Part 2
Chapter Three
Weeping Flower
1
Settled at the corner of the counter, Gai poured himself a shotglass of whiskey and drank it down. As usual, the unpopular Bar Goldengate was pretty much empty. As usual, the Master was surly, the store had no pictures, and there were no flowers. But Billy Holiday was the background music playing there. The title was "Strange Fruit," a famous song about racial discrimination.
Once upon a time, many black people were murdered for no apparent reason. Their corpses hung from trees looking like so many fruits. That was what the song was about.
Tilting the glass slightly, Gai stared at the Whiskey bottle in front of him intently. If the door opened and someone came into the store, he would see their reflection in the glass. Every time someone came in, he studied the reflection intently until he was certain who they were... or were not. At last the master asked him from across the counter, "Who are you waiting for?"
"No one. Why..?" Gai responded.
"No reason. You just seem like you're expecting someone." Gai did not respond this time, except that one who knew him well would say he was disgruntled. The Master knew him more than anyone, but not well. So he mused, "Must be some kind of woman, to keep you dangling."
The slur to his manhood did the trick. "What's with you, Master? You talk too much today."
Gai was waiting for someone, all right. But it was no woman. It was Ryu.
A week had passed since the Bike-match. During the week Ryu had shown neither hide nor hair at the bar, and yet he seemed to be hovering on the edge of Gai's thoughts. Ryu, who had charged madly at the bulldozer to rescue him. And Gai had just run away and left him there. Now don't get the wrong impression. Gai had not lost one bit of sleep over it, nope, not at all. There was no reason, whatsoever, to regret his actions.
I never asked for your help, Gai was dying to stand up and say to him. And if he could say that, then Ryu's conduct would seem like so much immature, typical narcissistic heroism. On the other hand, Gai had to admit Ryu certainly was a fighter.
Even though he had run as far and fast as possible when the bulldozer had attacked, he was certain Ryu had survived. "He's the kind of guy who'll come out of anything without a scratch." Gai knew it was true. Ryu was surely the most determined person in the world. But Gai had won, and as per the promise, Ryu had not appeared even once since then.
But... but surely Ryu would not keep that promise. The peace of the world was at stake. Surely he would come again to beg Gai to join the group. "He'll come again, I know it." Gai actually wished for it. These days he was terribly unsettled. It was no longer enough. Ryu was the type of person who would throw his self away to live as a real warrior. Up to this moment Gai had no loyalty to anyone but himself. Which way of life was right? No. It wasn't a matter of right or wrong. Which way of life was natural for a man?
Gai really could not see what was going to happen yet. If you were a gambler you bet your chips, and if you lost them you were defeated. In this case, instead of cards you had to use your lifestyle. Instead of chips, you had to gamble with your soul.
The door opened. A single customer entered the shop. Gai set his bottle down and stared intently at it. The person reflected in the bottle stepped up behind him.
"Please come with me, Gai. There's something I want to show you," Ryu said.
2
People called it a desert. A traveler would be terrified... no one would dare step there. The desert baked under the scorching heat of the sun but the land itself was engulfed in the heat it emitted; even at the height of winter the air shimmered.
The heat was produced by the process of garbage rotting. Because the city incessantly shipped its waste out here, the garbage desert was wide. All kinds of junk was piled out here and the garbage desert extended all the way out to the horizon. There was no color, and no figures. A lot of the trash was all jumbled together until it melded. The colors and contours were impossible to distinguish. In this garbage desert there stood out only one enormous object.
In a desert, the shape of the land alters when the wind blows. But here, the land wriggled slowly. Every once in a while the land could not support the weight of the sediment atop it. Here and there would be a cave-in that swallowed up tons of garbage.
Of course no one could live here. No one except crows, that is. Crows and countless insects. The one exception was the youth. He lived here. He lived alone in the middle of the garbage desert. His golden skin shone and gleamed wetly amongst the garbage. When the television swallowed him up, it transformed him into a metal human being.
Like a snake's, the youth's eyeballs had no lids. Through those small black eyes, the youth stared into himself. He had lost all memory of having been a human. His memories were only a gloomy whirlpool of dark colors.
He scratched at his skin, here and there. Every time he scratched, maggots fell from his body. Some of his metal skin was melting and falling away in little green blobs. Small, nameless insects made nests in those lost bits. The youth was still alive. He struggled with his dulled senses in his dissolving body. His actions were very strange. He had no idea why he had to do what he was doing. He curled up in a poly-bucket. Then he crept out and dug himself into a mountain of kitchen garbage. He crept out of there and covered himself with a box. He kept doing this again and again.
Finally he stopped moving altogether. He was trembling with terror. An image had flitted across his mind. Something happening somewhere else at that very moment, and he saw it.
He had seen. Machines and toys united. Automobiles and mannequins fused together to become something strange and bizarre. A cd player uniting with a bicycle, a fighter plane becoming one with an aircraft carrier. But that was not all.
These composite things had lashed out with blood-vessel-like tentacles and swallowed up human beings. Exactly as the boy had been swallowed up by the television.
This was the fullscale second step of the Vyram strategy. The screams of those human beings swirled in his head and the boy cowered, covering his face with his hands. For he knew what would happen next: just like him, they would be reborn as metal people. Swallowed up by machines they would become something halfway between human and machine. But they would not be unfinished as the youth was. They would be without a will of their own, only ferocious. They would be complete puppets of the Vyram.
He wanted to run away somewhere, somehow. He was filled with terror; brimming and overflowing with terror. Again he began moving strangely. He tried to fit his body into a poly-bucket. He dug a hole to bury himself. Unconsciously, he was trying to return to the womb. In his mother's womb he would be at peace, at home.
Standing in the hole he had made, he suddenly began to pace. If only there was a place he could be at home. There has to be a birthplace for me. If he could only reach it, the sunset would be resurrected before him. The river would be shining with sweet loveliness under the glow of the setting sun.
3
"Of course," Gai muttered. "You wanted to show me this." Hidden in the shade of a tree, the two kept an eye on the drama unfolding a distance from them. Nearby, Lyta and Ako were watching the same thing and praying with all their hearts.
They were in the hilly area not far from the base where, every day, they ran their twenty kilometer marathons. They always passed this way. On the road was Kaori. All four of them watched her.
She had gotten out of her wheelchair and lay on the ground, stretched out on her stomach. As ever, her legs did not move at all. She used her arms to lever herself up, and then turn over. She had vowed to become a true warrior in order to be closer to Ryu. For this reason a determined Kaori had begun to work on her legs. She would do the damned twenty kilometer marathon herself.
Of course, with the lower half of her body paralyzed, she could never make that distance even had she a day. The day before yesterday she made three hundred meters. Yesterday she made five hundred. Though she could not stand up, though she still fell if she tried, she was improving. But her legs had not stirred even once. Though she fell with great force, she advanced little by little. Even so, she would not give up. Her target for today was one kilometer.
Ryu quietly told Gai the circumstances, explaining why Kaori could not move her legs. How now Kaori was applying great strength of will to overcome her weakness.
"I understand," Gai said. "Such a small, pretty girl and she's working so hard to be a soldier. And... me, too. You think I would do the same? Idiot." He smiled wryly. "You're just as naive as ever. You disgust me the way you think."
"Gai," Ryu said, turning to look back at him over his shoulder.
Kaori overbalanced and fell hard with a cry. She hit badly and collapsed, curling over the pain, her body shuddering. Ryu was quick to stop Lyta from rushing to help her. She bit her lips against the pain, enduring it. There was a sharp stabbing agony beneath her breast. "Great, another bruise," she thought. She had lost count of the number of times she had fallen since she started practicing. Her palms were scraped raw, her body was a mass of bruises. While she could not move her legs, every night she slapped at them hard. She could not feel the pain. It was as though her legs had become stone, yes, stones were impervious to pain.
Kaori's thoughts were turning far too gloomy. There was nothing wrong with her legs, no reason she should not be able to move them, Odagiri had said. Was it possible that Odagiri was wrong? Something was causing this strangeness that could somehow be repaired. Nothing wrong and yet she could not move, though she tried again and again she just could not seem to move her legs. Chills ran up her back. What if she stayed this way forever? What if she could never walk again her whole life?
"Stand up, Kaori!" Ryu called. "Overcome your weakness!"
She turned her head to stare at him. Of course. That was no way to think. Be weak and unable to move or not. I have to change how I think of myself. I can't think myself weak. And she stood up.
Only to freeze in that instant, in terror. "What the..!" On the road ahead of her was something strange.
Bathed in the sunlight, stood a startling thing that seemed totally incongruous. Kaori had seen things like this before. She remembered. It was like the works an artist had displayed at an exhibition she once attended. She had not been able to make sense of the images the man was making from icons of pop culture. A refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, word processor... nail clippers, alarm clocks and all sorts of things all welded together.
This thing standing in front of her was a similar fusion of machines and tools, ending up as some sort of bizarre abstract. It was not like the one in the exhibition. This one was powered by a will, it was a focal point. It was a focal point for Gray's will. It was just a grotesque object, become a monster. And when it moved, Kaori screamed a long, reverberating cry.
Feelers resembling blood vessels shot out like arrows targeting her. "Kaori!" Ryu screamed, cutting between her and the attacker. He stood in front of her to protect her, and countless feelers twined around his arms and legs. Lyta and Ako moved simultaneously to help.
The object released electric shocks. The pop and snap of the shocks hit the two and sent them flying back. Kaori's frightened screams echoed again in the air. Another monster-object had appeared behind her. Its terrible feelers caught her ankles and pulled at her. The monster dragged her towards itself.
"Chhh," Gai leapt into the fray to help. He used his hand like a razor blade and slashed and kicked. The amputated feelers bled green.
"Gai!" Ryu cried. "Take care of Kaori! Run!"
"You're in luck," Gai scooped Kaori up in his arms and leaped away over the attacking thing. "I'm not so cold-hearted that I'd abandon a woman who can't walk." He carried her to his Harley and set her aboard. He started the engine up quickly and they escaped the battle.
With its prey fled, the second object went after Lyta and Ako. Ryu was still twined in tentacles, and was being dragged towards the object that held him. It opened its mouth. The body opened and shut, and cracked. It drew Ryu into its enormous mouth. And he transformed.
He used the Bringer Sword to sever the tentacles holding him. The horrible mouth closed on his arm, metal fangs clashed on his armor and scratched off it, but its hot saliva scorched his skin. The pain was so sharp and severe, Ryu groaned. Just before it could swallow him up completely, he shot into it with the Bird Blaster. The Bird Blaster was a single-shot weapon, but Ryu used it like a machine gun. In an instant he managed to fire ten plasma energy blasts. They punched a hole clean through the attacking object. For a long moment it completely stopped moving.
Lyta and Ako had also transformed. And so they fought. Every time hey had been hit by electric shocks they were sent flying. Ryu was free, but he did not go to their aid. They were soldiers. They could fight with their own power. "Remember what we practiced, Lyta, Ako!" Ryu shouted to them.
Ako drew her Bringer Sword and brandished it over her head. "Ako Hayasaka attacks!" she hollered, waving the blade overhead and charging. Her blade pierced the monster.
"Now, Lyta!" Ryu called.
Lyta, being Lyta, looked to see how to attack. He lifted up a huge boulder. Even Ryu was astonished to see how strong Lyta was. He leaped into the air and threw the boulder down hard with a shouted, "DOORYAAAAAAAA!" The object smashed with a terrible crunching sound.
Lyta and Ako fell to delighted cheering. This was their first win. Sure, it was a small victory, but for the two it had been the challenge that completed their rite of passage.
A sudden strange noise from behind made the three quickly turn around. The thing Ryu had fought was falling apart into its components. It was a startling process of decay. Clattering and clunking attended it as things tumbled to the ground. It had been made up of a motorcycle, television, air conditioner, electric fan and all kinds of other things that fell into a jumbled pile.
Gai let out a startled cry as he and Kaori were tossed flying from his motorcycle. Kaori shrieked involuntarily. The tires of the bike they were escaping on had suddenly stopped. Their two bodies tumbled on the ground like abandoned orphans. "You all right?!" Gai asked. Instead of answering, Kaori pointed at the motorcycle. Blood-vessel like tentacles were firmly entwined in its tires. "That..." Gai's eyes narrowed.
Something was forming in the midst of the thicket of tentacles. An object. "Bastards! What are you doing?! Just coming out of nowhere!" Gai's Harley was slowly being drawn in. The bike was being fused with other objects. Gai hissed. No one could have understood the powerful feeling of loss that tore through him. He had a lot of years with that bike, had come to think of it as an extension of his own body. The machine he loved was now going to be part of some monstrous creature. Gai clenched his fists and said a mental goodbye to his beloved bike. A moment passed. And in the instant before the bike would have been imbibed, he struck a blow at the gasoline tank. The blow was hard enough to cause it to explode. That explosion was enough to wake the dead.
"Gai," Kaori called through the blast. He was too near and so he was tossed towards her by the shockwave. Soot covered the sides of his face and blood was on his arms.
Gai was laughing. Not by an enemy's hand destroyed, but only by his own had his beloved machine met its fate. The explosion of his bike had left the object in scattered pieces. Blackened odds and ends were scattered all over the place. In the midst of it all lay something like a sack, big enough for a body. Gai and Kaori noticed it. This was something that had been spit out of the object.
It was an amniotic sack. As they watched, the surface moved. It suddenly split and green fluid splattered all around. Kaori gaped and Gai positioned himself defensively. Inside that sack they could see a metallic human shape. The body was not yet matured. There were keloids in many parts of the form. Bits were falling off of it like black tar. It struck at itself, and the metal man fell down. Bodily fluids were dripping. When the green liquid hit the asphalt, it stayed there in green, stagnant pools.
4
"That was the craziest thing I ever saw. Even though you are protected by the Birdnic Wave, such an attack could destroy you!" Kaori had bound Gai's wounded arm in her handkerchief. The wound on his forehead was not terrible, but the one on his arm was severe. It was the kind of wound that might knock out an ordinary human being.
The two were hidden in an abandoned house. They sat together on the floor. Kaori could not walk, and Gai was badly wounded, so there was no way to find a better hiding place. As she rolled up her handkerchief, she brushed his hand several times. She was trembling badly. Trembling because she was terrified, but she tried to convince herself it was only the cold.
The memory of when that strange man appeared in front of her never left her mind. The metal man they had just seen was exactly the same as the one which had attacked her. Was it a human being, or was it a monster, she wondered. What was it, really, that the Vyram were up to?
"If that thing is what we have to fight, the end of the world is near..." Gai said. "Well, that was a short life for a man, not too bad."
"Stop complaining," Kaori raised her voice, trying to raise her spirits at the same time. "Ryu would never give up no matter -- "
Gai hissed. "I don't want to talk about that twit."
Kaori studied him intently. "Gai," she asked gently, "why do you hate Ryu so much?"
"I can't stomach someone who makes out like he's so great. That's all there is to it."
"You just don't understand him. He's a soldier. That's the way he was born. He's just a totally honest person."
"Hoh! What makes you understand him so well?" Gai grinned at her. "I'm surprised. You didn't seem the kind of woman to fall in love with a man."
5
At the same time, Odagiri was watching everything that was happening on several monitors back at the base. Though the Earth Ship had been destroyed, a great many spy satellites still hung in the skies around the planet. They still sent images of what was happening on Earth. The machine revolution had grown into a storm. Fused machinery and toys everywhere were snatching up people and moving. Odagiri had suddenly discovered that there were a great many objects concentrating in one area.
"Ryu," her voice was picked up by the microphones. "Get to QW09 Point as fast as you can. It's like some damned party."
"QW09?" Ryu repeated back to her.
She took a moment to answer. "Yes. The desert."
The garbage desert was trembling. From horizon to horizon, the seemingly endless garbage was oscillating. Grey clouds billowed across the sky, lightning criss-crossed along the undersides of the clouds. The ground continued to roll. The objects were walking, thousands of them converging on the garbage desert, following the summons of the red tricycle.
The red tricycle reached the center of the garbage desert, fell over and stopped moving. It was as though, now that its mission was finished, it had died. A glow began to appear. The air near the surface of the ground became filled with scattered silver sparks. The flaring light force the newly arrived Ryu, Lyta and Ako to turn their faces away.
The light went out. A robot's steps impacted heavily upon the ground. "Gray!" Ryu and Lyta exclaimed simultaneously. He appeared within the light.
Juuza had swallowed up Gray but finally she had teleported him down. The objects continued towards him. They were drawn to him like he was a magnet. They piled upon him, increasing his mass a thousand-fold. Finally silence returned. Ryu and the others were stunned into silence, mouths gaping. They could not believe what they saw before them.
The accumulated objects made one tremendous tree. An enormous, metallic tree. Its top touched the clouds. Branches spread on all sides, and all in all it was the size of a city. The trunk glowed. Within the trunk, Gray's thoughts were the source of light.
That energy caused the fruits of the gigantic tree to ripen. Amniotic sacks hung from the joints of the tree's branches, looking like giant fruits. Inside each fruit, humanoid shapes moved.
"Those..." Ryu groaned. He was beginning to recognize the enormity of the Vyram's actions. In a way, this was even worse than the Earth Ship's terrible destruction. The tree before their eyes had an eerie, stabbing quality. In the flicker of lightning it seemed like a gigantic cross.
Rain began to fall. Within the rain they could hear footsteps. The footsteps approached. Ryu turned around. "Beautiful," said Radiguet as he stepped slowly closer behind them. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"
"You!!" Ryu snarled, his eyes gleaming brightly.
"This is the holy tree to orchestrate the Day of Judgement," Radiguet continued. "It is God who judges humans' crimes on the Final Day. The crime was allowing them to be born with a foolish ego. In this tree, the human ego is killed. The metal humans have no ego. They will think and act only in accordance with our thoughts. Do you understand? We are removing the origin of crime from all human beings. We are harvesting their egos."
"You're insane! The way you think is crazy!"
"What will you do?" Radiguet pointed at the humanoid shapes in the sacks and laughed. "You can't save them. You can't kill them, because they are human."
With a strangled cry, Ryu leaped at Radiguet. In the instant he changed, he slashed with his Bringer Sword. It was no good. The blade stopped a paper's-width from Radiguet's body. Then in the enemy's hand appeared an enormous, double-edged blade. The Bloodygade. The red blade was as slender as a serpent's tongue. The color seemed to be from the blood of all the people Radiguet had killed with the blade.
Lyta and Ako transformed. The three Jetman circled Radiguet. Lyta and Ako positioned themselves at his back. The two edged back a bit and simultaneously drew their Bird Blasters. Even they did not understand what had awoken in them. Radiguet turned and sent a blast that tossed their Bird Blasters flying. He had flicked them away merely by the back-wind from his blade.
"Get back, Lyta, Ako!" Ryu called. "You can't possibly win now!"
"Are you saying YOU can win?!" Radiguet asked. "Please, show me how you are grown!" Ryu instinctively backed up. The mighty blade suddenly vanished, and then a terrible wound opened in Ryu's chest. Even the three-fold diamond strength of his armor was no defense against Radiguet. Ryu managed to block the next attack. When the two blades connected, sparks flew everywhere.
Even Ryu's sharp eyes could not keep up with Radiguet's speed. All he could sense was the shadow of the flashing blade. In his helmet, Ryu's face was drenched in sweat.
"What's the matter, Jetman?" Radiguet asked. "Don't be afraid. If you are afraid, you'll be off your guard."
"Ryu!" Ako called. She and Lyta had their Bringer Swords out. They wanted to help, somehow.
"I told you to get out of here," Ryu gasped. Trapped in the middle of this battle, he could not shout. If he did, he senses would be disrupted and he would lower his guard. When next Radiguet came in, Ryu summoned his Bird Blaster. There was no time to draw the gun. It was still in its holster. Ryu flipped and squeezed the trigger. It fired in machine gun mode.
"Not good enough!" Radiguet commented, as he deflected every bullet.
And then the ground shook.
Lyta and Ako fell, Ryu and Radiguet were knocked apart. A terrible, reverberating sound cut through the earth. Metal roots bored their way out of the earth. The tree began to move. The roots became more definite, as though they were legs. The roots reached away from the tree and spread through the metropolis, extending far beyond the garbage desert. And then they boiled up from ground level, destroying everything in their wake.
Buildings collapsed. Roads split and shattered. The roots were everywhere. Terrified people, fleeing, were captured. Once caught, they were absorbed into the roots. More and more amniotic sacks appeared. More and more metal humans were now being gestated.
The roots got into the building Kaori and Gai were hiding in. When the tiles fell from the roof like rain, Gai snatched Kaori up and fled with her. In front of them, a hole opened in the ground. The terrible hole split, cracking the earth, and the pair fell inside.
"Happy Birthday," a voice spoke in the darkness. It was a tender, sweet voice. "I'm sorry, so very late. Here's a present." The masterly voice was Kaori's father's. The present was a beautifully wrapped, small box. When she opened it to look, there was nothing inside. "You want nothing you have; have nothing you want," her father continued. "And do you know what that means? You have no reason to live. That's what it means."
You're wrong, Father, Kaori answered him. His mournful face swam before her eyes. The truth is I never knew what I wanted for myself. I only knew in a vague way that I was unhappy. It's different now. Now I know what I want.
"What do you want?" he asked her.
What I really want... what I really want is....
"Hey! Wake up! HEY!" Gai's voice in her ears, coming from somewhere.
What I really want... what I really want is....
"Open you eyes, Kaori!" Gai was shaking her. The shaking brought her back.
They were trapped deep down a crack in the ground. When they had hit the bottom, Kaori lost consciousness. There was light, it streamed down from the surface; about twenty meters above their heads.
"No way we can get out of here with your legs like that. You'd better call your friends."
She stared wordlessly at him. Her legs were cut and scratched, but she felt nothing. As ever, there was just no sensation in them. And then she began scaling the cliff. She would get up there, with only the power in her arms. What I really want... what I really want is.... Within her heart there was only one voice.
6
Ryu and Radiguet were still locked in battle. It was a terrible battle, and nothing in Ryu's entire experience could have prepared him for it. Fought on the surface of quaking ground, with the terrible tree's roots striking all around, crossing swords with a powerful opponent the likes of which he had never faced (much stronger than himself)... Ryu risked his life to block Radiguet's powerful, flashing blade. It took every ounce of his strength to do so. Radiguet's lightning-fast attacks allowed not a moment of rest. Sometimes between the two men scarlet threads hung in the air for brief instants. They were threads of blood. Whenever Radiguet's blade cut through Ryu's reinforced suit, the tip carried his blood away with it.
Ako and Lyta were also still fighting. Roots kept springing from the ground and swooping down on them. They laid about with their Bringer Swords, never missing because the roots were everywhere. The severed ends writhed like snakes, tangling their legs.
The great metal tree slowly continued to move. It plowed up the ground as it moved. Its upper branches cut through the cumulonimbus clouds. There was only one thing to be seen dimly in the mighty trunk, flickering on and off. The light of Gray's thoughts.
Within the huge tree, Gray poured out his concepts without rest. The metal humanoids were growing, even as though they were being nurtured in their mother's body. In their amniotic sacks, the humanoid shapes moved.
The youth stood witness to it all.
He had been lying in the garbage desert, for he could no longer stand. He had been born an imperfect metal being, and now he was dying. Nameless insects ate at his metal body. There was no pain. His body was cold. He would never be able to reach that river bathed in the setting sun.
Eventually he felt the cold of his body, and with it felt or heard a cry from the depths of his mind. A deep groan of agony. A voice that begged for death.
The humans captured and encapsulated within the giant tree spoke with that same voice. The process that turned their human bodies into metal beings aligned their sense with the youth's. And now he returned to his senses. His fingers, his legs, they twitched. I want to answer them, he thought. He wanted to do what they asked. But what could he do all by himself?
"Gah!" Ryu groaned.
"Ryu!" Ako and Lyta called his name.
Radiguet had used the Bloodygade to pinion Ryu. The human's blood trickled down his suit. The great blade pierced all the way through his shoulder. Radiguet swung his hand towards the two humans who were racing at him. A shockwave pulsed from his palm, and the ground exploded beneath their feet. Ako and Lyta were thrown far back and tasted dirt.
"Despair, Jetman," he spoke, turning to face Ryu. "Could your power ever be enough?" He pulled the Bloodygade sideways, ripping the wound wider. The human's blood fountained into his enemy's face, and Radiguet licked it slowly away with his long tongue. He would pour power into the great blade. He tried to take a step forward to get leverage to slice down, but he could not move his legs. Someone was clinging to his ankles.
It was the youth, hanging on to Radiguet's ankles. It was the only thing he could do.
"Now!" Ryu seized the instant he had been given. He forced Bloodygade out of his shoulder and risked a slash with his Bringer Sword at the nape of Radiguet's neck. The long sword was unerring in aim. It should have decapitated Radiuet, but it hit nothing. Radiguet was intangible, and now becoming transparent. Ryu saw him smile. It was a fierce smile, and then his body wavered as in a heat wave and disappeared.
And now the iron-like tension broke and Ryu fell to his knees with a gasp. The pain from his wounded shoulder was severe. For the first time, he became aware of the youth lying on the ground in front of him. It dawned on him that this half-dissolved, metal human had saved his life.
The youth tried to speak, but could only cough weakly. Ryu leaned close to listen. "... kill... please kill them all," the youth said, pointing towards the metal tree. His arm suddenly broke off at the elbow.
It was in Ryu's arms that the youth finally died, peacefully. He watched to the last. The sunset reflected beautifully off of Ryu's goggles. There was a break in the rain. The clouds had parted in the west letting through the light of the setting sun. The light reflecting on the smooth goggles was just like the peaceful surface of the river the youth longed for. The river was flowing. The river of his hometown seemed dyed a vivid orange, and a wave supported him for he could not stand, and released him finally from his body.
7
Gai was still stunned by the nature of this woman. He could not have imagined what lay within the form housing the woman named Kaori Rokumeikan. The two of them scaled the cliff towards the surface. They were about halfway up, climbing with only their bare hands. Light poured down from the surface above them, illuminating the sweat and mud on Kaori's face.
She had ignored his suggestion to call her fellows. She was determined to escape by her own efforts. She refused to let him help her, and in doing so she seemed to defeat her weakness and immobile legs. And little by little, through only the strength of her arms, she was making progress. Though bathed in the Birdnic Wave, though powered up, this was a terrible trial for her.
Many times she started to fall. When that happened, Gai would stop climbing, and wait for her to creep back up beside him. Her beautiful hair and white skin were now filthy with dirt. There was even mud in her underclothes. Her torn blouse exposed her stomach, the hem of her skirt was turned up, and she was in one awful mood. Her lips were curled in a snarl, her eyes shone fiercely with her concentration.
Gai got a good eyeful of this aspect of Kaori. The truth of her was laid bare before him. She had tossed away her vanity and coquettishness. He had known intimately a great many women, and not a one had ever let herself look like this in front of him. Every woman wore a kind of female selfishness as it were an invisible dress.
He had been sure he knew what she was, from that very first glance. A woman spoiled and pampered from childhood was always a very unpleasant type. A woman who used her beauty as a weapon in society. He had never doubted that.
But now....
Kaori continued her focused climbing. With her whole being concentrated on the cliff, she progressed. Her fingers were scratched up, her nails were broken. Blood from a laceration on her forehead mingled with the mud on her, and covered her from neck to breast. Gai was one step ahead of her and got to the top, crept over the edge.
Kaori continued climbing with only her hands, reaching for the surface. And then the earth shook again. The cliff began to collapse, the ground sliding down into the hole. Kaori threw her hands frantically towards the sky above, and suddenly Gai's hands latched onto her wrists. His arms were the only things supporting Kaori's body.
He gazed down at her face. She's beautiful, he thought.
8
Ryu, Ako and Lyta were powerless before the giant tree. It seemed as though there was nothing they could do to stop this invasion. Roots incessantly swooped down on the trio, and they could not cut them all. The movement of the tree was accompanied by the shaking of its branches. Whenever the shaking was too much to endure, some of the amniotic sacks tore loose and fell to smash on the ground. Lyta and Ako were already exhausted and feeling they would lose this war. It seemed as though there was not a drop more of courageous energy to be wrung from their bodies.
"It's useless," Gray's voice resounded from inside the metal trunk. "Soon my children will be born. You will be my children, too."
Ryu's shoulder was a dead weight on his body because of the wound inflicted by Radiguet. The whipping roots knocked his Bringer Sword away. From beneath his feet, uncountable roots slashed up and wrapped around his body.
Gai stared down at Kaori's face. His arms were stretched painfully as he held on. There was another severe quake and the crack in the ground spread deeper. There was no way to know how far it was to the bottom. If they fell again, there would be no way to climb back up. They would not find themselves bathed in light twice.
Gai was intent on Kaori, but she was thinking only of Ryu. She had been wrapped in his kind gaze. "Overcome your weakness, Kaori!" his words rolled in her head.
What I really want is... a warrior's strength. My own overwhelming, tenacious will. Kaori's legs twitched slightly.
At that moment, a strange sensation passed over and into her hearing. Kaori could hear the crying of Ryu's injury. On the inside of her eyelids she suddenly saw his face, felt the sharp agony he was in. "Ryu!" she cried. Her legs felt like they were burning. And suddenly she kicked off the cliff and sailed over Gai's head.
"Kaori!" Lyta exclaimed. He could see her racing towards them.
"Gai!" Ryu exclaimed as well, for that person was also rapidly approaching.
Ryu was enduring as best he could. The roots that held him were constricting all around him. As they constricted, they pulled him towards the giant tree to suck him inside. Right before his eyes, an orifice opened in the trunk to swallow him up. The opening was like a deep cavern into the tree, overflowing with green liquid.
If he were eaten by that, it would be the end. He would become one of the metal humans.
Just as the green liquid touched Ryu's reinforced suit, Kaori leaped into the fray. "Ryu!!" she cried. It was a jump fit to take her into the clouds. Her body cut the air just like a bird's. In mid-flight she activated her bracelet and transformed. Descending, she drew her Bringer Sword and slashed. The blade cut through the roots like they were butter and Ryu fell straight down backwards. Gai caught him.
"Gai!"
"You should be impressed," Gai laughed. "I'll fight, too. Little Miss Kaori knocked some sense into me."(I lost against Kaori)
Even though the tree was still attacking, Ako and Lyta came rushing over. "Kaori! You're all better! Your legs!" Lyta exclaimed.
Ryu stared at Kaori. She nodded gravely to him. Nothing needed saying. Today, Kaori had stood up on her own.
He fastened the bracelet on Gai's wrist, and then Gai transformed. The five Jetman stood bathed in the setting sun. The light bathed them in golden splendor.
But the huge tree began to turn. Every root came out of the ground and began to move, turning the tree together. That terrible turning was something the Jetman could not stop. Gray's thoughts continued to enhance the tree. Deep in the trunk was kindled one speck of light. That light passed through the blood-vessel like system of the tree to the countless amniotic sacks hanging therefrom. The human shapes twisted and turned within their sacks.
"What do we do, Ryu?" Ako called to him.
"You have to pool all your power together," they heard Odagiri say through the bracelets. "You'll have to use the full power of the Jetman."
Ryu thought back to what the dying, metal man had said to him. "... kill... please kill them all." The words took on a new emphasis. The young one must have known the minds of the others who were connected to the huge tree, becoming metal humans. "Let's go, group," Ryu said quietly.
Anger and sadness boiled up inside of them. "Concentrate on the middle of your forehead and make your energy high." Ryu, Gai, Kaori, Ako and Lyta. Within the five the Birdnic Wave's energy became fire. Each of them was enhanced, their individual power quintupled by their joining. The energy resonated within and around the five, creating a synergy. Their five auras melded into one.
The five were now enveloped in that aura, and they shot into the sky like a comet. They left a trail in the air as they arrowed furiously down at the tree. The countless roots that swung at them fell away, burning. And the moment that comet hit the trunk, they went right through it.
Gray's body shot out. Thrown out like that, he could not stop himself from crashing to earth. One arm and one leg had been blown off of him. The flame of his concentration was extinguished. When the Jetman went through the trunk, they split it asunder. The metal tree parted as though it had just been hit by the wrath of God.
9
Twilight was over. The curtain of night had fallen on the land. The sky, blanketed with stars, was beautiful. There were no clouds, no wind, only the sweet light of the stars pouring down to Earth. The full moon hung in the sky above the five like a huge, round, translucent grape.
They had finished their transformation. Now they stood together without speaking. They looked up at the metal tree shining in the moonlight. Without Gray's will to animate it, the whole tree had just... stopped. The amniotic sacks hung there. The countless fruits had hardened to stone-like stillness. They would never move again.
This was a bitter victory. The Jetman did not know how they could even call it a victory. It has to be... Ryu thought, we will win this war, someday in the future. It's only just begun. The moonlight made their shadows stretch out on the ground, seeming nestled close together as though for comfort. The five humans stayed there for a very long time.
In Volume 2