"Why must you kill?"
The question came from an anguished Arjuna, addressed to no one in particular, and everyone within earshot. She knelt on the bloodstained floor of the warehouse, cradling a dead Arkady Klimov in her arms. She had already bested the TI-5 in open combat--one of the most difficult things she had ever done, considering that she had no experience in fighting one, and was already tired from her battle with the enormous Raaja she had just defeated half an hour ago--and was already convincing him to give up his mad plan of blowing up Tokyo when things had taken a turn for the worse.
Only forty-five minutes past? To her adrenaline-rushed and battle-manic self, it seemed like events had taken place a blood-soaked eon ago. The SEED cavalry had arrived at that time, in the form of a solitary AH-64D Apache, and under its torrent of Hellfires and 30mm Chain Gun rounds Arkady had finally succumbed, shoving Arjuna far away from him just as she tried to shield him from the deadly metal rain.
Arjuna stared without cringing at the gory torso of the dead Russian, cut virtually in half by a cannon round, his pink-and-red guts spread out on the ground. Was this what she was fighting for? Bloody humans, who couldn't even curb their battle-lust and listen to reason? The fight should have stopped when Arkady dropped Pinaka to the ground. Instead it had, with the appearance of the Apache, gone the other way.
"Juna." Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind spoke from behind the Avatar. She had been the only one with the temerity to approach the outraged young woman when Arkady had been killed. Everyone had thought the enraged TI-2 would finish the job the Russian had started and destroy the warehouse and everyone in it, so great was her anger. "Juna, he's dead. There's nothing you can do for him now." She laid a hand on Arjuna's shoulder.
Arjuna was silent for a long while, sitting motionless under the warehouse lights. "I understand a little of what Chris has been trying to tell me now," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. "Start killing, and you'll be hard-pressed to stop."
For a moment Nausicaä recalled what the Queen Regent of Torumekia had told her, that among the dying Vai Emperor's last words to Kushana--his only daughter--were never to kill any of their royalty, even though they bred like weeds and were sure to become the source of strife in the future. "Juna, we must see to the living," she said as the memory died away. "The dead are at peace now."
Arjuna paused, then gingerly laid what was left of Arkady Klimov's body on the warehouse floor. "Yes, I suppose you're right," she agreed, somehow calmed by Nausicaä's words. She stood up and shook her head. "Goodbye, Arkady. It's such a waste. Such a meaningless waste."
Without a word Nausicaä walked into a bunch of close-set metal crates. Arjuna silently followed her, her aura suit gradually disappearing as the fury ebbed from her veins, her form reverting back into Juna Ariyoshi as she disappeared among the containers. Her hair turned black but kept its characteristic V-shape.
Nausicaä reached an opening in the stack of crates and gestured. "Is this what all of you were fighting about? Your enemy seemed to be protecting this thing."
Juna noted with a start the radiation symbol on the side of the fat, cylindrical package secreted within the crates. "I-I guess so," she stammered. "Oh, my God."
"What is it exactly?"
"It's a nuclear bomb," Juna responded, hearing the container's song of death in her mind. "It will destroy this city when it explodes."
"You mean this thing has the power of a God Soldier?" asked the brown-haired flyer.
"I don't understand," said Juna. Nausicaä quickly explained what a God Soldier was to her: a living bioengineered weapon that had caused much of the destruction of the ancient world in the Seven Days of Fire. At the end of Nausicaä's tale Juna nodded.
"Yes, it's something like that." The raven-haired girl pointed at the cylinder's on-board display. "And judging by the timer, it's already been activated."
"Is there any way to turn it off?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Well, how long do we have before it explodes?"
Juna peered at the changing red digits. She laughed, a hollow, despairing sound that echoed throughout the warehouse and sent shivers down the spine of everyone who heard it. "Arkady has done his job well. We have forty minutes left before it goes off. Hime-sama, I suggest that you go back to Koganei and make peace with your father."
"No, I have something else in mind," Nausicaä said. She sent it to Juna, who blinked and pondered.
This girl has a messianic complex, she thought to herself. Without even flinching she thinks about such a thing. She told Nausicaä what she thought, and the Princess merely smiled.
I have nothing to lose, Juna, she sent. I'm far away from my home and the ones I love, and I will not risk my father's life or the life of anyone else in this city.
This is a mistake which belongs to this world, rebutted Juna. You have nothing to do with it, and are not required to rectify this terrible blunder.
Juna, Nausicaä sent in gentle reproof. Will you let your friends die as well? Don't you care about them?
Of course I care about them. For a heartbeat Juna wanted to say that the one she truly loved for was safe, far away in another city, but she thought it unworthy of herself and the Avatar of Time. Can't we just let SEED handle this?
You know them better than I do.
To settle the argument the two rushed to Teresa Wong. Juna introduced Nausicaä to the SEED leader and told her about the device. The woman with the close-cropped hair thought for a while, then shook her head and said, "We don't have that sort of expertise. All our helicopters have been damaged or shot down, and there's no time left to bring it to one of the nearby military bases." She silently went back to coordinating the incoming casevac SEED choppers and tending to her wounded men. The irony of her doing so, trying to save the wounded under the shadow of the bomb, was not lost on the Avatar.
Nausicaä and Juna watched as she turned her back to them and went to her men. Far in the distance, in the night sky, they heard the rhythmic whup-whup-whup of an approaching helicopter.
"Well, I guess that leaves me no choice," Nausicaä said quietly. "I shall have to take it as far away as I can."
"Yes." Juna nodded in agreement. "We've got no choice."
"Juna--"
The host to the Avatar of Time smiled calmly. "I'm not going to be the one who has to carry the news back to Koganei. I refuse. Besides... I don't have much to lose, anyway."
"Your friends, your family..."
"Will mourn for a while, then go on with their lives. It is the way of mortals, to lose things in the stream even as they find them. Come on. We still have to find a way to put that thing on your glider." As one the duo turned around and walked back into the nest of crates.
------oOo------
Almost before the errant CH-47J's wheels had even touched the ground in the parking lot, Cindy Klein, Katsunari Hoshinogawa and Yuuki Goami leapt out of the helicopter's side door and ran towards the lighted, bullet-pocked warehouse, where they found an agglomeration of SEED soldiers, wounded or not, ambulatory or just barely standing, staring out one of the open loading bay doors into the eastern darkness.
Cindy grabbed the elbow of one unwounded fellow. "What's going on?" she asked. "What are you all looking at? Where's Juna?"
The grim-faced man turned and looked blankly at her, then recovered enough of his wits to point into the starry night sky. "She's out there. They're both out there."
The rest of the answer was divined by both Cindy and Katsunari from the minds of the people around them.
"No," moaned Katsunari as she realized the awful truth. "No, Juna, no!" She covered her face with her hands and started to weep.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sat, 30 Apr 2005 22:22)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.