SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
Sin: Heero

The sound of water dripping from the roof onto the concrete far, far below. Drip. Drip. Trickle. His shoes gripped the rough roof tiles firmly and he eased his way on his stomach to look over the edge. The moon passed behind a thin cloud and for a moment the world reveled in darkness.

The rest of humanity was fifty-three floors down by a thin metal line that trailed over the edge of the building and dropped off into the blackness below. As he watched, the line moved, stretched taut, and he reached out a hand to haul a lithe body over onto the roof beside him.

"All clear."

Dark eyes held his for a moment, and he nodded. There was a helicopter on the roof, and he slid silently over next to it, resting one hot cheek against now-cold metal. Three hours ago it had been hot, loud, the whipping blades whistling past his head as it had landed. His eyes missed nothing, not the tall, well-dressed man that had stepped out of the helicopter, not the elegant woman that he had escorted down the steps.

They would both die tonight.

"Let's go," the voice whispered in his ear. "Forty-second floor. Third office from the stairs. Wait for me."

The hand withdrew from his shoulder and the form that disappeared to the other side of the helicopter was only a shadow. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the metal grip of the pistol that rested on his hip, and then moved.

Down the metal wire. Fifty-one, fifty, forty-nine. Blank windows slid by him like dead eyes. The wire burned into his gloved hands. Forty-seven. Forty-six.

Forty-five. He gripped the wire with jarring strength, sending his decent to an abrupt jolting halt. Over to the windowsill, one boot at a time, until he was standing on the thin ledge. Then he let go of the wire completely.

It was not a windy night, and he was glad of that. Death meant losing his tenuous grip on the slick glass face of the skyscraper and tumbling off forty-five stories down to a bloody end on the concrete ground below. The window creaked under his weight as he slid across it, carefully. One foot. Over. Gloves gripping the glass like claws.

A gust of wind, and he tensed, leaning into the building. There were stars. He could see them in the windowpanes.

Past the window, simply glass now. The wind blew again, and he was teetering on the ledge, hand grasping frantically for something above him, knowing it was there, just right there, and why couldn't he-

Found it.

Gloves closed over the second wire and he kicked, propelled himself off the ledge. Hand over hand across the thin wire, hoping it wouldn't give under his weight. The wind rattled him against the glass, pistol and sheathed knife clanging.

He reached the next window, crossing it quicker than the first. He had three minutes left, exactly, and if he was late…Reaching one hand down, he removed the knife from its sheath and stuck it between his teeth.

Past the window, onto the side of the building. Hand over hand, with ever increasing rapidity, the knife in his mouth sending cold shivers into his body. He could see the light coming from the next window over.

Made it.

"What do you want?"

The window was partly open and he could hear the harsh, frightened voice demanding from inside. He let go of the wire, keeping the knife between his teeth, crouching on the sill.

There were two of them, as expected. A man and a woman, the same that had disembarked from the helicopter earlier. There was a dark-skinned boy there in the room with them, holding a pistol trained on the man. The sardonic smile on his face held no mercy.

"You promised payment," he said simply. His finger tightened on the trigger.

The man sneered. "You didn't finish the job. There's no reason we should pay you. A deal is a deal."

"We killed them for your three nights ago."

"You didn't kill the girl."

"The girl was never part of the deal. We took care of the three men that you asked for."

The man didn't relax his belligerent stance. From his place outside the window, he could see the man gesture to the woman behind his back, saw the woman's hand reach slowly for the desk drawer. He knew the dark-skinned boy saw it too. He was not worried.

"No job, no payment," the man said.

"No payment, no deal," the boy replied calmly. His hand held the pistol unwaveringly at the man's forehead, between the eyes. He could see the woman's hand inside the drawer close on something metallic.

"We didn't-" The man began, stalling for time.

"Spare me your lies," the boy said, looking up beyond the man and towards the window, and he knew it was time. He gathered his legs under him and struck.

It was all too easy. With the window left open all he had to do was jump and without warning he was on the man, knife in his hand and with one swift stroke slicing the fleshy neck open. There was a gunshot and then he could smell the acrid smoke drifting from the other boy's pistol. The woman never had a chance, falling backwards with a hoarse cry in a shower of blood.

There was blood trickling down his face, into his eyes. He rose, wiping off the knife on the dead man's clothing. A glint of gold from under the bloodstained collar caught his eye and he reached down, pulled out a gold chain. A cross. Holding it in his hand a moment, and then dropped it, replacing the knife into its sheath.

"Bunch of bastards."

"They're all the fuckin' same," the dark boy said carelessly, blowing the smoke from the end of the pistol and replacing it with one fluid motion from wherever it had come out of his clothing. "Kill one, you gotta kill them all."

For a moment there was silence, and then he jerked his head toward the door of the room. "Let's get out of here."

He didn't know why he'd taken the cross. It was heavy and gold and he hadn't seen how anyone could wear it. It was more like the prayer cross of a priest. It belonged in a church.

He knew the blood still spattered his clothes and his face but didn't care, easing open the door of the chapel and padding silently down the aisle. He'd told the other that there was someone he wanted to see, that he would meet him back in a little while, to not worry about him. Instead, he'd taken the shortcut, the deserted route across town where the prostitutes stood on the street corners early on in the night and rolled their hips and swayed and made obscene gestures for customers. Now the corners were empty and the moon was high.

The little church had been there for longer than he had been there, just standing alone in the middle of the crossroads in the midst of the sin and suffering there. There had been a killing on its steps three months earlier. He wondered why it was there. Why there, so obviously out of place. He'd never seen anyone go in.

Yet here he was, walking down the aisle with a heavy golden stolen cross in his hand, feeling strangely awkward. The furnishings were simple and the small stained glass window at the end emitted no light in the darkness. He felt as if one whisper would send the building up in flames; a sinner like him standing in the place most holy.

If one believed in God.

The chapel was lit only by moonlight and he could make out the shape of something square under the window…an altar, perhaps? The cross belonged there.

The wood of the altar was rough and unhewn in his hand, and he hesitated before placing the cross on its plain surface. The gold glinted in the cold moonlight.

He runs, he hides, but he never lies…

He frowned. A stray thought. Where had he heard that before?

You can't kill Death.

He had the sudden urge to drop to his knees in front of the altar, apologize to some absent figure, beg forgiveness for his actions. It had been one man. One simple job that should have been finished long ago, except there had been a mistake.

They had been hired to eliminate the leaders of a narcotics ring that had grown beyond the control of its original owners. Fine with him. But the leaders had proved harder to track and they'd originally thought, and they had wasted three nights searching the city. And when they had finally been found, some of them had gotten away.

He and his partner hadn't been worried. The contract was for the three ringleaders, and all three of them had been taken care of.

Except when they had gone to collect payment, it hadn't been that way.

It was in the contract. And it was understood by both parties that no payment meant retribution. That was the law of the streets, it had been the law that assassins like them had operated on since before memory, and no arrogant drug cartel would take that away from them.

One simple job.

The moonlight glinted on the cross lying on the altar, tangible proof of his sin.

He pressed one hand to his forehead, touching the dried blood there. Maybe he should come back tomorrow and give the cross to a priest. It might not be right to leave it just sitting here.

Heero?

A boy, stepping out of the moonbeams to meet him, dressed in the black and white of the order of God, long chestnut hair streaming behind him, eyes sad. He was holding something in his hand, something that glittered in the moonlight like the cross, but silver.

The knife moved closer in his vision, wavering in the grip of a ghostly hand, beckoning.

Heero, you forgot something.

Nearer.

I saved it for you.

"I-" he said, on impulse, turning to face the figure, but there was only a milky puddle of silver moonlight streaming down from the stained glass window, and the church was empty.

He slipped in the door after midnight, dropping his gear on the floor. A shadow rolled over on the mattress by the far wall.

"You're late."

"I know."

There was rattle and a glint of moonlight on the tip of a needle.

"You want some?" The voice was sluggish, slurred. "I saved some…for you."

He considered.

"Not tonight."

"…all right."

The shadow slumped back down, disappearing into the rest of the shadows against the wall. The clouds covered the moon, and he could hear the faint scratching of the wind through the thin door.

"Give me some," he said, speaking to the shadow. "I changed my mind."

A dry laugh. "I knew you would."

The clouds lifted. If he listened hard enough, he could hear a voice speaking out of the moonlight.

Heero?

"Shut up," he said harshly. "I don't need you."

Heero, you forgot something.

The drug through his veins was like the salvation for his sin.

But I kept it. I saved it for you, like you wanted.

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