-------------------- Kyuuketsuki Duo Flipside : Episode 2 Shinma Paehina -------------------- Duo sneezed. Heero looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his attention momentarily diverted from the old box he was going through. Duo rubbed his nose absently and flashed him a quick smile before continuing with his own corner of the attic, mop in hand and washcloth hanging from his belt. One corner of Heero's lips quirked up a little in response, before he once again bent his head over his task. They were cleaning the attic of the old house today. When they had first cracked open the door, it had squealed most ominously, and Duo had prepared himself to find anything from the decaying bodies of his parents, to a portal to the netherrealms. Fortunately, all they had discovered was a lot of dust, cobwebs, and boxes. This attic, like most attics, had been used only for storage of mundane goods. This attic, like most attics, had been in dire need of a good cleaning. Heero was sorting through some of the boxes, cataloging, organizing, disposing, and preserving, while Duo had elected to be a little more active for the moment. Heero pulled out the next item in the box. The thick book felt ancient, but still looked quite decent. The binding sported no title, only a simple golden knotwork border along the edges. He could sense immediately that it had been touched with power. Checking it over critically with his own power, he cautiously lifted the cover and flipped to the title page. Again, the blank page gave no indication as to what might be contained within the book. He turned the page again. Several words -- names, he thought -- had been delicately inscribed at the top of the page, and what followed beneath was an account in an archaic mode. Heero skimmed the paragraphs swiftly, picking out key words rather than trying to fully interpret the stilted writing, and gathered that it detailed a human's first meeting with the Shinma, and his subsequent transformation into the first guardian of this area, confirming his earlier guess at the names. The second name appeared to be the name of the guardian's mate. Intrigued, he leafed forward a few pages, to the end of the first account. At the end was listed another name, the couple's offspring. There followed another brief history, another name, mating a human male to the second guardian, and yet again, a brief history of their time together. The book followed that pattern for quite a while as Heero efficiently flipped through its pages, mildly disapproving of the poor structure of the tome. If it had been up to him, he would have listed the lineage and the anecdotes separately, and then included a clear cross-reference for the two as an index for easier access and swifter interpretation. As the history progressed, the style of the passages changed with the times, as did the western guardians' bloodline. Once, the guardians had joined themselves only to humans, without ever thinning the guardian blood. The power was passed on faithfully through the generations, although occasionally it did skip over a generation, in which case a grandchild had followed as heir. The family tree also did not branch out much, each couple generally producing only a single heir, a rather risky practice, Heero thought, but understandable. It wouldn't do to have too many guardians running about. It would have been too great a threat to the Shinma. The largest surprise, however, was that the guardians had also occasionally mated with Shinma who had adopted human forms, and even a number of random demons. Heero finally reached the last few pages not blank, skimming the final story of the guardians who had attempted to spare their son the pain of the bloodline. It seemed they did not expect him ever to fully escape the burden, though, for his name had been inscribed on the last page, its clean, white blankness waiting patiently for the continuing saga. Heero flipped back a few pages, scrutinized it carefully, and let out a sharp bark of laughter, quite startling his companion. Duo turned from his vigorous scrubbing of the floor to search out his partner's amused countenance. "Whatcha got there?" "Your family history. You should read it, when you've got the time." Duo stood and calmly wiped his hands with the cloth on his belt as he stretched a bit. "I'm terribly excited to find such a large piece of my past..." he responded dubiously. "...but tell me it's not *that* funny, is it?" Heero beckoned him with chuckling eyes. Duo carefully picked his way between the clutter on the floor and knelt behind Heero, draping himself over his companion's back. He rested his chin on Heero's shoulder and hugged him from behind as he looked curiously at the thick tome sitting in Heero's lap. "This was your grandmother," Heero explained, pointing to a name in the text. Duo eyed the name and shrugged. "So?" It wasn't that he didn't care to know his ancestors that had him acting so casually, but he was fairly certain that he had plenty of time with which to study the book intensely at his leisure, and so there was no particular sense of anxiety. "What's so funny about that?" Heero chuckled, and Duo could feel it rumbling deep in his chest through their close contact. "She was a succubus," he informed him. "Ah. Well, I guess that would finally explain one of Dorothy's cryptic remarks," Duo noted. "She told me I had some demon blood ages ago." Heero coughed with humor. "Ahem. I was thinking more, that would finally explain why you seem to glow with such satisfaction and satiation whenever we --" "Heero!" Duo squeezed his ribs tightly in mock outrage. "Don't you think for a second that it has nothing to do with you!" "It might also explain why you can't seem to get enough...," Heero continued mischieviously, while his being thrummed with gentle pleasure as Duo nuzzled his neck playfully. "I'll never get enough of you," he murmured into his neck. Then Duo stopped for a moment and grinned saucily at him. "Besides." He winked. "Just making grandmom proud." ************ Duo followed his acquaintances demurely down the avenue, listening as they chatted amiably, but not really participating in the conversation unless he was prompted for some kind of reply. Today, he had been introduced to another of Quatre's friends, Meiran, a young Chinese girl with two jet black pigtails and a fiery spirit. They had met up after school, and were now heading towards a local cafe that was rather popular among teenagers as a place to hang out. Duo tasted the air of the city carefully. Perhaps it was a persistent undercurrent that flowed through the area, or perhaps it was just the number of young people influencing the energy flows, but he sensed a faint murmur of negativity beneath the background noise. Discontent, angst, boredom, nothing out of the ordinary for a town of this size, but certainly more than enough to support a fairly healthy Shinma population -- also not out of the ordinary for a town of this size. But Duo needn't worry about having a lack of business to tend to. If he wasn't clued into strays by his dreams and visions, then the trouble would probably assault him without him having to seek it out. It had a way of seeking him out on its own. Quatre asked him his opinion about the coffee house, The Corner Cafe, as they entered and found themselves a booth by the window. Duo murmured something vague in response, but pleasant enough to appease his companion for a while. Quatre's aura shone brightly amidst the powerless humans, light blue and gold, pure and clean, but not entirely in focus. Trowa's, on the other hand, was dark green and earthy brown, sort of muddled and diffuse and tightly wound up into itself all at the same time. It was bounded on the outside by flecks of blue and shiny gold, and on the inside by a faint hint of deep indigo. Meiran's aura was slightly stronger than that of an average human, a strong spirituality indicated in the sharp vermillion sprinkled with emerald. The waitress came to their table, a dull marigold and olive green, drab colors to match a woman trapped in an unfulfilling life, vivacity slowly bleeding from her via the falsely cheerful smile, which in Duo's mind's eye became a gaping hole in the waitress' mask, with a feeling that at any moment it would crack wide open and peel itself back over her skull to reveal the true form beneath. Heero smacked him lightly inside his head. ::Stop that,:: he admonished idly, as he continued to sort through the linen closet. Dwelling on the human condition had a tendency to depress the guardian and transform him into a rather moody creature, which in turn made him slightly more vulnerable to random vision attack, which often led to increased irritability, and so on through a long downward spiral. He had yet to find out what was at the bottom, though, thanks to Heero. Duo sent back a light surge of gratitude and decided to concentrate instead on the 'real' world. Quatre had just ordered a cup of tea and a scone, and the waitress was now looking at him expectantly. He flashed her a warm, charming grin, hoping it might put a little life back into the jaded waitress. He was gratified to see a brief wash of color in response. "Coffee, please. Just half a cup will be fine." He ignored Quatre's raised eyebrow and continued to smile pleasantly at the woman. "How would you like that?" she asked, just a hint of interest tinting her voice. "Black as my soul, if you please." He gave her a swift wink which no one but she noticed, and she wrote the order down and bustled back to the counter, a little lighter on her feet than when she had first approached them. "Black as your soul?" Meiran asked curiously. "And cold as my heart, I'd say," Duo answered. "Only I don't actually like my coffee cold, so...." He shrugged. "Waste of a perfectly good line." ::I'm no expert in human relations, Duo,:: Heero observed silently. ::But you probably shouldn't be saying things like that to people, having just met them.:: ::She's a big girl,:: Duo retorted. ::She can handle it.:: "So what do you think of this place so far?" Quatre inquired politely. Beyond that first day, he had never been put on edge by Duo again, not like that, but he still never forgot it, and was therefore never completely at ease when interacting with the odd boy. "You mean this area?" Quatre nodded. "It's nice. It's probably changed a bit since I was here last, but I really don't remember it from back then, so I can't say." Other than the fact that his current home meant something to him, this place was actually little different from anywhere else he had ever spent some time. Quatre and Meiran launched into a discussion of what parts of the city had changed since they were children, since Trowa was relatively new to the area as well. Their order arrived as they were debating when the new theater had opened, and Duo sat nursing his half cup of coffee, not really drinking much from it at all as he half listened to the conversation, and otherwise stared out the window, watching the passersby on the street. He disliked what he saw, but he couldn't help doing it. So many people, wearing so many monotonous colors, sometimes all he wanted to do was try to explosively brighten their days, just so he wouldn't have to look at all their lifeless lives anymore. It was so terribly unnerving to see people resembling mindless automata, cardboard cutouts without any substance or depth to them, creatures who just hadn't yet realized that they were nearly dead. And that was without any Shinma influence. A large part of the reason why he more than tolerated his present company was because they did have a spark of life to them, brightly burning beacons in the miasma of gray fog that blanketed most of the rest of humanity. The bell over the cafe's door tinkled again, and in came a man with his daughter. What initally caught his eye about them was the doll the girl clutched. First of all, she seemed a little older than one who might carry a doll with her where she went. Secondly, the doll was scary as all heck. It was a perfectly fine looking doll, human in form, ideally curled hair, cotton candy pink dress. Fine, until one noticed the clumsy, black stitches that had been used to fix what appeared to have been a large hole in the doll's neck. Perhaps the child had sewn the doll up herself, which was commendable, but it gave the doll a definitely demented, and quite sinister, Frankensteinian look. It was also one of those dolls whose eyes would open and close, depending on the tilt of the head. Duo had never liked those dolls that attempted to imitate life. They reminded him too much of the people walking on the streets outside. "...and then Mrs. Folger went and made us each take turns reading the cursed thing aloud in dactylic hexameter, all because Lindsay didn't know what she was doing," Meiran was saying. "But you didn't seem to have much problem with it, Duo." "Hm?" Duo's attention was dragged back to the table again. "I've taken some Latin before, that's all." And German, and French, and Japanese, and Spanish.... He might think it was silly for high schools to have language requirements, but at least he might find the skills handy some day. Japanese, actually, he'd had Heero teach him. "Some? You were reading like you really knew what you were doing. And you could tell Mrs. Folger was impressed, too, and I'm sure you've realized by now just how hard it is to impress that woman." She made a face. She'd been taking Latin for three years now, with the same teacher, and had developed something of a love-hate relationship with the woman. Mrs. Folger was somewhat zealous about her subject, and it spilled over into much of her personality. "You just have to scan ahead, a little." Quatre laughed. "He makes it sound so easy...." At the counter, the girl with the frightening doll was raising a minor commotion. 'What the hell is a chocolate vanilla ice cream swirl on top of an apple cobbler anyway?' he wondered, irritated that the immature child was shortly undoing any improvement to the waitress' mood that he had wrought. Children these days should be making themselves annoying by turning round and round on the swivel chairs, rather than by making unreasonable demands. "I can't believe my parents made me take Latin." Meiran grimaced. "It's so useless, but they absolutely insisted that I have a classical education, too." There was a flare of power from the counter, instantly catching Duo's attention, and in the kitchen a small fire was started. Half a scant moment later, Duo pinned down the source to the child's doll, its stray energy glowing from its eyes, for those with the power to see. He reached out with his mind to investigate the incident caused by the petulant child, and seeing that it was taking too long for the cook to find a way to put out the fire, he easily put out the flames in the kitchen with his own mind. His regard returned to the girl and her doll, assessing the threat, and doing some implicit threatening of his own. "What about you, Duo? Did your parents make you take Latin too? I don't know why anyone else would choose to of their own free will." The girl stopped mid-demand and turned in his direction, the doll seeming to look straight at him with glassy green eyes before the girl seized it more tightly, changing the angle on the head and shutting the doll's eyes. He looked back to Meiran. "No. I do as I please." The girl fled the diner, her father making haste to follow her. He looked like a rather decent man, if a little stressed, attempting to apologize to the waitress for his daughter's uncivilized behavior as he stumbled out the door. It was a pity a Shinma had found its way into his home. He would suffer for it, if he hadn't already. "Really?" Quatre was envious. "That must be nice, getting to do what you want to. My father's a rather domineering man. I sometimes think that parents go out of their way to control their children's decisions. It's got to be inconvenient for him to try to influence me so much." Meiran nodded in agreement. Her own family insisted on adhering to traditional ways. Duo, however, had to disagree with Quatre's assessment. "I'd have to say my parents went out of their way to ensure I'd have a measure of free will in my life," he commented somewhat dryly. It wasn't every parent that would abandon their only child on the doorstep of a church orphanage. Meiran laughed. "Wow, I'd like to meet your parents some day. What's it like, to live with parents who don't breathe down your neck? Oh, the things I would do with that freedom!" He snorted to himself. Would she stay out all night hunting Shinma, as he did? "I wouldn't know," he answered truthfully. "I don't live with my parents." "With parents like that?" she asked incredulously. "How could you not?" Duo shrugged nonchalantly. "They died a while ago. I live with a guardian, these days." He had decided that, if the issue should ever come up, he would be (relatively) truthful about his situation. Hopefully, they would be nice and sensitive people and try not to bring up his homelife very often, and not express the desire to visit his home at any time. That way, he wouldn't have to keep coming up with evasive answers and excuses. Apparently, he had chosen the right option, for a slightly embarrassed silence descended upon the table as he calmly sipped his coffee. Well, Trowa had been silent from the start, so that hadn't changed. He was also in a somewhat parentless situation himself, having been adopted, although Duo didn't officially know that. Quatre broke the uncomfortable pause by looking at his watch. "Well, it's getting late. I really have to be going now, or...." He looked guiltily at Duo, as if he thought that mentioning his father and his disciplinarian ways in Duo's presence would be insensitive. Duo just returned a mild look. The boy was really too compassionate for his own good. It would get him hurt one day, especially if his powers remained unchecked as they were. Quatre didn't finish his sentence. He just smiled nervously and stood, and the rest followed, gathering their things. The bill had already been paid, and they exited and parted ways, Duo heading north, Quatre and Trowa south, and Meiran east. As soon as Duo was out of sight of anyone's eyes, he stepped into a shadow and reappeared a moment later by the front door of his home. ::Okaeri.:: Heero's thought drifted lazily down to him from upstairs. Duo let himself drown in his partner's refreshing, vibrant colors for a moment before settling down to do some work. ::Homework already?:: Heero asked, an amused lilt tinging the mindvoice. Duo nodded absently, even though Heero couldn't see. ::Homework now, 'cuz tonight, we hunt.:: Where was the justice? ************ They started the hunt at the diner. Duo caught the remembered scent easily and followed it to the surburban area, to a quaint, two-story house, cream with navy trim, and low, neat bushes lining the walk to the front door. A taint of violent death came to him from around the house, but it was old, and he chose instead to pursue the more recent exertion of Shinma will in the garage. Effortlessly, they etherealized through the garage door, and found the father of the girl from the diner slumped over the steering wheel in his sports utility vehicle, its engine running and emitting enough carbon monoxide in the enclosed space to eventually suffocate him. "Nice kid," Duo commented softly, as they switched off the engine and hauled the man back inside through the house door leading directly to the kitchen. They laid him out on the couch in front of the TV, and Duo planted a tiny suggestion in his head saying that it was all just a dream. ::She knows we're coming.:: Heero shrugged, unconcerned. ::Probably didn't want the father getting in the way.:: They went back outside and studied the neighbor's white picket fence. There was a large section of it that had been removed, right where the corruption of death was the greatest. If he looked at the currents carefully, Duo could see the afterimage of a whole fence, complete with dead woman draped limply on top of it. He raised an eyebrow and dismissed the disturbing image. ::She could have just put him to sleep,:: Duo pointed out, not wanting to speak aloud because they were standing underneath a window, the light within on. It was the girl's, he surmised. They decided that entrance through the window would be the most strategically sound, given that the stray was aware of their eventual arrival and may have laid some traps inside the home. The fact that the window was on the second story was no deterrent. They floated up easily to the window, a chilly wind sending ripples through their light shadowspun clothing. The window was inspected, and judged safe. Inside the window, their presence had remained unnoticed by the girl seated on her bed, her eyes as glassy and empty as the doll's as she stared blankly into the corner. ::Breaking and entering again,:: Heero observed, his mindvoice no more than a whisper on the wind as he watched Duo unlock the window and slide it open silently. ::Oh, hush up.:: Duo slid inside. The girl slowly turned towards him, her movements rough and unnatural as she shifted the doll to gaze in his direction. "I've been expecting you, Guardian." The voice that issued forth from the girl's lips was hollow and deep, not her own. "You don't belong here," Duo responded calmly, addressing the Shinma directly rather than the girl, cutting past the unpleasantries and getting straight to business. "Leave the girl." They rarely did, voluntarily. It was somewhat inconvenient at times, to have to watch out for all the inevitable innocents, and even the not-so-innocent. It was a thought that occurred to the guardian every time he fought. The power of his heritage was constantly urging release, trying to tempt him into merging with the Shinma ranks and have no regard for the humans he desired to protect. He had not given in yet, and hoped he never would. Something jerked the girl's strings, and she climbed haltingly to her feet as a malicious smile spread across her face in a grotesque rictus of mockery. ::I'll distract it,:: he sent his waiting partner. Acknowledgement was sent back, no more words needing to be exchanged about their course of action. Duo flicked his wrist out and formed a conspicuous sphere filled with blue flame in his upturned palm. It caught the Shinma's attention immediately. He made as if to throw the fireball at the stray, and it tensed, its concentration consumed by the threat. Heero swept in from the shadows as planned and took advantage of its distraction, knocking the possessed doll from the girl's loose grip and towards Duo. A mere thought later, Duo no longer held a transparent globe of flame, but a short wicked shaft, fitted to his hand as if it belonged there. As he swung it at the incoming toy, it transformed itself into his weapon of choice, a black scythe with a microthin edge that sliced cleanly through the doll. The head and decapitated body fell to the floor with a dull thump, and the girl soon followed. Heero caught her on her way down, and laid her safely on her bed as Duo glared tensely at the vessel of possession. ::We can't fight in here,:: he stated obviously, thinking of the child. A dark mist came forth from the severed neck of the doll, slowly solidifying into the stray's true form. The figure was hunched over, with black wings sprouting from its back and deadly-looking claws in place of fingers. ::Chase it outside,:: Heero suggested. ::I'll be there.:: Duo acknowledged as the stray growled and leapt at him. He lifted his weapon in automatic response and easily parried the attack, then dismissed his scythe and dived to the right so that the stray would have to place itself in front of the open window if he wanted to stay opposite the guardian. Before the Shinma had the time to come fully to a halt and regain its equilibrium, Duo hurled a small sphere of relatively harmless energy at the gargoyle's feet, which it leapt to avoid. One side of Duo's mouth quirked upward slightly in cold satisfaction and he pushed it out the window with another globe of bright blue flame. The Shinma turned to flee, but Heero was already there, blocking its egress. The silent hunter slashed at it with deadly hands as his weapon, and it shrieked in pain as he made contact. With a flexing of his power, Duo set the tainted remnants of the doll ablaze before leaping out the window to aid in the chase. It burnt to ashes and beyond in a few seconds, leaving only a faint smudge on the thin carpet. ::We should get you a scythe, Heero. They're really cool.:: A bland amusement was his only answer as Heero continued to dance with the stray. Duo arrived and helped him to box the stray in. Desperate, it flapped its wings powerfully and shot upwards towards the clouds, but both the guardian and his companion gave chase to it with bolts of energy flung with fatal accuracy. It plummeted from the sky helplessly for a few meters before being encased in a ring of binding, disabling it. "Shinma Paehina," Duo intoned, sealing its fate with its name. "Return to the Dark." Black and indigo power leapt from his outstretched fingers to encircle the stray and whisk it back into its domain with little resistance. Somehow, Duo always felt the end to the pursuit to be somewhat anti-climatic. Heero caught Duo's eye, and they returned to the child's bedroom in tandem to finish their night's work. Duo looked at the child lying on the light pink bed. Her features had regained their innocence, now that she had been freed from the Shinma's foul influence, and she looked to be no more than she was. Duo could see the lingering taint about her, though. The Shinma always left a darkness where they passed. He looked back at his masked companion, reluctant to do as he knew he must. He could take the darkness from her, that he would not regret. But he knew he must also preserve humanity's blissful ignorance of the Shinma presence among them, and that involved messing with people's minds and memories, generally without their consent, and that reminded Duo rather unpleasantly of the actions of the strays he fought against. Heero nodded once, slowly and slightly, acknowledging the guardian's paradox and the thin line he tread, but condoning the action nevertheless. There was no way to get around it and still perform his duty. It was a dilemma he faced constantly, and the same conclusion was always reached. A sadness flitted through Duo's eyes as he bent to arrange the child's limbs into a position of natural sleep. Gently, he smoothed the girl's hair down and brushed it away from her neck, before leaning over to take her blood. He ignored the way the taste of a child pulled at his control and teased his power, and took only what was needed to get the job done. Heero crossed to the other side of the bed and laid a reassuring hand upon the guardian's shoulder, reminding him that his was a burden he need not bear alone. Duo leaned into the touch, laying his own hand atop his partner's and giving it a light squeeze, and together, they faded into the shadows. _________________________________________ 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 : 2/4/2001 22:48:46 PST