[Guilty Gear] Three Degrees to the Right, Part 9
Title: Three Degrees to the Right
Fandom: Guilty Gear
Part: 9/12
Characters: Sol, Ky
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: violence
Notes: Confrontation.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII
Three Degrees to the Right
Part IX
"…Sol?"
Ky stopped dead, squinting against the dust. Although the sounds of battle had faded a little while ago, it still hung thick in the air, the biting fumes making his eyes water.
Against the far end, he could barely make out the shape of the toppled Megadeath, unmoving… and a tall, dark silhouette, tense and very much alive, staring straight at him.
Waiting.
"You…"
The dark shape tensed even further, a threatening rustle resounding through the cavern like the movement of great wings.
Blinking away the sting, Ky found himself trying to make out the details, any sign of something familiar, but it was useless. The Gear was a shadow among shadows, only discernible by the tattered white remains of the uniform that were clinging to its body, slowly darkening as they became soaked with blood.
It did not move, so Ky forced himself not to move, either, silencing the instinct that was screaming at him to fight, to strike before the creature could recover-
He's /not/ a creature.
It was easy, he realized, so very easy to depersonalize what one couldn't understand, the mind so eager to label, to categorize, to judge, to call one thing "human" and the other "less than" in an almost desperate effort to assert itself as something better and worthier.
Ky hadn't been afraid of Gears since his parents' death.
Back then, he had gathered all that fear, despair and anger and transformed them, turned them into determination, because anything else would have meant giving up. He had never been afraid of dying, staring down the nightmares sent to greet him because it was his duty, but now he found there was another fear, so deeply ingrained as to almost be invisible…
Man's inherent fear of the Other.
"Sol, you… I… I'm afraid it broke your sword, Sol. But… I guess you didn't need that."
He was sounding ridiculous even to his own ears, talking about something so irrelevant, repeating the other man's name as if to connect the alien silhouette in front of him to the person he had known, as if to remind Sol who he was, and who was speaking to him.
It was beyond foolish, really-he knew he wouldn't have more than a split second to regret it if Sol took it badly, if he had indeed lost his mind.
He had no idea, after all, what it was that had kept Sol safe from being controlled, what had kept him on their side, whether it had been the human shape, or-
Listen to yourself. You're doing it again. That Gear, Testament… he looks human, and he's still with Justice, even though he used to be… even though Kliff said…
He shook his head.
This was the man who had saved his life mere minutes ago. Who had been fighting at his side for all those months. The man who had dug him out of the rubble of a ruined white city with the strangest expression on his face and had carried him back because he'd been too injured to walk by himself. To believe that all of this was gone…
I can't. I already knew… when I said I trusted him that day, I already knew. I made that decision a long time ago, and I will /not/ go back on it.
He took a slow step forward.
A warning growl met his advance, a deep rumbling sound that echoed along the walls until it sounded like the hounds of hell were lurking in the dark recesses, waiting to pounce. Sol shifted, claws scraping across the gravel, taking an equally slow step back.
Another step.
The growl came again, this time more quietly, as Sol continued to edge away, and Ky realized then that he was not preparing to attack, but hoping to move out of sight, to simply melt into the gloom and disappear.
That made the decision easy.
I'm not going to let you run.
The Furaiken activated with a sharp crackle.
He didn't miss Sol's flinch, claws flexing in response-a mirror to that small, irrational part of himself that was insisting on "creature" and "threat", the part that wanted to clench around the hilt of his sword and not let go.
Wrestling that part into submission was more difficult than he would have liked; slowly lowering the Furaiken, pushing its tip into the ground, his fingers surprisingly reluctant to withdraw.
The flickering lightning brightened, spreading a circle of soft blue light that revealed what the shadows had been hiding from sight.
Sol had frozen, every muscle coiled tight like a spring.
He looked like something from an ancient, superstitious tome brought to life, and for a second, Ky couldn't help but wonder if that had truly been the case, some twisted mind purposely engineering the appearance of a demon.
Most of his body was covered in a black carapace, smooth plating merging seamlessly with equally dark skin. A lizard-like tail was curling between his legs, hands and feet curving into razor-sharp claws, jagged wings rising from his back.
There was no part that wasn't designed to inflict or withstand deadly damage, but in contrast to that living fortress were the injuries, blood gleaming wetly against the plating, leaking from countless wounds. Splinters of rock and iron bars were lodged in his legs and torso, his right side split open by a blow that would have torn an ordinary man in two. One of the wings was dragging limply on the ground, part of the creature's tail spike sticking out of his shoulder like a grotesque harpoon.
"Looks like that thing got you good, huh," Ky said softly, trying to assess the extent of the damage and wondering where one was supposed set the "badly hurt" mark for Gears. Here seemed like a pretty good place to start. "I've got a kit here. It probably won't do much, but… let me help you."
There was no reply, and not for the first time, he had to wonder whether Sol could even answer him like this.
It seemed so pitiful that the only thing he had to rely on was information about the enemy-one who still looked human by design, and one whose words were recorded only in legends. At least, Sol was staying put, those red eyes glaring at him from underneath the bony ridge… studying him, weighing him.
"I don't want to fight you."
Leaving the Furaiken behind, he came closer, measured step after measured step.
He'd never pictured himself pleading with Sol, of all people, but there was little else he could do if he didn't want it to end with one or both of them dead. At this rate, it would sooner be Sol than him, from the way he was struggling to hold himself upright, his wounded leg trying to buckle under the strain.
"Just…"
Another growl came as he approached, the healthy wing rising like a bird of prey's, the injured one twisting in the folds of skin with a sickening crunch.
"…It doesn't matter what I say, does it." Ky shrugged helplessly. "I can't promise you anything you'll believe, and I can't give you any other guarantee except that my sword is over there, and I'm all the way over here."
Again, there was no answer, just the soft pitter-pat of the blood, pooling on the ground in ever-widening puddles.
"Please."
----
Getting involved with the Order had posed a certain risk.
When Kliff had first approached him for help, Sol had carefully weighed his options. He preferred working alone. Organizations had the tendency to draw in all the idiocy, the prejudices, the incompetence, working on a collective IQ that was barely above room temperature. And the church? That had seemed like a hoot. As if the 20th century hadn't taught him anything about holy wars.
But working on his own hadn't exactly gotten him anywhere. Every place was a ruin or a battlefield, no way for him to find what he was looking for, no way to weed out the root of the problem. And there had been something else, too-the certain feeling that the old man might've had an inkling about whom he was asking, but was willing to take the chance anyway, because there was no other choice.
This way, they both got what they wanted.
Hiding in plain sight was easier than it should have been because Kliff was insane and didn't care, and the soldiers were content not to ask any questions of the man clambering out of a Gear's jaws without so much as a scratch, if he was the reason they would live to see another day.
The kid would have been a problem because he was smart and not afraid of death, but he was a type Sol knew very well-black and white was all his world consisted of, and what didn't suit his conceptions of reality couldn't be true.
Now, Sol could even admit that a part of him hadn't been serious about this tightrope act, a part of him had seen it as a game to test how far he could go, had taken pleasure in tempting fate and getting away with it every time.
That's just like you, though. Always playing with fire, and being surprised when it blows up in your face. Don't tell me you've /forgotten/ what happened the last time.
Whatever he might have been able to convince the kid of before was meaningless, wasted; he only owed it to shock that Ky wasn't already trying to slice him to ribbons.
That left him a precious few seconds to try and get himself out of this mess.
With his body protesting just at being made to stand, he wouldn't been able to outrun Ky, and even if he managed that, there would be no way of evading the hundreds of soldiers aboveground. There was only one way to buy enough time to rest and search for the limiter, only one way to ensure his escape.
Oh yes, go ahead. What an efficient solution. You wouldn't even have to lie about it. These things happen in a war, after all. Who knows, with a bit of time, you might even forget the look on his face, when he pays for /your/ mistake-
The snap-crackle of the Furaiken almost made him jump, but the glow filling the chamber was not from an incoming lightning spell.
The kid was looking calm, almost unfazed, and Sol was half-wondering whether the shock had gotten to him harder than he'd thought, when Ky simply stuck the sword in the ground, pushing the entire situation even further into the realm of the unreal.
Is he mad?!
There should have been fury, betrayal, hatred, anything, but not-
"Please."
The word crashed through his thoughts with the force of a tank, its sheer absurdity scattering his inner argument.
"…You…"
Ky didn't even flinch at his voice, a look of elation spreading across his face. "So you do understand me! Could you come over here, please? I'll need some more light if I want to get all these things out of you."
"…What?"
Sol was pretty sure he should have been doing something to get the hell away, or at least saying something longer than one syllable, but his mind was still stuck on the fact that they weren't just not on the same page, they were reading different scripts altogether.
"I'm-"
"Hurt, yes. At least let me take care of the shrapnel. I have no idea about Gear physiology, but I've seen you walk off all kinds of things, and if those wounds close…"
There was that.
From a pragmatic standpoint, he should have been worrying about that, as he could already feel his body beginning to repair itself, the flow of blood ebbing away despite the foreign objects stuck in his flesh. The rest of him, though, was still trying to wrap itself around the fact that Ky was utterly serious, working to untie the pack with emergency supplies from his belt and apparently not seeing anything wrong with whom he was trying to patch up.
At his prolonged silence, Ky shook his head, the ghost of a smile darting across his features. "I know you said it'd be a cold day in hell before you'd rely on me, but we're underground in Moscow. I'd say that counts."
---
After what seemed like an eternity, Sol finally shifted, approaching cautiously as if Ky were the one capable of rending him limb from limb.
His steps were slow and heavy, his right side dragging oddly, which left him balancing most of his weight on the injured left leg. Wordlessly, he agreed to let himself be led to a pile of rubble, but when he came to sit down, his legs simply gave out, sending him lurching forward.
The simultaneous sound of cracking rock and bones echoed through the cavern, the impact of more than four-hundred pounds of armored Gear too much for even the slab of concrete to take.
"Are you alright?"
A frustrated snarl met his question, Sol struggling to right himself.
Sitting down, he was still almost at eye level, and this was the first time Ky managed to get a good look at his face-the layers of black, bony plating transforming his features, curving back from his skull in spines. The mark on his forehead was glowing dully, its angular etchings gleaming like the seal of a curse.
His eyes were the only familiar part, that red gaze flickering between bewilderment and fierce suspicion.
"…I'll just get started."
Again, he received no response, so Ky shrugged and went to work, tearing up sheets of gauze to apply to the gaping wound in Sol's side. It would at least staunch the blood flow for the time being, the entire torso a coagulating mess.
He had no idea what to do about possible internal injuries, broken ribs being the least of problems-he had no healing spells at his disposal, and not the slightest idea of what to look out for, anyway. All he could do was take care of what he could see, and hope the Gears' natural regenerative powers would be enough to help with the rest.
A sudden movement caught the corner of his eye, and when he turned to the shoulder, he noticed that the remains of the harpoon tail were still wriggling, squirming to dig deeper into the flesh as if driven by a mind of their own. When he reached out to pull the tail end free, Sol drew back.
"Poison." His voice was a throaty growl. "Don't cut yourself."
"Poison?" Ky exclaimed. "Is it-"
"Not lethal… for me. Affects the nervous system. Just get out of the way."
Before Ky could stop him, he reached over with his good arm, ripping the spike clean out of his shoulder. It landed somewhere to the left with a bony clunk, blood splattering everywhere.
"Are you crazy?! The more vessels you damage-"
"It'll pass."
"Pass out, more likely," Ky returned, pressing down a bandage to stem the blood flow, and not missing the way Sol went rigid under his hands. "Hold this. It's a perforation, and you've just made it worse. I'll need to patch up your back."
The makeshift compress practically disappeared under the massive palm, claws the size of his own fingers passing by his face.
Ky straightened to tend to the back of Sol's shoulder, the strips of gauze looking pitiful against the black expanse. The skin felt foreign under his fingers, hard yet unexpectedly alive, radiating heat as if from a furnace hidden deep within. He had known it as the slow, steady warmth all fire users possessed, an inner hearth fire protecting them against any chill, but now it was almost a blaze, flaring hotly under his palm.
Pulling back, Ky turned to the wound in Sol's leg. The metal bar had pierced the flesh, a thin trickle of blood running down its length.
Cautiously, he reached down. The main artery seemed unharmed, as he was quite certain even Gears would experience significant blood loss in such a case, but he had to make sure.
"Sorry, I'll have to see whether-"
"It's fine." The other hand moved sluggishly, reaching for the metal bar.
"No way." Ky glared, pushing his arm out of the way, and pretending he couldn't feel the muscles jump at the contact. "I'm not going to watch you bleed yourself dry."
His only answer was a rumbling exhalation, a cross between a hiss and a sigh. If the mood hadn't been so tense, he might have been tempted to call it sulking, as much as Sol ever did sulk.
"We're going to do this in the way most likely to keep you conscious," he said, wadding rolls of gauze together and handing it to him. "Hold this down as soon as I get the thing out. It won't help much, but I don't see another way to do this."
Closing both hands around the rod and pulling, his efforts were only rewarded with an ugly wet noise. Sol's claws were digging into the rubble, wood and rock cracking under his hands, the bar wedged in so tightly that it made Ky fear it might have become welded to the flesh. As he shifted his weight, it began to move minutely, twisting outward like a corkscrew. All of a sudden, it gave completely, almost sending Ky stumbling backwards.
Tossing it aside, he dropped to his knees, pressing another ball of gauze to the underside of the gaping wound. Next to him, the clawed hand shifted, and he was about to chide when he realized that Sol was trying to help for once, moving to hold both makeshift patches.
Wiping his bloodied hands on his thighs, Ky undid his own belt, pulling it tight around the wound. Not the best tourniquet in the world, but it would have to do.
"I'll have to take care of the smaller things now," he said, just to fill the silence.
Although it was far from the first time he'd attempted to dress the other man's wounds, each time had warranted a heated argument. And while he was grateful that Sol had stopped being blockheaded for the moment, it was disconcerting to have him so quiet, without any snappish mockery along the lines of "nurse Kiske."
Reaching down, he pulled the boot knife from its sheath and held it out to Sol, who went rigid again.
"Fire, please. And stop tensing up so much, you'll just draw them in deeper."
"It's fine, you don't need to-"
"Fire," he ordered, absolutely not in the mood for any acts of stoicism. This complete disregard for one's own health and well-being was something he just couldn't understand, that Sol would sooner bleed all over himself than get basic medical attention. "I don't care that you can't get an infection, I'm not going to use an unsanitary knife on you."
Sol growled, but obeyed, a small flame kindling around the blade, dancing momentarily before dying down again.
"This might hurt a bit."
Silence again, and Sol barely even twitched as he went to work, digging out the shrapnel as gently as he could.
He didn't have nearly enough bandages to take care of everything, but it didn't matter. If he allowed his gaze to linger, Ky could observe the wounds closing slowly even as he was removing pieces of metal and stone, the flesh simply knitting itself back together, as if sewn up by an unseen hand. With a bit of time, he knew, there would be nothing left, not even a scar.
Sol's back was by far the part that was worst off-deep, tearing lacerations running down its length so broadly that there was hardly any skin left. The injured wing was dangling like pieces of a broken paper screen, a pitiful counterpart to the one that was folded up, hovering so as not to touch the injuries.
Wincing, Ky gingerly began to peel away the snarled clumps of hair and scraps of fabric that were sticking to the wounds, dirt and blood mixing and hardening into an unyielding crust.
A deep sigh, the entire torso heaving. "You really don't have to be so-"
"I know. But guess what?"
"You don't care."
"Exactly."
He continued pushing hair out of the way, the knife carefully scraping away the worst of the caked mess, until his fingers brushed against something hard.
"Oh."
The headband was held fast in a sticky net of strands, its torn straps and buckles entangled so tightly that he had to end up cutting a few to extricate it properly.
It felt odd in his hand, bursts of heat coming like an irregular pulse. Spider-web cracks fractured the words engraved in the shell, revealing an eerie gleam shining through the gaps.
He couldn't recall ever seeing Sol without it-he fought with it, bathed with it, slept with it-and he had often wondered about this attachment to such a bizarre and unwieldy accessory, but now he thought he had a fair idea as to its purpose.
"Looks damaged," he said, passing it to Sol, noticing how carefully his fingers closed around it.
"Broken," was the grave reply.
"Can you fix it?"
Sol turned to look at him, his eyes piercing. "Don't tell me you want me to fix it."
Ky blinked, taken aback by the sudden aggression in his tone. "Why wouldn't I?"
"You must've figured it out by now. It's what keeps me from turning into a slavering fanged monstrosity. You sure you want me to put my invisibility cloak back on?"
"I'm pretty sure you've never been and will never be 'invisible'," Ky said, rolling his eyes.
"Enemy in the ranks, boy scout."
"Enemy?" He frowned. "Don't be foolish."
"Cut the crap, Kiske. You know very well what a Gear in the Order could do. Don't tell me you're sentimental enough to-"
Ky's eyes narrowed. "I'd feel insulted if I thought you had any idea what you're talking about. Do you know how often I have to work around the fact that you'll do some half-baked stunt whenever it suits your fancy? That if I give you a platoon or ten, I might get a life sign, never mind a proper report, sometime between maybe and never? Do you know how many times I've had to outright lie for you so you wouldn't end up court-martialed or the Lord knows what else?
"My decisions have got nothing to do with sentimentality. And if I were as big an idiot as you seem to think I am, there are enough incidents a week to lock you up for the rest of your life, and none of them have even the slightest bit to do with your little 'secret'."
Taking a deep breath, Ky tried to calm down. Sol had remained silent, staring at him in a manner that could have been called dumbstruck on any other face.
"You… did make me wonder for a while," he continued, his voice growing quiet. "And then you made me wonder how you could think you were being stealthy. The possibility of you being a spy… held up all of two seconds. Not with Kliff vouching for you. Not with your track record. Then I thought… maybe you just didn't give a damn. Maybe you didn't care that I knew. Maybe it was some sort of dare. But now I find you honestly expected me not to notice."
Shaking his head, Ky resumed his work, pulling out shards as he went on.
"I had a lot of time to think, you know. Who you are, what that means for us. And by the time I was as certain as I could be without concrete proof… what was I supposed to do? It didn't change anything. You were doing your thing and somehow, that was saving lives. That's all I cared about. And I don't see how these things-" He rested a hand on the base of the healthy wing, which twitched in response. "-should change anything, either."
"You don't mean that."
"I don't?"
He wanted to smile, almost, at the decisive finality in that tone, as if any other option couldn't exist, wasn't allowed to exist. There was nothing funny about it, just a lingering kind of absurdity in the way Sol was trying to put up defenses against an attack that wasn't coming.
As if he had ever bought into the fire and brimstone sermons. As if he believed even a fraction of the things coming out of his own mouth during those speeches.
The soldiers needed speeches, needed a focus, because anything else would make them falter in a battle where the enemy wouldn't spare them. A battle where there was no room for anything but white and black, good and evil, God and devil. The simplicity was enough to comfort and strengthen a common soldier, but not for him. That kind of myopic vision was the path to true evil.
"A Gear is a Gear." Sol had turned away, discomfited with the direction the conversation had taken.
"And you are you. What's your point?"
"You should be afraid."
"You're… really not that scary," Ky said after a moment, thoughtfully. "I mean, you're a lot less scary than the giant octopede with the triple-decker jaw that tried to eat me just now. You smell about the same at the moment, though."
"…I think I liked you better when you had no idea what sarcasm is."
A small laugh escaped him. "That's more like it."
"More like what?"
"Like you."
-TBC-
----
A/N: And a few stereotypes got broken and left in the dust. :3 Many thanks to raging_tofu for the help. C&C is welcome and appreciated.
Authorial Tea and Cookies:
- Convenient timing is convenient.
- If there is one thing that's always baffled me, it's how Ky is persistently written as unaware, reacting completely shocked and betrayed upon uncovering Sol's identity. So I decided to go for a bit of variety. XD
- No, I will never, ever, accept that Flaming Barbecue Eva02 as Sol's true Gear form. I quite like the illustration Ishiwatari did for the 2004 artbook that depicts Sol in DI mode, so I went with that as the base. Ironically, Justice ended up being an unwilling pick-and-choose board for design ideas. *laughs*
- I always found embedded objects to be a slight hindrance to indestructability, since they'll still be there and causing pain even if the wound closes superficially. Nothing like a bullet or random shrapnel eating its way through your body.
<< Return to Part VIII? | Continue to Part X? >>
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Fandom: Guilty Gear
Part: 9/12
Characters: Sol, Ky
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: violence
Notes: Confrontation.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII
Three Degrees to the Right
Part IX
"…Sol?"
Ky stopped dead, squinting against the dust. Although the sounds of battle had faded a little while ago, it still hung thick in the air, the biting fumes making his eyes water.
Against the far end, he could barely make out the shape of the toppled Megadeath, unmoving… and a tall, dark silhouette, tense and very much alive, staring straight at him.
Waiting.
"You…"
The dark shape tensed even further, a threatening rustle resounding through the cavern like the movement of great wings.
Blinking away the sting, Ky found himself trying to make out the details, any sign of something familiar, but it was useless. The Gear was a shadow among shadows, only discernible by the tattered white remains of the uniform that were clinging to its body, slowly darkening as they became soaked with blood.
It did not move, so Ky forced himself not to move, either, silencing the instinct that was screaming at him to fight, to strike before the creature could recover-
He's /not/ a creature.
It was easy, he realized, so very easy to depersonalize what one couldn't understand, the mind so eager to label, to categorize, to judge, to call one thing "human" and the other "less than" in an almost desperate effort to assert itself as something better and worthier.
Ky hadn't been afraid of Gears since his parents' death.
Back then, he had gathered all that fear, despair and anger and transformed them, turned them into determination, because anything else would have meant giving up. He had never been afraid of dying, staring down the nightmares sent to greet him because it was his duty, but now he found there was another fear, so deeply ingrained as to almost be invisible…
Man's inherent fear of the Other.
"Sol, you… I… I'm afraid it broke your sword, Sol. But… I guess you didn't need that."
He was sounding ridiculous even to his own ears, talking about something so irrelevant, repeating the other man's name as if to connect the alien silhouette in front of him to the person he had known, as if to remind Sol who he was, and who was speaking to him.
It was beyond foolish, really-he knew he wouldn't have more than a split second to regret it if Sol took it badly, if he had indeed lost his mind.
He had no idea, after all, what it was that had kept Sol safe from being controlled, what had kept him on their side, whether it had been the human shape, or-
Listen to yourself. You're doing it again. That Gear, Testament… he looks human, and he's still with Justice, even though he used to be… even though Kliff said…
He shook his head.
This was the man who had saved his life mere minutes ago. Who had been fighting at his side for all those months. The man who had dug him out of the rubble of a ruined white city with the strangest expression on his face and had carried him back because he'd been too injured to walk by himself. To believe that all of this was gone…
I can't. I already knew… when I said I trusted him that day, I already knew. I made that decision a long time ago, and I will /not/ go back on it.
He took a slow step forward.
A warning growl met his advance, a deep rumbling sound that echoed along the walls until it sounded like the hounds of hell were lurking in the dark recesses, waiting to pounce. Sol shifted, claws scraping across the gravel, taking an equally slow step back.
Another step.
The growl came again, this time more quietly, as Sol continued to edge away, and Ky realized then that he was not preparing to attack, but hoping to move out of sight, to simply melt into the gloom and disappear.
That made the decision easy.
I'm not going to let you run.
The Furaiken activated with a sharp crackle.
He didn't miss Sol's flinch, claws flexing in response-a mirror to that small, irrational part of himself that was insisting on "creature" and "threat", the part that wanted to clench around the hilt of his sword and not let go.
Wrestling that part into submission was more difficult than he would have liked; slowly lowering the Furaiken, pushing its tip into the ground, his fingers surprisingly reluctant to withdraw.
The flickering lightning brightened, spreading a circle of soft blue light that revealed what the shadows had been hiding from sight.
Sol had frozen, every muscle coiled tight like a spring.
He looked like something from an ancient, superstitious tome brought to life, and for a second, Ky couldn't help but wonder if that had truly been the case, some twisted mind purposely engineering the appearance of a demon.
Most of his body was covered in a black carapace, smooth plating merging seamlessly with equally dark skin. A lizard-like tail was curling between his legs, hands and feet curving into razor-sharp claws, jagged wings rising from his back.
There was no part that wasn't designed to inflict or withstand deadly damage, but in contrast to that living fortress were the injuries, blood gleaming wetly against the plating, leaking from countless wounds. Splinters of rock and iron bars were lodged in his legs and torso, his right side split open by a blow that would have torn an ordinary man in two. One of the wings was dragging limply on the ground, part of the creature's tail spike sticking out of his shoulder like a grotesque harpoon.
"Looks like that thing got you good, huh," Ky said softly, trying to assess the extent of the damage and wondering where one was supposed set the "badly hurt" mark for Gears. Here seemed like a pretty good place to start. "I've got a kit here. It probably won't do much, but… let me help you."
There was no reply, and not for the first time, he had to wonder whether Sol could even answer him like this.
It seemed so pitiful that the only thing he had to rely on was information about the enemy-one who still looked human by design, and one whose words were recorded only in legends. At least, Sol was staying put, those red eyes glaring at him from underneath the bony ridge… studying him, weighing him.
"I don't want to fight you."
Leaving the Furaiken behind, he came closer, measured step after measured step.
He'd never pictured himself pleading with Sol, of all people, but there was little else he could do if he didn't want it to end with one or both of them dead. At this rate, it would sooner be Sol than him, from the way he was struggling to hold himself upright, his wounded leg trying to buckle under the strain.
"Just…"
Another growl came as he approached, the healthy wing rising like a bird of prey's, the injured one twisting in the folds of skin with a sickening crunch.
"…It doesn't matter what I say, does it." Ky shrugged helplessly. "I can't promise you anything you'll believe, and I can't give you any other guarantee except that my sword is over there, and I'm all the way over here."
Again, there was no answer, just the soft pitter-pat of the blood, pooling on the ground in ever-widening puddles.
"Please."
----
Getting involved with the Order had posed a certain risk.
When Kliff had first approached him for help, Sol had carefully weighed his options. He preferred working alone. Organizations had the tendency to draw in all the idiocy, the prejudices, the incompetence, working on a collective IQ that was barely above room temperature. And the church? That had seemed like a hoot. As if the 20th century hadn't taught him anything about holy wars.
But working on his own hadn't exactly gotten him anywhere. Every place was a ruin or a battlefield, no way for him to find what he was looking for, no way to weed out the root of the problem. And there had been something else, too-the certain feeling that the old man might've had an inkling about whom he was asking, but was willing to take the chance anyway, because there was no other choice.
This way, they both got what they wanted.
Hiding in plain sight was easier than it should have been because Kliff was insane and didn't care, and the soldiers were content not to ask any questions of the man clambering out of a Gear's jaws without so much as a scratch, if he was the reason they would live to see another day.
The kid would have been a problem because he was smart and not afraid of death, but he was a type Sol knew very well-black and white was all his world consisted of, and what didn't suit his conceptions of reality couldn't be true.
Now, Sol could even admit that a part of him hadn't been serious about this tightrope act, a part of him had seen it as a game to test how far he could go, had taken pleasure in tempting fate and getting away with it every time.
That's just like you, though. Always playing with fire, and being surprised when it blows up in your face. Don't tell me you've /forgotten/ what happened the last time.
Whatever he might have been able to convince the kid of before was meaningless, wasted; he only owed it to shock that Ky wasn't already trying to slice him to ribbons.
That left him a precious few seconds to try and get himself out of this mess.
With his body protesting just at being made to stand, he wouldn't been able to outrun Ky, and even if he managed that, there would be no way of evading the hundreds of soldiers aboveground. There was only one way to buy enough time to rest and search for the limiter, only one way to ensure his escape.
Oh yes, go ahead. What an efficient solution. You wouldn't even have to lie about it. These things happen in a war, after all. Who knows, with a bit of time, you might even forget the look on his face, when he pays for /your/ mistake-
The snap-crackle of the Furaiken almost made him jump, but the glow filling the chamber was not from an incoming lightning spell.
The kid was looking calm, almost unfazed, and Sol was half-wondering whether the shock had gotten to him harder than he'd thought, when Ky simply stuck the sword in the ground, pushing the entire situation even further into the realm of the unreal.
Is he mad?!
There should have been fury, betrayal, hatred, anything, but not-
"Please."
The word crashed through his thoughts with the force of a tank, its sheer absurdity scattering his inner argument.
"…You…"
Ky didn't even flinch at his voice, a look of elation spreading across his face. "So you do understand me! Could you come over here, please? I'll need some more light if I want to get all these things out of you."
"…What?"
Sol was pretty sure he should have been doing something to get the hell away, or at least saying something longer than one syllable, but his mind was still stuck on the fact that they weren't just not on the same page, they were reading different scripts altogether.
"I'm-"
"Hurt, yes. At least let me take care of the shrapnel. I have no idea about Gear physiology, but I've seen you walk off all kinds of things, and if those wounds close…"
There was that.
From a pragmatic standpoint, he should have been worrying about that, as he could already feel his body beginning to repair itself, the flow of blood ebbing away despite the foreign objects stuck in his flesh. The rest of him, though, was still trying to wrap itself around the fact that Ky was utterly serious, working to untie the pack with emergency supplies from his belt and apparently not seeing anything wrong with whom he was trying to patch up.
At his prolonged silence, Ky shook his head, the ghost of a smile darting across his features. "I know you said it'd be a cold day in hell before you'd rely on me, but we're underground in Moscow. I'd say that counts."
---
After what seemed like an eternity, Sol finally shifted, approaching cautiously as if Ky were the one capable of rending him limb from limb.
His steps were slow and heavy, his right side dragging oddly, which left him balancing most of his weight on the injured left leg. Wordlessly, he agreed to let himself be led to a pile of rubble, but when he came to sit down, his legs simply gave out, sending him lurching forward.
The simultaneous sound of cracking rock and bones echoed through the cavern, the impact of more than four-hundred pounds of armored Gear too much for even the slab of concrete to take.
"Are you alright?"
A frustrated snarl met his question, Sol struggling to right himself.
Sitting down, he was still almost at eye level, and this was the first time Ky managed to get a good look at his face-the layers of black, bony plating transforming his features, curving back from his skull in spines. The mark on his forehead was glowing dully, its angular etchings gleaming like the seal of a curse.
His eyes were the only familiar part, that red gaze flickering between bewilderment and fierce suspicion.
"…I'll just get started."
Again, he received no response, so Ky shrugged and went to work, tearing up sheets of gauze to apply to the gaping wound in Sol's side. It would at least staunch the blood flow for the time being, the entire torso a coagulating mess.
He had no idea what to do about possible internal injuries, broken ribs being the least of problems-he had no healing spells at his disposal, and not the slightest idea of what to look out for, anyway. All he could do was take care of what he could see, and hope the Gears' natural regenerative powers would be enough to help with the rest.
A sudden movement caught the corner of his eye, and when he turned to the shoulder, he noticed that the remains of the harpoon tail were still wriggling, squirming to dig deeper into the flesh as if driven by a mind of their own. When he reached out to pull the tail end free, Sol drew back.
"Poison." His voice was a throaty growl. "Don't cut yourself."
"Poison?" Ky exclaimed. "Is it-"
"Not lethal… for me. Affects the nervous system. Just get out of the way."
Before Ky could stop him, he reached over with his good arm, ripping the spike clean out of his shoulder. It landed somewhere to the left with a bony clunk, blood splattering everywhere.
"Are you crazy?! The more vessels you damage-"
"It'll pass."
"Pass out, more likely," Ky returned, pressing down a bandage to stem the blood flow, and not missing the way Sol went rigid under his hands. "Hold this. It's a perforation, and you've just made it worse. I'll need to patch up your back."
The makeshift compress practically disappeared under the massive palm, claws the size of his own fingers passing by his face.
Ky straightened to tend to the back of Sol's shoulder, the strips of gauze looking pitiful against the black expanse. The skin felt foreign under his fingers, hard yet unexpectedly alive, radiating heat as if from a furnace hidden deep within. He had known it as the slow, steady warmth all fire users possessed, an inner hearth fire protecting them against any chill, but now it was almost a blaze, flaring hotly under his palm.
Pulling back, Ky turned to the wound in Sol's leg. The metal bar had pierced the flesh, a thin trickle of blood running down its length.
Cautiously, he reached down. The main artery seemed unharmed, as he was quite certain even Gears would experience significant blood loss in such a case, but he had to make sure.
"Sorry, I'll have to see whether-"
"It's fine." The other hand moved sluggishly, reaching for the metal bar.
"No way." Ky glared, pushing his arm out of the way, and pretending he couldn't feel the muscles jump at the contact. "I'm not going to watch you bleed yourself dry."
His only answer was a rumbling exhalation, a cross between a hiss and a sigh. If the mood hadn't been so tense, he might have been tempted to call it sulking, as much as Sol ever did sulk.
"We're going to do this in the way most likely to keep you conscious," he said, wadding rolls of gauze together and handing it to him. "Hold this down as soon as I get the thing out. It won't help much, but I don't see another way to do this."
Closing both hands around the rod and pulling, his efforts were only rewarded with an ugly wet noise. Sol's claws were digging into the rubble, wood and rock cracking under his hands, the bar wedged in so tightly that it made Ky fear it might have become welded to the flesh. As he shifted his weight, it began to move minutely, twisting outward like a corkscrew. All of a sudden, it gave completely, almost sending Ky stumbling backwards.
Tossing it aside, he dropped to his knees, pressing another ball of gauze to the underside of the gaping wound. Next to him, the clawed hand shifted, and he was about to chide when he realized that Sol was trying to help for once, moving to hold both makeshift patches.
Wiping his bloodied hands on his thighs, Ky undid his own belt, pulling it tight around the wound. Not the best tourniquet in the world, but it would have to do.
"I'll have to take care of the smaller things now," he said, just to fill the silence.
Although it was far from the first time he'd attempted to dress the other man's wounds, each time had warranted a heated argument. And while he was grateful that Sol had stopped being blockheaded for the moment, it was disconcerting to have him so quiet, without any snappish mockery along the lines of "nurse Kiske."
Reaching down, he pulled the boot knife from its sheath and held it out to Sol, who went rigid again.
"Fire, please. And stop tensing up so much, you'll just draw them in deeper."
"It's fine, you don't need to-"
"Fire," he ordered, absolutely not in the mood for any acts of stoicism. This complete disregard for one's own health and well-being was something he just couldn't understand, that Sol would sooner bleed all over himself than get basic medical attention. "I don't care that you can't get an infection, I'm not going to use an unsanitary knife on you."
Sol growled, but obeyed, a small flame kindling around the blade, dancing momentarily before dying down again.
"This might hurt a bit."
Silence again, and Sol barely even twitched as he went to work, digging out the shrapnel as gently as he could.
He didn't have nearly enough bandages to take care of everything, but it didn't matter. If he allowed his gaze to linger, Ky could observe the wounds closing slowly even as he was removing pieces of metal and stone, the flesh simply knitting itself back together, as if sewn up by an unseen hand. With a bit of time, he knew, there would be nothing left, not even a scar.
Sol's back was by far the part that was worst off-deep, tearing lacerations running down its length so broadly that there was hardly any skin left. The injured wing was dangling like pieces of a broken paper screen, a pitiful counterpart to the one that was folded up, hovering so as not to touch the injuries.
Wincing, Ky gingerly began to peel away the snarled clumps of hair and scraps of fabric that were sticking to the wounds, dirt and blood mixing and hardening into an unyielding crust.
A deep sigh, the entire torso heaving. "You really don't have to be so-"
"I know. But guess what?"
"You don't care."
"Exactly."
He continued pushing hair out of the way, the knife carefully scraping away the worst of the caked mess, until his fingers brushed against something hard.
"Oh."
The headband was held fast in a sticky net of strands, its torn straps and buckles entangled so tightly that he had to end up cutting a few to extricate it properly.
It felt odd in his hand, bursts of heat coming like an irregular pulse. Spider-web cracks fractured the words engraved in the shell, revealing an eerie gleam shining through the gaps.
He couldn't recall ever seeing Sol without it-he fought with it, bathed with it, slept with it-and he had often wondered about this attachment to such a bizarre and unwieldy accessory, but now he thought he had a fair idea as to its purpose.
"Looks damaged," he said, passing it to Sol, noticing how carefully his fingers closed around it.
"Broken," was the grave reply.
"Can you fix it?"
Sol turned to look at him, his eyes piercing. "Don't tell me you want me to fix it."
Ky blinked, taken aback by the sudden aggression in his tone. "Why wouldn't I?"
"You must've figured it out by now. It's what keeps me from turning into a slavering fanged monstrosity. You sure you want me to put my invisibility cloak back on?"
"I'm pretty sure you've never been and will never be 'invisible'," Ky said, rolling his eyes.
"Enemy in the ranks, boy scout."
"Enemy?" He frowned. "Don't be foolish."
"Cut the crap, Kiske. You know very well what a Gear in the Order could do. Don't tell me you're sentimental enough to-"
Ky's eyes narrowed. "I'd feel insulted if I thought you had any idea what you're talking about. Do you know how often I have to work around the fact that you'll do some half-baked stunt whenever it suits your fancy? That if I give you a platoon or ten, I might get a life sign, never mind a proper report, sometime between maybe and never? Do you know how many times I've had to outright lie for you so you wouldn't end up court-martialed or the Lord knows what else?
"My decisions have got nothing to do with sentimentality. And if I were as big an idiot as you seem to think I am, there are enough incidents a week to lock you up for the rest of your life, and none of them have even the slightest bit to do with your little 'secret'."
Taking a deep breath, Ky tried to calm down. Sol had remained silent, staring at him in a manner that could have been called dumbstruck on any other face.
"You… did make me wonder for a while," he continued, his voice growing quiet. "And then you made me wonder how you could think you were being stealthy. The possibility of you being a spy… held up all of two seconds. Not with Kliff vouching for you. Not with your track record. Then I thought… maybe you just didn't give a damn. Maybe you didn't care that I knew. Maybe it was some sort of dare. But now I find you honestly expected me not to notice."
Shaking his head, Ky resumed his work, pulling out shards as he went on.
"I had a lot of time to think, you know. Who you are, what that means for us. And by the time I was as certain as I could be without concrete proof… what was I supposed to do? It didn't change anything. You were doing your thing and somehow, that was saving lives. That's all I cared about. And I don't see how these things-" He rested a hand on the base of the healthy wing, which twitched in response. "-should change anything, either."
"You don't mean that."
"I don't?"
He wanted to smile, almost, at the decisive finality in that tone, as if any other option couldn't exist, wasn't allowed to exist. There was nothing funny about it, just a lingering kind of absurdity in the way Sol was trying to put up defenses against an attack that wasn't coming.
As if he had ever bought into the fire and brimstone sermons. As if he believed even a fraction of the things coming out of his own mouth during those speeches.
The soldiers needed speeches, needed a focus, because anything else would make them falter in a battle where the enemy wouldn't spare them. A battle where there was no room for anything but white and black, good and evil, God and devil. The simplicity was enough to comfort and strengthen a common soldier, but not for him. That kind of myopic vision was the path to true evil.
"A Gear is a Gear." Sol had turned away, discomfited with the direction the conversation had taken.
"And you are you. What's your point?"
"You should be afraid."
"You're… really not that scary," Ky said after a moment, thoughtfully. "I mean, you're a lot less scary than the giant octopede with the triple-decker jaw that tried to eat me just now. You smell about the same at the moment, though."
"…I think I liked you better when you had no idea what sarcasm is."
A small laugh escaped him. "That's more like it."
"More like what?"
"Like you."
-TBC-
----
A/N: And a few stereotypes got broken and left in the dust. :3 Many thanks to raging_tofu for the help. C&C is welcome and appreciated.
Authorial Tea and Cookies:
- Convenient timing is convenient.
- If there is one thing that's always baffled me, it's how Ky is persistently written as unaware, reacting completely shocked and betrayed upon uncovering Sol's identity. So I decided to go for a bit of variety. XD
- No, I will never, ever, accept that Flaming Barbecue Eva02 as Sol's true Gear form. I quite like the illustration Ishiwatari did for the 2004 artbook that depicts Sol in DI mode, so I went with that as the base. Ironically, Justice ended up being an unwilling pick-and-choose board for design ideas. *laughs*
- I always found embedded objects to be a slight hindrance to indestructability, since they'll still be there and causing pain even if the wound closes superficially. Nothing like a bullet or random shrapnel eating its way through your body.
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