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Kyuuketsuki Duo
Beginnings -- Part IV
Answers
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	The Shinma newcomers surrounded them as they finished destroying 
the remnants of the presumptuous foreigners.  Malevolence did not 
radiate from this host, as it had from the last, but that was about the 
only thing giving Duo any clue that they were not of the same type of 
nightmare as the previous.  This mass of presences also spoke directly 
into his head, and each cold word left a chill in his soul.

	::You are the guardian.::  A surge of recognition from the 
Shinma accompanied their focus on him, and his vision clouded for a few 
brief moments, obscured by the waves of darkness.

	He had been named the guardian for the second time that night, 
and had additionally picked up the word from the thoughts and feelings 
of the cloaked warrior guarding his back, during their exchange of blood 
and power, yet he had still not received an explanation, and the 
experiences of the night had not left him in a pleasant, nor patient, 
mood.

	There had been few times in his young life when he had become 
impatient or irritable, but it seemed that tonight was a night for new 
emotions and new experiences, and he embraced these foreign, petty, 
human emotions as confirmation to himself that he was in no dream or 
nightmare.  It felt as if he had been sleepwalking through his life, 
merely passing through as an observer from the outside, rather than 
actively participating, and now these new sensations assured him that he 
was no longer.  His mind and body ached, his own power still reacting to 
the presence of the darkness.  It surged and flared as the Shinma host 
did, pulling him in different directions, disorienting him, and making 
it difficult to concentrate.

	"What is the guardian?" he demanded, knowing full well that he 
was perhaps recklessly treading the line of impudence towards the 
powerful gathering, but his reason had long since been swept away, and 
he would have his answers tonight.  He felt that these Shinma held the 
answers to all of the questions that he had asked himself his entire 
life, and for that he had best stay on their better side.  But the 
passivity was at an end.

	The Shinma lay silent but restless.  To Duo, it seemed as if 
they were communicating with each other.  After several moments, they 
appeared to reach consensus, and spoke.

	::You are the guardian.  Of the boundary.::

	Duo's eyes narrowed in annoyance as he carefully reminded 
himself to be patient with the powerful entities before him.

	::We are Shinma.  Both gods and demons.  Our place is in the 
Dark.::

	Another silence.  Heero shifted by his side, tacitly issuing 
another reminder to be patient with a slight touch, even while preparing 
himself should the situation get out of hand.

	::This is the human realm.  Between our two worlds lies the 
boundary.  It is the appointed task of your bloodline to watch over the 
boundary, to make sure the humans stay in their world and we stay in 
ours.::

	Duo relaxed just a little as he made some small progress with 
the intractable, inscrutable, incomprehensible beings.  The situation 
was as yet filled with tension, but the powers had proven themselves to 
be somewhat cooperative and non-hostile, although it was reasonable to 
assume that they had some ulterior motive.  There was no other reason 
they would be willing to suffer the queries of an inquisitive, impudent 
mortal.

	He waited patiently for a wave of nausea to pass before 
continuing.  His senses had gone haywire for a moment there, briefly 
tuning him in to the dizzying flood of dark powers.  "My bloodline.  
What of it?"

	The powers rotated once more, reminding Duo of the ocean's 
wavelets, ever in constant motion, an image further enhanced by the 
flickering of the slowly dying fires around them, evidence of the 
night's violence.  The knowledge that all of the people he had known 
were now gone had not quite sunk in yet.  He would have plenty of time 
later to deal with what response he might have to that situation.  For 
now, all his attention was consumed by the otherwordly beings before 
him.

	::You are of the guardian's bloodline.  You are of both human 
and Shinma.::  Duo couldn't find it in himself to be wholly surprised.  
Fully human people didn't sprout fangs and drink another's blood.  
::Mortality is the price paid by the guardians, for they must live in 
the human world to carry out their task.  They breed with humanity, or 
Shinma, but the blood is never thinned.::

	"What of my parents?"  That was the ten thousand dollar 
question.

	::The ones who birthed you have died.  They failed in their 
task.::

	Duo closed his eyes briefly, but otherwise accepted the news 
calmly.  After so many years of wondering, it perhaps should have meant 
a little more to him, but now that the moment of revelation had arrived, 
he found that it changed nothing.  He knew they had been alive fourteen 
years ago when they had left him at the orphanage, but to him, they had 
been dead, and the fact of it now left little impression.  He had spent 
a mere two years with them, not enough to have formed a very lasting 
bond.  But there was still a vital piece of information that he had not 
yet received.  He leaned forward in anticipation of the response, but 
prepared for the worst.

	"Why did they leave me here, at this orphanage?"

	::They fell prey to human sentimentality.  They thought that 
they could hide you from your fate.  They were mistaken.::

	He blinked with wide violet eyes.  There was a brief moment when 
he denied what they were telling him, but it vanished quickly.  The idea 
that these creatures might feed him such a wonderful lie was ridiculous.  
The possibility that he might have been forsaken because of love had 
never crossed the orphan's mind, and suddenly he was grieving the 
parents that he had not had the opportunity to know well.  A lifetime 
had been lived believing that he had been abandoned because he was not 
loved, because he was different and unwanted, perhaps because of 
something he had done wrong, and now he knew that he had been entirely 
incorrect.  The complete reversal had not yet been processed thoroughly 
by his reeling mind when the Shinma continued with a distinct edge to 
their collective voice, their willingness to oblige and indulge at an 
end.

	::It took us long to find you.  They bound your power well.  In 
the interim, many Shinma took advantage of the lapse to escape the Dark 
and pass through the boundary because of this human sentimentality.  You 
must correct their mistake.::

	An epiphany shot through Duo when he finally registered what it 
was they were demanding, and he shook himself out of his startled 
reverie and into a new state of surprise as if shocked by an electric 
spark.

	"You want me to become the guardian?"

	::Yes.::

	"No.  No, I want no part of this."  The shock began to fade away 
as he shook his head slowly in unbelieving denial.  In its place began 
to rise once more the icy fury he had felt when he had returned to his 
home to find hostile invaders, smoldering embers, and bloodied corpses.

	::You will become the guardian.::   The voices remained 
implacable and unperturbed by his intractability, but the oppressive 
weight of them grew and threatened to crush him.  Nearly struggling to 
take each breath, Duo stubbornly refused to give in so easily.

	"Why?"  He balled his hands into fists in anger, concentrating 
on the pain of his fingernails biting into his palms as a point of focus 
in a world gone wildly insane.  "Why would you save me from those 
others?  How are you any different?"  He didn't have a clear idea of 
what the others had wanted from him, but whatever it had been, it hadn't 
seemed pleasant.

	::It shall be as it was meant to be.  You shall take up the 
responsibilities of your bloodline and assume the role of guardian.::

	The anger overcame his reason and Duo's voice rose in 
frustration and rebuttal.  "No!"  He shook his head vehemently.  The 
fires around them flared up and danced in sympathy for his plight, but 
the flickering light seemed to mock him as it flashed in counterpoint to 
the pounding of the blood in his veins, and the increased light only 
served to make the shadows seem blacker.  "No, because of this whole 
guardian thing, my parents have died, I've been attacked by strange 
demon gods, and these same crazy things destroyed the only place I could 
call home.  They killed--"  His voice caught in his throat, and he had 
to stop to gasp for breath before he could continue.  "They killed all 
of these people that had absolutely nothing to do with this!  Because of 
me and my damned bloodline!  I don't want to have anything to do with 
it, if death and destruction are all it brings!"

	::You shall take up your task as the guardian or we shall keep 
the souls of the humans that died here tonight.::

	Still lightheaded from the entire ordeal, Duo had been 
attempting to stand, hoping to shove his way past those encircling him 
and leave it all behind, but he immediately froze and fell back to the 
earth when he heard those words.  "...You'll what?" he whispered weakly.

	::We hold the souls of those who were lost here tonight.  You 
shall take up your task as guardian.  When all the stray Shinma have 
been returned to the Dark, we shall release them to their eternal rest.  
In order to facilitate your task, we shall remove the curse of mortality 
from you.::

	Duo blinked, mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with 
these fickle demon-gods.  He had never imagined that he might be 
blackmailed by otherworldly creatures.  As if for added incentive, his 
senses chose that moment to flare once more, making him extraordinarily 
privy to the pain and suffering that had occurred here tonight.  As 
tremors wracked his delicate frame, and he felt the echoes of death in 
his body a hundred times over, he knew that it had been his fault, and 
his fault alone, that all the innocents here had been caught up in this 
mess.  The answer was obvious.  There was no decision to be made.

	"Well.  I guess I don't have much choice in the matter, do I?"  
He glared angrily into the darkness as he gave them a disgusted, bitter 
sneer through gritted teeth.  "So, what happens now?"

	He suddenly clutched his head in pain as the Shinma ruthlessly 
tore through his mind and released the rest of his power, held in check 
until now by the wards his parents had placed upon his young mind when 
they had first left him behind.  Their dark, icy power left a trail of 
glacial fire as it blazed new trails and opened old paths through his 
mind, whereby his power could flow into and through him.

	He felt his senses expand yet again, and a whole new world 
opened up to him.  He saw the energy flows twisting through the earth 
beneath him as flowing streams of power, meeting and joining into great, 
shimmering rivers and floods, collecting in some areas as lakes and 
reservoirs as bright as the stars.  The Shinma before him were no longer 
of a single, uniform darkness.  He could see each separate shadow, every 
variance in the darkness, all shades of power.

	It wasn't long before his awareness crashed back into himself, 
and he felt mental barriers collapse in his mind, walls and shields he 
had not even known were there.  The Shinma weren't gifting or cursing 
Duo with anything he had not had at his birth, only now, they were 
freeing all of the potential that his parents had sealed away before 
they left him in the capable and secure hands of a priest.  Suddenly, he 
felt the chilly distance that had blanketed most of his life thaw 
beneath the emergence of his truer self.  So much of his inherent self, 
his personality and passion, his strength and caring, had been bound up 
inextricably with his power, and so had been unavoidably sealed away 
deeply with the rest of his power, down where no one would be able to 
detect it.  It had left him eternally disconnected with reality, a 
generalized apathy and lassitude that now quickly fled in the face of 
his more naturally extroverted characteristics.

	The baptism in pain and power continued as the Shinma, having 
rearranged his mind, proceeded to rearrange his body, changing as 
necessary to accommodate his new power and immortal life.  He had not 
even enough power over his own muscles to produce a scream as his cell 
structure was altered on the most basic levels.  All that came out was a 
pitiful whimper as the sensory overload caused him to release his 
tenuous hold on consciousness, and he surrendered gratefully to the 
soothing oblivion.

	The Shinma turned their collective attention to the Shinma 
warrior kneeling unobtrusively by the boy's side, holding the newly made 
guardian protectively and doing his best to calm the weakly thrashing 
limbs as the overtaxed neurons continued to fire off in confusion.

	::You are already bound to the guardian.  Serve as his guide and 
his guardian.  See to it that he does his task well, and perhaps you 
shall regain a place among us.::

	With no more parting words, the Shinma of the West faded from 
the human realm and returned to the Dark, leaving nothing behind but the 
fallen warrior, the unwilling guardian, and the ruins of an orphanage, 
bathed crimson with blood and fire.

_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
property of the little turnip that could.  
The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 4/14/2002 20:30:02 PST