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rallamajoopChapter was finished in a bit of a rush this week, apologies if this shows. A combination of other things eating my time and the story getting up to the less well planned parts (which I was rather hoping I'd have figured out before I got to this point, but it doesn't seem to have quite worked out that way) are slowing me down a lot lately. The three-week-cliffhanger on this week's holic chapter is not going to help much either, but I have still got at least one more week's worth of material in reserve, and we'll see how it goes after that.
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15
For Doumeki, around the time Watanuki had been learning to lead gangs through old ruins, he’d been learning to do everything else. He must’ve had parents at some stage, but he didn’t remember them. The one who’d taught him to read, to bandage a wound, to load a gun and shoot, to take down a deadlands beast without wasting any bullets and estimate how long it would be before the poison broke down, to keep his head down in a fight and hide for hours on end if necessary until it was safe to come out – everything he knew – that had been his grandfather, Doumeki Haruka, and him alone.
His childhood was spent constantly on the move – following the herds of game beasts or on treasure hunts of their own variety, seeking supplies Haruka remembered from anything up to decades earlier. They were hardly much of a match for anyone who might challenge them, one old man and a boy, but Haruka had the knack for keeping them out of trouble. Few people ventured into the old cities anymore, but Haruka could always lead them through safely, finding his way apparently by little more than memory and instinct, and those places became a shelter that few others could reach.
Shelter was something they could never afford to stray far away from, those were the days when acid storms were still common, when no-one ever ventured outside without protective coats and only the bravest and most foolish ever went far when even the distant spectre of rain clouds hung in the sky. People were, if anything, only all the more scattered and desperate those few years ago, food all the scarcer while the alien new ecosystem was only beginning to take hold. Doumeki learnt from a young age what madmen were capable of, when to be ruthless with them and when to be kind. He learnt what it was like to go hungry, the futility of complaining about what his grandfather could not provide, but before their condition became too dire, Haruka would always find a way to keep them going; never once showed weakness in all the years Doumeki remembered.
Though he taught Doumeki everything he needed to survive, on the subject of old days of his own youth, he was strangely silent.
“It would be too easy for us old folk to cling to days that will never come again,” he told his grandson, “and it would be unfair for us to drag the next generation back with us in such dreams.” This world, as he saw it, was not an end, but the beginning of something strange and new – something that would be Shizuka’s rather than his. Even when Doumeki was young, Haruka was already an old man, and he felt it more with every year that passed.
Likewise, he always made sure Doumeki understood that his way of life would not last forever. “There will come a time when you will need new companions – people who will need your skills as well,” he impressed on Doumeki on more than one occasion. So when the day finally came that Doumeki found himself on the edge of Kurogane’s camp – alone, it was not such a surprise for him as it might have been. Indeed, it had felt inevitable, like something he’d been waiting to happen all his life.
Haruka had always had a way of knowing these kinds of things. Doumeki had never discovered how, but it was not something he’d ever felt the need to question. To him, his grandfather had always been one of the fundamental truths of the universe – immutable as the earth itself. He was a part of Doumeki’s past in the same way that the old world was part of Haruka’s – something it was easier to accept he’d never see again if it couldn’t be held up against the current world for comparison.
The idea that someone he’d known as for as short a time as Watanuki could have access to that part of his past – access to more than Doumeki himself did to this day – had been more unsettling than he could ever have imagined.
***
Doumeki had probably been asleep less than an hour when something he could only identify as a vague feeling of unease dragged him back to consciousness. Watanuki was once again visible only as a silhouette in the gloom, but already up on his feet, arms folded. He didn’t seem to have made any obvious motion to wake his roommate, unless the way he was looking at Doumeki counted, which it very well might.
“Somewhere we need to be?” Doumeki guessed. In the darkness, he just barely made out Watanuki’s answering nod. He was about to ask whether this was Watanuki’s moonlight spirit again, before he remembered that he still wasn’t sure just how much of that trip had been real and how much had been dream, and he didn’t really want to be sure either.
“Anything I need to know?” he asked instead.
“It’s not nearby,” Watanuki answered, in a voice that made all the hairs on the back of Doumeki’s neck stand on end. “We’ll need supplies – fuel, maybe some food. We need to get moving quickly.”
“Is this going to get dangerous?” Doumeki asked. He hadn’t seen Watanuki this tense since their argument – maybe not even since the mission when he’d taken that gunshot wound months before.
“No,” said Watanuki, “not for us. Aren’t you up yet?”
Not for us, now that was creatively vague, and yet, it was occurring to Doumeki that not all the treasures Watanuki uncovered has been abandoned so long ago. With Watanuki in this state, it was all too easy to be reminded of his first impressions of the April Fool back on the very first day they met – surrounded by the remains of Watanuki’s former gang. It didn’t take an event nearly so exceptional as what had occurred there to wipe a gang out completely and leave a derelict campsite behind – and a journey that would require them to take extra fuel along could take them well outside the safety zone of the Diet Building’s territory. If somewhere like that could be their destination, that would explain Watanuki’s behaviour all too neatly.
“If we’re going to be away that long, we need to wake up Kurogane and make sure he understands,” said Doumeki.
Implicit in that should have been the hint that if Watanuki had any more information to share about just what Doumeki was supposed to tell their leader, now was the time, but Watanuki just said, “Fine,” and fell into tense silence again. It occurred to Doumeki that leaving him here with only whatever was going through his head for company – even just for the short time it would take to wake Kurogane and come back – would be too long.
“Start getting the bike ready,” he said aloud. “I won’t be long.”
Just as they were pulling out of the camp barely twenty minutes later, a light went on in the lab building behind them, but neither looked back to see.
***
Like most of the longer journeys Watanuki took him on, once they’d been pointed in the right direction to start themselves off, there was little steering to be done for the next few hours. The moon had been full a few nights previously and was bright enough for Doumeki to switch the headlight down to its dimmest setting to save power and navigate solely by moonlight. For a long time there was nothing but the task of holding on to require much concentration or provide distraction, nothing but the motion of the bike and the steady buzz of its engines to mark the passing time. It was the kind of situation where Doumeki would not have been surprised to feel Watanuki start to nod off behind him before the first hour was up, but nothing of the kind occurred. His passenger had barely relaxed any further after the fifth hour than the first.
A few hours before dawn, they stopped to eat and get some rest while there was still some darkness available for it. Doumeki wedged himself into a relatively comfortable hollow and quickly drifted off, but he slept only fitfully, and hadn’t added even another full hour to his nightly total before he found himself awake again. The first suggestion of sunrise was visible on the horizon, but that wasn’t what had woken him. Watanuki was sitting in a crouch by his side, staring off into the distance. Doumeki realised abruptly that he hadn’t even attempted to get any sleep.
“Shouldn’t you rest?” he asked aloud.
Watanuki didn’t even jump. “It doesn’t matter what I should, I’m not going to. You’re the one driving, I’m just here to play compass. It’s not your fault if I’m not sleeping, so just go back to sleep, would you?”
Doumeki stared at him for a moment, then got to his feet. “The sooner we get this over with, the better, right?”
“You don’t…” Watanuki started.
“I can go a day or two without sleep. I’ve done it before,” Doumeki told him. “No sense wasting time.”
For once, Watanuki didn’t even pretend to argue.
By midday, they were well beyond the borders of the land either the Tower or the Diet Building had any claim to. It had been difficult for Doumeki to get any clear sense of direction the night before, and by morning they were well into unfamiliar territory. However, as the day wore on, something twinged in Doumeki’s memory – something about the angle of the sun and the landmarks they passed, and it continued to nag at him until he found the memory to go with it – a journey he’d made only once before, several years go.
“Are we changing course any time soon?” he asked Watanuki, before they started the bike again after a very brief midday break.
“No, why?” Watanuki replied, looking distracted.
“There’s a Complex out this way,” Doumeki reported. “If we keep to the same direction.” More specifically, it was the same Complex which had delayed trading with their distant neighbour long enough to give the outsiders the opportunity to send out the trading parties earlier that year. It was a strange impression to have at the forefront of his mind if they were going to be seeing it again now, for only the second time in Doumeki’s life.
Watanuki didn’t reply. Whether he’d known, didn’t want to know or simply didn’t care what lay ahead, Doumeki could tell from his expression, but his continued sullen mood alone was becoming all the more unsettling.
Doumeki kicked the bike into a higher gear on the next leg of the journey – fuel waste be damned, they had plenty to spare.
***
The Complex – according to Doumeki’s memory – was located in a natural valley, hidden from all sides until you cleared the peak of the final hill. However, long before they reached that point, its position was marked from afar by a thin pillar of smoke, climbing upwards towards the heavens.
By the time the Complex itself came into view, Doumeki was more or less prepared for what they were going to see.
This Complex had never been so large or so grand as the one Doumeki and the other envoys had travelled so far to reach. There had only ever been one great dome under which the five hundred and twenty four people had lived out their lives – and now, that great dome stood shattered over nearly half its area, the great chunks of reinforced glass collapsed inwards to land on the buildings below. Fires still burned in bright orange patches in several places within, though they had the look of the last embers of greater fires, still surviving on the little fuel that remained. But for the fires, nothing within moved, nor made any sound.
This was no mere dead campsite Watanuki had lead him to – this, even if ninety percent of the area lay in ruins – had to be a greater treasure trove of valuables than anything he had ever imagined, and it was forbidden territory to Doumeki every bit as much as it had been when the structure had still been alive. Plundering a ruined Complex – that would be like stealing from a dying god. What did it matter if it was a god Douemki had never worshipped? Until the supplies within were the last hope of the dying, the mere thought of setting foot inside was as taboo as it had ever been.
He looked at Watanuki wordlessly, to find his guide’s face had gone paler than he’d ever seen it before – and yet, there was a look in that face of determination so strong it left no doubt in Doumeki’s mind that there was a reason why they’d been lead here. Silently, Doumeki kicked the bike into gear and started them down the slope.
Near the bottom, Watanuki tapped him on the shoulder and pointed, and Doumeki adjusted their course appropriately to take them around the edge of the vast, ruined structure. Debris had landed outside in a few places, but most had fallen inwards rather than out, and from the edge, the solid stone walls and misted glass of the dome hid much of what may have transpired within. However, in one place ahead of them, not even the wall had survived, a wide gap existed where the structure had fallen in on itself, giant blocks of rubble and stone lying either side. Just beyond it, something was moving, slowly placing one bare foot in front of the other. It was a young girl in a simple brown dress, her long hair hanging limply around her face and in her eyes. She seemed almost to be in a trance-like state, called out here by means as mysterious as those that guided Watanuki; the pale, blue eyes that turned to look towards the sound of the bike might barely have seen them at all. And then she tilted sideways and collapsed where she stood.
Watanuki was off the bike and running towards her almost before she hit the ground.
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15
For Doumeki, around the time Watanuki had been learning to lead gangs through old ruins, he’d been learning to do everything else. He must’ve had parents at some stage, but he didn’t remember them. The one who’d taught him to read, to bandage a wound, to load a gun and shoot, to take down a deadlands beast without wasting any bullets and estimate how long it would be before the poison broke down, to keep his head down in a fight and hide for hours on end if necessary until it was safe to come out – everything he knew – that had been his grandfather, Doumeki Haruka, and him alone.
His childhood was spent constantly on the move – following the herds of game beasts or on treasure hunts of their own variety, seeking supplies Haruka remembered from anything up to decades earlier. They were hardly much of a match for anyone who might challenge them, one old man and a boy, but Haruka had the knack for keeping them out of trouble. Few people ventured into the old cities anymore, but Haruka could always lead them through safely, finding his way apparently by little more than memory and instinct, and those places became a shelter that few others could reach.
Shelter was something they could never afford to stray far away from, those were the days when acid storms were still common, when no-one ever ventured outside without protective coats and only the bravest and most foolish ever went far when even the distant spectre of rain clouds hung in the sky. People were, if anything, only all the more scattered and desperate those few years ago, food all the scarcer while the alien new ecosystem was only beginning to take hold. Doumeki learnt from a young age what madmen were capable of, when to be ruthless with them and when to be kind. He learnt what it was like to go hungry, the futility of complaining about what his grandfather could not provide, but before their condition became too dire, Haruka would always find a way to keep them going; never once showed weakness in all the years Doumeki remembered.
Though he taught Doumeki everything he needed to survive, on the subject of old days of his own youth, he was strangely silent.
“It would be too easy for us old folk to cling to days that will never come again,” he told his grandson, “and it would be unfair for us to drag the next generation back with us in such dreams.” This world, as he saw it, was not an end, but the beginning of something strange and new – something that would be Shizuka’s rather than his. Even when Doumeki was young, Haruka was already an old man, and he felt it more with every year that passed.
Likewise, he always made sure Doumeki understood that his way of life would not last forever. “There will come a time when you will need new companions – people who will need your skills as well,” he impressed on Doumeki on more than one occasion. So when the day finally came that Doumeki found himself on the edge of Kurogane’s camp – alone, it was not such a surprise for him as it might have been. Indeed, it had felt inevitable, like something he’d been waiting to happen all his life.
Haruka had always had a way of knowing these kinds of things. Doumeki had never discovered how, but it was not something he’d ever felt the need to question. To him, his grandfather had always been one of the fundamental truths of the universe – immutable as the earth itself. He was a part of Doumeki’s past in the same way that the old world was part of Haruka’s – something it was easier to accept he’d never see again if it couldn’t be held up against the current world for comparison.
The idea that someone he’d known as for as short a time as Watanuki could have access to that part of his past – access to more than Doumeki himself did to this day – had been more unsettling than he could ever have imagined.
***
Doumeki had probably been asleep less than an hour when something he could only identify as a vague feeling of unease dragged him back to consciousness. Watanuki was once again visible only as a silhouette in the gloom, but already up on his feet, arms folded. He didn’t seem to have made any obvious motion to wake his roommate, unless the way he was looking at Doumeki counted, which it very well might.
“Somewhere we need to be?” Doumeki guessed. In the darkness, he just barely made out Watanuki’s answering nod. He was about to ask whether this was Watanuki’s moonlight spirit again, before he remembered that he still wasn’t sure just how much of that trip had been real and how much had been dream, and he didn’t really want to be sure either.
“Anything I need to know?” he asked instead.
“It’s not nearby,” Watanuki answered, in a voice that made all the hairs on the back of Doumeki’s neck stand on end. “We’ll need supplies – fuel, maybe some food. We need to get moving quickly.”
“Is this going to get dangerous?” Doumeki asked. He hadn’t seen Watanuki this tense since their argument – maybe not even since the mission when he’d taken that gunshot wound months before.
“No,” said Watanuki, “not for us. Aren’t you up yet?”
Not for us, now that was creatively vague, and yet, it was occurring to Doumeki that not all the treasures Watanuki uncovered has been abandoned so long ago. With Watanuki in this state, it was all too easy to be reminded of his first impressions of the April Fool back on the very first day they met – surrounded by the remains of Watanuki’s former gang. It didn’t take an event nearly so exceptional as what had occurred there to wipe a gang out completely and leave a derelict campsite behind – and a journey that would require them to take extra fuel along could take them well outside the safety zone of the Diet Building’s territory. If somewhere like that could be their destination, that would explain Watanuki’s behaviour all too neatly.
“If we’re going to be away that long, we need to wake up Kurogane and make sure he understands,” said Doumeki.
Implicit in that should have been the hint that if Watanuki had any more information to share about just what Doumeki was supposed to tell their leader, now was the time, but Watanuki just said, “Fine,” and fell into tense silence again. It occurred to Doumeki that leaving him here with only whatever was going through his head for company – even just for the short time it would take to wake Kurogane and come back – would be too long.
“Start getting the bike ready,” he said aloud. “I won’t be long.”
Just as they were pulling out of the camp barely twenty minutes later, a light went on in the lab building behind them, but neither looked back to see.
***
Like most of the longer journeys Watanuki took him on, once they’d been pointed in the right direction to start themselves off, there was little steering to be done for the next few hours. The moon had been full a few nights previously and was bright enough for Doumeki to switch the headlight down to its dimmest setting to save power and navigate solely by moonlight. For a long time there was nothing but the task of holding on to require much concentration or provide distraction, nothing but the motion of the bike and the steady buzz of its engines to mark the passing time. It was the kind of situation where Doumeki would not have been surprised to feel Watanuki start to nod off behind him before the first hour was up, but nothing of the kind occurred. His passenger had barely relaxed any further after the fifth hour than the first.
A few hours before dawn, they stopped to eat and get some rest while there was still some darkness available for it. Doumeki wedged himself into a relatively comfortable hollow and quickly drifted off, but he slept only fitfully, and hadn’t added even another full hour to his nightly total before he found himself awake again. The first suggestion of sunrise was visible on the horizon, but that wasn’t what had woken him. Watanuki was sitting in a crouch by his side, staring off into the distance. Doumeki realised abruptly that he hadn’t even attempted to get any sleep.
“Shouldn’t you rest?” he asked aloud.
Watanuki didn’t even jump. “It doesn’t matter what I should, I’m not going to. You’re the one driving, I’m just here to play compass. It’s not your fault if I’m not sleeping, so just go back to sleep, would you?”
Doumeki stared at him for a moment, then got to his feet. “The sooner we get this over with, the better, right?”
“You don’t…” Watanuki started.
“I can go a day or two without sleep. I’ve done it before,” Doumeki told him. “No sense wasting time.”
For once, Watanuki didn’t even pretend to argue.
By midday, they were well beyond the borders of the land either the Tower or the Diet Building had any claim to. It had been difficult for Doumeki to get any clear sense of direction the night before, and by morning they were well into unfamiliar territory. However, as the day wore on, something twinged in Doumeki’s memory – something about the angle of the sun and the landmarks they passed, and it continued to nag at him until he found the memory to go with it – a journey he’d made only once before, several years go.
“Are we changing course any time soon?” he asked Watanuki, before they started the bike again after a very brief midday break.
“No, why?” Watanuki replied, looking distracted.
“There’s a Complex out this way,” Doumeki reported. “If we keep to the same direction.” More specifically, it was the same Complex which had delayed trading with their distant neighbour long enough to give the outsiders the opportunity to send out the trading parties earlier that year. It was a strange impression to have at the forefront of his mind if they were going to be seeing it again now, for only the second time in Doumeki’s life.
Watanuki didn’t reply. Whether he’d known, didn’t want to know or simply didn’t care what lay ahead, Doumeki could tell from his expression, but his continued sullen mood alone was becoming all the more unsettling.
Doumeki kicked the bike into a higher gear on the next leg of the journey – fuel waste be damned, they had plenty to spare.
***
The Complex – according to Doumeki’s memory – was located in a natural valley, hidden from all sides until you cleared the peak of the final hill. However, long before they reached that point, its position was marked from afar by a thin pillar of smoke, climbing upwards towards the heavens.
By the time the Complex itself came into view, Doumeki was more or less prepared for what they were going to see.
This Complex had never been so large or so grand as the one Doumeki and the other envoys had travelled so far to reach. There had only ever been one great dome under which the five hundred and twenty four people had lived out their lives – and now, that great dome stood shattered over nearly half its area, the great chunks of reinforced glass collapsed inwards to land on the buildings below. Fires still burned in bright orange patches in several places within, though they had the look of the last embers of greater fires, still surviving on the little fuel that remained. But for the fires, nothing within moved, nor made any sound.
This was no mere dead campsite Watanuki had lead him to – this, even if ninety percent of the area lay in ruins – had to be a greater treasure trove of valuables than anything he had ever imagined, and it was forbidden territory to Doumeki every bit as much as it had been when the structure had still been alive. Plundering a ruined Complex – that would be like stealing from a dying god. What did it matter if it was a god Douemki had never worshipped? Until the supplies within were the last hope of the dying, the mere thought of setting foot inside was as taboo as it had ever been.
He looked at Watanuki wordlessly, to find his guide’s face had gone paler than he’d ever seen it before – and yet, there was a look in that face of determination so strong it left no doubt in Doumeki’s mind that there was a reason why they’d been lead here. Silently, Doumeki kicked the bike into gear and started them down the slope.
Near the bottom, Watanuki tapped him on the shoulder and pointed, and Doumeki adjusted their course appropriately to take them around the edge of the vast, ruined structure. Debris had landed outside in a few places, but most had fallen inwards rather than out, and from the edge, the solid stone walls and misted glass of the dome hid much of what may have transpired within. However, in one place ahead of them, not even the wall had survived, a wide gap existed where the structure had fallen in on itself, giant blocks of rubble and stone lying either side. Just beyond it, something was moving, slowly placing one bare foot in front of the other. It was a young girl in a simple brown dress, her long hair hanging limply around her face and in her eyes. She seemed almost to be in a trance-like state, called out here by means as mysterious as those that guided Watanuki; the pale, blue eyes that turned to look towards the sound of the bike might barely have seen them at all. And then she tilted sideways and collapsed where she stood.
Watanuki was off the bike and running towards her almost before she hit the ground.