Dr. Strauss's phone went off, it was Mr. Kimura. Strauss didn't feel like talking to him, but there was no other way to find out where the wheel-chaired little bastard had gone, so, Dr. Strauss answered, and struggled to remain calm when he spoke. The last thing the good doctor wanted at this point was for that sociopath-on-wheels to get away for any reason.
"Mr. Kimura?" he said after opening the phone and putting it to his ear, "The distraction seems to have worked. Where are you?"
Dr. Strauss stopped and waited for a response. Mr. Kimura's reply could only have taken a few moments, but Dr. Strauss felt like he had gained a decade during that pause. Dr. Strauss dearly hoped he hadn't done anything to give himself away during the wait.
Zetta froze in her tracks, her eyes flicking immediately to the bloodstained sweater in Rin's hands. "You..." she began, her voice cracking. She swallowed hard; Blackrose had just been with them not long ago! The explosion had cut them off, but she'd promised they'd come back for her. And then...
"You're the one who's the murderer!" Zetta finally managed to shout, fixing her eyes on Rin's face and trying to ignore the sweater that was now on the ground. "You sent children out to hurt Lily and me, and because of that, one of them ended up dead. Then you brought Strauss, Alec, and Maya here--and now Maya's dead, too!"
Zetta strode forward as she spoke, pointing a finger accusingly at Rin. She wasn't afraid of the woman any longer; no, instead, she was angry. Rin had done so much and hurt so many people, and Zetta wasn't about to stand aside and let the woman do any more damage. "You killed a teenage girl, one who was completely innocent until she fell in with the rest of us somehow," she growled, still advancing. "And need I remind you, it's your fault that your own beloved Merlin was put in danger and then killed as well?"
Meanwhile, Lily had turned to Gabriel. "Quick, the sword," Lily whispered to him urgently. "Attack her! I don't think Zetta can fight."
"My dear, that's a rather simplified view..." Rin seemed taken aback by Zetta's outburst, her eyes widening slightly "It's not murder if it's justified, and all my operations, from the gang ambush I set up for your friends to the many other disappearances I've arranged for members of the magical community, were justified. Have you seen the destruction and fear many of our companions cause? Many centuries ago I was worshipped as Guanyin, now only a few mortals continue their reverence of me. I know for sure that they'll love me again if I and a select few are the only magical people left!"
Her voice reached a shrill pitch as she reached the final sentence. After a pause she continued whilst stepping back from Zetta's advance. She didn't see Gabriel whispering something to Lily, nor him weighing up the sword in his hands whilst he walked slowly behind Zetta.
"Maya's dead as well? That's a shame, that child had a lot of potential if someone could have taught her to use her ability properly. Nothing to do with me though, she vanished about the time that treasonous doctor ran off. I'm sorry my dear if I seem a little cold to you but really apart from being able to turn invisible she was no different from the millions of other third-world orphans who struggle to survive from day to day. We aren't going to run out of them any-time soon... well maybe we'll be running low on the magical ones, thanks to this."
He held up the vial of dark red liquid she had been holding triumphantly like it was a medal.
"Any guesses what this is? I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with Dr. Strauss."
~
After a pause, Mr. Kimura's jubilant voice echoed from the phone to Dr. Strauss.
"I'm just coming out of my room now, if you want to come along with me you better get here quickly, you know how fast Rin moves. I'm relieved the bomb worked as planned, TCR is relatively unstable for an explosive but with my limited materials here it's all I could make. Hey, is that you coming down the corridor? I really need some new glasses."
Mr. Kimura squinted at a figure wearing a white coat who had just turned the corner and was walking towards him with a purposeful stride.
Dr. Strauss closed the distance between himself and Mr. Kimura in complete silence. And then, when he was in arm's reach...
"KIMURA!" he screamed at the top of his lungs as he removed his gloves, "SHE'S DEAD..." he went on as he knocked Mr. Kimura out of his chair, "ITS YOUR FAULT. DAMN YOU!"
Without another word, Dr. Strauss wrapped his hands around Mr. Kimura's throat and started to strangle him. He turned Mr. Kimura so that he could watch the crippled bastard's face as he died. As Dr. Strauss throttled Mr. Kimura, the man's skin started to blacken and chunks of flesh started to fall off. A moment later and Mr. Kimura let out a muffled scream as the blood in his body started to boil and several of his bones exploded like a grenade. A moment later, Mr. Kimura's head popped off, releasing a jet of semi-evaporated blood mist. And finally, Mr. Kimura's body just seemed to... crumble completely into ash, leaving only cloud of blood behind.
Dr. Strauss knelt there, shaking for a long time before he let out a mournful scream. Then he was left almost completely devoid of emotion... only a subtle, dull anger remained... if it could even be called that. It was more of a consistent irritation. An itch.
Not knowing what else to do, he retraced his steps to the chamber to find Rin and mos to of the others waiting. He walked to whoever was holding the sword. Rin, Lily, Zetta, BR, it didn't matter. Dr. Strauss took no notice of who was holding the damn thing, but he now felt that, of anyone, he deserved to know what it was that everyone was fighting over.
"That's what everyone's trying to kill each other over?" he said in a mildly irritated tone, "Just another fucking sword. Bloody figures. Couldn't possibly be fighting over something that might... oh... I don't know... actually fucking help someone. But no, here we are apparently willing to tear each other to pieces over that piece of shit."
He paused, then looked up and noticed that everyone was staring at him now.
"So that's your whole angle, is it? All of... all of this," Zetta growled, gesturing wildly with her hands to indicate everything around them, "is to help you feel like a god again? You egotistical, bloodthirsty, evil piece of scum. Nothing can justify all the bad you've done! Sure, humans may fear us, but we don't have to be killed off in order to assuage their fears."
Zetta briefly paused to look at the vial Rin was holding up, but she shook her head fiercely and chose not to answer. She thought she knew what was in it, but it didn't matter; she was certain Rin would never actually get to use it. "Everything you're doing is for yourself," she continued, aware but uncaring that her voice was raising in volume as she went on. "And you know what? Demons, half-demons, people with powers... None of us cause any more damage than the humans themselves cause. The World Wars? The Civil War? All the murder and lies and backstabbing they do? What makes them so special?"
She would have continued, yelling to get all of the fear, frustration, and anger off her chest had Strauss not walked in at that moment. Zetta clamped her jaws shut, still boiling with rage but curious as to what the doctor was doing. Her rage made way to surprise and confusion when she noticed the blood on his clothes. What had happened?
"Excalibur's not just another sword, doctor," Lily spoke up after Strauss had spoken.
"She's right," Zetta said, half-turning away from Rin to stare at Strauss. "It's got powers." She paused, then turned back to Rin. Her voice was soft and flat now. "But he's right as well. You're willing to destroy what may very well be half the world in order to be praised among regular humans. You really think we'll let you do that?"
For once Rin lost her trademark grin and replied to Zetta's question with a glare.
"Of course not, why do you think I bothered to go after you back in Paris? I foresaw even then that you people would intervene with mine and Merlin's plans for the dragons, it was Lily's killing of him which led to me realising the truth: that all but a few magical beings are too dangerous to live. I do understand why you despise me, you were destined to be my enemies anyway, but the world will be so much better under my control, even if I have to break a few eggs to get there. You ask me what makes normal humans so special, well at-least with them I can predict what they'll do. Anyway, on with my story. With my new ambition in mind, my old habits of removing those opposed to me in an... lets say ad hoc... fashion were simply too slow to continue."
"So you are responsible for all those specials who have been going missing recently..." Lily muttered under her breath, Rin shot her an angry look and then continued without comment.
"It was with luck then that in my searching for a doctor for my beloved Merlin I stumbled across the most useful man I could... Dr. Strauss. You may or may not be aware that his body is a steaming cauldron of lethal viruses, a potential holocaust if they ever were released into the environment. I realised that if a sample of blood was taken from him, then maybe its contents could be adapted to only affect a certain type of person. I'm no scientist of course but Strauss managed to inadvertently lead me to the second part of the puzzle, the researcher Mr. Kimura. It turned out that several years ago he had found a gene variant present in almost all discovered magical humans, dubbed KIM1. With a bit of "persuading" I was able to get him to come work on a sample and before we knew it, we had a deadly disease that could only infect specials, one that I hold in this vial now. We went back in time to test it in several major cities where there were higher than usual magic densities, then used dragons to burn the areas afterwards to remove the evidence and prevent any further spread."
"Wait, why did you care about that?" Gabriel asked with a twitch in his eye, it looked like he was barely able to restrain himself from attacking her with the sword in his hand "I was near one of those fires and I think Lily and Zetta were too, we would have been goners if you had let virus spread."
"Ah..." Rin replied with a knowing smile "You see, I had let it spread from there then there would have been time for some magical people to hide before it reached their part of the world, possibly even find a cure. I had to find a way to spread the virus everywhere at once so no-one would be prepared... and that's where that sword you've holding comes in! Excalibur enhances the holder's natural power, so it follows all I have to do is take hold of that sword and then use my travelling power to release the contents of this vial everywhere across the world at once, except in this Ark. Magical beings everywhere-else... will perish. I won't ask again, hand me Excalibur now!"
~
Maya made unintelligible noises as she lay curled up under the beating sun, unaware of her surroundings. She never saw the shadow of someone or something larger appearing over her, studying her with interest, nor did she feel something that resembled a pair of arms carrying her to somewhere much cooler. Even after she had been laid down somewhere safe, the young girl continued to dream fitfully, as if she was reliving a distressing memory again.
"So that's what this is all about then," Dr. Strauss growled as he glared at Rin, "You've been manipulating everyone here just so you can start a cult of personality on yourself. Sorry, I meant, just so you can expand on the one you've ALREADY GOT. This is why... this is why she died... this is why Maya died... why so many others will die... just to stroke your fucking ego." Dr. Strauss lunged at Rin, no longer caring that his gloves were already off; he rushed right at Rin - though once again, with an eerily calm silence after he had finished speaking. He didn't know if he could catch her, but if he did, he'd pin her to the floor, break her arms, and wring her neck.
---
Rin was apparently prepared for this move however, for with a click of her fingers she disappeared, leaving Dr. Strauss grasping for thin air. A moment later she materialised next to Gabriel, reaching for the sword he held by his side with a gnarled hand.
"Give it to me now!" she shouted in a manic voice, he tried to block her with his arms but without warning she slapped him in the face with her other hand.
"Ouch!" Gabriel cried as he fell onto the ground with a thud, dropping Excalibur in the direction of Dr. Strauss. Rin tried to climb over the floored man towards the sword but tripped over one of his out-stretched legs, causing a second cry of pain as she gripped onto his hair to stay upright.
---
After lunging at Rin, Dr. Strauss paid no mind to what Rin was doing. Instead, he grabbed at the sword. He didn't stop to think about what he was doing, instead he just grabbed at it, not really expecting to get it. Which neatly explained the shocked expression on his face when he did manage to pick the damn thing up. Somehow, Dr. Strauss recognized the sword the very instant he took it up. It was Excalibur... Arthur's sword.
"Impossible," he muttered to himself.
Yet... looking at it, even a momentary glance, and somehow, as if there had been an age-old implant in his brain... he simply... knew that it really was the legendary sword. But rather than the expected elation, all Dr. Strauss could muster up was a mounting sense of horror that nearly drowned out everything else around him. The sword felt... wrong somehow. Then Dr. Strauss snapped back to reality as he noticed that Rin had managed to right herself up again. Dr. Strauss assumed what he thought was a guarded stance.
Skipped out on those damn fencing lessons and here's where it lands me.
Zetta wanted to continue to argue, to yell scathing replies to everything Rin was saying, but she could no longer find the words. That destruction she and Lily experienced what seemed like a lifetime ago was all Rin's fault. All that death, all of the people whose skin melted from their bones in that extreme heat and fire...
Zetta took a deep, shaky breath, her mind spinning. There was no way they could afford to let Rin get a grip on that sword. Once she did, she'd be gone in a heartbeat. When she went after Gabriel, Zetta was about to throw some sort of illusion in her face to distract her so that somebody else could nab the sword. Dr. Strauss had already managed to get it, however; a good thing, because Zetta doubted Rin would be fazed by her illusory powers much.
"All he has to do is touch her now," Zetta remarked, moving back to where Lily was helping Gabriel back to his feet. "If he's powerful enough to disease people just by touching them to begin with, it'll be even more potent now that he's holding Excalibur. Right?"
"Yes, but only if he can get his hands on her," Lily replied. "Maybe we should help." With that, Lily focused on some of the larger chunks of rubble in the room. The rubble lifted into the air slowly, then with a grunt of effort, Lily sent them flying in Rin's direction.
Rin attempted to duck the rubble by using Gabriel as a human shield but she misjudged the projectory of the fast flying rocks, one of which audibly cracked her on the head. With a yell the woman let go of her hostage and fell back onto the ground. Within moments though she was back on her feet, though a trickle of blood ran down the side of her scalp.
"I'm not going down that quickly, Merlin killers!" she cried at leapt over Gabriel towards Lily and Zetta, spittle flying and fists raised. She had a crazed look in her wide open eyes which homed in on the two women like beacons.
Dr. Strauss hacked and slashed his way at Rin, not particularly caring at the moment who he hit, as long as he ended up killing Rin. All the while, he was, aside from a few energetic grunts as he swung 'excalibur,' completely silent, and the whole time he made his attack, he fixed a glare at Rin. A glare that communicated a number of things; his utter hatred for her at this point and what she was trying to do; his rage at her ludicrous hypocrisy; his disdain for her idiotic and selfish plans for the world; and above all, his cold glare sent the message that even though he didn't know how, even though he didn't really have a plan, SHE was going to die today.
It didn't take much time for Dr. Strauss to close the distance between them, and once he did, he stabbed her right through the stomach and used the leverage to knock her to the ground. Then he used the sword to pin her down by putting it right through her left leg. Finally, while still holding onto the sword, he reached down and starting trying to throttle her with one hand.
Don't worry if this seems god-moddy, Jojo gave me permission to kill Rin, but asked me to leave the EXACT details of what happens to her once Dr. Strauss touches her up to him. At least that's what I think he said in the PM. If I'm wrong Jojo, let me know and I'll correct the error.
"Move!" Lily shoved Zetta one way and dove the opposite direction. Zetta had stood her ground when Rin was coming towards them, about to throw an illusion on the madwoman's face in an attempt to startle her so that somebody else could land a blow. Lily, however, had seen how perilously close Dr. Strauss was to hitting them on his way to intercept Rin.
Zetta hit the ground with a gasp. She looked up to see Strauss swinging Excalibur at Rin, then actually stabbing her with it. She could hardly believe it when she saw Strauss pin her to the ground and attempt to choke her. It's over, she thought. It's finally over. Rin's going to die and we won't have to be on the run anymore.
The skin on Rin's neck began to melt under Dr. Strauss's grip, however the fight hadn't gone out of the ancient spirit just yet. With a yell she kicked the doctor in the groin, sending him sprawling backwards. Bleeding heavily from the wounds to her stomach and leg, it took all of Rin's strength to lift herself off for the ground for a final order.
"Merlin... avenge yourself!"
Out of darkness near the entrance to the chamber emerged the zombified Merlin, his flaccid skin a pale grey colour and his eyes empty of life. With surprisingly strong hands he gripped onto Lily's hair, then reached down to his side for a long knife wedged in his belt.
~
Sweat dripped down Alec's forehead as he slowed his running pace through the catacomb of tunnels through the mountain, realising that by now he must be well away from Rin.
"Never again... zombie Merlin was one step too far" he panted "Hmmm... where are I?" The archaeologist continued down the passageway deeper into the mountain, passing by numerous store cupboards, all disappointingly empty until he noticed one with something that caught his eye.
"Huh? It can't be..."
Tucked under a blanket so only her face was showing was Maya, sleeping peacefully. Around her food and water had been arranged neatly by someone. Alec tiptoed over and quietly as he could picked up a sheet of paper which he saw was lying next to the slumbering child.
"A map with exits out of this damn place!" he whispered excitedly to himself, before noticing writing on the other side of the paper "Wait... what's this?" He begun to read the note, his brow furrowing as he got further on.
"That... that can't be possible!" he exclaimed, looking down in concern at Maya's sleeping figure "She wouldn't... would she?"
Dr. Strauss recoiled at the hit, but he held onto the sword as he went. Which almost proved a mistake as he nearly gored himself on it as he was forced away form Rin. He only noticed his pain for a moment before charging at Rin again, swinging, hacking, slashing, and stabbing at her with the Sword as if all semblance of sanity had abandoned him - which could well be the case, as he was also ignoring the zombie Merlin... who could've been hurling fireballs at him for all Dr. Strauss knew. But even if the zombie were doing anything, even if everyone in the room were determined to stop him from killing Rin; it didn't matter to Jared; all that mattered to him, all that he would acknowledge was his need to kill this self-obsessed ***** of a 'spirit.'
After maintaining his dead silence for so long, Dr. Strauss finally started screaming at the top of his lungs. It was utterly incoherent and incomprehensible, but anyone who heard it would know two things: Dr. Strauss was pissed and he wouldn't be stopping his mad assault until Rin lay dead before him.
"What the... How in--?" Zetta stumbled backwards as Merlin appeared, her mouth falling open in shock. At first, she assumed Merlin had somehow survived despite being told that the bullet in the leg had killed him. But no, Rin had certainly not been lying about that. And he did not look healthy at all. An illusion? she thought, just moments before Merlin grabbed onto Lily's hair and yank her head back, causing her to scream. Definitely real, then; an illusion could never do something like that.
"Hang on!" Zetta called, casting about desperately for something she could use as a weapon. There was rubble strewn all across the floor, but none of it was particularly suitable for a bludgeoning weapon. It was all bound to crumble at impact, as the rocks Lily had sent flying into Rin's head had done. At least they'd done their damage first.
Finally, she spotted a small, broken chair leg on the floor by the wall. Zetta ran over to it and picked it up. She ran back over to where Merlin stood, his knife dangerously close to Lily's throat. "No you don't!" Zetta snarled, managing to thwap the undead Merlin across the back before he'd gotten the chance to slit Lily's throat.
Merlin flinched, likely from the impact instead of pain, and loosened his grip on Lily's hair enough for her to wriggle away. Lily scrambled backwards out of his range, rubbing at her sore scalp and trying to focus on the nearest pieces of rubble by her. Zetta, meanwhile, brought her arm back to wind up for another stinging blow. Merlin turned to face her and shoved his hands in her direction, and what seemed like a large gust of wind blew her away.
Zetta fell on her back, gasping. So zombies still had bit of the power they had in life, did they? As Merlin readied a small fireball in his hands--she swore his silence was creepier than his appearance--Zetta struggled to get back to her feet. Merlin loosed the fireball in her direction at the same time that Lily sent large chunks of rock at his head. Thankfully, that was enough to send his fireball slamming into the ground beside Zetta's face.
"Get him now!" Lily shouted as Merlin stumbled backwards, the hair on the side of his head smoking and sparking. Zetta needed no further encouragement; she took the opportunity to ran straight at Merlin, the chair leg held before her like a spear.
With a grunt of effort, Zetta punched the chair leg through the zombie's face. Merlin stumbled backwards and eventually dropped to his knees, the chair leg sticking out from his right eye socket. For seemingly the first time, he made a sound--a low, guttural moan that trailed off into silence as his body slumped forwards. He moved no longer.
JoJo gave me permission to kill Merlin, so naturally I decided to go just a teensy bit overboard with it. Rezetta is now a zombie killer. Yay!
As Zetta and Lily fought off Merlin, Rin stood shakily up to face Dr Strauss, her face wrapped in snarl despite her injuries.
"You know, the irony is that you'll probably be long dead before you realise your mistake dear. " She tried to laugh but ended up coughing several times, apparently struggling to breathe "Maybe you can have fun discussing with your family what it's like to be betrayed by someone you love!"
~
Maya murmured and then blearily opened her eyes. The room was dark with it's entrance being the sole light source and the walls made from the same tunnelled rock as the rest of the base was. Standing over her was the dark figure of a man.
"Doctor Stra... eh Daddy?" she asked with trepidation as she couldn't see his face properly.
"No, it's Alec. You remember me?" The archaeologist bent down and attempted a friendly smile, he couldn't blame Maya for being distrustful of adults after the way several of them had treated her.
"Uh huh. What happened?" she mumbled hugging the blanket around her, the last thing she remembered was finding her way out of the mountain, now it seemed she was back inside again.
"Um... I found you outside, so I brought you in here where's it's not so hot" Alec lied "Dr. Strauss is very worried about you, last time I saw him he was shouting something and then ran off."
"Ran off?" Maya muttered to herself, she hoped the doctor would be okay "What's that?" she asked the American, pointing to the note he held in his hands.
"Eh... it's... nothing important" Alec said quickly and stuffed it in his back pocket, cursing himself for not doing that earlier. He wasn't sure whether Maya would actually be able to read it but the note-writer had apparently thought so so he wasn't going to take any chances.
I can't let her see this... thank God I got here before she had to chance to wake up and read it.
He decided now was the time to change the subject to something that had been bothering him
"What happened in the big chamber with the sword? Was it something to do with Rin?"
Dr. Strauss paused for a moment to catch his breath. He was pretty sure he heard Rin apparently monologue about something... and then he heard that little jab about his family. What little bit of clarity that Dr. Strauss still had just snapped at that point. He lunged at Rin, and against all odds, he managed to impale her on the sword. Then he wrapped his free hand around her throat.
"Shut up shut up SHUT UP!" Dr. Strauss screamed at Rin as he strangled her, "You don't get to talk about them! You have no right!"
Dr. Strauss kept the pressure on her throat, and watched as Rin, slowly, but inescapably now... started to die. First, Rin's blood started to boil from the inside - she was clearly in pain, but she bit her lip down and only the faintest of snarls escaped. Slowly, lesions began to form, and blood and puss began to gush from her pores as her insides liquified.
With her last bit of strength, she leaned towards Dr. Strauss's ear and whispered, "It's too late. I've already won."
And with that, Rin's skin fell away, letting her flesh escape and releasing her vaporized blood, painting a second coat of the stuff onto Dr. Strauss.
"Is it over? Is she gone?" Zetta asked after a rather lengthy silence in the room. Her eyes kept moving from the twice-dead body of Merlin to Strauss and back again. She felt relieved, but she also couldn't help but feel anxiety tugging away at her mind and Zetta couldn't help the doubts surfacing to her thoughts. Was it possible that finally, after everything they'd all gone through, Rin was truly dead? Could a spirit such as she even be killed? Then again, she'd just watched the "woman" explode, and it hadn't looked like an illusion to her. Maybe they could relax after all.
As good as one can relax with all the death and violence in your life, anyway.
"We still need to free the dragons," Lily said suddenly, her voice ringing confidently throughout the room. "And then we can finally get out of this place. We'll need the sword for that, Strauss," she called, unwilling or unable to hide the somewhat disgusted frown on her face as she took in the doctor's bloodied appearance.
"I guess we have to find out where Alec went, too," Zetta added, looking back the way the man had run off to earlier.
Dr. Strauss dropped to his knees, leaning on the sword heavily, as if he would completely fall face-first into the floor if he didn't have it. Which he might. Up to this point, Dr. Strauss had been managing to keep himself going by not paying too much attention to what he was doing. But now that he had won... he could not escape himself. Now he was forced to fully process everything that had happened in the last hour or so. Tears would have escaped his gray-green levies... if he had any more tears in him.
I... I've become a murderer... I...
The sound of metal scraping metal rang through the room as Dr. Strauss started shaking. His breathing became uneven, and for several moments, it became faster and shallower, and it kept building up until it became a full bout of hyperventilation. As his mental state deteriorated, Dr. Strauss became increasingly fascinated with the Sword until it seemed to fill his field of vision entirely.
Gabriel picked himself up shakily from the floor and began to walk towards Dr Strauss, trying to avoid looking at the mess which was all that remained on Rin.
"Alec can wait, he hasn't exactly been helpful for us in the past" he called back to Zetta and Lily "We came here to rid ourselves of the threat of Rin and help the dragons. We've done the first, let's get on the second." Seeing the expression upon the doctor's face, he addressed Strauss directly. "Don't feel hard on yourself, that woman was a monster and would have killed all of us if she had the chance. Hand over Excalibur now so we can end this."
~
"No, it was..." Maya then recounted Mr Kimura and Dr Strauss's plan in detail. Alec listened with increasing surprise, waiting until she had finished before interjecting with his own thoughts.
"They both thought it was safe for you to use a real bomb, on your own?" He asked in an incredulous voice.
Maya looked up at him but didn't reply.
"And you still want to live with Dr Strauss after this?"
"Yes" Maya replied stubbornly. "It wasn't really his idea anyway."
"He still went along with it" Alec pointed out.
"I don't care." Maya said moodily "Can we go somewhere-else now? This room is too dark."
"I suppose so. Aren't you going to eat this food that, eh, I brought here?"
"I'm not hungry."
Alec let out an exasperated sigh as he led the young girl out into the corridor, he was relieved that Dr Strauss had apparently volunteered to take permanent care of the child, he got the feeling that Maya didn't particularly like him.
If all children are this ungrateful then you can count me out of the breeding game!
Dr. Strauss looked at Gabriel, no longer possessing the presence of mind to even attempt to compose himself and as such, his grief and horror were all too apparent.
"I... I'm a murderer...," he slowly got up, his voice starting off as little more than a whisper, but as he went on it gradually built to a panicked shout, "I'm a murderer now! I've killed three people... Rin... that little wheel-chaired bastard Kimura... and..." he paused again, his voice suddenly dropping back down to little more than a whisper, "And before them... Maya."
Dr. Strauss used the sword as a walking stick until he reached the nearest wall that he could lean on. After this, Dr. Strauss spoke clearly, but to no one in particular.
"I was going to adopt Maya..." his face contorted in a self-loathing scowl, "She'd just found out about her mother... I thought I could help. I thought I could give her a happy life in England. All we had to do was get the fuck out of here," he stabbed at the floor beneath him with the sword - only just missing his left foot, "Kimura's plan... use a child to deliver a fucking bomb! That's a suicide-bomber's trick! What the fuck was I thinking it going along with it! Stupid stupid stupid stupid STUPID!"
As Dr. Strauss started to tear at his hair with his right hand, he also brought up his left, which still held the Sword. As the glint of the glare on the blade caught his eye, Dr. Strauss found it difficult to look away from the Sword. He imagined the blade cutting through him, ending his miserable little life.
"If only it were that easy," he thought out loud, "If only it weren't for my condition..."
Then Dr. Strauss saw his life - or rather, every death he held himself responsible for flash before his eyes. He covered his eyes with his right hand, blocking the flooding river of tears for only a few moments before they broke past their flesh-and-blood dam. Then...
"Heh," Dr. Strauss's attention refocusing on the Sword, "Though after all, why not? Its not as if anyone really values life anymore... if anyone ever did. All we do is look for 'better' ways to kill each other... I've just got the one true trump card."
Dr. Strauss lifted the Sword's blade to his throat. Now that his attention was focused on it, he noticed that the Sword seemed to be much lighter than it looked. If he were blind, Dr. Strauss would have sworn he was holding a plastic butter-knife.
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