Part One
Chapter One
The braided youth looked out of the window of the shuttle, his reflection getting in the way of the view of Earth. He tilted his head a bit and watched as his reflection vanished, leaving behind a round green and blue sphere: Earth. That was the thing that he had been protecting for over three years now, that little ball and all of the things that lived on it. Sure, he was now a hero, people loved him and he was now on their “user friendly” lists or whatever they were called. But what about what he thought? What did he think of himself? He frowned and tore his gaze from the window to look at his hands. To anyone else, they were a nice semi tan color, medium sized, callused hands of a teenager. To Duo, self proclaimed Shinigami, they were covered in a red liquid… the very essence of life. Blood, blood of all of those people he had killed in the war. Oz soldiers and innocent people both.
He turned his head to stare back out of the window, wanting to look at anything than the appendages that had killed so many. A sudden giggle brought him out of his musings and he turned to see a small girl with dark brown hair and chocolate eyes staring at him.
“Hi,” she said in a pixie like voice. “I’m Raine,” she said with a smile. “Who are you?” Duo smiled at the girl’s innocence and the fact that she didn’t know who he was. He seemed that everybody now days knew who the famous Gundam Pilots were.
“Well,” he said with a smile. “I’m Duo Maxwell, It’s very nice to meet you, Raine.” The small child smiled again and then pointed at Duo’s head, his forehead to be more precise.
“You have a boo boo,” she said with a sad voice. “Does it hurt?” Duo blinked and brought his hand up to where the child was pointing. He grimaced lightly as his fingers ran over some stitches and felt the swollen area.
“It only hurts when I touch it,” he told her with a smile, bringing his hand down from his head. “So, where are you going when you get off of the shuttle?”
The child smiled and pointed to a woman sitting next to her who was sleeping. “I’m going with my new mommy,” she beamed. Duo smiled warmly as he looked at the woman. She must have just adopted the child; it was good to see that some people were actually helping others. He was glad that the child was going to have a good home to go live in.
“So,” Duo said as he pointed to Earth. “Did you have fun while you were on Earth?” The child looked out of his window and she nodded. Duo smiled, “I’m sure you’ll like the colony as well, little one.”
The little girl was about to say something, but her mother chose that moment to wake up. The woman paled when she saw her daughter talking to Duo and she twirled the girl around in her seat. “Sweetie, don’t talk to the man like that, you’re bothering him.” Duo was about to tell the woman that he wasn’t bothered at all, but the ‘buckle your seat belts’ sign started to flash and he felt that there was no need to tell her.
One hour later, Duo found himself outside the shuttle port with his bag over his shoulder. He waved down a taxi and got into the first one that stopped. He gave the driver an address and told him that that was where he wanted to go. The driver nodded and out the address into a map system he had built into the car.
“It’ll take at least an hour to get there,” he told him as he started to drive. “So, where are you from?”
Duo looked up at the man, “America, yourself?”
“Me?” The man said as he laughed. “I’m from around here, born and raised.” Duo smiled and then opted for looking out of the window. He felt as if the war never happened… Wasn’t that supposed to be a good thing? Wasn’t it the ultimate goal to have things return to a sense of… normal?
He crossed his arms over his lithe chest as he thought about his days as a Gundam Pilot. Sure, he had been reckless, who hadn’t? Sure, he destroyed a few bases without remorse…did that make him a monster? Was this the world that he wanted? Did the people of the both the colonies and Earth want a monster living among them?
The hour passed rather quickly for the braided man and he paid the cab driver a decent amount of money for the fare. As the cab drove off, the braided man found himself looking up at an old looking temple of sorts. He felt his bag digging into his shoulder and he shifted it slightly, relieving himself of the pain momentarily. He went to run his hand through his chestnut bangs when he noticed red again. He jerked his hand down quickly, not looking at it.
“Damn it,” he muttered as he quickly ascended the steps that took him to the temple gates. He knocked on the door a few times and waited for the owner to come out and answer it. When someone didn’t answer it, he once again pounded on the wooden doors; a frown set on his heart shaped face. Finally, after what seemed like forever to the usually hyper active youth, a Chinese teen answered the door.
“For the last time, I wont-“
“Won’t what, Wu-baby,” Duo teased as the Chinese man finally realized it was him. “Ravish me? Screw me silly? Castrate me for what I’m saying?” He laughed nervously as Wufei’s sword touched the delicate skin of his neck.
“I’ll have to consider the last one, it seems like a pretty good idea, although it wont stop you from speaking.” Duo laughed weakly and pointed to the blade. Wufei rolled his eyes and removed the sword from the man’s neck.
“Whew, thanks man,” he said as he rubbed his throat. “That would not have been a pretty sight to see if you had actually slit it…” he shivered slightly at the thought of his own blood staining the blade. Wufei raised a dark eyebrow, but did nothing else to signal that he heard him. The Chinese man then moved and gestured with his hand for Duo to come into his home. Duo smiled widely and entered, looking around with wide eyes. “Dang, Chang, you never told me you were loaded! This place is huge!”
Huge had to be an understatement. What Duo had mistaken for a dojo had actually been a wall…a wall that expanded all the way around the piece of property that Wufei owned. There was a semi large pond that was over looked by a large house, a mixture of both Japanese and Chinese. There were several cherry blossom trees that were in bloom, the petals littering the ground. Duo let out a long whistle as he looked around some more, taking in all of the details.
He once again ran his hand through his bangs, grimacing slightly at the red coloring that only he saw. “Man…” he said as he turned to his only friend. “A war can do a lot to you… it can take so much from you and so much out of you…”
The Chinese pilot looked at Duo, confusion on his face. “Yes, war does take a lot out of people,” he said slowly as he walked up to his friend. “It takes both the good and the bad…”
Duo nodded his head slightly and then looked Wufei in the eye. “What do you think it took out of us?”
The Chinese man thought for a moment, “too many things to name,” he concluded. “Too many things to name…”
Duo nodded in agreement and then looked at the ground. “Wufei… what can we do now? I know we were each given jobs by the Preventers, but I don’t think that I can work for them.” He looked back up and smiled sadly. “How would I be able to look at those people and not think about if I killed a friend or a loved one of theirs?”
Wufei frowned and then looked up at the sky. “I don’t know… that’s why I quit.” Duo head napped back to the man and his mouth opened and closed, making him resemble a fish. The Chinese man laughed, “don’t think that you are the only one who thinks about these things, Duo.” The braided man was still not speaking so the other man continued. “I’ve been invited to a peace Corp and I was told to bring you along with me. I wasn’t going to go, but since you are here, it must be fate. We will leave in a week, alright?”
Duo snapped out of his stupor and frowned at Wufei. “I don’t want to be involved in any kind of “peace” thing. It’s not like it will actually last…” he muttered as he kicked at the grass. “Think about it, we didn’t even have peace for a year and some sicko’s use a little girl to try to take over the universe. Then, the year after that, a man bombed Relena’s building. I’m just waiting to see what happens this year. You never know, we could get thrown back into war!”
Wufei nodded his head slightly. “That is why we need to go to this meeting. We were the only ones who were invited, Duo. I checked the invite list; Heero, Trowa, and Quatre weren’t invited.”
Duo once again was at a loss for words. “How could they not invite Heero? Don’t they know that he was the strongest out of all of us? That it was because of him that the war was won? Or the fact that the only reason Relena is here with us today is because of what he did with Wing? Or did they not get the memo?” Wufei laughed at Duo and shook his head. Duo always had a way with words… normally the wrong way, but a way none the less.
“That would be one of the reasons I want to go to this meeting,” he confessed as he crossed his arms over his nicely built chest. “I want to know why only we were invited and not the others.” Duo nodded and then Wufei pointed to the large house. “Make yourself at home, Duo. We are leaving in a week, whether you like it or not.”
“And if I don’t go,” Duo said with a sly smile.
“Then I will just have to cut off your braid,” the other man said as he walked past him, twirling the sword he had in his hand to prove a point. Duo gulped and laughed nervously. Yeah, didn’t want that to happen, his hair was everything to him…. His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed Wufei’s hair. It would seem that he had grown it out some for it now ended around where his shoulder blades would be. Duo frowned again as he watched his friend go into the house. What else had changed over the past two years that he wasn’t aware of?
He followed the man into his home and lightly tapped his shoulder. Wufei turned around, one eyebrow raised in question. Duo smirked and then tugged on the ponytail, hard enough for the man to know he was tugging on it, but light enough so that the other man’s head was hurt. The other man smiled in return and nodded, saying something on the lines of wanting to grow it out. Duo nodded and let go of the black hair, letting it slide back into place.
“So,” Duo said as they made their way into the kitchen. “What do you think they want with us?”
Wufei shrugged as he grabbed two glasses from a cabinet and placed one in front of Duo. He then grabbed a pitcher of tea and poured some into the two glasses. “I don’t have the slightest clue. As I said before, we will find out in a week, Duo.”
The man frowned and then shrugged. “I guess I can think of something to do to pass the time.” He said as he took a sip of his drink before making a face. “What is this crap?”
“All you need to know is that it is good for you,” Wufei said as he took a sip. “Now, drink it all or no ice cream.
With his beloved ice cream on the line, the long haired man had no choice but to oblige by his wishes.
*
The week had passed by relatively fast for Duo. When he wasn't sleeping or eating, he was busy leaning about the Peace Corp or bugging the hell out of Wufei. The Chinese man was still as entertaining as ever, he had concluded. Especially when it was early in the morning and the fire alarm was going off. And by early, he meant 2 A.M.
“Maxwell,” the man said, using his old nickname for the pilot. He had been using as of late because of all of the idiotic things the man had been doing. “What in hell were you thinking? Who in their right mind would be cooking a seven layer cake at 2 A.M. in the morning!”
“Me,” Duo said as he took the cake sheet out of the oven and put it on the stove top. Wufei was slightly puzzled when he saw that the cake looked great, not a single scorch mark on it.
“What made the alarm go off,” he asked tiredly as Duo began to investigate the oven.
“Hand me a tong,” Duo said as he found a very crispy lump of something. “I don’t want to get burned by touching it with my hands.”
The Chinese man rolled his eyes and picked some out of a drawer and handed them to Duo. "If you ever do this again I will feed your braid to you," he threatened as he watched Duo pluck out a charred piece of something un-nameable and throw it in the trash.
"Like I've never heard that one," he said as he closed the oven and looked at his cake. "So, tomorrow's the big day..."
Wufei nodded and looked at the ceiling and then back at Duo. "Get some sleep for I flat out refuse to give you any sugared or caffeinated ANYTHING tomorrow."
Duo's jaw dropped and he watched the young man walk back to his room and slam the door. Duo smiled to himself and started to clean up the mess he had made. "Tomorrow is going to be something," he said to himself as he tried to describe the insecurities he was feeling. "I can only hope we don't have to fight anymore..."
He finished cleaning in record time and made his way to his bed to sleep for a bit before he would have to get up.
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