Episode 27: After a Death

We teleport out of the Wandering Star and into the medical bay in one gut-wrenching moment.

Teleport.

I can't think. Everything has leaked out of me. I don't know how much of the blood is mine. Zipporah! "HighDive, I need you...to hide...Mokuzai." She looks confused. "I don't want...I don't want Zipporah to see him..."

"Oh. Was she his wife?"

What? "What?"

"Girlfriend?"

I'm drawing a blank. Is she speaking Cheldrun? What is going on? Has the Zipsum snapped?

"Second cousin...?"

"No, she's - I - you've been on a ship with her for months, we've...never mind. Just hide his head. Please." She shrugs, shoves it into a drawer. "No, Zip might need to go in that drawer. Someplace else..."I hold open the door, but HighDive doesn't get the hint, and instead shoves Mokuzai's severed, tongueless head into a freezer. "HighDive -"

Behind me, there is a sound of scrambling and Zipporah bursts into the room, looking panicked. She slowly takes in the scene, horror growing on her face.

Rei tries to be helpful. I wish she wouldn't. "Most of the blood isn't mine."

HighDive blurts out "Yeah, a lot of it came out of Mokuzai."

I think if I can grab her, now while she's distracted, I can crush her in my bare hands. Zip looks to me, stark white, clearly approaching shock. "Look, Zip, I...Mokuzai...Mokuzai died. He's. He's gone." I can see her just going blank, probably looking exactly how I do right now. "But right now, we have to think about Una and Kyoshi. They're alive, but they're really hurt." She sees the hole in my shoulder, slowly leaking a twisting trail of blood that bends lazily without any gravity. Then she sees Kyoshi, grits her teeth, and moves over to the table where Rei is trying to strap him down.

Rei grimaces and starts in with her lecturing-voice. "Listen, don't try to cut him or drain any humors or anything, because he's already lost a lot of blood -"

"Shut up and hold him down" and she is bending over him and starting to work. I love you.

I black out for a minute, then, realize I need to go help Trencher with the gun so that more eyeless don't get to the Senin.

"Don't. You. Dare." I freeze. Its really easy to stop moving. I feel sleepy. I watch blood trail out of me...

Some time later, Zipporah's tears have let some of her pain out, just enough to keep going, just like we're feeling - so much all at once! - and Una's tears have restored me completely. We just go throughout the world, these past months, brimming over with miracles, and all we get is blood and gore in return. If Karia didn't have her heroes, would it really be worse off? I can't even guess, sometimes. Looking at Rei, I'm not sure hero is even the right word. She and HighDive are half Kyo-tee-shee now as far as I can tell. And Rei is getting worse.

***

I learn that you can cry and shoot a heavy-caliber machine-gun at the same time. I feel like in all the world, only we would have any chance to learn things like that. When my eyes dry out, I have time to think. We need to block the door. The eyeless are very strong - not quite as strong as me, but there are lots of them. I think about plugging the door, about welding it shut, about collapsing it. But we have limited rounds, and we still have work to do. I'm not done here. We're not done.

I want to tear this damned thing out of the sky.

But first things first. And I have time. I try to relax, to think like I'm somewhere else. What's in here? The scaffolding and the catwalk (or cat-crawl?). It looks solid. Loads of stray bullets haven't broken it loose. I look around. There's a lot of heavy metal paneling. It'll take a while, but I think I can pry it up. And a weld won't hold long enough. I relax some more. I remember...I remember being very little. When I was with Namie. They brought in a 'specialist'. Everyone talked about it real careful, and I got scared that I was sick. They said "no" and their looks said "yes". But all it turned out to be was this friendly older man with spectacles who made me play games with him. One of the games was where he put a bunch of weird blocky shapes in front of me in a pile, and showed me a picture of a cube. I was still nervous. Just wait, little Moshe, until you see how they fit.

I remember when he left to talk with my adopted parents, I didn't hear all they said, but I did hear what he said about me. He's cognitively defective, as we guessed, but benign. Mild retardation, really. He should be able to lead a normal life.

I waited until I saw how it fit together. How to block the eyeless out unless they bring dynamite or an Oni. And more than that. I'm starting to see a lot.

***

HighDive bursts into the room, gasping. "Angry Oni!" she says, and points back the way she came.

"What!?" I've been arguing with Rei. She wants to go into the core of the ship and feed who-knows-how-much Whiterock to her damn Kyo-tee-shee. I'd wish she'd make her own choices, but I've seen how bad that can go too. I can't think about what to do about Rei right now. I yank the cable I'm using to power the computer Rei was using to find the engines and start re-attaching it to the main pneumatic relay in my right leg. "Ok, that's it. We need to get out of here." Rei snaps some instructions HighDive's way as she's darting out the door.

We follow, more slowly, only to reach the vast engine bay just as HighDive is leaving it. It looks like she's a firework-rocket trailing dozens of eyeless angrily swarming after her. I guess this means she's done? We get back to the chamber and she goes down the opposite passage to set her other explosives.

Rei is staring at something. I turn to look. Una does too. The security hatch behind us, the one leading to the Whiterock, starts to ripple and bend. I remember Karaku-Oni and immediately call on a miracle, summoning shields in front of everyone, trying to backpedal out of the room as quickly as I can.

And then a figure emerges, rippling liquid metal, and it hardens into a perfect Biomade face with red-tinged eyes. Another fucking Rei-sibling??

It sucks in a breath like we're just what it was hoping to find. "At last, you've come. The Answer."

Then its looking at Rei. Something is going on between them. Is it talking to Rei or Amaterasu? Does it matter?

"Yes...its taken me a long time to find you."

"Its taken us a long time to find them." It nods to us, looks us over, taking its time. Just when I started to think I'd figured things out.

Looking at Una and me, it says "Malice must come to an end."

Malice. Oh. Ok. I get it. It and Rei are still talking, like a family reunion. Una argues, panicking, pointing to Rei and me - "They're malice, not us!"

No, Una, we're all malice to this thing. It has introduced itself as The One Who Bridges the Gap, and Rei is talking again. "My name is Rei." It doesn't buy that. "I'm...Mikomi?" I've heard the name before. "I'm...I'm she who hopes."

"Ah, yes. that makes sense." What the hell are you doing?? "Come, we must resolve this." It gestures toward Una, myself and HighDive, who has just returned, slamming the hatch behind her, angry eyeless pounding on the far side.

Then Garandu-Oni slides through one wall, and opposite it, Suraisu-Oni. She Who Hopes and The One Who Bridges the Gap slide out a far door. I hear a voice in my mind: "RUN".

No. We're not fast enough. I turn to Una and HighDive. "Get back to the ship."

There's something I've been wanting to do ever since Mokuzai died, even back to when we first entered this damned floating tomb of gore. "I've got your answer." I close my eyes, and I hear it, building like a song, a low hum echoing throughout this part of the ship as plates pull away from each other, as bindings and fixtures and reinforcing bars begin to thrum, then shake, then buckle. I want to tear this fucking ship apart. I barely feel the impact of Suraisu-Oni's whirling drill-blade as it bites into my body and twists, cutting flesh and metal effortlessly.

It erupts out of me, an awful miracle rolling out from beneath me like a vast wave, and everything tears itself apart with screams of metal, shapnel rolling all around us. I see Garandu-Oni stagger and begin to come apart - just as its tentacles hit me they are flayed at the moment they begin to suck out my life. I see Suraisu-Oni sheared partially open. In a rage it sends both attacks to me, and those I feel. Una is healing herself, her tears cutting shining blue tracks in her face, and then there is an explosion of shining blue feathers that chokes and blinds all of us. I hear Una say "Cover our escape!" and then she goes limp in my arms.

***

The feathers dissipate while we flee, but they're upon us as soon as we reach the metal bracing structure I'd built so damn well. HighDive has battered a hole to get through, and Trencher widens it so I can push Una through too. It hits him too late that I'm not coming.

I turn to the passage, see the first writhing tentacles of Garandu-Oni sliding around a bend in the corridor, seeking us, and the grinding of Suraisu-Oni right behind.

I'm too close to the Senin. So I rush them. When they get to the curve in the corridor I can find no words - and then a wave even more vast than the first bursts out of me. Garandu-Oni is torn apart in a shower of metal and energy, and Suraisu-Oni is cut up even more.

Then the hungry silence outside sucks us right out the hole I just made.

I have time for two parting shots, burning Suraisu with my own blood and breath, channeling the pain out of me and into it in a beam of red. Trencher drags himself on board and throws me a cable. I barely have the strength to grab it. We pull ourselves back onto the Senin. I feel no better than when we teleported into the medical bay three hours ago. The Wandering Star is still intact. We lost Mokuzai, and we lost Rei. Kyoshi was wrong - the Oni can't really be killed at all.

I think of Amaterasu eating all of that Whiterock.

We keep getting our asses handed to us, but the Kyo-tee-shee are winning.

But not you Tanuki. Not you.