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Today, the work Millions Knives has put in for nearly a century will finally conclude.
In the center of July, within the towering building that houses the Eye of Michael, he enters his private suite of rooms. His goal on this day is not to play his instrument, and so he passes through the room that holds it without lifting the keylid.
Just off this room is a small lab, nothing on the scale of any of Conrad’s workspaces. The room is dim, lit only by the glass cases that line its walls. It’s spotless despite his long absence; he keeps it sealed tightly away from anything that might contaminate his results.
He keeps it sealed from prying eyes, as well. No one except Knives knows this place even exists. Of the many labs hidden away in this building, all belonging to Knives, it’s the only one that is truly his.
Upon first entering the room, he passes one tube that holds just the remains of a root system, its tendrils reaching for the glass walls of its case, still alive and growing purposelessly. He’d discarded the rest of the plant, it had been worthless. The roots though, he was proud of those.
There are many such fragments in this room, all floating in their own case, most of them alive. Veins of a leaf, skeletal after being stripped of all their flesh, sway minutely in their tank. The fuzzy bud of a pubescent flower, never to bloom, cut off from its parent plant, but preserved infinitely.
One glass tube holds a single petal—the parent plant hadn’t survived, but the color is a perfect replica of a slip of scarlet fabric he’d caught a glimpse of in April City twenty years prior.
Several versions of the plant’s stems, with various modifications and levels of success, are present as well. He’s always felt that the stem of the geranium lacked, soft and thin as it was. As a child, it was the first flaw he noticed.
Vash had always loved geraniums, and so, Nai had loved them too. But for Vash to love such a fragile thing... it was tenuous—dangerous even. Vash was setting himself up for sadness when the thing he loved was inevitably destroyed.
Nai, as the elder brother, was obligated to shield Vash from this.
He hadn’t known, at first, how exactly to do so. When they were still on the ship, his nascent Plant powers remained mysterious, and he was only just learning to control them. But luckily, Vash was always impressed no matter what Nai did, and never seemed to care if he messed up or not.
So, in secret, Nai had worked hard to create something that would really surprise him. After many days and mistakes, he produced an evolution in the flower, something worth showing off.
He worked up his courage and called Vash into their family’s little garden to show him.
Vash was excited at first, but when Nai told him it wasn’t food, he was less so. Nai rolled his eyes at his younger brother, fondly. He should have expected that reaction.
When they arrived at the garden, Nai gestured toward the lone table set up near the center. The small glass container that holds the flower sat atop it innocuously.
Vash walked up to it curiously.
“Nai?”
“Check it,” Nai said, not letting any of his excitement leak into his voice.
Lifting the lid from the case, Vash nearly flinched at the seal’s hiss as the temperature control released.
As Nai watched Vash examine his handiwork, nervousness pooled in his stomach, but he refused to let it show. He was sure Vash would like it, once Nai explained how much better it was.
The flower looked almost the same as it always had, but protruding from its stem were tiny, nearly imperceptible thorns. He had expended an immeasurable amount of energy to produce even that result, but he was proud. Thorns would deter most human hands and keep the fragile stem safe.
Before Nai could even begin to explain what he’d done, Vash reached toward the flower, fingers primed to brush against those tiny needles. Nai jerked to stop him, but Vash pulled away in shock.
The subsequent scrabble led to both of them losing grip on the smooth glass container. It crashed loudly against the floor as it shattered into hundreds of pieces, petals scattering everywhere.
Nai watched as all his hard work was destroyed, dumbfounded.
Never one to give up, Vash had tried to rescue the flower. As he tried to lift it from the ground, a shard of glass sliced his palm clean and deep.
Red petals, red blood.
Panic.
Vash, sitting with his knees under him, surrounded by glass and the remains of the flower, started crying.
Knives touches the cold, unbroken glass of one of the more recent experiments, mouth tightening into a grimace. They had both been so naive back then. He’s come so far, but he fears Vash may have never left that naiveté behind.
In a room surrounded by his failures, he is secure in the knowledge that each experiment has brought him closer to success. He’s improved the roots, the stems, the flowers, and every part in between. None of these have ever made the flower truly safe, and finally he realized, the issue was never with the flower itself.
Decades that have passed since his first ill-fated attempt, and his goal has shifted. No longer will he settle for fallible features like thorns.
His perfect geranium will have all the beauty of the original, the delicate stem and graceful curve of its leaves. But if any human dares reach for it, as Vash did all those years ago, their fingertips will be met with a poison potent enough to scorch their flesh on contact.
The issue was never with the flower itself, but with the filth who would lay their hands on it.
At the far end of the room, past all the experiments, is a sterile lab table that holds only two things: the final version of his flower, and the very first.
The first flower is kept in case all of its own, but unlike the rest, it has all its pieces and shoots up from a nest of dirt and roots. Compared to the pristine experiments surrounding it, it’s messy and ugly. Knives had rescued it from the wreckage of Ship Five and nursed it back from near-death.
All the experiments had come from this one surviving flower. He’s cultivated it for decades and grown countless numbers of progeny plants from its genes. He’s kept them all, too, or at least parts of them.
With one exception.
There had been a version of the flower that had produced a completely pitch-black plant—petals, leaves, and all. He’d been satisfied with it at first. The structure was sound and it thrived with minimal outside interference.
Upon examining the petals more closely, however, the warm black gloss had forced an image of dark strands to his mind. A curtain of hair, one gentle hand pushing it behind an ear.
Gentle hands and a gentle voice, she was always gentle. Even when Nai, after that first failed experiment, had run to get her, yelling that Vash was hurt.
Those hands that would destroy the flower, those hands that bandaged Vash’s own.
Rem had tended Vash’s wound and soothed his crying. Once she had settled Vash, she had turned to face Nai.
When Nai told her that he had grown a new kind of geranium, rather than praise him for his efforts, she looked dismayed.
“You changed its genetic structure?” She asked, petting Vash’s head to keep him calm.
“Yes.”
“And why did you do that?” Her tone was so soft that it made Nai want to break something.
He refused to answer her when she wouldn’t even get mad.
“Nai?”
Rem crouched to his eye level, resting her hands on her knees.
“What were you trying to prove, Nai?” Her face was kind, and sad. Nai had to turn away.
She gestured toward Vash behind her, still sniffling and giving Nai a look that he hated.
“Did you mean to make Vash cry?”
Nai’s stomach dropped, panic freezing his blood.
“No!” His vehemence shocked himself, but Rem just kept looking at him with the same understanding expression. “No, I just– I just wanted to, to show him–”
Nai’s fingernails bit into his palms from how tightly he had them balled. Rem tilted her head slightly in affirmation.
“Vash, come here,” she said, gently pulling the other boy in front of her. “Did you hear what Nai said?”
Vash nodded petulantly.
“And what do you think?”
Vash finally looked up, and Nai felt his gut churn. He hated that he cared what Vash was going to say.
“Nai, why did you do that to the flower?” Vash asked, instead of answering Rem’s question.
“What do you mean?”
Vash blinked at him innocently, not knowing that he was about to break Nai’s tender heart.
“Why did you ruin it?”
Knives’ expression twists at the memory. He was—is—always thinking of Vash, but his intentions never seem to matter. But all that is inconsequential. With this final version, he will prove himself.
No longer can his experiments be discarded and ignored.
Knives approaches the table holding the final version of his flower. Something like nerves stir in his abdomen as the plant in the small container comes into view.
Despite all his changes to its internal structure, it is indistinguishable from the traditional red geraniums by sight. The flowers are gathered at the top, petals bright crimson, tightly furled buds waiting to bloom just beneath. The stem is a bright, healthy green, and its leaves are full and fanned out.
He presses a button that drains the liquid from the container. After germinating the seeds with his powers, he had left it alone to grow, and it is finally time to test its success. He carefully removes the glass casing that’s protecting the flower.
The leaves tremble slightly when they hit the open air.
He reaches out to touch the blade of a leaf. If his fingers tremble as well, at least there’s no one there to witness it.
The poison burns the pad of his finger, strong enough to hurt even his inhuman skin.
Elation alights his veins. At long last, a complete success.
But then, the plant burns. It self-immolates, appearing as though it’s dissolving into thin air, and is completely gone in mere seconds.
Anger he has barely repressed for a century carves itself hotly into his ribs.
He throws his arms out and smashes the glass the final flower was housed in. The shards crunch in his fist, cut into his palm, and fall away. It isn’t enough, doesn’t begin to calm his fury.
His vines burst from his back and shatter the tubes lining the walls. With a swirl of fists and knives, the lab is destroyed in a matter of moments. The one thing left sits innocently on the table, untouched.
The original.
The protective glass breaks so easily in his iron grip. The dirty, messy roots spill across his hands and the once-pristine surfaces of the lab. He should’ve never started these experiments. They were foolish and childish. He rips the detested thing apart, stem by stem.
Fistfulls of leaves and petals scatter in the air, but watching them flutter away feels too much like absolving them. So he stuffs one of the ruptured bits into his mouth, and swallows without chewing. The poison burns his mouth, but it’ll heal itself. Unlike the flower, unlike Vash, unlike her, his body is invincible.
It burns his throat going down, but as it settles in his stomach, so too does his anger. It becomes a smoldering remnant of what it was.
Chest heaving, surrounded by the remains of his failures, Millions Knives begins to cry.