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By:Juuhachi-gou
tied to a wheel
fingers got to feel
bleeding through this hard-case smile
i spin on a whim
i slide to the right
i feel you like electric light
for our love
for our fear
for our rise against the years and years and years
i got a machinehead
it's better than the rest
--Bush, "Machinehead"
"Stop!" Juuhachi-gou stepped in front of Juunana-gou, letting the blast dissipate against her back as she grinned down at the youth sprawled on the ground at her feet.
"What'd you do that for?" Juunana asked crossly. He'd meant to kill Trunks this time.
"I want to do it," she answered, and raised her hand.
Trunks opened his mouth to spit a curse at her, but instead he howled in pain as Juuhachi's blast tore at his body. Then he fell limp and silent.
"You didn't kill him," Juunana pouted. He prodded at Trunks' side with a booted foot.
"Don't be stupid, Juunana-gou." Juuhachi looked over her shoulder at him. "If we kill him now, we won't have any more fun."
"Sure we will. There are still plenty of humans around to play with."
She scowled. "I don't like playing the way you do. Humans just annoy me." It was the simple truth; she couldn't bear their cries for help, their screams of pain, their pleas for mercy. She hated ordinary humans as much as her twin, but where he took savage delight in toying with them, teasing them, and terrorizing them, she simply killed them, quickly and efficiently.
Juunana shrugged. "Suit yourself. So what are we going to do with him?" He gave the limp body on the ground a sharp kick. Trunks moaned, his eyes rolling under their lids, but he did not awaken.
Juuhachi looked down at Trunks for a moment, her high, pale brow creasing. Then she bent down and picked him up, slinging him carelessly over a shoulder.
"What are you doing?" her twin demanded.
"Wait here. Don't follow me," she cautioned. When he began to protest, she glared at him to silence him. They were both jinzouningen, but both of them knew full well which was the stronger of the two. Juunana stayed where he was, watching his sister as she sprang into the air and flew off towards the west.
"You're an idiot," she told the limp form over her shoulder as she flew. "You know some day we're going to have to kill you, before you kill us. You're not like ordinary humans; I could almost like you if it weren't for...for--"
She shook her head, her blonde hair billowing back. "Juunana-gou is right; I should have let him kill you--or killed you myself, just now. Why didn't I? Why did I insist on letting you live again? It can't just be because you're cute."
Trunks moaned softly.
"Oh, shut up," Juuhachi snapped. "I ought to drop you right now and be rid of you--let you fall and break your neck so you'll be out of our hair for good and all. Of course, then there'd be no challenge left. No one left to stop us--"
She broke off with a gasp, her pale eyes widening. "What the hell?! I don't want you to stop us. I hate humans. I want them all dead. I want you dead. I do. So why am I taking you home so you can be healed? I don't want to die. I can't die! I'm a jinzouningen! I may have been human once, but I don't remember it, and I can never be human again, so all humans have to die..."
She trailed off. She was making no sense, not even to herself. And her passenger obviously wasn't listening. She wasn't used to running around without her twin. Juunana kept her focused. With him she didn't have to think, she didn't have to wonder why they did what they did. He didn't question the purpose of their existence, and he never felt any pangs of...what? Guilt? Remorse? Pity? Then again, neither did she. Not so much as a twinge.
A yellow dome rose into view--only slightly damaged, really almost untouched when compared to the city nearby. She landed lightly just inside the gate and walked up the pathway to the front step.
She bent over and let Trunks slide off her shoulder. He fell bonelessly limp to the doorstep. His head hit the concrete with a dull thunking sound, forcing another groan from his bloodied lips. Still he didn't awaken, but remained unconscious, almost in a coma.
She stood there for a moment, looking at him. Under the swelling and bruises, his face was amazingly attractive for someone who wasn't artificially enhanced. His cheekbones were sharp and well-defined, his jawline a perfect sweep below his slightly full mouth. His hair, the pale lavender of clouds at sunset, fell scattered across his high, smooth brow. Before she'd realized she'd moved, Juuhachi saw her fingers brush the hair away from his battered face with a gentleness she didn't know she possessed.
I don't want you to die, she found herself thinking. You're my enemy, and I'm supposed to hate you, but I want you to live. Why? If you do, someday you'll destroy us both, my brother and me. I should kill you now as you lie at my feet.
She stretched out an arm, held her hand palm-out towards his face, fingers splayed. One blast, that was all it would take. Directly at the head, burning his face off the bones, pulverizing his skull, crushing his brains to pulp, obliterating him from the neck up.
She could glimpse his face through her fingers. That beautiful face, inches from destruction. That beautiful boy, moments from death.
I...can't.
She dropped her arm to her side, turned on her heel and stomped off down the graveled walkway. She paused at the remains of a rusted archway and turned around, watching and waiting.
For a long time she stood there, ready to bolt at the first sign of the door opening. Finally, with a hiss of frustration, she bend down to scoop up a stone from the gravel path. She pitched it unerringly at the door. It hit with a hollow thunk, bounced off, and landed on the withered grass beside the stoop. Juuhachi heard the sound of movement inside and rose up to about fifty meters in the air where she could watch without being herself observed.
Eventually the door opened. A woman, hideously middle-aged, looked out, and saw the youth sprawled on the steps. "Trunks!" she shrieked, and the cry sent a spike of annoyance down Juuhachi's artificial spine. She had a sudden urge to blast the woman where she stood, but managed to fight it down.
The woman struggled with Trunks, fighting to shift his bulk as she fought back her tears, finally managing to drag him inside the house. Once the door was shut, Juuhachi turned around again and flew back east to the ruins of the distant city.
"It took you long enough," Juunana snapped as she landed. "Where did you take him? Did you finish him off?"
Juuhachi surveyed the ruins around them with a disinterested air. "Let's go," she said. "There's nothing left to do here."
Flying towards the darkening east at her twin's side, Juuhachi felt focused again. It was right to hate humans, to hurt and kill them. It was what they had been designed to do, and they did it all too well. In ten years, possibly less, there wouldn't be any ordinary humans left, and she and her brother would finally know the peace they so desperately craved.
When one last uncomfortable thought tried to fight its way up to her surface thoughts--What will it be like to die at Trunks' hands?--she fought it down savagely, burying it under the rage that was already beginning to swell again in her breast.
***
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