Ok, I’m really not certain where this came from. All I can say is that it’s friggin’ weird. I’ll tell you this: the part in the asterisks is VERY long and it is ALL….. well, it’s real enough to them: a half-dream that doesn’t happen in the Gundam Universe, but Duo has a dream in the middle of that, marked an equals-sign. Kuso, it’s just impossible to explain properly… just go ahead and read the effing story: if you’ve gotten this far you may as well go all the way! ::grinning maniacally:: No money being made from this whatsoever: sue me and I can try raiding the fountains at the nearby mall for the cash to pay, just be prepared to be counting change for a long time.
 

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Shinigami by moonrose_02

     "Duo? Is something wrong?"
     Quatre’s query had gone unnoticed. He tried it again, still with no response. He knelt and placed a hand on Duo’s shoulder. Duo flinched and turned.
     "Who- oh. Quatre…" he said, as though trying to reassure himself, blinking the glassy stare out of his eyes. That worried the young blond: it was the sort of thing he might expect from Wufei coming out of meditation or from Trowa’s literally blood-chilling flashbacks, but not from Duo. Not from the normally happy, bouncing-off-the-walls bundle of cynical humor and endless laughs that now sat muted in front of him.
     "Do you want to talk about something, Duo? You’re not normally like this." Quatre arranged himself on the catwalk in exact imitation of Duo, leaning back on a railing support pole with one leg dangling off and the other crossed over that knee. His eyes… they’re so dead, so empty… they belong to a corpse.  He felt creepy, like someone was watching. Not by Duo’s sad and lifeless eyes: this gaze felt cold and hard, unwelcoming. But as hard as Quatre looked around, he, Duo and Duo’s Gundam were the only ones he could find. The Arabian pilot looked over at Shinigami, where the braided boy had been staring.
     "You look tired, Duo. You’ve got raccoon-eyes."
     "Mmm..." Jeez, Duo’s quieter than Trowa ever was!
     "I didn’t interrupt a chat with Shinigami, did I?"
     "Hmm?" Duo forced a small chuckle. "No… not one I was particularly enjoying."
     "Mind talking to a human for a change?" Duo’s silence was raising Quatre’s alarms.
     Duo’s eyes flickered for a moment with a trace of his former vitality. Then he glanced over at Shinigami and Quatre thought he saw pure terror flash in the eyes of the fearless young man who casually called himself the God of Death. He barely hid the shiver that Duo could not.
     "Not here. Not now… Anywhere, anywhen else," Duo whispered. "But not here, Quatre."
     The feeling of being watched was growing stronger by the second: Quatre could sense the hostility chilling the air around him. Rising, he gave the bat-winged Gundam an uneasy look as he patted Duo’s shoulder.
     "I’m here if you want to talk, Duo. You know that." It’s more than just his recent breakup with Heero...it has to be. I wouldn’t be feeling like someone is chasing me out of here otherwise. Quatre stood, shuddering as he left the chill of the hangar and re-entered the bright, warm sunshine outside.

~~~~~

     Duo didn’t notice Quatre’s departure.
     Shinigami, you have to let me go now. It’s peacetime, has been for months now. There’s no further use for us if this peace is going to hold.
     A pause: he did not have to touch the massive black machine to understand its words to him.
     This is what the ten of us fought so hard for, each of us pilots and our Gundams. Peace. We weren’t supposed to survive the war: we were supposed to die as soldiers in a war we couldn’t hope to win, fighting for a cause that couldn’t possibly be achieved. I told you when Professor G sent us off on Operation Meteor that, if by whatever miracle we managed to survive, the world would have no need of us any more. I told you we could accept no less, become outdated soldiers and useless machines in a world with no more need of us or die trying. I did, Shinigami, don’t try to say I didn’t!
     Shinigami spoke again, and Duo bowed his head.
 It’s partially over him, but not what you think. Yeah, I wonder what happened, if it was my fault, but… you and I, we share the same name. You gave it to me: the God of Death. Everyone I love ends up dying. Wing Zero told me it was my fault, that I am my own worst enemy and the worst enemy of anyone I get involved with, that anyone I touch in love will die because of me. I can’t let that happen, not to Heero. Maybe I just want to say someone survived me, I don’t know. That’s part of it.
     Pause.
     The other part? The other part is that I can’t deal with it anymore. I’ve shed too much blood. By all the hells of the universe, you should know that better than anyone. You should know that the faces of every person I’ve killed haunt me when I sleep. I can recite every name in my dreams, and I wake still hearing them and their accusations, I wake still seeing them in front of me. They don’t go when I wake up.
     Pause.
     If you want to stay behind, sure… maybe I could let Heero have you. But maybe it’s just a bit more appropriate, a complete Shinigami blazing through Brimstone Caverns like, dare I say, a bat out of hell?
     Shinigami laughed and agreed.
     Give me a couple of days to see that all my shit is straight. At least it’ll be a Sunday, though I can’t think much good that’ll do since I haven’t been a church in a good four years…
     Question: the content made Duo laugh in his mind.
     No, not that way, you filthy-minded Gundam! You’re worse than me by a long shot! I wonder what the others would think if I passed on to them a quarter of the mildest dirty jokes you’ve told me.  Duo rose slowly and left the hangar, his eyes not betraying a hint of the cynical laughter he hid deep inside.

~~~~~

     'I’ve never seen Duo so religious before," Trowa commented to Quatre in a low whisper, stopping at Duo’s open door. He seemed oblivious to everything, kneeling towards a small cross on the wall. By the faint sound of rasping metal chain links on solid metal cross and the whispered words, Trowa could tell that Duo was praying. Praying, of all things.
     "Trowa, can we talk? In the study?" Quatre led him to the study and closed the door, which was the blond Arabian’s way of saying "confidential." Trowa took a seat, gathering Quatre into his lap.
     "I walked in on Duo earlier today….. he was talking with Shinigami. Have you noticed how terrible he looks? Duo’s always been smaller and lighter than me, doesn’t eat a lot… but this is ridiculous! He’s not eating enough in a week to keep a starving sparrow alive a month, and he doesn’t look like he’s sleeping a lot. Duo wasn’t like this before, Trowa. He always had a joke to spare. I think he’s taken to sleeping in Shinigami again, just like during the war. He looks like a ghost."
     Trowa was thoughtful. "Survivor’s guilt, maybe. That could do it… but not even Wufei’s been hit that hard and he watched his home colony self-detonate."
     "Then why does he seem to be afraid of Shinigami, even though he’s sleeping in it?"
     "What?"
     Quatre told him what he’d seen.
     "Ghosts of the past, then, and while he is afraid of Shinigami, to his mind it must be the only thing that can keep the ghosts away. And for that he’s even more scared of the Gundam, but perhaps it’s the devil he knows to the devils he fears."
     "Trowa, he was terrified. As though he was afraid that that fully powered-down Gundam might decide to bring its scythe down on the both of us. And for all I know, it might have. All I can say is that I felt watched, but nobody was there. I don’t know. Maybe peace is getting to us or something, but I saw Duo’s eyes and they were so….. dead. Like yours the day I met you… I hoped I’d never have to see that again on anyone, because dead eyes in a living body means a total shutdown is imminent… He looked at me like there’s nothing left of who he was inside him now. Can’t we do something to help him?"
     "There’s not a lot we can do, love, except to be there for him. Heero might know best….. they were lovers and I’d bet there’s a good chance part of this at least has to do with him. I know they’ve broken up, but Heero would know Duo’s mind if anyone does. Us, let’s keep ourselves available, just in case."
     An hour later, Trowa was changing for bed. His thoughts, however, were not on sleep: they were on the braided American pilot.
     There’s got to be a reason Duo calls himself the God of Death. It’s almost a joke, but not quite: very few survive an encounter with him and Shinigami. Depression, maybe? If that’s it, how long has he had it? I suspect that, like me, he shows the world a cheerful mask to get along. He had it together better than Heero with all his training… I just don’t understand.
     Trowa couldn’t take it anymore. He slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Quatre. After yanking on a pair of sweatpants, he walked down the hallway to Duo’s room and knocked lightly on the closed door. No response. Knocked again: still no answer. Recalling what Quatre had said about Duo’s latest sleeping habits– so, he’s sleeping around, is he? Trowa headed for Shinigami’s hangar.
     The door was slightly ajar: Trowa slipped inside, barefoot and soundless on the cold cement floor, drawn by the faint murmuring. At the end of the hall he could see kneeling Shinigami, cabin open. From around the corner in the semi-darkness Trowa had to strain even his sharp eyes to see tiny Duo Maxwell curled up in the control seat, unbraided hair a thin blanket that he tossed and turned under as much as the chair would allow. But darkness could not obscure hearing, and Trowa listened.
     "..…no..…leave me..…alone you can’t..…please…..I didn’t want to…..Sister Helen..…I’m sorry I…..won’t do it again…..cut my hair…..Solo, wait…..wait for me, Solo…”." The mumbled speech, barely audible, caught at Trowa’s heart and he started to cross the hangar floor, to wake the boy from his nightmare.
    And he stopped. Something wasn’t right: there was someone else in there. He felt a cold gaze follow his movements, cold and calculating and highly unwelcoming. He looked up at the mobile suit that towered over him and gasped softly. A faint green glow marked the "eyes" of a mobile suit that should have been fully powered down. Duo’s murmuring continued, decreasing in volume to just the occasional whimper as the eyes slowly brightened to full intensity. Trowa backed out, not taking his eyes from the Gundam, not knowing what to think, and booked it back to the room and Quatre. What the hell is going on?

~~~~~

     Duo partially awoke at the mental tap, just enough to hear Shinigami’s voice, and woke fully.
     Yeah… I did, thanks. That was one hell of a dream…
     Shinigami passed on some interesting information.
     What? Someone was in here? Who?
     The suit did not know.
     Someone’s getting nosy. I’ll tell them I’m going to go lose myself for a while and get the two of us out. Or maybe not. A clean break heals best and fastest, as Heero ought to know by now. Easier on them if I just go.
     As Duo left the hangar, tightly rebraiding his brown hair, he did not notice Shinigami’s eyes flickering twice at full     brilliance and then fade out. Almost. Not quite.

~~~~~

     "Heero, did Duo ever tell you about his past?"
     "A little bit, not a lot, yeah. Why?"
     Trowa thought for a second. How the hell do I put this tactfully? Wing Zero’s pilot looked up at him from where he knelt, one had scratching his golden retriever’s ear, and then a searching look came into his cobalt eyes. Trowa felt a light brush on his mind, just skimming the surface: Heero had sensed his uneasiness and was using the Zero System’s leftover influence to read his mind.
     "At it again, Heero?"
     Heero shrugged sheepishly, looking back at the dog.
     "I don’t generally go around doing that, poking through people’s minds…"
     "I know."
     "You’re worried about Duo. I understand why, but I can’t really help you on that one."
     "Did he ever mention a Sister Helen, or a Solo, to you?"
     "No…..why?" Heero’s face was blank and slightly defensive. Protective? Even… a touch jealous?
     "Never mind." It would seem that neither one of us knows how to lie, then. You really do still love him, don’t you? A roar filled the air, a familiar one, and a form shot straight up from nearby. The pair exchanged glances: Trowa had just gotten the feeling that he was needed urgently. And if Heero had felt Quatre’s call as well, it meant serious trouble was afoot. "Back to the house."
     Quatre met them halfway in at a full run with Wufei at his side, both concerned. A familiar scent drifted in the air….. rocket fuel!
     "Trowa, Heero, Duo’s gone and he’s taken Shinigami!"
     "What?!” A memory clicked for Trowa, a memory of the night before.
     Solo, wait…..wait for me, Solo...
     "Heero, I need to know the answer to my question earlier," he said, a dark suspicion forming.
     The Japanese pilot sighed a little, eyes dark and uncomprehending for once. "People he knew. They died on L2: Solo in the plague, Sister Helen in a Federation attack on the orphanage where he was living. Ironically it was to eliminate him because he was causing them too much trouble, but he survived because he was out causing more and was apparently the only survivor."
     Solo, wait…wait for me, Solo… Now Trowa knew for certain, and he gazed in shock at the white trail that climbed into the sky. "I understand it now…"
     Wufei caustically replied, "Then do us the favor of letting us in on the big secret."
     "Duo’s going to self-detonate. Survivor’s guilt: he’s haunted by his ghosts, sleeps in Shinigami to chase them off..… but that may be doing more harm than good. We have to go after him." Trowa snatched Quatre’s hand and half-dragged him along to the hangar.
     "Come on, Heero! I thought you loved him!" Wufei couldn’t believe that Heero had not moved a muscle: Trowa and Quatre also paused.
     "I do love him, Wufei…" Heero breathed, not quite trusting his voice. "I respect his decision. It’s his life. Neither one of us would consider it honorable, but nobody can ask him to do more than he has. He’s given up as much as any of us for peace. I’m not going to force him to live with the ghosts. I know them too well. I know what he’s thinking and feeling."
     "I don’t know about you, Heero, but I’m not abandoning a friend," Quatre told him heatedly, and sprinted off followed by Trowa.
     "Coming?" Wufei asked.
     "Yeah….. let’s get a move on."

~~~~~

     "Heero, Shinigami’s communications are still out and I’m having trouble locating him. I expected it, but it’s not making things any easier." Trowa’s voice was as calm as his face as he glanced to the screen at his side and regarded the Wing Zero in a silent plea. Heero heard it. Closing his eyes, he stretched out his senses as far as Zero could amplify them. He felt the pilots beside him, strung out to his left: knew that Trowa’s ever-present calm was just a mask now, hiding his dislike of being back in Heavyarms again. Knew that Quatre was no longer angry with him for not wanting to move but was certainly not at his ease in Sandrock. Knew that Wufei was trying unsuccessfully to calm nerves thoroughly rattled from having to call upon Nataku again. He brushed past the millions of minds in the space colonies that did not so much as register his light invasion that vanished in an instant in search, disregarded the thousands who worked natural resource satellites… found the mind he was looking for. His eyes snapped open: training was recalled, had to be recalled to deal with the backlash of emotions he felt from Duo.
     "Found him…heading zero-niner-two." Heero’s mind saw the course: he would do it behind an abandoned satellite, away from any that might see or be hurt.
     "Have you gotten through?" That was Quatre, anxiety clear in his voice and through the faint extension of the Zero System.
     "Found, yes. I said nothing about getting through. I am trying, but…there’s another... being, of a sort, with him and it’s not letting me do much more than see that Duo is there. I….. can’t explain it." Zero, what is it? An image came to him, a girl in a flowing ankle-length white dress trimmed in black and shimmering black hair hanging loose about her bare shoulders to frame pale skin and flashing green eyes, a long, glittering silver scythe in her hand. It faded into a picture of the Gundam Duo flew, and left no doubt as to exactly who was meant. "It’s Shinigami herself, the God of Death, with Duo now…"
     "Shinigami herself? Since when has a suit with no Zero System in it had a mind of its own?" Quatre exclaimed in surprise. "I’m not saying Zero’s wrong…but could someone explain that to me?"
    "That comes as a surprise, Quatre? Believe me, it’s possible. And considering who it is we’re chasing, it makes perfect sense. So, it looks like we challenge Death again,” Wufei said, a trace of humor cutting the sudden tension.
    "I’ve never exactly liked either Zero or Shinigami, you know," Quatre said. "But if I had my choice between the two, I’d take Zero in a heartbeat."
    "Same here," Trowa said. "I felt it. I think that suit may be doing something to Duo."
    "ETA 30 seconds,” said Heero, then tried the communications. Duo’s voice came over, harsh and strident and rasping and entirely incongruous with the memories of his grin and laughs, but that was all. Duo obviously didn’t want to be seen the way he was.
    "Go away, Heero. Turn back. Don’t get any closer to me. I know the others can hear me."
    "Duo-" Quatre got no farther.
    "Quatre, go! All of you, return to the Earth!" A note of desperation tinged his voice: Heero heard it and was on a razor’s edge for nerves, tensed to move.
    "Can’t do that, Duo." Trowa’s voice was calm and collected, his face gave nothing away, just as Heero wished he could be. Then again, any thought of Duo shattered his serenity. And the Zero System was telling him Trowa was anything but cool and quiet.
    "You don’t get it! There’s a reason I call myself the God of Death! Everyone I’m close to dies! I’m paying the price now so that you don’t have to!"
    "Everyone dies at some point, Duo," Wufei told him, but he was cut off.
    "Shinigami calls," Duo whispered. The black suit blasted away even faster and the four pilots found that they had been locked out of communications with it. The Japanese pilot tried again to reach Duo’s mind and found himself fiercely blocked.
    Crap! Chikushou! Heero kept his frustrated thoughts to himself. Then an idea occurred to him.
    "Quatre, is the Zero System still installed in Sandrock?"
    "Yesss….." The blonde Arabian seemed unsure, but then comprehension colored his face. "You’re not asking me to-"
    "Yes, I am, Quatre. One Wing Zero can’t handle Shinigami and Duo both at once," he said harshly, a note of command to it he had never before used on anyone popping ot of the distant, hazy memories of training. "Engage it." Only a moment passed, and then he felt Quatre’s full presence through the system.
    The back of Heero’s mind noted that the limited telepathy induced by the system was a beneficial side effect. In battle, a good pilot could use it to know his enemy’s next move, or speak to comrades. There were two catches, though. One, the telepathy only worked with someone who was either using another copy of the system, or already sensitive in that manner. The other was the simple fact that you fought the system constantly for control of your own mind, even if you had long since mastered it: lose to it and it could, would, rip you to shreds.
    Quatre, this will have to be a team effort. You have the knowledge of friendship to handle Duo. I’ll try to distract Shinigami long enough for you to get in. The thought that it would most likely be a mental suicide run (and possibly physical, for challenging the God of Death directly), he ruthlessly squashed. Together Zero and Sandrock advanced with Heavyarms and Nataku falling behind. They caught the retreating pilot, who moved into a defensive stance as Zero shapeshifted into mobile suit mode, and surrounded him.

~~~~~

    ***No suit drew weapons, yet in his mind’s eye he was yanked from the darkened cockpit of his Gundam and stood on dry desert sands. Where were the other three? He could not see them, but he felt their presences here as well. Which is where? But he was given no time to contemplate: a woman’s voice screamed a challenge and it was all he could do just to register the whirling black-and-white attack that came out of nowhere before he was forced to defend himself. With what? The saber was in his hand before he knew it. A smile cracked the girl’s cold face, and suddenly Quatre sttod defiantly at his side.
     "More interesting this way, if you know where each other is and you can work as a team," her crystal voice told them. Shinigami struck first at Heero now, a deadly, gleaming silver scythe in her hand. Quatre darted away towards the black-clad body that lay on the sands behind her... and found the butt-end of Shinigami’s scythe slammed into his middle. It didn’t really hurt him, but he had no breath to draw for a moment. He crumpled, a hand outstretched to touch the end of the brown braid and could not quite reach…..
     Heero, she’s stronger than we thought!
     I know, came the answering thought, tight and drawn and strained, but we must do what we can.
     Need any help while you’re at it?
     Trowa! Wufei! The fighting pair regarded the newcomers as Quatre got to his feet. How-
     I figured that there’s no reason you two need to fight alone, Trowa returned. The three joined battle with Heero… and found themselves overpowered.
     A memory stirred simultaneously in Trowa and Quatre both. Wasn’t it near where their physical bodies sat in their Gundams that Trowa had had his first encounter with the Wing Zero mobile suit, piloted by insane Quatre, nearly died by his friend’s own hand? A laugh accompanied the icy smile as the pair collapsed, pain of recall sending agony through every vein and every nerve.
     "That’s the way it works here. Quatre Winner, Trowa Barton. Physical pain doesn’t count. It’s the mental pain that will disable you," Shinigami hissed. "But the physical impacts, your body will feel, and that can kill, becuase here you don't feel your physical pain."
     Quatre, Trowa… Heero’s thought was unheard by the pilots, a touch of their pain flowing through him via the Zero System. And then Shinigami caught him in the backlash of his own memory, picking up the little dog’s lifeless body….. seeing the body of the girl who owned the dog crushed under tons of masonry and mobile suit pieces, the only person who had ever been nice to him before he left for Operation Meteor…
     Wufei had been hoping to have the diversion of the other three pilots with him, yet suddenly he had her undivided attention and faced a vicious assault. Not even Nataku could dampen the pain as he watched in his mind’s eye, helpless once more as Meiran gave her life to save his. He did not know her name had been torn from depths of his soul as he fell back, exhausted.

~~~~~

     Shinigami, what are you doing?
     Her amused reply was warm and caring, throaty and dangerously seductive. Fighting for you, of course! Can you tell me what else I’d be doing?
     But those are…my friends… You’re hurting them, I can feel it…
     Is it uncomfortable? I can shield you from it…
     No! No, Shinigami, stop it! Duo fought as hard as he could to feel what his friends felt.
     Don’t you understand? They want you to live so you can hear your ghosts. What friends would? Don’t you want to end it, so you don’t hear them any more and you don’t end up killing them? Shinigami redoubled her whirling, slashing attack on the other four pilots. Duo felt Trowa’s terror, Quatre’s grief, knew the emotions that raged inside supposedly emotionless Heero Yuy, heard Wufei scream his dying wife’s name and their fed-back pain forced him down even as his hand shakingly grasped his self-detonation switch…

~~~~~

     == "Duo!"
     "Solo?!"
     The tallish boy with shaggy, shoulder-length honey-colored hair nodded, smiling widely. "I told you I’d always be with you, didn’t I?"
     "Then..…"
     Solo smiled even more, greatly amused by the classic look on Duo’s face. "No, you’re actually not, Duo." But the smile disappeared as he stepped forward on the black nothingness that surrounded them to grip Duo’s arms in an icy vise. "But you’re nearly there. Duo, Shinigami is killing your friends and their pain is killing you. Stop her, if you love your friends, if you still love Heero." Duo gaped, but he continued on. "Yes, I know about that, but that isn’t the point. The point is, Duo, that Shinigami is loving and caring: she has shown that side to you by protecting you. But she is also the Goddess of Death: colder than ice and harder than diamond. This is the opponent you must face, and in so doing you face an enemy even stronger than she, one you fear more. Yourself. Do you understand?"
     Duo nodded, stunned, as his legs tried to collapse from beneath him. My Gundam really is the God of Death, the real one? The only thing that kept him up was Solo’s iron hold. Which promptly was released as Solo began to pace, and he fell down.
     "You’re the only one who can stop her: you alone know how she works, and you can use that against her. Lately you’ve slacked off: she has lost her respect for you, and you will have to fight twice as hard to get it back. Until you do, you and your friends are in danger. And against the God of Death, I can’t help you. This is your battle."
     "Solo, I miss you..–" Duo was cut off in midsentence as Solo slapped him. Hard. A red handprint burned on his cheek, livid on the fair skin.
     "Fight, Duo Maxwell!" His name was savagely whipcracked in a furious shout. "The Duo Maxwell I knew was never a coward! I guess times change, don’t they? Guess I overrated you." The harsh words from his oldest friend brought Duo to his feet, equally furious. "That’s right, little boy! Get up and fight! Fight for your friends, fight for your lover, fight for yourself!" ==
     Abruptly Solo was gone and the blackness as well: Duo stood in a barren wasteland, a desert that had once been a garden under a blazing red setting sun, watching the tail end of a battle. A woman, slightly more than five feet tall with piercingly deep green eyes and shoulder-length black hair stood there. Barefoot on the sands, she leaned casually against a darkly gleaming red-and-silver scythe. Her white silk dress, trimmed in jet black, hung off of her shoulders: it hugged her form tightly to the waist and then billowed out into a loose skirt that hung to her ankles. Behind her lay four fallen figures: Duo recognized them all.
     "I was wondering how long it would take for you to get here…you certainly took your time." Her voice was whispery, musical, dangerously seductive. She gripped the shallow S-curve of the handle on her scythe, appreciatively eyeing the straight-handled one that appeared from nowhere into Duo’s own hands. "I really do hope you turn out somewhat stronger than your friends."
     "Stop it, Shinigami! I won’t let this go any father!”
     "Oh, good…he has a temper to him still! Will he run and hide this time? Some way to talk to the God of Death, but I suppose I can overlook it. So how’d you get here? Did Solo have to show you how to get back into your own mind?” He felt her rummaging through his mind, recalled Solo’s last gasping moments in his arms in crystal clarity that in ordinary times would have shattered him completely: Duo locked it out, locked her out. Shinigami smiled in approval. "You still do not have control: I have full control over you, and to get it back you’ll have to win. You see them?" Shinigami gestured behind her to the motionless forms on the sands.
     "My friends….."
     "Don’t tell me you’re caving in now! I can save them. I am the God of Death, after all…"
     "..…what did you…do to them…”
     "You’ve been on your own long enough to know how to defend yourself. It’s very simple. Beat me, I heal you. Lose, you all come with me." Her voice hardened, a cold smile spread across her face. "Your lover’s blood dries on my hands even now. Fight, if you love him! If you don’t quake at the thought! I should warn you, though, I don’t fight fairly.
     "Done!" He struck: it was turned easily.
 Back and forth the pair fought. Shinigami lived up to her words, changing the landscape to throw Duo, playing mind games. More than once she tried to get into his memories: he felt the hastily thrown barrier against her mental attacks shivering under several heavy blows.
     "You stop it, Shinigami," he hissed as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Duo was very good with a scythe, but Shinigami was better. Time and again the weapons locked on one another: she drew a tracery of cuts all over him with the tip of the  razor-edged blade. Some were deep: most were just scratches that hurt like hell and drew just enough blood at a time to weaken him. The salty sweat stung like fire in the slashes. Duo was getting dizzy. She had tried to turn his weapon on him more than once, and resisting was almost more than he could do each time. "I’m not going to let you go through  with this!"
     "And you stow it, Maxwell!" She had changed her tactics: instead of attacking his mind head on she would try to get him to undermine himself. The memory he forced away was of when he had left Colony V08744, stowing away on a Sweepers’ barge….. it had been his first meeting with Howard and Professor G. "You’re no longer giving orders to me, pulling strings. You want to save your friends, you have to earn it. You told me you wanted out: here’s the way right here, so why keep fighting?"
     "Changed my mind, got a better one," he shot back facetiously. The battle raged on, the sun slowly dropping.

~~~~~

     That can’t be Duo… is it? Fighting Shinigami herself? The thought was hazy and weary: it almost did not want to form for Heero despite calling in the training of his youth. Scythes…he’ll have to teach me that one. If we survive. He watched Duo desperately pivoting on whatever he had beneath him, advancing as best he could on Shinigami, doing everything possible to turn her slashing assault away. The Japanese boy felt the turmoil in Duo, felt his exhaustion, felt the boy’s worry for his friends warring with a mental darkness that threatened to overpower him completely, but he was too exhausted himself to reach out and help…

~~~~~

     This was no loving, caring being, his friend that had guarded him and guided him since before he’d met Solo, Duo thought privately. Cold and callous were compliments, cruel and calculating would not do. This was a vicious, violent demon he fought with every ounce of skill and strength and luck he could summon.
     The girl laughed, eyes sparkling with malice. "Oh, come now, Maxwell. This shouldn’t be so difficult for you. A fair fight, even. I have a better grasp than you on the weapon….. but I’m surprised you haven’t figured out where we are. This is inside your own mind, this whole battleground. You should know how your mind works better than I do."
     Actually, he had known. He’d felt their footsteps, the drops of blood that fell too frequently now, across the plain and tried not to think about it. It was odd: he was withdrawn into his own mind and yet he was quite aware of his surroundings. What she’d said caught at him, but he ignored the true meaning.
     "Enough of the twisted puns already," he grated, hands sliding on the gleaming redness of the handle on his scythe. I can’t hold for much longer, and the others are dying. If I’m going to move, it had better be now. With a sudden movement Duo checked his advance, stepped back, hooked his scythe around Shinigami’s and with the full force of concentration ripped it from her hands and ground it into little more than a piling of silver shavings. The girl who was the Goddess of Death laughed again and clapped her hands in delight at the unexpected move.
     "No more, Shinigami. No more of this. It’s tearing me apart. I’m fighting myself," he pleaded in a hoarse whisper. She smiled gently, knowingly, and knelt at the head of each fallen boy. What she did he could not see, but the results were obvious as one by one they came to and slowly rose. She came back to him finally and took his head gently, temples between palms. Duo could not say what happened: it felt like his whole body had been bathed in flame, but he felt each individual wound knitting itself up into a line of especially intense fire and then disappearing. Almost. When he had recovered enough to look at the skin of his forearm, a thin line only slightly paler than his skin showed in place of each wound. He felt stronger.
     "I’m sorry about the roughness of my healing. I can do it, even heal a mortal wound if life remains in the body, but I don’t do it often so it’s very rough. And if I made the wound in the first place, it’s almost guaranteed to scar. If you were to trip and break a bone or take a bullet even to the heart I could heal it without a trace of the original wound, but this, you will have as a reminder for the rest of your life. I am sorry I had to resort to such drastic measures…"
     "What do you mean?"
     "Oh, Duo," she laughed, a kindly silver tinkle this time that sent shivers up and down his spine. "You say that in fighting me you fought yourself?" He nodded, bemused. "That is understandable. Because you are me, and I am you. I am everything you know and everything you do not, all that you love and all that you fear. I am a part of you, integral to who you are, at once your double and your complete opposite. You will all come to understand this, in time." She gestured to the four pilots, who regarded this scene with differing degrees of shock and amazement. "Come here: I will not harm you further, my word on it."
     "Ah, Lady….." Quatre began.
     "Just Shinigami, please, Mr. Winner."
     "I don’t mean to be rude, Shinigami….. but could someone help me understand just what is going on here? A minute ago we were all fighting you, then you were fighting Duo and then you healed us….."
     She was silent a moment before answering. Raising her arms over her head and clapping twice, a slight breeze was raised and then died as suddenly. Where a moment before had been only emptiness behind the boys, a figure now stood behind each. Heero had immediately tensed, but now stood relaxed and leaning slightly against a stocky young man with a knowing look to his dark eyes. A strikingly beautiful woman held Wufei closely from behind, bronze-skinned arms encircling him and resting her chin on his shoulder. Quatre and a powerfully built boy with an air of determination to him held hands, and a slender, androgenous person a full head and shoulders taller than Trowa stood behind him, hands gently rubbing the caramel-haired pilot’s back. Without being told Duo was able to identify the four newcomers: the spirits of the Gundams, Wing Zero, Nataku, Sandrock and Heavyarms.
     "To answer your question, Mr. Winner, I can’t tell you much but I will tell you what I can. Be forewarned that there is no simple explanation, and this comes in two parts.
    "I love the Earth: it is a place of great beauty and the natural powers of the planet are unrivaled by anything that I have yet seen since the beginning of Time itself. I love humanity, for it has a potential I have yet to see an equal to, and yet I cannot understand why the beings I love so much and am so fascinated by must insist on always fighting. While I am not Time herself nor the Guardian of the Future, of neccessity I do have some knowledge of the near future. The tests you will be called upon to perform will break the ordinary person: I had to know that you would survive, because I would regret the loss of the Earth more than anything else in my time. That is the first reason."
    "You mean you’d hate to be immortal and out of a job," Duo teased, earning the death glare from the Goddess of Death herself.
    "Watch it, you. I’ll admit, there was something about you from childhood on that drew me to you, but that does not mean that I intend to let you get away with everything."
    "Oh, so the Goddess of Death is attracted to me? Hmm….. things are looking up!"
    Shinigami tried to hold the glare and could not: it slipped as the raven-haired girl shook her head. "Not that way! I knew I shouldn’t have said that: I probably won’t live it down in all of eternity! All right, you get away with that this time, since I put my foot in it..."
    "You mentioned more than one reason," Heero said softly, seemingly a touch overwhelmed.
    "I did, didn’t I? Would you believe that I arranged this whole thing? I had to know that you are all strong enough, yes. Also, I have my loyalties to you, Duo Maxwell, and through you to the rest of the Gundam team. I protect you, and I do what I can to help. But there is only so much I can do, because in helping you five I must balance you against the good of the entire Earthsphere: I needed to know that I may continue to lend my aid." Her vibrant green eyes closed. "You have passed: together, as the team you are, you will stand a good chance of pulling through." Her eyes opened. "I cannot tell you any more: perhaps that is more than I should have. In any case, you must go now, or risk undoing the healing I gave you."
    The four Gundams and their pilots slowly faded out: Shinigami smiled and turned to Duo.
    "They’ll be fine, although gravity is going to make you all wish for new upholstery in your suits and glad the old is just that, old. The Gundams came to guide their pilots out of here."
    "Will you quite laughing, Shinigami? You’re making me nervous!"
    That redoubled Shinigami's laughter. "Good! You should know better than to relax around me! It was entirely too easy to set this whole thing up to begin with, starting with breaking up you and Heero!"
    "Oh, so you’re the one who did it….. what for?"
    "I can assure you that it was not to poach. I don’t work that way, and it’s obvious that you and Mr. Heero Yuy were made for one another, heart and soul. But there is a good chance one of you might not make it back from your next trials alive: will you be strong enough to handle it?"
    "You soun like Wufei... Can I ask why you latched on to me in the first place?"
    "You can ask, but I doubt you’ll get any kind of a straight answer. Why? If you don’t want me around I’ll leave you alone…"
    "No….." Duo had a faint smile. "Stay with me. I like having you around."
    "Come on, Duo. You need to go back as well… I’ll guide you back."
    "I think I can find my way through my own mind well enough, thank you!"
    "Are you certain?" She gave her crystal tinkle laugh again. "You don’t know how your subconscious works: I do, since I spend a good deal of time here. I’ll take you back."

~~~~~

     Each pilot woke as he had been, still surrounding Duo and Shinigami. Heero came to with a grunt.
     Shinigami arranged that whole deal? Then I really have been a baka. I hope he’ll have me back willingly…but if he doesn’t want me back then that’s his choice. Even though it would break me, I think, I’ll accept it.
     Trowa and Quatre were panting with the floods of emotion that coursed through both of them: simultaneously they disengaged their copies of the Zero System and opened up full communications to each other. Not that sound was needed: Trowa slowly smiled, as though just discovering the ability in himself in a silent communication that told Quatre all he needed to know. He was forgiven.
     Wufei’s hands were just a touch chilly, hands that he knew every crease of gently holding his. Meiran! You are my Nataku…
     Duo woke up with the biggest migraine of his life about ready to break his head open. The red light that indicated "communications out" winked once and darkened: instantly four vidscreens popped up in front of him and he faced down the others without a hint of a laugh. But Trowa spoke first.
     "So Shinigami….. rigged that whole thing?"
     Quatre smiled back at the Russian boy through the mist of tears that threatened to obscure his vision completely. "It was worth it, so worth it," he murmured.
 Wufei looked at the others wryly. "She certainly doesn’t fight fair, does she…..? But I’m glad of that, actually…"
     "I..… I know sorry won’t cut it for this, guys….." Duo began, but again was stopped.
     "I speak for myself when I say I understand," Wufei told him. Heero, however, had held his silence and regarded the pilot of black Deathscythe through his unruly brown bangs, not meeting Duo’s gaze back. Abruptly the other pilots cut the chatter and gave the pair a little privacy.
     "I’m not certain how you put up with Shinigami riding around in your mind," Heero said quietly.
     "She’s a tough mistress, that’s for sure. What I don’t get is why you put up with me."
     "I haven’t been doing a very good job of that lately… I’m sorry…"
     An apology? From Heero "Perfect Soldier" Yuy? Unheard of! Duo manuevered his Gundam’s hand to touch on Wing’s hand, the closest they could get in mobile suits to actual physical contact. Actually managing to clasp the two suits’ hands was quite a feat, but it happened and without a lot of real effort on either pilot’s part: they’d done it before a few times before this…
    "We’re both equally to blame, Heero. Shinigami says she did it, forced us apart, but she shouldn’t have found it so easy even if it was her. And she’s as slippery as a greased eel when it comes to words, so I highly suspect she had nothing to do with it, and I won’t put any of it on her anyways…" Duo sighed. "I guess what I want to say is, will you come back to me, Heero? Would you let me come back to you?"
     Heero stared in open amazement: a tiny smile that he tried to cover broke through his stone mask. As Duo looked on in surprise, that smile escalated into a chuckle and then an pleasant laugh that rang in the two cabins and in Duo’s ears like the music of angels.
    "And here I was," Heero laughed, "hoping against hope that you would take me back and it’s you who asks me… I’m yours, if you want me."
In both boys’ minds a familiar woman’s voice spoke, the voice of Shinigami. You two were made for one another and belong together. You belong to each other, heart and soul, and in body if you consent to it. And Heero Yuy, if you hurt Duo, you have Shinigami to settle your account with!
    "Duo?"
    "Mmm?"
    "Does she never butt out?"
    Duo’s laugh now rang out. "Nope! Never! Especially if it has to do with me! Always playing matchmaker..."
    "Promise me something…"
    "What?"
    "Next time you decide to go suicide, at least tell me first so I can talk you out of it!" Heero’s voice was once more deadpan, but his twinkling sapphire-blue eyes betrayed him: he had actually made a mild joke. Duo laughed a little harder, and grinned back.
    "Ninmu ryoukai!" he returned, stealing the Japanese pilot’s line with a wink. Heero noticed that in that split second, the eyes of the black Gundam glowed brighter than they should have under any circumstances as they all turned back to Earth.