Author : Arlyn Jayde
E-mail : atomichatred82@lycos.com
Rating : PG-13
Pairing : Maki Souda/Saki Sakurai
Archive : Battle School, anyone else ask first
Spoilers : Battle Royale 2
Disclaimer : Don’t know them, don’t own them, don’t sue me.
Cast me gently into morning For the night has been unkind Take me to a place so holy That I can wash this from my mind The memory of choosing not to fight
If it takes my whole life I won't break, I won't bend It will all be worth it, worth it in the end 'Cause I can only tell you what I know That I need you in my life When the stars have all burned out You'll still be burning so bright
“Answer” – Sarah McLachlan
There they slept in peaceful bliss, the two boys holding each other under a familiar red blanket and in the fading glow of a dying candle, and even as Saki Sakurai told herself that there was nothing more to see she lingered, she lingered because she wanted her brother’s face burned into her memory forever, the way he looked now, so peaceful in his friend’s warm embrace, that was how she wanted to remember him. The hour was late and everyone else was asleep, but she was wide awake.
She’d given up sleep a long time ago. She had to be vigilant, to be sharp-eyed at all times. Being a sniper meant focus. Focus and concentration, letting go of everything else and allowing only the target and the scope to be of her concern. In the year since joining Wild Seven she’d thought time and time again that maybe the reason she was so good at this was because she had so much to run away from, so much to push away, that the exercise became her escape, her retreat.
“Saki…” a warm, slender hand came to rest on her shoulder.
“Look at them, Maki…” she whispered, her voice so low only the two of them could hear. “So peaceful.”
“They’re lucky…” Maki Souda said. “Peace is hard to come by these days. Having it, even if only for a night, is truly a gift.”
Saki stared longingly at her little brother, who had grown so much since the last time she saw him. Haruya was taller now, his hair dyed a shade of lustrous bronze, and he was no longer the bratty kid that used to pick fights with her the way little brothers seem obliged to do. In the long, painful year since deciding to join the Wild Seven she’d discovered much to her surprise that she missed him terribly, she missed him a lot more than she thought she ever would, she missed him for all the memories of times when life seemed innocent and carefree, two things she knew neither of them would ever have again.
“Will he ever forgive me, you think?”
Maki’s reply was to settle her chin on the sniper girl’s shouder, her arms going around Saki’s torso and holding her gently. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”
“I can’t.” Saki shook her head, feeling her chest knot in pain. “Everytime I look in his eyes it’s unbearable. All the questions…”
“Saki…”
“I know he wants to know what happened to me, but I just can’t…” she shook her head. “I can’t tell him. I can’t tell him the things that I saw, the things that I’d done.”
“You did what you had to, Saki.”
“I killed my friends, Maki.” her vaice became heavy with pain. “My own friends. We couldn’t trust anybody, we were turning against each other…it was carnage. Just bodies and blood everywhere…shot, stabbed…”
“Shhhh…..” Maki whispered comfortingly in her ears, pulling her closer into the older girl’s embrace. “There was nothing you could do about it, Maki. Nobody who got put in the Program could do anything about their situation.”
“I could’ve chosen to die.” Saki said bitterly. “I could’ve taken my own life, like some of my friends did, and refuse to play the game.”
“But you didn’t.” Maki’s voice was gentle yet firm. “That choice is behind you now. You’ve made it, and it can’t be undone.”
Saki used one gloved hand to brush the tears off her eyes. “Nobody who’s been in the Program comes out unscathed. It eats away at our minds…the guilt, the memories…that’s why Mai’s gone halfway insane, Kazama hardly speaks a word these days, and I…” she inhaled deeply. “…I can’t even look in the eyes of my own brother, no matter how much I’ve missed him.”
“You’re afraid.”
She nodded.
Maki’s slender fingers took her chin and gently turned her face around to face the hacker girl’s gaze, and if there was a person in this world whose eyes she could still gaze into without flinching, it was Maki. There was little Saki could keep hidden from her, for her eyes were as wide open as her knowledge was deep, and even in this moment she seemed to know everything that was going on in Saki’s mind.
“You’re afraid that he’d see the person you’ve become, and that he wouldn’t recognize you anymore.”
Saki looked back to where Haruya slept in Masami Shibaki’s arms, in the warm red blanket that had been hers previously, and she recalled distinctly sleeping in Maki’s arms in pretty much the same manner. Maki had been the one who protected her from her own nightmares, her own guilt, that had prevented the insanity that had plagued many program winners from eating away at her. Even today, when she did sleep she dreamt of the friends she had killed for her own survival, the friends she had tried to save but ended up dying anyway at the hands of others, and the blood-red carnage that had ripped apart her childhood and thrust her into this madness.
Why did Haruya have to go through this, too? Why did he have to witness his friends die around him like she did, and why did she have to be the one who brought many of them their deaths?
“I should’ve noticed the collars sooner.” she said regretfully. “Then we would’ve known that something was wrong, that they weren’t soldiers.”
“From that range? That’s just not possible, Saki.”
“We could’ve saved a lot more of them!” Saki insisted. “What if I’d shot him, instead of his friends? What if I’d killed him, killed my own brother without knowing it?”
Maki quickly hushed her with a finger on her lips, reminding her to keep her voice low so as not to disturb the two sleeping boys.
“Let them have their peace, Saki…” she reminded. “Tonight, if never again.”
Saki glanced back at her brother, guilt churning at her insides. How many more kids had died at her hands now? How many had been Haruya’s friends, how many had been near and dear to him?
“Stop blaming yourself.” Maki’s voice said, as if reading her train of thoughts. “It will do him no good, nor will it help you…or all of us.”
“But…”
“You want blame? Try this.” Maki said with a glint in her eyes. “I’ve been hacking into the government computers for years. I’ve been tracing their secret communiques and phone calls. I should’ve picked up on this BR2 shit much sooner, and I should’ve figured they’d use our own agenda against us, that they'd send us the very kids we're trying to save from the Progam.”
“Maki…”
“They were sent here to kill Nanahara. He’s been struggling with his own guilt ever since. And Sakai was the one who set up those tripmines and bombarded them with mortar fire, out of your sniping range.”
Maki took Saki’s face in both hands and pressed their foreheads together, her thumbs drawing circular patterns on the sniper girl’s cheeks.
“None of us are any less or any more responsible for their deaths, Saki. It’s a blame we will all take, together.”
Saki brushed the tip of her nose against Maki’s, her gloved hands finding the hacker girl’s waist and holding her there.
“I don’t fear death…” she whispered into the close air between them. “I stopped fearing for my life the day I won the Program.”
“I know.”
“But I fear for his life, Maki. I fear for Haruya.” she said. “I don’t want him to die.”
Maki smiled, her smile a sweet sight in the darkness around them, and Saki saw her own reflection in her friend’s eyes and realized she’d shed a lot more tears in the last few minutes alone than she had for a whole year.
“His friends will look after him…” she spoke, her voice soft against Saki’s lips. “As I will take care of you.”
And with that she drew Saki in and kissed her, a delicate meeting of lips in the darkness, a spark of warmth in the surrounding cold, and Saki allowed the older girl to back her up against the wall, noiselessly, mindful of the two that were sleeping just the other side of the doorway, and she tasted the sweetness that was Maki’s tongue, mingled with faint traces of the cigarette she’d smoked, both of them she’d learned to associate with noone but Maki. Only with her could Saki ever let her guard down like this, ever let someone see through her and see the pain in her eyes. Maki never pretended to be all-knowing, nor did she ever claim that she could take Saki’s pain away, but that was exactly what she did.
At the parting of their kiss both of them were breathless, and what little light there was reflected on Maki’s carmine red lips, and she pressed them against Saki’s neck, whispering gently as she did so.
“Don’t stray far from me when the battle starts.” she said. “I want to keep you in my sights, even when I die.”
Saki embraced her, pulling Maki into her arms, and over the hacker girl’s shoulders she could see Haruya, in peaceful slumber, protected by his friend’s embrace, both of them glowing in the faint candlelight, their young faces looking serene and free from burden. How she wished they could stay that way forever, and that she could stay here watching them. But it was not to be. Maki was right. What had beeen done couldn’t be undone. She couldn’t afford to look back now. Not after she’d gotten this far, and not with her brother’s life being on the line. Morning would come, and death would come with it, but it would not be his.
It would be hers. And Maki’s.
For even the afterlife would be unbearable without the one soul that had kept her from losing hers all this time.
~FIN~