back later.'"
"Maybe he reads comics too much, too," Akane mumbled. "I'm really
tired, 'nee-chan. I think I'll take a nap before dinner."
"He left a phone number, but not a name, isn't that strange?
Silly, but cute," Kasumi smiled. "Is he one of the boys after you,
Akane-chan?"
There were too many of those, Akane thought sourly.
"I'll look at it later, 'nee-chan. I gotta take a nap." She felt
at the edge of her vision, a headache on the horizon, coming her way
swiftly. With these, there was nothing to do but outlast it, and if she
noticed them coming soon enough, perhaps to sleep before the pain
arrived.
Closed the door behind her.
She kicked off her faded gray jeans, removed her white blouse,
slung the bra beneath that off to the far corner of her room, and fell
face first into her bed. Yes, the headache was coming, quickly, like a
storm on the horizon. Akane curled herself up in her sheets, and closed
her eyes.
I am going to sleep now, Akane told herself. Nothing can hurt me
while I'm sleeping.
She opened her eyes, afraid for a moment that she had not been able
to sleep in time, that the migraine was coming too fast and there would
be no escaping -
But it was night, deep into the night. Akane twisted over and saw
her clock, numbers blinking on a background of glowing liquid crystal:
12:01 am. She groaned, groped and flipped the switch on her bedside
Sanrio lamp-alarm-clock-radio-phone (it was a dejectedly cute powder
blue, the last one in the store because one side of the casing was
cracked).
Kasumi had left her a note:
I didn't want to wake you, so I just saved some extra food
for when you wake up; it's in the fridge. Remember not to
microwave it too much =P
-K.
ps Oh, Akane, that cute boy came by again. I told him you
were sleeping, and the sweet thing sighed, he looked almost
heartbroken or something. He must really like you. Give him
a call tomorrow? Summer classes have been suspended for two
days because of the Angel attack. Don't worry about sleeping
in.
What boy?
Ever so briefly, Akane was intrigued at the thought - most of the
males in her class had stopped trying at her, after their first year.
Well, that's also when that stunningly pretty girl with the blond
pigtails had transferred to 2E as well, so maybe it wasn't totally the
fact that Akane had been very forceful in her rejection of their
attentions. Only the new ones still bothered her these days.
-boys-
She shook her head, thought about the lost day. What had happened?
Why couldn't she remember anything between starting to read Volume 20
issue 2, and getting off the bus, fingers tinted with blood.
She flipped open the book beside her.
Fell inside, fell deep deep down a black twisting tornado, only she
had no magic shoes with heels to click to bring her back up.
"It's the NightBooks," Ranma told her. "They must think I'm close
to finding the NightBooks."
"What?"
Akane had almost gotten him to her home, when he had stirred and
said, "No, no, you don't want to take me there. When they come looking
for me, you don't want them to come to where you live. I'll rest there-"
And he pointed off to the side, and Akane's face flushed, burning bright
red.
It was a motel, with lurid pink and red lights, decor. There were
even more love hotels now that people were afraid that the end of the
world might come soon. Living with the fear, the awareness of the
possibility of the ultimate ending, honed a desperate edge in them, a
desperation to affirm their lives. To somehow make it worthwhile, to
take as much out of it in the short time that might be left as possible.
Why save for my retirement twenty years from now when the world might end
in the next Angel battle in a week, or a month, or just another year?
"You pervert! You don't expect me to - "
"Look," he sighed, wincing. "Thanks for your help, but I can
manage myself now, really. The last time I stayed at a friend's family's
home, that home was gone the next week, okay? A car bomb. It took out
the whole block. The Nine Men don't care about subtlety... when it
concerns me."
"The who?"
"Jeez, you don't got a clue, do you?" He took a deep breath, and
pushed himself off of her. His smile was terribly strained. "Look, I'm
sorry for getting you involved. But if I were you..." His eyes
flickered up and down over her, and for a moment she blushed, but only
until she noticed the detached, business-like way his gaze took her in.
"Burn those clothes. My blood is genotyped and any traces are dangerous
for you. Do that first, then scrub yourself down real thorough-like,
okay? Cut your hair. It's pretty like this, so long, but it's also
really distinctive. Cut it as short as you can. And remember, burn all
your clothes, anything that might've gotten some of me on it."
Then he was gone.
She had spaced out, done exactly what he said. Gotten her hair cut
short, to a stylish but terribly short boy's length cut ('Oh well,' she
sighed internally, 'Dr. Tofu really only has eyes for Kasumi anyway...'),
gone home, taken her clothes off, burned them in the incinerator in the
basement. It had been dawn by the time she'd gotten that done. She went
to the bath, scrubbed herself down, was sitting, sitting, eyes open and
looking far away, as she sat in the furo, wondering about Ranma's eyes.
She stayed that way for maybe an hour.
The morning light was lovely, streaming in through the little
window at the top of the sky blue tiled wall.
Strange dark wild eyes.
"Akane?"
Kasumi.
"You cut your hair! Oh, wow, it's really pretty like this, Akane."
Akane smiled wanly. "I felt like a change."
And her heart was beating again, and she knew she was awake.
"I bet your young man will love it."
"Umm... 'nee-chan?"
"What is it?"
"Have you ever had dreams that seem so real, it's like real life
was the dream instead of the other way around?"
Her big sister smiled at her in that way that always made
everything seem alright. "Sometimes. But, Akane, the thing about the
dream is that it always ends."
"I... I guess you're right."
It was getting worse, Akane thought. There had been no transition
that time, between being with Ranma and being in the real world. But
somehow, she had still been able to tell when it was over - even though
she had not been asleep at all, and her hair was cut just like she had
had it done in the dream. If it was a dream.
"Kasumi?"
"Yes, Akane?"
It was nice sharing a bath with her big sister. She had felt so
utterly alone until Kasumi had shown up to break the spell.
"What did the boy who visited look like?"
"You know," Kasumi paused, "it's funny, but it's really hard to
describe him. Everything about the way he looks is easy to forget,
except for his eyes. He was really... intense, yes, that's it. But he
had a nice smile, and he blushed when he said that he was looking for
you. I think he really likes you."
She sighed in contentment, stretching, luxuriating in the heat.
Akane surreptitiously looked down at her own breasts, before
glancing at Kasumi's. Sometimes, Akane found herself wishing she was as
pretty as her big sister. Well, and as generously endowed. It used to
bother her a lot when she was little - maybe because of her crush on Dr.
Tofu. But now... now, she really didn't care at all. And she just had
this feeling that wouldn't go away, that Ranma liked her better this way,
trim and athletic.
She shook her head. This was getting really bad. Maybe Yuka and
Sayuri were right. I should stop reading those for a while.
Real life and all that. I will call up that boy. Hey, it would
feel pretty dumb if the world ended and I'd still never had a boyfriend.
Akane was a woman of action. Prolonging the thought before the act
was, to her, usually an exercise in futile, often needless, worrying.
So, bath over, toweling off complete, and to the phone she went.
"Hello?"
"Yes, it's the girl from the accident. Yeah."
"How did you find out my name?"
She twined the phone cord about her fingers, fascinated by the
patterns formed by the coils upon coils.
"Really, that's not funny. They don't make kids into spies."
"Riiiight. So, do you want to get your SDAT back or not?"
"Could you say that again, please?"
And she sat there, blinking, looking at the garden just outside the
living room. Sunlight, brightest greens. The smell of grass and flowing
water. A part of her was filled with deepest dread, a part wanted to
scream get away, leave me alone. Fluttering half-beats, fear of the
colorful and the colorless, the desire to escape everything, this world
that everyone knew was on the verge of ending. The desire to live.
"Okay," she said, coming to a decision within herself, a resolve.
It always made her feel better to decide on a resolution. Self-help
books, hah, who needs them. "I'll have coffee with you. Un. I know
where that is."
"You mean right now?"
"I'll see you there, then."
What to wear, what to wear?
A foray through the closet revealed a number of old things, worn
once and never again, a number of things worn everyday for every
occasion, and in the very back, where her Dad would never think to look,
one or two things never worn at all.
Akane grinned. There was no way in hell she'd ever have been
caught wearing that. No way at all.
It was perfect.
"Akane!" Kasumi gasped.
"Bye 'nee-chan! Don't tell Daddy!" she grinned and ran.
She recognized him, sitting at a table outside the little cafe of
smoky glass and wrought iron tables and chairs. Little people, little
because of the high ceilings, the oversized proportions of the tables and
cups and chairs, people who cast long shadows from the clever arrangement
of the lights.
He glanced her way and lurched clumsily to his feet, and she
giggled.
"Shinji?"
"Oh God. Oh wow," he whispered, eyes widening. "Um, hi."
She was in front of him, and smiling.
"Hi!" Akane said. "Do you like it?" She did a little twirl. Was
this how Sayuri would have felt, wearing this for Sato? Would he have
been so overwhelmed? She was terrified - at any moment it felt like the
light, slippery material would fall just so, a strap sliding down her
shoulder too fast for her to pull back up before revealing more of her
breasts than was probably appropriate on a first date. Or perhaps a
particularly strong gust of wind blow wide open the slit that went so far
up her thigh. Or maybe something as simple as tripping on the heels of
her shoes.
Her heart skipped at his nervous laughter, his muttered, "Um,
pretty cute, yeah, very nice."
She felt utterly delicious.
"Just cute?"
"I'm not good with words," he admitted.
"Here's your SDAT. Nice selection."
"Thanks." He was momentarily shell-shocked by how much deeper her
dress was decolette when she bent just a little to withdraw it from her
purse.
She caught him looking, and he snapped his eyes to one side
sheepishly. Akane just smiled. On any other day, such a look would
warrant rigorously administered corporal punishment, but on any other
day, she would not be doing something like this at all. The rules, she
decided, just did not apply on so lovely a day as this.
They stared at each other for a minute.
"Coffee!" he blurted out. "Let me get something for you. Would
you like a latte? A mocha?"
"Whatever you're having."
It felt divinely flattering to know she could have an effect like
this on anyone. She did not even taste the coffee he brought to the
table, just the way he was looking her, it was something else, something
frightening and yet irresistible.
"Are your friends okay? I like the haircut, by the way. Looks
good on you."
"Um, thanks. One's got a cast, she's fine." Akane paused. "The
other, well, the doctors checked her for a concussion - she didn't have
one. But they found something else." Why was it easy to talk to him?
He was a stranger. He was plain of face, of clothes, of stature. And
yet buried inside, she could still detect the wild force that had
flickered to life in his eyes, just a few days before. Softly, "She has
cancer."
"Oh."
The soft ringing of his teaspoon as it glanced against the inner
surfaces of the cup. Somberly cheerful.
"I haven't told anyone else yet. I don't know if her mother has.
I don't know why I'm telling you," Akane said. "I really hate feeling
helpless."
"Yeah."
"Her boyfriend looked so sad, so pathetic there, standing with his
flowers, waiting for his chance to visit her. When I die, I don't want
it to be in a hospital."
His fingers twitched reflexively on the table surface. They both
looked down at his hands.
"I have two questions," Akane said. "I have a feeling you're only
going to answer one of them."
He smiled at her for the first time that morning. A tiny smile,
one you had to look at twice to make sure it was there. "Ask the first
one first."
"The scars on your wrists."
Shinji took a long draft of his coffee and grimaced a little at the
thick, bitter goodness of it. Breathed deep once, twice, looking at how
the fingers tightened and slackened like the claws on a newly dead bird.
"Once upon a time, I had friends. They needed me. Needed me to
win, more than anything else in the world. I made a mistake. A bad
one."
He clenched his fists. Opened them.
"Did you know that, sometimes, when a person is hypnotized so
strongly that he believes that a pencil is a red hot piece of iron, his
skin will blister when touched with the pencil?"
She brought her cup to her lips, still not tasting it, still
looking only into his eyes.
"No."
"These," Shinji said, raising his hands palms up (Akane wondered if
anyone else was looking at the broad swaths of pale, shiny tissue across
the wrists), "are also from wounds that weren't quite real, but were real
enough to bleed."
Akane felt that she should say something, but did not want to
interrupt the life flickering in the darkness of his eyes.
"There are more of these scars all over my body."
What was somebody supposed to say in the face of something like
this, she wondered.
"One day, my friends received more than their fair share of these
phantom wounds, trying to protect me when I fell. They did not survive
them. And now, I'm the last one left."
She saw it then, visions of giants fighting amongst shadows and
smoke, and at the last moment, a burning light more intense than a dozen
nuclear fires. A cockpit like a coffin, breathing deep of something that
smelled and tasted like blood. A tiny metal womb. Agony. Screaming.
He looked away from her, broke the spell.
"Did that answer your second question, too?"
Akane said, "You weren't carrying that gun and that pager on the
day we met on the train. Were you running away?" The gun was concealed,
but she could see the bulge under his coat, and it didn't take a lot of
guesswork.
"Yes."
"And you're not running away anymore. Then I think... I think you
have answered the second question, too. I wonder how - I mean, you
barely said anything, but." She swallowed. "How did you make me see
that?"
"The more I fought, the more I was a part of it and it a part of
me," he said, as if that explained everything, and it did.
She stood up, and offered her hand as they walked. She liked how
his grip had been trembly at first, but firmed as her own had tightened.
"Let's go watch a movie."
Bye bye, blue skies, bye bye.
She wanted to yell it in the air. But didn't. At some point
through the movie (she hadn't even paid attention to the title), his hand
had slid over hers and closed, ever so tentatively, and she squeezed
back. At some point, the movie had ended.
Walking along the edge of an artificial stream running through the
park, that ended in an artificial lake, their hands were alternately warm
and cold with nervousness and fear, but always there was a mutual, almost
convulsive twitch as one or the other would grip a little tighter, afraid
the other would let go.
"Look," Akane said, "boats."
"You want to take one?"
"Ok."
So they took one, and he tried rowing first, but gave up when she
laughed at how fruitlessly the boat turned and turned, never quite able
to go in a straight line.
"You weren't very active until just recently, huh?" she said,
smiling. Her strokes with the oars were strong and even, and under her
control the little rowboat cut through the water like a shark.
"I'm still not active," he said, not minding her laughter. It was
nice, friendly, not at all mocking. "Walking around with you is the most
real exercise I've had in quite a while. Well, mostly."
"Oh? You've got more muscle than what you should have, though."
"Well, it's a side-effect of what I do. One of the few good ones.
Anything I do while I'm... doing what I do, translates to effort that my
body thinks it's expending. So my muscles have been getting a work out,
I guess. I'm still pretty weak though."
She tilted her head, looked him over again, up and down.
"You're probably stronger than you know. Did they start training
you or something? I can tell that, too."
"Yeah, but I'm not very good at it. Before, well - before all
this. Before all this, I thought fighting was pretty stupid, sports,
too, since most sports was an indirect kind of fighting. I just had my
music."
"Don't you have to want to be good at what you do now? Everything,
well," she bit her lip, "everything sort of hinges on you now, doesn't
it?"
"I don't like to think about that."
They were quiet for a while, and all there was to hear was the
sound of the creaking oars, the sound of the water breaking under the
wooden blades as they went into the surface and out.
Shinji made himself look off to one side. It was too dangerous
facing her while she was the one doing the rowing, something he didn't
notice until they stopped talking long enough to just look at each other.
It was too easy for his eyes to wander where they weren't supposed to,
her bare legs, the way the hem of her skirt crept up her thighs when she
dipped forward to bring the oars back, the way he could see all the way
down to her belly between her breasts when she was leaning towards him.
Even looking at the (relatively) properly covered parts of her wasn't
safe. The material looked like silver, as though her flesh had been
draped in a paper-thin layer of metal that stretched and molded and
folded and hid in bright mirror highlights and blackest reflection the
slight translucence of the material when it stretched particularly thin
over her form, here and there.
He was glad he was wearing loose slacks and not tight jeans.
Akane noticed easily, and grinned a little bit. The dress was
definitely a good choice. For what purpose, she really wasn't sure yet.
"Shinji, why are you looking away?"
Sheepishly, he asked, "Are you trying to embarrass me on purpose?"
Familiar thoughts, familiar, but even though she was lovely and fiery as
another in his memories, they were not the same at ll, not at all.
"Well, I mean, I did choose this dress, didn't I? What do you
think a dress like this says? On a first date." And it was a first date
after all, no sense denying that. It didn't make much sense to deny
anything anymore.
"Um, it's what an old roommate of mine would call a - " he closed
his mouth abruptly, blushing. "Um, nevermind."
Akane was a little pink in the cheeks herself, but there was just
something about the day, how it was almost unreal, almost dream-like.
And then there had been her thoughts about death, and her thoughts about
endings, and maybe she knew that deep inside, just like everyone else in
the world, she was afraid that the world might end at any moment. So she
said, blithely, "It's what my sister Nabiki would call a 'Fuck Me'
dress."
He let out a breath, looked directly at her. "Yeah, that's what
Misato would've called it, too."
Akane decided that she liked the way he was looking at her, all
smoldering and just barely in control. "Who's that? Your sister?"
Shinji's face twisted, and he was looking away again.
"Umm, I'm sorry," Akane said. "Should I not have asked?"
"She was my guardian. For a while."
Oh, his voice is gray, so very gray. It sucked the heat from her,
the blush from her cheeks, the warmth in her heart, and now, she felt
cold. How had the day become so gray? She hadn't noticed them dancing
closer, but now, there were dark clouds all across the dome of the sky.
"For a while?" she whispered.
"She tried her best, you see, she really did. To help me. Protect
me. Sometimes, I could tell she wanted so badly to make me feel better,
but she didn't know how. She was one of the few people in the world who
I mattered to - and I was. I don't know. I was so cold to her, why was
I like that? I could've been her friend, I could've been there when she
needed me, but I was a scared little boy instead. She's dead now."
Shinji drew his legs in close to him, and hid his face in his arms.
"Everyone's dead now."
It started to rain.
Akane quickly brought the boat in underneath a bridge crossing the
water, and they were both only moderately wet, rather than soaked. The
rain was only growing heavier, and the heavy drops splashed violently
upon impact with the suddenly turbulent surface of the stream. There
were a few mooring rings around the pillars supporting the arch of the
bridge, and she tied their little craft to one with a slip knot.
"Shinji?" she said.
He said something then, but it was drowned out by the steady roar
of the crashing drops. And there was thunder in the distance, and it
didn't help that he still had his head in his arms, curled up more
tightly than a fetus.
"Shinji, I'm going to move over to your end of the boat, is that
okay? I just want to sit beside you."
So she did.
Look at my eyes, why don't you look at my eyes? But she couldn't
say that, and the words died in her throat. Akane faced him, stradling
the narrow bench, and pulled him close, into her arms.
He shivered at the feel of her breasts pressed against him.
"Shinji," into his ear, she whispered, "we're not dead yet."
And just like that, the heat was back inside of her, and there were
colors again.
All around them was gray and cold, but between them was heat and
color.
"And you're not going to run away anymore, right? Not when life
itself needs you."
The warmth of her breath against his chilled, wet ear. The gentle
rocking of the boat on the water. Slowly, so very slowly, he uncoiled
along her, against her, pressed her even closer to himself. His eyes
were still closed, it would be too much if he looked at her and the way
he knew she must look with that wet dress coating her flesh.
He shuddered. There was a hitch in his voice that thrilled her
when he said, "I'm being stupid, aren't I?"
Shinji took his jacket off and draped it over her shoulders, before
pressing close to her again. Cheeks sliding along each other, and then
he turned and pressed his lips to her cheek, to her jaw, to the soft skin
along her neck, and he wondered if he heard her gasp when he, ever so
gently, closed his teeth onto the slick skin over the muscles of her neck
and shoulders, here and there. She was biting him a little, too, searing
wet kisses trailing along his skin like burning brands. Her fingers
clutched, spasmed a little when he dipped lower and closed his lips
around the hard point of a nipple, exposed by the surrender of the clasps
holding her dress together under his hands. Those fingers of hers slid
down, pressed against his sex. Curled around it through the material of
his pants.
The storm lasted all afternoon.
Sayuri-chan, have you ever wondered what the dinosaurs might've
thought, if they had been able to think like we do?
If they had awareness that the world was about to end, how would
they have behaved? Would they eat more, try to get the most out of every
single day of living remaining? Would they kill more? Would they be
merciful instead, every once in a while, because in the end, what does
one more kill matter when it adds what it adds to your karma?
It's been three years since the Angels started showing up. In the
first year, millions of people all over the world got divorced. Millions
more got married. Millions of kids started having sex younger, and
younger, and younger, and you know what, a lot of parents didn't care.
After a sudden pandemic of AIDS and STDs, all the governments started
handing out condoms like candy.
Even when tomorrow might not be another day, well, it's just polite
to make sure you're not spreading something, I guess.
Organized religions everywhere swelled suddenly with more and more
followers, and then, just as suddenly, as though a bubble had gotten
bigger and bigger and finally burst, they just, well, went away. Nobody
wants to believe that God has decided that our time is over, and it is
His will that we all die.
It's funny. Now that everyone in the world has seen concrete,
irrefutable proof of the existence of a living God, nobody wants to
believe it anymore. Better aliens than a God who thinks our time is
over, right?
These are the reasons why history is my favorite class. It seems
unbelievable to me now, how many people used to consider themselves a
part of one of the big religions. Unbelievable the tensions in the
Middle East, back then, before the world had its ultimate, undefeatable
and final crisis of faith. Old words don't matter anymore today, and who
cares if your parents were Jews or Muslims? Today, we are all humans,
trying to squeeze in the last bit of living we can, before our world is
over.
Any day now, we all might just go away. Go away with more finality
than if there had been the great nuclear war everyone used to worry
about.
How sad the dinosaurs must have been, in those last few moments.
After finally living life to the fullest, filled the world to bursting,
what must it be like to know that it's going to all end?
The best of times, the worst of times, all that stuff.
Sayuri-chan, you're one of my bestest friends in the whole wide
world. Do you think I would've done what I did with Shinji if the end of
the world wasn't hanging over us?
It felt good. Different, at first, just weird... but oh, neither
of us could stop once we started.
Because I am an optimist, I believe that if they had known how, the
dinosaurs would have been kinder to each other once they realized that
their time was up. I believe, I really do, that they would have stopped
whatever wars they might have had amongst their kind, because it just
didn't matter anymore.
I'll bring Shinji by the hospital tomorrow, when I visit you. And
I'll laugh so hard when you tease me about how I always say that I hate
boys, hate them lots.
"I don't understand something," Akane said, settling closer to him
as they walked, arm in arm. "If you're the last one, what were those
other things fighting the Angel, when you were with us on the train?"
His lips twisted a little, before resuming a faint smile.
"Copies. Just copies. Of me. The thing about those others is
that, because they are just copies, something in them is a little off -
enough so that they don't respond exactly the way I do. And they make
mistakes, little mistakes at a time but... well, in the four Angel
battles since we started using them, six of the copies have been killed,
and I'm still here."
"Copies?"
"Don't ask, you don't really want to know." He kicked aside a
stone in his path as they strode on.
The sun was shining again, warm heat, warm shades of reds and pinks
and purples as it descended slowly, slowly over the horizon.
"I really, really enjoyed today, Shinji," Akane said, syllables
slow and measured.
"And I," he stuttered just a bit, "e-en... enjoyed it, too."
"Oh, really?" She grinned. "I couldn't tell!"
Shinji turned his soft little smile on her. "Well, it's not like I
could tell with you! Even with the screaming."
"Liar. I didn't scream."
"Mm-hmm. Yes, you did."
"Well, you yelled, too, pervert!" she pulled him to a stop and
pressed her lips lightly, lightly against his cheek. Her fists were
clenched tightly about the thin cloth over his shoulders, and she was
shaking when he put his arms under the jacket around her, and embraced
her.
"Shinji, I'm scared," Akane whispered. "I don't think about it
much, but - have the Angel attacks - well, I mean, are they ever going to
stop? Or are they going to keep coming until everyone is. Until
everything that matters is gone."
It was a surprise for her that she was afraid. Her life had been
gray for so long, outside of the comics she read, that it took today for
her to remember what it meant to have something to lose. He could see
that. Looking into her eyes, Shinji saw the pieces of her that were like
the pieces of him, buried inside with the dead, buried with a burning
fury like his own, hidden deep. Eyes of dread, of tears that weren't
falling.
Shinji whispered, "I thought for a while that everything that
mattered was already gone. That's why I ran that day, on the train, when
we met. Everyone was dead, everyone who mattered to me, who made life
what it was. Akane, um. You give - well, you."
"Hush, sissy boy. You don't have to say anything."
"Meanie. I'm not a sissy boy just 'coz I'm weaker," so, so
relieved that she was smiling again. And he sighed into the face of a
soft, clean breeze, warm with the sun, moist from the earlier kisses of
the falling rain.
Long, long moments that blended into another, as the clouds went
by, and the sun was setting.
"Shinji, well. I'm not, you know, madly in love with you or
anything. Love doesn't happen like that, but, well, today was. Nice."
"Just nice?" arch of brow, cant of hip, curve of dimple.
With that look, Akane couldn't help think about the way they were
quivering together at the last, the way it all just felt so right to be
naked with this strange, scarred, other naked self who looked at her like
she was the whole world swallowed up in his eyes. She shook her head,
bopped him lightly in the stomach. Just enough to make him wince. "More
than just nice. But don't push your luck too much, Romeo. I have a
reputation to uphold."
He laughed softly, leaning his forehead against hers.
"Did you really used to have to beat up that many guys at your high
school?"
"Yeah."
"I'm glad you're not beating me up."
"Well, I'm glad you're not upset that your SDAT's probably ruined."
"Yeah, well, I can always find the music on it again, and, well.
Well, I wouldn't ever trade today for a waterproof SDAT!"
"You better not!"
Akane kissed him then, brief, light, moist, and it was hard for him
not to pull her to the ground, not to start again, with her so close and
touching him like that and the indistinct flower scent of her shampoo
mixing with the scent of her sweat and musk. She stepped back when she
noticed him trembling. Her voice turned serious, still smiling, but
serious, "Shinji, just, just don't ask me to love you or nothing, 'kay?
Today was. Special."
"Special," he breathed, sighing.
"Don't look at me that way. I just mean, well, don't expect too
much from me. Only, only promise me you'll do your best. 'coz if the
world ends before we do this again, I'm going to be really mad at you and
I'm going to smack you around more'n you've ever seen smackdown going
down before."
She was blushing, looking away when she said the last, her thumbs
sliding back and forth over the backs of his knuckles, squeezing his
hands in hers.
"I promise."
He was walking her back to her home when his pager beeped. Shinji
raised it to his eyes, and his face became cold and stone. A fell light
lit them, the light of the moon and the yellow street lamps along the
sidewalk. He pushed a red button on the side of the little black box and
turned to her.
"Akane, you'd better get home."
"Is it, um, is it - "
"Not sure."
"Just. Just remember you promised, okay?"
"I will. I'll call you tomorrow, if I can make it and visit your
friend with you."
Just like that, a black car, black as the foreboding rising from
the pit of her belly, screamed down the street, stopped just a few feet
away.
He entered it, and even as the colors around her seemed to fade,
Akane told herself that at least she had had one day, one day like this,
over and over.
Akane took a deep, deep breath, and let loose the longest sigh, a
sigh composed of all the sighs she always kept inside and held on to ever
so tightly. She slipped off her shoes (the heels were starting to hurt
her ankles) and continued walking, shoes in hand, bare feet stepping,
stepping, stepping to the rhythm of her hips, from earlier with Shinji.
And she was smiling again.
A cat raced across the street, crossed her feet so fast that she
tripped -
and the world spun into shadow
webs of slate gray falling rain.
She saw the gray men pushing him, half carrying him by his
shoulders, half dragging him, off into the darkness of an unmarked,
windowless van. No, that couldn't have been him, could it? Hadn't he
escaped?
"Ranma," she whispered.
Something snapped and Akane looked down beside her, at an old
little Toyota hatchback, struggling to life with a young, put-upon
looking man sighing at the wheel, muttering about needing a new car.
Casually, she dipped down, slid her fist in through the window, a
deceptively gentle-looking blow, and he was unconscious, a trickle of
blood winding its way from his mouth, more from his ears.
Akane tugged him out of the car, left him on the sidewalk, and
drove.
She wasn't sure how she managed to follow them. The twists and
turns through the city streets were numerous, confusing, and so intent on
following them was she that she did not notice when the street descended
into a tunnel and the only sources of light she could see were the tail
lights of the van. Every once in a while, running lights along the sides
of the tunnels were all that kept her from losing him, as they continued
to take a twisting, convoluted route through side-tunnels and access
shafts.
After a time, she heard it. Echoing noise where there was only
silence before, more than just the gravel crunching beneath their tires
and their engines puttering along in the still, damp air.
The sounds of talking, of walking, of coughing and breathing and
farting and sneezing and yelling life.
At some point in the tunnels, there was a transition into steadily
increasing ambient light. There was a whole city all around her. The
scant lights and phantom lights in the shadows revealed people, huddling
here and there, walking back and forth, sitting at stalls and tables.
Sometimes there were doors drilled into the sides of the tunnels, with
scavenged neon lights flickering on and off above them. There were men
in black robes and gray robes, and some of them had all white eyes, or
eyes of silver chrome, or no eyes at all.
Numb, too numb to think, all she could think off was to follow the
black vehicle still ahead of her. She knew there was no way they could
not have noticed her following. The tires made a distinct, rhythmic
sound as they rolled over old cobblestones and mortar. Perhaps, a stray
thought informed her, they were giving her a chance to turn around, to
back out of the strange dark tangled world of shadows and grime.
I'll follow you, Ranma, she told herself. I don't know what else
to do.
The van rolled to a halt, and she stopped just a few feet away.
As a black-gloved hand sprayed an odorless mist at her face, Akane
wondered if she would have had time to figure out a way to fight if she
had remembered to close the window all the way. Reflexively, she pulled
the door handle, kicked with tremendous force that sent the man standing
there flying. But the first step out of the car, and she fell, down,
down into darkness.
The bindings at her wrists were tight, painfully tight. It felt
like wire. And her arms and shoulders ached from how they were tied to
the back of the metal chair.
Light, burning bright after the hours of darkness, right on her, it
felt like a spot light held up right next to her eyes, and she tried to
flinch back, turn away, but her muscles weren't working right, and her
head just lolled to one side, neck aching, stiff.
"You will tell us what you know," a voice said, harsh, rough as
gravel. She couldn't see much of him, just a dark, hulking shape to one
side of the light.
"My throat hurts," she croaked out.
"Who did you think you were following," another voice said.
"Can... Can I have some water?" It hurt terribly, hurt as much as
the throbbing ache at her wrists, the numbness of her cold, almost
bloodless hands. Her feet were bare against damp concrete.
"Talk."
"P-please."
Something was held to her lips, water trickling between them, and
she drank at first, relieved by the cool wet sliding down her throat.
Her eyes widened then, as strong fingers gripped her jaw open, forced a
hose between her teeth. Akane would have screamed, but the trickle of
water became a torrent, filled up her mouth, started getting into her
lungs. Water spilled out of her mouth, down her neck, and she was crying
then, hot tears down her cheeks. She tried to yell, tried to say, 'I
don't know anything I don't I was just following him because he was cute
I don't know I don't I don't - ' The moment seemed like forever, the
protesting spasms of her belly, the burning in her throat, her chest.
The squeak of a rusty spigot (it sounded close by to Akane), and it
stopped. They pulled the hose away and she threw up, hacked and coughed
thin vomit and strings of mucus from her nose and mouth. Gently, a soft
piece of wadded up cotton was swabbed over her reddened face, cleaned up
her nose a little. She hated most of all the soft touch of slender
fingers when whoever it was wiped the tears from her cheeks. Through all
this, she still could not see their faces, they were still just shadows.
A distant part of her noted that her dress was probably ruined now. Why
had she been wearing it anyway? How had she gotten here, she remembered
being home and going to a park who with what happened why when it was all
so gray so very gray in her thoughts -
"There now, you've had your water. Tell us what we want to know,"
the second voice urged, sinuous syllables, slender as the fingers that
had cleaned up her face. "It will be better for you if you do," he said
amiably. "You must understand that a professional takes no pleasure in
these things. I, like my partner here, only do what is necessary."
The other had moved close again, and Akane saw stars at the edge of
her vision when the back of his hand battered her jaw, whipping her head
around. She tasted blood.
"Talk!" the larger figure rasped into her ear.
"Now, now, Thumb, you really ought to remember to remove your
wedding ring when you do that. Just look at what you did to our pretty
guest's face."
A grunt of acknowledgement. Or perhaps of indifference.
"Do you see, miss? I only have your welfare at heart here. So if
you'll just tell us what we wish to know, my counterpart here can use a
wirecutter to free your hands, and drive you off to a hospital or clinic
nearby. I'm sure your family must be worried. Wouldn't you like to
speed this process along?"
"I don't - " Akane croaked.
Thumb smashed his hand against her again. Dizzily, Akane thought
she could tell this time, that he was still wearing a ring on his hand.
"Mr. Ring, I don't think she's cooperating," the rough-voiced one
intoned ominously, deep roaring bass.
It was worse when Ring's soft, gloved fingers cupped her cheek, and
Akane shied away, tried to keep him from touching her.
"Ah, Mr. Thumb, since you married that shrewish wife of yours,
you've stopped being able to appreciate true beauty." She tried to bite
down on his thumb when he slid it past her lips, but was too weak to do
any damage, and Ring only chuckled as he admired the softness of her
lips.
A thunderous noise slammed into Akane's ears at that instant, a
sound so loud she could feel it shoving her back. She huddled down in
the chair and squeezed her eyes shut, and when her ears stopped ringing
she heard Ring yelling at Thumb: "Well, GO, you idiot! Go! We might be
under attack! Or worse, the Project might have escaped!"
In the sudden silence, the big man's boots echoed, and Akane could
still hear those ponderous steps as Thumb charged (not ran, from his
shadow, Akane thought he was far too massive to approximate running) down
the corridor outside.
"Now, dearie," Ring said, "I'm afraid time is running even shorter
for you and I. Is it not tragic? The drama of our story has barely
begun."
His touch again, his touch and she whimpered, she hated the sound
of her whimpering but couldn't help it, his touch was... slimy... against
her cheek, against her neck, and he was, he was -
His hand was between her legs.
Akane mumbled through her swollen, bleeding lips, "Please stop,
please, I don't know anything!" Eyes closed, and she felt her tears
dripping, dripping.
"Ah, dearie, dearie, th'art far too pretty, you see. And it's been
so long since I've had time for such a pretty as you." His teeth closed
on her ear, and she cried out, more in surprise and revulsion than from
pain. "I'd not do this normally, unprofessional it is. But if the
Project's escaped, then we're all dead anyway, eh? Best to die 'tween a
woman's legs, I think."
He leered as he bent down, and as he clipped open the wire holding
her left ankle to the chair leg, the other hand was, was -
Her ankle was free, she had to focus on that, she had to! His hand
was tight on the ankle, but he was distracted and the sound of his zipper
made her ears hurt but
Akane screamed then, threw everything there was left of her into
it. Too suprised to let go of her ankle, Mr. Ring was pulled towards her
just as much as she and the chair she was still wired to was flung
towards Mr. Ring.
The eight large bones of the cranium are the paired parietal and
temporal bones at the sides and top, and the unpaired frontal, occipital,
sphenoid, and ethmoid bones. Together these form the brain's protective
shell. Because the superior aspect is curved, the cranium is self-
bracing, giving the exterior superstructure remarkable strength.
Especially at the front.
The nasal bones are paired, rectangular planes joined medially to
form the bridge of the nose. The hollow structure is supported
inferiorly only by the cartilages that form most of the skeleton of the
external nose.
There are a great many blood vessels just under the skin of the
face.
Akane had pulled with her leg, simultaneously ramming forward,
bending with all the strength of the muscles of her neck and of her
abdomen.
She wasn't suprised when the impact imploded his nose into his
face, wasn't suprised with the sheeting blood that splattered out, as
well as some fluid from ruptured sinuses. The angle of the blow was
perfect. The shards of nasal bone were pushed inwards, going through and
collapsing the weakest part of the braincase: the thin-walled, delicate
cribriform plates of the ethmoid bone, perforated to allow passage of the
olfactory nerves into the brain. The force was enough to send the
fragments tumbling inwards, through the dura and beyond in broad swaths
of broken tissue.
He did not get up.
And Akane had no time to think about this, the first person she had
ever killed. She had to get free. It did not matter that she and the
chair had fallen afterwards as well - it was just a couple of bruises
more. She couldn't undo the wire at her other ankle or wrists, but with
one leg free, all she had to do was slam the chair, back and forth
against the wall, until the chair itself broke. It didn't take much
longer to force the relevant pieces of wood through the bindings,
loosening them enough for her fingers to undo the rest, but afterwards
her wrists and ankle were bloody anyway - the motions of the past few
minutes had cut through the skin shallowly, painful, but only
distracting.
She got up and winced as she worked blood back into her hands, her
feet. She bent low, and obtained Mr. Ring's gun. And wiped his blood
off her face.
There were gunshots outside, and shuddering, Akane whispered,
"Ranma."
She ran.
Smoke, dust and bodies everywhere, something on the ground, what
was it? It smelled like blood - blood up to her ankles, so much blood.
How could there possibly be so much?
Akane almost ran into the pile of fallen stone marking where the
corridor had collapsed. It was only partially blocked, but it would be a
tight squeeze over the rocks, and as hideous, tortured screams echoed her
way from the other side, she was struck by the sudden terror that perhaps
it was not Ranma who had escaped, but something else. Something
monstrous.
Which way to go?
Footsteps and shouting behind her - she scrambled to the top of the
rocks, into the hole at the top. She stopped, and listened.
"Commander, access tunnel 4 has collapsed."
"Yes, sir."
"You two, go get some blasting charges to clear this rubble."
"Anders, Toshi, circle around and check on the prisoner. He is a
small priority - above all else, be alert for the Project. It must be
contained. Go."
More explosions in the distance, and the men cursed and did as they
were told.
Akane scrabbled through the tiny hole, trying very hard not to
think about the possibility that she could get stuck, or that the tunnel
could collapse completely, crushing her. She ignored how the rough
points of stone tore the remains of her dress, snarled when it got caught
on something and she had to tear it completely off.
She did not sigh in relief when her hands came upon open air, she
made few sounds at all. She pulled herself the rest of the way out,
managing to keep a hold on Mr. Ring's gun.
There, another body, eyes wide with the horror of whatever his last
vision had been. He was dressed like a soldier underneath the
bloodstained lab coat, but it struck Akane that he had no guns on him.
None of the bodies had firearms, just some unlabeled spray canisters and
knives. And they had no wounds on them.
She shivered when she stripped the drab green jumpsuit off him,
shivered when she pulled it on over herself and strapped on his boots
which were too large for her. By then, she was almost used to the
cloying, sick smell of blood, but for just a moment she was nauseous,
controlling herself only with supreme effort.
She heard the men returning on the other side of the blockage, and
she ran on, steps kicking up fountains of red, her gun held in both hands
like she'd seen in the TV shows and movies.
The tunnel seemed endless. Featureless brick and mortar along the
sides and top, and all the way along, the blood at her feet up to her
ankles. A few blisters were rising on her heels and the balls and toes
of her feet, but she didn't care, she didn't want the blood on her feet
anymore, and the boots were not too loose, really. More than once, just
as she was seriously considering taking the boots off (how her feet
hurt!), she felt something shatter under her feet and heard the tinkle of
breaking glass, and kept them on.
After the longest thirty minutes of running in her life, the brick
walls turned to off-white plaster, the naked light bulbs swinging over
head became fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling, and there were doors on
each side. Glancing in through the narrow slots in the doors, she saw
that they were tiny cells, maybe only as big as four phone booths stuck
together. She slowed her pace and began checking each one, recoiled when
she finally saw someone in one of these cells, naked, emaciated, just
skin and bones, fingers ending in bloody stumps from clawing at the door.
Not Ranma, but she could almost feel his presence, and she moved
on, forgetting the naked madness in those burning eyes behind the door.
The hallway divided into three paths before her, and Akane noticed
then the scritching, clawing sounds coming from all around her. And in
the distance, further down the hallway to the right, a distinct pounding.
Steeling herself, she avoided looking through the doors with the
clawing sounds, and turned right.
And at last came to the end of the hallway, the last door there.
"Ranma..."
Akane tapped the door. He looked up, and their eyes met and Akane
was struck by the feral rage in them, slowly being overtaken by relief
and recognition. She motioned him back with one hand and showed him the
gun in the other, and he backed away, hid behind the bed he had
disassembled and been trying to use to dig away where the door hinges on
the other side would be.
Akane pulled the trigger, and thought about how ironic it would be
if the bullet were to ricochet about, killing her but not quite
destroying the deadbolt lock.
It didn't, and the door swung open, and then his arms were around
her and she sobbed and almost fainted against him.
"Silly girl, why did you do that for me?" Ranma whispered in her
ears and kissed her. "You don't know anything about me."
His hand touched the back of her neck, stroked her hair. "And you
cut your hair. It looks nicer like this."
He murmured softly as she told him in a rush about following them,
and waking up and being hurt and having to kill the man and trying to
make it to him and wondering about where all the blood on the ground
could have possibly come from. He took the gun from her nerveless,
trembling fingers.
"Let's get moving. I'll tell you on our way."
They continued deeper into the tunnels, gingerly stepping over
bodies here and there. Pieces of bodies sometimes. Overhead, the lights
flickered on and off, and everything was nightmarish, off-color and
tinged red by the reflections of the blood on the ground.
"The Project was unstable, they needed the Nightbooks to better
control him."
"The Project?" Akane asked.
"A new generation of super soldier, a thing that can take the
shapes of other men and women, a thing that can trick you with its mind,
get into your dreams, make itself something inside your head."
She shivered, and for a moment, her field of vision shimmered in
the oddest way. But her attention drifted back to his voice, and the
comfort of his arm around her, and the heat of him as she leaned against
him.
"The Nine Men have been impatient, so they began processing
assassins for the Project before they had all the Nightbooks. Most of
them died. One didn't."
"So they succeeded?"
"Not quite. It could go for weeks, stable, fully functional, the
deadliest ally the Nine Men could have hoped for... but then it would
degenerate for days at a time. Going from motionless vegetable to a
killing machine, randomly killing, enemies and allies and sometimes
people who were just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time. Sometimes the Project's mind powers would be out of its
control, destroying the minds of others who were too close.
"But after these episodes, sanity would return, and the Project
would prove its value to its superiors ten times over, infiltrating the
tightest security with ease, insinuating itself into the minds of the
incorruptible and persuading them to the cause of its superiors, sucking
the information it needed from the minds of those who just brush by."
Akane whispered, "That doesn't sound possible."
"That's never mattered to THEM," and she shivered at the rage in
his voice.
"You've fought it before," Akane said. "Haven't you?"
"It was luck that I got out of that alive. It had one of those
episodes just when it had me. I dropped a grenade, and jumped out a
window. I thought it died... I was wrong."
Another hideous scream, but this time it was close. Very close.
It was the cry of someone pushed beyond limits, a scream that damaged the
throat doing the screaming.
Ranma squeezed her hand briefly, let go, and put both hands on the
gun.
"That's him. It. Whatever."
"We should just run, can't we just escape?"
"It's weak right now, probably just went into a seizure and killed
its captors, got free. All this blood is from the containment tanks used
to hold it when it loses control. I'll never have another chance at
this, and that thing could eventually destroy the entire resistance. How
can we fight something that can look like any one of us and take the
thoughts of the person it replaced?"
He paused, and looked at her. Kissed her softly, very softly.
"You should run. I think you'd have just as good a chance escaping
alone. And I don't know if I can beat it."
Akane just shook her head, and continued by his side.
The tunnel widened and widened until the ceiling was fifty feet
above them. And through two massive doors, they saw a great hall, filled
from floor to ceiling with flickering screens and tubes and vats of
equipment. And at the heart of it, a cage of glass ten feet across,
broken and still more blood oozed from the cracks.
"Stay here," he whispered to her. "I mean it. If I die, just run
the other way."
Ranma advanced carefully, poking his way through the debris.
Just as she lost sight of him, she heard him scream, heard
scuffling, a struggle, and she couldn't help herself, she ran towards the
sounds rather than away.
And then she saw them. The gun had been knocked to the side,
rested precariously on some books just above the concealment of the blood
on the ground. The two of them fought with fists and feet, moving faster
and faster, and Akane wondered if she could ever be that good someday.
"Akane, the gun, get it!" Ranma snarled as he slammed his palm into
the other's ribs.
She felt as though she was swimming through molasses. The closer
she got to the gun, the slower everything moved. Her eyes could not
leave the sight of them fighting. A punch here, a feinted kick there,
blocks and parries quick as drumbeats. Her hand closed on the cold
handle of the gun, and she raised it and pointed at them.
The two combatants separated, and the stranger's eyes on her were
wary and furious. "What are you doing? Don't you see - "
"Don't listen to it, Akane! That's how it gets into your head!
Shoot it!" Ranma said.
"Dammit, Akane, don't you recognize me?" the stranger said, fingers
clutching reflexively at nothing. "Don't listen to that thing!"
Her vision jarred for a moment, like the picture of the movie had
suddenly gotten out of focus and back in a split second. The Project, it
looked like - it had suddenly seemed smaller, for a moment, it had short
black hair rather than its smooth, hairless skin, for a moment, it had
eyes and those eyes, they were -
"Akane, it's tricking you!" Ranma said. "Focus on my voice! Shoot
it!"
"Ranma..." she whispered, dizzy, dizzier with each passing second
as her sight was overlaid with something else, and maybe there was no
equipment there, maybe it was something else, but -
"Fuck! Akane, what are you seeing? That's not your comic book
hero!"
"It's tricking you, Akane, it's gotten into your head and making
you see things!" Ranma's voice again, and she felt like she had been
waiting to hear his voice all her life as she pointed the gun first at
one and then the other.
The faceless humanoid that was the Project snarled then, leaped at
Ranma with animal quickness, feral savagery. Its massive arms closed
around Ranma and they were struggling on the ground, rolling about,
trying to execute lock and counter-hold and all the while, they yelled at
her.
"Akane, it's me! It's me, I spent today with you, in the rain and
- "
"Akane, it's me, Ranma, you saved my life before, come on-"
Her vision flickered again, and she saw them again, but the light
was different, they weren't in an underground lab, they were -
"Shinji?" she whispered. "What?"
Ranma hip-tossed the other against the wall, and there was the
sound of breaking equipment, and the Thing was just a Thing again,
faceless as it reared up, wordless, speechless screaming echoing from its
mouth.
"Shoot it!" Ranma yelled. "See? It can't even talk anymore!"
The gun kicked back in her grip, once, twice, three times.
"Akane..." Ranma fell, blood welling from his chest, his belly,
his face a ruin of blood and gore.
It felt like forever that she lay there, curled up on the ground,
sobbing. A slender hand closed on her shoulder, touched her cheek.
And when Shinji pulled her up to embrace her, she hugged him back,
crying and shuddering and confused.
"The sun is rising out there, and today is another day."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
-that's it, the end.
authory crap:
I wrote this because of the music video for the A-Ha song. I was just
remembering it, and it struck me that it would make for a great Ranma
fanfic. Light, short, happy. But then when I finally started writing
the damned thing, the scope of the Take On Me music video became
irritatingly limiting. It became obvious that the original concept was
lacking in substance for anything other than the shortest of shortfics
(or a music video). So it mutated into this instead.
Not what I had in mind at first. At all.
But the idea of the dream world stuck. And as soon as Akane stepped on
the subway with her friends, I knew she had to meet Shinji.
Just to clarify things: Adrian Rainman has nothing to do with the NFT
Zu, and has nothing to do with me, Rain Man. More power to him.
Smile.
-Rain Man
overseas correspondent,
NFT Zu
epilogue:
He was there when she woke up. The second thing she saw after the
white ceiling of the hospital room was his face.
"The remaining fragments of the previous Angel," he answered when
she asked.
"Pieces of its body were absorbed into the ground around the crater
- it took a while for the scientists to detect the blue pattern signal
getting stronger again. None of them had ever done that before."
"They think a piece of it must have caught on the deflected rail
gun bullet that stopped the train we were on. Maybe you breathed it in
while we stood on the track, maybe it marked you for later observation.
The first time it was detected again was after you saw me leave in the
car. The signal was weak, out of focus, as though the Angel was mortally
wounded, or maybe hiding. Then you went missing for an entire week.
"When they went over to your home to check it out and explain
things to your parents, the team detected more of the blue signal.
Remnants of the signal. Like it had been there before, but was already
gone. There was a trail through the sewers."
"Where were we when you found us?" Akane croaked out.
"Maintenance tunnels underneath the crater from the Angel's initial
detonation, above the Geofront."
"Why did it do that?" she said, voice shaking.
"All the Angels are different, use different things to try to get
to Nerv and destroy us so that the rest of the destruction can begin in
earnest. This is not the first one that messed with the mind... it's not
even the first one that took human form."
He looked away, and she saw how he was remembering other times,
other enemies.
It took effort, but Akane got upright, and slid over next to him.
Put her arms around him.
"I'm glad you didn't kill me," he said. "I was sure you were going
to. You couldn't seem to hear me anymore."
"I couldn't."
"So why'd you shoot it, and not me?"
Akane pressed her face against his chest, held him close. "Don't
know."
"No?"
"It just... it just felt all wrong. Everything. The colors, I
guess."
"The colors."
"I couldn't see colors anymore. It was all gray. And all I could
think about, all I could remember were the colors of that sunset after
the rain. Why are you crying?"
"Nothing," Shinji said. "I don't cry."
He nuzzled her cheek and kissed her.
"Still doesn't mean anything, 'kay?" Akane said, in between doing
some of her own kissing. "People don't fall in love just like that."
"Right."
"I'm serious."
But she was smiling when she pulled his face to hers, to look into
his eyes, to see the wild desire to stay alive in them.
"Just don't let the world end yet, okay, Shinji? If enough time
goes by, maybe, well, who knows?"
And when they kissed again, the colors of the world and in her
heart were the brightest she had ever seen.
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