Mea Culpa

He shot you, Master. Why did you allow it? You should have let me go. You should have let me! I was just playing. Only playing. It was all a game, Master. Didn’t you want him dead? You had said so before. You told me that he had to die with his beloved humans. After your rebirth, you were so careless. He shot you again because of it, Master… And I could have prevented it if you had just let me kill him! You should have let me, Master. You should have let me…

“He’ll die if we don’t do anything, Bluesummers,” Midvalley said gravely, his countenance tense and uneasy. “He can’t survive for much longer in this condition. You know that as well as I do.”

Legato felt ice creep through his veins when he saw the body. There was crimson… So, so much crimson. It wasn’t the kind of crimson that made him smile to be shed, either—this blood was enough to enrage. “I… I know. But if he’s put in—?”

“He’ll heal,” was the curt reply. “It’ll take a while, but inside it, he’ll surely heal.”

The golden-eyed man drew a deep, shaky breath. Seeing him this way wasn’t something that he wanted at all. “Then do it,” he commanded roughly. “Heal him. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, just heal him. See to it that he fully recovers.”

Solemnly, Midvalley nodded in response. “Right, then. We’ll hook him up and put him away.”

Biting anxiously at his lip, worrying behind a veneer of lividity, Legato lowered his gaze to the Hornfreak from his hanging position far above him. “For how long will he need it, do you estimate? Weeks?”

“Months. Perhaps a year or two. It all depends on his rate of restoration, Bluesummers.” The Gung-Ho Gun’s dark, dusky eyes were unsympathetic; Legato knew all too well that he disliked him greatly.

A year, he thought. Does that mean that I am in command? Does that mean that I must fill your place again, like when you were being reborn? Master, I swear to you that this isn’t the kind of game that I wanted to play. When you said that we were going to play a game, I… I thought that we were going to win.

Dazedly, still wanting it to all be dream, he stared at the creature that had rescued him from a place that had been so, so close to hell. He wished that it had been him instead. Mouth dry and lips pale, he was placed in front of the recovery confinement in which his Master was kept, left by himself to watch and to wait. The other Gung-Ho Guns, those that were left, were elsewhere, preparing… He was alone in this vacant room, all except for his Master. All except for Knives.

He was held within that black suit, secured safely and soundly within. It had been two long months since he had been brought back injured—two excruciating months since the hole in the fifth moon came to be—and Knives hadn’t gotten any better. His health had not deteriorated or improved; he was at a standstill… but he breathed. His inhales were slow and steady, Legato could tell, even with the mask over his face. Wires of all sorts were hooked up to him, thick and thin, pumping precious energy into his limp body. They were cultivating and revitalizing a god.

“Master… He shot you again, didn’t he? He shot you again. He shot you.”

The dreary blue haired man stared and stared in silence, unable to take his eyes away and unable to move. He wanted so badly to move. He wanted to be able to reach out and touch the smooth, cool textures of the suit with his own two hands, but sadly, he couldn’t. He had been crippled—crippled by the very being that was lost in unconsciousness, slumbering in front of him. He had been rendered almost completely immobile because of that man. And still, he wanted to prove himself. Even though his movement was limited, he yearned to prove that he had worth. His Master had heartlessly crushed him all because he had disobeyed.

“Who said you could kill him? You piece of trash…” Knives’s crystalline blue eyes, smoldering with intense, boundless rage, glared at him from behind long, platinum-blond strands of hair. Pallid and smooth, his bare skin seemed to gleam with its own ethereal aura.

Legato’s throat was parched and his bottom lip bled, body shrieking violently in protest against his attempts to breathe. Left nearly entirely inert, he could only look upward. He could say nothing in his defense or even beg for mercy… All he could do was watch.

And the pain was unbearable. His limbs were twisted about each other at odd angles; he had been crumpled into a humanly impossible position. Each time he inhaled, he felt his nerves sting. Aching, he wanted to cry out and plead for it all to stop, but that would make him appear weak in his Master’s eyes. He could endure pain; this was nothing compared to what he had faced in the past… But why did it hurt so much more?

“Then… I’ll give you one. Something whimsical, but also strong.

“… Legato. Legato Bluesummers. That will be your name. You will serve me and carry out my bidding. You will adhere to me and help me create an army of ‘knives’—sharp, reliable knives that will obey and kill without hesitance. You will aid me in tracking down and obtaining my little brother. Do you understand me?”

Silence. The youth’s jaw quivered.

“Do you understand me?”

“Y—Yes. Yes, of course… Master.”

And as Knives clasped his hand firmly onto his brother’s face, invoking that terrifying ‘power’ deep within him, he was whisked away by the other Gung-Ho Guns and the doctor that had assisted with Knives’s rebirth. He stared as he was carried away, golden eyes wide as they took in the bright, blinding light that emitted from the brothers’ direction. He shouted over the noise; he shouted over the assassins’ frantic cries of “All hands withdraw!” and “Retreat, retreat!” and over the charging of the Angel Arm as loud as he possibly could.

“Master… Master! Knives-sama! Knives-sama! Kn—KNIVES!”

That was first time that he had ever simply said his name… but Knives never heard. All Legato could do was watch the fading spectacle and continue to scream in vain. Watch, just as he was doing now. Legato mentally floated around his Master’s mind, wanting to be closer than his useless body would allow. He was unconscious; he would never know that he was intruding on such a level. Legato knew well enough that if Knives awoke, he would surely be punished for it… but this meant too much.

Master, I’m sorry, but… he was going to hurt you. You said that you wanted him dead. If I had killed him, you wouldn’t be in this position. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt. You wouldn’t be locked in that confinement for months to come! You must forgive me; I acted on impulse. Master, I only meant—

“Legato.” The familiar, icy voice made his mouth go dry and it severed himself from his rampant thoughts.

Swallowing nothing but cool, cool air, he hesitantly replied, “Yes…?”

He breathed deeply, barely audible from behind the metal mask. “I knew your intent, Legato. There’s no need to elaborate. You’re making an utter fool out of yourself; stop apologizing. Hearing your incessant whining is getting to be very irksome.”

The aurum-eyed man let out a relieved sigh. It felt good to hear his voice again, no matter how annoyed he was. “Y-Yes, Master.”

“Now, I want you to listen to me, and listen to me carefully,” Knives said slowly, gently. “The orders… They’re going to change. In lieu of death, which was what was originally planned, you are to cause him eternal pain and suffering.” He paused for a moment, as if to catch his breath. “Do you understand me, Legato?”

“Yes, Master,” the servant whispered, wanting to move and to take off the mask that hid his face. However, he restrained himself from requesting as best as he could. Not yet. He would be able to see him later, but not just yet. He had to heal, first; he had to recuperate and gain his strength. “I will cause him eternal pain and suffering,” Legato repeated softly. “We will cause him eternal pain and suffering… and Vash the Stampede will soon wish that we had given him death.”

Quiet, almost muted chuckles came from behind the metal mask. Knives was laughing.

It was my fault for disobeying, but I will not fail you again, Master. I swear it. Little brother Vash will pay with his anguish for harming you. He will pay for Augusta and for your rebirth with his misery. I will bend and break his precious humans and serve them to him as bloody, mangled corpses. I may not be able to make use of my body any longer, but I can still murder… Show me how to win this game of death, Master.

Legato smiled, still watching the suit in which the blond Plant was being kept like the faithful one that he was and vowed to forever be.

Show me what it’s like to be the last one standing.