---------------------------------
Kyuuketsuki Duo
Shinma Urami -- The First Chapter
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	Duo glided smoothly through the city's marketplace, weaving his 
way in and out of the crowd without effort, ears open for the lively 
chatter of the evening rush.  He was a shadow unnoticed by the thronging 
townsfolk, a silent observer drifting amidst the bustle, yet all of the 
passersby still made way for him without being aware of him, or their 
own actions.

	"I'd like half a dozen eggs, please."

	"Maria's party is going to be the biggest thing of the year!  
Have you heard if..."

	"If I have to hear another word about Harry's latest little 
conquest..."

	"Are you insane?  Don't you think that's a little steep for a 
loaf of bread?"

	"The northwest quarter?  Oh, I wouldn't go there if I were you.  
Haven't you heard about all the deaths there lately?"

	Duo's attention was snagged by the two middle-aged women, 
clasping their groceries close as they gossiped, and he unobtrusively 
trailed them as they headed down one of the avenues leading away from 
the market.

	"Oh my, was that the northwest quarter?"  At the other woman's 
nod, she continued.  "I'd heard -- how many are they up to now?"

	"Five.  All of them, bloody and torn.  They think it might be 
some sort of wild animal or rabid pet or something."

	The first woman shifted her bags nervously.  "Oh dear.  I'd best 
go around there, then.  It must be serious, if it's enough to stir up 
even the northwest quarter.  But I hope they catch that creature soon."

	"You're going out there to meet your son, right?  How's married 
life treating him?"  The talk turned to more mundane matters, and Duo 
slipped away into a little side alley, his reconnaissance over.  
Automatically, he took to the darkness, leaning casually against the 
wall of an overshadowing tailor's shop.

	::What do you think?::  He sent the thought to Heero, knowing 
that he would have been observing everything through Duo's eyes.  He was 
always by his side mentally, if not physically.  In fact, Heero rarely 
accompanied Duo into the mass of humanity, preferring instead to wait 
outside the town, or in the shadows of that location between the human 
realm and the Dark which they used to travel between places.  Heero 
could be wherever Duo was with little effort of thought, and so 
supported him in ways more comfortable to him, always watching Duo's 
back.

	::That must be it.::

	Duo agreed, and knew without looking that the sun was already 
near to finishing its descent below the horizon.  ::I'm heading over 
there.::  Heero acknowledged, and Duo pushed himself away from the wall 
and once more joined the flow of traffic, unheeded by the other 
travelers.

	He arrived at the northwest quarter without incident.  The 
transition had been gradual, from the more wealthy and populated areas 
near the market to this, the seedier, poorer quarter.  If it was a 
Shinma's need to kill, this was certainly the best part of town in which 
to hide -- a few deaths here would be unquestioned by the authorities.  
It happened in places like these, and the authorities were possibly even 
paid to look the other way.  Likely, the Shinma would have hidden itself 
in an abandoned building, where there was adequate cover and shelter 
from the sun's revealing rays.  Any occupants of the building or the 
surrounding area would either have been scared off or disposed of, one 
way or another.

	There were a large number of possible hiding places in an area 
like this one, and so Duo turned to his othersenses to help him narrow 
the search.  He would have begun his search like this earlier, without 
having to eavesdrop in the town's square to find clues, but the press of 
humanity must have been great enough to mask the presence of any Shinma 
activity, for he had sensed none.  Now that he had narrowed his search 
field, Duo, once more taking brief cover in the concealing shadows, 
again opened himself up to his othersenses and took a taste of the air 
around him.  Again, no luck.  He was certain that there was a Shinma 
lurking in the area somewhere, however, and he plunged his senses deeper 
into the life of the quarter, determined to find it.

	Beggars, professional and otherwise, finding their shelters for 
the night.

	Painted ladies of the night coming out to begin their daily 
rounds.

	Nimble thieves scurrying along the rooftops to earn their 
living.

	Still nothing.

	Yowling cats fighting over scraps thrown out from the tavern.

	A violent mugging in a dark alley of a man who thought to take a 
shortcut.  Unwillingly drawn to the conflict, the violence and the 
blood, he felt their frustration as his own, although his was for his 
fruitless searching, theirs for the innocent who would not cooperate, 
who had only a few coppers in his pocket, who cried out to his uncaring 
god, who would not cease his thin wails for a mercy never granted to 
those taking out all their frustrations on him --

	::Pay attention, little one.::

	Duo snapped out his trance, Heero's crisp mindvoice cutting 
through the vision with his usual cool, calm tone, steadying Duo's 
thoughts with his own collected stability.

	::Sorry,:: Duo replied.  ::I'll never get used to that.  Guess 
that comes with being born embodied.::  He quickly put the matter behind 
him and collected his wayward thoughts.

	::That is no excuse,:: Heero retorted, a cutting edge to his 
voice not usually heard.  It gave Duo pause.  Heero had been 
unexpectedly irritable of late, more terse and sharp than was wont, when 
he spoke at all, ever since they had embarked on their journey to find 
this latest stray.  Duo wanted to give the matter more thought, but 
night was falling, and he wanted to finish this mission up so that he 
could devote his full attention to unraveling Heero's recent behavior.  
He could tell the irascibility wasn't directed specifically at him, 
other than that he happened to be the only person Heero could direct it 
at, since he was the only one he interacted with, but on the whole, he 
didn't think it would affect the execution of his duty, and therefore 
put the matter on the back burner in his mind and returned to the 
contemplation of the stray that refused to reveal itself.

	Reluctant to surf the othercurrents again, he instead tried a 
technique he was more comfortable with -- passive reception.  He closed 
his eyes and again opened the windows in his mind, but this time did not 
fling himself into the winds.  Rather, he fancied it more as letting the 
breeze come to him.  He felt the flow of humanity rush through him, this 
time as a whole rather than as individuals, making it easier for him to 
retain his mental balance.  The quarter was filled with a general sense 
of desperation and bitterness.  There was the determined will to survive 
and the depressed apathy of the forgotten.  Unreasonable envy of those 
who were not of the quarter, and the undying dreams of those who wished 
to escape the poor quarter.  The mass of minds and emotions sorted 
themselves out in Duo's head, and therein he found a pattern.  There was 
some movement in the population of the area, of those who conducted 
their business at night, while there were others who were just now 
settling into their niches, work done for the day.  But as Duo studied 
it, he saw that there was one small area that they all avoided, an area 
where no humanity teemed, where hatred and resentment lay festering like 
a gangrenous wound, buried deeply amongst the layers of all the other 
negative emotions infecting the northwest quarter.

	He resisted the urge to celebrate his find, and instead 
concentrated harder on passively determining the nature of the lair of 
his target.  He could sense now the lingering essence of death, of flesh 
rent with pain and life spilled violently by unnatural means, a sure 
sign that this was indeed the temporary home of the stray, but the signs 
filled him with unease.  He detected the deaths, and yet no sign of 
Shinma feeding.  It was fairly unheard of for a Shinma to kill for 
pleasure, for often, in such a case, the pleasure of the kill was what 
the Shinma fed upon.

	Duo flashed back to the few earlier clues that he had 
discovered, trying to make sense of it all.

/*******************************************************************

	He crouched in the ruins of an old country estate, the shell of 
the house still smoldering in the remote rural area, and surveyed the 
destruction.  There had been definite signs of a Shinma presence here 
yesterday, when they had been alerted by an explosion of fury in the 
otherplanes, but this was all that they had found upon their arrival.

	"What do you suppose this place was?" Duo questioned his 
companion as he stood, indicating the widespread smattering of glass, 
wires and metal among the more typical wooden beams and iron nails of 
the inordinately large "room" he was currently standing in.  It appeared 
to be ground zero of the blast that had taken out the house.

	Heero stared over the debris, but maintained his distant 
silence, offering no guesses to his companion.

	Duo could sense without trying the remnants of the fury that 
must have caused the eruption of such explosive force.  The area 
appeared to have been the focus of such anger and resentment for quite 
some time, for it felt as though the former walls of the building itself 
had been permeated with it.  The rubble spoke of suffering and pain, 
bitterness and hate.  He filtered the angry noise out and focused solely 
upon finding a Shinma individual.  The signature was weak, but still 
relatively fresh.  The odd contradiction puzzled him as he followed it 
with his thoughts in the direction of the nearby city, though it wove an 
erratic path.

	As he turned to depart for the chase, his companion finally 
spoke.

	::It was a lab.::

*******************************************************************/

	Heero had offered no more information on the subject, despite 
Duo's request for an explanation of his conclusion, and so he had 
dropped the matter and moved on to trying to catch the stray.  Now that 
the time was at hand, he again considered Heero's cryptic conclusion.

	::Anything useful to say?:: Duo inquired, as he approached the 
abandoned building.  Total silence was his response.  Duo pursed his 
lips, trying to decide if the silence was any more recalcitrant than 
normal, but then he was where he was going, and there was no more time 
for speculation.

	He studied the building before him.  There was little to set it 
apart from the rest of the buildings in the area.  It was dilapidated, a 
non-descript sort of dirty gray-brown that once could have been 
off-white.  The windows were barred with wooden planks, ensuring a dark 
interior, but the door swung unsteadily on its rusty hinges, creaking 
ominously in the slight early evening breeze.  The only thing that was 
different about this run-down set of walls was the way the negative aura 
made his skin crawl in a fashion that let him know that even the 
non-sensitive would know to give the place a wide berth.

	As Duo squeezed through the narrow gap in the door, he gathered 
the shadows around him and, as Heero had taught him, gave them substance 
as what he referred to as his "work clothes", careful not to let the 
trailing edges get caught on the frame out of pure habit rather than any 
regard for his ethereal wardrobe.  He worked his way into the inner 
room, not the least bit comforted by the concealing shadows while he was 
in enemy territory, and there felt a gathering chill that heralded the 
arrival of the stray.  Duo was assailed by a bitterness not his own, a 
resentful malice being shoved at him in an oppressive haze that implied 
that it would not at all be displeased if he were to choke on it.  
Instead, Duo took a mental step back, refusing to allow himself to 
internalize it, and turned to Heero's presence in his mind, whose 
constancy he had deemed his ground zero for reality checks, the standard 
against which he measured all else.

	He found Heero's presence more than lurking on the edge of his 
consciousness this time, tensely coiled, ready to spring into action at 
a moment's notice.  Reassured and confident, Duo prepared himself for a 
confrontation, easing the power from the fetters he imposed upon it and 
letting it bathe him in its icy currents as it neatly set aside all 
thoughts of humanity for the moment and replaced them with a chill, 
Shinma-inspired dispassion.

	The stray materialized around him, and he regarded it with eyes 
turned amethyst edged with diamond.  It was little more than an 
insubstantial wraith, black and twisted, yet it emitted a raw, painful 
energy that was strong, yes, but somehow very un-Shinma in tone, as if 
it were just bleeding out of the stray unnoticed.

	::What do you do here, human?:: it hissed at him, its tone 
clearly indicating that he was obviously unwelcome here.

	"I come to do my duty as guardian," Duo replied placidly, 
choosing not to contend the label that seemed an insult coming from the 
stray.

	::Guardian!?:: the creature roared, and it lashed out physically 
at him with a shadowy tendril which Duo neatly sidestepped.  ::Just what 
is it that you guard, guardian?!::  Acid dripped from its words as it 
continued an assault made clumsy by its unfocused rage.  ::Do you guard 
these filthy humans as if you were one of them?  Or do you pretend to be 
one of us, and pretend to guard our interests?::  An angry thrust 
straight where Duo's heart had been a moment ago told him exactly what 
it thought of both of those options.

	"I guard neither," he began to answer, but was cut off in his 
explanation by having to duck beneath a wild swing at his head.  The 
stray's behavior was irrational.  It was not a solid enough 
manifestation to do him major harm should it make contact with him, but 
it insisted on making these physical attacks, whose pattern was erratic 
but easily predicted and avoided.  It had not yet even given him a taste 
of its Shinma power.

	::You must!  There are only two sides in this.  Whose side are 
you on, guardian?:: it sneered.  ::Choose!::

	A few moments more, and he understood.  Whatever the reason, the 
stray used no Shinma energy because there was none to use.  The 
signature had already been weak when it had left its point of origin, 
the lab, or whatever it was.  It had not fed off its kills.  In fact, it 
seemed to be fueled only by its rage and fury.  The deaths in the area 
were consistent with the conclusion, if the Shinma was so far gone in 
its odd emotional instability that it had killed out of spite rather 
than hunger.  If the stray's condition were sufficiently deteriorated to 
the point of being unable to perform as a Shinma, then it would have 
been unable to feed.  The logical conclusion was that something, 
probably at the country estate, had infuriated it to the point where it 
was no longer focused enough to be much more than a seething cloud of 
hate.  A wordless request for Heero's backup was sent.  The stray was 
weak enough, in terms of true power, but the diffuse intensity lent it a 
strength that would make assistance appreciated.

	"What grudge do you bear against humans?" he asked, oddly 
curious to see what would drive a Shinma to such ends as he effortlessly 
avoided a smashing downward blow meant to cave in his head, but instead 
put only a medium-sized dent in the aging floorboards.

	::You dare ask?!  They did this to me!::

	"They?  Did what?"

	Heero made his appearance to the creature's left in a swirl of 
shadows.

	Another slice aimed for his head.  At the same time, it extended 
its other nebulous appendages in Heero's direction as it shrieked 
venomously, ::Ask *him*.  *He* knows!::

	Duo dodged just a breath too late, a moment lost in surprise as 
he wondered just what Heero had to do with anything, and the tip of the 
limb scored a shallow, harmless cut along his cheekbone.

	He quickly joined his efforts to Heero's as they circled swiftly 
in well-accustomed synchronization about the stray, erecting barriers to 
bind it.  The stray struggled, battered itself uselessly against the 
solid wards as Heero held it all together, his hand upraised as if in 
benediction, and Duo opened the portal.

	"Shinma Urami.  I return you to the Dark."

	A final wail as the stray was pulled into the whirling vortex 
formed above its head, and it was gone, the gateway and wards 
dissipating until there was no visible sign that they had ever been 
there.  All was silent as the otherwinds settled and their 
shadow-spawned robes fell once again in their natural folds.

	"No."  He disturbed the silence with his quiet declaration, 
stated almost to himself, and Heero glided soundlessly to his side, 
attentive to his charge.  "There are more than two sides to this."  Duo 
turned to his companion with a small shake of his head.

	"Na, Heero."  He began the exchange that had become a soothing 
tradition after these missions.

	::Yes, little one?::

	"You're real, right?  There's a face under that mask, and a body 
beneath those robes, right?"

	::Of course, little one,:: came the formulaic reply, and duly 
reassured, Duo leaned carefully against his guardian and reoriented 
himself, taking comfort from the solidity beneath his cheek and the 
continuity provided by the little ritual, making the effort to put the 
power back where it belonged, and bring himself out of the shadows in 
his own mind.  Heero surrounded his charge with his voluminous sleeves 
and willed them through the shadows to the place they called home: a 
little niche in the place between places where no one else could go.

	Duo felt the shift complete, and he looked up to his guardian's 
face with eyes again returned to their usual warm violet.

	"So tell me, Heero.  What did it mean, you know?"

_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
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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 : 1/2/2001 00:57:14 PST