By: Spooks
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"Yes, folks, it's hard to believe that only four short years ago the Eve Wars were being waged. In celebration of three years of peace since the Mariemeia Incident, we've managed to gather together some of the most celebrated figures from the two conflicts for the New Alliance War Museum and Memorial. Present today are--" The tinny voice of the news anchor abruptly cut off mid-sentence. The startled hush seized the dark room as a lone slim figure settled down on the floor to watch the tiny flickering screen of the vid-set.
The program continued in silence. On the small screen the faces of each of the former Gundam pilots flashed briefly, then an image of the Minister of Unified Relations, and finally passed over the faces of a few of the more distinguished Preventers. All were dressed in formal wear and seated at a long rectangular banquet table, the prominent feature in a room filled with smaller round tables. At each minor table sat a motley collection of reputable individuals: celebrities, journalists, and politicians. The entire room was filled to the brim with famous faces and war heroes, all brought together by Minister Peacecraft and her sponsorship of the war memorial museum.
The small figure leaned forward as the camera panned across the faces of the former pilots again. The picture lingered for a moment on former pilots 01 and 02, who were having a private discussion as they dined on the appetizers that had just been served. Abruptly, the American one was leaning back and laughing, his head thrown back as he dropped his finger sandwich on his plate and clapped a hand on the former Wing Zero pilot's shoulder. The Japanese young man looked uncomfortable for a moment, then his lip curled up into a tiny smirk as he snickered, his display of amusement much more subtle than his partner's. As the camera moved to focus on other faces, the observer caught the sly touching of the two's hands as the American finally stopped laughing and continued the conversation more calmly.
Then the camera was focusing on the other occupants of the main table. Minister Peacecraft was primly nibbling on a cracker, her pinky in the air as she listened to Preventer Chief Une's silent words. A change in cameras, and now the screen displayed the former pilots of Sandrock, HeavyArms, and Altron absorbed in conversation. On the fringe of the group of young men, a woman with long hair pulled into twists said something and nodded towards the Minister of Unified Relations. The Chinese man blushed a bright red, causing his companions to look amused as they continued their discussion.
After a few more minutes of a new anchor's face and some stylistic graphics detailing information about the new museum, the camera came to focus on Minister Peacecraft. The young woman stood at the center of the head table behind a podium placed on a raised platform between an open juncture of the long covered mahogany.
Her mouth moved silently in a speech that had obviously been rehearsed time and again in front of a mirror, her gestures practiced and smooth as she motioned to the guests of honor. Then the camera left her to pan again over those guests, presumably as the woman mentioned each of their names. Last to be focused on was one Heero Yuy, and the screen froze on his face as a slender wrist flicked a button on the remote, halting the image to a flickering portrait of pixels and light.
The program was a recording.
Rewinding back through the tape, the figure stopped each and every time the face of the former Wing Zero pilot flickered across the screen, even if it was only for a split second or he was in the background of another screenshot. Moving backwards through the program, the recorded figures moved jerkily, laughing and eating in a frenzied parody of the meal. The quiet screech of the tape was the only sound that pieced the room as the small, thin hand worked the remote with ease, fingers dancing as the people halted then scurried, halted then scurried.
Finally the screen was back at the first sighting of the Japanese man, at the moment his hand was brushing against his American friend's. Frozen in time, the top and the bottom of the image blurred slightly, giving the picture a surreal quality. As the figure in the small dark room focused on the image, she suddenly crawled forward, hands and knees shifting on the cluttered floor until she was directly in front of the small screen. The meager light flooded the room in cold blue tones, but the slender figure cast a giant shadow, her silhouette blocking some of the numb luminance.
Piles of paper were everywhere, stacked in fanatically neat piles; each page was marked meticulously with dates and times. Those were the only legible writing on any of the documents. Unreadable tiny scrawls filled the margins of the printouts; arrows pointed and highlighted words to emphasize key parts. Sometimes there were red exclamation points and text were scribbled right over the black print, obscuring the original content in a massacre of bloody ink. Some of the dates marking the records went as far back as AC 192, and many of the papers had the look of paper crinkled with much usage, shuffled through time and again in a fervent run of research.
Plastered and pasted half haphazardly to every available space of the walls were pictures and clippings from magazines, cut out with painstaking concern then seemingly carelessly displayed. Amongst the professional pictures were snapshots obviously taken with a handheld portable imaging device, others had the grainy quality of surveillance photos. All the clippings and pictures featured the former Gundam pilots and the two conflicts in which they were involved; they varied from in-depth personal interviews, to mere cursory reports, to fantastic tabloid articles. The most prominent figure among the photographs was the former pilot of Wing Zero, and later surveillance and amateur photos also included the former Deathscythe Hell pilot. In fact, as the chronology of the pictures progressed, it was rare that the two were not together in the pictures.
As the figure stared at the frozen scene featured on the tiny vid-set, she did not notice how badly the room smelled of molded food, body odor, and pain. Oh no, the figure was transfixed in quiet hatred as she stared at the halted image. Her shoulders trembled, her fingers clenched convulsively into tight fists.
With a sudden high-pitched squeal the recording automatically restarted, programming kicking in to preserve the quality of the tape. In a fit of sudden rage, the figure leapt up and stabbed the vid-set remote control against the wall so violently that tiny plastic pieces shattered and rained down upon a record of a transcribed phone conversation between former 01 and 02. Panting in ferocious anger, the thin figure turned and lifted up the vid-set from its place on the floor, throwing it against the same wall hard enough that the screen shattered, hot sparks flying in all directions and setting some of the paper clippings aflame.
In seconds the tiny blazes were dead, doused by the figure's bare hands. Stalking across the cramped and cluttered room, dodging piles of papers, ancient bits of food, and crawling vermin, the slender figure halted in front of a cracked mirror glued to the wall over where the vid-set used to rest.
The figure stooped down and picked up a delicate porcelain mask from a stool at her feet, the only furniture in the entire room. It was obvious that it was the special place for the mask. Carefully, oh so carefully, one pale hand brought the mask up to cover her face before it could be reflected. Only then she look into the mirror.
Shining back in the almost pitch black the white paint of the mask seemed to glow, pure and smooth against the surrounding darkness. Eyeholes were the only openings in the clean ivory porcelain, and two shining eyes colored with fury peered from the dark depths behind the mask. As one hand held the mask in place, the other pulled at the slender white ribbon adoring its edges, and the delicate strips of fabric were carefully were tied behind the figure's head. Once the mask was secure over the greasy dishwater colored hair, the figure finally released her hold on the bottom of the mask.
For a moment the figure stood transfixed, pristine snowy mask held in place with pure white ribbons. Staring for a bare moment, a hand came up and carefully stroked the artificial cheek, fingers trembling as they touched the cool surface. Eyes shone with wet tears, and for a moment, there was deep silence.
With an abrupt motion, the figure punched the mirror, glass shattering and sticking into the skin of her pale white fist, blood dripping freely from slices and punctures. She whirled around, oblivious to the wounds, savagely tearing down the pictures on the walls. Bare feet stomped on the papers and the glass shards alike, blood seeping from the new cuts as the mirror's remains lodged into the flesh of her diminutive feet. Soon blood was mixed in with the now twitching and crushed vermin, mingled with the rotten food.
As the mad rage played itself out of the small thin body, the figure was totally silent. The white mask seemed to float and dodge throughout the room, the only clearly visible object in the abject darkness. Then it stopped as the figure sank to her knees, the mask coming down to meet a hand that had picked up a particular picture of Yuy from the defiled papers on the floor. Surrounded by the torn remains of photographs, clippings, and records, only at this point did the figure break her silence.
Soft laughter filled the dark room.
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