Chapter Text
…….
Why bother…
Just let go..
He’s gone, why are you still holding o…..
The violent wind was screaming in her ear. Noerde’s hand was turning red from how hard she was holding onto the stone keeping her from flying to her death. Everything was blurry. Everything hurt. But what hurt most of all, had nothing to do with her blistered hand, the electricity still running through her veins, or the bullets in her chest. What hurt most? The feelings that burned brighter than the fire that were lit on her sleeves not too long ago, were stomped on without a second thought by the one she thought was her everything.
What’s the point?….
The mission has been fulfilled. The Cleaners are down, the trash beast was abandoned, and Noerde….. She’s done what she was meant to do. Done what she’s always done. Utilized herself until she wasn’t needed anymore.
She turned her neck towards the hole she was trying to not get caught in, and saw Mirei in her hand. She thought back to that day. That day she met the reason she’s in this situation. She wanted to think fondly about it like she always had, the narrative she spun in her head. That it was the day her savior came and rescued her from her useless life. Her painful, loveless, useless life. The life where she was nothing but a tool who grew up to be a warrior.
………
But then she thought.
And thought.
And thought…..
And the more she thought about it.
The more a weird feeling in her chest started to rise.
She felt the wind on her face, and it felt like it got weaker somehow. So she kept thinking. She felt stronger. Instead of helplessly flailing around on that stone, she was steady, steady enough to pull herself forward slightly, gritting her teeth through the pain she felt from it.
So, she kept thinking about it, and finally she realized what that weird feeling was.
She was mad.
Furious even.
Who wouldn’t be!? She did everything right! She did what she was told! She was the perfect tool to everyone who used her, yet one little crack and she was immediately thrown away, quite literally in this case! Normally when she would feel like this, she’d ignore it, and lie to herself. But screw that, she SHOULD be mad. She WANTED to think about it now, she wanted to be mad about being hurt for once after so many years of being punished for it.
She thought and thought and thought until the wind felt like a light breeze on her face. She thought about the beatings she’d get for “talking back”, about being reprimanded for the smallest mistakes, about being taken from her tribe and no one caring enough to stop her, and about it happening all over again and the fact she was too naive to realize it until she was about to die.
And finally her last thought. The thought of being mad at herself. For not fighting back when those things happened to her. For not following her dreams of being a model when she had all the cards to do so. For never getting that cat she wanted. For almost killing herself not even 3 minutes ago, because she was so pathetic she put the value of her life within the hands of the same kind of man her mother and Mildretta had warned her about.
And next thing she knew, her free arm flung forward with an activated Mirei digging into the ground.
—
“Now where am I gonna go…”
Hii ran through the trash beast, frantically looking for a way out. That tough guy act he put on when he told Fu to let him take over was starting to crumble every second. He ran through the trash beast, and through the holes in the walls, and over all the heaps of trash, until he saw a hole in the ceiling and decided to test his luck and hope it was a simple exit. As he climbed up, he realized it was the manufactured hole in the wall that Enjin had made earlier. When he got up, he felt himself being pulled slightly and grabbed one of the spikes in the ground with his hand. He looked over and saw the cleaners. They were holding onto their instruments and the ground for dear life, trying to not get sucked out of the trash beast.
“Pfft! And this is the team Fu wanted to join?”
He thought for a second about what do, before he looked to his left and saw the little kaiju girl that was with them. She smiled at him and waved. Hii smiled and waved back, cause why not at this point, but the smile dropped when he saw the body of Zanka, that boy Jabber liked, in her hand. She was just standing there gazing at the hole in the wall…..
The hole in the wall!
“Hey, spiky boy!! Is that your friend over there?”
Guita shouted for him.
“Over huh?”
“There!”
She pointed at the hole in the wall that he just now noticed had Noerde in there. She seemed to be getting out though.
“Aren’t ya gonna go help her?”
“Nah not yet, she looks like she’s got it.”
Hii was interested in seeing how she’d get out of this. He never really liked her Noerde because of her attitude, so he really was in no rush to help her. Although that’s kinda hypocritical considering how he acts 24/7.
Both of them crouched down and watched intently as Noerde trudged herself to safety. After struggling for a moment she flung herself forward and actually got out of the hole!
“Hooray!!!!”
Guita and Hii jumped up and cheered together, only to immediately get caught in the strong winds as they started floating towards the others.
—
Noerde pushed forward one more time and managed to fly out of the hole and land on her back on the ground. She was protected by the wall underneath it so she could finally walk around without having to work for it. Only issue, she actually did still have to work for it, cause that adrenaline was completely used up. The pain she had ignored came rushing back to her in an instant, leaving her doubled over in agony.
After a few moments, she had to force herself to get used to the pain and get up. She was dizzy and could barely move without something hurting and making her tumble.
After a couple of deep breaths she felt like she could see clearly now, but she wasn’t very pleased with the first thing she saw when her vision came back. What she saw was Hii clutching a pillar in his right hand, and a little girl that was holding a different teenage boy in his left. Cant even grovel without some bullshit happening.
Noerde hugged herself to the wall and shimmied over to Hii the best she could. Pieces of rubble were flying all over the room and almost hit her a couple times, but she kept going. She was so focused on getting to Hii though, that she didn’t even notice a red haired cleaner staring at her. She turned her head and watched the girl reach into her jacket, despite the risk of flying out without holding steady with both hands.
Oh god….
Noerde felt trapped. No, she WAS trapped. All she could do was stare at Riyo as she gripped her gun inside her jacket, debating whether or not to kill her the lady in front of her.
When she thought all hope was lost, she remembered something Riyo said earlier. “Enjin”…. She looked at Riyo and nodded her head towards him, making her turn around and freeze. He wasn’t looking at her, but if he were right now, the look on his face would be beyond disappointed, and Noerde could tell that was the case by how Riyo looked at him.
She turned back to Noerde and took her hand out of her jacket. That was her signal to get outta there.
—
Hii had grabbed Guita out of reflex, and now couldn’t seem to get her off as she was holding onto his hand incredibly tight.
“Before I go help my friends, my name is Guita! What’s yours!?”
Both of them were shouting to hear each other
“Um, Hii!? Why are you asking!?”
“So if we meet again, I know what to call you!”
She suddenly let go and skidded across the ground on her feet, while Zanka was dragged on the floor. She waved him goodbye, which Hii reciprocated. He watched Guita slide over to her friends, as they started to scream for her to grab onto to something.
“Hii!”
Hii snapped his head around and saw the injured Noerde he and his new friend had just used as entertainment a moment ago.
“Yo!”
“Yo!?!? What are you doing here!”
“Taking a nice walk!! WHAT DO YOU THINK?!”
All of a sudden they heard loud screeches and thumps hit the ground, and not even a second later, a gigantic kaiju appeared before them, which Hii recognized as his new friend’s vital instrument!
“Hey it’s Guita!!”
“You know her name? What did you have a Play date over here, focus up on not dying!”
“Jeez you’re no fun. This is why we didn’t help you get out of that hole!”
That hurt Noerde a bit, to hear that people were willing to let her die just because of how she is. Hii noticed the look on her face though and backtracked.
“All jokes!”
She just glared at him, but diverted her attention from Hii, firstly, to the lack of wind, and secondly, to the fact that the ground was fully collapsing underneath them.
“HUH? No shot those idiots just killed this thing with everyone inside!”
“DAMMIT!! I FORGOT THESE THINGS FALL APART AFTER YOU BREAK THEIR CORE!!”
“Seems like a pretty clear shot…”
Both Noerde and Hii groaned and held their heads. Noerde turned to Hii, who was just watching the Cleaners and clapping every time Guita did literally anything.
“Hii!”
“What!!!”
“I order you to get both of us out of here safely!”
Hii looked at her startled. It had been a minute since someone had given him an order, and he was more than happy to follow through with it!
“That’s a copy! You got a plan?”
Noerde tried to look around to figure out what to do, but was cut short when the pillar they were both holding crumbled in their hands, and suddenly they were being flung backwards. Hii looked down and realized he was about to sink into the floor that was breaking apart. He quickly grabbed onto Noerde, holding her head to his chest to protect it from getting hit by any of the rubble flying around. They started to tilt more and more downwards, and more of the spike pillars started to crumble and fall towards them. Hii had to try and manage protecting Noerde, dodging the pillars, and climbing back up to get them out of here.
He continued to slip down, and tried to think of what to do first. To his dismay, a pillar broke and was straight into them. Just as he was getting ready to jump out of the way, what looked like a strike of lighting shot up from the lady in his hands, hitting the pillar and shattering it to pieces before he could.
“Oh yeah, I forgot you could do that! Why’d you deactivate it?…”
He looked down at Noerde and realized she had coughed up a bit of blood on his shirt. She was shaking and could barely keep her grip on him.
“Aw man…”
Hii made sure he had Noerde tight in his arms and jumped on top of a pillar that wasn’t broken yet. The ground was still tilted at an angle to where if you were trying hard enough, you could run up it. The cracks in it were like little stairs as well, so Hii took his chance while they were still intact enough to run up them. He sprinted up, not stopping for a moment. He could hear the ground crumbling underneath his feet every step he took. The Cleaners had already escaped at this point, so they were on their own.
When he got high enough, it was pure chaos. The ceiling was falling off, flying all over the room, and he could feel the sun hit his face. From looking out of an opening, he could tell they were getting close to hitting the ground. At this point, the floor was completely rotated into a wall, and he was staying up there by planting his feet inside of the cracks and pressing him and Noerde into the wall. He spotted only one last pillar that wasn’t broken, holding onto the wall for dear life, that was right next to the hole. Without a second thought, he jumped to the pillar. When he landed on it, it immediately broke, making him slip when he went to jump off of it.
He was so close to the hole, but couldn’t get it with his hands full, and nothing else to jump off of into it. From the looks of it, they were about to fall to the bottom of this trash beast and get crushed to death under the rubble.
DAMMIT! Nonononono, this can’t happen. I can’t do that to Fu! This is all her fault! Now me and Fu are going to die, and it’s all because of-
As they were about to plummet to their deaths, they suddenly halted in place as they hit the wall. Only difference was, Hii was the one being carried now, and it was all because of-
“Noerde?”
“DO SOMETHING.”
“Oh right!!”
Hii reached up and grabbed the ledge of their exit, hoisting Noerde up, and carrying her out of the trash beast. He ran as fast as he could, and finally they were out.
He leaped out of the trash beasts, and winced when the sun hit his eyes as he fell down. He covered Noerde’s to spare her more pain than she was already in. But on the contrary, Noerde moved his hand out of her face, to stare directly at the sun.
—
It was bright and radiant. The beautiful, yellow and red ray hitting her eyes, made her realize.
It was worth it. Despite all the excruciating pain she went through that she could’ve easily ended at any second just from jumping out of that hole without Hii, letting that pillar hit her, letting Riyo finish her off. She rejected all of that, and it was absolutely worth it just to see this again.
She reached her hand out to the sun and felt the warmth on her hands and face. Tears filled her eyes. Hii thought she was in pain, but for the first time today, the first time in her life, pain felt foreign to her.
—
Hii walked with Noerde in his arms, and a broken mattress dragging behind him. They were in a desert of some sort. These places usually had random structures, or little huts made for people in their situation to sleep under at night, and that’s what he was trying to find… with Noerde.. who he was still carrying for some reason. He didn’t really know what he was gonna do with her, or why he was even still holding her. He followed his orders, so why not just ditch her? Well he doesn’t know either.
“So….. do you think she’d make a good host?”
Fu finally said something after hours of silently watching everything Hii had been doing.
“Oh wow, you can talk!”
“Sorry…. I just didn’t wanna distract you or anything! Plus it was really intense back there…”
“Excuses, excuses….. But, yeah. She seems like a good fit.”
Hii stared at Noerde’s unconscious face. He kept walking and eventually found himself at the edge of a short slope, and saw one the Heaven huts (not their actual names, thats just what Fu and Hii call them) at the bottom of it. He didn’t feel like unnecessarily walking, so he just slid down on the mattress.
It was a small, brown hut, if you could even call it that. It looked more like the seating area at a local bus stop, which is probably what it was made out of. But despite that, the makers made sure to make it homey for the people who stayed. There were three tattered blankets next to a sleeping bag, battery powered fairy lights at the top of the little home, and six bottles of water in a container, that was now mostly empty from the last visitors.
Hii moved the sleeping bag and replaced it with the mattress, laying Noerde on top of it. He covered her up with a blanket, and put a wet rag on her forehead like that was gonna help with her internal bleeding. He’s not too reliable with medical stuff.
“Hey, I’m done for the day dude. You’ve had me up front for too damn long today.”
“Oh! Alright!”
—
After they switched back, Fu blinked opened his eyes and saw Noerde lying on the mattress. He smiled at his potential new host, and took off his jacket to be a make shift pillow for her. He slipped into his sleeping bag, and curled himself up at Noerde’s legs.