Trigun: Perfect Night (part 2)
John Neal (Aren Riszk on Fanfiction.net
[9- Knives]
Legato walked that morning, though weary from last night's events. He was very sad, very tired, and
had forsaken everything he'd known before, but he continued on to follow whoever it was that was
calling to him.
[Come to July City, Legato. I'll be waiting for you there.]
July City... Legato had heard of it before, but didn't know much about it. In any event, he thought,
I've got to get there... He stopped to survey himself, straightened out his hair, and wondered how
he would get to July. Everything seemed so far away, but Legato wouldn't let anything stop him. Now,
he was determined to pursue this, when he had nothing else left in the world. Under the blazing twin
suns, the boy removed the great white coat, now dark red in some parts, and sat to rest.
Within an hour, Legato spotted a bus traveling the desert, about 100 yarz away. He picked up his
coat and ran as fast as he could in its direction, without stopping for so much as to catch a breath.
As he neared the bus, its driver stopped and opened the door for Legato to enter.
"Hey, kid, you need to get on?"
The haggard boy nodded. "Y- Yessir..." he panted to recover from his sprint. "Can you get me to July
City?" He pulled himself through the door and threw himself in the nearest empty seat, right across from the driver.
"July City?" The bus driver looked surprised. "Don't hear much, do you, son?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"July City was destroyed about eight years ago, kid. They say the Humanoid Typhoon did it."
"Who?"
The driver made no effort to hide his laugh. "Well, Vash the Stampede, of course! I thought everyone
knew Vash, they say no-one is safe when he's in town. I've heard he's twice the size of a normal man,
has enough guns to supply a small army, and loves nothing more than the taste of human flesh! Where
are you from, kid, not to have heard of 'im? I mean-"
Legato, though amused by this man's description, cut him off. "Can you get me to July or not? I... I have
to get there. Please, just take me where it was..."
The driver sighed as he pulled the bus door closed. He'd humor the kid, July City wasn't too far from his
route... "So, how're you gonna pay?"
Uh oh... Legato thought, frantically. He didn't have anything he could trade or sell, and no money. But he
had to get to July... By any means necessary... "I... I'll pay you when we get there." Brilliant. Legato knew
what he'd do.
"Fair enough," came the reply as the bus' engine revved up and the vehicle was in motion once again.
The bus pulled to a stop reluctantly at the outskirts of what was once July City. Legato looked up into the
myriad of crumbled buildings with wonder. If the rumors were true... Was there really one man who could
do all of this? He rose from the bus seat as the door creaked open for him to leave. He stepped outside,
pulling the coat back on, when the driver spoke up.
"Hey, kid. You forgot, time to pay up."
Legato turned and stared the man in the eye. Immediately, the driver's hands both clutched the wheel as tight
as they could and his head snapped forward. "Wh.. what's going on...? What the hell-?" the man grunted
between gnashed teeth. The other passengers stared in confusion and horror back and forth from the driver
and this strange blue-haired child...
[Your route has been changed. I trust you know the area, there is an edge of a mesa not too far from here to
the northwest. You know what to do, now get to it.] With that, the driver, eyes frozen in a look of extreme fear,
pressed down hard on the gas pedal and the bus sped off northwest.
Legato stood outside of the ruin limits as he watched until the old vehicle was out of sight. Waiting a few more
minutes, he heard a pleasuring crash as expected, and the feeling washed over him again. It felt so good... Death
was his greatest ally in the world, he thought, as he turned to enter the wreckage.
A few steps in, and the voice came again... [Good work, Legato Bluesummers. You'll do nicely. Now come; I am
near.] Once the message had flowed through him, he heard a faint series of sounds in the distance... Music? ...From
a saxophone?
He immediately began walking towards the origin of the sound, knowing he was closer and closer as the music got clearer
and louder. He finally entered a clearing in the mass of mangled concrete and metal, as he could make out each note and
nuance of the song. Before him, standing in a circle surrounded by ruin, were two men.
One was very young-looking, possibly not even 20 yet, and this was the one with the saxophone. He was wearing a black
suit with a pink undershirt, and his black hair was slicked back. He smiled around the mouthpiece of his horn as he reached
the climax of his song and brought it to a finish.
"Thank you, Midvally, that will be enough," said the other man, looking somewhat older but still young. This man was tall,
with short platinum-blond hair and blue eyes. He held an air of command as he surveyed the newcomer, a smile on his
kind-looking face. "Legato," he said, "welcome. We've been waiting for you..."
The boy knew, this one was the man behind the voice. He could tell this man vas very powerful, as powerful as himself and
stronger still... He opened his lips to speak, but was halted by the blond man.
"You have questions, I know, and they will be answered in due time, Legato. But for now, let me introduce myself. My name
is Millions Knives."
[10- Emotion]
"How long has it been now, Legato?"
"A little while more than two years, sir."
"So you're 12 years old now, Legato?"
"Yes, sir."
"Excellent. Now, the important work begins with you. Tell me something, Legato. I want
to know how you feel about other people, or... more importantly, how they make you
feel."
"I..." Legato was caught off guard by Knives' question. It was a hard question to answer.
He withheld a response for a few moments to think.
["Ha, ha! Look at Blue-dumbers now! What's that idiot doing?" "Hey, Legato! How come
you're so weird?" "He's a freak, that's all!" "Ha ha ha!"] He could feel the silent
humiliation as the painful memories of the other children flooded his mind with their
taunts.
["You're useless, kid. What the hell is wrong with you now?" "Honestly, Legato, your
father and I try so hard, why won't you ever open up to us?" "There's something wrong
with the damn kid, that's all there is, dear." "Why, son, why? We try to be nice to you..."]
Legato's brain pounded harder as the voices of those two wretched people, those parents,
came back. He could remember with distressing detail all of their lies and cruelty...
"Is something the matter, Legato?" Knives' strongly soothing voice interrupted his foul
recollections. "No? All right. So, how have other human beings made you feel?"
"They..." the boy started, nervously running his hand through his blue hair, allowing his
bangs to fall and cover his left eye. "They've always made me... sad. Almost always
sad..."
"Almost? Does that mean there was someone who didn't sadden you or make you angry,
Legato? Tell me about it. Have you ever loved anybody, Legato?"
["There you are, Brother Legato!" "Oh, I'm glad I found you, brother!" "I don't wanna go
home now, daddy's mad again." "Will you be with me forever, Legato?" "It's dinner time
now, Brother Legato, let's go home."]
A small grin crossed Knives' lips as he gazed intently into Legato's visible eye. "I see...
your sister, Allegro. You loved her, Legato?"
Legato was taken aback. He had never mentioned that to his master before... "I... I
suppose so, sir, I... Just thinking of it..." Legato's eyes strained again to produce a single
tear, and failed.
"Just thinking of it, what? Just thinking of it-"
"...Makes me sad," Legato admitted. He was beginning to notice something in Knives'
words, a kind of reasoning that made more sense by the second. "Yes... She made me sad,
in the end."
Knives put on one of his kinder expressions. "Which is my point. Humans exist only to
bring pain to each other, Legato. I'm sure that you can see that. So how do you feel about
me?"
Legato looked over Knives' face, thinking. He mustered a slight smile as his master's pure
logic came full circle to him. "You're the only friend I've ever had, sir... You.. You don't
make me sad."
"Precisely, Legato. Humans hurt each other, they kill each other and other things without
need. I will never do that. I will never hurt you unnecessarily like humans will, Legato. I
have more questions for you. How about emotions? I'll name a few, and tell me what they
feel like. Sadness."
"Sadness feels like dying without death, over and over again."
"Very good. Anger."
"Anger feels like a separate hell inside me."
"Excellent! Loneliness."
"Like being lost and never found."
"Happiness."
Silence followed for five minutes, Legato just blankly staring as if he was looking into
himself. What was happiness? Do I even know?
Knives' smile grew. "All right, last one. Serenity."
Without delay, "Death."
Knives patted Legato on the back as he heartily laughed as if the child had told him the
best joke he knew. "Legato, now you see emotions only hurt you as well. But I won't hurt
you unnecessarily, will I?"
"Never."
"You're 12 years old now. I think it's time that I told you why I took you in. Would you
like to know that, Legato?"
"Yes, sir!" Legato allowed himself to partake in Knives' smile now, eager to hear what it
was master had to say.
"As it turns out, I too have a dilemma with humans. Would you believe they've also been
cruel to me? It's what they do. They hurt and they kill, Legato. They're like pathogenic
organisms. Germs."
Legato nodded.
"And germs should be wiped out, before they hurt anything else, right?"
Another anxious nod.
"Legato, have you ever seen a the web of a spider that has snared a butterfly? If the spider
eats the butterfly, then the nobler butterfly will die. If you free the butterfly, the spider
will die of hunger. Spiders are venomous creatures. Humans, Legato, are like spiders. Do
you see what I mean?"
A third nod as Legato's smirk grew into a full grin. "The butterflies must be saved from
the spiders, so the spiders must be killed."
I've succeeded, Knives thought, and there's no doubt I have. He began to laugh again, and
this time, Legato joined him.
[11 - Epilogue]
[Seething, burning pain flowed through Legato's body, holding him in a suspended state between
pleasure and pain. He could feel the blood pouring out by the left side of his body, surging forth
from where his arm had been.]
Legato Bluesummers was now a man of 20 years. The old white coat, now held together by a series
of leather bindings, finally fit his frame perfectly. An ornate set of spikes on the right shoulder only added
to his outlandish, intimidating presence.
[Cut off just below the left shoulder... Feeling faint from the loss of blood... Can't go under...]
His psychic abilities had been honed to perfection. He himself was one of the greatest destructive weapons
ever known. He gave off an air that made most men tremble at the mere sight of him.
[Legato saw nothing but red, thought of nothing but pain as he felt the new arm- Knives' gift- placed next to
him... Feeling the brutal stitches on his skin... Knives' gift was complete, and Legato now bore a part of
Knives' powerful, cursed enemy.]
He knew no emotion and cries of mercy fell on deaf ears. Above all, he was total in his devotion of Knives.
The enemy of Knives was his enemy, the hatred of Knives was his own hatred.... Humanity.
The day will come that He will wipe the earth of we wretched humans... I long for it.
The air was still and every moon was new. No stars dared to desecrate this perfect night. Legato walked like
a spectre through an old, familiar ghost town. The man who had become his faithful servant, Midvalley, followed
behind his grim master.
"Wait here one moment, Midvalley, I have business to attend to," Legato said smoothly. His right-hand nodded
and stood still in compliance. Wordlessly, the blue-haired man stepped into the seclusion of a dark, narrow alley.
[This is it,] he thought to himself as he stopped in his tracks and knelt down in the sands.
He reached his gloved hands down and began to dig into the soft earth. Pushing away dust and sand, his fingers
finally felt the obstruction he searched for. Slowly, delicately, he wrapped his hands around the entire object and
pulled it out. It was a human skeleton, a young female by the look of it.
Legato studied the empty gaze of the skeleton's eyesockets, locking his own golden eyes in a stare. He smiled.
She was still intact. Peaceful, now. Forever. Legato was glad.
Laying the bones back in their hole, Legato applied his mighty grip and removed the skull from the rest of the lifeless
refuse. Unfastening a strap on his coat, he attached his prize to the left upper arm of his beloved jacket, which once
had held her entire life in a crimson stain. The stain was gone now, but she would remain there. Dawn was breaking
above the lifeless city. He refilled the hole above the remains and walked back to his loyal Midvalley as quietly as he
had left.
"Digging up old bones, sir?" asked Midvalley mildly.
"Closer than you may think, Midvalley. Closer than you may think."
[THE END]
John Neal (Aren Riszk on Fanfiction.net
[9- Knives]
Legato walked that morning, though weary from last night's events. He was very sad, very tired, and
had forsaken everything he'd known before, but he continued on to follow whoever it was that was
calling to him.
[Come to July City, Legato. I'll be waiting for you there.]
July City... Legato had heard of it before, but didn't know much about it. In any event, he thought,
I've got to get there... He stopped to survey himself, straightened out his hair, and wondered how
he would get to July. Everything seemed so far away, but Legato wouldn't let anything stop him. Now,
he was determined to pursue this, when he had nothing else left in the world. Under the blazing twin
suns, the boy removed the great white coat, now dark red in some parts, and sat to rest.
Within an hour, Legato spotted a bus traveling the desert, about 100 yarz away. He picked up his
coat and ran as fast as he could in its direction, without stopping for so much as to catch a breath.
As he neared the bus, its driver stopped and opened the door for Legato to enter.
"Hey, kid, you need to get on?"
The haggard boy nodded. "Y- Yessir..." he panted to recover from his sprint. "Can you get me to July
City?" He pulled himself through the door and threw himself in the nearest empty seat, right across from the driver.
"July City?" The bus driver looked surprised. "Don't hear much, do you, son?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"July City was destroyed about eight years ago, kid. They say the Humanoid Typhoon did it."
"Who?"
The driver made no effort to hide his laugh. "Well, Vash the Stampede, of course! I thought everyone
knew Vash, they say no-one is safe when he's in town. I've heard he's twice the size of a normal man,
has enough guns to supply a small army, and loves nothing more than the taste of human flesh! Where
are you from, kid, not to have heard of 'im? I mean-"
Legato, though amused by this man's description, cut him off. "Can you get me to July or not? I... I have
to get there. Please, just take me where it was..."
The driver sighed as he pulled the bus door closed. He'd humor the kid, July City wasn't too far from his
route... "So, how're you gonna pay?"
Uh oh... Legato thought, frantically. He didn't have anything he could trade or sell, and no money. But he
had to get to July... By any means necessary... "I... I'll pay you when we get there." Brilliant. Legato knew
what he'd do.
"Fair enough," came the reply as the bus' engine revved up and the vehicle was in motion once again.
The bus pulled to a stop reluctantly at the outskirts of what was once July City. Legato looked up into the
myriad of crumbled buildings with wonder. If the rumors were true... Was there really one man who could
do all of this? He rose from the bus seat as the door creaked open for him to leave. He stepped outside,
pulling the coat back on, when the driver spoke up.
"Hey, kid. You forgot, time to pay up."
Legato turned and stared the man in the eye. Immediately, the driver's hands both clutched the wheel as tight
as they could and his head snapped forward. "Wh.. what's going on...? What the hell-?" the man grunted
between gnashed teeth. The other passengers stared in confusion and horror back and forth from the driver
and this strange blue-haired child...
[Your route has been changed. I trust you know the area, there is an edge of a mesa not too far from here to
the northwest. You know what to do, now get to it.] With that, the driver, eyes frozen in a look of extreme fear,
pressed down hard on the gas pedal and the bus sped off northwest.
Legato stood outside of the ruin limits as he watched until the old vehicle was out of sight. Waiting a few more
minutes, he heard a pleasuring crash as expected, and the feeling washed over him again. It felt so good... Death
was his greatest ally in the world, he thought, as he turned to enter the wreckage.
A few steps in, and the voice came again... [Good work, Legato Bluesummers. You'll do nicely. Now come; I am
near.] Once the message had flowed through him, he heard a faint series of sounds in the distance... Music? ...From
a saxophone?
He immediately began walking towards the origin of the sound, knowing he was closer and closer as the music got clearer
and louder. He finally entered a clearing in the mass of mangled concrete and metal, as he could make out each note and
nuance of the song. Before him, standing in a circle surrounded by ruin, were two men.
One was very young-looking, possibly not even 20 yet, and this was the one with the saxophone. He was wearing a black
suit with a pink undershirt, and his black hair was slicked back. He smiled around the mouthpiece of his horn as he reached
the climax of his song and brought it to a finish.
"Thank you, Midvally, that will be enough," said the other man, looking somewhat older but still young. This man was tall,
with short platinum-blond hair and blue eyes. He held an air of command as he surveyed the newcomer, a smile on his
kind-looking face. "Legato," he said, "welcome. We've been waiting for you..."
The boy knew, this one was the man behind the voice. He could tell this man vas very powerful, as powerful as himself and
stronger still... He opened his lips to speak, but was halted by the blond man.
"You have questions, I know, and they will be answered in due time, Legato. But for now, let me introduce myself. My name
is Millions Knives."
[10- Emotion]
"How long has it been now, Legato?"
"A little while more than two years, sir."
"So you're 12 years old now, Legato?"
"Yes, sir."
"Excellent. Now, the important work begins with you. Tell me something, Legato. I want
to know how you feel about other people, or... more importantly, how they make you
feel."
"I..." Legato was caught off guard by Knives' question. It was a hard question to answer.
He withheld a response for a few moments to think.
["Ha, ha! Look at Blue-dumbers now! What's that idiot doing?" "Hey, Legato! How come
you're so weird?" "He's a freak, that's all!" "Ha ha ha!"] He could feel the silent
humiliation as the painful memories of the other children flooded his mind with their
taunts.
["You're useless, kid. What the hell is wrong with you now?" "Honestly, Legato, your
father and I try so hard, why won't you ever open up to us?" "There's something wrong
with the damn kid, that's all there is, dear." "Why, son, why? We try to be nice to you..."]
Legato's brain pounded harder as the voices of those two wretched people, those parents,
came back. He could remember with distressing detail all of their lies and cruelty...
"Is something the matter, Legato?" Knives' strongly soothing voice interrupted his foul
recollections. "No? All right. So, how have other human beings made you feel?"
"They..." the boy started, nervously running his hand through his blue hair, allowing his
bangs to fall and cover his left eye. "They've always made me... sad. Almost always
sad..."
"Almost? Does that mean there was someone who didn't sadden you or make you angry,
Legato? Tell me about it. Have you ever loved anybody, Legato?"
["There you are, Brother Legato!" "Oh, I'm glad I found you, brother!" "I don't wanna go
home now, daddy's mad again." "Will you be with me forever, Legato?" "It's dinner time
now, Brother Legato, let's go home."]
A small grin crossed Knives' lips as he gazed intently into Legato's visible eye. "I see...
your sister, Allegro. You loved her, Legato?"
Legato was taken aback. He had never mentioned that to his master before... "I... I
suppose so, sir, I... Just thinking of it..." Legato's eyes strained again to produce a single
tear, and failed.
"Just thinking of it, what? Just thinking of it-"
"...Makes me sad," Legato admitted. He was beginning to notice something in Knives'
words, a kind of reasoning that made more sense by the second. "Yes... She made me sad,
in the end."
Knives put on one of his kinder expressions. "Which is my point. Humans exist only to
bring pain to each other, Legato. I'm sure that you can see that. So how do you feel about
me?"
Legato looked over Knives' face, thinking. He mustered a slight smile as his master's pure
logic came full circle to him. "You're the only friend I've ever had, sir... You.. You don't
make me sad."
"Precisely, Legato. Humans hurt each other, they kill each other and other things without
need. I will never do that. I will never hurt you unnecessarily like humans will, Legato. I
have more questions for you. How about emotions? I'll name a few, and tell me what they
feel like. Sadness."
"Sadness feels like dying without death, over and over again."
"Very good. Anger."
"Anger feels like a separate hell inside me."
"Excellent! Loneliness."
"Like being lost and never found."
"Happiness."
Silence followed for five minutes, Legato just blankly staring as if he was looking into
himself. What was happiness? Do I even know?
Knives' smile grew. "All right, last one. Serenity."
Without delay, "Death."
Knives patted Legato on the back as he heartily laughed as if the child had told him the
best joke he knew. "Legato, now you see emotions only hurt you as well. But I won't hurt
you unnecessarily, will I?"
"Never."
"You're 12 years old now. I think it's time that I told you why I took you in. Would you
like to know that, Legato?"
"Yes, sir!" Legato allowed himself to partake in Knives' smile now, eager to hear what it
was master had to say.
"As it turns out, I too have a dilemma with humans. Would you believe they've also been
cruel to me? It's what they do. They hurt and they kill, Legato. They're like pathogenic
organisms. Germs."
Legato nodded.
"And germs should be wiped out, before they hurt anything else, right?"
Another anxious nod.
"Legato, have you ever seen a the web of a spider that has snared a butterfly? If the spider
eats the butterfly, then the nobler butterfly will die. If you free the butterfly, the spider
will die of hunger. Spiders are venomous creatures. Humans, Legato, are like spiders. Do
you see what I mean?"
A third nod as Legato's smirk grew into a full grin. "The butterflies must be saved from
the spiders, so the spiders must be killed."
I've succeeded, Knives thought, and there's no doubt I have. He began to laugh again, and
this time, Legato joined him.
[11 - Epilogue]
[Seething, burning pain flowed through Legato's body, holding him in a suspended state between
pleasure and pain. He could feel the blood pouring out by the left side of his body, surging forth
from where his arm had been.]
Legato Bluesummers was now a man of 20 years. The old white coat, now held together by a series
of leather bindings, finally fit his frame perfectly. An ornate set of spikes on the right shoulder only added
to his outlandish, intimidating presence.
[Cut off just below the left shoulder... Feeling faint from the loss of blood... Can't go under...]
His psychic abilities had been honed to perfection. He himself was one of the greatest destructive weapons
ever known. He gave off an air that made most men tremble at the mere sight of him.
[Legato saw nothing but red, thought of nothing but pain as he felt the new arm- Knives' gift- placed next to
him... Feeling the brutal stitches on his skin... Knives' gift was complete, and Legato now bore a part of
Knives' powerful, cursed enemy.]
He knew no emotion and cries of mercy fell on deaf ears. Above all, he was total in his devotion of Knives.
The enemy of Knives was his enemy, the hatred of Knives was his own hatred.... Humanity.
The day will come that He will wipe the earth of we wretched humans... I long for it.
The air was still and every moon was new. No stars dared to desecrate this perfect night. Legato walked like
a spectre through an old, familiar ghost town. The man who had become his faithful servant, Midvalley, followed
behind his grim master.
"Wait here one moment, Midvalley, I have business to attend to," Legato said smoothly. His right-hand nodded
and stood still in compliance. Wordlessly, the blue-haired man stepped into the seclusion of a dark, narrow alley.
[This is it,] he thought to himself as he stopped in his tracks and knelt down in the sands.
He reached his gloved hands down and began to dig into the soft earth. Pushing away dust and sand, his fingers
finally felt the obstruction he searched for. Slowly, delicately, he wrapped his hands around the entire object and
pulled it out. It was a human skeleton, a young female by the look of it.
Legato studied the empty gaze of the skeleton's eyesockets, locking his own golden eyes in a stare. He smiled.
She was still intact. Peaceful, now. Forever. Legato was glad.
Laying the bones back in their hole, Legato applied his mighty grip and removed the skull from the rest of the lifeless
refuse. Unfastening a strap on his coat, he attached his prize to the left upper arm of his beloved jacket, which once
had held her entire life in a crimson stain. The stain was gone now, but she would remain there. Dawn was breaking
above the lifeless city. He refilled the hole above the remains and walked back to his loyal Midvalley as quietly as he
had left.
"Digging up old bones, sir?" asked Midvalley mildly.
"Closer than you may think, Midvalley. Closer than you may think."
[THE END]