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Kyuuketsuki Duo
Sanguis Draconis
Part XVI
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	Heero woke to a sharp foot in his belly.  It said volumes of how 
far he had been from the land of the waking that he did not immediately 
and automatically try to sever said foot from the offender.  He may have 
temporarily disconnected his self from the rest of him, but he remained 
alert enough to recognize his situation in a heartbeat.  'Ah, finally,' 
he thought to himself, quickly getting started on a systems wide 
diagnostic.  The sooner he had that information, the sooner he could get 
this party started.

	"Back with us, my pet?" Trant's voice crooned from beyond his 
field of vision.  The smug words were breathed into his ear from behind.  
It made no sense that Trant would have been the one that had kicked him; 
he was in the wrong position, and he never chose to get his hands, or in 
this case, his feet, dirty.  Sparing a thought from his internal check, 
Heero sent it through the shadows surrounding them and caught the echo 
of Walker stalking silently through the darkness.  A low hiss sounded 
from that quarter, Walker's acknowledgment that he had been marked.

	"I'll take that as a 'yes'."  Trant circled back around to 
Heero's front side, where he was in a much better position to gloat over 
his prisoner.

	Heero didn't focus on him, concentrating instead on himself.  He 
was pleased to note that he had not suddenly acquired an extra limb or 
some such nonsense.  He hadn't thought that Trant had been able to slip 
one by him, but it was reassuring to confirm that nevertheless.  No, it 
seemed that, as previously observed, nothing physical had been altered.  
Still, even having watched it go up, it was difficult to ascertain the 
nature of whatever it was that Trant had installed in his mind.  It felt 
remarkably nebulous, to the point where Heero had to wonder if this was 
even the finished product.

	"I have high hopes for you, Heero," Trant went on to say, a 
sinister note underlying the otherwise conversational tone.  "You've 
been treated to what's been a little project of mine for years.  It 
could revolutionize the way of the warrior, bring our capabilities to 
unparalleled heights.  Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone yet that's 
been strong enough to bear the sheer weight of its awesome power.  But 
you?"  He laughed darkly.  "You always were the best.  You said so 
yourself.  I have no doubt that if there's anyone that won't go mad as 
the others did, it will be you.  Thank you for volunteering.  Now, I'll 
just leave you alone to get acquainted with your new 'friend'.  Don't 
disappoint me, Heero."

	A twist of his power, and the darkness engulfed all Heero's 
senses once more.  He prepared himself for an invasion, but it did not 
come.  The energy of what Trant had set up molded itself to Heero's 
being, flowing around him and learning his form.  Even as Heero kept a 
very watchful eye on the power, making sure it did nothing that he was 
unaware of, he studied the structure of it.  A part of him approved of 
it.  Trant must have been working on this for years before running into 
such an innovative solution.  Innovation wasn't really one of the 
Shinma's strong points.  Rather than trying to change its subject, it 
changed itself to fit the subject, crafting a beautifully complex system 
that would distort the subject's perceptions and impulses to conform to 
its directives.  The part of Heero that was mindful of his current 
situation found that very promising indeed.  It seemed very likely he 
would survive this fairly intact.

	Finished with the binding to the surface of his mind, the power 
drew his consciousness into an imaginary planescape of its choosing and 
presented him with a simple scenario of attack and defense.  It was made 
clear that it wanted Heero to react to the scene when the conjured 
enemies engaged him.  He dutifully countered and dispelled his opponents 
with ease and watched as the power surrounding him studied his actions 
carefully, tweaked something within itself, and repeated the cycle, each 
time throwing a slightly different situation at him.

	They started small and became more complicated with each step, 
but all were standard and canned, as if it was just forming a basis, a 
template for Heero's methodology.  Soon enough, the exercise changed, 
and the power became more aggressive in its search for knowledge.  It 
blazed with purpose as it swept through his mindscape, seeking out all 
the qualities that would make him the peerless warrior that Trant 
desired.  Here was the determination; it laid that across the 
foundation.  There was the focus; it elevated that to the top to filter 
out peripheral data.  Here was the ability to shape the shadows; it 
honed that until it gleamed with a fine precision.  Here was the 
perception, the awareness; it interfaced itself directly with those 
qualities.  Here was all the knowledge and lore he had accumulated over 
the years; it analyzed it, reorganized it into the epitome of 
efficiency, and set that off to the side for easy reference.  Here was 
the guardian, and all associated with him; it threw out such fripperies 
as irrelevant and moved on.

	Heero snuck in behind it and put it right back where it 
belonged.

	Here were the reflexes; it shortened all the paths between 
thought and action.  Here was the guardian; hadn't it gotten rid of that 
already?  It rooted it out, tossed it aside, and kept going.

	Heero caught it, dusted it off lovingly, and set it firmly back 
in its place.

	Here was the-- hey!  Will you stop that already!?

	No.

	It tried harder this time, not just removing the guardian from 
his head, but trying to destroy the patterns altogether.  Heero grimly 
held onto his partner and refused to let go until the power figuratively 
stepped back with a frown.

	...I'm trying to make you a better warrior here.  Stop 
interfering.

	But you're wrong.

	Am not!

	Are too.

	When it seemed the power was about protest once more, Heero took 
the time to explain himself.  ::Look,:: he communicated to it, although 
not so much in words as thought impulses, with a few emotional surges 
for color.  ::Duo is not irrelevant.::

	::You have an emotional attachment to him.  That is a weakness, 
and I will eliminate your weaknesses.::

	::You are mistaken.  I am a stronger person, a stronger warrior, 
because of my attachment to him.::

	The power was willing to be reasoned with.  Its purpose was to 
alter the outputs of its subject's neural net, not the inputs.  Its most 
basic precept was to mold itself to its target, and that took precedence 
over how Trant had decided to weight the warrior factors.  ::... ... 
Explain yourself.::

	He did.  He won.

                              ************

	The air seemed curiously light when Wufei woke the next morning.  
The sense that Shenlong's power still hung in the air had not decreased 
in the slightest, but it seemed to hold more promise in it than 
oppression.  There was an eerie moment when his mind drew the parallels 
between this morning's feeling and what he had felt the morning 
everything had fell apart, but it passed in irrelevant silence.

	Like that morning long ago, he rose early and wandered out to 
the courtyard where they had been working, anticipating no company but 
his thoughts.  His expectations were proven faulty by the presence of 
the guardian.  The eternal youth lounged against the wall in a corner, 
shadows gathered lazily around him as courtiers around their lord.  He 
had not donned his duster, and Wufei wondered if it was his duster that 
formed the darkness around his feet.

	Duo studied him with a piercing eye, but Wufei stood up steadily 
to the onslaught.  The intense regard ended when Meiran walked into the 
courtyard.  Wufei's eyes shifted to her when she entered, and when they 
returned to rest upon the guardian, he saw Duo's expression had changed 
from its aggressive neutrality to something with a whiff of smug.  Their 
eyes met again, and Wufei turned away from the hint of amusement with a 
quiet snort of disdain.

	The others joined them not too long after, but by then, Wufei 
had already settled himself with his sword in a comfortable position on 
the ground, his attention far away from the greetings the others were 
exchanging.  Would this day be any different from the one before it?  He 
didn't know, but he felt different already.  Something had changed 
between this day and that, and for the better, it would seem.  
Unacknowledged in the depths of his mind, he knew what that 'something' 
was, but he stubbornly refused to give it form.  There would be time 
enough for that later.  Right now, he had a job to do.  Only when the 
task was completed would there be a later.

	He sat with his eyes closed and his fingers brushing lightly 
over the dragon's eye jewel set in the pommel of his family's sword.  
Its color had shifted over the years.  On the night it had happened, it 
had flashed from clear to cloudy and back again, finishing the night in 
a deep, neutral emerald hue, hovering between dull and glassy and 
crystalline.  Whenever he had made contact with the power hidden within 
the sword, it had regained a bit of its sparkle, but in the end, it 
always settled back into its grim quiescence.  Since starting this 
quest, this journey into hell itself, he thought he could detect a 
growing spark within its depths.  It was difficult to tell for sure 
whether or not he was simply transferring his hopes to the gem, but it 
had not seemed to dim or waver to him over the recent days, when hope 
had alternately waxed and waned.  Surely that was a good sign?

	He felt the sudden compulsion to be closer to the energy in his 
sword, and he stood with little ceremony, ignoring the way the others 
ceased in their actions for a moment as he started a basic kata.  There 
was no other time he felt as one with the sword as when he was wielding 
it in the ancient dance.  He set his thoughts free, finding comfort 
already in the way the day had dawned without the baggage of the 
previous day weighing him down.  One movement after another, swift and 
flowing, growing more complicated as he transitioned without pause from 
one set to the next.  The tingle in the air gradually seemed to fuse 
itself with his skin until every shifting of his muscles felt charged 
with an electric passion.  He did not exult, he did not anticipate.  He 
was too far gone for that.

	Time passed beyond his notice.  His awareness of his 
surroundings expanded, but he focused on none of it.  Haoxian was 
studying his movements appraisingly through half-slitted, apparently 
lazy eyes, and approved.  Duo paid more attention to the flows of energy 
he was stirring up, waiting with a patience born of age and experience 
for the whole assembly to reach a critical mass.  Hilde was talking 
quietly to Meiran, and Quatre to Trowa.  None of it mattered.  He 
continued to move blindly, gracefully through the katas, his motions 
automatic in that place where thought was divorced from action.

                              ************

	"Hey, Duo," Quatre started tentatively.  He stood waiting 
patiently until Duo's attention seemed turned in his direction.  "So, 
when we're done here resurrecting Shenlong's power and all... Well, I 
was wondering how Heero's coming along in locating Epyon.  I mean, we've 
got to have somewhere to go with the power, after all...."  He trailed 
off under the unblinking stare the guardian was leveling at him.

	Duo let the spiritualist squirm under his gaze for a while as he 
considered the question.  "He's closer to finding him," he finally 
decided.

	"Well..."  Duo snorted silently to himself.  If the boy was so 
hesitant in bringing it up, then perhaps he ought to take the hint and 
just not bring it up.  "What's he doing, anyway?  I mean, you've never 
really said..."

	And for good reason.  His eyes flicked briefly to Trowa, 
standing strong and silent behind the spiritualist in moral support.  
Damn.  That meant he wouldn't be able to just stare Quatre down.  Well, 
the kid had guts, he'd give him that much, if not much else.  The look 
he turned back on Quatre made it clear that a lot of things were being 
weighed in his mind.  "Epyon has a Shinma assisting him.  Heero is 
working on that angle."

	Quatre let the silence stretch, thinking that perhaps Duo would 
continue on his own, but alas, it was not to be.  "So what does that 
mean, exactly?  Is he just investigating?  Is he making contact with 
this Shinma, or hunting it, or what?  And how close is 'closer'?"  He 
didn't really want to press, given that he knew Duo didn't really like 
discussing Heero's absence, but he thought Duo really ought to keep the 
rest of them better informed if they were going to make any decent 
plans.

	"He's..."  He's infiltrated the enemy camp.  He's being held by 
the enemy, but don't worry, it's all part of the plan.  He's only got a 
few more steps before he finds out Epyon's location.  He's run into a 
spot of trouble and all we can do is wait for him to pull himself out of 
it, because there's nothing else we can do to help.  We can't go where 
he is, and I feel like I've abandoned him to his fate.  He's put his 
physical and mental well-being on the line for all of you ignorant, 
ungrateful humans, and you don't even know it.  You can't even 
understand it.  No, that's not right, he's not doing it for you, he's 
doing it for me.  I put him in that place, I left him in that situation, 
and now I can't be there for him.  Oh, gods above and below, I have 
faith in Heero, I believe that he knows what he's doing, but that 
doesn't stop me from fretting over it.  I hate this, and someone is 
going to pay.  If he's not as okay as he says he is, I don't know what 
I'll do, but before anguish and despair will come anger and vengeance, 
merciless and swift, that much is certain.  "He's getting closer every 
day.  The Shinma will yield up the answers."

	"You're being evasive, Duo," Quatre said, trying to read the 
guardian's eyes, but failing.  Too many dark and hidden things floated 
within those depths.  "Has he run into some sort of trouble?"

	"Nothing he can't resolve," he forced himself to say calmly.  
"There's no need for concern."

	"Well, do you think he'll have the information by the time we're 
through here?"

	Quatre waited, but no answer came.  He chanced another searching 
look at the guardian's eyes, and realized he no longer had his 
attention.  Well, darn.  That was unproductive.

                              ************

	Duo's mental eye traced the patterns of energy flowing around 
Shenlong's chosen as he went through his exercises, but most of his 
attention was drawn elsewhere, as it had been ever since this whole 
thing started.  Deep down inside of him, carefully banked, but still 
glowing steadily, was that thread that trailed away from him to the 
other half of his soul.  He knew he shouldn't prod it into wakefulness, 
but oh, how he had wanted to.  It worried him that he was getting over 
that desire, no matter that he knew he had to resist the temptation.  He 
compromised, only placed his mental fingers on his end of the link and 
held still, feeling for the faint vibrations that came across, keeping 
the line alive.  They were constant and reassuring, a balm to his weary 
heart.

	When Heero woke to consciousness, he knew it.  It was like light 
breaking through the cloud cover on a rainy day.  It was still raining, 
but at least there was light.  And though he could not sense the 
specifics of the matter, he felt Heero's pure calm and confidence, and 
felt himself calmed in turn.  When his partner was once more plunged 
into the darkness, he held onto that feeling, and it carried him through 
the sensations of something trying to eject him from his partner's mind.  
When the threat had passed, he felt only a smug sort of joy.  'Ha, take 
that, you rat-bastards!'

	That was smothered quickly enough.  It was tempered all too 
easily by his helplessness in this situation.  He was here, and Heero 
was there, and all he could do was watch and encourage.  It was 
infuriating, but he knew whom to blame.  That gave him the focus he 
needed to keep moving forward.  And when that cool flame of vengeance 
was finally extinguished, he would have no further need of it, for Heero 
would be back by his side.

                              ************

	"So," Hilde started casually.  "How are you two doing?"

	Meiran stopping in her shredding of a leaf to cast a glance 
first at the succubus, then the area around her.  "Two?"

	"You know.  You and him."

	Meiran tried to affect an expression of indignity, but it came 
out more along the lines of a blush.  "I don't know what you mean."

	"I mean, obviously you two came to some sort of understanding, 
but I was hoping there'd at least be a kiss in there or something!"

	Her eyes widened.  "Hilde!  You weren't... spying on us or 
something, were you?"

	"Of course not," the succubus brushed aside casually.  "I didn't 
have to pay any special attention to anything.  It's just that, what 
with the two of you being so repressed and all, any sort of kiss or the 
like would have to have been some sort of major explosion of 
*something*, and I surely would have felt that."

	"...So... you didn't feel anything?"  She didn't know whether to 
be relieved or disappointed.  Of course she didn't want her privacy 
invaded, but if the succubus just happened to be able to sense things 
and couldn't help it, well, she supposed it was almost alright.  But if 
Hilde hadn't sensed anything at all... then what, precisely, had 
happened between her and Wufei?  Practically nothing?

	"Hey, why the frown?" Hilde prodded.

	Meiran quickly wiped the expression from her face.  "Well... Oh, 
never mind.  Ask me again a few weeks from now."

	"Ah."  She was beginning to understand why Duo had asked her to 
stay out of their affairs, back when he had still cared.  Much as she 
would have liked to interfere with their delicate balance, there was far 
too great a chance that things could go the wrong way, and that was 
something they could ill-afford right now.  Apparently, Meiran 
understood that, too.  How terribly frustrating for the both of them.

                              ************

	When it happened, it happened stealthily, silently.  The moment 
crept up on them without fanfare, but when it came, it was brilliant.  
Energy seemed to coalesce from nowhere, all centered upon the one young 
man in unceasing meditative motion in the middle of the square.  It was 
felt more than seen or heard, a blast of silent thunder that swept into 
the quiet like a distant dragon's roar.

	Wufei felt its coming.  Somewhere in that transcendent state he 
had achieved, he knew he was the target of that concussive force, and he 
embraced it.  That soundless boom carried with it whispers of ancient 
power and joyous homecoming, restless waiting and vengeful thirst, and 
he took it all into himself.  He had no choice.  It flew at him from the 
sword in his hand, from the land beneath his feet, from the air he 
breathed, and as it washed over him, the mark that had been etched upon 
his skin with unseen power one night so very long ago now blazed forth 
in incandescent rebirth.  Its bulk remained obscured by the dark tank 
top he wore, but across the back of his neck and over his shoulders, 
glimpses of the dragon's favor glowed for the naked eye to witness, its 
fervor burning brightly for a few long seconds before the light was 
absorbed into his skin, drawing with it Wufei's consciousness.

	He felt himself only distantly as he fell, but it did not matter 
to him.  His mission here had been accomplished, and he let the dragon's 
power sweep him away into the darkness.





-----
blah blah blah blah.  i'm not excited.  i don't know why i installed 
heero with zero.  it just amused me.  i mean, i had to do -something-, 
and what with trant being who he is and all, it seemed appropriate.

_________________________________________
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 : 7/20/2003 01:28:09 PST