Sie uns selber eingestehen, ist es nicht smerzlich züss?
(To confess the truth to ourselves, is it not bittersweet?)
-Zerbinetta's aria to Ariadne, Ariadne auf Naxos
"Hime-sama!" she greeted the figure standing on the other side of the doorway. "How was your trip back to Koganei?"
"I... I didn't go back to the studio," Nausicaä said quietly. A gentle smile grew on her lips. "But I had an interesting time. Mister Pagot and Mister Curtis are now back home..." Her voice trailed into nothingness. She looked at Juna with an oddly blank expression, closed her eyes, and suddenly slumped forward against her, unconscious.
Juna's eyes grew as she saw the ragged-edged red furrows running down the brown-haired Princess' back. Her blood, dark and dried, formed a thick trail down the back of her pants, her spats, and shoes.
"Nausicaä!" Juna scooped the Princess up in her arms and rushed inside the apartment. "Ka-chan! Help me! Nausicaä's been wounded!"
"What?" The girl with the eyeglasses leapt off the sofa and ran to Juna's side. "Oh my God, what happened to her?"
"I don't know. Quick, help me get her into our bedroom. And get some new sheets for the bed. I'm afraid Amiko-neechan isn't going to be pleased with us ruining her covers."
------oOo------
The sharp pain in Nausicaä's back woke her up. She found herself lying in bed, with a solicitous Juna Ariyoshi seated by her side.
"Juna..." she said weakly, wincing in pain. "Oh, my back..."
"Please roll over and lie on your stomach, Princess Nausicaä," Juna said, gently lifting the bedcovers off her.
Nausicaä found herself dressed in an over-large t-shirt and not much else. "My clothes..." she asked as she looked down at herself. "Where are they?"
"Ka-chan took them to wash and mend them," replied Juna. "We removed them so we could put bandages over your wounds."
The Princess wordlessly rolled over and lay on her stomach. Her back burned like fire.
"Nausicaä."
"Yes?"
"What happened?"
"We were attacked by one of your warplanes," the Princess replied after some thought. "I don't know why, but it went after Mister Pagot." She related the events of that morning. "When I got shot the pain almost made me let go of my kite. Then, to fool the enemy pilot, I shut my engine down and hung from Mehve's skids until he had left the area."
"I'm sorry."
"About what?"
"What happened to you. It must've been an accident or misunderstanding of some sort."
"I agree with you. Father always said there were no truly evil people in the world, just good ones with an excess of hubris."
Juna looked at the girl lying on the bed. "I wish I could think as you do," she said admiringly. "But in my experience, the good guys are sometimes the bad guys themselves."
"Oh?"
"Uh-huh. Take my case, for example. I work for people who are part of the society which is destroying its home through abuse, neglect, and sheer apathy. I can't help but think sometimes what great hypocrites they are, wielding an olive branch in one hand as a sign of peace while slaying their enemies--perceived or actual--with a sword in the other."
"But you mustn't think that way, Juna!" said Nausicaä emphatically, turning to her and grimacing as the effort caused her wounds to bind on the bandages near her neck. "There are no perfectly good people, just as there aren't any perfectly evil people."
"I know. Shades of gray and all, in between. What a funny animal man is. Abstract in the singular, yet a mathematical certainty in the aggregate." Juna looked down sadly at the Princess. "It's the aggregate I have to worry about. I have a very bad feeling I know what it's going to do and where it's headed eventually. Ah, but listen to me prattle. Come, I'll try to heal your wounds. I couldn't do it while you were unconscious. I will also try to regenerate your body. I'm pretty sure it's deteriorating again."
------oOo------
"Miss Klein, we're ready to go," the soldier wearing the strange helmet on his head told her.
Cindy sighed irritably. "About time," she said grimly. Due to a scheduling foul-up the equipment-laden CH-47M they were supposed to take had been delayed for twelve hours. She hoped they would find Juna in time; the Avatar and Katsunari had, for some reason, not been answering their cellular phones, nor had they left any notice of where exactly they were going in Tokyo. The crew of the CH-47J that had dropped them off told them where they had left the trio, but that didn't tell SEED where they went afterwards. Hence the use of the M model, which could track TIs through their emanations.
And because they were potentially going to be involved in battle themselves, Cindy and the troops who were to accompany her were armed heavily. No one had ever tried to stop a TI before, so just in case all the hardware they were packing wasn't enough, a black-painted RAH-66 Comanche armed with Viper Strike munitions and laser-guided Hellfires was going to accompany them. It had been lent to them by the US SEED contingent.
Cindy stood up from her seat and began to walk out of the command center, out to the mountainside landing pad the SEED helicopters used. The unfamiliar weight of the combat knife and pistol on her hips reminded her that, like it or not, this mission was deadly serious, and that after they had contacted Juna they would set out to take down one of their own. The orange-haired girl smiled harshly as she patted the binding on her wounded left forearm. When they met Arkady, she would be sure to thank him for the memento he left on her body. And for what he did to Chris.
------oOo------
Nausicaä spent the next two days recuperating in the apartment, while Juna made the trip, nightmare-filled and all, back to Koganei to report what had happened to shocho's child, and the fate of Marco Pagot and Donald Curtis. It seemed she needn't have bothered; the old man knew everything already. How, he wouldn't say. He told her that he was letting Nausicaä stay with them for a little longer, as the Avatar could take care of her better than anyone in the studio could. He did say he missed her presence, however. Juna left the studio feeling somehow comforted by the old man's words. Her courage had been drained by the journey through Tokyo, so she stayed for a while in Koganei Park, soaking in the peaceful surroundings, before she returned to Harajuku.
------oOo------
On the dawn of the second day Katsunari announced to her friend that she and Yuuki were going out, probably for the entire day, and possibly the night as well. Not wanting to get into another spat with her, Juna simply said, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," and wished her and Yuuki a good time. The two had a quick breakfast with Amiko-neechan, then left.
It was with great surprise that Juna found Nausicaä walking to the front door, all dressed up in her flying clothes.
"I'm going back to the studio," she said in response to Juna's questioning look. "I don't want Father to feel lonely. I'll be back soon."
"Are you sure you can fly with your scars?"
"Yes, they don't hurt too much anymore. Thanks. But could I ask you something?"
"What is it?"
"If you don't like your society, why do you still stick around? You could live free in the mountains like that old hermit you told me about."
"I didn't say I disliked society. I just feel it could be better, a lot better, and that we're committing a sin in giving less than our best trying to make it so. Ka-chan gave you a glimpse of the world she came from, and I believe that is worth saving, along with many others. And I was given a second life in order to fulfill a mission. To do that I have to live within this framework that man has built." Juna frowned. "Somehow."
The Avatar escorted the wind-rider to the roof deck of the apartment building and watched as she strapped on her cloth helmet and double-checked her belt pouch and saw to it that her short sword was secured at the small of her back. Then she hefted the waiting glider, went to the edge, and jumped off the building, gliding for a short distance before somersaulting up on top of Mehve. She triggered the engine and circled Juna once like a great big gull, waving a hand in goodbye, then turned to the west and headed for home.
------oOo------
Nausicaä returned later that evening to find a worried Amiko Kinoshita hovering over an entranced Juna Ariyoshi. The black-haired girl was again seated at the window, staring wide-eyed out of it.
"She's been like that ever since I arrived," the older woman remarked anxiously. "I've managed to stop her from running out the door twice, but I'm clueless otherwise as to what to do with her."
Nausicaä nodded and approached Juna cautiously. Just as she was about to speak, however, the Avatar suddenly stood upright, exclaiming, "I can't stand this! I have to go!" She turned and slammed into Nausicaä, who held her by the shoulders and sent an urgent question into her mind.
Juna. What's going on?
The teenager's eyes gradually focused themselves on the Princess' concerned ones. "Nausicaä..." She shook her head. "I must go."
"To where?"
"Out there." Juna didn't feel like explaining much; she just wished someone else could see what she could see. Then perhaps they too would be alarmed by the enormous Raaja she saw in the distance, a faintly glowing violet apparition coiling and circling under the night sky, an obscene worm with a quad-partite mouth and various stalk-like projections spread throughout its entire body. "There's grave danger out there. I must destroy it."
"Then I'll go with you." The Avatar opened her mouth to protest, but Nausicaä cut her off with "No, no, don't try to stop me. It's the least I can do to pay you back for all the kindness you've shown me."
Juna smiled faintly. "Thank you, Nausicaä. To tell you the truth, I'm just a coward who works better if somebody's with me."
A coward, Nausicaä thought to herself. Yet she keeps on doing what she'd rather not. That's not cowardice in my book.
"Very well, Miss Coward. If you'll follow me upstairs to Mehve we can save you some time and effort. Just point the way out to me."
------oOo------
Mehve was abroad again that night over Tokyo, heading in the general direction of Yokohama. She bore two young women prone on her back.
"Are we near yet?" asked Nausicaä, twisting her neck to look up at Juna, the cold nocturnal wind whipping against her cheeks.
"Very. Just over there." The eighteen-year-old pointed into the vague distance. She was being guided by the big Raaja, which kept itself over one particular place, beckoning her to come to it with its very existence.
There was a white flash that lit up the night sky momentarily.
"Ah, okay, I think I know where we have to go," said Nausicaä, gently shifting her weight to point her glider at the burst of light.
When they were pointing in the correct direction, the Princess pushed Mehve pushed over into a shallow dive. Nausicaä heard the thrumming of the wind through the ear flaps of her helmet as the kite picked up speed; Juna listened to its frantic tarantella of death and murder with a heart growing cold and calm in anticipation of combat.
As they neared and finally flew over the spot where the bright flash had appeared, Juna looked down at the building passing by beneath them. It was a large, fenced-off warehouse, and even as they shot past on the night wind they heard the sounds of automatic gunfire emanating from within it.
Juna swallowed as she felt ghostly screams punch into her mind. There were people dying in there.
"I'm going in!" she yelled to Nausicaä, who obligingly put Mehve into a steep climb. When they had gained enough altitude and slowed down to the edge of a stall, Juna Ariyoshi let go of the handlebars and fell into the darkness.
(Posted Sat, 16 Apr 2005 02:57)
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