Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Echo ❯ Cahpter III ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter Three

A creak came from the entrance door, a rattling to follow as she looked up, seeing her captor carrying a tray of bread and a glass of water with assorted other things. Setting the tray down on the dresser at her bedside, he went back to the foot of the bed and loosened the chain length to let her legs move. He forced to her sit upright as he took her shoulders and rested her back on the wall, unlocking one of her shackle cuffs with a key tied around his neck. He reached back and put the tray on her lap, going and sitting in the one and only chair in the room. All this, and he didn't say a word.

She gazed down as to what she was to consume--a small bread roll, a full glass of water, a little soup bowl, and two plain crackers. Katyenka stared back up at him, her eyes narrow.

"Is...this mine?" she asked.

"Of course it is. I wouldn't have set it all in your lap if it wasn't. And if you think your going to get anymore think twice. That is your one meal you will be receiving for today."

"Today...?"

"Yes today. I'm not stuttering," he bluntly pointed out, Katyenka looking back at it.

"No...it's just...It's funny. This is more food than what I've seen in a month..." She smiled half-heartedly, taking a bite out of the bread with her free hand.

"If you like I can shorten the rations," he replied.

She shook her head. "No, no! This is fine," she responded with a stuffed mouth.

"Then I will hear nothing more of it."

There was a pause, Katyenka glancing over to him every so often. He wore the same baggy black pants, or at least something similar to what he wore the other day, and a black shirt that had become faded in the sunlight. The belt around his waist was a bit to big and had to be tightened to its max, but also held a silver gun to his side, making the one side slouch slightly. She glared it down for a few moments as he stared out the barred window, wondering how far her arm would have to reach to be able to take it from him. As he smirked, however, she turned her eyes away, wondering if he saw her. He took the gun from his side, holding it out in front of him.

"I know what you were thinking, Katyenka Buskus. You were wondering how far you could reach to grab this gun away from me, weren't you?" he stated, Katyenka forcefully pushing her food down in one large gulp. "Except, you had a few flaws in these thoughts. First of all, what exactly would you do if you got it? I know you aren't very open minded in shooting someone, so what good would it do you then? And even if you managed the courage to pull the trigger there's always the thought of me stopping the bullet before it hits me. You see, in every which way stealing this gun wouldn't do you any good against me."

"Where did you get it?" she asked, trying to get off the subject. "I don't remember you having it yesterday..."

"Why yes, I didn't have it yesterday, did I? Well you should be happy to know it belongs to Vash the Stampede," he replied, her eyes widening as her head turned to look at him. "It was found in the desert, just after he was spotted heading this way."

"You mean...He's coming for me...?" She shook her head. "But why...? He knew my father but it doesn't make any sense. Why would that be so important for him to come and get me?"

"It's not," Legato answered. "There is something else about you and your family that he neglected to say before you were kidnapped. It concerns a woman named Rem. Rem Saverem."

"Rem Saverem..?" she repeated.

The minutes drifted slowly through time as Legato explained all he knew. How Rem was the mother figure to Vash and Knives, taking care of them even though they were a plants. This took a moment or so for Katyenka to digest, but eventually she understood why Vash appeared so young, yet when he had supposedly committed his crimes he had been that young. But he explained Knives had become twisted in hate towards humans and tried to have them all killed by crashing the ships carrying them into the planet's surface. Rem, however, managed to save the rest of the human race from plummeting by reversing the ships' trajectory to land safely. This did not save her, though, as her ship self-destructed a moment later, leaving both Knives and Vash to wander the world for the longest time. Knives still had his hate for humans, and Vash still had his utter bitterness towards his brother for killing Rem and the rest of the crew they traveled with. These years were spent at the expense of Vash's inner agony, remembering the words Rem spoke long ago and living strictly by them. He could not kill his brother, not even out of revenge, for a life was a life, and no one has the right to take that life.

In these years, Legato would say, did Knives create the gun he had in his hand along with another, naming them Ebony and Ivory. They were specifically made for Vash and Knives to use against humans, but when Vash refused he shot his brother in the leg and ran off with both. For years Vash was alone, traveling throughout the various towns and starting to love again the creatures Knives came to hate. He never gave up hope that there was someone he could tell Rem's story to, someone who knew her once and who would believe him. Eventually he came across a group of people still hovering above the sky, who still kept a database of all those who had been on the other ships. He knew that one of them had to have had some relation to Rem, and one did. Katyenka's father. But Knives knew of this long before Vash arrived in July, but the one thing neither of them knew was that Buskus had a family. It didn't matter, though, as Vash walked in and found that Knives had shot the man in the back of the head, sitting on the desk next to the corpse with a grin on his face. All that mattered was that Vash's heart was crushed, thinking that there was no one else to tell, no one else for him to find something of Rem left alive in his life. Vash got away again, but not without loosing an arm and carrying out the destruction of July under Knives's will with Ivory in hand.

"And that's why...why I'm so important? Why he's risking his life to find me...?" she asked with a quiver in her voice.

"Precisely," he replied. "But he is not coming alone. The time in July had passed, and since then Vash had come across many enemies that Millions Knives had sent to find him. He wondered if Vash had changed his mind, and if not would have him dead for the embarrassment he was causing to mingle amongst the likes of humans. Eventually they met in one final battle, and Vash was victorious. Abiding by his moral laws, however, he did not kill him, but rather took him back and possibly change his opinion about humans. Knives, after he had awoken from his unconsciousness, was too ashamed to challenge his brother again, and for a year it so remained. They avoid each other mostly, but every so often he would come out of his room to face the humans who lived there as well. You met them, I believe. Two women, one tall and outspoken, the other with black hair and a bit pestering towards Vash."

"Yes, I know them..." she said, trying to think if she had seen this 'Knives' character. And within a blink, she knew she had. She had seen him, and he had been standing five feet from her. "That man...That man who looked like Vash...He...He was the one who killed my father...?!"

"Yes...But it is of no importance at this time." Legato could see the anger rising within her, and he grinned because of it. She breathed through her gritted teeth, clenching the rest of the bread in her hand as he began to chuckle. "Why are you getting angry? There's no point at this particular moment."

"You told me this...to see me suffer, didn't you?" she began, gazing with narrow eyes towards him. "Didn't you?! I hate you...I hate you!" She threw the bread now molded into a ball at his feet, making him look down in surprise long enough for her to bash the metal tray on his head. She reached out to grab the gun, to knock him out on the back of the head with it and shoot her chains, but she came just short as he reached out and grabbed her neck. He hoisted her up and hit her head against the red brick wall, dangling her feet above the bed and glaring with a look of anger in his eyes. She hadn't seen this anger from him before, but as his gaze seemed to pierce through her soul she felt like she couldn't breathe anymore, with or without his hand around her throat.

"Hate is such a strong word, Katyenka Buskus, and you should not use it out of a simple disposition in a simple misconception. It is not that I wish to see you suffer it's just that it eases my own pain to see another person's heart break, although I know it will soon mend."

"How could you ever know when my heart mends?" she spat, Legato dropping her and stepping back.

"I know that it has been torn into pieces since the day you were born, but even if it is one fragment that breaks and mends again then there is no real harm done."

"...Something that's broken...can never really be the way it was again...can it?" she rasped, shaking her head as she hunched over to catch her breath.

His eyes twitched slightly, seeming to have an uncontrollable tic grinding away in his head as his eyes began to water. He could hear his heart beating faster and faster, throbbing in his head as her words began to take shape in a voice long forgotten in his memories. This is how it always began and the way it would hopefully end, in a whisper and a heartbeat. He walked out as he shut the door like the time before, without laying a finger on it. Katyenka just glanced after him, blinking slowly with the realization that he had not tied her up again, and decided she would wait for night to arrive to figure out a way to get out.

Later as the night blanketed the sky, the moon rose high in the iron barred window and all had become still in the outside halls, the lights turned off and Legato apparently asleep. Katyenka sat up in her bed, picking away at the rust on her other cuff to get loose. It would be a long process, but if she could not finish it before sunrise she would hide the hole by her side until tomorrow night.

She didn't know how long time had past, but after quite a bit of scraping with her thumb and thumbnail turning an orange color under the moonlight, she began to hear something. It sounded like a quiet groaning, like someone would do when having a bad dream. She stopped for a moment, pressing her ear against the wall and hearing it even clearer. It lasted for only a few more moments before it was replaced by a fearful and horrified scream, Katyenka jumping up and covering her ears. Silence drifted for a moment until she began to notice a soft crying, frustrated by the sound of it and heading towards anger. Squeaks moved across the floor with the opening of an outside door, a rattling of heavy objects being heard as Katyenka quickly turned herself on her side facing out, pretending that she was asleep just in case he came in.

In fact, her door did come open, a streak of light shining on her face as he entered quickly and shut the door inaudibly to make sure, to what he thought, she didn't arise. From his side the moonlight glinted, Legato's shaking hands seeming to act on their own. She kept her eyes tightly shut to make sure he didn't think she was awake, and because of this didn't know when he raised Ebony to her head, already armed. His eyes were wide as if filled with a pain he could no longer bare, and this was the only way to relieve it.

'It is her! She is the one who is causing these thoughts, these nightmares of mine!' he shouted in his head, his lips slowly coming apart and words beginning to form before he pulled the trigger. "She'll die...and the nightmares will die..."

Her eyes came wide to this, looking down the barrel of the gun. Her face turned sickeningly pale with terror, her mouth trembling as much as Legato was at this point. In a few silent moments of whether or not he would pull the trigger or not, he began shaking his head slowly, lessening his grip.

"No...Not again...Not again..." he whispered, unarming it and letting it clack on the wooden floor, falling to his knees and grabbing his head. Tears began to run down his cheeks, taking chunks of his hair and beginning to pull harshly on them. All Katyenka could do was sit there and shiver, staring down at him as he continued. "Bloodshed and death brings them on...and more bloodshed and death will only lead to even more pain..."

He looked up at her suddenly, his eyes glazed over with something she never thought she would see in him. From the once cold, hateful eyes he had, these were different, with one factor that gave her almost pity for him.

These eyes that stared up at her were fearful ones. Fearful of life. Fearful of death. Fearful of the uncontrollable misunderstandings that were in his own mind. The words that came from his throat right then made her stop and think for a moment. She couldn't help but to ask herself if wanting nothing but his memories was such a bad thing...

"Why...Please...Tell me why..." he rasped, a second of pause wandering before he stood, rushing out and slamming the door behind him.

The night was a sleepless one for both of them, Legato's sorrow soon short-lived with the embarrassment of revealing it to her, anger taking over as he shouted and threw glass bottles in the outside room. She listened to the shattering and winced every time, scared that he would come back to finish the job. She knew she couldn't stay there any longer, for no matter if she was fed generously or had a roof over her head this man was a psychopath, a loose cannon waiting to go off at any moment. Clawing and even biting at her shackles to get free, after a while she knew it was of no use; the iron was still too far intact for her to just breakthrough. Even though she was defeated well before, however, she continued to scrape until her nails became flat and her fingers began to turn red and sting. Soon enough, she could taste salt on her tongue, putting her hands over her face as she began to cry.

***

They did not see the likes of each other for days, but they knew of each others existence in the house. It wasn't like they could forget, but only to recall that day and remember that there was still the nagging reality of their being in the next room. No matter how much Legato tried to avoid it, he couldn't help but know that she was there for his memories, and evoking those thoughts only brought back the pain. Katyenka could not get away from this place even if she didn't want to, and it only became worse even if she didn't see him. She would wake up in the middle of the night by his screams of terror, those horrible cries that filled her with so much grief in the thought that any human being, even he, would have to bare such anguish. She couldn't even comprehend what he was dreaming about to wake up every night for weeks on end with the same heart wrenching yell, let alone how long he had been going through it. Though this is what she felt deep down, in her normal train of thought she could probably care less. She wanted out. All she could grasp at that time was getting out of that place, but she knew there was no way. Until he let her go, she would be there, alone and always fearing when and if he was ever going to return.

She never did see him, but one day as she awoke, she reached her arms up to stretch only to realize that the cuffs around her wrists were gone. Sitting up quickly, she curled her legs up under her, seeing that the chains that once confined her were now loose enough for her to run around the room twice. Her knees were still tied together, but the knot could be undone easily, Katyenka standing up and letting her legs get some feeling back into them. She looked around the floor, but didn't find the gun that Legato had dropped there a while ago, sighing in sadness that he had remember it.

A shine caught her eye, gazing over to find a metal tray sitting on the dresser with a glass of water, a loaf of bread, and a small bowl of soup. There was also a note on a piece of crumpled paper, a message writing in blue ink which read, 'Take this as a sign of my apologies'. She raised an eyebrow, curious as to why he would apologize in the first place, but her stomach told her to stop thinking and to start eating. Within minutes she had consumed all of it, resting for a moment in inhale air and not food.

As her stomach turned a few minutes later, she remembered that 'other things' came with eating. Luckily there was a door located on the other wall besides for the entrance, Katyenka giving a sigh of relief when she ran over and saw it was a bathroom. It looked like it hadn't been used in years, with dust collecting on the floor, the sink and tub spouts rusted over, dark and with no windows, but so long as it was there it was best to use it while she could. Her digestive tract turned harshly again, and without another thought rushed in and shut the door behind her.

Later in the day, she discovered that the entrance door was locked and she would have to wait patiently and silently with the tray in her hand until someone came to make an escape. It wasn't like she didn't have any time on her hands; with a full stomach and more energy than she had had in a long time, she could wait without sleep for days. But she wouldn't have to wait days, for as the sun was just setting beyond the horizon, with an orange glow cascading over her in the corner, the door opened as she stood behind it. Legato entered, and as she tried to reach out and hit him over the head, she felt her muscles tighten, her limbs locking up before she could strike the blow. Shutting the door, he swiveled on his feet to face her, as if all this time he knew she had been standing there.

"I see you received your food," he said calmly, taking the tray from out of her hands and placing it over on the dresser.

When Katyenka felt her paralyzed state dwindle, she raced for the door, turning and pulling at the handle to get out, but finding it locked. Yet she persisted, shouting and banging her shoulder to break it down, though it was to no avail. Legato knew this but let her continue as he took a seat in the chair, staring down at the floor for a time. This went on for two or three minutes before he glanced up at her, yelling over her noise.

"When are you going to give that up?" he asked, Katyenka stopping as she slid to the floor with her hands on the door, shaking her head.

"Never...I'll never give up." She flipped over, her legs under her. She stared at him fiercely as she continued. "You're deranged, you know that, right?"

He smiled, tipping his head towards her. "Charmed. Really." He sat up and twisted his chair under him, facing her and casting a shadow in her eyes from the sunset outside. "But before you do leave, wouldn't you like to know why you're here? Why I am being so kind to you, maybe?"

She nodded her head slowly, fixing her gaze to him as he spoke.

"Your voice. It is...something in your voice that is stirring these thoughts of mine. For the longest time I could control my nightmares, but after that day when I hurt you I haven't gotten one restful night's sleep."

She smirked half-heartedly. "Yeah... I know..."

"Then you know this isn't any good for either of us. That is why I have taken steps to repair that. I thought that instead of avoiding the problem I could try to be nicer, that maybe if you were at least slightly restful my dreams would be as well..."

"But why am I the cause?" she blurted out softly, shutting up in dread that he would snap back.

"I don't know why, but the nightmares from when they had no sound are now filled with screams of terror and dismay and your voice...brought that all to form. I don't know how to stop it but I thought that as my last resort maybe telling you...I thought that it might get rid of them." He shook his head as he laughed lowly in his throat, shrugging. "But that's not really what you wanted to know, now was it? You want to know why you're here, don't you? Well...my life is but a blur to me. All I can remember is the time I spent working for Millions Knives..."

Her eyes enlarged, disbelief filling her. "Y-you...worked for Knives? The same Knives..."

He nodded. "Yes. But I hadn't known him before your father died. To what I remember...Millions Knives took my memories away and gave me the ones he said were 'only necessary for achieving our goals'. That goal was destroying the human race. I don't know why I hated them, I just knew I did, and that everything Millions Knives said was right. I felt as if I were a puppet, being pulled along by strings without any free will or thought. The things I did...I can't explain. I didn't want to kill, I knew I didn't, but for some reason it came so easily, as if I were watching and someone else was doing the things I did. Eventually I was inside myself and I could no longer take the sin weighing on my shoulders. I wanted it to end so much that I stooped so low as to listening to Millions Knives, to make Vash suffer for all eternity...In which way, I would fulfill my wish in dying and make Vash responsible for it. Although, I knew that in death there would be something missing, something that I had lost and that I would just give up if I died by his hand. So I faked my death, by stopping Vash's bullet to the point where I would still live, but to where it would look real enough. This, however, lead to my understanding, to the unraveling of memories that he had missed. I lost some of the powers I had, some of the memories of what I had done in my service, but I received remembrances I never knew I had experienced. In this I knew that Millions Knives was the one who took my life away. I don't know how, I don't exactly know why, but I know it was him. I can see his face at the end of my nightmares, laughing...What every other memory means, though, I do not know. I see people, happy and carefree. I see myself in reflections in the exact same way. Then I see her...the woman who's face I cannot see. I see her sitting in an alleyway, then I see her laughing in a dusty house, then on a porch, then in my arms...But, in all this happiness, my good dream ends, turning to darkness." He looked down at his hands, as if in his dreams then. "I see blood on my hands, and I see the same jolly people staring down with eyes of distain. As I gaze down, I see the woman I once knew now lying there in a pool of blood. I can see her smiling lips and the handprint I leave on her face as her head falls back onto the cracked ground. Then all is dark and I hear the screams, only to open my eyes to find a field...and field of bodies with guns lying in their hands..."

He looked up at her, only to find her shaking, tearing at the eyes. It was not easy for her to say cold when all that he said was actually his life, in his nightmares. Legato stood, blinking slowly.

"This is my life, my memories and my nightmare. Hopefully by telling you this it may get us some sleep," he chuckled, Katyenka only continuing to stare. He waved his hand, Katyenka feeling like she was lightly being lifted and helped over as her feet moved by themselves over to the bed. She sat down, Legato walking over the door without another word.

The thought of escape past her mind right then as he unlocked the door and opened it, one final question to be asked from her mouth. "Wait! So...you were hurt by him too?"

He gaped back, replying, "Countless people have been hurt by him, Katyenka Buskus. But at least we have that much in common." He smiled and turned away, closing and locking the door behind him.

There was no disturbance that night, no scream to be heard and no cries to follow. Only the peaceful sound of the wind and the beautiful moonlight shinning through the windows. Katyenka couldn't sleep that night, mostly for the fact that she didn't want to wake up and be scared out of her skin. But as the night lingered, she could faintly hear the sound of laughter coming from the next room, and gave her the reassurance that maybe a peaceful night's sleep was possible after all...