Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Into The Void ❯ Reminiscence ( Chapter 17 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: MellyN

XxXx

Into the Void

Chapter 17: Reminiscence

By: Melissa Norvell

XxXx

Everyone was awake in the morning. They were sitting around in the main room that Ryouzonia was usually in. Everyone had also seemed relatively quiet until Rubio and Valentino woke up. They walked into the room and a conversation broke out between every one. Rubio said his good morning and Valentino told him good morning in return.

They were being unusually friendly towards each other and this caused Sari to do a double take. "Did you guys just…talk to each other?" She asked in a surprised voice.

"Don't we always?" Rubio questioned. It wasn't as if he didn't ever talk to Valentino.

"Not nicely, okay did you guys take drugs last night or something?"

"Maybe they kissed and made up?" Vincent asked in a playful voice as he puckered his lips and made kissing noises towards the two men, continuing to insinuate their homosexuality.

Rubio turned his back to the bounty hunter and blushed to himself and the assassin simply looked to the side, blushing as well. Sari gave them a strange look and told them that they were acting weird as Vincent spied Agata and Ionna sitting across the room and decided to make himself known. He popped in between the women and tried to pull off his most dashing look. "Anyone going to say good morning to me?"

"No," Agata turned her gaze away from him.

"Good morning," Ionna greeted him with a kind smile, but Vincent completely shoved her advance off by pretending to cry and whining about how no one said good morning to him. The dark-haired girl simply got up and left a sorrowful look on her face.

"Man, you stink at women,” Sari stated.

"Huh?" The clueless bounty hunter questioned.

"She just left you, stupid."

"Who? Agata's over there," he jerked a finger in the direction of the lieutenant.

The spunky, aqua-haired girl then jumped over the table and began to beat him up; beyond angry at the way he had just treated Valentino's twin sister. No one acted that way and got away with it! "You stupid jerk!" She shouted at the top of her lungs in anger.

"I bet Valentino is better at it than you and he has no social skills," Agata commented.

"I've had four girlfriends," the assassin informed.

"What happened to them, did they meet you at a cliff and jump right off?" Vincent sardonically told him with a chuckled as the assassin's eyes widened slightly. It was as if he'd been hurt or offended at his sarcastic remark.

"What?" The bounty hunter was a little confused at his facial expression.

Even Rubio looked at him as if he couldn't believe that he'd uttered that question. Then again, he had taken some time to get to know the other man. Before Vincent could blink, he was given a harsh upper cut to the stomach and shoved against the nearest wall. The brown-haired man coughed up a bit of spit.

"How dare you speak of things that you have no idea of," Valentino's words were cold and harsh as he walked off silently, leaving the other male to slide down the wall in pain.

"What's going on?" Ryouzonia walked in to question. She had heard the thump from their altercation earlier and wondered what was going on.

"Wow…" Sari looked dumbfounded that Valentino had actually done something instead of just letting himself be walked on. "Vincent said something to really offend Valentino…"

"He probably deserved it," Agata noted. If the assassin had been angry enough to strike him, then undoubtedly Vincent deserved it, seeing as Valentino was the kindest in ways of that nature. More times than not he would have simply let people walk away from him at comments similar but that one in specific seemed to strike a chord in him.

As the angry assassin walked by Yaritza, she grabbed the corner of his cape in an attempt to stop him. "Hey, tell us what's up."

"Please, let me go."

"Come on, I don't know anything about you," the ninja begged.

"Yeah Valentino, please tell us," Sari agreed.

"It hurts me," his answer was simple.

"I didn't hear about your fourth girlfriend," Rubio spoke up.

The assassin looked at him for a few minutes. He knew that Rubio was trying to get him to expel information to everyone about his past. It was true, until this point no one had known anything about him. Perhaps it was time to let them know. "Fine," he agreed and walked over to the kitchen table, taking a seat.

Rubio sat beside of him. Everyone took seats at the table and gathered around to listen to what he had to say. Vincent sat away from him at the end of the table. He figured he was safe staying away from him at the moment.

"Fine, I'll tell you about the last girlfriend I had," Valentino began to explain. "When I was fifteen, I worked under the branch of the terrorist army known as the Dark Renegade Assassins."

"Hey wait…" Sari interrupted. "Zidane is one of them, isn't he?"

"So is Udo…" Loreli sat down across from Rubio and Valentino, "Zidane is head of the Interrogation Corps. and Udo is both General and Assassin."

"Correct," the assassin confirmed. "Perhaps you can give us a description, Loreli."

"Right, the DRA or Dark Renegade Assassins were formed by Reiji Zidane. These terrorists are the most sadistic and lethal killers. They're mean and animalistic, on the verge of not being human at all. They are just machines.

They were the strongest and best. Only the elite. At times they worked along with the scientists because they were also intelligent. They helped perform experiments and develop new types of chemical warfare. My girlfriend at the time was part of the Dark Renegade Assassination team. The team of scientists preformed studies of a cave region, which was believed to harbor a deadly virus which killed millions in ancient times. The virus was found. Scientists believe that this virus could warp and mutate the skeletal structure of the body, twisting the bones into horrible positions and eventually turning the human body into a mass of disarray. Death was eventual. It was a slow and painful disease," Valentino informed. "The head of this project was an old scientist named Professor Gaiga. He attempted to make multiple copies of the virus and distribute it in bombs. His assistants were two young scientists named Reichi Niwa and Hisahiru Urawata. I met my girlfriend there. Her name was Tsukiyama Tomoe." He reminisced as vivid imagery sprung fourth into his mind as he recalled the events of that part of his life.

"Excuse me," a young Valentino said as he approached a beautiful girl with long hair pulled into a ponytail by a large, loose ribbon. Her hair was a slate blue and her ponytail only reached to the beginning of her neck. Her hair was parted down the middle and long bangs hung down either side of her face. She had slanted eyes with long, full lashes and was small framed.

She wore a tightly fitting shirt that literally had belts for straps that crossed in the back. A cloth belt adorned her waist and she wore along skirt with slits up both sides and knee socks with no feet. They were more like leggings. Her gloves were long and black. She also wore two straps around her biceps a few feet up from her gloves. She turned to him and answered his statement.

"I've admired you for some time and I was wondering…would you go out with me?" Valentino asked the beautiful young woman in front of him.

"You're Valerio Valentino, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Sure, I'll go out with you. You're so sweet and cute," the girl smiled kindly at him and the man smiled in turn. "Meet me in town, out by the restaurant." She then winked at him. "I'll be there."

The man agreed.

They met at the restaurant as they told each other they would. The two of them stood side-by-side and the female asked if he wanted to go in and eat. Valentino agreed to, besides that was the purpose in which they were there. They chose a table and ordered some food. Upon eating it they became engaged in conversation.

She started off by telling him that the assassination business was a real drag. The girl sighed and slumped back in her chair, after all it was tiring being a part of an organization like the Dark Renegade Assassins.

"I wonder how Professor Gaiga is going to use that new discovery," Valentino mused out loud.

"Probably to make bombs and use a room full of his own troops to test them out on. Probably the rookies who show no promise, man, sucks to be then. They seem to be real guinea pigs now-a-days," she told him.

"I feel sorry for them."

"Me too, I hope we don't have to worry about being volunteers," the female assassin replied, worry crossed her features at her own remark. There was nothing worse than being subjected to that horrible disease. It was no way for anyone to die.

Valentino's silence agreed as he thought of the horrible outcomes for the two of them if subjected to that virus.

"I hate being under Ibuki's control."

"Being of this form, I'm Ibuki-sama's creation. This slave and puppet. That control isn't his to take so I plan on taking it back. You're my only hope of that."

"Maybe we can help each other," the girl smiled hopefully at him. "I'm miserable there too. I just want to get out. I never believed that the life you had before this or after your employment here was the one you wanted. You really didn't have a choice. You did what you had to do in order to survive. To be a part of something. I want to help you find that something."

"I'd like to assist you as well. In any way I can. I love you, Tomoe," Valentino told her.

"I love you too, Valentino. We can pull through this together, believe it," Tomoe gave him a pleasant smile that she hoped would spark some sort of hope in the downtrodden man. He simply nodded in agreement and it was all the answer she really needed.

"As time passed our relationship grew and flourished. We began to get more serious into the relationship and we became engaged a year after that instant. There were several experiments conducted on the intense study and duplication of this virus," the assassin continued as he caught glimpse of Agata listening intently to his story. "By the time we were engaged, they were almost ready enough to conduct the final testing on a human subject. All of the Dark Renegade Assassins both feared and were interested by this. We got to see if their work paid off but we pitied the unknowing fool to be the test vessel for such a virus. At the time of preparation for a test subject to come up, something happened."

Tomoe ran down the hall with a bright smile on her face. This had indeed been the happiest time in her life and she couldn't wait to tell Valentino the great news. She finally seen him at the end of the hall and called out to him, "Valentino, I have great news!"

Valentino had been talking to another female assassin named Yutsuko. She wore a loose headband, had short black hair and green eyes and was dressed in a short skirt, sleeveless top and long scarf. Her attire had belts made in to it which were across the front of her shirt and skirt. The two of them turned to her in question.

"I'm pregnant!" Tomoe exclaimed out of breath from her run.

"Really?" Her boyfriend asked, his eyes widened in surprise.

"Yes, I'm going to have a baby!" She told him as he laid his hand gently upon the small bump on her stomach.

"My child…"

"Our child…"

Yutsuko congratulated the two of them and told them that she would go and spread the word to everyone they knew. This truly was good news for the happy couple. She took off down the hall to spread the news and saw Udo and Loreli standing in the center of the hall ahead. They were engaged in conversation. "Hey you guys! Guess what?" She called out as Loreli answered her question with a question. "Valentino's going to be a father!"

"He's only sixteen. Makes me feel like an old man and I'm only twenty-four," Udo sighed. "No kids yet…" He then looked at the woman standing beside of him. "It would be nice to have kids someday…don't you think?"

"Yes, give him our best wishes and Tomoe too," Loreli told the spunky girl, who agreed as she ran off to tell more people.

Later, Tomoe spoke to Zidane and Shigeki about her pregnancy. She asked them if they thought that it was wonderful. Esta, who just walked up questioned her on what she'd just said. She wanted to know what was going on and if it was good news then she was more than fine with it.

"A kid huh? Pretty interesting concept. You'd better hope that Ibuki doesn't get a hold of him or her. They'll be living your life all over again," Zidane told her in a grave tone. He felt sorry for the child; though he knew nothing could be done now.

Tomoe put a hand on her stomach and looked worried. "I know."

"When will this child be due?" Shigeki asked.

"I'm only three months pregnant. I have six months to go. I'll be sure to let each of you hold it," she told them kindly.

"That's might nice of you Tomoe, but you should really let Valentino hold it first," the scar-faced man told her.

"Of course, I meant after him silly."

Shigeki was silent and looked lost in thought. Esta looked at him in question but got no answer.

"He might not want to let it go," Zidane joked to her.

"I know, he doesn't have much to hang on to now a days," Tomoe commented as Shigkei closed his eyes and smirked darkly. Truly he was hatching some scheme that would result in the child's downfall.

"Several months passed and they took several test subjects. Some prisoners and some of their own men and put them in chambers, blasting them with the virus and taking a study of their reactions. They found that there were several symptoms- if you were young, you aged rapidly, you were prone to delirium and paranoid delusions, you became disorientated, extremely violent and crazy," Valentino informed. "It was cruel. The victims suffered for days before their bodies twisted out of shape and you could hear their pained cries from the chambers. It's a horrible thing to watch someone's body twist into unnatural position, not quite killing them only making them suffer."

"That's messed up!" Sari stood in anger and slammed her fist on the table. "How can they do that to human beings!?!"

"That makes me hurt more then I already do just thinking about it," Vincent said.

"What about Tomoe and your child?" Rubio's face wore one of concern for the two innocent people who were involved.

The assassin was silent and simply wore a stern look on his face. He looked as if he had great difficulty even trying to say something like this.

"That's…just inhumane…Man, that's wrong…" Agata could barely form words. She didn't even have to hear him speak. An evil premonition over came her.

"Despite testing five dogs, ten mice, two cats and three birds with all of the symptoms coming back the same, they had to test humans to get the feel of battle and to kill their blood lust. They tested 150 people of all different ages, monitoring results. Then there was a job call for a five man squad of Dark Renegade members. They were called to duty as followed: Reiji Zidane, Sakuyaha Loreli, Rouma Udo, Aburame Yutsuko and I. We were gone for three weeks. When I came back I thought there would be some sort of happiness for me. My child had been born in that length of time. I was anxious to see him."

Tomoe ran to Valentino in distress. "Please…help…" She cried as her tattered and torn form finally reached her boyfriend and father of her child.

"Tomoe…What's wrong? What happened?" The red-eyed man looked to the staggering woman before him as she put a hand on his chest.

"I tried to save him but I could…I'm so sorry…" Tomoe began to cry hysterically.

"What are you talking about?" Valentino grabbed her shoulders firmly and shook her a little in order to try and snap her into coherency. "Tomoe…What's wrong?"

"Don't worry about me…You've got to hurry and stop Dr. Gaiga and Shigeki…they took him and….they're going to expose him to that virus…" Tears streamed down the suffering mother's face.

"What?"

"Please stop them…I tried but I have no strength left…Please save him…save Kajuji…Don't let them do this…" Tomoe weakly begged as Valentino bolted off down the hall, hoping that he would make it in time.

Zidane had been in the hall, talking to Esta at that moment in time. "These types of situations are always serious. I wish they'd hurry and get this testing done. I mean-" He was in the middle of explaining something to the woman when he was violently shoved out of the assassin's way as he made his way in between them.

Esta called out 'hey' as she was shoved so hard she lost her footing and fell on the ground. "Hey! Watch it, Valentino!" She fumed.

"What the hell is up with him?"

"I have no idea," Esta told the bald man as they both saw Shigeki approaching them.

"I saw Valentino running down the hall…" He smiled darkly and confidently to himself.

"No joke? He just plowed right through us. Why was he running so fast anyway?" Esta looked down the hall in question.

"He must have found out," Shigeki said simply.

"Found out what?"

"His son was chosen to be one of the test subjects for the virus."

"You cold-blooded, evil, sad-"Zidane began but was cut off by the darker-skinned man.

"It was Ibuki-sama's orders," Shigeki told the scar-faced man before he was given a spiteful look as the Dark Renegade commander took off after him. As he caught up with the other man he saw that he was headed towards the testing room door and uttered the word 'no' to himself before getting in front of the door to stop him from opening it.

"Something's not right," Zidane told him gravely.

"Let me go! I have to get my son!" Valentino shouted at him. His voice was commanding and held mild disparity to it.

"Look, I know it's hard for you to comprehend but you can't go in there."

"Why not?" The red-clad man calmed down. He knew that Zidane usually had a good reason to stop him. This man was not his enemy.

"Look through the window of the door," Zidane commanded as the other male heeded his command and pressed his face to the glass. Within the testing chambers several scientists' bodies were strewn about, motionless on the floor. The assassin looked horrified as he set sights on the bodies before him.

"If we don't know how the virus is distributed, we can't go in there. It would be in their air. If we open these doors, then our bones are going to twist us in to pretzels.

"But…Where's my son?" Valentino could hear faint footsteps approaching them. A tanned hand reached out and opened the door. Zidane and Valentino's eyes widened as they tried to stop him. Zidane was shoved back and the assassin was flung into the door beside of him, his back hitting the door caused a loud banging noise to be emitted. Beneath him, he could feel the door give way as it opened. Valentino fell through it and he and Zidane flinched, expecting the worst…but nothing came.

"You fools, what did you take me for? Are you stupid?" Shigeki was a little offended that they thought he'd be so rash to infect the whole establishment.

"Oh, I forgot, I was too stupid to find the door. Maybe if Valentino and I put our heads together we could've found a way out…Oh and Valentino, remind me to breathe," Zidane remarked sarcastically. It wasn't like he knew that the room wasn't infected with the virus.

"You plowed into the door. You could have released that virus had it been airborne. You're the fool," Valentino commented. He didn't like having a scare like that, not to mention his son was about to be experimented on. He didn't

"Not for this experiment," Shigeki informed.

"What?"

"He used it in a large dosage injection."

The stoic man ran off. This was more serious than he had thought originally. Zidane looked fiercely at him.

"You're a prick, you know that?"

"It was Ibuki-sama's orders." No matter how many times he said that phrase, he held no sympathy to his voice.

"Don't try that with me. I know you talked him into agreeing. You just like to screw with people's lives. One of these days, someone's going to screw with yours."

Valentino tore through the rubbish in the chambers. The sifted through and tossed aside many objects in search for the son that he'd not even seen. For the sake of that small life he'd look until the ends of the earth to keep him from harm. Even though he searched as hard as he could and gave every chamber a thorough comb-over he could find no sign of his child.

Upon entering another room he spied a small figure standing among the dead bodies. It was the form of a small child who appeared to be about twelve in age. He had hair and a face similar to Valentino's except his hair was silver and eyes purple. His eyes were wild, like a heretic's as he looked at his father with an unstable gaze.

"Kajuji?"

At the sound of his name, the form looked rabid and grabbed a dead body from the ground, tearing its arm off and throwing it at his father. Valentino quickly dodged to the side and called out his name again.

"This is…punishment to be…I was unable to stop Professor Gaiga and Ibuki-sama…I can't let Kajuji get away…" His hand shook with the emotion he felt. The assassin was powerless to stop the events at hand. "But…I can't…but he's suffering…" He argued between what he thought was right and what he thought was wrong.

"Die!" The demonic child's voice called out as he threw hypodermic needles at his father, who dodged them yet again. He knew that the virus was inside and he wasn't about to get hit by something that deadly.

While he was dodging, his child uttered the phrase 'see you' and leapt out of the window, falling two stories into the open.

"No!" Valentino called out in frustration and dismay. Disappointed at himself he punched a hole in the wall with one swift blow. Tears ran down his face as he uttered two words, "my son," and ran his hands through his hair in distress.

A few hours after the incident the depressed man had witness his son jumping from a two story window he turned the corner to see his girlfriend on the ground, blood sprayed on the hard surface of the floor from her wound gushing it out. He knew that she was dying and barely clung to life. He picked her up as he fell to his knees and the tears that had dried soon returned to be shed again. "Why…Why does this happen?"

"I'm so sorry," he uttered after a silence passed. "Tomoe, I'm so sorry…I should never have loved you. This sin will be added to my list."

"And that's what happened," Valentino finished his explanation as the sorrowful memories soon left his mind.

"Wow…" Sari's eyes were brimmed with tears after hearing the tragic tale of the assassin's past. "That's really sad, Valentino." It was an over bearing feeling, almost as if she could feel the other man's pain.

"I know that Shigeki did that to him. That rat-ass bastard." Even talking of the incident now brought Zidane's blood to a low boil.

Vincent was literally in tears at the other end of the table. Faint crying and sniffling could be heard from his direction as he apologized to the assassin.

"You know what I'm afraid of?" Agata asked.

"You're reflection?" Sari cut in sarcastically in an attempt to lighten the situation.

Agata simply produced a sweat drop. "No…I'm afraid that Kajuji isn't dead."

"What?" The assassin looked at her in question. Surely the two story drop would have killed him, not to mention he was riddled with that virus. It had been years since he'd seen him. There was a very slim chance that he could even by alive at this point in time.

"What if they could take out specific attributes from the virus and create a symptom of insanity. Then inject it in to your son?"

"Either way, I'll have to kill him. If the virus was in him that long, it would multiply and become irreversible."

"Or it could grow back into the same virus and kill him anyway," Rubio noted. He knew how these experiments worked. "There's a slim chance he could be alive. One of the effects was growth. He grew from an infant to an eight year old in one day at such a rate that he'd be dead by now from aging rapidly."

"Either way, I don't think he's alive," Zidane agreed.

"Sorry about that Valentino. That's really too bad," Loreli looked at him with sympathy and compassion for his sorrow.

"It's my fault…I brought him in to the world, knowing of the possibility at hand."

"You can't say that you could have been truly prepared for that," Loreli exclaimed. "There's no way!"

"Yeah Valentino," Yaritza agreed. "Aren't you being hard on yourself?"

"It's the past and it's safe to assume he's dead," Zidane replied. "He'd be too unruly to handle and Ibuki would have killed him anyway. If he were alive we'd have already heard about it."

"True," Loreli agreed.

"You guys would know. You used to be in the Dark Renegade Squad," the ninja told them.

"I'm going to kill Shigeki myself. He's screwed too many people over." The bald man remarked, as if it were a personal vow to himself and Valentino.

"Save some for me. I've got to get him back for what he's done to me," Udo commented, standing in the doorway as the assassin got up and walked away from the group.

"I feel bad now. I didn't know that about him," Vincent looked down in shame. He had truly reaped what he'd sown and he regretted the cliff comment he'd made earlier.

"Know what?" Udo asked. He'd just entered the conversation and was confused as to what the group had been talking about.

"About Tomoe and Kajuji…" Zidane told him.

"I see…" Udo's voice dropped to a sympathetic tone. "That realty was shitty of him."

"I can only take so much of that-!!" Zidane rose from his seat as Hisamichi walked in and told everyone hello. "Bastard…"

"Whatever I did I'm sorry!" The red-head threw up his hands and a scared look crossed his face. It seemed like the bald man was angry at him for something. As soon as he walked into the room he was called a profanity.

"Not you, Shigeki."

"Oh, I never did like him much."

"I'm starving," Sari changed the subject before the scar-faced man became too unruly. "Let's cook something to eat and find out what we're going to do today since it got such a lovely start to it."

"I could go for that," Loreli agreed.

"Me too! I'm starving!" Hisamichi said. He didn't know what they were talking about before but he didn't think he wanted to ask. Some things were just better kept in the dark.

To Be Continued…